The Red Horizon Part 28

"Allowed to 'ave peace in that place! No fear; the Boches began to sh.e.l.l us, and they sent over fifty sh.e.l.ls in 'arf an 'our. All troops were ordered to leave the town and we went with the rest to a 'orsp under canvas in X----.

"A nice quiet place X---- was, me and Ted was along with two others in a bell-tent and 'ere we began to get better. Our clothes were taken from us, all my stuff and two packets of f.a.gs and put into a locker. I don't know what I was thinking of when I let the f.a.gs go. There was one feller as had two francs in his trousers' pocket when 'e gave 'is trousers in and 'e got the wrong trousers back. 'E discovered that one day when 'e was goin' to send the R.A.M.C. orderly out for beer for all 'ands.

"'Twas a 'ungry place X. We were eight days in bed and all we got was milk and once or twice a hegg. d.a.m.ned little heggs they were; (p. 276) they must 'ave been laid by tomt.i.ts in a 'urry. I got into trouble once; I climbed up the tent-pole one night just to 'ave a song on my own, and when I was on the top down comes the whole thing and I landed on Ted Vittle's bread basket. 'Is tempratoor was up to a 'undred and one point five next mornin'. The doctor didn't 'arf give me a look when 'e 'eard about me bein' up the pole."

"Was he a nice fellow, the doctor?" I asked.

"Not 'arf, 'e wasn't," said Bill. "When I got into my old uniform 'e looked 'ard at my cap. You remember it boys; 'twas more like a ragman's than a soldier of the King's. Then 'e arst me: ''Ave yer seen much war?' 'Not 'arf, I 'avent,' I told him. 'I thought so,' 'e said, 'judgin' by yer cap.' And 'e told the orderly to indent me for a brand new uniform. And 'e gave me two francs to get a drink when I was leavin'."

"Soft-hearted fellow," said Goliath.

"Was he!" remarked Bill. "Yer should be there when 'e came in one mornin'."

"'Ow d'ye feel?" he asked Ted Vittle.

"Not fit at all, sir," says Ted.

"Well carry on," said the doctor.

I looked at Ted, Ted looked at me and 'e tipped me the wink. (p. 277)

"'Ow d'ye feel," said the doctor to me.

"Not fit at all," I answers.

"Back to duties," 'e said and my jaw dropped with a click like a rifle bolt. 'Twas ten minutes after that when 'e gave me the two francs."

"I saw Spud 'Iggles, 'im that was wounded at Givenchy;" Bill informed us after he had lit a fresh cigarette.

"'Ole Spud!"

"'Ows Spud?"

"Not so bad, yer know," said Bill, answering our last question. "'E's got a job."

"A good one?" I queried.

"Not 'arf," Bill said. "'E goes round with the motor car that goes to places where soldiers are billeted and gathers up all the ammunition, bully beef tins, tins of biscuits and everything worth anything that's left behind--"

"Bill Teake. Is Bill Teake there?" asked a corporal at the door of the dug-out.

"I'm 'ere, old Sawbones," said Bill, "wot d'ye want me for?"

"It's your turn on sentry," said the corporal.

"Oh! blimey, that's done it!" grumbled Bill. "I feel my tempratoor (p. 278) goin' up again. It's always some d.a.m.n fatigue or another in this cursed place. I wonder when will I 'ave the luck to go sick again."

CHAPTER XX (p. 279)

THE WOMEN OF FRANCE

Lonely and still the village lies, The houses asleep and the blinds all drawn.

The road is straight as the bullet flies, And the east is touched with the tinge of dawn.

Shadowy forms creep through the night, Where the coal-stacks loom in their ghostly lair; A sentry's challenge, a spurt of light, A scream as a woman's soul takes flight Through the quivering morning air.

We had been working all morning in a cornfield near an _estaminet_ on the La Ba.s.see Road. The morning was very hot, and Pryor and I felt very dry; in fact, when our corporal stole off on the heels of a sergeant who stole off, we stole off to sin with our superiors by drinking white wine in an _estaminet_ by the La Ba.s.see Road.

