The best nights were those when Evans was on duty, but often the urgency was so great that the officers’ runners and the officers themselves worked and carried burdens. The most awkward burdens were the long sheets of corrugated iron used for revetting. They had to carry these along the road, since they were too large to get round the traverses. It was impossible to keep the metal sheets from clanking against rifles or the sheet of the man in front in the darkness. The machine guns from the slag-hill opened out, and they could see the spurts of gold sparks on the road come towards them. Winterbourne felt his piece of corrugated iron violently hit and half wrenched from his hand; the man in front went down with a clatter. Somebody yelled “Stretcher-bearer!” The men dumped their burdens and cowered on the ground. It was an awful confusion. Only Evans and Winterbourne were left standing on the road. Evans cursed the N.C.O.’s, and made the men form up again behind Winterbourne. It took a long time to find all the sheets of metal in the darkness, and the machine-guns went on rattling pitilessly. They were hours late in getting back to billets.
As March dragged on, more and more heavy guns arrived, clattering up behind their tractors in the darkness. A Tank and its crew were hidden not far from the Pioneers’ billets, and there were others farther from the line. A new infantry Division was pushed in to the line on their right. Other Divisions were said to be in readiness close behind. The sector became more and more lively, but no big attack was made. Winterbourne questioned Evans, who said it had been postponed to give the mud a chance to dry. What hopes!
The Germans had excellent observation posts on Hill 91, and their aircraft were constantly over the British lines and back areas. They were perfectly aware that an attack was being prepared. Every night they shelled M——, shelled the cross-roads leading to M——, shelled any artillery positions they had spotted, shelled the wrecked village where the Pioneers were billeted. The cellars were good enough protection against shell splinters, but far too flimsy to resist a direct hit. Every day or night huge crumps were flung at them, exploding with concussions which shook the ground and made sleep impossible. In the day-time, Winterbourne sometimes crouched at his cellar-entrance and watched the explosions within his view. If one of these big shells hit a half-ruined house, almost every vestige disappeared in a cloud of black smoke and rosy brick dust.
And there was gas, a good deal of gas. It was the beginning of the intensive use of gas projectiles, which later became so greatly perfected. Their experience of it began one March night on Hill 91. A smart local attack had driven the Germans out of their advance positions and carried the British line forward—at a cost—about two hundred and fifty yards on a front of eight hundred. Evans explained to Winterbourne that these local attacks were being made all along the line to deceive the Germans as to the exact position of the coming offensive. Since the Germans would have needed to be blind or lunatic not to see where the guns and troops were being massed, Winterbourne thought this an over-subtle and over-costly bit of policy. However, his not to reason why.
The Pioneers—three platoons of them—under Evans, Pemberton and Hume, were to dig a new communication trench from the former British front line to their present Outpost line of hastily interlinked shell-holes. Evans told Winterbourne not to carry any tools:
“I expect it’ll be rather a sticky do. The old Boche is pooping off whizz-bangs all day and night up there. And I’m hanged if I can find out exactly where our new front line is supposed to be. It’s a network of Boche trenches up there, and we don’t want to go barging into their line.”
They struggled up Southampton Row and skirted M——, which was being shelled heavily and reverberantly. They got into another trench on the fringe of Hill 91. Whizz-bangs kept cracking all round them, in little masses of about a dozen—several batteries firing together. Evans and Winterbourne were leading. Winterbourne paused:
“There’s a curious smell about here, Sir” (sniff, sniff) “like pineapple or pear-drops.”
Evans sniffed the air.
“So there is.”
The smell rapidly became stronger after another salvo of whizz-bangs.
“By Jove, it’s tear-gas!” said Evans. “Pass the word along to put on gas goggles.”
The line halted, while the men fumbled in the darkness for their goggles; and then slowly stumbled on. Winterbourne found he was practically blinded by his goggles in the darkness; they kept going dim with perspiration. He took them off.
“We shall be here all night at this rate, Sir. May as well be blinded with tear-gas as goggles. I’ll keep mine off and reconnoitre.”
Evans pulled off his goggles, and the two went on ahead, telling the Sergeant to follow straight on until he came up with them. Tears poured from the two men’s eyes as they toiled up the muddy trench. They kept dabbing their eyes with pocket handkerchiefs, like a couple of mutes at their own funerals.
Crash, crash-crash, crash, crash-crash-crash-crash, came the whizz-bangs; and the pineapple smell became stronger than ever.
“It’ll be a jolly look-out for us,” said Evans, “if they poop over poison-gas too. We shan’t be able to smell it with all this stink of pear-drops. Peuh! It’s like being in a sweet factory.”
They laughed. And then dabbed their streaming eyes again.
In ten minutes they came up to the largest of the mine craters. The wind was fresh on the hill-crest and there was no gas. Their smarting eyes began to recover.
“Here we are,” said Evans, “and there’s the old No Man’s Land, but where in hell our Front line is, I don’t know. You stay here, Winterbourne, and tell Sergeant Perkins to halt until I come back. I’ll go and reconnoitre.”
“I’ll go back and fetch them, Sir, and bring them up.”
“All right,” and Evans vanished in the darkness. Winterbourne returned to the line of men, dismally groping their way through the gassy trench. They waited for Evans, who led them over the old No Man’s Land to a very deep trench. They turned to the left. Evans whispered to Winterbourne:
“There’s nothing here but a net-work of Boche trenches; look how deep they are. I couldn’t see a soul, and there are still Boche trench-notices up. I’m hanged if I know where we are. For all I know we’re in the Boche lines.”
Winterbourne unslung his rifle and bayonet, and walked in front of Evans. Verey lights went up occasionally, but most mysteriously seemed to come from all sides, behind them as well as in front and to the flanks. The trenches were immensely deep and dark, except when lit dimly by the glow of Verey lights, or the abrupt flashes of whizz-bangs. They went on and on, constantly passing cross-trenches, completely lost, probably returning on their footsteps. They could hear the men muttering and cursing behind them. At another cross-trench they halted in despair. Winterbourne stood on a large hummock in the middle of the wide trench, peering ahead through the gloom. Evans looked at his luminous wrist-watch.
“Good Lord! We’ve been wandering in these blasted trenches for nearly three hours. It’ll be too late to do any work unless we get there at once.”
Winterbourne grabbed his arm:
“Look!”
Several shadowy figures were silhouetted against the skyline, coming along the trench towards them. Too dark to distinguish the helmets. English or German?
“Challenge them,” whispered Evans. Winterbourne threw his rifle forward:
“Halt! Who are you!”
“Frontshires,” said a weary voice.
“Ask which company.”
“Which company?”
“A, B, C, D,—what’s left of ’em.”
They were now close enough for Evans and Winterbourne to see they were in British uniform. Evans passed down word to his men to stand to the left and let the out-going party pass. The Frontshires staggered rather than walked down the bumpy trench.
“We ’ung on until nearly all of us was killed, Sir,” said one man huskily to Evans, as if apologizing.
