"Contemptible" Part 16

Once, when they had just finished their midday meal, the usual order "to stand to arms" came through, and they were hurried along the road that ran parallel to the river, towards Soissons. The march was longer than usual, and they were just beginning to entertain hopes that the deadlock had been broken and that they were once more on the advance, when an abrupt halt was called, and they were ordered to throw themselves hastily behind the bank along the roadside.

They could see nothing, neither friend nor foe. The only sound of firing was miles and miles down the line, in the direction of Poussey. The Subaltern's Platoon happened to be the second in the leading Company.

Already there was movement in front, and, crawling forward to the end of the line, he climbed up the bank to take stock of the position. To the north was a little copse, the intervening ground a vegetable field.

Further off, to the east, there was a big hill, crowned with a dense-looking forest which, as far as he could see, was deserted.

The Colonel, who was not to be deceived by a new appearance of quietude, had somehow made his way to the little copse, and was examining the hill with his gla.s.ses. The Adjutant, who had followed him, presently rose to his feet.

"Bring ... your ... men ... over ... carefully ... in ... extended ...

order!"

The words floated across on the wind.

Feeling that he would like to see his men all safely across before he left any of them, the Subaltern motioned to the Sergeant to lead them, and they set off in a long, dotted and irregular line towards the thicket.

"Hurry ... them ... up. Hurry!" shouted the Adjutant.

And just as the last man had left the bank, and he had started himself, he realised what the Adjutant meant.

"Phwhizz ... phwizz ... phwizz."

Like malignant wasps the bullets hummed past him. There was a regularity in the discharge and a similarity in the aim that left him no chance to doubt that a machine-gun had been turned on them.

"I was a bit of a fool not to have gone first," he said to himself.

But the bullets hummed harmlessly by his head and shoulders, and the thought that struck him most forcibly, as he plunged through the cabbages, was the impossibility of realising the consequences if any one of them had been a few inches nearer his head. It momentarily occurred to him to lie down and crawl through the cabbages, trusting to luck that the machine-gun would lose him; but, of course, the only thing was to run for it, and so he ploughed along. Whether the journey occupied more than a minute or not he is unable to say, but it seemed an incredible lapse of time before he reached the copse--and safety.

"We shall have some artillery turned on to us in a minute," said the Colonel; "we had better get on with the operation."

They debouched from the copse in open order, and advanced in the usual lines of platoons, to attack the hill.

The Subaltern loosened his sword in his scabbard, so that when the time came he could draw it more easily. He had already picked up a rifle from some unfortunate.

There seemed to be a certainty of a hand-to-hand fight. He did not feel at all eager to kill; on the other hand, he scarcely felt afraid. He just felt as if he grudged the pa.s.sing of the yards under his feet which separated him from the edge of the wood. The idea of being "stuck"

himself never occurred to him.

The bullets flew about rather thickly for the first few minutes, but no harm was done, and then the enemy's resistance seemed to die down. There was complete silence for several minutes as our men plodded steadily on.

Then, away on the right, the Colonel's whistle sounded, and a halt was called.

The enemy had taken fright and had retired, machine-guns and all, before their advance.

This little affair, although too small to figure in the communiques at home, was a great personal triumph for the Colonel. The enemy, having broken through the line and pushed his way almost to the banks of the river, had been driven back and the line straightened out, without, as far as the Subaltern could see, any loss whatever.

They were not allowed to follow up this easy success, and consequently the enemy was still left in possession of a small salient. The Subaltern's own Company was then sent to prolong the right of the Battalion, and to get in touch with the "people" on the right.

This was eventually done; the "people" proving to be a regiment of cavalry, employed as infantry.

In this particular part of the line the situation was, to say the least of it, a little muddled. The cavalry did not seem to be altogether at home in their new role. Their trenches seemed too small and detached.

The front was covered with copses, which were continually changing hands. The whole line seemed to be dangerously weak, and the facilities for communication too precarious. The Subaltern regarded the whole affair as a sort of nightmare, and prayed fervently that they would not be made to stop permanently in that quarter.

It appeared that they had been told off to hold in check the side of the salient. They took up their position along the edge of a wood, three or four yards in it.

"We'll be sh.e.l.led in about twenty minutes, so dig all you know," said the Captain.

