VIII “The Non-Combatant”
I
We will call the village St. Grégoire. That is not its real name; because the one thing you must not do in war-time is to call a thing by its real name. To take a hackneyed example, you do not call a spade a spade: you refer to it, officially, as Shovels, General Service, One. This helps to deceive, and ultimately to surprise, the enemy; and as we all know by this time, surprise is the essence of successful warfare. On the same principle, if your troops are forced back from their front-line trenches, you call this “successfully straightening out an awkward salient.”
But this by the way. Let us get back to St. Grégoire. Hither, mud-splashed, ragged, hollow-cheeked, came our battalion—they call us the Seventh Hairy Jocks nowadays—after four months’ continuous employment in the firing-line. Ypres was a household word to them; Plugstreet was familiar ground; Givenchy they knew intimately; Loos was their wash-pot—or rather, a collection of wash-pots, for in winter all the shell-craters are full to overflowing. In addition to their prolonged and strenuous labours in the trenches, the Hairy Jocks had taken part in a Push—a part not altogether unattended with glory, but prolific in casualties. They had not been “pulled out” to rest and refit for over six months, for Divisions on the Western Front were not at that period too numerous, the voluntary system being at its last gasp, while the legions of Lord Derby had not yet crystallised out of the ocean of public talk which held them in solution. So the Seventh Hairy Jocks were bone tired. But they were as hard as a rigorous winter in the open could make them, and—they were going back to rest at last. Had not their beloved C.O. told them so? And he had added, in a voice not altogether free from emotion, that if ever men deserved a solid rest and a good time, “you boys do!”
So the Hairy Jocks trudged along the long, straight, nubbly French road, well content, speculating with comfortable pessimism as to the character of the billets in which they would find themselves.
Meanwhile, ten miles ahead, the advance party were going round the town in quest of the billets.
Billet-hunting on the Western Front is not quite so desperate an affair as hunting for lodgings at Margate, because in the last extremity you can always compel the inhabitants to take you in—or at least, exert pressure to that end through the Mairie. But at the best one’s course is strewn with obstacles, and fortunate is the Adjutant who has to his hand a subaltern capable of finding lodgings for a thousand men without making a mess of it.
The billeting officer on this, as on most occasions, was our friend Cockerell,—affectionately known to the entire Battalion as “Sparrow,”—and his qualifications for the post were derived from three well-marked and invaluable characteristics, namely, an imperious disposition, a thick skin, and an attractive bonhomie of manner.
Behold him this morning dismounting from his horse in the place of St. Grégoire. Around him are grouped his satellites—the Quartermaster-Sergeant, four Company Sergeants, some odd orderlies, and a forlorn little man in a neat drab uniform with light blue facings,—the regimental interpreter. The party have descended, with the delicate care of those who essay to perform acrobatic feats in kilts, from bicycles—serviceable but appallingly heavy machines of Government manufacture, the property of the “Buzzers,” but commandeered for the occasion. The Quartermaster-Sergeant, who is not accustomed to strenuous exercise, mops his brow and glances expectantly round the place. His eye comes gently to rest upon a small but hospitable-looking estaminet.
Lieutenant Cockerell examines his wrist-watch.
“Half-past ten!” he announces. “Quartermaster-Sergeant!”
“Sirr!” The Quartermaster-Sergeant unglues his longing gaze from the estaminet and comes woodenly to attention.
“I am going to see the Town Major about a billeting area. I will meet you and the party here in twenty minutes.”
Master Cockerell trots off on his mud-splashed steed, followed by the respectful and appreciative salutes of his followers—appreciative, because a less considerate officer would have taken the whole party direct to the Town Major’s office and kept them standing in the street, wasting moments which might have been better employed elsewhere, until it was time to proceed with the morning’s work.
“How strong are you?” inquired the Town Major.
Cockerell told him. The Town Major whistled.
“That all? Been doing some job of work, haven’t you?”
Cockerell nodded, and the Town Major proceeded to examine a large-scale plan of St. Grégoire, divided up into different-coloured plots.
“We are rather full up at present,” he said; “but the Cemetery Area is vacant. The Seventeenth Geordies moved out yesterday. You can have that.” He indicated a triangular section with his pencil.
Master Cockerell gave a deprecatory cough.
“We have come here, sir,” he intimated dryly, “for a change of scene.”
The stout Town Major—all Town Majors are stout—chuckled.
“Not bad for a Scot!” he conceded. “But it’s quite a cheery district, really. You won’t have to doss down in the cemetery itself, you know. These two streets here—” he flicked a pencil—“will hold practically all your battalion, at its present strength. There’s a capital house in the Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau which will do for Battalion Headquarters. The corporal over there will give you your billets de logement.”
“Are there any other troops in the area, sir?” asked Cockerell, who, as already indicated, was no child in these matters.
