All in It : K(1) Carries On Part 22

At the present moment we are right back at rest once more, and are being treated with a consideration, amounting almost to indulgence, which convinces us that we are being "fattened up"--to employ the gruesome but expressive phraseology of the moment--for some particularly strenuous enterprise in the near future.

Well, we are ready. It is nine months since Loos, and nearly six since we sc.r.a.ped the nightmare mud of Ypres from our boots, _gum, thigh_, for the last time. Our recent casualties have been light--our only serious effort of late has been the recapture of the Kidney Bean--the new drafts have settled down, and the young officers have been blooded. And above all, victory is in the air. We are going into our next fight with new-born confidence in the powers behind us. Loos was an experimental affair; and though to the humble instruments with which the experiment was made the proceedings were less hilarious than we had antic.i.p.ated, the results were enormously valuable to a greatly expanded and entirely untried Staff.

"We shall do better this time," said Major Wagstaffe to Bobby Little, as they stood watching the battalion a.s.semble, in workmanlike fas.h.i.+on, for a route-march. "There are just one or two little points which had not occurred to us then. We have grasped them now, I think."

"Such as?"

"Well, you remember we all went into the Loos show without any very lucid idea as to how far we were to go, and where to knock off for the day, so to speak. The result was that the advance of each Division was regulated by the extent to which the German wire in front of it had been cut by our artillery. Ours was well and truly cut, so we penetrated two or three miles. The people on our left never started at all. Lord knows, they tried hard enough. But how could any troops get through thirty feet of uncut wire, enfiladed by machine-guns? The result was that after forty-eight hours' fighting, our whole attacking front, instead of forming a nice straight line, had bagged out into a series of bays and peninsulas."

"Our crowd wasn't even a peninsula," remarked Bobby with feeling. "For an hour or so it was an island!"

"I think you will find that in the next show we shall go forward, after intensive bombardment, quite a short distance; then consolidate; then wait till the _whole_ line has come up to its appointed objective; then bombard again; then go forward another piece; and so on. That will make it impossible for gaps to be created. It will also give our gunners a chance to cover our advance continuously. You remember at Loos they lost us for hours, and dare not fire for fear of hitting us. In fact, I expect that in battle plans of the future, instead of the artillery trying to conform to the movements of the infantry, matters will be reversed. The guns, after preliminary bombardment, will create a continuous Niagara of exploding sh.e.l.ls upon a given line, marked in everybody's map, and timed for an exact period, just beyond the objective; and the infantry will stroll up into position a comfortable distance behind, reading the time-table, and dig themselves in. Then the barrage will lift on to the next line, and we shall toddle forward again. That's the new plan, Bobby! Close artillery cooperation, and a series of limited objectives!"

"It sounds all right," agreed Bobby. "We shall want a good many guns, though, shan't we?"

"We shall. But don't let that worry you. It is simply raining guns at the Base now. In fact, my grandmother in the War Office"--this mythical relative was frequently quoted by Major Wagstaffe, and certainly her information had several times proved surprisingly correct--"tells me that by the beginning of next year we shall have enough guns, of various calibres, to make a continuous line, hub to hub, from one end of our front to the other."

"Golly!" observed Captain Little, with respectful relish.

"That means," continued Wagstaffe, "that we shall be able to blow Brother Boche's immediate place of business to bits, and at the same time take on his artillery with counter-battery work. Our sh.e.l.l-supply is practically unlimited now; so when the next push comes, we foot-sloggers ought to have a more gentlemanly time of it than we had at Loos and Wipers. And I'll tell you another thing, Bobby. We shall have command of the air too."

"That will be a pleasant change," remarked Bobby. "I'm getting tired of putting my fellows under arrest for rus.h.i.+ng out of carefully concealed positions in order to gape up at Boche planes going over.

Angus M'Lachlan is as bad as any of them. The fellow--"

"But you have not seen many Boche planes lately?"

"No. Certainly not so many."

"And the number will grow beautifully less. Our little friends in the R.F.C. are getting fairly numerous now, and their machines have been improved out of all knowledge. They are rapidly a.s.suming the position of top dog. Moreover, the average Boche does not take kindly to flying. It is too--too individualistic a job for him. He likes to work in a bunch with other Boches, where he can keep step, and maintain dressing, and mark time if he gets confused. In the air one cannot mark time, and it worries Fritz to death. I think you will see, in the next unpleasantness, that we shall be able to maintain our aeroplane frontier somewhere over the enemy third line. That means that we shall make our own dispositions with a certain degree of privacy, and the Boche will not. Also, when our big guns get to work, they will not need to fire blindly, as in the days of our youth, but will be directed by one of our R.F.C. lads, humming about in his little bus above the target, perhaps fifteen miles from the gun. Hallo, there go the pipes! Tell your men to fall in."

"The whole business," observed Bobby, as he struggled into his equipment, "sounds so attractive that I am beginning quite to look forward to the next show!"

"Don't forget the Boche machine-guns, my lad," replied Wagstaffe.

"One seldom gets the chance," grumbled Bobby. "Is there no way of knocking them out?"

"Well--" Wagstaffe looked intensely mysterious--"of course one never knows, but--have you heard any rumours on the subject?"

"I have. About--"

"About the Hus.h.!.+ Hus.h.!.+ Brigade?"

Bobby nodded.

"Yes," he said. "Young Osborne, my best subaltern after Angus, disappeared last month to join it. Tell me, what _is_ the--"

"Hus.h.!.+ Hus.h.!.+" said Major Wagstaffe. "_Mefiez vous! Taisez vous_! and so on!"

