Hewas just an Irish soldier's son; a real boy in real life, and his name was Tim, and that was the only name he had besides his surname which was Gamelyn. And somehow he was perfectly happy. But one day he found an old book and read about a boy whose name was Victor; and the more he read about Victor the more ardent was his wish to be like Victor, and he wished that he had been called Victor—for Victor was a genius and a gentleman, and all things which Victor put his hands to were crowned with success. But Tim's namewasTim Gamelyn, which was unfortunate; and when he went to an English school at Margate they called him, because his hair was red, "Carrots" which was heartbreaking.
In the book nobody had ever jeered at Victor or called him nicknames; they would have been dealt with very severely, besides they would not have dared; he was far too heroic. So Tim became very furious when the other fellows called him "Carrots."But the more he showed his dislike for this name the more the boys made use of it, also when they had time to spare—they warmed their hands in the imaginary heat radiated by his ruddy hair. It was impossible to uphold any dignity under the circumstances, and he began to wonder what Victor would have done in a like predicament. But then Victor's hair was rich and brown and curly, and no one could have said a word against it; Tim's was red and of the kind that fate keeps in stock of the humble and low, and it made a little lump come up in his throat when he realized it. Then the football season on, Victor, Tim well remembered, had gone in for every kind of athletic sport. When he had first arrived at a strange boarding school he had refused, with a heedless laugh, to say whether he could play or not. Victor did not even deign to go near the football field for a month. But ten minutes before the Match of the year commenced he suddenly made up his mind to play. During the first half of the game Victor had "laid low"; he was waiting. Then his eyes flashed, and his lithe, active figure flashed up the field sending the ball into the posts like a shot from a gun, thus scoring the first and only goal. He had then fainted away; and a beautiful girl had exclaimed "A-a-a-a-a-h," and had hurried to him with a smelling-bottle and much sympathy. When he recovered, he sat up and made an apology for stopping the game andwas loudly cheered by both teams. This was the model which Tim had to keep in his mind's eye. In one or two ways he succeeded, and in others he failed—failed dismally.
When Tim came to ask questions about football at Thetford Grammar School he found it was quite another thing. In the first place the boys all spoke to him in that specially offensive you're-only-a-little-kid sort of way. They also took it for granted that he had never seen a football in his life. He found it impossible to refuse (with a careless laugh) to say whether he had ever kicked a ball before. He was told that he would have to play in the next school practice match, and that if he could kick a ball, he might be allowed to play in arealmatch one fine day. When the first practice game commenced, Tim remembered that an enthusiastic crowd had run by Victor's side, shouting wildly: "Hurrah! hurrah for Victor." It is true that a few of the smaller boys shouted at him. But what they shouted was: "Put a bit of life into it, old Carrots!" and "Go it, Rufus! You'll never score a goal if you kick the ball in that mother-may-I-have-an-orange style." During the first part of the game Tim was rather quiet—he was waiting for a golden opportunity, just as Victor had waited. It came when the forwards were in full movement, and the ball came travelling neatly along the line on the right wing. It finally came to rest at Tim'sfeet, and he, avoiding a man who darted at him, raced forward a few yards. Then something, which came through the air like a Whitehead Torpedo, sent him spinning backwards on the grass. Amidst roars of laughter from the other fellows, the Whitehead Torpedo, (who was a boy and smaller than Tim), spun round, ran the ball a few dozen yards, and sent it soaring away with a vent kick straight for the goal. There was a moment of silence. The ball pitched fair and square on the top bar, and then trickled gently between the posts.
A howl of joy went up from the small fry who had been "ragging" Tim all the time.
Tim sat up and looked about him. He had not fainted, but he felt very sick and dizzy, and nobody sympathised with him. A small freckle-faced boy was standing over him.
"The groundisslippery to-day," he grinned, extending a hand to the unfortunate Tim, who lay on the sludgy, squdgy mud gasping like a recently-landed trout.
Tim accepted, and scrambled painfully to his feet. The pomp of battle had departed from him.
A few weeks afterwards, as Tim was walking across the water meadows, he saw a youth of serious and agricultural appearance throwing a poor, defenceless little terrier into the mill stream. Every time the miserable little animal crawled up on to the river bank theyouth hurled it into the deep water again. Now, that was the kind of thing that Victor was very down on. In every chapter Victor punished people for cruelty to animals. Victor's blood always boiled at such a sight—moreover, his strong arm always shot out, his eyes always flashed, and the great hulking cowardalwayslay prone at his feet begging for mercy with clasped hands. So Tim gathered together his recollections of Victor's stock phrases, and advanced on the stolid youth:
"You cowardly ruffian! Have you no feelings that you ill-treat a man's best friend in that way?"
The stolid-looking youth seemed slightly astonished. He thrust his face forward and shook his fist under Tim's nose. "Not your blooming business," he said. "You shift."
"You've got no right," began Tim.
"Right!" The youth's note was fierce. Then he took poor Tim by the scruff of his neck, and observed that he had been teaching the pup to swim because he was water-shy, and that it was good for all kinds of pups to know how to swim. Then he pushed Tim into the water after the pup in order to teach him to keep his mouth shut and mind his own business.
