"The coal slack is festooned with devils of snipers, smart fellows that can shoot round a corner and blast your eye-tooth out at five hundred yards," he said. "They"re not all their ones, neither; there"s a good sprinkling of our own boys as well. I was doing a wee bit of pot-shot-and-be-d.a.m.ned-to-you work in the other side of the slack, and my eyes open all the time for an enemy"s back. There was one near me, but I"m beggared if I could find him. "I"ll not lave this place (p. 078) till I do," I says to meself, and spent half the nights I was there prowlin" round like a dog at a fair with my eyes open for the sniper.
I came on his post wan night. I smelt him out because he didn"t bury his sausage skins as we do, and they stunk like the hole of h.e.l.l when an ould greasy sinner is a-fryin". In I went to his sandbagged castle, with me gun on the c.o.c.k and me finger on the trigger, but he wasn"t there; there was nothin" in the place but a few rounds of ball an" a half empty bottle. I was dhry as a bone, and I had a sup without winkin". "Mother of Heaven," I says, when I put down the bottle, "its little ye know of hospitality, stranger, leaving a bottle with nothin"
in it but water. I"ll wait for ye, me bucko," and I lay down in the corner and waited for him to come in.
"But sorrow the fut of him came, and me waiting there till the colour of day was in the sky. Then I goes back to me own place, and there was he waiting for me. He only made one mistake, he had fallen to sleep, and he just sprung up as I came in be the door.
"Immediately I had him by the big toe. "Hands up, Hans"! I said, and he didn"t argue, all that he did was to swear like one of ourselves and flop down. "Why don"t ye bury yer sausages, Hans?" I asked (p. 079) him. "I smelt yer, me bucko, by what ye couldn"t eat. Why didn"t ye have something better than water in yer bottle?" I says to him. Dang a Christian word would he answer, only swear, an swear with nothin" bar the pull of me finger betwixt him and his Maker. But, ye know, I had a kind of likin" for him when I thought of him comin" in to my house without as much as yer leave, and going to sleep just as if he was in his own home. I didn"t swear back at him but just said, "This is only a house for wan, but our King has a big residence for ye, so come along before it gets any clearer," and I took him over to our trenches as stand-to was coming to an end."
Referring again to our trenches there is one portion known to me where the lines are barely fifty yards apart, and at the present time the gra.s.s is hiding the enemy"s trenches; to peep over the parapet gives one the impression of looking on a beautiful meadow splashed with daisy, b.u.t.tercup, and poppy flower; the whole is a riot of colour--crimson, heliotrope, mauve, and green. What a change from some weeks ago! Then the place was littered with dead bodies, and limp, (p. 080) lifeless figures hung on to the barbed wire where they had been caught in a mad rush to the trenches which they never took. A breeze blows across the meadow as I write, carrying with it the odour of death and perfumed flowers, of aromatic herbs and summer, of desolation and decay. It is good that Nature does her best to blot out all traces of the tragedy between the trenches.
There is a vacant spot in our lines, where there is no trench and none being constructed; why this should be I do not know. But all this ground is under machine-gun fire and within rifle range. No foe would dare to cross the open, and the foe who dared would never live to get through. Further to the right, is a pond with a dead German stuck there, head down, and legs up in air. They tell me that a concussion sh.e.l.l has struck him since and part of his body was blown over to our lines. At present the pond is hidden and the light and shade plays over the kindly gra.s.ses that circle round it. On the extreme right there is a graveyard. The trench is deep in dead men"s bones and is considered unhealthy. A church almost razed to the ground, with the spire blown off and buried point down in the earth, moulders in (p. 081) ruins at the back. It is said that the ghosts of dead monks pray nightly at the shattered altar, and some of our men state that they often hear the organ playing when they stand as sentries on the banquette.
"The fire trench to-night," said Stoner that evening, a nervous light in his soft brown eyes, as he fumbled with the money on the card table. His luck had been good, and he had won over six francs; he generally loses. "Perhaps we"re in for the high jump when we get up there."
"The high jump?" I queried, "what"s that?"
"A bayonet charge," he replied, dealing a final hand and inviting us to double the stakes as the deal was the last. A few wanted to play for another quarter of an hour, but he would not prolong the game.
Turning up an ace he shoved the money in his pocket and rose to his feet.
In an hour we were ready to move. We carried much weight in addition to our ordinary load, firewood, cooking utensils, and extra loaves. We bought the latter at a neighbouring _boulangerie_, one that still plied its usual trade in dangerous proximity to the firing-line.
The loaves cost 6-1/2_d._ each, and we prefer them to the English (p. 082) bread which we get now and again, and place them far above the tooth-destroying army biscuits. Fires were permitted in the trenches, we were told, and our officers advised us to carry our own wood with us. So it came about that the enemy"s firing served as a useful purpose; we pulled down the shrapnel shattered rafters of our billets, broke them up into splinters with our entrenching tools, and tied them up into handy portable bundles which we tied on our packs.
At midnight we entered Harley Street, and squeezed our way through the narrow trench. The distance to the firing-line was a long one; traverse and turning, turning and traverse, we thought we should never come to the end of them. There was no sh.e.l.ling, but the questing bullet was busy, it sung over our heads or snapped at the sandbags on the parapet, ever busy on the errand of death and keen on its mission.
But deep down in the trench we regarded it with indifference. Our way was one of safety. Here the bullet was foiled, and pick and shovel reigned masters in the zone of death.
