The two occupants clung to the side of the padded basket, from which it was a marvel they had not been flung by the sudden upward rush of the huge sausage-shaped envelope above their heads.
The observer's face was very white, but he pulled himself together pluckily enough, and took the now useless receivers from his ears.
"I'm awfully sorry to have got you into this mess, old man," he said apologetically.
"It isn't a bit of use being sorry," snapped Dennis. "Get a move on you! What's the best thing to be done?"
The sharp anger in his companion's voice acted like a tonic, and the observation officer pulled a cord.
"I don't think it's an atom of good, for all that," he volunteered doubtfully. "It's a thousand chances to one, with this breeze, that we shall drop on our side of the fence, and those blessed guns of theirs have got us set. Look at that!"
A shrapnel burst above them, and as its fleecy white cloud unrolled there were two more bursts, one immediately below, which carried away the parachute, the other about eighty yards to the left.
"Beggars who fire on the wounded are not likely to miss such a target as we make, although it must be perfectly clear to them that we're coming down," said the youngster between his teeth.
"And suppose they hit us?" questioned Dennis.
"Why, we'll burst, that's all, and descend in flames, with death at the end of the drop and no glory attached to it."
"I wish you'd been in Jerusalem before you asked me to come on this fool's errand!" exclaimed Dennis.
"I shouldn't mind being in Jerusalem just now," said his companion; and somehow they both laughed.
The valve at the nose of the sausage was releasing hydrogen, and the kite balloon dropped slowly as the envelope became deflated. But the wind increased, and already Dennis saw through his glasses the château and the wood pass under them.
"I'd half a hope," he said gloomily, "that we might have come to ground near that house. My battalion's there; we took the blooming place last night."
Luckily the wind buffeted them in an irregular course, and the shrapnel flew wide. Seven shells in all were fired at them, and then, ammunition being precious to the enemy, word was evidently given to cease.
It was no use wasting any more on an object whose capture was certain in a few minutes; and lower and lower they dropped, until the observer slackened his pull on the valve cord.
"We may as well save our necks," he interjected over his shoulder. "I wonder if we shall clear that wood?"
Below them stretched a great irregular patch of trees, through which alleys had been torn by our own guns, although much of the wood was still standing, and already a hoarse roar of voices came up to their ears as the enemy lining a trench cheered their misfortune.
"We're dropping right into the trees," said Dennis. "Can't we do anything? Are there no means of guiding this brute?"
"None at all," was the reply. "We're entirely at the mercy of the wind; and look out if our cable catches, that's all—unless you want to be jerked into eternity."
They were both peering down over the edge of the basket as he spoke, and the shouting Germans underneath loosed a volley at the derelict.
Dennis heard the envelope tear in fifty places, and their pace lessened perceptibly; and then it seemed to him that his companion threw himself on to the floor of the basket, and he looked at him.
A little red rivulet was flowing from a round hole in the centre of his forehead, and he realised that the lieutenant had been killed instantaneously!
It was a moment or two before he ventured to look down again, and, peeping cautiously over the edge of the car as the cheering became very distinct, he saw the enemy trench pass out of sight beneath him, and felt the basket tearing its way among the topmost branches of the wood.
Something had got to be done, he knew; and as the top of a tall tree rose above the level of his eyes, and the doomed balloon paused with a sickening jerk, he grasped at a branch, flung himself out, and dangled there.
Relieved of his weight, the balloon, almost on the point of collapsing, dragged itself free of the twigs that held it with a last effort, and floated away to drop on the other side of the wood.
He could hear the excited clamour as men left the trench and ran towards it; and even in the midst of his extraordinary peril he was fired with a wild desire to escape.
His manœuvre had not been seen, and, lowering himself rapidly hand under hand, he gained the foot of the tree which had proved his salvation, torn and bleeding, but with every nerve of mind and body on the alert.
"They've not got me yet!" he muttered, as he looked about him; and, crawling on hands and knees, crept under the trunk of a fallen tree half a dozen yards away, where he lay down flat on his face.
The very ground beneath him seemed to shake with every discharge, and the roar of the firing was continuous. Not only were both sides flinging a terrific barrage to check the arrival of reinforcements, but half a dozen isolated actions were taking place at various points of the extended battle line. From Trônes Wood to Contalmaison Villa heavy fighting was in progress, and Dennis raged inwardly that by his own fault he should have neither act nor part in any of it.
