The Red Horizon Part 1

The Red Horizon.

by Patrick MacGill.

FOREWORD

_To_ PATRICK MACGILL, Rifleman No. 3008, London Irish.

DEAR PATRICK MACGILL,

There is open in France a wonderful exhibition of the work of the many gallant artists who have been serving in the French trenches through the long months of the War.

There is not a young writer, painter, or sculptor of French blood, who is not risking his life for his country. Can we make the same proud boast?

When I recruited you into the London Irish--one of those splendid regiments that London has sent to Sir John French, himself an Irishman--it was with grat.i.tude and pride.

You had much to give us. The rare experiences of your boyhood, your talents, your brilliant hopes for the future. Upon all these the Western hills and loughs of your native Donegal seemed to have a prior claim. But you gave them to London and to our London Territorials. It was an example and a symbol.

The London Irish will be proud of their young artist in words, and he will for ever be proud of the London Irish Regiment, its deeds and valour, to which he has dedicated such great gifts. May G.o.d preserve you.

Yours sincerely,

ESHER.

_President_ County of London

Callander. Territorial a.s.sociation.

_16th September, 1915._

CHAPTER 1

THE Pa.s.sING OF THE REGIMENT

I wish the sea were not so wide That parts me from my love; I wish the things men do below Were known to G.o.d above.

I wish that I were back again In the glens of Donegal; They'll call me coward if I return, But a hero if I fall.

"Is it better to be a living coward, Or thrice a hero dead?"

"It's better to go to sleep, my lad,"

The Colour Sergeant said.

Night, a grey troubled sky without moon or stars. The shadows lay on the surface of the sea, and the waves moaned beneath the keel of the troops.h.i.+p that was bearing us away on the most momentous journey of our lives. The hour was about ten. Southampton lay astern; by dawn we should be in France, and a day nearer the war for which we had trained so long in the cathedral city of St. Albans.

I had never realized my mission as a rifleman so acutely before. (p. 014)

"To the war! to the war!" I said under my breath. "Out to France and the fighting!" The thought raised a certain expectancy in my mind.

"Did I think three years ago that I should ever be a soldier?" I asked myself. "Now that I am, can I kill a man; run a bayonet through his body; right through, so that the point, blood red and cruelly keen, comes out at the back? I'll not think of it."

But the thoughts could not be chased away. The month was March, and the night was bitterly cold on deck. A sharp penetrating wind swept across the sea and sung eerily about the dun-coloured funnel. With my overcoat b.u.t.toned well up about my neck and my Balaclava helmet pulled down over my ears I paced along the deck for quite an hour; then, s.h.i.+vering with cold, I made my way down to the cabin where my mates had taken up their quarters. The cabin was low-roofed and lit with two electric lamps. The corners receded into darkness where the shadows cl.u.s.tered thickly. The floor was covered with sawdust, packs and haversacks hung from pegs in the walls; a gun-rack stood in the centre of the apartment; b.u.t.ts down and muzzles in line, the rifles (p. 015) stretched in a straight row from stern to cabin stairs. On the benches along the sides the men took their seats, each man under his equipment, and by right of equipment holding the place for the length of the voyage.

My mates were smoking, and the whole place was dim with tobacco smoke.

In the thick haze a man three yards away was invisible.

"Yes," said a red-haired sergeant, with a thick blunt nose, and a broken row of tobacco-stained teeth; "we're off for the doin's now."

"Blurry near time too," said a c.o.c.kney named Spud Higgles. "I thought we weren't goin' out at all."

"You'll be there soon enough, my boy," said the sergeant. "It's not all fun, I'm tellin' you, out yonder. I have a brother----"

"The same bruvver?" asked Spud Higgles.

"What d'ye mean?" inquired the sergeant.

"Ye're always speakin' about that bruvver of yours," said Spud. "'E's only in Ally Sloper's Cavalry; no man's ever killed in that mob."

"H'm!" snorted the sergeant. "The A.S.C. runs twice as much risk as a line regiment."

"That's why ye didn't join it then, is it?" asked the c.o.c.kney. (p. 016)

"Hold yer beastly tongue!" said the sergeant.

"Well, it's like this," said Spud----

"Hold your tongue," snapped the sergeant, and Spud relapsed into silence.

After a moment he turned to me where I sat. "It's not only Germans that I'll look for in the trenches," he said, "when I have my rifle loaded and get close to that sergeant----"

"You'll put a bullet through him"; I said, "just as you vowed you'd do to me some time ago. You were going to put a bullet through the sergeant-major, the company cook, the sanitary inspector, the army tailor and every single man in the regiment. Are you going to destroy the London Irish root and branch?" I asked.

"Well, there's some in it as wants a talking to at times," said Spud.

"'Ave yer got a f.a.g to spare?"

Somebody sung a ragtime song, and the cabin took up the chorus. The boys bound for the fields of war were light-hearted and gay. A journey from the Bank to Charing Cross might be undertaken with a more serious air: it looked for all the world as if they were merely out on (p. 017) some night frolic, determined to throw the whole mad vitality of youth into the escapade.

"What will it be like out there?" I asked myself. The war seemed very near now. "What will it be like, but above all, how shall I conduct myself in the trenches? Maybe I shall be afraid--cowardly. But no! If I can't bear the discomforts and terrors which thousands endure daily I'm not much good. But I'll be all right. Vanity will carry me through where courage fails. It would be such a grand thing to become conspicuous by personal daring. Suppose the men were wavering in an attack, and then I rushed out in front and shouted: 'Boys, we've got to get this job through'--But, I'm a fool. Anyhow I'll lie on the floor and have a sleep."

Most of the men were now in a deep slumber. Despite an order against smoking, given a quarter of an hour before, a few of my mates had the "f.a.gs" lit, and as the lamps had been turned off the cigarettes glowed red through the gloom. The sleepers lay in every conceivable position, some with faces turned upwards, jaws hanging loosely and tongues stretching over the lower lips; some with knees curled up and (p. 018) heads bent, frozen stiff in the midst of a grotesque movement, some with hands clasped tightly over their b.r.e.a.s.t.s and others with their fingers bent as if trying to clutch at something beyond their reach. A few slumbered with their heads on their rifles, more had their heads on the sawdust-covered floor, and these sent the sawdust fluttering whenever they breathed. The atmosphere of the place was close and almost suffocating. Now and again someone coughed and spluttered as if he were going to choke. Perspiration stood out in little beads on the temples of the sleepers, and they turned round from time to time to raise their Balaclava helmets higher over their eyes.

And so the night wore on. What did they dream of lying there? I wondered. Of their journey and the perils that lay before them? Of the glory or the horror of the war? Of their friends whom, perhaps, they would never see again? It was impossible to tell.

For myself I tried not to think too clearly of what I might see to-morrow or the day after. The hour was now past midnight and a new day had come. What did it hold for us all? n.o.body knew--I fell asleep.