The last conscious thought in the mind of Private Jock Macalister as he
reached the German trench was to get down into it; his next conscious
thought to get out of it. Up there on the level there were
uncomfortably many bullets, and even as he leaped on the low parapet
one of these struck the top of his forehead, ran deflecting over the
crown of his head, and away. He dropped limp as a pole-axed bullock,
slid and rolled helplessly down into the trench.
When he came to his senses he found himself huddled in a corner against
the traverse, his head smarting and a bruised elbow aching abominably.
He lifted his head and groaned, and as the mists cleared from his dazed
eyes he found himself looking into a fat and very dirty face and the
ring of a rifle muzzle about a foot from his head. The German said
something which Macalister could not understand, but which he rightly
interpreted as a command not to move. But he could hear no sound of
Scottish voices or of the uproar of hand-to-hand fighting in the
trench. When he saw the Germans duck down hastily and squeeze close up
against the wall of the trench, while overhead a string of shells
crashed angrily and the shrapnel beat down in gusts across the trench,
he diagnosed correctly that the assault had failed, and that the
British gunners were again searching the German trench with shrapnel.
His German guard said something to the other men, and while one of them
remained at the loophole and fired an occasional shot, the others drew
close to their prisoner. The first thing they did was to search him, to
turn each pocket outside-in, and when they had emptied these, carefully
feel all over his body for any concealed article. Macalister bore it
all with great philosophy, mildly satisfied that he had no money to
lose and no personal property of any value.
Their search concluded, the Germans held a short consultation, then one
of them slipped round the corner of the traverse, and, returning a
moment later, pointed the direction to Macalister and signed to him to
go.
The trench was boxed into small compartments by the traverses, and in
the next section Macalister found three Germans waiting for him. One of
them asked him something in German, and on Macalister shaking his head
to show that he did not understand, he was signaled to approach, and a
German ran deftly through his pockets, fingering his waist, and,
searching for a money-belt, made a short exclamation of disgust, and
signed to the prisoner to move on round the next traverse, at the same
time shouting to the Germans there, and passing Macalister on at the
bayonet point. This performance was repeated exactly in all its details
through the next half-dozen traverses, the only exception being that in
one an excitable German, making violent motions with a bayonet as he
appeared round the corner, insisted on his holding his hands over his
head.
At about the sixth traverse a German spoke to him in fairly good,
although strongly accented, English. He asked Macalister his rank and
regiment, and Macalister, knowing that the name on his shoulder-straps
would expose any attempt at deceit, gave these. Another man asked
something in German, which apparently he requested the English speaker
to translate.
"He say," interpreted the other, "Why you English war have made?"
Macalister stared at him. "I'm no English," he returned composedly.
"I'm a Scot."
"That the worse is," said the interpreter angrily. "Why have it your
business of the Scot?"
Macalister knitted his brows over this. "You mean, I suppose, what
business is it of ours! Well, it's just Scotland's a bit of Britain, so
when Britain's at war, we are at war."
A demand for an interpretation of this delayed the proceedings a
little, and then the English speaker returned to the attack.
"For why haf Britain this war made!" he demanded.
"We didna' make it," returned Macalister. "Germany began it." Excited
comment on the translation.
"If you'll just listen to me a minute," said Macalister deliberately,
"I can prove I am right. Sir Edward Grey----" Bursts of exclamation
greeted the name, and Macalister grinned slightly.
"You'll no be likin' him," he said. "An' I can weel understan' it."
The questioner went off on a different line. "Haf your soldiers know,"
he asked, "that the German fleet every day a town of England bombard?"
Macalister stared at him. "Havers!" he said abruptly.
The German went on to impart a great deal of astonishing
information--of the German advance on Petrograd, the invasion of Egypt,
the extermination of the Balkan Expedition, the complete blockade of
England, the decimation of the British fleet by submarines.
After some vain attempts to argue the matter and disprove the
statements, Macalister resigned himself to contemptuous silence, only
rousing when the German spoke of England and English, to correct him to
Britain and British.
When at last their interest flagged, the Germans ordered him to move
on. Macalister asked where he was going and what was to be done with
him, and received the scant comfort that he was being sent along to an
officer who would send him back as a prisoner, if he did not have him
killed--as German prisoners were killed by the English.
