"Stand down, Reedshires! File off by your right!" And the shattered remnant of that fine battalion groped its way along a broken communication trench to the rear, as a fresh battalion from the reserves took over the trench they had won at such terrible cost.
They carried Bob Dashwood with them, and Dennis stumbled along like one in a dream; back past the shell-torn wood, through the village, or rather, the village heaps, and so to the rear, where they were to go into billets until the drafts should bring them up to fighting strength again.
It was a toilsome march, and the little band seemed strangely insignificant as it passed other eager battalions hurrying up into the firing line, all eleven hundred strong, some even more.
One of these came swinging by, singing a lusty chorus: "We're here—because we're here—because we're here—because we're here!" etc., and a voice called out, "What cheer, mateys—who are you?"
"The Royal Reedshires!" was the proud reply. "What's your crowd?"
"Dirty Dick's!"
"Then good luck to you"; and Harry Hawke,remembering a certain famous hostelry in his native land of Shoreditch, felt a fierce thirst come over him.
"I'd give somethink to be in Dirty Dick's just na'—wouldn't you, Cockie?" he murmured hoarsely to his left-hand file.
"Not 'arf, I wouldn't," responded Tiddler with a great gulp.
Before long they left our own batteries behind them, and the roar of the firing, which never ceased, grew muffled in the distance.
They turned aside after a while, for the road was wanted for the motor ambulances carrying their loads of maimed and mangled men from the advanced dressing-stations to the Divisional Field Hospital, and meeting them were the big lorries rushing up food, their headlights shining brightly in long perspective until the approach of dawn extinguished them.
Then, when the grey light stole over the gently undulating country, officers and men looked at each other and at the battalion, and the tired faces were wan and sunken with something that was not mere physical fatigue.
The C.O., with his keen smile, and well-waxed little grey moustache, was no longer in his accustomed place; "Nobby" Clark, who sang such good songs at their improvised smokers, would never sing to them any more. As for A Company, reduced to little more than a platoon and a half, it straggled along like a sort of ragged advance guard, savage and sleepy—oh, so sleepy, and covered with dust from head to heel, which did not hide the ugly red splotches and smears that told of fierce grips and the "haymaker's lift."
But at last they reached the little village, which was the end of the journey, and broke off and crowded into a big barn that they had once occupied before; and Dennis, who had tottered along without seeing anything through his staring eyes for the last mile and more, tripped and fell on his face, and lay so still that no one worried about him.
Very few of them worried about anything, as a matter of fact; even the ration parties provoked no enthusiasm. All they wanted was to sleep, and on many of the war-grimed faces was a smile of satisfied content. They had helped to lift the curtain of the Great Push, and it had been completely successful.
When Dennis opened his eyes, or rather, when he was conscious of opening them, he found Bob standing beside him with a colonel of the R.A.M.C.
"They're not hurrying themselves over that dinner," said Dennis. "I'm just as hungry as a hollow dog."
"He'll do," said the army doctor. "But for all that, a run home won't hurt him."
"A run where, sir?" exclaimed Dennis, sitting bolt upright. "The thing's only just beginning."
"For all that, my dear lad, you came very near making an end of it. Do you know you've had a slight concussion and lay unconscious for two days? But you're all right now, and you're going back to town for a week with your brother. The Push will be going on when you return, and you will be able to take up the thread where you left it."
The Colonel nodded with a friendly smile and went away, adding over his shoulder, "I'll make out the papersat once, and you can both of you get away by the next train that leaves railhead."
The next few hours were a dream to Dennis Dashwood, and when he had put on a fresh uniform, which his man had mysteriously procured, and had satisfied his terrific craving for food, Bob told him that our advance was steadily pushing forward, and the weight of our superior artillery was making itself irresistibly felt.
"Fact is, old man," said the Captain, "if you hadn't had an uncommonly thick head you'd have gone under, and the P.M.O.'s quite right. A week at home is absolutely necessary to set you up. My leg will be better at the end of that time, and we shall both come back with the draft as fit as fiddles."
