"I only got word this morning," I heard him bawl as his face disappeared
into his mask. "BOY!" And with that he led his company into the
barrage.
I felt convinced if we got through it Roy would tell the first German he
met about the baby.
*CHAPTER XX*
*FOUNTAIN KEEP*
Of the next half-hour my recollection is mercifully blurred. All that I
know is that most of us got through the barrage and foregathered at the
back of Fountain Keep, which proved to be a circular _point d'appui_
intersected and honeycombed with trenches, saps and tunnels.
"Carry right on with the company," I said to Roy. "I think you will
find some hand-to-hand work going on just over the ridge; so your men
will be welcome. I will try to find the Headquarters of the Royal
Loyals. Take care of yourself, laddie!"
Our gas-masks were off again by this time, so we could smile at one
another as we parted.
Ultimately Herriott and I discovered the Headquarters of the Fifth Royal
Loyals--a dug-out at the back of the Keep, occupied by a slightly
hysterical second lieutenant (apparently the adjutant) and a telephone
orderly vainly trying to make connection with a Brigade Headquarters
which we learned afterwards had been shelled out of existence twenty
minutes before.
"The battalion are cut to pieces, sir," gasped the second lieutenant.
"They are fighting more or less in the open.... There are hardly any
trenches.... The C.O. was killed half an hour ago.... Most of the
company commanders have been scuppered too. The line's broken in two or
three places, and we are fighting in small groups.... They are putting
up a wonderful kick.... But there's hardly anybody left ... no platoon
commanders or anything. I seem to be in command of the battalion!" He
giggled, foolishly. "I came back here to try and telephone for help....
All the numbers seem to be engaged, though!" He began to sob. He
looked barely twenty.
"That's all right," I said. "I have sent a company of my Jocks to
stiffen your front line, and three more are coming up. Here, take a
pull at my flask, and then show me the way through this Keep of yours!
Looks like the Maze at Hampton Court, doesn't it? We must hold on to it
whatever happens: it's the key to the whole business. Who's in command
up in front, by the way?"
"A corporal, I think."
"_A corporal_? Come along! The sooner we reinforce him the better."
But the boy was too badly shell-shocked to guide me, so Herriott and I
went on alone. We plunged into the depths of the Keep, and followed its
deep mazes as best we could. Here and there I noticed traces of the
ornamental garden. We passed by the wrecked fountain, with a broken
stucco figure lying across its basin. Once our road took us through an
artificial rockery, reinforced with sandbags. The trenches were deep,
and we could see nothing but the sky above our heads. Everywhere was
the old familiar reek--humanity and chloride of lime. The noise was
terrific now. Our own shells were whistling over our heads: evidently
my grimy friend with the four-point-fives had got to work again. Enemy
artillery was silent, probably through fear of hitting its own men; but
bombs and trench-mortars were busy.
The windings of the Keep were tortuous, and we wandered more or less at
random, stepping here and there over some obstruction--an abandoned case
of ammunition, or a dead soldier. Suddenly we emerged into what was
obviously a firing-trench. It was lined with men, mounted on the step
and maintaining a steady fusillade. From their deliberate movements I
saw that they were fighting well within themselves. Some were Roy's
men, others members of that sturdy Territorial unit, the Fifth Royal
Loyals. There were other details--cyclists, signallers, Labour Corps
men--all contributing. Evidently some organising influence had been at
work. A few yards along the trench to the right I observed a sort of
projection, or bastion, in which a Lewis gun team were maintaining
enfilade fire along the wire to their own right.
Realising that I had reached the forward edge of Fountain Keep, I was
about to hoist myself on to the firing step in order to see what was
happening on the other side of the parapet, when my attention was
attracted to the man who appeared to be in general charge of the sector.
It was difficult to discern his rank, for he was in his shirt sleeves,
like many of his comrades. (Tommy Atkins has a passion for
_deshabille_.) Obviously he was not an officer, for he wore the
unaesthetic boots and grey flannel shirt of the rank-and-file. His
steel helmet had fallen off, and I could see that his hair was quite
grey. His face, like those of most present, was framed in a six days'
beard, with a top-dressing of dirt; but he was an undoubted leader of
men. When first I saw him he was directing the Lewis gun team.
Presently he came down the trench towards me, throwing up fresh clips of
ammunition and shouting encouragement to the men on the
firing-step--though in that hellish din I doubt if they heard much of
what he said.
He passed the mouth of the communication trench in which I was standing
without noticing me, and disappeared round a traverse on the left,
evidently on his way to stiffen morale in the next bay. I found myself
gazing after him with an interest for which I could not quite account.
Probably he was the corporal of whom the shell-shocked boy behind us had
spoken....