"British, you mean," Macalister corrected again. "And, besides that,
it's a lie."
He was told to go on; but as he moved be saw a foot-long piece of
barbed wire lying in the trench bottom. He asked gravely whether he
would be allowed to take it, and, receiving a somewhat puzzled and
grudging assent, picked it up, carefully rolled it in a small coil, and
placed it in a side jacket pocket. He derived immense gratification and
enjoyment at the ensuing searches he had to undergo, and the explosive
German that followed the diving of a hand into the barbed-wire pocket.
He arrived at last at an officer and at a point where a communication
trench entered the firing trench. The officer in very mangled English
was attempting to extract some information, when he was interrupted by
the arrival from the communication trench of a small party led by an
officer, a person evidently of some importance, since the other officer
sprang to attention, clicked his heels, saluted stiffly, and spoke in a
tone of respectful humility. The new arrival was a young man in a
surprisingly clean and beautifully fitting uniform, and wearing a
helmet instead of the cloth cap commonly worn in the trenches. His face
was not a particularly pleasant one, the eyes close set, hard, and
cruel, the jaw thin and sharp, the mouth thin-lipped and shrewish. He
spoke to Macalister in the most perfect English.
"Well, swine-hound," he said, "have you any reason to give why I should
not shoot you?" Macalister made no reply. He disliked exceedingly the
look of the new-comer, and had no wish to give an excuse for the
punishment he suspected would result from the officer's displeasure.
But his silence did not save him.
"Sulky, eh, my swine-hound!" said the officer. "But I think we can
improve those manners."
He gave an order in German, and a couple of men stepped forward and
placed their bayonets with the points touching Macalister's chest.
"If you do not answer next time I speak," he said smoothly, "I will
give one word that will pin you to the trench wall and leave you there.
Do you understand!" he snapped suddenly and savagely. "You English
dog."
"I understand," said Macalister. "But I'm no English. I'm a Scot"
The crashing of a shell and the whistling of the bullets overhead moved
the officer, as it had the others, to a more sheltered place. He seated
himself upon an ammunition-box, and pointed to the wall of the trench
opposite him.
"You," he said to Macalister, "will stand there, where you can get the
benefit of any bullets that come over. I suppose you would just as soon
be killed by an English bullet as by a German one."
Macalister moved to the place indicated.
"I'm no anxious," he said calmly, "to be killed by either a _British_
or a German bullet."
"Say 'sir' when you speak to me," roared the officer. "Say 'sir.'"
Macalister looked at him and said "Sir"--no more and no less.
"Have you no discipline in your English army?" he demanded, and
Macalister's lips silently formed the words "British Army." "Are you
not taught to say 'sir' to an officer?"
"Yes--sir; we say 'sir' to any officer and any gentleman."
"So," said the officer, an evil smile upon his thin lips. "You hint, I
suppose, that I am not a gentleman? We shall see. But first, as you
appear to be an insubordinate dog, we had better tie your hands up."
He gave an order, and after some little trouble to find a cord,
Macalister's hands were lashed behind his back with the bandage from a
field-dressing. The officer inspected the tying when it was completed,
spoke angrily to the cringing men, and made them unfasten and re-tie
the lashing as tightly as they could draw it.
"And now," said the officer, "we shall continue our little
conversation; but first you shall beg my pardon for that hint about a
gentleman. Do you hear me--beg," he snarled, as Macalister made no
reply.
"If I've said anything you're no likin' and that I'm sorry for masel',
I apologize," he said.
The officer glared at him with narrowed eyes. "That'll not do," he said
coldly. "When I say 'beg' you'll beg, and you will go on your knees to
beg. Do you hear? Kneel!"
Macalister stood rigid. At a word, two of the soldiers placed
themselves in position again, with their bayonets at the prisoner's
breast. The officer spoke to the men, and then to Macalister.
"Now," he said, "you will kneel, or they will thrust you through."
Macalister stood without a sign of movement; but behind his back his
hands were straining furiously at the lashings upon his wrist. They
stretched and gave ever so little, and he worked on at them with a
desperate hope dawning in his heart.
"Still obstinate," sneered the officer. "Well, it is rather early to
kill you yet, so we must find some other way."
