somehow in the rear—followed by two men carrying a red drum of wire,
were toiling up the slope towards “Lone Tree.”
§ 3
“Have you been smoking those cab-rankers of yours _all_ night, P.J.?”
asked the Weasel.
They were standing in the middle of the gun-line, watching Charlie
Straker as he bent over the pointer of his No. 1 director.
“I should lay on that tree till you hear from Torrington,” said Stark;
and repeated his question to Peter.
“Pretty well, sir.”
“I wonder they don’t make you sick. Had any sleep?”
“No, sir.”
They looked at each other, the two unshaven men; and both laughed for
the first time in twenty-four hours. Whatever else happened, the fourth
Brigade was at least in position. Merrilees, solemn as an owl, came up
with “Mr. Conway’s compliments” and “should he lay his guns on that
tree”; departed with his instructions.
By now, sticks were crackling in the deserted trench, tea boiling and
bacon sizzling. Weary men struggled into their tunics; ate and drank
gratefully. “Keep ’em at it,” said the Weasel, as they passed the last
gun on their way to breakfast. “Very good, sir,” answered horsy
Hutchinson; and added _sotto voce_, “what the devil does the old man
think we’re all made of—pigskin!” . . .
“Rotten job, driving tired men, isn’t it, P.J.?” said the Weasel,
balancing himself—mug in hand—on the shafts of the doctor’s cart. “But
I don’t like the look of that,” he pointed to the far pit-wheel, “and I
don’t like the look of this,” he indicated the cross-roads, “in fact,
_entre nous_, the more I see of things all round, the less I like any of
’em.”
Half way through breakfast, Peter—called to the telephone—heard
Lodden’s voice. They had made out, roughly, the infantry’s position;
were coming back. Would Peter send up O’Grady and one other subaltern to
observe? At half-past six, the four battery commanders returned. It was
still too misty for shooting.
Appeared, on a frisky charger, red hat glowing, eagerness personified,
Murchison the Brigade Major. He waved a large white map at the Weasel;
pointed with his finger to a wriggly red line on it. “We want you to
open fire on that trench, Colonel. Fire as much as you like: but don’t
fire a round after 10:30; because the Infantry are going to charge
then.”
“Who’s going to cut the enemy wire?” To Peter, overhearing, the tired
voice sounded very serious.
“Oh, that’ll be all right.” Murchison galloped off.
The right-hand gun of the Brigade shot out a tongue of flame; a sandbag
dropped from its parapet. O’Grady, beyond the crest, had begun his
ranging.
Appeared, on a quiet brown mare, Coolsdon, the Staff Captain. He, too,
had a white map in his hand; indicated a target.
“Oh, if Murchison’s been here,” said Coolsdon; and galloped off. . . .
Now, all round the great saucer of chalk, men bent to telephone
receivers. “Add 100. Five minutes more right,” shouted the men, and
voices down the gun-line repeated, “Add 100. Five minutes more right.”
The thing that ballooned slowly into the air behind Fosse Eight, could
not hear the shouting men; but it could see, vaguely through the low
mist, tiny sparks of fire in the great saucer!
§ 4
“_Three rounds Battery-fire. One-O seconds._” “_Stop._” “_Add
twenty-five._” “_Two rounds Battery fire, One-O seconds._” “_Go on._”
“_At Battery fire, sweep one five minutes._”
Up and down the long line, men stood shouting, men jerked triggers,
muzzles roared and recoiled, shells leapt to open breech, breech-blocks
twirled home, gunners—knees astride—clung to rocking seats. And round
the rocking, roaring guns, deafened men still toiled with pick and
shovel at the sandbag epaulments.
Batteries were firing independently: and Stark, mackintosh spread on the
parados of a crumbling trench, watched them without a word. He felt a
hand on his arm; saw two fingers and a cigar pointing over his shoulder,
forward and upward through the gun-flashes. “See that sausage, sir,”
shouted P.J. in his ear.