Dennis groaned, but he felt the truth of what his brother said, and, whisked down to the port of embarkation, they crossed the Channel with an escort of T.B.D.'s, and both experienced that glorious thrill which strikes every Englishman worthy of the name when the white cliffs of the Old Country grow nearer and nearer.
Some day someone will write the epic of the Straits of Dover, and it will be worth the reading.
The moment they had set foot on shore they were consumed by a terrific impatience to reach their journey's end. But at last the hospital train slowed up at Charing Cross, and their taxi passed between the double crowd which every day waited to see the arrival of the wounded.
"Can you believe it, old chap?" said Bob, as theywhirled through the heavy summer foliage of Regent's Park and came to a halt.
"I've passed beyond that stage when anything surprises me, Den," laughed his brother. "I believe if I woke up some morning and found myself on the top of St. Paul's I should simply look upon it as an observation post, and proceed accordingly."
He broke off as the glass doors opened and a well-known figure came out on to the steps, and the next moment Mrs. Dashwood was in the arms of her two soldier sons.
Their arrival had been witnessed from the window of the schoolroom, and the new governess was powerless to repress the joyful yell or to check the stampede as her young charges tore down the stairs.
"I've got something for you in my haversack, Billy," laughed Dennis, producing a German helmet minus the spike; and what with buttons and bits of shells, when the small fry retired to resume their study of French irregular verbs it is to be feared the verbs were even more irregular than usual.
The talk of the elders naturally turned on the Von Dussels, and Mrs. Dashwood listened with bated breath to the account of their various meetings with the German spy.
"I suppose you've seen nothing more of Madame Ottilie of the big eyes?" laughed Bob.
"I am certain that I passed her at the Piccadilly Tube station two days ago," said Mrs. Dashwood. "But she has dyed her hair red. I am convinced it was the woman, and she knew that I recognised her. Oh, it is a shamethat these people are allowed to remain in our midst with their wonderful system of transmitting intelligence."
"Well, I don't think their intelligence is likely to help them now," said Dennis. "We've got the beggars set. We've proved that, man to man, our fellows are miles better than the enemy, and it's only a matter of time. Whatever we take now, we retain—no falling back as in the old days. And, by Jove, mater, you should just hear our artillery!"
"I hear it every day, sleeping and waking," said his mother, putting her hands to her ears. "And oh, how I wish your dear father had been with you! He hasn't had a day's leave since the war started."
"And I'm afraid he isn't likely to put in for one," said Bob. "The Governor's great idea is to stick to his job. He's made our brigade one of the finest in the Army, and they just worship him out there."
How the time flew!—faster even than the week's kit leave that had brought Dennis home before—and though Bob still walked with a slight halt, his leg was getting better every day; while Dennis openly declared that it was simply absurd to have given him leave at all.
"Look here, old chap," said the Captain on Monday, "I'm going up to the War Office to-day to report myself fit and receive my orders about taking that draft over. Of course, it's delightful to be at home again, but there's no earthly reason why we should put in our full leave and feel that we're slacking."
"Right-o!" responded Dennis promptly, "I want to buy one or two things to take over, and I'll come into town with you."
Mrs. Dashwood's heart beat quicker, but she made no attempt to stand in their way, feeling secretly proud of their eagerness, and the two brothers parted outside the Strand Tube, having arranged to meet at a certain well-known restaurant at a given time. It was easier to get into the War Office than to get out of it, and Dennis, his own mission accomplished, was cooling his heels outside the appointed rendezvous when someone tapped him on the shoulder.
"I thought I couldn't be mistaken, Dashwood," cried a cheery voice.
"What, Wetherby, old chap!" And Dennis looked at the badge on the brand-new uniform of the lad who had accosted him. "Great Scott! Have they sent you to ours?" And his old schoolfellow grinned delightedly.
"Yes, I've just been getting my things. Left the O.T.C. last week—join the reserve battalion to-morrow."
"And if I've anything to say about it, you'll come out with the draft on Wednesday. Bob will work that for you. Remember Bob, of course? Look here, I'm waiting for him now. Let's go in here and have some grub. He's bound to turn up in a few minutes"; and linking his arm in that of his old schoolfellow, they passed into the restaurant together.
