"Why, 'Iggins," he said, "I wonder at yer. On'y a month ago, before you went on leave, you was that fond o' workin' parties there was no keepin' you off 'em."
Alf, who had learnt by experience the curious nature of his sergeant's sense of humor, gave a sickly smile and said nothing. The section sniggered sycophantically.
On the march next day, both the friends found to their cost that a sybaritic life in the lap of luxury is not the best preparation for an active-service route march. The first halt saw them not only badly blown and streaming with sweat, but also beginning to be footsore.
"Umph!" said the sergeant caustically. "It's easy to see 'ow some people spend their leave. What you two want is a little 'ard P.T. 'Owever, some o' these working parties you're so fond of 'll soon put you right."
Sergeant Lees was an economical humorist.
Soon a whistle blew, and the column fell in again. At every step the poor condition of Privates Higgins and Grant became more noticeable, and the rest of the section, swinging along in fine style, only showed them up more plainly. The weight of their packs began to increase steadily and relentlessly, until it seemed that something must break soon. A dull pain began to make itself felt across their shoulders, increasing little by little until it became a raging torment like a toothache. They set their teeth and plodded on; the battalion was proud of its marching. At last, when the pain was wellnigh unbearable, the blessed sound of the whistle was heard. The battalion fell out for another ten minutes' halt.
The expression "fell out" was true in its most literal sense of Alf and Bill. They lay side by side, every aching muscle relaxed, determined to make good use of every second of their rest.
It was at this auspicious moment that Mr. Stockley chose to notice them.
He himself seemed as fresh as when he started out, despite the fact that he had been carrying two men's rifles in addition to his own kit. He came swinging along the road during the halt with a jaunty step and an air of physical well-being which it made Alf and Bill feel faint to look upon.
He stopped and regarded the collapsed forms of the two friends with a disapproving air.
"Very out of condition," he commented. They made convulsive efforts to rise, but he waved them back. "No, no!" he said. "Lie still. Need a rest. But warn you—won't do. Going into the line; every man must be fit for anything. Must sweat off that fat."
He went off, leaving the two men more conscious of their flabbiness than ever.
"Makes me tired, 'e do," complained Bill. "I don't b'lieve I can march another step. I've a good mind not to fall in at all."
But at this moment a welcome message reached them from the head of the column. Their destination, it appeared, was now only half an hour's march away; and as they were now entering the forward area, platoons would march from here at intervals of a hundred yards. As the companies were marching in alphabetical order, this meant that "C" Company would have a further rest while "A" and "B" were getting under way. Alf and Bill, giving much thanks for this relief, lay down again; andwhen at last No. 9 Platoon moved on again they were able to move with it in comparative comfort.
That night, when every occupant of his dug-out had at long last dropped off to sleep, Bill lay awake, tingling with excitement. Striking a match with the utmost caution, he fished out from his tunic pocket an enormous clasp-knife, which he opened. Then he lit a piece of candle-end and, shading it carefully with his hand, he leant over the sleeping form of his mate; but all he could see was a tightly rolled and shapeless cocoon. Alf's method of using his blanket left Bill no possible chance of getting at the string which bore the Button.
One of the men stirred in his sleep, and Bill, extinguishing his light, gave himself up to slumber in a very disturbed state of mind. Come what might, by some means or other he must get that Button in time to prevent No. 9 Platoon from being let into the front line by its present commander.
Next day, things became worse than ever. Mr. Stockley was detailed to take out a working-party consisting of his own platoon and to dig a length of trench behind the British lines. He took this opportunity of beginning the process of sweating the fat off Alf and Bill. He himself, with his coat off and his immense arms bare to the elbow, was doing two men's work; and he made it his personal duty to see that Higgins and Grant did at least two men's work between them.
At the end of the day's work both men were stiffer than they had dreamt possible; they went through apantomime expressive of acute agony, which Stockley saw—as he was intended to.
He laughed.
"Thank me later," he said. "Stiff time coming in front line. Must be fit. May save your lives."
And he fell his party in and marched it back to the lines.
The position was fast becoming impossible. Bill's determination not to trust himself in the line under Stockley's command had become a raging obsession, and yet he could see no way of getting the Button. That night he morosely watched his unconscious friend making himself into a chrysalis for the night.
"Alf," he said with guile, "don't you feel it 'orrid 'ot these nights, rolled up in a great thick blanket like that?"
"I likes to be warm at night," answered a muffled voice from within the folds.
"But it's so un'ealthy," urged Bill.
Alf's tousled head and astonished face appeared at one end of the cocoon.
"Ho!" he said suspiciously. "And since when 'ave you been troubling your 'ed about my 'ealth, eh?"