Presently, as he lay with his ear to the ground, he caught another sound much nearer than that of the firing—the thud of men running in heavy boots in his vicinity; and, worming himself still deeper among the undergrowth that surrounded the fallen tree, he drew his Webley revolver and waited.
About a dozen of the enemy came past the tree on either side of it, peering this way and that, and stirring such brushwood as remained with their fixed bayonets.
"Pooh!" said one of them, "this is a fool's quest. What is the good of looking for a man who has got a broken neck by this time?"
"What is the good of the war, I should like to know?" replied one of his companions. "For my part, I am so sick of this terrible life that I would willingly surrender."
"You had better not let our captain hear you talk like that, or you will be shot, my friend," said another of them; "though I dare say, if we were honest, two-thirds of the battalion would agree with you. But it is very certain the Englishman is not here, and the sooner we get back the better."
They passed on; and as the crackle of their going among the bushes died away quickly, Dennis drew a deep breath of relief. He had no idea where he was, for the whole of that rolling country was dotted with irregular patches of woodland, his map case was gone, and the balloon had drifted considerably to the east before it fell.
He knew it would be wiser for him to wait until nightfall and take advantage of the moonlight; but the desire to rejoin his men was too strong to be resisted; and after cautiously peering over the undergrowth he crept from his concealment, and dodged from bush to bush until he reached the edge of the wood.
There the hum of voices warned him that he was only a few yards from the parados of an enemy trench—and not a very deep one at that—for as he parted the bramblesbehind which he cowered, he could see the round forage caps and shaven heads in front of him.
For an hour he lay there, watching and listening, hoping against hope that our fellows would deliver a frontal attack on the trench, which was thinly held.
Once, indeed, the alarm was given; the enemy manned the fire-step, and the machine-gunners were on thequi vive; but after a while the threatened danger had evidently passed, for they stood down again, greatly relieved.
Every now and then a British shell burst in the wood behind him, tearing off branches and great strips of bark, and bringing the slender trees down with a crash.
"This won't do, Dennis Dashwood, my friend," he murmured. "The way is barred here. Let us see how far their trench extends. I'll swear that was a British cheer on the left." And he crawled back again deeper into the trees, whose shadows were now falling in long lines as the afternoon waned.
Taking his bearings, he worked his way from shell hole to shell hole, now passing through a belt of timber comparatively unscathed, now encountering a stretch that had been heavily shelled, where the trees seemed to stand on their heads with their roots in the air.
Always keeping his eyes on the sky, across which the clouds were drifting, he suddenly found himself on the edge of a rolling strip of open country sloping gradually down in what he imagined to be the direction of the British line; but to attempt to cross it would have been suicidal, for a rain of German shells burst furiously among the neglected fields.
The wood, straggling out still eastward, seemed toindicate the route he must follow; and, without knowing it, he crossed the identical road our troops had taken earlier in the day when they went up to the capture of Bazentin village.
If he could only pass the limit of the German barrage he had an idea that he would find himself among friends before long; and he was right, although the manner of his meeting them was very unexpected.
He paused as the trees suddenly came to an end, and was astonished to see a riderless horse trotting towards him. His astonishment increased as he recognised the saddlery to be British. There was no other living creature in sight. A waving wheatfield, among which some scarlet poppies were growing, marked the skyline, beyond which the ground fell away, and far off in the distance across the wheat was the top of another wood.
"That's a trooper's mount if ever I saw one," said Dennis. And as the mare, with nostrils distended and ears set forward, neighed loudly, he jumped out of his concealment and caught her rein.
"Whoa, little lady—steady!" he said soothingly. "Ah, if you could only speak, and tell me where you have come from!"
He had some difficulty in bringing her to a stand, for she was quivering from the effects of recent alarm; and he saw a red smear on the leather wallets, and the saddle flap on the near side had been cut by a bullet.
As he placed his foot in the stirrup and swung himself up, rifle fire suddenly opened from somewhere beyond the ridge of the wheat. He was down again in an instant, and leading the mare cautiously forward through the corn.
Craning his neck above the waving grain, he saw the white line of a trench farther down the slope, and beyond it, retiring at a hand gallop, a row of brown dots in extended order, which he knew to be British cavalry!
