The moon lay among clouds on the horizon, like a big red pumpkin among
its leaves.
Chrisfield squinted at it through the boughs of the apple trees laden
with apples that gave a winey fragrance to the crisp air. He was sitting
on the ground, his legs stretched limply before him, leaning against
the rough trunk of an apple tree. Opposite him, leaning against another
tree, was the square form, surmounted by a large long-jawed face, of
Judkins. Between them lay two empty cognac bottles. All about them was
the rustling orchard, with its crooked twigs that made a crackling sound
rubbing together in the gusts of the autumn wind, that came heavy with a
smell of damp woods and of rotting fruits and of all the ferment of
the overripe fields. Chrisfield felt it stirring the moist hair on his
forehead and through the buzzing haze of the cognac heard the plunk,
plunk, plunk of apples dropping that followed each gust, and the
twanging of night insects, and, far in the distance, the endless rumble
of guns, like tomtoms beaten for a dance.
“Ye heard what the Colonel said, didn't ye?” said Judkins in a voice
hoarse from too much drink.
Chrisfield belched and nodded his head vaguely. He remembered Andrews's
white fury after the men had been dismissed, how he had sat down on the
end of a log by the field kitchen, staring at the patch of earth he beat
into mud with the toe of his boot.
“Then,” went on Judkins, trying to imitate the Colonel's solemn
efficient voice, “'On the subject of prisoners'”--he hiccoughed and made
a limp gesture with his hand--“'On the subject of prisoners, well, I'll
leave that to you, but juss remember... juss remember what the Huns did
to Belgium, an' I might add that we have barely enough emergency rations
as it is, and the more prisoners you have the less you fellers'll git to
eat.'”
“That's what he said, Judkie; that's what he said.”
“'An the more prisoners ye have, the less youse'll git to eat,'” chanted
Judkins, making a triumphal flourish with his hand.
Chrisfield groped for the cognac bottle; it was empty; he waved it in
the air a minute and then threw it into the tree opposite him. A shower
of little apples fell about Judkins's head. He got unsteadily to his
feet.
“I tell you, fellers,” he said, “war ain't no picnic.”
Chrisfield stood up and grabbed at an apple. His teeth crunched into it.
“Sweet,” he said.
“Sweet, nauthin',” mumbled Judkins, “war ain't no picnic.... I tell
you, buddy, if you take any prisoners”--he hiccoughed--“after what the
Colonel said, I'll lick the spots out of you, by God I will.... Rip up
their guts that's all, like they was dummies. Rip up their guts.” His
voice suddenly changed to one of childish dismay. “Gee, Chris, I'm going
to be sick,” he whispered.
“Look out,” said Chrisfield, pushing him away. Judkins leaned against a
tree and vomited.
The full moon had risen above the clouds and filled the apple orchard
with chilly golden light that cast a fantastic shadow pattern of
interlaced twigs and branches upon the bare ground littered with apples.
The sound of the guns had grown nearer. There were loud eager rumbles
as of bowls being rolled very hard on a bowling alley, combined with a
continuous roar like sheets of iron being shaken.
“Ah bet it's hell out there,” said Chrisfield.
“I feel better,” said Judkins. “Let's go get some more cognac.”
“Ah'm hungry,” said Chrisfield. “Let's go an' get that ole woman to cook
us some aigs.”
“Too damn late,” growled Judkins.
“How the hell late is it?”
“Dunno, I sold my watch.”
They were walking at random through the orchard. They came to a field
full of big pumpkins that gleamed in the moonlight and cast shadows
black as holes. In the distance they could see wooded hills.
Chrisfield picked up a medium-sized pumpkin and threw it as hard as he
could into the air. It split into three when it landed with a thud on
the ground, and the moist yellow seeds spilled out.
“Some strong man, you are,” said Judkins, tossing up a bigger one.
“Say, there's a farmhouse, maybe we could get some aigs from the
hen-roost.”
“Hell of a lot of hens....”
At that moment the crowing of a rooster came across the silent fields.
They ran towards the dark farm buildings.
“Look out, there may be officers quartered there.”
They walked cautiously round the square, silent group of buildings.
There were no lights. The big wooden door of the court pushed open
easily, without creaking. On the roof of the barn the pigeon-cot was
etched dark against the disc of the moon. A warm smell of stables blew
in their faces as the two men tiptoed into the manure-littered farmyard.
