LONG ODDS.BY BOYD CABLE.
BY BOYD CABLE.
This story belongs to an officer of the Canadians who at the time of its happening was playing a part in the opening months of the war as a private in the French Foreign Legion. In that capacity he saw a good deal of the men of our first Expeditionary Force, and although he is full of good stories of their amazing doings, he tells this particular one as perhaps the best and most typical example he met of the cold-blooded contempt of certain death, the calm indifference to consequences, the matter-of-fact tackling of the impossible which were such commonplaces with the old Regular Army in the first days, and which perhaps were the main factors in the performance of so many historic feats of arms.
It was during the Retreat, in the middle of that constant series of forced marches and hard fighting, when the remnants of retiring regiments were inextricably mixed, when the wounded were left behind, and the unwounded who were unable to keep up with their column or who strayed from it in the darkness found themselves blundering about the countryside, dodging groups of enemy cavalry and columns of enemy infantry, being fed and guided by the French villagers, working always towards the sound of the guns and struggling to rejoin their own army, that three just such stragglers after a careful reconnaissance ventured into the outskirts of a tiny French hamlet. One, the Canadian (who had been in Paris on the outbreak of war and, fearing that it would be months before a British force could take the field, had signed on in the French Foreign Legion and so made sure of an early and ample dose of the fighting), wore the picturesque dress of a private of the Legion; another was a French infantry of the Lines-man, and the third a private of a British infantry regiment. The ‘khaki,’ for no particular reason, except that he apparently took it for granted that it should be so, more or less took command of the party, while the Canadian, who spoke fluent French, acted as interpreter both between the party and the French ‘civvies,’ as the local inhabitants were indiscriminately described by the Englishman, and in conveying the orders of the self-appointed C.O. to the non-English-speaking ‘piou-piou.’
Enquiry of the villagers brought the information that there were no Germans in the hamlet, that a party of Uhlans had riddenthrough towards the south an hour before, and that nothing had been seen of any Germans since.
‘Good enough,’ said the khaki man on hearing this. ‘I’m just about ready for a shut-eye myself after trekkin’ all last night. We’d better lie up till it’s gettin’ dark again, and then shove on an’ see if we can get the touch with our own push. You might ask ’em if this dorp has anythin’ goin’ in the way o’ rations—rooty an’ cheese an’ a pot o’ beer would just suit my present complaint.’
But the village did better than bread and cheese. The village—women, old men, and children—escorted the three warriors to the estaminet in the main street and with voluble explanations handed them over to the estaminet keeper.
‘Food? But assuredly yes—soup, good strong soup, and all ready and hot; an omelette, a very large omelette for three, to be ready the moment the soup was finished with; and then a veal stew, and cream cheese, and wine—wine white or red, whichever messieurs preferred.’
‘Fust class. Canada, tell ’er fust bloomin’ class. I’ll give up dinin’ at the Carlton an’ Savoy an’ come ’ere reg’lar in future, tell ’er. An’ how long before the bugle sounds for dinner?’
At once, they were told. If they would enter, the soup would be served as soon as they were seated. But the khaki demurred at that. ‘I must ’ave a wash first,’ he declared. ‘I ’aven’t ’ad a decent wash for days. Just ask ’er if she’ll show me where the pump is.’ He extracted soap and a very dirty towel from his haversack and followed his conductress out to the back, whence presently came the sound of pumping water, a vigorous splashing and mighty blowing.
‘Come on, Tommy,’ said the Canadian when the other appeared again clean, save for the stubble on his chin, glowing and rosy. ‘We’ve started the soup. Good goods too. Pitch in.’
‘That looks good,’ said Tommy sniffing hungrily. He pulled down his shirt-sleeves and carefully deposited in the corner near his chair the rifle, haversack, and ammunition-pouches he had carried with him out to the pump and in again. ‘But we don’t want them Oo-lans ’oppin’ in an’ spoilin’ the dessert. There ain’t enough o’ us to post proper pickets an’ outposts, but wot’s the matter wi’ enlistin’ some o’ them kids for temporary duty? I’ll bet they’d spot a Oo-lan a mile off an’ tip us the wink if they was comin’ this way.’
There were plenty of volunteers for the duty, and half a dozen of the old men of the village hobbled off to post themselves atvarious points, each with several enthusiastic small boy gallopers in attendance to carry urgent despatches as required.