“There ought not to be, of course. But you know what the Heavy Gunners and the A.S.C. are! If you come across any of them, fire them out. If they wear too many stars and crowns for you, let me know, and I will perform the feat myself. You fellows need a good rest and no worries, I know. Good-morning.”
At ten minutes to eleven Cockerell found the Quartermaster-Sergeant and party, wiping their mustaches and visibly refreshed, at the exact spot where he had left them; and the hunt for billets began.
“A” Company were easily provided for, a derelict tobacco factory being encountered at the head of the first street. Lieutenant Cockerell accordingly detached a sergeant and a corporal from his train, and passed on. The wants of “B” Company were supplied by commandeering a block of four dilapidated houses farther down the street—all in comparatively good repair except the end house, whose roof had been disarranged by a shell during the open fighting in the early days of the war.
This exhausted the possibilities of the first street, and the party debouched into the second, which was long and straggling, and composed entirely of small houses.
“Now for a bit of the retail business!” said Master Cockerell resignedly. “Sergeant M’Nab, what is the strength of ‘C’ Company?”
“One hunner and thairty-fower other ranks, sirr,” announced Sergeant M’Nab, consulting a much-thumbed roll-book.
“We shall have to put them in twos and threes all down the street,” said Cockerell. “Come on; the longer we look at it the less we shall like it. Interpreter!”
The forlorn little man, already described, trotted up, and saluted with open hand, French fashion. His name was Baptiste Bombominet (“or words to that effect,” as the Adjutant put it), and may have been so inscribed upon the regimental roll; but throughout the rank and file Baptiste was affectionately known by the generic title of “Alphonso.” The previous seven years had been spent by him in the congenial and blameless atmosphere of a Ladies’ Tailor’s in the west end of London, where he enjoyed the status and emoluments of chief cutter. Now, called back to his native land by the voice of patriotic obligation, he found himself selected, by virtue of a residence of seven years in England, to act as official interpreter between a Scottish Regiment which could not speak English, and Flemish peasants who could not speak French. No wonder that his pathetic brown eyes always appeared full of tears. However, he followed Cockerell down the street, and meekly embarked upon a contest with the lady Inhabitants thereof, in which he was hopelessly outmatched from the start.
At the first door a dame of massive proportions, but keen business instincts, announced her total inability to accommodate soldats, but explained that she would be pleased to entertain officiers to any number. This is a common gambit. Twenty British privates in your grenier, though extraordinarily well-behaved as a class, make a good deal of noise, buy little, and leave mud everywhere. On the other hand, two or three officers give no trouble, and can be relied upon to consume and pay for unlimited omelettes and bowls of coffee.
That seasoned vessel, Lieutenant Cockerell, turned promptly to the Sergeant and Corporal of “C” Company.
“Sergeant M’Nab,” he said, “you and Corporal Downie will billet here.” He introduced hostess and guests by an expressive wave of the hand. But shrewd Madame was not to be bluffed.
“Pas de sergents, Monsieur le Capitaine!” she exclaimed. “Officiers!”
“Ils sont officiers—sous-officiers,” explained Cockerell, rather ingeniously, and moved off down the street.
At the next house the owner—a small, wizened lady of negligible physique but great staying power—entered upon a duet with Alphonso, which soon reduced that very moderate performer to breathlessness. He shrugged his shoulders feebly, and cast an appealing glance towards the Lieutenant.
“What does she say?” inquired Cockerell.
“She say dis’ ouse no good, sair! She ’ave seven children, and one malade—seek.”
“Let me see,” commanded the practical officer.
He insinuated himself as politely as possible past his reluctant opponent, and walked down the narrow passage into the kitchen. Here he turned, and inquired—
“Er—ou est la pauvre petite chose?”
Madame promptly opened a door, and displayed a little girl in bed—a very flushed and feverish little girl.
Cockerell grinned sympathetically at the patient, to that young lady’s obvious gratification; and turned to the mother.
“Je suis tres—triste,” he said; “j’ai grand miséricorde. Je ne placerai pas de soldats ici. Bon jour!”
By this time he was in the street again. He saluted politely and departed, followed by the grateful regards of Madame.
No special difficulties were encountered at the next few houses. The ladies at the house-door were all polite; many of them were most friendly; but naturally each was anxious to get as few men and as many officers as possible—except the proprietess of an estaminel, who offered to accommodate the entire regiment. However, with a little tact here and a little firmness there, Master Cockerell succeeded in distributing “C” Company among some dozen houses. One old gentleman, with a black alpaca cap and a six-days beard, proprietor of a lofty establishment at the corner of the street, proved not only recalcitrant, but abusive. With him Cockerell dealt promptly.
“Ça suffit!” he announced. “Montres-moi votre grenier!”
The old man, grumbling, led the way up numerous rickety staircases to the inevitable loft under the tiles. This proved to be a noble apartment thirty feet long. From wall to wall stretched innumerable strings.
