"Were you much sh.e.l.led when you took your waggon lines up there this evening?" I asked him.
"Yes, sir. It got too hot, and Major Bullivant sent us down again half an hour ago. All the batteries have shifted their waggon lines back behind Guillemont, sir."
"All the more exciting for us," muttered Wilde. By the aid of my electric torch we picked our way along a rough track that took us to our waggons. The drivers and spare signallers were waiting orders to settle down for the night. When I told the cook that we only wanted bare necessities in the mess cart, he answered, "That"ll mean emptying the cart first. We"ve got everything aboard now." Such things as the stove, the spare crockery and cutlery, several tins of biscuits, and the officers" kit were quickly dumped upon the ground, and I told off one of the servants to act as guard over it until the morning. "What about this, sir?" inquired the cook, opening a large cardboard box.
"The interpreter sent it up this evening." I noted twenty eggs and a cake. "Yes, put that in," I replied quickly.
Wilde detailed a signaller to accompany the driver of the cart, and, with Meddings and two of the servants walking behind, the journey commenced. A ten-minutes" hold-up occurred when Captain Denny of B Battery, a string of waggons behind him, shouted my name through the darkness. He wanted the loan of my torch for a brief study of the sh.e.l.l-holes, as he intended establishing the battery waggon lines in the vicinity.
The Boche had started his night-firing in earnest by the time the mess cart and party pa.s.sed the cross-roads at Guillemont. A pungent smell of gas led to much coughing and sneezing. The air cleared as the road ascended, but sh.e.l.ls continued to fly about us, and no one looked particularly happy. There were nervy, irritating moments when waggons in front halted unaccountably; and, just before the railway crossing, Wilde had to go forward and coax a pair of R.E. mules, who refused to pa.s.s the four dead horses lying in the road. The railway crossing pa.s.sed, we began to look for the black-and-white signalling pole.
"Here it is," called Wilde with relief, as a 59 sped over us towards the railway line. "Come along, Miller," he shouted to the mess-cart driver, fifty yards behind us. The cart creaked and wobbled in the b.u.mpy ditch-crossing that led past the pole. "There"s the big building," said I, going on ahead, "and here"s the Red Cross place.
We"re getting on fine. We"ll tell M"Klown and Tommy Tucker that we"ll apply for a job with the 980 company" (the A.S.C. company that supplied the Brigade with forage and rations).
"We want to go half-right from here," I continued, lighting up my torch for four or five seconds. The track led, however, to the left, and we slowed our pace. Another two hundred yards and we came to a junction; one track curved away to the right, the other went back towards the road.
A high-velocity sh.e.l.l screamed over and burst with a weird startling flash of flame a hundred yards away. We followed the right-hand path, and found that it bent to the left again. "This is getting puzzling," I said to Wilde in a low voice. "I think we"ve come right so far," he replied, "but I shall be glad when we"re there."
We went on for another five minutes, the cart following. Then suddenly the situation became really worrying. We were facing a deep impa.s.sable trench. "d.a.m.n!" said Wilde angrily. "I was afraid this would happen."
"I don"t think we can be more than a couple of hundred yards from where we want to get," I answered. "It ought to be in that direction. Let"s give "em a hail."
"They"ll be down below--they won"t hear us," said Wilde gloomily.
We stood up on the trench and called first the name of the Brigade and then the name of the adjutant. Not a sound in reply. We shouted again, the servants joining in. Another sh.e.l.l, bursting near enough to spray the mess cart with small fragments! At last we heard a cry, and shouted harder than ever. A figure came out of the gloom, and I recognised Stenson, A Battery"s round-faced second lieutenant. "Ah! now we"re all right," I called out cheerfully. "You see how we"re tied up," I said, turning to Stenson. "Our headquarters is close to your battery. Which is the way to it?"
Stenson"s face fell. "That"s what I was hoping you would tell me," he replied blankly. "I"ve lost myself."