At a sentence from him one of the men threw his weight on the
prisoner's shoulders, while the other struck him savagely across the
tendons behind the knees. Whether he would or no, his knees had to
give, and Macalister dropped to them. But he was not beaten yet. He
simply allowed himself to collapse, and fell over on his side. The
officer cursed angrily, commanding him to rise to his knees again; the
men kicked him and pricked him with their bayonet points, hauled him at
last to his knees, and held him there by main force.
"And now you will beg my pardon," the officer continued. Macalister
said nothing, but continued to stretch at his bonds and twist gently
with his hands and wrists.
The officer spent the next ten minutes trying to force his prisoner to
beg his pardon. They were long and humiliating and painful minutes for
Macalister, but he endured them doggedly and in silence. The officer's
temper rose minute by minute. The forward wall of the firing trench was
built up with wicker-work facings and the officer drew out a thick
switch.
"You will speak," he said, "or I shall flay you in strips and then
shoot you."
Macalister said nothing, and was slashed so heavily across the face
that the stick broke in the striker's hands. The blood rose to his
head, and deep in his heart he prayed, prayed only for ten seconds with
his hands loose; but still he did not speak.
At the end of ten minutes the officer's patience was exhausted.
Macalister was thrust back against the trench wall, and the officer
drew out a pistol.
"In five minutes from now," he gritted, "I'm going to shoot you. I give
you the five minutes that you may enjoy some pleasant thoughts in the
interval."
Macalister made no answer, but worked industriously at the lashings on
his wrists. The bandage stretched and loosened, and at last, at long
last, he succeeded in slipping one turn off his hand. He had no hope
now for anything but death, and the only wish left to him in life was
to get his hands free to wreak vengeance on the dapper little monster
opposite him, to die with his hands free and fighting.
The minutes slipped one by one, and one by one the loosened turns of
the bandage were uncoiled. The trenches at this point were apparently
very close, for Macalister could hear the crack of the British rifles,
the clack-clack-clack of a machine gun at close range, and the thought
flitted through his mind that over there in his own trenches his own
fellows would hear presently the crack of the officer's pistol with no
understanding of what it meant. But with luck and his loosened hands he
would give them a squeal or two to listen to as well.
Then the officer spoke. "One minute," he said, "and then I fire." He
lifted his pistol and pointed it straight at Macalister's face. "I am
not bandaging your eyes," went on the officer, "because I want you to
look into this little round, round hole, and wait to see the fire spout
out of it at you. Your minute is almost up ... you can watch my finger
pressing on the trigger."
The last coil slipped off Macalister's wrist; he was free, but with a
curse he knew it to be too late. A movement of his hands from behind
his back would finish the pressure of that finger, and finish him.
Desperately he sought for a fighting chance.
"I would like to ask," he muttered hoarsely, licking his dry lips,
"will ye no kill me if I say what ye wanted?"
Keenly he watched that finger about the trigger, breathed silent relief
as he saw it slacken, and watched the muzzle drop slowly from level of
his eyes. But it was still held pointed at him, and that barely gave
him the chance he longed for. Only let the muzzle leave him for an
instant, and he would ask no more. The officer was a small and slightly
made man, Macalister, tall and broadly built, big almost to hugeness
and strong as a Highland bull.
"So," said the officer softly, "your Scottish courage flinches then,
from dying?"
While he spoke, and in the interval before answering him, Macalister's
mind was running feverishly over the quickest and surest plan of
action. If he could get one hand on the officer's wrist, and the other
on his pistol, he could finish the officer and perhaps get off another
round or two before he was done himself. But the pistol hand might
evade his grasp, and there would be brief time to struggle for it with
those bayonets within arm's length. A straight blow from the shoulder
would stun, but it might not kill. Plan after plan flashed through his
mind, and was in turn set aside in search of a better. But he had to
speak.
"It's no just that I'm afraid," he said very slowly. "But it was just
somethin' I thought I might tell ye."
The pistol muzzle dropped another inch or two, with Macalister's eye
watching its every quiver. His words brought to the officer's mind
something that in his rage he had quite overlooked.
"If there is anything you can tell me," he said, "any useful
information you can give of where your regiment's headquarters are in
the trenches, or where there are any batteries placed, I might still
spare your life. But you must be quick," he added "for it sounds as if
another attack is coming."