Then Tommy sat down, and the three ate and drank ravenously. They devoured the soup, the omelette, and the stew, and were proceeding with the cheese when they heard the patter and rush of flying feet outside. Next instant one boy burst into the room, another followed in a whirlwind rush, and the two broke into breathless and excited speech.
The first dozen words were enough for the Canadian. ‘They’re coming,’ he said abruptly to the others and jumped from his seat. ‘Very many Germans, the kid says. Come on, we must hustle out of this quick.’
He ran to the door and looked out, the small boys following, still talking rapidly and pointing and gesticulating. The Canadian took one look and stepped back instantly under cover, the French piou-piou, who had followed close on his heels, doing the same. ‘They’re not in sight yet, but from what the kids say they should be round the corner and in sight in minutes. They’re coming from the north, so we’d better slide out south—or hike out into the fields and find a hole to hide up in.’
‘Comin’ from the north, eh?’ said the Englishman. He was quickly but methodically stowing the remains of the long loaf in his haversack, and that done slipped quickly into his accoutrements. ‘That means they’re goin’ on the way we was tryin’ to stop ’em goin’, an’ pushin’ up into the firin’ line.’
The Canadian and the piou-piou were engaged in rapid talk with the landlady and a few other women and a couple of old men who had hurried in. Tommy walked over to the door, stepped outside, and had a careful look round. ‘Look ’ere,’ he said calmly, stepping back into the room. ‘There’s a good ditch on both sides o’ the road. You an’ Froggy ’ad better take a side each. I’ll take the middle o’ the road, an’ there’s a barrel outside I can roll out there for cover.’
The Canadian stared at him blankly. ‘What d’ you mean?’ he said. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Why, we’re goin’ to stop them, of course,’ said Tommy, looking at him with an air of slight surprise. ‘You said they was Germans an’ goin’ south. That means they’re goin’ to reinforce their firin’ line, so we’ll ’ave to stop their reinforcin’ game. Come on, you two ’ad better take cover, an’ we’ll give ’em socks as they come round the corner.’
He walked outside and proceeded to roll the empty barrel into the middle of the road a little way down from the estaminet, which was the last house of the village. He left an utterly dumbfounded Canadian and an impatient and non-comprehending Frenchman who was rapidly reduced to a state of incredulous amazement by the information which the Canadian, after a long breath and a longer pause, proceeded to impart to him.
Now the Canadian, who is responsible for this story, openly confesses that the last thing on earth he should have thought of attempting was any resistance of the German advance, and more than that, that it was with the greatest possible reluctance he did finally join the imperturbable Tommy in the impossible task. He tried first to point out the folly of it.
‘See here, Tommy,’ he called from the inn door. ‘You don’t rightly understand. There’s hundreds of these chaps coming, thousands of ’em for all I know, but at least a regiment from what the old man says who saw them. We can’t do anything to a lot like that. We’d far better get off the grass while we’ve a chance.’
But Tommy had planted his empty barrel fairly in the middle of the road and was settling himself snugly at full length behind it, his legs spread wide and left shoulder well advanced after the approved fashion of his musketry instructor. ‘They’re goin’ south,’ he called back. ‘An’ we come over ’ere to stop ’em going south. So we’ll just ’ave to stop ’em.’ And he commenced to lay cartridges in a convenient little pile at his elbow and push a clip into his rifle magazine.
Even then the Canadian hesitated. The whole thing was so utterly mad, such a senseless throwing away of their three lives that he was still inclined to clear out and away. But that prone figure in the road held him. He felt, as he puts it himself, that he couldn’t decently leave the beggar there and run away. And a call from outside settled the matter by the calm assurance it held that the two of them were going to stand by and see the game through. ‘You two ’ad better bejildi.[3]I can see the dust risin’ just round the corner.’
The Canadian flung a last hurried sentence to the piou-piou, ran out and across the road and dropped into the ditch in line with the barrel. The Frenchman looked round at the women and old men, shrugged his shoulders and laughed shortly. ‘These mad English,’ he said hopelessly, ‘but, name of a name, what can a Frenchman do but die along with them?’ and he too ran out and took his place in the nearer ditch in line with the others.
