Pass Guard at Ypres Page 11

  Guy Cadell stood still, anxious to help. He was new to the war, and he was still always anxious to know what was on and help.

  “Why don’t you go to Hell—no, go and ask Chips to come here a moment; then go to Hell if a shell doesn’t get you first.”

  This seemed more definite, and Guy Cadell departed upon his complicated errand. Freddy Mann stood over Bill, and spoke almost in a tender and caressing voice.

  “But are you sure? You know what it means. Come on, try. Let me help you up.”

  “I can’t—it’s gone—I can’t.”

  “All ready for patrol, sir.” Sergeant Mitchell’s face appeared for a moment at the doorway.

  “Right, just coming.” Freddy Mann looked quickly at Bill, then at the parapet and the incessant bursts outside. Last hope.

  “You can’t?”

  Bill whined and moaned. He was cowering further into the dug-out. In the light of a shell his face was green, and his eyes were like an animal’s. Last hope. In a minute Townroe would be here, and it would be too late. His hand moved to his pistol.

  “You can’t—or won’t?”

  “Oh.” Bill covered his eyes. He tried to rise and fell back, as the dug-out rocked with a sudden explosion. Freddy Mann watched.

  “Well?”

  “I tell you——”

  “Hullo, you chaps!” Chips Viner glanced at the revolver in Freddy Mann’s hand. “Just priming up, eh? Well, I say, that damned patrol’s off. C.O. thinks the night’s a bit too thick. Stand the men down, if I were you, and then turn in. There’s nothing else on. Got your situation report done, eh?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well.” He stooped and looked inside. “That you, Bill? Well, your special dish is off tonight. Never mind, we’ll fix one up for you tomorrow. Cheerio, pip, pip.”

  Bill crawled forward when the two were left alone.

  “I say—does he mean it?”

  Slowly Bill got to an erect position in the trench before the dug-out. As if by habit he carefully replaced the sheet, then turned uncertainly to Freddy Mann.

  “You know, I wish to God Chips hadn’t come. I wish to God you’d shot. I’m done—here, give it to me.”

  He made a sudden grab for the pistol. Freddy Mann got him by the neck.

  “Don’t be a fool. Turn in. You’ll be all right tomorrow. And for the Lord’s sake stop that whining.” He spoke impatiently.

  Bill cowered by the dug-out, looking helplessly at him. His jaw was hanging loose, and he was slobbering. “Thought you were a sport, Freddy Mann. Thought you were a pal of mine. ’Tisn’t much for a pal to do, to shoot a fellow when he asks.”

  Freddy Mann ought to have taken Chips’s advice and turned in. When one has been for five weeks in and out of the Kaye salient, and between Brielen, Essex Farm and the Mortaldje Estaminet, and is due as far as can be seen for another week at least, it is a pity not to take all the sleep that one can get. The patrol was called off. Good enough. Why not turn in instead of hanging about here alone in an abandoned traverse, looking at the dimly-seen High Command Redoubt towering in front of them and the waste of morass between them. Freddy Mann might have known what would come of it, even if Bamford had not reminded him once again that the only thing to do was to take things as they were, and he’d find a spot of rum on his side of the dug-out. Perhaps, though, it was difficult for him to know, for an utter weariness of flesh and soul comes only seldom to any man, and not usually to a boy who has not yet reached his twentieth year. It came, too, when Freddy Mann was not expecting it: quite suddenly, when peace had fallen and when nothing stirred beside him in the trench or in front of him in No Man’s Land. Quite suddenly, that stench of death that was always in his nostrils seemed to enter his inmost being. Death, death—was there anything in the world but skeletons in shell-holes or on wire, any thought left to think but the thought of death, any hope in life but that of keeping death for twenty-four hours at bay, any object but that of dealing death by bullet or grenade? If only you could have death without this filthy stink. But no, death was a foul thing, and it was death, whether at Hooge, Zillebeke or Forward Cottage, that filled their days and nights. Here, as always, death’s reek was round him: he would never be free of it again. In savage blind passion he half climbed on to the parapet and looked around him to Foch Farm upon his left, the Willows behind him, the dark mass upon his right which he supposed was Ypres. To think that saving Ypres, winning the war, protecting Belgium or doing any other of the damned silly things that they told him he was doing, had ever meant anything to him! To think that of his own free will he had put life on one side and given himself to this! Damned little they’d told him of what it was like, or he wouldn’t have been here now. They’d talked about the regiment, and comradeship: they hadn’t told him that a comradeship of six may in a few weeks become a memory in the mind of one alone, that a regiment, a battalion, a company of which one had grown proud may become within four months a crowd of indifferent strangers. They’d talked to him of courage: he hadn’t known that not only a man’s body, but his very spirit and soul could be broken, as Bill’s—brave, laughing, fearless Bill’s—had been broken in those last weeks in front of Ypres. They’d told him of God, they came and preached to him about God’s service, as if they fondly imagined that he was fool enough to believe that God could remain in Heaven and see the torture that men wrought and suffered on earth.

