II

At the present moment we are right back at rest once more, and are

being treated with a consideration, amounting almost to indulgence,

which convinces us that we are being "fattened up"--to employ

the gruesome but expressive phraseology of the moment--for some

particularly strenuous enterprise in the near future.

Well, we are ready. It is nine months since Loos, and nearly six since

we scraped the nightmare mud of Ypres from our boots, _gum, thigh_,

for the last time. Our recent casualties have been light--our only

serious effort of late has been the recapture of the Kidney Bean--the

new drafts have settled down, and the young officers have been

blooded. And above all, victory is in the air. We are going into our

next fight with new-born confidence in the powers behind us. Loos was

an experimental affair; and though to the humble instruments with

which the experiment was made the proceedings were less hilarious than

we had anticipated, the results were enormously valuable to a greatly

expanded and entirely untried Staff.

"We shall do better this time," said Major Wagstaffe to Bobby Little,

as they stood watching the battalion assemble, in workmanlike fashion,

for a route-march. "There are just one or two little points which had

not occurred to us then. We have grasped them now, I think."

"Such as?"

"Well, you remember we all went into the Loos show without any very

lucid idea as to how far we were to go, and where to knock off for the

day, so to speak. The result was that the advance of each Division was

regulated by the extent to which the German wire in front of it

had been cut by our artillery. Ours was well and truly cut, so we

penetrated two or three miles. The people on our left never started at

all. Lord knows, they tried hard enough. But how could any troops get

through thirty feet of uncut wire, enfiladed by machine-guns? The

result was that after forty-eight hours' fighting, our whole attacking

front, instead of forming a nice straight line, had bagged out into a

series of bays and peninsulas."

"Our crowd wasn't even a peninsula," remarked Bobby with feeling. "For

an hour or so it was an island!"

"I think you will find that in the next show we shall go forward,

after intensive bombardment, quite a short distance; then consolidate;

then wait till the _whole_ line has come up to its appointed

objective; then bombard again; then go forward another piece; and so

on. That will make it impossible for gaps to be created. It will also

give our gunners a chance to cover our advance continuously. You

remember at Loos they lost us for hours, and dare not fire for fear

of hitting us. In fact, I expect that in battle plans of the future,

instead of the artillery trying to conform to the movements of the

infantry, matters will be reversed. The guns, after preliminary

bombardment, will create a continuous Niagara of exploding shells

upon a given line, marked in everybody's map, and timed for an exact

period, just beyond the objective; and the infantry will stroll up

into position a comfortable distance behind, reading the time-table,

and dig themselves in. Then the barrage will lift on to the next line,

and we shall toddle forward again. That's the new plan, Bobby! Close

artillery coöperation, and a series of limited objectives!"

"It sounds all right," agreed Bobby. "We shall want a good many guns,

though, shan't we?"

"We shall. But don't let that worry you. It is simply raining guns

at the Base now. In fact, my grandmother in the War Office"--this

mythical relative was frequently quoted by Major Wagstaffe, and

certainly her information had several times proved surprisingly

correct--"tells me that by the beginning of next year we shall have

enough guns, of various calibres, to make a continuous line, hub to

hub, from one end of our front to the other."

"Golly!" observed Captain Little, with respectful relish.

"That means," continued Wagstaffe, "that we shall be able to blow

Brother Boche's immediate place of business to bits, and at the same

time take on his artillery with counter-battery work. Our shell-supply

is practically unlimited now; so when the next push comes, we

foot-sloggers ought to have a more gentlemanly time of it than we had

at Loos and Wipers. And I'll tell you another thing, Bobby. We shall

have command of the air too."

"That will be a pleasant change," remarked Bobby. "I'm getting tired

of putting my fellows under arrest for rushing out of carefully

concealed positions in order to gape up at Boche planes going over.

Angus M'Lachlan is as bad as any of them. The fellow--"

"But you have not seen many Boche planes lately?"

"No. Certainly not so many."

"And the number will grow beautifully less. Our little friends in the

R.F.C. are getting fairly numerous now, and their machines have been

improved out of all knowledge. They are rapidly assuming the position

of top dog. Moreover, the average Boche does not take kindly to

flying. It is too--too individualistic a job for him. He likes to work

in a bunch with other Boches, where he can keep step, and maintain

dressing, and mark time if he gets confused. In the air one cannot

mark time, and it worries Fritz to death. I think you will see, in the

next unpleasantness, that we shall be able to maintain our aeroplane

frontier somewhere over the enemy third line. That means that we shall

make our own dispositions with a certain degree of privacy, and the

Boche will not. Also, when our big guns get to work, they will not

need to fire blindly, as in the days of our youth, but will be

directed by one of our R.F.C. lads, humming about in his little bus

above the target, perhaps fifteen miles from the gun. Hallo, there go

the pipes! Tell your men to fall in."