Bill abandoned the topic, feeling very annoyed. If the simple Alf was beginning so readily to question the purity of his motives, he foresaw that he would have to take desperate risks. He would have to lure his friend into a remote spot and extract the Button from him by the old "Stand-and-Deliver" method. But this method had the disadvantage that Bill was not at all sure that, man to man, Alf wasnot the stronger of the two. He must rely on the essence of strategy—surprise. But how? And when?... He passed a disturbed night; and the sounds of peaceful slumber proceeding from the apparently hermetically sealed bundle at his side failed to soothe him in any way.
Next morning, Sergeant Lees appeared in the dug-out with the exasperatingly superior air he always assumed when he had important or interesting news to tell. After his custom at such times, he distributed trivial orders and asked unimportant questions until the men about him were on the verge of apoplexy from sheer irritation and excitement. Then he produced an item of news.
"We move up into support to-morrow, relievin' the 4th," he stated. "Front line four days later."
There was a general movement of disappointment. Most of the men would quite certainly have preferred to move straight up into the line and get their tour of duty therein finished. There was a general impression abroad that things were gradually blowing up to a storm, and that the brigade's last four days in the front trenches would be the worst. The pessimists were unanimously of opinion that the 5th Battalion had been allotted these four days owing to malice aforethought on the part of the Higher Command.
"It'll be a thick time," said somebody.
"Yes," agreed somebody else. "Especially with 'im in charge."
Then Sergeant Lees, with the air of a carefuldramatist who is congratulating himself that he has succeeded in keeping his big thrill till the very end of his play, added his second piece of news.
"Lootenant Stockley is leavin' us to-day, for to undergo a course at one of these 'ere schools, or something."
"Lumme!" said an awed voice. "What the 'ell do they think they can teach'im?"
Bill, when he heard the sergeant's news, felt like a condemned criminal who is reprieved just as the hangman is fitting the rope round his neck. He was now sure of getting the two things he had lacked so far for the fulfillment of his scheme—time and opportunity. Time, because Mr. Stockley would now not be in charge of the platoon; opportunity, because in the support lines Alf would no longer enjoy the protection of his beloved blanket.
In fact, orders for their immediate collection and delivery to the quartermaster were even now on their way round the battalion by the hands of "runners." Bill had a vision of Alf sleeping with open tunic and bare neck, and he realized that to a patient and watchful conspirator the Rape of the Button could only be a matter of days—perhaps of hours. And once the Button had changed hands, the fearful souls who had prophesied that the 5th Battalion's next tour in the trenches would be full of battle, murder and sudden death, might take fresh courage. That tour of duty would never come. The War would be over—or if not over, it would have devolved into a route-march. And then....
Bill never allowed his imagination to tempt him beyond this point. Sufficient for the day was the miracle thereof. Let him once get hold of the Button and he and Eustace would not be at any loss what to do. Only, behind and beyond his earth-shaking schemes for the good of his country was one very definite and private project closely connected with his vanished handmaid Lucy and his interrupted supply of beer. But this idea was never allowed to encroach upon his mind too much; he never forgot that before he could realize it, broader issues were to be dealt with.
On the following day the battalion moved up into the support line and settled down into its new dug-outs with the speed that only comes with experience. During the relief there was a certain amount of shelling going on, but there were no casualties. "C" Company was distributed to its dug-outs without undue fuss. Captain Richards, going the round of his company, gave a word of advice.
"Get what sleep you can, you men," he said. "They're very jumpy to-night in the front line, and you may have to tumble out at any minute. Keep your equipment by you and your boots on."
Bill and Alf were allotted with four others to a small dug-out. Bill, whose mind was still bent on his single aim, piloted his friend into a recess in which there was room for two only; and all six loosening their tunics and the belts of their equipment, settled themselves to sleep. Bill, who had determined to lie awake watching his chance, was thefirst man to go to sleep; and, as the irony of fate would have it, Alf selected this time of all others to turn upon his back and remain in that position. His opened tunic fell away from his neck, and the talisman lay in the little hollow between his collar-bones—the easiest of preys for the patient and watchful conspirator aforesaid. A couple of hours passed in which nothing could be heard in the dugout but a nasal sextet of harmony and power, to which the guns far above supplied a desultory obbligato.
At length a cautious footfall sounded on the stair, and Sergeant Lees appeared. He flashed his electric torch round the dug-out, then he went to each of the recumbent forms on the floor and shook them.
"You four," he whispered, careful not to wake the two in the recess, of whom he could see nothing but boot-soles. "Come up to Company H.Q. at once. The Captain's got a job for you. Quiet, now."
But quiet as they were, they woke Bill. He sat up dazedly, wondering where the others had gone. He was seized with a wild panic. Had they missed him out by accident? Ought he to follow? Then he realized that he was not quite alone. Alf, who had taken the bass part in the recent sextet, was maintaining it as a solo with undiminished vigor.