  Was there any lie they hadn’t told him, any lie that six months ago, poor fool, he would not have believed? He’d paid, that’s all, he’d paid: and he was through. He wasn’t like Robbie, who could go on calmly, smoking his pipe, rescuing wounded men by daylight, treating the heaviest bombardment as if it were nothing more than a storm of rain. Robbie might have some inner secret to support him: he hadn’t. He knew now that this stink of death was all that life meant to him, or could ever mean. It had got most of the others, had death: it would get him soon enough. Why not—he laughed and raised himself a little higher on the parapet—why not save it trouble? He didn’t want to die in agony, his guts dropping out and his blood pouring out of a hole the size of a pudding plate like Martin’s. He didn’t want to crack, like Bill had cracked. He’d just had enough, and he wanted to slip away. It was so easy, too—just a walk along the canal bank past Essex Farm and Hull Farm towards Boesinghe, where the German lines drew to the canal, on and on, with the light breaking, till it came; or a walk from Foch Farm, out towards the Pilkem Ridge—there wouldn’t be more than five yards there to go; or in daylight, over Hilltop Farm, or past Forward Cottage over the ridge towards the line; or, simpler still, just over and through the wire, and then on through the marshes till you came to the High Command Redoubt; or, without bothering to walk at all, this pistol—all those fellows out there were peaceful enough, and they didn’t care now whether they stank or not. Why go on, when all you had to live for was to crawl like a hunted rabbit through mud, and see bloody fools who came to you from time to time and told you you were saving Ypres? Why, come to that—he laughed aloud, and looked behind him. Ypres was dead. They’d never told him that, but it was; just bones, like the bones out there. Let the dead look after the dead, the dead could guard Ypres well enough. George Harvey had said that—let——

  “Now, if you’ll let me ’ave it, sir, I’ll just clean your pistol.”

  Was anybody alive then? Funny, that dear old Bamford was still alive.

  “You don’t want to ’old it, not like that you don’t, in case—just you let me ’ave it, sir. An’ the tot o’ rum’s still there, and it’s time for a bit of a turn in—there’s two hours yet before stand-to. Bit done up, sir, that’s what it is. I remember when I was with Methuen at Magersfontein——”

  That wasn’t death carrying him. It was Bamford, at least it sounded like Bamford’s voice.

  “We’re agoin’ out tomorrow, sir—just ’eard—bit o’ rest. That’s it—just let me get me arm round these boots o’ yours. That’s it. Let’s just ’ave yer arm over me shoulder. Out
tomorrow, and the bullet ain’t come yet. Now ’ere’s yer dug-out and ’ere’s the officer what sent me for yer—no you don’t want to go that way, sir, towards the sap ’ead—turn right the dead, turn left the livin’—that’s it, sir—must have ’is joke, must Bamford.”

  He looked across the now limp form to Robbie.

  “Comes o’ thinkin’, sir. All in, ’e is. What’s the use o’ thinkin’ in this ’ere war? Either we’ll be cold mutton tomorrow, or we won’t.”