“When the Springshires was wiped out, we got enfiladed, Sir,” said another, “there’s on’y one of our officers left.”
About fifty men, the flotsam of the wrecked battalion, stumbled past them. Then came the Sergeant-Major and a young subaltern. Evans stopped him, and asked the way to the front line, explaining briefly their job. The subaltern seemed dazed with weariness. He kept swaying in the darkness.
“It’s up there... up there... somewhere....”
“But how far?”
“I don’t know... not far... I can’t stop... mustn’t leave the men.”
And he stumbled on again. Evans turned to Winterbourne.
“Well, Winterbourne, you might as well get off the body of that dead Boche you’re standing on, and we’ll push along.”
Winterbourne sprang away with a sensation of horror, and saw that he had indeed unconsciously been standing on a dead German.
They wandered about until nearly dawn, without finding the Front line. They came on a couple of wounded Germans, whom Evans put into stretchers. Just about dawn they found themselves back at the point where they had entered the old German trenches, and recrossed to familiar ground. The wounded Germans groaned as the stretcher-bearers stumbled and bumped them on the ground.
The remnant of the battalion of the Frontshires very slowly made their way into M——. Zwiing, CRASH! CLAANG! went the great crumps, but they hardly heard them. They were too tired. They went through the town in single file. On the straight road, the subaltern halted them, formed them roughly into fours, and took his place at their head. They shambled heavily along, not keeping step or attempting to, bent wearily forward under the weight of their equipment, their unseeing eyes turned to the muddy ground. They stumbled over inequalities; several times one or other of them fell, and had to be dragged laboriously to his feet. Others lagged hopelessly behind. Time and again the young subaltern and the R.S.M. paused to allow the little group to re-form. Hardly a word was spoken. They went very slowly, past the slag-hill, past the ruined village, past the Pioneers’ billets, past the soldiers’ cemetery, past the ruined château, past the closed Y.M.C.A. canteen; and just as the fresh clear Spring dawn lightened the sky, they came to the village where they had their rest billets. The firing had quieted down, and the larks were singing overhead in the pure exquisite sky. In the pale light the men’s unshaven faces looked grim and strangely old, grey-green, haggard, inexpressibly weary. They shambled on.
Outside of Divisional Headquarters a smart sentry was on duty. He saw the little party wearily stumbling down the village street, and thought they were walking wounded. The young subaltern stopped about thirty yards from the sentry, and once more re-formed his men. The sentry heard him say “Stick it, Frontshires.”
Already the news had reached the back areas that the Frontshires had been nearly wiped out in a desperate defence—fifty of them and one officer left, out of twenty officers and seven hundred and fifty men.
The sentry sprang to attention and took one pace forward. Sloped arms—one, two, three, as if on parade—and remained rigid. As the little group drew level, he sharply brought his rifle and fixed bayonet to the “Present Arms.”
The young officer wearily touched the brim of his steel helmet. The men scarcely saw, and did not comprehend, the gesture. The sentry watched them pass, with a lump in his throat.
There was still nothing to report on the western front.
[ VIII ]
After a few hours sleep and a hasty meal, Evans and Winterbourne started for the Front line again. Evans was very much ashamed at having lost his way the night before, and the Major had strafed him for incompetence. Evans had not replied, as he might have done, that since the Major knew so well where they ought to have gone, he might have taken the trouble to lead them there.
It was about two on a sunny cold afternoon. They skirted M—— with its everlasting, maddening Zwiiing, CRASH! CLAAAANG! In the trenches on the edge of Hill 91, they met two walking wounded, unshaved, muddy to the waist. One had his head bandaged and was carrying his steel helmet, the other had his tunic half off, and his left hand and arm were bandaged in several places. They were talking with great gravity and earnestness, and hardly saw Evans and his runner. Winterbourne heard one of them say:
“I told that muckin new orfficer twice that some mucker’d get hit if he muckin well took us up that muckin trench.”
“Ah,” said the other, “moock ’im.”
Evans and Winterbourne paused at the old Front line on the crest of the hill to take breath, and looked back. The blue sky was speckled all over with the little fleecy shrapnel bursts from Archies, pursuing three different enemy planes. The heavy shells fell reverberantly into M—— at their feet. They looked over a broad flat, grey-green plain, dotted with ruined villages, seamed with the long irregular lines of trenches. The wavering broad ribbon of No Man’s Land was clearly visible, blasted to the white chalk. They could see the flash of the heavies, and enemy shells bursting on cross-roads and round artillery emplacements. A Red Cross car of wounded bumping its way from the Advanced Dressing Station in M—— was shelled all down the road by field artillery. They watched it eagerly, hoping it would escape. Once or twice it disappeared in the smoke of the shell-burst and they felt certain it was done for; but the car bumpingly reappeared and finally vanished from sight in the direction of Rail Head.
“God! What a dirty trick! I’m glad they didn’t get it,” said Winterbourne, as they scrambled out of the trench.
“Ah, well,” said Evans, “Red Cross cars have been used as camouflage before now.”
They easily found the new Front Line in the daylight. Directions in English had been hastily scrawled on the old German trench notices, and they wondered how on earth they could have missed the way the night before. The Front line was full of infantry, some on sentry-duty, some sitting hunched up on the fire-steps, many lying in long narrow holes like graves, scooped in the side of the trench. They found an officer, who took them along to show them where the new communication trench was wanted. Winterbourne, turning to answer a question from Evans, struck the butt of his rifle sharply against a sleeping man in one of the holes. The man did not stir.
“Your fellows are sleeping soundly,” said Evans.
“Yes,” said the officer tonelessly, “but he may be dead for all I know. Stretcher-bearers too tired to take down all the bodies. Some of ’em are dead, and some asleep. We have to go round and kick ’em to find which is which.”
The new trench they were to dig had been roughly marked out, and ran from the old German Front line to the lip of Congreve’s Mine Crater, now used as an ammunition dump. A salvo of whizz-bangs greeted them as they went out to look at it.
“I don’t altogether envy you this job,” said the Infantry officer; “this is about the most unhealthy spot on Hill 91. The Boche shells it day and night. Your Colonel had a hell of a row about it with the Brigadier, but our fellows are too whacked to do any more digging.”
Over came another little bunch of whizz-bangs, in corroboration—crash, crash-crash, crash. The grey-green acrid smoke smelt foul.
“They’re going to call it Nero Trench,” he added, as they left him, “because the ground’s so black with coal dust and slag. Well, good-bye, best of luck. And, by the bye, look out for gas.”
The Nero Trench job was an intensified nightmare. The Germans had it “taped” with exactitude, and shelled it ruthlessly. Five minutes was the longest period that ever passed without salvos of whizz-bangs. Evans and Winterbourne, Hume and his runner, walked continually up and down the line of men, who toiled hastily and nervously in the darkness to make themselves a little cover. When the shells came crashing near them, they crouched down on the ground. It was found after the first night that each man had simply dug a hole for himself instead of regularly excavating his three yards of trench. On some nights the shelling was so intense that Evans withdrew the men for a time to the shelter of a trench. They had several casualties.