"The whole business," observed Bobby, as he struggled into his

equipment, "sounds so attractive that I am beginning quite to look

forward to the next show!"

"Don't forget the Boche machine-guns, my lad," replied Wagstaffe.

"One seldom gets the chance," grumbled Bobby. "Is there no way of

knocking them out?"

"Well--" Wagstaffe looked intensely mysterious--"of course one never

knows, but--have you heard any rumours on the subject?"

"I have. About--"

"About the Hush! Hush! Brigade?"

Bobby nodded.

"Yes," he said. "Young Osborne, my best subaltern after Angus,

disappeared last month to join it. Tell me, what _is_ the--"

"Hush! Hush!" said Major Wagstaffe. "_Méfiez vous! Taisez vous_! and

so on!"

The battalion moved off.

So much for the war-talk of veterans. Now let us listen to the

novices.

"Bogle," said Angus M'Lachlan to his henchman, "I think we shall have

to lighten this Wolseley valise of mine. With one thing and another it

weighs far more than thirty-five pounds."

"That's a fact, sirr," agreed Mr. Bogle. "It carries ower mony books

in the heid of it."

They shook out the contents of the valise upon the floor of Angus's

bedroom--a loft over the kitchen in "A" Company's farm billet--and

proceeded to prune Angus's personal effects. There were boots, socks,

shaving-tackle, maps, packets of chocolate, and books of every size,

but chiefly of the ever-blessed sevenpenny type.

"A lot of these things will have to go, Bogle," said Angus

regretfully. "The colonel has warned officers about their kits, and it

would never do to have mine turned back from the waggon at the last

minute."

Mr. Bogle pricked up his ears. "The waggon? Are we for off again,

sirr?" he inquired.

"Indeed I could not say," replied the cautious Angus; "but it is well

to be ready."

"The boys was saying, sirr," observed Bogle tentatively, "that there

was to be another grand battle soon."

"It is more than likely," said Angus, with an air of profound wisdom.

"Here we are in June, and we must take the offensive, sooner or later,

or summer will be over."

"What kind o' a battle will it be this time, sirr?" inquired Bogle

respectfully.

"Oh, our artillery will pound the German trenches for a week or two,

and then we shall go over the parapet and drive them back for miles,"

said Angus simply.

"And what then, sirr?"

"What then? We shall go on pushing them until another Division

relieves us."

Bogle nodded comprehendingly. He now had firmly fixed in his mind the

essential details of the projected great offensive of 1916. He was

not interested to go further in the matter. And it is this

very faculty--philosophic trust, coupled with absolute lack of

imagination--which makes the British soldier the most invincible

person in the world. The Frenchman is inspired to glorious deeds by

his great spirit and passionate love of his own sacred soil; the

German fights as he thinks, like a machine. But the British Tommy wins

through owing to his entire indifference to the pros and cons of the

tactical situation. He settles down to war like any other trade, and,

as in time of peace, he is chiefly concerned with his holidays and

his creature comforts. A battle is a mere incident between one set of

billets and another. Consequently he does not allow the grim realities

of war to obsess his mind when off duty. One might almost ascribe

his success as a soldier to the fact that his domestic instincts are

stronger than his military instincts.

Put the average Tommy into a trench under fire how does he comport

himself? Does he begin by striking an attitude and hurling defiance

at the foe? No, he begins by inquiring, in no uncertain voice, where

his ---- dinner is? He then examines his new quarters. Before him

stands a parapet, buttressed mayhap with hurdles or balks of

timber, the whole being designed to preserve his life from hostile

projectiles. How does he treat this bulwark? Unless closely watched,

he will begin to chop it up for firewood. His next proceeding is to

construct for himself a place of shelter. This sounds a sensible

proceeding, but here again it is a case of "safety second." A British

Tommy regards himself as completely protected from the assaults of his

enemies if he can lay a sheet of corrugated-iron roofing across his

bit of trench and sit underneath it. At any rate it keeps the rain

off, and that is all that his instincts demand of him. An ounce of

comfort is worth a pound of security.

