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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Servants of the Guns, by Jeffery E. Jeffery
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Servants of the Guns
+
+Author: Jeffery E. Jeffery
+
+Release Date: October 4, 2011 [EBook #37628]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SERVANTS OF THE GUNS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Matthew Wheaton and The Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  SERVANTS OF THE GUNS
+
+  BY
+
+  JEFFERY E. JEFFERY
+
+
+      _By the ears and the eyes and the brain,
+        By the limbs and the hands and the wings,
+      We are slaves to our masters the guns,
+        But their slaves are the masters of kings!_
+                                          GILBERT FRANKAU.
+
+
+  LONDON SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
+
+  1917
+
+  [_All rights reserved_]
+
+
+  PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED LONDON AND BECCLES,
+  ENGLAND
+
+
+  _TO
+
+  ONE WHO KNOWS NOTHING OF GUNS
+
+  BUT MUCH OF LIFE
+
+  MY MOTHER_
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+
+  PART I
+
+  THE NEW "UBIQUE"
+
+  BEGINNING AGAIN
+  A BATTERY IN BEING
+  "IN THE LINE"
+  SPIT AND POLISH
+  A BATTLE
+
+
+  PART II
+
+  AND THE OLD
+
+  BILFRED
+  "THE PROGRESS OF PICKERSDYKE"
+  SNATTY
+  FIVE-FOUR-EIGHT
+
+
+  PART III
+
+  IN ENEMY HANDS
+
+  SOME EXPERIENCES OF A PRISONER OF WAR
+  HENRY
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+THE NEW "UBIQUE"
+
+
+
+
+BEGINNING AGAIN
+
+
+As the long troop train rumbled slowly over the water-logged wastes of
+Flanders, I sat in the corner of a carriage which was littered with all
+the _debris_ of a twenty-four hours' journey and watched the fiery
+winter's sun set gorgeously. It was Christmas evening. Inevitably my
+mind went back to that other journey of sixteen months ago when we set
+forth so proudly, so exultantly to face the test of war.
+
+But how different, how utterly different is everything now! Last time,
+with the sun shining brilliantly from a cloudless sky and the French
+sentries along the line waving enthusiastically, we passed cheerfully
+through the pleasant land of France towards our destination on the
+frontier. I was a subaltern then, a subordinate member of a battery
+which, according to pre-war standards, was equipped and trained to
+perfection--and I can say this without presumption, for having only
+joined it in July I had had no share in the making of it. But I had
+been in it long enough to appreciate its intense _esprit-de-corps_, long
+enough to share the absolute confidence in its efficiency which inspired
+every man in it from the major to the second trumpeter.
+
+But now it is midwinter, the second winter of the war, and the French
+sentries no longer wave to us, for they have seen too many train-loads
+of English troops to be more than mildly interested. The war to which we
+set out so light-heartedly sixteen months ago has proved itself to be
+not the "greatest of games," but the greatest of all ghastly horrors
+threatening the final disruption of civilised humanity. More than a year
+has passed and the end is not in sight. But the cause is as righteous,
+the victory as certain now as it was then.... The methods and practice
+of warfare have been revolutionised. Theory after theory has been
+disproved by the devastating power of the high explosive and the giant
+gun. Horse and field batteries no longer dash into action to the music
+of jingling harness and thudding hoofs. They creep in by night with
+infinite precautions and place their guns in casemates which are often
+ten feet thick; they occupy the same position not for hours, but for
+months at a time; they fire at targets which are sometimes only fifty
+yards or even less in front of their own infantry, with the knowledge
+that the smallest error may mean death to their comrades; and the
+control of their shooting is no longer an affair of good eyesight and
+common sense, but of science, complicated instruments, and a
+multiplicity of telephones.
+
+And I, a novice at all this kind of work, am no longer a subaltern. I am
+directly responsible for the welfare and efficiency of the battery which
+this long train is bearing into the zone of war. How we fare when we get
+there, what kind of tasks are allotted to us, and how we succeed in
+coping with them I hope to record in due course. But this I know
+now--the human material with which I have to deal is good enough. We
+have the advantage of being a homogeneous unit, for we belong to one of
+the "locally raised" divisions. With only a very few exceptions (notably
+the sergeant-major, who is a "serving soldier" of vast proportions and
+great merit), the N.C.O.'s and men all come from the same district. Many
+of them were acquainted in private life and enlisted in little coteries
+of five or six. Christian names are freely used, which is fortunate
+seeing that we have four Jones', five Davies', and no less than eight
+Evans' on our roll. In moments of excitement or of anger they resort to
+their own language and encourage or abuse each other in voluble
+Welsh....
+
+A few miles back we passed G.H.Q. I was vaguely impressed with the
+silent dignity, the aloofness, as it were, of that now celebrated place.
+Our train drew up in the station, which seemed as deserted as that of a
+small English country town on a Sunday. "Here, within a mile of me," I
+thought, "dwell the Powers that Be, whose brains control the destinies
+of a million men. Here somewhere is the individual who knows my
+destination and when I am likely to get to it." But this surmise proved
+incorrect. It was three-thirty on Christmas afternoon and even the staff
+must lunch. Presently a R.T.O.[1] issued from a cosy-looking office and
+crossed the line towards me. His first question was positively painful
+in its naive simplicity.
+
+[1] Railway Transport Officer.
+
+"Who are _you_?" he inquired haughtily. My reply was not only correct
+but dignified. "We know nothing about you," he said. "The staff officer
+who should have been here to give you your instructions is away at
+present." (I think I mentioned that it was Christmas Day!)
+
+"Never mind," I replied, "but would it be disturbing your arrangements
+at all if I watered my horses and gave my men some food here? They've
+had nothing since last night, and the horses have been ten hours without
+water."
+
+"No time for that. You'll leave in two minutes."
+
+And sure enough in half an hour we were off again!...
+
+When, soon after five, we learnt that we were within a few minutes of
+our journey's end I leant across and woke "The Child"--who is my junior
+subaltern. If this war had not come to pass the Child would probably be
+enjoying his Christmas holidays and looking forward to his last term at
+his public school. Actually, he has already nine months' service, of
+which three have been spent at the front. He has been home wounded and
+is now starting out again as a veteran to whom less experienced persons
+refer their doubts and queries. Last week he celebrated his eighteenth
+birthday. He is the genuine article, that is he holds a regular
+commission and has passed through "the Shop."[2] His clothes fit him,
+his aspirates appear in the right places, he is self-possessed,
+competent, level-headed and not infrequently amusing. Of his particular
+type of manhood (or rather boyhood) he is a fine example.
+
+[2] R.M.A. Woolwich.
+
+"Wake up, Child," I said. "We're nearly there."
+
+He rubbed his eyes and sat up, wide awake at once.
+
+"_Some_ journey," he observed. "Hope it's not Hell's own distance to our
+billets."
+
+The R.T.O. at ---- where we detrained was an expert, the passion of whose
+life it is apparently to clear the station yard in an impossibly short
+space of time. He addressed me as follows, the moment I was out of the
+train.
+
+"You _must_ be unloaded and out of this in two hours. You can sort
+yourselves in the road afterwards."
+
+I promised to do my utmost, but the prospect of sorting men, horses,
+vehicles, and harness on a narrow road flanked by deep ditches whilst
+the rain streamed down out of a sky as black as tar, appealed only
+vaguely to my optimistic spirit.
+
+The R.T.O., having given minute instructions and made certain that they
+were in course of being carried out with feverish haste, became
+communicative.
+
+"You see," he said, "there's been the dickens of a row lately. One unit
+took four and a half hours to detrain and several have taken more than
+three. Then 'Brass Hats' get busy and call for reasons in writing, and I
+have to render a report and everybody gets damned. If you exceed your
+time I shall _have_ to report you. I don't want to, of course, and I'm
+sure you don't want me to."
+
+But at this moment I spotted, by the light of an acetylene flare, my
+prize-fool sergeant (every battery is issued with at least one of these)
+directing his drivers to place their harness just where it could not
+fail to be in everybody's way. I turned to the R.T.O.
+
+"My good man," I said, "you can report me to any one you please. I've
+reached the stage when I don't care _what_ you do." And I made for the
+offending sergeant. The R.T.O., justly incensed, retired to the warmth
+of his office.
+
+As a matter of fact things went rather well; the men, heartened by the
+thought that rest and food were not far distant, worked with a will, and
+by the time the allotted two hours had elapsed we were not only clear of
+the yard, but hooked in on the road and nearly ready to start. Moreover,
+being the first battery of the Brigade to arrive we had had our choice
+of billets, and knew that we had got a good one. The Child, preceded by
+a cyclist guide whose knowledge of the country was palpably slight, and
+followed by the mess cart, had gone off into the darkness to find the
+way. It was his job to make all arrangements and then come back to meet
+us. Since it was only drizzling now and not really very cold, the
+outlook was distinctly brighter.
+
+"Walk--march," I ordered, and we duly started. We progressed without
+mishap for, roughly, twenty-five yards, when there was a shout from the
+rear of the column. The sergeant-major took in its ominous purport
+before I did. He forgot himself--and swore aloud. "G.S. wagon's
+overturned in the ditch" was what I eventually heard. It was enough to
+make an angel weep tears of vexation.
+
+A battery is provided by a munificent government with two G.S. wagons.
+One contains supplies (_i.e._ food for horse and man), the other
+contains baggage and stores. To be without either is most unpleasant. I
+went back to the scene of the disaster. The ditch was deep and more than
+half full of water. In it, completely overturned and firmly wedged, was
+the baggage wagon. Behind the wagon, also in the ditch and still mounted
+upon a floundering steed, was our old farrier, talking very fast to
+himself in Welsh. We got him out and soothed him--poor old man, he was
+wet through from the waist downwards--and then looked sadly,
+reluctantly, at the wagon. Evidently there was no hope of shifting it
+without unloading, and that would take too long. So three unfortunate
+gunners and a bombardier were told off to mount guard over it, given
+some tins of bully beef and a few biscuits and marooned, as it were,
+till the morning. All this took time. And we were very tired and very
+hungry.
+
+"I am the most unlucky devil on earth," I thought, as riding up to the
+front again I found that the pole of an ammunition wagon had broken and
+was going to cause still further delay. But it was a selfish thought.
+There was a distant rumbling, not of thunder, far behind us. I looked
+back. The night was clearing and the black horizon was a clear-cut line
+against the heavens. Into the sky, now here, now there, kept darting up
+tiny sparks of fire, and over the whole long line, for miles and miles,
+a glimmer, as of summer lightning, flickered spasmodically. For in that
+direction lay "the front." On this Christmas night in the year of grace
+nineteen hundred and fifteen, from the North Sea to the Alps, there
+stood men peering through the darkness at the dim shape of the parapet
+opposite, watching for an enemy who might be preparing some sinister
+scheme for their undoing. And I had dared to deem myself unlucky--I who
+had hope that some time that night I should undress and slip into
+bed--warm and dry....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+St. Stephen's Day! I wonder if the U.H.C. are meeting at Clonmult
+to-day. Closing my eyes I can picture the village street with its crowd
+of holiday-making farmers, buckeens, horse-dealers, pinkcoated officers
+and country gentlemen, priests and "lads on jinnets," as it was when I
+went to a meet there that Boxing Day the year that "Brad" and I spent
+our leave in Cork. But now hunting is a thing of small importance and
+Brad--is a treasured memory....
+
+We are comfortable here, extraordinarily so. The whole battery is in one
+farm and more than half the horses are under cover. The men sleep in a
+roomy barn with plenty of straw to keep them warm, the sergeants have a
+loft of their own. We have arranged harness rooms, a good kitchen for
+the cooks, a washhouse, a gun park, a battery office, and a telephone
+room. "_M. le patron_" is courtly and obliging, Madame is altogether
+charming. Their parlour is at the officers' disposal for a living-room:
+I've got a bedroom to myself. We are, in fact, in process of settling
+down.
+
+My admiration for the soldiers of the New Army increases daily. For I
+perceive that they too, in common with their more highly trained, more
+sternly disciplined comrades of the original "Regulars," possess the
+supreme quality of being able to "stick it." The journey from our
+station in England to this particular farm in northern France was no bad
+test for raw troops--and we are raw at present, it is idle to deny the
+fact. We marched to Southampton, we embarked (a lengthy and a tiring
+process). We were twelve hours on the boat, and we had an exceptionally
+rough crossing, during which nine-tenths of the battery were sick. We
+disembarked, we groomed our horses and regarded our rusty harness with
+dismay. We waited about for some hours, forbidden to leave the precincts
+of the quay. Then we marched to the station and entrained. Any one who
+has ever assisted to put guns and heavy wagons on to side-loading
+trucks, or to haul unwilling horses up a slippery ramp, knows what that
+means. And I may add that it was dark and it was raining. We travelled
+for twenty-four hours--with a mess-tin full of lukewarm tea at 8 a.m.
+to hearten us--and then we detrained at just the time when it was
+getting dark again and still raining. Moreover, whilst we were in the
+train, cold, hungry, dirty and horribly uncomfortable, we had ample time
+to remember that it was Christmas Day, a festival upon which the soldier
+is supposed to be given a gratuitous feast and a whole holiday. But all
+this, to say nothing of a five-mile march to our billet afterwards and
+the tedious process of unharnessing and putting down horse lines in the
+dark, was done without audible "grousing." Truly this morning's late
+_reveille_ was well earned.
+
+The sun is shining this afternoon. The gunners are busy washing down the
+guns and wagons, the drivers sit around the courtyard scrubbing away at
+their harness: through the open window I can hear them singing softly.
+The poultry picking their way delicately about the yard, the old
+_patron_ carrying armfuls of straw to his cattle, and Madame sitting
+sewing in the kitchen doorway almost make one feel that peace has come
+again into the world. But from the eastward occasionally and very
+faintly there comes that ominous rumbling which portends carnage,
+destruction--Death....
+
+It was the quartermaster-sergeant's idea originally. He is a New Army
+product, but he has already developed the two essential attributes which
+go towards the making of a good quartermaster-sergeant--a suave manner
+and an eye to the main chance. It was he who suggested, laughingly, that
+since the men had missed their Christmas dinner, we should pretend to be
+Scotch and celebrate New Year's Day instead. The arrangements are now
+complete. The men are to be "paid out" to-morrow and they have all
+agreed to subscribe a franc apiece. This will be supplemented until the
+funds are sufficient. The Expeditionary Force canteen at ---- has been
+visited, and in spite of the heavy demands previously made upon it for
+Christmas has provided us with numerous delicacies. The old farmer,
+entering cheerfully into the spirit of the affair, has offered beans and
+potatoes which Madame proposes to cook for us. Bottled beer has been
+purchased, beer on draught will be forthcoming. There are even crackers.
+To crown all, the Child returns triumphantly seated upon the box seat of
+a G.S. wagon which contains--a piano!...
+
+In the end circumstances forced us to celebrate the birth of the year of
+victory on the last day but one of 1915. For to-day two officers and a
+large party of N.C.O.'s and men departed for the front on a course of
+instruction. So we had to have our "day" before they went. And what a
+day it was! The dinner--thanks largely to the energy and resource of the
+"quarter-bloke" and the cooks--was an immense success. Every man ate
+until, literally, he could eat no more. Then, after the issue of beer
+and a brief interval for repose and tobacco, an inter-section football
+match was started. The two subalterns whose commands were involved made
+a sporting agreement that the loser should stand a packet of cigarettes
+to every man of the winning section--some sixty in all. The game, which
+was played in a water-logged meadow, ended in a draw, so they each stood
+their own men the aforesaid packet--a highly popular procedure.
+
+The piano, need I say, was going all the afternoon. It was necessary to
+practise for the evening's concert, and besides we are Welsh and
+therefore we are all musical. Moreover--and this I record with
+diffidence--I saw the one sergeant we have who is _not_ Welsh but Irish
+inveigle the dairymaid into waltzing round the yard!
+
+In the officers' mess we too "spread ourselves a bit." We had guests
+and we gave them an eight-course dinner which began with _hors d'oeuvre
+varies_ (but not very varied seeing that there were only sardines and
+chopped carrots) and ended with dessert. Specially selected ration beef
+was, of course, the _piece de resistance_, but it was followed by roast
+pigeon and a salad, the latter mixed and dressed by Madame's own fair
+hands. But the pigeons, though cooked to a nicety, were undeniably
+tough--a fact which was not surprising seeing that they were quite
+possibly the oldest inhabitants of the farm!
+
+Eventually, well pleased with ourselves and each armed with a brand of
+cigar which one can buy at the rate of nine inches for twopence, we
+adjourned to the smoking concert in the barn. The stage was our old
+friend the G.S. wagon; the lights, siege lamps, hung round at intervals.
+Bottled beer and cigarettes were in constant circulation; the performers
+were above the average, and the choruses vociferous but always tuneful.
+
+Every unit has its amateur comedian; but we have got a real professional
+one--a "lad fra' Lancasheer" who is well known in the north of England.
+I will not divulge his stage name, but he is a corporal now. His voice
+is exceptional, his good-nature unlimited, and as for his
+stories--well! Moreover, he is gifted enough to be always topical, often
+personal, but never disrespectful.
+
+The Child also performed. He has no great voice and had dined well, but,
+since he _is_ the Child and sang a song about any old night being a
+wonderful night, was wildly applauded. Then the saddler-sergeant, a
+quaint character of whom more anon, brought the house down by playing a
+quavering solo upon a penny whistle. Finally, the sergeant-major made a
+speech which ended as follows:--
+
+"Now there's just one point I want to remind you of. We all wear a badge
+in our caps with a gun on it--those of us that is who haven't gone
+against orders and given them away as souvenirs" (audible
+giggles--although as a matter of fact this has not occurred). "We're all
+members of the Royal Regiment. It's got a fine history--let's play up to
+it. We'll now sing 'the King,' after which there'll be an issue of tea
+and rum...."
+
+The windows of our mess-room, as I have said, face the courtyard. We
+were enjoying supper and a welcome drink whilst the long queue of men
+waited for their tea at the cook-house door outside, when suddenly in a
+dark corner of the yard a chorus started. But it was not an ordinary
+chorus, raucous and none too tuneful. Neither was it music-hall
+sentiment. It was Grand Opera, sung by a dozen picked men and sung
+beautifully. We threw open the window to listen.
+
+The effect was extraordinarily striking. It was a gorgeous starlit
+night, and against the sky the farm buildings opposite looked like
+silhouettes of black velvet. The voices of these unseen artists (for
+they _were_ artists) came to us softly out of the darkness, rising and
+falling in perfect cadence, perfect harmony. They sang two selections
+from _Il Trovatore_ and then the "Soldiers' Chorus" from _Faust_.
+Meanwhile the battery sipped its hot tea and rum and listened
+critically. Then there followed a solo, "He like a soldier fell," from
+_Maritana_. As a finale, most wonderful of all, they sang "Land of my
+Fathers" in Welsh. The occasion, the setting, the way they put their
+very souls into every note of it, made me catch my breath as I sat on
+the window-sill and listened. And I went to bed feeling that there is
+yet a thread of romance running through all the sordid horror which
+vexes our unhappy world.
+
+
+
+
+A BATTERY IN BEING
+
+
+The author of a little red book "War Establishments," labelled "For
+Official Use Only" (presumably a gentleman with a brain like
+an automatic ready-reckoner), probably thought of nothing
+whatever, certainly of no human being, when he penned the decree
+"Farrier-Sergeants--per battery--1." But if he could only see the result
+of his handiwork! For our farrier-sergeant David Evans is simply
+splendid. He is small and sturdy and middle-aged, with grizzled hair
+that shows at all times in front of his pushed-back cap. His soft Welsh
+accent is a joy to hear; his affection for the horses is immense, his
+industry unflagging, and his workmanship always of the very best. He
+knows nothing about guns or drill or any kind of soldiering, he is an
+indifferent rider and in appearance he would never be mistaken for a
+guardsman! But we have only cast one shoe since he joined us months ago,
+and he has been known to sit up all night with a sick horse and carry
+on with his work as usual on the following day, whistling merrily (he
+always whistles while he works) and hammering away as if his very ration
+depended upon his shoeing the whole battery before dusk. The Child
+summed him up with his customary exactitude.
+
+"I love the old farrier," he said, "he's such a merry old man. I bet
+he's a topping uncle to somebody!"
+
+Then there is the saddler. I know that the formation of our new armies
+has produced many anomalies, but it is my conviction that our saddler is
+unique. To start with he is a grandfather! He is a little wizened old
+man with a nose like a bird's beak and he wears huge thick spectacles.
+He is sixty-two, and how he got into the service is a mystery. He has
+never done a parade in his life, but when it comes to leather-work
+(again I quote the Child) "he's a tiger." The battery was newly formed
+and living in billets in North Wales when he joined it. His original
+appearance caused a mild sensation, even amongst that motley and
+ununiformed assembly. For he wore check trousers and a pair of ancient
+brown shoes, a tweed tail-coat from the hind pocket of which protruded a
+red handkerchief, and--most grotesque of all--a battered top hat of
+brown felt! And in this costume he served his country, quite
+unconcernedly, for two months before the authorities saw fit to provide
+him with a khaki suit. It is his habit, no matter where the battery may
+find itself--in barracks, camp or billets, to seek out a secluded spot
+(preferably a dark one), to instal himself there with his tools and a
+tangle of odd straps, threads and buckles, and proceed to make or mend
+things. For he is one of those queer persons who really like work.
+
+I was not fortunate enough to see him in his civilian garb, but I have a
+vivid recollection of his first appearance after being issued with a
+"cap, winter, overseas, with waterproof cover." This cap, though
+practical, does not tend to add to the smartness of the wearer, even if
+the wearer is in all other respects smart. But the saddler went to
+extremes. He managed to put on the cover so that the whole, pulled well
+down over his ears, resembled a vast sponge bag or an elderly lady's
+bathing cap, beneath which his spectacles gleamed like the head-lights
+of a motor-car. The wildest stretch of the imagination could not liken
+him to any sort of soldier. Nevertheless, after his fashion, he is
+certainly "doing his bit."
+
+It is, of course, impossible to describe them all. Equally is it
+impossible to understand them all. I wish I could, for therein lies the
+secret to almost everything. The sergeant-major, for instance, who is
+the personification of respectful efficiency--what does he think of this
+infant unit? From the dignified way in which he says, "Of course in _my_
+battery we did so and so" (meaning, of course, his old "regular"
+battery), I gather that his prejudices are strong and that he harbours a
+secret longing to go back whence he came. And I sometimes wonder whether
+he finds himself quite at home in the sergeants' mess. But he shows no
+outward sign of discontent and he allows no discord: his discipline is
+stern and unbending. He knows all about every man and every horse, he is
+always to be found somewhere in the lines, and he is extraordinarily
+patient at explaining to ignorant persons of all ranks the "service"
+method of doing everything--from the tying of a headrope to the actual
+manoeuvring of a battery in the field. Last, but by no means least, he
+is six foot three and broad in proportion, and his voice carries two
+hundred yards without apparent effort on his part.
+
+The quartermaster-sergeant--I learnt this only a day or so ago--is a
+revivalist preacher in quieter times; the ration orderly, besides his
+faculty for wheedling extra bacon out of the supply people, has a
+magnificent tenor voice; the great majority of the rank and file are
+miners. It is only comparatively recently that they have really settled
+down to take a pride in themselves and an intelligent interest in the
+reputation of their unit. For we are not KI. We are nearer to being KV
+or VI, and we were not amongst the first to be equipped and trained. We
+got our guns, our horses and our harness late in the day, and we were,
+perhaps, the least bit rushed. Consequently we were slow to develop, but
+we are making up for lost time now at an astonishing pace. I can
+remember a time when, on giving the order "Walk--march" to any given
+team, there was always an even chance that drivers and horses would
+disagree as to the necessity for moving off. I can also remember a time
+(and not so very long ago either) when our gunners had but the smallest
+conception of what a gun was designed to do and (I know this) rather
+shrank from the dread prospect of actually firing it. But now we drive
+with no mean attempt at style; a narrow gateway off a lane is nothing to
+us, and our horses, artistically matched in teams of bay or black, are
+prepared to pull their two tons through or over anything within reason
+with just a "click" of encouragement from the drivers they know and
+understand. And we open the breech as the gun runs up after the recoil,
+we call out the fuzes and slap in the next shell with more than mere
+drill-book smartness; we're beginning to acquire that pride in our
+working of the guns which is the basis of all good artillery work. In
+fact we have reached a stage where it would be a wholesome corrective to
+our conceit to be taken _en masse_ to see the harness, the horses and
+the gun-drill of some regular battery that has borne the brunt of things
+since Mons. Then we would go home saying to ourselves, "If the war lasts
+another two years and we keep hard at it, we'll be as good as they are."
+
+But in the meanwhile we are quite prepared to take on the Hun, moving or
+stationary, in trenches or in the open, at any range from "point-blank"
+to six thousand. And we have had it dinned into us, until we yawned and
+shuffled our feet and coughed, that it is our _role_ at all times to
+help our infantry, whose life is ten times more strenuous than ours, and
+by whom ultimately victory is won. We know the meaning of the two
+mottoes on our hats and we are distinctly optimistic. Which is as
+well....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To-day I visited "the Front." We rode up, a subaltern and I, to see the
+battery to which our men are at present attached and which we will
+eventually relieve. It is a strange experience for the uninitiated, such
+as I am, this riding along the flat and crumbling roads towards the
+booming of the guns and the desolation of "the line." The battery
+position, we found, was just on the borderland of this zone of
+desolation. One would never have suspected the presence of guns unless
+one had known exactly where to look--and had gone quite close. A
+partially ruined house on the road-side had its front and one gable end
+entirely covered with a solid wall of sandbags, but these were the only
+obvious indications of occupation. This house, however, was the mess and
+officers' quarters, and the Child was there at the door to welcome us.
+
+"We've had quite a busy morning," he said gaily. "They've been putting
+four-two's and five-nine's into ----" (---- is a village about a quarter
+of a mile up the road). "I was just going out to look for fuzes: but
+perhaps you'd like to see round the position first."
+
+We crossed the road and entered a small orchard. The Child led me up to
+a large turf-covered mound which had a deep drain all round it and a
+small door at the back.
+
+"This," he said, rather with the air of a guide showing a visitor round
+a cathedral, "is No. 4."
+
+I bent my head and stepped inside. The gun-pit (which was not really a
+pit since its floor was on ground level) was lit only by the narrow
+doorway at the rear and by what light could filter through the hurdles
+placed in front of the embrasure. But in the dimness I could just make
+out the rows and rows of shells all neatly laid in recesses in the
+walls, the iron girders that spanned the roof and held up its weight of
+sandbags, brick rubble and--reinforced concrete. Ye gods! concrete--for
+a field gun! And there, spotlessly clean, ready for instant action, was
+the gun itself. I felt sorry for it--it seemed so hopelessly out of
+place, so far removed from its legitimate sphere. To think that an
+eighteen-pounder, designed for transit along roads and across country,
+should have come to this!
+
+"The detachment live here," said the Child, and showed me a commodious
+dug-out connected with the gun-pit by a short tunnel. Inside this
+dug-out were four bunks and a stove--also a gunner devouring what smelt
+like a very savoury dinner.
+
+"What will these keep out?" I asked.
+
+"Oh!" replied the Child, airily, "they're 'pip-squeak'[3] and
+splinter-proof, of course, and they might stop a four-two or even a
+five-nine. But a direct hit with an eight-inch would make _some_ hole, I
+expect. Come and see the telephonist's place. It's rather a show spot."
+
+[3] German field gun shells.
+
+As we were walking towards it a stentorian voice shouted, "Battery
+action."
+
+Instantly, the few men who had been working on the drains and on the
+pits, or filling sandbags, dropped their tools and raced to the
+gun-pits. In a few seconds the battery was ready to fire.
+
+We entered the telephone room--a shell-proof cave really. A man sat at a
+little table with an improvised but extraordinarily ingenious telephone
+exchange in front of him and a receiver strapped to his ear. A network
+of wires went out through the wall above his head. His instrument
+emitted a constant buzzing of "dots" and "dashes," all of which he
+disregarded, waiting for his own call. Suddenly he clicked his key in
+answer, then said--
+
+"Hullo, oh-pip[4]--yes. Target K.--one round battery fire--yes."
+
+[4] "Oh-pip" is signalese for O.P. = Observation Post.
+
+This order was repeated to the guns by megaphone.
+
+_Bang_ went No. 1 and its shell whistled and swished away towards its
+goal.
+
+_Bang_ followed No. 2 just before "No. 1 ready" was called back.
+
+It all seemed astonishingly simple, and it seemed, too, quite
+unconnected with war and bloodshed. Orders to fire came by telephone
+from some place thousands of yards in front. The guns were duly fired by
+men who had no conception of what they were firing at, men who had in
+all probability never been nearer to the enemy than they were at that
+moment, and who had in fact not the slightest conception of what the
+front line looked like. According to order these same men made minute
+adjustments of angles, ranges, fuzes, until the battery's shells were
+falling on or very close to some spot selected by the Forward Observing
+Officer, the one man who really knew what was happening. And when this
+exacting individual was satisfied, each sergeant duly recorded his
+"register" of the target upon a printed form, reminding me vaguely of
+the manner in which a 'bus conductor notes down mysterious figures on a
+block after referring to his packet of tickets. After which the
+detachments, receiving the order "Break off," returned to their work or
+dinners with no thought whatever (I am sure of this) as to where their
+shell had gone or why or how! But then this was not a "show" but just an
+ordinary morning's shoot.
+
+We lunched in the mess, a comfortable room with a red-tiled floor and a
+large open fireplace on which logs of wood crackled merrily. On inquiry
+I learnt that these same logs were once beams in the church at ----,
+devastated not long since by heavy shells and now a heap of shapeless
+ruins from which the marauding soldier filches bricks and iron work. And
+that church was centuries old and was once beautiful. War is indeed
+glorious.
+
+I have heard it said that people who live close to Niagara are quite
+unconscious of the sound of the Falls. I can believe it. Practically
+speaking, in this part of the world, two minutes never pass, day or
+night, during which no one fires a gun. But the human beings whose job
+it is to live and work here evince absolutely no interest if the swish
+of the shell is _away_ from them and very little if it is coming towards
+them, unless there appears to be a reasonable chance that it is coming
+_at_ them. Throughout lunch the next battery to this one was firing
+steadily. Rather diffidently I asked what was going on. The major
+commanding the battery shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Old ---- has probably got some job on--or he may be merely
+retaliating," he replied.
+
+I subsided, not knowing then that before the day was over I was to learn
+more about this same retaliation.
+
+After lunch we set out for the O.P.[5]
+
+[5] Observation Post.
+
+"We've got quite a jolly little offensive _strafe_ on this afternoon,"
+remarked the major. "There's some wire-cutting, and while it's going on
+the attention of the Hun will be distracted by the 'heavies' who are
+going to bash his parapet a bit. Then at dusk the infantry are to slip
+across and do some bombing. We'll be rather crowded in the O.P., but I
+dare say you'll be able to see something."
+
+The Child and my other subaltern, who from his habit of brushing his
+hair straight back and referring constantly to his _blase_ past is known
+to his intimates as Gilbert, came too.
+
+We passed through ----, which is shelled regularly. Some of its houses
+are completely wrecked, but many are still partially intact. Infantry
+soldiers lounged about the ruined streets, for this village is used as a
+rest billet for troops waiting their turn in the trenches: the
+expression "rest" billet struck me as euphemistic. I noticed that
+several shells had burst in the graveyard near the church. Even the dead
+of previous generations, it seems, are not immune from the horrors of
+this war.
+
+After going up the road for nearly a mile we turned off on to the
+fields. Every ten yards or so it was necessary either to step over or
+stoop under a telephone wire. These nerve strings of modern artillery
+were all neatly labelled--they all belonged to some battery or other.
+"They strafe this part fairly often," said the major unconcernedly.
+
+It is this unconcern that amazes me. I suppose (or I hope anyway) that I
+shall get used to this walking about in the open, but, at present, I am
+far from feeling at ease. The odds against getting hit on this
+particular bit of ground are enormous, but the chance exists all the
+same. As a matter of fact we did get one salvo of "pip-squeaks" over as
+we were going up. They were high, to our left, and at least two hundred
+yards away, but they made me duck sharply--and then look rather foolish.
+
+The Child pointed to a two-storied ruined house with a skeleton roof.