  Bamford was right. It is a mistake to go and stand in a trench alone at midnight, amid the stench of a thousand corpses, and listen to shells, and moans and think.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  That was the worst part over. As usual he and Robbie had managed to pull it off. Patrols always seemed to go right when he was with Robbie. It didn’t matter how often the German star-shells rose flickering in the air to throw a sudden whiteness over No Man’s Land and fall to the earth apparently just beside them, so long as Robbie’s angular features and blunt almost bullet-like head were near him as they lay doggo in grass or shell-hole. Robbie was just the fellow for the game: Harry’s temper tended to be a bit trying in No Man’s Land, and most of the others, like Barnes or Cadell, were about as much use as babes unborn. But it was a different thing with Robbie: if poor Bill had been going out with Robbie he wouldn’t have cracked the way he had: he wouldn’t have cracked either, if he had known it was going to be an easy job like this. Here was the opening, straight in front of them, with nobody apparently in the sap-head by its side, and very little wire. All they would have to do when they came over next week would be just to walk through, spend as long as they liked on the advanced trench, and then come quietly home. Anyway, they’d done their bit tonight. Pity all jobs in No Man’s Land weren’t as soft as this. Times without number they’d been chivvied home with machine guns and grenades. There was hardly a bullet about tonight, and as for shells or bombs—ah, there was that Mortaldje Estaminet machine gun getting busy; it often did, about this time. Didn’t really matter, as from where they were the bullets were all overs. However, here was a shell-hole handy, and there was plenty of time to go. Only two hundred yards back, and five hours before daylight. They’d stop here for a bit: it was a good-sized hole with plenty of room for both of them. They’d done their job, and they could easily get back when the machine-gun fellow stopped. A good sort of patrol altogether; the best they’d been on since they came to the northern sector; the sort of job that brought back something of the old thrill, and almost made the war worth while. His first patrol had been with Robbie: if only it could be with Robbie to the end. They’d got through one more patrol together, anyway. Nothing could very well go wrong tonight.

  The German trench mortar officer lazily bestirred himself and moved from his dug-out to the parapet. He grunted as he moved, as he objected to these disturbances. This new Colonel of theirs, this Bavarian fusspot, was always imagining figures and movements in No Man’s Land where none existed: he was perfectly capable of mistaking a stake for a fixed rifle or a line of willows for a patrol. Fussy devil. There wasn’t any noise and there wasn’t anything moving at the bottom of the redoubt. However, there wasn’t any point in making a row about it. If the Colonel said there was something there, he’d better poop one off and think no more about it. He idly let off two grenades, looked round the redoubt and the marshes in front of them with a full appreciation of their position, let off a third for luck and turned in to sleep till dawn.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  Freddy Mann wished he wouldn’t talk so much. The only thing he asked was to be allowed to lie quiet on the stretcher, now that the shelling had stopped. He didn’t want to move, because that hurt his shoulder, and he didn’t want to hear how this fellow had stopped his packet, or exchange confidences or cigarettes. But he was a persistent customer, this “wounded ’ero” as he insisted on calling himself with a grin; a cheerful undersized Cockney subaltern, whose natural optimism was accentuated by the possession of what he termed “a Blighty that he wouldn’t exchange for fifty quid.”

  “No, nor for £100 I wouldn’t,” he continued, “£100 and drinks included. Here, old sport, you try one o’ these. Trois Maisons, that’s what we calls ’em at the Ritz. Talk about Blighties——” He lifted his bandaged arm. “Talk about a bit o’ luck. Smashed bone, and two nerves gone, but elbow untouched. Nine months to heal, the doctor bird says, but nothing permanent—what d’yer think o’ that? Last lap. Get us away from this ’ere Wipers, and there we are. Shifting us tonight at 7—then Pop, and Watou—oh, what-ho for Watou (ha, ha, good one that) and carry me back to Blighty. Gawd’s own luck, I calls it.” He nodded his head in general recognition of the fortune that had come his way.

  “That’s just what it is with Blighties, yer know, all luck. Feller, for example, next to me when that crump bust last night—Johnson, the Q.M. bloke—he was talking about Blighties and what he’d pay for one, same as one does when up in them blooming trenches. He says he’d take a leg Blighty for £25—just says it natural, talking, same as we’re talking now, and the crump comes and takes ’em both off, clean above the knee. Going a bit strong, that. Still, it’s what he said. What he asked for he got. But as for me——”

  Silence for a moment, while he screwed himself round on his stretcher to look at Freddy Mann.

  “You’ve done rather well, mate, too, ain’t yer? Shoulder, ain’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Walking case, ain’t yer?”

  “Suppose so, but I bled a bit and they shoved me here.”

  “Yes; oh well, no complaints—not like ’im.” He jerked his finger to the dying man who was moaning on the stretcher to his right. “Half his chest blown away, that R.A.M.C. feller tells me—all up for ’im. But as for us—once they gets us out of ’ere and on the road to Pop-What ’appened?” With a sudden interest. “Chance crump, or was yer asking for it?”

  “Half and half. Patrol, you know. Usual sort of thing. Got us by the wire in front of the High Command Redoubt. Thought it was a soft job, too, that was the funny thing about it. They spotted us and sent a bomb or something over and got me. Other fellow took five hours to get me back. I was unconscious half the time.”