And then the Germans began a steady, systematic gas bombardment of all the ruined villages in the advanced area. It began on the second night of the Nero Trench job. They had noticed on Hill 91 that a pretty heavy bombardment was proceeding from the German lines, and all the way down from M——, they heard the shells continuously shrilling overhead. It puzzled them that they could not hear them exploding.
“Must be bombarding the back areas,” said Evans. “Let’s hope it gives ’em something to think about besides sending us up tons of silly papers.”
But as they came nearer their village they could tell by the sound in the air that the shells must be falling close ahead of them. Soon they heard them falling with the customary zwiiING, followed by a very unaccustomed soft PHUT.
“They can’t all be duds,” said Winterbourne.
A shell dropped short, just outside the parapet, with the same curious PHUT. Immediately a strange smell, rather like new-mown hay gone acrid, filled the air. They sniffed, and both men exclaimed simultaneously:
“Phosgene! Gas!”
They all fumblingly and hastily put on their gas masks, and stumbled on blindly down the trench. Winterbourne and Evans scrambled out on to the road, and got into the edge of the village. A rain of gas shells was falling on it and all around their billets—zwiing, zwiing, zwiing, zwiing, PHUT PHUT PHUT PHUT. Each took off his mask a second and gave one sniff—the air reeked with phosgene.
Evans and Winterbourne stood at the end of the trench to help out the groping half-blinded men. As they filed by, grotesques with india-rubber faces, great dead-looking goggles, and long tubes from their mouths to the box respirators, Winterbourne thought they looked like lost souls, expiating some horrible sin in a new Inferno. The rolled gas blankets were pulled down tightly over the cellar entrances, but the gas leaked through. Two men were gassed and taken off in stretchers, foaming rather horribly at the mouth.
The gas bombardment went on until dawn, and then ceased. Winterbourne fell asleep, with his gas mask just off his face. Hitherto they had slept with the box respirator slung on a nail or piled with the other equipment; after the experience of this and the subsequent nights they always slept with the respirator on their chests and the mask ready to slip on immediately.
The heavies began again soon after it was light. Winterbourne was awakened by one which crashed just outside his cellar. He lay on the floor for a long time listening to the zwiiiING, CRASH, of the shells. He heard two ruined houses clatter to the ground under direct hits, and wondered if the cellars had held firm. They hadn’t. But fortunately, they happened to be unoccupied. Presently, the German batteries switched off and began bombarding some artillery about five hundred yards to the left. Winterbourne profited by the lull to wash. He ran out of the cellar in his shirtsleeves and gas mask, with the canvas bucket in which he washed; and found that a shell had smashed the pump outside his billet. He knew there was another about three hundred yards to the right, although he had never been there.
It was another cold but sunny morning, with the inevitable white shrapnel bursts all over the sky. He was now so accustomed to them that he scarcely noticed their existence. Occasionally a very faint rattle of machine-gun fire came from the war in the air, of which he was nearly as ignorant as people in England of the war on land.
He took off his mask and sniffed. A fresh wind was blowing, and although there was plenty of phosgene in the air, it was not in any deadly concentration. He decided to risk leaving the mask off. The ground was deeply delved with the conical holes made by the big shells thrown over, and pitted everywhere by the smaller holes of the gas shells. He found a dud, and examined it with interest. A brownish-looking shell, about the size of a five-nine.
The cottages were rather scattered, and unused as cellar-billets in this direction. The top storeys had gone from nearly all, but in several the ground floor was fairly intact. He looked into each as he passed. The wall-paper had long ago fallen and lay in mouldering heaps. The floors were covered with broken bricks, tiles, smashed beams, laths and disintegrating plaster. Odd pieces of broken furniture, twisted iron beds, large rags which had once been clothes and sheets, protruded from the mass. He poked about and found photographs, letters in faded ink on damp paper, broken toys, bits of smashed vases, a soiled satin wedding-gown with its veil and wreath of artificial orange blossom. He stood, with his head bent, looking at this pathetic débris of ruined lives, and absent-mindedly lit a cigarette which he immediately threw away—it tasted of phosgene. “La Gloire,” he murmured, “Deutschland über alles, God save the King.”
The next cottage was less damaged than the others, and its rough wooden shutters were still on their hinges. Winterbourne peered through and saw that the whole of the inside had been cleared of débris, and was stacked with quantities of wooden objects. He shaded his eyes more carefully, and saw they were ranks and ranks of wooden crosses. Those he could see had painted on them R.I.P.; then underneath was a blank space for the name; then came the name of one or other of the battalions in his Division, and then the present month and year, with a blank space for the day. Excellent forethought, he reflected as he filled his bucket and water-bottle; how well this War is organized!
About nine, Evans’s servant told him to report immediately in fighting order. Wearily and sleepily he threw on his equipment, re-tied the string of his box respirator, and slung his rifle and bayonet over his left shoulder. He waited with the officers’ servants, who gave him a piece of bread dipped in bacon grease to eat. Presently Evans came out and they started off.
“I’ve got to see an R.E. officer,” said Evans, “about a new job on Hill 91. It’s a bit farther to the left of where we’ve been working, and it’ll take us half an hour longer to get there.”
Winterbourne seized the opportunity to put forward one or two ideas he had been thinking over:
“I hope you won’t mind, Sir, if I say something—it’s not an official complaint at all, you understand, only what I’ve been personally thinking.”
“Go ahead.”
“Well, Sir, I assume that the reason we are kept in billets instead of in the line is to give us more rest so that we come fresh to work. But here it doesn’t work out that way, especially in the past fortnight; and it’s likely to get worse instead of better. It seems to me that we should be much better off if we were in dug-outs in the Reserve line. We have that long walk through the mud twice a day; we get all the shells meant for the transport and ration parties; we get an all night strafing in the line; we’re shelled all the way down; we come back to gassy billets, which are shelled with heavies twenty hours out of twenty-four. The cellars are no real protection against a direct hit. They’re damper than dug-outs, and just as dark and ratty. There are far more whizz-bangs and light stuff in the line, but far fewer heavies; and if we had even fifteen-foot dug-outs, we’d get some sleep, instead of starting awake every ten minutes with a crump outside the cellar entrance. We’re getting a lot of useless casualties, Sir. I passed the cook house as I came along, and the cook told me one of his mates had just gone down with gas from last night. And the S.M. looks as green as grass. Can’t you get us put in the line, Sir?”
Evans cogitated a moment or two:
“Yes, I think you’re right. No, I can’t get us moved. I haven’t the authority. I wish I had. I’ll ask the Major to put it before the Colonel. It’s quite true what you say. In the past week we’ve had eight casualties in the line, and twelve here or going up and down. But with this show coming off I expect every trench and dug-out will be packed.”
Winterbourne felt enormously proud that Evans had not snubbed his suggestion. Evans went on, after a pause:
“By the way, Winterbourne, have you ever thought of taking a commission?”