Grant struck a match and held it above his head, and realized that here at last was his opportunity. He was alone with Alf in the dug-out—and there, before his eyes, was the longed-for Button. Trembling with excitement, he fished out his haversack and produced an ancient and depressed-looking piece ofcandle, lit it, and stuck it on a beam. Then he drew his bayonet, and leant over his friend. Cautiously, not daring to breathe, he inserted the point of his weapon beneath the string that bore the talisman. One sharp cut, and the Button would be his. His hand shook on the handle of the bayonet so violently that the point rattled on Alf's collar-bone; and Alf's eyes opened.
It must have been sufficiently terrifying to him, awaking from a deep sleep, to find a grimy man kneeling over him in the eerie light of a sputtering candle-end, and holding a naked bayonet to his throat. He lay as still as death, and his round blue eyes widened until they seemed to protrude from their sockets.
Bill had gone too far now to hesitate or turn back.
"If you move a finger, Alf 'Iggins," he said, in a melodramatic whisper, "it is your last. I'm goin' to 'ave that Button."
The bayonet jerked up as the string snapped, and Bill, reaching out, felt his fingers close at last upon the object of his desires.
Alf's wits came back to him. He sat up.
"Gimme that back," he ordered violently. "'Tain't yours. Gimme it!"
"Not much!" answered Bill. "Now for it! Now for Kaiser Bill and the end o' the war!! What-oh! Now for.... Lumme, what the 'ell's that?"
"That" was a sudden terrific bombardment which broke out overhead, of an intensity which made the dug-out walls quiver. As they stood listening open-mouthed,a thin voice—the voice of Corporal Greenstock—floated down the staircase to them.
"Tumble out there, quickly," it said. "The Boche is comin' over." A pause. "D'you 'ear me?"
"Comin', corp'ril," shouted Bill. All thought of Eustace, the Button, the Kaiser—everything had vanished instantly from his mind. He thrust the precious Button carelessly into a pocket, grabbed his rifle and tore upstairs, followed by Alf. Then they found themselves doubling up a communication trench under the leadership of Lieutenant Shaw. Nobody seemed to know what had happened, or exactly what they were going to do—except that they were going to kill Boches.
The German guns were shelling the communication trenches to prevent the British supports from coming up, and whizz-bangs were bursting all about them. But they had no time to pay attention to details of that kind—the one desire was to get on and into the front line. At last they turned a corner, and plunged into the thick of a hand-to-hand struggle. Neither Alf nor Bill had a very coherent memory of what happened in the next few minutes. They remember heaving and hacking and stabbing at innumerable greasy Huns. Then suddenly the Huns seemed to melt away and disappear; the two men realized dimly that the trench was cleared and the enemy in flight, and they sat down to rest, feeling dizzy and badly winded.
But as soon as the raiding party were clear of theBritish trenches the guns began again. A whizzbang dropped into the trench where the two friends were sitting, and burst. That was the last thing that Bill Grant knew until he woke some days later to find himself in a Casualty Clearing Station.
A Sister came towards him.
"Awake at last," she said cheerily.
He stared stupidly at her.
"Where am I?" he said. "Where's Alf 'Iggins?"
"Next bed, ole son," said a weak voice. "Leg broke."
Bill pondered this information for a space. Then a thought struck him and he sat up with a jerk. The Sister came over to him.
"You must lie down and keep quiet," she said.
"The Button!" exclaimed Bill fiercely.
The Sister looked anxious.
"There, there!" she said, in a soothing tone. "Just lie down and be quiet. You were knocked silly by a shell, you know, but you're all right now. Lie down at once."
"I want my Button," he reiterated, struggling with her. "Gimme my Button, an' I'll lie down."
The Sister turned to Alf.
"What does he mean?" she asked quietly. "I believe he's wandering."
"No, no!" said Alf. "The Button. It's most important."
"Well," replied the Sister, mystified but relievedthat Bill was apparently not raving after all. "Your tunic was in such a mess it was burnt, but I kept your buttons and the things in your pockets. I'll get them, if you'll lie still."
She produced a collection of miscellaneous rubbish. Bill sorted out the buttons and rubbed each one in turn feverishly, forgetful of the probable effect on the Sister if Eustace had suddenly appeared. But he did not.
"Duds, all of 'em," said Bill dismally. "Lumme! What did I do with it.... I know!" He shouted in sudden inspiration. "I put it in me right-'and trouser-pocket. Sister, do please 'ave a look in me trousers. Please!"
The two men waited in a tense silence till she returned.
"Now," she said severely. "No more nonsense, please. You must both lie down and keep quiet. There's nothing in your trousers pockets except a large hole."
THE END