“We can get a whole platoon in here,” said Cockerell contentedly. “Tell him, Alphonso. These people,” he explained to Sergeant M’Nab, “always dislike giving up their lofts, because they hang their laundry there in winter. However, the old boy must lump it. After all, we are in this country for his health, not ours; and he gets paid for every man who sleeps here. That fixes ‘C’ Company. Now for ‘D’! The other side of the street this time.”
Quarters were found in due course for “D” Company; after which Cockerell discovered a vacant building-site which would serve for transport lines. An empty garage was marked down for the Quartermaster’s ration store, and the Quartermaster-Sergeant promptly faded into its recesses with a grateful sigh. An empty shop in the Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau, conveniently adjacent to Battalion Headquarters, was appropriated for that gregarious band, the regimental signallers and telephone section; while a suitable home for the Anarchists, or Bombers, together with their stock-in-trade, was found in the basement of a remote dwelling on the outskirts of the area.
After this, Lieutenant Cockerell, left alone with Alphonso and the orderly in charge of his horse, heaved a sigh of exhaustion and transferred his attention from his notebook to his watch.
“That finishes the rank and file,” he said. “I breakfasted at four this morning, and the battalion won’t arrive for a couple of hours yet. Alphonso, I am going to have an omelette somewhere. I shall want you in half an hour exactly. Don’t go wandering off for the rest of the day, pinching soft billets for yourself and the Sergeant-Major and your other pals, as you usually do!”
Alphonso saluted guiltily—evidently the astute Cockerell had “touched the spot”—and was turning away, when suddenly the billeting officer’s eye encountered an illegible scrawl at the very foot of his list.
“Stop a moment, Alphonso! I have forgotten those condemned machine-gunners, as usual. Strafe them! Come on! Once more into the breach, Alphonso! There is a little side-alley down here that we have not tried.”
The indefatigable Cockerell turned down the Rue Gambetta, followed by Alphonso, faint but resigned.
“Here is the very place!” announced Cockerell almost at once. “This house, Number Five. We can put the gunners and their little guns into that stable at the back, and the officer can have a room in the house itself. Sonnez, for the last time before lunch!”
The door was opened by a pleasant-faced young woman of about thirty, who greeted Cockerell—tartan is always popular with French ladies—with a beaming smile, but shook her head regretfully upon seeing the billet de logement in his hand. The inevitable duet with Alphonso followed. Presently Alphonso turned to his superior.
“Madame is ver’ sorry, sair, but an officier is here already.”
“Show me the officier!” replied the prosaic Cockerell.
The duet was resumed.
“Madame say,” announced Alphonso presently, “that the officier is not here now; but he will return.”
“So will Christmas! Meanwhile I am going to put an Emma Gee officer in here.”
Alphonso’s desperate attempt to translate the foregoing idiom into French was interrupted by Madame’s retirement into the house, whither she beckoned Cockerell to follow her. In the front room she produced a frayed sheet of paper, which she proffered with an apologetic smile. The paper said:—
This billet is entirely reserved for the Supply Officer of this District. It is not to be occupied by troops passing through the town.
By Order.
Lieutenant Cockerell whistled softly and vindictively through his teeth.
“Well,” he said, “for consummate and concentrated nerve, give me the underlings of the A.S.C.! This pot-bellied blighter not only butts into an area which doesn’t belong to him, but actually leaves a chit to warn people off the grass even when he isn’t here! He hasn’t signed the document, I observe. That means that he is a newly joined subaltern, trying to get mistaken for a Brass Hat! I’ll fix him!”
With great stateliness Lieutenant Cockerell tore the offending screed into four portions, to the audible concern of Madame. But the Lieutenant smiled reassuringly upon her.
“Je vous donnerai un autre, vous savez,” he assured her.
He sat down at the table, tore a leaf from his Field Service Pocket Book, and wrote:—
The Supply Officer of the District is at liberty to occupy this billet only at such times as it is not required by the troops of the Combatant Services.
Signed, F.J. Cockerell,
Lieut. & Asst. Adj.,
7th B. & W. Highes.
“That’s a pretty nasty one!” he observed with relish. Then, having pinned the insulting document conspicuously to the mantelpiece, he observed to the mystified lady of the house:—
“Voilà, Madame. Si l’officier reviendra, je le verrai moi-même, avec grand plaisir. Bon jour!”
And with this dark saying Sparrow Cockerell took his departure.
II
The Battalion, headed by their tatterdemalion pipers, stumped into the town in due course, and were met on the outskirts by the billeting party, who led the various companies to their appointed place. After inspecting their new quarters, and announcing with gloomy satisfaction that they were the worst, dirtiest, and most uncomfortable yet encountered, everybody settled down in the best place he could find, and proceeded to make himself remarkably snug.