“Why, yes, Sir, it was suggested by the Adjutant of my battalion in England. I believe my father wrote to him about it. He, my father, was very keen about it.”
“Well, why don’t you apply?”
It was now Winterbourne’s turn to cogitate:
“I find it rather hard to explain, Sir. For many reasons, which you might think far-fetched, I had and still have a feeling that I ought to spend the War in the ranks and in the line. I should prefer to be in the Infantry, but I think the Pioneers are quite near enough.”
“They often come round for volunteers, you know. If you like, I’ll put you down next time, and the Major will recommend you to the Colonel.”
“It’s kind of you, Sir. I’ll think about it.”
One night, two nights, three nights, four nights passed, and still there was no big battle. And they were not moved. Every night they were shelled up the line, shelled in the line, shelled on the way back, and arrived in a hail storm of gas shells. They had to wear their gas masks for hours every day. And sleep became more and more difficult and precarious.
Winterbourne’s intimacy with Evans and his own “education” put him in rather an ambiguous position. Evans trusted him more and more to do things which would normally have been done by an N.C.O. And Winterbourne’s feeling of responsibility led him to take on and conscientiously carry out everything of the kind. One night there was supposed to be a gas discharger attack by the British in retaliation for the heavy German gas bombardments. All the officers wanted to see it; and since it was staged for an hour before dawn, that meant either that one officer had to take the company down or that the men had to be kept up two hours longer, exposed to artillery retaliation. Evans solved the problem. He sent for Winterbourne:
“Winterbourne, we want to stop and see the fun up here. Now, you can take the company down, can’t you? I’ll tell Sergeant Perkins that you’re in charge; but of course you’ll give orders through him. Come back here and report after you get them back.”
“Very good, Sir.”
There was no British gas attack, but the Germans put up what was then a considerable gas bombardment. They sent over approximately thirty thousand gas shells that night, most of them in and around the village where the Pioneers were billeted. The Company had to wear gas masks over the last half mile, and Winterbourne had a very anxious time getting them along. He had discovered a disused but quite deep trench running through the village almost to their billets, and he took the men along there instead of through the village street. It was a little longer, but far safer. The shells were hailing all round them, and Winterbourne didn’t want any casualties. Sergeant Perkins and he managed to get the men safely into billets. Winterbourne turned and said:
“Well, good-night, Sergeant, I must go up the line again, and report to Mr. Evans.”
“You ain’t going up agen, are you?”
“Yes, Mr. Evans told me to.”
“Struth! Well, I’d rather it was you than me.”
Winterbourne fitted on his gas mask, and groped his way out of the Sergeant’s cellar. The night was muggy, a bit drizzly, windless and very dark—the ideal conditions for a gas bombardment. What little wind there was came from the German lines. He hesitated between taking the long muddy trench or the more open road, but since he was practically blinded in the darkness with his goggles, he decided to take the trench, for fear of losing his way. It was rather eerie, groping his way alone up the trench, with the legions of gas shells shrilling and phutting all round him. They fell with a terrific “flop” when they came within a few yards. He stumbled badly two or three times in holes they had made in the trench since he had come down. For nearly half a mile he had to go through the gas barrage, and it was slow work indeed, with the mud and the darkness and the groping and the stumbling. Interminable. He thought of nothing in the darkness but keeping his left hand on the side of the trench to guide him and holding his right hand raised in front to prevent his bumping into something.
At last he got clear of the falling gas shells, and ventured a peep outside his mask. One sniff showed him the air was deadly with phosgene. He groped on another two hundred yards and tried again. There was still a lot of gas, but he decided to risk it, and took off his mask. With the mask off he could see comparatively well, and traveled quite rapidly. About an hour before dawn he reported to Evans.
“There’s a devil of a gas bombardment going on round the billets and for half a mile round, Sir,” said Winterbourne; “that’s why I’m so late. The whole country reeks of gas.”
Evans whistled:
“Whew! As a matter of fact, we’ve been drinking a bit in the dug-out with some Infantry officers, and one or two are a bit groggy in consequence.”
“Better wait till dawn then, Sir. If you’ll come up into the trench you’ll hear the shells going over.”
“Oh, I’ll take your word for it. But the Major insists on going down at once. We’ve just heard that there isn’t going to be a gas attack. You’ll have to help me get them down.”
“Very good, Sir.”
The Major was entirely sober; Evans was perfectly self-controlled; but the other four were all a little too merry. It was a perfect nightmare getting them through the gas barrage. They would insist there was no danger, that the gas was all a wash-out; and kept taking off their masks. They disregarded the Major’s peremptory orders, and Evans and Winterbourne had constantly to take off their own masks to argue with the subalterns, and make them put on theirs. Winterbourne could feel the deadly phosgene at his lungs.
Just after dawn they reached the Officers’ Mess cellar, fortunately without a casualty. Winterbourne felt horribly sick with the gas he had swallowed. The Major took off his gas mask, and picked up a water jug.
“Those confounded servants have forgotten to leave any water,” exclaimed the Major angrily. “Winterbourne, take that tin jug and go and get some water from the cook-house.”
“Very good, Sir.”
The shells were still pitilessly hailing down through the dawn. It was a hundred yards to the cook-house, and Winterbourne three times just escaped being directly hit by one of the ceaselessly falling shells. He returned to the Mess, and left the water.
“Thanks very much,” said Evans; “you may go now, Winterbourne. Good-night.”
“Good-night, Sir.”
“Good-night,” said the Major, “thank you for getting that water, Winterbourne, I oughtn’t to have sent you.”
“Thank you, Sir; good-night, Sir.”
Outside the Major’s and Evans’s part of the cellar, the other officers were sitting round a deal table by the light of a candle stuck in a bottle, which looked dim and ghastly. The place was practically gas-proof, with tightly drawn blankets over every crevice.
“Win’erbourne,” said one of them.
“Sir?”
“Run along to the Quar’master-Sergeant and bring us a bottle of whiskey.”
“Very good, Sir.”
Winterbourne climbed the cellar steps, lifted the outer gas curtain rapidly, and stepped out. There was such a stench of phosgene that he snapped his mask on at once. The shells were falling thicker than ever. One hit the wall of the house, and Winterbourne felt bricks and dust drop on his steel helmet and shoulders. He shrank against what was left of the wall. Two hundred yards to the Q.M.S.’s billet. That meant nearly a quarter of a mile through that deadly storm—for a half-drunken man to get a few more whiskies. Winterbourne hesitated. It was disobeying orders if he didn’t go. He turned resolutely and went to his own billet; nothing was ever said of this refusal to obey an officer’s orders in the face of the enemy.