There was a groan from Wilde.
"I left the battery about half an hour ago because some one was shouting outside in the dark," went on Stenson. "I found a major sitting in a sh.e.l.l-hole; he had lost his way trying to get back to the railway. I managed to put him right--now I can"t find the battery."
Another voice came from the far side of the trench, and we peered at the newcomer. It was one of the Brigade orderlies, who also had lost his way trying to find an infantry battalion headquarters. I examined him on his sense of direction, but all I got from him was that if he could reach the road and see the fifth telegraph pole from the wood, he would know that Brigade Headquarters lay on a line due north.
More sh.e.l.ls dropped near, and I began to think of Minnie, our patient mess-cart mare. We must get her and the cart out of the way as soon as possible. Close by stood a big Nissen hut, sunk half-way below ground.
After consulting with Wilde, I told the servants to unload the cart and carry the stuff into the hut. The cart having gone, we went inside; and, lighting a candle, discovered the usual empty bottles and scattered German ill.u.s.trated periodicals that indicate a not too hurried Boche evacuation. After a ten minutes" wait, during which the Boche sh.e.l.ling increased in intensity, Stenson, the orderly, and myself went forth with my torch, bent upon trying all the tracks within reach until we found the right one. And though we twice followed ways that disappointed us, and turned and searched with a bitter sense of bafflement, our final path led in the direction to which I had first pointed. We found ourselves close to the sh.e.l.l-stricken hut where I had met Beale of A Battery earlier in the evening. "I know where we are now," I shouted hilariously.
"Who"s that?" called some one sharply. I turned my torch on to the owner of the voice. It was Kelly of D Battery, yet another lost soul.
"I"m hanged if I know where I am," he explained angrily. "I can"t find the battery. I was going to lie down inside here until it got light, ... but I have no matches, and I put my hand on a clammy dead Boche."
"Get away with you!" I laughed. "That"s a dead horse. I saw it this afternoon."
Sure of my ground now, I walked comfortably towards the dug-out where Major Mallaby-Kelby and the adjutant were waiting. It was 11.15 P.M.
now. Tired and hungry and without candles, they had fallen asleep.
"By Gad! you"re back," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the major when I touched him....
"Have you brought my white wine?"
"It is coming, sir, before very long," I responded soothingly.
I stood outside, flashed my torch, and yelled for Wilde. An answering shout was succeeded by Wilde himself. "Why, we were quite close all the time," he said in surprise.
"Now you go back with the orderly and bring Meddings over with something to eat," I went on, "every one"s famished." Soon Meddings arrived, striding across sh.e.l.l-holes and treacherous ground with a heavy mess-box balanced on his head.
"Only bully beef to-night, sir," said Meddings to the expectant major as he dumped the box on the floor of the hut.
"My dear fellow, I can eat anything, a crust or a dog-biscuit, I"m so hungry."
Meddings raised the lid and we all crowded round. "By Gad! this is too much," snapped the major.
The box contained nothing but cups and plates and saucers.
When Meddings returned with a second box the major and the adjutant seized some biscuits and munched happily and voraciously. "You devils,"
said the major, grinning reproachfully at Wilde and myself, "I bet you had whiskies-and-sodas at the waggon line. Why were you so long?"
We didn"t go into full explanations then, and I must confess that when the major, in his haste, knocked the bottle of white wine off the table and smashed it, Wilde and myself could scarcely forbear a chuckle. That ought, of course, to be the climax of the story; but it wasn"t. I had put two bottles of the major"s white wine into the mess cart, so the concluding note was one of content. Also I might add, Stenson called upon us to say that A Battery"s mess cart had failed to arrive, and four foodless officers asked us to have pity upon them. So A Battery received a loaf and a big slab of the truly excellent piece of bully, a special kind that Meddings had obtained in some mysterious fashion from a field ambulance that was making a hurried move. "You two fellows have earned your supper," said the now peaceful major to Wilde and myself.