Tim went away with the idea (perfectly correct) that the stolid-looking youth's hands that had gripped his neck and the seat of hisknickers were very strong, and another impression that even Victor would not have stood an earthly chance against such a fellow. And it was just then that he was aware of a little grey idea floating in the background of his mind that Victor was a bit of a prig—also a fraud. It annoyed him that any such notion should occur to him that the glory of his hero was an illusion, and he shook his head to get rid of it. Then his brain sent a "wireless" that Victor might be all right in a little toy world of his own, peopled entirely by heroes and scoundrels, and with all the scoundrels physically contemptible; but that he would have done less brilliantly in the mixed-up old world that we have got at present.
Suddenly, as from a clear sky, came a bolt of common-sense to Tim, and he realized he had been a fond and foolish jay. And that was why, when he had finished prep that evening, he exchanged a copy, bound in calf, ofVictor the Valiantfor two oranges and a catapult.
Of course, the reaction set in. Tim was sent up to the station to bring home a new bicycle for the head master, and he was especially warnednotto ride it—just to walk it. Of course he tried to ride it down Castle Hill, and collided violently with a milk cart. He returned with what had been a new machine. So the Head made him write out one hundred times:
And since he cannot spend or use arightThe little time here given in his trust;But wasteth it in weary underlightOf foolish toil and trouble, strife and lust,He naturally clamours to inheritThe Everlasting Future that his meritMay have full scope—as surely is most just.
And Tim muttered, "All right, keep your hair on, Ben!"
"H'm;" said the Head, overhearing Tim. "Write it outtwohundred times for your insolent conduct."
That was the start of his demoralisation. According to the laws of the Medes and Persians, and the laws of Victor the Valiant, disaster and dishonour would be the end ofthis! It was not at all the way Victor would have behaved. As a matter of fact on one occasion when a master had been idiotic enough to give Victor a hundred lines, the valiant one had replied: "Pardon me, sir, but if I may be so presumptuous I think I can call your attention to the fact that you—unintentionally, of course—are treating me too severely." And the master had at once seen the error of his ways and relieved Victor of the imposition.
Tim failed to get the verse written out in the stipulated time and the imposition was trebled. Also he gathered up another hundred lines for "failure to attend prayers" and this placed him in a state of hopeless bankruptcy.
When he wrote home to his mother. Here is what he said:
"Dearest Mother:"I got two hundred lines for breaking the Head's bicycle yesterday. Give my love to Dad. I got another hundred lines to-day for not being present at prayers. But don't you worry—I am not really bad—God has forgotten me, that is all."Your loving Son,Tim."
"Dearest Mother:
"I got two hundred lines for breaking the Head's bicycle yesterday. Give my love to Dad. I got another hundred lines to-day for not being present at prayers. But don't you worry—I am not really bad—God has forgotten me, that is all.
"Your loving Son,Tim."
And Tim—such was his natural depravity—did not much care. So callous and indifferent did he become that he ceased to be hurt when the boys called him "Carrots." In fact he laughed. And as he no longer objected when he was called "Carrots" the boys dropped that name, and the shortest one survived. The boys started to call him "Tims" and in a few months he had won their affection from the lowest fag to the highest lad in the school.
Two years afterwards, by dint of practice and pluck he had so far advanced that he ran second in the quarter-mile at the Sports. Of course this was not very heroic. He was rewarded for this feat of strength with a patent egg-boiler, which was of no sort of use to him, and, as he discovered afterwards, of no use to anybody else. But he was exceedingly proud of the thing and also exceedingly careful to conceal this fact from the other boys.
He became, to sum up his attitude, lessand less like Victor. But it is not to be presumed that he was sinking into mental nothingness. He was not perhaps quite so refined in his language as he might have been, he used slang, and sometimes was inclined to hang his hat on the floor and talk back. He was rather untidy in his dress. But certain compensating qualities of the highest value were appearing in Tim. He had gathered to himself a plentiful supply of gumption—genius is all right, but if it comes to a slow-down gumption is better. His hatred of "swank" reached the point of unreasoning prejudice. He made many mistakes; but depend upon this: the man who has never made a mistake has never made anything else worth having.
And Tim never became a great soldier, or a great sailor, or anything great. But he had good spirits, and he concealed about his person a heart of gold; and after he left Thetford Grammar School, boys found that somehow the games in the old playground seemed flat and spiritless. They said that things weren't as they used to be in Tim's time.
I have told the reader that Tim Gamelyn's father was a retired non-commissioned officer who lived near Dublin on a small private income and a pension. It will be seen that Tim's people did not roll in wealth any to speak of. They owned a small farm with five cows, twenty pigs and a flock of hens.There was beer always in the cellar, bacon hanging up in the kitchen and a bucket of soft soap in the out-house. In the top lean-to room where Tim slept, in the winter time the rain and sleet drifted cheerily in through the cracks and covered the army blankets which covered him. But he didn't lie awake thinking about it—boys like Tim who help on farms start playing shut-eye as soon as they hit the pillow.