The Weasel looked round at his Adjutant: the Adjutant flickered an eye
towards the crowded horse-lines.
“Behind those houses,” rasped the Weasel. “Get ’em away quietly, or
they’ll panic. And tell ’em to post a look-out man to watch for
signals.”
“Not bad for a civilian,” thought the Weasel as he watched Peter stroll
calmly to the haystack, tap Horrocks on the shoulder.
The balloon had gone down again; guns were still firing; and across the
fields—veterinary officer’s white breeches at their head—filed at a
walk the horses of the Headquarters Staff. Now, in and out among the
tethered teams at the battery horse-lines, cigar in mouth, strode a
stocky figure, whispering, “Hook in and get away quietly. Behind those
houses. At a walk, please, Quartermaster Sergeant.” Like figures in a
quadrille, the bays and browns and blacks of the teams, the dark green
of the ammunition wagons, curved to slow life; emerged into four long
lines that unrolled steadily across the dun fields to safety. But as the
lines drew clear, they revealed behind them, low dark bunches in the
middle distance; other horses—hundreds and hundreds of horses. . . .
“_Ich kann nicht genau sehen_,” mumbled a guttural voice three and a
half miles away, “_aber am Dreiweg finden wir sicher etwas. Also, los
damit, lieber Oberleutnant._” . . .
Peter heard, above the roar of his own guns, a high shrill scream; saw a
black fountain spurt from the ground three hundred yards in front. The
Weasel was on his feet, hands to mouth, “Take cover,” roared the Weasel.
“Take cover. All except gun-numbers into the trench.” For the diggers
had stopped work, stood staring at the dropping fountain.
Rose another scream up the sky. . . . “Get down, you fools, get down.”
Now the Weasel was half way along the flashing line. . . . The scream
came shrieking to earth, stopped. A hundred yards in front, a few clods
leapt from the ground. “Under cover. . . . Under cover.” . . . Like
rabbits to burrow men popped to earth. . . . But still the guns went on.
Peter, kneeling behind quivering sandbags, was conscious of a mule
braying high in air, of a second’s deadly silence, of a thudding crash;
felt a rush of air at his ears; saw something slice the sandbag at his
side as a knife slices cheese, plunge into the turf. . . . Then he heard
fragments pattering on the hard earth behind him; looked up; and saw, a
hundred yards away, standing upright, hands in his pockets, the Weasel;
and the Weasel was still shouting “Under cover, you fools, get under
cover.” The gun behind which Peter had knelt, went off with a
crash. . . .
“My aunt,” he thought.
Except for the Colonel’s figure, nothing moved behind the guns. Purves
and the Doctor, noses to ground, were lying flat against the haystack.
Very high in air, another shell went howling on its way. Peter,
following the noise with his eyes, found dark clumps of horses; was
conscious noise ceased; saw a great black earth-spout shoot up among the
horses; heard the double crash of shell’s alighting; saw terrified teams
rear and plunge; saw little figures hurling themselves at bridles. . . .
Another shell swished over; and another; plunged to ground in rear of
him. The whole middle distance seemed a mass of stampeding beasts that
hurled themselves through black fountains across the plains.
“Didn’t you hear me say get under cover, you sanguinary cigar-merchant?”
rasped a voice at his ear. . . .
§ 5
“Another five minutes,” ordered the Weasel. “Tell ’em they can go to
gun-fire if they like.”
Hostile shelling had ceased. Only, far away over the roofs of Vermelles,
an occasional gray puff-ball betokened shrapnel. Sun shone on bare plain
behind, on bare crest in front. Round the farm, little figures moved.
