“Is there anyone you can leave with the guns?”

“There’s Edwine, Sir.”

“Then come up to where I am at once.”

I handed over the battery and went forward. At Death Corner I was met by a sight which I shall not easily forget. In the middle of the crossroads the dead lay in mounds. Many of them were men whom I recognised. The place was strewn with horses. The first to catch my eyes was old Fury, the Major’s rusty charger; his hind-legs had been shot away from under him and he sat with his front-legs thrust out like poles, balancing himself and swaying his head. Pressed flat behind a tree I saw the Major, peering out across the waving corn, where the cavalry were charging death at the gallop. Crouching low and dodging the shells, I gained his place of hiding.

“Some picnic, isn’t it?” were his first words. He was as happy and excited as if he were the spectator of a gigantic football match. How he had been able to survive at Death Corner for so long was a marvel. I looked at the picnic. All I could see was men creeping back on their hands and knees, riderless horses writhing and drowning in the sea of yellow, stranded tanks, smouldering heaps marking the spots where aeroplanes had crashed incandescent as comets and, across the plain of wheat, a wall of fire where our shells were falling and columns of suffocating smoke were curling above the funeral pyres of towns.

“Some picnic, all right,” I said. The Major laughed at me out of the corner of his eyes. “It’s the real thing—open warfare, what we always wanted. See here, Chris, I’ve collected some of these infantry chaps; their officers have been nearly all wiped out. I’m going to lead them forward to clean up some of those enemy machine-gun nests. They’ve got to be cleaned up, because, they’re cutting us off from our troops who are in Fouquescourt. God knows what’s happening up there. Someone’s got to fight his way through and find out. I want you to stop here and watch for any messages I send back.”

His eye caught Fury. “I can’t leave him like that.”

At the risk of his life he dodged across the open space to where his old companion sat swaying his head forlornly. I saw him pat the velvet neck and then fumble for his revolver. He looked at the revolver and then at the horse. He came back to me slowly, “I can’t. You do it when I’m gone.”

Along the edge of the wheat the infantry were lying waiting for him; they were the stragglers and survivors of the first two attacks. As he reached them he fell on his hands and knees and crawled away, while they followed him at intervals through the golden stalks.

Had the Huns seen him at that moment, they would not have considered him an object of terror, under-sized and wizened as he was. But it was Charlie Wraith, despite his physical deficiencies, who put heart into defeated men that day and by his magnificent contempt for death forced a way into Fouquescourt to the support of troops which had become isolated. How many enemy strongholds he bombed out he alone knows, and he refuses to tell. The men whom he led cannot tell, for most of them are dead. He had always yearned to kill Germans face to face, so he must have had a time entirely satisfactory and satisfying. It wasn’t his job as an artilleryman; but, as he said in excusing himself afterwards, it was a dirty job and with most of the infantry officers gone west, there was no one else to do it.

He got severely strafed on his return for having left his battery, which he ought to have been commanding. Then news began to come in of what he had actually accomplished and how it was he who had flashed back the reports which had enabled the front to be consolidated. He’s been recommended for the V. C. and it looks as though he would get it. So he’s attained the desire nearest to his heart; he’s healed his wounded pride and will be able to prove to the girl who flung him down that her knowledge of human arithmetic was faulty.

VIII

WE are still in the neighbourhood of Death Corner. It looks as though the attack has been pressed as far as it can go at this point. The whole of Fouquescourt is now in our hands, but beyond that lies Fransart and the railroad, which the enemy is holding heavily. To the south of us the French are trying to turn the enemy’s flank of Noyon, but apparently with little success, for the resistance in front of us grows stiffer rather than less. The Hun is a long way from being beaten yet. Whatever may be the morale of his rank and file, his storm-troops never fought better. For two days after we had surrounded Fouquescourt there were machine-gunners who still refused to surrender and kept up a running scrap from house to house, causing us many casualties and much annoyance.

Every twenty-four hours we had to shift our guns owing to the Hun aerial activity. By day the enemy airmen spot us; under cover of night they return to bomb us. They have not scored any direct hits on our guns yet, thanks to our precautions in changing our positions every nightfall, but they have made us pay heavily in the loss of men. With so much shifting and changing it is not possible to build any overhead protection; the most we can do is to scoop holes in the ground of sufficient depth to hide us from the splinters. Next night we have to scoop fresh holes and spread our blankets somewhere else.

Owing to the precariousness of the way in which our front is held we have to be on duty all the time. At night we never dare to undress, nor even to remove our boots. This is not like the old days, when we had an elaborate system of trenches and a wide No Man’s Land between ourselves and the enemy; to-day we have outposts dotted here and there, and a thin line of riflemen strung out through ditches and woods. In a moving battle one is never quite certain where our country ends and the Hun’s commences. If we were for a minute to relax our vigilance, we might be overwhelmed. But the vigilance when combined with the bombing and the shelling is very wearing.

The weather has become unusually hot. The men go about stripped to the waist and dripping with sweat. We left all our surplus baggage behind before the offensive started, so there are few of us who have more than one change of underwear. The result is that all the time we feel prickly and dirty. We would give a month’s pay for a plunge in a river and a chance to clean ourselves. Try as we may to prevent it, already a number of the men are developing skin-diseases and nearly all of them are verminous. With the constant wearing of our boots, the feet of most of us are getting blistered and sore. One of our gun-detachments made a lucky find, which has caused them to be the envy of the battery. In what had been a Hun officers’ mess they found a quantity of woman s lingerie, all of the very daintiest—pink silk finery, with baby ribbons and much lace. They at once discarded their army shirts and now lend a touch of humor to our landscape as they fire their gun in their filmy attire.

The heat has caused the carcases of the dead horses to decompose more quickly than usual; they lie indecently throughout the wheat-fields and roads like huge inflated bag-pipes with their legs sticking woodenly in the air. For miles the atmosphere is tainted with the nauseating stench of decaying flesh. No one has the time or the energy for burying them; even our human dead have in very many cases not yet been accorded the common kindness of a grave. We are all too tired to form funeral parties and the risk of exposing one’s self is too great. All our movements have to take place under the cover of darkness; it is then that our ammunition is sent up. The Hun is perfectly aware of this; he keeps every road and suspected battery-position, with all its approaches, under constant bombardment from sundown to well after midnight.

Our rations, as may be imagined, are of the very plainest, consisting for the most part of bully beef, tea, and hard tack. To light fires to cook anything is dangerous; the smoke would give us away in a second. We have outrun our lines of communication. Our railhead is many miles behind. Everything has to be brought up to the battle area by motor-transport, across roads which the enemy did his best to destroy in his flight. We are entirely out of tobacco and cigarettes. Our only remaining smokes are Hun cigars, which we have found in abandoned billets or in the pockets of the dead.

It would have been normal to have supposed that in an advance of these dimensions we should have captured enough booty to have kept ourselves supplied. Where we are now was the Hun’s back-country a few days ago, to which his troops marched out to rest. His canteens were here, his workshops and hospitals. There were plenty of French civilians still in possession of these houses; the gardens and fields were under cultivation. Our advance was so unexpected and rapid that it gave him hardly any warning of our advent; and yet he contrived to strip everything and to carry it off in his wagons. Even the gardens are bare; nothing but the crops in the fields are left. The only fresh meat which any of us have had has been supplied us by our veterinary sergeant, who holds that horse-flesh is a perfectly healthy diet if you take only the best cuts. There are plenty of wounded horses wandering about, of no further service to the army.

War has certainly taught us one thing: that we all have a far greater power of endurance than we guessed. Here we are, having put up with every kind of hardship, having experienced every kind of shock, having lived with horror as a daily companion, having gone without sleep, without proper food or anything approaching cleanliness, and yet we are happy and cheerfully prepared for as much more punishment as may be allotted.

The extraordinary cheerfulness of our men, the kind of school-boy attitude they take up towards war, as though it were no more than a tremendous lark, is illustrated by the glee they displayed in firing the two whizz-bangs which Heming brought up to us when we were attacking Fouquescourt. I suppose they derived a grim satisfaction from pelting the enemy with his own shells. To have two more guns to serve meant that everybody had to do considerably more work. Besides the actual work of serving them, there was the added labour of hunting up and collecting the Hun ammunition which was scattered throughout the country-side. They did it all without a grumble, preferring to regard the undertaking as a joke at the enemy’s expense.