Battalion Headquarters and the officers of “A” Company were billeted in an imposing mansion which actually boasted a bathroom. It is true that there was no water, but this deficiency was soon made good by a string of officers’ servants bearing buckets. Beginning with Colonel Kemp, who was preceded by an orderly bearing a small towel and a large loofah, each officer performed a ceremonial ablution; and it was a collection of what Major Wagstaffe termed “bright and bonny young faces” which collected round the Mess table at seven o’clock.
It was in every sense a gala meal. Firstly, it was weeks since any one (except Second Lieutenant M’Corquodale, newly joined, and addressed, for painfully obvious reasons, as “Tich”) had found himself at table in an apartment where it was possible to stand upright. Secondly, the Mess President had coaxed glass tumblers out of the ancient concierge; and only those who have drunk from enamelled ironware for weeks on end can appreciate the pure joy of escape from the indeterminate metallic flavour which such vessels impart to all beverages. Thirdly, these same tumblers were filled to the brim with inferior but exhilarating champagne—purchased, as they euphemistically put it in the Supply Column, “locally.” Lastly, the battalion had several months of hard fighting behind it, probably a full month’s rest before it, and the conscience of duty done and recognition earned floating like a halo above it. For the moment memories of Nightmare Wood and the Kidney Bean Redoubt—more especially the latter—were effaced. Even the sorrowful gaps in the ring round the table seemed less noticeable.
The menu, too, was almost pretentious. First came the hors d’oeuvres—a tin of sardines. This was followed by what the Mess Corporal described as a savoury omelette, but which the Second-in-Command condemned as “a regrettable incident.”
“It is false economy,” he observed dryly to the Mess President, “to employ Mark One [1] eggs as anything but hand-grenades.”
However, the tide of popular favour turned with the haggis, contributed by Lieutenant Angus M’Lachlan, from a parcel from home. Even the fact that the Mess cook, an inexperienced aesthete from Islington, had endeavoured to tone down the naked repulsiveness of the dainty with discreet festoons of tinned macaroni, failed to arouse the resentment of a purely Scottish Mess. The next course—the beef ration, hacked into the inevitable gobbets and thinly disguised by a sprinkling of curry powder—aroused no enthusiasm; but the unexpected production of a large tin of Devonshire cream, contributed by Captain Bobby Little, relieved the canned peaches of their customary monotony. Last of all came a savoury—usually described as the savoury—consisting of a raft of toast per person, each raft carrying an abundant cargo of fried potted meat, and provided with a passenger in the shape of a recumbent sausage.
A compound of grounds and dish-water, described by the optimistic Mess Corporal as coffee, next made its appearance, mitigated by a bottle of Cointreau and a box of Panatellas; and the Mess turned itself to more intellectual refreshment. A heavy and long-overdue mail had been found waiting at St. Grégoire. Letters had been devoured long ago. Now, each member of the Mess leaned back in his chair, straightened his weary legs under the table, and settled down, cigar in mouth, to the perusal of the Spectator or the Tatler, according to rank and literary taste.
Colonel Kemp, unfolding a week-old Times, looked over his glasses at his torpid disciples.
“Where is young Sandeman?” he inquired.
Young Sandeman was the Adjutant.
“He went out to the Orderly Room, sir, five minutes ago,” replied Bobby Little.
“I only want to give him to-morrow’s Orders. No doubt he’ll be back presently. I may as well mention to you fellows that I propose to allow the men three clear days’ rest, except for bathing and re-clothing. After that we must do Company Drill, good and hard, so as to polish up the new draft, who are due to-morrow. I am going to start a bombing-school, too: at least seventy-five per cent. of the Battalion ought to pass the test before we go back to the line. However, we need not rush things. We should be here in peace for at least a month. We must get up some sports, and I think it would be a sound scheme to have a singsong one Saturday night. I was just saying, Sandeman,”—this to the Adjutant, who reëntered the room at that moment,—“that it would be a sound—”
The Adjutant laid a pink field-telegraph slip before his superior.
“This has just come in from Brigade Headquarters, sir,” he said. “I have sent for the Sergeant-Major.”
The Colonel adjusted his glasses and read the despatch. A deathly, sickening silence reigned in the room. Then he looked up.
“I am afraid I was a bit previous,” he said quietly. “The Royal Stickybacks have lost the Kidney Bean, and we are detailed to go up and retake it. Great compliment to the regiment, but a trifle mistimed! You young fellows had better go to bed. Parade at 4 A.M., sharp! Good-night! Come along to the Orderly Room, Sandeman.”
The door closed, and the Mess, grinding the ends of their cigars into their coffee-cups, heaved themselves resignedly to their aching feet.
“There ain’t,” quoted Major Wagstaffe, “no word in the blooming language for it!”
III
The Kidney Bean Redoubt is the key to a very considerable sector of trenches.
