PART THIRTEENPREPARE FOR ACTION!
After a fortnight’s inactivity at the Base, the Southdown Artillery, split into half Brigades for war-training, marched three days till they came by Aire and Lambres and Mazinghem, and long-streeted Lilliers and the railway-tangles of Chocques to their last rest-billets behind that section of the firing-line which lay between the Double Crassier, the spider-tower Pylons of Loos, and the fall pit-shaft buildings of Fosse Eight.
“Well,” said Torrington, “what do you think of it so far, P.J.?”
The three blond women of La Jaudrie farm had spread mattresses on the stone floor of the churn-room; and on these, curled up in their valises, candle guttering between them, the two were lying.
“Can’t quite make up my mind,” reflected Peter. “It all seems so extraordinarily casual. We’ve had no post, our rations have been twenty-four hours late all the way up, our own staff threw most of the officers’ valises off the G.S. waggons the day we started. . . .”
“Oh, that!” Torrington laughed. “You’ll get used to the Staff when you’ve been out a bit longer, P.J. Mustn’t take ’em too seriously you know. These Seventh Division birds don’t seem too bad.”
“No,” admitted our Mr. Jameson. “I must say that Staff Captain man knows his job. I’ve got quite a decent shanty for H.Q.”
“That little house behind the battery-positions?”
“Yes.”
Torrington fumbled under his canvas pillow; found his cigarette-case; stretched arm and shoulder out of blankets to light a “Gold-flake.” He looked very ill: black eyes bright with fever; pale hair damp on damp brow. The anaemic lips over the prominent teeth quivered as he drew in the smoke.
“Feeling pretty rotten,” he announced.
“You never ought to have come out.”
“No. . . . I don’t suppose I’ll last very long. But I had to have another cut at the Boche. Besides, it doesn’t look well for a B.C.[4]to hand his battery over to some one else as soon as it’s ordered abroad.”
“Well, I think you’re a damn fool,” said Peter. Every one in the Divisional Artillery, from General Blacklock to his own Battery Sergeant Major, had tried—and tried in vain—to keep Torrington at home.
“Possibly. It’s this marching that does me in. I’m as stiff as the devil tonight.” He turned over uneasily in his “flea-bag.” “You don’t want to go to sleep yet, do you?”
“No. Give me one of those filthy gaspers. All right, don’t you move; I’ll get them.”
They lay smoking for a few minutes. There are few reticences on active service; and soon both felt the need for intimate talk.
“Does it hurt much—being wounded?” asked Peter.
“Like hell. At least, mine did.”
“Where were you hit?”
“Oh, about sixteen places. Like to hear about it?”
“Rather.”
This is how Torrington told his own story: “It was right at the beginning, you know. Second day of the retreat. Our infantry—Buffs—were entrenched on the forward slope of a hill. I was doing F.O.O.;[5]and like a fool I tried to observe from the crest. Boches! My hat, you should have seen ’em. Millions of ’em. Like—like gray ants. Stark was with the guns. I got in some topping bursts; must have knocked out hundreds. The Infanteers were simply mowing ’em down. Pity we hadn’t any Emma G’s.[6]Then their guns go to work. First shell landed over the trench; got me in the head; killed one of my signallers.”
“What were you using”—asked Peter—“visual or the telephone?”
“Telephone. My other signaller kept on sending down the orders all right. . . . I managed to get the blood out of my eyes and we gave ’em gun-fire. That kept the devils back a bit. Then they spottedme. Turned a machine gun on me. First bullet got me in the calf of the leg. Next one in the shoulder.”
“How long was that after the first shell hit you?”
“Dunno. Must have been about an hour. I should think. . . . Then they got my signaller, and I had to do the telephoning myself. . . . I don’t remember much else; except crawling round and round in a ring. You know—like a rabbit when you shoot too far behind. Then some one started singing ‘God Save the King.’ God, how I cursed that fellow. I remember saying to myself, ‘What’s the bally fool singing for? There’s nothing to sing about.’ ”
He paused a minute, eyes curiously bright, cigarette singeing stubby moustache.
“Just before I went off altogether, I found out who’d been singing. It was myself! Funny, isn’t it? Fancy crawling round and round on one’s elbows, singing ‘God save the King,’ in the middle of a battle.”
“Very funny,” said Peter, sorry for present sickness, but imagination only vaguely stirred by bare recital of the past. “How did you get away?”
“Oh, that was where the Weasel got his D.S.O.”[7]Now that he told another’s story, Torrington grew a little more explicit. “He came up, under direct rifle and machine-gun fire,on his horsemark you, as soon as I stopped telephoning. They killed his horse for him, and he got a bullet through his ankle: but he managed to get us both away somehow—he’s as strong as a mule you know. Damned if I understand how he managed it: we only had one leg between the pair of us. . . .”
He leaned forward, stretched a hand to the candle: as he blew it out, his pajama slipped from his neck and Peter saw the sullen weal of a bullet-wound on the shrunken shoulder.
“Wonder you’ve got the nerve to go into action again,” commented Peter across the darkness.
