A NOCTURNAL ADVENTURE
Our old battalion billets still, Parades as usual go on.
We buckle in with right good will, And daily our equipment don As if we meant to fight, but no!
The guns are booming through the air, The trenches call us on, but oh!
We don"t go there, we don"t go there!
I have come to the conclusion that war is rather a dull game, not that blood-curdling, dashing, mad, sabre-clashing thing that is seen in pictures, and which makes one fearful for the soldier"s safety. There is so much of the "everlastin" waitin" on an everlastin" road." The road to the war is a journey of many stages, and there is much of what appears to the unit as loitering by the wayside. We longed for action, for some adventure with which to relieve the period of "everlastin"
waitin"."
Nine o"clock was striking in the room downstairs and the old man and woman who live in the house were pottering about, locking doors, and putting the place into order. Lying on the straw in the loft we (p. 131) could hear them moving chairs and washing dishes; they have seven sons in the army, two are wounded and one is a prisoner in Germany. They are very old and are unable to do much hard work; all day long they listen to the sound of the guns "out there." In the evening they wash the dishes, the man helping the woman, and at night lock the doors and say a prayer for their sons. Now and again they speak of their troubles and narrate stories of the war and the time when the Prussians pa.s.sed by their door on the journey to Paris. "But they"ll never pa.s.s here again," the old man says, smoking the pipe of tobacco which our boys have given him. "They"ll get smashed out there." As he speaks he points with a long lean finger towards the firing line, and lifts his stick to his shoulder in imitation of a man firing a rifle.
Ten o"clock struck. We were deep in our straw and lights had been out for a long time. I couldn"t sleep, and as I lay awake I could hear corpulent Z---- snoring in the corner. Outside a wind was whistling mournfully and sweeping through the joists of the roof where the red tiles had been shattered by shrapnel. There was something (p. 132) melancholy and superbly grand in the night; the heaven was splashed with stars, and the glow of rockets from the firing line lit up the whole scene, and at intervals blotted out the lights of the sky. Here in the loft all was so peaceful, so quiet; the pair downstairs had gone to bed, they were now perhaps asleep and dreaming of their loved ones. But I could not rest; I longed to get up again and go out into the night.
Suddenly a hand tugged at my blanket, a form rose from the floor by my side and a face peered into mine.
"It"s me--Bill," a low voice whispered in my ear.
"Well?" I interrogated, raising myself on my elbow.
"Not sleepin"?" mumbled Bill, lighting a cigarette as he flopped down on my blanket, half crushing my toes as he did so. "I"m not sleeping neither," he continued. "Did you see the wild ducks to-day?"
"On the marshes? Yes."
"Could we pot one?"
"Rubbish. We might as well shoot at the stars."
"I never tried that game," said Bill, with mock seriousness. "But (p. 133) I"m goin" to nab a duck. Strike me balmy if I ain"t."
"It"ll be the guard-room if we"re caught."
"If _we_ are caught. Then you"re comin"? I thought you"d be game."
I slipped into my boots, tied on my puttees, slung a bandolier with ten rounds of ball cartridge over my shoulder, and groped for my rifle on the rack beneath the shrapnel-shivered joists. Bill and I crept downstairs and stole out into the open.
"Gawd! that puts the cawbwebs out of one"s froat," whispered my mate as he gulped down mighty mouthfuls of cold night air. "This is great.
I couldn"t sleep."
"But we"ll never hit a duck to-night," I whispered, my mind reverting to the white-breasted fowl which we had seen in an adjoining marsh that morning when coming back from the firing line. "Its madness to dream of hitting one with a bullet."
"Maybe yes and maybe no," said my mate, stumbling across the midden and floundering into the field on the other side.
We came to the edge of the marsh and halted for a moment. In front of us lay a dark pool, still as death and fringed with long gra.s.s and osier beds. A mournful breeze blew across the place, raising a (p. 134) plaintive croon, half of resignation and half of protest from the osiers and gra.s.ses as it pa.s.sed. A little distance away the skeleton of a house stood up naked against the sky, the cold stars shining through its shattered rafters. ""Twas sh.e.l.led like "ell, that "ouse,"
whispered Bill, leaning on his rifle and fixing his eyes on the ruined homestead. "The old man at our billet was tellin" some of us about it.
The first sh.e.l.l went plunk through the roof and two children and the mother were bowled over."
"Killed?"
"I should say so," mumbled my mate; then, "There"s one comin" our way." Out over the line of trenches it sped towards us, whistling in its flight, and we could almost trace by its sound the line it followed in the air. It fell on the pool in front, bursting as it touched the water, and we were drenched with spray.
""Urt?" asked Bill.
"Just wet a little."