Winterbourne stood outside the entrance to his cellar, took off his steel helmet and folded down the top part of his gas mask so that he could see, while still keeping the nose clip on and the large rubber mouthpiece in his teeth. The whitish morning light looked cold and misty, and the PHUT PHUT PHUT PHUT of the bursting gas shells continued with ruthless iteration. He watched them exploding; a little curling cloud of yellow gas rose from each shell-hole. The ground was pitted with these new shell-holes, and newly broken bricks and débris lay about everywhere. A dead rat lay in a gas shell-hole just outside the entrance—so the War caught even the rats! There had been a young slender ash-tree in what had once been the cottage garden. A heavy explosive had fallen just at its roots, splintered the slim stem, and dashed it prone with broken branches. The young leaves were still green, except on one side where they were curled and withered by gas. The grass, so tender a spring green a week before, was yellow, sickly and withered. As he turned to lift the gas-blanket he heard the whizz and crash of the first heavy of the day bombardment. But the gas shells continued.
Inside the cellar was complete darkness. He took off his mask and fumbled his way down the broken stairs, trying not to wake the other runners. It was important only to use one match, because matches were scarce and precious. The air inside was foul and heavy, but only slightly tainted with phosgene. Winterbourne half-smiled as he thought how furiously he had contended for “fresh air” in huts and barrack rooms, and how gladly he now welcomed any foul air which was not full of poison gas. He lighted his stub of candle, and slowly took off his equipment, replacing the box respirator immediately. His boots were thick with mud, his puttees and trousers torn with wire and stained with mud and grease. A bullet had torn a hole in his leather jerkin, and his steel helmet was marked by a long deep dint, where it had been struck by a flying splinter of shell. He felt amazingly weary, and rather sick. He had known the fatigue of long walks and strenuous Rugby football matches and cross-country runs, but nothing like this continual cumulative weariness. He moved with the slow, almost pottering movements of agricultural labourers and old men. The feeling of sickness became worse and he wanted to vomit out the smell of gas which seemed to permeate him. He heaved over his empty canvas bucket until the water started to his eyes, but vomited nothing. He noticed how filthy his hands were.
He was just going to sit down on his blanket and pack, covered by the neatly-folded groundsheet, when he saw a parcel and some letters for him lying on them. The other runners had brought them over for him. Decent of them. The parcel was from Elizabeth—how sweet of her to remember! And yes, she had sent all the things he had asked for and left out all the useless things people would send to the troops. He mustn’t touch anything except the candles, though, until to-morrow, when the parcel would be carefully divided among everybody in the cellar. It was one of the good unwritten rules—all parcels strictly divided between each section, so that every one got something, even and especially the men who were too poor or too lonely to receive anything from England. Dear Elizabeth—how sweet of her to remember!
He opened her envelope with hands which shook slightly with fatigue and the shock of explosions. Then he stopped, lighted a new candle from the stub of the old one, blew out the stub, and carefully put it away to give to one of the infantry. The letter was unexpectedly tender and charming. She had just been to Hampton Court to look at the flowers. The gardens were rather neglected, she said, and no flowers in the long border—the gardeners were at the war, and there was no money in England now for flowers. Did he remember how they had walked there in April five years ago? Yes, he remembered, and thought too with a pang of surprise that this was the first spring he had ever spent without seeing a flower, not even a primrose. The little yellow colts-foot he had liked so much were all dead with phosgene. Elizabeth went on:
“I saw Fanny last week. She looked more charming and delicate than ever—and such a marvelous hat! I hear she is much attached to a brilliant young scientist, a chemist, who does the most peculiar things. He mixes up all sorts of chemicals and then experiments with the fumes and kills dozens of poor little monkeys with them. Isn’t it wicked? But Fanny says it’s most important war work.”
The sickness came on him again. He turned sideways and heaved silently, but could not vomit. He felt thirsty, and drank a little stale-tasting water from his water-bottle. Dear Elizabeth, how sweet of her to remember!
Fanny’s letter was very rattling and gay. She had been there, she had done this, she had seen so-and-so. How was darling George getting along? She was so glad to see that there had been no fighting yet on the western front. She added:
“I saw Elizabeth recently. She looked a little worried, but very sweet. She was with such a charming young man—a young American who ran away from Yale to join our Flying Corps.”
The heavy shells outside were falling nearer and nearer. They came over in fours, each shell a little in front of the others—bracketing. Through the gas curtain he heard the remains of a ruined house collapse across the street under a direct hit. Each crash made the cellar tremble slightly, and the candle flame jumped.
Well, it was nice of Fanny to write. Very nice. She was a thoroughly decent sort. He picked up the other envelopes. One came from Paris and contained the Bulletin des Ecrivains—names of French writers and artists killed or wounded, and news of those in the armies. He was horrified to see how many of his friends in Paris had been killed. A passage had been marked in blue pencil—it contained the somewhat belated news that M. Georges Winterbourne, le jeune peintre anglais, was in camp in England.
Another letter, forwarded by Elizabeth, came from a London art dealer. It said that an American had bought one of Winterbourne’s sketches for £5, and that when he heard that Winterbourne was in the trenches he had insisted upon making it £25. The dealer therefore enclosed a cheque for £22.10.0, being £25 less commission at ten per centum. Winterbourne thought it rather cheek to take commission on the money which was a gift, but still, Business as Usual. But how generous of the American! How amazingly kind! His pay was five francs a week, so the money was most welcome. He must write and thank....
The last letter was from Mr. Upjohn, from whom Winterbourne had not heard for over a year. Elizabeth, it appeared, had asked him to write and send news. Mr. Upjohn wrote a chatty letter. He himself had a job in Whitehall, “of national importance.” Winterbourne rejoiced to think that Mr. Upjohn’s importance was now recognized by the nation. Mr. Shobbe had been in France, had stayed in the line three weeks, and was now permanently at the base. Comrade Bobbe had come out very strong as a conscientious objector. He had been put in prison for six weeks. His friends had “got at” somebody influential, who had “got at” the secretary of somebody in authority, and Mr. Bobbe had been released as an agricultural worker. He was now “working” on a farm, run by a philanthropic lady for conscientious objectors of the intellectual class. Mr. Waldo Tubbe had found his vocation in the Post Office Censorship Bureau, where he was very happy—if he could not force people to say what he wanted, he could at least prevent them from writing anything derogatory to his Adopted Empire....
George laughed silently to himself. Amusing chap Upjohn. He got out his jack-knife and scraped away the mud so that he could unlace his boots. Outside the shells crashed. One burst just behind the cellar. The roof seemed to give a jump, something seemed to smack Winterbourne on the top of the head, and the candle went out. He laboriously re-lit it. The other runners woke up.
“Anything up?”
“No, only a crump outside. I’m just getting into kip.”
“Where’ve you been?”
“Up the line again, for the officers.”
“Get back all right?”
“Yes, nobody hit. But there’s a hell of a lot of gas about. Don’t go out without putting on your gas-bag.”
“Good-night, old man.”
“Good-night, old boy.”
[ IX ]
Three more nights passed rather more tranquilly. There was comparatively little gas, but the German heavies were persistent. They, too, quieted down on the third night, and Winterbourne got to bed fairly early and fell into a deep sleep.