“As a matter of fact, the mere idea of marching up to those gun-pits tomorrow night, scares me to death,” said Torrington, V.C.
[4]Battery Commander.
[4]
Battery Commander.
[5]Forward observing officer.
[5]
Forward observing officer.
[6]Machine guns.
[6]
Machine guns.
[7]Distinguished Service Order.
[7]
Distinguished Service Order.
Next morning,—Stark pre-occupied, Peter rather sleepy, Purves and the Doctor swapping jokes with Horrocks the newly-joined veterinary officer (a horsy over-toothed young man in white breeches and enormous spurs)—the Headquarters breakfasted in sunshine at a trestle-table under the vine-leaves: and at half-past ten, rode out across the vast cobbled yard, through the red gates, right-handed towards Hinges, left-handed towards Béthune.
Behind them—Mr. Black prancing proudly on a thin chestnut mare, Lodden cursing as usual, Torrington drooping in his saddle, the men smoking at ease—came the horses and carts of the Headquarters Staff, the guns and ammunition waggons of Batteries A and B.
“This is hardly the conventional idea of going into action for the first time,” drawled Purves, trotting up beside Peter and the Colonel.
The Weasel jerked up red head from the map on his saddle-peak: “What did you expect, young man?” he asked crisply.
“Oh, I don’t know, sir. Gun-fire on the skyline, I suppose; and patrols riding forward to scout the way. . . .”
“Well, suppose you trot on; and see if the level-crossing’s blocked or not.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Can’t ride for toffee,” commented the Colonel, as his Orderly Officer clattered forward.
They rode on, through clean sunshine, past clean white houses, across the railway lines; emerged on the main road; swung left. Soon they could see the roofs of Béthune in front of them.
A long train backed slowly across the road. The column halted. The train went on; likewise the column. Now they were in the outskirts of the town.
Down the untidy street, trotting slowly towards them over the greasy pavé, came a young Staff officer, very gorgeous of boot and tab, rifled groom trotting behind him: a Staff officer who saluted the Weasel with a fine flourish, and said:
“Excuse me, sir, but this is the fourth Southdown Brigade, isn’t it?”
“It is. Half of it anyway. What doyouwant with it?”
“Can I speak to your Adjutant, sir?”
“Certainly. Speak to the whole damn column if you like. Here, Mr. Black, pass down the word for the Adjutant.”
“Colonel wants the Adjutant. Colonel wants the Adjutant.” The words went dwindling down the line.
A minute or two later our Mr. Jameson clattered up on Little Willie, looked at the face under the black-peaked hat, and said, “Good God, it’s Francis. Where on earth did you spring from?”
Peter introduced his cousin, a little gaunter, a little browner, but immaculate as ever, to the Colonel. The three rode on, talking together. Soldiers and rare civilians stared incuriously at them from the narrow pavements; lorries rumbled by; an occasional dispatch-rider, phutting past, disturbed the horses.
“How did you find me so quickly?” asked Peter, preliminary greetings over.
“You wrote me when you sent on,” imperceptible pause, “those letters, that you were transferring to the R.A. And of courseweknew the moment you landed in France.”
“Who’swe?”
“G.H.Q.,” said Francis casually.
“My aunt, you are a swell. Why didn’t you write and tell me where you were? I haven’t heard from you for months.”
Francis explained that he had only just officially joined Intelligence, that his uniform had been bought a week since in Paris, that he was attached to the First Corps. . . .
“What have you been doing since March?” asked Peter.
“Oh, various jobs I’m not supposed to talk about. . . .”
“Then don’t talk about ’em, young man,” put in the Weasel.
“And why are you attached to the First Corps?”
“To interrogate prisoners after this new show.”
Purves, veryaffairé, came trotting up to the Colonel. “Don’t we turn off to the right here, sir?”
“We do, my Purves, we do.” They rolled off the main street into a quiet square; threaded their way southwards out of the town, through market gardens, into flat cultivated country.
“Where are you bound for?” asked Francis.
Peter pulled out his map, pointed to a little green patch, “Batteries are going to that wood. We’re marching up by daylight to Annequin. See that little house at the end of the railway, just under Fosse Nine? That’s us.”
“Square F 25?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I must be getting back,” said Francis. “I’ll come and look you up one afternoon.”
“Why not come to dinner the day after tomorrow,” invited the Colonel.
“I’d like to very much, sir. About half-past seven. Very good, sir. Good-bye, sir. So long, Peter”; and Captain Francis Gordon, wheeling his horse, trotted back into the town.
Headquarters marched on, dropping the batteries outside Verquigneul; till they came to the hundred-foot slag-cone of Fosse Six; and on, across yet another railway. Now they saw, for the first time, their own sausage balloons, hanging directly above them, and—very far away and tiny—the flash and slow puff of anti-aircraft shell bursting round an invisible ’plane. The men, newcomers all, pointed to the marvel, chattered about it. “Wonder if they got him. Not they. There he goes.” The few old soldiers by the roadside took no notice.