I became suddenly conscious that Herriott was stiffening to attention.
This meant that Herriott desired permission to deliver himself of a
remark.
"Well, Herriott?" I said.
"I beg your pardon, sirr--"
"Yes? What?"
"Yon, sirr, is--"
At that moment a German trench-mortar bomb came sailing over, and burst
some thirty yards to our left. Fortunately our bay was screened from
the effects by a stout island-traverse. However, I fear I missed the
purport of Herriott's statement. In fact, I doubt if I heard it at all,
for at that moment Roy appeared round the corner on the right, followed
by an orderly.
He was bleeding from a scratch on the cheek, and held his Colt automatic
in his hand.
"We have just pushed them back on the right, sir," he announced. His
eyes were blazing. "They tried to rush a bad bit of our line about a
hundred yards along; but our boys were splendid, and very few Boches got
as far as the parapet. They simply withered up when they got to the
wire."
I pointed to the bastion, where the Lewis gunners were recharging
magazines.
"Those are the fellows you have to thank," I said. "How is the
situation generally?"
"The Boche has gone back everywhere, for the moment," Roy replied. "I
fancy he will give us a dose of trench-mortars and H.E., and then try
again. I am going along the line now, to see if all the men are in
place."
"You will find a very efficient understudy round that traverse," I
said--"a corporal. I found him handling this bit of line like a
field-marshal."
Again I was aware of the dour presence of Herriott at my elbow.
"I beg your pardon, sirr--" he began again.
Again the words were taken out of his mouth. Round the corner of the
traverse to our left struggled a pitifully familiar group--two stooping
men supporting a third between them. The wounded man held an arm
resolutely round the neck of each supporter, but his feet dragged in the
mud. It was the grey-headed corporal.
"Stretcher-bearers, there!" cried one of the men gruffly.
"How did they cop you, Corporal?" inquired a Royal Loyal, leaning down
sympathetically from the firing-step.
"That last trench-mortar!" gasped the grey-haired man, as they set him
down on the floor of the trench, just below the Lewis gun emplacement.
He turned his head feebly in our direction, and our eyes met for the
first time. At the same moment Roy gave a cry and started forward.
Then I understood what Herriott had been trying to tell me. Tom Birnie
lay dying before our eyes--at the feet of his own son.
Roy, very white, dropped on his knees beside his father. A stretcher
came, and we did what we could. Tom had a dreadful wound in his side;
plainly it was only a matter of minutes. I remember seeing Roy unbuckle
his own equipment, take off his tunic, and wrap it round his father's
shoulders. Tom's eyes were closed; his breathing was laboured; he
recognised no one.
For a moment the tempest of battle around us seemed to stand still. The
crowded trench was silent; the men on the firing-step looked down
curiously. Roy still knelt beside his father, motionless. Herriott,
who had worked on the Baronrigg estate ever since he could walk, stood
rigidly at attention at the foot of the Laird's stretcher, with tears
trickling down his cheeks.
At last Tom's eyes opened. He smiled and said faintly:
"That you, Roy? Good boy! I was expecting you.... I carried on as
well as I could, until you came to take over.... I knew you would
come.... I knew! Give your father a kiss, old man."
Roy bowed his head....
Next moment, with the shriek of an express train emerging from a tunnel,
a German shell whirled out of the blue and exploded against the traverse
a few yards away.
When I came to myself I was being carried in Herriott's arms--and I
weigh nearly fourteen stone--back through the mazes of Fountain Keep in
the direction of the first aid post. After more than three years of
continuous seeking I had achieved the soldier's ambition--a "blighty."
That night, as I passed on my jolting way to the base, with a smashed
collar-bone and a damaged skull, my rambling dreams ran naturally on one
subject--that strange meeting between father and son; and the spectacle
of the one passing on to the other, as it were some precious
inheritance, the safe custody of Fountain Keep.
*CHAPTER XXI*
*IDENTITIES*
*I*
Night had fallen on Fountain Keep; for the moment the guns were silent
and the battle had died down. To-morrow the Boche would come again--and
again. But he would get no farther. The high-water mark of the great
spring offensive of Nineteen Eighteen had been reached--in this region
at any rate, though none knew it. To the right the long, attenuated
British line had been pressed back to the village of Villers Bretonneux,
within sight of Amiens; the Australians were destined to do historic
work here six weeks later, when the bundling-out process began. On the
left, before Arras, despite massed attacks and reckless expenditure of
German cannon-fodder, the line had held fast. On every side, for the
moment, the enemy had sullenly withdrawn, to lick his wounds. He would
try again later on further north, in the flat plain of the sluggish
Lys--only to create a second spectacular and untenable salient in the
British line, with the Vimy Ridge standing up invincibly between the
two, like a great rock splitting the force of a spring spate.