"The Red Tulips" was filling up rapidly, but they secured a little table, and turned down a chair for Bob. It was a gay place, all gilt and glitter, with a string band on one side of the long hall, and at hundreds of other little tables well-dressed people were lunching, a goodly sprinkling of officers in uniform among them.
At the next table to their own was a stout Major, whom Dennis instantly identified as a "dug-out."
His face was flushed and he was talking loudly, names of battalions flowing glibly from his well-oiled tongue. His companions were an over-dressed lady and a young "nut" who ought to have been in uniform.
"There's no doubt about it," said the Major. "My battalion—the Sloggers, you know—absolutely take the biscuit. The —th are a very decent crush, and so are the —th and the —th. They make up our brigade, you know. I shall just get back in time, and as soon as I arrive we have orders to leave Barbillier to support Dashwood's Brigade, which has been awfully cut up in this last business."
"Confound that old gasbag!" muttered Dennis, leaning across the table to Wetherby. "That's the way information gets about—he's no right to be talking like that."
"Certainly not," replied Wetherby, "but I think they're going now. That waitress girl is making out the bill—a pretty long one, too—she's been writing hard for the last five minutes."
"You see, what really happened was this," continued the red-faced Major, "Dashwood's Brigade was at ——"
"You'll excuse me, sir," said a voice, "but I happen to be in Dashwood's Brigade, and we're not at all anxious that our movements should be given broadcast in a place like this."
"Eh, what!" stuttered the field officer, looking at thesingle star that adorned Dennis's cuff, and waxing furious. "What the dickens is the service coming to? Do you know who I am, sir?" And he fixed his eyeglass into the frown that was intended to slay this young whippersnapper who presumed to dictate to a man with a crown on his shoulder.
But Dennis made no reply, for his eyes were resting on the white-aproned waitress, who was busy with her pay-book, and he saw two things.
One was that it was no bill she was making out; the other, that the red hair under her coquettish little cap matched oddly with the great black eyes that were bent on her writing.
"Pardon me," he said, striding behind the Major's chair; and as his hand stretched forward for the pay-book the waitress looked up, and he knew that it was Ottilie Von Dussel!
"You here!" he exclaimed, and the perforated leaf on which she had been writing came away in his fingers as she closed the book.
She gave a little cry, and one of the musicians stepped down from the platform and came up to them.
"You must not make a disturbance here, sir," he said rudely, and the next moment he was flung back across an adjoining table with a cut lip.
Dennis swung round as people sprang to their feet, but Ottilie Von Dussel was making her way swiftly towards a neighbouring door.
"Stop that woman!" he shouted. "She is a German spy!" But everybody was talking at once, and the white cap vanished out of sight.
"I shall report you, sir," thundered Dennis to the loquacious Major, flourishing the leaf he had secured. "Every word of your conversation has been written down. There was a carbon in that book, and that she-fiend has escaped with the duplicate. Within forty-eight hours the German headquarters will receive information that may cost us a thousand lives!"
The hubbub in the restaurant was tremendous. Well-dressed people can jostle and clamour and crush just as selfishly as anybody else, and those of the lunchers who were not near enough stood up on their chairs to get a better view.
The musician picked himself up with a fried sole embossed on the back of his dress coat and two portions of hot soup running down his neck, to say nothing of blobs of mashed potato and the contents of overturned cruets all over him.
"I've got one of you, anyhow," said Dennis in German, as he seized him by the collar. "You'd better have sat tight among your fiddles, and allowed Madame von Dussel to play her own dirty game."
If the musician's look could have killed, there would have been another vacancy in the Reedshires.
The cause of all the tumult confronted Dennis, purple with indignation, and began to bluster. But another officer had wormed himself resolutely forward through the crush.
"I want to know what the deuce you mean, sir!" demanded the indignant major, but the new-comer interrupted him.
"I am the Assistant Provost-Marshal," he said. "What is the meaning of this fracas?"
