Chapter THIRTEEN: An Excursion and an Alarum

We now regard ourselves, justifiably, as initiated.

We have been bombarded fairly regularly. We do not like it, but we can stand it, which is all that matters—as eels probably remark while being skinned. We are getting used, also, to the sight of sudden death and human blood. These things affect us less than we expected. It is all a matter of environment. If you were to see a man caught and cut in two between a street-car and a taxi-cab in your own home town, the spectacle would make you physically sick and might haunt you for weeks, because such incidents are not part of the recognized routine of home town life. But here, they are part of the day’s work: we are prepared for them: they are what we are in the War for. And, curiously and providentially, it seldom occurs to any of us to suspect that it may be his turn next. Thus all-wise Nature maintains our balance for us.

We have made another interesting discovery about Nature, and that is that habit can be stronger than instinct, and pride than either. The first law of Nature is said to be the instinct of self-preservation. Yet the average soldier, even in the inferno of modern warfare, gives less trouble to his leaders when under shell-fire than when his dinner does not come up to the usual standard, or he has run out of cigarettes.

Pride, again. This morning, two machine-gunners, namely, one Sam Gates and our old friend Miss Sissy Smithers, observed through their loophole a derelict German helmet lying amid the hedge of rusty barbed wire outside the trench. The passion for souvenirs is inborn in the human race, but most strongly developed in soldiers taking their first turn in the trenches.

“Me for that lid!” announced Sissy.

“How are you gonna get it?” enquired his friend.

“The only way I know of. Going over the top and fetching it.”

Sam stared meditatively through the loophole, and remarked carelessly:

“You’ll wait till it gets dark, I guess.”

Human nature is a curious thing. Sissy Smithers was reckoned a quiet youth. In civil life he earned a romantic but unheroic livelihood by selling ladies’ hosiery. But his friend’s perfectly casual and reasonable observation stung him to the roots of his being. His face flamed. Without a word he scrambled upon the firing-step, heaved himself over the parapet, walked quite deliberately to the barbed wire, and brought back the helmet. The helmet had a chip in it. The chip was made by a German sniper as Sissy lifted the helmet out of the wire.

The Boche employs other vehicles of frightfulness besides artillery. The Flying Pig, for example. This engaging animal is really an aerial mine, about six feet long. It appears suddenly high in the air above No Man’s Land, propelled thither by some invisible and inaudible agency behind the German line, and descends upon us in a series of amusing somersaults. Having reached its destination it explodes, with results disastrous to the landscape. A single Flying Pig can do more damage than a whole artillery bombardment. But it possesses one redeeming feature. _You can see it coming._ When you do, the correct procedure is to decide quickly where it is going to come down, and then go somewhere else. It is an exhilarating pastime, but attended by complications when played by a large number of persons in a narrow trench—especially when differences of opinion exist as to where the animal really intends to alight.

Then there is gas. But gas is more of a nuisance than a danger in these days, since we are all—even the horses—equipped with a special breathing apparatus, and carry the same night and day. Our newest mask, too, is a great advance on its predecessors. The chief trouble about gas-masks hitherto has been the formation of mist on the inside of the goggles. Now, by the happy inspiration of some nameless benefactor in the Service of Supply, the breathing tubes are so arranged that the filtered air, when it arrives, passes right over the inner surface of the eye-pieces, clearing the glass at every intake of breath.

Mustard gas is another story, because it attacks the skin—unless you happen to be a coloured gentleman, and then apparently you do not mind so much.

But our busy time is at night. Supplies come up; casualties go back. Trench repairs have to be executed in places inaccessible by daylight. Sandbags innumerable have to be filled and set in position.

“This yer War,” observes Joe McCarthy, bitterly, “will be finished when all the dirt in France has been shovelled into sandbags—by you an’ me! Then they’ll have to quit, or fall through!”

