"It may now be divulged that, some time ago, the British lines were extended for a considerable distance to the South."--EXTRACT FROM OFFICIAL DISPATCH.
The first notice that the men of the Tower Bridge Foot had that they were to move outside the territory they had learned so well in many weary marches and wanderings in networks and mazes of trenches, was when they crossed a road which had for long marked the boundary line between the grounds occupied by the British and French forces.
"Do you suppose the O.C. is drunk, or that the guide has lost his way?" said Private Robinson. "Somebody ought to tell him we're off our beat and that trespassers will be prosecuted. Not but what he don't know that, seeing he prosecuted me cruel six months ago for roving off into the French lines--said if I did it again I might be took for a spy and shot. Anyhow, I'd be took for being where I was out o' bounds and get a dose of Field Punishment. Wonder where we're bound for?"
"Don't see as it matters much," said his next file. "I suppose one wet field's as good as another to sleep in, so why worry?"
A little farther on, the battalion met a French Infantry Regiment on the march. The French regiment's road discipline was rather more lax than the British, and many tolerantly amused criticisms were passed on the loose formation, the lack of keeping step, and the straggling lines of the French. The criticisms, curiously enough, came in a great many cases from the very men in the Towers' ranks who had often "groused" most at the silliness of themselves being kept up to the mark in these matters. The marching Frenchmen were singing--but singing in a fashion quite novel to the British. Throughout their column there were anything up to a dozen songs in progress, some as choruses and some as solos, and the effect was certainly rather weird. The Tower Bridge officers, knowing their own men's fondness for swinging march songs, expected, and, to tell truth, half hoped that they would give a display of their harmonious powers. They did, but hardly in the expected fashion. One man demanded in a growling bass that the "Home Fires be kept Burning," while another bade farewell to Leicester Square in a high falsetto. The giggling Towers caught the idea instantly, and a confused medley of hymns, music-hall ditties, and patriotic songs in every key, from the deepest bellowing bass to the shrillest wailing treble, arose from the Towers' ranks, mixed with whistles and cat-calls and Corporal Flannigan's famous imitation of "Life on a Farm." The joke lasted the Towers for the rest of that march, and as sure as any Frenchman met or overtook them on the road he was treated to a vocal entertainment that must have left him forever convinced of the rumored potency of British rum.
By now word had passed round the Towers that they were to take over a portion of the trenches hitherto occupied by the French. Many were the doubts, and many were the arguments, as to whether this would or would not be to the personal advantage and comfort of themselves; but at least it made a change of scene and surroundings from those they had learned for months past, and since such a change is as the breath of life to the British soldier, they were on the whole highly pleased with it.
The morning was well advanced when they were met by guides and interpreters from the French regiment which they were relieving, and commenced to move into the new trenches. Although at first there were some who were inclined to criticize, and reluctant to believe that a Frenchman, or any other foreigner, could do or make anything better than an Englishman, the Towers had to admit, even before they reached the forward firing trench, that the work of making communication trenches had been done in a manner beyond British praise. The trenches were narrow and very deep, neatly paved throughout their length with brick, spaced at regular intervals with sunk traps for draining off rain-water, and with bays and niches cut deep in the side to permit the passing of any one meeting a line of pack-burdened men in the shoulder-wide alley-way.
When they reached the forward firing trench, their admiration became unbounded; they were as full of eager curiosity as children on a school picnic. They fraternized instantly and warmly with the outgoing Frenchmen, and the Frenchmen for their part were equally eager to express friendship, to show the English the dugouts, the handy little contrivances for comfort and safety, to bequeath to their successors all sorts of stoves and pots and cooking utensils, and generally to give an impression, which was put into words by Private Robinson: "Strike me if this ain't the most cordiawl bloomin' ongtongt I've ever met!"
The Towers had never realized, or regretted, their lack of the French as deeply as they came to do now. Hitherto dealings in the language had been entirely with the women in the villages and billets of the reserve lines, where there was plenty of time to find means of expressing the two things that for the most part were all they had to express--their wants and their thanks. And because by now they had no slightest difficulty in making these billet inhabitants understand what they required--a fire for cooking, stretching space on a floor, the location of the nearest estaminets, whether eggs, butter, and bread were obtainable, and how much was the price--they had fondly imagined in their hearts, and boasted loudly in their home letters, that they were quite satisfactorily conversant with the French language. Now they were to discover that their knowledge was not quite so extensive as they had imagined, although it never occurred to them that the French women in the billets were learning English a great deal more rapidly and efficiently than they were learning French, that it was not altogether their mastery of the language which instantly produced soap and water, for instance, when they made motions of washing their hands and said slowly and loudly: "Soap--you compree, soap and l'eau; you savvy--l'eau, wa-ter." But now, when it came to the technicalities of their professional business, they found their command of the language completely inadequate. There were many of them who could ask, "What is the time?" but that helped them little to discover at what time the Germans made a practice of shelling the trenches; they could have asked with ease, "Have you any eggs?" but they could not twist this into a sentence to ask whether there were any egg-selling farms in the vicinity; could have asked "how much" was the bread, but not how many yards it was to the German trench.