+
+"Behold 'the Waldorf,'" he said. "Per_son_ally myself" (a favourite
+phrase of his) "I think it's rather a jolly O.P."
+
+Approaching it, we crossed some derelict trenches--our front line before
+the battle of X----. I felt somehow that I was standing on holy
+ground--on ground that had been wrested back from the invaders at a cost
+of many hundreds of gallant lives and an infinite amount of pain and
+suffering.
+
+Several batteries observe from "the Waldorf," and I found that for all
+its dilapidated appearance it was astonishingly strong inside. Telephone
+wires ran into it from all directions, and there were several signallers
+sitting about cooking over braziers or, if actually on duty, sitting
+motionless beside their instruments.
+
+Except for a narrow passage-way and a small recess for the operators,
+the entire ground floor was blocked solid from earth to ceiling with
+sandbags; there is a distinct feeling of security to be derived from
+eight or ten feet thickness of clay-filled bags!
+
+We climbed a wooden ladder and squeezed into the tiny room upstairs from
+which the fire of this particular battery is directed. A long low
+loophole carefully protected with sandbags and steel plates provided me
+with my first view of the front.
+
+I was now some fifteen feet or so above ground level and could see the
+backs of all our lines of trenches, could see the smoke of burning fires
+and men walking casually up and down or engaged in digging, planking,
+revetting, and so on. Beyond was the front line--less distinct and with
+fewer signs of activity in it; beyond that again a strip of varying
+width, untrampled, green and utterly forsaken--No Man's Land. A few
+charred tree-trunks from which every branch and twig had been stripped
+by shell fire, stuck up at intervals. I could see the first German
+parapet quite plainly and (with glasses) other lines behind it, and
+numerous wriggling communication trenches.
+
+So this was "the Front," that vague term that comes so glibly to the
+lips of the people at home. I looked at it intently for a long time and
+I found that one idea crowded all others from my mind.
+
+"What madness," I thought, "this is which possesses the world! What
+_criminal_ waste, not only of lives and money, but of brains, ideas,
+ingenuity and time, all of which might have been devoted to construction
+instead of to destruction."
+
+The Child noticed my absorption, read my thoughts perhaps, and
+translated them into his own phraseology thus:--"Dam' silly business,
+isn't it, when you come to think of it?"
+
+The expression fitted. It _is_ a damnably silly business, _but_, if we
+are to secure what the whole world longs for--a just and lasting
+peace--we have got to see this business through to the end, however
+silly, however wasteful it may seem. We have got to "stick it," as the
+soldier says, until the gathering forces are strong enough to break the
+barrier beyond all hope of repair; to break it and then to pour through
+to what will be the most overwhelming victory in the history of the
+world....
+
+The major turned his head and spoke into a voice-tube beside him.
+
+"Battery action," he said.
+
+The operator on the ground floor repeated his words into a telephone. I
+pictured over again what I had seen in the morning; the detachments
+doubling to the places and the four guns instantly ready to answer the
+call.
+
+It is altogether astonishing, this siege warfare. An officer sits in a
+ruined house, strongly fortified, and not so many hundred yards from the
+enemy. From there with ease and certainty he controls the fire of his
+four guns. He knows his "zone" and every object in it as completely as
+he knows his own features in a looking-glass. Further, he is connected
+by telephone with the infantry which he supports, and through the medium
+of his own headquarters with various other batteries. Normally this
+"observation" work is done by a subaltern, who, nowadays, thank Heaven
+and the munitions factories, shoots as much, if not more, than he is
+shot at. But occasionally the enemy is stirred up and "retaliates." This
+word, in its present military sense, was unknown before the war. It
+means just this--
+
+One side organises a bombardment. It carries out its programme, perhaps
+successfully, perhaps not. The other side, sometimes at once, sometimes
+afterwards, "retaliates" with its artillery on some locality known to be
+a tender spot: this is by way of punishment. A year, six months ago
+even, the aggression came almost entirely from the Germans, and our
+artillery from lack of ammunition could only retaliate mildly, almost
+timidly, for fear of drawing down still further vengeance on the heads
+of its unfortunate infantry. But that state of things has passed for
+ever. The aggression now is all on our side--I speak, of course, of an
+ordinary day when there is no "show" on: moreover it is rigorous and
+sustained and wearing. If and when the Germans reply to our aggression,
+we re-retaliate, so to speak, with a bombardment that silences him. For
+instance, to quote from "Comic Cuts" (the official Intelligence Summary
+is thus named)--
+
+"Yesterday the enemy fired thirty-five shells into ----. We replied with
+500."
+
+That is all: but the whole situation on the Western front _now_ is
+summed up in that bald statement. In these days we have the last word
+_always_....
+
+On this particular afternoon, however, we had a definite object in view.
+The "heavies" by two hours' methodical work made what the Child calls
+"Hell's own mess" of a selected bit of parapet. Meanwhile a field
+battery industriously cut the wire in front of it and other field
+batteries caused "divarsions," as one says in Ireland, by little
+side-shows of their own. The enemy went to ground, no doubt in
+comparative safety, and sulked in silence. But as soon as dusk began to
+creep over the sodden lines, he woke up and started to retaliate. It had
+evidently occurred to him that we might be going to attack that hole in
+his parapet.
+
+I watched what seemed like a glorified firework display for five or ten
+minutes, and somehow gathered the impression that I was merely a
+spectator. Then there came three sharp cracks outside the
+loophole--_just_ outside it seemed--followed by the peculiar but
+unmistakable whirr of travelling splinters.
+
+"Safer downstairs," observed the major, and we descended quickly.
+
+For the next quarter of an hour it really seemed as though the enemy had
+made up his mind to flatten out the "Waldorf." He had not, of course: he
+couldn't even see it. What he was really doing was putting a "barrage,"
+or wall of fire, on the road just in front of us to hamper the advance
+of our supports in case we genuinely meant to attack on any scale. We
+waited patiently downstairs until it was over; rather like sheltering in
+a shop from a passing shower.
+
+The signallers packed up their instruments and prepared to go home.
+Personally I was inwardly none too happy about the prospect of sallying
+forth into the open; but these men appeared to have no qualms whatever.
+They were used to it for one thing, and for another they had had a long
+day and wanted their tea. In such circumstances it takes much to deter
+the British soldier.
+
+"Seems to be over: might as well 'op it, Bill," said one.
+
+"Righto," answered the other. "Bloomin' muddy this way. What say to
+going down the road?"
+
+_Tack-tack-tack-tack_ came from the direction of the road. Even war-worn
+signallers retain their common sense.
+
+"'Ark at that there [adjectived] machine-gun, it's 'ardly worth it;"
+they agreed and squelched off through the thick clay, grousing about the
+state of the country but perfectly indifferent to the deafening din
+around them.
+
+Five minutes later we followed them and walked back, facing the flashes
+of our own guns, which were still firing steadily--just to make certain
+of having the last word with the Hun....
+
+It was nearly nine o'clock when we at last clattered into the courtyard
+of our billet and slipped wearily off our horses. It had been a long
+day but an interesting one, for we had seen, at close quarters, a
+battery doing its normal job under the prevailing normal conditions. And
+very soon now our battery will be in that position, putting the last
+finishing touches to its education and doing that same job, I hope
+efficiently. Then, and not till then, will it really be a Battery in
+Being.
+
+
+
+
+"IN THE LINE"
+
+
+We are beginning now to regard ourselves as old stagers. We have been in
+action for nearly three months and in that period our education, in all
+the essential things, has advanced at a most surprising pace. Our most
+cherished illusions--culled from the newspapers for the most part--have
+been dissipated and replaced by the realities of this life. How often, I
+wonder, have we read that this is a war of attrition, or of artillery,
+or of finance, or of petrol! It is none of these things--at least not
+from our limited perspective. It is rather, to us, a war of mud, of
+paper (so many reams of it that the battery clerk's head buzzes and he
+cannot sleep at night for thinking of the various "returns" that he must
+render to headquarters by 9 a.m. on the following day), of routine, and,
+above all, of marauding.
+
+Wherefore we have adapted ourselves to circumstances. We have learnt
+that mud in itself is harmless and, since it is impossible to avoid,
+not worth noticing at any time; that unpunctuality in the submitting of
+any report or return demanded (however senseless) leads to far more
+unpleasantness from high quarters than any other sin one may commit;
+that routine is an irksome fetish of the Powers, but that it makes each
+day so like its predecessor that the weeks slip by and one forgets the
+date and almost the month. Lastly, we have learnt that the way to get
+things is to find them lying about; that while it is possible to indent
+for material, it is also possible to collect it if one takes the
+trouble. Timber, for instance, is required for building gun-pits, so are
+steel girders and brick rubble and brushwood. Well, do not the winds
+that shriek across this flat country blow down trees sometimes? Is there
+not a derelict railway station less than a mile away, and are not piles
+of rubble placed along the roadsides for mending purposes? It is
+pleasant, too, to have a real door to one's dug-out instead of a hanging
+corn sack: there is more than one partially ruined cottage near at hand.
+We are beyond the borderland of civilisation here; We have left our
+scruples behind us, for we know that if we refrain from taking those
+rails, those doors and window frames, those stout oak beams, some one
+else will have them shortly.
+
+Circumstances, too, have brought it home to us that this war is not so
+"stationary" as we imagined. The relative positions of the two opposing
+armies remain the same, weary month after weary month. But the positions
+of the units composing them do not. We, for example, soon after our
+arrival in the country were sent up to be attached for instruction to a
+battery which was in action. It was explained to us that we would
+eventually "take over" from that battery when its division went out to
+rest. We were at pains, therefore, to acquire all the knowledge we could
+in the time. The subalterns learnt the "zone" which they would have to
+watch and fire over--every yard of it. The sergeants mastered the
+particular system of angles, "registrations," etc., in use; the
+signallers knew the run of their wires and understood the working of the
+circuit; the gun detachments, as a result of many hours of patient
+sand-bag filling and building, had begun to regard the place as their
+future home which it was meet to make as strong and (afterwards only) as
+comfortable as possible. And I, as the battery commander, besides being
+fairly confident of being able to "carry on," had noted, with
+satisfaction, it being then midwinter, that there was a fireplace in
+what would be my room.
+
+But did we "take over" this position? Not we! Three days before the
+relief was due to take place we were sent off to another battery about
+which we knew nothing whatever and took over from it in a hurry and a
+muddle. Which strange procedure may be accounted for in one of two
+ways--as having been done expressly with a view to training us in
+dealing with an unexpected situation or, more simply, as merely "Dam bad
+staff work." We will leave it at that.
+
+We occupied this new position, which, by the way, was a good one with a
+quite comfortable billet close at hand, for just three weeks. At the end
+of this time we had thoroughly settled down: we had done a great deal of
+constructive work--strengthening gun-pits, improving dug-outs, fixing
+voice-tubes for the passing of orders from the telephone-hut to the
+guns; we had laid out an extra wire to the O.P. and relabelled all our
+circuit: we had cleaned up the wagon-line, rebricked the worst parts of
+the horse-standings and laid down brushwood so that the vehicles were
+clear of the all-pervading mud. We had arranged a bathroom for the men
+as well as a recreation room: we had built an oven (nothing acquires
+merit more simply in the eyes of the Powers than a well-devised
+oven--"Your horse-management is a scandal, Captain ----!" "Yes, sir: but
+have you seen our oven?" Wrath easily deflected and the Great One
+departs to make a flattering report). We had visualised at least twenty
+various "stunts" that would make things safer, or more comfortable or
+more showy. We had reached a moment, in fact, when we were secretly
+rubbing our hands and saying "the place is not only habitable but
+_good_: and we are about to enjoy the fruits of our labours thereon."
+Which was a foolish attitude to adopt and one which, now that we are a
+more experienced (and therefore a more cynical) unit, would not be
+conceivable.
+
+This time they moved the whole division, telling us (or the infantry
+rather) that the order should be regarded as a compliment in that the
+division had done so well that it was to be entrusted with a more
+difficult--which is a euphemism for a more dangerous--portion of the
+line.
+
+Resignedly we packed up everything that we possessed, "handed over" to
+the incoming battery, and, after failing to persuade the mess cat to
+accompany us, trekked off in a howling gale to the new place. This
+latter was not without merits, but had the great disadvantage that the
+only house available for a mess was nearly a quarter of a mile from the
+gun position.
+
+The gun-pits, with the exception of one which had been partially
+reconstructed on sound principles, were bad. They had been built in the
+summer when every one was saying, "No use wasting material--we won't be
+here next winter." But here we are all the same, regarding rather
+gloomily the defects which it will take weeks of hard work to remedy.
+
+I overheard one gunner expressing his opinion thus to a friend of his--
+
+"Well now, Dai,[6] I don't know what battery was here before us now
+just, but they weren't great workers, see! Our pit couldn't keep the
+rain out last night--what'll it do if a shell comes along?"
+
+[6] David.
+
+So I indented on the Royal Engineers (who own vast storehouses called in
+the vernacular "Dumps") for rails and bricks and cement and sandbags,
+and I sent marauding parties out at night to collect anything that might
+be useful.
+
+The men with a good-will which was beyond all praise, seeing that this
+was their third position within the month, started the arduous task of
+dismantling the old pits and dug-outs and building them anew--guessing
+by this time that in all probability they would be moved on elsewhere
+before their labours were finished. For that is one very definite aspect
+of this war....
+
+Our mess is a cottage which we share with a French family. Monsieur
+works in a mine close by, the numerous children play in the yard or are
+sent on errands, Madame in her spare moments does our washing for us. In
+the evening they all assemble in the kitchen and try to teach French to
+our servants. It amazes me to watch the sangfroid with which they go
+about their daily occupations regardless of the never-ceasing sound of
+guns and shells, regardless of the fact that the German line, as the
+crow flies, is less than two miles away. At 8 p.m. to the moment, whilst
+we are at dinner, they troop through into their own room to bed, each
+with a charming "Bon soir, messieurs." And on each occasion they make me
+personally feel that we are rather brutal to be occupying two-thirds of
+their house and spending our days making the most appalling havoc of
+their country. But I console myself by remembering that these people
+once had Uhlans in the neighbourhood and are therefore prepared to
+disregard minor nuisances such as ourselves.
+
+Seven to seven-thirty p.m. is generally rather a busy time. Official
+correspondence, usually marked "secret" and nearly always "urgent," is
+apt to arrive, and it is at this time that the intricate report on the
+day's shooting has to be made out and despatched to Group Headquarters.
+I am in the midst of this, working against time, with an orderly waiting
+in the kitchen, when the door is flung open and the Child enters with a
+cheery "Good evening, Master."
+
+The Child calls me Master sometimes because I am always threatening to
+send his parents a half-term report on his progress and general conduct,
+or to put him back into Eton collars! He has now just returned from
+forty-eight hours' duty at the O.P. and presents an appearance such that
+his own mother would hardly recognise him. He wears a cap of a
+particularly floppy kind which he refers to as "my gorblimy hat," an
+imperfectly cured goatskin coat of varied hues which smells abominably,
+fur gauntlets, brown breeches, and indiarubber thigh boots. Round his
+person are slung field glasses, a prismatic compass, an empty
+haversack, and a gas helmet. Moreover, he is caked with mud from head to
+foot and flushed with his two-mile walk against the cold wind. For this
+is still March, and we have had frost and snow and thaw alternately this
+last week.
+
+"Anything happen after I left?" I ask. I had been up at the O.P. in the
+morning, and we'd "done a little shoot" together.
+
+"Nothing much. The Hun got a bit busy with rifle grenades about lunch
+time and started to put some small 'minnies'[7] into our second line. So
+I retaliated on three different targets, which stopped him p.d.q. Later
+on he put a few pip-squeaks round our O.P. and one four-two into the
+church. That's about all, 'cept that I had to dodge a blasted
+machine-gun when I was leaving at dusk--one of those 250-rounds-a-minute
+stunts, you know--and I had to nip across that open bit, in between his
+bursts of fire. The trenches are in Hell's own mess after this thaw--I
+went down to the front line with an infantry officer to look at a
+sniper's post he's located; we might get the 'hows'[8] on to it. Any
+letters for me?"
+
+[7] Minenwer, _i.e._ trench mortar bombs.
+
+[8] Howitzers.
+
+I push them across to him, but forbid him to remain in the room with
+that smelly coat on.
+
+"Righto," he grins; "I'm off to have a bath and a shave before dinner."
+
+"But, my dear Child," I say, "you shaved last week! Surely----"
+
+He grins again and saunters gracefully out. The Child is always graceful
+even when wearing a goatskin coat and ungainly thigh boots. But he's
+tired--I can see it in his eyes. His last two days have been spent as
+follows: At seven p.m. the night before last he arrived, in the capacity
+of liaison officer, at the headquarters of the battalion that we are
+supporting. He dined there and slept, in his clothes of course and
+always at the menace of a telephone, in a draughty hovel next door.
+Before dawn the next morning he was groping his way along three-quarters
+of a mile of muddy communication trench to the O.P. Arrived there it is
+his business to make certain that the telephonists below in the dank
+cellar are "through" on every line. Then he ascends the ladder of the
+observation tower and stares through the loophole at the mists which
+swathe the trenches in front of him. And there, alternately with the
+subaltern of the other battery which uses this particular O.P., he must
+remain until it is again too dark to shoot.
+
+There are diversions, of course, which help to pass the long hours. One
+is "shooting the battery." The F.O.O., as the subaltern on duty at the
+O.P. is called, is allowed, within fairly wide limits, to shoot when and
+at what he likes provided always that he has a reasonable objective. The
+principles laid down for him are simple enough: whilst never wasting a
+round if he can help it, he must also never miss an opportunity. That is
+to say that he must keep ceaseless watch for signs of movement or of new
+work being carried out by the enemy, for the flashes of hostile
+batteries, for suspected O.P.'s, for machine-gun emplacements and
+snipers' posts--for almost everything in fact. And when he sees, he must
+shoot--at a rapid rate and for a few moments only. For it is useless to
+"plaster" the same spot for any length of time: the enemy will not be
+there--he must be caught unawares or not at all.
+
+Another diversion is noting down the action of the hostile artillery, of
+which a report has to be rendered every evening. This is easy enough
+when he happens to be shelling at a convenient distance from you: it is
+not so easy, however, to count the number of "pip-squeaks" that burst
+within a few yards of the house in which you are, or of "minnies" that
+arrive in silence and explode with a terrific report apparently just at
+the foot of your tower, filling your observation room with acrid fumes.
+
+Visitors appear at all hours--generals, staff officers, infantry
+colonels, trench-mortar or sniping officers. Each wants to examine some
+portion of the line from the vantage point of the tower, and each
+expects to be told unhesitatingly everything he wants to know. But to
+return to the Child and his tour of duty. After dusk he goes back to
+infantry headquarters to feed and sleep. Then follows another long day
+in the tower, at the end of which he is relieved by the "next for duty"
+and returns to the battery with the privilege of breakfasting at any
+hour he likes on the following morning. The Child, I may here remark,
+has been known to eat poached eggs and marmalade at 12.30, and
+unblushingly sit down to sausages and mashed potatoes at 1.15.
+
+But those two days at the O.P. are a strain. No hot meals, long hours,
+disturbed nights, shells for ever passing overhead, "mutual exchanges of
+rifle grenades," snipers' bullets which have missed their mark in our
+front line trenches flattening themselves against the outer wall of the
+house--there are pleasanter ways of living than this. And two things are
+always possible: one that the enemy may decide that this ruined house
+that he has watched for so long really _is_ an O.P., and therefore well
+worth razing to the ground with heavy shell; the other that an attack
+(either with or without gas) may suddenly be launched against our line.
+In the first case the cellar _may_ be a safe place, in the second there
+will be what the Child calls "Hell's own job," requiring a quick brain,
+keen vision, and the battery roaring in answer to sharp, curt orders.
+But if the two occur at once, as is more than probable, why, then the
+cellar is out of the question, for at no matter what cost the
+guns--always ready, always hungry--must be effectively controlled, the
+long-suffering, hard-pressed infantry must be supported. But at present
+these are dull days. Neither side is trying to do more than annoy the
+other.
+
+"9.44 a.m. Working party seen at ----, fired on, dispersed."
+
+"2.10 p.m. Fired 10 rounds at suspected O.P. at ----. One direct hit with
+H.E. Drew quick retaliation on ----."
+
+Thus is the daily report compiled. Is it worth all the trouble, the
+science, the skill, the organisation? It is, for everything, every
+little detail, every little effort helps to bring nearer the day when
+our guns will be pulled out on to the roads again, to be used for their
+legitimate purpose--the "quick thing," the fight in the open, "the
+moving show."...
+
+Our colonel is "some man"--which phrase, being expanded, means an
+individual whose keen eye misses absolutely nothing from the too-sharp
+rowel of a driver's spur to the exact levelling of a concrete
+gun-platform; whose brain is for ever evolving schemes for the undoing
+of the wily Boche; whose energy enables him to walk and ride fifteen to
+twenty miles a day, deal with all his official correspondence and yet
+find time to talk about hunting at odd moments. Periodically he holds
+conferences of battery commanders at his Group Headquarters. After
+seeing that every one is provided for, he produces a large scale map
+with all the "zones" marked on it, sticks out his chin in a manner
+peculiar to him, and says--
+
+"The Hun is becoming uppish again and must be suppressed. Now, what I
+propose to do is this"--and he proceeds to detail something entirely
+original in the way of a bombardment. But he is seldom content to use
+his own batteries by themselves: nearly always he manages to borrow a
+few "heavies" and some trench mortars of various sizes. With these at
+his disposal he feels that he can "put up a good show," as he says, and
+it must be acknowledged that he generally does.
+
+In addition to these definitely organised bombardments he is constantly
+ordering small "joy strafes" to be carried out. For instance, he will
+study the map and decide that two roads in a given area are in all
+probability used by the enemy at night. He will forbid any one to shoot
+on the northern one (say) and order two batteries to put salvoes on to
+the southern one every night until further orders, "just to impress the
+Hun," as he puts it, "with the idea that the southern road is a
+distinctly unhealthy spot. Then he'll have double traffic on the
+northern one. We'll wait till we know for certain that it's his relief
+night and then we'll fairly plaster that road."
+
+This thoughtful scheme was duly carried out about a week ago--with what
+results, of course, it is impossible to say: but from the way the
+hostile batteries woke up and retaliated, we gathered that something had
+been accomplished.
+
+And so the days and weeks pass by--quickly on the whole, so quickly that
+we are already beginning to badger the adjutant with queries as to when
+we are likely to get leave. There are rumours, too, that the division is
+shortly going out "to rest." The infantry deserve it, for theirs is the
+hard part: daily I admire them more, every man of them from the humblest
+private who digs in the slushy trenches or stands on guard in a sap
+thirty yards or less from the enemy and quite possibly on top of a mine
+to their brigadier who conceals his V.C. and D.S.O. ribbons beneath a
+rubber suit and spends more of his time in the front line trenches than
+out of them.
+
+But for us gunners it is different. We live in comfort and in perfect
+safety (unless our actual position is spotted and "strafed," in which
+case we merely withdraw our men until the enemy's allowance of
+ammunition is expended). Except possibly for our hard-worked
+telephonists we need no rest. Moreover, it would be heartbreaking to
+leave the position that we have made so cosy, so inconspicuous, and, we
+all believe, so strong.
+
+We happen to be close to a main avenue of traffic. All sorts of people
+pass by--"brass hats" going up to inspect the line, R.E. wagons laden
+with every conceivable kind of trench store, mining officers caked in
+yellow clay returning after a strenuous tour of duty underground, a
+constant succession of small parties of infantry who are either "going
+in" or "coming out," ration carts, handcarts filled with things that
+look like iron plum-puddings but are really trench-mortar bombs and,
+occasionally, an ambulance. Infantry officers or men who happen to halt
+close by are generally invited to have a look at the gun-pits. More
+often than not some one of them recognises a friend or a relation in the
+battery: it must be remembered that we are a homogeneous division. If by
+chance we are firing when a party of infantry (unaccompanied by an
+officer) is passing, it invariably halts and watches the performances
+with huge interest and quite often with a shout or two of encouragement.
+
+"Go it, boys, give 'em a bit more marmalade," I heard one ribald private
+yell out, when to his joy he heard the order, "Two rounds battery fire
+one second." When the guns had flashed and roared in their sequence, and
+the shells had gone rumbling away towards the distant lines, he picked
+up his burden, hitched his rifle more comfortably across his shoulders,
+and went upon his way, remarking, with a pleasant admixture of oaths--
+
+"That'll give 'em something to think about for a while."
+
+This, on a minor scale, is an example of the great principle of infantry
+and artillery co-operation. I can picture that same private rejoining
+his platoon in the trenches and saying to his "batty"--[9]
+
+[9] = pal or friend.
+
+"Look you, Trevor, as I was coming up the road now just, I see a battery
+of our fellows givin' them ---- Hell."
+
+And his friend would answer perhaps--
+
+"Well, 'tis fine to hear our shells come singing over. What about them
+fags, Tom? Did you get 'em?"
+
+Neither of these men would know whether the rounds had been well or
+badly placed, but each would be left with the impression that the
+artillery exists for the purpose of helping him and his fellows when in
+difficulties and of preparing the way when the time comes. A small
+point, perhaps, but nevertheless a vital one....
+
+It is fortunate that amid all the horror and the misery and the waste
+that this war entails it is still possible to see the humorous side of
+things sometimes. Here is an example. A major on his way up to the front
+line saw a man hunting about amongst some ruins for "souvenirs"--and
+this in a place which was in view of the Germans and only about 350
+yards from their trenches. The major was justly annoyed: firstly, the
+man was evidently wasting his time; secondly, there was every prospect
+that hostile fire would be drawn to the spot. So he drew his revolver
+and put a round into the brickwork about six feet to one side of the
+man.
+
+The effect was wonderful. The souvenir hunter, convinced that he had
+escaped a sniper's bullet by a mere inch, made a wild dive into a handy
+shell-hole and lay low. Twenty minutes later he emerged, crawling on
+hands and knees through deep slime and eagerly watched by a working
+party who had seen the incident. He arrived, panting and prepared to
+give an account of his thrilling experience--only to be asked his name
+and unit and placed in arrest on a charge of loitering unnecessarily in
+a dangerous place thereby tending to draw fire.
+
+Another incident, not devoid of humour (though I cannot say that I
+thought so at the moment), occurred a week after we had arrived at our
+present position. W----, the captain of the "regular" battery which we
+had replaced, came over to inquire about a telescopic sight and a
+clinometer belonging to his unit which had somehow got mislaid during
+the muddle of "handing over."
+
+"They must be somewhere here," W---- suggested politely, "and we _must_
+have them because we are going back into action to-morrow."
+
+I assured him that to the best of my belief I had only my own, "but," I
+added confidently, "we'll go round and ask at each gun to make certain."
+
+The sergeant of No. 1 was quite positive. The corporal of No. 2 was
+apparently equally so, but I noticed the suspicion of a smile at the
+corners of his lips.
+
+"Are you certain," I repeated, "that you've only got your own telescope
+and sight clinometer?"
+
+The corporal's answer was positively brutal in its honesty. He
+winked--an unmistakable wink--and said--
+
+"Well, sir, o' course I've got those what I pinched off t' batt'ry that
+was here before!"
+
+If the mud had then and there engulfed me I should have been grateful.
+As it was I could only weakly murmur, "Fetch them at once," and then
+glance round to see the expression on W----'s face. But he, good soul,
+was walking quietly away, though whether with the idea of relieving his
+own feelings or of allowing me to vent mine upon the corporal, I never
+dared to ask.
+
+On the following day the corporal, who by the way is our professional
+comedian from Lancashire, saw fit to apologise. He did so thus--
+
+"Sir," he said, as I was walking past his gun-pit. I turned and regarded
+him sternly, for I was still rather angry.
+
+"I'm sorry about what happened yesterday," he observed contritely. "_I
+didn't mean to make a fool of you!_"
+
+The charm of the remark lies in the fact that, while disregarding the
+enormity of his offence in "pinching" essential gun-stores from another
+battery, he was genuinely upset at having made _me_ look ridiculous.
+Which being the case I could do nothing but accept his apology in the
+spirit in which it was offered.
+
+
+
+
+SPIT AND POLISH
+
+
+"Per_son_ally myself," said the Child, tilting back his chair until his
+head touched the wall behind him, and stretching out a lazy arm towards
+the cigarette-box--"per_son_ally myself, I've enjoyed this trip no
+end--haven't you?"
+
+"I have," I answered; "so much so, Child, that the thought of going back
+to gun-pits and trenches and O.P.'s again fills me with gloom."
+
+It was our last night in a most comfortable billet near ----, where, on
+and off, we had spent rather more than a month of ease; on the morrow we
+were going into the line again. The trip to which the Child was
+referring, however, was an eight days' course at a place vaguely known
+as "the ----th Army Mobile Artillery Training School," from which our
+battery had but lately returned.
+
+The circumstances were these. When, five weeks ago, the division moved
+(for the _n_th time!) to a different part of the line, it transpired
+that three batteries would be "out at rest," as there would be no room
+for them in action. It also so chanced that it was our colonel's turn to
+be left without a "group"[10] to command. This being so, he suggested to
+higher authorities that the three batteries "out" should be those of his
+own brigade, in order that he might have a chance "to tidy them up a
+bit," as he phrased it. Thus it was that we found ourselves, as I have
+said, in extremely comfortable billets--places, I mean, where they have
+sheets on the beds and china jugs and gas and drains--with every
+prospect of a pleasant loaf. But in this we were somewhat sanguine.
+
+[10] A certain number of batteries.
+
+The colonel's idea in having us "out" for a while was not so much to
+rest us as to give us a variation of work. Being essentially a thorough
+man, he started--or rather ordered me to start--at the very beginning.
+The gunners paraded daily for marching drill, physical exercises, and
+"elementary standing gun drill by numbers." N.C.O.'s and drivers were
+taken out and given hours of riding drill under the supervision of
+subalterns bursting with knowledge crammed up from the book the night
+before and under the personal direction of a brazen-voiced sergeant
+who, having passed through the "riding troop" at Woolwich in his youth,
+knew his business. The strangest sight of all was the class of
+signallers--men who had spent months in the foetid atmosphere of cellars
+and dug-outs, or creeping along telephone wires in "unhealthy"
+spots--now waving flags at a word of command and going solemnly through
+the Morse alphabet letter by letter. Of the whole community, this was
+perhaps the most scandalised portion. But in a few days, when everybody
+(not excluding myself and the other officers) had discovered how much
+had been forgotten during our long spell in action, a great spirit of
+emulation began to be displayed. Subsections vied with one another to
+produce the smartest gun detachment, the sleekest horses, the best
+turned-out ride, the cleanest harness, guns, and wagons.
+
+The colonel, after the manner of his kind, came at the end of a week or
+so to inspect things. He is not the sort of man upon whom one can easily
+impose. A dozen of the shiniest saddles or bits in the battery placed so
+as to catch the light (and the eye) near the doorway of the harness room
+do not necessarily satisfy him: nor is he content with the mere general
+and symmetrical effect of rows of superficially clean breast-collars,
+traces, and breechings. On the contrary, he is quite prepared to spend
+an hour or more over his inspection, examining every set of harness in
+minute detail, even down to the backs of the buckle tongues, the inside
+of the double-folded breast collars, and the oft-neglected underside of
+saddle flaps. It is the same thing with the guns and wagons. Burnished
+breech-rings and polished brasswork look very nice, and he approves of
+them, but he does not on that account omit to look closely at every
+oil-hole or to check the lists of "small stores" and "spare parts."
+
+For the next week or so we were kept very busy on "the many small points
+which required attention," to quote the colonel's phrase. Nevertheless,
+as a variation from the monotony of siege warfare, the time was regarded
+by most of us as a holiday. Many things combined to enhance our
+pleasure. The sun shone and the country became gorgeously green again;
+the horses began to get their summer coats and to lose their unkempt
+winter's appearance; there was a fair-sized town near at hand, and
+passes to visit it were freely granted to N.C.O.'s and men; at the back
+of the officers' billet was a garden with real flower-beds in it and a
+bit of lawn on which one could have tea. Occasionally we could hear the
+distant muttering of the guns, and at night we could see the "flares"
+darting up from the black horizon--just to remind us, I suppose, that
+the war was only in the next parish....