Yesterday we received an order that all captured ordnance had to be drawn back to a special park, some ten miles to the rear. When our men heard that, they went out and gathered together six hundred rounds per gun and spent the night in pooping them off into the enemy back-country just as fast as they could load and fire. Funny chaps! They won’t be so keen on working overtime when once they get back to their labour unions.

By the way, Suzette has just communicated to us an interesting fact about herself. She asked to be paraded before the Major, as though she were actually a Tommy instead of a civilian girl. In the queer broken English which she has picked up from our men, she told us that this was her country before the war came and she had to flee from it. Her home was in Fransart, which is the next town which we shall have to attack. She wanted to let us know this because she thought her knowledge of the district might be of value. And then came what was probably her real motive for asking to be paraded; a request that she might be allowed to accompany the next officer and party of signallers going up front.

“But why? What for?” the Major questioned.

“Eet was my ‘ome,” she said. “I wish zo much to zee eet before zee guns—-.” She puffed out her cheeks and then emptied them with an explosive sound. “Before zay make eet all flat.”

At first the Major refused her emphatically. But the Major has a soft place for Suzette; I’m not at all sure that he is not just as much in love with her as Heming. For some time I’ve had the feeling of a growing hidden rivalry between the two men—hidden because, being friends, they are ashamed to acknowledge rivalry. And then again, neither of them is willing to own her attraction. She has no right to be here. Were it discovered that the reason for her presence in a fighting unit was the Major’s or the Captain’s affection, the affair would wear a very different aspect in the eyes of not only the higher authorities, but also of the men in the battery itself. Compelled by her pleading, the Major has promised her that on the first quiet day he will allow her-to accompany one of us up front. In granting her request I think he is ill-advised. But it is clear to me now that, were she to make any request of him, however mad, he would not be able to withstand her.

As I look back, I am amazed that I have been so blind; I can remember incidents and chance phrases, insignificant in themselves, which pieced together prove beyond a doubt that the Major has been in love with her from the very first. A topsy-turvy world! Nothing really matters when you may be blown into eternity any second. All I hope is that no one else has noticed.

Charlie Wraith on that day at Death Corner, laughing like a boy playing pirates! It’s now plain what he was doing: he was winning the admiration of Suzette.

IX

DURING the last two days I have seen the best bit of fighting of the entire war. As a rule an attack is a big sprawling affair, the whole of which no one can foresee, and the whole of which in all its details no single person can command. Everyone sets out with general instructions; but the variations in the methods by which those instructions are carried out depend on personal initiative and chance. For the first time I was in an attack every phase of which one could follow up and watch. If a moving-picture man had been there, he could have made his fortune. From first to last the entire performance was stage-set and capable of being focussed.

I was sent up forward to do liaison work with the battalion which was holding the line in front of Fouquescourt. Everything was quiet and no attack was contemplated, so Suzette had her way and was allowed to accompany me. I did not much relish having the responsibility of a girl with me in what was practically the Front-line, though nobody by looking at her could have guessed that she was a girl. Her appearance was that of a slightly built boy, who was probably two years below the military age; but there was nothing to arouse suspicion in that, for many of our Tommies have obviously increased their age in order to get themselves into the Army. She accompanied me ostensibly as a telephonist in my signalling party.

Battalion headquarters were situated in a deep trench, which crossed the road which runs between Fouquescourt and Fransart. This road was raked day and night by hostile fire. The trench itself was anything but a pleasant spot. The moment one poked his head up to look over the top a bullet would whizz by; Hun snipers were everywhere and quite close up. Suzette’s idea in accompanying me had been to get a glimpse of Fransart before it was flattened by shells; but apart from the snipers this was impossible, for the fields sloped up into a ridge which hid all but the tops of the village trees from the trench where we were. This being the case there was not much sense in allowing her to remain in a place of danger, so I made up my mind to send her back to the battery with the runner who would carry down my situation report at nightfall.

I had never had much talk with Suzette; that afternoon as I sat in the hot sun-baked trench I got a glimpse of her mind for the first time. The rest of my party were sprawled out on their backs, trying to make up for broken nights, so we were quite by ourselves.

“Suzette,” I said, “why do you follow us? It isn’t a happy sort of life. Surely somewhere you must have friends.”

She shrugged her shoulders ever so slightly, “My friends! Zay was all in Fransart. You are my friends now.”

I tried to get her to outline to me what had happened to her since the start of the war, but she wasn’t to be drawn out on that point. “Ze Germans, zay was not nice,” she said; “zay killed my mother over zare.” It appeared that her mother had kept pigeons in the loft of their cottage. When the Germans discovered that the birds had rings on their legs, they had suspected that they were intended for the carrying of messages, and her old mother had been led out and shot. She herself had escaped through their outposts and regained the unconquered territory. What had happened between the time of her escape and our finding her she passed over in a phrase, “Eet was cold and un’appy, and zen you were kind.”

I found that what she really preferred to talk about was her girlhood, before calamity had touched her; so let her talk on. It was over there in Hallu Wood, from which the sniping was coming, that she had gone each spring with the village children to gather primroses. It was through these fields, where corpses were now lying, that she used to walk with her pail at milking-time. She peopled the battlefield with ghosts, recreating all the peasant ways of life that the ferocity of war had terminated. She made me see the old priest in his rusty black skirt and round felt hat, going down the lanes between the little cottages. She made me see the pool in the brook where her mother used to kneel with the village women, singing and banging the linen white against the stones. But most of all she made me see herself—Suzette, with the gold-brown plaits, whom all the boys used to follow with their eyes, before there was any Bully Beef or any hint of catastrophe in the world.

The ‘phone tinkled, breaking the spell, and the telephonist on duty called to let me know that I was wanted by the Major.

“Hulloa, sir, I was going to have called you up. I’m sending Suzette back. There is nothing for her to see up here.”

“Don’t send her back—not yet.” The Major’s voice sounded abrupt and agitated.

“But why——?”

“Here’s why. Bully Beef is lost and we don’t want her to know until we’ve found him.”

“Lost, but——”

“Yes, lost. I know what you are going to say; that he can’t have gone far and must have been picked up by some other unit. The fact is, however, that he’s as completely vanished as if the ground had opened and swallowed him. Keep her with you until we’ve made a proper search. We may not have to tell her.”

That night instead of returning with the runner to the battery, Suzette stayed with us in the Front-line. When night had fallen and the snipers could no longer see her, she sat on the lip of the trench, staring out into the darkness towards Fransart. Once she pointed to a lone tree on the ridge, saying that she could see the village from there and asking me to allow her to go forward; but the enemy patrols were likely to be abroad, so I had to deny her. Several times I heard her sigh heavily and more than once I could have sworn that tears glistened in her eyes. She was realising all that she had lost. But how much she had lost even she did not know as yet, for every time I phoned back to the battery and questioned I received the same answer; there was no news of her child.

At the Front men are missing very often for weeks before you find a trace of them. They stray into the enemy lines. They get wounded by a chance shell. Their nerve fails them at the moment when they have accomplished some heroic act and they desert. We had one man who brought in a wounded officer at the risk of his life and was recommended for a decoration. Then it was discovered that the man could not be found. When he was found, he was awarded the D. C. M. for valour and court-martialed for the cowardice of desertion. We never give up hope when a man goes missing until he is proved to be dead. But with a civilian it is different; there are no army records through which to trace and report them. Were Bully Beef found killed, it would be nobody’s business. At the Front one’s responsibility extends no further than to the men in khaki.

Next morning on enquiring across the ‘phone, I was told that they had picked up a rumour: a child had been seen on the road between the wagon-lines and Death Corner. If that were so, it would mean that Bully Beef had wandered out of the wagonlines in the direction of the battery in search of his mother. He had come up once or twice to the battery-position with the ammunition-wagons, and would have a vague idea of the way. Seeing that he had not arrived at the battery, it was likely that he had gone past it; in which case he must be somewhere in the wheatfields between Death Corner and Fourquescourt. A detail of men were out searching for him, led by Big Dan.