It lies just behind a low ridge. The two horns of the bean are drawn back out of sight of the enemy, but the middle swells forward over the skyline and commands an extensive view of the country beyond. Direct observation of artillery fire is possible: consequently an armoured observation post has been constructed here, from which gunner officers can direct the fire of their batteries with accuracy and elegance. Lose the Kidney Bean, and the boot is on the other leg. The enemy has the upper ground now: he can bring observed artillery fire to bear upon all our tenderest spots behind the line. He can also enfilade our front-line trenches.
Well, as already stated, the Twenty-Second Royal Stickybacks had lost the Kidney Bean. They were a battalion of recent formation, stout-hearted fellows all, but new to the refinements of intensive trench warfare. When they took over the sector, they proceeded to leave undone various vital things which the Hairy Jocks had always made a point of doing, and to do various unnecessary things which the Hairy Jocks had never done. The observant Hun promptly recognised that he was faced by a fresh batch of opponents, and, having carefully studied the characteristics of the newcomers, prescribed and administered an exemplary dose of frightfulness. He began by tickling up the Stickybacks with an unpleasant engine called the Minenwerfer, which despatches a large sausage-shaped projectile in a series of ridiculous somersaults, high over No Man’s Land into the enemy’s front-line trench, where it explodes and annihilates everything in that particular bay. Upon these occasions one’s only chance of salvation is to make a rapid calculation as to the bay into which the sausage is going to fall, and then double speedily round a traverse—or, if possible, two traverses—into another. It is an exhilarating pastime, but presents complications when played by a large number of persons in a restricted space, especially when the persons aforesaid are not unanimous as to the ultimate landing-place of the projectile.
After a day and a night of these aerial torpedoes the Hun proceeded to an intensive artillery bombardment. He had long coveted the Kidney Bean, and instinct told him that he would never have a better opportunity of capturing it than now. Accordingly, two hours before dawn, the Redoubt was subjected to a sudden, simultaneous, and converging fire from all the German artillery for many miles round, the whole being topped up with a rain of those crowning instruments of demoralisation, gas-shells. At the same time an elaborate curtain of shrapnel and high explosive was let down behind the Redoubt, to serve the double purpose of preventing either the sending up of reinforcements or the temporary withdrawal of the garrison.
At the first streak of dawn the bombardment was switched off, as if by a tap; the curtain fire was redoubled in volume; and a massed attack swept across the disintegrated wire into the shattered and pulverised Redoubt. Other attacks were launched on either flank; but these were obvious blinds, intended to prevent a too concentrated defence of the Kidney Bean. The Royal Stickybacks—what was left of them—put up a tough fight; but half of them were lying dead or buried, or both, before the assault was launched, and the rest were too dazed and stupefied by noise and chlorine gas to withstand—much less to repel—the overwhelming phalanx that was hurled against them. One by one they went down, until the enemy troops, having swamped the Redoubt, gathered themselves up in a fresh wave and surged towards the reserve-line trenches, four hundred yards distant. At this point, however, they met a strong counter-attack, launched from the Brigade Reserve, and after heavy fighting were bundled back into the Redoubt itself. Here the German machine-guns had staked out a defensive line, and the German retirement came to a standstill.
Meanwhile a German digging party, many hundred strong, had been working madly in No Man’s Land, striving to link up the newly acquired ground with the German lines. By the afternoon the Kidney Bean was not only “reversed and consolidated,” but was actually included in the enemy’s front trench system. Altogether a well-planned and admirably executed little operation.
Forty-eight hours later the Kidney Bean Redoubt was recaptured, and remains in British hands to this day. Many arms of the Service took honourable part in the enterprise—heavy guns, field guns, trench-mortars, machine-guns; Sappers and Pioneers; Infantry in various capacities. But this narrative is concerned only with the part played by the Seventh Hairy Jocks.
“Sorry to pull you back from rest, Colonel,” said the Brigadier, when the commander of the Hairy Jocks reported; “but the Divisional General considers that the only feasible way to hunt the Boche from the Kidney Bean is to bomb him out of it. That means trench-fighting, pure and simple. I have called you up because you fellows know the ins and outs of the Kidney Bean as no one else does. The Brigade who are in the line just now are quite new to the place. Here is an aeroplane photograph of the Redoubt, as at present constituted. Tell off your own bombing parties; make your own dispositions; send me a copy of your provisional orders; and I will fit my plan in with yours. The Corps Commander has promised to back you with every gun, trench-mortar, culverin, and arquebus in his possession.”
