Chapter III

Whee ... ee ... ee ... oo ... oo ... PLUNK!

A rushing noise as of great wings beating the air, a reverberating crash, like the slamming of an iron door, blended with the sound of jangling glass, of splintering wood; then an unfamiliar, high-pitched cry, “A ... a ... ah!” followed by a mechanical chant on a rising key, as it passed from mouth to mouth--

“Stretcher-bearER!”

The platform of the station was deserted. A very familiar name stared down upon our heroes from the lamps. Their fellow-travellers by the train ... a handful of all sorts, officers, Australian privates, some R.A.M.C. orderlies, a couple of Belgian interpreters ... had long since vanished into safety.

The sky seemed full of odd noises. Every minute or so the new arrivals heard the long-drawn-out whistle of a shell, cut short on its rising note by the crash of the explosion. The first shell they had heard had seemed to strike very close at hand: the succeeding crashes, though equally loud, appeared to be farther away.

Everybody knows the sound of a shell, even when he hears it for the first time. Concerned mainly with the fear lest the other should notice that he “had the wind up,” our two young Guardsmen hastily pulled their kits out of the train, and leaving them where they fell on the platform, made for the station-hall.

There they saw two men on their knees beside a stretcher. To the right of them a notice painted in white on a blackboard announced the office of the R.T.O. or Railway Transport Officer, where our young men had to report.

In the R.T.O.’s office, installed in what had probably been a lamp-room or something of the sort, they found most of their fellow-passengers assembled. Under the influence of their original welcome, everybody was conversing in whispers.

The R.T.O. was shortish in his manner. (It is not easy to be polite under shell fire.)

“Report at Headquarters of Guards’ Division!” he said curtly to our Ensign and his companion when they had given in their names and regiment.

“Where is that?” said our Ensign promptly.

Resignedly the officer explained. Yes, it was a goodish way; no, there was no conveyance of any kind; yes, they would have to go through the town; no, it was not safe; the town was being shelled. Had they not heard the shell fall outside the station a minute ago?

“Next! Australian Light Horse?”

The R.T.O. turned to the next man.

“We’ll just have to foot it,” said our hero to The Lad as they made their way outside, “unless we can get a lift of some kind. We’d better leave our kits here in charge of some one!”

Outside in the station-hall our Ensign heard a stamp and a click beside him, a familiar sound, the sound of a Guardsman saluting. Our Ensign turned and saw a private in breeches and spurs, a well-known crest in his cap, an old sleeveless rain-coat flying out behind him like a pair of wings.

“I have a horse for you, sir,” he said, “to take you up to the transport. I couldn’t get here before on account of the shelling.”

Our Ensign and The Lad were going to different battalions. The moment of parting had come.

“Your mess-cart has come for you, sir,” said the groom to The Lad, “but the driver waited outside until the shelling had stopped. If you will come along with my officer, I can show you where I left him.”

On a long country road lined by tall poplars our Ensign found a couple of horses and a little Maltese cart. He and The Lad shook hands; the latter climbed into the cart, while our Ensign mounted a small brown mare. Then the cart rattled off towards the centre of the town, while our Ensign trotted down the road, the groom behind him.

Presently our young man drew rein to allow the groom to come up level. The Ensign began to talk to the soldier.

“They,” said the groom, with a jerk of his head in the direction which the mess-cart had taken, “are in rest, sir. Our Battalion is in the line. The Transport Officer thought you would dine with the Transport, and then go up along of him and the rations after dark to-night.”

The groom was a veteran of the original Expeditionary Force. So was the little mare which our Ensign was riding, the man told him.

“Many’s the fine officer that little mare’s carried, sir,” he said, scanning her affectionately: “there was Captain X., him as was killed back at Soupeers, and Captain Y.--it was on the Zillebeke Ridge where he got it, sir--and Captain Z., him as was shot by a sniper in the trenches at Givenchy. Ah! I’ve seen some grand gentlemen go, sir!”

He shook his head mournfully.

“Maybe you’ll want this little switch of mine, sir,” the groom added, handing our Ensign a small ash plant; “one or two draws o’ this won’t be after hurting that little mare, she’s that idle!”

Our Ensign welcomed this change in the conversation. The groom’s train of thought made him slightly uncomfortable in the circumstances.

