Servants Of The Guns Part 14

For hours nothing happened. The enemy evidently considered that the battery was effectually silenced, and did not deign to waste further ammunition upon it. Then, when Tony had almost fallen asleep, the sentry at the forward crest semaph.o.r.ed in a message----

"Long thick line of infantry advancing: will reach foot of hill in about five minutes. Supports behind." Almost at the same moment an orderly whom Tony recognised as belonging to his General's staff arrived from the rear. Tony seized upon him eagerly.

"Where have you come from?" he demanded.

"From the General, sir. 'E sent me to find you and to tell you to come back."

"Did you pa.s.s any of our infantry on your way?"

"Yes, sir. There's a lot coming on. They'll be round the wood in a minute or two."

"Well, go back to them and give _any_ officer this message," said Tony, writing rapidly in his note-book.

"Beg pardon, sir, but that will take me out of my way. I'm the last orderly the General 'as got left, and I was told to find out what 'ad 'appened 'ere, and then to come straight back."

"I don't care a d.a.m.n what you were told. You go with that message _now_."

The man hurried off, and Tony walked along the line of guns, saw that they were laid on the crest line in front, and that the fuzes were set at zero. This would have the effect of bursting the sh.e.l.l at the muzzles, and so creating a death-zone of leaden bullets through which the attacking infantry would have to fight their way. Then he took up his post behind an ammunition wagon on the right of the battery, and fixed his eyes on the signaller in front. He felt himself to be in the same state of tingling excitement as when he waited outside a good fox-covert expecting the welcome "Gone away!"

Suddenly the signaller rose, and, crouching low, bolted back towards the guns. Just as he reached them a few isolated soldiers began to appear over the crest in front. As soon as they saw the guns they lay down waiting for support. They were the advanced scouts of a battalion.

A moment afterwards, a thick line of men came in sight. The sun gleamed on their bayonets. There was a shout, and they surged forward towards the battery.

"Three rounds gun fire!" Tony shouted. The four guns went off almost simultaneously, and at once the whole front was enveloped in thick, white smoke from the bursting sh.e.l.l. In spite of diminished detachments the guns were quickly served. Again and once again they spoke within a second of each other.

The smoke cleared slowly, for there was scarcely a breath of wind.

Meanwhile the a.s.sailants had taken cover, and were beginning to use their rifles. Bullets, hundreds of them, tore the ground in front and clanged against the s.h.i.+elds. Tony stepped back a few yards and looked down into the valley behind him. A thin line of skirmishers had almost reached the foot of the hill. His message had been delivered.

He came back to the cover of his wagon. The enemy began to come forward by rushes--a dozen men advancing twenty yards, perhaps.

"Repeat!" said Tony.

Again the guns blazed and roared: again the pall of smoke obscured the view. A long trailing line of infantry began to climb the hill behind him. But the enemy was working round the flanks of the battery and preparing for the final rush. It was a question of whether friend or foe would reach him first. For the second time that day Tony muttered, "It's a race!"

Then, as he saw the whole line rise and charge straight at him----

"Gun fire!" he yelled above the din, knowing that by that order the ammunition would be expended to the last round.

He jumped to the gun nearest him, working the breech with mechanical precision, while the only gunner left in the detachment loaded and fired.

"Last round, sir," came in a hoa.r.s.e whisper, as Tony slammed the breech and leant back with left arm outstretched ready to swing it open again.

In front they could see nothing: the smoke hung like a thick white blanket. Tony drew his revolver and stood up, peering over the s.h.i.+eld, expecting every moment to see a line of bayonets emerge.

There was a roar behind. He heard the rush of feet and the rattle of equipment. He was conscious of the smell of sweating bodies and the sight of wild, frenzied faces. Then the charge, arriving just in time, swept past him, a mad irresistible wave of humanity, driving the enemy before it and leaving the guns behind like rocks after the pa.s.sage of a flood.

Tony fell back over the trail in a dead faint.

Long afterwards, when the tide of battle had rolled on towards the opposing heights, Tony, pale, grimy, but exultant, started back with the intention of rejoining his General. Halfway down the hill he met him riding up.

Tony turned and walked beside him.

"What's happened here, and where the devil have you been all day?" asked "the Maud," angrily.

"I've been here, sir."

"So it appears. I sent an orderly to find you, and all you did was to despatch him on a message of your own, I understand. We were in urgent need of information as to what had happened up here. You failed to stop this battery, and it was your duty to come straight back and tell me so."

Tony had never seen the placid Maud so angry. He glanced up at him as he sat there bolt upright on his horse looking straight to his front.

"It was my own battery," said Tony. Then, after a pause, he added recklessly, "Would you have come back, sir, if you'd been me?"

The Maud stared past him up the hill. He saw the guns, with the dead and wounded strewn around them, safe. He was a gunner first, a General only afterwards. He hummed a little tune.

"No," he said, "I wouldn't."

