A NOCTURNAL ADVENTURE
Our old battalion billets still,
Parades as usual go on.
We buckle in with right good will,
And daily our equipment don
As if we meant to fight, but no!
The guns are booming through the air,
The trenches call us on, but oh!
We don't go there, we don't go there!
I have come to the conclusion that war is rather a dull game, not that
blood-curdling, dashing, mad, sabre-clashing thing that is seen in
pictures, and which makes one fearful for the soldier's safety. There
is so much of the "everlastin' waitin' on an everlastin' road." The
road to the war is a journey of many stages, and there is much of what
appears to the unit as loitering by the wayside. We longed for action,
for some adventure with which to relieve the period of "everlastin'
waitin'."
Nine o'clock was striking in the room downstairs and the old man and
woman who live in the house were pottering about, locking doors, and
putting the place into order. Lying on the straw in the loft we (p. 131)
could hear them moving chairs and washing dishes; they have seven sons
in the army, two are wounded and one is a prisoner in Germany. They
are very old and are unable to do much hard work; all day long they
listen to the sound of the guns "out there." In the evening they wash
the dishes, the man helping the woman, and at night lock the doors and
say a prayer for their sons. Now and again they speak of their troubles
and narrate stories of the war and the time when the Prussians passed
by their door on the journey to Paris. "But they'll never pass here
again," the old man says, smoking the pipe of tobacco which our boys
have given him. "They'll get smashed out there." As he speaks he
points with a long lean finger towards the firing line, and lifts his
stick to his shoulder in imitation of a man firing a rifle.
Ten o'clock struck. We were deep in our straw and lights had been out
for a long time. I couldn't sleep, and as I lay awake I could hear
corpulent Z---- snoring in the corner. Outside a wind was whistling
mournfully and sweeping through the joists of the roof where the red
tiles had been shattered by shrapnel. There was something (p. 132)
melancholy and superbly grand in the night; the heaven was splashed
with stars, and the glow of rockets from the firing line lit up the
whole scene, and at intervals blotted out the lights of the sky. Here
in the loft all was so peaceful, so quiet; the pair downstairs had
gone to bed, they were now perhaps asleep and dreaming of their loved
ones. But I could not rest; I longed to get up again and go out into
the night.
Suddenly a hand tugged at my blanket, a form rose from the floor by my
side and a face peered into mine.
"It's me--Bill," a low voice whispered in my ear.
"Well?" I interrogated, raising myself on my elbow.
"Not sleepin'?" mumbled Bill, lighting a cigarette as he flopped down
on my blanket, half crushing my toes as he did so. "I'm not sleeping
neither," he continued. "Did you see the wild ducks to-day?"
"On the marshes? Yes."
"Could we pot one?"
"Rubbish. We might as well shoot at the stars."
"I never tried that game," said Bill, with mock seriousness. "But (p. 133)
I'm goin' to nab a duck. Strike me balmy if I ain't."
"It'll be the guard-room if we're caught."
"If _we_ are caught. Then you're comin'? I thought you'd be game."
I slipped into my boots, tied on my puttees, slung a bandolier with
ten rounds of ball cartridge over my shoulder, and groped for my rifle
on the rack beneath the shrapnel-shivered joists. Bill and I crept
downstairs and stole out into the open.
"Gawd! that puts the cawbwebs out of one's froat," whispered my mate
as he gulped down mighty mouthfuls of cold night air. "This is great.
I couldn't sleep."
"But we'll never hit a duck to-night," I whispered, my mind reverting
to the white-breasted fowl which we had seen in an adjoining marsh
that morning when coming back from the firing line. "Its madness to
dream of hitting one with a bullet."
"Maybe yes and maybe no," said my mate, stumbling across the midden
and floundering into the field on the other side.
We came to the edge of the marsh and halted for a moment. In front of
us lay a dark pool, still as death and fringed with long grass and
osier beds. A mournful breeze blew across the place, raising a (p. 134)
plaintive croon, half of resignation and half of protest from the
osiers and grasses as it passed. A little distance away the skeleton
of a house stood up naked against the sky, the cold stars shining
through its shattered rafters. "'Twas shelled like 'ell, that 'ouse,"
whispered Bill, leaning on his rifle and fixing his eyes on the ruined
homestead. "The old man at our billet was tellin' some of us about it.
The first shell went plunk through the roof and two children and the
mother were bowled over."
"Killed?"
"I should say so," mumbled my mate; then, "There's one comin' our
way." Out over the line of trenches it sped towards us, whistling in
its flight, and we could almost trace by its sound the line it
followed in the air. It fell on the pool in front, bursting as it
touched the water, and we were drenched with spray.
"'Urt?" asked Bill.
"Just wet a little."
"A little!" he exclaimed, gazing at the spot where the shell exploded.
"I'm soaked to the pelt. Damn it, 'twill frighten the ducks."
"Have you ever shot any living thing?" I asked my mate as I tried (p. 135)
to wipe the water from my face with the sleeve of my coat.
"Me! Never in my nat'ral," Bill explained. "But when I saw them ducks
this mornin' I thought I'd like to pot one o' em."
"Its impossible to see anything now," I told him. "And there's another
shell!"
It yelled over our heads and burst near our billet on the soft mossy
field which we had just crossed. Another followed, flew over the roof
of the dwelling and shattered the wall of an outhouse to pieces.
Somewhere near a dog barked loudly when the echo of the explosion died
away, and a steed neighed in the horse-lines on the other side of the
marsh. Then, drowning all other noises, an English gun spoke and a
projectile wheeled through the air and towards the enemy. The monster
of the thicket awake from a twelve hour sleep was speaking. Bill and I
knew where he was hidden; the great gun that the enemy had been trying
to locate for months and which he never discovered. He, the monster of
the thicket, was working havoc in the foeman's trenches, and day after
day great searching shells sped up past our billet warm from the
German guns, but always they went far wide of their mark. Never could
they discover the locality of the terrifying ninety-pounder, he (p. 136)
who slept all day in his thicket home, awoke at midnight and worked
until dawn.
"That's some shootin'," said my mate as the shells shrieked overhead.
"Blimey, they'll shake the country to pieces--and scare the ducks."
Along a road made of bound sapling-bundles we took our way into the
centre of the marsh. Here all was quiet and sombre; the marsh-world
seemed to be lamenting over some ancient wrong. At times a rat would
sneak out of the grass, slink across our path and disappear in the
water, again; a lonely bird would rise into the air and cry piteously
as it flew away, and ever, loud and insistent, threatening and
terrible, the shells would fly over our heads, yelling out their
menace of pain, of sorrow and death as they flew along.
We killed no birds, we saw none, although we stopped out till the
colour of dawn splashed the sky with streaks of early light. As we
went in by the door of our billet the monster of the thicket was still
at work, although no answering shells sped up from the enemy's lines.
Up in the loft Z---- was snoring loudly as he lay asleep on the straw,
the blanket tight round his body, his jaw hanging loosely, and (p. 137)
an unlighted pipe on the floor by his side. Placing our rifles on the
rack, Bill and I took off our bandoliers and lay down on our blankets.
Presently we were asleep.
That was how Bill and I shot wild duck in the marshes near the village
of--Somewhere in France.