How they dug can be easily understood. They had only their entrenching implements, but in ten minutes most of them had very fair "lying down"

cover. Ten minutes was all they were allowed. There was no artillery fire by the end of that time, but the bullets began to whizz past, or flatten themselves in the tree trunks. It was rather hard to see precisely what was happening. Black dots emerged from the wood, and quickly flitted back again. The enemy seemed rather half-hearted.

When the attack, if attack it could really be called, had subsided, a Sergeant got up from somewhere down the line, and continued work on his hole. There was a whizz overhead, and he dropped back abruptly. The Subaltern thought that he had realised the danger and had naturally bobbed down for safety, but word was pa.s.sed up "to keep down, as Sergeant Simkins had been shot dead--through the heart." He never uttered a sound, and must have met his death instantly.

Work was continued, but with the utmost caution. Meanwhile the afternoon was drawing rapidly to a close, and the prospect of holding such a position appalled the Subaltern when he thought of it. The Sergeant had been killed by enfilade fire. It was quite obvious that their line was thrown out, as it were, between the two general lines. Consequently they were enfiladed by the enemy, threatened very seriously on their front, on account of the proximity of the copses, and if forced to retire there was absolute certainty of being mown down by their own cavalry. The Senior Subaltern succeeded in clearing one copse, after firing a few shots and making a bold advance, but had not sufficient men to retain it. Then, just as darkness was closing down on the hopeless tangle, a message was pa.s.sed up to "close on the road."

The relief at this order was impossible to describe. Their spirits rose meteorically. They scarcely succeeded in hiding their joy from the cavalry who were to be left in their trenches, and when they set off towards Poussey there was a wonderful swing in their step.

In an hour's time they were back in their old billets, and the Officers opened a bottle of wine, on the strength, as some one said, of getting out of an "extraordinarily awkward position."

"Well," said the Captain, with a half-full tumbler in his hand, "here's hoping that our wonderful luck keeps in."

They drank in silence, and soon after adjourned to the outhouse.

CHAPTER x.x.x

THE JAWS OF DEATH

The next morning they learned that their turn of duty as Local Reserve was over, and that they were "to take over" a line of trenches that evening. The Captain went alone to be shown round in the morning.

They wrote letters all morning, had an early dinner, and retired early to the outhouse to put in a few hours sound sleep in antic.i.p.ation of several "trying" nights.

At about five o'clock they awoke, and found that the Captain had returned in the meantime. He explained the position to them as they drank their tea.

"The trenches are just in the edge of a wood," he said. "It is extraordinarily thick. It would be absolutely impossible to retire. The field of fire is perfect. The skyline is only two hundred yards away, and there wouldn't be an inch of cover for them, except a few dead cows."

"I shouldn't think dead cows were bullet-proof, should you?" asked the Senior Subaltern.

"There's one thing you will have to watch. There are any amount of spies about, and they let the Germans know, somehow, when the reliefs are coming up the road, and then the road gets searched. They don't know exactly where you are, you see. They have the road on the map, and plaster it on the off chance. If you see a sh.e.l.l burst on the road, the only thing to do is to get clear of it. Give it about forty yards'

grace, and you will be safe enough."

Soon after they set out along a road that they had never travelled before, leading directly up the hill in front of Souvir. About half-way up, they almost stumbled into the holes that the German sh.e.l.ls had eaten deep into the road. Evidently, however, the spies in Souvir had not succeeded in informing the enemy of their approach. There was perfect quietness.

It was a stiff hill to climb, and they halted alongside of a battery of artillery to take breath. There was a deep cave in the rock, which the gunners had turned into a very comfortable "dug-out." The Subaltern envied them very sincerely. He felt he would have given anything to have been a "gunner." They had such comfortable dug-outs--horses to ride--carriages to keep coats and things in. Above all, there could not be that terrible strain of waiting--waiting.

The road curled sharply round the rock precipice, and plunged into a thick forest. A guide had met them, and absolute silence was ordered.

They had breasted the rise, and were nearing the trenches. The road had ceased abruptly, and the paths that they had laboured along were nothing but narrow ca.n.a.ls of mud. Here and there a few broken trees and mangled branches showed where a sh.e.l.l had burst.

Hands were held up silently in front. A halt was ordered for a few minutes, while the leading Platoon moved along into its allotted trenches. They had arrived.