Tommy looked over his shoulder at him and nodded encouragingly. ‘Good man, Froggy,’ he said loudly, and then turning to the Canadian and lowering his voice to a confidential undertone, ‘I’m glad to see Froggy roll up, for the credit of ’is reg’ment’s sake—whatever ’is reg’ment may be. ’E was so long, I was beginnin’ to think ’e was funkin’ it.’ The Canadian admits to a queer relief that he himself had not ‘funked it,’ but he had little time to think about it.
A thin dust rose slowly from the road at the distant bend, and ‘’Ere they come,’ said Tommy. ‘Don’t begin shootin’ till I do. We want to get into the brown of ’em before we start, an’ we haven’t cartridges enough to keep goin’ long. I think about four ’undred should be near enough the range, but I’ll try a sightin’ shot first at that an’ you’ll see where it lands.’
For long interminably dragging minutes the three lay there, and then suddenly, in a bang that made him jump, the Canadian heard the soldier’s first shot. ‘Just short,’ said Tommy coolly. ‘Better put your sights four fifty an’ take a fine sight. Come on, let ’em ’ave it.’
The three rifles opened in a crackle of rapid fire, and far down the road a swirl of dust and a stampede of grey-coated figures to the sides of the road showed the alarm that the sudden onslaught had raised. It took several minutes for the crowd to get to any sort of cover, and before they did so they evidently began to understand how weak was the force opposed to them. The grey mass dropped to the road and next minute a steady drum of rifle fire and a storm of bullets came beating down on the three. The road waspavé, floored with the flat cobble-stones common on first-class French roads, and on these the bullets cracked and smacked with vicious emphasis, ricochetted and rose with ugly screams and whirrs and singings. A dozen times in that first minute the hollow barrel banged to the blow of a bullet, but the figure behind it kept on firing steadily and without a pause. And presently the Germans, impatient of the delay perhaps, or angered by the impudence of the attack of such a handful as they were now sure blocked the way, began to climb over the fence along the roadside and move along the fields firing as they came, while another group commenced to trot steadily straight down the road. ‘Now then, Canada,’ called Tommy, ‘pick your target an’ tell Froggy we’ll fire in turns. We can’t afford to waste shots.’
So the three commenced to fire steadily and in turn, each waiting after the other’s shot to see if a man fell, each calling to the others in triumph if a man went down after their shot, growling angrilyif the shot missed. They made good shooting amongst them, the man in the middle of the road an unmistakable best and the Canadian second. Their shooting in fact was so good that it broke the attack down the road, and presently the remainder of this force ran crouching to the ditches, jumped into them, and stayed there.
But because the ammunition of the three was almost gone the affair was almost over, and now there appeared a new factor that looked like ending it even before their cartridges gave out. Back in the ranks of the main body three or four men grouped about a machine-gun opened a rapid fire, and the hailing bullets clashed on the walls of the estaminet, swept down on to the stones of thepavé, found their range and began drumming and banging on the barrel. The soldier beside it quietly laid down his empty rifle and looked towards the Canadian. ‘I’m done in,’ he called. ‘Punctured ’arf a dozen places.... You two better keep down ... let ’em come close, then finish it ... wi’ the bayonet.’
That struck the Canadian as the last word in lunacy; but before he could speak, he saw the barrel dissolved in splintering wreckage about the figure lying on the road. Tommy raised his head a little and called once more, but faintly. ‘Good fight. We did all we could ... to stop ’em. We did stop ’em all a good time ... an’ we stopped a lot for good.’ A gust of bullets swept lower, clattered on the stones, set the broken barrel staves dancing, hailed drumming and thudding on the prone figure in the road.
Both the Canadian and the Frenchman were wounded severely, but they still had the strength to crawl back along the ditch, and the luck to emerge from it amongst the houses in time to be hidden away by the villagers before the Germans arrived. And that night after they had passed through and gone, the Canadian went back and found the body of the soldier where it had been flung in the ditch—a body riddled and rent to pieces with innumerable bullet wounds.
The Canadian had the villagers bury the body there close outside the village, and wrote on a smooth board the number and name he took from the identity disc about the dead man’s neck. And underneath it he wrote in indelible pencil ‘A good fighting man,’ and the last words he had heard the fighter gasp—‘We did all we could to stop them; stopped them all a good time, and stopped a lot for good.’
And as the Canadian said afterwards, ‘That same, if you remember their record and their fate, being a fairly close fitting epitaph for the old Contemptible Little Army.’
FOOTNOTES[3]‘Jildi’—quick.
[3]‘Jildi’—quick.
[3]‘Jildi’—quick.