The battalion moved off.

So much for the war-talk of veterans. Now let us listen to the novices.

"Bogle," said Angus M'Lachlan to his henchman, "I think we shall have to lighten this Wolseley valise of mine. With one thing and another it weighs far more than thirty-five pounds."

"That's a fact, sirr," agreed Mr. Bogle. "It carries ower mony books in the heid of it."

They shook out the contents of the valise upon the floor of Angus's bedroom--a loft over the kitchen in "A" Company's farm billet--and proceeded to prune Angus's personal effects. There were boots, socks, shaving-tackle, maps, packets of chocolate, and books of every size, but chiefly of the ever-blessed sevenpenny type.

"A lot of these things will have to go, Bogle," said Angus regretfully. "The colonel has warned officers about their kits, and it would never do to have mine turned back from the waggon at the last minute."

Mr. Bogle p.r.i.c.ked up his ears. "The waggon? Are we for off again, sirr?" he inquired.

"Indeed I could not say," replied the cautious Angus; "but it is well to be ready."

"The boys was saying, sirr," observed Bogle tentatively, "that there was to be another grand battle soon."

"It is more than likely," said Angus, with an air of profound wisdom.

"Here we are in June, and we must take the offensive, sooner or later, or summer will be over."

"What kind o' a battle will it be this time, sirr?" inquired Bogle respectfully.

"Oh, our artillery will pound the German trenches for a week or two, and then we shall go over the parapet and drive them back for miles,"

said Angus simply.

"And what then, sirr?"

"What then? We shall go on pus.h.i.+ng them until another Division relieves us."

Bogle nodded comprehendingly. He now had firmly fixed in his mind the essential details of the projected great offensive of 1916. He was not interested to go further in the matter. And it is this very faculty--philosophic trust, coupled with absolute lack of imagination--which makes the British soldier the most invincible person in the world. The Frenchman is inspired to glorious deeds by his great spirit and pa.s.sionate love of his own sacred soil; the German fights as he thinks, like a machine. But the British Tommy wins through owing to his entire indifference to the pros and cons of the tactical situation. He settles down to war like any other trade, and, as in time of peace, he is chiefly concerned with his holidays and his creature comforts. A battle is a mere incident between one set of billets and another. Consequently he does not allow the grim realities of war to obsess his mind when off duty. One might almost ascribe his success as a soldier to the fact that his domestic instincts are stronger than his military instincts.

Put the average Tommy into a trench under fire how does he comport himself? Does he begin by striking an att.i.tude and hurling defiance at the foe? No, he begins by inquiring, in no uncertain voice, where his ---- dinner is? He then examines his new quarters. Before him stands a parapet, b.u.t.tressed mayhap with hurdles or balks of timber, the whole being designed to preserve his life from hostile projectiles. How does he treat this bulwark? Unless closely watched, he will begin to chop it up for firewood. His next proceeding is to construct for himself a place of shelter. This sounds a sensible proceeding, but here again it is a case of "safety second." A British Tommy regards himself as completely protected from the a.s.saults of his enemies if he can lay a sheet of corrugated-iron roofing across his bit of trench and sit underneath it. At any rate it keeps the rain off, and that is all that his instincts demand of him. An ounce of comfort is worth a pound of security.

He looks about him. The parapet here requires fresh sandbags; there the trench needs pumping out. Does he fill sandbags, or pump, of his own volition? Not at all. Unless remorselessly supervised, he will devote the rest of the morning to inventing and chalking up a t.i.tle for his new dug-out--"Jock's Lodge," or "Burns' Cottage," or "Cyclists' Rest"--supplemented by a cautionary notice, such as--_No Admittance. This Means You_. Thereafter, with sh.e.l.ls whistling over his head, he will decorate the parapet in his immediate vicinity with picture postcards and cigarette photographs. Then he leans back with a happy sigh. His work is done. His home from home is furnished. He is now at leisure to think about "they Gairmans" again. That may sound like an exaggeration; but "Comfort First" is the motto of that lovable but imprudent gra.s.shopper, Thomas Atkins, all the time.

A sudden and pertinent thought occurred to Mr. Bogle, who possessed a Martha-like nature.

"What way, sir, will a body get his dinner, if we are to be fighting for twa-three days on end?"

"Every man," replied Angus, "will be issued, I expect, with two days'

rations. But the Colonel tells me that during hard fighting a man does not feel the desire for food--or sleep either for that matter.

Perhaps, during a lull, it may occur to him that he has not eaten since yesterday, and he may pull out a bit of biscuit or chocolate from his pocket, just to nibble. Or he may remember that he has had no sleep for twenty-four hours--so he just drops down and sleeps for ten minutes while there is time. But generally, matters of ordinary routine drop out of a man's thoughts altogether."

"That's a queer-like thing, a body forgetting his dinner!" murmured Bogle.

"Of course," continued Angus, warming to his theme like his own father in his pulpit, "if Nature is expelled with a pitchfork in this manner, for too long, _tamen usque recurret_."

"Is that a fact?" replied Bogle politely. He always adopted the line of least resistance when his master took to audible rumination. "Weel, I'll hae to be steppin', sir. I'll pit these twa blankets oot in the sun, in some place where the dooks frae the pond will no get dandering ower them. And if you'll sorrt your books, I'll hand ower the yins ye dinna require to the Y.M.C.A. hut ayont the village."