It was true that the fire of the British artillery had increased
heavily during the last few minutes. It was booming and bellowing now
in a deep, thunderous roar, the shells were streaming and rushing
overhead, and shrapnel was crashing and hailing and pattering down
along the parapet of the forward trench; the heavy boom of big shells
bursting somewhere behind the forward line and the roaring explosion of
trench mortar bombs about the forward trench set the ground quivering
and shaking. A shell burst close overhead, and involuntarily Macalister
glanced up, only to curse himself next moment for missing a chance that
his captor offered by a similar momentary lifting of his eyes.
Macalister set his eyes on the other, determined that no such chance
should be missed again.
But now, above the thunder of the artillery and of the bursting shells,
they could hear the sound of rising rifle-fire. The officer must have
glimpsed the hope in Macalister's face, and, with an oath, he brought
the pistol up level again.
"Do not cheat yourself," he said. "You cannot escape. If a charge comes
I shall shoot you first."
With a sinking heart Macalister saw that his last slender hope was
gone. He could only pray that for the moment no attack was to be
launched; but then, just when it seemed that the tide of hope was at
its lowest ebb, the fates flung him another chance--a chance that for
the moment looked like no chance; looked, indeed, like a certainty of
sudden death. A soft, whistling hiss sounded in the air above them, a
note different from the shrill whine and buzz of bullets, the harsh
rush and shriek of the shells. The next instant a dark object fell with
a swoosh and thump in the bottom of the trench, rolled a little and lay
still, spitting a jet of fizzing sparks and wreathing smoke.
When a live bomb falls in a narrow trench it is almost certain that
everyone in that immediate section will at the worst die suddenly, at
the best be badly wounded. Sometimes a bomb may be picked up and thrown
clear before it can burst, but the man who picks it up is throwing away
such chance as he has of being only wounded for the smaller chance of
having time to pitch the bomb clear. The first instinct of every man is
to remove himself from that particular traverse; the teaching of
experience ought to make him throw himself flat on the ground, since by
far the greater part of the force and fragments from the explosion
clear the ground by a foot or two. Of the Germans in this particular
section of trench some followed one plan, some the other. Of the two
men guarding the prisoner the one who was near the corner of the
traverse leapt round it, the other whirled himself round behind
Macalister and crouched sheltering behind his body. Two men near the
corner of the other traverse disappeared round it, two more flung
themselves violently on their faces, and another leapt into the opening
of the communication trench. The officer, without hesitation, dropped
on his face, his head pressed close behind the sandbag on which he had
been sitting.
The whole of these movements happened, of course, in the twinkling of
an eye. Macalister's thoughts had been so full of his plans for the
destruction of the officer that the advent of the bomb merely switched
these plans in a new direction. His first realized thought was of the
man crouching beside and clinging to him, the quick following instinct
to free himself of this check to his movements. He was still on his
knees, with the man on his left side; without attempting to rise he
twisted round and backwards, and drove his fist full force in the
other's face; the man's head crashed back against the trench wall, and
his limp body collapsed and rolled sideways. His mind still running in
the groove of his set purpose, before his captor's relaxed fingers had
well loosed their grip, Macalister hurled himself across the trench and
fastened his ferocious grip on the body of the officer. He rose to his
feet, lifting the man with a jerking wrench, and swung him round. The
swift idea had come to him that by hurling the officer's body on top of
the bomb, and holding him there, he would at least make sure of his
vengeance, might even escape himself the fragments and full force of
the shock. Even in the midst of the swing he checked, glanced once at
the spitting fuse, and with a stoop and a heave flung the officer out
over the front parapet, leaped on the firing step, and hurled himself
over after him.
It must be remembered that the burning fuse of a bomb gives no
indication of the length that remains to burn before it explodes the
charge. The fuse looks like a short length of thin black rope, its
outer cover does not burn and the same stream of sparks and smoke pours
from its end in the burning of the first inch and of the last. There
was nothing, then, to show Macalister whether the explosion would come
before his quick muscles could complete their movement, or whether long
seconds would elapse before the bomb burst. It was an even chance
either way, so he took the one that gave him most. Fortune favored him,
and the roar of the explosion followed his flying heels over the
parapet.
The officer, dazed, shaken, and not yet realizing what had happened,
had gathered neither his wits nor his limbs to rise when Macalister
leaped down almost on top of him. The officer's hand still clung to the
pistol he had held, but Macalister's grasp swooped and clutched and
wrenched the weapon away.