Under one of the sheds they found a table on which a great many pears
were set to ripen. Chrisfield put his teeth into one. The rich sweet
juice ran down his chin. He ate the pear quickly and greedily, and then
bit into another.
“Fill yer pockets with 'em,” whispered Judkins.
“They might ketch us.”
“Ketch us, hell. We'll be goin' into the offensive in a day or two.”
“Ah sure would like to git some aigs.”
Chrisfield pushed open the door of one of the barns. A smell of creamy
milk and cheeses filled his nostrils.
“Come here,” he whispered. “Want some cheese?”
A lot of cheeses ranged on a board shone silver in the moonlight that
came in through the open door.
“Hell, no, ain't fit te eat,” said Judkins, pushing his heavy fist into
one of the new soft cheeses.
“Doan do that.”
“Well, ain't we saved 'em from the Huns?”
“But, hell.”
“War ain't no picnic, that's all,” said Judkins.
In the next door they found chickens roosting in a small room with straw
on the floor. The chickens ruffled their feathers and made a muffled
squeaking as they slept.
Suddenly there was a loud squawking and all the chickens were cackling
with terror.
“Beat it,” muttered Judkins, running for the gate of the farmyard.
There were shrill cries of women in the house. A voice shrieking, “C'est
les Boches, C'est les Boches,” rose above the cackling of chickens and
the clamor of guinea-hens. As they ran, they heard the rasping cries of
a woman in hysterics, rending the rustling autumn night.
“God damn,” said Judkins breathless, “they ain't got no right, those
frogs ain't, to carry on like that.”
They ducked into the orchard again. Above the squawking of the chicken
Judkins still held, swinging it by its legs, Chrisfield could hear the
woman's voice shrieking. Judkins dexterously wrung the chicken's neck.
Crushing the apples underfoot they strode fast through the orchard.
The voice faded into the distance until it could not be heard above the
sound of the guns.
“Gee, Ah'm kind o' cut up 'bout that lady,” said Chrisfield.
“Well, ain't we saved her from the Huns?”
“Andy don't think so.”
“Well, if you want to know what I think about that guy Andy I don't
think much of him. I think he's yaller, that's all,” said Judkins.
“No, he ain't.”
“I heard the lootenant say so. He's a goddam yeller dawg.”
Chrisfield swore sullenly.
“Well, you juss wait 'n see. I tell you, buddy, war ain't no picnic.”
“What the hell are we goin' to do with that chicken?” said Judkins.
“You remember what happened to Eddie White?”
“Hell, we'd better leave it here.”
Judkins swung the chicken by its neck round his head and threw it as
hard as he could into the bushes.
They were walking along the road between chestnut trees that led to
their village. It was dark except for irregular patches of bright
moonlight in the centre that lay white as milk among the indentated
shadows of the leaves. All about them rose a cool scent of woods,
of ripe fruits and of decaying leaves, of the ferment of the autumn
countryside.
The lieutenant sat at a table in the sun, in the village street outside
the company office. In front of him sparkled piles of money and daintily
tinted banknotes. Beside him stood Sergeant Higgins with an air of
solemnity and the second sergeant and the corporal. The men stood
in line and as each came before the table he saluted with deference,
received his money and walked away with a self-conscious air. A few
villagers looked on from the small windows with grey frames of their
rambling whitewashed houses. In the ruddy sunshine the line of men
cast an irregular blue-violet shadow, like a gigantic centipede, on the
yellow gravel road.
From the table by the window of the cafe of “Nos Braves Poilus” where
Small and Judkins and Chrisfield had established themselves with their
pay crisp in their pockets, they could see the little front garden of
the house across the road, where, behind a hedge of orange marigolds,
Andrews sat on the doorstep talking to an old woman hunched on a low
chair in the sun just inside the door, who leant her small white head
over towards his yellow one.
“There ye are,” said Judkins in a solemn tone. “He don't even go after
his pay. That guy thinks he's the whole show, he does.”
Chrisfield flushed, but said nothing. “He don't do nothing all day long
but talk to that ole lady,” said Small with a grin. “Guess she reminds
him of his mother, or somethin'.”
“He always does go round with the frogs all he can. Looks to me like
he'd rather have a drink with a frog than with an American.”
“Reckon he wants to learn their language,” said Small. “He won't never
come to much in this army, that's what I'm telling yer,” said Judkins.