But the most thrilling experiences of trench warfare are trench raids. These are not necessarily elaborate affairs. Some of them are quite informal. Their objects are twofold—the first, to keep the enemy guessing, the second, to obtain information. The second is the most important. It is vitally necessary to know just where every one of your enemy’s Divisions is located. The simplest method of finding out is to send over armed deputations in the dead of night, with instructions to bring back a few assorted Germans. These, when they arrive, are interrogated, and their equipment and shoulder-straps are examined, for clues as to their identity. In this way it is usually possible to discover what Divisions are in station opposite, and how much front each holds. If a Division is spread out widely, you may be tolerably sure that the enemy has no serious designs upon your sector of the line. But if Divisions are “distributed in depth”—that is, with narrow fronts and long tails—the wise commander begins to accumulate ammunition and draft reserves into his back areas. Before the great German drive in March, against the attenuated British line at St. Quentin, Sir Douglas Haig was made aware, by this and other means, of the cheering intelligence that he had opposite to a comparatively short sector of his front sixty-four German Divisions—or six more Divisions than there were British Divisions in the whole of France and Belgium! That was a case in which nothing could be done except put up the best defence possible with the troops available, for equally overwhelming odds were being massed against the rest of the British line. But in normal cases, to be forewarned is to be forearmed.

Trench raids are intermittent affairs. Patrols, on the other hand, must be organized every night. These excursions are not necessarily belligerent. Their main object is to collect information, and to make sure that the enemy keeps to his own side of the street. If two patrols do meet, and feel constrained to “start something,” the one thing no one ever does is to pull a gun or throw a bomb. To do so would be to invite impartial participation in the game by the machine guns of both sides. It must be cold steel or nothing. As often as not, it is nothing. Two patrols may meet, and cut one another dead, like rival beauties on Fifth Avenue.

One night Boone Cruttenden found himself detailed for patrol duty, with a sergeant and four men. The party were to scale the parapet, pass through a gap in the wire, and make a tour of a certain section of No Man’s Land. The whole operation, which was by this time a familiar one, was expected to occupy about an hour. Orders were given to the trench garrison that there must be no firing during this period.

Just before midnight, in the soft September darkness, Boone led his followers over the sandbags. It was a quiet night—suspiciously quiet—and there was little to be heard save some impatient rips of machine-gun fire farther south, and the soft explosion of the Verey pistols on both sides. There are three impressions of nocturnal trench warfare which never fade from the memory of those who have served their apprenticeship therein—one, the endless vista of bursting star-shells sinking from the sky along that tortuous, dolorous way that calls itself No Man’s Land; two, the eternal _plop-plop!_ of the Verey pistols; three, the mingled smell of fresh earth, decaying matter, and disinfectants.

Boone’s first objective was a deep shell-crater some fifteen yards outside the wire. He had discovered it two nights previously, and it had struck him as a useful location for an advanced patrolling base. He gathered his henchmen around him and addressed them in a low voice.

“Sergeant, you stay here with McCarthy. Gillette and Thompson, crawl along our own front in that direction”—he pointed south—“until you come to the row of willow stumps that runs across from our line to theirs. (It’s an old turnpike, really.) Examine our wire all the way along, and see if it has been monkeyed with. If you catch sight of an enemy patrol, Gillette will stay and watch while Thompson gets back here and reports to the sergeant. Gillette, you will _not_ take any notice of them”—Eddie sighed brokenly—“unless they show signs of wanting to come too close to our trenches.” (Eddie’s spirits rose again.) “Then use your own judgment. Your best plan will probably be to get home by the shortest route and warn the officer in charge. But don’t start any trouble if you can help it, because I shall be over on the other side with Gogarty, and we want to get home too! In any case we must all be back in an hour, because the artillery have a date with the German back areas at two, and we don’t want to get mixed up in any retaliation that may be going. Gogarty, follow me up this dry ditch. It leads right to the German wire, and we may find a German sentry-post halfway across. So come quietly.”

The two little expeditions crept away, on routes at right angles to one another. We will follow Boone and Mr. James Gogarty, who has not hitherto been introduced to the reader.

Jimmy Gogarty was twenty years of age, of wizened appearance, and raucous voice. He looked and sounded exactly like what he was—a bell-hop. He had exchanged livery for uniform at the first breath of hostilities, and was now reckoned one of the smartest scouts in Boone’s Company. He was a New Yorker born and bred, and had fought his way steadily up the social ladder of Second Avenue by the exercise of five remarkably sharp wits and two unpleasantly hard fists. He was devoted to Boone Cruttenden.

The trenches were about two hundred yards apart. Progress along the ditch was not easy, for it was choked with undergrowth and refuse. Moreover, there were here and there unburied Germans whom it were wiser to avoid. Occasionally the ditch was intersected by other routes—old trenches, and the like. Here they Stopped, Looked, and Listened, as they had been warned to do all their lives at more peaceful cross-roads far away. But all was quiet. Too quiet, Boone thought. On his previous excursions he had usually been aware of much life—furtive, guttural, inquisitive life—all around him. But to-night No Man’s Land seemed a desert.