PART III

IN ENEMY HANDS

IN ENEMY HANDS SOME EXPERIENCES OF A PRISONER OF WAR

_October 15, 1914._ Hospital, Bavai, France.--Woke up to find the ward seething with excitement. One of the English wounded had escaped in the night, leaving his greatcoat neatly placed in his bed in such a manner as to suggest a rec.u.mbent figure. How he succeeded in evading the attentions of a night-nurse, an R.A.M.C. orderly, a German sentry at the main gate and two others in the courtyard outside the ward, is a complete mystery. The situation for the French hospital authorities is serious. So far, although the Germans are in occupation of the town, have garrisoned it with a company of "Landwehr" and have appointed a "Governor" with a particularly offensive polyglot secretary, they have left the running of the hospital in the hands of the French staff. Bavai has been looted but not sacked, no inhabitants have been shot and no fine inflicted. But what will happen now?

Technically, of course, responsibility for the custody of the patients rests with the Germans, since they have posted sentries at the hospital and in the town. But conventions and technicalities do not count for much in these days. The doctor, five or six nurses, and the lady by whose charity the hospital is maintained hold a conference, animated by many dramatic gestures and an astonis.h.i.+ng flow of eloquence. They are torn between fear of the consequences which may recoil upon the hospital and admiration for the daring of the man who stole forth into the rain, unarmed, and without a coat, to face the dangers of an unknown country infested with the enemy--alone.

"Quelle betise!" cried one. "Oui, mais quel courage!" answered another.

"Si les Allemands l'attrapent, il sera fusille, sans doute."

It is decided to inform the Governor, and a deputation is formed for the purpose. In less than a quarter of an hour a squad of stolid Teutons arrive and search the hospital from attic to cellar. They even enter the apartments of the nuns, to the horror of our kind old priest. Of course they find nothing. It is by now eight o'clock. At nine the edict is given. In two hours every patient in the hospital who is able to crawl is to be ready to leave. I ask my friend the doctor if he can in any way pretend that I am worse than I am. "Pas possible," he replies, shaking his head sadly.

So it is over--this long period of waiting and hoping; waiting for an advance which never came, hoping where no hope was. Seven weeks have pa.s.sed since I was brought in here, left behind wounded when the tide of war ebbed back towards Paris, and in that time I have gathered many memories which will never fade. I have seen strong men racked with pain day after day, night after night, until sometimes at last exhausted Nature gave up the struggle and the nurses would come and whisper to me, crossing themselves, "Il est mort, le pauvre. Ah! comme il a souffert."

I have realised to the full the compa.s.sion of Woman for suffering humanity, irrespective of creed or nationality; and I have known the blessing of morphia. Once, very early in the morning, just as the dawn was beginning to creep in and light with a ghostly dimness the rows of white beds and their restless, groaning occupants, I heard the tinkle of the bell announcing the approach of the priest bearing the Host; and drowsily (for I was under morphia) I watched Extreme Unction being administered to a dying German officer. Death, the overlord, is a great leveller of human pa.s.sions. The old _cure_, whose face was that of a medieval saint and in whose kindly eyes there shone a pity akin to the divine, muttered the sacred words with a sincerity of conviction that one could not doubt. A few hours before I had heard his sonorous voice rolling out the Archbishop of Cambrai's prayer for victory: "Seigneur, qui etes le Dieu des armees et le maitre de la vie et de la mort, Vous qui avez toujours aime la France...."

11 a.m.--We are ready to start. The dining-hall (in times of peace this hospital is a school) is crowded as we are given our last meal. The nuns, the doctor and his wife, the nurses, the village shoemaker who was our barber and who always used to have a rea.s.suring rumour of some sort to retail--all are there to wish us a last sad "Au revoir." They ply us with food and drink, but we are too miserable to take much. Then the word is given--we file out slowly through the courtyard into the sunlit street where two transport wagons are drawn up opposite the gate. There are nineteen French soldiers, two English privates, and myself. Our names are called by a German officer. Those who cannot walk are helped (by their comrades) into the wagons. We three English are carefully searched, but our money is not taken. It is decreed that the Englishmen must be separated by at least two Frenchmen. Does our escort (twenty armed men under a sergeant) fear a combined revolt, I wonder, or is this done merely to annoy us? I suspect the latter. A crowd of inhabitants forms round us, pressing close to say good-bye. Suddenly the German officer notices this and in one second is transformed into a raging beast. He wheels round upon the crowd, waves his stick and pours forth a torrent of abuse. The people cower back against the wall and his anger subsides. It is the first display of German temper that I have seen. To hear women reviled, even in a strange tongue--and for nothing--is horrible.

We start. At the corner I look back regretfully at the hospital where I have received such kindness as I can never forget. From a top window a handkerchief is waving. It is the nurse who, when I was really at my worst, never left my bedside for more than five minutes during two long nights and a day. To her, I think, I owe my life. For a moment the face of the cobbler distinguishes itself from the others in the crowd. He makes himself heard above the rattle of the wagons on the _pavee_ street. "Vous reviendrez apres la guerre, mon lieutenant," he shouts.

"Oui, je vous a.s.sure--a bientot," I call back as we turn out into the open country and face the straight poplar-lined road that leads to Maubeuge. Halfway we stop at an _estaminet_ for beer. The prisoners, even the English, are allowed to purchase some. The German sergeant chucks under the chin the attractive-looking French girl who serves him.

She smiles, but as he turns his back I note the sudden expression of fierce hate which leaps into her eyes.