The little houses across the way had flushed red with the sunset.
Andrews got to his feet slowly and languidly and held out his hand to
the old woman. She stood up, a small tottering figure in a black
silk shawl. He leaned over towards her and she kissed both his cheeks
vigorously several times. He walked down the road towards the billets,
with his fatigue cap in his hand, looking at the ground.
“He's got a flower behind his ear, like a cigarette,” said Judkins, with
a disgusted snort.
“Well, I guess we'd better go,” said Small. “We got to be in quarters at
six.”
They were silent a moment. In the distance the guns kept up a continual
tomtom sound.
“Guess we'll be in that soon,” said Small.
Chrisfield felt a chill go down his spine. He moistened his lips with
his tongue.
“Guess it's hell out there,” said Judkins. “War ain't no picnic.”
“Ah doan give a hoot in hell,” said Chrisfield.
The men were lined up in the village street with their packs on, waiting
for the order to move. Thin wreaths of white mist still lingered in the
trees and over the little garden plots. The sun had not yet risen,
but ranks of clouds in the pale blue sky overhead were brilliant with
crimson and gold. The men stood in an irregular line, bent over a little
by the weight of their equipment, moving back and forth, stamping their
feet and beating their arms together, their noses and ears red from the
chill of the morning. The haze of their breath rose above their heads.
Down the misty road a drab-colored limousine appeared, running slowly.
It stopped in front of the line of men. The lieutenant came hurriedly
out of the house opposite, drawing on a pair of gloves. The men standing
in line looked curiously at the limousine. They could see that two of
the tires were flat and that the glass was broken. There were scratches
on the drab paint and in the door three long jagged holes that
obliterated the number. A little murmur went down the line of men. The
door opened with difficulty, and a major in a light buff-colored coat
stumbled out. One arm, wrapped in bloody bandages, was held in a sling
made of a handkerchief. His face was white and drawn into a stiff mask
with pain. The lieutenant saluted.
“For God's sake where's a repair station?” he asked in a loud shaky
voice.
“There's none in this village, Major.”
“Where the hell is there one?”
“I don't know,” said the lieutenant in a humble tone.
“Why the hell don't you know? This organization's rotten, no good....
Major Stanley's just been killed. What the hell's the name of this
village?”
“Thiocourt.”
“Where the hell's that?”
The chauffeur had leaned out. He had no cap and his hair was full of
dust.
“You see, Lootenant, we wants to get to Chalons--”
“Yes, that's it. Chalons sur...Chalons-sur-Marne,” said the Major.
“The billeting officer has a map,” said the lieutenant, “last house to
the left.”
“O let's go there quick,” said the major. He fumbled with the fastening
of the door.
The lieutenant opened it for him.
As he opened the door, the men nearest had a glimpse of the interior of
the car. On the far side was a long object huddled in blankets, propped
up on the seat.
Before he got in the major leaned over and pulled a woollen rug out,
holding it away from him with his one good arm. The car moved off
slowly, and all down the village street the men, lined up waiting for
orders, stared curiously at the three jagged holes in the door.
The lieutenant looked at the rug that lay in the middle of the road. He
touched it with his foot. It was soaked with blood that in places had
dried into clots.
The lieutenant and the men of his company looked at it in silence. The
sun had risen and shone on the roofs of the little whitewashed houses
behind them. Far down the road a regiment had begun to move.
V
At the brow of the hill they rested. Chrisfield sat on the red clay bank
and looked about him, his rifle between his knees. In front of him
on the side of the road was a French burying ground, where the little
wooden crosses, tilting in every direction, stood up against the sky,
and the bead wreaths glistened in the warm sunlight. All down the road
as far as he could see was a long drab worm, broken in places by strings
of motor trucks, a drab worm that wriggled down the slope, through the
roofless shell of the village and up into the shattered woods on the
crest of the next hills. Chrisfield strained his eyes to see the hills
beyond. They lay blue and very peaceful in the moon mist. The river
glittered about the piers of the wrecked stone bridge, and disappeared
between rows of yellow poplars. Somewhere in the valley a big gun fired.
The shell shrieked into the distance, towards the blue, peaceful hills.
Chrisfield's regiment was moving again. The men, their feet slipping
in the clayey mud, went downhill with long strides, the straps of their
packs tugging at their shoulders.
“Isn't this great country?” said Andrews, who marched beside him.
