Under the Enemy Wall
With the coming of dusk came Dennis Dashwood back to the old battalion,
just at roll-call. The last quarter of a mile he performed at the
double, and burst into the fire-trench like a bolt from the blue.
When his brother officers shook hands with him--for all were delighted
at his return--an irresistible murmur of welcome rippled along A
Company, and as Hawke's name was called at the moment, that worthy
replied with a ringing yell.
"Report yourself at office to-morrow," said the lieutenant in charge of
No. 2 Platoon, and Harry Hawke so far forgot himself as to answer,
"Right-o, Governor!" at the same time lifting his trench helmet on to
the point of his bayonet and waving it frantically.
An enemy sniper promptly sent it spinning on to the top of the parados.
"You shall do four days' field punishment, Hawke!" said the outraged
officer.
"Forty days if you like, sir--I don't care what becomes of me. 'Ere's
Mr. Dashwood back agin--that's good enough!"
No. 2 Platoon, carried away by the infectious enthusiasm, joined in the
shout.
"Another word," cried the lieutenant, "and No. 2 Platoon shall go back
into the reserve!" And amid the dead silence that followed that awful
threat, Dennis reached them, lifting a warning finger.
"Steady, men," he said. "Thank you for the welcome, but it's not done in
the best platoons, you know. How are you, Littlewood?"
"Top-hole, old chap! Where have you been, you beggar? You've managed to
completely demoralise the company."
"You shall have a narrative of my expedition all highly coloured, by and
by," laughed Dennis. "I've had no end of a time, and I've brought back
the news that we've got the Prussians in front of us by way of a
change."
"The dickens we have!" said Littlewood. "Any chance of their
counter-attacking?"
"That's the idea, old man. I'm going on listening-post to-night, and I
shouldn't wonder if we get it pretty hot. Bob tells me you've had it in
the neck whilst I've been away."
"By Jove, yes!" said Littlewood gravely, "seventy-five casualties last
night. Spencer's gone, young Fitzhugh, Blennerhasset, and Bowles, all
killed. There wasn't enough of Bowles left to bury even--nothing but one
boot with a foot in it--high explosive, you know, and he was only
married two days before he came out!"
"Rotten hard lines!" said Dennis, passing along the front of the
platoon, and stopping before Harry Hawke.
"You and Tiddler are 'for it' to-night, remember," he said, and the two
men grinned delightedly. "Ah, Wetherby! Going strong?"
"A1," replied the boy, as the parade was dismissed, "but I say, we've
got beastly quarters this time. Look here," and he pointed to a mere
dint in the side of the trench with a piece of sacking by way of
protection from the vulgar gaze.
"Hum! we'll alter that to-morrow--it's certainly not palatial," said
Dennis. "I suppose there's none of my clobber come up?"
"Oh yes, it's all here; I saw to that," said young Wetherby, blushing
like a girl, as he pointed to a haversack and a brown valise which
contained his friend's campaigning kit.
"What a good little chap you are!" exclaimed Dennis.
"Not at all. I fagged for you at Harrow, and somehow I had the idea
you'd turn up," and young Wetherby blushed again.
He was a pretty pink-faced boy, who wrote extremely sweet poetry in his
odd moments.
"Well, I'm going to have a shave," said Dennis; "and I say, Wetherby,
you might grope in the kit-bag and put a refill in that spare torch of
mine. I've got an idea it may be useful to-night. Oh, hang this rain!"
The steady drizzle which had set in as the light faded had turned to a
heavy, pitiless downpour.
"What a night!" murmured Harry Hawke, as he lay on his stomach in two
inches of water some twenty yards in front of the trench with his pal,
Tiddler, beside him. "An' me on the peg to-morrer!"
"Bet you there won't be no show," said Tiddler.
"Don't you make too sure of that, Cocky. I'll put a shilling on Mr.
Dashwood both ways, and he's got a notion that something's up."
They both looked round, as a slim figure in a thin mackintosh crawled up
alongside.
"Hear anything, Hawke?" said Dennis.
"Not so far, sir, but it's bloomin' difficult to 'ear to-night--the rain
makes such a patter on the chalk, and it's fillin' up the shell 'oles a
fair knock-art."
"Well now, look here," said Dennis impressively, "I'm going to shove
along, and I want you both to listen with your eyes. You know the Morse
code, and if you see anything straight in front of you, pass the word
back to Mr. Wetherby on the parapet behind."
"But you ain't goin' alone, sir! You'll let one of us come wiv yer!"
"I am going alone, Hawke. I marked the lie of the ground before the
light went, and it's as easy as walking down Piccadilly. If I can't find
out what I want I shall come back; anyhow, look and listen!" And he
glided off into the rain and was lost to view long before the slither of
his footsteps had died away.
Two hundred yards separated friend and foe; two hundred yards of
pulverised No Man's Land, now soaked like a sponge. About midway
stretched an unfinished German trench, from which our guns had driven
the enemy before they had had time to complete it. It was little more
than a wet shallow ditch now, with a line of sandbags on the British
side, and when Dennis had crossed it he continued his perilous course on
hands and knees.
It was a zigzag course to avoid the thirty or forty shell holes that
our guns had made, and as he wormed himself forward the darkness of the
night and the strange silence of the enemy batteries on that sector
confirmed him more than ever in his conviction that something was in
preparation.
