Men, Women and Guns Part 2

That night at 11 p.m. d.i.c.k stepped out of another car into a ploughed field just behind the little village of Woesten, and, having trodden on his major's face and unearthed his servant, lay down by the dying fire to get what sleep he could. Now and again a horse whinnied near by; a bit rattled, a man cursed; for the unit was ready to move at a moment's notice and the horses were saddled up. The fire died out--from close by a battery was firing, and the sky was dancing with the flashes of bursting sh.e.l.ls like summer lightning flickering in the distance. And with his head on a sharp stone and another in his back d.i.c.k O'Rourke fell asleep and dreamed of--but dreams are silly things to describe. It was just as he'd thrown the hors-d'oeuvres at the head-waiter of Ciro's, who had suddenly become the hated German rival, and was wiping the potato salad off Moyra's face, which it had hit by mistake, with the table-cloth, that with a groan he turned on his other side--only to exchange the stones for a sardine tin and a broken pickle bottle. Which is really no more foolish than the rest of life nowadays....

And now for a moment I must go back and, leaving our hero, describe shortly the events that led up to the sending of the wire that recalled him.

Early in the morning of April 22nd the Germans launched at that part of the French line which lay in front of the little villages of Elverdinge and Brielen, a yellowish-green cloud of gas, which rolled slowly over the intervening ground between the trenches, carried on its way by a faint, steady breeze. I do not intend to describe the first use of that infamous invention--it has been done too often before. But, for the proper understanding of what follows, it is essential for me to go into a few details. Utterly unprepared for what was to come, the French divisions gazed for a short while spellbound at the strange phenomenon they saw coming slowly towards them. Like some liquid the heavy-coloured vapour poured relentlessly into the trenches, filled them, and pa.s.sed on. For a few seconds nothing happened; the sweet-smelling stuff merely tickled their nostrils; they failed to realise the danger. Then, with inconceivable rapidity, the gas worked, and blind panic spread.

Hundreds, after a dreadful fight for air, became unconscious and died where they lay--a death of hideous torture, with the frothing bubbles gurgling in their throats and the foul liquid welling up in their lungs.

With blackened faces and twisted limbs one by one they drowned--only that which drowned them came from inside and not from out. Others, staggering, falling, lurching on, and of their ignorance keeping pace with the gas, went back. A hail of rifle-fire and shrapnel mowed them down, and the line was broken. There was nothing on the British left--their flank was up in the air. The north-east corner of the salient round Ypres had been pierced. From in front of St. Julian, away up north towards Boesienge, there was no one in front of the Germans.

It is not my intention to do more than mention the rus.h.i.+ng up of the cavalry corps and the Indians to fill the gap; the deathless story of the Canadians who, surrounded and hemmed in, fought till they died against overwhelming odds; the fate of the Northumbrian division--fresh from home--who were rushed up in support, and the field behind Fortuin where they were caught by shrapnel, and what was left. These things are outside the scope of my story. Let us go back to the gap.

Hard on the heels of the French came the Germans advancing. For a mile or so they pushed on, and why they stopped when they did is--as far as I am concerned--one of life's little mysteries. Perhaps the utter success of their gas surprised even them; perhaps they antic.i.p.ated some trap; perhaps the incredible heroism of the Canadians in hanging up the German left caused their centre to push on too far and lose touch; perhaps--but, why speculate? I don't know, though possibly those in High Places may. The fact remains they did stop; their advantage was lost and the situation was saved.

Such was the state of affairs when O'Rourke opened his eyes on the morning of Sat.u.r.day, April 24th. The horses were dimly visible through the heavy mist, his blankets were wringing wet, and hazily he wondered why he had ever been born. Then the cook dropped the bacon in the fire, and he groaned with anguish; visions of yesterday's grilled kidneys and hot coffee rose before him and mocked. By six o'clock he had fed, and sitting on an overturned biscuit-box beside the road he watched three batteries of French 75's pa.s.s by and disappear in the distance. At intervals he longed to meet the man who invented war. It must be remembered that, though I have given the situation as it really was, for the better understanding of the story, the facts at the time were not known at all clearly. The fog of war still wrapped in oblivion--as far as regimental officers were concerned, at any rate--the events which were taking place within a few miles of them.

When, therefore, d.i.c.k O'Rourke perceived an unshaven and unwashed warrior, garbed as a gunner officer, coming down the road from Woesten, and, moreover, recognised him as one of his own term at the "Shop,"

known to his intimates as the Land Crab, he hailed him with joy.