Fountain Keep was very still and silent. It lay once more well within
the British lines. It had been captured by the enemy in a massed attack
at three o'clock that afternoon, despite the gallant defence put up by A
Company and the great-hearted remnants of the Royal Loyals--to be
recaptured in a most skilfully directed counter-attack just before
nightfall by the three remaining companies of the Royal Covenanters.
With the key position restored, a gallant rally had taken place all
along the line, and once more the whole of Primrose Hill was in British
hands.
Out in front weary men were consolidating the position--replacing
sandbags and running out wire. Fountain Keep itself, lying snugly
behind its restored trench-line, had resumed its proper function of
_point d'appui_ and battalion headquarters. But British prestige had
been restored at the usual prodigal cost. Stretcher-bearers were
everywhere, stumbling about in the darkness from shell-hole to
shell-hole, where wounded men usually contrive to drag themselves. Many
of those wounded had seen khaki puttees, then German field-boots, then
khaki puttees pass over their heads that day.
They were nearly all collected by this time; our own particular Alan
Laing had passed through the field dressing-station hours ago. Now the
battle-ground was occupied by other search-parties, whose business lay
with those who had been delivered for ever from the pain of wounds and
the weariness of convalescence.
Such a party was at this moment employing itself in Fountain Keep, under
the direction of a conscientious but not over-imaginative sergeant,
named Busby.
"We'll go along the front parapet first," he announced; "that's where
most of 'em are.... Yes, 'ere's one--a Jock; lance-corporal, by his
stripe. Get his pay-book out of his pocket, 'Erb. Not got one? Well,
he _ought_ to 'ave, that's all; it's in Regulations. Look at his
identity-disc, then. Read it out, and read it slow; my pencil's blunt.
_Number Seven-Six-Five-Fower-Eight--Private J. Couper_--been promoted
since he got that--_Second Royal Covenanters--Presbyterian_. Righto!
Now, this one--No, never mind 'im, it's only a 'Un; no need to take
_his_ number! Pass along, boys! Get a move on; we've got a lot to do."
The little procession moved on, performing its grim duties with
characteristic sang-froid, lightened by the incurable, untimely,
invaluable flippancy of the British soldier. Presently they came to a
place where a bastion of sandbags had been improvised as an emplacement
for a Lewis gun. The gun itself lay twisted and earthy on a heap of
burst sandbags; below the emplacement lay the gun's crew.
"One shell got the lot, I fancy," remarked Sergeant Busby. "Switch on
your torch, Alf; there are four or five of 'em here. Lift them clear of
one another, boys."
Four bodies were lifted, not irreverently, and laid side by side on the
ground behind the emplacement, with sightless eyes upturned to the
twinkling stars. One remained--a long-legged figure in shirt-sleeves,
lying with face turned to the parapet.
"Help me to turn this feller over, 'Erb," commanded the sergeant.
"Seems to have lost his toonic; Government property, too! Well, he
can't be brought up for it now. Hallo! ... _'Strewth_! ... Did you see
that, 'Erb? It give me a turn for a minute. 'Alf a tick!" He bent
down hurriedly, and listened. "He's breathing! There's a
stretcher-party round that traverse; you, Richards, double off and bring
them, quick!"
Five minutes later the insensible form of the man who had mislaid
Government property was borne away, and Sergeant Busby proceeded with
the identification of his less (or more) fortunate companions. 'Erb,
the _litterateur_ of the party, read off the identity-discs one by one.
"_Smith--Turner--'Opkins_," repeated the sergeant, labouring with the
blunt pencil. "That's the first lot of Loyals we've struck. There must
be a heap more somewhere; we'll find 'em presently. What's the name of
this last one? Give us his number first. _Six-O-Four-O-Two; Private T.
Birnie_--spelt with two I's--right! Royal Loyals, I suppose?
_Religion_? Eh, what's the trouble now?"
"Sergeant," interposed 'Erb, in a puzzled voice, "look 'ere! This ain't
no private; it's an orficer! Look at his tunic--three stars, and all!"
Sergeant Busby flashed his electric torch once more. It revealed a
grey-haired man, with a captain's tunic wrapped round his shoulders,
tied by the sleeves.
"Yes," he announced judicially, "he's an officer, all right; and what's
more, he's an officer in a Jock regiment. I know a bit about uniforms,
my lad; and no English officer wears a cutaway tunic like that, or his
pips in that position. And there's his collar-badges! He's not a Loyal
at all, this feller; he's a Covenanter."
"What about his identity-disc?" inquired 'Erb, respectfully. "That says
'Private.'"