“Ah'd liever be at an O. T. C. like that bastard Anderson.”
“Oh, to hell with that,” said Andrews. He still had a big faded orange
marigold in one of the buttonholes of his soiled tunic. He walked with
his nose in the air and his nostrils dilated, enjoying the tang of the
autumnal sunlight.
Chrisfield took the cigarette, that had gone out half-smoked, from his
mouth and spat savagely at the heels of the man in front of him.
“This ain't no life for a white man,” he said.
“I'd rather be this than... than that,” said Andrews bitterly. He tossed
his head in the direction of a staff car full of officers that was
stalled at the side of the road. They were drinking something out of
a thermos bottle that they passed round with the air of Sunday
excursionists. They waved, with a conscious relaxation of discipline, at
the men as they passed. One, a little lieutenant with a black mustache
with pointed ends, kept crying: “They're running like rabbits, fellers;
they're running like rabbits.” A wavering half-cheer would come from the
column now and then where it was passing the staff car.
The big gun fired again. Chrisfield was near it this time and felt the
concussion like a blow in the head.
“Some baby,” said the man behind him.
Someone was singing:
“Good morning, mister Zip Zip Zip,
With your hair cut just as short as,
With your hair cut just as short as,
With your hair cut just as short as mi-ine.”
Everybody took it up. Their steps rang in rhythm in the paved street
that zigzagged among the smashed houses of the village. Ambulances
passed them, big trucks full of huddled men with grey faces, from which
came a smell of sweat and blood and carbolic. Somebody went on:
“O ashes to ashes
An' dust to dust...”
“Can that,” cried Judkins, “it ain't lucky.”
But everybody had taken up the song. Chrisfield noticed that Andrews's
eyes were sparkling. “If he ain't the damnedest,” he thought to himself.
But he shouted at the top of his lungs with the rest:
“O ashes to ashes
An' dust to dust;
If the gasbombs don't get yer
The eighty-eights must.”
They were climbing the hill again. The road was worn into deep ruts and
there were many shell holes, full of muddy water, into which their feet
slipped. The woods began, a shattered skeleton of woods, full of old
artillery emplacements and dugouts, where torn camouflage fluttered from
splintered trees. The ground and the road were littered with tin cans
and brass shell-cases. Along both sides of the road the trees were
festooned, as with creepers, with strand upon strand of telephone wire.
When next they stopped Chrisfield was on the crest of the hill beside a
battery of French seventy-fives. He looked curiously at the Frenchmen,
who sat about on logs in their pink and blue shirtsleeves playing cards
and smoking. Their gestures irritated him.
“Say, tell 'em we're advancin',” he said to Andrews.
“Are we?” said Andrews. “All right.... Dites-donc, les Boches
courent-ils comme des lapins?” he shouted.
One of the men turned his head and laughed.
“He says they've been running that way for four years,” said Andrews.
He slipped his pack off, sat down on it, and fished for a cigarette.
Chrisfield took off his helmet and rubbed a muddy hand through his hair.
He took a bite of chewing tobacco and sat with his hands clasped over
his knees.
“How the hell long are we going to wait this time?” he muttered. The
shadows of the tangled and splintered trees crept slowly across the
road. The French artillerymen were eating their supper. A long train of
motor trucks growled past, splashing mud over the men crowded along
the sides of the road. The sun set, and a lot of batteries down in the
valley began firing, making it impossible to talk. The air was full of
a shrieking and droning of shells overhead. The Frenchmen stretched
and yawned and went down into their dugout. Chrisfield watched them
enviously. The stars were beginning to come out in the green sky behind
the tall lacerated trees. Chrisfield's legs ached with cold. He began
to get crazily anxious for something to happen, for something to happen,
but the column waited, without moving, through the gathering darkness.
Chrisfield chewed steadily, trying to think of nothing but the taste of
the tobacco in his mouth.
The column was moving again; as they reached the brow of another hill
Chrisfield felt a curious sweetish smell that made his nostrils smart.
“Gas,” he thought, full of panic, and put his hand to the mask that hung
round his neck. But he did not want to be the first to put it on. No
order came. He marched on, cursing the sergeant and the lieutenant. But
maybe they'd been killed by it. He had a vision of the whole regiment
sinking down in the road suddenly, overcome by the gas.
“Smell anythin', Andy?” he whispered cautiously.