  “Um—ah—yes,” replied the Blighty specialist. “Yes, that’s good enough—ought to be able to make something of a tale out of that for the pretty darlings that’ll nurse yer. Deck it up a bit, shells crashing round, knee deep in blood, yer know. Expect a bit o’ colour, do the sweet little bits at home. Damned glad, I suppose you are, like me?”

  “Well I suppose I am—dunno.”

  “What d’yer mean—‘dunno’? How long ’ave yer been out?”

  “Six months—no, seven.”

  “You must be glad, then. Three times as long as me, that is, and I’m glad enough. Back to the gels at ’ome—you got a gel at ’ome?”

  “Yes.” Curse the fellow, couldn’t he shut up? The chap on his left was dying, and he wanted to get to sleep, if his shoulder would give him half a chance. Of course he was glad. Why shouldn’t he be? Why worry about Harry and Robbie and Chips, and his own crowd, Mitchell, Bartlett, Bettson, and, yes, old Bamford. He knew they’d have to pass on one day. Most of them had faded away before. How he’d prayed for this, like everybody else he’d ever met. Hadn’t he cursed the very sight of Wipers? Well, he was leaving Wipers now. It was Blighty now. Of course he was glad—damned glad.

  “Course you’re glad—and if you’ve got a gel at home——”

  Of course he’d got a girl at home: he’d said so once. Why couldn’t he stop, and let him go to sleep?

  “Fact of the matter is, old son, we’re damned lucky, you and I. Anybody’s lucky to get out of this show alive. Only thing to do, if you’re fool enough to have come out, is to get back p.d.q. We’ve pulled it off, old feller. Damned lucky, ain’t we, eh?”

  He was right, after all; that was what it all came to. Never mind the hopes with which you once marched eastward, never mind the comradeshi
p, days in billets with Harry, nights in No Man’s Land with Robbie, never mind the rot you believed in when first you came: and as for Ypres—get out of it, if possible, alive. He was right, but why the devil couldn’t he shut up, instead of harping on the truth?

  “Funny,” the Irrepressible continued, as he raised himself on his stretcher and looked around. “Deuce of a lot you can see from here, now the sun’s come out a bit. There’s Salvation Corner, down there, and that’s the St. Jean road, just up there to the left, and there’s the line just over there. Be able to see the flashes, we will, when the sun’s gone down.”

  Freddy Mann lay still. He didn’t want to see the flashes of the guns across the ridge, or the battalions marching to the trenches, or the torn poplars by the wayside. He’d had enough.

  “And there’s old Wipers. That’s the Cloth Hall, that is. That’s the tower.”

  Freddy Mann drew himself down lower on the stretcher and shut his eyes. Wipers, was it? He didn’t want to see Wipers or the Cloth Hall any more. He was tired, and he wanted sleep.

  CHAPTER XXV

  It was an obvious mistake upon the part of the appropriate military authority to allow Dick Leverett to mix with the other inhabitants in Millfield Hospital. Such an oversight was in marked contrast with the devoted care with which in all other respects the interests of the patients were watched. The wounded officer could not in most matters affecting his moral welfare complain of negligence or indifference. He was relieved of all responsibility for protecting himself from the pitfalls of the night by the simple regulation that he had to be within the hospital by 10 p.m. As dancing is in so many cases the first step downhills, he was categorically forbidden to dance within the military area of the Metropolis. Lest, by a simple subterfuge, he should escape observation when engaged upon nefarious pursuits, he was forbidden to wear mufti upon any occasion. In order that no insidious slackness might undermine his efficiency as a soldier, he would rise to stand as best he could at the foot of his bed at attention when the Colonel carried out his morning tour of inspection. Conversation with sisters or nurses was not encouraged: a watchful eye was kept upon his visitors. The number of restaurants, caves and dug-outs which were out of bounds at any given moment tended, particularly in the heart of London, to exceed those which he was allowed to enter. It was considered desirable that he should not leave the hospital premises till twelve o’clock, in order that the best hours of the day should be devoted to contemplation of the management of the ward and the sufferings of those more seriously wounded than himself. Care, and more than care, was taken, but no system can be faultless and it must remain as one blot upon an otherwise excellent record of surveillance that Dick Leverett, full charged with his ideas and views, “got abroad” at Millfield in the second summer of the war.