"The explanation is very simple, sir," replied Dennis, handing him the slip of paper. "My friend and I were astonished to hear this officer talking so unguardedly. It is charitable to suppose that he has taken too much wine, and when I expostulated with him I recognised one of the waitresses as a remarkably clever German spy."
The A.P.M. nodded.
"I gathered that," he said. "I will ask you, gentlemen, to accompany me to the manager's room." And the excited crowd fell back to let them pass.
As Dennis brought up the rear with his prisoner he met Bob coming in, and young Wetherby told him what had happened.
"By Jove! it's a thousand pities we missed that woman," said the captain. "We haven't seen the end of that vixen and her husband."
What happened in the manager's room it is not for us to reveal, but the placards of the evening papers had the startling announcement:
In theGazettea few days later was an announcement among the promotions: "2/12th Royal Reedshire Regiment, Captain Robert Oswald Dashwood to command thebattalion with the rank of major. Second Lieutenant Dennis Dashwood to lieutenant."
Probably none of the lunchers knew what that meant; it was not their affair.
Up the muddy road swung a brown detachment to the music of mouth organs, and Harry Hawke, who was lounging at the door of a big barn, chewing a woodbine and looking fed up with life generally, lifted his snub nose in the air as the head of the detachment came round a bend in the road.
In an instant the sulky, discontented look vanished from his face, and he let off a yell.
"Turn out, you beggars!" he yelped. "Tiddler, look at this! 'Ere's our bloomin' draft at larst. Give 'em a cheer, boys! Now we shan't be long!"
From the barn and the adjacent cottages the Reedshires poured and lined up at the roadside.
"Never mind the weather,Now then, all together:Hallo! Hallo! Here we are again!"
sang the draft, to the accompaniment of the mouth organs, the battalion joining in with a lusty roar of welcome.
"Lumme, Tiddler! They're a bloomin' fine lot!" was Harry Hawke's approving comment. "And if there ain't our little 'ero with two blinkin' stars on 'is blinkin' sleeve! Are we down'earted?"
And eleven hundred and fifty throats gave a thunderous "NO!" as the draft halted.
Within twenty-four hours of the arrival of the draftthe battalion fell in with packs and rifles. The little pillar-box at the end of the barn, with the time of the next collection scored in chalk on the wall, had been filled to overflowing with field post cards for home, and the Reedshires left their billets to join the brigade again.
It was all new to young Wetherby, and Dennis seemed quite a seasoned veteran as he pointed out things to his old school chum while they drew nearer and nearer to the thunder of the guns.
Contalmaison had already been taken with great slaughter before they reached the firing-line, and the shadows were lengthening as they came to a captured trench and prepared to make themselves snug for the night.
Dennis and Wetherby were taking possession of a half-demolished dug-out when Bob made his appearance.
"If you fellows have got any coffee to spare, I'll have some with you," said the major. "And I recommend you to turn in all standing, for we're expecting a big counter-attack from the direction of that wood on our front. How have you stood the march up, Wetherby? Feel a bit knocked?"
"Nothing to speak of," laughed the new subaltern of A Company. "I'm not too tired to enjoy the fun when it starts."
"Well, if our informations are correct, you'll see plenty of 'fun,' as you call it, before sunrise. I've just had a chow with the Governor, and he's as pleased as Punch that we're up in time, for I think it's going to be pretty serious. Our airmen have brought news ofexceedingly heavy enemy reinforcements, and the German guns are holding their fire on this sector, which all points to something."
"How's the wind?" said Dennis, over the rim of his enamelled mug.
"Dead right for Brother Boche," replied Bob, with a smile.
"I don't quite understand," ventured young Wetherby, who, in spite of the tan of arduous training that browned his clean-shaven, boyish face, was not ashamed to ask questions.
Like Dennis himself, he was not one of those pert modern boys who think they know everything.
"What has the wind got to do with it?" said young Wetherby.
"Gas, old chap, gas!" replied the two brothers. "The moment you hear the alarm, ram on your gas helmet and see the tube is working."