Then something arose which swung my thoughts clean away from this personal anxiety. To the south of us drum-fire had been pounding away all morning; we guessed that the French had been going after Noyon once again. At one o’clock we got a sudden intimation that within two hours we must capture Franeart and, if possible, the railroad which lay beyond. This left no time for the working out of the usual detailed plans for artillery co-operation. Moreover, we were too far forward to dare to send our instructions back by telephone; the Hun listening-machines would pick up our conversations and the enemy would be forewarned. We had to make out a rough barrage-table and run it back to the guns by messenger. When that was done it was necessary that I and my party should go forward to the jumping-off point with the infantry, since the ridge in front blocked the view of the area where the fighting was to take place. Suzette volunteered to accompany my party, and since I had far too few signallers for a show and no time to obtain more I was compelled to accept her. Leaving one man in the trench to watch for our messages, we struck out along the Fouquescourt-Fransart road and commenced to lay in wire to the point from which we proposed to observe the fight.

It was a brilliantly hot afternoon; all the parched landscape seemed to shift and quiver in the dancing haze. One’s clothes rasped the flesh like sand-paper and one’s eyes were blinded by perspiration. We made little progress with the laying of our wire, for every few minutes we had to go back to mend a break caused by shell-fire. At last we abandoned the idea of keeping in touch with the rear by telephone and determined to rely on visual signalling. We passed the ruined village of Fouquescourt on our right. It was seething in a cloud of smoke; the shriek of bursting shells was like the wild applause of waves breaking on a rock-bound coast. We abandoned the road and bore over towards the left, till we came to an old Hun trench, which ran straight up to Fransart and passed near to the lone tree on the ridge, from which we intended to signal back our messages. As we stole crouching between its shallow banks, we noted how our chaps had flung away the heavier part of their equipment; it was strewn with haversacks, Mill’s bombs and tins of bully. Then, when we almost thought that we had advanced too far, we came across them. They were kneeling close together, panting like over driven animals, their bayonets gleaming thirstily in the fierce sunshine. Many of them were reinforcements who had never been in battle before—men who had been sent to replace the heavy casualties of our encounters. Their faces were haggard with the struggle against terror and they trembled as they waited for our guns to open fire. One could pick out the veterans among them at a glance by their fatalistic carelessness. Having posted a signaller with flags and a lamp, I pushed forward to where the Company Commander was waiting to lead the advance. He was just on the crest, from where one could look down on the approaches to Fransart. The village itself was still hidden from sight, but one could see the little country road, running through fields straight and white as an arrow from Fouquescourt, and crossing the road a line of apple trees. It looked very sleepy and innocent. One would scarcely have been surprised to have seen blue-clad peasants rise out of the grass and commence to sharpen their scythes. There was no hint of murder and strife; the suspense of the crouching men behind us struck a false note of melodrama. The Company Commander consulted his wrist-watch, counting off the minutes.

He turned to me. “How many more do you make it?”

“Six minutes more to go,” I replied.

“What are you doing when the show has started?”

“I follow you up,” I said, “and keep you in sight. If you want to send any runners back, you’ll find some of my signallers in this trench.”

Then we again fell to watching the quiet country with a kind of wonder, counting off the minutes and the seconds.

There were only two minutes left when the infantry-officer jerked my elbow excitedly, “Good God, look at that!”

“At what?”

“Get your glasses out, man, they’re better than mine. That thing over there, moving towards the apple-trees down the road.”

I picked up the object with my naked eye when he pointed. It was a mere speck, creeping very slowly. It might have been a man crawling, only it was hardly big enough. Our riflemen already had their sights trained on it and their angers on the triggers, awaiting the order to fire. I raised my glasses. What I saw was a child, with chubby legs, short skirts and long hair to the middle of his back like a girl’s. His face was streaky with crying, and he kept digging his knuckles into his eyes. Through the glasses he looked so near that I could have touched him by reaching out my hand. It was horrible to see him out there, where in little over a minute our own shells would be falling. Our little Bully Beef, going in search of his mother! There wasn’t one of us who wouldn’t have given up his life to restore him to her, and we were powerless to draw him back. The rifles were lowered as the word was whispered round; we watched his progress in fascinated suspense.

Suddenly, rising out of a ditch behind him, came another figure—Big Dan’s. Big Dan, who had promised to take care of him in his mother’s absence! He leapt up and ran towards the enemy lines down the ribbon of white road. He must have called to Bully Beef, for we saw the child turn and fling out his arms at recognising him. Dan picked him up, holding him tight against his breast, and stood there hesitating, waiting for the enemy to take their revenge. I could almost hear him singing defiantly, in his deep base voice,

Old soldiers never die,

They simply fade away.

Then a hundred yards in front, out of the apparent emptiness a Hun stood up waving a handkerchief; beside the Hun were a dozen rifles all pointing in Dan’s direction. He moved forward, with the child’s face looking back across his shoulder. As the first of our shells fell, he stepped down and was lost to sight in the German trench. Like a squall at sea our barrage descended and everything was blotted out.

I turned to the signaller who was nearest to me, “Where is Suzette?”

“Behind the next traverse, sir.”

“She did not see? She does not know?”

“She doesn’t know, sir.”

“Then until it is all over we must not tell her.” It took five minutes for the enemy retaliation to come back. It burst like a hurricane along the ridge and along the shallow hiding place in which we were. No man could hide there for long. The only safety was to get either in front of it or behind it. The Company-Commander gave the signal to advance. With the men running and crouching low, the river of bayonets streamed past me. Like a trickling stream, I watched their silver gleaming grow more distant above the tall rank grass which lined the lip of the trench. God knows to what fate they were going or how many of those splendidly fashioned men would remain unbroken by sunset. For myself. I had other things to think about.

My job was to keep the attack in sight and to be sure that my chain of signallers was in touch with the rear, so that I could get my orders through for the directing of fire. To keep the attack in sight it was necessary to push on nearer to Fransart, so I took Suzette and one man with me, leaving the rest of my party strung out behind. Where the apple-trees crossed the road, I saw our men leap out of the trench and start at the run across the open. Instantly a withering fire was brought to bear on them from a little village in advance and over to the right, which we had been informed had been in our hands since morning. They began to go down like nine-pins, pitching forward into the dust and rolling over on their sides. We stood up to signal back the news of what was happening, but the first flapping of the flags brought about our heads a storm of bullets. Our only chance was to run the message back through the enemy’s barrage. The signaller started off down the trench. We waited for his return, but we waited in vain. A runner reached us from the Company Commander, asking for guns to be brought to bear upon a machine-gun nest which was holding up the advance. I had only Suzette left, so she took the message and vanished into the enemy barrage behind me. Shortly after she had gone on her errand another infantry-runner met me, with the message that our chaps had got through Fransart and were in sight of the railroad on the other side, but that the enemy machine-guns, which they thought they had demolished, were firing in their backs. None of my men had returned. I thought I knew why, for the ridge was boiling. There was no one left to send, so I set off to run the information back myself.

I have read in history of men who were never afraid, but I have not met their like at the front. All the men out here have been afraid and will be afraid again tomorrow. They acknowledge their fear, and conquer and despise it. The difference between the brave man and the coward is that, whereas the coward gives way to his imagination, the brave man carries on as if he were untouched by terror. That day I was frankly afraid. As I entered the barrage every nerve in my body went on strike. Shells were exploding on the very lip of the trench; the shock of their concussion was like a blow aimed against my knee-joints. I felt blinded and faint. The smart of fumes was in my eyes; the reek in my throat was choking. I glanced across my shoulder to find that, where I had been standing a few seconds before, the trench had been blown up.

On in front across the part that I had to traverse, the grass was scorched and smoking. It was like being pummelled by a mob of invisible assassins. I staggered, and ran, and crawled, and panted; my heart was filled with hatred for the enemy miles behind at their guns, who bided their time and killed us at their leisure. Round each fresh traverse I expected to stumble across one of my men lying broken and sprawled out. Thinking that they might be in hiding I called their names again and again as I ran. I might just as well have called to the clouds in a storm at sea from a row-boat. I was mortally afraid that I should die alone. But beyond my terror was the sense of my obligation to those men up front, cut off from hope by the machine-guns firing in their backs: at any and every cost they must be helped.