"All hail, oh, crustacean!" he cried, as the other came abreast of him.

"Whither dost walk so blithely?"

"Halloa, d.i.c.k!" The gunner paused. "You haven't seen my major anywhere, have you?"

"Not that I'm aware of, but as I don't know your major from Adam, my evidence may not be reliable. What news from the seat of war?"

"None that I know of--except this cursed gun, that is rapidly driving me to drink."

"What cursed gun? I am fresh from Ciro's and the haunts of love and ease. Expound to me your enigma, my Land Crab."

"Haven't you heard? When the Germans----"

He stopped suddenly. "Listen!" Perfectly clear from the woods to the north of them--the woods that lie to the west of the Woesten-Oostvleteren road, for those who may care for maps--there came the distinctive boom! crack! of a smallish gun. Three more shots, and then silence. The gunner turned to d.i.c.k.

"There you are--that's the gun."

"But how nice! Only, why curse it?"

"Princ.i.p.ally because it's German; and those four shots that you have just heard have by this time burst in Poperinghe."

"What!" O'Rourke looked at him in amazement. "Is it my leg you would be pulling?"

"Certainly not. When the Germans came on in the first blind rush after the French two small guns on motor mountings got through behind our lines. One was completely wrecked with its detachment The motor mounting of the other you can see lying in a pond about a mile up the road. The gun is there." He pointed to the wood.

"And the next!" said O'Rourke. "D'you mean to tell me that there is a German gun in that wood firing at Poperinghe? Why, hang it, man! it's three miles behind our lines."

"Taking the direction those sh.e.l.ls are coming from, the distance from Poperinghe to that gun must be more than ten miles--if the gun is behind the German trenches. Your gunnery is pretty rotten, I know, but if you know of any two-inch gun that shoots ten miles, I'll be obliged if you'll give me some lessons." The gunner lit a cigarette. "Man, we know it's not one of ours, we know where they all are; we know it's a Hun."

"Then, what in the name of fortune are ye standing here for talking like an ould woman with the indigestion? Away with you, and lead us to him, and don't go chivying after your bally major." d.i.c.k shouted for his revolver. "If there's a gun in that wood, bedad! we'll gun it."

"My dear old flick," said the other, "don't get excited. The woods have been searched with a line of men--twice; and devil the sign of the gun.

You don't suppose they've got a concrete mounting and the Prussian flag flying on a pole, do you? The detachment are probably dressed as Belgian peasants, and the gun is dismounted and hidden when it's not firing."

But O'Rourke would have none of it. "Get off to your major, then, and have your mothers' meeting. Then come back to me, and I'll give you the gun. And borrow a penknife and cut your beard--you'll be after frightening the natives."

That evening a couple of shots rang out from the same wood, two of the typical shots of a small gun. And then there was silence. A group of men standing by an estaminet on the road affirmed to having heard three faint shots afterwards like the crack of a sporting-gun or revolver; but in the general turmoil of an evening hate which was going on at the same time no one thought much about it. Half an hour later d.i.c.k O'Rourke returned, and there was a strange look in his eyes. His coat was torn, his collar and s.h.i.+rt were ripped open, and his right eye was gradually turning black. Of his doings he would vouchsafe no word. Only, as we sat down round the fire to dinner, the gunner subaltern of the morning pa.s.sed again up the road.

"Got the gun yet, d.i.c.k?" he chaffed.

"I have that," answered O'Rourke, "also the detachment."

The Land Crab paused. "Where are they?"

"The gun is in a pond where you won't find it, and the detachment are dead--except one who escaped."

"Yes, I don't think." The gunner laughed and pa.s.sed on.

"You needn't," answered d.i.c.k, "but that gun will never fire again."

It never did. As I say, he would answer no questions, and even amongst the few people who had heard of the thing at all, it soon pa.s.sed into the limbo of forgotten things. Other and weightier matters were afoot; the second battle of Ypres did not leave much time for vague conjecture.

And so when, a few days ago, the question was once again recalled to my mind by no less a person than O'Rourke himself, I had to dig in the archives of memory for the remembrance of an incident of which I had well-nigh lost sight.

"You remember that gun, Bill," he remarked, lying back in the arm-chair of the farmhouse where we were billeted, and sipping some hot rum--"that German gun that got through in April and bombarded Poperinghe? I want to talk to you about that gun." He started filling his pipe.