A few Frenchmen, who spoke more or less English, found themselves in enormous French and English demand, while Private 'Enery Irving, who had hitherto borne some reputation as a French speaker--a reputation, it may be mentioned, largely due to his artful knack of helping out spoken words by imitation and explanatory acting--found his bubble reputation suddenly and disastrously pricked. He made some attempt to clutch at its remains by listening to the remarks addressed to him by a Frenchman, with a most potently intelligent and understanding expression, by ejaculating "Nong, nong!" and a profoundly understanding "Ah, wee!" at intervals in the one-sided conversation. He tried this method when called upon by a puzzled private to interpret the torrential speech of a Frenchman, who wished to know whether the Towers had any jam to spare, or whether they would exchange a rum ration for some French wine. 'Enery interjected a few "Ah, wee's!" and then at the finish explained to the private.
"He speaks a bit fast," he said, "but he's trying to tell me something about him coming from a place called Conserve, and that we can have his 'room' here--meaning, I suppose, his dug-out." He turned to the Frenchman, spread out his hands, shrugged his shoulders, and gesticulated after the most approved fashion of the stage Frenchman, bowed deeply, and said, "Merci, Monsieur," many times. The Frenchman naturally looked a good deal puzzled, but bowed politely in reply and repeated his question at length. This producing no effect except further stage shrugs, he seized upon one of the interpreters who was passing and explained rapidly. "He asks," said the interpreter, turning to 'Enery and the other men, "whether you have any conserve et rhum--jam and rum--you wish to exchange for his wine." After that 'Enery Irving collapsed in the public estimation as a French speaker.
When the Towers were properly installed, and the French regiment commenced to move out, a Tower Bridge officer came along and told his men that they were to be careful to keep out of sight, as the orders were to deceive the Germans opposite and to keep them ignorant as long as possible of the British-French exchange. Private Robinson promptly improved upon this idea. He found a discarded French kepi, put it on his head, and looked over the parapet. He only stayed up for a second or two and ducked again, just as a bullet whizzed over the parapet. He repeated the performance at intervals from different parts of the trench, but finding that his challenge drew quicker and quicker replies was obliged at last to lift the cap no more than into sight on the point of a bayonet. He was rather pleased with the applause of his fellows and the half-dozen prompt bullets which each appearance of the cap at last drew, until one bullet, piercing the cap and striking the point of the bayonet, jarred his fingers unpleasantly and deflected the bullet dangerously and noisily close to his ear. Some of the Frenchmen who were filing out had paused to watch this performance, laughing and bravo-ing at its finish. Robinson bowed with a magnificent flourish, then replaced the kepi on the point of the bayonet, raised the kepi, and made the bayonet bow to the audience. A French officer came bustling along the trench urging his men to move on. He stood there to keep the file passing along without check, and Robinson turned presently to some of the others and asked if they knew what was the meaning of this "Mays ongfong" that the officer kept repeating to his men. "Ongfong," said 'Enery Irving briskly, seizing the opportunity to reestablish himself as a French speaker, "means 'children'; spelled e-n-f-a-n-t-s, pronounced ongfong."
"Children!" said Robinson. "Infants, eh? 'ealthy lookin' lot o' infants. There's one now--that six-foot chap with the Father Christmas whiskers; 'ow's that for a' infant?"
As the Frenchmen filed out some of them smiled and nodded and called cheery good-bys to our men, and 'Enery Irving turned to a man beside him. "This," he said, "is about where some appropriate music should come in the book. Exit to triumphant strains of martial music Buck up, Snapper! Can't you mouth-organ 'em the Mar-shall-aise?"
Snapper promptly produced his instrument and mouth-organed the opening bars, and the Towers joined in and sang the tune with vociferous "la-la-las." When they had finished, two or three of the Frenchmen, after a quick word together struck up "God Save the King." Instantly the others commenced to pick it up, but before they had sung three words 'Enery Irving, in tones of horror, demanded "The Mar-shall-aise again; quick, you idiot!" from Snapper, and himself swung off into a falsetto rendering of "Three Blind Mice." In a moment the Towers had in full swing their medley caricature of the French march singing, under which "God Save the King" was very completely drowned.