In due course Battalion Orders were issued and approved. They dealt with operations most barbarous amid localities of the most homelike sound. Number Nine Platoon, for instance (Commander Lieutenant Cockerell), were to proceed in single file, carrying so many grenades per man, up Charing Cross Road, until stopped by the barrier which the enemy were understood to have erected in Trafalgar Square, where a bombing-post and at least one machine-gun would probably be encountered. At this point they were to wait until Trafalgar Square had been suitably dealt with by a trench-mortar. (Here followed a paragraph addressed exclusively to the Trench-Mortar Officer.) After this the bombers of Number Three Platoon would bomb their way across the Square and up the Strand. Another party would clear Northumberland Avenue, while a Lewis gun raked Whitehall. And so on. Every detail was thought out, down to the composition of the parties which were to “clean up” afterwards—that is, extract the reluctant Boche from various underground fastnesses well known to the extractors. The whole enterprise was then thoroughly rehearsed in some dummy trenches behind the line, until every one knew his exact part. Such is modern warfare.
Next day the Kidney Bean Redoubt was in British hands again. The Hun—what was left of him after an intensive bombardment of twenty-four hours—had betaken himself back over the ridge, via the remnants of his two new communication trenches, to his original front line. The two communication trenches themselves were blocked and sandbagged, and were being heavily supervised by a pair of British machine-guns. Fighting in the Redoubt itself had almost ceased, though a humorous sergeant, followed by acolytes bearing bombs, was still “combing out” certain residential districts in the centre of the maze. Ever and anon he would stoop down at the entrance of some deep dug-out, and bawl—
“Ony mair doon there? Come away, Fritz! I’ll gie ye five seconds. Yin,
Twa, Three—”
Then, with a rush like a bolt of rabbits, two or three close-cropped, grimy Huns would scuttle up from below and project themselves from one of the exits; to be taken in charge by grinning Caledonians wearing “tin hats” very much awry, and escorted back through the barrage to the “prisoners’ base” in rear.
All through the day, amidst unremitting shell fire and local counter-attack, the Hairy Jocks reconsolidated the Kidney Bean; and they were so far successful that when they handed over the work to another battalion at dusk, the parapet was restored, the machine-guns were in position, and a number of “knife-rest” barbed-wire entanglements were lying just behind the trench, ready to be hoisted over the parapet and joined together in a continuous defensive line as soon as the night was sufficiently dark.
One by one the members of Number Nine Platoon squelched—for it had rained hard all day—back to the reserve line. They were utterly exhausted, and still inclined to feel a little aggrieved at having been pulled out from rest; but they were well content. They had done the State some service, and they knew it; and they knew that the higher powers knew it too. There would be some very flattering reading in Divisional Orders in a few days’ time.
Meanwhile, their most pressing need was for something to eat. To be sure, every man had gone into action that morning carrying his day’s rations. But the British soldier, improvident as the grasshopper, carries his day’s rations in one place, and one place only—his stomach. The Hairy Jocks had eaten what they required at their extremely early breakfast: the residue thereof they had abandoned.
About midnight Master Cockerell, in obedience to a most welcome order, led the remnants of his command, faint but triumphant, back from the reserve line to a road junction two miles in rear, known as Dead Dog Corner. Here the Battalion was to rendezvous, and march back by easy stages to St. Grégoire. Their task was done.
But at the cross-roads Number Nine Platoon found no Battalion: only a solitary subaltern, with his orderly. This young Casabianca informed Cockerell that he, Second Lieutenant Candlish, had been left behind to “bring in stragglers.”
“Stragglers?” exclaimed the infuriated Cockerell. “Do we look like stragglers?”
“No,” replied the youthful Candlish frankly; “you look more like sweeps. However, you had better push on. The Battalion isn’t far ahead. The order is to march straight back to St. Grégoire and re-occupy former billets.”
“What about rations?”
“Rations? The Quartermaster was waiting here for us when we rendezvoused, and every man had a full ration and a tot of rum.” (Number Nine Platoon cleared their parched throats expectantly.) “But I fancy he has gone on with the column. However, if you leg it you should catch them up. They can’t be more than two miles ahead. So long!”
IV
But the task was hopeless. Number Nine Platoon had been bombing, hacking, and digging all day. Several of them were slightly wounded—the serious cases had been taken off long ago by the stretcher-bearers—and Cockerell’s own head was still dizzy from the fumes of a German gas-shell.
He lined up his disreputable paladins in the darkness, and spoke—
“Sergeant M’Nab, how many men are present?”
“Eighteen, sirr.” The platoon had gone into action thirty-four strong.
“How many men are deficient of an emergency ration? I can make a good guess, but you had better find out.”
Five minutes later the Sergeant reported. Cockerell’s guess was correct. The British private has only one point of view about the portable property of the State. To him, as an individual, the sacred emergency ration is an unnecessary encumbrance, and the carrying thereof a “fatigue.” Consequently, when engaged in battle, one of the first (of many) things which he jettisons is this very ration. When all is over, he reports with unctuous solemnity that the provender in question has been blown out of his haversack by a shell. The Quartermaster-Sergeant writes it off as “lost owing to the exigencies of military service,” and indents for another.