Old Sergeant Gamelyn came of an ancestry which, somebody or other of distinction once said—and very truly—is the backbone of the British Army. To put it briefly, if not gracefully, "what old Gamelyn didn't know about soldiering weren't worth knowin'!" He had the ten thousand and ten commandments of the King's Regulations always at his finger tips, and he and his people had served in the same battalion, under the same officers or descendants for generations. There was Michael Gamelyn who fell at Malplaquet; there was another Gamelyn who had served at Minden; four Gamelyns served through the Peninsular. But only one came through to Waterloo. Balaclava, the Indian Mutiny and Spion Kop each claimed a Gamelyn, and when the British troops returned from Lhasa in 1904 they left one Sergeant Royden Gamelyn—resting in peace ten paces to the rear of the Pargo Keeling Gate. Of course Tim Gamelyn grew up in the shadow of these things. There was an old book in his father'soak kit box which Tim loved. In it he read about forgotten drill and manual exercises, the uncomfortable and graceless manœuvres of the rigid but redoubtable men who fought at Waterloo. Also there were pictures in colour of warriors in three-cornered hats, high stocks and powdered wigs. These men Tim worshipped. He had by heart the quaint words of command in which Wellington's men were told to charge a musket with powder and ball. And I doubt not that he could have taken a brigade and marched them to the attack with the best of the old-time sergeants.
Then in August 1914 came the great war, and when Tim suggested going into Dublin to see Colonel Arbuthnot about joining up to that battalion through which all the best of the Gamelyn men had passed, his mother tried to laugh. But Tim saw the tears running down her cheeks, as she threw her apron over her head and went out to bring the clothes in off the line. His father then flung out his hand to him and said:
"Good boy, I thought 'twas in you. Good luck."
But when Tim joined his regiment soldiering had taken many new turns. The modern rifle would not allow men to march into battle with colours flying and bands playing: the old brave way was impossible in the face of machine guns. The pomp and pageantry of battle had departed and there was nothingleft but for the attacking party to crawl in a most inelegant fashion upon the ground.
"Down!" cried the sergeant-instructor to poor Tim, who started his lessons in field training with some vague idea about marching on the foe with "head and eyes erect" and with "pace unfaltering and slow." "When you get out to Flanders you will have to get right down on your belly if you want tolivea little longer than ten minutes. Extend to five-six-ten paces and get as close to old mother earth as possible and hide your bloomin' selves!"
"Hide yourselves!" thought Tim. "Not thus is it written in my father's book of drill! It plainly said therein that the duty of a soldier was to learn how to die, not to hide from death."
Crushed and dejected he returned that morning to breakfast to wolf a chunk of bread and butter, washed down by dishwater, misnamed tea.
After breakfast he retired to a corner and thought it all out. The words of the Sergeant came back to him: "Hide yourself if yer want to live!"
These words stuck in his memory, as words which bring a new light on an outlook will. That was the start of his demoralisation. He was the first of all his line who had been told to hide himself from death. No more the worsted bravery, the pipeclay, lace and scarlet. No more the old military swagger.No more the drummer boy with a waist like a French dancing girl, wrists like Bombardier Wells, and shoulders like a wooden man out of a Noah's Ark. No more the throbbing and growling of the drums; the staccato detonations and the insolent crescendoes of the drums. No more the wild music that the bands played to the men who fought at Minden, Malplaquet and Wynendael. No more the brushing of a comrade's arm one's own, inspiring boldness; no more a thousand red coats marching on the enemy with slow and unfaltering pace. Tim could see the men of his dreams now, in his mind's eye, marching with heads and eyes erect ... see, too, the smoke of continuous volleys bursting out along the steady lines as they fired by sections and companies on their foes. Well, it was all a thing of the past now. It was plainly his duty not to be reckless. "Do not be dashing, do not expose yourself, do not cheer and make a noise," they said; "creep along like a worm in the grass; be crafty, be wary—and fall down on the face before death."
It did not stop there. Lastly and worst they took away the officers of his dreams. They even dressed them like privates and some were armed with rifles. There were no flashing swords to follow. Not once did he see an officer anything like his father's picture of the Duke of Wellington on the white horse pointing a curly sword to the skies and wavinga cocked hat. Then there came the day when Tim made his first acquaintance with field training, and beheld a loose and disorderly scramble which men called an advance. To him it seemed just a mob of masterless men, crawling and crouching on the grass, firing as they passed, and bowing cringingly before death. It was a sight he could hardly endure—an exhibition offensive to any soldier whose forbears had learnt to achieve the impossible as a matter of routine and had held firm for half a day at Quatre Bras with never so much as the flicker of an eye-lid. Gad! there could only be one end to this kow-towing to death, and that would be disaster and disgrace.