“I can smell a combination of dead horses and tube roses and banana
oil and the ice cream we used to have at college and dead rats in the
garret, but what the hell do we care now?” said Andrews, giggling. “This
is the damnedest fool business ever....”
“He's crazy,” muttered Chrisfield to himself. He looked at the stars
in the black sky that seemed to be going along with the column on its
march. Or was it that they and the stars were standing still while the
trees moved away from them, waving their skinny shattered arms? He could
hardly hear the tramp of feet on the road, so loud was the pandemonium
of the guns ahead and behind. Every now and then a rocket would burst
in front of them and its red and green lights would mingle for a
moment with the stars. But it was only overhead he could see the stars.
Everywhere else white and red glows rose and fell as if the horizon were
on fire.
As they started down the slope, the trees suddenly broke away and they
saw the valley between them full of the glare of guns and the white
light of star shells. It was like looking into a stove full of glowing
embers. The hillside that sloped away from them was full of crashing
detonations and yellow tongues of flame. In a battery near the road,
that seemed to crush their skulls each time a gun fired, they could see
the dark forms of the artillerymen silhouetted in fantastic attitudes
against the intermittent red glare. Stunned and blinded, they kept on
marching down the road. It seemed to Chrisfield that they were going to
step any minute into the flaring muzzle of a gun.
At the foot of the hill, beside a little grove of uninjured trees, they
stopped again. A new train of trucks was crawling past them, huge blots
in the darkness. There were no batteries near, so they could hear the
grinding roar of the gears as the trucks went along the uneven road,
plunging in and out of shellholes.
Chrisfield lay down in the dry ditch, full of bracken, and dozed with
his head on his pack. All about him were stretched other men. Someone
was resting his head on Chrisfield's thigh. The noise had subsided
a little. Through his doze he could hear men's voices talking in low
crushed tones, as if they were afraid of speaking aloud. On the road
the truck-drivers kept calling out to each other shrilly, raspingly.
The motors stopped running one after another, making almost a silence,
during which Chrisfield fell asleep.
Something woke him. He was stiff with cold and terrified. For a moment
he thought he had been left alone, that the company had gone on, for
there was no one touching him.
Overhead was a droning as of gigantic mosquitoes, growing fast to a loud
throbbing. He heard the lieutenant's voice calling shrilly:
“Sergeant Higgins, Sergeant Higgins!”
The lieutenant stood out suddenly black against a sheet of flame.
Chrisfield could see his fatigue cap a little on one side and his trench
coat, drawn in tight at the waist and sticking out stiffly at the knees.
He was shaken by the explosion. Everything was black again. Chrisfield
got to his feet, his ears ringing. The column was moving on. He heard
moaning near him in the darkness. The tramp of feet and jingle of
equipment drowned all other sound. He could feel his shoulders becoming
raw under the tugging of the pack. Now and then the flare from aeroplane
bombs behind him showed up wrecked trucks on the side of the road.
Somewhere a machine gun spluttered. But the column tramped on, weighed
down by the packs, by the deadening exhaustion.
The turbulent flaring darkness was calming to the grey of dawn when
Chrisfield stopped marching. His eyelids stung as if his eyeballs were
flaming hot. He could not feel his feet and legs. The guns continued
incessantly like a hammer beating on his head. He was walking very
slowly in a single file, now and then stumbling against the man ahead
of him. There was earth on both sides of him, clay walls that dripped
moisture. All at once he stumbled down some steps into a dugout, where
it was pitch-black. An unfamiliar smell struck him, made him uneasy; but
his thoughts seemed to reach him from out of a great distance. He groped
to the wall. His knees struck against a bunk with blankets in it. In
another second he was sunk fathoms deep in sleep.
When he woke up his mind was very clear. The roof of the dugout was of
logs. A bright spot far away was the door. He hoped desperately that he
wasn't on duty. He wondered where Andy was; then he remembered that Andy
was crazy,--“a yeller dawg,” Judkins had called him. Sitting up with
difficulty he undid his shoes and puttees, wrapped himself in his
blanket. All round him were snores and the deep breathing of exhausted
sleep. He closed his eyes.