X

I HAD reached the very heart of the barrage, when I felt a hand grabbing at my leg. I looked down and found two of my signallers and Suzette crouching in a hole which some infantry-men must have scooped for themselves. Had they not seized hold of me I should have gone past them, not knowing they were there. Bending down I shouted an enquiry as to whether they were wounded. They told me “No,” but that it was impossible to signal since every time they tried to use their flags they brought a hail of lead about their heads; moreover, so long as the barrage lasted all the chain of signallers behind them were held hammered against the ground. There was no one to read their messages and it was probable that more than one of the receiving-stations had been wiped out. Realising the truth of what they said, I sat down beside them to recover my breath. While we sat there, as suddenly as the storm of death had broken, it lifted and leapt half a mile to the rear to about the line on which battalion headquarters were established.

Getting my party on to their legs, I arranged to send all my messages back to the ridge by runner and to have them relayed on from there out of sight of the enemy by flag-wagging. Taking one man with me and Suzette, since she knew Fransart well, I again pushed forward.

I got as far along the trench as to where the apple-trees crossed the road; there I halted. The enemy was putting up an intense bombardment just in rear of the village to prevent the approach of our reinforcements. It was now some time since any messages from the infantry up front had reached me; I began to get nervous lest something disastrous had happened. At last I determined to leave the man behind me to relay orders, and to go forward with Suzette. I had another reason for wishing to get into the village; I wanted to see if I could find any traces of Bully Beef and Dan. From where I was I could make out the spot where the Hun had stood up and beckoned to them. There was little chance that they were alive, but I was anxious to satisfy myself.

Watching our chance, Suzette and I popped out on to the roadway and commenced to run, crouching low and zigzagging. At once we became a target for the sharpshooters in the uncaptured village, to our right flank. About our feet the dust began to go up in vicious spurts and about our heads we heard the sharp pizz pizz of bullets. The intoxicating excitement of danger got into our blood: we called to each other and laughed as we ran. God knows there was little enough to laugh about; of the company of a hundred and forty odd men who had attacked across that open space before us, upwards of a hundred were lying wounded and dead. But the curious psychology of battle is that no one ever thinks that other people’s misfortunes may befall himself. While the wine of adventure sings in his head he believes himself immortal. That is the explanation of the boys who go cheering across the Tom-Tiddler’s ground of death.

Breathless and still laughing we reached and jumped into what had been the Hun Front-line. Here the laughter was wiped from our lips in a second. Everything was scared and silent. Our attack had not been expected; the enemy had been caught for fair. Our wall of fire had descended on him, shattered him, choked him, buried him. The troops in this part of the line had been Bavarians: jovial, fresh-complexioned. fair-haired men. We knew them of old—genial fellows, with fine singing voices, who would exchange presents with you out in No Man’s Land, and kill you treacherously while your present was still in their hands, without any consciousness of broken honour or unkindness. Here in the polluted summer quiet they lay in every contortion of distress, mangled, smashed and ended, their blue eyes wide open, staring at the sky and still retaining an expression of panic astonishment. They had come to war as we had come to war; but they had not expected to die. That was what they seemed to be telling us: “Take example from us; turn back in time.”

We stumbled our way into a communication-trench, and hurried on, guessing at the direction our infantry must have taken. Here the brutality of what had happened was even more obvious; in the terror of their flight, the enemy had become jammed in the narrow space; they had fought with one another to escape and had trodden the wounded into the ground.

Now, following between the tunnelled roots of trees, we came to the village itself, lying in the heart of a little wood. The trench became so narrow that our equipment caught against its sides. Grass grew tall along its banks, and scattered through the grass were wild flowers. We had glimpses as we travelled of cottage gardens, bee-hives and curtained windows. But we were glad to keep our heads down, for shrapnel was stripping the leaves from the trees and bursting with the clash of cymbals above our heads. We were walking straight through our own barrage, and still there was no sign of our own infantry. We began to wonder whether we had gone beyond them or whether they had been all wiped out. Behind us in the houses of Fransart, which ought by rights to have been in our hands, we could hear the unmistakable cough of German machine-guns at work.

On the far side of the wood we stumbled on our men—twenty-six of them: all that were left. They were scattered at intervals along the trench, hugging the ground. As we stepped over them, going in search of their officer, they paid us no attention. They were most of them green troops—reinforcements, who were tasting the bitterness of battle for the first time. But so was Suzette; she showed no signs of faint-heartedness Her eyes were gray stars, deep and quiet, and an eager smile played about her firm young mouth. In looking at her I was reminded of Joan of Arc, and could believe that she too had talked with heavenly presences.

Twenty-five yards ahead there was a trench-juncture, at which a lad was sitting with his legs wide apart and a scarlet hole bored through the centre of his forehead. No one had gone to his help; he merely sat there in the sunlight with a puzzled expression, watching the blood splash slowly on his hands. When I made to cross the trench-juncture, one of the men pulled me back. “A Hun sniper,” he panted with an eloquent economy of words; “he gets everyone who goes there.”

“But what’s the matter with you chaps?” I asked. “It’s the booby-traps, sir,” he said; “they’ve blown a lot of us up. We daren’t stir.”

Then I saw what he meant. Across the trench, beyond where the wounded man was sitting, cobwebs of wires had been strung a few inches above the ground, attached to pegs. They looked innocent enough, but were just at the right height to catch the feet of men advancing in single file. Should anyone trip against them, the jerk on the pegs would explode a series of mines.

I turned to the man. “Are you the furthest up of the attack?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you know what’s on ahead?”

“The railroad, sir, with a lot of freight-cars standing on the tracks. The Huns are hiding behind them and taking pot-shots at us.”

Just then the Company Commander hove in sight, crouching low to avoid the sharp-shooters and stepping warily between the wires of the traps. While I spoke to him. Suzette was dragging the wounded lad back from the trench-juncture and binding up his head.

“A pretty rotten mess. I call it,” the Company Commander growled pantingly, wiping the perspiration from his eyes. “We ought to have had tanks and aeroplanes to do this job and twice as many men. It’s sheer murder. My men haven’t a one per cent chance of coming out of the show alive; out of a hundred and forty I have twenty-six left. The enemy gets us from in front and from both flanks, while his machine-guns in Fransart are potting at our backs. And what the devil is our own artillery doing laying down a barrage behind us?”

The truth was the infantry had advanced too quickly, without first ascertaining that their gunners had been notified of their progress. They had also failed to “mop up” the enemy strongholds before pressing further forward. The consequence was that they had left pockets of resistance on every hand and that their own artillery was cutting them off from help. Their situation was desperate. There was only one remedy; to find out the exact locations of the machine-gun nests and to send the information back to the guns, that they might knock them out with high explosive; to send back orders to our artillery that the barrage should be raised; and to withdraw our troops from Fransart and subject the village to a fresh bombardment. But to what place could we safely withdraw our infantry while the bombardment was in progress—that was the question. To answer this question the Company Commander and I decided that a further reconnaissance was necessary. We did not know what lay on ahead or how near to us the Huns were; at all events, it could not be much more dangerous further forward.

Leaving instructions that the men should keep well under cover to avoid casualties in our absence, we set out. Treading gingerly up the trench mined with booby-traps, we came to a turning which led off to the right. Here things were comparatively quiet, all the firing passing well above our heads. We followed the turning for about two hundred yards, and then peered stealthily over the top. Not fifty yards away was the railroad, with the freight-cars either standing on the tracks or thrown over on their sides to form, a barrier. Poking out from loopholes, which had been cut in the woodwork, were the muzzles of rifles. We had seen all that was necessary; we knew that we must take, a gambler’s chance. I arranged with the Company Commander that he should lead his men still further forward to this trench so that they might be clear of our shellfire, and that he should see to the warning of our infantry who were in Fransart, while I ran the orders back to the guns and saw to it that reinforcements were sent up the moment our bombardment ended.

The return journey to the signalling-station where the apple-trees crossed the road, was as hot a piece of work as I remember. Suzette took it as coolly as if it were no more than a country-walk. We had to pass through both our own barrage and the enemy’s. Of the two ours was the worse. In Fransart itself the trench had been made more shallow by direct hits with shells. As we wriggled our way on hands and knees over dibris, we could see the Hun machine-gunner? blazing away from the attics of houses and our own men crawling through the undergrowth to rush the entrances with bombs. I remember discussing with my conscience the decency of permitting Suzette to run such risks. But I had no choice, for if I were killed, she might survive to get the messages back; in any case, when she learnt about Bully Beef, she would receive her death-warrant.