"What the devil d'you mean? Are you all mad?" demanded a wrathful subaltern, plunging round the traverse to where Snapper mouth-organed the "Marseillaise," 'Enery Irving lustily intoned his anthem of the Blind Mice, and Corporal Flannigan passed from the deep lowing of a cow to the clarion calls of the farmyard rooster.
"Beg pardon, sir," said 'Enery Irving with lofty dignity, "but if I 'adn't started this row the 'ole trenchful o' Frenchies would 'ave been 'owling our 'Gawd Save.' I saw that 'ud be a clean give-away, an' the order bein' to act so as to deceive----"
"Quite right," said the officer, "and a smart idea of yours to block it. But who was the crazy ass who started it by singing the 'Marseillaise'?" On this point, however, 'Enery was discreetly silent.
Before the French had cleared the trench the Germans opened a leisurely bombardment with a trench mortar. This delayed the proceeding somewhat, because it was reckoned wiser to halt the men and clear them from the crowded trench into the dug-outs. "With the double company of French and British, there was rather a tight squeeze in the shelters, wonderfully commodious as they were.
"Now this," said Corporal Flannigan, "is what I call something like a dug-out." He looked appreciatively round the square, smooth-walled chamber and up the steps to the small opening which gave admittance to it. "Good dodge, too, this sinking it deep underground. Even if a bomb dropped in the trench just outside, and pieces blew in the door, they'd only go over our heads. Something like, this is."
"I wonder," said another reflectively, "why we don't have dug-outs like this in our line?" He spoke in a slightly aggrieved tone, as if dugouts were things that were issued from the Quarter-Master's store, and therefore a legitimate cause for free complaint. He and his fellows would certainly have felt a good deal more aggrieved, however, if they had been set the labor of making such dug-outs.
Up above, such of the French and British as had been left in the trench were having quite a busy time with the bombs. The Frenchmen had rather a unique way of dodging these, which the Towers were quick to adopt. The whole length of the trench was divided up into compartments by strong traverses running back at right angles from the forward parapet, and in each of these compartments there were anything from four or five to a dozen men, all crowded to the backward end of the traverse, waiting and watching there to see the bomb come twirling slowly and clumsily over. As it reached the highest point of its curve and began to fall down towards the trench, it was as a rule fairly easy to say whether it would fall to right or left of the traverse. If it fell in the trench to the right, the men hurriedly plunged round the corner of the traverse to the left, and waited there till the bomb exploded. The crushing together at the angle of the traverse, the confused cries of warning or advice, or speculation as to which side a bomb would fall, the scuffling, tumbling rush to one side or the other, the cries of derision which greeted the ineffective explosion--all made up a sort of game. The Towers had had a good many unhappy experiences with bombs, and at first played the unknown game carefully and anxiously, and with some doubts as to its results. But they soon picked it up, and presently made quite merry at it, laughing and shouting noisily, tumbling and picking themselves up and laughing again like children.
They lost three men, who were wounded through their slowness in escaping from the compartment where the bomb exploded, and this rather put the Towers on their mettle. As Private Robinson remarked, it wasn't the cheese that a Frenchman should beat an Englishman at any blooming game.
"If we could only get a little bit of a stake on it," he said wistfully, "we could take 'em on, the winners being them that loses least men."
It being impossible, however, to convey to the Frenchmen that interest would be added by the addition of a little bet, the Towers had to content themselves with playing platoon against platoon amongst themselves, the losing platoon pay, what they could conveniently afford, the day's rations of the men who were casualtied. The subsequent task of dividing one and a quarter pots of jam, five portions of cheese, bacon and a meat-and-potato stew was only settled eventually by resource to a set of dice.
As the bombing continued methodically, the French artillery, who were still covering this portion of the trench, set to work to silence the mortar, and the Towers thoroughly enjoyed the ensuing performance, and the generous, not to say extravagant, fashion in which the French battery, after the usual custom of French batteries, lavished its shells upon the task. For five minutes the battery spoke in four-tongued emphatic tones, and the shells screamed over the forward trench, crackled and crashed above the German line, dotted the German parapet along its length, played up and down it in long bursts of fire, and deluged the suspected hiding-place of the mortar with a torrent of high explosive. When it stopped, the bombing also had stopped for that day.
The French infantry did not wait for the ceasing of the artillery fire. They gathered themselves and their belongings and recommenced to move as soon as the guns began to speak.