A glance had shown him that there was a machine-gun in the trench, and his course was clear now. He must warn the horsemen if they did not know it already; and, turning the mare, he led her back out of sight of the enemy and, mounting, rode off in a wide detour before he put her to top speed across the open.
The sergeant who had ridden her was lying on his back at the edge of the cornfield, and the greyness of his face told that he was dead.
"Now, my beauty!" he cried, with a squeeze of his knees. And away he dashed, taking a barbed wire entanglement like a bird, and coming up with a little bunch of horsemen re-forming in a hollow.
They were Dragoon Guards, and with them was a detachment of the Deccan Horse, whose lance-points and steel helmets twinkled in the sunshine, with here and there a turban among them.
Horses and men betrayed their eagerness, for it was the first time since the dark days of 1914 that the cavalry had had their chance.
"Hallo, sir! Who are you?" was their commander's greeting, as Dennis reined up beside him.
"Lieutenant Dashwood, of the Reedshires, sir—just escaped from the German lines, thanks to the mare which I found running wild up yonder. I want to report a machine-gun in the corn up there."
Nothing could check the victorious rush"Nothing could check the victorious rush"ToList
"Nothing could check the victorious rush"ToList
"The dickens you do!" was the response; and the officer glanced at his men.
Every eye was turned upon him, and the horses were pawing impatiently, shaking the foam from their bits.
"It would be cruelty to animals to disappoint my chaps," he said, with an odd laugh. "This is our day out, you know, and we've waited a tidy while for it." And, raising his voice, he cried: "Come on, men! Slap through 'em—and hang the consequences!"
A rapturous shout greeted his words, and the lance-points came down.
The next moment Dennis found himself galloping beside the leader through the green corn-stalks. Grey figures sprang up in front; someone made a prod at him with a bayonet and missed. Mausers cracked out and a machine-gun began to bark, while here and there little knots of the enemy pressed in close together and prepared to receive cavalry, others flinging up their arms, crying: "Pity, Kamerad!"
But nothing could check the victorious rush.
When his revolver was empty, Dennis drew the sword attached to the saddle, and though he could not distinctly remember what happened, he saw that the blade was red from point to forte, when a parapet stopped the charge, and voices shouted "Retire!"
They streamed back in any sort of order, laughing like schoolboys; and though a few saddles had been emptied, they carried thirty-two prisoners with them—men whose courage had failed at the sight of their glittering lance-points, with the driving force of the galloping steeds behind them.
It had been short and sharp, perhaps a little foolish, but it had been a charge in the old style, and no one minded a cut or a slash when the squadron sergeant-majors formed them up again in the hollow from which they had started.
"Great, eh?" said their leader, binding a silk handkerchief round his wrist.
"Yes, I think it was worth it," laughed Dennis, tying the knots for him.
"I should rather think it was. Didn't some poet Johnny say something about 'one crowded hour of glorious life'? And by gad, boy, if you only knew how we've been eating our hearts out to get a show! Now you can do as you like, but we're going to work up along that wood over yonder. That's Delville Wood, you know. You're miles from your crush."
"Then I'll come with you if I may," responded Dennis, as the line opened out and pushed slowly forward on reconnaissance.
They had not gone very far when machine-guns on their front suddenly opened, and this time the leader deemed discretion the better part of valour. Besides, an aeroplane flying very low came over their heads, and for some minutes they were uncertain whether it was an enemy craft or no, until it swooped above the hidden enemy among the corn and opened fire upon them.
"By Jupiter, that's a good plucked 'un!" said the squadron commander, as the airman swooped for the fourth time before he flew away unscathed.
But out of the ragged volley which the panic-stricken enemy fired at the plane one ball found its billet in theneck of Dennis's mare, and with a squeal and a bound that almost unseated him she tore madly northwards, in spite of all his efforts to stay her.
In vain he hauled on the bit reins; the maddened creature was beyond all human control. The shout of warning from the men behind him died away. The trampled wood and the shell-torn grassland merged into a confused carpet of greeny white beneath him. She took an empty trench in her stride without checking perceptibly, until a crater yawned before them, into which she plunged, tried gamely to keep her feet, and finally rolled over and over to the bottom, flinging her rider clear as she fell dead.