And so they came, down a rutty road black with slag, past a shattered wall of red-brick, under the vast shadow of Fosse Nine. The Weasel held up his whip, and the column halted.
“It’s quite all right, sir. The position’s well under cover,” said Peter.
“I know that,” snapped Stark, “but it’s no use letting these fellows get into careless habits. Tell ’em to dismount, Purves. And then go along and explain the danger of halting at a cross-roads. Have ’em come up two at a time. You’ve selected your forward wagon-line, I suppose.”
“Yes, sir. Just behind the Fosse.”
“Good lad. Don’t keep more than six horses there, though. Now you, Jameson, come along with me. Never mind your precious Little Willie. Jelks’ll look after him.”
They dismounted; walked forward. On their left stood the half of a red house, riven with shell-fire. (“Cross-roads!” commented the Colonel): three hundred yards in front, screened by a fold in the ground from enemy observation, rose a few tall trees; thereunder, heaps of white clay, the disused French gun-pits already echoing to the tools of battery fatigue parties.
From a sunken hedge on their right, came a double report, the flash and smoke of a piece discharging. Involuntarily, P.J. started.
“Four point seven,” explained Stark. “Used to call ’em Long Toms in South Africa. Let’s go and see if your pal Caroline’s got that omelette she promised us.”
They turned off to their left—Stark casting a quick eye across the field below the Fosse at the men already unlimbering the telephone-waggon—came to a low shuttered house,—first of three on the road; knocked on a white door in the wall.
“Bon jour, mon Colonel. Vous arrivez tôt.” A thick-set peasant-wench, neither uncomely nor over-cleanly, led them through a draggled garden under a rusty iron-work arbour towards the house.
“Et l’omelette, ma petite?” The Weasel spoke French perfectly, with only the slightest trace of accent.
“Sere prête dans dix minutes, mon Colonel.”
They passed through the bare narrow hall into a shuttered room, empty of furniture save for a huge table. Through one wall, heavily shored with great balks of timber, a narrow doorway led to the cellars below.
“If we were Germans,” remarked Stark, unbuckling his belt, throwing it crashing on the table, “weshould sleep down there; the family upstairs. As it is. . . .” He left the sentence unfinished, implying the Englishman’s usual contempt for his own chivalry.
Monsieur le patron, a stubble-cheeked gaffer in shirt and trousers, shambled in; hoped they would be comfortable; shambled out again. Followed, hilariously, Doctor Carson.
“Well,” he said, in broadest Belfast, “I’m a proud man this day. We’re in action at last.”
Purves arrived; and the mess-box; Gunner Horne the cook, looking rather less cleanly than usual; Peter’s batman, Garton; and the Colonel’s Bombardier Michael, a nervous little fellow, clean-shaven, who had been a footman in private life; finally Caroline with an enormous omelette, a bottle of nameless wine. . . .
“Make ’emselves damn comfortable, I notice,” growled Lodden that evening, as he left Headquarters for the gun-pits at the foot of the field below the house.
“Wish I were on the ruddy Headquarters,” groused Gunner Mucksweat, heaving against the reluctant wheel of “B” Battery’s No. 2 gun. “Me too,” answered his mate, as the axles jammed in the narrow doorway of the pit.
But Mr. Stanley Purves, as he watched from his upstairs window, the endless upsoaring of Véry candles; as he heard the occasional crackle of a two-miles distant machine-gun; wished by the Lord Apollo and many other classical deities that he were back at Balliol. For it seemed to Mr. Stanley Purves’ imagination that every lurid flash on the far horizon must be a gun directed unerringly at his personal self: and he envied P.J., who slept soundly and unimaginatively on his camp-bed in the corner of their bare and unprotected sleeping-room.
Which paragraph may serve to explain Stanley Purves’ subsequent vogue—among elderly civilians—as a soldier-poet of the let-me-like-a-hero-fall category!
Two evenings later, when Francis Gordon arrived—in a purloined Vauxhall car—to dinner, he found the half-Brigade settled down to desultory action.
Already the little house at Annequin, was linked by black “D. 5.” telephone-wires to 7th Artillery Headquarters way back in Sailly-La-Bourse, to the as-yet-unoccupied battle-headquarters at the château of Noyelles a mile on their right. Forward to the gun-pits, and backward to the top of the great Fosse where Straker had established an observation-post in one of the many tunnels burrowed through the slag, ran other wires—very red and new on their supporting poles. Already Lodden and Torrington had spied out the dun plain, the white chalk-furrows; talked learnedly of Hun strong-points—the Pope’s Nose, the Hohenzollern Redoubt.
The first “post” had arrived, been sorted eagerly on the bare floor of the Mess-room; Mr. Black had discovered whence to draw rations; guns had barked away enough ammunition to necessitate fresh supplies from Billy Williams’ subaltern Murphy, in charge of the Ammunition Column Section behind Fosse Six; men had seen their first shells crash to ground on the Vermelles road.
But as yet—though nominally attached to another Brigade for “training in trench-warfare”—Stark and his two batteries were nobody’s children. No infantry asked them for retaliation; no General panicked round their ammunition-dumps. And they were too far behind the trenches to attract hostile shell-fire.
