"Four months," said Wagstaffe briefly.
"What was his Christian name, do you know?"
"Walter, I think, sir," said c.o.c.kerell.
Colonel Kemp, amid the stress of battle, found time to enter a note in his pocket-diary to that effect.
Meanwhile, up in the line, "A" Company were holding on grimly to what are usually described as "certain advanced elements" of the village.
Village fighting is a confused and untidy business, but it possesses certain redeeming features. The combatants are usually so inextricably mixed up that the artillery are compelled to refrain from partic.i.p.ation. That comes later, when you have cleared the village of the enemy, and his guns are preparing the ground for the inevitable counter-attack.
So far "A" Company had done n.o.bly. From the moment when they had lined up before Montauban in the gross darkness preceding yesterday"s dawn until the moment when Bobby Little led them in one victorious rush into the outskirts of the village, they had never encountered a setback. By sunset they had penetrated some way farther; now creeping stealthily forward under the shelter of a broken wall to hurl bombs into the windows of an occupied cottage; now climbing precariously to some commanding position in order to open fire with a Lewis gun; now making a sudden dash across an open s.p.a.ce. Such work offered peculiar opportunities to small and well-handled parties--opportunities of which Bobby Little"s veterans availed themselves right readily.
Angus M"Lachlan, for instance, accompanied by a small following of seasoned experts, had twice rounded up parties of the enemy in cellars, and had despatched the same back to Headquarters with his compliments and a promise of more. Mucklewame and four men had bombed their way along a communication trench leading to one of the side streets of the village--a likely avenue for a counter-attack--and having reached the end of the trench, had built up a sandbag barricade, and had held the same against the a.s.saults of hostile bombers until a Vickers machine-gun had arrived in charge of an energetic subaltern of that youthful but thriving organisation, the Suicide Club, or Machine-Gun Corps, and closed the street to further Teutonic traffic.
During the night there had been periods of quiescence, devoted to consolidation, and here and there to s.n.a.t.c.hes of uneasy slumber. Angus M"Lachlan, fairly in his element, had trailed his enormous length in and out of the back-yards and brick-heaps of the village, visiting every point in his irregular line, testing defences; bestowing praise; and ensuring that every man had his share of food and rest.
Unutterably grimy but inexpressibly cheerful, he reported progress to Major Wagstaffe when that nocturnal rambler visited him in the small hours.
"Well, Angus, how goes it?" inquired Wagstaffe.
"We have won the match, sir," replied Angus with simple seriousness.
"We are just playing the bye now!"
And with that he crawled away, with the unnecessary stealth of a small boy playing robbers, to encourage his dour paladins to further efforts.
"We shall probably be relieved this evening," he explained to them, "and we must make everything secure. It would never do to leave our new positions untenable by other troops. They might not be so reliable"--with a paternal smile--"as you! Now, our right flank is not safe yet. We can improve the position very much if we can secure that _estaminet_, standing up like an island among those ruined houses on our right front. You see the sign, _Aux Bons Fermiers_, over the door.
The trouble is that a German machine-gun is sweeping the intervening s.p.a.ce--and we cannot see the gun! There it goes again. See the brick-dust fly! Keep down! They are firing mainly across our front, but a stray bullet may come this way."
The platoon crouched low behind their improvised rampart of brick rubble, while machine-gun bullets swept low, with misleading _claquement_, along the s.p.a.ce in front of them, from some hidden position on their right. Presently the firing stopped. Brother Boche was merely "loosing off a belt," as a precautionary measure, at commendably regular intervals.
"I cannot locate that gun," said Angus impatiently. "Can you, Corporal M"Snape?"
"It is not in the estamint itself, sirr," replied M"Snape. ("Estamint"
is as near as our rank and file ever get to _estaminet_.) "It seems to be mounted some place higher up the street. I doubt they cannot see us themselves--only the ground in front of us."
"If we could reach the _estaminet_ itself," said Angus thoughtfully, "we could get a more extended view. Sergeant Mucklewame, select ten men, including three bombers, and follow me. I am going to find a jumping-off place. The Lewis gun too."
Presently the little party were crouching round their officer in a sheltered position on the right of the line--which for the moment appeared to be "in the air." Except for the intermittent streams of machine-gun fire, and an occasional shrapnel-burst overhead, all was quiet. The enemy"s counter-attack was not yet ready.
"Now listen carefully," said Angus, who had just finished scribbling a despatch. "First of all, you, Bogle, take this message to the telephone, and get it sent to Company Headquarters. Now you others.
We will wait till that machine-gun has fired another belt. Then, the moment it has finished, while they are getting out the next belt, I will dash across to the _estaminet_ over there. M"Snape, you will come with me, but no one else--yet. If the _estaminet_ seems capable of being held, I will signal to you, Sergeant Mucklewame, and you will send your party across, in driblets, not forgetting the Lewis gun. By that time I may have located the German machine-gun, so we should be able to knock it out with the Lewis."