The long dull plains of northern Europe stretched before Tim's gaze—great undulations of hard, hot earth and waving grass. He'd been marching all day, and it was hot. Hot!... ye Gods!... On those plains it was like a Turkish bath. Then "down" came the order, and the battalion flung itself to the ground. Oh, but it was good to rest! Towards sunset the clouds piled up blacker and blacker, and some hung frothy over the ridge in the distance. As the sun dropped, the west turned red—all blood red—and he heard the order to march. He heard the word passed down the line in half whispers, and the impressive sound of regiments gettingunder arms came to his ears. Another five miles they marched and halted for tea. Then all the men became very silent—and while they rested they talked in whispers as they watched the awful sky. When it grew dark the flick-flack of lightening played across the sky and it showed the men's faces white and drawn. Presently Tim's Company lieutenant came up with the news that they would not be able to rest until morning as they had anticipated. There could be no stopping, for the regiment had to reach the rendezvous at daybreak. As the storm rolled nearer, the wind got up, in puffs—first warm and then cold, and a few drops of rain fell—great drops that fell flop-flop-flop—on Tim's face. With a flash that leapt crackling over the plain, the storm loosed itself. The lightning turned the rain into sheets of glittering silver, and the hot ground fairly boiled. Tim, with a thousand others drenched, and blinded, struggled over the slippery turf. That was a storm. Tim could have seen to read; and the thunder wrestled in the low churning clouds like a million devils, and through it all ran the chorus of wind and lashing rain. Presently the storm lessened and died away, and the rain settled to pour down on them for an hour or so. The squelch-squelch of soaking boots and the creaking of leather equipment was all he heard. They halted for breakfast, and Tim chewed his rations sitting on the sodden ground in soddenclothes; and as he sipped his lukewarm coffee, he shivered in the coming dawn.
Almost immediately they went on again.
Right before them, at the head of a valley, rose a ridge. In the creepy light it looked miles high and a million spitting points of fire flashed from it. The British guns in the woods at the back then began, and they seemed to have no relation to the unvarying plumes of smoke bursting above the long lines of fresh-turned earth two thousand yards away—no connection with the screeching of the shells overhead. "Extended order!" came the command, and Tim with his regiment stumbled forward. His breath came and went in little painful gasps. From the right came a curious gasping choke, and looking, he saw the man next to him throw up his arms and pitch forward on his face. Suddenly he became aware of a peculiar wailing above him, as if the air itself was in torture. Again a long line of fire flashed out ahead of him and again came the wailing sound. A Boche machine-gun loosed a few belts of cartridges in the spasmodic style of her kind. There was no mistake about it this time—massed infantry were sweeping the plain with rifle fire, and the quick-firers were feeling for an opening.
Another man was hit—close to Tim. He squealed like a girl; and a fellow near turned a dirty white, stumbled, with a clatter fell in a fainting fit. Tardily the men advanced,and any acute observer would have seen they had little heart in the business. Some hung behind almost unconsciously, and had to be hurried up by the sergeants. The bullets became more thick. A man started to blubber behind. "Gawd 'ave mercy! I ... I can't stand it! I won't go on!" he whined. It turned out to be a sergeant, who had broken down too. He'd had little rest, poor chap, through shepherding his company ... and now he had knocked under. The company swayed and hesitated. Some of them faced round. It was touch and go. "Steady there! Steady! Come on, men;" said Stansfield, the little company lieutenant, as the men wavered on the grey edge of collapse. "Steady that company; what in hell's the matter with 'em. Keep your men up and going, Sir!" shouted a captain rushing over. But the company had gone all to pieces. The fire of battle had departed from them, and it flung itself on the ground. And soon the whole battalion was taking cover in the same way. A captain called on Tim's company to advance. Two men obeyed and one of them was Tim. But the enemy's fire redoubled and the other man was shot, and so Tim at once took cover again. The saying of his sergeant-instructor in England came to his mind, that a man must lie down and hide if he wished to live, and he felt quite justified in hugging the earth. Tim ached in every inch of his body. Surelysomething was snapping in his brain, for those dusty khaki figures on the ground, the sky, the earth all seemed to be dancing madly about him. It was not yet light and Tim strained his eyes to pierce the darkness. Then he made a discovery. A dark mass, like some prehistoric monster, was gradually approaching. Tim spoke to a man next to him who was softly swearing and bandaging a shattered hand. He peered through the light and half-light of dawn, and then started to laugh in a nervous way. "Hell, mate;" he said, "the whole German race are advancing against us; it's all up with us. Look, they are coming on like a solid wall ... springing out of the earth just solid ... no end to 'em."
It was just about that time that Tim observed a light mist rising in front of him. It seemed to scintillate and sparkle as it rose, and curled in a sort of pillar or spiral. "Great Heaven!" he whispered to himself, "the thing is taking shape."
And true enough, in a very few moments he saw standing erect in front of him a tall man—and he was dressed in shining armour; that was the strange thing about him. A strange-looking fellow this! He was more like a Spaniard than an Englishman, with black eyes and olive complexion. His expression was lofty and noble, and his tall lithe figure was in strict accordance with British traditions. So were the bold features,which were rather marred by a white scar which stretched from his left nostril to the angle of his jaw. But the jet-black hair and the eyes—the deep, dark, challenging eyes—were those of Seville. A straight sword by his side and a painted long-bow at his shoulder proclaimed him a bowman. A white surcoat with the red lion of St. George upon it covered his broad chest, while a sprig of new-plucked furze at the side of his steel cap gave a touch of gaiety to his grim war-worn clothes.
