Then this intrepid man mounted "Big-Bang" upon a base to which were
affixed four small wheels with broad treads. Having fired the mortar,
he would trundle it away down the trench as fast as he could go,
invariably getting clear of the fatal area before the shells began to
fall. Then he would stop and fire another shot and again make off,
dragging his mortar at the end of a rope. His ammunition he placed in
recess here and there along the line. The enraged infantry took to
heaving the canisters over the parapet until one so thrown exploded,
blowing in the trench, upon which they left them severely alone. But
whenever the maker of those canisters appeared with his mortar round
the corner of the traverse they cursed him heartily.
In this way X---- became the best-hated man from Richebourg to the
sea. Refused admittance to dug-outs, he was obliged to sleep on
firing-platforms, on the floors of side trenches, or in saps where
night working-parties trod on him. No one spoke to him except to utter
oaths. Men said upon seeing him:--
"Here comes the Kaiser's best friend!"
Sarcastic remarks were also passed on his mortar; and, strangely
enough, these hurt him more than personal abuse. He had come almost
to love his creation. Hatred of it he could tolerate, but anything
savouring of contempt; anything derogatory uttered against its power as
a destroyer, touched him to the quick; and I fancy singularly biting
language was heard in those winter trenches of 1914 and 1915.
So he dragged on his solitary existence--desolate, hated, yet feared
because of his power of avenging himself by firing his weapon from any
spot he pleased, and thus dooming it to a tremendous "strafing" by the
enemy. He wanted someone to own him, and tried to attach himself to
the artillery, but they refused to have anything to do with him. The
thing his peculiar nature found it hardest to endure was the knowledge,
gradually forced upon him, that he was "out of it," a mere independent
unit belonging actually to neither side, a man whose decease many of
the British, equally with the Huns, would have hailed with much glee.
This must have weighed upon him. Possibly he brooded. And all the time,
with an invincible obstinacy that was almost heroic, he fired and
fled and fled and fired, retreating sometimes up, sometimes down the
trenches, dodging the shells all day and sometimes at night. And then
he broke down.
"It was one of those illnesses your Army doesn't recognize officially,"
he told me. "It began with a sort of tired, discouraged feeling, and I
used to have queer dreams. The noise of 'Big-Bang' going off made me
jump like a marionette. I'd sweat and grow dizzy and my knees trembled
and my stomach rose. I fell down one day and they came and took me away
to the field ambulance, and after a bit they sent me down to Boulogne.
I don't quite know what happened there during the first weeks. But when
I got better they gave me a pretty good time--made quite a fuss of me,
in fact. The colonel wanted to send me to England, but I told him how
great I am on seeing this war through, and he grunted and said he'd see
what he could do. When I came out I found this staff job waiting for
me. It's not what I'd like exactly, but I suppose I'm getting old now.
Still, we're close to the guns and I have a pretty free hand here, and
can make trips to the trenches to say 'How-do' to the boys and see how
things are getting along. Oh, yes; it's not so bad. But I was sorry to
leave old 'Big-Bang.' I made her and I worked her, and I guess she did
her bit."
For a space he meditated, puffing clouds of smoke from a ten-sou cigar.
Then with a start he returned to life.
"Will you have a _vin blanc_, old chap? Hi, papa, _deux vins blancs_!"
As he pushed back his soft cap I saw that "Big-Bang" had set its mark
upon him. The hair about his temples was white as snow.
"WITH OUR ARMY IN FLANDERS"--FIGHTING WITH TOMMY ATKINS
_Where Men Hold Rendezvous with Death_
_Told by G. Valentine Williams, with the British Army_
Written in the field and under the eye of the censor, G. Valentine
Williams presents in "With Our Army in Flanders" (Edward Arnold,
London) a series of vivid war chapters differing in many respects
from the current conventional accounts from the battle fronts. Mr.
Williams is the _London Daily Mail_ correspondent. He tells about
the babel of tongues where men gather in khaki, strange meetings at
the front of long separated friends and brothers, the hunger of the
big guns.