We found our signaller where we had left him and at once got him to work flag-wagging the information to the rear. The enemy spotted him after the first few minutes; but with a reckless disregard for his own safety, he carried on amid a hail of bullets till the task was ended. A quarter of an hour later, like a hurricane let loose, the levelling of Fransart commenced. The wood rocked as in a gale. Roofs were stripped from the houses; the walk shuddered and knelt slowly down like camels. This concentrated commotion was intensified for us by the contrast of the breathless stillness of the surrounding country. For myself I was picturing the wild scramble for life of the Huns whom we had seen firing from the windows of the attics. They were brave men, who had purposed to sell their lives dearly. To kill them without giving them a chance, in a way which they had not anticipated, was fair; but its fairness did not make it less appallingly dramatic.

I was roused from these thoughts by a trembling at my side; it came from Suzette. She was kneeling with her face cushioned in her hands and was weeping violently. I bent over her, asking what was the matter. “Eet was my ‘ome,” she said.

Suddenly she leapt to her feet and stood tiptoe, staring. I followed her gaze. Out of the wood where trees were crashing and the ground was billowing itself into mounds, two men were advancing. They walked gropingly and the arm of the taller was flung about the other’s neck. The taller man was wounded and in khaki; his companion was a plump little Bavarian—evidently one of the machine-gunners who had been firing in our backs. Every now and then we lost them as a shell burst in their path; but always they emerged through the smoke of the bombardment, dragging themselves by inches nearer to the comparative safety that was ours. Without a word of warning, Suzette burst from me and commenced to race towards them. It was sheer foolishness to venture into that inferno where every second seemed to be a man’s last. I started after her, intending if need be to hold her back by force.

As I drew nearer, I saw what her sharp eyes had discerned already, that the wounded man carried a child against hip breast; then I recognized who he was. At that moment he pitched forward, pulling the Bavarian with him to the ground. When the enemy had tottered slowly to his feet, he rose alone and had transferred the child to his own arms. But Suzette had reached him now; she snatched the child to her body. Like a drama played out, the last shell fell and the bombardment was ended.

I glanced behind me. Like a winding stream, following the serpentine wanderings of the trench, I saw the gleaming bayonets of our reinforcements shining above the tangled grass. Five minutes later when I re-entered the ravished wood, guiding up the supports to a new attack, I passed Suzette. She had forgotten that she was dressed in khaki. She sat among the dibris of splintered trees mothering Bully Beef, who was quite unhurt, while the plump little Bavarian smiled down on her in mild astonishment. At full length lay Dan, his old soldier’s face composed and kindly—his last fight ended. He had had his desire, as so often expressed in his favourite song: his duty accomplished, he had simply “faded.”

XI

IT is many days since I wrote the last line. This battle goes on and on. We are drunk for want of sleep and rest. How much farther can we drive these weary bodies of ours without their collapsing? We treat them as things of naught—as mere slaves whom we lash in action to carry our spirits forward. We do not wash them, feed them, clothe them with any care; we scarcely spare the time to keep them alive while the victory is so nearly within our grasp. It is amazing that such a multitude of diverse men should be agreed to have so little mercy on themselves.

One feels that there are two armies fighting, for every one that is apparent: the external, sullen army of heavy-eyed, red-rimmed flesh, and the invisible, eager, clear-eyed army of indestructible souls, which flogs the laggard army of the flesh forward. Behind us, all along the battlefields of the advance, the earth of men lies mouldering and putrescent, but their liberated spirits still fight beside our spirits, treading close upon the heels of the enemy.

The test of scarlet! We used to speak about it, but we never dreamt that it could be such a test. We never knew that human mechanisms could survive such ordeals and be patched up with courage to endure them afresh.

After the capturing of Fransart our corps was drawn out and French troops were thrown in to hold the line which we had broken. Then the terrible night-marches re-commenced, for the enemy must not know where we were going. Again we must play the game of hiding, and vanish entirely. We must be the will-o’-the-wisps of the Western Front and disclose ourselves unheralded at a point where we were least expected. We ourselves must have no knowledge of our destination; our job must be to move like ghosts and to cover as much ground as possible under the shadow of darkness.

At the end of the first stage we concealed ourselves in woods, which had in a day become familiar to all the English-speaking world. It was here that our cavalry surrounded an entire German cavalry division, entrained and on the point of pulling out. It was here that our infantry captured a Hun hospital, and set an example in chivalry by offering the nurses the choice between working for our wounded or a safe conduct to the lines of their own countrymen. It was here that Big Bertha was found—the long-range man-eater which had tried to murder Paris. But, sweetest of all memories, it was here, after the long drought, that the rain descended and we stripped off our clothes, stiff as boards with sweat, and ran naked through the leaves in the stinging downpour.

On the evening of the second stage we passed through wheat-fields, recently re-captured from the enemy, still strewn with Australia’s unburied dead. Here troops were busily at work gathering in the harvest of the trampled grain. We realised then that it was not our blood alone, willingly as it was shed, that would restore peace and happiness to the world, but the thrift that could satisfy man’s bitter cry for bread.

How many marches did we make? How often did we rest? I cannot remember now. What happened is all a blur. We crawled across a devastated land through a fog of moonlight, dawns and sunsets. We gave and obeyed orders mechanically. Our perceptions were dulled; we were mad for sleep. As soon as our eyes closed, the relentless word would go round to harness up and move on, always to move on; but to what were we marching?

It seemed as though all the world were dead and we were the only fighters left. Though the light failed and one could scarcely see his hand before his face, we knew by the heavy staleness in the air that we were traversing interminable grave-yards, where villages, trees, men and horses lay shallowly beneath the swollen sod. And yet we knew that there were other fighters besides ourselves. How the rumour reached us I cannot tell, but we were aware that the Americans were massing before St. Mihiel, and that they were piled up in their thousands behind Yprhs. Long after the graciousness of sleep had come to us, they would tramp in their millions above our quiet beds; we should feel the pressure of their heels upon our foreheads and should know that they were carrying on our work. It didn’t matter what happened to us; the work of victory would go on just the same. The Hun would not triumph. We should not have spent our youth in vain. In this knowledge, despite our weariness, we were glad.

I have a curious feeling that on those long night-marches I held conversations with men, with whom I certainly scarcely exchanged a word. At all events, though I did not speak to them, I knew what was happening inside their heads. Perhaps it was that we had all become abnormal with the strain and developed a mental telepathy which communicated thoughts without the fatigue of words. As we moved through the darkness it was as though each brain was a little lighted house, behind whose windows shadows came and went. I knew, for instance, what Trottot was thinking. He was brooding over his failure to disprove his reputation for being yellow. He was resentful of his sergeant who had kept him back at the wagon-lines whenever the shell-fire was intense up front. He was hungering for the chance to do something so reckless that everyone would have to vote him brave enough to be lead-driver of the gun. I knew what the Major was thinking: at the head of the column he was thinking unceasingly of Suzette. And Heming, bringing up the rear with the transport, he was thinking of two women and hoping that the next fight would be his last.

Sometimes I had the odd sensation that there were many more marching with the battery than would ever again answer the roll-call. I was riding at the head of my section half asleep about midnight, when a horseman came up at the gallop and reined in beside me. I expected to hear him deliver some message; instead he dropped into a walk at my side. His steel helmet shadowed his face. I was too weary to speak unnecessarily and took him for one of my sergeants. Perhaps I drowsed; when I again noticed him the moon was coning out from under cloud. Then I saw that he was wearing an officer’s uniform. That piqued me into wakefulness. I leant forward to get a closer glimpse of his features. As I did so, he flung his horse back on its haunches, wheeled to the left and vanished in the dark. During the brief space while I gazed on him, I recognized Tubby Grain.