No sooner had Tim looked up than a deep rich voice exclaimed:
"Corpus Domini!do you need a leader?"
Tim was not a man to be easily startled, and with the bullets whining and ping-thudding all around him, it was no manner of a time to be easily startled. But the voice, on account of its unearthly sound, fairly made him jump. He picked up his rifle, and stood upright. "Come along! Come along!" the voice went on. "Why dost stand there, De Gamelyn?"
"Oh, my God! I ... I can't stand it! The loss of blood and the marching has done for me!"
"So! coming into the fight like a lion, you go out like a lamb. By Saint Paul! this is not in accordance with the De Gamelyn traditions. Take up thy arms! Come along!" said the stranger tapping him on the shoulderwith a barbed shaft trimmed with grey goose feather.
"Oh! please ... please.... I'm so tired!" said Tim, like a child speaking to its nurse.
The bowman saw that the boy's lips and tongue were black with thirst, and his eyes were blood-shot. And when Tim staggered over to him all his body heaved and trembled like an overdriven horse. Sick and dizzy with pain, he cast himself to earth again, and waited for death. "Why don't they hit me?... I've tried,—oh, so hard!" he sobbed.
"Steady there! Steady, De Gamelyn! Take this," said the bowman, and drew something from his side and handed it to him. It was a sword, if swords be made of fire, of lightning, of dazzling lights; and the moment Tim grasped it all his pain and dizziness fell from him.
"What is this?" he asked.
"The Sword of Life and Death," said the bowman.
"Who the blazes are you?" Tim asked sceptically.
It was with a touch of the Irish brogue that a cheery voice answered. "A friend to a friend," said the bowman, "and the devil to a foe."
"Irish?" Tim questioned.
"Citizen of the world in time past ... now a citizen of heaven."
Tim gazed at the strange man in earnest scrutiny. He appeared quite at his ease with bullets whining around him and he unslung a jack of wine and drank.
"May a parched man claim a drink of your wine?" Tim cried.
"Give what you have, ask what you need. That is the De Gamelyn code of law," said the man, and handed Tim the flagon.
"You are cheerful, sir," said Tim, his blood somewhat warmed by the wine. "In the name of the devil, who are you, and of what country?"
"My name is Nigel De Gamelyn. My Mother, dear soul, was French. My father was wise enough to be an Irishman. So much for my blood, which unites happily the practical and the dreamer fluids. I am of no country but I know all places from the King's tombs at Rome to the old inns that stand about the upper Arun. I have marched with armies over this territory aforetime. There is no shadow, I believe, on my soul, has such strength in him as I, and I rest content to be nothing to myself and all things to every man. That being bliss."
As the bowman spoke, a bullet kicked up a cloud of dust at his feet.
"Holà, by my hilt! it is time that we were stirring," he said. "Leave these fellows to grovel and remove yourself. Follow: who follows Nigel de Gamelyn?" He hitched up his belt and strode forward with his greatbow, and Tim saw him send a shaft with a twanging noise five hundred and thirty paces. One of the German officers, towering above the other men, stood out distinctly, and then he dropped.
"I'd like to take a look at that knave," the bowman remarked, drawing a fresh arrow from his sheaf. "By the twang of string! I'll swear I drilled him clean between his eyes."
The enemy were getting closer now, and from the men lying around them broke a violent fusillade. It was quite useless, but it relieved their nerves. Some were discharging their shots into the turf a few yards in front of them. Others were shooting at aeroplanes.
Then suddenly there came upon Tim a great anger. A bullet striking him brought him to his senses, and he saw the men sprawling belly-flat about him. This was not war, this ignominious crawling, this grovelling in the soil, this halting! The spirit of his fathers spoke to him. He remembered one of his father's favourite sayings: "The duty of a man of the line is to fight, and if needs be, die, not to avoid dying." His anger grew—"damn them for a pack of cringing, footling cowards: he, Tim Gamelyn, descendant of the De Gamelyns who fought in a hundred battles, would teach them how men of his father's house went into battle."
A senior officer called on those nearest to Tim to advance. And men rose up.
"D. Company, fix bayonets! Close in!" came the order. Tim gripped his sword and strode over to the Bowman. Then the advancing Germans poured a blasting volley on them.
"The Old Battalion—charge!" came the stentorian voice of a senior. The men scrambled to their feet, and Tim following the Bowman sprang ahead of the Battalion. The men leapt across the blood-smeared grass after them with the speed of a winged fury, but they struck the Germans a dozen yards ahead of the battalion. The bowman had hurled aside his long bow and was using a short battle mace with terrific effect. As for Tim: all he wanted to do was to slash; stab and slash again with that wonderful sword. There followed a nightmare of drawn, grinning faces, of fierce yells and groans. The mud-stained grey figures struck at him wildly, futilely. On and on Tim went, his glittering blade now at a white face, now at a throat, now at a chest, still stabbing and thrusting to pass through the wall of men which barred his way.