He was being court-martialled. He stood with his hands at his sides
before three officers at a table. All three had the same white faces
with heavy blue jaws and eyebrows that met above the nose. They were
reading things out of papers aloud, but, although he strained his ears,
he couldn't make out what they were saying. All he could hear was a
faint moaning. Something had a curious unfamiliar smell that troubled
him. He could not stand still at attention, although the angry eyes of
officers stared at him from all round. “Anderson, Sergeant Anderson,
what's that smell?” he kept asking in a small whining voice. “Please
tell a feller what that smell is.” But the three officers at the table
kept reading from their papers, and the moaning grew louder and louder
in his ears until he shrieked aloud. There was a grenade in his hand. He
pulled the string out and threw it, and he saw the lieutenant's trench
coat stand out against a sheet of flame. Someone sprang at him. He was
wrestling for his life with Anderson, who turned into a woman with
huge flabby breasts. He crushed her to him and turned to defend himself
against three officers who came at him, their trench coats drawn in
tightly at the waist until they looked like wasps. Everything faded, he
woke up.
His nostrils were still full of the strange troubling smell. He sat on
the edge of the bunk, wriggling in his clothes, for his body crawled
with lice.
“Gee, it's funny to be in where the Fritzies were not long ago,” he
heard a voice say.
“Kiddo! we're advancin',” came another voice.
“But, hell, this ain't no kind of an advance. I ain't seen a German
yet.”
“Ah kin smell 'em though,” said Chrisfield, getting suddenly to his
feet.
Sergeant Higgins' head appeared in the door. “Fall in,” he shouted. Then
he added in his normal voice, “It's up and at 'em, fellers.”
Chrisfield caught his puttee on a clump of briars at the edge of the
clearing and stood kicking his leg back and forth to get it free. At
last he broke away, the torn puttee dragging behind him. Out in the
sunlight in the middle of the clearing he saw a man in olive-drab
kneeling beside something on the ground. A German lay face down with a
red hole in his back. The man was going through his pockets. He looked
up into Chrisfield's face.
“Souvenirs,” he said.
“What outfit are you in, buddy?”
“143rd,” said the man, getting to his feet slowly.
“Where the hell are we?”
“Damned if I know.”
The clearing was empty, except for the two Americans and the German with
the hole in his back. In the distance they heard a sound of artillery
and nearer the “put, put, put” of isolated machine guns. The leaves of
the trees about them, all shades of brown and crimson and yellow, danced
in the sunlight.
“Say, that damn money ain't no good, is it?” asked Chrisfield.
“German money? Hell, no.... I got a watch that's a peach though.” The
man held out a gold watch, looking suspiciously at Chrisfield all the
while through half-closed eyes.
“Ah saw a feller had a gold-handled sword,” said Chrisfield.
“Where's that?”
“Back there in the wood”; he waved his hand vaguely.
“Ah've got to find ma outfit; comin' along?” Chrisfield started towards
the other edge of the clearing.
“Looks to me all right here,” said the other man, lying down on the
grass in the sun.
The leaves rustled underfoot as Chrisfield strode through the wood. He
was frightened by being alone. He walked ahead as fast as he could, his
puttee still dragging behind him. He came to a barbed-wire entanglement
half embedded in fallen beech leaves. It had been partly cut in one
place, but in crossing he tore his thigh on a barb. Taking off the torn
puttee, he wrapped it round the outside of his trousers and kept on
walking, feeling a little blood trickle down his leg.
Later he came to a lane that cut straight through the wood where there
were many ruts through the putty-coloured mud puddles; Down the lane in
a patch of sunlight he saw a figure, towards which he hurried. It was a
young man with red hair and a pink-and-white face. By a gold bar on the
collar of his shirt Chrisfield saw that he was a lieutenant. He had
no coat or hat and there was greenish slime all over the front of his
clothes as if he had lain on his belly in a mud puddle.
“Where you going?”
“Dunno, sir.”
“All right, come along.” The lieutenant started walking as fast as he
could up the lane, swinging his arms wildly.
“Seen any machine-gun nests?”
“Not a one.”
“Hum.”
He followed the lieutenant, who walked so fast he had difficulty keeping
up, splashing recklessly through the puddles.
“Where's the artillery? That's what I want to know,” cried the
lieutenant, suddenly stopping in his tracks and running a hand through
his red hair. “Where the hell's the artillery?” He looked at Chrisfield
savagely out of green eyes. “No use advancing without artillery.” He
started walking faster than ever.
All at once they saw sunlight ahead of them and olive-drab uniforms.