Lieutenant Cockerell’s haversack contained a packet of meat-lozenges and about half a pound of chocolate. These were presented to the Sergeant.
“Hand these round as far as they will go, Sergeant,” said Cockerell. “They’ll make a mouthful a man, anyhow. Tell the platoon to lie down for ten minutes; then we’ll push off. It’s only fifteen miles. We ought to make it by breakfast-time …”
Slowly, mechanically, all through the winter night the victors hobbled along. Cockerell led the way, carrying the rifle of a man with a wounded arm. Occasionally he checked his bearings with map and electric torch. Sergeant M’Nab, who, under a hirsute and attenuated exterior, concealed a constitution of ferro-concrete and the heart of a lion, brought up the rear, uttering fallacious assurances to the faint-hearted as to the shortness of the distance now to be covered, and carrying two rifles.
The customary halts were observed. At ten minutes to four the men flung themselves down for the third time. They had covered about seven miles, and were still eight or nine from St. Grégoire. The everlasting constellation of Verey lights still rose and fell upon the eastern horizon behind them, but the guns were silent.
“There might be a Heavy Battery dug in somewhere about here,” mused
Cockerell. “I wonder if we could touch them for a few tins of bully.
Hallo, what’s that?”
A distant rumble came from the north, and out of the darkness loomed a British motor-lorry, lurching and swaying along the rough cobbles of the pavé. Some of Cockerell’s men were lying dead asleep in the middle of the road, right at the junction. The lorry was going twenty miles an hour.
“Get into the side of the road, you men!” shouted Cockerell, “or they’ll run over you. You know what these M.T. drivers are!”
With indignant haste, and at the last possible moment, the kilted figures scattered to either side of the narrow causeway. The usual stereotyped and vitriolic remonstrances were hurled after the great hooded vehicle as it lurched past.
And then a most unusual thing happened. The lorry slowed down, and finally stopped, a hundred yards away. An officer descended, and began to walk back. Cockerell rose to his weary feet and walked to meet him.
The officer wore a major’s crown upon the shoulder-straps of his sheepskin-lined “British Warm” and the badge of the Army Service Corps upon his cap. Cockerell, indignant at the manner in which his platoon had been hustled off the road, saluted stiffly, and muttered: “Good-morning, sir!”
“Good-morning!” said the Major. He was a stout man of nearly fifty, with twinkling blue eyes and a short-clipped mustache. Cockerell judged him to be one of the few remnants of the original British Army.
“I stopped,” explained the older man, “to apologise for the scandalous way that fellow drove over you. It was perfectly damnable; but you know what these converted taxi-drivers are! This swine forgot for the moment that he had an officer on board, and hogged it as usual. He goes under arrest as soon as we get back to billets.”
“Thank you very much, sir,” said Master Cockerell, entirely thawed. “I’m afraid my chaps were lying all over the road; but they are pretty well down and out at present.”
“Where have you come from?” inquired the Major, turning a curious eye upon Cockerell’s prostrate followers.
Cockerell explained When he had finished, he added wistfully—
“I suppose you have not got an odd tin or two of bully to give away, sir? My fellows are about—”
For answer, the Major took the Lieutenant by the arm and led him towards the lorry.
“You have come,” he announced, “to the very man you want. I am practically Mr. Harrod. In fact, I am a Corps Supply Officer. How would a Maconochie apiece suit your boys?”
Cockerell, repressing the ecstatic phrases which crowded to his tongue, replied that that was just what the doctor had ordered.
“Where are you bound for?” continued the Major.
“St. Grégoire.”
“Of course. You were pulled out from there, weren’t you? I am going to St. Grégoire myself as soon as I have finished my round. Home to bed, in fact. I haven’t had any sleep worth writing home about for four nights. It is no joke tearing about a country full of shell-holes, hunting for people who have shifted their ration-dump seven times in four days. However, I suppose things will settle down again, now that you fellows have fired Brother Boche out of the Kidney Bean. Pretty fine work, too! Tell me, what is your strength, here and now?”
“One officer,” said Cockerell soberly, “and eighteen other ranks.”
“All that’s left of your platoon?”
Cockerell nodded. The stout Major began to beat upon the tailboard of the lorry with his stick.
“Sergeant Smurthwaite!” he shouted.
There came a muffled grunt from the recesses of the lorry. Then a round and ruddy face rose like a harvest moon above the tailboard, and a stertorous voice replied respectfully—
“Sir?”
“Let down this tailboard; load this officer’s platoon into the lorry; issue them with a Maconochie and a tot of rum apiece; and don’t forget to put Smee under arrest for dangerous driving when we get back to billets.”
“Very good, sir.”