"Feenish!" as one of them said, placing a finger on the ground, lifting it in a long curve, twirling it over and over and downward again in imitation of a falling bomb. "Ze soixante-quinze speak, bang-bang-bang!" and his fist jerked out four blows in a row. "Feenish!" he concluded, holding a hand out towards the German lines and making a motion of rubbing something off the slate. Plainly they were very proud of their artillery, and the Towers caught that word "soixante-quinze" in every tone of pleasure, pride, and satisfaction. But as Private Robinson said, "I don't wonder at it. Cans is a good name, but can-an'-does would be a better."
When the last of the Frenchmen had gone, the Towers completed their settling in and making themselves comfortable in the vacated quarters. The greatest care was taken to avoid any man showing a British cap or uniform. "Snapper" Brown, urged by the public-spirited 'Enery Irving, exhausted himself in playing the "Marseillaise" at the fullest pitch of his lungs and mouth-organ. His artistic soul revolted at last at the repetition, but since the only other French tune that was suggested was the Blue Danube Waltz, and there appeared to be divergent opinions as to its nationality, "Snapper" at last struck, and refused to play the "Marseillaise" a single time more. 'Enery Irving enthusiastically took up this matter of "acting so as to deceive the Germans."
"Act!" he said. "If I'd a make-up box and a false mustache 'ere, I'd act so as to cheat the French President 'imself, much less a parcel of beer-swilling Germs."
The German trenches were too far away to allow of any conversation, but 'Enery secured a board, wrote on it in large letters "Veev la France," and displayed it over the parapet. After the Germans had signified their notice of the sentiment by firing a dozen shots at it, 'Enery replaced it by a fresh one, "A baa la Bosh." This notice was left standing, but to 'Enery's annoyance the Germans displayed in return a board which said in plain English, "Good morning." "Ain't that a knock out," said 'Enery disgustedly. "Much use me acting to deceive the Germans if some silly blighter in another bit o' the line goes and gives the game away."
Throughout the rest of the day he endeavored to confuse the German's evident information by the display of the French cap and of French sentences on the board like "Bong jewr," "Bong nwee," and "Mercridi," which he told the others was the French for a day of the week, the spelling being correct as he knew because he had seen it written down, and the day indicated, he believed, being Wednesday--or Thursday. "And that's near enough," he said, "because to-day is Wednesday, and if Mercridi means Wednesday, they'll think I'm signaling 'to-day'; and if it means Thursday, they'll think I'm talking about to-morrow." All doubts of the German's knowledge appeared to be removed, however, by their next notice, which stated plainly, "You are Englander." To that 'Enery, his French having failed him, could only retort by a drawing of outstretched fingers and a thumb placed against a prominent nose on an obviously French face, with pointed mustache and imperial, and a French cap. But clearly even this failed, and the German's next message read, "WELL DONE, WALES!" The Towers were annoyed, intensely annoyed, because shortly before that time the strikes of the Welsh miners had been prominent in the English papers, and as the Towers guessed from this notice at least equally prominent in the German journals.
"And I only 'opes," said Robinson, "they sticks that notice up in front of some of the Taffy regiments."
"I don't see that a bit," said 'Enery Irving. "The Taffys out 'ere 'ave done their bit along with the best, and they're just as mad as us, and maybe madder, at these ha'penny-grabbing loafers on strike."
"True enough," said Robinson, "but maybe they'll write 'ome and tell their pals 'ow pleased the Bosche is with them, and 'ave a kind word in passing to say when any of them goes 'ome casualtied or on leave, 'Well done, Wales!' Well, I 'ope Wales likes that smack in the eye," and he spat contemptuously. Presently he had the pleasure of expressing his mind more freely to a French signaler of artillery who was on duty at an observing post in this forward fire trench. The Frenchman had a sufficient smattering of English to ask awkward questions as to why men were allowed to strike in England in war time, but unfortunately not enough to follow Robinson's lengthy and agonized explanations that these men were not English but--a very different thing--Welsh, and, more than that, unpatriotic swine, who ought to be shot. He was reduced at last to turning the unpleasant subject aside by asking what the Frenchman was doing there now the British had taken over. And presently the matter was shelved by a French observing officer, who was on duty there, calling his signalers to attention. The German guns had opened a slow and casual fire about half an hour before on the forward British trench, and now they quickened their fire and commenced methodically to bombard the trench. At his captain's order a signaler called up a battery by telephone. The telephone instrument was in a tall narrow box with a handle at the side, and the signaler ground the handle vigorously for a minute and shouted a long string of hello's into the instrument, rapidly twirled the handle again and shouted, twirled and shouted.