Boone whispered his suspicions to his squire.

“I guess dat means de bums is goin’ to start somethin’,” observed Mr. Gogarty hoarsely. (He was regrettably tough in his speech. The thin veneer of hotel civilization had long been rubbed off him.)

“We are fairly close to their wire now,” whispered Boone. “I am going to get out of this drain and prospect along their front. You go straight ahead, and watch out in case they come crawling down the ditch. If they do, give a whistle—just one—to warn me, and then beat it for the Sergeant. Otherwise, expect me here in ten minutes.”

“I get you,” said James agreeably.

Ten minutes later the pair met in the appointed spot. Boone was covered with mud and panting heavily; Gogarty was quiescent, except that he was emitting a peculiar noise. If he had been a cat, you would have said he was purring.

“Seen anything?” asked Boone.

“Yep.”

“What?”

“Two Dutchmen! Dey was in dis ditch—’bout thoity yards along. Keepin’ watch, I guess. _Some_ watch!”

“Where are they now?”

“Still there. Quite still—there!”

“You mean,—?”

“Well, I ain’t one to blow, but—I’m here, and dey are not! You seen anything, Captain?”

“Yes; listen! There’s a German raiding-party, or something, mustering outside their wire. I saw them creeping into line, one by one, when the moon came out just now. They are coming across, and soon!”

“How are dey going to get through our wire?” enquired practical James.

“Either break it up with a five-minute trench-mortar bombardment, or creep forward and blow a few gaps with dynamite torpedoes. Now, I am going to wait here until they start moving. Then I shall get back, quick. Meanwhile”—Boone tugged at his field despatch-book—“I want you to take a note to Major Powers.”

Flat on his stomach, Boone was squirming deep into the rank undergrowth of the ditch.

“Hold this electric torch right down over the paper,” he said, “while I write. Keep a good look-out at the same time, and if you see any one, switch it off.”

For two minutes Boone scribbled frantically. The fighting blood of all the Cruttendens was coursing in his veins. He forgot the official form of address: he omitted certain prescribed formulæ—the date, the hour, his own geographical position but he overlooked nothing else. The despatch, when completed, read:

_Dear Major, the Hun is going to raid you. So far as I can see
it will be between the points A and B on attached sketch. I
suggest you send out a m.-g. to shell-hole marked X, from which
you can enfilade whole front in danger. Come to shell-hole
yourself, or send some one, and I will come along and warn you
as soon as I see them start._

“Take that to Major Powers right away,” he said. “As you pass through the shell-hole warn the Sergeant, and tell him to expect a machine gun there. But whatever you do, find the Major! Try Battalion Headquarters first—in the support-line. If he is not there, he’ll be in the firing-trench. But find him, whatever you do, and quick!”

“I’ll find him,” replied the retired bell-hop, confidently. “Why, I found people in the Biltmore before now!”

He began to creep away.

“Come back here, of course,” added Boone.

Mr. Gogarty chuckled hoarsely.

“Cap,” he replied, “you betcher!”

* * * * *

Ten minutes passed. Boone, tingling like an induction coil, watched the progress of the raiding-party. They were moving very methodically, keeping a beautiful line. Whenever a Verey light burst above them, or the moon asserted herself, they were flat on their faces in a moment; but during the next period of darkness they always seemed to cover another twenty yards. They were halfway across now, almost exactly opposite to Boone.

Another ten minutes. Still no Gogarty.

“I wonder where he is,” muttered Boone restlessly. “We ought to have a watch on the far end of this ditch. If they come creeping along it, as they _ought_ to do—Gee whizz!”

From behind the German line came a chorus of sharp discharges; then a whirring and a humming over Boone’s head. Then the earth rocked beneath the tremendous detonation, and the skies were lit up with the flash of a barrage of German trench-mortar bombs, exploding along two hundred yards of American wire.

The barrage lasted just one minute. Directly after, three things happened, almost simultaneously. The line of raiders rose to its feet and dashed with a yell through the writhing remnants of the wire. The voice of a machine gun—nay, a pair of machine guns—broke into steady reverberation from the shell-crater, seventy yards to Boone’s right. Lastly, a rocket shot up from the American support-line.

“That’s for our artillery,” said Boone to himself. “They’ll be putting down a heavy barrage on No Man’s Land in a moment—right here. Good-night, nurse!”