Torrington, V.C., pale and shaky, lay in the bottom of the recess
between his sections: “What’s that, Sergeant Major?” he asked the man
standing behind him. “Colonel says we can go to gun-fire, sir.” “All
right. Tell ’em five rounds.” “Five rounds gun-fire,” megaphoned the
Sergeant Major. Straker and Pettigrew, kneeling between their pieces,
flung out hands in acknowledgment; repeated the order. Flames roared
above Torrington’s head; chalk pattered down on him from the
trench-walls. “How much longer, Sergeant Major?” “Four minutes yet,
sir.” “Battery fire, till the last minute.” “Right sir. . . . At Battery
fire, go on.”
“God’s teeth,” muttered Torrington, V.C. “I can’t stand this racket much
longer.” . . .
“_Stop!_”
All round the hollow saucer of ground, noise ceased miraculously. Only,
every now and then, the howitzers roared separately at their far
targets. And from beyond the lip of the saucer came a distant stutter,
as of men swinging gigantic rattles—the chattering of machine-guns.
Behind the tattered hay-stack, stood a signaller, flags outstretched. “W
N,” wagged the signaller. “W N,” replied far flags at the corner of the
houses under the Fosse Seven. Ammunition wagons came trotting across the
field. . . . Down in the trench, black instrument in front of him,
another signaller buzzed frantically. “F.O.O.” buzzed the signaller,
“F.O.O.” But no answering buzz sounded in his ears. For the red wire lay
frayed beyond the crest-line—and the guns were blind!
“This is nice muck-up,” said the Weasel to Lethbridge. “Strict orders
not to fire after ten-thirty. The line dished and the Lord knows what
may be happening.”
A man, telephone-case on his arms, climbed out of the trench; began
making his way up the wire.
At the end of the gun-line, by an emptying ammunition-wagon, Peter stood
talking to Bromley. They looked towards Vermelles. Suddenly, under a
gray smoke-puff they saw a horseman at full gallop; behind him—drivers
bending low in their saddles, whips plying,—a six-horse team came hell
for leather, and behind the team, a leaping bumping thing on wheels.
“Charge of the horse-artillery?” laughed Bromley. “No,” said Peter,
“Lodden’s missing gun.” The team arrived with a clatter and jingle at
the cross-roads. Lodden leapt by. They heard his furious voice. “Who
told you to gallop, Bombardier? Who the hell told you to gallop?”
Drivers grinning from their sweating mounts, the gun creaked past.
“Hurry up with those shells, you chaps,” said Bromley to his
gunners. . . .
There jog-trotted slowly to the cross-roads a young Staff officer. He
put hand to eyes, shading them from the sun; said, “Good Lord, it’s
Peter”; trotted over to the guns. The horseman in the creaseless tunic
looked very out of place, as he leaned from his saddle talking to the
unshaven tired-eyed Gunners.
“What are you doing up here, Francis?” asked Peter.
“Trying to find Le Rutoire, and a prisoner or two. That’s it, I
suppose.” He switched riding-stick towards the red buildings in front.
“What’s supposed to be happening here—a battle?”
The three stood gossiping. The ammunition wagon, empty of its contents,
wheeled past them; trotted across the field. “Well, so long,” said
Francis, “I must be off.” He puts his horse to a trot. . . .
Peter heard the shell scream; flung himself on his face; heard the burst
of it, the clods falling about him. “Christ!” he thought,
“Francis. . . .”
Bromley, unhurt, was first to reach the bloody kicking heap at the
roadside. Even as he came to it, the kicking legs jerked
convulsively—the beast rolled over—lay still. Peter, rushing up, saw a
gaping, steaming belly, a scarlet boot protruding from it. . . .
Together, they dragged out the tortured thing that had been Francis
Gordon. He lay there, face dead white, just muttering. Only the upper
part of his body seemed human—the rest was blood, blood and dirt.
Across the turf towards him, white hair ruffling in the breeze, darted
the doctor, looked for a second at the thing on the ground.
“Shell-dressings! In my cart. Quick as you can. Case of instruments. My
orderly!” Peter rushed off. . . . He came back carrying a great armful
of lint, to find the doctor and Bromley on their knees. A boot,
bloodsoaked, was lying on the ground. “Cut the seam,” he heard; and “all
right, Doc,” from Bromley. Something ripped: they were turning over the
thing which had been his cousin.