We were relieving the Scots Guards (many of my Irish friends (p. 083) belong to this regiment). Awaiting our coming, they stood in the full marching order of the regulations, packs light, forks and spoons in their putties, and all little luxuries which we still dared to carry flung away. They had been holding the place for seven days, and were now going back somewhere for a rest.
"Is this the firing-line?" asked Stoner.
"Yes, sonny," came the answer in a voice which seemed to be full of weariness.
"Quiet here?" Mervin enquired, a note of awe in his voice.
"Naethin" doin"," said a fresh voice that reminded me forcibly of Glasgow and the Cowcaddens. "It"s a gey soft job here."
"No casualties?"
"Yin or twa stuck their heads o"er the parapet when they shouldn"t and they copped it," said Glasgow, "but barrin" that "twas quiet."
In the traverse where I was planted I dropped into Ireland; heaps of it. There was the brogue that could be cut with a knife, and the humour that survived Mons and the Marne, and the kindliness that sprang from the cabins of Corrymeela and the moors of Derrynane.
"Irish?" I asked. (p. 084)
"Sure," was the answer. "We"re everywhere. Ye"ll find us in a Gurkha regiment if you scratch the beggars" skins. Ye"re not Irish!"
"I am," I answered.
"Then you"ve lost your brogue on the boat that took ye over," somebody said. "Are ye dry?"
I wiped the sweat from my forehead as I sat down on the banquette. "Is there something to drink?" I queried.
"There"s a drop of cold tay, me boy," the man near me replied.
"Where"s yer mess-tin, Mike?"
A tin was handed to me, and I drank greedily of the cold black tea.
The man Mike gave some useful hints on trench work.
"It"s the Saxons that"s across the road," he said, pointing to the enemy"s lines which were very silent. I had not heard a bullet whistle over since I entered the trench. On the left was an interesting rifle and machine gun fire all the time. "They"re quiet fellows, the Saxons, they don"t want to fight any more than we do, so there"s a kind of understanding between us. Don"t fire at us and we"ll not fire at you.
There"s a good dug-out there," he continued, pointing to a dark (p. 085) hole in the parados (the rear wall of the trench), "and ye"ll find a pot of jam and half a loaf in the corner. There"s also a water jar half full."
"Where do you get water?"
"Nearly a mile away the pump is," he answered. "Ye"ve to cross the fields to get it."
"A safe road?" asked Stoner.
"Not so bad, ye know," was the answer.
"This place smells "orrid," muttered Bill, lighting a cigarette and flinging on his pack. "What is it?"
"Some poor devils between the trenches; they"ve been lyin" there since last Christmas."
"Blimey, what a stink," muttered Bill, "Why don"t ye bury them up?"
"Because n.o.body dare go out there, me boy," was the answer. "Anyway, it"s Germans they are. They made a charge and didn"t get as far as here. They went out of step so to speak."
"Woo-oo-oo!" Bill suddenly yelled and kicked a tin pail on to the floor of the trench. A shower of sparks flew up into the air and fluttered over the rim of the parapet. "I put my "and on it, "twas like a (p. 086) red "ot poker, it burned me to the bone!"
"It"s the brazier ye were foolin" about with," said Mike, who was buckling his pack-straps preparatory to moving, "See, and don"t put yer head over the top, and don"t light a fire at night. Ye can put up as much flare as you like by day. Good-bye, boys, and good luck t"ye."
"Any Donegal men in the battalion?" I called after him as he was moving off.
"None that I know of," he shouted back, "but there are two other battalions that are not here, maybe there are Donegal men there. Good luck, boys, good luck!"
We were alone and lonely, nearly every man of us. For myself I felt isolated from the whole world, alone in front of the little line of sand bags with my rifle in my hand. Who were we? Why were we there?
Goliath, the junior clerk, who loved Tennyson; Pryor, the draughtsman, who doted on Omar; Kore, who read f.a.n.n.y Eden"s penny stories, and never disclosed his profession; Mervin, the traveller, educated for the Church but schooled in romance; Stoner, the clerk, who reads my books and says he never read better; and Bill, newsboy, street-arab, and Lord knows what, who reads _The Police News_, plays (p. 087) innumerable tricks with cards, and gambles and never wins. Why were we here holding a line of trench, and ready to take a life or give one as occasion required? Who shall give an answer to the question?
CHAPTER VII (p. 088)
BLOOD AND IRON--AND DEATH
At night the stars are shining bright, The old-world voice is whispering near, We"ve heard it when the moon was light, And London"s streets were verydear; But dearer now they are, sweetheart, The "buses running to the Strand, But we"re so far, so far apart, Each lonely in a different land.
The night was murky and the air was splashed with rain. Following the line of trench I could dimly discern the figures of my mates pulling off their packs and fixing their bayonets. These glittered brightly as the dying fires from the trench braziers caught them, and the long array of polished blades shone into their place along the dark brown sandbags. Looking over the parados I could see the country in rear, dim in the hazy night. A white, nebulous fog lay on the ground and enveloped the lone trees that stood up behind. Here and there I could discern houses where no light shone, and where no people dwelt. All the inhabitants were gone, and in the village away to the right (p. 089) there was absolute silence, the stillness of the desert. To my mind came words I once read or heard spoken, "The conqueror turns the country into a desert, and calls it peace."