"This is not the place to dig trenches," said the sergeant when we entered.

"We're just going to draw out the plans of the new traverse," Pryor explained. "It is to be made on a new principle, and a rifleman on sentry-go can sleep there and get wind of the approach of a (p. 280) sergeant by the vibration of stripes rubbing against the walls of the trench."

"Every man in the battalion must not be in here," said the sergeant looking at the khaki crowd and the full gla.s.ses. "I can't allow it and the back room empty."

Pryor and I took the hint and went to the low roofed room in the rear, where we found two persons, a woman and a man. The woman was sweating over a stove, frying cutlets and the man was sitting on the floor peeling potatoes into a large bucket. He was a thickset lump of a fellow, with long, hairy arms, dark heavy eyebrows set firm over sharp, inquisitive eyes, a snub nose, and a long scar stretching from the b.u.t.t of the left ear up to the cheekbone. He wore a nondescript pair of loose baggy trousers, a fragment of a s.h.i.+rt and a pair of bedroom slippers. He peeled the potatoes with a knife, a long rapier-like instrument which he handled with marvellous dexterity.

"Digging trenches?" he asked, hurling a potato into the bucket.

I understand French spoken slowly, Pryor, who was educated in Paris, speaks French and he told the potato-peeler that we had been at work since five o'clock that morning.

"The Germans will never get back here again unless as prisoners." (p. 281)

"They might thrust us back; one never knows," said Pryor.

"Thrust us back! Never!" The potato swept into the bucket with a whizz like a spent bullet. "Their day has come! Why? Because they're beaten, our 75 has beaten them. That's it: the 75, the little love. Pip! pip!

pip! pip! Four little imps in the air one behind the other. Nothing can stand them. Bomb! one lands in the German trench. _Plusieurs morts, plusieurs blesses._ Run! Some go right, some left. The second shot lands on the right, the third on the left, the fourth finishes the job. The dead are many; other guns are good, but none so good as the 75."

"What about the gun that sent this over?"

Pryor, as he spoke, pointed at the percussion cap of one of the gigantic sh.e.l.ls with which the Germans raked La Ba.s.see Road in the early stages of the war, what time the enemy's enthusiasm for destruction had not the nice discrimination that permeates it now. A light shrapnel sh.e.l.l is more deadly to a marching platoon than the biggest "Jack Johnson."

The sh.e.l.l relic before us, the remnant of a mammoth Krupp design, (p. 282) was cast on by a sh.e.l.l in the field heavy with ripening corn and rye, opposite the doorway. When peace breaks out, and holidays to the scene of the great war become fas.h.i.+onable, the woman of the _estaminet_ is going to sell the percussion cap to the highest bidder. There are many mementos of the great fight awaiting the tourists who come this way with a long purse, "apres la guerre." At present a needy urchin will sell the nose-cap of a sh.e.l.l, which has killed mult.i.tudes of men and horses, for a few sous. Officers, going home on leave, deal largely with needy French urchins who live near the firing line.

"A great gun, the one that sent that," said the Frenchman, digging the clay from the eye of a potato and looking at the percussion-cap which lay on the mantelpiece under a picture of the Virgin and Child. "But compared with the 75, it is nothing; no good. The big sh.e.l.l comes boom! It's in no hurry. You hear it and you're into your dug-out before it arrives. It is like thunder, which you hear and you're in shelter when the rain comes. But the 75, it is lightning. It comes silently, it's quicker than its own sound."

"Do you work here?" asked Pryor. (p. 283)

"I work here," said the potato-peeler.

"In a coal-mine?"

"Not in a coal-mine," was the answer. "I peel potatoes."

"Always?"

"Sometimes," said the man. "I'm out from the trenches on leave for seven days. First time since last August. Got back from Souchez to-day."