The man with the bow ranged up alongside him: "On, man, on, in the name of God, march forward.... By St. George and Our Lady! we are breaking up their front;" he muttered.
"Strike me crimson!" bellowed a man near to Tim, "but you're a blooming marvel! Those German beggars are going down fortwenty yards around your (decorated) sword without being hit at all. Look! Look! there goes another Hun down. Let me come over near you, mate!"
But Tim knew that De Gamelyn the Bowman had summoned to their help the armies of the unconquered dead. They came, the De Gamelyns of all generations from Crécy to Waterloo: they fought by his side, and the machine gun bullets, which fell upon the dusty earth like tropical rain, hurt them not.
Again and again the Bowman's mace smashed and lashed out before him, and Tim thrust, and thrust yet again with his sword. He heard the deep-throated roar of the bowman's singing "The Song of the Bow."
What of the shaft?The shaft was cut in England:A long shaft, a strong shaft,Barbed and trim and true;So we'll drink all togetherTo the grey goose featherAnd the land where the grey goose flew.
Suddenly a yell, horrible and fierce, uprose from the soldiers, and he heard the bowman's voice no more.
"They're on the run, by Gawd, they've got it right in the neck this journey," bellowed a soldier as the German infantry broke and tailed away. Then something took Tim in the chest, something wet and red, that went through him.
The man next to Tim saw the long bayonet stand out beyond his back, saw Tim sway, laughing, and snap the steel short as he fell upon it.
A body of kilted men suddenly swept from the right of the hard-pressed battalion, swept by in silence, and in silence swept the remaining Boches up one side of the ridge and down the other into eternity.
Two days later Colonel Arbuthnot inquired after the welfare of Private Tim Gamelyn at the field hospital.
"He was admitted suffering from sunstroke, and a terrible bayonet wound. He died early in the morning," said the doctor.
"Is it true that he saved the battalion by urging our fellows on at the critical moment?"
"Yes," said Colonel Arbuthnot, "but do you happen to know if he had an officer's sword with him by chance when he was carried in here? All my men speak of a 'sword of flame' with which he drove the Huns before him. Even hardened soldiers who have been through many campaigns have been babbling all sorts of nonsense of ghostly regiments of bowmen who helped to turn the German attack!"
The doctor walked over to a shelf, and, taking down a rusty old sword, placed it on the table.
"Perhaps that is what you refer to, Colonel," he said. "Where the fellow picked it up isa mystery to me. It must be some hundreds of years old."
Colonel Arbuthnot took it in his hands and read this inscription on the blade:
NIGEL DE GAMELYN... ADSUM ...
NIGEL DE GAMELYN
... ADSUM ...
Theywere putting little Boudru to bed—the R.H.A. and the Corps of Royal Engineers and Stansfield, the big fat Infantry Sergeant. His little sister, already tucked up in bed, was nearly asleep. Boudru had been allowed to stay up till Sergeant Stansfield had come in from duty. The special privilege had been accorded to the little French boy on this, the last night that the British troops were to spend in the village. Boudru's home was in a portion of our line in which the defence trenches were of the semi-detached type—they did not join up with the other part of the line, and at times the place was distinctly unhealthy. Sometimes it was in the hands of the Huns, sometimes the British rushed it, and held on for a few weeks; there had been times when it had been occupied by both, at other times it was written on the squared official maps as no man's land. It was a spot in which there was always a feeling of something dreadful being close at hand; there was an air of expectancy about it andone felt there was a marked atmosphere of nerves about. You might be sniped from the house opposite, or blown out of the windows by a seventeen-inch shell. You never know. The man who sold you tobacco the day before might be lying stiff in the gutter next day, or more probably still, he might be dining with the German Staff a mile and a half away. All this uncertainty, coupled with the fact that the place was full of spies, and that valuable information had been finding its way through to the German lines, made the General decide to withdraw his troops and take up some trenches behind it.
Boudru sat on the big armchair and swung his white bare legs defiantly. Perhaps it had better be explained that my lord Boudru was five years old. "Boudru going to shut eye?" said the fat infantry sergeant suggestively.
"The cots are down and the beds unrolled," said the R.H.A. man falling into the diction of the barrack-room.
"No," said Boudru. "You must tell me for the last time the story about the wicked German baby killer who was turned into a pig. The man of the guns must tell it, and the fat man of the infantry shall hide beneath the bed and make pig shrieks—many pig shrieks—at the time when he is killed."
"But we shall disturb little sister Elise," said the fat sergeant with visions of a dismalten minutes wedged beneath the small cot and the floor.
"Elise is not bye-o yet," piped a thin voice from where two eyes were sparkling elfishly from a tangle of golden locks.
"Go on, my English man—There was once a big fat baby killer who lived in Potsdam ..."