Other men in the battery are telling similar stories. They have seen Big Dan, Standish and many of their fallen comrades. They ride on the limbers and the wagons; they plod persistently behind the guns. They do not seek to attract attention to themselves. They do not talk or inconvenience anybody. Having died in a foreign land, it seems normal and right that their spirits should still accompany us. At dawn they vanish. As regards Tubby Grain, since the first time I have never seen his face—only his plump little figure going at the trot through the darkness down the column.

And now our marches are, for the time being, at an end. Once again we have been flung in as the hammerhead of the attack. They say that Foch’s principle is to use up his storm-troops; he never relieves them when once an offensive has begun. We no longer guess—we know the task that lies before us. Last time it was the saving of Amiens; this time it is the breaking of the Hindenburg Line. Two nights ago we pulled into action across the bald chalky country that straddles the Cambrai-Arras road. To the north of us, rising out of the blackness of the Vimy Plain, we could see the ridge which was so long our home and which, because we were not allowed to die, we guarded with so much impatience. Ah, how impatient we were while the indignity of not dying was upon us! How little we valued the supreme gift of life! How we courted death in raid after raid throughout the summer! Had we known then how few sunny days remained for most of us, how much more gratefully we should have lived them. We have come back for what will probably be our severest test to very nearly the spot whence we started.

Nobody now garrisons what was once regarded as the Gibraltar of the Western Front. Our armies have swept forward like a tidal wave and are beating on the doors of the cities in the plain, which a month ago looked so distant and impregnable.

Our brigade has been pushed well up into the point of a narrow salient—a long thin cape of recaptured territory which projects far out into the enemy country. We are so far up that the Hun balloons are actually in rear of us and watch our every movement from either flank. Any time that they choose they can bring accurate fire to bear on us. We have been in some murder-holes before, but this is by long adds the worst. The Hun game is to obliterate us before we get started. All day and all night he bombards us without cessation. When high explosives have failed, he drenches us with gas.

Now that we are here there is no use in trying to disguise either our presence or our purpose. The old subterfuge of camouflage is of no avail. The country is too bare and too much overlooked for any precautions, however ingenious, to protect us. Our only chance is to hurry up and get the attack begun before we are all dead. There will be a percentage of safety when we begin to go forward; there is none in sitting still. That we may launch our offensive quickly, we are making every effort. No man’s life is precious. Guns and ammunition drive up in the broad daylight and are knocked out. No sooner are they knocked out than others are sent forward to take their places. The waste is stupendous. Direct hits are scored on ammunition-dumps; there is never an hour when explosives cannot be seen going up in flames—never an hour when horses and men cannot be seen rolling in their final agony. The spectacle is too ordinary to excite us. We are too much fatalists to be intimidated. With a misleading display of callousness, while the unlucky are dying, we who are whole carry on with our preparations for revenge, which the enemy watching from the sky does his utmost to prevent.

Our battery is in a narrow valley to the left of what was once a town. A sign-board, with the name painted on it, is its only means of identification: “This was a town.” It is the same with all the sites of former human habitation which lie behind us; if it were not for the sign-boards, they would be indistinguishable from the miles of shell-ploughed waste and mine-craters in which this abomination of desolation abounds. The country as far as eye can search, lies stark and evil as an alkali desert.

In our valley there is a stagnant malodorous swamp, close to which we have dragged in our guns so that their muzzles point out across it. It was once a river winding through a pleasant meadow, but gradually it has become choked by the refuse of dead things—dead men, dead horses, dead happiness. God knows what it hides. It has been kind to us, nevertheless, for it has saved us many casualties. All the enemy’s rounds which fall short of us plunge harmlessly into the liquid mud. We hear them coming with the roar of express engines. We make a bet where they are going to burst. Then a column of filth goes up from the swamp-and we know that this slough of despond has again preserved us.

If we have been lucky, others have been less fortunate. The valley being stiff with batteries, there are not enough good positions to go round. One watches the shells alight, then sees the men rushing for stretchers. In an endless chain the ammunition-wagons drive up, fling out their rounds and depart at the gallop. Let them move quickly and ever more quickly, there are always some of them that get caught. The place is rapidly becoming a shambles. No one’s life is worth a minute’s purchase. It would be interesting to know what premium we should have to pay if we wanted to insure ourselves.

The Major has just told me that the attack is to be launched tomorrow at dawn. It’s extraordinarily ambitious, for its third objective is fifteen thousand yards from where we are at present, and it’s ultimate goal is the capture, of Cambrai. Between ourselves and Cambrai stretches the most strongly fortified country of the entire German Front—a country naturally fortified by marshes and canals and made doubly impregnable by military cunning. The Hindenburg Line will have to be taken first before any general advance can be begun. After that certain sacrifice-tanks will go through and drown themselves in the canals to make a bridge over which the living tanks and cavalry may push forward to conquest.

We can stand any amount of pummelling now that we know the worst. “It’s going to be a top-hole show—Berlin or nothing;” those were the Major’s words. Judging by the pleased grins on the men’s faces, it won’t be nothing. We’re going to finish the job this time and be done with it forever. Since the men have heard the news, they’ve generated quite a “home for Christmas” air of jollity. There is only one man who looks sad—Captain Heming. He has received orders to start for Blighty at once to give evidence in the case of Mrs. Dragott.

“Don’t go if you don’t want to,” said the Major. “I’ll stand by you if there’s trouble. Please yourself.”

We’re wondering how he’ll decide. It depends on his evidence, whether it would save or condemn her.

If it would condemn her and he still loves her——

A man can live worse deaths than falling honourably in battle.

XII

IT is wonderful to lie here in the quiet and to know that it is all ended. Already the world is saying, “Let’s forget that there was a war.” That’s natural for people fatigued by contemplating tragedy; but which is the more inconvenient—to have been a spectator or an endurer of tragedy? It’s all very well for the spectators to say, “It’s over, thank God. We’re safe now, let’s go home and be gay as we once were.” But how can we, who were comrades in the ordeal, ever forget? And the rest of the world which only watched from afar, what right has it to forget? Now that it has been saved by other men’s loss, is it its obligations that it would forget? Would it forget the pain which our bodies will always remember? Would it forget the cold, the thirst, the weariness, the wounds, the forlornness, the despairing courage which it did not share? Would it forget the dead who forewent their gladness, believing that their immortality was secured by the gratitude which would commemorate their simple heroism? If it does forget, it absconds like a blackguard debtor, cheating both us and the dead. For we fought not for victory alone, but to establish a loftier standard, so that the world in recalling the price we paid might make itself kinder and better. As I lie here in hospital, six stories up, with the throb of London beating distantly like a receding drum beneath my window, I am sometimes uncertain whether any of the scenes I have lived through ever happened. The war grows unreal and vague. Surely those ex-plumbers, ex-bricklayers, ex-piano-tuners with whom I marched, are only imagined. At this distance it seems incredible that such men should have found the fortitude to make themselves the knights of Armageddon. They were so ordinary, so ignorant of their true greatness, so blind to the magnanimous courage of their martyrdom. Ordinary, ignorant and blind they were; perhaps their indifference to their worth was their outstanding glory. Yet these everyday men proved not by ones or twos, but in their millions that the spirit of righteous freedom only slumbers. In remembering their example never again can we believe ourselves ignoble or that the race of sacrificial men is ever ended.

My little Major, with the V. C. ribbon on his breast, came on leave from Mons the other day and hopped in, merry as ever, to see me. He was at the Front when the Armistice was declared: I was eager to hear about it. “How did the men take it?” I asked him. “Like any other happening,” he said.

“But wasn’t there any excitement or cheering?”

“There may have been, but I didn’t see it,” he told me. “We were marching up to a fresh attack when the word reached us. We halted and drew in to the side of the road, feeling a trifle discontented on account of the cold. One felt warmer, you understand, while in motion. It was a raw day, being November. When the news had been confirmed, we turned back to the last town in search of billets. The chaps cracked a smile then, when they discovered that they were to have a solid night’s rest with a roof above their heads.”

