No Man's Land Part 3

"Good Lord!" he remarked at breakfast; "Jerry Thornton gone too." His eye was running down the casualty list. "Whole battalion must have taken it in the neck--five officers killed, fourteen wounded. I wish to heaven----" He looked up, and the words died away on his lips.

"I didn't realise what war meant to women." His remarks at the Gare de Lyon hit him like a blow. For he had seen the look in the girl's eyes; he had seen the look in his mother's. Blotted out at once, it is true; effaced the instant they had realised he was watching them; but--too late. He had seen.

"Was that Major Thornton, dear?" His mother was speaking. "The one who shot so well?" Her voice was casual; her acting superb. And G.o.d!

how they can act--these women of ours.

For a moment something stuck in his throat. He saw just such another breakfast room, with a woman staring with dull eyes at the laconic name in the paper: a name which so baldly confirmed the wire she had had three days before. Stunned, still dazed by the shock, she sat silently, apathetically; as yet she could hardly feel the blow which Fate had dealt her. In time perhaps; just now--well, it couldn't be; there must be some mistake. Other men had died--true; but--not hers.

He was different; there must be some mistake. . . .

For each and every name in that list Clive Draycott of a sudden realised the same thing was occurring. And then he saw it--personally; he felt it--personally; he realised that it concerned him--personally.

Those other women had looked, just as had his mother and the girl, a few weeks ago. Those other women had laughed and joked and asked casual questions to cover their true feelings, just the same. Those other women had been through it all and---- "We only see them before we go--never after." In the theatre, at the restaurant, playing the fool with us, dancing with us--then we see them; afterwards--when the train has gone and we are looking out of the window or talking with the man opposite, then, we do not see them. And it is just as well. "Mon Dieu! Quelle vache de guerre." . . .

Something of all this did Draycott feel at that moment; something which caught him and shook him and mocked him. Something which whispered, "You a.s.s, you wretched a.s.s! You think it's you who will suffer; you think it's you who will be acclaimed a hero. Fool! Your sufferings, your achievements, whether you live or die, are as nothing to those of these two women. You may wear the cross for a moment's heroism: they bear it all the time. And they get no praise; they just endure." . . .

Yes; something like that struck him for the first time as being personally applicable to himself. And having looked thoughtfully out of the window for a moment, he laughed gently, and then he spoke.

"That's the fellow," he remarked quietly. "An' if the tea ain't cold I'll take another dish. Three gla.s.ses of the old man's port, Dolly, is enough. I had four last night."

XII

A week later he sat in a mud bath at Havre, which went by the name of a rest camp; the Way to the Land was nearly trodden. Thousands of others had sat in that glutinous mud before him; hundreds of thousands were destined to do so after. And each and all of them were thinking men; wondering in a greater or less degree according to the size and activity of their grey matter what it was all about. To some the Unknown gave the prospect of sport, and they thanked their stars they were nearly there; to some it gave the prospect of Duty, and they trusted they would not fail. With some the fear of the future blotted out their curiosity; with others curiosity left no room for fear. But in every case they had something to think about--even if it were only the intense discomfort of their surroundings. And in every case the woman over the water had--nothing.

By cattle trucks and carriages, by so-called fast trains and unabashed troop trains they left in batches big and small; and others came and filled the gaps. The Land was calling; the Seed must not be delayed.

"You'll have to wait till it's dark." A weary Quartermaster, wandering through Ypres, met Draycott and stopped. "Thank G.o.d! you've come.

We've got three officers left and a hundred and twenty men."

"Where are they?" he demanded. "How shall I find them?"

"Very likely you won't." The other laughed mirthlessly. "I'll take you up to-night--we walk the last bit to the trenches. If a flare goes up--stand still; there's no other rule."

"You're about done in, Seymour," said Draycott, watching him keenly.

"What's the trouble?"

"The trouble is h.e.l.l." The Quartermaster pa.s.sed his hand wearily over his forehead. "Utter, absolute, complete--h.e.l.l. The boys have been in the front line for twenty-one days; and"--he spoke with a sudden dreadful earnestness--"the end is not far off."

"My G.o.d!" muttered Draycott, "is it as bad as that?"

No trenches, no dug outs, no reserves. Ceaseless German attacks, rain, mud, death. And then, three or four days of icy coldness, with the bitter Arctic wind cutting the sodden, tired, breaking men like a knife. Fighting every hour, with rifles and bayonets and fists--sleepless, tired out, finished. Only a spirit which made possible the impossible supported them: only the glory of their traditions held the breaking line of Old Contemptibles to the end. And at the end--they died. . . .