"Get up, my man," he said grimly. "Get up, or I'll blow a hole in ye as
ye lie."
He added emphasis with the point of the pistol in the other's ribs, and
the officer staggered to his feet.
"Now," said Macalister, "you'll quick mairch--that way." He waved the
pistol towards the British trench.
The officer hesitated.
"It is no good," he said sullenly. "I should be killed a dozen times
before I got across."
"That's as may be," said Macalister coolly.
"But if you don't go you'll get your first killing here, and say
naething o' the rest o' the dizen."
A shell cracked overhead, and the shrapnel ripped down along the trench
behind them with a storm of bullets thudding into the ground about
their feet.
"I will make you an offer," said the officer hurriedly. "You can go
your way and leave me to go mine."
"You'll mak' an offer!" said Macalister contemptuously. "Here"--and he
waved the pistol across the open again. "Get along there."
"I will give you--" the officer began, when Macalister broke in
abruptly.
"This is no a debatin' society," he said. "But ye'll no walk ye maun
just drive."
Without further words he thrust the pistol in his pocket, grabbed and
took one handful of coat at the back of the officer's neck and another
at the skirt, and commenced to thrust him before him across the open
ground. But the officer refused to walk, and would have thrown himself
down if Macalister's grasp had not prevented it.
"Ye would, would ye?" growled the Scot, and seized his captive by the
shoulders and shook him till his teeth rattled. "Now," he said angrily,
"ye'll come wi' me or--" he broke off to fling a gigantic arm about the
officer's neck--"or I'll pull the heid aff ye."
So it was that the occupants of the British trench viewed presently the
figure of a huge Highlander appearing through the drifting haze and
smoke at a trot, a head clutched close to his side by a circling arm, a
struggling German half-running, half-dragging behind his captor.
Arrived at the parapet, "Here," shouted Macalister. "Catch, some o'
ye." He jerked his prisoner forward and thrust him over and into the
trench, and leaped in after him.
It was purely on impulse that Private Macalister flung his prisoner out
of the German trench, but it was a set and reasoned purpose that made
him drag his struggling captive back over the open to the British
trench. He knew that the British line would not shoot at an obvious
kilted Highlander, and he supposed that the Germans would hesitate to
fire on one dragging an equally obvious German officer behind him.
Either his reasoning or his blind luck held true, and both he and his
captive tumbled over into the British trench unhurt. An officer
appeared, and Macalister explained briefly to him what had happened.
"You'd better take him back with you," said the officer when he had
finished, and glanced at the German. "He's not likely to make trouble,
I suppose, but there are plenty of spare rifles, and you had better
take one. What's left of your battalion has withdrawn to the support
trench."
"I am an officer," said the German suddenly to the British subaltern?
"I surrender myself to you, and demand to be treated as an honorable
prisoner of war. I do not wish to be left in this man's hands."
"Wish this and wish that," said Macalister, "and much good may your
wishing do. Ye've heard what this officer said, so rise and mairch,
unless ye wad raither I took ye further like I brocht ye here." And he
moved as if to scoop the German's head under his arm again.
"I will not," said the German furiously, and turned again to the
subaltern. "I tell you I surrender----"
"There's no need for you to surrender," said the subaltern quietly. "I
might remind you that you are already a prisoner; and I am not here to
look after prisoners."
The German yielded with a very bad grace, and moved ahead of Macalister
and his threatening bayonet, along the line and down the communication
trench to the support trench. Here the Scot found his fellows, and
introduced his prisoner, made his report to an officer, and asked and
received permission to remain on guard over his captive. Then he
returned to the corner of the trench where the remains of his own
company were. He told them how he had fallen into the German trench and
what had happened up to the moment the German officer came into the
proceedings.
"This is the man," he said, nodding his head towards the officer, "and
I wad just like to tell you carefully and exactly what happened between
him an' me. Ye'll understaun' better if a' show ye as weel as tell ye.
Weel, now, he made twa men tie ma' hands behind ma' back first--if ony
o' ye will lend me a first field dressing I'll show ye how they did
it."
A field dressing was promptly forthcoming, and Macalister bound the
German's hands behind his back, overcoming a slight attempt at
resistance by a warning word and an accompanying sharp twist on his
arms.