I levered myself up in bed and stared at Charlie Wraith. Despite all that I knew of the Front, I found it hard to credit this utter lack of emotion. In the old days all our talk had been of when the war would end—how we would throw aside authority, cock our guns up and fire off salvo after salvo to the heavens. We had promised ourselves that we would go over the top for a last time as a kind of sporting luxury, and beat up the Hun just once more for luck to prove that we still had plenty of ginger left. The flying-men had asserted that they would head their planes in the direction of Boche-land and send them off unpiloted to put the wind up the enemy. Every mad prank had been imagined and discussed for making our celebration memorable and effective. From the Channel to Switzerland the Front should blaze and be clangourous. And this was actually how the greatest war in history bad fizzled out: they had drawn in to the side of the road, felt cold and turned back to the nearest town in search of billets. Had the Major told me that the men had shewn resentment, feeling that they had been baulked of an immenser victory, I could have understood that.

But this account of stoical indifference was astounding. I tried to put some of my surprise into words.

“If they weren’t glad, perhaps they were disappointed?”

“Not disappointed,” he said. “We’d been through too much to be either happy or sad. I think we’d got past feeling anything. We were sort of numb. I’m no good at expressing myself. Some of the married chaps sighed contentedly and whispered, more to themselves than aloud, ‘Well, that’s that.’ They meant, I suppose, that they’d be seeing their wives again presently. But most of us didn’t say a word; we just carried on as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.”

I think this picture of dumb subjection to duty made me realise more than anything the sheer cost of victory in spiritual energy to the men who bought it with their blood. While London, New York and Paris went mad, climbing lamp-posts, changing hats, dragging tin cans through the streets and converting themselves into impromptu jazz bands, these men, whose valour was being commemorated, pulled in to the side of the road, felt cold, and limped back to the nearest town in search of billets. They were “sort of numb.” They’d been through too much to feel either happy or sad. “Well, that’s that,” they had said, and thanked God for the luxury of a secure night’s rest and the comfort of a roof above their heads.

And yet, why I should have been so surprised I don’t quite know. The Major’s picture was consistent with everything I had learned of the fighting man—precisely what one might have expected. That I should have been surprised only proves to me how thoroughly normal and civilian we are beneath our khaki. Here am I, a few weeks out of the line, finding myself amazed at conduct which would have been mine, had I lasted. “Well, that’s that”—it sums up in a phrase the whole philosophy of the Front, which teaches:—“Don’t whine. Endure what you can’t alter. Get over the hard bits of the road by pushing forward. Never know when you’re licked. Never be elated when you’ve won. Whether you win or lose, don’t sit down; seize on to the next most difficult thing that you may conquer. For it’s not the winning or the losing, it’s the eternal trying that counts—And that’s that.” It is the “eternal trying” of my last fight that lives most vividly in my memory. We were in that murder-hole, you will remember, to the left of the Cambrai-Arras road. Our job was to smash the Hindenburg Line and to go as much further as our strength would carry us. Our objective was to be the ending of the war or, in the words of the Major, “Berlin or nothing.”

The night before the show the enemy made a last determined effort to knock us out. We had distinct orders not to retaliate; our first round was to be fired with the opening of the offensive. So we had to lie down in silence and take our punishment.

Shortly after sunset the trouble commenced. The enemy must have run forward a number of guns.

Without warning a tremendous bombardment opened up. It was as though the walls of Heaven were tumbling about our heads. In our narrow valley, where batteries were lined up like taxi-cabs on a stand, shells of every kind and calibre began to fall—whizz-bangs, incendiary, high explosive, gas. Shooting at random over so small an area so densely packed, it was almost impossible not to hit something. As darkness thickened, the night became lurid with burning gun-pits and ammunition. Against the dancing flames men could be seen, running, gesticulating and working like fiends to put the fires out. High above the whistling of the shells we heard the ominous throb of planes, and bombs commenced dropping. By this time we had struggled into our gas-helmets and lay crouched in little groups in the bottom of shell-holes. We were of no use. We had been forbidden to reply. We were simply waiting to be slaughtered.

I don’t know what happened at the other batteries, but our Major took matters into his own hands. “We shall have no men left for tomorrow at this rate,” he said; so he ordered the chaps to get out of the bombarded area and to scatter. The instructions for the attack had just come in, and he had to make out the barrage-tables. To do this it would be necessary to light a candle, but it would be suicide to show any lights while the planes were overhead. Seizing his fighting map and scales, he retired in search of a dug-out; soon only I and one signaller were left. We had to remain on the position to answer the ‘phone and to keep in touch with the rear.

We lay there hugging the ground. We had had no time to build overhead protection; the weather being warm, we had contented ourselves with digging holes three feet deep and spreading over them ground-sheets to keep the rain out. Our sensations were those of men who were lying on an erupting volcano. The earth quivered under us and the air was thick with the avalanche of falling dibris. The valves of our gas-masks felt choked with dust; we were well-nigh suffocated and buried. The ground-sheets above our heads flapped in rags. Stones and bits of chalk, thrown up by the concussion, bruised us. We were always expecting that the next shell would end us. They came over with the galloping thud of cavalry, ker plunk, ker-plunk, ker-phunk. The roars of the explosions, which followed the thuds of impact, were like the fierce ha-has of ten thousand maniacs.

It was long past midnight before the strafe died down. By that time the Hun felt fairly confident that few, if any of us, had survived. One by one, through the altered landscape, our men crept back. By the red glow of dying conflagrations, they set patiently to work to clean their guns and set their fuses, so that all might be ready for revenge. We did not number them as they returned. It was impossible in the darkness, but we knew by the spattered human fragments that in the surrounding shell-holes many a stout fellow had gone west.

A little whiteness spread along the eastern horizon. We stared at our luminous wrist-watches. The second-hand had one more revolution to travel. The whistle sounded; our turn had come. If the enemy-had supposed that he had exterminated us. his disillusionment must have been bitter. There were batteries which he had crippled, but none that he had silenced. Like fiery serpents, even from where we were, we could see our bursting shrapnel hissing down on his tormented trenches.

And now, when it was too late, he made a furious effort to complete our destruction. He tried to bury us beneath the weight of metal that he sent racing through the semi-darkness. Men and guns were blotted out by the dust of explosions; but the whistle for each new lift in the barrage went on sounding. It seemed a miracle that our shells did not collide with his in mid-air.

His anger was not for long. Of a sudden, from intensity it died down into nothing. We knew what that meant: the bayonets of our infantry were tossing human hay in his trenches, our heavy artillery was raking his batteries, and our tanks were going forward, tracking down their prey like blood-hounds.

Dawn strengthened. From a shadowy hint of whiteness it became a pillar of flame, from a pillar of flame a shaft of dazzling brightness. We gazed on the night’s work. It was as though a gigantic plough had furrowed the valley from end to end. Guns leaned over on their axles with their wheels smashed; the men who should have been serving them lay scattered about, hair buried and scarcely recognisable. Charred piles of ammunition smoked lazily and occasionally sputtered like Camp fireworks. We marvelled how we had escaped; all the guns of our battery were still in action. Again it must have been the swamp that had saved them.

We could estimate the progress that our infantry were making by the orders to lengthen our range, which we kept receiving across the ‘phone. They were going very rapidly. The enemy resistance could not have been as strong as had been expected. We judged that the first wave of our attack must be almost through the Hindenburg Line. Soon it would be necessary for us to hook in and move forward if we were not to get out of touch.

It was eight o’clock when our teams arrived with Heming riding at their head. None of us commented on his presence. He had disobeyed the summons to England and was taking one last chance in battle of maintaining his silence forever. We knew then that the woman whom he had loved was guilty—that whatever he could have said would have told against her. His face had a sterner expression than I had ever seen it wear; it looked gray and haggard. Only his eyes had their steady gaze of untroubled brave resolution. He rode up to the Major and reported the number of the men and horses killed and wounded that night at the wagon-lines. “It was the bombing planes did it,” he said; “they were right on top of us. We’re short of gunners now, so I had to bring Suzette.”

Then he took his instructions and rode back to the teams to keep them out of shell-fire till they were needed.

An hour went by. The Major had got mounted and gone forward to a windmill, just behind the furthest point of our attack, from where he could watch developments and send back for us the moment we were required. He was determined this time to be in the thick of it. His last words had been that, if our Headquarters tried to hold us back, we were to let our wires to the rear go down and obey him only; he would be answerable.