+
+But it was not to be supposed that a man of such energy as our colonel
+would be content just to ride round daily and watch three of his
+batteries doing rides and gun drill. It occurred to him at once that
+this was the time to practise the legitimate business--that is, open,
+moving warfare. Wherefore he made representations to various quite
+superior authorities. In three days, by dint of considerable personal
+exertion, he had secured the following concessions: two large tracts of
+ground suitable for driving drill and battery manoeuvre, good billets,
+an area of some six square miles (part of the ----th Army Training area)
+for the purpose of tactical schemes, the appointment of himself as
+commandant of the "school," a Ford ambulance for his private use, three
+motor lorries for the supply of the units under training, and a
+magnificent chateau for his own headquarters. And all this he
+accomplished without causing any serious friction between the various
+"offices" and departments concerned--no mean feat.
+
+Each course was to last eight days, and there were to be four batteries,
+taken from different divisions, undergoing it simultaneously. It fell to
+us to go with the second batch, and we spent a strenuous week of
+preparation: it was four months since we had done any work "in the
+open," and we knew, inwardly, that we were distinctly rusty. We packed
+up, and at full war strength, transport, spare horses and all, we
+marched out sixteen miles to the selected area. At the halfway halt we
+met the commander of a battery of our own brigade returning. He stopped
+to pass the time of day and volunteered the information that he was
+going on leave that night. "And, by Jove!" he added significantly, "I
+deserve a bit of rest. _Reveille_ at 4 a.m. every morning, out all day
+wet or fine, gun drill at every odd moment, schemes, tactical exercises,
+everybody at high pressure all the time. The colonel's fairly in his
+element, revels in it, and 'strafes' everybody indiscriminately. But
+it's done us all a world of good though. Cheeriho! wish you luck." And
+he rode on, leaving us rather flabbergasted.
+
+We discovered quite early (on the following morning about dawn, to be
+precise) that there had been no exaggeration. We began with elementary
+driving drill, and we did four and a half hours of it straight on end,
+except for occasional ten-minute halts to rest the astonished teams. It
+was wonderful how much we had forgotten and yet how much came back to us
+after the first hour or so.
+
+"I want all your officers to drill the battery in turn," said the
+colonel. "I shall just ride round and correct mistakes."
+
+He did--with an energy, a power of observation, and a command of
+language which I have seldom seen or heard surpassed. But the ultimate
+result by midday, when all the officers and N.C.O.'s were hoarse, the
+teams sweating and the carriages caked in oily dust--the ultimate result
+was, as the Child politely says, "not too stinkin' awful." And it had
+been good to hear once again the rattle and bump of the guns and wagons
+over hard ground, the jingle of harness and the thud of many hoofs; good
+to see the teams swing round together as they wheeled into line or
+column at a spanking trot; good above all to remember that _this_ was
+our job and that the months spent in concrete gun-pits and
+double-bricked O.P.'s were but a lengthy prelude to our resumption of
+it--some day.
+
+In the evening, when the day's work was over and "stables" finished, we
+left the tired horses picking over the remains of their hay and walked
+down the _pave_ village street, Angelo and I, to look at the church.
+Angelo is my eldest but not, as it so happens, my senior subaltern.
+Before the war he was a budding architect, with a taste for painting:
+hence the nickname, coined by the Child in one of his more erudite
+moods.
+
+The church at L---- is very fine. Its square tower is thirteenth
+century, its interior is pure Gothic, and its vaulted roof a marvel. For
+its size the building is well-nigh perfect. We spent some time examining
+the nave and chancel--Angelo, his professional as well as his artistic
+enthusiasm aroused, explaining technicalities to me and making me
+envious of his knowledge. It was with regret that we turned away at
+last, for in spite of the tattered colours of some French regiment which
+hung on the north side of the chancel, we had forgotten the war in the
+quiet peacefulness of that exquisite interior. But we were quickly
+reminded. At the end of the church, kneeling on one of the rough
+chairs, was an old peasant woman: her head was bowed, and the beads
+dropped slowly through her twisted fingers. As we crept down the aisle
+she raised her eyes--not to look at us, for I think she was unconscious
+of our presence--but to gaze earnestly at the altar. Her lips moved in
+prayer, but no tear damped her yellow cheek. And, passing out into the
+sunlight again, I wondered for whom she was praying--husband, brother,
+sons?--whether, still hoping, she prayed for the living, or, faithfully,
+for the souls of those lost to her. They are brave, the peasant women of
+France....
+
+Madame our hostess, besides being one of the fattest, was also one of
+the most agreeable ladies it has ever been our lot to be billeted upon.
+Before we had been in her house ten minutes she had given us (at an
+amazing speed) the following information:--
+
+Her only remaining son had been wounded and was now a prisoner in
+Germany.
+
+She had played hostess continuously since August, 1914, to every kind of
+soldier, including French motor-bus drivers, Indian chiefs (_sic_), and
+generals.
+
+English officers arriving after the battle of Loos slept in her hall for
+twenty-four hours, woke to have a bath and to eat an omelette, and then
+slept the clock round again.
+
+She remembered 1870, in which war her husband had fought.
+
+The Boches were barbarians, but they would never advance now, though at
+one time they had been within a few kilometres of her house.
+
+The lettuce and cabbages in her garden were at our disposal.
+
+She took an enormous interest in the Infant, who is even younger than
+the Child and is our latest acquisition.
+
+"Regardez donc le petit, comme il est fatigue!" she exclaimed to me in
+the tones of an anxious mother--and then added in an excited whisper,
+"A-t-il vu les Boches, ce petit sous-lieutenant?"
+
+When I assured her not only that he had seen them, but had fired his
+guns at them, she was delighted and declared that he could not be more
+than sixteen. But here the Infant, considering that the conversation was
+becoming personal, intervened, and the old lady left us to our dinner.
+
+Towards the end of our week we packed up essentials and marched out to
+bivouac two nights and fight a two days' running battle--directed, of
+course, by our indefatigable colonel. After the dead flat ugliness where
+we had been in action all the winter and early spring it was a delight
+to find ourselves in this spacious undulating country, with its trees
+and church spires and red-tiled villages. We fought all day against an
+imaginary foe, made innumerable mistakes, all forcibly pointed out by
+the colonel (who rode both his horses to a standstill in endeavouring to
+direct operations and at the same time watch the procedure of four
+widely separated batteries); our imaginary infantry captured ridge after
+ridge, and we advanced from position to position "in close support,"
+until finally, the rout of the foe being complete, we moved to our
+appointed bivouacs.
+
+In peace time it would have been regarded as a quite ordinary day,
+boring because of its resemblance to so many others. Now it was
+different. True, it was make-believe from start to finish, without even
+blank cartridge to give the vaguest hint of reality. But there was this:
+at the back of all our minds was the knowledge that this was a
+preparation--possibly our last preparation--not for something in the
+indefinite future (as in peace time), but for an occasion that assuredly
+_is_ coming, perhaps in a few months, perhaps even in a few weeks. The
+colonel spoke truly when, at his first conference, he said--
+
+"During these schemes you must all of you force yourselves to imagine
+that there is a real enemy opposed to you. The Boche is no fool: he's
+got guns, and he knows how to use them. If you show up on crest lines
+with a whole battery staff at your heels, he'll have the place
+'registered,' and he'll smash your show to bits before you ever get your
+guns into action at all. _Think_ where he is likely to be, _think_ what
+he's likely to be doing, don't expose yourselves unless you must, and
+above all, _get a move on_."
+
+It was a delightful bivouac. We were on the sheltered side of a little
+hill, looking south into a wooded valley. Nightingales sang to us as we
+lay smoking on our valises after a picnic dinner and stared dreamily at
+the stars above us.
+
+"Jolly, isn't it?" said the Child; "but I s'pose we wouldn't be feeling
+quite so comfy if it was the real business."
+
+"Don't," said Angelo, quietly. "I was pretending to myself that we were
+just a merry camping party, here for pleasure only. I'd forgotten the
+war."
+
+But I had not. I was thinking of the last time I had bivouacked--amongst
+the corn sheaves of a harvest that was never gathered, side by side
+with friends who were soon to fall, on the night before the first day of
+Mons, nearly two years ago.
+
+The following day was more or less a repetition of the first, except
+that we made fewer mistakes and "dropped into action" with more style
+and finish. We were now becoming fully aware of the almost-forgotten
+fact that a field battery is designed to be a mobile unit, and we were
+just beginning to take shape as such when our time was over. A day's
+rest for the horses and then we returned to our comfortable rest
+billets. It had been a strenuous week, but I think every one had
+thoroughly enjoyed it....
+
+We have had two days in which to "clean up," and now to-morrow we are to
+relieve another battery and take our place in the line again. Our
+holiday is definitely over. It will take a little time to settle down to
+the old conditions: our week's practice of open warfare has spoilt us
+for this other kind. We who have climbed hills and looked over miles of
+rolling country will find an increased ugliness in our old flat
+surroundings. It will seem ludicrous to put our guns into pits
+again--the guns that we have seen bounding over rough ground behind the
+straining teams. To be cooped up in a brick O.P. staring at a strip of
+desolation will be odious after our bivouacs under the stars and our
+dashes into action under a blazing sun. Worst of all, perhaps, is the
+thought that the battery will be split up again into "gun line" and
+"wagon line," with three miles or more separating its two halves,
+instead of its being, as it has been all these weeks, one complete
+cohesive unit. But what must be, must be; and it is absurd to grumble.
+Moreover--the end is not yet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Let's toss up for who takes first turn at the O.P. when the relief is
+completed," suggested the Child.
+
+"Wait a minute," said I, remembering something suddenly. "Do you know
+what to-day is?"
+
+"Friday," he volunteered, "and to-morrow ought to be a half-holiday, but
+it won't be, 'cos we're going into action."
+
+I passed the port round again. "It's only a fortnight since we
+celebrated the battery's first birthday," I said, "but to-day the Royal
+Regiment of Artillery is two hundred years old. Let's drink its health."
+
+And we did.
+
+
+
+
+A BATTLE
+
+
+Somewhere about the middle of June, we knew definitely that we were "for
+it," as the soldier says; we knew that our division was one of those
+chosen for the great concentration which was to culminate in the "great
+push"--and we were proud of the distinction. A three days' march brought
+us to a certain training area, where we camped for a week and worked
+some seventeen hours a day--counting, that is, from _reveille_ at 4 a.m.
+until the last bit of harness was hung up clean and ready for the morrow
+at 9 p.m.
+
+During this period two incidents of note occurred. One was that the
+Child suddenly developed pleurisy, and was removed to hospital--a
+serious loss at any time, but especially so at this particular moment.
+The other was that a squadron of hostile aircraft flew over our
+manoeuvre ground and actually dropped a bomb within 150 yards of the
+tail of our column. Which, seeing that we were some twenty miles from
+the nearest part of the line and at the moment only playing at soldiers,
+was most disconcerting.
+
+From the time when we left this training until, about three weeks later,
+we were withdrawn to rest in a quiet part of the line, I kept a rough
+diary of our particular share in the greatest battle ever fought by the
+British Army. The following are some extracts from it, in no way
+embellished, but only enlarged so as to make them intelligible.
+
+_June 27._--Nine-hour night march southwards, arriving in comfortable
+billets at 3.30 a.m. Aeroplanes (or at any rate, hostile ones) are the
+curse of this war: if it was not for fear of them we could move by
+daylight in a reasonable manner. The old saddler, dozing on a wagon,
+fell off and was run over: nothing broken, but he will be lost to us. A
+great pity, as he's a charming character and a first-class workman.
+
+_June 28 and 29._--Rested, the continuation of the march having been
+postponed.
+
+_June 30._--Orders to move on to-night. Was sent off with a small party
+on a road and river reconnaissance: this presumably with a view to
+going forward "when the advance begins." By the time we got back to
+where the brigade was to billet, had ridden about forty miles. Job only
+half finished. Battery marched in at midnight.
+
+_July 1._--Started at 5.30 a.m. with same party to finish
+reconnaissance. Reached a point about four miles behind the line, at
+7.15 a.m.: a tremendous bombardment in progress. Left our horses, and
+walked on two miles to a river. Here learnt that the attack had been
+launched at 7.30 and was going well. Walked north up the river-bank,
+keeping well under the shelter of the steep ridge on the east side, and
+only emerging to examine each bridge as we came to it. Thousands upon
+thousands of shells of every size, from "Grannies" to 18 prs., passing
+over our heads unceasingly: expected the enemy to retaliate. But not a
+round came: probably the Boche was too busily engaged elsewhere. Met
+streams of wounded coming down; some with captured helmets, nearly all
+with grins.
+
+Finished the river reconnaissance about 10.30 and walked back by a
+roundabout (but less unpleasant!) way, and reached our horses about
+midday. Rode back to the battery and spent the afternoon writing out
+full report. Orders to move at 11.30 p.m. Long night march to new
+billets, arriving 4.15 a.m.
+
+_July 2._--Rested. In the course of the day the Child returned, having
+in some amazing way persuaded the hospital authorities that pleurisy and
+a temperature of 104 deg. are the best possible things to have on the eve of
+a great offensive. Swears he's all right now, and objects to being
+ordered it to take it easy--while he can. Heavy bombardment all day, but
+we are eight miles back here. Official _communiques_ record further
+successes.
+
+_July 3._--Moved at 9.30 p.m., and arrived (5.30 a.m.) soaking wet at
+the worst bivouac it has ever been our unhappy lot to occupy.
+
+_July 4._--Saw about 150 German prisoners being brought back. In the
+afternoon, after a violent thunderstorm, went to look at the position
+which we are to take over. Found that it was immensely strong.
+Originally it was only 1200 yards from the enemy front line, but now,
+since the advance, is about 3000. Steady rain all the time. Got back to
+find the camp converted into a veritable bog, and men of all the
+batteries making shelters for themselves by cutting down trees and
+looting straw. There will be a row over this, but--well, it is too much
+to expect men to submit to such _unnecessary_ discomfort.
+
+_July 5._--Took the Child and two telephonists and went up to new
+position. Bombardment proceeding incessantly. Was amazed at the amount
+of material already brought up, at the gangs already working on the
+shell-wrecked roads, and at the crowd of spectators who lined a
+convenient ridge to "watch the show."
+
+Went with the Child and the battery commander from whom we were taking
+over to get a look at the country and visit the O.P. Passed through
+Fricourt--not long captured. Never could a bombardment have done its
+work of destruction more thoroughly than here. Not figuratively, but
+literally; no one brick stood upon another, scarcely one brick was
+whole. Walked on up the sunken road that leads north from Fricourt past
+the Dingle and Shelter Wood. For days this road had been a death-trap.
+It was strewn with corpses, with stretchers on which lay wounded men
+awaiting removal, with broken bits of equipment, English and German--and
+it stank. We arrived at the headquarters of a battalion and asked if we
+could see the colonel.
+
+"No," they told us, "you can't at present. He's just been buried in his
+dug-out by a shell, and it will be some time before we get him clear;
+he's all right, but a bit shaken."
+
+So we went on up a battered trench to the O.P. In it a subaltern and two
+signallers, all three caked in mud. At the moment the wire to the
+battery was intact. Two men had been killed and one wounded whilst
+mending it. From here we could see the famous Quadrangle Trench, which
+at that time was holding up the advance. Many batteries were shooting at
+it. Having got our bearings, so to speak, we did not linger in this most
+unhealthy spot, but returned to the battery position.
+
+On the way home we met our own colonel bearing the news that the brigade
+would probably go into action in quite a different area. This news
+confirmed at H.Q. at 5 p.m. Turned back and reconnoitred the new
+position, which was farther south, nearer Fricourt; rather cramped and
+quite unprepared for occupation. Cadged dinner from an old friend whom
+we met at D.H.Q. Met the battery on the road about 10 p.m. and led it to
+new position. Work of getting guns in, ammunition and stores dumped, and
+teams away completed by 3 a.m. Awaited dawn.
+
+_July 6._--As soon as it was light went up the hill on the right front
+of the battery to meet the colonel, choose an O.P. and "learn" the
+country. The scene of wreckage upon this hill now is past all belief,
+and is, I should imagine, a perfect example of the havoc wrought by a
+modern "intense" bombardment. The whole face of the earth is completely
+altered. On the German side of No Man's Land, not one square yard of the
+original surface of the ground remains unbroken. Line upon line of
+trenches and tunnels and saps have been so smashed that they are barely
+recognisable as such: there are mine craters seventy to a hundred yards
+across, and there are dug-outs (some of these still intact) which go
+down fifty feet and more into the chalk. On every side is debris--rails,
+timber, kit, blankets, broken rifles, bread, steel helmets, pumps,
+respirators, corpses. And nowhere can one get away from the sickening
+smell--the smell of putrescent human flesh....
+
+The morning mist cleared at last and we were able to see the landscape.
+From the O.P. we chose, the view, for our purposes, was ideal. Below us
+lay the ruins that once were Fricourt, to the right Fricourt Wood,
+farther off Mametz Wood and village, and on the skyline Contal-maison.
+Returned, very dishevelled, to breakfast at 8 a.m. During the morning
+ran out a wire, got "through" to the battery, but did not dare to start
+shooting until further information as to the situation of the infantry
+was available. Eventually gathered that we only hold the southern edge
+of Mametz Wood, and that the Quadrangle Trench which lies to the left
+(west) of it is not yet in our possession. Spent the afternoon
+registering the guns, and then began shelling Mametz Wood. Was relieved
+by the Child at tea-time. Came down to the battery and washed. Looked
+forward to decent night's rest but was disappointed, viz.:--
+
+_July 7._--Woken by Angelo at 1 a.m., who brought orders for a "strafe,"
+which was to start at 2. Battery fired at a rapid rate from that hour
+till 2.30. Went back to bed. Woken by the Infant, who had relieved
+Angelo, at 6. Big bombardment to start at 7.20. Went to telephone
+dug-out at 7.15, unwashed and half-dressed, and remained there all day;
+meals brought in to me. The battery fired practically continuously for
+fourteen hours at rates varying from one to twenty-four rounds a minute.
+Targets various--mostly "barraging" Mametz Wood and ground immediately
+to the west of it. Worked the detachments as far as possible in
+reliefs, turning on spare signallers, cooks, and servants to carry
+ammunition as it arrived.
+
+The Child, who was at the O.P., sent down what information he could, but
+reported that it was hardly possible to see anything owing to the smoke.
+Passed on everything to Brigade H.Q. (communications working well), and
+received their instructions as to changes of target, rate of fire, etc.
+By dusk we were all very tired, and several of the men stone deaf. There
+were several heavy showers during the day, so that the position became a
+quagmire into which the guns sank almost to their axles and became
+increasingly difficult to serve. Empty cartridge cases piled several
+feet high round each platform: mud awful. No official _communique_ as to
+result of the day's operation. Got eight hours' sleep.
+
+_July 8._--Shooting, off and on, all day--mostly registration of new
+points. In the intervals when not firing the detachments kept hard at
+work improving and strengthening the position. Hostile artillery much
+more active, but nothing really close to us. Fired 150 rounds during the
+night into Mametz Wood: northern portion not yet in our hands.
+
+_July 9._--A good deal of barrage work all day, but as it was mostly at
+a slow rate the men managed to get some rest--goodness knows, they both
+need and deserve it.
+
+_July 10._--Went out with the colonel to reconnoitre an advanced
+position. Got caught in a barrage, and had to crouch in a (fortunately)
+deep trench for half an hour. Sitting there began to wonder if this was
+the prelude to a counter-attack; just then, looking out to the left,
+that is towards the south-west corner of Mametz Wood, saw a lot of men
+running hard. Suddenly spotted the familiar grey uniform and spiked
+helmets of the enemy.
+
+"God!" I cried, "it is a counter-attack. Those are _Huns_!" Expected
+every moment to have one peering in over the top of the trench: did not
+dare to run for it, owing to the barrage, which was still heavy. T----,
+who was with me, remained calm and put up his glasses.
+
+"All right," he said; "they're prisoners. Look at the escort."
+
+And so they were, running for their lives through their own
+shrapnel--and the escort keeping well up with them!
+
+The storm being over (no "hate" lasts for ever) returned as quickly as
+we could, and reported that the position was possible but by no means
+tempting! A lot of night firing.
+
+_July 11._--Set out with the Child, two sergeants, and my trusty
+"look-out man" to look for a more favourable spot. After a good deal of
+walking about found one, a fairly snug place (though pitted with
+shell-holes).
+
+Intended to reconnoitre for an O.P. in the front edge of Mametz Wood,
+but met a colonel just back from those parts who assured us that the
+enemy front line ran there. Reluctantly (!) we abandoned the enterprise
+and returned. At 6 p.m. the Child started off with a digging party to
+prepare the new position. Move of the battery ordered for 9.30, then
+postponed till 10.30. Road crowded with infantry and transport; progress
+slow. To be mounted and at the head of a column of twelve six-horse
+teams is a very different thing to being alone and ready to slip behind
+a wall or into a trench if occasion calls for it. Luck was on our side,
+however, and we got through before any shells came.
+
+Occupied the position quickly, emptied the ammunition wagons, and got
+the horses clear without casualties. The Child reported that a few
+four-twos had come pretty close while he and his party were digging and
+had stopped their work for a while: nevertheless, quite a lot already
+done. Time now 12.30. Turned on every available man and continued
+digging till dawn. Men very beat, but not a word of grousing.
+
+_July 12._--At dawn went up to find a new O.P.: took the Child and two
+signallers, the latter laying a wire as they went. Found excellent place
+with good general view in an old German redoubt. Trenches, however,
+crammed with sleeping infantry, over whom one had to step, and under
+whom the signallers had to pass their line! Thick mist till 8 a.m., when
+light became good enough to start on our task, which was to cut through
+the wire at a certain spot in the German main second line north of
+Mametz Wood. Observation difficult, as we were rather far back and the
+whole line was being heavily bombarded by our "heavies." About 10.30
+what was apparently an excursion party of generals and staff officers
+arrived to see the fun, crowded us out of our bay in the trench and
+lined up, with their heads and red hat bands exposed. Lay down in a
+corner and tried to sleep, but got trodden on, so abandoned the idea.
+Shoon (another of my youthful subalterns) came up to relieve us at 2.30,
+so the Child and I returned to the battery and got about three hours'
+sleep. The detachments with amazing industry and endurance again hard at
+work digging. A good deal of hostile fire all round us, especially
+close to the nullah, but nothing within 200 yards of the guns.
+
+About 5.30 p.m. Shoon rang up from the O.P. to say that he and a
+signaller had been wounded. Angelo went up to take his place. Poor old
+Shoon, when he arrived down, was pretty shaken. Evidently the crowd of
+spectators previously remarked upon had attracted the attention of some
+cross Boche gunner. A five-nine dropped just beside the O.P. and knocked
+both signallers and Shoon, who was observing his wire-cutting at the
+moment, head over heels back into the trench below. While they were
+picking themselves up out of the _debris_ a salvo landed on the parados
+immediately behind them. One signaller was untouched (and rescued his
+precious telephone), the other was badly cut about the head and leg and
+departed on a stretcher--a good man too. Shoon got a scratch on his
+forehead and some splinters into his left arm. Swore he was all right,
+but since he didn't look it was ordered to bed.
+
+Ammunition replenished in the evening in a tearing hurry. It is not
+pleasant to have teams standing about in a place like this. Heard that
+on the return journey to the wagon line last night a bombardier, four
+drivers, and five horses had been wounded--all slightly, thank Heaven!
+
+Shot all night at the wood (Bezantin-le-petit), and at the front line.
+
+_July 13._--Continued wire-cutting and searching the wood all day.
+Scores of batteries doing the same thing, and noise infernal. The Child
+went off to find out if he could see the wire from the front edge of
+Mametz Wood (which now really _is_ in our possession). Failing to see it
+from there, he wandered on up an old communication trench known as
+Middle Alley, which led direct from our own to the German front line.
+Eventually he found a place from which he could see through a gap in the
+hedge. The wire was cut all right--and, incidentally, he might have come
+face to face with a hostile bombing party at any moment! But what seemed
+to interest him much more was the behaviour of the orderly who had
+accompanied him. This N.C.O., who is the battery "look-out man,"
+specially trained to observe anything and everything, raised himself
+from the ground a moment after they had both hurled themselves flat to
+await the arrival of a five-nine in Mametz Wood, peered over a fallen
+tree-trunk and said, "_That_ one, sir, was just in front, but slightly
+to the left!"
+
+Spent the afternoon preparing detailed orders and time-tables for
+to-morrow's "big show." Slept from 11 till 2.45 a.m.
+
+_July 14._--The "intense" bombardment began at 3.20 a.m.; the infantry
+attack was launched five minutes later. Even to attempt to describe this
+bombardment is beyond me. All that can be said is that there was such a
+_hell_ of noise that it was quite impossible to give any orders to the
+guns except by sending subalterns from the telephone dug-out to shout in
+the ear of each sergeant in turn. The battery (in company with perhaps a
+hundred others) barraged steadily, "lifting" fifty yards at a time from
+3.25 till 7.15 a.m., by which time some 900 rounds had been expended and
+the paint on the guns was blistering from their heat. We gathered
+(chiefly from information supplied by the Child at the O.P., who got
+into touch with various staffs and signal officers) that the attack had
+been very successful. About 7.30 things slowed down a little and the men
+were able to get breakfast and some rest--half at a time, of course.
+
+At midday cavalry moved up past us and affairs began to look really
+promising. Slept from 3 to 5 p.m., then got orders to reconnoitre an
+advanced position in front of Acid Drop Copse. (It may here be noted
+that from our first position this very copse was one of our most
+important targets at a range of nearly 4000 yards.) Chose a position,
+but could see that if and when we do occupy it, it is not going to be a
+health-resort. And, owing to the appalling state of the ground, it will
+take some driving to get there. Had a really good night's rest for once.
+Battery fired at intervals all night.
+
+_July 15._--Attack continued. By 10.30 a.m. our guns had reached extreme
+range and we were forced to stop. (We started at 2700 in this position.)
+News very good: enemy much demoralised and surrendering freely.
+Practically no hostile shelling round us now--in fact, we are rather out
+of the battle for the moment. After lunch formed up the whole battery
+and thanked the men for the splendid way that they had worked. Shoon,
+whose arm has got worse, sent under protest to hospital. Desperately
+sorry to lose him.
+
+In the afternoon switched to the left, where we are apparently still
+held up, and fired occasional salvos on Martinpuich. Ditto all night.
+
+_July 16._--Everybody much concerned over a certain Switch Trench, which
+appears to be giving much trouble. Fired spasmodically (by map) on this
+trench throughout the day. In the evening all guns removed to a
+travelling Ordnance Workshop for overhaul--they need it. Late at night
+received orders to dig the Acid Drop Copse position next day, and occupy
+it as soon as the guns are sent back.
+
+_July 17._--Took all officers and practically every man up to new
+position at 7 a.m. and started to dig. Shells all round us while we
+worked, but still no damage. This is too good to last. In the afternoon
+went out with George (another B.C.[11] in the brigade), the Child, and a
+telephonist to look for an O.P. whence to see this infernal Switch
+Trench. After a while parted from George, whom we last saw walking
+_forward_ from the villa, pausing occasionally to examine the country
+through his glasses. We learnt afterwards that he spent a really happy
+afternoon in No Man's Land carrying various wounded infantrymen into
+comparative safety! For which he has been duly recommended.
+
+[11] Battery Commander.
+
+Got into the old German second line (taken on the 14th), and found that
+it had been so completely battered by our bombardment that its captors
+had been obliged to dig an entirely new trench in front of it. This part
+of the world was full of gunner officers _all_ looking for an O.P. for
+Switch Trench. Returned to Acid Drop Copse about 5 p.m. and found that
+the digging had progressed well. Marched the men back to the old
+position, where they got tea and a rest. Teams came up about 8. Packed
+up and moved forward. Ground so desperately heavy that it became
+necessary to put ten horses in a team for the last pull up the hill to
+the position. Got all guns into action and twenty-one wagon loads of
+ammunition dumped by 11 p.m.--no casualties. Work of the men, who were
+much worn out, beyond all praise.
+
+The noise in this place is worse than anything previously experienced.
+Being, as we are now, the most advanced battery in this particular
+sector, we get the full benefit of every gun that is behind us--and
+there are many. Moreover, the hostile artillery is extremely active,
+especially in the wood, where every shell comes down with a hissing rush
+that ends in an appalling crash. About midnight the Boche began to put
+over small "stink" shells. These seemed to flit through the air, and
+always landed with a soft-sounding "phutt" very like a dud. One burst
+just behind our trench and wounded a gunner in the foot. Found it
+impossible to sleep, owing to the din.
+
+_July 18._--At 4 a.m. the hostile bombardment seemed so intense that,
+fearing a counter-attack, I got up to look round. Was reassured by
+Angelo, who had already done so. Beyond the fact that the wood was being
+systematically searched with five-nines, there was nothing much doing.
+Returned to bed, but still failed to sleep.
+
+Fired at intervals throughout the day at various spots allotted by
+Brigade H.Q. Having no O.P. had to do everything from the map. Men all
+digging when not actually firing: position now nearly splinter-proof. A
+most unnerving day, however. A Hun barrage of "air-crumps" on the ridge
+in front of us by the Cutting, another one to our right along the edge
+of the wood, many five-nines over our heads into the dip behind us, and
+quite a few into Acid Drop Copse on our left rear.
+
+In the afternoon we had half a dozen H.E. "pip-squeaks" very close at a
+moment when there were three wagons up replenishing ammunition. One
+burst within four yards of the lead horses--and no damage. This _cannot_
+last. Orders for a big attack received at 4 p.m. At 5 counter-orders to
+the effect that we are to be relieved to-night. Fired continuously till
+about 8.30, then packed up and waited for the teams, which arrived about
+9.
+
+We were just congratulating ourselves on our luck, it being then rather
+a quiet moment and three out of the four teams already on the move, when
+a big "air-crump" burst straight above our heads, wounding the
+sergeant-major in the thigh. Put him up on the last limber and sent the
+guns off as fast as they could go--ground too bad to gallop. Two more
+shells followed us down the valley, but there were no further
+casualties. At the bottom missed the Child: sent to inquire if he was at
+the head of the column--no. Was beginning to get nervous, when he
+strolled up from the rear, accompanied by the officers' mess cook.
+
+"Pity to leave these behind," he observed, throwing down a kettle and a
+saucepan!
+
+Nervy work loading up our stores and kits on to the G.S. wagon, but the
+enemy battery had returned to its favourite spot by the Cutting, and
+nothing further worried us. Marched back to the wagon line (about five
+miles). Much amused by the tenacity with which one of the sergeants
+clung to a jar of rum which he had rescued from the position.[12] At the
+wagon line collected the whole battery together, and while waiting went
+across to see the sergeant-major in the dressing-station. Am afraid,
+though it is nothing serious, that it will be a case of "Blighty" for
+him. A very serious loss to the battery, as he has been absolutely
+invaluable throughout this show.
+
+[12] This jar was afterwards found to contain lime-juice!
+
+Marched to our old bivouac at the swampy wood, but were allotted a
+reasonable space outside it this time. Fell into bed, beat to the world,
+at 3.30 a.m.
+
+_July 19._--Much to do, though men and horses are tired to death. Moved
+off at 6 p.m. and did a twenty-mile night march, arriving at another
+bivouac at 2 a.m. Horses just about at their last gasp. Poor old things,
+they have been in harness almost continuously throughout the battle
+bringing up load after load of ammunition at all hours of the day and
+night.
+
+_July 20._--Took over a new position (trench warfare style) just out of
+the battle area as now constituted, and settled down to--rest.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The above is an accurate, though, I fear, far too personal record of the
+doings of one particular unit during a fortnight's continuous fighting.
+It is in no way an attempt to describe a battle as a whole. That is a
+feat beyond my powers--and, I think, beyond the powers of any one
+actually engaged. Thinking things over now, in the quiet of a well-made
+dug-out, I realise that the predominant impressions left upon my mind,
+in ascending order of magnitude so to speak, are: dirt, stink, horrors,
+lack of sleep, funk--and the amazing endurance of the men. In the first
+article of this series I wrote: "But this I know now--the human material
+with which I have to deal is good enough." It is. I grant that our
+casualties were slight (though in this respect we were extremely lucky),
+and that compared with the infantry our task was the easier one of
+"standing the strain" rather than of "facing the music." But still,
+think of the strain on the detachments, serving their guns night and day
+almost incessantly for fourteen days on end. In the first week alone we
+fired the amount of ammunition which suffices for a battery in peace
+time for thirty years! They averaged five hours' sleep in the
+twenty-four, these men, throughout the time; and they dug three separate
+positions--all in heavy ground. Nor must one forget the drivers,
+employed throughout in bringing up ammunition along roads pitted with
+holes, often shelled and constantly blocked with traffic.