"'Tis the hardest proposition I've ever been up against, and sure I don't know what to do at all." He was staring at the fire. "You remember the Land Crab and how he told us the woods had been searched?

Well, it didn't take a superhuman brainstorm to realise that if what he said was right and the Huns were dressed as Belgian peasants, and the gun was a little one, that a line of men going through the woods had about as much chance of finding them as a terrier has of catching a tadpole in the water. I says to myself, 'd.i.c.k, my boy, this is an occasion for stealth, for delicate work, for finesse.' So off I went on my lonesome and hid in the wood. I argued that they couldn't be keeping a permanent watch, and that even if they'd seen me come in, they'd think in time I had gone out again, when they noticed no further sign of me.

Also I guessed they didn't want to stir up a hornet's nest about their ears by killing me--they wanted no vulgar glare of publicity upon their doings. So, as I say, I hid in a hole and waited. I got bored stiff; though, when all was said and done, it wasn't much worse than sitting in that blessed ploughed field beside the road. About five o'clock I started cursing myself for a fool in listening to the story at all, it all seemed so ridiculous. Not a sound in the woods, not a breath of wind in the trees. The guns weren't firing, just for the time everything was peaceful. I'd got a caterpillar down my neck, and I was just coming back to get a drink and chuck it up, when suddenly a Belgian labourer popped out from behind a tree. There was nothing peculiar about him, and if it hadn't been for the Land Crab's story I'd never have given him a second thought. He was just picking up sticks, but as I watched him I noticed that every now and then he straightened himself up, and seemed to peer around as if he was searching the undergrowth. The next minute out came another, and he started the stick-picking stunt too."

d.i.c.k paused to relight his pipe, then he laughed. "Of course, the humour of the situation couldn't help striking me. d.i.c.k O'Rourke in a filthy hole, covered with branches and bits of dirt, watching two mangy old Belgians picking up wood. But, having stood it the whole day, I made up my mind to wait, at any rate, till night. If only I could catch the gun in action--even if the odds were too great for me alone--I'd be able to spot the hiding-place, and come back later with a party and round them up.

"Then suddenly the evening hate started--artillery from all over the place--and with it the Belgian labourers ceased from plucking sticks.

Running down a little path, so close to me that I could almost touch him, came one of them. He stopped about ten yards away where the dense undergrowth finished, and, after looking cautiously round, waved his hand. The other one nipped behind a tree and called out something in a guttural tone of voice. And then, I give you my word, out of the bowels of the earth there popped up a little gun not twenty yards from where I'd been lying the whole day. By this time, of course, I was in the same sort of condition as a terrier is when he's seen the cat he has set his heart on s.h.i.+n up a tree, having missed her tail by half an inch.

"They clapped her on a little mounting quick as light, laid her, loaded, and, by the holy saints! under my very nose, loosed off a present for Poperinghe. The man on guard waved his hand again, and bedad! away went another. The next instant he was back, again an exclamation in German, and in about two shakes the whole thing had disappeared, and there were the two labourers picking sticks. I give you my word it was like a clown popping up in a pantomime through a trap-door; I had to pinch myself to make certain I was awake.

"The next instant into the clearing came two English soldiers, the reason evidently of the sudden dismantling. Had they been armed we'd have had at them then and there; but, of course, so far behind the trenches, they had no rifles. They just peered round, saw the Belgians, and went off again. I heard their steps dying away in the distance, and decided to wait a bit longer. The two men seemed to be discussing what to do, and ultimately moved behind the tree again, where I could hear them talking. At last they came to a decision, and picking up their bundles of sticks came slowly down the path past me. They were not going to fire again that evening."

d.i.c.k smiled reminiscently. "Bill, pa.s.s the rum. I'm thirsty."

"What did you do, d.i.c.k?" I asked, eagerly.

"What d'you think? I was out like a knife and let drive with my hand-gun. I killed the first one as dead as mutton, and missed the second, who shot like a stag into the undergrowth. Gad! It was great. I put two more where I thought he was, but as I still heard him cras.h.i.+ng on I must have missed him. Then I nipped round the tree to find the gun.

The only thing there was a great hole full of leaves. I ploughed across it, thinking it must be the other side, when, without a word of warning, I fell through the top--bang through the top, my boy, of the neatest hiding-place you've ever thought of. The whole of the centre of those leaves was a fake. There were about two inches of them supported on light hurdle-work. I was in the robber's cave with a vengeance."

"Was the gun there?" I cried, excitedly.