The trench he was approaching was of quite unusual strength, with a
formidable redoubt making a salient in one place, and as he reached the
foot of it he knew that a wall of sandbags nearly fifteen feet high
towered above his head.
He had seen that before the light went. Now, in the pitchy darkness of
the drenching rain, as he crouched at the foot of the wall he could hear
the hoarse murmur of many voices behind it, as it seemed to him.
He looked back across that dreary No Man's Land, and then again at the
barrier in front of him, and, carrying his life in his hand as he well
knew, began to worm his way up the face of the sandbags.
The actual climb presented little difficulty to an athlete; the danger
was if a rocket should soar into the sky and some sharp eye discover
him.
But the desire to learn something of the enemy's movements from their
conversation deadened all sense of risk, until he had reached the last
row of sandbags but one, when, without any warning, a group of heads
popped up over the parapet, and five officers with night glasses
examined the British line.
He could have reached out and taken the first one by the collar, so
close was he, and clinging there, ready to drop and bolt for it, he
listened with all his ears.
Secure from all eavesdropping--for who would venture across that No
Man's Land on such a night?--the five men talked freely, with all the
blatant self-assumption of Prussian sabre rattlers, and the wet wind
that brought their words to him brought also the smell of their cigars.
But if the listener's pulse quickened at their conversation, his heart
beat faster still at the conclusion of it.
"By the way, Von Dussel," said one of them, "how comes it that you are
going in with us to-night? Surely you are not abandoning the role that
you have filled with such success?" And Dennis recognised the short
laugh that preluded the reply.
"Not at all, Herr Colonel," said the nearest of the five, "but I have
had no word to-day from my wife, so I know it is of no use penetrating
their lines. Besides, I have an old grudge against the regiment in front
of us--a quarrel I hope to settle to-night."
"You may rest quite easy that you will do so," laughed the colonel; "our
five battalions of Prussians are going to do what their Bavarian and
Saxon comrades failed to accomplish. Let me see, it is General
Dashwood's Brigade that is before us here, _nicht wahr?_"
"Yes," chortled Von Dussel; "and it is with the Dashwood family that I
hope to renew an interrupted acquaintance, the pig hounds!"
Dennis had never found it necessary to place such a powerful restraint
upon himself as he did at that moment, and it was perhaps a lucky thing
that the five men withdrew as the spy spoke.
His own clutch on the sandbags had been gradually relaxing, and his
feet were so cramped that he regained the ground with difficulty.
For several seconds he paused irresolute, figuring out how long it would
take him to crawl back to the British trench, and then, suddenly coming
to a very hazardous decision, he sat down on his heels with his back
against the German sandbags.
Spreading the skirt of his saturated mackintosh over his knees, and
holding the Orilux torch which young Wetherby had recharged for him
between his ankles, he breathed a silent prayer to Heaven, and pressed
the button.
Before he had started he had pasted a strip of paper over the electric
bulb to reduce the light, leaving only a tiny aperture in the centre of
it.
But the two men on listening-post in the distance caught the gleam
distinctly, and read off the Morse code message in whispered chorus
without a mistake.
"Wetherby," twinkled the tiny speck from the foot of the enemy trench,
"find Bob at once, and tell him that five Prussian battalions will
attack in half an hour. They are to form up on this side of the line of
sandbags midway between us, and the signal for their advance will be the
turning on of their searchlights. If he'll move our chaps forward to
your side of the sandbags and lie doggo, the brutes will get the
surprise of their lives, for they're cocksure of a walk-over. Tell Bob
they're attacking with emptied magazines, and it will be bayonet
work--that'll fetch him."
The listening-post waited eagerly for more, but the Orilux did not show
again, and when Hawke crawled back to find Mr. Wetherby, his heart sank
into his muddy boots, for the officer boy was not there.
Meanwhile Dennis had gathered himself together for the return journey.
It seemed an hour since the voices above him had ceased, and a thousand
wild doubts chased one another through his brain, but he had not left
the shelter of the wall three yards when he glided back to it again, and
wormed himself into a crevice at its base.
Earth had come dribbling from the top of the parapet, and following the
earth panting men scrambling down the sandbags until they reached the
ground. One trod upon his shoulder as he lay there, but the lad never
moved, and whispered words all about him told that the enemy was
mustering for the assault.
At the end of a few minutes the soft squelch of heavy boots died away in
the direction of the British line, and Dennis Dashwood swallowed rapidly
and felt sick. He could not see his hand in front of him, and the rain
continued to hiss without cessation, falling into a neighbouring shell
hole with an ever-increasing plop.
Had they seen his signal and understood it? was his agonised thought, as
eight powerful searchlights were suddenly turned on to the ground in
front.
Everything was now as light as day, and he saw the Prussian battalions
lying on their faces, packed like sardines in a tin, behind those
sandbags that concealed them from his own people.
The iron plates on their boot soles gleamed like silver, and not a man
of them moved. Then, without warning, a hurricane of German shells
plumped into the trench where he had left his beloved battalion, raking
it from end to end.
No need for those waiting bayonets now, was his soul-rending thought, as
he saw the trench disappear in a holocaust of flame and smoke. He had
acted for the best, but he ought to have gone back with his news, for,
if the battalion was where he had left it, then the 2/12th Royal
Reedshires must have been wiped off the face of the earth!