IV

Then Harry had a shock. There was a large sap running out from our line

along the crown of a steep ridge. This sap was not held during the day,

but at night was peopled with bombers and snipers, and it was a great

starting-place for the patrols. One night Harry went out from this sap

and crawled down the face of the ridge. It was a dark night, and the

Boches were throwing up many flares. One of these came to earth ten

yards from Harry. At that moment he was halfway down the slope, crouched

on one knee. However, when flares are about, to keep still in any

posture is better than to move, so Harry remained rigid. But one of the

new scouts behind was just leaving the sap, and hovered uncertainly on

the skyline as the light flared and sizzled below. Possibly he was seen,

possibly what followed was a chance freak of the Germans. Anyhow, a

moment later they opened with every machine-gun in the line, with

rifles, rifle-grenades, and high-velocity shells. So venomous was the

fire that every man in the line believed--and afterwards hotly

asserted--that the whole fury of it was concentrated on his particular

yard of trench. Few of us thought of the unhappy scouts lying naked

outside. Harry, of course, flattened himself to the ground, and tried to

wriggle into a hollow; on level ground you may with luck be safe under

wild fire of this kind for a long time. Being on a slope, Harry was

hopelessly exposed. 'I lay there,' he told me, 'and simply sweated with

funk; you won't believe me, but at one time I could literally _feel_ a

stream of machine-gun bullets ruffling my hair, and thudding into the

bank just above my back ... and they dropped half a dozen whizz-bangs

just in front of me. While it was going on I couldn't have moved for a

thousand pounds.... I felt _pinned_ to the ground ... then there was a

lull, and I leapt up ... so did old Smith ... bolted for the sap, and

simply dived in head first ... they were still blazing off sixteen to

the dozen, and it was the mercy of God we weren't hit ... talk about

wind-up.... And when we got in two bombers thought it was an attack, and

took us for Boches.... Rather funny, while the strafe was going on I

kept thinking, "Poor old Smith, he's a married man" (he was a few yards

from me) ... and Smith tells me _he_ was thinking, "Mr. Penrose ... a

married man ... married man...." What about some more whisky?'

Well, he made a joke of it, as one tries to do as long as possible, and

that night was almost happily exhilarated, as a man sometimes is after

escaping narrowly from an adventure. But I could see that it had been a

severe shock. The next night he had a cold and a bad cough, and said he

would not go out for fear of 'making a noise and giving the show away.'

The following night he went out, but came in very soon, and sat rather

glum in the dug-out, thinking of something. (I always waited up till he

came in to report, and we used to 'discuss the situation' over some

whisky or a little white wine.)

The following day the Colonel gave him a special job to do. There was

the usual talk of a 'raid' on a certain section of the enemy lines; but

there was a theory that this particular section had been evacuated.

Flares were sent up from all parts of it, but this was supposed to be

the work of one man, a hard worker, who walked steadily up and down,

pretending to be a company. Harry was told off to test the truth of this

myth--to get right up to that trench, to look in, and see what was in

it. It was a thing he had done twice before, at least, though myself I

should not have cared to do it at all. It meant the usual breathless,

toilsome wriggle across No Man's Land, avoiding the flares and the two

snipers who covered that bit of ground, finding a gap in the wire,

getting through without being seen, without noise, without catching his

clothes on a wandering barb, or banging his revolver against a multitude

of tin cans. Then you had to listen and wait, and, if possible, get a

look into the trench. When (and if) you had done that you had to get

back, turn round in a tiny space, pass the same obstacles, the same

snipers.... If at any stage you were spotted the odds against your

getting back at all were extremely large....

However, Harry was a scout, and it was his job. In the afternoon of that

day I met him somewhere in the line and made some would-be jocular

remark about his night's work. He seemed to me a little worried,

preoccupied, and answered shortly. Hewett was sitting near, shaving in

the sun, and said to him: 'You're a nasty, cold-blooded fellow, Harry,

crawling about like a young snake every night. But I suppose you like

it.'

Harry said slowly, with a casual air: 'Well, so I did, but I must say

that strafe the other night put the wind up me properly--and when I went

out last night I found I was thinking all the time, "Suppose they did

that again?" ... and when I got on the top of a ridge or anywhere a bit

exposed, I kept imagining what it would be like if all those

machine-guns started just then ... simply dashed into a shell-hole ...

and I found myself working for safe spots where one would be all right

in case of accidents.... Sort of lost confidence, you know.'

It was all said in a matter-of-fact manner, as if he was saying, 'I

don't like marmalade so much as I used to do,' and there was no

suggestion that he was not ready to go and look in the Boche Front Line

or the Unter den Linden, if necessary. But I was sorry about this. I

told him that he must not imagine; that that strafe was an unique

affair, never likely to be repeated. But when I went back to the dug-out

I spoke to the Colonel.

That night I went up with Harry to Foster Alley, and watched him

writhing away into the grey gloom. There were many stars, and you could

follow him for thirty yards. And as I watched I wondered, 'Is he

thinking, "_Supposing they do that again?_" and when he gets over near

the wire, will he be thinking, "_What would happen if they saw me now?_"

If so,' I said, 'God help him,' and went back to Headquarters.

* * * * *

Three hours later he came into the dug-out, where I sat with the Colonel

making out an Intelligence Report. He was very white and tired, and

while he spoke to the Colonel he stood at the bottom of the muddy steps

with his head just out of the candlelight. All the front of his tunic

was muddy, and there were two rents in his breeches.

He said, 'Very sorry, sir, but I couldn't get through. I got pretty

close to the wire, but couldn't find a gap.' 'Was there much firing?'

said the Colonel. 'The usual two snipers and a machine-gun on the left;

from what I heard I should say there were a good many men in that part

of the trench--but I couldn't swear.' Now what the Colonel had wanted

was somebody who _could_ swear; that was what the Brigade wanted; so he

was not pleased. But he was a kind, understanding fellow, and all he

said was, 'Well, I'm sorry, too, Penrose, but no doubt you did your

best.' And he went to bed.

Then I opened some Perrier (we still had Perrier then), and gave Harry a

strong whisky, and waited. For I knew that there was more. He talked for

a little, as usual, about the mud, and the Boche line, and so on, and

then he said: 'What I told the Colonel was perfectly true--I did get

pretty close to the wire, and there wasn't a gap to be seen--but that

wasn't the whole of it ... I couldn't face it.... The truth is, that

show the other night was too much for me.... I found myself lying in a

shell-hole pretending to myself that I was listening, and watching, and

so on, but really absolutely stuck, trying to _make_ myself go on ...

and I couldn't.... I'm finished as a scout ... that's all.'

Well, it was all for the present. No thinking, human C.O. is going to

run a man in for being beaten by a job like that. It is a specialist's

affair, like firing a gun. It is his business to put the right man on

the job, and if he doesn't, he can't complain.

So we made Harry Lewis gun officer. And that was the first stage.