+
+The New Ubique begins to be worthy of the Old.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+"AND THE OLD"
+
+
+
+
+BILFRED
+
+    ... Fellow-creature I am, fellow-servant
+    Of God: can man fathom God's dealings with us?
+
+      *       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Oh! man! we, at least, we enjoy, with thanksgiving,
+    God's gifts on this earth, though we look not beyond.
+
+    You sin and you suffer, and we, too, find sorrow
+    Perchance through your sin--yet it soon will be o'er;
+    We labour to-day and we slumber to-morrow,
+    Strong horse and bold rider! and who knoweth more?
+
+                                        A. LINDSAY GORDON.
+
+
+I
+
+In some equine Elysium where there are neither flies nor dust nor steep
+hills nor heavy loads; where there is luscious young grass unlimited
+with cool streams and shady trees; where one can roam as one pleases and
+rest when one is tired: there, far from the racket of gun wheels on hard
+roads and the thunder of opposing artillery, oblivious of all the
+insensate folly of this warring human world, reposes, I doubt it not,
+the soul of Bilfred.
+
+His was a humble part. He was never richly caparisoned with embroidered
+bridle and trappings of scarlet and gold. He never swept over the desert
+beneath some Arab sheikh with the cry "Allah for all!" ringing in his
+ears. He bore no general to victory, no king to his coronation. But he
+served his country faithfully, and in the end, when he had helped to
+make some history, he died for it.
+
+It is eight years since he joined the battery--a woolly-coated babyish
+remount straight from an Irish dealer's yard. Examining him carefully we
+found that beneath his roughness he was not badly shaped; a trifle long
+in the back perhaps, and a shade too tall--but then perfection is not
+attainable at the government price. There was no denying that his head
+was plain and his face distinctly ugly. From his pink and flabby muzzle
+a broad streak of white ran upwards to his forehead, widening on the
+near side so as almost to reach his eye. The grotesquely lopsided effect
+of this was enhanced by a tousled forelock which straggled down between
+his ears.
+
+The question of naming him arose, and some one said, "Except for his
+face, which is like nothing on earth, he's the image of old Alfred that
+we cast last year."
+
+Now a system prevailed in the battery by which horses were called by
+names which began with the letter of their subsection.
+
+"Well," said some one else, "he's been posted to B sub; why not call him
+Bilfred?"
+
+And Bilfred he became.
+
+Our rough-rider at the time was a patient man, enthusiastic enough over
+his job to take endless trouble with young horses. This was fortunate
+for the new-comer, who proved at first an obdurate pupil. Scientists
+tell us, of course, that in relative brain-power the horse ranks low in
+the animal scale--lower than the domestic pig, in fact. This may be so,
+but Bilfred was certainly an exception. It was obvious, too obvious,
+that he _thought_, that he definitely used his brain to question the
+advisability of doing any given thing. To his rebellious Celtic nature
+there must have been added a percentage of Scotch caution. When any new
+performance was demanded of him he would ask himself, "Is there any
+personal risk in this, and even if not, is there any sense in doing it?"
+Unless satisfied on these points he would plead ignorance and fear and
+anger alternately until convinced that it would be less unpleasant to
+acquiesce. For instance, being driven round in a circle in the riding
+school at the end of a long rope struck him as a silly business; but
+when he discovered (after a week) that he could neither break the rope
+nor kick the man who was holding it, he (metaphorically) shrugged his
+shoulders and trotted or walked, according to orders, with a
+considerable show of willing intelligence. It took four men half a day
+to shoe him for the first time, and he was in a white lather when they
+had finished. But on the next and on every subsequent occasion he was as
+docile as any veteran.
+
+A saddle was first placed upon him, at a moment when his attention was
+distracted by a handful of corn offered to him by a confederate of the
+rough-rider's. He even allowed himself to be girthed up without protest.
+But when, suddenly and without due warning, he felt the weight of a man
+upon his back, his horror was apparent. For a moment he stood stock
+still, trembling slightly and breathing hard. Then he made a mighty
+bound forward and started to kick his best. To no purpose; he could not
+get his head down, and the more he tried, the more it hurt him. The
+weight meanwhile remained upon his back. Exhausted, he stood still again
+and gave vent to a loud snort. His face depicted his thoughts. "I'm
+done for," he felt; "this thing is here for ever." He was soothed and
+petted until his first panic had subsided; then coaxed into a good
+humour again with oats. At the end of a minute or so he was induced to
+move forward--cautiously, nervously at first, and then with more
+confidence. "Unpleasant but not dangerous," was his verdict. In half an
+hour he was resigned to his burden.
+
+Yet not entirely. Every day when first mounted he gave two or three
+hearty kicks. He hated the cold saddle on his back for one thing, and
+for another there was always a vague hope. ... One day, about a
+fortnight afterwards, this hope fructified. A loose-seated rider, in a
+moment of bravado, got upon him, and immediately the customary
+performance began. At the second plunge the man shot up into space and
+landed heavily on the tan. Bilfred, palpably as astonished as he was
+pleased, tossed his head, snorted in triumph and bolted round the
+school, kicking at intervals. For five thrilling minutes he enjoyed the
+best time he had had since he left Connemara. Then, ignominiously, he
+succumbed to the temptation of a proffered feed tin and was caught,
+discovering too late, to his chagrin, that the tin was empty. It was
+his first experience of the deceitfulness of man, and he did not forget
+it.
+
+Six weeks later he had become a most accomplished person. He could walk
+and trot and even canter in a lumbering way; he answered to rein and
+leg, could turn and twist, go sideway and backwards; greatest miracle of
+all, he had been taught to lurch in ungainly fashion over two-foot-six
+of furze.
+
+But he had accomplished something beyond all this. He had acquired a
+reputation. It had become known throughout the battery that there were
+certain things which could not be done to Bilfred with impunity. If you
+were his stable companion, for example, you could not try to steal his
+food without getting bitten, neither could you nibble the hairs of his
+tail without getting kicked. If you were a human being you could not
+approach him in his stall until you had spoken to him politely from
+outside it. You could not attempt to groom him until you had made
+friends with him, and even then you had to keep your eyes open. You got
+used to the way he gnashed his teeth and tossed his head about, but
+occasionally, when you were occupied with the ticklish underpart of him,
+he would show his dislike of the operation by catching you unawares by
+the slack of your breeches and throwing you out of his stall.
+
+But there was no vice in him. He was always amenable to kindness, and
+prepared to accept gifts of sugar and bread with every symptom of
+gratitude and approval. Rumour even had it that he had once eaten the
+stable-man's dinner with apparent relish. And he flourished exceedingly
+in his new environment. His baby roundness had disappeared and been
+replaced by hard muscle. He no longer moved with an awkward sprawling
+gait, but with confidence and precision. His dark-bay coat was sleek and
+smooth, his mane hogged, his heels neatly trimmed. Only his tail
+remained the difficulty. It was long and its hairs were coarse and
+curly. Moreover, he persisted in carrying it slightly inclined towards
+the off side, as if to draw attention to it. Frankly it was a vulgar
+tail. But, on the whole, Bilfred was presentable.
+
+When the time came to complete his education by putting him in draught
+he surprised an expectant crowd of onlookers by going up into his collar
+at once and pulling as if he had done that sort of work for years. And
+so, as a matter of fact, he had. Irish horses are often put into the
+plough as two-year-olds--a fact which had been forgotten. But he would
+not consent to go in the wheel. He made this fact quite clear by kicking
+so violently that he broke two traces, cut his hocks against the
+footboard and lamed himself. Since ploughs do not run downhill on to
+one's heels, he saw no reason why a gun or wagon should. Persuasion was
+found to be useless, and for once his obstinacy triumphed. But he did
+not abuse his victory nor seek to extend his gains. He proved himself a
+willing worker in any other position, and soon, on his merits as much as
+on his looks, he was promoted from the wagon to the gun and definitely
+took his place as off leader. It was a good team; some said the show one
+of the battery. The wheelers were Beatrice and Belinda, who knew their
+job as well as did their driver, whom they justly loved. Being old and
+dignified they never fretted, but took life calmly and contentedly. In
+the centre Bruno and Binty, young both of them, and rather excitable,
+needed watching or they lost condition, but both had looks. The riding
+leader was old Bacchus, tall and strong and honest, a good doer and a
+veteran of some standing. Moreover, he was a perfect match for Bilfred.
+All six of them were of the same mottled dark-bay colour.
+
+In course of time Bilfred, quick, like most horses, to pick up habits,
+exhibited all the characteristics of the typical "hairy." (It is to be
+observed that the term is not one of abuse but of esteem and affection.)
+He became, frankly and palpably gluttonous, stamping and whinnying for
+his food and bolting it ravenously when he got it. At exercise he shied
+extravagantly at things which did not frighten him in the least. He
+displayed an obstinate disinclination to leave other horses when
+required to do so; and at riding drill he quickly discovered that to
+skimp the corners as much as possible tends to save exertion. Artillery
+horses are not as a rule well bred; one finds in their characters an
+astonishing mixture of cunning, vulgarity, and docile good-tempered
+willingness which makes them altogether lovable. Their condition
+reflects their treatment, as in a mirror. Properly looked after they
+thrive; neglected, their appearance betrays the fact to every
+experienced eye. They have an enormous contempt for "these 'ere mufti
+'orses," as our farrier once described some one's private hunter. Watch
+a subsection out at water when a contractor's cart pulls up in the
+lines; note the way they prick their ears and stare, then drop their
+heads to the trough again with a sniff. It is as if they said, in so
+many words, "Who the deuce are you? Oh! a mere civilian!"
+
+Bilfred was like them all in many ways. But, in spite of everything, he
+never lost his personality. He invariably kicked three times when he was
+first mounted--and never afterwards on that particular day; he hated
+motors moving or stationary; and he was an adept at slipping his head
+collar and getting loose. It was never safe to let go his head for an
+instant. With ears forward and tail straight up on end, he was off in a
+flash at a trot that was vulgarly fast. He never galloped till his angry
+pursuers were close, and then he could dodge like a Rugby three-quarter.
+If he got away in barracks he always made straight for the tennis-lawns,
+where his soup-plate feet wrought untold havoc. And no longer was he to
+be lured to capture with an empty feed tin. Everybody knew him, most
+people cursed him at times, but for all that everybody loved him.
+
+
+II
+
+I think that when a new history of the Regiment comes to be written
+honourable mention should be made therein of a certain team of dark
+bays that pulled the same gun of the same battery for so many years.
+They served in England and in Ireland, in France and in the Low
+Countries; they thundered over the grassy flats of Salisbury Plain; they
+toiled up the steep rocky roads of Glen Imaal; they floundered in the
+bogs of Okehampton. They stood exposed in all weathers; they stifled in
+close evil-smelling billets, in trains, and on board ship. They were
+present at Mons; they were all through the Great Retreat, they swept
+forward to the Marne and on to the Aisne; they marched round to Flanders
+in time for the first battle of Ypres. They were never sick nor sorry,
+even when fodder was short and the marches long, even when there was no
+time to slake their raging thirsts. They pulled together in patience,
+and in dumb pathetic trust of their lords and masters, knowing nothing,
+understanding nothing, until at last Fate overtook them.
+
+At the beginning of August, 1914, the battery had just returned to its
+station after a month's hard work at practice camp. Bilfred, a veteran
+now of more than seven years' service, had probably never been in better
+condition in his life. Ordinarily he would have been given an easy time
+for some weeks, with plenty of food and just enough exercise and collar
+work to keep him fit for the strain of the big manoeuvres in September.
+
+But there were to be no 1914 manoeuvres. About August 6 things quite
+beyond Bilfred's comprehension began to happen. Strange men arrived to
+join the battery and in their ignorance took liberties with him which he
+resented. Every available space in the lines became crowded with
+unkempt, queer-looking horses, obviously of a low caste. Bilfred was
+shod a fortnight before his time by a new shoeing-smith, for whom he
+made things as unpleasant as possible. His harness, which usually looked
+like polished mahogany decorated with silver, was dubbed and oiled until
+it looked (and smelt) disgusting. When the battery went out on parade,
+all these absurd civilian horses with bushy tails (some even with
+manes!) went with it, and for a day or two behaved disgracefully. The
+whole place was in confusion and everybody worked all day long. Bilfred,
+ignorant of the term "mobilisation," was completely mystified.
+
+A week or so later he was harnessed up in the middle of the night,
+hooked in and marched to the station. Now it had been his habit for
+years to object to being entrained. On this occasion he was doubly
+obstinate and wasted much precious time. Other horses, even his own
+team-mates, went in quietly in front of him; it made no difference, he
+refused to follow them. A rope was put round his quarters and he was
+hauled towards the truck. He dug his toes in and tried to back. Then,
+suddenly, his hind legs slipped and he sat down on his haunches like a
+dog, tangled in the rope and unable to move. In the dim light of the
+station siding his white face and scared expression moved us to laughter
+in spite of our exasperation. He struggled to his feet again, the
+cynosure of all eyes, and the subject of many curses. Then, for no
+apparent reason whatever, he changed his mind and allowed himself to be
+led into the next truck, which was empty, just as though it was his own
+stall in barracks. And once inside he tried by kicking to prevent other
+horses being put in with him.
+
+He continued in this contrary mood for some time and upheld his
+reputation for eccentricity. Some horses made a fuss about embarking. He
+made none. He showed his insular contempt for foreigners by making a
+frantic effort to bite the first French soldier he saw--a sentry on the
+landing quay, who, in his enthusiasm for his Allies, came too close. He
+got loose during the night we spent at the rest camp, laid flat about an
+acre of standing corn, and was found next morning in the lines of a
+cavalry regiment, looking woefully out of place.
+
+On the railway journey up to the concentration area, he slipped down in
+the truck several times and was trampled on by the other horses. The
+operation of extricating him was dangerous and lengthy. When we
+detrained he refused food and water, to our great concern. But he took
+his place in the team during the twenty-mile march that followed and was
+himself again in the evening.
+
+Where everybody was acutely conscious of the serious nature of the
+business during the first day or so, it was something of a relief to
+watch the horses behaving exactly as they normally did at home. We,
+Heaven help us! knew little enough of what was in store for us, but
+they, poor brutes, knew nothing. Oats were plentiful--what else
+mattered? Bilfred rolled over and over on his broad back directly his
+harness was removed, just as he always did; he plunged his head deep
+into his water and pushed his muzzle to and fro washing his mouth and
+nostrils; he raised his head when he had drunk, stretched his neck and
+yawned, staring vacantly into space as was his wont. For him the world
+was still at peace. Of course it was--he knew no better. But we who did,
+we whose nerves were on edge with an excitement half-fearful,
+half-exultant, saw these things and were somehow soothed by them.
+
+Bilfred's baptism of fire came early. A few rounds of shrapnel burst
+over the wagon-line on the very first occasion that we were in action.
+Fortunately, the range was just too long and no damage was done. Some of
+the horses showed momentary signs of fear, but the drivers easily
+quieted them; and, besides, they were in a clover field--an opportunity
+too good to be wasted in worrying about strange noises. Bilfred, either
+because he despised the German artillery or because he imagined that the
+reports were those of his own guns, to which he was quite accustomed,
+never even raised his head. His curly tail flapped regularly from side
+to side, protecting him from a swarm of flies whilst he reached out as
+far as his harness would allow and tore up great mouthfuls of grass. He
+had always been a glutton, and it was as if he knew, shells or no
+shells, that this was to be his last chance for some time. It was; there
+followed four days of desperate strain for man and beast. Through clouds
+of powdery, choking dust, beneath a blazing August sun, parched with
+thirst, often hungry and always weary, Bilfred and his fellows pulled
+the two tons of steel and wood and complicated mechanism called a gun
+along those straight interminable roads of northern France. Thousands of
+horses in dozens of batteries were doing the same thing--and none knew
+why.
+
+Then, on the fifth day, our turn came to act as rear-guard artillery.
+The horses, tucked away behind a convenient wood when we came into
+action just before dawn, had an easy morning--and there were many,
+especially amongst the new-comers received on mobilisation, who were
+badly in need of it. Now the function of a rear-guard is to gain time,
+and this we did. But, when at last the order to withdraw was given, our
+casualties were numerous and the enemy was close. Moreover, his
+artillery had got our range. The teams issuing from the shelter of their
+wood had to face a heavy fire, and it was at this juncture that the
+seasoned horses, the real old stagers, who knew as much about limbering
+up as most drivers and more than some, set an example to the less
+experienced ones. Bilfred (and I take him as typical of the rest) seemed
+with a sudden flash of intuition to realise that his apprenticeship and
+all his previous training had been arranged expressly that he might bear
+himself courageously in just such a situation as this. Somehow, in some
+quite inexplicable fashion, he knew that this was the supreme moment of
+his career. Regardless of bursting shells and almost without guidance
+from his driver he galloped straight for his gun, with ears pricked and
+nostrils dilated, the muscles rippling under his dark coat and his
+traces taut as bow-strings as he strained at his collar with every
+thundering stride. He wheeled with precision exactly over the trail eye,
+checked his pace at the right moment, and "squared off" so as to allow
+the wheelers to place the limber in position. It was his job, he knew
+what to do and he did it perfectly. B was the first gun to get away and
+the only one to do so without a casualty....
+
+More marching, more fighting, day after day, night after night; men were
+killed and wounded; horses, dropping from utter exhaustion, were cut
+loose and left where they lay--old friends, some of them, that it tore
+one's heart to abandon thus. But there could be no tarrying, the enemy
+was too close to us for that.
+
+Then came the day when the terrible retreat southwards ceased as
+abruptly and as unexpectedly as it had begun. Rejoicing in an advance
+which soon developed into a pursuit we forgot our weariness and all the
+trials and hardships of the past. And I think we forgot, too, in our
+eagerness, that for the horses there was no difference between the
+advance and the retirement--the work was as hard, the loads as heavy.
+For our hopes were high. We knew that the flood of invasion was stemmed
+at last. We believed that final victory was in sight. Reckless of
+everything we pushed on, faster and still faster, until our strength was
+nearly exhausted. It mattered not, we felt; the enemy retreating in
+disorder before us must be in far worse plight.
+
+And then, on the Aisne, we ran up against a strong position, carefully
+prepared and held by fresh troops. Trench warfare began, batteries dug
+themselves in as never before, and the horses were taken far to the rear
+to rest. They had come through a terrible ordeal. Some were lame and
+some were galled; staring coats, hollow, wasted backs, and visible ribs
+told their own tale. A few, at least, were little more than skeletons
+for whom the month's respite that followed was a godsend. Good forage in
+plenty, some grazing and very light work did wonders, and when the
+moment came for the move round to Flanders the majority were ready for a
+renewed effort. Compared with what they had already done the march was
+easy work. They arrived on the Yser fit and healthy.
+
+But the first battle of Ypres took its toll. Bringing up ammunition one
+dark night along a road which, though never safe, had perforce to be
+used for lack of any other, the teams were caught by a salvo of high
+explosive shell and suffered heavily. Four drivers and nine horses were
+killed, seven drivers and thirteen horses were wounded. Bilfred escaped
+unhurt, but he was the only one in his team who did. A direct hit on the
+limber brought instantaneous death to the wheelers and their beloved
+driver. A merciful revolver shot put an end to Binty's screaming agony.
+Bruno and Bacchus were fortunate in only getting flesh wounds from
+splinters. It was a sad breaking up of the team which had held together
+through so many vicissitudes. It comforted us, though, to think that at
+least they had died in harness....
+
+The winter brought hardship for horse as well as man. We built stables
+of hop-poles and sacking, but they were only a slight protection against
+the biting winds, and it was impossible to cope with the sea of slimy
+mud which was euphemistically termed the horse lines. In spite of all
+our precautions coughs and colds were rampant. About Christmas-time
+Bruno, always rather delicate, succumbed with several others to
+pneumonia, and a month later Bacchus strained himself so badly, when
+struggling to pull a wagon out of holding mud whilst the rest of the
+team (all new horses) jibbed, that he passed out of our hands to a
+veterinary hospital and was never seen again. Bilfred alone remained,
+and Nature, determined to do her best for him, provided him with the
+most amazingly woolly coat ever seen upon a horse. The robustness of his
+constitution made him impervious to climatic conditions, but the loss of
+Bacchus, his companion for so long, distressed him, and he was at pains
+to show his dislike of the substitute provided by biting him at all
+times except when in harness; then, and then only, was he Dignity
+personified.
+
+The end came one day in early spring. The battery was in action in a
+part of the line where it was impossible to have the horses far away,
+for in those days we had to be prepared for any emergency. It so
+happened that the enemy, in the course of his usual morning "_strafe_,"
+whether by luck or by intention, put an eight-inch howitzer shell into
+the middle of the secluded field where a few of our horses were sunning
+themselves in the warm air and picking at the scanty grass. Fortunately,
+they had been hobbled so that there was no stampede. The cloud of smoke
+and dust cleared away and we thought at first that no harm had been
+done. Then we noticed Bilfred lying on his side ten yards or so from the
+crater, his hind quarters twitching convulsively. As we went towards
+him, he lifted his head and tried to look at the gaping jagged wound in
+his flank and back. There was agony in his soft brown eyes, but he made
+no sound. He made a desperate effort to get up, but could only raise his
+forehand. He remained thus for a moment, swaying unsteadily and in
+terrible distress. Then he dropped back and lay still. A minute later he
+gave one long deep sigh--and it was over.
+
+Our old farrier, who in his twenty years' service had seen many horses
+come and go, and who was not often given to sentiment, looked at him
+sadly.
+
+"'E's gone," he said. "A good 'oss--won't see the like of him again in
+the batt'ry this trip, I reckon."
+
+And Bilfred's driver, the man who had been with him from the start,
+ceased his futile efforts to stem the flow of blood with a dirty
+handkerchief.
+
+"Oh! Gawd!" he muttered in a voice of despair, and turned his back upon
+us all to hide his grief.
+
+We kept a hoof, to be mounted for the battery mess when peace comes, for
+he was the last of the old lot and his memory must not be allowed to
+fade. The fatigue party digging his grave did not grumble at their task.
+He was an older member of the battery than them all and a comrade rather
+than a beast of burden.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I like to imagine that Bilfred had a soul--not such a soul as we try to
+conceive for ourselves perhaps--but still I like to picture him in some
+heaven suitable to his simple needs, dwelling in quiet peacefulness
+among the departed of his race. What a company would be his and what
+tales he would hear!--Tales of the chariots of Assyria and Rome, of the
+fleet Parthians and the ravaging hosts of Attila; stories of
+Charlemagne and King Arthur, of the lists and all the pomp of chivalry.
+And so down through the centuries to the crossing of the Alps in 1800
+and the grim tragedy of Moscow twelve years later. Would he stamp his
+feet and toss his head proudly when he heard of the Greys at Waterloo or
+the Light Brigade at Balaclava? But stories of the guns would delight
+him more, I think--Fuentes D'Onoro, Maiwand, Nery, and Le Cateau.
+
+It pleases me to think of him meeting Bacchus and Binty and the rest and
+arguing out the meaning of it all. Does he know now, I wonder, the
+colossal issues that were at stake during that terrible fortnight
+between Mons and the Marne, and does he forgive us our seeming cruelty?
+
+I hope so. I like to think that Bilfred understands.
+
+
+
+
+"THE PROGRESS OF PICKERSDYKE"
+
+
+I
+
+Second Lieutenant William Pickersdyke, sometime quartermaster-sergeant
+of the ----th Battery, and now adjutant of a divisional ammunition
+column, stared out of the window of his billet and surveyed the muddy
+and uninteresting village street with eyes of gloom. His habitual
+optimism had for once failed him, and his confidence in the gospel of
+efficiency had been shaken. For Fate, in the portly guise of his fatuous
+old colonel, had intervened to balk the fulfilment of his most cherished
+desire. Pickersdyke had that morning applied for permission to be
+transferred to his old battery if a vacancy occurred, and the colonel
+had flatly declined to forward the application.
+
+Now one of the few military axioms which have not so far been disproved
+in the course of this war is the one which lays down that second
+lieutenants must not argue with colonels. Pickersdyke had left his
+commanding officer without betraying the resentment which he felt, but
+in the privacy of his own room, however, he allowed himself the luxury
+of vituperation.
+
+"Blooming old woman!" he said aloud. "Incompetent, rusty old dug-out!
+Thinks he's going to keep me here running his bally column for ever, I
+suppose. Selfish, that's what 'e is--and lazy too."
+
+In spite of the colonel's pompous reference to "the exigencies of the
+service," that useful phrase which covers a multitude of minor
+injustices, Pickersdyke had legitimate cause for grievance. Nine months
+previously, when he had been offered a commission, he had had to choose
+between Sentiment, which bade him refuse and stay with the battery to
+whose wellbeing he had devoted seven of the best years of his life, and
+Ambition, which urged him, as a man of energy and brains, to accept his
+just reward with a view to further advancement. Ambition, backed by his
+major's promise to have him as a subaltern later on, had vanquished.
+Suppressing the inevitable feeling of nostalgia which rose in him, he
+had joined the divisional ammunition column, prepared to do his best in
+a position wholly distasteful to him.
+
+In an army every unit depends for its efficiency upon the system of
+discipline inculcated by its commander, aided by the spirit of
+individual enthusiasm which pervades its members; the less the
+enthusiasm the sterner must be the discipline. Now a D.A.C., as it is
+familiarly called, is not, in the inner meaning of the phrase, a
+cohesive unit. In peace it exists only on paper; it is formed during
+mobilisation by the haphazard collection of a certain number of
+officers, mostly "dug-outs"; close upon 500 men, nearly all reservists;
+and about 700 horses, many of which are rejections from other and, in a
+sense, more important units. Its business, as its name indicates, is to
+supply a division with ammunition, and its duties in this connection are
+relatively simple. Its wagons transport shells, cartridges, and bullets
+to the brigade ammunition columns, whence they return empty and begin
+again. It is obvious that the men engaged upon this work need not, in
+ordinary circumstances, be heroes; it is also obvious that their _role_,
+though fundamentally an important one, does not tend to foster an
+intense _esprit de corps_. A man can be thrilled at the idea of a charge
+or of saving guns under a hurricane of fire, but not with the monotonous
+job of loading wagons and then driving them a set number of miles daily
+along the same straight road. A stevedore or a carter has as much
+incentive to enthusiasm for his work.
+
+The commander of a D.A.C., therefore, to ensure efficiency in his unit,
+must be a zealous disciplinarian with a strong personality. But
+Pickersdyke's new colonel was neither. The war had dragged him from a
+life of slothful ease to one of bustle and discomfort. Being elderly,
+stout, and constitutionally idle, he had quickly allowed his early zeal
+to cool off, and now, after six months of the campaign, the state of his
+command was lamentable. To Pickersdyke, coming from a battery with proud
+traditions and a high reputation, whose members regarded its good name
+in the way that a son does that of his mother, it seemed little short of
+criminal that such laxity should be permitted. On taking over a section
+he "got down to it," as he said, at once, and became forthwith a most
+unpopular officer. But that, though he knew it well, did not deter him.
+He made the lives of various sergeants and junior N.C.O.'s unbearable
+until they began to see that it was wiser "to smarten themselves up a
+bit" after his suggestion. In a month the difference between his
+section and the others was obvious. The horses were properly groomed and
+had begun to improve in their condition--before, they had been poor to a
+degree; the sergeant-major no longer grew a weekly beard nor smoked a
+pipe during stable hour; the number of the defaulters, which under the
+new _regime_ was at first large, had dwindled to a negligible quantity.
+In two months that section was for all practical purposes a model one,
+and Pickersdyke was able to regard the results of his unstinted efforts
+with satisfaction.
+
+The colonel, who was not blind where his own interests were concerned,
+sent for Pickersdyke one day and said--
+
+"You've done very well with your section; it's quite the best in the
+column now."
+
+Pickersdyke was pleased; he was as modest as most men, but he
+appreciated recognition of his merits. Moreover, for his own ends, he
+was anxious to impress his commanding officer. He was less pleased when
+the latter continued--
+
+"I'm going to post you to No. 3 Section now, and I hope you'll do the
+same with that."
+
+No. 3 Section was notorious. Pickersdyke, if he had been a man of
+Biblical knowledge (which he was not), would have compared himself to
+Jacob, who waited seven years for Rachel and then was tricked into
+taking Leah. The vision of his four days' leave--long overdue--faded
+away. He foresaw a further and still more difficult period of
+uncongenial work in front of him. But, having no choice, he was obliged
+to acquiesce.
+
+Once again he began at the beginning, instilling into unruly minds the
+elementary notions that orders are given to be obeyed, that the first
+duty of a mounted man is to his horses, and that personal cleanliness
+and smartness in appearance are military virtues not beneath notice.
+This time the drudgery was even worse, and he was considerably hampered
+by the touchiness and jealousy of the real section commander, who was a
+dug-out captain of conspicuous inability. There was much unpleasantness,
+there was at one time very nearly a mutiny, and there were not a few
+court-martials. It was three months and a half before that section
+found, so to speak, its military soul.
+
+And then the colonel, satisfied that the two remaining sections were
+well enough commanded to shift for themselves if properly guided, seized
+his chance and made Pickersdyke his adjutant. Here was a man, he felt,
+endowed with an astonishing energy and considerable powers of
+organisation, the very person, in fact, to save his commanding officer
+trouble and to relieve him of all real responsibility.
+
+This occurred about the middle of July. From then until well on into
+September, Pickersdyke remained a fixture in a small French village on
+the lines of communication, miles from the front, out of all touch with
+his old comrades, with no distractions and no outlet for his energies
+except work of a purely routine character.
+
+"It might be peace-time and me a bloomin' clerk" was how he expressed
+his disgust. But he still hoped, for he believed that to the efficient
+the rewards of efficiency come in due course and are never long delayed.
+Without being conceited, he was perhaps more aware of his own
+possibilities than of his limitations. In the old days in his battery he
+had been the major's right-hand man and the familiar (but always
+respectful) friend of the subalterns. In the early days of the war he
+had succeeded amazingly where others in his position had certainly
+failed. His management of affairs "behind the scenes" had been
+unsurpassed. Never once, from the moment when his unit left Havre till a
+month later it arrived upon the Aisne, had its men been short of food
+or its horses of forage. He had replaced deficiencies from some
+apparently inexhaustible store of "spares"; he had provided the best
+billets, the safest wagon lines, the freshest bread with a consistency
+that was almost uncanny. In the darkest days of the retreat he had
+remained imperturbed, "pinching" freely when blandishments failed,
+distributing the comforts as well as the necessities of life with a
+lavish hand and an optimistic smile. His wits and his resource had been
+tested to the utmost. He had enjoyed the contest (it was his nature to
+do that), and he had come through triumphant and still smiling.
+
+During the stationary period on the Aisne, and later in Flanders, he had
+managed the wagon line--that other half of a battery which consists of
+almost everything except the guns and their complement of officers and
+men--practically unaided. On more than one occasion he had brought up
+ammunition along a very dangerous route at critical moments.
+
+He received his commission late in December, at a time when his battery
+was out of action, "resting." He dined in the officers' mess, receiving
+their congratulations with becoming modesty and their drink without
+unnecessary reserve. It was on this occasion that he had induced his
+major to promise to get him back. Then he departed, sorrowful in spite
+of all his pride in being an officer, to join the column. There, in the
+seclusion of his billet, he studied army lists and watched the name of
+the senior subaltern of the battery creep towards the head of the roll.
+When that officer was promoted captain there would be a vacancy, and
+that vacancy would be Pickersdyke's chance. Meanwhile, to fit himself
+for what he hoped to become, he spent whole evenings poring over manuals
+of telephony and gun-drill; he learnt by heart abstruse passages of
+Field Artillery Training; he ordered the latest treatises on gunnery,
+both practical and theoretical, to be sent out to him from England; and
+he even battled valiantly with logarithms and a slide-rule....
+
+From all the foregoing it will be understood how bitter was his
+disappointment when his application to be transferred was refused. His
+colonel's attitude astonished him. He had expected recognition of that
+industry and usefulness of which he had given unchallengeable proof. But
+the colonel, instead of saying--
+
+"You have done well; I will not stand in your way, much as I should
+like to keep you," merely observed--
+
+"I'm sorry, but you cannot be spared."