"And by the living Jingo!" cried the major, "there it goes!" And he shot out of the dug-out into the trench as a man on the look out beat furiously upon an empty shell-case dangling there for the purpose.
"Pull it right down!" shouted Dennis, giving young Wetherby a helping hand with his helmet. "Now you're fixed. Wish there was a mirror handy; you've no idea how well you look in it, old man."
Despite the seriousness of the moment Wetherby roared with laughter inside the stifling, smelly cowl that made them both seem like familiars of the Spanish Inquisition.
And then, revolvers in hand, they took their places in the trench and waited.
"Are you certain it's gas?" said Dennis to Tiddler, who had sounded the alarm in their front, for beyond the parapet there was a strange stillness, and the night was as black as your hat.
"Yes, sir; I see it right enough, just as their last flare died down. I saw it at Hill 60, and I've 'ad some. It'll be 'ere in a tick."
But the enemy was impatient that night, and on a sudden a group of star-shells burst overhead, lighting everything up brilliantly, and revealing a long line of grey figures advancing stealthily.
"How do we go now?" inquired Wetherby, as another bunch of star-shells went up. "Do we wait until they're on top of us?"
"That depends on Bob's judgment," replied Dennis, making himself heard with some difficulty through the flannel folds of his mask; and while he was speaking there came the shrill signal for "ten rounds rapid."
As the Lee-Enfields crashed out our machine-guns began to hammer, and the boy fresh out from England felt a fierce thrill of exultation seize him, for this was the real thing at last—the thing he had been longing for so eagerly!
The long grey line seemed to shiver in front of the machine-guns, and great swathes of the enemy went down. But our trench was on a ridge, and the rear ranks filling up the gaps with a precision that astonished young Wetherby, the German line began to mount the slope, breaking into the double.
Dennis suddenly gripped his arm.
"Yes, what is it?" cried the boy, as the "Ceasefire" blew and was immediately followed by another signal.
"Reedshires, get over!" shouted Dennis. "That's what it is. Good old Bob! He's a beggar for the cold steel. Come on, Wetherby! There's a fine bit of free wheel for us—all down hill and a walk over at the bottom. Charge, boys, charge!"
Looking like demons suddenly gone mad, the battalion let go a muffled yell, and tore down the slope to meet those other demons, still more hideous in the steel-faced masks they wore as a protection against their own gas; and at the end of a dozen strides brown and grey mingled with a terrific shock.
"Jove, what a ripping scrum!" laughed Wetherby, as he and Dennis plunged into the struggling mass of men; and when his revolver was empty he wrenched a Mauser and bayonet from one of the enemy and used them.
The Reedshires were fresh, and made up for that lost time in billets, yielding not an inch, but forcing the Germans farther and farther down the slope, until they broke and ran.
They were artful enough to avoid the shell holes, where the gas lay thick; but they had little time to pick and choose their way, for the relentless Reedshires clung to their heels so closely that our machine-guns had to cease fire.
Here and there, where the fugitive mob was tightly wedged in some narrow gap between a couple of yawning craters, the rearmost of them would turn at bay, and at just such a place, scarcely wide enough for two men topass abreast, young Wetherby overtook a hefty little private tackling a huge German, who towered head and shoulders above him.
It was impossible to get by until that single combat should be ended; but as Wetherby paused the big German made a circling swipe with his rifle, and his bayonet tore a great gash in the Reedshire's gas helmet. The little man in jumping back lost his balance, and rolled head over heels into one of the craters, his adversary resuming his flight at the sight of young Wetherby, who dropped him with a bullet in the back.
The splendid pluck with which the little man had tackled the giant had appealed to Wetherby's sporting instincts, and realising the hideous death that lurked in the bottom of the shell hole, he sprang down to his assistance, and found Tiddler—for it was he—grasping the torn mask with both hands, while he vainly struggled to scramble out.
But the earth crumbled under his feet, and, already exhausted, the doomed man sank on his knees, and looked wildly round for help.
He should by rights have had a spare helmet in his haversack, but the careless fellow had lost it when they were in billets.
