I
"I wonder if they really mean business this time," surmised that
youthful Company Commander, Temporary Captain Bobby Little, to Major
Wagstaffe.
"It sounds like it," said Wagstaffe, as another salvo of "whizz-bangs"
broke like inflammatory surf upon the front-line trenches.
"Intermittent _strafes_ we are used to, but this all-day performance
seems to indicate that the Boche is really getting down to it for
once. The whole proceeding reminds me of nothing so much as our own
'artillery preparation' before the big push at Loos."
"Then you think the Boches are going to make a push of their own?"
"I do; and I hope it will be a good fat one. When it comes, I fancy
we shall be able to put up something rather pretty in the way of a
defence. The Salient is stiff with guns--I don't think the Boche
quite realises _how_ stiff! And we owe the swine something!" he added
through his teeth.
There was a pause in the conversation. You cannot hold the Salient for
three months without paying for the distinction; and the regiment had
paid its full share. Not so much in numbers, perhaps, as in quality.
Stray bullets, whistling up and down the trenches, coming even
obliquely from the rear, had exacted most grievous toll. Shells
and trench-mortar bombs, taking us in flank, had extinguished many
valuable lives. At this time nothing but the best seemed to satisfy
the Fates. One day it would be a trusted colour-sergeant, on another a
couple of particularly promising young corporals. Only last week the
Adjutant--athlete, scholar, born soldier, and very lovable schoolboy,
all most perfectly blended--had fallen mortally wounded, on his
morning round of the fire-trenches, by a bullet which came from
nowhere. He was the subject of Wagstaffe's reference.
"Is it not possible," suggested Mr. Waddell, who habitually considered
all questions from every possible point of view, "that this
bombardment has been specially initiated by the German authorities, in
order to impress upon their own troops a warning that there must be no
Christmas truce this year?"
"If that is the Kaiser's Christmas greeting to his loving followers,"
observed Wagstaffe drily, "I think he might safely have left it to us
to deliver it!"
"They say," interposed Bobby Little, "that the Kaiser is here
himself."
"How do you know?"
"It was rumoured in 'Comic Cuts.'" ("Comic Cuts" is the stately
Summary of War Intelligence issued daily from Olympus.)
"If that is true," said Wagstaffe, "they probably will attack. All
this fuss and bobbery suggest something of the kind. They remind me of
the commotion which used to precede Arthur Roberts's entrance in the
old days of Gaiety burlesque. Before your time, I fancy, Bobby?"
"Yes," said Bobby modestly. "I first found touch with the Gaiety over
'Our Miss Gibbs.' And I was quite a kid even then," he added, with
characteristic honesty. "But what about Arthur Roberts?"
"Some forty or fifty years ago," explained Wagstaffe, "when I was
in the habit of frequenting places of amusement, Arthur Roberts was
leading man at the establishment to which I have referred. He usually
came on about half-past eight, just as the show was beginning to lose
its first wind. His entrance was a most tremendous affair. First of
all the entire chorus blew in from the wings--about sixty of them
in ten seconds--saying "Hurrah, hurrah, girls!" or something rather
subtle of that kind; after which minor characters rushed on from
opposite sides and told one another that Arthur Roberts was coming.
Then the band played, and everybody began to tell the audience about
it in song. When everything was in full blast, the great man would
appear--stepping out of a bathing-machine, or falling out of a
hansom-cab, or sliding down a chute on a toboggan. He was assisted
to his feet by the chorus, and then proceeded to ginger the show up.
Well, that's how this present entertainment impresses me. All this
noise and obstreperousness are leading up to one thing--Kaiser Bill's
entrance. Preliminary bombardment--that's the chorus getting to work!
Minor characters--the trench-mortars--spread the glad news! Band _and_
chorus--that's the grand attack working up to boiling-point! Finally,
preceded by clouds of gas, the Arch-Comedian in person, supported
by spectacled coryphées in brass hats! How's that for a Christmas
pantomime?"
"Rotten!" said Bobby, as a shell sang over the parapet and burst in
the wood behind.