For a mile or so along the road out of the town the noises still resounded from the sky. The shells came “whooshing” over so loudly above their heads that our Ensign felt an irrepressible titillation in the neck--a strong inclination to duck. To distract his thoughts, he looked about him.

It was a flat and uninteresting country, but well wooded and very green. Every house they passed was wrecked by shell fire, more or less completely; but he noticed that there were still some civilians about. Practically all the soldiers they met, he observed, were Guardsmen, and, though their cap-stars and buttons were dull and unpolished, their uniforms stained and often badly worn, the men were all well shaved and well brushed, with puttees neatly tied and boots well greased. They were taking their ease in the cool of the evening, standing gossiping in the streets of the villages through which our Ensign passed, or sitting on the benches outside the estaminets.

A ride of more than an hour brought our hero and the groom to a muddy side-track which led into a pleasant green field. Here a number of tents were pitched. From a field in rear a prodigious squealing of fifes and beating of drums resounded in a hopeless cacophony. “The Drums” (by which generic term, in the Guards, the fife and drum band is understood) of two battalions were practising in separate groups under the trees.

The Transport Officer and the Quartermaster made our Ensign welcome in the mess-tent, gave him a drink and a cigarette, informed him that he was to dine with them, and eventually showed him into the Interpreter’s tent, where our hero was much astonished to find his kit lying. It had apparently been wafted there by some supernatural means from the platform at the railway station. This was, of course, the Quartermaster’s doing, but our Ensign was as yet too ignorant of usages in the field to appreciate that heaven-sent boon, a good Quartermaster. So he accepted it all as a matter of course, and proceeded to change his clothes and don warmer things in anticipation of his first night in the trenches.

The Belgian interpreter was sitting on the bed in his tent, warbling a little air to himself. After our Ensign had disabused him of his first impression--namely, that the new-comer proposed to take forcible occupation of his sleeping apartment--he became extremely affable, and produced water and soap and a towel. He was a sunny-natured person with remarkable fluency in English, and made the young officer free of his every possession with unbounded hospitality.

Then our Ensign dined in the mess-tent off an enamel plate, and drank innocuous Belgian beer out of a tin mug. A captain of the Coldstream, who turned out to be the Transport Officer of his battalion, dined with the party. Outside the daylight was failing and a few pale stars had begun to twinkle. The drums had ceased their practice, but the crickets and the frogs supplied the table-music in their place.

“I hope you can ride,” said the Transport Officer to our Ensign, with a note of warning in his voice.

Our Ensign pleaded guilty to a slight familiarity with that gentlemanly accomplishment.

“... because,” the Transport Officer went on, “we have a good eight miles to go, and the limbers with the rations started an hour ago. So we shall have to ride fairly hard for the first part of the way to catch ’em up.”

Our Ensign smiled in a superior fashion, as much as to say the other could not ride hard enough for him. “Unconscious of his doom, the little victim plays!” Our young man was to have a rude awakening.

By the time the groom had announced that the horses were waiting, our Ensign was ready for the road. He had to carry on his person his whole panoply of war--revolver, glasses, compass, gas-helmet, ammunition pouch, and lamp--all slung on his belt, which he was wearing outside his rain-coat. He felt like a trussed fowl, and it required a helping hand from the groom to get him into the saddle. When he was up, the Quartermaster handed him a steel helmet, which the groom slung on the saddle for him. Then the Transport Officer led the way out along the muddy side-track on to a better road, and immediately spurred his powerful horse into a fast trot.

Several thoughts passed through our Ensign’s mind in rapid succession. The first was that, if he did not shake “The Fat Lady” (for such was the mare’s name) out of her contented amble, he would be left behind in the dark, and irretrievably lost. The second was that, if he went any faster, he must certainly part company with one or other article of his equipment, which was dancing a merry jig round his waist. The third was that he would take an early opportunity of verifying a suspicion which had crossed his mind at dinner, from certain allusions in the conversation--namely, that the Transport Officer man had acquired his familiarity with horses in the hunting-field in Ireland!

Our young man had retained the ash plant, and, under the influence of half a dozen “dhraws” applied to her flanks at regular intervals, the mare bestirred itself, albeit protesting.

Thus our Ensign rode forth unto battle, in the Ethiopian blackness of a close muggy night, sorely shaken, jingling like a jester, drenched with perspiration, with a feverish eye on the dim figure of the rider jogging briskly through the darkness ahead of him.