“So far”—as Peter explained to his cousin, in the draggled garden—“a picnic!”
“You wait till September the twenty-fifth!” said Francis.
“Oh, is that the date?”
“Didn’t you know? Why every housemaid in Béthune can tell you that much.”
It was then September the eleventh!
The two cousins passed into the Mess-room. M. de Morency, a tall French interpreter, black-moustachioed, the bronze sphinx of his calling on the lapel of his khaki tunic, had arrived the day before; stood superintending the lighting of the lamp, Bombardier Michael’s arrangement of the dinner-table.
Peter introduced his cousin, and the two began a voluble conversation in slangy French. Stark stamped down from his upstairs bed-room; Purves and the Doctor arrived together.
“Lodden and Torrington are late.” The Weasel looked at his watch. “Phone down for them, will you, Purves?”
The Balliol man stepped to a tiny, black telephone on a shelf in the corner, began buzzing on the key. “Is that you, Beer Battery. . . . Oh, is Captain Torrington there? Just left for H.Q.—with Major Lodden. Thanks.”
Shortly afterwards, the two arrived; and dinner began with “Gong” soups served in enamel mugs. Followed tinned salmon, mayonnaise sauce and lettuce salad prepared by Caroline, a large ration joint of beef, baked potatoes, rice-pudding. They drank sparingly, from newly-bought glasses, of white wine. Talk ran steadily on the forthcoming operations.
“I hear we shall use gas for the first time,” announced the interpreter.
“And a damned mess we shall probably make of it.” Lodden wiped black moustaches contemptuously with his paper napkin. “Don’t you think so, Gordon?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know much about actual warfare,” remarked Francis, “you see I’m on the Staff.”
Everybody laughed.
Said Colonel Stark: “If you ex-civilians had been willing to pay for a decent-sized Army in peace-time, you might have had officers capable of managing large bodies of troops in war.”
“Then you admit, Colonel” . . . began Lodden.
“My dear Major, I admit nothing. Let’s have some port. Any coffee, Morency?”
“Mais oui, mon Colonel.”
Peter produced a newly arrived box of cigars; the bare room soon grew hazy with smoke. The gaffer and Caroline, dragging a scrofulous boy by the hand, dived down through the timbered doorway to their bedroom in the cellars. Outside, it was very still—only, every now and then, a gun boomed faintly.
Torrington had drawn his chair towards the two cousins; Purves joined them, and Morency. Stark, Lodden and the Doctor kept to the head of the table.
“Damn good fighter, the Boche,” remarked Torrington,á proposof nothing in particular.
“Damned swines!” The remark seemed to burst from Francis’ lips. “If you knew as much about them as I do. . . .”
“What do you know about them, young man?” put in the Weasel from the head of the table.
“Well, sir”—an undercurrent of emotion rippled the controlled voice—“I don’t claim to knowmuch; but I’ve spent six of the last twelve months in their country.”
“You’ve what!” A simultaneous gasp ran round the room. Francis repeated his preposterous assertion: “I was staying at the Bristol in Berlin just after they beat the Russians at Tannenberg. I saw the crowds round the huge war-maps in Unter den Linden. I’ve seen the Zeppelin sheds at Tondern. And I’ve seen the camps where they keep our prisoners.” His voice dominated the room: nobody else spoke, wanted to speak. “I don’t pretend to be a fighting soldier. It isn’t my job. But when I hear people talk about the Hun as a clean fighter; when I think of the things I’ve seen him do. . . .” He bit off the words, fell silent.
“Then you were in Germany when war broke out,” said the Weasel, after a pause.
“No, sir. I got in afterwards. . . .”
Peter looked at his cousin; remembered old days, remembered the tango-dancing, night-club-haunting Francis of Curzon Street; marvelled that this should be the same man. For the tale Francis told that night—in half sentences, not boastingly but as a soldier discloses his job—carried conviction. Of himself, of how he had been hidden for three weeks in Amsterdam, coached in his part, smuggled not once but many times and in varied disguises across the frontier—Francis told nothing. He contented himself with bare statements. At Essen, in January, he had worked for a month. . . .
“What on?” interrupted Stark, still doubtful if this young Staff officer were not joking.
“A new patent carriage for the 77 field-gun, sir.”
“What part of it?”
“Principally the cradle for the buffer. ‘Rück-rohr-lafetten-auflauf,’ they call it.”
Stark, technical expert, asked no more doubting questions that evening: and Francis went on talking for nearly half-an-hour.
“But how the devil did you get into the prison-camps?” asked Lodden.
“As a priest,” said Francis simply, “an Austrian priest. That was my last trip. I’m not going back again if I can help it.”
“I should think not,” from Torrington, “you must have been scared stiff.”
“Scared. Lord, I should think so. But the worst moment I ever had was in the Winter Garden at Berlin. You don’t know it of course. It’s a kind of theatre with stalls in front, and behind—on a big raised daïs—tables for dinner-parties. I was in the promenade, right at the back. And they sang their old Hymn of Hate. Phew! It made me sweat, absolutely sweat with funk. Five thousand of them—on their feet—roaring like, like hyenas. . . .”