"Go back!" he gasped with a wave of his arm; but the officer boy was no fool, and, opening his wallet, he forced his own spare mask over Tiddler's head and dragged him to his feet again.
A German lay writhing in fearful convulsions beside them, and young Wetherby pointed to that terrible object lesson.
"Come on!" he shouted. "Never mind your gun." And, seizing him by the arm, the pair struggled panting together up the precipitous side of the hole.
"It's all right up here—the gas has passed over!" shouted Tiddler's rescuer. And away he bolted, leaving the grateful man to recover his breath and pick up a spare rifle.
The wake of the battalion was marked at every stride by enemy dead and wounded, and when Wetherby overtook them he found them bayoneting and bombing their way along a zigzag trench, and Harry Hawke in the act of scoring "2/12th R.R." on the shield of a captured machine-gun with the point of his dripping weapon.
"Where is Mr. Dashwood?" cried young Wetherby.
"Straight ahead, sir. 'Follow the tram-lines,' and you can't miss him!" And Harry Hawke pointed with a grin to the zigzag trench.
They ran together along the broken parapet as the explosion of the hand bombs suddenly ceased, and from the way the battalion was crowded in the trench below them with a goodly assortment of unwounded prisoners, progress seemed to have been checked for a moment.
Stumbling over bodies, and every now and then getting entangled among strands of broken wire; blundering down into some trench-mortar hole and up again at the other side, Wetherby and Hawke at length came upon Bob Dashwood and Dennis, where the trench ended abruptly without any apparent rhyme or reason.
"Hallo, what's up?" Wetherby called, removing his mask and putting on his helmet, seeing that his brotherofficers had done the same, the battalion being now beyond the gas zone.
"Wait a minute," replied Dennis. "They'll send up another flare, and then you'll see."
Overhead soared a rocket from the German lines, and as the light made everything grotesquely visible, the outline of a building showed blackly fifty yards from the trench end.
It was a small château, which, from its position in a fold of the ground behind a little ridge, had somehow escaped the havoc of our bombardment.
The ridge round which the trench end curved had been ploughed and mangled and heaped up into a ragged contour, but beyond some gaping holes in the high-pitched slate roof and a yawning gap in the northern wing, the château stood behind a tall wall, with an iron gate obligingly open, as if inviting them to enter.
"You see what's happened," explained the O.C. "The place would be so obviously dominated by the capture of this ridge that the beggars haven't thought it worth while turning it into a redoubt. It's very tempting, but it might prove a death-trap if they've got their heavy guns trained on it."
"There's another thing," said Dennis in further explanation to Wetherby. "We've taken about a couple of hundred prisoners, and killed somewhere about the same number, but the rest of the enemy battalion has mysteriously disappeared. We've bombed all the dug-outs we can find, but there's one we must have missed, and the bulk of them have got clear away somehow. What are you going to do, Bob?"
Bob Dashwood lit a cigarette before he replied. Then he reloaded his revolver.
"Those two runners should have reached our supports," he said; "and the field wire will be coming up now. We'll chance our arm, Den, and take possession of the place. Come on, Reedshires!" And he climbed out.
Another rush of brown figures ran forward to the big gate, and Hawke, who was the first to reach it, held up a warning hand as he thrust his head round one of the brick piers, expecting nothing less than machine-guns.
But the place seemed deserted, although the trampled garden bore every sign of recent occupation. A bullock had been slaughtered by the fountain, and its horns and hide lay there. The flower beds had been ruthlessly trodden under foot, but a wealth of beautiful blossom still remained, and Harry Hawke plucked a Gloire de Dijon rose and chewed the stem between his teeth as he scampered up the grass slope on to the terrace.
The front door was wide open, as were several of the white casement windows, and from a magnificent candelabra suspended from the ceiling of the hall guttering candles threw a blaze of yellow light on to the tiled floor.
Even Hawke gaped with astonishment at the gorgeous gilded decorations of the walls and the white marble staircase that led to the upper floor.
"Why, it's like Madame Tussord's arter yer paid yer bob to go in," he said.