Suddenly he was wide awake and sitting up. What on earth or hell was happening? From outside came a terrific rumble and roaring, as if three volcanoes and ten thunderstorms were in action simultaneously. The whole earth was shaking as if beaten by a multitude of flying hoofs, and the cellar walls vibrated. He seized his helmet, dashed past the other runners who were starting up and exclaiming, rushed through the gas curtain; and recoiled. It was still night, but the whole sky was brilliant with hundreds of flashing lights. Two thousand British guns were in action, and heaven and earth were filled with the roar and flame. From about half a mile to the north, southwards as far as he could see, the whole front was a dazzling flicker of gun-flashes. It was as if giant hands covered with huge rings set with search-lights were being shaken in the darkness, as if innumerable brilliant diamonds were flashing great rays of light. There was not a fraction of a second without its flash and roar. Only the great boom of a twelve- or fourteen-inch naval gun just behind them punctured the general pandemonium at regular intervals.
Winterbourne ran stumbling forwards to get a view clear of the ruins. He crouched by a piece of broken house and looked towards the German lines. They were a long irregular wall of smoke, torn everywhere with the dull red flashes of bursting shells. Behind their lines their artillery was flickering brighter and brighter as battery after battery came into action, making a crescendo of noise and flame when the limits of both seemed to have been reached. Winterbourne saw but could not hear the first of their shells as it exploded short of the village. The great clouds of smoke over the German trenches were darkly visible in the first very pallid light of dawn. It was the preliminary bombardment of the long-expected battle. Winterbourne felt his heart shake with the shaking earth and vibrating air.
The whole thing was indescribable—a terrific spectacle, a stupendous symphony of sound. The devil-artist who had staged it was a master, in comparison with whom all other artists of the sublime and terrible were babies. The roar of the guns was beyond clamour, it was an immense rhythmic harmony, a super-jazz of tremendous drums, a ride of the Walkyrie played by three thousand cannon. The intense rattle of the machine-guns played a minor motif of terror. It was too dark to see the attacking troops, but Winterbourne thought with agony how every one of those dreadful vibrations of sound meant death or mutilation. He thought of the ragged lines of British troops stumbling forward in smoke and flame and a chaos of sound, crumbling away before the German protective barrage and the reserve line machine-guns. He thought of the German Front lines, already obliterated under that ruthless tempest of explosions and flying metal. Nothing could live within the area of that storm except by a miraculous hazard. Already in this first half hour of bombardment hundreds upon hundreds of men would have been violently slain, smashed, torn, gouged, crushed, mutilated. The colossal harmony seemed to roar louder as the drum-fire barrage lifted from the Front line to the Reserve. The battle was begun. They would be mopping-up soon—throwing bombs and explosives down the dug-out entrances on the men cowering inside.
The German heavies were pounding M—— with their shells, smashing at the communication trenches and cross-roads, hurling masses of metal at their own ruined village. Winterbourne saw the half-ruined factory chimney totter and crash to the ground. Two shells pitched on either side of him, and flung earth, stones and broken bricks all round him. He turned and ran back to his cellar, stumbling over shell-holes. He saw an isolated house disappear in the united explosion of two huge shells.
He clutched his hands together as he ran, with tears in his eyes.
[ X ]
Winterbourne found the other runners buckling up their packs and fastening their equipment with that febrile haste which comes with great excitement. Even in the cellar the roar of the artillery made it necessary for them almost to shout to each other.
“What are the orders?”
“Stand by in fighting order, ready to move off at once. Dump packs outside billets.”
Winterbourne in his turn feverishly put on his equipment, buckled his pack, and cleaned his rifle. They stood, rifles and bayonets ready, in the low cellar, ready to spring up the broken stairs as soon as they were warned. In a moment such as this, a kind of paroxysm of humanity, the most difficult thing is to wait. They dreaded the awful storm thundering above them, but they were irresistibly hallucinated by it, eager to plunge in and be done with it. The German shells thudded continuously all round them, muted by the vaster clamour of the attacking artillery. No orders came. They fidgeted, exclaimed, and finally one by one sat silent on their packs, listening. A large rat ran down the cellar stairs and began to nibble something. The beast was exactly level with Winterbourne’s head. He shoved a cartridge into the breech of his rifle, murmuring “Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, and they no breath at all?” He aimed very carefully and pulled the trigger; there was a terrific bang in the confined cellar, and the rat was smashed dead in the air. Not ten seconds later a red, perspiring face under a steel helmet was anxiously poked through the cellar entrance. It was the Orderly Sergeant.
“What the muckin hell are you doing down there?”
“Having a spree—didn’t you hear the champagne cork?”
“Spree be mucked—one of you buggers fired his rifle and muckin near copped me. Mucked if I don’t report the muckin lot of yer.”
“Wow I Put a sock in it!”
“Muck off!”
“Ord’ly sergeants are cheap to-day!”
“Well, you muckers got to report to yer orfficers at once. ’Op it.”
They ran up the broken stairs, pretending to poke their bayonets at him, and laughing, perhaps a little hysterically. The fat good-natured little Sergeant went off, shaking his fist at them, shouting awful threats about the punishment awaiting them with a broad affectionate grin on his face.
For Winterbourne the battle was a timeless confusion, a chaos of noise, fatigue, anxiety, and horror. He did not know how many days and nights it lasted, lost completely the sequence of events, found great gaps in his conscious memory. He did know that he was profoundly affected by it, that it made a cut in his life and personality. You couldn’t say there was anything melodramatically startling, no hair going grey in a night, or never smiling again. He looked unaltered; he behaved in exactly the same way. But, in fact, he was a little mad. We talk of shell-shock, but who wasn’t shell-shocked more or less? The change in him was psychological, and showed itself in two ways. He was left with an anxiety complex, a sense of fear he had never experienced, the necessity to use great and greater efforts to force himself to face artillery, anything explosive. Curiously enough, he scarcely minded machine-gun fire, which was really more deadly, and completely disregarded rifle-fire. And he was also left with a profound and cynical discouragement, a shrinking horror of the human race....
A timeless confusion. The Runners scattered outside their billet and made for the Officers’ cellar through the falling shells, dodging from one broken house or shell-hole to another. Winterbourne, not yet unnerved, calmly walked straight across and arrived first. Evans took him aside:
“We’re going up as a Company, with orders to support and co-operate with the infantry. Try to nab me a rifle and bayonet before we go over.”
“Very good, Sir.”
Outside was an open box of S.A.A. and they each drew two extra bandoliers of cartridges, which they slung round their necks.
They moved off in sections, filing along the village street which was filled with fresh débris and ruins re-ruined. It was snowing. They came on two freshly killed horses. Their close-cropped necks were bent under them, with great glassy eyeballs starting with agony. A little farther on was a smashed limber with the driver dead beside it.
In the trench they passed a batch of about forty German prisoners, unarmed, in steel helmets. They looked green-pale, and were trembling. They shrank against the side of the trench as the English soldiers passed, but not a word was said to them.
