THE RIGOR OF THE GAME
Elmsdale at war is very like Elmsdale in peace. At least, that was
Martin's first impression when he and General Grant motored to the
village from York on a day in September, 1915. Father and son had passed
unscathed through the hellfire of Loos, General Grant in command of a
brigade, and Martin a captain in a Kitchener battalion. They were in
England on leave now, the middle-aged general for five days, and the
youthful captain for ten, and the purpose of this joint home-coming was
Martin's marriage.
When it became evident that the world struggle would last years rather
than months, General Grant and the vicar put their heads together,
metaphorically speaking, since the connecting link was the field
post-office, and arranged a war wedding. Why should the young people
wait? they argued. Every consideration pointed the other way. With
Martin wedded to Elsie, legal formalities as to Bolland's and the
general's estate could be completed, and if Heaven blessed the union
with children the continuity of two old families would be assured.
So, to Martin's intense surprise, he was called to the telephone one
Saturday morning in the trenches and told that he had better hand over
his company to the senior subaltern as speedily as might be, since his
ten days' leave began on the Monday, such being the amiable device by
which commanding officers permit juniors to reach Blighty before an
all-too-brief respite from the business of killing Germans begins
officially.
He met his father at Boulogne, and there learnt that which he had only
suspected hitherto: he and Elsie were booked for an immediate honeymoon
on a Scottish moor--at Cairn-corrie, to be exact. By chance the two
travelers ran into Frank Beckett-Smythe, a gunner lieutenant in London,
and he undertook to rush north that night to act as "best man." Father
and son caught a train early on Sunday and hired a car at York, Elmsdale
having no railway facilities on the day of rest.
They arrived in time to attend the evening service at the parish church,
to which, _mirabile dictu_, John and Martha Bolland accompanied them.
The war has broken down many barriers, but few things have crumbled to
ruin more speedily than the walls of prejudice and sectarian futilities
which separated the many phases of religious thought in Britain.
The church, with its small graveyard, stood in the center of the
village, and the Grants had to wring scores of friendly hands before
they and the others walked to the vicarage for supper. Martin and Elsie
contrived to extricate themselves from the crowd slightly in advance of
the older people. They felt absurdly shy. They were wandering in
dreamland.
Early next morning Martin strolled into the village. He wanted to stir
the sluggish current of enlistment, for England was then making a final
effort to maintain her army on a voluntary basis. Elmsdale was so
unchanged outwardly that he marveled. He hardly realized that it could
not well be otherwise. He had seen so many French hamlets torn by war
that the snug content of this sheltered nook in rural Yorkshire was
almost uncanny by contrast. The very familiarity of the scene formed its
strangest element. Its sights, its sounds, its homely voices, were novel
to the senses of one whose normal surroundings were the abominations of
war. Here were trim houses and well-filled stockyards, smiling orchards
and cattle grazing in green pastures. Everywhere was peace. He was the
only man in uniform, until Sergeant Benson appeared in the doorway of a
cottage and saluted. The village had its own liveries--the corduroys of
the carpenter, redolent of oil and turpentine, the tied-up trouser legs
of the laborer, the blacksmith's leather apron, ragged and burnt, a true
Vulcan's robe, the shoemaker's, shiny with the stropping of knives and
seamed with cobbler's wax. The panoply of Mars looked singularly out of
place in this Sleepy Hollow.
But, by degrees, he began to miss things. There were no young men in the
fields. All the horses had gone, save the yearlings and those too old
for the hard work of artillery and transport. He questioned Benson and
found that little Elmsdale had not escaped the levy laid on the rest of
Europe. Jim Bates was in the Yorkshire Regiment. Tommy Beadlam's white
head was resting forever in a destroyed trench at Ypres. Tom Chandler
had fallen at Gallipoli. Evelyn Atkinson was a nurse, and her two
sisters were "in munitions" at Leeds. Yes, there were some shirkers, but
not many. For the most part, they were hidden in the moorland farms. "T'
captain" would remember Georgie Jackson? Well, he was one of the
stand-backs--wouldn't go till he was fetched. The village girls made
his life a misery, so he "hired" at the Broad Ings, miles away in the
depths of the moor. One night about a month ago one of those "d--d
Zeppelines" dropped a bomb on the heather, which caught fire. A second,
following a murder trail to Newcastle, saw the resultant blaze and
dropped twelve bombs. A third, believing that real damage was being
done, flung out its whole cargo of twenty-nine bombs.