“Dressings,” said the doctor, “thanks.” He took them, began bandaging
the ripped flesh.
Francis opened his eyes; saw Peter standing over him.
“Make—him—give—me—morphia,” gasped Francis. Then pain stunned him;
he lay there, as a shot rabbit lies, eyes still open. . . .
The doctor’s orderly came running, case under his arm. “Morphia,” said
the doctor calmly, not looking up from his work. “Rip that sleeve,
please.” . . .
Blessed needle slid under white flesh: eyes closed. “More dressings,
please,” said Doctor Carson, “and you can be getting up that wheeled
stretcher, Masterson.”
§ 6
“Will he live, Doc?” Peter, rather white about the gills, watched the
stretcher down the road, out of sight.
“I’m afraid not. Though mind you, there’s a chance. The left femur’s
broken; that right foot. . . . But there, you saw for yourself.”
“You’d better look after these, P.J.” Bromley handed over a bundle of
papers, a wrist-watch, a morocco leather photograph-case. Peter stuffed
them into his pocket; walked back to the Colonel. He had been awake so
long, the thing had happened so suddenly, that the fact of the casualty
being his cousin hardly touched him. He felt the horror—but horror
numbed, impersonal. . . .
At the Colonel’s side, leaning over from his horse, Peter found
Murchison.
“Any news from your F.O.O.?” asked the Brigade Major.
“No. Wire’s broken. I’m having it repaired. Hallo, what the devil’s
that?”
He pointed to the crest on their right. Little figures, figures of men
running, rose over the skyline; bunched together as they streaked down
the hill. A shell burst black among the figures—a second shell. And up
the slopes towards the figures, galloped miniature horses with tiny
jockeys; and as they reached the crest, horses silhouetted black against
the sky-rim, the jockeys flung themselves from their saddles; dashed
forward out of sight. And still little men poured back over the hill,
past the waiting horses. . . .
“My God,” said Murchison, “I thought at first they must be Boches.” (For
there were two hundred British guns in that great saucer of ground.)
. . .
“My God,” rasped the Weasel, “I wish they had been.” (For it is not good
to watch the unofficial side of history in the making.) . . .
Suddenly, they heard a voice, roaring, “Action”; an orderly dashed up;
“Through to F.O.O. sir.”
“Shrapnel. . . . Four six hundred. . . .” roared the voice. . . . “At
gun-fire sweep five minutes from your zero lines. . . .”
The rest of the orders were howled down by a hurricane of gun
crashes. . . .
§ 7
Beyond the farthest lip of the chalk-saucer; beyond the zig-zag
communication trench; beyond the old front-line, cut deep into the
chalk, studded with empty gas-cylinders, littered with rifles and the
uncleanly débris of war; beyond the lonely tree; beyond the burrow where
O’Grady’s telephonist crouched at his instrument; beyond sight and touch
and hearing, and every human emotion save that last instinct which is
the naked life—lay Second Lieutenant Peabody of the Chalkshires.
His brown face was gray in the dust. He had no cap. His outstretched
hands were ripped and torn from clutching at rusty wire. His left puttee
had fallen in coils over his boot. And where he lay, he panted: as a
hound pants after the kill.
But Peabody had not been killed. . . .
He became aware of bees, swarms and swarms of bees that zipped and
buzzed about him. Then he felt a terrific tug at his ankles; felt his
face scraping against the ground. Something grabbed him round the neck;
pulled him over backwards.
He wiped the dust out of his eyes and began to curse. The curses were
utterly inhuman. The kind of curses doctors hear at times from perfectly
respectable young mothers in milk-fever—foul blasphemies that have
their roots in the subconscious dark of sex.
The soul of Second Lieutenant Peabody returned to his body. . . .