At half-past ten, the party broke up; Lodden, and Torrington (who had refused to desert his battery dug-out for a comfortable room at Headquarters) returning across the fields to their gun-pits: Purves, the Doctor and Morency retiring to bed.
“Do you mind if Peter drives home with me, sir?” asked Francis, “I’ll send him back in the car.”
“All right,”—the little red-headed soldier looked up from his newspaper—“I’ll hold the fort till my Adjutant comes back.”
The two cousins strolled out, found the car waiting. “All quiet on the Beuvry road?” asked Francis of the chauffeur.
“There were a few shells while you were at dinner, sir.”
“Well, don’t switch on your headlights till we’re through Beuvry.”
They climbed into the comfortable limousine; and purred off through Annequin village, shuttered and asleep; swung to the west.
“Heard from Pat?” asked Francis.
“Yesterday. She’s with her father.”
“Let me see, that’s Harley Street, isn’t it? I’ll drop her a line myself tomorrow. One can’t write much on these ‘hush’ jobs. I’ve been in Spain, the last three months. By the way, Peter, you’re grown very silent since I saw you last. . . .”
Peter lit a cigar, and his cousin saw, in the light of the match, new lines on the firm face, a trace of gray in the dark hair: “Oh, I’ve been having a pretty thin time, one way and the other.”
“Money?”
“Yes.”
“Where’s Arthur?”
“Arthur came home. He’s in the R.F.C.[8]somewhere or other. Rummy devil. Rather like you. Never writes letters.”
They came without mishap into the great Place of Béthune; and Peter saw, black by moonlight, round holes in the shining roofs—sole sign of long-range bombardment.
The car stopped. “This is my billet. Come in and have a drink, old man.”
They passed up a flight of stairs; Francis drew matches from his pocket; lit candles on the mantelpiece. Between them—like a saint’s picture on a shrine—stood a photograph, a brand-new photograph of Beatrice Cochrane!
[8]Royal Flying Corps.
[8]
Royal Flying Corps.
PART FOURTEENATTACK!
Half past nine at night, Friday, September the 24th, 1915!
In the quiet roomy library of Doctor Baynet’s home in Harley Street, London, Patricia sat talking to her father.
“He says in this letter, that they aren’t in action yet.” The gold head lifted from the pencilled scrawl she had been studying: the dark eyes looked quietly towards the man at the littered desk.
“I’m glad of that, my dear,” said Heron Baynet; and went on with his work.
Nine-thirty, “pip emma,” on the last day of the Loos bombardment.
Outside the little house at Annequin, cigar between his lips, Peter Jameson stood watching the show. All round the eastward horizon, gun-flashes winked and blazed, lighting up the sky. Far to southward, beat the continuous drum of French seventy-fives, firingla rafale. Every half-minute, from one or other of the pits below the shadowy trees in front of him, spurted a flash of orange, followed by the bark of an 18-pounder, the dwindled hiss of flighting shell, the faint thud of its alighting. In the pits themselves, laboured tired and grimy men, sleepless for three days and four nights;—an orderly labour, unhurried: shell to open breech, breech-block clanged home, eye to dial-sight, hand to range-dial: “Set,” “Ready,” eye to watch, fingers to ear-drums, “Fire,” roar of piece discharging, rocking carriage, stink of cordite, “Repeat!”
So men laboured, unhurried but unsleeping, at Vermelles and Noyelles-Les-Vermelles, at Cuinchy and Noeux-Les-Mines, northwards and southwards. The intermittent thunder of their labours came to Peter, standing alone in the moonlight: and with it came the jingle and clank of ammunition waggons, the far crackle of an occasional machine-gun, the sound of Scotch singing from shuttered houses in the village on his left.
He turned; went into the house.
In the gloomy Mess-room, sat Stark—pile of typewritten sheets at his elbow, marked map spread out on the table among the débris of dinner. Driver Nicholson crouched in the corner by the telephone.
“What’s it like outside?” asked the Weasel.
“Oh, pretty quiet, sir. The Boche don’t appear to be firing at all.”
“Any wind?”
“Not a breath. It’ll be bad for our gas.”
“Pity.” Stark bent to his map again. The telephone buzzed. “Mr. Purves, speaking from the dug-out, sir.” Peter stepped over, took up the instrument. “A battery report their No. 3 gun out of action.”
“What’s that?” asked Stark. “How did it happen?”
Peter got through to the battery, heard Lodden’s voice over the wire. “Yes. That infernal eighty-over-forty-four fuze with the new gaine. Blown about six inches off the muzzle. No. Nobody hurt. And my number two gun’s running-up very badly. Can you send Staff Sergeant Barrie down? . . . As soon as he comes in. Thanks.”
Peter gave the necessary orders to Purves; rejoined his Colonel over the attack-plans.
“Follow ’em?” asked Stark.