Far away in the distance, vivid white lights spouted continually into the sky. Of gun fire there was little. It seemed a quiet night. By the roadside, from time to time, the jagged silhouette of a broken wall, a tottering chimney, a devastated church tower, stood out against a patch of lighter cloud. Figures took shape suddenly out of the gloom, marching in silence through the night, filling the empty road with the acrid smell of hot and dirty men, filling the air with the crunch-crunch of their feet. Guns jingled past them at the trot, with cursing drivers plucking at their horses’ heads to keep their teams to the road.

Presently, a continuous rumbling echoed out of the patch of blackness enveloping the road ahead. Low voices came back with snatches of conversation. The dark outline of a long string of tossing limbers loomed out of the gloom. The Transport Officer galloped off up to the head of the column. A whistle sounded. The rumbling ceased. The limbers stopped. The Transport Officer’s voice spoke out of the darkness; our Ensign could not see the speaker.

“We send our horses back here,”--our Ensign heard him spring to the ground,--“better put your helmet on now! We are going to walk, and we generally get shelled to blazes over this next bit that’s coming!”

Stiffly, our Ensign slipped his foot out of the stirrup and precipitated himself from the saddle. He was wondering to himself whether all wars were as uncomfortable as this one. He had only thought of death on active service as a quick finish in the midst of an exhilarating charge at the head of an excited band--not of a death that came screaming suddenly at you out of the dark, when you were clammy and stiff and tired, and generally uncomfortable!

The young man doffed his cap, and carried it in his hand. He put on his helmet. It was heavy, and hideously unwieldy. He felt it would topple over on his nose with very little provocation.

They plodded on in silence at the head of the rumbling limbers. After an hour’s walk through the blackness (our Ensign had not the remotest idea where they were), the blurr of many figures sitting about the grass of the roadside bulked out in the gloom. The Transport Officer switched on his light. The familiar features of the Drill Sergeant who had initiated our hero into the intricacies of squad drill at home stood revealed in the bright beam. About him, in silent groups, were the ration parties, who, without delay or confusion, set about the work of unloading the limbers.

The night was singularly quiet. Not a gun spoke. Never a shell came to justify the Transport Officer’s gloomy forebodings. Only from the higher ground ahead, the never-ceasing fountain of white lights showed that the opposing lines of trenches were unremitting in their vigilance.

Darkness not only obscures the eyes,--it also clouds the memory. The next thing our Ensign remembers was coming to what looked like a row of ancient _tumuli_ in a field and a gap in a hedge which seemed to be shaken by a violent wind, though the night was perfectly still. There was a loud “swish ... swish ...” in the air and a quick “patter ... patter ...” all around. Then a voice said very distinctly out of the darkness--

“Blast that machine-gun!”

The swishing sounds ceased, our Ensign turned on his lamp and saw an officer in a Burberry with a revolver hung on his belt worn outside. The new arrival instantly recognised him as one of the most joyous spirits of the ante-room at home. He was known to all and sundry as “Peter.”

“Hullo!” said the other, switching on his light, “there you are! I didn’t know if you’d be up to-night or not. I believe you’re coming to our company. I suppose you are going to see the Commanding Officer now. He’s in the dug-out. I’m out with a carrying party. See you later. Where the devil’s that orderly gone?”

He turned off his light and was swallowed up in the dark amid a shuffling throng of men. Our Ensign found the Commanding Officer in a small dug-out with a very low entrance. Candles in white metal candlesticks threw a yellow light over a roughly carpentered table, where maps were spread out amid the remains of a meal. In the corner an officer was bending over a telephone.

“This is the Adjutant speaking,” he was saying, “... oh, that is Mr Barnard ... right.... Minnies were they ... yes, it sounded like them ... not in the trench ... good ... right ... we’ll get retaliation!”

“Four Minnies into No. 1 Company, sir,” he said, putting down the receiver and addressing the Commanding Officer; “Barnard thinks he’d like some retaliation. Shall I ask for it?”