His soul remembered peculiarly little. They had arrived—in Artillery
formation—somewhere or other—on a pitch-dark night—occupied some
trenches. He had posted sentries—and the sentries had gone to sleep.
Everybody _had_ gone to sleep—except himself and Arkwright. Arkwright,
by the way, must be dead. Otherwise, why should he think of Arkwright as
doubled-up over something or other, with a pair of wire-cutters clutched
in his hand. . . . Oh, yes—now he came to think of it, most people were
dead—because Slattery had come along and said something about
“half-past ten.” Then, they had all got up—with their packs on—they
ought to have been told to take their packs off. . . .
“’Ave a drop of this, sir?” said a well-known voice at his elbow.
“Thanks, Haddock. I think I will,” answered the soul of Second
Lieutenant Peabody.
The mind came back to the soul. “What the hell happened?” asked the boy.
“Whizz-bang. Thought you were gone that time, sir,” answered the dirty
little man with the dirty rifle. “’Tain’t no use going hover again, sir.
We’ve been hover three times.”
“Get me another rifle, you son of a bitch,” said Peabody curtly.
Something cracked like a whiplash in the air: he felt a terrible kick on
his left ear-drum; collapsed to ground.
For a second, the boy lay perfectly still; then, to his utter amazement,
he realized that he hadn’t been killed. On the contrary, the shock of
that second whizz-bang seemed to have cleared his brain.
He hauled himself up very cautiously; peered over the edge of the
shallow trench.
Just above him, the ground rose—two hundred yards of ground—littered
with brown heaps—some of them moving—at the top of the slope, more
bodies—hundreds of them—hanging grotesquely in the air. He dropped
down again. . . .
“How many of us got back, Haddock?”
“Dunno, sir. Old Long. ’E’s just round the corner, sir.”
“Well, you stop here. If you see anything coming, shoot at it!”
The boy bent down; crawled along the trench; ran his head into a man’s
knees. “Heasy on there,” growled Long Longstaffe. “Heasy on.” Then
looking down, “Sorry, sir. Didn’t know it was you.” The boy gave his
instructions; crawled on. Private Longstaffe arranged his elbows in the
dirt; kicked his long legs behind him; cuddled the rifle-stock to his
cheek. “Carn’t miss the sods from ’ere,” he said to himself. . . . And
then, suddenly, he saw a cautious dot bob up on the near skyline. . . .
§ 8
“Blast it, oh, blast it. Get me a line, damn you.”
O’Grady, binoculars to eyes, could see the gray figures crawling through
the wire; could hear rifles crackling just below him.
The man on his knees tapped key frantically. “F.X. Don,” tapped the man,
“F.X. Don.”
More gray figures came through the wire. On the left of the wire, up a
little white road with trees on each side, came another line of gray
figures; flung themselves down. O’Grady could see flame from their
rifles, toy smoke puffs.
“F.X. Don,” tapped the man, “F.X. Don.” The gray figures by the road
were on their feet, running.
“F.O.O.” throbbed the plate at the man’s eardrum, “F.O.O.”
“Got ’em sir,” said the man to O’Grady, “will you speak?”
O’Grady grabbed the receiver, and said, speaking very slowly and
distinctly: “Esses—O—Esses. Do you understand?”
“Esses—O—Esses” throbbed the plate at his ear.
* * * * *
Private Longstaffe, wrenching frantically at jammed breechbolt, heard a
whirr as of homing pigeons over his head; was aware of white smoke puffs
bursting among the gray figures all along the slope in front of
him. . . . The breechbolt shot home at last, but when he lifted the
rifle to his shoulder, peered through the V of the backsight, the gray
figures had disappeared.
PART SEVENTEEN
THE SUICIDE CLUB
§ 1
At midnight between the 26th and 27th of September, 1915, two men faced
each other across a chequered French table-cloth in the bare _salle à
manger_ of an _estaminet_ at Beuvry.