+
+And he made it unmistakably plain that what he meant was:
+
+"Do you think I'm such a fool as to let you go? I'll see you damned
+first!"
+
+Thus it was that Pickersdyke, a disillusioned and a baffled man, stared
+out of the window with wrath and bitterness in his heart. For he wanted
+to go back to "the old troop"; he was obsessed with the idea almost to
+the exclusion of everything else. He craved for the old faces and the
+old familiar atmosphere as a drug-maniac craves for morphia. It was his
+right, he had earned it by nine months of drudgery--and who the devil,
+anyway, he felt, was this old fool to thwart him?
+
+Extravagant plans for vengeance flitted through his mind. Supposing he
+were to lose half a dozen wagons or thousands of rounds of howitzer
+ammunition, would his colonel get sent home? Not he--he'd blame his
+adjutant, and the latter would quite possibly be court-martialled.
+Should he hide all the colonel's clothes and only reveal their
+whereabouts when the application had been forwarded? Should he steal
+his whisky (without which it was doubtful if he could exist), put
+poison in his tea, or write an anonymous letter to headquarters accusing
+him of espionage? He sighed--ingenuity, his valuable ally on many a
+doubtful occasion, failed him now. Then it occurred to him to appeal to
+one Lorrison, who was the captain of his old battery, and whom he had
+known for years as one of his subalterns.
+
+     "DEAR LORRISON," he wrote,
+
+     "I've just had an interview with my old man and he won't agree
+     to my transfer. I'm afraid it's a wash-out unless something can
+     be done quickly, as I suppose Jordan will be promoted very
+     soon." (Jordan was the senior subaltern.) "You know how much I
+     want to get back in time for the big show. Can you do anything?
+     Sorry to trouble you, and now I must close.
+
+                                                 "Yours,
+                                                     "W. PICKERSDYKE."
+
+Then he summoned his servant. Gunner Scupham was an elderly individual
+with grey hair, a dignified deportment, and a countenance which
+suggested extreme honesty of soul but no intelligence whatsoever, which
+fact was of great assistance to him in the perpetration of his more
+complicated villainies. He had not been Pickersdyke's storeman for many
+years for nothing. His devotion was a by-word, but his familiarity was
+sometimes a little startling.
+
+"'E won't let us go," announced Pickersdyke.
+
+"Strafe the blighter!" replied Scupham, feelingly. "I'm proper fed up
+with this 'ere column job."
+
+"Get the office bike, take this note to Captain Lorrison, and bring back
+an answer. Here's a pass."
+
+Scupham departed, grumbling audibly. It meant a fifteen-mile ride, the
+day was warm, and he disliked physical exertion. He returned late that
+evening with the answer, which was as follows:--
+
+     "DEAR PICKERS,
+
+     "Curse your fool colonel. Jordan may go any day, and if we
+     don't get you we'll probably be stuck with some child who knows
+     nothing. Besides, we want you to come. The preliminary
+     bombardment is well under way, so there's not much time. Meet
+     me at the B.A.C.[13] headquarters to-morrow evening at eight
+     and we'll fix up something. In haste,
+
+                                                  "Yours ever,
+                                                       "T. LORRISON."
+
+[13] Brigade ammunition column.
+
+There are people who do not believe in luck. But if it was not luck
+which assisted Pickersdyke by producing the events which followed his
+receipt of that note, then it was Providence in a genial and most
+considerate mood. He spent a long time trying to think of a reasonable
+excuse for going to see Lorrison, but he might have saved himself the
+trouble. Some light-hearted fool had sent up shrapnel instead of high
+explosive to the very B.A.C. that Pickersdyke wanted to visit. Angry
+telephone messages were coming through, and the colonel at once sent his
+adjutant up to offer plausible explanations.
+
+Pickersdyke covered a lot of ground that afternoon. It was necessary to
+find an infuriated artillery brigadier and persuade him that the error
+was not likely to occur again, and was in any case not really the fault
+of the D.A.C. section commander. It was then necessary to find this
+latter and make it clear to him that he was without doubt the most
+incompetent officer in the Allied forces, and that the error was
+entirely due to his carelessness. And it was essential to arrange for
+forwarding what was required.
+
+Lorrison arrived punctually and evidently rather excited.
+
+"What price the news?" he said at once.
+
+Pickersdyke had heard none. He had been far too busy.
+
+"We're for it at last--going to bombard all night till 4.30 a.m.--every
+bally gun in the army as far as I can see. And we've got orders to be
+ready to move in close support of the infantry if they get through. _To
+move!_ Just think of that after all these months!"
+
+Pickersdyke swore as he had not done since he was a rough-riding
+bombardier.
+
+"And that's boxed _my_ chances," he ended up.
+
+"Wait a bit," said Lorrison. "There's a vacancy waiting for you if
+you'll take it. We got pretty badly 'crumped'[14] last night. The Boches
+put some big 'hows' and a couple of 'pip-squeak' batteries on to us just
+when we were replenishing. They smashed up several wagons and did a lot
+of damage. Poor old Jordan got the devil of a shaking--he was thrown
+about ten yards. Lucky not to be blown to bits, though. Anyway, he's
+been sent to hospital."
+
+[14] Shelled.
+
+He looked inquiringly at Pickersdyke. The latter's face portrayed an
+unholy joy.
+
+"Will I take his place?" he cried. "Lummy! I should think I would. Don't
+care what the colonel says afterwards. When can I join? Now?"
+
+"As soon as I've seen about getting some more wagons from the B.A.C.
+we'll go up together," answered Lorrison.
+
+Pickersdyke, who had no conscience whatever on occasions such as this,
+sent a message to his colonel to say that he was staying up for the
+night (he omitted to say precisely where!), as there would be much to
+arrange in the morning. To Scupham he wrote--
+
+"Collect all the kit you can and come up to the battery at once. _Say
+nothing._"
+
+He was perfectly aware that he was doing a wildly illegal thing. He felt
+like an escaped convict breathing the air of freedom and making for his
+home and family. Forty colonels would not have stopped him at that
+moment.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+II
+
+The major commanding the ----th Battery sat in his dug-out examining a
+large-scale trench map. His watch, carefully synchronised with those of
+the staff, lay on the table in front of him. Outside, his six guns were
+firing steadily, each concussion (and there were twelve a minute)
+shaking everything that was not a fixture in the little room. Hundreds
+of guns along miles of front and miles of depth were taking part in the
+most stupendous bombardment yet attempted by the army. From "Granny,"
+the enormous howitzer that fired six times an hour at a range of
+seventeen thousand yards, to machine-guns in the front line trenches,
+every available piece of ordnance was adding its quota to what
+constituted a veritable hell of noise.
+
+The major had been ordered to cut the wire entanglements between two
+given points and to stop firing at 4.30 a.m. precisely. He had no
+certain means of knowing whether he had completed his task or not. He
+only knew that his "lines of fire," his range, and his "height of burst"
+as previously registered in daylight were correct, that his layers could
+be depended upon, and that he had put about a thousand rounds of
+shrapnel into fifty yards of front. At 4.29 he rose and stood, watch in
+hand, in the doorway of his dug-out. A man with a megaphone waited at
+his elbow. The major, war-worn though he was, was still young enough in
+spirit to be thrilled by the mechanical regularity of his battery's
+fire. This perfection of drill was his work, the result of months and
+months of practice, of loving care, and of minute attention to detail.
+
+Dawn was beginning to creep into the sky, and he could just distinguish
+the silhouettes of the two right-hand guns. The flash as one of them
+fired revealed momentarily the figures of the gunners grouped round the
+breech like demons round some spectral engine of destruction. Precisely
+five seconds afterwards a second flash denoted that the next gun had
+fired--and so on in sequence from right to left until it was the turn of
+Number One again.
+
+"Stop!" said the major, when the minute hand of his watch was exactly
+over the half-hour.
+
+"Stop!" roared the man with the megaphone.
+
+It was as if the order had been heard all along the entire front. The
+bombardment ceased almost abruptly, and rifle and machine-gun fire
+became audible again. On a colossal scale the effect was that of the
+throttling down of a powerful motor-car whose engine had been allowed to
+race. Then, not many moments afterwards, from far away to the eastward
+there came faint, confused sounds of shouts and cheering. It was the
+infantry, the long-suffering, tenacious, wonderful infantry charging
+valiantly into the cold grey dawn along the avenues prepared by the
+guns.
+
+For Pickersdyke it had been a night of pure joy, unspoilt by any qualms
+of conscience. He had been welcomed at the battery as a kind of returned
+wanderer and given a section of guns at once. The major--who feared no
+man's wrath, least of all that of a dug-out D.A.C. commander--had
+promised to back him up if awkward questions were asked. Pickersdyke had
+only one cause for disappointment--the whole thing had gone too
+smoothly. He was bursting with technical knowledge, he could have
+repaired almost any breakdown, and had kept a keen look-out for all
+ordinary mistakes. But nothing went wrong and no mistakes were made. In
+this battery the liability of human error had been reduced to a
+negligible minimum. Pickersdyke had had nothing further to do than to
+pass orders and see that they were duly received. Nevertheless he had
+loved every moment of it, for he had come into his own--he was back in
+the old troop, taking part in a "big show." As he observed to the major
+whilst they were drinking hot coffee in the dug-out afterwards--
+
+"Even if I do get court-martialled for desertion, sir, that last little
+lot was worth it!"
+
+And he grinned as does a man well pleased with the success of his
+schemes. To complete his satisfaction, Scupham appeared soon afterwards
+bringing up a large bundle of kit and a few luxuries in the way of food.
+It transpired that he had presented himself to the last-joined subaltern
+of the D.A.C. and had bluffed that perplexed and inexperienced officer
+into turning out a cart to drive him as far as the battery wagon line,
+whence he had come up on an ammunition wagon.
+
+It was almost daylight when the battery opened fire again, taking its
+orders by telephone now from the F.O.O.,[15] who was in close touch with
+the infantry and could see what was happening. The rate of fire was slow
+at first; then it suddenly quickened, and the range was increased by a
+hundred yards. Some thirty shells went shrieking on their mission and
+then another fifty yards were added. The infantry was advancing
+steadily, and just as steadily, sixty or seventy yards in front of their
+line, the curtain of protecting shrapnel crept forward after the
+retiring enemy. At one point the attack was evidently held up for a
+while; the battery changed to high explosive and worked up to its
+maximum speed, causing Lorrison to telephone imploring messages for more
+and still more ammunition.
+
+[15] Forward observing officer.
+
+The long-expected order to advance, when at last it came, nearly broke
+the major's heart.
+
+"Send forward one section," it said, "in close support of the 2nd
+Battalion ----shire Regiment, to the advanced position previously
+prepared in J. 12."
+
+One section was only a third of his battery; he would have to stay
+behind, and he had been dreaming nightly of this dash forward with the
+infantry into the middle of things; he had had visions of that promised
+land, the open country beyond the German lines, of an end to siege
+warfare and a return to the varying excitement of a running fight. But
+orders were orders, so he sent for Pickersdyke.
+
+"I'm going to send you," he said, after showing him the order, "although
+you haven't seen the position before. But the other lad is too young for
+this job. Look here."
+
+He pointed out the exact route to be followed, showed him where bridges
+for crossing the trenches had been prepared, and explained everything in
+his usual lucid manner. Then he held out his hand.
+
+"Good-bye and good luck," he said. Their eyes met for a moment in a
+steady gaze of mutual esteem and affection. For they knew each other
+well, these two men--the gentleman born to lead and to inspire, and his
+ranker subordinate (a gentleman too in all that matters) highly trained,
+thoroughly efficient, utterly devoted....
+
+There was not a prouder man in the army than Pickersdyke at the moment
+when he led his section out from the battery position amid the cheers of
+those left behind. His luck, so he felt, was indeed amazing. He had
+about a mile to go along a road that was congested with troops and
+vehicles of all sorts. He blasphemed his way through (there is no other
+adequate means of expressing his progress) with his two guns and four
+wagons until he reached the point where he had to turn off to make for
+his new position. This latter had been carefully prepared beforehand by
+fatigue parties sent out from the battery at night. Gun-pits had been
+dug, access made easy, ranges and angles noted down in daylight by an
+officer left behind expressly for the purpose; and the whole had been
+neatly screened from aerial observation. It lay a few hundred yards
+behind what had been the advanced British trenches. But it was not a
+good place for guns; it was only one in which they might be put if, as
+now, circumstances demanded the taking of heavy risks.
+
+Pickersdyke halted his little command behind the remains of a spinney
+and went forward to reconnoitre. He was still half a mile from his goal,
+which lay on a gentle rise on the opposite side of a little valley.
+Allowing for rough ground and deviations from the direct route owing to
+the network of trenches which ran in all directions, he calculated that
+it would take him at least ten minutes to get across. Incidentally he
+noticed that quite a number of shells were falling in the area he was
+about to enter. For the first time he began to appreciate the exact
+nature of his task. He returned to the section and addressed his men
+thus--
+
+"Now, you chaps, it's good driving what's wanted here. We must get the
+guns there whatever happens--we'll let down the infantry else. Follow me
+and take it steady.... Terr-ot."
+
+The teams and carriages jingled and rattled along behind him as he led
+them forward. Smooth going, the signal to gallop, and a dash for it
+would have been his choice, but that was impossible. Constantly he was
+forced to slow down to a walk and dismount the detachments to haul on
+the drag-ropes. The manoeuvre developed into a kind of obstacle race,
+with death on every side. But his luck stood by him. He reached the
+position with the loss only of a gunner, two drivers, and a pair of lead
+horses.
+
+As soon as he got his guns into action and his teams away (all of which
+was done quietly, quickly, and without confusion--"as per book" as he
+expressed it) Pickersdyke crawled up a communication trench, followed by
+a telephonist laying a wire, until he reached a place where he could
+see. It was the first time that he had been so close up to the firing
+line, and he experienced the sensations of a man who looks down into the
+crater of a live volcano. Somewhere in the midst of the awful chaos in
+front of him was, if it still existed at all, the infantry battalion he
+was supposed to have been sent to support. But how to know where or when
+to shoot was altogether beyond him. He poked his glasses cautiously
+through a loophole and peered into the smoke in the vain hope of
+distinguishing friend from foe.
+
+"What the hell shall I do now?" he muttered. "Can't see no bloomin'
+target in this lot.... Crikey! yes, I can, though," he added. "Both guns
+two degrees more left, fuze two, eight hundred...." He rattled off his
+orders as if to the manner born. The telephonist, a man who had spent
+months in the society of forward observing officers, repeated word for
+word into his instrument, speaking as carefully as the operator in the
+public call office at Piccadilly Circus.
+
+The guns behind blazed and roared. A second afterwards two fleecy balls
+of white smoke, out of which there darted a tongue of flame, appeared in
+front of the solid grey wall of men which Pickersdyke had seen rise as
+if from the earth itself and surge forward. A strong enemy
+counter-attack was being launched, and he, with the luck of the tyro,
+had got his guns right on to it. Methodically he switched his fire up
+and down the line. Great gaps appeared in it, only to be quickly filled.
+It wavered, sagged, and then came on again. Back at the guns the
+detachments worked till the sweat streamed from them; their drill was
+perfect, their rate of fire the maximum. But the task was beyond their
+powers. Two guns were not enough. Nevertheless the rush, though not
+definitely stopped, had lost its full driving force. It reached the
+captured trenches (which the infantry had had no time to consolidate),
+it got to close quarters, but it did not break through. The wall of
+shrapnel had acted like a breakwater--the strength of the wave was spent
+ere it reached its mark--and like a wave it began to ebb back again. In
+pursuit, cheering, yelling, stabbing, mad with the terrible lust to kill
+and kill and kill, came crowds of khaki figures.
+
+Pickersdyke, who had stopped his fire to avoid hitting his own side and
+was watching the fight with an excitement such as he had never hoped to
+know, saw that the critical moment was past; the issue was decided, and
+his infantry were gaining ground again. He opened fire once more,
+lengthening his range so as to clear the _melee_ and yet hinder the
+arrival of hostile reserves, which was a principle he had learnt from a
+constant study of "the book."
+
+Suddenly there were four ear-splitting cracks over his head, and a
+shower of earth and stones rattled down off the parapet a few yards from
+him.
+
+"We're for it now," he exclaimed.
+
+He was. This first salvo was the prelude to a storm of shrapnel from
+some concealed German battery which had at last picked up the section's
+position. But Pickersdyke continued to support his advancing
+infantry....
+
+"Wire's cut, sir," said the telephonist, suddenly.
+
+It was fatal. It was the one thing Pickersdyke had prayed would not
+happen, for it meant the temporary silencing of his guns.
+
+"Mend it and let me know when you're through again," he ordered. "I'm
+going down to the section." And, stooping low, he raced back along the
+trench.
+
+At the guns it had been an unequal contest, and they had suffered
+heavily. The detachments were reduced to half their strength, and one
+wagon, which had received a direct hit, had been blown to pieces.
+
+"Stick it, boys," said Pickersdyke, after a quick look round. He saw
+that if he was to continue shooting it would be necessary to stand on
+the top of the remaining wagon in order to observe his fire. And he was
+determined to continue. He climbed up and found that the additional four
+feet or so which he gained in height just enabled him to see the burst
+of his shells. But he had no protection whatever.
+
+"Add a hundred, two rounds gun-fire," he shouted--and the guns flashed
+and banged in answer to his call. But it was a question of time only.
+Miraculously, for almost five minutes he remained where he was,
+untouched. Then, just as the telephonist reported "through" again the
+inevitable happened. An invisible hand, so it seemed to Pickersdyke,
+endowed with the strength of twenty blacksmiths, hit him a smashing blow
+with a red-hot sledge-hammer on the left shoulder. He collapsed on to
+the ground behind his wagon with the one word "_Hell!_" And then he
+fainted....
+
+At 8 p.m. that night the ----th Battery received orders to join up with
+its advanced section and occupy the position permanently. It was after
+nine when Lorrison, stumbling along a communication trench and beginning
+to think that he was lost, came upon the remnants of Pickersdyke's
+command. They were crouching in one of the gun-pits--a bombardier and
+three gunners, very cold and very miserable. Two of them were wounded.
+Lorrison questioned them hastily and learnt that Pickersdyke was at his
+observing station, that Scupham and the telephonist were with him, and
+that there were two more wounded men in the next pit.
+
+"The battery will be here soon," said Lorrison, cheerily, "and you'll
+all get fixed up. Meanwhile here's my flask and some sandwiches."
+
+"Beg pardon, sir," said the bombardier, "but Mr. Pickersdyke 'll need
+that flask. 'E's pretty bad, sir, I believe."
+
+Lorrison found Pickersdyke lying wrapped in some blankets which Scupham
+had fetched from the wagon, twisting from side to side and muttering a
+confused string of delirious phrases. "Fuze two--more _right_ I
+said--damn them, they're still advancing--what price the old ----th
+now?..." and then a groan and he began again.
+
+Scupham, in a husky whisper, was trying to soothe him. "Lie still for
+Gawd's sake and don't worry yourself," he implored.
+
+By the time Lorrison had examined the bandages on Pickersdyke's
+shoulder and administered morphia (without a supply of which he now
+never moved) the battery arrived, and with it some stretcher-bearers.
+Pickersdyke, just before he was carried off, recovered consciousness and
+recognised Lorrison, who was close beside him.
+
+"Hullo!" he said in a weak voice. "Nice box-up here, isn't it? But I
+reckon we got a bit of our own back 'fore we was knocked out. Tell the
+major the men were just grand. Oh! and before I forget, amongst my kit
+there's a few 'spares' I've collected; they might come in handy for the
+battery. I shan't be away long, I hope.... Wonder what the old colonel
+will say...." His voice trailed off into a drowsy murmur--the morphia
+had begun to take effect....
+
+Lorrison detained Scupham in order to glean more information.
+
+"After 'e got 'it, sir," said Scupham, "'e lay still for a bit, 'arf an
+hour pr'aps, and 'ardly seemed to know what was 'appening. Then 'e
+suddenly calls out: 'Is that there telephone workin' yet?' 'Yes, sir,' I
+says--and with that 'e made for to stand up, but 'e couldn't. So wot
+does 'e do then but makes me bloomin' well carry 'im up the trench to
+the observin' station. 'Now then, Scupham,' 'e says, 'prop me up by that
+loophole so I can see wot's comin' off.' And I 'ad to 'old 'im there
+pretty near all the afternoon while 'e kep' sending orders down the
+telephone and firing away like 'ell. We finished our ammunition about
+five o'clock, and then 'e lay down where 'e was to rest for a bit. 'Ow
+'e'd stuck it all that time with a wound like that Gawd only knows. 'E
+went queer in 'is 'ead soon after and we thought 'e was a goner--and
+then nothin' much 'appened till you came up, sir, 'cept that we was
+gettin' a tidy few shells round about. D'you reckon 'e'll get orl right,
+sir?"
+
+It was evident that the unemotional Scupham was consumed with anxiety.
+
+"Oh! he _must_!" cried Lorrison. "It would be too cruel if he didn't
+pull through after all he's done. He's a _man_ if ever there was one."
+
+"And that's a fact," said Scupham, preparing to follow his idol to the
+dressing station. As he moved away Lorrison heard him mutter--
+
+"There ain't no one on Gawd's earth like old Pickers--fancy 'im
+rememberin' them there 'spares.' 'Strewth! 'e _is_ a one!" Which was a
+very high compliment indeed....
+
+Official correspondence, even when it is marked "Pressing and
+Confidential" in red ink and enclosed in a sealed envelope, takes a
+considerable time to pass through the official channels and come back
+again. It was some days before the colonel commanding a certain
+divisional ammunition column received an answer to his report upon the
+inexplicable absence of his adjutant. He was a vindictive man, who felt
+that he had been left in the lurch, and he had taken pains to draft a
+letter which would emphasise the shortcomings of his subordinate. The
+answer, when it did come, positively shocked him. It was as follows:--
+
+     "With reference to your report upon the absence without leave
+     of Second Lieutenant Pickersdyke, the Major-General Commanding
+     directs me to say that as this officer was severely wounded on
+     September 25 whilst commanding a section of the ----th Battery
+     R.F.A. with conspicuous courage and ability, for which he has
+     been specially recommended for distinction by the G.O.C.R.A.,
+     and as he is now in hospital in England, no further action will
+     be taken in the matter."
+
+To be snubbed by the Staff because he had reported upon the scandalous
+conduct of a mere "ranker" was not at all the colonel's idea of the
+fitness of things. His fury, which vented itself chiefly upon his office
+clerk, would have been greater still if he could have seen his late
+adjutant comfortably ensconced in a cosy ward in one of the largest
+houses of fashionable London, waited upon by ladies of title, and
+showing an admiring circle of relations the jagged piece of steel which
+a very famous surgeon had extracted from his shoulder free of charge!
+
+For, in spite of his colonel, the progress of Pickersdyke on the chosen
+path of his ambition was now quite definitely assured.
+
+
+
+
+SNATTY
+
+    "This 'appened in a battle to a batt'ry of the corps
+    Which is first among the women an' amazin' first in war."
+                                                  --KIPLING.
+
+
+I
+
+Driver Joseph Snatt, K3 Battery, R.H.A., slouched across the
+barrack-square on his way to the stables. Having just received a severe
+punishment for the heinous crime of ill-treating a horse, in spite of
+his plausible excuse that he had been bitten and had lost his temper,
+Snatty, as he was always called, felt much aggrieved.
+
+"'Orses," he thought to himself, "is everything in this 'ere bloomin'
+batt'ry--men's nothing."
+
+Nor, in his own particular case, was he far wrong. For the horses of K3
+were certainly quite wonderful, and Snatty was undoubtedly a "waster."
+His death or his desertion would have been a small matter compared with
+the spoiling of one equine temper.
+
+The officers disliked him because he was an eyesore to them; the
+N.C.O.'s hated him because he gave them endless trouble; and the men had
+shown their distrust of his personal cleanliness by ducking him in a
+horse-trough more than once. Driver Snatt felt that every man's hand was
+against him, and since he possessed neither the will power nor the
+desire to overcome his delinquencies by a little honest toil, he not
+infrequently drowned his sorrows in large potations of canteen beer. In
+person he was small and rather shrivelled looking--old for his age
+unquestionably. A nervous manner and a slight stammer in the presence of
+his superiors, combined with a shifty eye at all times, served to
+enhance the unpleasing effect which he produced on all who knew him.
+There was but one thing to be said for him--he could ride. Before
+enlisting he had been in a training stable, but had been dismissed for
+drink or worse. On foot he lounged about with rounded shoulders and
+uneven steps, always untidy and often dirty. But once upon a horse, the
+puny, awkward figure that was the despair of N.C.O.'s and officers
+alike, became graceful, supple, almost beautiful. The firm, easy seat
+that swayed to every motion, the hands that coaxed even the hard-mouthed
+gun-horses into going kindly, betrayed the horseman born. Snatty might
+kick his horses in the stomach; he would never jerk them in the mouth.
+
+At the conclusion of the midday stable-hour Snatt was summoned before
+his section officer, one Briddlington by name, more frequently known as
+"Biddie," and thus addressed--
+
+"Now, look here: you've made a dam' poor show so far, and this is your
+last chance. If you don't take it, God help you, for I won't. See?"
+
+Snatt stared at his boot, swallowed twice, and then fixed his gaze on
+some distant point above the opposite stable.
+
+"Ye-es, sir," he said huskily.
+
+"Very well. Now you've never had a job of your own, and I'm going to try
+you with one. You'll take over the wheel of A subsection gun team
+to-day, and have those two remounts to drive. I shall give you a
+fortnight's trial. If I see you're trying, I'll do all I can for you.
+Otherwise--out you go. Understand that?"
+
+Again the deep interest in the distant point, but this time there was a
+trace of surprise in the faintly uttered, "Yes, sir."
+
+Snatty saluted and retired, wondering greatly. The wheel-driver of a gun
+team is an important personage: he occupies a coveted position attained
+only by those who combine skill, nerve, and horsemanship with the
+ability to tend a pair of horses as they would their own children, and
+to clean a double set of harness better than their fellows. Snatty at
+first was resentful: "'E's put me there to make a fool of me, I s'pose.
+All right, I'll show 'im up. I can drive as well as any of them." Then
+he experienced a feeling of pleasurable anticipation. As it so happened
+he detested the driver whose place he was to take, and he looked forward
+with satisfaction to witnessing the fury of that worthy when ordered to
+"hand over" to the despised waster of the battery. He was not
+grateful--that was not his nature--nor was he proud of having been
+selected. He was on the defensive, determined to show that, given a
+definite position with duties and responsibilities of his own, he could
+do very well--if he chose. Which was precisely the frame of mind into
+which his thoughtful subaltern had hoped to lure him.
+
+In the barrack-room Snatty met with much abuse. In a battery which
+prides itself enormously on its horses, any ill-treatment of them is not
+left unnoticed. Barrack-room invective does not take the form of
+delicate sarcasm: on the contrary, it is coarse and directly to the
+point. The culprit sat upon his bed-cot and sulked in silence, until a
+carroty-headed driver, sitting on the table with his hat on the back of
+his head, remarked--
+
+"I see ole Biddie givin' you a proper chokin' off after stables."
+
+The chance for which Snatty had waited very patiently had come, and he
+retorted quickly--
+
+"Oh! did yer? Well, p'raps you'll be glad to 'ear that 'e 'as given me
+your 'orses and the wheel of A sub., says you're no ---- use, 'e does!"
+
+Howls of derision greeted this sally, and Snatty relapsed into silence.
+But that evening he whistled softly to himself as he led his new horses
+out to water and watched his red-headed enemy, deprived of his
+legitimate occupation, put to the unpleasant task of "mucking out" the
+stable. The day, so Snatty felt, had not been wasted.
+
+
+II
+
+From that time dated the conversion of Driver Joseph Snatt. The change
+was necessarily gradual, for no man can reform in a week: the habits
+inculcated by years of idleness cannot be cast aside in a moment, nor
+can the doubts and suspicions clinging to an untrustworthy character be
+dispersed by one day's genuine work. But still a change for the better
+was evident. The comments of the barrack-room were free but not
+unfriendly, for Snatty was beginning to find his true level after his
+own peculiar fashion. Briddlington, too, did not fail to notice the
+success of his experiment. Whilst inclined to boast of it in a laughing
+way to his brother officers, he had the good sense to overlook many
+trivial offences and to make much of anything that he could find to
+praise. What pleased him most of all was Snatty's behaviour to his
+horses. Dirty he still was upon occasions, and scarcely as smart as most
+drivers of the battery; nor was he always quite devoid of drink, but to
+his horses from that first day onwards he became a devoted, faithful
+slave. They were a pair of which any man might well have been proud.
+Both were bright bays, well matched in colour and in size. In shape they
+were almost the ideal stamp of artillery wheeler, which is tantamount to
+saying that they might have graced the stud of any hunting gentleman of
+fifteen stone or thereabouts. Snatty's pride in them was almost
+ludicrous. A word said against them would put him up in arms at once,
+and when Territorials borrowed the battery horses for their training on
+Saturday afternoons his indignation knew no bounds.
+
+"'Ow can I keep me 'orses fit," he used to say, "if a bloomin' bank
+clerk goes drivin' 'em at a stretched gallop the 'ole o' Saturday?
+Proper dis'eartenin', that's wot it is." And this in spite of the fact
+that he was allowed a shilling for his trouble. The villainies that he
+perpetrated for their wellbeing, if discovered, would have given him
+small chance before a stern commanding officer. He stole oats from the
+forage barn, bread and sugar from his barrack-room, and even the feeds
+from the next manger. Snatty's moral sense, as we have seen, was not a
+very high one. But pricked ears and gentle whinnies as he approached,
+and velvety muzzles pushed into his roughened hand, betrayed the effect
+of many a purloined dainty, and amply compensated for any qualms which a
+guilty but belated conscience may have given him. Not that he was
+particularly caressing in his manner. He would growl at each one as he
+groomed him, or scold him as one does a naughty child, and his "Naow
+_then_, stand still, will yer, Dawn?" was well known during stable-hour.
+Who it was who had first called the off horse Dawn was never quite
+clear, but Snatty in a fit of poetic inspiration had christened the
+other Daylight. Dawn was difficult to shoe, so difficult indeed that his
+driver's presence was required in the forge to keep him still. And when
+Snatty went on furlough for a month both horses began to lose condition.
+
+The years went by, and Snatty soldiered on, winter and summer, drill
+season and leave season, content to drive the wheel of A and drink a bit
+too much on Saturdays. But in that time he had become a man--not a
+strong, determined man, certainly not a refined one, but for all that a
+man. To Briddlington, who had raised him from the mental slough in which
+he had lain to all appearances content, he at no time betrayed a sense
+of gratitude. On the contrary, the position of a privileged person of
+some standing which he had gained he attributed largely to his own
+cunning in deceiving his superiors combined with his consummate skill
+with horses. But still he had learnt his job, and was fulfilling his
+destiny to more purpose than many better men. Moreover he was happy.
+Crooning softly as he polished straps and buckles in the harness-room,
+with a skill and speed born of long practice, he was contented, and was
+vaguely conscious that the world was not a bad place after all. An
+officer who knew him well once said--
+
+"I wouldn't trust him to carry a bottle of whisky half a mile, but I'd
+send him across England with a pair of horses--by himself. And as to
+driving--well, I don't know about the needle and the camel's eye, but I
+know that Snatty would drive blind drunk along the narrow road to Heaven
+and never let his axles touch!" For two years in succession the battery
+won the galloping competition at Olympia, with Snatty in the wheel. And
+over rough ground, moving fast, he was unequalled.
+
+When his time was up and Snatty had to go, there was never, perhaps, a
+time-expired man who was so hard put to it to assume a joy at leaving
+which he did not feel. Of course, like other men, he swaggered about
+saying that he was glad to be "shut of" the army; that he had got a nice
+little place to step into where there wasn't any "Do this" and "Do that"
+and "Why the deuce haven't you done what I told you?" But in his heart
+he was more affected than he had ever been before.
+
+"Wot about yer 'orses, Snatty?" some one asked him; "who's going to 'ave
+them when you're gorn?"
+
+"'Ow should I know?" he answered, rather nettled.
+
+"Nobbler Parsons, so I 'eard. 'E'll soon spoil 'em, I bet yer."
+
+Then was Snatty very wroth, and he replied--
+
+"You leave me and my 'orses alone, or you'll be for it, I warn yer,"
+thereby revealing his inmost feelings most effectually.