He looks about him. The parapet here requires fresh sandbags; there

the trench needs pumping out. Does he fill sandbags, or pump, of his

own volition? Not at all. Unless remorselessly supervised, he will

devote the rest of the morning to inventing and chalking up a

title for his new dug-out--"Jock's Lodge," or "Burns' Cottage," or

"Cyclists' Rest"--supplemented by a cautionary notice, such as--_No

Admittance. This Means You_. Thereafter, with shells whistling over

his head, he will decorate the parapet in his immediate vicinity with

picture postcards and cigarette photographs. Then he leans back with a

happy sigh. His work is done. His home from home is furnished. He is

now at leisure to think about "they Gairmans" again. That may sound

like an exaggeration; but "Comfort First" is the motto of that lovable

but imprudent grasshopper, Thomas Atkins, all the time.

A sudden and pertinent thought occurred to Mr. Bogle, who possessed a

Martha-like nature.

"What way, sir, will a body get his dinner, if we are to be fighting

for twa-three days on end?"

"Every man," replied Angus, "will be issued, I expect, with two days'

rations. But the Colonel tells me that during hard fighting a man

does not feel the desire for food--or sleep either for that matter.

Perhaps, during a lull, it may occur to him that he has not eaten

since yesterday, and he may pull out a bit of biscuit or chocolate

from his pocket, just to nibble. Or he may remember that he has had no

sleep for twenty-four hours--so he just drops down and sleeps for

ten minutes while there is time. But generally, matters of ordinary

routine drop out of a man's thoughts altogether."

"That's a queer-like thing, a body forgetting his dinner!" murmured

Bogle.

"Of course," continued Angus, warming to his theme like his own father

in his pulpit, "if Nature is expelled with a pitchfork in this manner,

for too long, _tamen usque recurret_."

"Is that a fact?" replied Bogle politely. He always adopted the line

of least resistance when his master took to audible rumination. "Weel,

I'll hae to be steppin', sir. I'll pit these twa blankets oot in the

sun, in some place where the dooks frae the pond will no get dandering

ower them. And if you'll sorrt your books, I'll hand ower the yins ye

dinna require to the Y.M.C.A. hut ayont the village."

Bogle cherished a profound admiration for Lieutenant M'Lachlan both as

a scholar and a strategist, and absorbed his deliverances with a care

and attention which enabled him to misquote the same quite fluently to

his own associates. That very evening he set forth the coming plan of

campaign, as elucidated to him by his master, to a mixed assemblage

at the _Estaminet au Clef des Champs_. Some of the party were duly

impressed; but Mr. Spike Johnson, a resident in peaceful times of

Stratford-atte-Bow, the recognised humourist of the Sappers' Field

Company attached to the Brigade, was pleased to be facetious.

"It won't be no good you Jocks goin' over no parapet to attack no

'Uns," he said, "after what 'appened last week!"

This dark saying had the effect of rousing every Scottish soldier in

the _estaminet_ to a state of bristling attention.

"And what was it," inquired Private Cosh with heat, "that happened

last week?"

"Why," replied Mr. Johnson, who had been compounding this jest for

some days, and now saw his opportunity to deliver it with effect at

short range, "your trenches got raided last Wednesday, when you was

in' em. By the Brandyburgers, I think it was."

The entire symposium stared at the jester with undisguised amazement.

"Our--trenches," proclaimed Private Tosh with forced calm, "were never

raided by no--Brandyburrrgerrs! Was they, Jimmie?"

Mr. Cosh corroborated, with three adjectives which Mr. Tosh had not

thought of.

Spike Johnson merely smiled, with the easy assurance of a man who has

the ace up his sleeve.

"Oh yes, they was!" he reiterated.

"They werre _not_!" shouted half a dozen voices.

The next stage of the discussion requires no description. It

terminated, at the urgent request of Madame from behind the bar, and

with the assistance of the Military Police, in the street outside.

"And now, Spike Johnson," inquired Private Cosh, breathing heavily but

much refreshed, "can you tell me what way Gairmans could get intil the

trenches of a guid Scots regiment withoot bein' _seen_?"

"I can," replied Mr. Johnson with relish, "and I will. They got in all

right, but you didn't see them, because they was disguised."

Cosh and Tosh snorted disdainfully, and Private Nigg, who was present

with his friend Buncle, inquired--

"What way was they disguised?"