Dennis picked himself up with a sob of bitter disappointment, as he realised that the dead mare, which had carried him for a brief moment among his own people, had now landed him once more a good mile within the enemy's lines.
His first act was to bury the sergeant's sword in the earth; his next to reload his Webley revolver; and then, spying a gap in the rim of the crater above him, he clambered up, to find himself on the floor of a German trench!
Not twenty yards away men were busy with pick and shovel, making good the effect of the shell explosion on their parapet; and on the impulse of the moment he dived unseen into the mouth of a dug-out immediately in front of him.
It was empty, but a brazier was burning under a cooking-pot, and on one side of the wall of the unspeakably filthy place hung a row of uniforms.
"I shall never get out of it in these togs," he thought, looking ruefully at his own tattered rags; and with no very fixed idea of what to do or how to do it, he put on the first tunic he found, drew a pair of baggy slops over his own gaiters and breeches, andcrammed a forage cap, with a red band and cockade, on to his head.
Something bulky in the pocket of the tunic attracted his attention. It was a book, half filled with German shorthand notes, and on the fly-leaf was inscribed the name—"Carl Heft, 307th Reserve Battalion."
Carl Heft was evidently a stenographer, and to the lad's horror he heard a harsh voice calling out the name.
"Great Scott! What have I done now?" he thought. And as a black-whiskered sergeant loomed in the doorway of the dug-out, he clicked his heels together in the approved German fashion, and stood stolidly to attention.
"What are you skulking here for, Heft?" demanded the sergeant angrily. "Come along, pig's head—the general wants you!"
Dennis stepped briskly forward without a word, fastening the last button on the soiled tunic as he reached the open air.
"They're either in a high state of nerves, or I must be something like the real Carl Heft," he thought. "Not very flattering to one's vanity, but it might be useful, who knows? What on earth is going to happen now? I'm perfectly certain to give the show away this time."
No one paid any attention to him as he passed the busy groups of men in the firing bays, for everyone was working feverishly to repair the damage of the British shells; and after some twists and turns, the sergeant vanished into a covered communication at the entrance to which was planted a pennant, whose horizontal stripes of black, red and white denoted the headquarters of a division.
Dennis could not restrain a smile of huge delight, forthe flag told him that we must have penetrated a considerable distance into the enemy lines.
The passage ended abruptly in a luxurious bomb-proof shelter, where electric light was burning. There was a carpet on the floor marked with the white chalk prints of many boot soles, and several comfortable arm-chairs told a story of loot. There were pictures on the walls, and various doorways indicated the existence of quite a suite of apartments.
The place was full of the blue haze of cigar-smoke, and there were three officers standing there, all talking at once.
As Dennis clicked his heels again and saluted with his back to the entrance, his heart beating sixteen to the dozen, one of the officers turned towards him and scowled sourly.
"Zo! You have condescended to come at last, miserable hound!" he snarled—a bald-headed man with a general's shoulder-straps.
"Take this message on to the machine in duplicate." And he pointed to a corner of the dug-out, where there was a telephone board and a stool; and on a Louis XV. table, with beautiful brass mountings, stood a typewriter.
Dennis seated himself with alacrity, thanking his stars that he had learned typewriting in an odd moment, without any distinct idea of it ever being any good to him.
And somehow at that moment there flashed through his mind the recollection of Ottilie von Dussel and the carbon in the pay-book, which had enabled her to escape with her notes.
"Why not a third copy?" he thought. "If I ever getback to H.Q., who knows what use it might not be to us?"
Opening the box beside the machine, he quickly inserted two carbons and three sheets of typing paper; and without a second glance at him the general began to dictate:
"'To Colonel Schlutz, commanding the 307th Bavarian Battalion.—Immediately upon receipt of this order you are to entrain your men with the 89th Ersatz Battalion for transportation to Péronne. Five Prussian regiments will relieve you here to-night, to fill up the gap in our third line of defence. You are to be as sparing as possible of ammunition, both for the rifles and the machine-guns, as we are warned that the supply may be interrupted. You will use the bayonet on every opportunity.' Have you done?"
"Yes, your excellency," replied "Carl Heft."
"Then I will sign the first copy." And he unscrewed a fountain-pen as he spoke.
Handing him the uppermost sheet, Dennis seized the opportunity to fold up the end one and slip it into his pocket; and he had just succeeded when the general added the last scrawl to his indecipherable signature.