"So, now, sir," grinned Benson, "there's a fine lot o' pot-holes i' t'
moor. Georgie was badly scairt. He saw the three Zepps, an' t' bombs
fell all over t' farm. Next mornin' he f'und three sheep banged te bits.
An' what d'ye think? He went straight te Whitby an' 'listed. He hez a
bunch o' singed wool in his pocket, an' sweers he'll mak' some Jarman
eat it."
So Martin only recruited a wife that day, and evidently secured a
sensible one, for Elsie, taking thought, on hearing certain vivid
descriptions of trench life on the Sunday evening, vetoed the wedding
trip to Scotland, and persuaded her husband to "go the limit" in London,
where plenty of society and a round of theaters acted as a wholesome
tonic after the monotony of high-explosive existence in a dugout.
* * * * *
In February, 1917, Martin was "in billets" at Armentieres. He had been
promoted to the staff, and had fairly earned this coveted recognition by
a series of daring excursions into "No Man's Land" every night for a
week, which enabled him to plan an attack on the German lines at
Chapelle d'Armentieres. Never thinking of any personal gain, he drew up
a memorandum, which he submitted to his colonel. The latter sent the
document to Divisional Headquarters; the scheme was approved. Fritz was
pushed forcibly half a mile nearer Lille, and "Captain Reginald Ingram
Grant" was informed, in the dry language of the _Gazette_, that in
future he would wear a red band around his field service cap and little
red tabs on the shoulders of his tunic.
That was a great day for him, but his elation was as nothing
compared with the joy of Elmsdale when the _Messenger_ reprinted the
announcement. Elsie, of course, imagined that her husband was now
comparatively safe for the rest of the war, and he has never undeceived
her. As a matter of fact, his first real "job" was to carry out a fresh
series of observations at a point south of Armentieres along the road to
Arras. This might involve another six days of lurking in dugouts at the
front and six nights of crawling through and under German barbed wire.
His companion was a sapper sergeant named Mason. They suspected that the
German position was heavily mined in anticipation of an attack at that
very point, and it was part of their business at the outset to ascertain
whether or not this was the case.
The enemy's lines were about one hundred and fifty yards away, and all
observers agree that the chief difficulty experienced in the pitch-black
darkness of a cloudy, moonless night is to estimate the distance
covered. Crawling over shell-torn ground, slow work at the best, is
rendered slower by the frequent waits necessary while rockets flare
overhead and Verrey lights describe brilliant parabolas in unexpected
directions. Martin, up to every trick and dodge of the "listening
post," surveyed the field of operations through a periscope, and noticed
that one of the ditches which mark boundaries in northern France ran
almost in a straight line from the British trenches to the German, and
had at one time been reinforced by posts and rails. The fence was
destroyed, but many of the posts remained, some intact, others mere
jagged stumps. He estimated that the nineteenth was not more than a
couple of yards from the enemy's wire, and knew of old that it was in
just such an irregular hollow he might expect to find a weak place in
the entanglement.
Mason agreed with him.
"We can save a lot of time by following that trail, sir," he said.
"There's only one drawback----"
"That Fritz may have hit on the same scheme," laughed Martin. "Possible;
but we must chance it."
Mason and he were old associates. They had perfected a code of signals,
by touch, that enabled them to work in absolute silence. Thus, a slight
hold meant "Halt"; a slight push, "Advance"; a slight pull, "Retire."
Each carried a trench knife and a revolver, the latter for use as a last
resource only. They were not going out for fighting but for observation.