The Commanding Officer nodded and offered the Transport Officer and our Ensign a drink. Then he told our Ensign that he would be attached to No. 2--Peter’s company,--the latter was commanding in the absence of the regular company commander who was on leave. The company was at present in support in trenches close at hand. The battalion was coming out of the line the next night. Then they talked of the general situation, the advance on the Somme, the situation in the Salient, what the Russians were doing, whether the Rumanians would come in. Finally, our Ensign took his leave, and the Transport Officer escorted him along the trench to a small and extremely evil-smelling dug-out, where they found a Grenadier subaltern working out chess-problems on a travelling chess-board, by the light of a candle stuck in its own grease on the table. He explained to the Transport Officer that he was in command of two platoons left behind to help with the carrying work at night.

That night our Ensign slept in a low narrow hole, scraped out of the parados of the trench. On turning in, he found that his servant, whom he had brought up with him from the Base, had spread the dug-out with nice clean sandbags. With his haversack for a pillow, and his rain-coat spread over him as a wrap, the new-comer, who had never spent a night out of bed in his life before, slept solidly for eight hours. When he awoke the trenches were flooded with sunshine, and a most comfortable smell of hot bacon stole across the clear morning air.

* * * * *

The company was not in the firing line, so that the men could move pretty freely in and about the trenches. The weather was very fine and warm, and the existence was not strenuous. The following evening Peter marched half the company away into reserve, on relief by another battalion, leaving our Ensign behind, with two platoons to help with the carrying. In two days’ time our hero would rejoin his battalion in reserve.

The new arrivals in the company Mess in the dirty little dug-out were genial souls. Our Ensign took his meals and played chess with them, and discussed the papers which came up with the utmost regularity in company with the letters every afternoon. After dark our young man slung his lamp and his revolver on his belt and went round the trenches and the outposts, his orderly at his heels, a Celtic type of youth, MacFinnigan by name.

The two days passed pleasantly enough. There was a little sporadic shelling, generally after the passage of a Hun aeroplane, glittering aloft, with black crosses on the under-surface of its planes, amid little puffs of shrapnel and the “peugh ... peugh ... peugh” of the anti-aircraft guns. The first afternoon--it was at tea--two sharp salvoes of whizz-bangs rang out from farther up the trench. Our Ensign sallied forth to review the situation. Up the trench he found a big Grenadier lying on his face motionless in a great welter of blood, while round the traverse an Irish Guardsman was flat on his back on the trench-boards, a little rosary between his fingers, with a stretcher-bearer ripping up one of his puttees, which was soaked with blood.

The wounded man lifted a pallid face to the officer as he came up. The stretcher-bearer was soothing him gently as he worked.

“Be asy now,” he was saying, “a little skelp like that won’t kill yez. I’ll put yez in the dug-out beyond ... ye’ll be grand and snug there till it’s dark, and then we’ll take yez down.”

“The others is all right, sir,” the stretcher-bearer added to our Ensign; “him round the traverse was killed on the spot, but there’s nobody else touched barrin’ this chap here!”

The wounded man said nothing, but his breath came heavily. His face was very pale. The officer saw him tucked away into the dug-out, and went back to tea with a heavy heart. It was his first casualty....

The next night our Ensign led his two platoons out of the trenches in the wake of a guide sent up to meet them. He was a little disappointed to find how lightly his responsibility as an officer rested upon him. He had not the least idea of where they were going as they followed the guide out into the darkness.

Their journey came to its finish on a timbered walk, leading past a long array of shelters dug out of a bank and protected by layers of neatly built-up sandbags. Everybody had gone to bed, for it was after 2 A.M.--that is, everybody save our Ensign’s servant, who, after our hero had seen his men safely into their quarters, led the officer into a fine roomy dug-out with a wooden door and wooden flooring. There, on a bed made of sacking stretched over a framework, he found his sleeping-sack spread, with his pyjamas on top; his canvas washing-bucket, full of hot water, smoked on a primitive-looking washstand; while a complete change of clothes was laid out on a soap-box beside the bed.

“And what time will I call you in the morning, sir?” said Johnson--such was the name of our Ensign’s servant--at the door.

“What time is parade?” asked the officer.

“There’s no parade for you, sir,--only rifle inspection at eleven. Perhaps you’d care for a bath in the morning, sir!”

Our Ensign jumped at the suggestion and ordered a hot bath for half-past nine. He crept gratefully into his sleeping-bag, his mind bewildered by the sudden contrasts in his new and remarkable life....