Ten minutes later the survivors of Number Nine Platoon, soaked to the skin, dazed, slightly incredulous, but at peace with all the world, reclined close-packed upon the floor of the swaying lorry. Each man held an open tin of Mr. Maconochie’s admirable ration between his knees. Perfect silence reigned: a pleasant aroma of rum mellowed the already vitiated atmosphere.
In front, beside the chastened Mr. Smee, sat the Major and Master Cockerell. The latter had just partaken of his share of refreshment, and was now endeavouring, with lifeless fingers, to light a cigarette.
The Major scrutinised his guest intently. Then he stripped off his British Warm coat—incidentally revealing the fact that he wore upon his tunic the ribbons of both South African Medals and the Distinguished Service Order—and threw it round Cockerell’s shoulders.
“I’m sorry, boy!” he said. “I never noticed. You are chilled to the bone. Button this round you.”
Cockerell made a feeble protest, but was cut short.
“Nonsense! There’s no sense in taking risks after you’ve done your job.”
Cockerell assented, a little sleepily. His allowance of rum was bringing its usual vulgar but comforting influence to bear upon an exhausted system.
“I see you have been wounded, sir,” he observed, noting with a little surprise two gold stripes upon his host’s left sleeve—the sleeve of a “non-combatant.”
“Yes,” said the Major. “I got the first one at Le Gateau. He was only a little fellow; but the second, which arrived at the Second Show at Ypres, gave me such a stiff leg that I am only an old crock now. I was second-in-command of an Infantry Battalion in those days. In these, I am only a peripatetic Lipton. However, I am lucky to be here at all: I’ve had twenty-seven years’ service. How old are you?”
“Twenty,” replied Cockerell. He was too tired to feel as ashamed as he usually did at having to confess to the tenderness of his years.
The Major nodded thoughtfully.
“Yes,” he said; “I judged that would be about the figure. My son would have been twenty this month, only—he was at Neuve Chapelle. He was very like you in appearance—very. His mother would have been interested to meet you. You might as well take a nap for half an hour. I have two more calls to make, and we shan’t get home till nearly seven. Lean on me, old man. I’ll see you don’t tumble overboard …”
So Lieutenant Cockerell, conqueror of the Kidney Bean, fell asleep, his head resting, with scandalous disregard for military etiquette, upon the shoulder of the stout Major.
V
An hour or two later, Number Nine Platoon, distended with concentrated nourishment and painfully straightening its cramped limbs, decanted itself from the lorry into a little cul-de-sac opening off the Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau in St. Grégoire. The name of the cul-de-sac was the Rue Gambetta.
Their commander, awake and greatly refreshed, looked round him and realised, with a sudden sense of uneasiness, that he was in familiar surroundings. The lorry had stopped at the door of Number Five.
“I don’t suppose your Battalion will get back for some time,” said the Major. “Tell your Sergeant to put your men into the stable behind this house—there’s plenty of straw there—and—”
“Their own billet is just round the corner, sir,” replied Cockerell. “They might as well go there, thank you.”
“Very good. But come in with me yourself, and doss here for a few hours. You can report to your C.O. later in the day, when he arrives. This is my pied-à-terre,”—rapping on the door. “You won’t find many billets like it. As you see, it stands in this little backwater, and is not included in any of the regular billeting areas of the town. The Town Major has allotted it to me permanently. Pretty decent of him, wasn’t it? And Madame Vinot is a dear. Here she is! Bonjour, Madame Vinot! Avez-vous un feu—er—inflammé pour moi dans la chambre?” Evidently the Major’s French was on a par with Cockerell’s.
But Madame understood him, bless her!
“Mais oui, M’sieur le Colonel!” she exclaimed cheerfully—the rank of Major is not recognised by the French civilian population—and threw open the door of the sitting-room, with a glance of compassion upon the Major’s mud-splashed companion, whom she failed to recognise.
A bright fire was burning in the open stove.
Immediately above, pinned to the mantelpiece and fluttering in the draught, hung Cockerell’s manifesto upon the subject of non-combatants. He could recognise his own handwriting across the room. The Major saw it too.
“Hallo, what’s that hanging up, I wonder?” he exclaimed. “A memorandum for me, I expect; probably from my old friend ‘Dados.’1 Let us get a little more light.”
He crossed to the window and drew up the blind. Cockerell moved too. When the Major turned round, his guest was standing by the stove, his face scarlet through its grime.
“I’m awfully sorry, sir,” said Cockerell, “but that notice—memorandum—of yours has dropped into the fire.”
“If it came from Dados,” replied the Major, “thank you very much!”
“I can’t tell you, sir,” added Cockerell humbly, “what a fool I feel.”
But the apology referred to an entirely different matter.
Notes
1 In the British army each issue of arms or equipment receives a distinctive “Mark.” Mark I denotes the earliest issue.
1 D.A.D.O.S. Deputy Assistant Director of Ordnance Stores.