If enemy patrols were encountered, they must be avoided. Germans are not
phlegmatic, but, on the contrary, highly nervous. Continuous raids by
British bombing parties had put sentries "on the jump," and the least
noise which was not explained by a whispered password attracted a heavy
spray of machine-gun fire. Especially was this the case during the hour
before dawn. By hurrying out immediately after darkness set in, the two
counted on nearing the German front-line trench at a time when reliefs
were being posted and fatigue parties were plodding to the "dump" for
the next day's rations.
"What time will you be back?" inquired the subaltern in charge of the
platoon holding that part of the British trench. It was his duty to warn
sentries to be on the lookout for the return of scouting parties.
Martin glanced at the luminous watch on his wrist. It was then seven
o'clock, and the night promised to be dark and quiet. The evening
"strafe" had just ended, and the German guns would reopen fire on the
trenches about five in the morning. During the intervening hours the
artillery would indulge in groups of long shots, hoping to catch the
commissariat or a regiment marching on the _pave_ in column of fours.
"About twelve," said Martin.
"Well, so long, sir! I'll have some coffee ready."
"So long!" And Martin led the way up a trench ladder.
No man wishes another "Good luck!" in these enterprises. By a curious
inversion of meaning, "Good luck!" implies a ninety per cent chance of
getting killed!
The two advanced rapidly for the first hundred yards. Then they
separated, each crawling out into the open for about twenty yards to
right and left. Snuggling into a convenient shell hole, they would
listen intently, with an ear to the ground, their object being to detect
the rhythmic beat of a pick, if a mining party was busy. Each remained
exactly ten minutes. Then they met and compared notes, always by signal.
If necessary, they would visit a suspected locality together and
endeavor to locate the line of the tunnel.
It was essential that the British side of "No Man's Land" should not be
too quiet. Every few minutes a rocket or a Verrey light would soar over
that torn Golgotha. But there was method in the seeming madness. The
first and second glare would illuminate an area well removed from
Martin's territory. The third might be right over him or Mason, but they
were then so well hidden that the sharpest eye could not discern their
presence.
By nine o'clock they had covered more than a hundred yards of the
enemy's front, skirting his trip-wire throughout the whole distance.
They had heard no fewer than six mining parties. Each had advanced some
thirty yards. In effect, if the German trench was to be taken at all,
the attack must be made next day, and the artillery preparation should
commence at dawn. Instead of returning to the subaltern's dugout at
midnight, Martin wanted to reach the telephone not later than ten, and
hurry back to headquarters. The staff would have another sleepless
night, but a British battalion would not be blown up while its
successive "waves" were crossing "No Man's Land."
Mason and he crept like lizards to the sunk fence. All they needed now
was a close scrutiny of the German parapet in that section. It was a
likely site for a machine-gun emplacement and, in that case, would
receive special attention from a battery of 4.7's.
They reached the ditch shortly before a rocket was due overhead. Making
assurance doubly sure, they flattened against the outer slope of a shell
hole, took off their caps, and each sought a tuft of grass through
which to peer.
Simultaneously, by two short taps, both conveyed a warning. They had
heard a slight rustling directly in front. A Verrey light, and not a
rocket, flamed through the darkness. Its brilliancy was intense. But the
Verrey light has a peculiar property: far more effective than the rocket
when it reveals troops in motion, it is rendered practically useless if
men remain still. Working parties and scouts counteract its vivid beams
by absolute rigidity. The uplifted pick or hammer, the advanced foot,
the raised arm, must be kept in statuesque repose, and the reward is
complete safety. A rocket, on the other hand, though not half so deadly
in exposing an attack, demands that every man within its periphery shall
endeavor forthwith to blend with the earth, or he will surely be seen
and shot at.
The two Britons, looking through stalks of withered herbage, found
themselves gazing into the eyes of a couple of Germans crouching on
the level barely six feet away. It seemed literally impossible that
the enemy observers should not see them. But strange things happen
in war. The Germans were scanning all the visible ground; the Englishmen
happened to be on the alert for a recognized danger in that identical
spot. So the one party, watching space, saw nothing; the other, prepared
for a specific discovery, made it. What was more, when the light failed,
the Germans were assured of comparative safety, while their opponents
had measured the extent of an instant peril and got ready to face it.