Then the R.H.A. man (a journalist by profession, a duke by inclination, and now by destiny a very clever gunner) began the famous story. Never before had the telling of that tale been given with such splendour of effect. The fat sergeant had made pig-noises with multitudinous yells in at least fifteen different keys, and the little cross-eyed driver of the Engineers had dressed up in a real Hun helmet and grey coat. The grand finale in which the Engineer had turned into a pig on all fours and had been mercilessly put to death with the fat sergeant's bayonet, had filled Boudru's soul with joy. He reflected and gloated on the scene far into the night. Then he fell fast asleep and met with most dazzling adventures with a German soldier who had been hiding in the Jacobean oak chest with the fleur-de-lis carved on the side, which stands beneath the bulgy leaded window.
As a grey and wretched dawn came in with a cold and dispiriting rain there came to the ears of little Boudru the steady champing of marching feet in the street below. Slush, slush, slush went all those feet, beatingthe muddy road, and then the noise of metal on metal woke the silent village streets as the guns went by.
"The soldiers! The soldiers!" exclaimed Boudru as he bounded over and jumped on to the Jacobean chest to watch them pass. It was fated that they were the last English soldiers that Boudru would ever see.
Some weeks later Boudru's mother was busy with odd jobs in the kitchen garden and the children were playing in the front room, there was a ring at the door and the sound of a butt-end of a rifle, as it "grounded" on the cobble stones. When Boudru on tiptoe lifted the latch, the door swung open, and a big man in a greenish uniform stood before him. There was no sign of cap-badge or title on his shoulder straps, and he was horribly dirty. He carried two English ration bags, besides his own rucksack, and they were all filled to bursting with loot. Evil beamed from his narrow, leering eyes; and when he smiled at Boudru it twirled his demon-like mouth into a grotesque shape. He looked both depraved and suspicious, a disreputable scoundrel with a gun, and that, you will find in the fullness of time, was just what he was.
"Let us shut the door," said Elise. "This is not a pretty man." But the man from Stettin pushed past.
"Brat;" said he, "drink."
Boudru's mother had hurried up to thedoor as fast as her bulk and her stout legs would permit.
Every day she had expected a visit from the Huns. It was useless to argue with such a man, so she took the German in.
"Brandy," said the man.
"There is only a little left ... it is over there, on the sideboard."
The soldier walked over, finished half a bottle, and announced that it was like water.
"More," he ordered, "Shoot you if no find."
The woman at last managed to unearth a bottle of good Burgundy and another bottle of brandy.
He drank both the bottles, and when he had finished, he asked for more like every other Boche will do. Then he chose the front bedroom and threw himself down on the bed in a drunken sleep.
When the next morning broke the French woman went to awaken the thief and while the latter was making his toilet little Boudru entered. He regarded the Hun with gravity for at least five minutes and then delivered himself of his opinion.
"I don't like you," he said slowly, regarding the Hun, with his elfish eyes. "I don't like you. I think you may be like the man in the English soldiers' story, who turned into a pig—a baby killer perhaps. It is because of your red hair that I think you may turn ..."
The man from Stettin who had been tryingto drag a comb through his horrible beard and hair, turned, and he looked like a big red devil, the sun being on his head, and red beard and all.
"What's that?" he said, as he lurched ominously across the room. He had swallowed the contents of a flask of Benedictine which he had taken from his rucksack, and the repeated drinks were taking effect.
"I'll sweep the house, so there isn't a bug in a blanket left—you damned brat!" He was bellowing like a bull, chewing his red beard and muttering to himself. As he passed a table, he knocked the empty flask on the floor. It did not break, and he viciously stamped his feet on it, smashing it to pieces. He began to go mad from that moment. As he kicked the wreckage about the room, his glance fell upon his rifle with the fixed bayonet. And then the swine-dog ran amok. Boudru stood with his back to the door: the blood froze in his veins, and his little body stiffened into absolute rigidity.
"Turn into a pig!" shrieked the Hun. "What did you say? Turn into ..."
The bayonet flashed, and little Boudru—but what followed shall not be printed. It would be passing the decent bounds of descriptive writing to put it in black and white. It is sufficient to say that some minutes later the Hun prised the floor-boards up with his bayonet, and Boudru, from that moment, without warning, or leaving anytrace, disappeared from the world. He returned in the fullness of time. And this was the way of it.
For the hundredth time that day, the Hun had gone into the bedroom to look out of the bulgy bedroom window. Fear began to come over him without any warning, and he was thinking of little Boudru down there in the dark. The thing within him that served him for a heart was beating queer rhythms ... the beating sounded like a regiment of British Infantry on the march.
"Look," said he to the housewife, "look out on the road. Do you see soldiers?"
The good woman, distraught between suspense and hope for her little one, who had been missing for six long hours, blinked away a tear on her lashes and peered through the diamond panes.
No one was to be seen. But between three and four in the morning the first faint champing of marching feet could be heard and the Hun came down from the bedroom looking as pale as death. He opened the door and stood there listening. The insolent crunch, crunch, crunch of heavy nail-studded service boots came nearer, and a khaki column appeared on the winding road. The housewife, whose aching eyes had searched the road for Boudru all day, saw them too.
"Look," she cried, "look! The English soldiers are coming. Do you see?"