"It's maybe no just as tight as mine was," said Macalister when he had
finished, and stood the prisoner back against the wall. "But it'll dae.
Then he made twa men stand wi' fixed bayonets against ma' breast, and
when I hinted what was true, that he was no gentleman, he said I was to
kneel and beg his pardon. And now you," he said, nodding to the
prisoner, "will go down on your marrow-bones and beg mine."
"That is sufficient of this fooling," said the officer, with an attempt
at bravado. "It's your turn, I'll admit; but I will pay you well--"
Macalister interrupted him-"Ye'll maybe think it's a bit mair than
fooling ere I'm done wi' ye," he said. "But speakin' o' pay... and
thank ye for reminding me. Ower there they riped ma pooches, an' took
a'thing I had."
He stepped over to the prisoner, went expeditiously through his
pockets, removed the contents, and transferred them to his own.
"I'm no saying but what I've got mair than I lost," he admitted to the
others, who stood round gravely watching and thoroughly enjoying the
proceedings. "But then they took all I had, an' I'm only taking all he
has."
He pulled a couple of sandbags off the parapet and seated himself on
them.
"To go on wi' this begging pardon business," he said, "If a couple o'
ye will just stand ower him wi' your fixed bayonets.... Thank ye. I
wouldna' kneel," he continued, "so one o' them put his weight on my
shoulders----" He looked at one of the guards, who, entering promptly
into the spirit of the play, put his massive weight on the German's
shoulders, and looked to Macalister for further instructions.
"Then," said Macalister, "the ither guard gave me a swipe across the
back o' the knees."
The "swipe" followed quickly and neatly, and the German went down with
a jerk.
"That's it exactly," said Macalister, with a pleasantly reminiscent
smile. The German's temper broke, and he spat forth a torrent of abuse
in mixed English and German.
Macalister listened a moment. "I said nothing; so I think he shouldna'
be allowed to say anything," he remarked judicially. His comment met
with emphatic approval from his listeners.
"I think I could gag him," said one of his guards; "or if ye preferred
it I could just throttle his windpipe a wee bit, just enough to stop
his tongue and no to hurt him much."
With an effort the German regained his control. "There is no need," he
said sullenly; "I shall be silent."
"Weel," resumed Macalister, "there was a bit o' chaff back and forrit
between us, and next thing he did was to slap me across the face wi'
his hand. Do ye think," he appealed to his audience, "it would brak'
his jaw if I gave him a bit lick across it?"
He advanced a huge hand for inspection, and listened to the free advice
given to try it, and the earnest assurances that it did not matter much
if the jaw did break.
"Ye'll feenish him off presently onyway, I suppose?" said one, and
winked at Macalister.
"Just bide a wee," answered Macalister, "I'm coming to that. I think
maybe I'll no brak his jaw, for fair's fair, and I want to give as near
as I can to what I got."
He leant forward and dealt a mild but tingling slap on the German's
cheek.
"I think," he went on, "the next thing I got was a slash wi' a bit
switch he pulled out from the trench wall. We've no sticks like it
here, so I maun just do the best I can instead."
He leant forward and fastened a huge hand on the prisoner's
coat-collar, jerked him to him, and, despite his frantic struggles and
raging tongue, placed him face down across his knees and administered
punishment.
"I think that's about enough," he said, and returned the choking and
spluttering prisoner to his place between the guards.
"He kept me," he said, "on my knees, so I think he ought ... thank ye,"
as the German went down again none too gently. "After that he went on
saying some things it would be waste o' time to repeat. Swine dog was
about the prettiest name he had any use for. But there was another
thing he did; ye'll see some muck on my face and on my jacket. It came
there like this; he took hold o' me by the hair--this way." And
Macalister proceeded to demonstrate as he explained.
"Then--my hands being tied behind my back you will remember, like
this--it was easy enough for him to pull me over on my face--like
this... and rub my face in the mud.... The bottom o' this trench is in
no such a state a' filth as theirs, but it'll just have to do." He
hoisted the German back to his knees. "Then I think it was after that
the pistol and the killing bit came in." And Macalister put his hand to
his pocket and drew out the officer's pistol which he had thrust there.
"He gave me five minutes, so I'll give him the same. Has ony o' ye a
watch?"
A timekeeper stepped forward out of the little knot of spectators that
crowded the trench, and Macalister requested him to notify them when
only one minute of the five was left.