The Towers watched him in some amusement. "'Ere, chum," said Robinson, "you 'aven't put your tuppence in the slot," and 'Enery Irving in a falsetto imitation of a telephone girl's metallic voice drawled: "Put two pennies in, please, and turn the handle after each--one--two--thank you! You're through." The signaler revolved the handle again. "You're mistook, 'Enery," said Robinson, "'e ain't through. Chum, you ought to get your tuppence back."
"Ask to be put through to the inquiry office," said another. "Make a complaint and tell 'em to come and take the blanky thing away if it can't be kept in order. That's what I used to 'ear my governor say every other day."
From his lookout corner the captain called down in rapid French to his signaler.
"D 'ye 'ear that," said Robinson. "Garsong he called him. He's a bloomin' waiter! Well, well, and me thought he was a signaler."
The captain at last was forced to descend from his place, and with the signaler endeavored to rectify the faulty instrument. They got through at last, and the captain spoke to his battery.
"'Ear that," said Robinson. "'Mes on-fong,' he says. He's got a lot o' bloomin' infants too."
"Queer crowd!" said Flannigan. "What with infants for soldiers and a waiter for a signaler, and a butcher or a baker or candlestick-maker for a President, as I'm told they have, they're a rum crush altogether."
The captain ascended to his place again. A German shell, soaring over, burst with a loud crump behind the trench. The French signaler laughed and waved derisively towards the shell. He leaned his head and body far to one side, straightened slowly, bent his head on a curve to the other side, and brought it up with a jerk, imitating, as he did so, the sound of the falling and bursting shell, "sss-eee-aaa-ahah-aow-Wump." Another shell fell, and "aow-Wump," he cried again, shuffling his feet and laughing gayly. The Towers laughed with him, and when the next shell fell there was a general chorus of imitation.
The captain called again, the signaler ground the handle and spoke into the telephone. "Fire!" he said, nodding delightedly to the Towers; "boom-boom-boom-boom." Immediately after they heard the loud, harsh, crackling reports of the battery to their rear, and the shells rushed whistling overhead.
The signaler mimicked the whistling sound, and clicked his heels together. "Ha!" he said, "soixante-quinze--good, eh?" The captain called to him, and again he revolved the handle and called to the battery.
"Garsong," said Robinson, "a plate of swa-song-canned beans, si voo play--and serve 'em hot"
A German shell dropped again, and again the chorused howls and laughter of the Towers marked its fall. The captain called for high explosive, and the signaler shouted on the order.
"Exploseef," repeated 'Enery Irving, again airing his French. "That's high explosive."
"Garsong, twopennorth of exploseef soup," chanted Robinson.
Then the order was sent down for rapid fire, and a moment later the battery burst out in running quadruple reports, and the shells streamed whistling overhead. The Towers peered through periscopes and over the parapet to watch the tossing plumes of smoke and dust that leaped and twisted in the German lines. "Good old cans!" said Robinson appreciatively.
When the fire stopped, the captain came to the telephone and spoke to the battery in praise of their shooting. The Towers listened carefully to catch a word here and there. "There he goes again," said Robinson, "with 'is bloomin' infants," and later he asked the signaler the meaning of "mes braves" that was so often in the captain's mouth.
"'Ear that," he said to the other Towers when the signaler explained it meant "my braves." "Bloomin' braves he's calling his battery now. Infants was bad enough, but 'braves' is about the limit. I'm open to admit they're brave enough; that bombing didn't seem to worry them, and shell-fire pleases them like a call for dinner; and you remember that time we was in action one side of the La Bassee road and they was in it on the other? Strewth! When I remember the wiping they got crossing the open, and the way they stuck it and plugged through that mud, and tore the barbed wire up by the roots, and sailed over into the German trench, I'm not going to contradict anybody that calls 'em brave. But it sounds rum to 'ear 'em call each other it."
Robinson was busy surveying in a periscope the ground between the trenches. "I dunno if I'm seein' things," he remarked suddenly, "but I could 've swore a man's 'and waved out o' the grass over there." With the utmost caution half a dozen men peered out through loopholes and with periscopes in the direction indicated, and presently a chorus of exclamations told that the hand had again been seen. Robinson was just about to wave in reply when 'Enery grabbed his arm.
"You're a nice one to 'act so as to deceive,' you are," he said warmly. "I s'pose a khaki sleeve is likely to make the 'Uns believe we're French. Now, you watch me."
He pulled back his tunic sleeve, held his shirtsleeved arm up the moment the next wave came, and motioned a reply.