"Place this in an envelope," he said, "and deliver it yourself into the hands of the Oberst" (colonel).
"And the second copy, your excellency?" volunteered the supposed Heft.
"Place it upon the file as usual, and be off!"
The three men resumed their excited conversation, to which he would dearly have loved to listen.
But he filed the sheet, made an elaborate salute, andjoined the sergeant, who was waiting in the communication.
"Where are we going?" whispered the man, when they were out of earshot.
"To Péronne," replied Dennis.
"Good! I am not sorry!" grunted the sergeant. "I have had enough of these cursed Englanders! Let the Prussians come and see how they like it. It was their war."
All doubt as to how he would find the battalion to which he was supposed to belong was resolved by the sergeant turning sharply to the right, and already Dennis began to feel a little easier in his mind.
Obviously a man employed on the headquarters staff would to some extent lose touch with his comrades; and as the sergeant had not discovered him, he might very possibly pass unrecognised—unless, of course, the real Carl Heft turned up!
Not that he was happy by any manner of means, for he did not see his way an inch beyond the broad back of the man he was following; and before he could formulate any plan, the sergeant saluted a stout officer with the words: "An order from his excellency, Herr Colonel!"
The stout man snatched the paper, read it, and looked up at the sky, which was cloudy and lowering.
"Very well," he said gravely. "Let the men fall in by companies at once." And he retired into his own dug-out, which was a few paces away, to secure some of his personal belongings.
With incredible quickness the word was passed along the trench, and Dennis found himself shouldering up in ajostling line, staring at the sandbags in front of him, while sergeants shouted as a low murmur rolled along the trench. If only he could make one dash over those sandbags he might be free, but the thing was impossible; and, picking up a rifle, he resumed his place, wondering what Bob and Wetherby and the other fellows would say if he lived to tell them of this extraordinary adventure.
A tall captain with a foxy face and a pair of gold-rimmed glasses forced his way along the front of the line, and the soldier on Dennis's left had the misfortune to leave his rifle-butt sticking out in advance of his feet.
The captain tripped over it, ripped out an oath, and confronted the man.
"Clumsy hound!" he hissed, dealing him a sounding box on the ears. "Let that teach you to be careful in the future." And he deliberately spat three times in the offender's face.
Dennis's blood boiled at the coarse indignity, but the man stood rigid without the slightest sign of resentment; and when the beast had passed, he quietly wiped his face with his chalk-stained sleeve.
A sharp command came down the line, everyone turned to his right, and away they shuffled—that grey-green battalion, with Dennis in the middle of them!
For a long distance they stumbled mechanically through trenches and a labyrinth of mystifying communications, until the head of the column reached a light railway, where a train of open trucks was waiting.
The sound of escaping steam mingled with the perpetual thunder of guns, and the train seemed to stretch away in never-ending perspective along a chalk cutting.
Hoping against hope to the last minute that something would happen, almost praying in his heart that one of those whistling shells might fall in their midst and, tearing up the lines, so stop their going, he realised how lonely one can be even in the midst of a crowd.
Already the leading companies were entraining, and a hum of voices rose as the non-commissioned officers drove the men like sheep, with their rifles held crosswise, now and then pounding some bungler in the ribs with the butt end.
Even if he had been able to slip aside, he knew that to stay in that place was to court certain discovery; and now no alternative was left him, as half a dozen shouting sergeants cut off his retreat, and with a wildly beating heart Dennis Dashwood climbed up into the nearest truck with a herd of unwashed, unshaven enemies, packed tightly almost to suffocation.
Then he grasped the side of the wagon as a great jolt ran along the train from end to end, and the couplings tightened.
The 307th Reserve Battalion was on its way to fight the French, and Dennis was going with them!
It was growing dark now, and the rolling country through which they passed became rapidly blurred. The white excavations that here and there marked the presence of a trench were like a child's scribbling on a slate, if the occasional glow of a brazier had not told Dennis that those trenches were full of men, all waiting to repulse the great Allied push.
He was happier now that the night was at hand, for it lessened his chances of being recognised; but most of all was he pleased that no one seemed to bother his head about him—no one entered into conversation.
For all that his condition was one of cramped discomfort, apart from its peril. The tightly packed mass of human beings smelt offensively, for the German, even in peace time, is a dirty animal, not fond of washing himself.
