With Haig on the Somme Part 39

It was hardly to be wondered at, for the face of his captive was encrusted with chalky mud and badly wanted a shave.

"How goes it with the brave Commandant you and I carried out of action that night we silenced the machine-gun? Do you remember now, thickhead?"

"_Mon Dieu!_" exclaimed Aristide Puzzeau, "Mon Lieutenant, you have saved me from a great crime! But why will you keep such bad company? Let us embrace!" And he kissed him on both cheeks.

"And you have saved me from a most unpleasant death, my brave fellow,"

said Dennis, rubbing his throat; "and now you must save these wretched beasts who are my prisoners."

The corporal clapped a hand to his head like one in a dream as the men of his company, whom he had outstripped, reached the edge of the crater above them.

"Halt, my boys!" roared the corporal with the full strength of his leathern lungs, but he made a wry face and scowled savagely.

"If I had my way, mon Lieutenant, we would take no prisoners, hands up or hands down," he said; "we are too soft-hearted in this war."

The howl of disappointment from the French Territorials mingled with the piteous whine of the terrified Germans, and before he scrambled after Puzzeau out of the hole, Dennis rid himself of the grey tunic and slacks, and stood revealed in his proper character.

"_Ma foi!_" said the captain of the company, as he shook hands heartily with him, "you have indeed had a marvellous escape, my friend, but there is firing in the wood over yonder; I shall leave twelve men to escort this sc.u.m to our lines, and you will no doubt wish to proceed with them--unless you care to renew your acquaintance with your old comrades, the----"

"A thousand thanks, mon Capitaine," laughed Dennis, remembering the German dispatch in the pocket of his tunic; "my duty calls me elsewhere.

Good-bye and good luck!"

As he turned to go, and the foremost wave of the Territorials was already racing towards the trees, whence came the sharp crackle of musketry, a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and he saw Puzzeau looking at him with an expression of profound remorse on his black-bearded face.

"One never knows," said Puzzeau in a deep ba.s.s whisper. "I want to hear you say again that you have forgiven me. Also, our old Commandant, who, thank the stars, is recovering, charged me that if ever you and I met I was to tell you----"

A dozen voices shouting "Corporal!" interrupted his speech, and with a despairing shrug of his huge shoulders the honest fellow ran after his men, leaving the Commandant's message undelivered.

At the edge of the wood he turned and waved his powerful arm, and as he vanished, Dennis, still rubbing his throat, stepped out briskly beside the German prisoners, who numbered eighty all told.

The big powerful brutes could have eaten their little guards, and Dennis with them, but they shambled along almost at a run, perfectly demoralised.

A short tramp across some ploughland, where brigades of active little men in blue-painted helmets were waiting, brought the prisoners to the French trenches, where Dennis had to run the gauntlet of half a dozen very wide awake but very polite officers, who pa.s.sed him still farther to the rear.

He was long leagues from the British Army away to the north of the Somme, and was puzzling how on earth he was to join it, when an automobile dashed from a side road, hooting imperiously for him to get out of the way.

"Confound you!" said Dennis to himself as he jumped rather ignominiously on to the bank, but the car stopped, and the driver rose in his seat, looking back at him.

"No, monsieur--it is not possible! It cannot be the Lieutenant Dashwood, surely!" called out the young Frenchman, and instantly forgetting his annoyance, Dennis ran towards the car.

"What, Martique, my dear fellow! Will wonders never cease? It is indeed the Lieutenant Dashwood, as you call him, and in no end of a hat, too!

How can I get back to our lines?"

The good-looking young Frenchman, perhaps a little thinner and more fine-drawn since the time when he and Dennis first met, laughed aloud with delight.

"_Cher ami_, nothing is simpler. Jump in. I am going straight to Fricourt, if that will help you."

"Great Scott! I left my Governor not a mile from there the day before yesterday!" shouted Dennis, vaulting into the motor-car. "How are things with us?"

"Magnificent!" laughed Martique; "but what are you doing down here?"

"Just escaped from the German lines, old chap," was the reply; and as the brave little car raced away at a really dangerous speed he recounted his latest adventure, to the delight and envy of his old acquaintance.

By good roads and bad roads and no roads at all Martique found his way across country with unerring sagacity, until they found themselves at a level crossing a few miles behind the British advanced line.

A long hospital train was waiting in a siding for the next convoy of motor ambulances which should arrive from the various dressing-stations.

The little village, not much knocked about by sh.e.l.l-fire, was occupied by a reserve brigade, and as the cap crossed the rails Martique shut off his engines.

"I thought so," he said, getting out and looking at one of his back tyres, "we punctured half a mile back on the road, and I must put on a spare wheel. She wants some water too, and an oil up, so I am afraid you will have to cool your heels for the next quarter of an hour. No," he added, as Dennis prepared to help him, "I do all my own repairs--much rather. Thanks, yes, I will have a cigarette," and Martique slipped off his coat.

It was good to be back among his own people once more, and with a smile of immense satisfaction on his face Dennis strolled along the little street, taking everything in.

There were Army Service Corps motor wagons on supply, and an infantry platoon came swinging round the corner, looking very bronzed and fit.

From their black b.u.t.tons he saw that they belonged to a rifle battalion in the reserve.

An orderly was holding horses outside a dirty little estaminet, and, riding his machine on the cobbled sidewalk, a motor dispatch-rider threaded his way with marvellous skill among the little groups of villagers and fatigue parties.

Where a lane crossed the street at right angles he saw the white line of a trench close to the backs of the houses, and walked towards it.

At the corner of the trench a Red Cross nurse was in the act of posting a letter in the field collection box. There were nurses from the waiting ambulance train among the crowd in the street.

After a long gaze over the country beyond the trench he returned to retrace his steps, when something in the att.i.tude of the nurse at the pillar-box attracted his attention. Her back was towards him, and she was peering round the angle in a furtive kind of way.

He stood still, and then he noticed that the door of the collecting box was open, and that while she peered along the deserted trench she was gathering the letters and dropping them into a receptacle beneath her white ap.r.o.n.

"I didn't know they had women letter carriers out here," thought Dennis; "possibly they take them down on the hospital train for quickness'

sake--and yet----"

An indefinable suspicion followed on the heels of his surmise as the girl turned her head, and in an instant he recognised the red hair and dark eyes of the waitress in the London restaurant.

The rumble of the motor lorries at the cross-roads deadened the noise of his approach as he came softly up behind her, and then his suspicions were confirmed beyond any possibility of doubt.

"Got you at last, Frau von Dussel!" he exclaimed, seizing her arm; and with a low cry she dropped a bunch of letters on to the ground, thrust her hand into the breast of her ap.r.o.n, and drew out a Browning pistol.

But he was too quick for her, and his fingers closed like a vice on her wrist.

"Brute, you are hurting me!" she wailed.

"Not half so much as you have hurt some people I could mention!" he retorted hotly. "You are my prisoner, you vixen!"

For a moment the big dark eyes blazed unutterable hatred, and then she laughed aloud.

The unrestrained laugh of a German woman is the index to the German character. It is one of the most horribly unmusical sounds on earth.

"You shall never take me alive!" she hissed.

"And there I beg to differ; I _have_ taken you, though how long you will remain alive will rest with the higher powers."

He kicked the Browning which she had dropped aside with his foot, and for an instant she struggled with a violence that surprised him, giving vent to a piercing shriek which brought several soldiers running to the spot. Among them was one of the Military Police.