Machine guns started firing all around them in a sudden gust. Chrisfield
found himself running forward across a field full of stubble and
sprouting clover among a group of men he did not know. The whip-like
sound of rifles had chimed in with the stuttering of the machine guns.
Little white clouds sailed above him in a blue sky, and in front of him
was a group of houses that had the same color, white with lavender-grey
shadows, as the clouds.
He was in a house, with a grenade like a tin pineapple in each hand. The
sudden loneliness frightened him again. Outside the house was a sound
of machine-gun firing, broken by the occasional bursting; of a shell. He
looked at the red-tiled roof and at a chromo of a woman nursing a
child that hung on the whitewashed wall opposite him. He was in a small
kitchen. There was a fire in the hearth where something boiled in a
black pot. Chrisfield tiptoed over and looked in. At the bottom of the
bubbling water he saw five potatoes. At the other end of the kitchen,
beyond two broken chairs, was a door. Chrisfield crept over to it, the
tiles seeming to sway under foot. He put his finger to the latch and
took it off again suddenly. Holding in his breath he stood a long time
looking at the door. Then he pulled it open recklessly. A young man
with fair hair was sitting at a table, his head resting on his hands.
Chrisfield felt a spurt of joy when he saw that the man's uniform was
green. Very coolly he pressed the spring, held the grenade a second
and then threw it, throwing himself backwards into the middle of the
kitchen. The light-haired man had not moved; his blue eyes still stared
straight before him.
In the street Chrisfield ran into a tall man who was running. The man
clutched him by the arm and said:
“The barrage is moving up.”
“What barrage?”
“Our barrage; we've got to run, we're ahead of it.” His voice came in
wheezy pants. There were red splotches on his face. They ran together
down the empty village street. As they ran they passed the little
red-haired lieutenant, who leaned against a whitewashed wall, his legs
a mass of blood and torn cloth. He was shouting in a shrill delirious
voice that followed them out along the open road.
“Where's the artillery? That's what I want to know; where's the
artillery?”
The woods were grey and dripping with dawn. Chrisfield got stiffly to
his feet from the pile of leaves where he had slept. He felt numb with
cold and hunger, lonely and lost away from his outfit. All about him
were men of another division. A captain with a sandy mustache was
striding up and down with a blanket about him, on the road just behind a
clump of beech trees. Chrisfield had watched him passing back and forth,
back and forth, behind the wet clustered trunks of the trees, ever since
it had been light. Stamping his feet among the damp leaves, Chrisfield
strolled away from the group of men. No one seemed to notice him. The
trees closed about him. He could see nothing but moist trees, grey-green
and black, and the yellow leaves of saplings that cut off the view in
every direction. He was wondering dully why he was walking off that way.
Somewhere in the back of his mind there was a vague idea of finding his
outfit. Sergeant Higgins and Andy and Judkins and Small--he wondered
what had become of them. He thought of the company lined up for mess,
and the smell of greasy food that came from the field-kitchen. He was
desperately hungry. He stopped and leaned against the moss-covered trunk
of a tree. The deep scratch in his leg was throbbing as if all the blood
in his body beat through it. Now that his rustling footsteps had ceased,
the woods were absolutely silent, except for the dripping of dew from
the leaves and branches. He strained his ears to hear some other sound.
Then he noticed that he was staring at a tree full of small red crab
apples. He picked a handful greedily, but they were hard and sour and
seemed to make him hungrier. The sour flavour in his mouth made him
furiously angry. He kicked at the thin trunk of the tree while tears
smarted in his eyes. Swearing aloud in a whining singsong voice, he
strode off through the woods with his eyes on the ground. Twigs snapped
viciously in his face, crooked branches caught at him, but he plunged
on. All at once he stumbled against something hard that bounced among
the leaves.
He stopped still, looking about him, terrified. Two grenades lay just
under his foot, a little further on a man was propped against a tree
with his mouth open. Chrisfield thought at first he was asleep, as his
eyes were closed. He looked at the grenades carefully. The fuses had
not been sprung. He put one in each pocket, gave a glance at the man who
seemed to be asleep, and strode off again, striking another alley in the
woods, at the end of which he could see sunlight. The sky overhead was
full of heavy purple clouds, tinged here and there with yellow. As he
walked towards the patch of sunlight, the thought came to him that he
ought to have looked in the pockets of the man he had just passed to
see if he had any hard bread. He stood still a moment in hesitation, but
started walking again doggedly towards the patch of sunlight.
