Private Peter Dunshie, scout, groping painfully and profanely through
a close-growing wood, paused to unwind a clinging tendril from his
bare knees. As he bent down, his face came into sudden contact with
a cold, wet, prickly bramble-bush, which promptly drew a loving but
excoriating finger across his right cheek.
He started back, with a muffled exclamation. Instantly there arose at
his very feet the sound as of a motor-engine being wound up, and a
flustered and protesting cock-pheasant hoisted itself tumultuously
clear of the undergrowth and sailed away, shrieking, over the trees.
Finally, a hare, which had sat cowering in the bracken, hare-like,
when it might have loped away, selected this, the one moment when it
ought to have sat still, to bolt frantically between Peter's bandy
legs and speed away down a long moon-dappled avenue.
Private Dunshie, a prey to nervous shock, said what naturally rose
to his lips. To be frank, he said it several times. He had spent the
greater part of his life selling evening papers in the streets of
Glasgow: and the profession of journalism, though it breeds many
virtues in its votaries, is entirely useless as a preparation for
conditions either of silence or solitude. Private Dunshie had no
experience of either of these things, and consequently feared them
both. He was acutely afraid. What he understood and appreciated was
Argyle Street on a Saturday night. That was life! That was light! That
was civilisation! As for creeping about in this uncanny wood, filled
with noxious animals and adhesive vegetation--well, Dunshie was
heartily sorry that he had ever volunteered for service as a scout. He
had only done so, of course, because the post seemed to offer certain
relaxations from the austerity of company routine--a little more
freedom of movement, a little less trench-digging, and a minimum of
supervision. He would have been thankful for a supervisor now!
That evening, when the scouts doubled ahead, Lieutenant Simson had
halted them upon the skirts of a dark, dreich plantation, and said--
"A and B Companies represent the enemy. They are beyond that crest,
finishing the trenches which were begun the other day. They intend
to hold these against our attack. Our only chance is to take them by
surprise. As they will probably have thrown out a line of outposts,
you scouts will now scatter and endeavour to get through that line, or
at least obtain exact knowledge of its composition. My belief is that
the enemy will content themselves with placing a piquet on each of the
two roads which run through their position; but it is possible that
they will also post sentry-groups in the wood which lies between.
However, that is what you have to find out. Don't go and get captured.
Move!"
The scouts silently scattered, and each man set out to pierce his
allotted section of the enemy's position. Private Dunshie, who had
hoped for a road, or at least a cart-track, to follow, found himself,
by the worst of luck, assigned to a portion of the thick belt of wood
which stretched between the two roads. Nature had not intended him
for a pioneer: he was essentially a city man. However, he toiled on,
rending the undergrowth, putting up game, falling over tree-roots, and
generally acting as advertising agent for the approaching attack.
By way of contrast, two hundred yards to his right, picking his way
with cat-like care and rare enjoyment, was Private M'Snape. He was of
the true scout breed. In the dim and distant days before the call of
the blood had swept him into "K(1)," he had been a Boy Scout of no
mean repute. He was clean in person and courteous in manner. He could
be trusted to deliver a message promptly. He could light a fire in a
high wind with two matches, and provide himself with a meal of sorts
where another would have starved. He could distinguish an oak from an
elm, and was sufficiently familiar with the movements of the heavenly
bodies to be able to find his way across country by night. He was
truthful, and amenable to discipline. In short, he was the embodiment
of a system which in times of peace had served as a text for
innumerable well-meaning but muddle-headed politicians of a certain
type, who made a specialty of keeping the nation upon the alert
against the insidious encroachments of--Heaven help us!--Militarism!
To-night all M'Snape's soul was set on getting through the enemy's
outpost line, and discovering a way of ingress for the host behind
him. He had no map, but he had the Plough and a fitful moon to guide
him, and he held a clear notion of the disposition of the trenches in
his retentive brain. On his left he could hear the distressing sounds
of Dunshie's dolorous progress; but these were growing fainter. The
reason was that Dunshie, like most persons who follow the line of
least resistance, was walking in a circle. In fact, a few minutes
later his circuitous path brought him out upon the long straight road
which ran up over the hill towards the trenches.
With a sigh of relief Dunshie stepped out upon the good hard macadam,
and proceeded with the merest show of stealth up the gentle gradient.
But he was not yet at ease. The over-arching trees formed a tunnel in
which his footsteps reverberated uncomfortably. The moon had retired
behind a cloud. Dunshie, gregarious and urban, quaked anew. Reflecting
longingly upon his bright and cosy billet, with the "subsistence"
which was doubtless being prepared against his return, he saw no
occasion to reconsider his opinion that in the country no decent body
should over be called up to go out after dark unaccompanied. At that
moment Dunshie would have bartered his soul for the sight of an
electric tram.
The darkness grew more intense. Something stirred in the wood beside
him, and his skin tingled. An owl hooted suddenly, and he jumped.
Next, the gross darkness was illuminated by a pale and ghostly
radiance, coming up from behind; and something brushed past
him--something which squeaked and panted. His hair rose upon his
scalp. A friendly "Good-night!" uttered in a strong Hampshire accent
into his left ear, accentuated rather than soothed his terrors. He sat
down suddenly upon a bank by the roadside, and feebly mopped his moist
brow.
The bicycle, having passed him, wobbled on up the hill, shedding a
fitful ray upon alternate sides of the road. Suddenly--raucous and
stunning, but oh, how sweet!--rang out the voice of Dunshie's lifelong
friend, Private Mucklewame.
"Halt! Wha goes there!"
The cyclist made no reply, but kept his devious course. Private
Mucklewame, who liked to do things decently and in order, stepped
heavily out of the hedge into the middle of the road, and repeated his
question in a reproving voice. There was no answer.
This was most irregular. According to the text of the spirited little
dialogue in which Mucklewame had been recently rehearsed by his piquet
commander, the man on the bicycle ought to have said "Friend!" This
cue received, Mucklewame was prepared to continue. Without it he was
gravelled. He tried once more.
"Halt! Wha goes--"
"On His Majesty's Service, my lad!" responded a hearty voice; and the
postman, supplementing this information with a friendly good-night,
wobbled up the hill and disappeared from sight.
The punctilious Mucklewame was still glaring severely after this
unseemly "gagger," when he became aware of footsteps upon the road.
A pedestrian was plodding up the hill in the wake of the postman. He
would stand no nonsense this time.
"Halt!" he commanded. "Wha goes there?"
"Hey, Jock," inquired a husky voice, "is that you?"
This was another most irregular answer. Declining to be drawn into
impromptu irrelevancies, Mucklewame stuck to his text.
"Advance yin," he continued, "and give the coontersign, if any!"
Private Dunshie drew nearer.
"Jock," he inquired wistfully, "hae ye gotten a fag?"
"Aye," replied Mucklewame, friendship getting the better of
conscience.
"Wull ye give a body yin?"
"Aye. But ye canna smoke on ootpost duty," explained Mucklewame
sternly. "Forbye, the officer has no been roond yet," he added.
"Onyway," urged Dunshie eagerly, "let nae be your prisoner! Let me
bide with the other boys in here ahint the dyke!"
The hospitable Mucklewame agreed, and Scout Dunshie, overjoyed at the
prospect of human companionship, promptly climbed over the low wall
and attached himself, in the _rôle_ of languishing captive, to Number
Two Sentry-Group of Number Three Piquet.