“Yes, sir. We’ve got five Divisions in the front line and supports. Forty-seventh; fifteenth; ninth; first and seventh. They’re to break the front; open out; and let the Cavalry through.Ourbatteries don’t take part in anything except preliminary bombardment. After that, we stop where we are. But what I can’t understand, sir, is about the Reserves. We don’t seem to have any.”
Driver Nicholson, listening open-eared, was sent out of the room by Stark.
“Look here, P.J.”—the soldier voice dropped a tone—“between you and me, this show’s going to be another wash-out. Our Division and the Northdown ought to have been up last night. That’s why we were hustled out of England. They’resupposedto be billeted on the line Beuvry-Noeux-les-Mines. As it is, our Infantry haven’t got as far as Béthune yet.”
“But, good God, sir—are these five Divisions going into action without any infantry Reserves at all?”
“They are, P.J. And you may well say ‘Good God.’ It isn’t our General’s fault either. I met his G.S.O.[9]One—your pal Starcross—in his car this afternoon.”
“And whenwillthe rest of our Division get here, sir?”
“They’re coming up by forced marches. Starcross reckons they’ll reach Béthune at daybreak. . . .”
“Just when we push off.”
“Exactly. And it’s six miles as the crow flies from Béthune to our present front line. . . .”
The two men stared first at each other; then at the map. Even to the amateur, the fault was obvious: “What will happen, sir?” he asked.
“Chaos,” said Stark succinctly. “And now you’d better be going to bed. You’ve got to be on that Fosse early tomorrow. Telephone down anything you see. I’ll be at the instrument myself. And mind you, P.J., what I’ve said tonight is between the two of us. . . .”
[9]Senior Staff officer of a division.
[9]
Senior Staff officer of a division.
“Four o’clock, sir. Time to get up.” Peter awoke from undisturbed slumbers; saw Driver Garton standing, candle in one hand, steaming mug in the other, by his bedside. He pulled himself up from his valise; drank tea gratefully. In the opposite corner of the room, tossing uneasily in his sleep, lay Purves. Outside, all was still—not a gun firing. Peter dressed quickly, slipped sling of gas-helmet over his head; went downstairs.
The Mess-room, still shuttered, smelt dankly of stale smoke and human sleep. In one corner, telephone-receiver strapped round his ears, lay Driver Nicholson. “Don’t wake him,” whispered Peter, as his servant deposited breakfast on the table. “Go round to the dug-out, and tell them that Seabright’s to be ready in ten minutes. I shall want my field-glasses, my map-case, my compass, and a message-book.”
“And your cigar-case, sir?” smiled the young Yorkshireman. For answer, Peter tapped on his tunic-pocket; smiled back. Master and man knew each other fairly well.
The Adjutant disposed of two poached eggs, some greasy bacon, three slices of buttered toast and a large mug of black tea; lit a cigar; sauntered out of the house. A light appeared at one of the upper windows; some one called out: “That you, Jameson?”
“Yes, sir. I tried not to wake you.”
“You don’t catch weasels asleep. Mind you let me have plenty of information. And watch the signal station at G nine ack two seven—on the embankment.”
“I’ve got a note of that, sir.”
“Right. I’m going back to bed for an hour.”
Appeared from the shadows, Gunner Seabright (“Poluski number one”), a fat-faced little man, clean-shaven, perpetually at grin. He carried a telephone case in his hand, another over his shoulder, a coil of wire.
“Got any earth-pins?” asked Peter.
“Aye, aye, sir.” Seabright had at one time in his chequered career been in the Navy. “Two of them.”
“Come on then.”
They climbed the fence at the back of the garden; stumbled across the colliery tram-lines; followed a red wire up the gritty front of the huge slag-cone. Light was just breaking, a glimmer of dawn over cloudy skies. Not a breath of wind stirred anywhere. “Hot work, sir,” commented the telephonist.
“Damned hot,” said Peter.
They made a flat platform of slag running round the peak of the cone; followed it half way round. “Going to observe from outside, sir?” “Yes. This’ll do. Connect up, will you?”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Seabright opened his telephone case; drove the earth pin into the slag; connected it to his instrument; scraped the insulation from the red wire they had been following; screwed it home; began to buzz.
“··-· -··- -·· (F. X. D.)” buzzed Gunner Seabright “··-· -··- -·· (F. X. D.) Hallo there? Dugout? Is that you Pirbright? Then why the yell don’t you answer quicker?” As he had only called twice, the question was pure swank. Peter tested the line; wandered off round the Fosse.
Already it was alive. Officers everywhere, some ensconced at the end of deep burrows, peering out over the plain; some clambering up the pathways at the back; some standing about at the mouths of their caves; and at the very top, thirty feet above Peter’s head, among a perfect jumble of wires, two Frenchmen—operators for the heavy battery just visible on the plain below, gesticulating and shouting at their strange-looking telephone.
“Mais non,” Peter heard, “mais non. On ne voit rien. Rien je vous dis. . . . Alors dans une demi-heure, mon Commandant.”
“Their Major’s evidently not in a hurry,” thought Peter.