"A little!" he exclaimed, gazing at the spot where the sh.e.l.l exploded.
"I"m soaked to the pelt. d.a.m.n it, "twill frighten the ducks."
"Have you ever shot any living thing?" I asked my mate as I tried (p. 135) to wipe the water from my face with the sleeve of my coat.
"Me! Never in my nat"ral," Bill explained. "But when I saw them ducks this mornin" I thought I"d like to pot one o" em."
"Its impossible to see anything now," I told him. "And there"s another sh.e.l.l!"
It yelled over our heads and burst near our billet on the soft mossy field which we had just crossed. Another followed, flew over the roof of the dwelling and shattered the wall of an outhouse to pieces.
Somewhere near a dog barked loudly when the echo of the explosion died away, and a steed neighed in the horse-lines on the other side of the marsh. Then, drowning all other noises, an English gun spoke and a projectile wheeled through the air and towards the enemy. The monster of the thicket awake from a twelve hour sleep was speaking. Bill and I knew where he was hidden; the great gun that the enemy had been trying to locate for months and which he never discovered. He, the monster of the thicket, was working havoc in the foeman"s trenches, and day after day great searching sh.e.l.ls sped up past our billet warm from the German guns, but always they went far wide of their mark. Never could they discover the locality of the terrifying ninety-pounder, he (p. 136) who slept all day in his thicket home, awoke at midnight and worked until dawn.
"That"s some shootin"," said my mate as the sh.e.l.ls shrieked overhead.
"Blimey, they"ll shake the country to pieces--and scare the ducks."
Along a road made of bound sapling-bundles we took our way into the centre of the marsh. Here all was quiet and sombre; the marsh-world seemed to be lamenting over some ancient wrong. At times a rat would sneak out of the gra.s.s, slink across our path and disappear in the water, again; a lonely bird would rise into the air and cry piteously as it flew away, and ever, loud and insistent, threatening and terrible, the sh.e.l.ls would fly over our heads, yelling out their menace of pain, of sorrow and death as they flew along.
We killed no birds, we saw none, although we stopped out till the colour of dawn splashed the sky with streaks of early light. As we went in by the door of our billet the monster of the thicket was still at work, although no answering sh.e.l.ls sped up from the enemy"s lines.
Up in the loft Z---- was snoring loudly as he lay asleep on the straw, the blanket tight round his body, his jaw hanging loosely, and (p. 137) an unlighted pipe on the floor by his side. Placing our rifles on the rack, Bill and I took off our bandoliers and lay down on our blankets.
Presently we were asleep.
That was how Bill and I shot wild duck in the marshes near the village of--Somewhere in France.
CHAPTER XI (p. 138)
THE MAN WITH THE ROSARY
There"s a tramp o" feet in the mornin", There"s an oath from an N.C.O., As up the road to the trenches The brown battalions go: Guns and rifles and waggons, Transports and horses and men, Up with the flush of the dawnin", And back with the night again.
Sometimes when our spell in the trenches comes to an end we go back for a rest in some village or town. Here the _estaminet_ or _debitant_ (French as far as I am aware for a beer shop), is open to the British soldier for three hours daily, from twelve to one and from six to eight o"clock. For some strange reason we often find ourselves busy on parade at these hours, and when not on parade we generally find ourselves without money. I have been here for four months; looking at my pay book I find that I"ve been paid 25 fr. (or in plain English, one pound) since I have come to France, a country where the weather grows hotter daily, where the water is seldom drinkable, and where (p. 139) wine and beer is so cheap. Once we were paid five francs at five o"clock in the afternoon after five penniless days of rest in a village, and ordered as we were paid, to pack up our all and get ready to set off at six o"clock for the trenches. From noon we had been playing cards, and some of the boys gambled all their pay in advance and lost it.
Bill"s five francs had to be distributed amongst several members of the platoon.
"It"s only five francs, anyway," he said. "Wot matter whether I spend it on cards, wine, or women. I don"t care for soldierin" as a profession?"
"What is your profession, Bill?" Pryor asked; we never really knew what Bill"s civil occupation was, he seemed to know a little of many crafts, but was master of none.
"I"ve been everything," he replied, employing his little finger in the removal of cigarette ash. "My ole man apprenticed me to a marker of "ot cross buns, but I "ad a "abit of makin" the long end of the cross on the short side, an" got chucked out. Then I learned "ow to jump through tin plates in order to make them nutmeg graters, but left that job after sticking plump in the middle of a plate. I had to stop (p. 140) there for three days without food or drink. They were thinnin" me out, see! Then I was a draughts manager at a bank, and shut the ventilators; after that I was an electric mechanic; I switched the lights on and off at night and mornin"; now I"m a professional gambler, I lose all my tin."
"You"re also a soldier," I said.