"I didn"t think you were going to have so trying a journey." We ate bully sandwiches solidly until 1 A.M. Then the major and the adjutant descended to their little room below ground. I glanced through "The Times," and then Wilde and myself found a restful bed upon the shavings. The cook and the servants had gone back to the Nissen hut.
The major"s last words as he fell asleep were, "I"ve to be at the --th Infantry Brigade Headquarters at 4.45 in the morning. I think I"ll take the adjutant with me.... No,"--sleepily,--"you"d better come, Wilde."
At 4 A.M., when the major"s servant woke us, the major called up the stairs to me, "I think, after all, you"d better come with me." As I had not removed my boots, it didn"t take me long to be up and ready.
Before we were fifty yards from the hut the major and I shared in one of the narrowest escapes that have befallen me in France. We heard the sh.e.l.l coming just in time to crouch. According to Meddings, who stood in the doorway of the hut, it fell ten yards from us. Smothered with earth, we moved forward rapidly immediately we regained our feet.
"We shall be right for the rest of the day after that," panted the major. "The --th Brigade are in the bank along the road from Leuze Wood to Combles," he added, reading from a message form. As we left the dewy gra.s.s land and got on to the road that led through the wood, other sh.e.l.ls whistled by, but none of them near enough to set our nerves tingling again. Indeed the state of mind of both of us seemed sanguine and rose-coloured. "Fine bit of country this," said the major in his quick jerky way, "and that purple haze is quite beautiful. It ought to be lighter than this. It"s not even half morning light yet.... My old uncle in County Clare would be sure to call it dusk. He often used to say when we were arranging a day"s fishing, "Let me see, it will still be dusk at 5 A.M.""
The major drew an envelope from his pocket and fixed his eyegla.s.s.
"Awkward thing sometimes having a double-barrelled name," he continued.
"I remember a bright young subaltern in a reserve brigade in England, whose name was Maddock-Smith, or something like that. He complained that the brigade clerk had not noticed the hyphen, and that he was down to do double duty as orderly officer--once as Maddock and once as Smith."
We were now through the wood, and walking down the hill direct to Combles. Everything seemed profoundly quiet; not a soul in the road save ourselves. "Seems strange," observed the major, frowning.
"Infantry Brigade Headquarters ought to be about here. They can"t be much farther off. The starting line is only a few hundred yards away."
"You"d certainly expect to see plenty of messengers and runners near a brigade headquarters," I put in. "Hullo! here"s some one on a bicycle."
It was a New Zealand officer. "Can you tell me where the --th Brigade Headquarters are?" he asked.
"We are looking for them ourselves," replied the major. "I"ve to be there by 4.45, and it"s past that now."
We went down to where a track crossed the road at right angles. Still no one in sight. "Don"t understand it," remarked the New Zealand officer. "I"m going back for more information."
The major and I remained about five minutes longer watching the haze that enveloped the village below commence to lift. Then suddenly we heard the sharp metallic crack of quick-firing guns behind, and dozens of 18-pdr. sh.e.l.ls whistled above us. The barrage had started.
Almost immediately red Very lights went up within a stone"s-throw as it seemed to me. And now Boche lights leapt up on our left where the haze prevented us seeing the Morval ridge, the highest ground in the neighbourhood, and still in enemy hands. Presently the devilish rattle of machine-guns rapped out, spreading round the half-circle along which the alarm lights were still soaring heavenwards.
"We can"t do anything by staying here," decided the major. "My place is with the Infantry Brigade, and I must find them."
"We can report, at any rate, that the Boche lights went up within a few seconds of the start of our barrage, and that the enemy artillery replied within four minutes," I remarked, looking at my wrist-watch, as sh.e.l.ls from the direction of the Boche lines poured through the air.
"Yes, we can say that," responded the major, "and ----, keep down!" he called out violently.