"My manny here was good enough," said Macalister, "to tell me he
wouldna' bandage my eyes, because he wanted me to look down the muzzle
of his pistol; so now," turning to the prisoner, "you can watch my
finger pulling the trigger."
As the four minutes ebbed, the German's courage ran out with them. The
jokes and laughter about him had ceased. Macalister's face was set and
savage, and there was a cold, hard look in his eye, a stern ferocity on
his mud and bloodstained face that convinced the German the end of the
five minutes would also surely see his end.
"One minute to go," said the timekeeper. A sigh of indrawn breaths ran
round the circle, and then tense silence. Outside the trench they were
in the roar of the guns boomed unceasingly, the shells whooped and
screwed overhead, and from oat in front came the crackle and roar of
rifle-fire; and yet, despite the noise, the trench appeared still and
silent. Macalister noted that, as he had noted it over there in the
German trench.
"Time's up," said the man with the watch. The German, looking straight
at the pistol muzzle and the cold eye behind the sights, gasped and
closed his eyes. The silence held, and after a dragging minute the
German opened his eyes, to find the pistol lowered but still pointing
at him.
"To make it right and fair," said Macalister, "his hands should be
loose, because I had managed to loose mine. Will one o' ye ... thank
ye. It's no easy," continued Macalister, "to just fit the rest o' the
program in, seeing that it was here a bomb fell in the trench, an' his
men bein' weel occupied gettin' oot o' its way, I threw him ower the
parapet and dragged him across to oor lines. Maybe ye'd like to try and
throw me out the same way."
The German was perhaps a brave enough man, but the ordeal of those last
five minutes especially had brought his nerve to near its breaking
strain. His lips twitched and quivered, his jaw hung slack, and at
Macalister's invitation he tittered hysterically. There was a stir and
a movement at the back of the spectators that by now thronged the
trench, and an officer pushed his way through.
"What's this?" he said. "Oh, yes! the prisoner. Well, you fellows might
have more sense than heap yourselves up in a crowd like this. One
solitary Krupp dropping in here, and we'd have a pretty-looking mess.
Open out along the trench there, and keep low down. You can be ready to
move in a few minutes now; we are being relieved here and are going
further back. Now what about this prisoner? Who is looking after him?"
"I am, sir," said Macalister. "The Captain said I was to take him
back."
"Right," said the subaltern. "You can take him with you when you go.
They've got some more prisoners up the line, and you can join them."
It was here that the episode ended so far as Macalister was concerned,
and his relations with the German officer thereafter were of the purely
official nature of a prisoner's guard. There were some other
indignities, but in these Macalister had no hand. They were probably
due to the circulation of the tale Macalister had told and
demonstrated, and were altogether above and beyond anything that
usually happens to a German prisoner. They need not be detailed, but
apparently the most serious of them was the removal of a portion of the
black mud which masked the German's face, so as to leave a
diamond-shaped patch, of staring cleanness over one eye, after the
style of a music-hall star known to fame as the White-eyed Kaffir;
the ripping of a small portion of that garment which permitted of the
extraction of a dangling shirt into a ridiculous wagging tail about a
foot and a half long, and a pressing invitation, accompanied by a hint
from the bayonet point, to give an exposition of the goose-step at the
head of the other prisoners whenever they and their escort were passing
a sufficient number of troops to form a properly appreciative audience.
Probably a Cockney-born Highlander was responsible for these
pleasantries, as he certainly was for the explanation he gave to
curious inquirers.
"He's mad," he explained. "Mad as a coot; thinks he's the devil, and
insists on wagging his little tail. I have to keep him marching with
his hands up this way, because he might try to grab my rifle. Now, it's
no use you gritting your teeth and mumbling German swear words,
cherrybim. Keep your 'ands well up, and proceed with the goose-step."
But with all this Macalister had nothing to do. When he had returned as
nearly as he could the exact sufferings he had endured, he was quite
satisfied to let the matter drop. "I suppose," he said reflectively,
when the officer had gone, after giving him orders to see the prisoner
back, "as that finishes this play, we'll just need to treat ma lad here
like an ordinary preesoner. Has ony o' ye got a wee bit biscuit an'
bully beef an' a mouthful o' water t' gie the puir shiverin' crater!"