The snowstorm and the smoke drifting back from the barrage made the air as murky as a November fog in London. They saw little, did not know where they were going, what they were doing or why. They lined a trench and waited. Nothing happened. They saw nothing but wire and snowflakes and drifting smoke, heard only the roar of the guns and the now sharper rattle of machine-guns. Shells dropped around them. Evans was looking through his glasses, and cursing the lack of visibility. Winterbourne stood beside him, with his rifle still slung on his left shoulder.
They waited. Then Major Thorpe’s Runner came with a message. Apparently, he had mistaken a map reference and brought them to the wrong place.
They plodged off through the mud, and lined another trench. They waited.
Winterbourne found himself following Evans across what had been No Man’s Land for months. He noticed a skeleton in British uniform, caught sprawling in the German wire. The skull still wore a sodden cap and not a steel helmet. They passed the bodies of British soldiers killed that morning. Their faces were strangely pale, their limbs oddly bulging with strange fractures. One had vomited blood.
They were in the German trenches, with many dead bodies in field grey. Winterbourne and Evans went down into a German dugout. Nobody was there, but it was littered with straw, torn paper, portable cookers, oddments of forgotten equipment and cigars. There were French tables and chairs with human excrement on them.
They went on. A little knot of Germans came towards them holding up their shaking hands. They took no notice of them, but let them pass through.
The barrage continued. Their first casualty was caused by their own shells dropping short.
Major Thorpe sent Winterbourne and another man with a written duplicate message to Battalion Headquarters. They went back over the top, trying to run. It was impossible. Their hearts beat too fast, and their throats were parched. They went blindly at a jog-trot, slower in fact than a brisk walk. They seemed to be tossed violently by the bursting shells. The acrid smoke was choking. A heavy roared down beside Winterbourne and made him stagger with its concussion. He could not control the resultant shaking of his flesh. His teeth chattered very slightly as he clenched them desperately. They got back to familiar land and finally to Southampton Row. It was a long way to Battalion Headquarters. The men in the orderly room eagerly questioned them about the battle but they knew less than they did.
Winterbourne asked for water and drank thirstily. He and the other Runner were dazed and incoherent. They were given another written message, and elaborate directions which they promptly forgot.
The drum-fire had died down to an ordinary heavy bombardment as they started back. Already it was late afternoon. They wandered for hours in unfamiliar trenches before they found the company.
They slept that night in a large German dug-out, swarming with rats. Winterbourne in his sleep felt them jump on his chest and face.
The drum-fire began again next morning. Again they lined a trench and advanced through smoke over torn wire and shell-tormented ground. Prisoners passed through. At night they struggled for hours, carrying down wounded men in stretchers through the mud and clamour. Major Thorpe was mortally wounded and his runner killed; Hume and his runner were killed; Franklin was wounded; Pemberton was killed; Sergeant Perkins was killed; the stretcher-bearers were killed. Men seemed to drop away continually.
Three days later Evans and Thompson led back forty-five men to the old billets in the ruined village. The attack on their part of the front had failed. Farther south a considerable advance had been made and several thousand prisoners taken, but the German line was unbroken and stronger than ever in its new positions. Therefore that also was a failure.
Winterbourne and Henderson were the only two Runners left, and since Evans was in command Winterbourne was now Company Runner. The two men sat on their packs in the cellar without a word. Both shook very slightly but continuously with fatigue and shock. Outside the vicious heavies crashed eternally. They started wildly to their feet as a terrific smash overhead brought down what was left of the house above them and crashed into the duplicate cellar next door. A moment later there was another enormous crash and one end of the cellar broke in with falling bricks and a cloud of dust. They rushed out by the steps at the other end and were sent reeling and choking by another huge black explosion.
They stumbled across to another cellar occupied by what was left of a section, and asked to sleep there since their own cellar was wrecked. Six of them and a corporal sat in silence by the light of a candle, dully listening to the crash of shells.
In a lull they heard a strange noise outside the cellar, first like wheels and then like a human voice calling for help. No one moved. The voice called again. The Corporal spoke:
“Who’s going up?”
“Mucked if I am,” said somebody, “I’ve ’ad enough.”
Winterbourne and Henderson simultaneously struggled to their feet. The change from candle-light to darkness blinded them as they peered out from the ruined doorway. They could just see a confused dark mass. The voice came again:
“Help, for Christ’s sake, come and help!”
A transport limber had been smashed by a shell. The wounded horses had dragged it along and fallen outside the cellar entrance. One man had both legs cut short at the knees. He was still alive, but evidently dying. They left him, lifted down the other man and carried him into the cellar. A large shell splinter had smashed his right knee. He was conscious, but weak. They got out his field-dressing and iodine and dripped iodine on the wound. At the pain of burning disinfectant the man turned deadly pale and nearly fainted. Winterbourne found that his hands and clothes were smeared with blood.
Then came the problem of getting the man away to a dressing station. The Corporal and the four men refused to budge. The shells were crashing continuously outside. Winterbourne started out to get a stretcher and the new stretcher-bearer, groping his way through the darkness. Outside their billet he tripped and fell into a deep shell hole, just as a heavy exploded with terrific force at his side. But for the fall he must have been blown to pieces. He scrambled to his feet, breathless and shaken, and tumbled down the cellar stairs. He noticed scared faces looking at him in the candle-light. He explained what had happened. The stretcher-bearer jumped up, got his stretcher and satchel of dressings, and they started back. Every shell which exploded near seemed to shake Winterbourne’s flesh from his bones. He was dazed and half-frantic with the physical shock of concussion after concussion. When he got back in the cellar he collapsed into a kind of stupor. The stretcher-bearer dressed the man’s wound, and then looked at Winterbourne, felt his pulse, gave him a sip of rum and told him to lie still. He tried to explain that he must help carry the wounded man, and struggled to get to his feet. The stretcher-bearer pushed him back:
“You lie still, mate, you’ve done enough for to-day.”
[ XI ]
The battle on their part of the Front died down into long snarling artillery duels, gas bombardments, fierce local attacks and counter-attacks. Farther south it flamed up again with intense preludes of drum-fire. What was left of the Pioneer Company returned to more normal occupations. So far as they were concerned, one great advantage of the battle was that the Germans had been driven from the long slag-hill, and from a large portion of Hill 91. By fierce counter-attacks the Germans regained much of the lost ground on Hill 91, but they never came anywhere near recovering the slag-hill. The ground they had lost farther south made that impossible. Consequently, some of the worst features of the salient were at last obliterated, and they were no longer under such close observation or enfiladed by machine-guns.
They had a day’s rest, and were then put on the cushy job of building a new track up to the southern fringe of Hill 91 across the old Front Lines and No Man’s Land. They were outside the range of vision of the German observation posts, and it was two days before the German airplanes discovered them—two days of comparative quiet. Then, of course, they got it hot and strong.