"He's in a hole o' some sort," said 'Enery. "Now I wonder who it is. A Frenchie by his tunic sleeve."
"Yes; there's 'is cap," said Robinson suddenly. "Just up--and gone."
"Make the same motion wi' this cap on a bayonet," said 'Enery; "then knock off, case the Boshies spot 'im."
The matter was reported, and presently a couple of officers came along, made a careful examination, and waved the cap. A cautious reply, and a couple of bullets whistling past their cap came at the same moment.
Later, 'Enery sought the sergeant. "Mind you this, sergeant," he said, "if there's any volunteerin' for the job o' fetchin' that chap in, he belongs to me. I found 'im." The sergeant grinned.
"Robinson was here two minutes ago wi' the same tale," he said. "Seems you're all in a great hurry to get shot."
"Like his bloomin' cheek!" said the indignant 'Enery. "I know why he wants to go out; he's after those German helmets the interpreter told us was lyin' out there."
The difficulty was solved presently by the announcement that an officer was going out and would take two volunteers--B Company to have first offer. 'Enery and Robinson secured the post, and 'Enery immediately sought the officer. Reminding him of the order to "act so as to deceive," he unfolded a plan which was favorably considered.
"Those Boshies thought they was bloomin' clever to twig we was English," he told the others of B Company; "but you wait till the lime-light's on me. I'll puzzle 'em."
The two French artillery signalers were sleeping in the forward trench, and after some explanation readily lent their long-skirted coats. The officer and Robinson donned one each, and 'Enery carefully arrayed himself in a torn and discarded pair of old French baggy red breeches and the damaged French cap, and discarded his own jacket. His gray shirt might have been of any nationality, so that on the whole he made quite a passable Frenchman. While they waited for darkness he paraded the trench, shrugging his shoulders, and gesticulating. "Bon joor, mays ong-fong," he remarked with a careless hand-wave. "Hey, gar-song! Donney-moi du pang eh du beurre, si voo play--and donnay-moi swoy-song cans--rapeed--exploseef! Merci, mes braves, mes bloomin' 'eroes ... mes noble warriors, merci. Snapper, strike up the 'Conkerin' 'Ero,' if you please."
Before the time came to go he added to his make-up by marking on his face with a burnt stick huge black mustachios and an imperial, and although the officer stared a little when he came along he ended by laughing, and leaving 'Enery his "make-up" disguise.
An hour after dark the three slipped quietly over the parapet and out through the barbed wire, dragging a stretcher after them. It was a fairly quiet night, with only an occasional rifle cracking and no artillery fire. A bright moon floated behind scudding clouds, and perhaps helped the adventure by the alternate minutes of light and dark and the difficulty of focusing eyes to the differences of moonlight and dark and the blaze of an occasional flare when the moon was obscured. Behind the parapet the Towers waited with rifles ready, and stared out through the loopholes; and behind them the French artillery officer, and his signalers standing by their telephone, also waited with the loaded guns and ready gunners at the other end of the wire. The watchers saw the dark blot of men and stretcher slip under the wires, and slowly, very slowly, creep on through the long grass. Half-way across, the watchers lost them amidst the other black blots and shadows, and it was a full half-hour after when a private exclaimed suddenly: "I see them," he said. "There, close where we saw the hand."
The moon vanished a moment, then sailed clear, throwing a strong silvery light across the open ground, and showing plainly the German wire entanglements and the black-and-white patchwork of their barricade. There were no visible signs of the rescue party, for the good reason that they had slipped into and lay prone in the wide shell crater that held the wounded Frenchman. Far spent the man was when they found him, for he had lain there three nights and two days with a bullet-smashed thigh and the scrape across his skull that had led the rest of his night patrol to count him dead and so abandon him.
Now the moon slid again behind the racing clouds, and patches of light and shadow in turn chased across the open ground.
"Here they come," said the captain of B Company a few minutes later. "At least I think it's them, altho' I can only see two men and no stretcher."
"Do you see them?" said an eager voice in French at his ear, and when he turned and found the gunner captain and explained to him, the captain made a gesture of despair. "Perhaps it is that they cannot move him," he said. "Or would they, do you think, return for more help? I should go myself but that I may be needed to talk with the battery. Perhaps one of my signalers----"
But the Englishman assured him it was better to wait; they could not be returning for help; that the three could do all a dozen could.
Again they waited and watched in eager suspense, glimpsing the crawling figures now and then, losing them again, in doubts and certainty in swift turns as to the whereabouts and identity of the crawling figures.
"There is one of them," said the captain quickly; "there, by himself, in those cursed red breeches. They show up in the flarelight like a blood-spot on a clean collar. Dashed idiot! And I was a fool, too, to let him go like that."