"And they've made a chamber of horrors of it," muttered Dennis, who overheard him, as he looked at theshattered mirrors, the full-length portraits fluttering in rags in their frames, and the gilt furniture, whose upholstery of silk brocade showed the traces of muddy boots and spurred heels.
One end of the hall was taken up by a huge open fireplace carved with life-size figures of laughing nymphs and fawns, and, with that coarse imbecility which passes current in Germany for humour, some wag had daubed the noses of the figures with vermilion.
Empty wine bottles lay beside a priceless marquetry table, whose top had been burned with cigar ends; and as the men scattered rapidly through the adjoining rooms, they found everywhere traces of German "kultur" which the vandals had left behind them.
Upstairs it was the same thing; hangings torn and slashed for the mere lust of destruction, smashed china, objectionable caricatures scrawled upon the walls, and upon the open grand piano in thesalona copy of theHymn of Hate, with a half-smoked cigarette beside it.
"The beasts!" exclaimed young Wetherby, hot with indignation. "Wouldn't you like to turn our chaps loose in the Kaiser's palace at Potsdam, Dashwood?"
"My dear chap," said Dennis, "they wouldn't touch a thing if you did. It's only the Prussians who behave like this. Our fellows are gentlemen. At the same time, I know what you mean, and it makes one sick."
They went rapidly from room to room, A Company having been entrusted with the examination of the château, while Bob halted the rest of the battalion in the grounds until they had satisfied themselves that the house was empty.
Bob was making a tour of inspection round the high brick wall to discover what possibilities there might exist of defending it in case of attack, and he and one of the platoon commanders who accompanied him had just reached the stabling, which was some distance from the house, when a sudden hubbub came from the château itself.
"Hallo, they've found something," he said to his companion. And they ran back; but before they could reach the terrace firing mingled with the roar of voices, and above the rattle of Mausers rose the bark of a machine-gun.
There were perhaps sixty or seventy men of A Company in the upper part of the house when that hubbub arose; and, rushing out on to the gallery that surrounded the entrance hall, Dennis and Wetherby found the floor beneath them swarming with German infantry in the act of running a couple of machine-guns forward from the huge fireplace.
They belonged to the same battalion which had so mysteriously disappeared, and it was obvious that in their subterranean excavations the Germans must have come upon a secret passage, old as the château itself, and connected it up with their new works.
The back of the fireplace opened and revealed a black cavity, which vomited a never-ending horde in the wake of the machine-guns, one of which was slued round to command the garden, while the other was placed at an open window, and was the first to fire.
"This is going to be very hot stuff!" shouted Dennis above the deafening din, as the men of A Company camerunning on to the gallery. "Be steady, lads, and let 'em have it."
They lined up at the gilded balustrade, and fired down into the mob below them. A sea of upturned faces was turned to the gallery, and a stout Prussian officer, who took very good care to jump back under the shelter of the fireplace, pointed frantically to the marble stair and bellowed out a command.
"Quick! Lend a hand, Wetherby!" shouted Dennis, seizing the end of a large settee. "Hawke, Davis, Johnson, bring all the heavy stuff you can find in that room behind us!" And as they dragged the settee across the head of the staircase, volunteers rushed into the adjoining rooms, staggering out again with chairs and tables to add to the barricade.
They were in the nick of time, for the enemy came boldly up the staircase five abreast.
"Carry on, lads!" cried Dennis. "And you stay here with them, Wetherby. I'll be back in a brace of shakes." And he ran round the gallery until he came opposite to the machine-guns, which were pouring their hail of death into the darkness of the garden.
"This has got to be stopped," he muttered grimly between his teeth. And, groping in his bomb wallet, he took one out, withdrew the pin, and pitched the missile to the other side of the hall.
It dropped where he had intended it should drop—immediately beneath the machine-gun at the open door, one of the gun crew trying to pick it up with a shout of warning to his comrades; but he was too late, and as his fingers grasped it there was a terrific explosion.
The man who was firing fell backwards on to the marble floor, both his legs blown off, and a circle of grey-green heaps surrounded him.