The train moved so slowly—it was one of half a dozen similar trains all using a single line—that he seriously contemplated trying to escape when it should become quite dark, only the obvious presence of large bodies of troops in every direction made him abandon the idea.
He was conscious that a feeling of sullen discontent was present in the battalion.
"'Tis a blessing we're not going to Verdun, or to Hindenburg's command," said one of his neighbours in a low voice. "I myself have been spirited three times to Poland and back, until the very sight of a troop train gives me a feeling of sickness."
"And I can go one better than that," grunted another voice. "I have been wounded five times, and they've patched me up and sent me back again, and my wife has died since I have been at the front. I am waiting for my sixth wound, and I hope it will find the heart."
Dennis gathered from such and other scraps of conversation all around him that the little British cavalry dash had been witnessed from the trench they had just left, and that the spirits of the battalion had not been improved by the sight. They obeyed their orders like sheep, but they were sheep that had gone astray, and their confidence in their leaders' powers to lead them back into the path of victory was growing less every day.
Stopping every now and then, and waiting sometimes a quarter of an hour at a stretch, the train took a terrible time to reach the vicinity of Péronne, although the distance was little more than ten miles, and Dennis found it difficult to keep his patience under control; but at last glimmering lights showed in the distance, lights that were reflected in wavy lines on the marshes that surrounded the town, and speculation became rife in the truck.
"I wonder if they will put us in the barracks, or shall we go into billets?" said somebody in the darkness. "Billets, I hope. It would be heaven to sleep in a bedagain with soft pillows, and to make the housewife clean one's things, and kick her if she did not do them properly."
Everyone watched the lights with keen interest, but to their disappointment they passed away behind. The train went swaying and clinking on; and when it reached its destination at last, there was nothing to be seen but a wood of tall trees topping a ridge against the fitful moonlight.
Somewhere beyond the ridge was the sound of gunfire again, striking strangely familiar on the ears that had almost lost it at times during the journey.
"Get out!" shouted the sergeants. "Have you pigs gone to sleep? Fall in here beside the line!" And, extricating their legs with some difficulty, they scrambled over the edge of the trucks, dropped down, and sorted themselves somehow into sections and companies after much bullying and some blows struck.
Dennis found himself between the repeatedly wounded man and the private who had been three times to Poland, and presently the battalion was formed up four deep and marched.
As they swung off it began to rain.
For an hour they continued their route, getting uncomfortably damp during the process; and then they were halted and told that they might lie down. Some of the men lit their pipes, and Dennis would have dearly loved a cigarette; but he was afraid that the odour might betray him, so he contented himself with curling up between his two new acquaintances and went to sleep.
He had no plans; everything must depend upon chanceand what the daylight showed him; and when the man on his right shook him and he rose to his feet, he saw that they were on the bank of a navigation canal.
Behind them the mist was curling from the water meadows of Picardy, and along the river tall poplars lifted their heads above the fog.
"Do you know what we are going to do, Kamerad?" he said to the much-wounded man.
"Die, I hope," was the response.
Circumstances had not unnaturally made him a pessimist.
The roll was being called, but the fog was so thick that one could hardly see the sergeant and his notebook; and keeping his lips tight, Dennis was overlooked, and nobody noticed it.
It so happened that the real Carl Heft belonged to another company, and was marked absent on duty at Divisional Headquarters.
There was a bread distribution, and Dennis got his share. It was black, but distinctly palatable, and was better than the coffee that was served out later on.
He knew the masquerade could not last for ever, and at kit inspection the moment he had been dreading came.
Luckily for him the sergeant was a good-humoured fellow, although he opened his eyes with a start when he saw that the boyish-looking private in front of him had no belts.
"Where is your equipment?" he said.
"I left it behind me, sergeant," replied Dennis. "We were mustered so quickly that I had no time to go to ourdug-out, which was at the other end of the trench close to the big crater."
"Ha! We have cause to remember that crater, is it not so?" said the sergeant gravely. "Eighteen men and two officers it cost us, and that was why I was appointed to this company three days ago. What is your name?"
"Carl Heft, sergeant."
"Carl Heft? Were you not attached to headquarters? What are you doing here?"
Dennis lowered his voice.