An orderly stood outside the door, an orderly with tiny highly-polished
grenades on his shoulder-straps, and below the grenades two winking
brass letters—the second of the letters being “G.” Outside the
_estaminet_, a car waited; and past the car filed steady columns of tall
men. These men, too, bore a winking “G” on each shoulder-strap of their
excessively clean tunics.
Said the first of the two at the table, a broad-shouldered quiet man,
rather full in the face, steady of eye, big of brown moustache—a man
who wore the crossed swords and star of a Major General: “And so we have
the job of cleansing their Augean stable for them. As far as I can make
out, the position is this.” He spread a big white map on the table;
indicated with one finger a semi-circle drawn in thick blue chalk.
“Whether the 9th can hang on to Fosse Eight or not, is pretty doubtful.
You already know the _political situation_”—he emphasized the words a
trifle scornfully—“with regard to Hill 70. . . . The rest of the line,
as far as the Hulluch Road, P. must look after. Now, what about those
guns? . . .”
His companion, a saturnine aquiline Brigadier General of Artillery, well
over six-foot, glass in his eye, drew a creased plan from his pocket;
spread it over the table-cloth. As he did so, his long hands betrayed
intense concentration; a concentration not belied by the clipped phrases
in which he spoke.
“I’ve seen both the Brigades, sir,” he began, “and as they apparently
know very little of the ground, I’ve arranged to take over both
Artilleries myself. Our own can’t be up for three days. The Southdown
batteries”—he pointed to the map—“are marked in red; the Northdown in
blue.”
“Too far back,” commented the other, scrutinizing the coloured dots, the
shaded arcs which showed their approximate ranges.
“They seem to have done the best they could under the circumstances.”
“The circumstances,” known to both the speakers, did not bear overmuch
thinking of—being on a par with the “political situation” which, by a
premature announcement in the English Parliament of the capture of Hill
70, was forcing them to attempt an attack both knew to be in the nature
of a very forlorn hope.
The Gunner General went on detailing his plans: “I shall put Stark in
command of the Left Group. He’s the only regular Colonel they’ve got.”
“Good man?” asked the other.
“Yes, sir. Very sound. I’ve known him for years: stuck pig with him in
India. . . . We’re very short of ammunition for the Hows.”
“That’s nothing unusual. Allenby’s had to chuck it altogether in the
Salient. What about eighteen-pounders?”
“We can just manage a two-hours’ bombardment. When do you propose
attacking, sir?”
“Day after tomorrow.” The senior General glanced at his watch, saw it
was past midnight. “As you were, tomorrow. Sometime in the afternoon.”
§ 2
At last, Peter Jameson slept.
All through that long afternoon of sunshine, the eighteen-pounders of
the Fourth Brigade had been silent. Round the outside lip of the
chalk-saucer, attack and counter attack had died in exhaustion. Only, at
its extreme left edge, under the shadow of Fosse Eight, in the
Hohenzollern Redoubt, kilted men fought out the light, hand to hand,
with bomb and bayonet and grenade. In front of Loos, the saviour Cavalry
watched the silent woods and the hill whereon death waited.
O’Grady had come back at dusk to report the situation. At nine o’clock,
the men sleeping round the guns had been awakened by a vast crackle of
rifle-fire far away on the left, by a torrent of white lights spurting
up inky skies. This they had watched, as a dog, too tired to bay,
watches the moon; watched and slept again—all save the weary sentries
peering towards the lonely tree, and the weary signallers in the trench
by the telephone.
But Doctor Carson might not sleep. All that afternoon, his red-crossed
tilt had lured piteous bandaged men. All that night they came;
staggering down the slopes; waiting a while; staggering on with a “Thank
yer, doctor” towards Vermelles. The doctor was fifty-five and a
specialist; but bending over those piteous men, he did not regret his
quiet consulting-room in Harley Street—even though that which he
accomplished for them scarcely required as much skill as he had
possessed in his medical student days.