They knew, too, that the Germans must be killed or captured. One
was a major, the other a noncommissioned officer, and men of such
rank were seldom deputed by the enemy to roam at large through the
strip of debated land which British endeavor, drawn by its sporting
uncertainties, had rendered most unhealthy for human "game" of the
Hun species.
A dark night in that part of French Flanders becomes palpably black
during a few seconds after a flare. The Englishmen squatted back on
their heels. Neither drew his revolver, but each right hand clutched
a trench knife, a peculiarly murderous-looking implement with an oval
handle, and shaped like a corkscrew, except that the screw is replaced
by a short, flat, dagger-pointed blade. No signal was needed. Each knew
exactly what to do. The accident of position allotted the major to
Martin.
The Germans came on stealthily. They had noted the shell-hole, and sat
on its crumbling edge, meaning to slide down and creep out on the other
side. Martin's left hand gripped a stout boot by the ankle. In the fifth
of a second he had a heavy body twisted violently and flung face down
in the loose earth at the bottom of the hole. A knee was planted in the
small of the prisoner's back, the point of the knife was under his right
ear, and Martin was saying, in quite understandable German:
"If you move or speak, I'll cut your throat!"
The words have a brutal sound, but it does not pay to be squeamish on
such occasions, and the German language adapts itself naturally to
phrases of the kind.
Sergeant Mason had to solve his own problem by a different method. The
quarry chanced to be leaning forward at the moment a vicious tug
accelerated his progress. As a result, he fell on top of the hunter, and
there was nothing for it but the knife. A ghastly squeal was barely
stifled by the Englishman's hand over the victim's mouth. At thirty
yards, or thereabouts, and coming from a deep hole, the noise might have
been a grunt. Nevertheless, it reached the German trench.
"Wer da?" hissed a voice, and Martin heard the click of a machine-gun as
it swung on its tripod.
He did not fear the gun, which only meant a period of waiting while its
bullets cracked overhead. What he did dread was a search party, as
German majors are valuable birds, and must be safeguarded. The situation
called for the desperate measure he took. The point of the knife entered
his captive's neck, and he whispered:
"Tell your men they must keep quiet, or you die now!"
He allowed the almost choking man to raise his head. The German knew
that his life was forfeit if he did not obey the order. A certain
gurgling, ever growing weaker, showed that his companion would soon be a
corpse.
"Shut up, sheep's head!" he growled.
It sufficed. That is the way German majors talk to their inferiors.
The engineer sergeant wriggled nearer.
"Couldn't help it, sir," he breathed. "I had to give him one!"
"Go through him for papers and bring me his belt."
Within a minute the officer's hands were fastened behind his back. Then
he was permitted to rise and, after being duly warned, told to
accompany Mason. Martin followed, and the three began the return
journey. A German rocket bothered them once, but the German was quick as
they to fall flat. Evidently he was not minded to offer a target for
marksmen on either side.
Soon Mason was sent forward to warn the sentries. Quarter of an hour
after the episode in the shell hole Martin, having come from the
telephone, was examining his prisoner by the light of an electric torch
in a dugout.
"What is your name?" he inquired.
"Freiherr Georg von Struben, major of artillery," was the somewhat
grandiloquent answer.
"Do you speak English?"
"Nod mooch."
Some long dormant chord of memory vibrated in Martin's brain. He held
the torch closer. Von Struben was a tall, well-built Prussian. He
smiled, meaning probably to make the best of a bad business. His face
was soiled with clay and perspiration. A streak of blood had run from a
slight cut over an eyebrow. But the white scar of an old saber wound,
the outcome of a duelling bout in some university _burschenschaft_,
creased down its center when he smiled. Then Martin knew.
"Fritz Bauer!" he cried.
The German started, though he recovered his self-control promptly.
"You haf nod unterstant," he said. "I dell you my nem----"
"That's all right, Fritz," laughed Martin. "You spoke good English when
you were in Elmsdale. You could fool me then into giving you valuable
information for your precious scheme of invading England. Now it's my
turn! Have you forgotten Martin Bolland?"