In clearing away the wire they made a number of gruesome discoveries, and examined with great interest the primitive hand grenades and other weapons of 1914-15 which were lying rusting there in great quantities. Winterbourne took an immense interest in building this track, an interest which puzzled and amused Evans, especially since this was the first time he had ever seen Winterbourne show any enthusiasm for their labours.
“I can’t see why you’re so keen on this bally old track, Winterbourne. It’s one of the dullest jobs we’ve ever had.”
“But surely you can see, Sir. We’re making something, not destroying things. We’re taking down wire, not putting it up; filling in shell-holes, not desecrating the earth.”
Evans frowned at the phrase “desecrating the earth.” He thought it pretentious, and with all his obtuseness he had an instinctive resentment against Winterbourne’s unspoken but unwavering and profound condemnation of War. Evans had a superstitious reverence for War. He believed in the Empire; the Empire was symbolized by the King-Emperor; and the King—poor man—is always having to dress up as an Admiral or a Field Marshal or a brass hat of some kind. Navydom and Armydom thereby acquired a mystic importance, and since armies and navies are obviously meant for War, it was plain that War was an integral part of Empire-Worship. More than once he clumsily tried to trap Winterbourne into expressing unorthodox opinions. But, of course, Winterbourne saw him coming miles away, and easily evaded his awkward bobby traps.
“I suppose you’re a republican,” he said to Winterbourne, who was innocently humming the Marseillaise. “I don’t believe in Republics. Why, Presidents wear evening dress in the middle of the morning.”
Winterbourne nearly burst into a cackle of laughter but managed to restrain himself. He denied that he was a republican, and admitted with mock gravity that Evans had put his finger on a serious flaw in Republican institutions.
But his joy in constructing the track was short-lived. As they were finishing their second day’s work he saw a battery of Field Artillery cross the old No Man’s Land by the road they had built, and then bump its way over shell-holes to a new position. So even this little bit of construction was only for further destruction.
They went on to night work again, and Winterbourne distinguished himself by pulling out of the ground a dud shell which the other men refused to touch, in case it went off. They crouched on the ground while Winterbourne tugged and strained to get it out, and Evans stood beside urging him to go easy. Suddenly Winterbourne went into a series of gasping chuckles, and in answer to Evans’ questions managed to jerk out that the alleged shell was a stump of wood with an iron ring round it. The men returned sheepishly to their work. In reward for his heroic conduct Winterbourne was allowed to join a gang who were pulling up real duds embedded in the pavé of the main road, which had become available through the German retirement. They levered and tugged the shells up very gingerly, since the oldest duds are liable to explode if treated roughly. Winterbourne was glad when that little job was done.
The nightly gas bombardments became worse than ever, and Winterbourne sometimes spent twelve hours a day in his gas mask. They used their respirators so frequently that a new set had to be issued.
Since Evans was now temporarily in command and had only Thompson to help him and about forty men available for work, they did only one shift, which Evans and Thompson took on alternate nights. As Company Runner, Winterbourne carried all messages between the Company and Battalion H.Q. On the other hand, Evans always let him rest on the nights when he himself was not on duty. Winterbourne was profoundly thankful for these nights off. His winter cough, aided perhaps by microbes communicated by lice, had evolved into a sort of tertian ague. Every third night he had alternate fits of sweating and shivering. It was much pleasanter to lie down even in a damp cellar than to go up the line feeling utterly weak and feverish.
He was sleeping soundly alone in the Runner’s cellar, oblivious to the Zwiing, Phut, of the gas shells outside when he was awakened by Henderson, the other surviving Runner, who came stumbling down the cellar stairs in the darkness. Winterbourne lit a candle for him. Henderson had just taken off his gas mask, and stood with rumpled hair and a pale scared look.
“What’s up?” said Winterbourne, “what’s the matter?”
“Thompson’s killed.”
“Good Lord! The only other officer! How?”
“Whizz-bang.”
“How did it happen?”
“The Boche put up an attack to-night. Thompson took us off work, and told us to line a trench. He was standing on top, and told me to get into the trench. A whizz-bang burst just beside him. He died in five minutes.”
“O God! Did he say anything?”
“Yes, he was perfectly conscious and calm. He told me how to get the men home. He sent best of luck to Evans and you and the S.M. And he made me take a couple of letters from his pocket to send to his wife and mother. He was horribly mangled—right arm and right leg smashed, ribs broken and a great tear in the side of his face. He made me promise to make Evans write home that he was shot through the heart and died instantaneously and painlessly.”
“Damn. He was a nice chap. One of the best officers we had.”
The inner gas curtain was lifted, and Evans’ servant stumbled in, taking off his mask.
“Report at once, fighting order, Winterbourne.”
Winterbourne hurriedly put on his boots and puttees, struggled into his equipment, snapped on his mask, and jog-trotted over to the officer’s cellar through the now familiar hail of gas-shells. He was amazed and distressed and ashamed to find how much his flesh instinctively shrank when a shell dropped close at hand, how great an effort he now needed to refrain from ducking or cowering. He raged at himself, called himself coward, poltroon, sissy, anything abusive he could think of. But still his body instinctively shrank. He had passed into the final period of War strain, when even an air-raid became a terror.
Evans was laboriously writing. The large cellar looked very cellar-like and empty, with one man in place of the six who had lived there less than a fortnight before.
“You know Mr. Thompson’s killed?”
“Yes, Sir. Henderson told me.”
“I can’t carry on as a Company by myself with less than forty available men.” Evans spoke bitterly. “There’s a chit from Division complaining that we are doing far less work than a month ago. They don’t seem to know there’s been a battle, and that we’re worn out and reduced to a third our strength.”
He was silent, re-read his despatch, folded it, and handed it to Winterbourne.
“Take this down to Battalion H.Q. I’ve marked it Special Urgency. Make them get the Colonel up if he’s asleep. If he questions you, tell him our position. I haven’t seen him for three weeks. And refuse to leave without an answer.”
“Very good, Sir.”
“And Winterbourne.”
“Sir?”
“There’s another chit here somewhere urging us to get two volunteers for Infantry commissions in each Company. Henderson’s going—he’s a stout little tyke. The other volunteers are that filthy cook’s mate and the sanitary man. Idiotic. I won’t recommend them. But I want you to volunteer. Will you?”
Winterbourne hesitated. He didn’t want the responsibility, it was contrary to his notion that he ought to stay in the ranks and in the line, take the worst and humblest jobs, share in the common fate of common men. But then he had consented to be a Runner. And then, he was sorely tempted. It meant several months in England, it meant seeing Fanny and Elizabeth again, it meant a respite. He was amazed to find that he didn’t want to leave Evans, and suddenly saw that what he had done in the past months had been chiefly done from personal attachment to a rather common and ignorant man of the kind he most despised, the grown-up Public Schoolboy.
“What are you hesitating about?”
“Well, Sir,” said Winterbourne whimsically, “I was wondering how you’d get on without me.”
“*****!” said Evans. “Besides at this rate, I shan’t last much longer. Now, shall I put your name down?”