He was accosted by a serious-eyed Captain of Sappers. “Who are you observing for?”
“First Corps.”
“Well, you can’t get inside. It’s full.”
“I know. My telephonist is just round the corner.”
“Good. We shan’t see much from here.”
“No.” Peter went back to his telephonist.
Now, the glimmer of dawn turned to a faint dark blue radiance. Nothing stirred on the plain below. Light grew; revealing the silent village street, the churchyard, the ruined chapel of “Our Lady of Consolation” battered among her poplars, the long tree-girt stretch of the Hulluch Road. Beyond, like a dun still sea streaked with unmoving foam, lay the trenches. Beyond them, mist.
Peter drew out his map; unslung his glasses; threw away the stump of his cigar.
The mist cleared, revealing the dark pylons of Loos, twin spidery towers, black against the gray, a tiny blurr of high houses that was City Saint Élie, the great wheeled pit-head of Fosse Eight. It still lacked half-an-hour to “zero”; Peter wandered round to the back of the Fosse. Men were stirring round the gun-pits below. A motor skirled the dust on the road where Beuvry towers stood out from the plain. . . .
“Colonel to speak to you, sir,” announced Seabright, appearing suddenly at his elbow. Peter ran back to the telephone.
“How’s the light?”
“Middling, sir. And no wind yet.”
Peter lit another cigar; looked at his watch. A quarter of an hour yet. He was not in the least excited. It all seemed dull—dull beyond belief. . . . Ten minutes. . . . Still, it would be a show worth watching. . . . Seven. . . . What was the colour of Seventh’s Division’s flag—red and blue—diagonal. . . . Five minutes more. . . . His pulse quickened a beat. . . . Two minutes. . . . Decidedly, a show not to miss. . . . One minute. . . . He knelt down to be near the telephone. . . .
Cr-rack! Looking down, Peter saw a blue flash, a smoke puff among the trees round “Our Lady of Consolation.” Simultaneously the whole plain erupted. Here, there, everywhere, yellow and blue, the hidden pits flamed and screamed. Thin smoke rose from them; driftedbackin a faint breeze. (“Hope to God, we’re not going to use our gas,” thought Peter.) Behind him, he heard the sharp clang of French heavies; the deep note of Granny, the huge howitzer in Sailly La Bourse.
He looked towards the trenches; saw single shrapnel bursting orange to fleecy puffs. The puffs blended to a sea of white, flooding out the trenches. It was as though some invisible hand had poured an enormous wave of milk across the near horizon. And out of the wave spouted great heaving whorls of rusty smoke; staining it. And beyond, he could see huge shells striking at the foot of the spidery towers; at the reeling pit-head; at the high houses of City Saint Élie. Smoke pillars lifted to the sky, quartering the landscape. . . .
And always the voice of the guns grew hoarser in the plain below; always the scream of their flighting shells wailed across the sky. . . .
“Colonel to speak to you, sir.”
Eyes on the plain, Peter took the receiver.
“Are the Boche replying?”
“No, sir. Unless they’re shelling our front line. I can’t see much except smoke.”
“Naturally. They lift in ten minutes.”
Still it went on below. Bark of eighteen pounder. Sharp double crack of four-point-seven. Screech and clang of French heavies. Deep boom of Granny far away in rear. Peter swept the sky with his glasses; saw the pit-head tottering above the smoke. Why didn’t they knock it out? Short! Short again! . . . He looked down towards the trenches. The white wave had turned gray. . . .
Sombrely the dawn increased. In another minute, the infantry would go over.
He fixed his glasses on the gray wave; saw it recede; saw line after line of tiny black figures, ant-like, swarm out of the ground; vanish into the grayness.
“Tell the Colonel. Infantry gone over.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Below, noise lessened. He peered into the smoke-pall. Further it rolled; and further. In it, nothing moved. Out of it, emerged house-tops. And suddenly he saw the black specks again, little bunches of them. Peter studied his map; took out his protractor.
“Call up the Colonel. Is that you, sir? Infantry retiring from the direction of City Saint Élie.”
“Are you quite certain? We’ve had a rumour that City Saint Élie’s fallen.”
“Quite certain, sir. True bearing from here is 100 degrees.”
“Thanks. I’ll report to Division.”
And that was all our Mr. Jameson saw of the fifty thousand very gallant gentlemen who stormed forwardthrough our own gas, dribbling foot-balls, tooting hunting-horns, skirling bag-pipes and blowing mouth-organs—on the morning of September the 25th, nineteen-hundred and fifteen!
Gradually, the gun-fire died away; smoke cleared from the plain. Bare and silent, the dun sea stretched to the sky-line. From very far away, came a faint chattering of machine guns. A German balloon rose up; peered at things; went down again. Down the Hulluch road, a toy battery trotted noiselessly. Only the French “heavies” behind the Fosse, still clanged unceasing.
But the great slag-cone itself seethed with excited men.
Out from their burrows they came; down from their eyries; maps in their hands, telescopes under arm, binoculars dangling from their shoulders. Rumour hundred-wired, ran among them. Loos had fallen,—said rumour—Hulluch was ours, City Saint Élie, Haisnes, Douvrin!