He began to run swiftly back along the ditch, crouching low. In this posture he rounded a slight bend, and two steel helmets clashed together. Boone, standing up to massage his ringing head, realized that the faithful Gogarty had returned to duty.

“We got dem guys fixed this time!” announced the scout triumphantly. “_Two_ Vickers guns in de shell-hole, to give ’em hell comin’ and goin’!”

It was true. Major Powers had done marvels in the twenty scant minutes at his disposal. He had decided to send two machine guns over to the shell-hole; for ammunition-belts sometimes jam, and it was essential that a continuous stream of bullets should be maintained along the wire during the fateful moment of attack. He had also warned the Artillery and Brigade Headquarters of impending events. Finally, he had withdrawn his trench garrison from the front line as a precaution against a trench-mortar bombardment, and had aligned them, with bayonets fixed, in the support-trench behind, with orders to dash forward to their original positions the moment the signal was given.

They were hasty preparations, but six weeks’ rehearsal could not have made their success more complete. It was just such an undertaking as suits the American soldier—without cohesion or direct leadership, and depending almost entirely upon quick grasp of the situation and spontaneous team-work. The German attacking party, plunging forward through the broken defences, came right into line with the Vickers guns, with the result that it found itself wading through a river of lead flowing at the rate of five hundred bullets per minute at a distance of eighteen inches from the ground. Many went down at once: the others stumbled on gallantly enough, and reached the American trench just in time to see a wave of yelling American soldiers break into it from the ground behind.

Some of the raiders leapt down into the trench, and were submerged at once. A few threw bombs, most of which were deftly caught and thrown back before they could explode. Others were engaged upon the parapet itself. The rest, making heavy weather in the wire and tortured by the stream of bullets, broke back, only to find that the second machine gun was maintaining a steady enfilade fire across their line of retreat.

At the height of the turmoil the sky far behind the American lines was suddenly illuminated by flashes. Next moment, with a rush and a roar, the American retaliatory barrage was tearing up No Man’s Land and the German fire-trenches beyond. The raiders were completely isolated.

For four minutes the tempest of shells raged. Then, with stunning suddenness, came silence, grim as death, broken only by a few hoarse cries and a little sympathetic uneasiness farther down the line. The raid was over. How it had fared the Germans over the way never knew, for not a single raider came back to tell them.

The dead and wounded enemy were disentangled from the wire, where most of them had fallen. American casualties, thanks to Boone’s warning and Major Powers’s dispositions, had been comparatively slight, though the bombs had taken a certain gruesome toll. Eddie Gillette, who with Al Thompson had returned from his tour of inspection just in time to take part in the defence of the trench, was suffering from abraded knuckles, due to an encounter with a set of Teutonic teeth. Otherwise, none of our particular friends had received a scratch, though Boone and Gogarty had escaped their own artillery barrage by four seconds.

An hour later the life of the line had reverted once more from Hell to Monotony. A working-party was out in front, repairing wire and replacing sandbags. Patrols were out again, in case the enemy should feel disposed to throw good money after bad. The artillery stood to, prepared to resume the argument if need be. But not a German gun cheeped all night. Possibly they were surprised about something.

Meanwhile a string of prisoners was filing back to Regimental Headquarters, down a communication-trench—or _boyau_, to employ the expressive phrase of its Gallic constructors—muddy, dishevelled, and sulky. German prisoners in these days are not usually sulky: most of them are frankly delighted to be counted out of the War. But this particular consignment were distinguished, under their grime, by a certain peculiar and awful air of outraged majesty.

On arrival at Headquarters the mystery was revealed. An American Staff Officer, an expert linguist, took charge of the party, and issued the usual orders.

“Sergeant, find out if there are any officers among them, and put them by themselves. Then search the others.”

He was answered—in tolerable English—by a lanky youth who stood at the end of the long line of prisoners.

“We are _all_ officers!” he announced, with dignity.

It was a simple enough explanation, really. This was no common or vulgar raiding-party. It was a junior officers’ Instruction Class, sent over to gain a little experience and confidence in the delicate art of trench-raiding on this “quiet sector of the line.” It was a genuine and painful shock to them to find that the line was held by the Americans in force—the Americans, who, according to the Great General Staff at Headquarters, were still at home, chasing buffaloes down Broadway. Too bad!

* * * * *

But already these small diversions are swept into the limbo of the Things that do not Matter. Word has just come that our period of trench warfare is over, and that we are to proceed to the Argonne, to take part in the Great Offensive.

Evidently some one at the top has decided that this War has gone on long enough.