Blank incredulity yielded to evident fear in the other man's eyes. With
obvious effort, he stiffened.
"I was acting under orders, Captain Bolland," he said.
"Not Bolland, but Grant," laughed Martin. "I, too, have changed my name,
but for a more honorable reason."
The words seemed to irritate von Struben.
"I did noding dishonorable," he protested. "I was dere by command. If it
wasn't for your d--d fleet, I would have lodged once more in de Elms
eighdeen monds ago."
"I know," said Martin. "We found your map, the map which Angele stole
because you wouldn't take her in the car the day we went on the moor."
In all likelihood the prisoner's nerves were on edge. He had gone
through a good deal since being hauled into the shell hole, and was by
no means prepared for this display of intimate knowledge of his past
career by the youthful looking Briton who had manhandled him so
effectually. Be that as it may, he was so disconcerted by the mere
allusion to Angele that a fantastic notion gripped Martin. He pursued it
at once.
"We English are not quite such idiots as you like to imagine us, major,"
he went on, and so ready was his speech that the pause was hardly
perceptible. "Mrs. Saumarez--or, describing her by her other name, the
Baroness von Edelstein--was a far more dangerous person than you. It
took time to run her to earth--you know what that means? when a fox is
chased to a burrow by hounds--but our Intelligence Department sized her
up correctly at last."
Now this was nothing more than the wildest guessing, a product of many a
long talk with Elsie, the vicar, and General Grant during the early days
of the war. But von Struben was manifestly so ill at ease that he had to
cover his discomfiture under a frown.
"I have not seen de lady for ten years," he said.
This disclaimer was needless. He had been wiser to have cursed Angele
for purloining his map.
"Perhaps not. She avoided Berlin. But you have heard of her."
Again was the former spy guilty of stupidity. He set his lips like a
steel trap. Doubtful what to say, he said nothing.
Martin nodded to Sergeant Mason.
"Just go through the major's pockets," he said. "You know what we want."
Mason's knowledge was precise. He left the prisoner his money, watch,
pipe, and handkerchief. The remainder of his belongings were made up
into a bundle. Highly valuable treasure-trove was contained therein, the
major having in his possession a detailed list of all arms in the
Fifty-seventh Brandenburg Division and a sketch of the trench system
which it occupied. A glance showed Martin that the Fifty-seventh
Division lay directly in front.
He turned to the subaltern whose dugout he was using and who had
witnessed the foregoing scene in silence.
"Can you send a corporal's guard to D.H.Q. in charge of the prisoner?"
he asked.
"Certainly," said the other. "By the way, come outside and have a
cigarette."
Cigarettes are not lighted in front-line communication trenches after
nightfall--not by officers, at any rate--nor do second lieutenants
address staff captains so flippantly. Martin read something more into
the invitation than appeared on the surface. He was right.
"About this Mrs. Saumarez you spoke of just now," said the subaltern
when they were beyond the closed door of the dugout. "Is she the widow
of one of our fellows, a Hussar colonel?"
"Yes."
"Do you know she is living in Paris?"
"Well, I heard some few years since that she was residing there."
"She's there now. She runs a sort of hostel for youngsters on short
leave. She's supposed to charge a small fee, but doesn't. And there's
drinks galore for all comers. She's extraordinarily popular, of course,
but I--er--well, one hates saying it. Still, you made me sit up and take
notice when you mentioned the Intelligence Department. Mrs. Saumarez has
a wonderful acquaintance with the British front. She tells you
things--don't you know--and one is led on to talk--sort of reciprocity,
eh?"
Martin drew a deep breath. He almost dreaded putting the inevitable
question.
"Is her daughter with her--a girl of twenty-one, named Angele?"
"No. Never heard Mrs. Saumarez so much as mention her."
"Thanks. We've done a good night's work, I fancy. And--this for
yourself only--there may be a scrap to-morrow afternoon."
"Fine! I want to stretch my legs. Been in this bally hole nine days.
Well, here's your corporal. Good-night, sir."
"Good-night!"
And Martin trudged through the mud with Sergeant Mason behind von
Struben and the escort.