How Dennis Came in for a Taste of Dispatch Riding
The staff cap, with its scarlet band and gold-edged peak, spun round in
the air and dropped half a dozen yards away, as its late wearer sprang
on to the parapet and vanished out of sight.
"Great Scott! Are you mad, Dennis?" shouted Dan, still holding him
tightly; but there was no madness in the boy's face as he turned it to
his cousin.
"You blithering ass! You seventeen different assorted kinds of an utter
idiot!" yelled Dennis. "I know that man--he is a German spy, and you've
made me miss him!"
Dan Dunn's arms released their grip and fell nerveless to his sides.
"Old chap!" he exclaimed in a voice of bitter regret. "How was I
possibly to tell that? Perhaps it's not too late now!" And he bounded on
to the sandbags, but there was no sign of Anton van Drissel.
For a moment they leaned side by side over the parapet, trying to
penetrate the darkness that once more enveloped No Man's Land, and then
as Captain Bob came hurrying up, blowing his whistle for all he was
worth to recall the retiring platoon, Dennis drew his own, and the
shrill signal brought the men tumbling back again into the fire trench.
"Line up!" cried the captain as Dennis and Dan, both speaking at once,
told him what had happened.
"I knew something had gone wrong," said Bob bitterly. "What a thousand
pities the skunk got clear! Well, it's no use crying over spilt milk,
and the artillery's on them now. Do you hear that?"
The momentary lull was broken by a tremendous booming from our guns in
the rear, and a hurricane of shells began to burst on the German front
line trench and the ground beyond it, a steady, systematic bombardment,
which grew in volume and increased in intensity.
"Do I hear it?" shouted Dennis. "One can't help hearing it. What do you
mean?"
"I mean," replied his brother, making himself heard with considerable
difficulty, "that it is the beginning of the artillery preparation,
which will continue day and night without ceasing for the next week.
After that the great push is coming. That is what I mean!"
The 18-pounders, the 9.2's, the big howitzers farther to the rear--guns
of every kind and calibre blended in one infernal concert, which
extended for more than eighty miles, from the Yser to the Somme.
"If those Brandenburgers are wise they'll stay where they are to-night,"
said the Australian corporal. "Hallo, Fritz! Why, Dennis, here's your
prisoner, after all."
A white-faced man, crying "Kamerad!" at the top of his voice, climbed in
over the sandbags, trembling like a leaf, and Dennis saw that it was
indeed the Saxon he had captured at the bottom of the crump-hole over
there.
"I told you I would come," said the prisoner. "I am sick of it all--it
is horrible. The Emperor is a man without heart. He takes good care to
keep out of harm's way, and sends us to our death by the thousand.
Himmel! Look! This was my company!" And he lifted his quivering hands as
he saw the litter of corpses that filled the trench from side to side.
"We are told that you kill all prisoners and all the wounded, but I do
not believe that. They feed us on lies and very little bread, while our
officers have wine and even pianos in their dug-outs," and the
nerve-shattered man burst into tears.
Captain Bob was in the act of giving instructions to one of his
sergeants to pass the deserter to the rear, when another "brass hat"
came along the trench--the genuine article this time, and one of the
best, for it was Brigadier-General Dashwood himself, followed by his
brigade-major.
The brigadier was a thick-set, soldierly looking man, fit as a fiddle in
spite of the grey hairs which mingled with his brown moustache, and his
eyes lit up as he saw his two sons still safe and well.
He was not one of those officers who paid a hasty visit now and then to
the lines, ducking his head when his guide said, "Duck, sir!" where the
wall of the traverse was low, and who, after a perfunctory glance about
him through a gold-rimmed monocle went back again to headquarters,
"having seen nothing and learned nothing." General Dashwood knew that he
had a certain section of the front to defend, and did his work
thoroughly, and the whisper often ran along the fire trench by night as
well as day: "Look out, boys, here's the brigadier!"
He listened to all they had to tell him, and questioned the deserter
closely, turning to his brigade-major several times and exchanging a
meaning nod.
"The battalion has done very well, but that is nothing new," he said
with a proud smile. "Still, it won't hurt them to hear my opinion. You'd
better come with me, Dennis; there'll be nothing more doing here
to-night, and I want someone to go to Divisional Headquarters with a
message. You'll be back at your post by daylight," and, after picking
his way along the trench to the far end and examining the German line
carefully through a periscope, he returned, to find the men of Bob's
platoon lifting out the dead Saxons and laying them on the reverse side
of the parados to await the arrival of the sanitary squad with their
picks and shovels.
"Well, so long, old chap," said Dan Dunn, as Dennis passed him. "I've
enjoyed my visit. When you look me up I hope we shall be able to give
you an equally good time. Fearfully sorry I spoiled your shot."
The cousins shook hands, and as Dennis followed his father and the
brigade-major, Bob carried Dan into their dug-out, where he found that
Australian panacea for all evils--hot tea.
It was only a short walk to Brigade Headquarters, a couple of cottages
by the roadside under the lee of a rising bank which had so far
preserved them from the German shells. One red lamp burned there, and a
sentinel stood by the doorway, leaning on his rifle.