“By God, we’ve broken them,” roared a fierce little Major of Garrison Artillery, “by God, we’ve broken them at last!” And he danced up there, on the gritty slag, none heeding.
“Look,” shouted the Captain of Sappers, “look! The Cavalry!” And moisture brimmed into his eyes, watching the squadrons wheeling into line on the grass-fields just below.
And always, high up, like monkeys among the telephone-posts, the three Frenchmen jabbered to their clanging guns—“Bon. Bon. Bien tiré. Magnifique. On les a, je vous dis. Oui. Oui. Oui. On les a!”
But Chips Bradley’s grandson, peering out over the empty plain, peering back towards Béthune—waiting, waiting, waiting, for the dust cloud on the road, the dust cloud that never came—thought of the words his Colonel had spoken the night before. And the heart in him was heavy, even in those early hours, with forebodings of disaster!
Light grew and grew. Fitful gleams of sunshine danced across the plain. More cavalry came, squadron after squadron, wheeling into line on the fields just below. But they made no movement forward, those wheeling squadrons. Peter saw them through his glasses—dismounting, loosening girths, fume of their cigarettes blue in the air.
CameoneEnglish aeroplane, drifting aimlessly across the sky.
Walking wounded came, trudging painfully across the fields, singly and two by two, arms dangling, heads bandaged. (There were no steel helmets in those early days.)
Came a gray company of prisoners, capless, weaponless; fell out; squatted on their hunkers among the root-fields. Came a dozen peasant-children, sprung somehow to life; wrenched up roots from the field; pelted the captives as they squatted. The company fell in again; trudged off towards Béthune; followed by the spitting, cursing children. (And there were many “gentlemen” in England still abed that morning!)
Came, towards noon, down the road from Sailly, long brown columns of infantry, guns and horses; marching towards Noyelles. The Northdown Division! Gun-range away behind the grimy remnants who were even then bombing out the cellars in Loos village beyond the skyline. . . . But from Beuvry to Annequin the roads were bare. And on the left of the attack, round the Hohenzollern Redoubt, in the Chalk Quarries, at the foot of Fosse Eight, men fought unsupported, died cursing the chance that was never taken, the help that never came.
“The situation with regard to the Southdown Division is still obscure at the time of drawing up my report,” reads official history of a fortnight later.
Peter, relieved by Purves, stumbled down from his eyrie at about two o’clock; found Colonel Stark and Doctor Carson sitting over the débris of lunch.
“Very sad,” the Irishman was saying.
“What is?” asked Peter, slipping off his gas-satchel, sitting down to cold beef.
“Poor Halliday’s been killed,” answered the Weasel. “Doc’s just been up to Vermelles on a push-bike.”
“They nearly got me too. Bromley’s crowd have been having a pretty rotten time.”
The casualty, first among their officers, cast a gloom over the three men. Soon, the Doctor went back to his impromptu surgery—a tiny room off the hall where his batman had set out from their wicker cases, bandages, shining instruments, bottles of disinfectants, boxes of tabloids.
“Sportsman, the doctor,” commented Stark.
The telephone on the shelf began buzzing; Peter went to it; picked up the receiver. “Seventh Don Ack . . . Adjutant fourth Southdown Brigade . . . Brigade Major wishes to speak to you, sir . . . Right . . .” A pause . . . “That you, Jameson? Look here, we want your batteries to open fire again. . . .” Followed map-references which Peter repeated. . . . “Yes. The loophole plates. But go slow with your ammunition.”
Stark glanced at the big marked map on the wall; saw that the targets were the same as those for the previous day. “Infantry held up, I suppose,” he said. “What was that about ammunition? . . . Very well, tell the batteries to fire a round a minute. H.E.,[10]of course. You might go down and see how they’re getting on. Tell Mr. Black I want to see him; and send in a telephonist as you pass the dug-out.”
“Now I wonder,” thought the Weasel, as he sat alone over his map, “what is going to happen. Better be prepared for the worst, I suppose.”
The little Regimental Sergeant Major came bounding in; saluted; stood to attention.
“Got your note-book, Mr. Black?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then take this down please. ‘O.C. Waggon-lines, A and B batteries. On receipt of this, you will harness-up and be prepared to move forward at a minute’s notice. Acknowledge by bearer.’ Got that, Sergeant Major?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Repeat it to Mr. Murphy at the Ammunition Column.” Mr. Black stretched out the scribbled messages. Stark signed them. “Have them both sent by cyclist orderly, at once, please. Tell the orderlies they’ll be put under arrest if they’re not back in an hour and a half. Make them report to you personally, please.”
“And Headquarters, sir?”
“Same instructions, Mr. Black. The Adjutant’s horses and mine to be waiting saddled-up at the back of the Fosse; the rest, ready to move off with the batteries. Have the servants pack up everything except the Mess-box at once. Do you quite understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Rations all right?”
“Yes, sir. Two days’ supply.”
“Very good. Send Bombardier Michael to me, please. . . .”