Further speech was cut short by a punctual fantasia from the gun in question. Angus and M"Snape crouched behind the shattered wall, awaiting their chance. The firing ceased.
"_Now!_" whispered Angus.
Next moment officer and corporal were flying across the open, and before the mechanical Boche gunner could jerk the new belt into position, both had found sanctuary within the open doorway of the half-ruined _estaminet_.
Nay, more than both; for as the panting pair flung themselves into shelter, a third figure, short and stout, in an ill-fitting kilt, tumbled heavily through the doorway after them. Simultaneously a stream of machine-gun bullets went storming past.
"Just in time!" observed Angus, well pleased. "Bogle, what are you doing here?"
"I was given tae unnerstand, sirr," replied Mr. Bogle calmly, "when I jined the regiment, that in action an officer"s servant stands by his officer."
"That is true," conceded Angus; "but you had no right to follow me against orders. Did you not hear me say that no one but Corporal M"Snape was to come?"
"No, sirr. I doubt I was away at the "phone."
"Well, now you are here, wait inside this doorway, where you can see Sergeant Mucklewame"s party, and look out for signals. M"Snape, let us find that machine-gun."
The pair made their way to the hitherto blind side of the building, and cautiously peeped through a much-perforated shutter in the living-room.
"Do you see it, sirr?" inquired M"Snape eagerly.
Angus chuckled.
"See it? Fine! It is right in the open, in the middle of the street.
Look!"
He relinquished his peep-hole. The German machine-gun was mounted in the street itself, behind an improvised barrier of bricks and sandbags. It was less than a hundred yards away, sited in a position which, though screened from the view of Angus"s platoon farther down, enabled it to sweep all the ground in front of the position. This it was now doing with great intensity, for the brief public appearance of Angus and M"Snape had effectually converted intermittent into continuous fire.
"We must get the Lewis gun over at once," muttered Angus. "It can knock that breastwork to pieces."
He crossed the house again, to see if any of Mucklewame"s men had arrived.
They had not. The man with the Lewis gun was lying dead halfway across the street, with his precious weapon on the ground beside him. Two other men, both wounded, were crawling back whence they came, taking what cover they could from the storm of bullets which whizzed a few inches over their flinching bodies.
Angus hastily semaph.o.r.ed to Mucklewame to hold his men in check for the present. Then he returned to the other side of the house.
"How many men are serving that gun?" he said to M"Snape. "Can you see?"
"Only two, sirr, I think. I cannot see them, but that wee breastwork will not cover more than a couple of men."
"Mphm," observed Angus thoughtfully. "I expect they have been left behind to hold on. Have you a bomb about you?"
The admirable M"Snape produced from his pocket a Mills grenade, and handed it to his superior.
"Just the one, sirr," he said.
"Go you," commanded Angus, his voice rising to a more than usually Highland inflection, "and semaph.o.r.e to Mucklewame that when he hears the explosion of _this_"--he pulled out the safety-pin of the grenade and gripped the grenade itself in his enormous paw--"followed, probably, by the temporary cessation of the machine-gun, he is to bring his men over here in a bunch, as hard as they can pelt. Put it as briefly as you can, but make sure he understands. He has a good signaller with him. Send Bogle to report when you have finished. Now repeat what I have said to you.... That"s right. Carry on!"
M"Snape was gone. Angus, left alone, pensively restored the safety-pin to the grenade, and laid the grenade upon the ground beside him. Then he proceeded to write a brief letter in his field message-book. This he placed in an envelope which he took from his breast pocket. The envelope was already addressed--to the _Reverend Neil M"Lachlan, The Manse_, in a very remote Highland village. (Angus had no mother.) He closed the envelope, initialled it, and b.u.t.toned it up in his breast pocket again. After that he took up his grenade and proceeded to make a further examination of the premises. Presently he found what he wanted; and by the time Bogle arrived to announce that Sergeant Mucklewame had signalled "message understood," his arrangements were complete.
"Stay by this small hole in the wall, Bogle," he said, "and the moment the Lewis gun arrives tell them to mount it here and open fire on the enemy gun."
He left the room, leaving Bogle alone, to listen to the melancholy rustle of peeling wall-paper within and the steady crackling of bullets without. But when, peering through the improvised loophole, he next caught sight of his officer, Angus had emerged from the house by the cellar window, and was creeping with infinite caution behind the shelter of what had once been the wall of the _estaminet"s_ back-yard (but was now an uneven bank of bricks, averaging two feet high), in the direction of the German machine-gun. The gun, oblivious of the danger now threatening its right front, continued to fire steadily and hopefully down the street.