"I'm sorry you have got that confounded cigarette habit so soon," said
Dashwood senior with a dry smile. "But you will find a box on that
table, and you can amuse yourself while we get out a report."
Dennis looked round the bare little room, contrasting it with their
luxurious home in London. A flagged map was pinned on one wall, some
British warms and mackintoshes hung on pegs, a couple of field
bedsteads, whose disarranged blankets showed that they had been hastily
left when the alarm was given, occupied one end, everything else was
bare and comfortless.
Standing in the doorway, Dennis heard the click of a typewriter, and
could not help catching some of the report as his father paced backwards
and forwards, filling a pipe with his favourite mixture as he dictated.
"Three Saxon battalions delivered a surprise attack at 10.35 to-night,
and one of them succeeded in penetrating my first line trench, No. ----,
through the failure of a machine-gun, which was put out of action by an
H.E.," began the brigadier. "The 2/12th Royal Reedshire Battalion,
Platoons 1 and 2, behaved with great gallantry, and scarcely a man of
the enemy was left alive. The bodies were lying six deep when I visited
the position. Some confusion was caused by a German in British staff
uniform making his way along the trench shouting 'Retire!' but I have
the honour to report that through the initiative of Second-Lieutenant
Dashwood, of the battalion, and Corporal Daniel Dunn, of the
Australians, gallantly supported by two privates, whose names I shall
forward later on, and who successfully bombed the enemy, the attack
completely broke down, and was not supported by the Brandenburg
Division, which, I am informed by a prisoner, was waiting in reserve."
When Dennis heard his own name mentioned he stepped out into the
darkness with a strange tingling all over him. It seemed like
eavesdropping to listen any more, but he knew that proud thrill in his
father's voice, and the boy's heart beat high with a great happiness.
Some horses, picketed under the lee of the bank, fidgeted at their
shackles, and over everything was the thunder of that incessant
bombardment which, as Bob had said, was to go on night and day. He was
watching the shrapnel bursting in the distance far over the German
lines, where our guns were delivering a barrage fire to isolate the
front enemy trenches from food and supports, when the sentry called to
him.
"The general is asking for you, sir," said the man, and Dennis stepped
back and re-entered the cottage.
"Here you are, my boy," said his father. "You know the way to Divisional
Headquarters. There are a couple of motor-cycles standing at the end of
the cottage, take your pick and away with you."
"You will find the road has been badly shelled at the next village,"
said the brigade-major, holding up his map-case and tracing the route
Dennis would have to follow. "And here, at this point, the supply column
got it rather badly earlier in the night--there may be wagons still
lying about. When you've passed that it's all plain sailing."
"Do I report to you, sir, on my return?" inquired the boy.
"Yes," said the brigadier. "Then you can leave the bike and rejoin your
company. I could have 'phoned this, but it's all experience, and may
stand you in good stead."
Perhaps the brigade-major, as he nodded a cheery good night, understood
the father's wish to place the youngster out of danger, if it were only
for a few hours, but as Dennis swung into the saddle and waved his hand,
neither he nor the brigadier foresaw the things that were going to
happen.
The road was a fairly straight one, and Dennis found the shell holes
without difficulty, shutting off his engine only just in time as he
plunged down into the first of them like Quintus Curtius of old.
"Hang it, that's a bad start," he laughed when he found the machine had
sustained no injury, but it took him a good five minutes to get it up
again, and after that he was more careful.
A little farther on he encountered a supply column of the A.S.C., and
coasted by them without much difficulty, until at last a red lantern
gleaming above a green one told him that he had reached Divisional
Headquarters.
There he found the staff busy, and a good deal of quiet bustle as the
various brigade commanders' reports arrived, and a telegraphic operator
in a shell-proof dug-out was transmitting the night's news to Sir
Douglas Haig at ----.
Dennis handed in his dispatch, which was duly read by the
lieutenant-general commanding the division, a florid officer with a
white moustache, who held the communication in one hand while he rubbed
his chin thoughtfully with the other.
"Where is the officer from General Dashwood?" he inquired suddenly, and
word was passed for Dennis.
The divisional general looked him up and down for a moment, and his brow
cleared. "If you are not wanted immediately I should like you to carry
a query for me to the officer commanding the brigade on the right of the
division," he said. "There is something I do not quite understand in his
report, and unfortunately, the field wire has broken down somewhere and
we can't get through to him. Is your machine in order?"
"Yes, sir," said Dennis, and the general turned to a shorthand clerk.
"Just take this down, will you? And type it out quickly," he said, and
he rapidly dictated to the man.
"Captain Thompson," he said when he had finished, "kindly explain to
this officer how he is to reach Donaldson," and the staff captain took
the young lieutenant to the large scale map at the end of the room,
where everything was marked out in squares, each numbered and lettered.
The captain was lucid, and Dennis quick of intelligence, and in less
than five minutes from entering the room he was turning his cycle round
and darting off on his new mission.