Already several batteries had hooked in and disappeared over the crest at the gallop. We were beginning to feel impatient and fearful lest once again we were to see very little of the fun, when the Major’s orderly came in sight taking shell-holes like a steeple-chaser. Pulling his horse up on its haunches, he delivered a written message:

“Our infantry have broken the Hindenburg Line, but the enemy are massed behind it. They’ve led our chaps into a trap and are putting up their real fight in their support-trenches. Our tanks have gone on and cannot help. Much of our artillery fire is at too long range to be effective. Close support is absolutely necessary. Our infantry are being pushed back. Move the battery up by sections. Captain Homing taking the leading section and you the rear, with an interval of at least ten minutes between them. We are practically in sight of the Boche, so leave twenty yards between your guns and wagons. It’s a sacrifice job, so expect a hot time. My orderly will show Captain Homing where to come into action.”

Heming came up just as I had finished reading the crumpled slip of paper. I handed it to him. He glanced it through in silence. His face broke into a smile. “It may be death,” he said.

He signalled for his teams to come up. While they were hooking in, he spoke with me quietly. “Once on the Somme I asked you to give a message to a lady if I were wiped out. I wasn’t; but I may be to-day. If that happens, I want you to give her the same message. Tell her that I did everything that she might feel proud of our friendship.” He met my eye and looked away. “In years to come she’ll need something to make her feel proud, so don’t spoil it. Don’t tell her about Suzette.... But you chaps, however many of you are left—you’ll take care of Suzette. I know that!”

“We’ll take care of Suzette,” I said.

“And my message——?”

“I’ll deliver your message.”

The guns were pulling out. I watched them file off round the swamp, followed by their ammunition-wagons. When the last wagon was clear, Heming waved his hand to me.

“Good luck,” I shouted.

He galloped off to the head of the column. Then I noticed that someone was running to catch up behind. For a moment I thought it was a gunner of the detachments; then I recognised Suzette. They went at the walk across the valley; as they neared the top of the crest on the other side, shells began to burst. They were now a target for the enemy, and broke into first the trot and then the gallop. In a cloud of dust and smoke they disappeared from sight. Ten minutes later the centre section went forward. About fifteen minutes after that I pulled out taking with me the remaining section. I glanced back at my men. We’d been in tight corners before together. I would take a bet on how they would behave. Among them all there was only one query-mark—Driver Trottrot. He was riding lead of one of the first-line wagons. If he’d got over his fear of shell-fire, within the next hour he would have his chance to prove it.

There was only one road by which to climb the crest; it had been well advertised by the other batteries. As we reached the top, we were skeletoned against the sky-line and hell broke loose about us. Setting spurs to our horses, we went off at the wild tear. With the vehicles swaying and thundering behind us, we passed over the first line of resistance, which our infantry had captured that morning. The air was heavy with the smell of gas, but worse than the gas were the incendiary shells, which sent up showers of liquid fire where they struck, maddening the horses.

On account of the trench-systems it was impossible to go across the open country, so we had to bear to the right and come down on to the Cambrai-Arras road. It was crowded with transport—tanks, pontoons and lorries full of engineers, being rushed up to bridge and hold the canals in the belief that the attack was still going ahead. We had to slow down to the crawl in places. The road was a sure target for the enemy; he knew that it was our one means of advance and, consequently, gave it constant attention. One vehicle struck caused a block in the traffic for half a mile; men worked furiously among the falling shells to drag the cripples to one side. In the ditches, where they had fallen that morning, dead horses and men, both the enemy’s and ours, lay crushed and crumpled. No one wished to pay heed to them; we did our utmost to ignore them as though they were utterly negligible. But they seemed to cry out to us, appealing for our pity; then, when we shuddered, threatening us with the same terrifying, uncared-for Nemesis. When we let our eyes rest on them they were lying harmless and quiet, but we had the feeling that behind our backs they sat up with their wounds gaping, and gnawed their fists at us. Our animals shied at the corpses, breaking into a sweat and becoming unmanageable, If the dead were not a sufficient warning of what war could do to us, there was always the crimson returning tide of battered men, washing grievously past us back to Arras like a stream of blood.

Patriotism and glory! They sounded empty words compared with life. There was only one word that was an incentive to keep us steady—pride. We might survive; we did not wish to live with selves who would have to hang their heads. Yes, and there was another incentive—duty: the thought of comrades still further forward, to whom the roar of our eighteen-pounders would be happy as a peal of bells.

Crawling, hailing, trotting for brief spells, we had travelled about four thousand yards when we saw the windmill on the rise, from which the Major was observing, and in front of the windmill the Hindenburg Line which we were supposed to have smashed. In the plain which stretched behind the mill, our sacrifice batteries were strong out, belching fire. Across the plain our supporting infantry were trickling up in Indian file, winding their way about the batteries in action and side-stepping to avoid the bursting shells.

Suddenly we understood, as though the meaning of what for four years we had been doing were being revealed to us for the first time. In a flash we saw war’s glory, its wickedness, magnanimity, challenge and the amazing fortitude it begets in men. It taught unbrave, ordinary chaps how to try and go on trying, long after hope seemed at an end. Each one of those batteries out there in the plain was like a “Little Revenge,” surrounded and dragged down by weight of numbers; but out or sheer self-respecting stubbornness it never ceased spurting fire. Everyone of those infantry, plodding stolidly forward, was quaking at the thought of the Judgment Day up front; but each one of them would rather die a thousand deaths than shew the white-feather. The sight was blinding, maddening, intoxicating. If those chaps didn’t mind dying, why should we hang on to life?

Leaving the first-line wagons parked by the roadside, we set off at the gallop with the guns and firing-battery wagons to where we saw Heming’s four guns blazing away in the sunshine. The infantry stood aside to give us passage. They waved their caps and shouted. We could not hear a word of what they said; we only saw their lips moving. The pounding of our going drowned all other sounds.

We swung into line on Heming’s right, flinging our horses back on their haunches. Before we had had time to unhook, a shell had burst directly under the centre team of A. Sub’s gun; men and horses were rolling. We dragged our drivers out and had to shoot the horses before we could get the gun into action. Then Bedlam broke loose.

Whether it was that the enemy had seen the heads of our horsemen above the rise and had got the line on us over open sights, or whether he had seen the flash of Heming’s firing before we had come up, we could not tell. In any case he was upon us now. All along the line of guns his hurricane of shells began to burst. They fell on top and plus and minus of us. shutting us off from help. From our wagon-lines on the roadside our peril had been sized up and teams were coming at the gallop to drag us out. They never got as far as us. Two hundred yards short, as though he had been potting at them with a rifle, the enemy caught them, and they crashed and sank in a cloud of dust. No sooner were they down than fresh teams dashed out. By his riding I recognised the lead-driver of the foremost team as Trottrot. At last his opportunity had come. He was winning his spurs and proving to all the watching world that he was not yellow He would never reach us. He was riding towards certain and useless death. He was almost in the storm-centre, when I ran out and signalled him back.

In the middle of the battery, as cool and collected as if nothing were happening, Heming sat, his map-board on his knees. Suzette knelt beside him, doing his pencilling and listening through the ‘phone to the directions of the Major from up front. Now and then he looked up to give his orders for new ranges and angles; the expression on his face was triumphant. Every so often he left his map-board and walked among the men, encouraging them, “Stick to it, boys. We’ve got to blow the enemy out of the wire. It won’t take much longer now.”

But the boys were growing fewer. There were less and less of us to hear him every time he spoke to us. Three guns had been knocked out, and their crews were lying dead about them. Now there were only two left; now only one.

Suzette was setting fuzes. Heming was loading and putting on the ranges. I was laying and firing. We were all three wounded. We three had taken the places of the dead gunners and seemed to have been going through these motions, alone and mechanically, keeping the remaining gun in action, ever since eternity had begun.

Something happened to end it—a roar, a sheet of dame; then darkness.

A stream of warmth was trickling down my face and neck. I opened my eyes. The gun was lying over on its side; like worshippers at mass, Heming and Suzette were kneeling with clasped hands, their faces towards the red altar of the enemy. As I watched, their faces drew together and his arm went about her. Their action became symbolic; it was like England greeting France in the hour of agony.

Everything faded. The shock and clamour drifted into silence. The test of scarlet was ended.

Here in the white orderliness of a sheeted bed, with the accustomedness of peace on every hand, it is strange to remember.

THE END