"It is like this, sergeant," he said. "I want to be a soldier, not a clerk. I have not fired a shot at the enemy for two months, and when the order came to fall in I could not resist it."
The sergeant raised his eyebrows, and then a smile crept into his face.
"My boy, you are in the way to get into trouble, but never mind; I like your spirit, and I will see what I can do for you. Can you throw bombs?"
"Ja."
"Very well, you shall join the bombers; and presently I will bring you a bag of sweetmeats of the sort the French do not find to their liking."
His nod implied that there was already a secret understanding between them, and as he passed on Dennis saw possibilities looming in the future. A bomber acted more or less independently, and an avenue of escape was opened up to him.
All that July day, however, the battalion remained on the bank of the canal resting; and during the afternoonthe mist, which had never entirely cleared away, returned, and a thick grey fog muffled the marshlands.
True to his promise, the sergeant had provided him with a sheaf of grenades with copper rods to be fired from the rifle and a collar of racket bombs, and Dennis sprang smartly to his feet when the word was given to fall in.
"We are going to attack in ten minutes," said the sergeant. "There are two places—the village of Biaches over yonder, and the hill of La Maisonette more to the left. The French carried them on the 9th; they will be ours again to-night. The fog is the very thing for us; nothing could be better. Our battalion will take Biaches, and it will be hot work."
"What are the troops we shall have to face, sergeant?" said Dennis.
"Senegalese, I am told—Black Devils, who stick at nothing—and some Territorials, mostly old men and fathers of families; but we shall see."
"Yes, we shall see!" murmured Dennis, as the command "Links schliessen!" was given, and the battalion touched in to its left.
Hoarse voices bellowed out of the thick mist, and the 307th Reserve Battalion, after marching for a short distance along the river, filed across a lock bridge and plunged into the woods.
Smoking was forbidden, and strict silence enjoined. Other battalions had come from Péronne by way of the Faubourg de Paris, and there were several halts to establish communication.
Overhead the fog was tinged with a rosy hue, but round about the men all was grey, and one could see very littlefarther than the spectral tree-trunks in one's immediate vicinity.
The foxy-faced captain with the gold-rimmed glasses marched behind his company, and in his hand he carried a brutal whip, a veritable cat-o'-nine-tails. When a man stumbled over some hidden tree root he would hiss out "Pig!" or "Clumsy hound!" And Dennis felt his heart leap as he heard himself addressed.
"You with the bombs there—what are you doing with those brown boots?" said the captain.
"They belong to an English prisoner," said Dennis, with perfect truth.
"That is no excuse," said the officer sternly. "You will report yourself after this affair is over for daring to go into action improperly dressed. What is your name?"
"Carl Heft, Herr Captain," said Dennis, over his shoulder.
"Very well, I shall remember it," snarled the bully. And, changing his tone, he shouted "Vorwärts!" as a shot rang out ahead of them, and they heard the French sentries give the alarm.
Instantly the hoarse roll of drums rose from the advancing battalions, and everyone quickened his pace. The wood thinned out, and, bursting from the trees, the 307th Reserve Battalion flung themselves with the bayonet upon the ruined village of Biaches.
There was a belfry tower still standing, and the chimney of a factory—all the rest was a heap of shattered dwelling's round which the greeny-grey wave surged with a roar.
In front of them figures in blue-grey ran scurrying, and were joined by others, and the rifles began to speak.
"This is all very well," thought Dennis, finding himself between two fires. "I had better lie doggo for a bit while they get on with it." And, stepping inside the ruins of a small shop, he flung himself down on a heap of bricks in the posture of a wounded man.
It would have been madness to do otherwise, for the machine-guns were raining bullets everywhere; and, trembling with excitement, he lay unnoticed for a good half-hour, until a hoarse cheer in German told him that Biaches had passed into the enemy's hands. At almost the same moment the modern château, surrounded by its park of fine trees on the hill of La Maisonette, had been retaken by the Germans from Péronne.
But Dennis smiled quietly to himself.
"My chance will come when the counter-attack begins," he thought. "Those brave Frenchmen don't take this sort of thing lying down."
As the firing died away cheer after cheer rent the air, followed by a babel of voices in German as every man worked hard to consolidate the position; and as the dusk drew down Dennis thrust his rifle grenades inside the broken chimney of the little shop, and ventured out into the open air.