But their spirit lives on, undimmed, untarnished. It is the spirit of the New Armies--the Civilian Armies of Britain. They were training back in England when Clive Draycott went to the Land: they were learning the message of the old Regulars from New Zealand to Yukon. It is not learned in a day--that message: there is much watering and weeding to do before the seed can reach perfection, but the Land would not wait. . . . It was greedy then--as now; the only difference was the amount of grain available. And when Clive Draycott went to it there was very little. To G.o.d Almighty the praise. What there was, was very good.

PART II

THE LAND

I. A DAY OF PEACE II. OVER THE TOP III. THE MAN-TRAP IV. A POINT OF DETAIL V. MY LADY OF THE JASMINE VI. MORPHIA VII. BENDIGO JONES--HIS TREE VIII. THE SONG OF THE BAYONET

I

A DAY OF PEACE

"For the fourteenth morning in succession I rise to a point of order.

Why is there no marmalade?" The Doctor glared round the breakfast table.

"I perceive a pot of unhealthy-looking damson, and a tin of golden syrup, the greater part of which now adorns the infant's face. Why is there no marmalade?"

"Could I remind you that there is a war on two miles up the road, my splay-footed bolus-booster?" With a grand rolling of his R's, the man who had driven a railway through the Rocky Mountains, and who now boasted the badges of a subaltern in His Majesty's Corps of Royal Engineers, let drive. "Ye come to live with us much against our will, because you're a poor homeless wanderer----"

"All dressed up and nowhere to go," broke in the Doctor mournfully.

"You come to live with us, I say," went on the Scotchman, "and then do nothing but criticise our food and our morals."

"Heaven knows they both need it. Pa.s.s me what's left of the syrup, little one. Sc.r.a.pe the rest of it off your chin, my cherub, and wrap it up in a handkerchief and take it up to the trenches with you."

"You're vewy wude." The junior subaltern adjusted the balance in the matter of the letter R with the Scotchman. Two months ago he had been at home--in peace time he would still have been at school. But of such mixtures is the present British Army made. "It's my face."

As a statement of fact the remark left nothing to be desired; as a statement of expediency, when other infants were present, the same cannot be said. Words, in fact, were trembling on the tongue of a veteran of six months when the C.O. came suddenly into the room.

"Bring me an egg," he shouted to the mess waiter in the kitchen next door. "Listen to this, my bonnie boys." He produced a paper from his coat pocket and sat down at the table. "Secret. A large object has fallen beside the sap leading out to Vesuvius crater. It is about the size of a rum jar, and is thought to be filled with explosive. It has been covered with sandbags and its early removal would seem desirable, as the sap is frequently bombarded--d.a.m.n it, this egg's addled. Take it away, it's got spots on it. Where did I get to? Oh! yes--bombarded with aerial darts and rifle grenades." He replaced the paper in his pocket and reached for the teapot.

"Thought to be filled with explosive!" The Scotchman looked up sarcastically from the letter he was censoring. "What's it likely to be filled with?"

"Marmalade, ducky," remarked the Doctor, still harping on his grievance.

"In addition to that the Pumpkin desires my presence at the Centre Battalion Head-quarters at 10 ak emma." The C.O. was prodding his second egg suspiciously.

The Pumpkin, it may be explained in parenthesis, was the not unsuitable nickname of the Divisional General.

"Is the old man coming round the trenches?" Jackson, the subaltern in whose tender care reposed the crater of Vesuvius and all that appertained thereto, including rum jars, looked up with mild interest.

The C.O. glanced at the message beside him. "'The G.O.C. wishes to meet the Engineer Officer in charge of Left Section, at Centre Battalion Headquarters, at 10 a.m., A.A.A. Message ends.' There in a nutsh.e.l.l you have the glorious news."

Breakfast is never a loquacious meal, and for a while silence reigned, broken only by a few desultory remarks as to the vileness of the food produced by the officer responsible for the mess catering, and the exorbitant price he demanded for it--statements which had staled with much vain repet.i.tion.

"For heaven's sake dry up," he remarked peevishly. "You've had sardines on toast twenty-one nights running; what more do you want? Listen to the words of Sapper Mackintosh--the pudding-faced marvel. This"--he held up a letter--"is the fifth which he hopes will find the recipient as it leaves him at present--in the pink, and with the dreadful pains in his stummik quite gone."

"Our Doctor has a wonderful bedside manner," remarked the Scotchman.