Something glittered in the irregular fringe of sun and shadow. A man was
sitting hunched up on the ground with his fatigue cap pulled over his
eyes so that the little gold bar just caught the horizontal sunlight.
Chrisfield's first thought was that he might have food on him.
“Say, Lootenant,” he shouted, “d'you know where a fellow can get
somethin' to eat.”
The man lifted his head slowly. Chrisfield turned cold all over when he
saw the white heavy face of Anderson; an unshaven beard was very black
on his square chin; there was a long scratch clotted with dried blood
from the heavy eyebrow across the left cheek to the corner of the mouth.
“Give me some water, buddy,” said Anderson in a weak voice.
Chrisfield handed him his canteen roughly in silence. He noticed that
Anderson's arm was in a sling, and that he drank greedily, spilling the
water over his chin and his wounded arm.
“Where's Colonel Evans?” asked Anderson in a thin petulant voice.
Chrisfield did not reply but stared at him sullenly. The canteen had
dropped from his hand and lay on the ground in front of him. The water
gleamed in the sunlight as it ran out among the russet leaves. A wind
had come up, making the woods resound. A shower of yellow leaves dropped
about them.
“First you was a corporal, then you was a sergeant, and now you're a
lootenant,” said Chrisfield slowly.
“You'ld better tell me where Colonel Evans is.... You must know.... He's
up that road somewhere,” said Anderson, struggling to get to his feet.
Chrisfield walked away without answering. A cold hand was round the
grenade in his pocket. He walked away slowly, looking at his feet.
Suddenly he found he had pressed the spring of the grenade. He struggled
to pull it out of his pocket. It stuck in the narrow pocket. His arm and
his cold fingers that clutched the grenade seemed paralyzed. Then a warm
joy went through him. He had thrown it.
Anderson was standing up, swaying backwards and forwards. The explosion
made the woods quake. A thick rain of yellow leaves came down. Anderson
was flat on the ground. He was so flat he seemed to have sunk into the
ground.
Chrisfield pressed the spring of the other grenade and threw it with his
eyes closed. It burst among the thick new-fallen leaves.
A few drops of rain were falling. Chrisfield kept on along the lane,
walking fast, feeling full of warmth and strength. The rain beat hard
and cold against his back.
He walked with his eyes to the ground. A voice in a strange language
stopped him. A ragged man in green with a beard that was clotted with
mud stood in front of him with his hands up. Chrisfield burst out
laughing.
“Come along,” he said, “quick!”
The man shambled in front of him; he was trembling so hard he nearly
fell with each step.
Chrisfield kicked him.
The man shambled on without turning round. Chrisfield kicked him again,
feeling the point of the man's spine and the soft flesh of his rump
against his toes with each kick, laughing so hard all the while that he
could hardly see where he was going.
“Halt!” came a voice.
“Ah've got a prisoner,” shouted Chrisfield still laughing.
“He ain't much of a prisoner,” said the man, pointing his bayonet at the
German. “He's gone crazy, I guess. I'll take keer o' him... ain't no use
sendin' him back.”
“All right,” said Chrisfield still laughing. “Say, buddy, where can Ah'
git something to eat? Ah ain't had nothin' fur a day an a half.”
“There's a reconnoitrin' squad up the line; they'll give you
somethin'.... How's things goin' up that way?” The man pointed up the
road.
“Gawd, Ah doan know. Ah ain't had nothin' to eat fur a day and a half.”
The warm smell of a stew rose to his nostrils from the mess-kit.
Chrisfield stood, feeling warm and important, filling his mouth with
soft greasy potatoes and gravy, while men about him asked him questions.
Gradually he began to feel full and content, and a desire to sleep came
over him. But he was given a gun, and had to start advancing again with
the reconnoitering squad. The squad went cautiously up the same lane
through the woods.
“Here's an officer done for,” said the captain, who walked ahead. He
made a little clucking noise of distress with his tongue. “Two of you
fellows go back and git a blanket and take him back to the cross-roads.
Poor fellow.” The captain walked on again, still making little clucking
noises with his tongue.
Chrisfield looked straight ahead of him. He did not feel lonely any more
now that he was marching in ranks again. His feet beat the ground in
time with the other feet. He would not have to think whether to go to
the right or to the left. He would do as the others did.