But it was plain now that 'Enery Irving was dragging his red breeches well clear of the others, although it was not plain, what the others had done with the stretcher. There were two of them at the length of a stretcher apart, and yet no visible stretcher lay between them. It was the sergeant who solved the mystery.
"I'm blowed!" he said, in admiring wonder; "they've covered the stretcher over with cut grass. They've got their man too--see his head this end."
Now that they knew it, all could see the outline of the man's body covered over with grass, the thick tufts waving upright from his hands and nodding between his legs.
They were three-quarters of the way across now, but still with a dangerous slope to cross. It was ever so slight, but, tilted as it was towards the enemy's line, it was enough to show much more plainly anything that moved or lay upon its face. They crawled on with a slowness that was an agony to watch, crawled an inch at a time, lying dead and still when a light flared, hitching themselves and the dragging stretcher onwards as the dullness of hazed moonlight fell.
The French captain was consumed with impatience, muttering exhortations to caution, whispering excited urgings to move, as if his lips were at the creepers' ears, his fingers twitching and jerking, his body hitching and holding still, exactly as if he too crawled out there and dragged at the stretcher.
And then when it seemed that the worst was over, when there was no more than a score of feet to cover to the barbed wire, when they were actually crawling over the brow of the gentle rise, discovery came. There were quick shots from one spot of the German parapet, confused shouting, the upward soaring of half a dozen blazing flares.
And then before the two dragging the stretcher could move in a last desperate rush for safety, before they could rise from their prone position, they heard the rattle of fire increase swiftly to a trembling staccato roar. But, miraculously, no bullets came near them, no whistling was about their ears, no ping and smack of impacting lead hailed about them--except, yes, just the fire of one rifle or two that sent aimed bullet after bullet hissing over them. They could not understand it, but without waiting to understand they half rose, thrust and hauled at the stretcher, dragged it under the wires, heaved it over to where eager hands tore down the sandbags to gap a passage for them. A handful of bullets whipped and rapped about them as they tumbled over, and the stretcher was hoisted in, but nothing worth mention, nothing certainly of that volume of fire that drammed and rolled out over there. They did not understand; but the others in the trench understood, and laughed a little and swore a deal, then shut their teeth and set themselves to pump bullets in a covering fire upon the German parapet.
The stretcher party drew little or no fire, simply and solely because just one second after those first shots and loud shouts had declared the game up, a figure sprang from the grass fifty yards along the trench and twice as far out in the open, sprang up and ran out, and stood in the glare of light, the baggy scarlet breeches and gray shirt making a flaring mark that no eye, called suddenly to see, could miss, that no rifle brought sliding through the loophole and searching for a target could fail to mark. The bullets began to patter about 'Enery Irving's feet, to whine and whimper and buzz about his ears. And 'Enery--this was where the trench, despite themselves, laughed--'Enery placed his hand on his heart, swept off his cap in a magnificent arm's length gesture, and bowed low; then swiftly he rose upright, struck an attitude that would have graced the hero of the highest class Adelphi drama, and in a shrill voice that rang clear above the hammering tumult of the rifles, screamed "Veev la France! A baa la Bosh!" The rifles by this time were pelting a storm of lead at him, and now that the haste and flurry of the urgent call had passed and the shooters had steadied to their task, the storm was perilously close. 'Enery stayed a moment even then to spread his hands and raise his shoulders ear-high in a magnificent stage shrug; but a bullet snatched the cap from his head, and 'Enery ducked hastily, turned, and ran his hardest, with the bullets snapping at his heels.
Back in the trench a frantic French captain was raving at the telephone, whirling the handle round, screaming for "Fire, fire, fire!"
Private Flannigan looked over his shoulder at him, "Mong capitaine," he said, "you ought, you reely ought, to ring up your telephone; turn the handle round an' say something."
"Drop two pennies in," mocked another as the captain birr-r-red the handle and yelled again.
Whether he got through, or whether the burst of rifle fire reached the listening ears at the guns, nobody knew; but just as 'Enery did his ear-embracing shoulder-shrug the first shells screamed over, burst and leaped down along the German parapet. After that there was no complaint about the guns. They scourged the parapet from end to end, up and down, and up again; they shook it with the blast of high explosive, ripped and flayed it with, driving blasts of shrapnel, smothered it with a tempest of fire and lead, blotted it out behind a veil of writhing smoke.