+
+On the eve of his departure he was treated by his friends till he grew
+almost maudlin. Then he slipped away "just to say good-bye to 'em," and
+even that hardened assembly of "canteen regulars" forbore to scoff. He
+was found when the battery came down to evening stables, a pathetic
+figure, in his ill-fitting suit of plain clothes, standing between his
+beloved pair, an arm round the neck of one, his pockets full of sugar,
+and tears of drink and genuine grief trickling down his unwashed cheeks.
+
+"Six bloomin' years I've 'ad yer," they heard him say. "Six bloomin'
+years, and no one's ever said a word against yer that I 'aven't knocked
+the 'ead of. P'rades and manoeuvres, practice camp and ceremonial,
+there's nothin' I can't do wiv yer and ... and, Gawd, I wish I wasn't
+leavin' yer now to some other bloke." Then they led him gently away, and
+on the morrow he was gone. For a week he was missed; in a month he was
+forgotten. Only Daylight and Dawn still fretted for him, and turned
+round in their stalls with anxious, wistful eyes.
+
+For six months Snatty struggled to keep body and soul together, living
+upon his reserve pay and upon such small sums as he could pick up by
+doing odd jobs in livery stables. But the self-respect which he had won
+so hardly slipped away from him, and he sank slowly in the social scale.
+The lot of the ex-soldier whose character is "fair," and whose record of
+sobriety leaves much to be desired, is not a happy one. Snatty was in
+rags and well-nigh starving. Small wonder, then, that one day the
+blandishments of an eloquent recruiting sergeant proved too much for his
+resistance and that he succumbed to the temptations thrust upon him by
+the great god Hunger. Manfully he perjured himself when brought before
+the magistrate. His name was Henry Morgan, his age twenty-three years
+and five months, and he had never served before, so help him God. All
+false--but Snatty wished to live.
+
+He asked to be put into the infantry, fearing that his knowledge of the
+ways of troop stables would betray him if he joined a mounted branch.
+The penalties attached to a "false answer on attestation" were heavy, as
+he knew, and he would take no chances. In due course, therefore, he
+found himself posted to a crack light infantry regiment, and his
+troubles soon began. To be marched about a barrack-square followed by
+shouts of objurgation was bad enough: to be pestered with the
+intricacies of musketry was worse: but what galled him most of all was
+to have to walk. He loathed the life. This was not the world of
+soldiering that he had known and loved. His soul hungered for the rattle
+of log-chains and the jingle of harness; the smell of the stable still
+lingered in his nostrils. Moreover, he was in constant trouble, for
+desperation made him reckless. Those who had known him in the battery
+would scarcely have recognised in the sullen ne'er-do-well whom men
+called Morgan, the cheerful Snatty of a former time. He had just passed
+his recruit drills (with difficulty be it said) and taken his place in
+the ranks, when the war which wise men had predicted as inevitable was
+forced upon the nation with disconcerting suddenness. The regiment was
+ordered out on service, and with it, amongst nine hundred other souls,
+went Private Henry Morgan, _alias_ Snatty.
+
+
+III
+
+A hot sun beating down from a cloudless sky upon a land parched and
+dusty from a lengthened drought; miles upon miles of rolling downs,
+which once were green but which the driest summer for many years has
+baked into a dirty yellow; here and there an oasis consisting of a copse
+of fir-trees, farmstead, and a field or two of pasture marking the
+presence of a kindly stream: a landscape in short so typical of hundreds
+of square miles of this particular region that ordinarily it would fail
+to interest. But to-day the peace of the country side is disturbed by
+the boom of guns and the rattle of musketry. Two mighty armies are at
+grips at last, and in the space between them hovers Death.
+
+Upon a little rise commanding a good view of the surrounding country
+there is a long line of khaki figures lying prone behind a scanty
+earth-work. These are infantry, and shaken infantry at that; shaken
+because they have marched all night and stormed that hill at dawn with
+fearful loss, because they are weak from hunger and parched with thirst,
+and because they feel in their hearts that the end is near. Relief must
+come, or one determined rush will drive them back to ruin. Shells burst
+over them with whip-like crack, rifle fire tears through their ranks,
+and sometimes a harsh scream followed by a deafening report and clouds
+of acrid smoke marks the advent of a high-explosive shell.
+
+A much harassed brigadier sat behind a rock near the telephone awaiting
+the answer to his urgent demand for guns. It came sooner than he
+expected it, and took the tangible shape of a little group of horsemen
+which appeared on the hill some way to his right. There was a quick
+consultation as glasses swept the front. Then the horses were led away
+under cover and the range-takers began operations. The brigadier
+recognised the signs and gained fresh hope as he saw that his prayer was
+answered. At the far end of the line Private Morgan, busily engaged in
+excavating a hole for himself by means of an entrenching tool much
+resembling a short-handled garden hoe, looked up quickly as he heard a
+well-known voice say--
+
+"All right, Biddie, I'll observe from here. Bring 'em in quick."
+
+"Strewth!" muttered Snatty to himself, "it's the major. So the old
+troop's comin' into action 'ere."
+
+For weeks he had scanned every battery that had been near him, hoping
+to meet his own. But Horse Artillery act with cavalry and work far ahead
+of the toiling infantry in rear, so that it was not till now, when a
+pitched battle was in progress, when the advanced cavalry had come in
+and every available gun was being utilised, that Fate permitted Snatty
+to see his old battery once more. Looking over his shoulder, he said--
+
+"It's all right now, sergeant. There's some guns coming."
+
+"You shut yer mouth and get on with yer work," was the rejoinder, "Wot
+do you know about guns, I'd like to know?"
+
+"Oh, nothink! But you watch 'em, that's all," said Private Morgan, with
+an ill-suppressed gleam of pride, which made the sergeant wonder.
+
+The line of six guns, each with its wagon behind it, thundered up the
+rise. There was a shrill whistle, and a hand held up. Then the hoarse
+voices of the sergeants shouted, "Action front," and the wheelers were
+thrown into the breeching, almost sitting on their haunches to stop the
+weight behind them: the gunners leapt from their horses and sprang to
+the gun: a second's pause, then, "Drive on," and six limbers went
+rattling away to the rear as six trails were flung round half a circle
+and dropped with a thud. Hardly were they down before each gun had its
+wagon up beside it and the horses unhooked. They too galloped to the
+rear. In ten seconds there was not a sign of movement. The battery was
+there, and that was all.
+
+Of the weary infantry who lay and watched there was one at least who
+could appreciate the merit of the performance.
+
+"Couldn't ha' been better in the old days on Salisbury Plain," was his
+comment. "But, Gawd! the 'orses 'ave fell away proper. Skeletons, that's
+wot they are now."
+
+But Private Morgan's soliloquy was again cut short by the remorseless
+sergeant behind him.
+
+A few curt orders passed rapidly down the battery, then came two sharp
+reports, followed by the click of the reopened breech, as the ranging
+rounds went singing on their journey. A spurt of brown earth showed for
+a second in front of that thick black line a mile or more away, another
+showed behind.
+
+"Graze short--graze over," said the major, still staring through his
+glasses. "Eighteen hundred, one round gun fire."
+
+The order was repeated by a man standing behind him with a megaphone,
+and followed almost instantaneously by a round from every gun. Some
+puffs of smoke above the target, the echo of the bursting shell borne
+back along the breeze, and then for perhaps a minute all Hell might have
+been let loose, such was the uproar as every gun was worked at lightning
+speed. A whistle--and in a moment all was still again.
+
+"Target down--stop firing," was the laconic order. "But," added the
+major, softly, "I think that sickened 'em a bit."
+
+The attacking infantry had dropped down under cover, but not for long.
+Nearer and nearer pressed the relentless lines, sometimes pausing a
+while, or even dropping back, but always, like the waves of the incoming
+tide, gaining fresh ground at every rush. The end was very near now, and
+the bitterness of defeat entered into the defenders' hearts. For they
+did not know that the struggle for this particular hill, though of vital
+importance to themselves, was merely serving the subsidiary purpose of
+diverting attention while greater issues matured elsewhere. They only
+knew that ammunition was scarce, that they wanted water, and that now at
+last the order to retire had come. They got away in driblets, slowly,
+very slowly, until at last nothing was left upon the hillside but a
+handful of infantry, the battery, and the dead and wounded. The
+riflemen crawled closer to the guns, feeling somehow that there was
+solace in their steady booming. The major looked at his watch, and then
+at the attacking lines in front of him.
+
+"In ten minutes we'll have to get out of this," he said, "bring the
+horses up close behind us under cover." The minutes passed and the net
+around them drew closer.
+
+"Prepare to retire--rear limber up."
+
+The few remaining infantry emptied their magazines and crept off down
+the hill. The guns fired their last few rounds as the teams came
+jingling up. Their arrival was the signal for a fresh outburst of fire.
+The few moments required for limbering up seemed a lifetime as men fell
+fast and horses mad with terror broke loose and dashed away. But years
+of stern discipline and careful training stood the battery in good stead
+now. The principle of "Abandon be damned: we never abandon guns," was
+not forgotten. Through the shouting, the curses, and the dust, the work
+went on. Dead horses were cut free and pulled aside, gunners took the
+place of fallen drivers, and at last five guns were got away. The sixth
+was in great difficulties. The maddened horses backed in every direction
+but the right one, and the panting gunners strove in vain to drop the
+trail upon the limber-hook. Beside the team stood Briddlington, trying
+to soothe the horses and steadying the men in the calm, cool voice that
+he habitually used upon parade.
+
+Then suddenly from behind a rock there crawled out a strange figure.
+Filthy beyond words, hatless, with an inch of scrubby beard, and one
+foot bound up in blood-stained rags, this apparition limped painfully
+towards the gun--
+
+"Naow then!" a husky voice exclaimed, "stand still, will yer, Dawn?"
+
+"By God! it's Snatty," cried Briddlington, and as he spoke the driver of
+Snatty's horses gave a little grunt and pitched off on to the ground.
+Without a word the erstwhile private of infantry stooped and took the
+whip from the dead man's hand. He patted each horse in turn, then
+climbed into the saddle.
+
+"Steady now--get back, will yer?" he growled, and they obeyed him
+quietly enough. The men behind gave a heave at the gun and a click
+denoted that the trail was on its hook.
+
+"Drive on," cried Snatty, flourishing his whip, and down the hill they
+went full gallop.
+
+Safety lay not in the way that they had come, but further to their
+left, where the ground was bad. At the bottom of the hill there was a
+low bank with a ditch in front of it, and just before they reached it
+the centre driver received a bullet in the head and dropped down like a
+stone. There was no time to pull up. The lead driver took his horses
+hard by the head and put them at the bank. They jumped all right, but
+the pair behind them, deprived of a guiding hand upon the reins, saw the
+ditch at the last moment and swerved.
+
+"My Gawd!" said Snatty, sitting back for the crash he knew would follow.
+The traces and the pace had dragged the centre horses over in spite of
+their swerve, but one of them stumbled as he landed. He staggered
+forward, and before he could recover Snatty's horses and the gun were
+upon him in a whirling mass of legs and straps and wheels. Briddlington,
+who had been riding beside the team, leapt to the ground and ran to the
+fallen horses.
+
+"Sit on their heads," he cried. "Undo the quick release your side. Now
+then, together--heave." There was a rattle of hoofs against the
+footboard as Daylight rolled over kicking wildly to get free.
+Briddlington, at the risk of his life, leant over and pulled frantically
+at a strap. The two ends flew apart and the snorting horses struggled
+to their feet, but Snatty lay very still and deathly white upon the
+ground.
+
+"Don't stand gaping. Hook in again--quick. We're not clear away yet by a
+long chalk," said Briddlington. Then he bent down and putting his arms
+round Snatty's crumpled figure lifted him very tenderly aside. "Lie
+still now," he said with a catch in his voice as he saw that the case
+was hopeless, "and you'll be all right." But those flashing hoofs and
+steel-tyred wheels had done their work. Snatty's last drive was over.
+
+"It warn't their fault. I should 'ave 'eld them up," was all he said
+before he died.
+
+The gun rejoined the battery safely, and defeat was turned to victory
+ere nightfall, but Private Henry Morgan was returned as "missing" from
+his regiment.
+
+
+IV
+
+To this day, on the anniversary of the battle, in the mess of K3
+Battery, R.H.A., it is the custom, when the King's health has been
+drunk, for the President to say----
+
+"Mr. Vice, to the memory of the man who brought away the last gun." And
+the Vice-president answers, "Gentlemen, to Driver Snatt."
+
+Then the curious visitor is shown a large oil painting of a pair of
+bright bay horses with a little wizened driver riding one of them.
+
+"That's Snatty," they will say, "a drunken scoundrel if you like, but he
+loved those horses, and he used to drive like hell."
+
+
+
+
+FIVE-FOUR-EIGHT
+
+
+I
+
+Rain! pitiless, incessant, drenching rain, that seemed to ooze and
+trickle and soak into every nook and cranny in the world, beat down upon
+the already sodden ground and formed great pools of water in every
+hollow. Fires blazed and flickered at intervals, revealing within the
+glowing circles of their light the huddled forms of weary soldiers; and
+all the myriad sounds of a huge camp blended imperceptibly with the
+raindrops' steady patter.
+
+According to orders the ----th Division had concentrated upon the main
+army for the impending battle. At dawn that day its leading battalion
+had swung out of camp to face the storm and the mud; not until dusk had
+the last unit dropped exhausted into its bivouac. For fourteen hours the
+troops had groped their way along the boggy roads: and they had marched
+but one-and-twenty miles. Incredibly slow! incredibly wearisome! But
+they had effected the purpose of their chief. They had arrived in time.
+
+The headquarters of the divisional artillery had been established in a
+ramshackle old barn at one corner of the field in which the batteries
+were camped. Within its shelter the General and his staff of three
+crouched over a small fire. The roof leaked, the floor was wet and
+indescribably filthy; their seats were saddles, and their only light a
+guttering candle. But to those four tired men, the little fire, the
+dirty barn, the thought of food and sleep, seemed heaven.
+
+Brigadier-General Maudeslay, known to his irreverent but affectionate
+subordinates as "the Maud," was a fat little man of fifty, who owed his
+present rank largely to his steady adherence to principles of sound
+common-sense. For theoretical knowledge he depended, so he frankly
+declared, upon the two staff officers with whom he was supplied.
+Nevertheless, those who knew him well agreed that in quickness to grasp
+the salient points of any given situation and in accuracy of decision he
+had few superiors. It was his habit, when pondering on his line of
+action, to walk round in a circle, his hands behind his back, humming
+softly to himself. Then, swiftly and with conscious certainty, he would
+act. And he was seldom wrong.
+
+At the moment, however, his thoughts were not concerned with tactics but
+with food. For some time he sat before the fire in silence, then
+suddenly exclaimed----
+
+"Thank the Lord! I hear the baggage coming in. Go and hurry it up,
+Tony."
+
+Tony, whose rarely used surname was Quarme, was an artillery subaltern
+of seven years' service, attached to the General's staff as personal
+A.D.C. On him devolved the irksome task of catering for the headquarter
+mess. It was his principal, though not his only function: and, owing to
+scarcity of provisions, a daily change of camp, and a General who took
+considerable interest in the quality of his food, it was a duty which
+often taxed his temper and his ingenuity to the utmost.
+
+He got up, wriggled himself into his clammy waterproof, and splashed out
+into the mud and darkness.
+
+"Tony," observed the General to his Brigade-Major, "is not such a
+failure at this job as you predicted."
+
+"He's astonished me so far, I must confess," was the reply. "I always
+thought him rather a lazy young gentleman, with no tastes for anything
+beyond horses and hunting."
+
+"My dear Hartley, he was lazy because he was bored." The General, being
+devoted to hunting himself, spoke a little testily. "Peace soldiering,"
+he went on, "_is_ apt to bore sometimes. Tony is not what _you'd_ call a
+professional soldier. His military interests are strictly confined to
+the reputation of his battery, and to his own ability to command two
+guns in action. Naturally he was pleased when I appointed him A.D.C. The
+part of the year's work which interested him, practice camp and so on,
+was over. In place of the tedium of manoeuvres as a regimental
+subaltern, he foresaw a novel and more or less amusing occupation on my
+staff for the rest of the summer, and he knew that he would go back to
+his own station in the autumn in time for the hunting season. But he did
+not reckon on the possibility of war, and therefore he is now
+dissatisfied. I know it as well as if he'd told me so himself."
+
+"How do you mean, sir?"
+
+"Oh! he doesn't dislike the job: I don't mean that. But he can't help
+feeling that he's been sold. I can almost hear him saying to himself,
+'Here have I struggled through seven years' soldierin' thinking always
+that some day I should be loosed upon a battle-field with a pair of guns
+and a good fat target of advancing infantry. And now that the time _has_
+come, I'm stuck with this rotten staff job.'"
+
+"By Jove!" said the other, "I never thought of that."
+
+"No, Hartley, you wouldn't. In your case the 'gunner' instinct has been
+obliterated by that of the staff officer. The guns have lost their
+fascination for you. Isn't that so?"
+
+"In a way, yes."
+
+"Well, in some men--and Tony happens to be one of them--that fascination
+lasts as long as life itself. Often enough in ordinary times it lies
+dormant. But as soon as war comes it shows itself at once in the mad
+rush made by officers to get back to batteries--that is, to go on
+service _with the guns_. It is the curse of our regiment in some ways:
+many potential generals abandon their ambitions because of it. But it's
+also our salvation."
+
+He relapsed into silence, staring into the fire. Perhaps he, too,
+regretted for the moment that he was a General, and wished that, instead
+of thirteen batteries, he commanded only one.
+
+Meanwhile the subject of their discussion had succeeded in finding the
+headquarters' baggage wagon. Ignoring the protests of infuriated
+transport officers who were endeavouring to direct more than two hundred
+vehicles to their destinations, he had lured it out of the chaos and
+guided it to its appointed place. As the wagon came to a standstill
+outside the barn the tarpaulin was raised at the back and the vast
+proportions of the gunner who combined the duties of servant to Tony and
+cook to the mess slowly emerged.
+
+From his right hand dangled a shapeless, flabby mass.
+
+"What the devil have you got there, Tebbut?" demanded Tony.
+
+"Ducks, sir," was the unexpected reply. "We was 'alted near a farm-'ouse
+to-day, so I took the chanst to buy some milk and butter. While the chap
+was away fetchin' the stuff, I pinched these 'ere ducks. Fat they are,
+too!"
+
+He spoke in the matter-of-fact tones of one to whom the theft of a pair
+of ducks, and the feat of plucking them within the narrow confines of a
+packed G.S. wagon, was no uncommon experience.
+
+"Well, look sharp and cook 'em. We're hungry," said Tony.
+
+He stayed until he saw that the dinner was well under way, and then
+floundered off through the mud to see his horses. Of these he was
+allowed by regulations three, but one, hastily purchased during the
+mobilisation period by an almost distracted remount officer, had already
+succumbed to the effects of overwork and underfeeding. There remained
+the charger which he had had with his battery in peace time, and which
+he now used for all ordinary work--and Dignity.
+
+The latter was well named. He was a big brown horse, very nearly
+thoroughbred--a perfect hunter and a perfect gentleman. Tony had bought
+him as a four-year-old at a price that was really far beyond his means,
+and had trained him himself. He used openly to boast that Dignity had
+taken to jumping as a duck takes to water, and that he had never been
+known to turn from a fence. In the course of four seasons, the fastest
+burst, the heaviest ground, the longest hunt had never been too much for
+him. Always he would gallop calmly on, apparently invincible. His owner
+almost worshipped him.
+
+Horse rugs are not part of the field service equipment of an officer.
+But to the discerning (and unscrupulous) few there is a way round
+almost every regulation. Dignity had three rugs, and his legs were
+swathed in warm flannel bandages. As he stood there on the leeward side
+of a fence busily searching the bottom of his nosebag for the last few
+oats of his meagre ration, he was probably the most comfortable animal
+of all the thousands in the camp.
+
+Tony spent some time examining his own and the General's horses, and
+giving out the orders for the morning to the grooms. By the time he got
+back to the barn it was past ten, and Tebbut was just solemnly
+announcing "dinner" as being served.
+
+"The Maud" eyed the dish of steaming ducks with evident approval, but
+avoided asking questions. Loot had been very strictly forbidden.
+
+"We ought by rights to have apple sauce with these," he said, drawing
+his saddle close up to the deal low table and giving vent to a sigh of
+expectancy.
+
+"Hi've got some 'ere, sir," responded the resourceful Tebbut. "There was
+a horchard near the road to-day."
+
+He produced, as he spoke, a battered tin which, from the inscription on
+its label, had once contained "selected peaches." It was now more than
+half full of a concoction which bore a passable resemblance to apple
+sauce.
+
+For half an hour conversation languished. They had eaten nothing but a
+sandwich since early morning, and the demands of appetite were more
+exacting than their interest in the programme for the morrow.
+
+But as soon as Tebbut, always a stickler for the usages of polite
+society, had brushed away the crumbs with a dirty dish-cloth and handed
+round pint mugs containing coffee, Hartley unrolled a map, and, under
+instructions from the General, began to prepare the orders.
+
+As a result of a reconnaissance in force that day the enemy's advanced
+troops had been driven in, and the extent of his real position more or
+less accurately defined. The decisive attack, of which the ----th Division
+was to form a part, was to be directed against the left. Barring the way
+on this flank, however, was a hill marked on the map as Point 548, which
+was situate about two miles in front of the main hostile position. The
+enemy had not yet been dislodged from this salient, but a brigade of
+infantry had been detailed to assault it that night. In the event of
+success a battery was to be sent forward to occupy it at dawn, after
+which the main attack would begin. General Maudeslay had been ordered
+to provide this battery.
+
+"Don't put anything in orders about it, though, Hartley," he said. "It
+will have to be one from the ----th Brigade, which has suffered least so
+far. I'll send separate confidential instructions to the Colonel. Get an
+orderly, will you, Tony?"
+
+"I'll take the message myself, sir, if I may," suggested the A.D.C.
+"It's my own brigade, and I'd like to look them up."
+
+"All right; only don't forget to come back," said the General, smiling.
+
+Tony pocketed the envelope and peered out into the night. The rain had
+ceased and the sky was clear. Far away to right and left the bivouac
+fires glimmered like reflections of the starry heavens. The troops, worn
+out with the hardships of the day, had fallen asleep and the camp was
+silent. Only the occasional whinny of a horse, the challenge of a
+sentry, or the distant rumbling of benighted transport broke the
+stillness.
+
+Tony's way led through the lines of the various batteries. The horses
+stood in rows, tied by their heads to long ropes stretched between the
+ammunition wagons. Fetlock-deep in liquid mud, without rugs, wet and
+underfed, they hung their heads dejectedly--a silent protest against the
+tyranny of war.
+
+"Poor old hairies!" thought Tony, as he passed them, his mind picturing
+the spotless troop-stables and the shining coats that he had known so
+well in barracks, not a month ago.
+
+He found the officers of his brigade assembled beneath a tarpaulin.
+Their baggage had been hours late, and though it was nearly eleven
+o'clock the evening meal was still in progress. He handed his message to
+the Adjutant and sat down to exchange greetings with his brother
+subalterns.
+
+"Oh! there's bully beef for the batteries, but we've salmon all right on
+the staff," he sang softly, after sniffing suspiciously at the
+unpleasant-looking mess on his neighbour's plate, which was, in fact,
+ration tinned beef boiled hurriedly in a camp kettle. The song, of which
+the words were his own, fitted neatly to a popular tune of the moment.
+It treated of the difference in comfort of life on the staff and that in
+the batteries, and gave a verdict distinctly in favour of the former. He
+had sung it with immense success about 3 a.m. on his last night at home
+with his own brigade.
+
+"Now, Tony," said some one, "you're on the staff. What's going to happen
+to-morrow?"
+
+"A big show--will last two or three days, they say. But," he added,
+grinning, "you poor devils stuck away behind a hill won't see much of
+it. I suppose I shall be sent on my usual message--to tell you that
+you're doing no dam' good, and only wasting ammunition!"
+
+But though he chaffed and joked his heart was heavy as he walked back an
+hour later. Somewhere out there in the mud was his own battery, which he
+worshipped as a god. And he was condemned to live away from it, to be
+absent when it dashed into action, when the breech-blocks rattled and
+the shells shrieked across the valleys.
+
+He found the others still poring over the map. From the wallet on his
+saddle Tony pulled out a large travelling flask.
+
+"I think that this is the time for the issue of my special emergency
+ration," he announced.
+
+"What is it, Tony?" asked "the Maud."
+
+"Best old liqueur brandy from our mess in England," he replied, pouring
+some into each of the four mugs.
+
+Then he held up his own and added--
+
+"Here's to the guns: may they be well served to-morrow."
+
+Over the enamelled rim the General's eyes met Tony's for a moment, and
+he smiled; for he understood the sentiment.
+
+Tony crawled beneath his blankets, and fell into a deep sleep, from
+which he roused himself with difficulty a few hours later as the first
+grey streaks of dawn were appearing in the sky.
+
+
+II
+
+The press of work at the headquarters of a division during operations
+comes in periods of intense activity, during which every member of the
+staff, from the General downwards, feels that he is being asked to do
+the work of three men in an impossibly short space of time. One of these
+periods, that in which the orders for the initial stages of the attack
+had been distributed, had just passed, and a comparative calm had
+succeeded. Even the operator of the "buzzer" instrument, ensconced in a
+little triangular tent just large enough to hold one man in a prone
+position, had found time to smoke.
+
+Divisional headquarters had been established at a point where five roads
+met, just below the crest of a low hill. A few yards away the horses
+clinked their bits and grazed. Occasionally the distant boom of a gun
+made them prick their ears and stare reflectively in the direction of
+the sound. The sun, with every promise of a fine day, was slowly
+dispelling the mist from the valley and woodlands below.
+
+It was early: the battle had scarcely yet begun.
+
+A huge map had been spread out on a triangular patch of grass at the
+road junction, its corners held down with stones. Staff officers lay
+around it talking eagerly. Above, on the top of the hill, General
+Maudeslay leant against a bank and gazed into the mist. The night
+attack, he knew, had been successful, and he was anxiously awaiting the
+appearance of the battery on Point 548.
+
+Tony was stretched at full length on the grass below him. He was warm,
+he was dry, and he was not hungry--a rare combination on service.
+
+"This would be a grand cub-hunting morning, General," he said.
+
+Ordinarily "the Maud" would have responded with enthusiasm, for hounds
+and hunting were the passion of his life. But now his thoughts were
+occupied with other matters, and he made no reply.
+
+Then suddenly, as though at the rising of a curtain at a play, things
+began to happen. The telephone operator lifted his head with a start as
+his instrument began to give out its nervous, jerky, zt--zzz--zt. There
+was a clatter of hoofs along the road, and the sliding scrape of a horse
+pulled up sharply as an orderly appeared and handed in a message. Rifle
+fire, up till then desultory and unnoticed, began to increase in volume.
+The mist had gone.
+
+"The Maud," motionless against the bank, kept his glasses to his eyes
+for some minutes before lowering them, with a gesture of annoyance and
+exclaimed--
+
+"It's curious. That battery ought to be on 548 by now, but I can see no
+sign of it."
+
+"You can't see 548 from here, sir. It's hidden behind that wood," said
+Tony, pointing as he spoke.
+
+"What do you mean? There's 548," said the General, also pointing, but to
+a hill much farther to their right.
+
+"No, sir--at least not according to my map."
+
+"The Maud" snatched the map from Tony's hand. A second's glance was
+enough. On it Point 548 was marked as being farther to the left and
+considerably nearer to the enemy.
+
+He turned on Tony like a flash.
+
+"Good Lord! Why didn't you tell me that before?" he cried. "There must
+be two different editions of this map. Which one had they in your
+brigade when you went over there last night--the right one or the wrong
+one?"
+
+But Tony, unfortunately, had no idea. His interest in tactics, as we
+have seen, was small, and his visit had not involved him in a discussion
+of the plan of battle. He had not even looked at their maps.
+
+"The Maud" walked round in one small circle while he hummed eight bars.
+Then he said--
+
+"They must have started for the wrong hill, and in this mist they won't
+have realised their danger. That battery will be wiped out unless we can
+stop it." He looked round quickly. "Signallers--no--useless: and the
+telephone not yet through. Tony, you'll have to go. There's no direct
+road. Go straight across country and you may just do it."
+
+Tony was already halfway to the horses.
+
+"Take up Dignity's stirrups two holes," he called as he ran towards
+them. "Quick, man, quick!"
+
+It took perhaps twenty seconds, which seemed like as many minutes. He
+flung away belt and haversack, crammed his revolver into a side pocket,
+and was thrown up into the saddle. "The Maud" himself opened the gate
+off the road.
+
+"Like hell, Tony, like hell!"
+
+The General's words, shouted in his ear as he passed through on to the
+grass, seemed echoed in the steady beat of Dignity's hoofs as he went up
+to his bridle and settled into his long raking stride.
+
+Tony leant out on his horse's neck, his reins crossed jockey fashion,
+his knees pressed close against the light hunting saddle. Before him a
+faded expanse of green stretched out for two miles to the white cottage
+on the hillside which he had chosen as his point. The rush of wind in
+his ears, the thud of iron-shod hoofs on sound old turf, the thrill that
+is born of speed, made him forget for a moment the war, the enemy, his
+mission. He was back in England on a good scenting morning in November.
+Hounds were away on a straight-necked fox, and he had got a perfect
+start. Almost could he see them beside him, "close packed, eager,
+silent as a dream."
+
+This was not humdrum soldiering--cold and hunger, muddy roads and dreary
+marches. It was Life.
+
+"Steady, old man."
+
+He leant back, a smile upon his lips, as a fence was flung behind them
+and the bottom of the valley came in sight.
+
+"There's a brook: must chance it," he muttered, and then, mechanically
+and with instinctive eye, he chose his place. He took a pull until he
+felt that Dignity was going well within himself, and then, fifty yards
+away, he touched him with his heels and let him out. The stream, swollen
+with the deluge of the previous day, had become a torrent of swirling,
+muddy water, and it was by no means narrow. But Dignity knew his
+business. Gathering his powerful quarters under him in the last stride,
+he took off exactly right and fairly hurled himself into space.
+
+They landed with about an inch to spare.
+
+"Good for you!" cried Tony, standing in his stirrups and looking back,
+as they breasted the slope beyond. From the top he had hoped to see the
+battery somewhere on the road, but he found that the wood obstructed
+his view, and he was still uncertain, therefore, as to whether he was in
+time or not.
+
+"It's a race," he said, and sat down in his saddle to ride a finish.
+
+But halfway across the next field Dignity put a foreleg into a blind and
+narrow drain and turned completely over.
+
+Tony was thrown straight forward on to his head and stunned.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A quarter of an hour later he had recovered consciousness and was
+staring about him stupidly. The air was filled with the din of battle,
+but apparently the only living thing near him was Dignity, quietly
+grazing. He noticed, at first without understanding, that the horse
+moved on three legs only. His off foreleg was swinging. Tony got up and
+limped stiffly towards him. He bent down to feel the leg and found that
+it was broken.
+
+Slowly, reluctantly, he pulled out his revolver and put in a cartridge.
+It was, perhaps, the hardest thing he had ever had to do. He drew
+Dignity's head down towards the ground, placed the muzzle against his
+forehead and fired.
+
+The horse swayed for a fraction of a second then collapsed forward,
+lifeless, with a thud: and Tony felt as though his heart would break.
+
+Gradually he began to remember what had happened, and he wondered
+vaguely how long he had lain unconscious. In front of him stretched the
+wood which he had seen before he started, hiding from his view not only
+the actual hill but the road which led to it. He knew that on foot,
+bruised and shaken as he was, he could never now arrive in time. He had
+failed, and must return.
+
+Then, as he stood sadly watching Dignity's fast glazing eyes he heard
+the thunder of hundreds of galloping hoofs, and looked up quickly. Round
+the corner of the wood, in wild career, came, not a cavalry charge as he
+had half expected, but teams--gun teams and limbers--but no guns. The
+battery had got into action on the hill, but a lucky hostile shell, wide
+of its mark, had dropped into the wagon line and stampeded the horses. A
+few drivers still remained, striving in vain to pull up. They might as
+well have tried to stop an avalanche.
+
+Tony watched them flash past him to the rear. Still dazed with his fall,
+it was some seconds before the truth burst upon him.
+
+_He knew those horses._
+
+"My God!" he cried aloud, "it's my own battery that's up there!"
+
+In a moment all thought of his obvious duty--to return and report--was
+banished from his mind. He forgot the staff and his connection with it.
+One idea, and one only, possessed him--somehow, anyhow, to get to the
+guns.
+
+Dizzily he started off towards the hill. His progress was slow and
+laboured. His head throbbed as though there was a metal piston within
+beating time upon his brain. The hot sun caused the sweat to stream into
+his eyes. The ground was heavy, and his feet sank into it at every step.
+Twice he stopped to vomit.
+
+At last he reached the road and followed the tracks of the gun-wheels up
+it until he came to the gap in the hedge through which the battery had
+evidently gone on its way into action. The slope was strewn with dead
+and dying horses: drivers were crushed beneath them; and an up-ended
+limber pointed its pole to the sky like the mast of a derelict ship. The
+ground was furrowed with the impress of many heavy wheels, and
+everywhere was ripped and scarred with the bullet marks of low-burst
+shrapnel. But ominously enough, amid all these signs of conflict no
+hostile fire seemed to come in his direction.
+
+The hill rose sharply for a hundred yards or so, and then ran forward
+for some distance nearly flat. Tony therefore, crawling up, did not see
+the battery until he was quite close to it.
+
+Panting, he stopped aghast and stared.
+
+Four guns were in position with their wagons beside them. The remnants
+of the detachments crouched behind the shields. Piles of empty
+cartridge-cases and little mounds of turf behind the trails testified
+that these four guns, at least, had been well served. But the others!
+One was still limbered up: evidently a shell had burst immediately in
+front of it. Its men and horses were heaped up round it almost as though
+they were tin soldiers which a child had swept together on the floor.
+The remaining gun pointed backward down the hill, forlorn and desolate.
+
+In the distance, for miles and miles, the noise of battle crashed and
+thundered in the air. But here it seemed some magic spell was cast, and
+everything was still and silent as the grave.
+
+Sick at heart, Tony contemplated the scene of carnage and destruction
+for one brief moment. Then he made his way towards the only officer whom
+he could see, and from him learnt exactly what had happened.
+
+The Major commanding the battery, it appeared, deceived first by the map
+and then by the fog, had halted his whole battery where he imagined that
+it was hidden from view. But as soon as the mist had cleared away he
+found that it was exposed to the fire of the hostile artillery at a
+range of little more than a mile. The battery had been caught by a hail
+of shrapnel before it could get into action. Only this one officer
+remained, and there were but just enough men to work the four guns that
+were in position. Ammunition, too, was getting very short.
+
+Tony looked at his watch. It was only eight o'clock. From his vague idea
+of the general plan of battle he knew that the decisive attack would
+eventually sweep forward over the hill on which he stood. But how soon?
+
+At any moment the enemy might launch a counter-attack and engulf his
+battery. Its position could hardly have been worse. Owing to the flat
+top of the hill nothing could be seen from the guns except the three
+hundred yards immediately in front of them and the high ground a mile
+away on which the enemy's artillery was posted. The intervening space
+was hidden. Yet it was impossible to move. Any attempt to go forward to
+where they could see, or backward to where they would be safe, would be
+greeted, Tony knew well enough, with a burst of fire which would mean
+annihilation. Besides, he remembered the stampeding wagon line. The
+battery was without horses, immobile. To wait patiently for succour was
+its only hope.
+
+Having ascertained that a man had been posted out in front to give
+warning of an attack, Tony sat down to await developments with
+philosophic calm. The fact that he had no right to be there at all, but
+that his place was with the General, did not concern him in the
+slightest. It had always been his ambition "to fight a battery in the
+real thing," as he would himself have phrased it, and he foresaw that he
+was about to do so with a vengeance. He was distressed by the havoc that
+he saw, but in all other respects he was content.
+
+For hours nothing happened. The enemy evidently considered that the
+battery was effectually silenced, and did not deign to waste further
+ammunition upon it. Then, when Tony had almost fallen asleep, the sentry
+at the forward crest semaphored in a message----
+
+"Long thick line of infantry advancing: will reach foot of hill in about
+five minutes. Supports behind." Almost at the same moment an orderly
+whom Tony recognised as belonging to his General's staff arrived from
+the rear. Tony seized upon him eagerly.
+
+"Where have you come from?" he demanded.
+
+"From the General, sir. 'E sent me to find you and to tell you to come
+back."
+
+"Did you pass any of our infantry on your way?"
+
+"Yes, sir. There's a lot coming on. They'll be round the wood in a
+minute or two."
+
+"Well, go back to them and give _any_ officer this message," said Tony,
+writing rapidly in his note-book.
+
+"Beg pardon, sir, but that will take me out of my way. I'm the last
+orderly the General 'as got left, and I was told to find out what 'ad
+'appened 'ere, and then to come straight back."
+
+"I don't care a damn what you were told. You go with that message
+_now_."
+
+The man hurried off, and Tony walked along the line of guns, saw that
+they were laid on the crest line in front, and that the fuzes were set
+at zero. This would have the effect of bursting the shell at the
+muzzles, and so creating a death-zone of leaden bullets through which
+the attacking infantry would have to fight their way. Then he took up
+his post behind an ammunition wagon on the right of the battery, and
+fixed his eyes on the signaller in front. He felt himself to be in the
+same state of tingling excitement as when he waited outside a good
+fox-covert expecting the welcome "Gone away!"
+
+Suddenly the signaller rose, and, crouching low, bolted back towards the
+guns. Just as he reached them a few isolated soldiers began to appear
+over the crest in front. As soon as they saw the guns they lay down
+waiting for support. They were the advanced scouts of a battalion.
+
+A moment afterwards, a thick line of men came in sight. The sun gleamed
+on their bayonets. There was a shout, and they surged forward towards
+the battery.
+
+"Three rounds gun fire!" Tony shouted. The four guns went off almost
+simultaneously, and at once the whole front was enveloped in thick,
+white smoke from the bursting shell. In spite of diminished detachments
+the guns were quickly served. Again and once again they spoke within a
+second of each other.
+
+The smoke cleared slowly, for there was scarcely a breath of wind.
+Meanwhile the assailants had taken cover, and were beginning to use
+their rifles. Bullets, hundreds of them, tore the ground in front and
+clanged against the shields. Tony stepped back a few yards and looked
+down into the valley behind him. A thin line of skirmishers had almost
+reached the foot of the hill. His message had been delivered.
+
+He came back to the cover of his wagon. The enemy began to come forward
+by rushes--a dozen men advancing twenty yards, perhaps.
+
+"Repeat!" said Tony.
+
+Again the guns blazed and roared: again the pall of smoke obscured the
+view. A long trailing line of infantry began to climb the hill behind
+him. But the enemy was working round the flanks of the battery and
+preparing for the final rush. It was a question of whether friend or foe
+would reach him first. For the second time that day Tony muttered, "It's
+a race!"
+
+Then, as he saw the whole line rise and charge straight at him----
+
+"Gun fire!" he yelled above the din, knowing that by that order the
+ammunition would be expended to the last round.
+
+He jumped to the gun nearest him, working the breech with mechanical
+precision, while the only gunner left in the detachment loaded and
+fired.
+
+"Last round, sir," came in a hoarse whisper, as Tony slammed the breech
+and leant back with left arm outstretched ready to swing it open again.
+In front they could see nothing: the smoke hung like a thick white
+blanket. Tony drew his revolver and stood up, peering over the shield,
+expecting every moment to see a line of bayonets emerge.
+
+There was a roar behind. He heard the rush of feet and the rattle of
+equipment. He was conscious of the smell of sweating bodies and the
+sight of wild, frenzied faces. Then the charge, arriving just in time,
+swept past him, a mad irresistible wave of humanity, driving the enemy
+before it and leaving the guns behind like rocks after the passage of a
+flood.
+
+Tony fell back over the trail in a dead faint.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Long afterwards, when the tide of battle had rolled on towards the
+opposing heights, Tony, pale, grimy, but exultant, started back with the
+intention of rejoining his General. Halfway down the hill he met him
+riding up.
+
+Tony turned and walked beside him.
+
+"What's happened here, and where the devil have you been all day?" asked
+"the Maud," angrily.
+
+"I've been here, sir."
+
+"So it appears. I sent an orderly to find you, and all you did was to
+despatch him on a message of your own, I understand. We were in urgent
+need of information as to what had happened up here. You failed to stop
+this battery, and it was your duty to come straight back and tell me
+so."
+
+Tony had never seen the placid Maud so angry. He glanced up at him as he
+sat there bolt upright on his horse looking straight to his front.
+
+"It was my own battery," said Tony. Then, after a pause, he added
+recklessly, "Would you have come back, sir, if you'd been me?"
+
+The Maud stared past him up the hill. He saw the guns, with the dead and
+wounded strewn around them, safe. He was a gunner first, a General only
+afterwards. He hummed a little tune.
+
+"No," he said, "I wouldn't."
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+IN ENEMY HANDS
+
+
+
+
+IN ENEMY HANDS SOME EXPERIENCES OF A PRISONER OF WAR
+
+
+_October 15, 1914._ Hospital, Bavai, France.--Woke up to find the ward
+seething with excitement. One of the English wounded had escaped in the
+night, leaving his greatcoat neatly placed in his bed in such a manner
+as to suggest a recumbent figure. How he succeeded in evading the
+attentions of a night-nurse, an R.A.M.C. orderly, a German sentry at the
+main gate and two others in the courtyard outside the ward, is a
+complete mystery. The situation for the French hospital authorities is
+serious. So far, although the Germans are in occupation of the town,
+have garrisoned it with a company of "Landwehr" and have appointed a
+"Governor" with a particularly offensive polyglot secretary, they have
+left the running of the hospital in the hands of the French staff. Bavai
+has been looted but not sacked, no inhabitants have been shot and no
+fine inflicted. But what will happen now?
+
+Technically, of course, responsibility for the custody of the patients
+rests with the Germans, since they have posted sentries at the hospital
+and in the town. But conventions and technicalities do not count for
+much in these days. The doctor, five or six nurses, and the lady by
+whose charity the hospital is maintained hold a conference, animated by
+many dramatic gestures and an astonishing flow of eloquence. They are
+torn between fear of the consequences which may recoil upon the hospital
+and admiration for the daring of the man who stole forth into the rain,
+unarmed, and without a coat, to face the dangers of an unknown country
+infested with the enemy--alone.
+
+"Quelle betise!" cried one. "Oui, mais quel courage!" answered another.
+"Si les Allemands l'attrapent, il sera fusille, sans doute."
+
+It is decided to inform the Governor, and a deputation is formed for the
+purpose. In less than a quarter of an hour a squad of stolid Teutons
+arrive and search the hospital from attic to cellar. They even enter the
+apartments of the nuns, to the horror of our kind old priest. Of course
+they find nothing. It is by now eight o'clock. At nine the edict is
+given. In two hours every patient in the hospital who is able to crawl
+is to be ready to leave. I ask my friend the doctor if he can in any way
+pretend that I am worse than I am. "Pas possible," he replies, shaking
+his head sadly.
+
+So it is over--this long period of waiting and hoping; waiting for an
+advance which never came, hoping where no hope was. Seven weeks have
+passed since I was brought in here, left behind wounded when the tide of
+war ebbed back towards Paris, and in that time I have gathered many
+memories which will never fade. I have seen strong men racked with pain
+day after day, night after night, until sometimes at last exhausted
+Nature gave up the struggle and the nurses would come and whisper to me,
+crossing themselves, "Il est mort, le pauvre. Ah! comme il a souffert."
+I have realised to the full the compassion of Woman for suffering
+humanity, irrespective of creed or nationality; and I have known the
+blessing of morphia. Once, very early in the morning, just as the dawn
+was beginning to creep in and light with a ghostly dimness the rows of
+white beds and their restless, groaning occupants, I heard the tinkle of
+the bell announcing the approach of the priest bearing the Host; and
+drowsily (for I was under morphia) I watched Extreme Unction being
+administered to a dying German officer. Death, the overlord, is a great
+leveller of human passions. The old _cure_, whose face was that of a
+medieval saint and in whose kindly eyes there shone a pity akin to the
+divine, muttered the sacred words with a sincerity of conviction that
+one could not doubt. A few hours before I had heard his sonorous voice
+rolling out the Archbishop of Cambrai's prayer for victory: "Seigneur,
+qui etes le Dieu des armees et le maitre de la vie et de la mort, Vous
+qui avez toujours aime la France...."
+
+11 a.m.--We are ready to start. The dining-hall (in times of peace this
+hospital is a school) is crowded as we are given our last meal. The
+nuns, the doctor and his wife, the nurses, the village shoemaker who was
+our barber and who always used to have a reassuring rumour of some sort
+to retail--all are there to wish us a last sad "Au revoir." They ply us
+with food and drink, but we are too miserable to take much. Then the
+word is given--we file out slowly through the courtyard into the sunlit
+street where two transport wagons are drawn up opposite the gate. There
+are nineteen French soldiers, two English privates, and myself. Our
+names are called by a German officer. Those who cannot walk are helped
+(by their comrades) into the wagons. We three English are carefully
+searched, but our money is not taken. It is decreed that the Englishmen
+must be separated by at least two Frenchmen. Does our escort (twenty
+armed men under a sergeant) fear a combined revolt, I wonder, or is this
+done merely to annoy us? I suspect the latter. A crowd of inhabitants
+forms round us, pressing close to say good-bye. Suddenly the German
+officer notices this and in one second is transformed into a raging
+beast. He wheels round upon the crowd, waves his stick and pours forth a
+torrent of abuse. The people cower back against the wall and his anger
+subsides. It is the first display of German temper that I have seen. To
+hear women reviled, even in a strange tongue--and for nothing--is
+horrible.
+
+We start. At the corner I look back regretfully at the hospital where I
+have received such kindness as I can never forget. From a top window a
+handkerchief is waving. It is the nurse who, when I was really at my
+worst, never left my bedside for more than five minutes during two long
+nights and a day. To her, I think, I owe my life. For a moment the face
+of the cobbler distinguishes itself from the others in the crowd. He
+makes himself heard above the rattle of the wagons on the _pavee_
+street. "Vous reviendrez apres la guerre, mon lieutenant," he shouts.
+
+"Oui, je vous assure--a bientot," I call back as we turn out into the
+open country and face the straight poplar-lined road that leads to
+Maubeuge. Halfway we stop at an _estaminet_ for beer. The prisoners,
+even the English, are allowed to purchase some. The German sergeant
+chucks under the chin the attractive-looking French girl who serves him.
+She smiles, but as he turns his back I note the sudden expression of
+fierce hate which leaps into her eyes.
+
+It is after 3 p.m. when we reach the outskirts of Maubeuge and cross the
+drawbridge over the old moat, made, I believe, by Vauban. Inside the
+town there are many signs of the devastation of war--buildings gutted,
+whole streets of small houses laid flat in ruins. The pavements are
+crowded and people throw chocolates and cigarettes to us. German
+officers, wrapped in their long grey cloaks, swagger about, brushing
+everyone aside in haughty insolence. From the windows of two or three
+hospitals French soldiers peer out and wave to us in obvious sympathy.
+Approaching the railway station we go past the identical spot where,
+eight weeks ago to the day, the battery detrained. The logs on which we
+sat to eat our belated breakfast after the long night journey up from
+Boulogne are still there. Oh! the humiliation of it all; a week in the
+country, one hour's fighting, seven weeks in hospital, and now--prison.
+
+In the open space outside the station we are drawn up by the pavement.
+The French are allowed to sit down on the curb; not so we three
+unfortunate English. On our attempting to do so the sergeant in charge
+shouts at us and one of the escort threatens us with a bayonet. Some
+inhabitants who approach us with offers of food and drink are driven off
+harshly. A crowd of German soldiers, some half-drunk, collects round us.
+They all know the English word "swine." Pointing us out to each other
+they use it without stint. One man has a more extended vocabulary of
+abuse. Having exhausted it he proceeds to recount for our benefit the
+damnable story that English soldiers use the marlinspike in their
+clasp-knives to gouge out the eyes of German wounded. We have already
+heard this allegation made before. The English-speaking secretary of the
+Governor at Bavai was very fond of it. But he, who was educated and who
+had lived in London for years, knew, I'm sure, that it was a malicious
+lie invented by the authorities for the express purpose of exciting the
+Germans against us. But these men undoubtedly believe it. They produce
+knives of their own from their boots and threaten us with them. The
+expression on their faces is that of angry, untamed beasts. And yet, I
+dare say, at home these very men who now would like to tear us to pieces
+are really simple, harmless working folk. Such is war.
+
+It is an awkward moment. If either of my compatriots loses his temper
+(which is not improbable, for the British soldier will not stand insult
+indefinitely) he will let fly with his tongue or even his fist, in which
+case we shall all three be put against the nearest wall and shot. So I
+keep muttering, "For God's sake take no notice; try to look as though
+you don't hear or understand"--knowing that besides being the safest
+attitude this will also be the most galling for our revilers.
+Contemptuous indifference is sometimes a dignified defensive weapon.
+Finding that we are not to be drawn, the crowd gradually disperses, and
+for an hour and a half we are kept standing in the gutter. Then another
+long procession of dejected prisoners winds its way into the yard and we
+are taken with them into the station. The wait inside is enlivened for
+me by a conversation with a German N.C.O. who speaks English perfectly.
+He has lived, he tells me, eighteen years in South Africa and fought for
+us against the Matabele. Until this war he liked the English, he frankly
+confesses. Now nothing is too bad for us. _We_ started it, _we_'re the
+bullies of Europe, it's _we_ who must be crushed. Germany can't be
+beaten. Napoleon the First couldn't do it. "We Germans," he says, "fight
+without pay for love of our country, but you are mercenaries; you enlist
+for money." From motives of personal safety I refrain from making the
+obvious retort: "On the contrary, we are volunteers--you go into the
+army because you're dam' well made to."
+
+A diversion is caused by a wounded French soldier who faints, has to be
+given brandy, and is discovered to be far too bad to travel. Why not
+have left the poor devil in his hospital? He's surely harmless enough
+from a military point of view.
+
+6 p.m.--We file across the line on to the other platform. On the way one
+of the English privates is kicked, hard, from behind by a passing
+German soldier. His whispered comments to me are unprintable. Our train
+appears to consist entirely of cattle trucks. Just as I am about to
+enter one of these in company with some French soldiers, a German
+captain touches me on the shoulder. "You are an officer, aren't you?" he
+says in French, and motions me aside. Pointing at me, the sergeant who
+had brought us from Bavai says something to the officer, the purport of
+which, I gather, is that his orders were to put me in with the men.
+Fortunately, however, this captain has gentlemanly instincts; he ignores
+the sergeant, leads me down to the other end of the platform and
+deposits me in a second-class carriage with three French officers. We
+begin to exchange experiences. Two are doctors, the other a captain of
+Colonial Infantry wounded during the siege of Maubeuge. They tell me
+that there is another English officer on the train. I now begin to
+realise that I am hungry and half dead with fatigue. To march eight
+miles and then to stand upright for nearly three hours, after having
+walked no more than the length of the hospital ward for weeks, is no
+joke. The above-mentioned English officer comes in from the next
+carriage and introduces himself as Major B., cavalry, wounded at the
+very beginning and put into Maubeuge to recover; of course he was taken
+prisoner when that place fell. He and the French officers give me food
+and a blanket, for both of which I am more than grateful. An elderly
+Landsturm private armed with a loaded rifle and a saw-bayonet occupies
+one corner of our carriage, so that there is not much room to lie down.
+We start about 7.30, but I am so over-tired and so cold that I get very
+little sleep.
+
+_October 16._--Woke to find that we had only gone about 20 miles and had
+not yet reached Charleroi. A long, wearisome day, during which we
+exhausted our supplies of food. Passed through Namur and Liege but were
+unable to see signs of the bombardment of either place. In the evening
+reached Aix, where we were given lukewarm cocoa and sandwiches made of
+black bread and sausage--particularly nasty. But by this time we were so
+hungry that anything was welcome. The guard in our carriage, finding
+that we were not really likely to strangle him if he took his eyes off
+us for a moment, relaxed considerably, accepted cigarettes, gave us some
+of his bread, confessed to one of the Frenchmen who could speak a little
+German that he hated the war and heartily wished that he was home
+again; finally he put his rifle on the rack and slept as well as any of
+us.
+
+_October 17._--All yesterday and all this morning we passed train after
+train of reinforcements going to the front; some of the carriages were
+decorated with evergreens, and nearly all of them were labelled "Paris"
+in chalk. Many of the men looked very young--hardly more than boys.
+Several trains, crammed with wounded, overtook us. The sight of English
+uniform was always enough to attract a crowd at any station where we
+stopped. I wonder if the inhabitants of the Maori village at Earl's
+Court experienced the same sensations as I did--sitting there to be
+stared at, pointed at and not infrequently insulted.
+
+At about 11.30 we were taken out of the train, and locked into a
+waiting-room with about half a dozen Belgian officers, all wounded, who
+had arrived from some other direction. An extremely fussy N.C.O. had
+charge of us and persisted in counting us every ten minutes. Got into
+another train about 1 p.m. and eventually arrived at our destination,
+Crefeld, at 1.30. We were taken out of the station almost immediately,
+marched through a large and rather hostile crowd and put into a tram. In
+this we went up to the barracks--about two miles. Male inhabitants
+shook their fists at us, females put out their tongues: so chivalrous!
+
+In spite of the relief of at last being at the end of our journey, there
+was something terribly depressing in the sound of the heavy gate
+shutting to behind us. We were first taken up to an office and made to
+fill in our names, ranks, regiments, and monthly rates of pay on a
+special form; then put inside the palisade and left to find our way
+about. There are about sixty French officers here, a dozen or so
+Belgians (including the commander of Antwerp and his artillery general),
+and seven English, one of whom is a retired captain who happened to be
+in Belgium at the outbreak of war and who was arrested as a spy on no
+evidence whatever. Spent the remainder of the day settling down and
+writing home. It is a comfort, at any rate, to think that I can at last
+let people know what has become of me. Comparing notes with the other
+English here, we discover that they were all wounded early in the War,
+on the Aisne. We learn for the first time details of the stationary
+trench warfare into which the campaign is developing and hear all about
+the German preponderance in heavy artillery. We feed here in the big
+dining-hall attached to the canteen (in which by the way a great variety
+of things can be bought, including beer, wine, and tobacco). We live and
+sleep in the barrack rooms and we have the whole space of the barrack
+square--200 yards long by about 80 wide--to play about in! Subalterns
+are paid 60 marks a month, higher ranks 100. Every one is charged 2
+marks a day for messing. The unfortunate subaltern, therefore, finds his
+accounts flat at the end of the month--unless the month has thirty-one
+days, in which case he owes the Imperial Government 2 marks! Am glad
+I've got about a fiver with me, which ought to last until I can get more
+from home. Slept like a log on a bed as hard as iron.
+
+_October 18._--Five more English officers arrived this morning,
+including Major V----. They were all more dead than alive, having spent
+three days and three nights in a cattle truck, the floor of which was
+covered with six inches of wet dung; the ammonia fumes had got into
+their eyes and they could hardly see; they had had practically no food
+and all through the journey they had been submitted to every conceivable
+insult. The cattle truck contained fifty-two persons--officers,
+privates, and civilians. Such treatment is beyond comment. From Major
+V---- I heard for the first time of the tragic fate of the battery on
+September 1. He could give no details beyond that it was surprised in
+bivouac at dawn by eight "dug-in" German guns at 700 yards' range, that
+it was simply cut to pieces, but that the guns were served to the last,
+that the hostile batteries were silenced, and, in the end, captured. All
+the officers were killed or wounded. It's too awful to be ignorant of
+further particulars. Went to bed more depressed than I have been all
+these weeks. I daren't think that "Brad"[16] has been killed.
+
+[16] The late Captain E. K. Bradbury, V.C., R.H.A.
+
+_October 19._--This morning we were made to parade at 10.30 to be
+counted; this is to be a daily amusement. The food here might be worse
+and at present there is plenty of it. Took some exercise round the
+square--a deadly business. In the afternoon shaved off a month's beard
+with a cheap German safety razor, which was a painful operation! Ordered
+some underclothing from the town.
+
+_October 20._--Employed a pouring wet day writing many letters,
+including one to Bavai, though it is questionable if it ever gets there.
+
+_October 22._--Two more English officers arrived, one wounded. Both
+seemed to think that things were going well but neither knew much. This
+morning the new commandant took over. He looks like an opulent and
+good-natured butcher disguised as a Hungarian bandsman. Actually, I am
+informed, he is a retired major of Hussars. In the course of a chatty
+little discourse at the roll-call parade he informed us that in future
+we are to be counted at 7.45 a.m. and 10 p.m.; further that alcoholic
+liquors will no longer be obtainable. Thus we are robbed of two of our
+luxuries--drink and sleep! Two new arrivals at midday, whose only news
+is that British troops are now in N.W. Belgium. Football started on the
+square. The monotonous horror of this life is just beginning to make
+itself felt on me. The worst part of the whole thing is the total lack
+of privacy. There is no room, no corner of a room even, where one can go
+to escape the incessant racket and babble of talk. Reading and writing
+are practically impossible.
+
+This evening twelve more English arrived. Learned from them of the
+transfer of our army from the Aisne to Belgium and realised from their
+accounts the appalling losses that many regiments seem to have had. One
+of these new-comers told me of Brad's heroic death when "L" was smashed
+up. To the regiment and to the army his loss is great; to those of us
+who knew him well and were privileged to serve with him, it is
+irreparable. In everything he did he set up a standard which all of us
+envied but none of us could attain. He lived as straight as he rode to
+hounds--and no man rode straighter. To his brilliant mental gifts he
+added a conscientiousness, a thoroughness, and a quick grasp of detail
+which seemed to augur a great future. His was a personality which
+stamped itself indelibly upon all with whom he came in contact, and the
+influence for good which he wielded over both officers and men had to be
+seen to be believed. The men feared him, for he was strict and was no
+respecter of persons; but they loved him too, for he was always just. By
+his brother officers he was simply worshipped. He was not a typical
+British officer, he was far more than that, he was an ideal one. He died
+as he had lived--nobly. And he was an only son.
+
+_October 28._--A vile cold has added to my depression of the last few
+days. A good many new prisoners have been brought in lately--mostly of
+the 7th Division, which appears by all accounts to have had an awful
+doing. The battle W. and N.W. of Lille still rages. A French officer
+retails a rumour that he had heard before being captured that the Allies
+had retaken Lille; a Belgian, that the Germans are retiring on the West
+and that our fleet are doing great execution along the coast.
+
+Am now sharing a room with an infantry captain and three subalterns of
+the same regiment. We have bought cups and saucers and have tea in our
+room every afternoon. New regulation that we may only write two letters
+a month.
+
+_October 31._--General von Bissing, commanding the district, inspected
+the Landsturm battalion here to-day. Afterwards he visited some of the
+prisoners' rooms. Seeing one English officer who, having only just
+arrived, was far from clean, he asked him through an interpreter how
+long he had had his breeches. The officer, who imagined that he was
+being asked how long the British army had been clad in khaki, answered
+politely, "Nearly fourteen years!" Whereupon von Bissing was pleased to
+call our uniform "Dirty-coloured, disgusting, and bad." However, I hear
+his son is a prisoner in France, so perhaps this undignified
+vituperation relieves his feelings.
+
+_November 1._--The Belgian officers departed to-day for some other camp.
+Rumours of the arrival of 200 Russians not yet fulfilled. Have bought
+some books, Tauchnitz edition, and tried to settle down to read. We have
+started the formation of an English library, which will be a blessing.
+
+_November 2._--We have often jokingly said: "We've got English, French,
+Belgians, and Arabs here--all we want to complete the show is a party of
+Russians." Well, now we've got them--200 arrived this evening. Such a
+scene in the canteen before roll-call! The roar of voices, the
+atmosphere of tobacco, and the pushing crowd in the bar reminded one of
+the Empire on a boat-race night--minus the drink!
+
+The authorities with their usual thoughtfulness for our comfort have
+decreed that the English or French and the Russians are to be mixed up
+in the rooms in approximately equal numbers. So three of us (G----,
+T----, and myself) migrated to another block this afternoon and
+installed ourselves in the beds nearest the window before the arrival of
+our "stable companions." These when they did turn up seemed pleasant
+enough, but as they could talk no English and only a few words of
+French, conversation was limited. They could give us no news, having all
+been prisoners in some other place for two months. One, however,
+produced a map of Europe and showed us how the German columns were being
+swept aside--one apparently to Finland, another to Constantinople, and a
+third to Rome! Evidently an optimist! "_Neuf millions_" is all the
+French he knows; it is his estimate of the strength of that portion of
+the Russian army which is at present mobilised.
+
+_November 3._--Letter from home--the first since I left England on
+August 16. Infinitely cheering; no news, though, owing to fear of the
+censor, except a few details about the battery on September 1.
+
+_November 9._--Overcrowding becoming desperate. A seventh added to our
+room to-day--a French lieutenant whom we nicknamed Brigadier Gerard,
+because he's always twirling his moustache in front of the glass. There
+are so many prisoners here now that we have to have two services for
+each meal--_i.e._ breakfast 8 and 9 a.m., lunch 11.45 a.m. and 1.15 p.m.
+supper 6.45 and 8 p.m. One does a week of each alternately, with the
+idea presumably that constant change is good for the digestion. But the
+day consists of fifteen long waking hours all the same. There are
+moments when I hate all my fellow humans here. A youthful Russian who
+inhabits this room irritates me almost beyond endurance by singing and
+whistling the same tune all day long. Poor devil, he's got no books and
+nothing on earth to do--but if only he'd go and make his noises outside.
+I find myself unable to fix my mind on anything and sometimes I feel
+that this life will drive me mad. It's a _hell_ of moral, physical, and
+mental inactivity. I'd rather do a year here with a room to myself than
+six months as things are at present.
+
+_November 11._--Somebody got a bundle of old _Daily Graphics_ past the
+censor, I can't think how. As they were the first English papers we'd
+seen for ages they were most interesting.
+
+_November 14._--Howling gale and heavy rain all yesterday and the day
+before. Hope the German fleet is at sea in it! Have made great friends
+with Tonnot, the French captain of Colonial Infantry with whom I
+travelled from Maubeuge. He talks interestingly on a variety of subjects
+and I am learning a certain amount of French from him. Curious how much
+more well endowed with the critical spirit the average Frenchman is than
+the Englishman of a corresponding class. The latter is more inclined to
+take men and affairs and life for granted.
+
+Am getting anxious about the non-arrival of my parcels. Clothes, books,
+and tobacco are what I want. Dozens of officers who arrived after me
+have received parcels. In my saner moments I know that it is purely a
+matter of chance, but I have a tendency, when day after day a list of
+names is put up and mine is not amongst them, to grind my teeth in rage
+and regard it as a personal spite on the part of the German Government.
+The arrival of letters and parcels is the only event of any importance
+in this monotonous life. An officer who receives two or three of either
+on the same day is regarded in much the same light, as, at home, one
+regards some lucky person who has inherited a fortune. Every pleasure is
+relative and depends on circumstances. Here, a tin of tobacco and two
+pairs of pyjamas are joys untold.
+
+_November 21._--The same continuous stream of rumours and
+counter-rumours continues to flow in. Heard this week that Lille had
+been retaken and that four French corps were marching on Mons. The
+latter theory borne out by the arrival of some very badly wounded
+prisoners from the hospital at that place. No confirmation, however.
+Learnt of the Prime Minister's speech on War loans, in which he stated
+that the war will not last as long as expected. This is comforting, as
+he is not given to exaggeration. Perfect weather--dry, frosty, sunny.
+Long to be on mountains instead of trudging round this damnable square.
+
+_November 23._--Immense excitement this evening. Two Russians attempted
+to escape; they had obtained civilian clothes, passports, and a motor,
+but were given away by the man whom they had bribed to help them. They
+now languish in the guardroom. The German authorities spent two hours
+this evening searching all the rooms, I suppose for money.
+
+_November 26._--All the bells in Crefeld ringing this evening and extra
+editions of the papers announcing the capture of 40,000 Russians. Won't
+believe it. That's always the tendency--to believe any rumour favourable
+to us, however wild, and to discredit anything and everything the
+Germans say.
+
+_December 1._--The "Allies" who live in this room have now been more or
+less educated by our pantomimic signs of disapproval and make less
+noise. Have bought some more books and read all day except for an hour's
+walk in the morning and another in the afternoon or evening. Daren't
+play football owing to the bullet in my neck.
+
+_December 15._--The deadly "even tenor of our way" continues. Have now
+bought a small table and a lamp of my own. Ensconced in the corner
+behind my bed I can read or work at French in comparative peace. But
+C---- has had a box of games sent to him--amongst them (horror of
+horrors!) "Pit." I do draw the line at the room being made into more of
+a bear-garden than usual by the addition of various strangers who wish
+to gamble on "Minoru"--and I foresee trouble and unpleasantness over it.
+Of course it's selfish of me, but there is no other place where I can go
+for peace and quiet, and--well--we're all inclined to be irritable here.
+It's a marvel to me that there haven't been more quarrels already.
+
+Wild rumours that Austria is suing for peace with Russia. As usual, no
+confirmation.
+
+_December 18._--To-day Major V---- escaped. Having gone down to the
+dentist's in the town with two other officers and a sentry, he somehow
+managed to slip past the latter into the street and find his way out of
+the town. He speaks German like a native and was wearing a civilian
+greatcoat. A very sporting effort, as he'll have a bad time if he's
+caught, I'm afraid. If he can get home and lay our grievances before
+our authorities there is a chance that, through the American Embassy,
+the Germans, fearing similar treatment for their prisoners in England,
+may make things pleasanter for us.
+
+_December 19._--Wild scene in the canteen following the announcement
+that no more tobacco would be sold after the 26th of this month. "The
+prisoners are being too well treated," is apparently the popular clamour
+in the town. Fierce scrimmage round the bar to purchase what was left.
+However, the patriotism of the canteen contractor (who, need I say? is
+making a fortune out of us) was not equal to his love of gain. He bought
+up an entire tobacconist's shop, so that we were all able to lay in
+three or four months' supply.
+
+Rumours that Major V---- had crossed the frontier into Holland. Later,
+that he had been caught in that country and interned.
+
+Somewhere about this date a score or so of English soldiers arrived
+here. This was the result of our repeated applications to be allowed to
+have servants of our own nationality as the Russians and French have.
+The appearance of these men horrified me. It was not so much that they
+were thin, white-faced, ragged and dirty, though that was bad enough;
+but they had a cowed, bullied look such as I have never seen on the
+faces of British soldiers before and hope never to see again. Apart from
+what they told us, it was evident from their appearance that for months
+they had not been able to call their souls their own and that
+temporarily, at any rate, all the spirit had been knocked out of them.
+Better food and treatment will doubtless put them right again.
+
+_December 25._--Christmas Day is Christmas Day even in prison. In the
+morning we held a service and sang the proper hymns with zest. At lunch
+we were given venison (said to be from the Kaiser's preserves) and had
+some of an enormous plum-pudding which T---- had had sent him. Then
+suddenly we rose as one man, toasted the King (in water and lemonade)
+and sang the National Anthem. The French officers followed with the
+Marseillaise and until that moment I had never realised what a wonderful
+air it is. Then the Russians, conducted by an aged white-haired colonel,
+sang their National Hymn quite beautifully. And we all shouted and
+cheered together.
+
+Into our room this afternoon, when we were all lying on our beds in a
+state of coma after too liberal a ration of plum-pudding, there burst
+the N.C.O. of the guard and four armed men. He shouted at us in German
+and we gathered from his gestures that he was accusing us of looking out
+of the window and making faces at the sentry. However, as we all went on
+reading and took not the slightest notice of him, I think we had the
+best of it. I imagine that, it being Christmas Day, he had "drink
+taken," as one says in Ireland. We complained to the senior British
+officer, who saw the commandant about it. This sort of thing is becoming
+intolerable. The other night the guard entered a room, seized an
+unfortunate English officer (it is always the English), accused him of
+having had a light on after hours, although actually he was asleep at
+the time, and dragged him off to the guardroom, where he spent the night
+without blankets.
+
+This evening we feasted on a turkey which we had bought and had had
+cooked for us in the canteen, and more plum-pudding. Afterwards we sang
+various songs, including "Rule, Britannia" (which the Germans hate more
+than anything) until roll-call. I think "Auld Lang Syne" produced a
+choky feeling in the throats of most of us--so many are gone for ever.
+The authorities, fearing a riot, doubled all the pickets--and it was a
+cold night!
+
+_December 27._--It has been announced that, as a punishment for the
+escape of Major V----, all smoking will be prohibited from January 2 to
+15; all tobacco is to be handed in at 10 a.m. on the 2nd. I wonder if
+we'll ever see it again. I dread this fortnight's abstention.
+
+_December 28._--Received L5; also parcels containing food, books,
+clothes, and tobacco.
+
+_January 2, 1915._--Tobacco duly handed in and receipt given for it.
+Some mild excitement caused over a letter which I had received from F.
+P----, who is in India, part of which had been censored. The commandant
+here wanted it back again. Fortunately I had destroyed it. I had not
+been able to read the censored part, but had gathered from the preceding
+sentence that it was something about the Indian troops. Wonder what the
+Boches are after. Anyway I was hauled up before the permanent orderly
+officer, who is an aged subaltern of at least sixty, known to the French
+as "l'asperge" because he is long and thin and looks exactly like an
+asparagus stalk when he's got his helmet on; and to us as "the chemist"
+because he has rather the air of a suave and elderly member of the
+Pharmaceutical Society. As a matter of fact, he is a baron! For a
+German, he was quite polite, believed me when I told him I had
+destroyed the letter, and seemed relieved when I mentioned that it was
+dated September 13--which was true.
+
+News gets scarcer and scarcer, German papers emptier and emptier. But
+there are signs of shortage in the country. No more rolls or white bread
+for us, for example.
+
+_January 5._--Managed to smuggle through the parcels office a tin of 100
+cigarettes which had arrived for me, but resisted the temptation to open
+it. If any one was caught smoking during this fortnight it would mean no
+more tobacco for any of us for months if not for ever. All the same, I
+find the privation hard to bear.
+
+_January 8._--It has become evident that the authorities do not desire
+to take further steps in the tobacco question. Yesterday "the chemist"
+searched various rooms. Entering one he found several Russians
+smoking--whereupon he left without comment. This was the act of a
+gentleman. This evening, therefore, we broached my tin of cigarettes.
+Crouching round the stove we smoked them very carefully, blowing the
+smoke up the chimney. Rather like school-days and very ridiculous.
+Tobacco never tasted so good to me.
+
+To-day one of the Russians who was implicated in the attempt to escape
+some weeks ago returned here. His _role_ in the affair had been to stand
+at the gate and keep watch while the other two slipped out to the motor.
+All three of them, he says, have been kept handcuffed, in solitary
+confinement, ever since, and fed only on black bread and weak
+coffee--and this _whilst awaiting trial_! Eventually his case was
+dismissed, as it was not proved that he was attempting to escape. The
+other two are to undergo imprisonment for six more weeks. They are
+desperate and want to commit suicide. And this is civilised warfare in
+the twentieth century!
+
+It is nearly a month since we had any fresh German official
+_communiques_ posted up in the dining-hall. Perhaps it is a sign that
+things are going badly for them. From rumours it appears that Turkey is
+getting a bad time from Russia--and so is Austria.
+
+The quality of the food is rapidly deteriorating. The bread is black,
+sour, and hard, with a large proportion of potato flour in it. The meat
+is generally uneatable. Fortunately supplies are coming fairly regularly
+from home and we subsist almost entirely on potted meats, tongues, etc.
+
+_January 14._--The Russian New Year's Day. Went to their Church service
+and was greatly impressed by the solemnity of it; also by their
+beautiful singing. Toasted the Russian army at lunch; much bowing and
+scraping and a great interchange of compliments.
+
+_January 25._--Heard to-day of the second battle of Heligoland and of
+the sinking of the _Bluecher_--Good. Amused to notice that the German
+papers claim this fight as a great victory--a Trafalgar, they called it.
+Prefer to believe the statement of our Admiralty--quoted by the Crefeld
+paper with many sneering comments and notes of exclamation interspersed.
+
+There is, I think, no doubt that Germany has begun to feel the pinch.
+The altered manner of our "kindly captors" towards us is remarkable.
+There is a good deal less of the haughty conqueror about them.
+
+The authorities here are compiling a list of those prisoners who are
+wounded and unfit for further service. An astonishing number of officers
+were brought forward by the doctors of each nationality for examination
+by the German medico! Particulars of our cases were taken down, to be
+forwarded to Berlin. I fear that, as far as I am concerned, there is not
+much chance of getting sent home.
+
+_February 3._--Permission granted to us to write eight letters a month
+instead of two. Perhaps this is due to pressure brought to bear since
+the arrival home of V----. We knew he'd reached England safely some time
+ago, but have heard no details as to how he did it. Women conductors on
+the trams in Crefeld now; and Carl, a German waiter, late of the
+Grosvenor Hotel and at present underling here to the canteen manager, is
+under orders for the front. Both facts are significant, especially the
+latter, seeing that the aforesaid Carl is as good a specimen of the
+physically unfit as one could wish to see.
+
+_February 7._--Marked improvement of German manners continues unabated.
+Carl still here. The civilian who heats the furnace for the bathroom
+(doubtless an authority!) confesses quite openly that Germany is beaten,
+that he has been convinced of it for months and believes nothing he sees
+in the papers.
+
+Our hosts having now condescended to allow us to hire musical
+instruments, and having even granted us a garret to play them in, we
+enjoyed quite a pleasant concert this evening. But the crowd and the
+atmosphere were awful. The orchestra surprisingly good, considering its
+haphazard formation: and a Russian peasant chorus beautifully rendered.
+
+_February 8._--Fine day with a grand feeling of spring in the air.
+Heading in a German paper: "The enemy takes one of our trenches near La
+Bassee." But what an admission! Am convinced that at last the German
+_people_ are beginning to realise what their Government must have known
+from the time when the first great rush on Paris failed--namely, that
+there can only be one end to this war for them--defeat.
+
+_February 10._--Received a second L5 from Cox within three weeks. He
+must have lost his head on finding me with a balance credit for about
+the first time in my career.
+
+_February 11._--There was a rumour to-night, apparently with some
+foundation in it, that the first batch of wounded to be exchanged (two
+English and nine French) are to go on Monday. I continue to hope that I
+may get away later on, but can't really feel there is much chance, as
+there is so little permanently wrong with me.
+
+_February 12._--The incredible has happened. I'm to be sent home! I
+hardly dare believe it. This afternoon Major D----, R----, and myself
+were sent for by the commandant and told to be ready to start at 9
+o'clock to-morrow. He further informed us that the authorities knew that
+our wounds were not very serious, so that he hoped we would realise the
+clemency of the Imperial Government. We were made to give our word of
+honour not to take any letters, etc., from prisoners with us. Finally,
+after an interview with the paymaster, who squared up our accounts, we
+went through a ceremonious leave-taking with the commandant and "the
+chemist." Felt quite sorry for the latter; he looks so old and careworn
+and has lost two sons in the war, I believe. Spent the evening packing
+my few paltry possessions in a hamper I managed to buy in the canteen.
+Found it very difficult to conceal my elation from all the poor devils
+we will leave behind to-morrow. Far too excited to sleep.
+
+_February 13, Saturday._--The Germans evidently have been instructed to
+make things as pleasant as possible for us. A taxi provided at 8.30 and
+a most suave N.C.O. to accompany us. A large crowd of fellow-prisoners
+assembled at the gate to see us off. In spite of the depression they all
+must have felt at watching us go, not one of them showed a sign of it.
+They were just splendid--French, Russians, and English--and wished us
+"Good luck," "Bon voyage," and whatever the Slavonic equivalent may be,
+as though they themselves might be following at any date, instead of
+having to look forward to months and months more of that awful dreary
+life.
+
+At 8.35 turned out of the gate for ever.
+
+At the station H---- joined us from the hospital; being partially
+paralysed he was carried on a stretcher. R.'s kilt caused considerable
+interest, but the onlookers, evidently knowing our circumstances, were
+not in the least offensive--very different from four months ago. We were
+taken charge of by an N.C.O. whom we knew well, as he was employed at
+the barracks. He became most friendly, aired his small knowledge of
+English, and continually asked us if we were glad to be going home. What
+a question! When we changed trains and had about an hour to wait he
+ordered our lunch for us and saw that we had everything that we wanted.
+Travelling via Muenster we reached Osnabrueck at about 4 p.m. and were
+conveyed in a motor to the hospital. Had thought, ever since last night,
+that I could never be depressed again, but the sight of the ward with
+nearly fifty empty beds in it, the smell of iodoform and the whole
+atmosphere of the place had that effect on all of us for a bit. Found
+another English officer here, wounded in the head months ago, and still
+partially paralysed, but recovering. He is to join us. Gathered from
+listening to his experiences that one might have been in much worse
+places than Crefeld. No information as to when we are to move on. Later
+in the evening another officer arrived--one leg shorter than the other
+as the result of a broken thigh. Found the soft, comfortable hospital
+bed most pleasant after the hard mattresses of the prison.
+
+_February 14._--Spent a long dull day confined to the ward; occasionally
+we were visited by some of the German wounded, of whom there were many,
+more or less convalescent, in the hospital. They were quite agreeable.
+Have noticed that the hate and malice engendered by the authorities
+against the English manifests itself more amongst those Germans who have
+not been to the front. Men who have actually been there and have come
+back wounded are far more inclined to sympathise with fellow-sufferers
+than to make themselves offensive. Moreover, I take it that by this time
+the front line troops have acquired a wholesome respect for the British
+army.
+
+About midday we were all examined by a German doctor. This was nervous
+work, especially for R---- and myself--we both being far from
+permanently disabled. However, we seemed to satisfy his requirements. In
+the evening an aged Teuton in shabby waiter's evening dress came and
+informed us that we could order anything we liked to eat or drink if we
+chose to pay for it. Evidently he was acting under instructions to make
+himself pleasant. Anyway we ordered a good dinner but confined ourselves
+to beer. Still no news of when we are to start, but presumably it will
+be soon because of the "blockade," which starts on the 18th.
+
+_February 15._--This morning a board of four German doctors made a
+careful examination of all of us. They came in so unexpectedly that I
+was obliged surreptitiously to withdraw the plug from the hole in my
+palate and swallow it! However, I managed to convince them that I could
+neither eat, drink, nor speak properly, and they passed me without
+demur. Am sure that I went pale with fright at the prospect of being
+dragged back to prison again, and perhaps this fact was of assistance to
+me. There was a long consultation over R----. He was asked if he was
+capable of instructing troops in musketry; whereupon he proceeded to
+explain that, in spite of his three years' service, he himself was still
+under instruction! In the end we were all passed as incapacitated.
+
+We were told this afternoon that we might start to-night, but nothing
+definite. At 7 p.m. were ordered to be ready in half an hour. Hurried on
+our specially ordered dinner and split three bottles of wine amongst us.
+At 7.45 started for the station in motors and were then put on board an
+ambulance train. The "sitting-up" cases had distinctly the best of it
+here; we were in comfortable second-class carriages, whereas the others
+were put in slung-stretchers in cattle trucks. As this same train is to
+fetch back the exchanged German wounded from Flushing, there was
+evidently no malice aforethought in this rough-and-ready accommodation;
+presumably it is the best they can produce. On the train are seven
+officers, 200 or so N.C.O.'s and men, a few German nurses and Red Cross
+men, and one civilian doctor. Started at 8.45 and reached the Dutch
+frontier just after midnight.
+
+_February 16._--Had dozed off but woke up when we reached the frontier
+and was much amused when the Dutch Customs officials came and asked us
+if we had anything to declare! They even pretended to search our few
+miserable belongings. Can never forget the kindness of the Dutch both
+here and everywhere we stopped all through the journey to Flushing. They
+crowded into the carriages; they showered food, tobacco, cigarettes,
+sweets, fruit, even English books and papers on us; they forgot nothing.
+If they'd been our own personal friends they could have done no more for
+us. Dutch doctors and guards boarded the train at the frontier, and also
+an English newspaper correspondent with whom we talked for a couple of
+hours, gradually picking up the thread of all that had happened since we
+were cut off from the outer world. An exhilarating feeling to have left
+Germany behind and to be amongst friends again.
+
+Reached Flushing about 10.30 and were welcomed by the British Consul and
+by several English people over there in connection with Belgian relief
+work. Their hospitality was unbounded. Had a merry lunch with them in
+the hotel, and then strolled out to see the town--followed by a large
+and noisy crowd of school children. But what a joy to be a free man, to
+be able to go where one likes and do what one likes! Wired home.
+
+In the afternoon the boat which is to take us back arrived from England
+with the German wounded. The two batches of men were close together on
+the platform. What a contrast! the Germans, clean, well-cared for,
+dressed either in comparatively serviceable uniform or new civilian
+clothes; the English, white-faced, pinched and careworn, in threadbare
+khaki (some even in tattered French or Belgian uniform) with no buttons,
+most of them with no hats or badges. At first our men were
+indignant--they had suffered much, and it was evident to them that the
+treatment of prisoners in the two countries was very different. But soon
+the inherent chivalry of the British private soldier overcame his other
+feelings. The Germans were enemies but they were wounded--cripples for
+life most of them--and they too were going Home. It formed a bond
+between the two groups. In five minutes cigarettes were being exchanged
+and conversation (aided by signs) in full swing.
+
+There was an English corporal, paralysed, lying on a stretcher in the
+waiting-room. I helped one of the English ladies to take him some tea.
+She knelt beside him, put the cup to his lips, and, when he had drunk,
+asked him how he felt. For a moment he didn't answer but merely stared
+at her with great dark wondering eyes. Then he said slowly: "Are you
+English?" That was all, just those three words, but they expressed
+everything--the misery of all the months he had been in foreign hands,
+his patience, his suffering, and now at long last his infinite content
+at finding one of his own country-women bending over him. His head
+dropped wearily back on to the pillow and he closed his eyes; he was
+happy.
+
+Had dinner at the hotel where we met the doctors who had come over with
+the Germans and who were to go back with us. Afterwards went on board
+the boat which, however, was not to start till the morning. To my dying
+day I shall remember sitting in the saloon and watching the sad
+procession of two hundred crippled N.C.O.'s and men being brought on
+board. There were paralysed cases on stretchers, blind men, deaf men,
+men with an arm or a leg gone, dozens hopelessly lame manoeuvring their
+crutches with difficulty, helping each other, laughing at each
+other--happy enough for the moment. But oh! the pity of it. What of the
+future of these maimed and broken men? They are happy now because
+they're thinking only of to-morrow, but what of the day after? what of
+the thousands of days after? England is proverbially ungrateful to her
+lesser kind of heroes as well as to her greater kind of poets. Geniuses
+have been known to starve in garrets--and so have Balaclava survivors.
+These men deserve well of their country. Will they be remembered or
+forgotten?
+
+Went to bed late, again too excited to sleep. Feel at last that it's a
+reality and not a dream.
+
+_February 17._--Woke to find that the boat had started, that it was
+blowing half a gale, raining hard and that we were in for a vile
+crossing. Too happy to be ill, however. A large number of Belgian
+refugees on board. Talked to several of our men. All their stories
+tallied in essentials. They had been underfed, under-clothed, singled
+out for all the disagreeable work and all the abuse--_because they were
+English_. Watched them playing cards, helping anxious Belgian mothers
+with their sea-sick children. Listened to their talk and laughter and
+choruses, of which the most popular was a version of "Tipperary" which
+stated that the Kaiser would have a long way to go to St. Helena. At
+intervals, every half-hour or so, a mighty shout would go up, "Are we
+downhearted?" and all the crutches would rattle on the deck before the
+crashing answer, "No!"
+
+Disembarked at Folkestone Pier at about six p.m. No fuss, no worry,
+everything done in perfect order. A buffet on the platform provided us
+with English tea and English buns (there can be great joy in a common
+penny bun) served by English ladies. The rain streamed down out of the
+inky sky as the long ambulance train puffed its way out of the station
+at 8 p.m. Even the weather was typically English, as if to welcome us!
+Everything for our comfort had been thought of. In our saloon were
+flowers, great bunches of violets, and a gramophone. And so at last,
+just before eleven, we rolled over the darkened Thames and drew up in
+Charing Cross--Home!
+
+
+
+
+HENRY
+
+
+His real name was Henri Roman, but we called him Henry because it was
+easier to pronounce. His status in the French army was not high--he was
+a private in the 1st Territorial Regiment; it was his custom, however,
+when in conversation with unsuspecting strangers, to omit the word
+Territorial and by merely pointing to the "1" on his _kepi_ lead them to
+suppose that he belonged to the First Regiment of the Line--a rather
+more distinguished unit than his own. Like ourselves, he was a prisoner
+of war, and in his capacity of _valet de chambre_ he was, if not
+perfect, at any rate unusual. We first became conscious of his
+possibilities as a source of merriment when, owing to the arrival of a
+fresh batch of prisoners, we were ordered to change our room.
+
+"Je viens avec messieurs," Henry announced simply, and proceeded to help
+us pack our things. It is a fact that my hair brushes and razor made
+the journey in one of his trouser pockets, G----'s pipes, a half-empty
+pot of jam and a face towel in the other.
+
+To us, accustomed to the diffidence of the English soldier in the
+presence of his officers, it was refreshing to watch Henry enter our
+room in the afternoon bearing on his shoulder the daily supply of coal.
+He would lower the large bucket carefully to the ground and then wipe
+his huge hands on his baggy and discoloured red trousers with the air of
+a man who has done a hard job of work conscientiously and well. From a
+pocket, the bottom of which was apparently somewhere in the region of
+his knee, he would produce a half-smoked and much worn cigar, readjust
+any loose leaves that might be hanging from it, and then light it with
+all the care that a connoisseur bestows upon a corona. Having opened the
+door of the stove to satisfy himself that the fire was "marching well,"
+he would draw up a stool and sit down amongst us for five minutes' rest.
+
+Conversation with him was of course an unequal contest. Our French was
+weak--his, on the contrary, was powerful--in the sense that an express
+train is powerful, that is, rushing, noisy, and only to be stopped by
+signal. He was thirty-five, he told us, and it was obvious, from the
+way he referred to himself as a _pere de famille_ that he considered
+himself as a man well past the prime of life, looking forward hopefully
+to a complacent but always industrious old age. He came from Commines,
+which is north of Lille on the Belgian frontier, and he had worked all
+his life in a braces factory, for ten hours a day, six days a week,
+earning thirty to forty francs, which he considered good wages. On the
+outbreak of war his regiment had formed part of the garrison of
+Maubeuge, which place, in his opinion, was undoubtedly sold to the
+enemy. He had spent about a month at a prisoners' camp in Germany, and
+then had been sent to us with twenty other French soldiers who were to
+act as our servants and waiters. He confessed that he found the change
+agreeable because he was better fed and had some work to do. The
+idleness at the soldiers' camp had bored him. All of which led us to
+believe that he was that kind of man to whom work is a necessity. Facts
+proved otherwise.
+
+He used to appear in our room in the morning at any time between seven
+and half-past. His first objective was the fire. It had happened once
+that the Russian officers who shared the room with us had in our
+absence banked the stove up so high over-night that it was still burning
+on the following morning; in consequence Henry had been saved the
+trouble of laying and lighting the fire afresh. Just as a terrier who
+has once seen a cat in a certain place will always take a glance there
+when passing by, so Henry, hoping daily for a recurrence of such luck,
+made straight for the stove. He was invariably disappointed; but the
+action became a habit.
+
+His next act was to go through the formality of waking us. His procedure
+was to stand at the foot of each bed in turn and place a gigantic hand
+on some portion of the occupant's anatomy. As soon as the sleeper
+stirred, Henry would mutter, "Sept heures vingt, mon capitaine" (or "mon
+lieutenant," as the case might be--he was most punctilious about rank),
+and pass on to the next bed. The actual time by the clock made no
+difference. He always said, "Sept heures vingt." All this, as I have
+stated, was pure formality. His real method of waking us was to make a
+deafening noise clearing out the grate and laying the fire. Having done
+this he abandoned us in favour of his own breakfast.
+
+He reappeared about 9 a.m. to give the room what he called _un coup de
+balai_--his idiom for a superficial rite which he performed with a soft
+broom after scattering water freely about the floor. The resultant mess
+he picked up in his hands and put into the coal-box or pushed under a
+cupboard if he thought no one was looking. He spent the rest of his time
+till his dinner hour at eleven in cleaning the boots, making the beds,
+and pretending to dust things--all the while giving vent to his opinions
+on life in general and prison life in particular. In the afternoons we
+seldom saw him after two o'clock, by which time he had brought the coal
+and washed up the tea things, left dirty since the day before.
+
+Henry possessed neither a handsome face nor a well-knit figure. When he
+stood upright--which he only did if he had some really impressive
+anathema to launch against the Germans--he was not more than five feet
+eight. His skimpy blue blouse disclosed the roundness of his shoulders
+and accentuated the abnormal length of his arms. The ends of his wide
+trousers were clipped tight round his ankles, so that his heavy
+hobnailed boots were displayed in all their vast unshapeliness. In
+walking he trailed his short legs along, giving one the impression that
+he had just completed a twenty-mile march and was about to go away and
+rest for some hours. When we first knew him he had had a scraggy beard
+of no particular colour, but he startled us one morning by appearing
+without it, grinning sheepishly, and exposing to view a weak chin which
+already had a tendency to multiply itself indefinitely. Except on
+Friday, which was his bath day, his long moustache draggled
+indiscriminately over the lower part of his face; but after his douche
+he used to soap the ends and curl them up, giving to his rather foolish
+countenance a ludicrous expression of semi-martial ferocity. On these
+occasions he seldom failed to pay us a visit in the evening, shaved,
+clean, and palpably delighted with himself.
+
+The first time we saw him thus we asked him why he elected to wear his
+moustache like the Kaiser. For a moment he was disconcerted; then
+suddenly realising that a joke was intended, he threw back his head and
+emitted a series of startling guffaws. Being of a simple nature he was
+easily amused. Jokes about the war and the Germans, however, he
+considered to be in bad taste. His political philosophy was summed up in
+his simple phrase, "C'etaient _eux_" (the Germans) "qui ont voulu la
+guerre," and on this count alone they stood condemned eternally before
+God and man. Of history, diplomatic situations, international crises he
+took no heed. In his eyes the Germans were a race of impoverished
+brigands for ever casting greedy eyes upon the riches of peaceful
+France. He told me once in all sincerity that before the war he had
+never borne a grudge against any man, that he had been content to live
+at peace with all the world, but that now he was changed--he hated the
+Germans bitterly--"above all," he added, his voice quivering with
+impotent rage, "this fat pig of an under-officer who occupies himself
+with us orderlies. Nom d'un chien!" (his invariable expletive) "one can
+only think he is put over us on purpose to annoy us."
+
+Poor Henry! I knew the gentleman to whom he referred--a fine type of the
+fat bully rejoicing in a position of power over unfortunate men who
+could in no way retaliate.
+
+At first we had accepted Henry gladly as a kind of unconscious buffoon
+whose absurdities would enliven a few of our many dull hours. But in
+course of time we discovered other and more pleasing traits in him. He
+was a devout Catholic and, in his humble fashion, a staunch Republican.
+One day I asked him why he attached so much importance to that form of
+government.
+
+"Sous la republique, mon capitaine," he replied with dignity, "on est
+libre."
+
+Free! free to work sixty hours a week for twenty years and then to march
+off to a war not of his making with but twelve francs in his pocket,
+leaving a wife and three children behind him to starve!
+
+Like most Frenchmen of his class Henry was thrifty to a degree; I doubt
+if he spent sixpence a week on himself. With the blind faith of a child
+he one day confided his savings to me because he was afraid the Germans
+might search him. By their regulations he was only allowed to have ten
+marks in his possession at once--the surplus he was supposed to deposit
+with the paymaster. But I really think he would rather have thrown the
+money away than done so. He kept a five-franc piece sewn in the lining
+of his trousers "in case," he informed me, "we get separated when the
+war is over. Of course you would send me the rest, but when I get back
+to France I must be able to celebrate my return."
+
+Each week he used to add to the little hoard which I kept for him,
+knowing not only the total but even what actual coins were there.
+
+Upon occasions he could be courtesy itself. One day a Russian officer
+came into our room at a moment when Henry was standing idly by the table
+looking at the pictures in an English magazine. The Russian, mistaking
+him for a French officer, saluted, bowed, and held out his hand. An
+English private would have been embarrassed--not so Henry. With that
+true politeness which always endeavours to prevent others from feeling
+uncomfortable he returned the salute and the bow and shook the proffered
+hand! Could tact have gone further?
+
+On Christmas Day we gave him a box of fifty cigars. He was immensely
+touched and overwhelmingly grateful. Tears sprang to his eyes as he told
+us that he had never had so many cigars before--even in France.
+
+"Avec ca," he exclaimed, fingering the box, "je serai content pour un
+an," and he insisted with charming grace, that we should each accept one
+then and there.
+
+His musical talent was discovered when some one received a concertina
+from England. Coming into the room suddenly on the following morning I
+surprised Henry sitting upon my bed giving what was a quite passable
+rendering of "Tipperary." In no way abashed, he remained where he was,
+only ceasing to play for a moment to tell me that the concertina was too
+small--a toy, in fact. The truth was, I rather think, that his enormous
+fingers found difficulty in pressing less than two stops at once. He
+admitted that he had a passion for music, that he had learnt the
+harmonium from a blind man in Commines, and that he had had an accordion
+specially made for him in Belgium at a cost of 260 francs which had
+taken him years to save. He was inclined to turn up his nose at catchy
+airs and music-hall songs, preferring what he called _la grande
+musique_, by which I think he meant opera. Eventually he was given the
+concertina as a present and went off delighted--doing no more work that
+day.
+
+The optimism with which Henry had begun his prison life gradually faded
+away. At one time he was certain that he would be home for Christmas,
+then for Easter; finally I think he had resigned himself to remaining
+where he was for life. It was his habit to believe implicitly every
+rumour that he heard; and since there were seldom less than fifty new
+ones current every day, he had a busy time retailing them, and was, in
+consequence, always either buoyed up with false hope or weighed down
+with unnecessary despair.
+
+But it was at about the end of December that he began to get anxious and
+worried. Up till then he had been more or less content. His was not a
+super-martial spirit; he did not pine to be "at them" again nor did he
+chafe under the restrictions of a life of confinement. He confessed
+frankly that he was not anxious to fight again, but that when his day's
+work (!) was done he enjoyed sitting by the stove in the stable "avec
+les camarades" (the servants lived in the stables) "tandis que chacun
+raconte sa petite histoire de la guerre."
+
+One day he told me what was on his mind. He had had no news of his
+family since leaving home five months before. At first he had not
+worried, knowing that letters took a long time. But an answer was
+overdue by this time--others had heard from home. "Every day," he said,
+"there are letters, but none for me." I could proffer sympathy but not,
+alas! advice, and I hadn't the heart to tell him that Commines was in
+the thick of the fighting, and had probably been blown to pieces long
+ago. His wife and children _might_ be safe, but they were almost
+certainly homeless refugees. From that day on he used often to come and
+talk to me about his happy life before the war, growing sadder and
+sadder as the weeks passed and still he had no news.
+
+I shall always remember Henry's pathetic little figure by the gate on
+the morning I left the prison, his baggy trousers more discoloured than
+ever, his enormous right hand at the salute, and his lips twisted into
+that wistful smile of his. I wonder what has happened to his wife and
+little daughters. I wonder if he or I or any one will ever know.
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S NOTE
+
+
+     _Of the contents of this book_, SNATTY _and_ FIVE-FOUR-EIGHT
+     _appeared in_ BLACKWOOD'S, _and were both written before the
+     war broke out--a fact which I mention with the selfish object
+     of excusing myself for various technical errors therein_: HENRY
+     _appeared in_ THE NEW STATESMAN. _My thanks are due to the
+     editors of both these journals for kindly allowing me to
+     republish the stories. The remainder have all appeared in_ THE
+     CORNHILL MAGAZINE, _to the editor of which I am deeply indebted
+     for his unfailing courtesy and assistance._
+
+    FLANDERS,
+      _November, 1916_.
+
+
+PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LTD., LONDON AND BECCLES, ENGLAND.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Servants of the Guns, by Jeffery E. Jeffery
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