Before another man could spring into his place there was a heartening yell from the darkness, and the Reedshires poured in, their bayonets flashing in the candlelight.
Dennis had hoped to put the second gun out of action, but the thing was too risky for his own men, who were smashing their way into the crowd of Germans that filled the hall.
Besides, something closer at hand claimed his attention, for, in spite of A Company's fire, the head of the storming party had reached that slender barrier, and were already laying hands on the piled-up furniture at the top of the staircase.
He had two bombs left, and, with a shout of warning, he flung them one after another on to the crowded stair. The effect was appalling, for they burst almost simultaneously, rending the gilded balustrade into a hundred pieces, and pouring an avalanche of mangled bodies on to the heads of the rest below.
Harry Hawke signalised his delight by hurling a heavy chair down the staircase, and in a trice the barricade was torn aside, and A Company went down with the bayonet to do their bit.
Taken in the rear, the crew of the second machine-gun fought gamely enough; but the thing was a matter of moments, and, seized with excusable panic, the Prussian battalion fled back again into the passage behind the fireplace.
There was no need for Bob Dashwood to give any command, for strong arms had already seized the gun, and, sluing it round, pointed it at the opening.
A sergeant sprang into the operator's seat, but before he could fire, a crowd of white-faced men, with hands raised above their heads, came running out of the secret passage, crying: "Mercy, mercy!"
"Shall I let her go, sir?" said the sergeant, with a red gleam in his eye.
"Not unless they play any tricks," said Major Dashwood.
He stood there, revolver in hand, and as they filed past him, all the fight gone out of them now, he counted 580 prisoners, including 20 unwounded officers.
"I am the colonel commanding this battalion," said a black-moustached Prussian haughtily. "I shall, of course, be permitted to keep my sword."
"No; hand it over and fall in with the rest of your men," said the major coldly. "And be thankful you are permitted to keep the clothes you stand in."
Within half an hour, thanks to the magnificent energy of our Royal Engineers, a message had been 'phoned to the brigadier, and the answer came back: "Bravo, my boy! Send an officer to me who can explain the exact position verbally, and one who speaks German, who will be useful in interrogating your capture. Let me have Dennis if you can spare him."
That was why, very much against his own inclination, Dennis accompanied the long column of disarmed men that found its way under escort to brigadeheadquarters just as the dawn was breaking, passing a joyous battalion sent up by the brigadier to consolidate the splendid gains of his beloved Reedshires.
Dennis woke at noon in his father's dug-out.
"I want you to stay here until I get an answer from the general, Dennis," said the brigadier. "If you've never seen the workings of a kite balloon, they're just sending one up over yonder. You'll probably be able to join Bob inside an hour."
Behind a little hollow, close to brigade headquarters, Dennis saw the section busy about the huge sausage-shaped observation balloon, which had been hurried up to direct some batteries already concealing themselves in the vicinity.
"This is the sort of job that would try the nerves of some of you foot sloggers," said a perky little officer, as the lieutenant approached. "By Jove, we're a bit too close to be pleasant! Would you like to go up with me?"
There was something in the observer's tone that rather nettled his hearer, and Dennis replied promptly: "I should like it very much, if you mean it?" without giving a thought on the spur of the moment as to how long the balloon would remain in the air.
"Of course I mean it. Come on!" And as Dennis flung his leg over the edge of the basket the perky youngster gave the order to let her go.
The steel cable began to unwind as the men of the section loosed their hold, and Dennis soon enjoyed the novel experience of seeing the panorama unfold beneathhim, and identifying the white-walled château they had captured the night before.
At an altitude of two thousand feet the observer 'phoned down to the men at the windlass to stop. A stiff wind was blowing, but the "sausage" behaved itself well until, as the observation officer turned to Dennis with a cheery laugh, something passed screaming beneath them and burst!
Some fragments of shrapnel struck the bottom of the basket; but that was not all. The shell had hit the cable fair and square, the observation officer's laugh changed to a shout of consternation as it snapped, and with an upward jerk the freed balloon floated away towards the German lines!