At the sound of the first shot the gunner captain had leaped back to the trench. "Is he in? Is he arrived?" he shouted in the ear of the B Company captain who leaned anxiously over the parapet. The captain drew back and down. "He's in--bless him--I mean dash his impudent hide!"
The Frenchman turned and called to his signaler, and the next moment the guns ceased. But the captain waited, watching with narrowed eyes the German parapet. The storm of his shells had obliterated the rifle fire, but after a few minutes it opened up again in straggling shots.
The captain snapped back a few orders, and prompt to his word the shells leaped and struck down again on the parapet. A dozen rounds and they ceased, and again the captain waited and watched. The rifles were silent now, and presently the captain relaxed his scowling glare and his tightened lips. "Vermin!" he said. He used just the tone a man gives to a ferocious dog he has beaten and cowed to a sullen submission.
But he caught sight of 'Enery making his way along the trench past his laughing and chaffing mates, and leaped down and ran to him. "Bravo!" he beamed, and threw his arms round the astonished soldier, and before he could dodge, as the disgusted 'Enery said afterwards, "planted two quick-fire kisses, smack, smack," on his two cheeks.
"Mon brave!" he said, stepping back and regarding 'Enery with shining eyes, "Mon brave, mon beau Anglais, mon----"
But 'Enery's own captain arrived here and interrupted the flow of admiration, cursing the grinning and sheepish private for a this, that, and the other crazy, play-acting idiot, and winding up abruptly by shaking hands with him and saying gruffly, "Good work, though. B Company's proud of you, and so'm I."
"An' I admit I felt easier after that rough-tonguin'," 'Enery told B Company that night over a mess-tin of tea. "It was sort of natural-like, an' what a man looks for, and it broke up about as unpleasant a sit-u-ation as I've seen staged. I could see you all grinnin', and I don't wonder at it. That slobberin' an' kissin' business, an' the Mong Brav Conkerin' 'Ero may be all right for a lot o' bloomin' Frenchies that don't know better--"
He took a long swig of tea.
"Though, mind you," he resumed, "I haven't a bad word to fit to a Frenchman. They're real good fighting stuff, an' they ain't arf the light-'earted an' light-'eaded grinnin' giddy goats I used to take 'em for."
"There wasn't much o' the light 'eart look about the Mong Cappytaine to-night," said Robinson. "'Is eyes was snappin' like two ends o' a live wire, and 'e 'andled them guns as business-like as a butcher cutting chops."
"That's it," said 'Enery, "business-like is the word for 'em. I noticed them 'airy-faces shootin' to-day. They did it like they was sent there to kill somebody, and they meant doin' their job thorough an' competent. Afore I come this trip on the Continong I used to think a Frenchman was good for nothing but fiddlin' an' dancin' an' makin' love. But since I've seen 'em settin' to Bosh partners an' dancin' across the neutral ground an' love-makin' wi' Rosalie,[Footnote: Rosalie--the French nickname for the bayonet.] I've learned better. 'Ere's luck to 'im," and he drained the mess-tin.
And the French, if one might judge from the story mon capitaine had to tell his major, had also revised some ancient opinions of their Allies.
"Cold!" he said scornfully; "never again tell me these English are cold. Children--perhaps. Foolish--but yes, a little. They try to kill a man between jests; they laugh if a bullet wounds a comrade so that he grimaces with pain--it is true; I saw it." It was true, and had reference to a sight scrape of a bullet across the tip of the nose of a Towers private, and the ribald jests and laughter thereat. "They make jokes, and say a man 'stopped one,' meaning a shell had been stopped in its flight by exploding on him--this the interpreter has explained to me. But cold--no, no, no! If you had seen this man--ah, sublime, magnificent! With the whistling balls all round him he stands, so brave, so noble, so fine, stands--so! 'Vive la France!' he cried aloud, with a tongue of trumpets; 'Vive la France! A bas les Boches!'"
The captain, as he declaimed "with a tongue of trumpets," leaped to his feet and struck an attitude that was really quite a good imitation of 'Enery's own mock-tragedian one. But the officers listening breathed awe and admiration; they did not, as the Towers did, laugh, because here, unlike the Towers, they saw nothing to laugh at.
The captain dropped to his chair amid a murmur of applause. "Sublime!" he said. "That posture, that cry! Indeed, it was worthy of a Frenchman. But certainly we must recommend him for a Cross of France, eh, my major?"
'Enery Irving got the Cross of the Legion of Honor. But I doubt if it ever gave him such pure and legitimate joy as did a notice stuck up in the German trench next day. Certainly it insulted the English by stating that their workers stayed at home and went on strike while Frenchmen fought and died. But it was headed "Frenchman!" and it was written in French.