They were coming!
The man from Stettin rushed up to the bedroom, and jumped into the oak chest.
"Not tell the English! Not tell!"
Fifteen or twenty soldiers were to be heard grounding rifles and throwing off their equipment in front of the house.
Entered here Sergeant Stansfield, and shouted gaily to the housewife, but the moment he looked into her pale and worn face he understood that some sorrow had befallen her. Before he could hold her she had slid silently down on the floor, at his feet, and covered her face. "Ah,—ah,—ah! O God, help and pity me! They have taken my little son," she cried.
At this moment a soldier rushed in at the door. "I think there is a man who looks like a Boche trying to get out of the bedroom window!" he said. "Will you come, Sergeant? Quick!"
The sergeant went quickly, and returned with some men with fixed bayonets and led them up to the bedroom: He told them to break in. The man was on his knees, with his horrible hands lifted up in supplication. The soldiers kicked the man up and made him go downstairs into the front room.
"See!" said a soldier, who held his bayonet ready, "there is blood on his sleeve." The Hun cursed within his heart.
"It was none of my shedding," he whimpered.
"I had not said so," returned the sergeant quietly.
"We are here to find that out. Perhaps you know something about the lost child?"
"I had no hand in it, God strike me dead!" the Hun answered fervently.
At that moment there was a sort of earthquake upstairs, a clash of falling bricks and slates, a crashing pandemonium that sent everyone's heart to his mouth. A shell had struck the roof. Then the ceiling above bulged like a stuffed sack and burst in a cloud of pink-yellow dust. Something dropped with a dead thud fair and square in the centre of the fine oak refectory table. Sergeant Stansfield bent forward, looked, and then started back. He gave a cry and turned sickly white. On the table laythe little huddled form of Boudru. The morning sun that had been paling the candles in the sconces, struck the golden hair and staring eyes, that had a few hours before, held all the spring-time; struck, too, a heavy scarlet patch on the little overall, as the sergeant tenderly turned the little body over....
"Oh! God of Mercy!... How horrible! A bayonet through his heart ..." he muttered. The Hun's sleeve spotted with blood came back to his mind, and filled him with blind, unreasoning rage.
"You swine," he said. "I'll——"
The man from Stettin suddenly felt his heart stop beating. He stood petrified fora moment; then he clutched the table with one feverish movement; and when he saw the pale cherub face, he became covered at once with perspiration. Then the terror, which had paralyzed him a second or so, gave way to the wild instinct of self-preservation. He hit out wildly with both arms, kicking out at the same moment. In a second he was out in the hall, and had locked the door behind him. A door opened somewhere outside, and they heard him running down the garden. Some of the men snatched their rifles, rushed to the window, and threw it open. Four or five shots rang out simultaneously, and the stench of cordite was wafted back on the sharp morning air as the man from Stettin fell in a crumpled heap, his face buried in a clump of violets. The sergeant went into the garden.
"Hum!" he remarked after an instant, "dead, did you say? He's as dead as a doornail ... anyway, it's nothing to do with us! If ever a soul went straight to hell," he muttered to himself, "it was that red devil's."
Donald McNab, private (and distinguished ornament) of the London Regiment, leaned his elbows on the little oak table in the bar of the "Three Nuns," and eyed me with withering contempt. From a corner of the settle I stared—with a wholly unsuccessful attempt to look unconcerned—at a quaint old painting of Sergeant Broughton who first taught Englishmen to box scientifically. When the great are really wrathful it ill becomes pigmy people to jabber or argue. So I waited with bent head and respectful silence to which the passing moods of such an erratic genius are entitled.
When McNab and I had met an hour or so before we had been on the most friendly terms. We had both ordered our pint of beer, filled our pipes, and retired to a corner in the bar parlour feeling at peace with the world—barring of course the German Empire and their allied forces. Everything, in fact, made for peace and goodwill between us; yet, because I had spoken with some levity aboutour incomplete spy system, McNab's wrath had come down on my head like the proverbial "hundred of bricks."
"It seems strange," I had remarked to him, "that the Huns can always forestall our most carefully-prepared plans through their almost perfect spy system. Our fellows must be dead stupid at the game. Why aren't these German vipers ever nabbed?"
"Dead stupid!" McNab had exclaimed, after gazing at me for a minute in dazed stupefaction at my unspeakable temerity in challenging the proficiency of the British Army. "Get under your Blanco pot!"
Now, when McNab used this picturesque term to me I knew that there was a storm brewing. He only used the expression when he wished to be particularly "cutting," and I received his reproof with, I hope, a correct realisation of my own insignificance.
The old world had rolled along for another twenty minutes ere McNab shifted his legs, cleared his throat, and interfered with what was left in his tankard.
"I wonder," he said musingly to himself, "if these poor yobs over here will ever know the true 'istory of this bloomin' war?" Then back came a smile to his face and he shook his head, indicating, perhaps, that he had answered the question to his complete satisfaction. The joyousness at the thought of some of those unrecorded slices of military history caused my friend to drop again intoa contemplative mood, and he started humming a little tune under his breath: