  Title: Battlewrack Author: F. Britten (Frederick Britten) Austin Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 E-text prepared by Tim Lindell, Graeme Mackreth, |
| Note: | Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/battlewrack00austrich |
BATTLEWRACK
BATTLEWRACK
BY
F. BRITTEN AUSTIN
AUTHOR OF "IN ACTION," "THE SHAPING OF LAVINIA"
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
TO
CHARLES F. GABB
IN HIS PRIVATE AFFECTIONS
THE PATTERN OF STINTLESS FRIENDSHIP
IN HIS SELFLESS PATRIOTISM
THE MODEL OF A TRUE ENGLISHMAN
THESE SKETCHES OF HUMANITY AT STRIFE ARE DEDICATED
IN THE GRATITUDE OF A LONG MEMORY
CONTENTS
Practically all these stories have appeared in the Strand Magazine, Pearson's Magazine, Pall Mall Magazine, or The Sphere. To the Editors of these periodicals I tender my acknowledgments.
It is fair to state that some of these stories, in particular "The Battery," "The Air Scout," "Pro Patria," "Nerves," were written and in some cases appeared before the present War.
The sun hung in the mists of morning, swollen, blood-red, a symbol of augury, as the artillery brigade pulled out of the village where it had been billeted for the night. At the tail of its long line of slowly moving vehicles marched a compact column of brown-clad infantry. In front moved a squadron of cavalry. The lieutenant-colonel commanding the brigade trotted smartly past the batteries with his staff. Fresh from an interview with the divisional artillery commander, he tried not to look preoccupied and anxious as he met the searching eyes of his men. From an unknown distance a dull thud, irregularly repeated, vibrated through the dense atmosphere. The colonel raised his head sharply to listen. The men in the column exchanged glances full of meaning.
The dull concussions continued, but the column did not increase its pace. The long line of guns and wagons rolled onward at a steady walk, amid a jangle of chains and harness. The gunners on the limbers smoked and talked. Occasionally there was a burst of laughter. It seemed that that ominous thudding was a summons which concerned them not at all. In the fog which drifted in patches across the road its origin seemed enormously remote.
The junior subaltern of the third and last battery in the column heard the sound with less indifference. Each of those muffled shocks came to him like a knock upon his heart. He listened for them anxiously and shuddered, in spite of himself, as the air vibrated on his ears. He needed none to tell him their meaning, novel though the sound was to him. They were the first long shots of the opening battle. As he listened, blindfold as it were in that fog, his animal tissues shrunk at this menace of an untried experience, while at the same time another part of him, the dominant, grew fretfully anxious lest the battery was too far in rear, lest they should be too late. The conflict of these opposing impulses in him made him nervous and fidgety. He wanted to talk to someone, to discuss the situation, to exchange opinions upon a host of possibilities. He looked longingly at the No. 1 of the leading gun of his section as he walked his horse at the side of the leaders and chatted quietly to the driver. The sergeant appeared so calm, so strong with already acquired experience. He felt almost irresistibly impelled to enter into conversation with him—opening phrases kept coming to his tongue—but a shame at the weakness of his own nerve restrained him. He braced himself with a thought of his rank and responsibilities and remained silent. The subaltern was new to war and new to the battery. He had come straight from the "Shop" with a draft of men to replace the wastage of the last battle. He was very young and, until that morning, very proud of himself.
Unexpectedly, the column halted. Why? The subaltern chafed. It was intolerable to idle there upon the road with that urgent summons momentarily shaking the air. The concussions followed one another much more quickly now and came with a sharper sound. They seemed to run all along a wide arc stretched far to right and left in front of him. Occasionally they came in heavy salvos that swallowed the noise of isolated shots. He could see nothing. The fog lay thick upon the road, a white curtain against which danced black specks as he strained his eyes at it. The column stood still and silent. Only a jingling of chains arose as the horses nosed at each other. Presently, as the passengers in a fog-bound train hear the rumble of the other train for which they wait, a sound came to him out of the mist and explained the halt. It was the hollow rhythmic tramp of infantry. The sound increased and then maintained itself at a uniform pitch. In the distance the artillery salvos followed one another ever more quickly, peal on peal of thunder. Still the hollow beat of boots upon the road continued. The subaltern swore to himself. Were they to wait there while the entire army passed? At last the hollow sound diminished, died down, ceased. A sharply uttered order ran down the column. The line of vehicles moved on again.
For a long time they marched through the fog, drawing ever nearer to the cannonade. There were no more halts. Nevertheless it seemed to the subaltern that their progress was wilfully, culpably slow. As a matter of fact, the column, responding to the magnetism of battle, had involuntarily quickened pace. The physical anxiety of the subaltern communicated itself to, and was misinterpreted by, his brain. He imagined that he was concerned wholly for the fate of the army if deprived of the valuable support of the brigade to which he was attached. He conceived enormous disasters hinging on their non-appearance. Suddenly he noticed, with surprise, that his knees were trembling against the saddle, his hands shaking as they held the reins. This discovery startled him. His anxiety for the army was obliterated by another. Could he be sure of himself? A spasm of alarm shot through him. Would that calm mysterious higher self in him lose control? He had a glimpse of himself in a whirlwind of sensations, a maddened animal dashing to escape. It must not be. He exercised his volition as an athlete exercises a muscle, testing it. Desperately, he willed himself to immobility. The tremor in his limbs did not cease. He agonised lest someone should perceive it. Sweat broke out on his forehead. Nevertheless his brain was clear. He held fast to that. Never mind what his body did, at all costs his brain must be kept clear and cool. Engaged in these introspections he forgot the fog, forgot the lagging brigade, forgot the ever-swelling uproar in front of him.
Suddenly the mist broke, rolled away from a sunlit landscape. They were at the summit of a slight elevation. About them was open country, dotted with trees and farms. In front the road dropped and then mounted. He looked over the heads of the artillery-men before him and saw a long column of infantrymen ascending the further hill. It was for that column that the brigade had waited. The recognition of the fact reawakened perception through a linked memory. He heard again the pealing thunder of the guns, to which for some minutes he had been oblivious. Instantly an intense, anxious curiosity took possession of him. Where were they fighting? In the fog his mind had formed a picture of lines of guns coughing out flame and noise at each other, desperately in conflict, just at the other side of the curtain drawn before his eyes. Now, the veil dropped, he looked at reality and only so much of the picture persisted as to puzzle him. Save for the column marching ahead there was no sign of life in that open countryside. Yet the air was full of sound. No longer was it a series of dull concussions. It was one vast, continuous, ringing roar, broken at intervals by the sound of violent fracture as a puff of wind came to his cheek. Excitedly, he strained his eyes at the distances, seeking some point where he could localise the conflict. There was nothing. Yes! Far ahead of him, beyond the hill which the infantry were climbing, a faint haze of smoke hung in the air. In that haze tiny puffs sprang into being and spread lazily. There, then! Encouraged, his gaze searched the landscape. Far to his left, over a little wood that closed the view, hung another such haze, and, as his eyes ranged over the country, he saw a line of smoke-puffs leap from nowhere above a hill to his right. The line was constantly renewed until the smoke trailed across the blue sky like a cloud. A thrill ran through him. He forgot himself, lost all memory of his doubts. He quivered, but it was with eagerness to rush into the fight. Oh, to mount that hill and see what was happening! The infantry drew up over it, disappeared beyond the summit like a snake drawing in its tail. The artillery crawled onward.
He was calculating the minutes that must elapse before their arrival on the crest when suddenly his hopes were dashed. The brigade was turning off along a by-road to the left. Baulked of his desire, he swore savagely, almost with tears. A man on the limber near him looked up in sharp surprise. He desisted, clenching his teeth. Inwardly he raged. As he too swung round the corner, his back to the direction of the smoke-cloud he had so excitedly watched, it seemed that he was turning out of the battle. The brigade moved for some distance along that road and then halted, drawn close in to the hedge. Behind them swelled the noise of tramping infantry, growing louder. The men who had followed them were going to pass. They came, swinging along at a good pace, steadily rhythmic. They passed, endlessly. The subaltern found himself gazing curiously at the faces of men in the stream. Some were stern and set, some laughed carelessly, some shouted jokes to the artillery-men, many were strangely haggard and drawn. He noticed one man who gazed at nothing with a rapt expression. His lips were moving. He was praying. They were going into battle. The subaltern was again aware of the thunder of the guns.
The brigade waited. The tramp of the infantry had long since ceased. They seemed alone, forgotten, on the road. Suddenly an order was passed down the column. The subaltern repeated it, almost before he was aware that he had heard it. "No. 3 Section—Prepare for action!" Instantly the gun detachments leaped to the ground. The breech and muzzle covers were removed and strapped to the front of the gun shields. The breech, the firing mechanism, the ranging gear, the sights were swiftly examined. The men on the ammunition wagons tested the opening of the lids, looked to the fuse indicator, saw that the fuses were at safety. These things done, they resumed their seats. The subaltern's heart beat fast. Now?
Minute after minute passed. The brigade waited in all readiness to move. Presently the order came. "Walk!—March!—Trot!" They passed quickly along the road. The subaltern looked ahead, saw his battery leader turn through a gate into a broad meadow on the right. The other batteries were turning into the field further up. He lost sight of one of them. He arrived at the gate, wheeled into it. "By the left—Form Battery Column!" The subsections of single guns drew out and up level with the other gun of the section, each with its following wagon. The first line or reserve wagons dropped behind. The battery trotted smartly forward across the field. It was a large meadow, unintersected by hedge or ditch, rising gently to the ridge whereto their original road had climbed. At the summit was a small copse. Far in front the subaltern saw a group of horsemen riding swiftly towards it. He knew it for the colonel and his staff. Between him and them was a mounted figure, halted, and, some distance further away, another figure. It was the battery commander and the sergeant-major marking the position of the battery and the line of fire. The battery went on. The ridge was looming up close in front. "By the left—Form Line!" The guns wheeled into a long line. Their accompanying wagons slackened speed, fell some forty yards in rear. "Walk!—Halt!—Action Front!" The guns stopped. The detachments leaped down. Two men seized the gun-trail, unhooked it from the limber, gave the order "Limber drive on!" The horses trotted quickly round in a half-circle and went to the rear. The trail was carried round, reversing the gun. A moment later the attendant wagon came up, placing itself close on the left, its axle a little in rear of the gun-axle. About each gun in the line there was a second or two of busy movement. The No. 1 threw back the traversing lever, laid the gun approximately in the true direction, noted the level of the wheels. Others lowered the shield, put on the brakes, fixed the sights. Two others opened the ammunition wagon and half withdrew a number of rounds in readiness. The subaltern's horseholder came up. As he surrendered his mount he felt that he was stepping into the arena.
He looked along the line of guns. The detachments of each were in position, motionless—No. 1 kneeling on the left side of the trail, 2 on the seat on the right-hand side, 3 on the left, 4 kneeling behind 3, 5 and 6 kneeling in rear of the wagon by the gun. At the right-hand end of the line was the battery commander. In front of him a wagon-limber had been placed for his protection. Up the hill-side men were swiftly paying out a telephone wire. A lieutenant and a couple of look-out men were cantering up to join the party now halted at the side of the copse.
The subaltern turned to see the captain of the battery at his side. He smiled and nodded. "How do you feel?" he asked. "Shivery?" The captain was in command of the first-line wagons in reserve. He stood near the battery to watch the expenditure of ammunition.
The subaltern placed himself behind the wagon of his gun nearest the commander, and waited, stiffly erect. He felt himself tingling with eagerness, yet he could scarcely bring himself to believe that this was battle. It might have been parade. He forgot the all-swallowing roar about him, remembered only that he was in command of those two guns, was responsible that they dealt out death coolly, accurately, scientifically.
The telephone was complete. A man knelt on the ground near the battery commander, the receiver to his ear. Almost immediately there was a sharp order. "Lines of Fire!" From each gun a man ran out quickly towards the ridge with a couple of black and white posts. He planted them in line and ran back. The angle of sight was passed down the battery. The gun-barrels moved slightly, aiming at the invisible enemy. Despite the ceaseless roar with which the air trembled, a hush of expectancy seemed to lie over the line of guns. Other orders came quickly down the battery from the commander. "Angle of sight 1·25´ elevation."—"Collective."—"Corrector 154."—"4100." No. 6 of each gun called out the fuze. Five set it, passed the shell to 4 who pushed it into the breech. Two closed the breech and adjusted the range indicator. Three laid the gun and sat with his hand on the firing lever. "Ready."
"Fire!" The No. 1 of the first gun repeated the order. Three pulled the lever sharply upwards. A long tongue of flame spurted out of the muzzle with a deafening report. The gun-barrel shot violently back under its hydraulic buffer and was in place again ere the eye could well note the movement. The other two guns of the right half-battery fired successively at three seconds' interval. The men at the telephone received a message. It was transmitted as orders to the battery. "No. 1—30 degrees more right. No. 2—20 degrees more right, No. 3—30 degrees more right." "Left half—30 degrees more right.—Corrector 162.—4300." The three shells already fired had gone too far to the left. "Fire." The subaltern heard the order of the sergeant on his right. "No. 4—Fire!" Then his own sergeants, "No. 5—Fire!" "No. 6—Fire!" He thrilled at the loud explosions. He was in action! He was flattered to find how clear his mind was, how steady his nerve. He supervised the laying of the guns as the next order came down the line. "Corrector 158—4350.—One round battery fire." At five seconds' interval the six guns fired one after the other. There was a wait. Had they found the range? Yes! "Section Fire—10 seconds." He was engrossed with his two guns as they were swiftly loaded and fired at the interval ordered.
Away to his left the other two batteries of the brigade were firing likewise. The rapid, violent reports of the line of guns overlapped, merged into one long-drawn-out explosion that intensified spasmodically as two or more fired at the same instant. The clamour of the general battle was obscured, forgotten. The subaltern glanced at the bare hill in front of him, over which the shells from the brigade were streaming at the rate of one hundred and eight a minute. On what were they falling, two and a half miles away? A straggling thought in him found leisure for the question while yet the main forces of his mind were concentrated on the busy detachments and the guns they served. He had scarce noted it when an order was passed down the battery. "Stand fast." Immediately there was silence. Only a faint haze spread and thinned between the gun-muzzles and the ridge to show that they had been at work. What of the distant, invisible target? The captain, who had been standing by the battery commander, passed on his way to the wagons. The subaltern stopped him.
"What was it?" he asked.
"Battery coming into action—just caught 'em—wiped out," answered the captain laconically and hurried on.
The subaltern stared—horror-stricken involuntarily. Wiped out! He tried to imagine the wreckage of that battery overwhelmed in a few instants by a rain of shells coming from they knew not whence. He failed. In that meadow, strangely quiet now despite a terrific din that welled up from over the ridge, he could not picture it. The hill in front was a wall across his vision.
The brigade waited, but no further orders came. For the moment their work was done. The guns stretched across the field, their muzzles elevated, like a row of silent, expectant dogs. The lieutenant commanding the adjacent section came up and asked the subaltern for a cigarette. The subaltern gave it, repressing a smile. That lieutenant never had any cigarettes.
As he relaxed from the strain of those few furious minutes the subaltern felt suddenly hungry. He remembered that he had filled a pocket with biscuits and munched at one as he gazed idly along the battery. Fitfully his mind returned to the brief activity of his guns and he contemplated the recollection with comfort. Never had he lost mastery over himself. He was a man tried and proved.
With a vague dull curiosity he watched the group by the wood on the hill above him. Members of it were moving to and fro. He noticed one figure standing with both hands up to his face, his elbows sticking out. He was examining something through his glasses. The subaltern wondered whether it was the colonel and the thought came to him that on a word from that man he and his fellows might be hurried to death as if to execution. Every minute, orderlies rode at speed up to the group.
Presently an order came to the battery. It opened fire again, this time deliberately, without haste, at 2500 yards and in a slightly different direction. Again the subaltern appealed to the captain for information.
"Infantry advancing. We've only got a screen there. Sixth Corps coming into action on our right. We're filling the gap between it and the Second Corps. Enemy are trying to break through."
"Oh," said the subaltern, "we're in for a hot time, I suppose." He said it carelessly, without any idea of what was coming.
"We most certainly are," said the captain. The emphasis of the reply startled the subaltern, made him feel uneasy. He devoted himself to his guns in an effort to banish the anxiety which threatened him. The gun-squads were working with unhurried precision. A man kneeling behind the wagon drew out the long projectile, set the fuze, passed the shell to his fellow at the gun, the breech was closed, the lever pulled, and the gun spoke with an exactly equal interval between rounds. They might have been feeding a machine in a factory, so regular, so unemotional was the operation. Behind the wagon the ground was littered with the canvas cartridge clips. Behind the gun the flung-back brass cartridge cases mounted to a heap. In front the air was blurry with gases. Away to the right a new series of reports broke out. More batteries had evidently come into action. Coalescing all individual sounds the general clamour of the battle swelled in surges of hideous noise from one deep-toned, continuous roar. The subaltern became habituated to it, scarcely noticed it.
Happening to look round he saw a howitzer battery coming into the field. A few minutes later the regular sequence of its detonations told him it had got to work. It was evident that troops were being hurried up to meet the threatened attack. Along the hill-side to the right a line of infantry was strung out, advancing towards the wood. Another followed it. When he turned again he saw more infantry entering the field and deploying. He got a glimpse of the road filled with brown caps that just showed above the hedges. Almost immediately the battery ceased fire. Only the periodic discharges of the howitzers continued. The battery commander was kneeling over a map spread upon the ground. Up by the little wood a heliograph was flashing rapidly. A little further on a couple of men were flag-wagging with vigour. Some crisis was approaching. Behind him the infantry commenced to advance. On his left front a couple of men spurred horses up the flank of the bare hill-side.
The infantry passed the battery in their advance, the company that had remained in column to avoid the guns deploying into the line. Another line of supports followed and behind them another. They went steadily up the hill, the two scouts from the battery passing through them as they galloped back. The subaltern thrilled with a sense of imminent danger. As yet he had seen no shell burst. Now it was going to begin. The howitzer battery still fired over the heads of the advancing troops.
Up and up went the first line. The subaltern watched it with a throbbing heart. It opened its files as it went, and, when nearly to the crest, broke into a steady run. It reached the summit. For a moment it showed black against the sky. Now? Nothing. The line disappeared over the hill. The second line mounted, doubled, showed against the sky and instantly a crowd of smoke-puffs leaped into the air above it. He saw tiny figures knocked all ways to the ground and immediately afterwards a run of sharp crashes came to his ears. The line disappeared over the hill, leaving behind figures that lay still and figures that tried to crawl out of the way of the third line. He watched them, fascinated, through his glasses. The third line advanced, undaunted. The crowd of smoke-puffs broke out again ere it reached the summit and continued while it passed. When it had gone, the subaltern noted an increase in the number of prostrate figures. Behind him more infantry collected in the field but no more advanced. The hostile shrapnel continued to burst over an empty hill-side. Presently it ceased. From the other side of the hill arose a furious, feverish crackling, noticeable even in the general uproar. The battery waited for it knew not what.
Slightly wounded men began to trickle down the hill-side. One passed close to the subaltern, lurching unsteadily. He was bleeding profusely from a wound in the head. He stopped, swaying from side to side, and looked at the lieutenant with a glare of idiocy. "Hell," he said with sombre simplicity, "Hell," and then went on without waiting for a reply. The lieutenant was inexpressibly shocked. It made him feel ill. He turned and saw the wounded man walking like one blind, hands out, across the field. The one word, "Hell," rang in his ears. He nibbled at another biscuit to steady his stomach. "Pretty rotten that," he said to himself, striving to get rid of the sensation by classifying it. "Rotten."
Then the orders came. The gun-teams dashed up and in a few moments the battery was moving at speed to its left across the meadows. Its route was a diagonal directed on the ridge. It went in all haste. Its half-depleted wagons had been replaced by full ones from the first lines. The subaltern felt that he was rushing towards a crisis. He was strangely exhilarated as he galloped on towards a line of trees that rose to the ridge at right angles. A gate showed in the line of trees and beyond the gate a road. The battery slackened speed, dashed through the gate, vehicle after vehicle, and turned to the right towards the ridge. The road was narrow, walled with high hedges and overhanging elms. It mounted to a shrub-filled notch on the height. There the battery was halted. The half-filled wagons now composing the first line drew into cover. The battery-commander and several men rode on. The battery waited, screened by the wooded crest of the hill. From the unseen landscape in front arose an appalling tumult of sound. It was like the noise of a colossal conflagration; the roar of flames, and the crackle of burning woodwork enormously magnified.
Suddenly the battery moved on again. Quickly it mounted the crest and dipped down on the other side. Again a gate on the right hand and in a moment the battery was racing at full speed across a stubble-field. A hundred yards ahead galloped the commander. To their left was open country, full of sound. Above them, over the ridge upon their right, a run of sharp explosions broke out. The subaltern heard them without heeding. He shouted encouragement to his men as they dashed across the field, though his voice was scarcely audible to himself. He was in a whirl of excitement. Life hung on every second.
"Halt!" The guns stopped, were unlimbered and reversed in an instant. The teams raced back to cover. The wagons dashed up beside their guns. Around them one or two shells burst harmlessly upon the ground, like the first heavy raindrops which precede the storm. It broke. Overhead the sky collapsed with a fearful crash. The subaltern saw a myriad spouts of dust leap up from the stubble, saw his most trusted sergeant fall like a sack across the gun-trail. There was another riving crash overhead. The subaltern turned to hear an order megaphoned from the sergeant-major at the end of the line. "Guns in Action—Just below Church." He whipped out his glasses, focussed quickly for the church, saw a row of pin-points of flame flicker along a hedge. A moment later the air in front of him was shaken by a group of crashes, followed on the instant by a long, high-pitched drone. In the middle of it he heard the megaphone. "3350 yards—Corrector 140." The men worked desperately at the guns, like sailors in a blinding storm. The shrapnel beat down among them like hail, ringing on the shields. "Section Control." The subaltern gave the order. "Fire!" The whole battery fired swiftly, his guns among the first. He watched the distant hedge below the church through his glasses, saw a crowd of smoke-puffs burst over it even as the flame-points flickered again. He shouted an alteration of the corrector and his voice was swallowed by the crash of the hostile shells. Again the shrapnel droned, flicked up the dust around him. He heeded it not. He saw a man roll over with a shell in his hands. He sprang to him, seized the shell, thrust it into the breech without the loss of a second. Rapidly the guns fired. Away to his right he heard the quick detonations of the other guns and again the crash of bursting shrapnel. He gazed again at the distant hedge. It was a duel between that battery and his. Extinction was the portion of the one which failed in speed and accuracy. With a savage thrill he saw a high shaft of flame spout up behind the hedge. A shell—he claimed it as his—had plumped into an ammunition wagon and exploded. Wrought to fever-pitch, the artillery-men loaded and fired. A cloud of dust hung about each gun, obscuring the view, stabbed every few seconds by a sharp thrust of flame. Down the hill-side the smoke of shrapnel which had burst too low drifted close to the ground like steam from a passing locomotive. Away in the distance, along that hedge—the men in the battery saw only that, were oblivious to all else—a cloud of smoke gathered, grew thicker every instant. Under it the pin-points of flame flickered with ever longer intervals between the flashes. Over the battery on the hill the shrapnel burst with less and less of noise, less and less of accuracy. The subaltern exulted. They were getting the upper hand. He yelled stimulation to his men. His two guns fired faster even than before, raining shells at the hedge. Suddenly he was aware that the hostile shrapnel had ceased. Behind the hedge he saw a cloud of dust arise. Their enemy was retiring at speed. He altered the range, flung shells into the dust-cloud until it disappeared. "Battery Control—Stand fast." The guns ceased fire.
The subaltern turned to look at what he believed to be the wreckage of his battery. It was littered with dead and dying men. A wagon lay on its side, was being righted as he looked at it. Men pulled away a body from underneath. Every vehicle in the line, guns and wagons, was pock-marked with splashes of lead. The shield of one gun had been neatly perforated by a shell and the crew of that gun lay about it as they had been dispersed by the explosion. Their clothes were still on fire. The subaltern was staring stupidly at them when the lieutenant who never carried cigarettes approached. He opened his mouth to speak—no doubt to ask for another cigarette—when suddenly his expression changed to a sickly smile and he pitched forward. The subaltern turned round in a flash of savage anger. This was murder. They had finished fighting——
"Infantry advancing across stream—1800 yards," came the stentorian voice of the sergeant-major. The subaltern understood as he ran back to his guns. It was to repel the infantry that they were there. The duel with the other battery was merely an episode. He looked down into the valley below him, saw that it was filled with little grey figures. A stream bisected the mass. They were advancing quickly, in rushes, apparently without opposition. Some of the foremost were lying down, firing at the height. Below him, from origins that were hidden by a fold of the ground, rose the noise of a fierce and sustained rifle fire. The battery got to work again. Methodically, evenly, it sprayed that advancing horde with shrapnel. Other batteries, invisible to them, were helping, for a larger number of shells burst over the foe than they accounted for. The vicious little puffs of smoke multiplied. The subaltern watched their effect with cool, unemotional interest. It was like striking into a mass of ants. Numbers sprawled; the multitude was undiminished. He hurled his thunderbolts upon them like a god, himself serenely unassailable. A half-contemptuous pity for them arose in him but did not interfere with the exact performance of his duties. The men at the guns laughed.
Suddenly, without warning, the air above him was riven with a triple crash. The familiar drone followed, was blotted out by a second violent detonation. Gusts of smoke blew across the sky. A hail of shrapnel bullets kicked up the dust, pattered on the guns. His cap was knocked from his head by an invisible hand. A man at the gun sprang up, performed a grotesque parody of a dervish-dance, twirled with outstretched arms, and collapsed. Another sat for a second with both hands to his head and fell back. For a moment the service of the guns was suspended. The subaltern ran towards it, shouting. The diminished crew bent grimly to their task. The overhead crashes of the shrapnel came down in one continuous detonation. The bullets rained down upon them in heavy showers. The hostile artillery had got their range exactly. Where were they? The subaltern searched the distance for gun-flashes. He saw none. Their enemy was invisible, snugly tucked away somewhere. It would have profited little to have discovered them. His orders were to fire at the infantry and at the infantry his two guns fired, as fast as depleted squads could serve them. The rest of the battery fired likewise. He did not see how many guns were still in action, could not spare a moment to look. His attention was held by the swarm of advancing figures. The hail of shrapnel was an agony at the back of his consciousness; he ignored it, resolutely.
Suddenly a horse pitched and rolled, kicking violently, at his feet. It startled him. He had not seen it arrive. A man disengaged himself from the struggling animal, stood up and shot it dead with his revolver. It was the captain.
"In—command—at the infantry—section control—carry on," he panted, and ran to his place at the end of the line.
The battery commander was killed then! The thought flashed across his mind, was lost in the urgent business of the moment. He shortened the range, altered the corrector, aiming at the nearer edge of the approaching infantry. A moment later three or four men arrived at a sprint and reported themselves. The subaltern heard without emotion that more had started, would never arrive. He detailed them. The discharges of the guns followed faster.
How long this phase lasted the subaltern never knew. Ordinary standards of time could not measure that nightmare where he constantly shortened the range, hurled unavailing thunders at an inexorably advancing flood. He remembered the moment of agony when he saw that they were running out of ammunition, the joyous relief when the first-line ammunition-wagons raced up and stopped at the right hand of the guns. Under a pall of smoke from the bursting shells he saw his gun-crews dwindling, each man doing the work of two, of three. Once a heavy explosion on the ground attracted his attention. It was the commencement of a series. Choking fumes, now black, now yellowish, drifted over him. A howitzer battery had joined their assailants, was firing high explosive. Exasperated, he searched the distances for a glimpse of the hostile guns. He saw no sign of them. They were being overwhelmed, as they themselves had overwhelmed the battery he had not seen, by foes whose concealment he could not even guess at.
Suddenly—how, he knew not—the word was passed to him: "In command." He ran to the end of the line, found the sergeant-major crouching behind the wagon-limber. Blood was running from a diagonal bullet-score across his face. Close by were the bodies of his predecessors in command.
"Four guns in action, sir," said the sergeant-major. "Brigade commander's orders: 'Hold our ground.'"
"How long ago?" queried the subaltern.
"Some time," was the reply. "Not sure—but think the colonel and staff are killed, sir."
The subaltern looked along the line of guns, frowned at the tiny groups of gunners.
"Where's the observing party?"
"At the guns, sir."
"Rangetakers? Horseholders?" He had to shout to be heard in the continuous crashing of the shells.
"At the guns. Every man in action, sir, except with the horses under cover."
The subaltern took in the situation, glanced at the advancing infantry. Despite the efforts of the battery the nearer of them had got close, were now hidden by a fold in the ground. From that fold of ground came a frenzy of rifle-fire and, he fancied, shouts and cries. With despair in his heart, he determined to "hold his ground." Veiled in dust and smoke his four guns fired irregularly but rapidly.
A tumult of noise broke out to his right, almost behind him.
"Outflanked?" he queried at the top of his voice. The sergeant-major nodded.
At the same moment he saw a swarm of brown infantry come over the fold of ground in front of him. Disaster followed disaster. A high-explosive shell swallowed one of his precious guns with an awful explosion of flame and smoke. A soot-faced man ran up and shouted to him that the wagon-supply was all but exhausted. Only the gun-limbers remained. The subaltern glanced at the defeated infantry surging towards them. His jaw set hard with a fierce resolve.
"Call up the teams," he shouted.
The sergeant-major signalled to the hill. A moment later the limbers were racing over the shell-swept field. The survivors of the battery sighed with relief as they fired away their last shells.
Far off upon a height the divisional artillery commander was watching them through his glasses. "Why isn't that battery withdrawn?" he asked irritably. He turned to give an order, then checked himself. "No, it's too late," he said. He continued to watch them.
The guns were limbered up in a storm of shells. The subaltern threw himself upon a horse that came handy. The detachments waited for the order to retire.
"The battery will advance—in line!—Gallop!" he yelled.
He spurred his horse straight for the infantry. Behind him his three guns bumped and leaped over the inequalities of the stubble-field. Onward they raced. They tore through the approaching infantry as though they were mere phantoms, regardless of those that fell before their rush. Overhead the shrapnel burst less frequently. They hurled themselves down into a depression and up again on the rise of a little ridge. One or two brown soldiers were lying prone on it and firing rapidly.
"Halt!—Action front!—At the infantry!—Point blank!" yelled the subaltern.
In front were the grey-uniformed soldiers, swarms of them, not a hundred yards away, rushing on them with gleaming bayonets. Working like madmen, the artillery-men reversed the guns, loaded, aimed, fired. Again and again the guns spoke. The squads worked like men doomed, anxious only to take toll for their own lives. The shells, set to zero, burst almost at the muzzles of the guns. Their bullets tore through the groups of infantrymen, mowed them down. They seemed to melt away. Behind him the subaltern heard a loud cheer. The beaten infantry were being rallied, led again to the attack.
In front of his guns the enemy surged forward, only to be swept away. Hesitation was manifest among them. Men turned and ran back. The rearward movement spread. He exulted in their confusion. As his guns fired their last rounds, a line of brown infantry rushed past them with a mighty shout, their bayonets levelled at the charge. The grey infantry broke and fled.
The subaltern looked round, wiping the acrid smoke-grit from his eyes. Behind him, down the hill-side where his battery had fought, masses of brown infantry were advancing. The tide had turned.
Far away, the divisional artillery commander took his glasses from his eyes. "By G—d! that chap's saved 'em!" he said. He wrote out an order and despatched it.
The subaltern stood by his line of silent guns, watching the fight roll away from him. He felt atrociously hungry and thirsty. His water-bottle was empty. He felt for the biscuits in his pocket. There was not one. He wiped his hand across his mouth and there was biscuit-dust upon the back of it. Then he cursed in bitter disappointment. He could not forgive himself for having eaten those biscuits, as it were in his sleep.
Presently an order came and he drew the remnant of his battery out of action.
In the dark of the autumn evening the rearguard drew itself wearily through the silent village. To a column of infantrymen, dusty, dejected, haggard, with rifles held indifferently on the shoulder, at the trail, or tucked under the arm, succeeded a procession of miscellaneous vehicles—ambulances, army-wagons, brick-carts, gigs, anything that would roll on wheels it seemed. Some of these vehicles were loaded high with goods whose nature was hidden by the bulging tarpaulins stretched tightly over them, but the majority held only men who sat up listlessly, swaying with every jolt of the vehicle, dull-eyed, mournful, and silent. The faces of most of them were partially masked by bandages that passed at varying angles across their heads. Others nursed an arm in a sling; some were apparently undamaged. These were the slightly hurt. Here and there in the long train, a head, swathed like that of an antique corpse, raised itself from the depths of a wagon and peered over the side, striking a note of suffering which found no repercussion in the men, fatigued beyond sensibility, who marched by the wheels. After a longer or shorter space those heads relapsed again out of sight, sinking without murmur or gesture, in hopeless resignation. These vehicles bore the wreckage of the army, swept up by the retreating rearguard which cleared the road of everything that could afford an indication to the enemy of the nature of the force in front.
Behind the lugubrious procession a battery moved at the walk. The animals that drew the guns were lean and spiritless; many were lame, and the coats of all were dull with dust and sweat. Most of the teams were short of their proper tale of horses. The guns, limbers, and wagons were likewise thick with dust, and where this dust was not it could be seen that they were scored and pock-marked by shrapnel bullets. A professional eye looking at those guns as they passed would have remarked that the breech and muzzle covers had been removed, were strapped to the front of the shields. They were ready for instant action, yet many of the men who served them swayed in sleep upon their seats on limber or wagon. The countenances of all were grimed with dirt, channelled by dried rivulets of sweat and moisture from eyes irritated by acrid fumes. They looked like men who had been fighting a conflagration. They passed, guns and wagons, and after them came a squadron of cavalrymen sitting limply upon wearied horses. Another long column of infantry followed, and, immediately upon its heels, an endless cavalcade of horsemen. All, infantry, convoy, artillery, and cavalry, moved onwards steadily, without hurry and without halts, at a pace that had evidently long ago become automatic.
The houses between which they passed were silent, deserted, for the most part boarded up. No face looked out of any window, no light glimmered in any interior, no smoke came from any chimney. At the door of the only inn a couple of cavalrymen stood by their horses, sentries posted to deter the thirsty straggler. Some of the men in the column looked yearningly at the houses as they passed, imagining the joys of sleep and food; the majority plodded onwards mechanically in the failing light. All, perhaps, seeing the village, had dallied with the idea of bivouac. To their disappointment had succeeded a despair of ever halting. The officers by the side of their companies urged them forward with monotonous voices, aware themselves of the uselessness of their efforts. The infantry was marching at its best pace. Nevertheless as the column drew out of the village its speed spontaneously increased. A rumour had spread along it from end to end. They had given the enemy the slip.
The last cavalrymen, left at the entrance of the village until the column should have cleared it, passed along the street, turning in their saddles to look at the empty road behind them. The sentries at the inn mounted and trotted quickly forward to rejoin their ranks. The last man passed out of sight. The village street seemed strangely empty in the absence of the floods of men that had been pouring through it, with but little interruption, for many hours. Only the rhythmic tramp of the infantry upon the road, pulsating through the air like the audible systole and diastole of some mighty heart, and fading with every moment, remained like a reminiscence of the army. Presently that, too, ceased. Silence brooded over the houses whose outlines were rapidly blurring with the oncoming night, a silence broken only by the melancholy ululations of an owl that ventured to scour the deserted street.
That owl was baulked of its stoop by a sudden human utterance in a Cockney voice.
"It's all right, Bill—they've gone."
The figure of a man was dimly defined in the doorway of one of the cottages. He turned to answer a question.
"Yus. The 'ole bloomin' lot. Rearguard an' all."
The figure in the doorway was joined by another from the dark interior of the cottage, and the pair slunk cautiously into the street and looked up and down.
"We've done it, Sam," said the man addressed as Bill.
"Yus," replied Sam, peering around him under a frown from heavy brows. "Now for that public—me ole Gawd-lummy ain't 'ad nothin' in it fer a week."
"'Struth!" said Bill, stretching himself. "I ain't 'arf stiff wiv standin' in that poky little cupboard."
"Not so stiff as those poor blighters 'll be to-night," said Sam, with a thought of his marching comrades. "Now—right wheel! March! An' see that you've got a cartridge in yer rifle," he added in a tone of authority. It was evident that he was the leading spirit.
There was the metallic click of a cartridge inserted into the breech and then both men crept furtively in the shadow of the cottages towards the inn. The hanging sign of the house was silhouetted black against the sky just above their heads, when Sam stopped suddenly, pointing his rifle into the gloom.
"'Alt! 'Oo goes there?" he cried; under his breath he blasphemed rapidly, ferociously; the blasphemy of a man whose nerves are chaos, his speech-centres out of control. A shadowy figure moved in the darkness. "'Ands up—or I fire!" shouted Sam, the menace rising harshly out of his muttered vituperation.
A pitiful voice replied from the obscurity. Its panic expressed itself in a thin rising inflection that became almost a squeal.
"Don't shoot!—don't shoot!"
"Come out into the road," commanded Sam. "Cover 'im, Bill," he added.
The figure obeyed, was now slightly more visible against the light reflected from the white road.
"What are you doin' 'ere?" asked Sam.
The voice became rapid in nervous explanation.
"I'm lame—got lamed miles back there—I was 'urryin' to rejoin my regiment——"
"I don't think," said Sam sternly. "You're a bloomin' deserter, that's wot you are."
"Oh, chuck it, Sam!" said Bill suddenly. "More the merrier! Let's get into this bloomin' public—I'm fair parched for a drink. Come along, matey—don't take no notice of 'im. You didn't 'arf give us a scare, though, my word!" he added, as he moved towards the door of the inn.
The third man, however, persisted in justifying himself in a querulous, tearful voice.
"I tell yer I got lamed—I ain't no deserter—I just couldn't keep up—there's a piece of skin off my foot as big as yer 'and—I'll show it yer if yer don't believe me——"
"Oh, chuck it," said Sam irritably, giving him an uninviting march-route for his foot. "'Elp us to knock this blighted door in!"
The three of them kicked and shouldered against the inn door without result. The locks held firm.
"'Ere, stand clear," said Sam, grasping his rifle by the muzzle. He swung it about his head and brought it down against the door with a heavy crash. Bill imitated him, swinging his reversed rifle like a sledgehammer in a manner that bespoke the ex-navvy. The third man's efforts were swifter if less effective. The noise of their blows sounded terribly loud in the hush of that dead village, so loud that once or twice they paused, frightened, their ears alert for answering sound. None came and they resumed their attack. The door commenced to splinter and to crack upon its hinges. Collectively they threw their whole weight against it in sudden impact. It gave way and the three of them followed it in a heap.
They struggled to their feet, cursing, and someone struck a match. It was Sam. The others followed the dim illumination into the interior. There was an exclamation of joyful surprise and then the match went out. The exclamation was renewed as Sam struck another and lit a hanging oil-lamp.
"Gawd blimy if they ain't left it for us!"
They were in a small room at the back of the bar. A long table filled most of the space, and on that table stood a large joint of beef, several loaves of bread, and one or two pewter tankards. A number of plates each containing food and crossed at odd angles by knife and fork told a story that the overturned chairs about the room corroborated.
"Left in a blamed 'urry," said Bill, picking up one of the tankards. "Fancy leavin' the beer!"
The third man pushed past him eagerly and sprang at the table, clawing at the food. He almost wept. "Two days—I ain't 'ad nuffink fer two days, mates," he whimpered between huge mouthfuls. He went on cramming himself with everything he could reach, uttering the while inarticulate cries of satisfaction that sounded like sobs.
The others were rivalled but not surpassed in this gastronomical performance. Less excitedly, they also were eating enormously. For long minutes the three men sat at the table under the hanging lamp without uttering a word. They fed like famished animals at a trough. As their hunger grew less fierce, however, the two comrades looked up and exchanged appraising glances with their new companion. He was a little fellow, with a cunning face and an ill-shaped head that needed no criminologist to class it. Petty rogue was stamped on him. The metal letters and number on the shoulder-strap of his dirty and ragged uniform showed that he, like themselves, belonged to a Cockney battalion. The two comrades were burly fellows of the navvy type, full-bodied, full-faced, narrow in the brows, powerful in the arms. Distress, the utter lack of work, had probably forced them into one of the new regiments. The little man, with equal probability, had enlisted for similar reasons and had found escape not so easy as he expected.
At last, replete, they desisted from their orgy of victuals. Bill stretched his legs and looked good-humouredly at his comrade.
"This ain't better than the army, I don't think!" he opined, qualifying the army by an epithet which in its circumstances was not inappropriate.
"Curse the army!" replied Sam, frowning from under his heavy sandy brows. He shivered with the commencement of digestion. "Light the fire, Bill," he commanded brutally. "And you," he added, turning to the little man, "go an' get some more beer—an' don't drink any or I'll smash your bloomin' 'ead in!"
Bill, always in awe of his friend, had already commenced to obey, but the little man was not yet broken to Sam's discipline.
"'Ere!—'Oo are you orderin' about?" he expostulated in his thin, aggrieved voice. Then he dodged quickly to escape a flying tankard. With a frightened glance at the burly tyrant, he hastened out, jug in hand.
When he returned, he deposited several packets of tobacco on the table and pushed them towards Sam. "Thought per'aps you'd be wantin' some, mate," he said humbly. "There's a 'ole barrel o' beer in the bar. If 'e'd 'elp me, I could get it in 'ere."
"Go and 'elp 'im, Bill," ordered Sam, pocketing the tobacco.
The two men rolled in the barrel of beer and hoisted it onto the table. Then, with full tankards handy and their pipes smoking like factory chimneys, the trio pulled their chairs up to the fire.
"Curse the army, I say!" said Sam in a challenging voice, apropos of nothing. He had been staring moodily at the crackling logs. "I want to get back to my wife an' kids."
"'Ear,'ear!" said Bill, raising his tankard before he drained it. "Curse the——army!"
"Chins!" said the little man. The proposal was drunk unanimously.
"I'm fed up with it," continued Sam, still in his mood of heavy reflection, "abso-bloomin'-lutely fed up! Marchin' 'ere, marchin' there, march all day, march all night; w'en you do stop, nothin' to eat; march back w'ere you come from, then right about face and march ag'in till you don't know w'ere you are. I joined the bloomin' army to fight, not to go on a blighted walkin'-tour!"
"Fight!" chimed in the little man. "You ought to 'a' been wiv us the other day! Talk about fightin'! Our company fought three thousand on 'em for hours an' hours—all alone. We killed 'undreds of 'em, me an' about a dozen others, till we 'ad to retreat. That's wot I calls fightin'!"
"Is it?" sneered Sam. "You wos one o' that picket guard wot run away from a cow, you mean. Fightin'! That ain't fightin'—bein' shot at by swine you can't see. I ain't 'ad a sight o' one on 'em yet, not one—an' yesterday forty men of our company was killed w'ere we laid in a 'tater-field. Ain't that so, Bill?"
"Forty-two," corrected Bill, "an' you couldn't find some of 'em after the shell 'ad 'it 'em."
"That's it," continued Sam, "shells! Shells plumpin' down and chokin' yer, shells over'ead as if the sky was breakin' in and droppin' down in bullets. Shells! That's wot I can't stand—bein' 'it on the back of the 'ead w'en you're lyin' down an' takin' cover accordin' to orders. It fair got on my nerves—all day, shells, shells, shells, an' not a mouthful to eat, an' then, at the end, right about face, quick march, we're beat. Beat! We'll see if we get beat! No,—it's just bloomin' silly—they march us orf our feet for a week just to make us a target for their damn artillery and then tell us we're licked and 'ave got to march back double-quick. I'm fed up wiv it. I've chucked the blank army. Chucked it, d'yer 'ear?" he turned savagely on the little man.
"You're right, mate," said the little man, standing up to refill his tankard at the barrel. "So 've I. W'y should we fight? That's wot I arsks yer. We're the pore workin'-man—we ain't got no property," he developed the manner of a street-corner orator, and thumped his tankard on the table. "We ain't got no stake in the country. Let them as 'as got a stake in the country fight for it, says I. Not get a pore honest workin'-man to go an' do it for 'em. 'Tain't right, mates. That's w'y I chucked the bloomin' army, I don't mind tellin' yer—because I felt it wasn't right! I'm a honest workin'-man an' I don't believe in war."
"'Ear, 'ear," said Bill sleepily.
"Chuck it!" commented Sam unsympathetically, regarding the hands of the orator. "You a workin'-man! You ain't never done a day's work in yer life, unless you calls work pickin' pockets at the races. I don't want no Socialism—an' I don't want no war, neither. I wants to get back to my missus an' the kids an' a regular job."
"'Ear, 'ear," said Bill. "Wot price the Ole Kent Road on a Saturday night, Sam?"
"That's wot I was thinkin'. Is to-night Saturday, Bill?"
"Cursed if I know," was the reply. "I've lost count."
Sam sat gloomily looking into the fire. In his brain was a vision of the great thoroughfare, lined with naphtha flares, thronged with people who clustered about the stalls, here and there the blaze of lights upon the white-and-gold faÇade of a picture-palace, the yellowish radiance of a public-house. He visualised it now, distant from it, as the rustic looks back to his village, sentimentally. There the incidents, commonplace enough, sordid even, which had made his life something individual to himself, had linked themselves one by one.
"Bill," he said huskily, "if I saw those blank foreigners marchin' up the Ole Kent Road, I'd go for 'em—if there wasn't a man to 'elp me."
"'Ear, 'ear!" said Bill. "So would I."
"I've got a bit o' skirt meself wot lives just off the Ole Kent Road," said the third man in a tone of reminiscence. "Let's 'ave some more beer. I say," he remarked suddenly, having refilled his mug, "if the army comes back it'll be a fair cop for us, won't it?"
"I ain't goin' back," said Sam sturdily, still gazing into the fire. "I'm fed up—and w'en I'm fed up I'm fed up."
Bill had wakened at the suggestion.
"But s'pose they come back, Sam? Wot'll we do?"
The third man interposed.
"'Tain't wot we'll do. It's wot they'll do. They'll shoot us, by Gawd they will!" Panic came into his sharp little white face. He was desperately in earnest. "They'll shoot every man of us!"
"They won't come back," said Sam.
"Ho! Won't they? And 'aven't they countermarched before? W'y—I 'eard an officer say only this afternoon that they'd be 'avin' another go at 'em to-morrow."
"Did yer, really?" asked Bill, now thoroughly frightened.
"'Strue as I stand 'ere!—'We'll march back quick an' catch 'em,' 'e said," the little man invented rapidly. "An officer in the cavalry, it was. Staff-officer, shudn't wonder."
"Oh, my Gawd!" cried Bill, his beer-muddled faculties dispersing before a gale of fear. "'Ere, Sam—I'm orf! Come on! You brought me into this, yer know—I didn't want to desert. I told yer so, lots o' times—an' now!—Come on!—I ain't goin' to stop 'ere to get shot!"
"'Arf a mo!" said the little man. "'Tain't no good runnin' orf in that uniform. Wot we've got to do is to find some togs. Then if they comes back we're just honest rustics, see?"
Sam stood up. The sudden panic of his companions had communicated itself to his slower brain. He also trembled at the prospect of recapture.
"That's the ticket, mate. You've got it. You're a smart little cove. Wot's yer name?" This, he implied, was condescension.
"Hoswald—Hoswald Smiff—my farver was a toff, a flash cove, 'e was. Come on, mates—there's sure to be some togs upstairs—shudn't wonder if they've left some dibs be'ind 'em, too."
"They left the beer, anyway," said Bill. His tone implied that people who left beer would leave anything.
Rather unsteadily, the trio ascended the steep and narrow stairs of the inn. Sam carried a lighted candle which Oswald Smith had found in the kitchen. A disappointment awaited them. In every room the drawers stood open, empty, their contents carried off. The trio swore in harmony and in fugues. They cursed with the pointless fluency of drunken men baulked of an intention. Then they lurched downstairs again.
"Wot'll we do now?" asked Bill, his face pale with fright. "They'll be on us before morning, sure!"
"Certain!" said Oswald.
"I ain't goin' back," said Sam doggedly. "I'm fed up." He stood and tried to think, his mind harassed by the necessity for a disguise which had been suggested to it.
Bill drank deeply from his tankard and, in the middle of the draught, was visited by a brilliant idea.
"I know," he cried. "Let's cut the letters orf our uniforms. They won't be able to tell w'ere we come from an' we can make up some yarn—say we found 'em—'ad our own togs pinched by the soldiers."
The others seized on the suggestion. To their alcoholised brains the plan seemed more than feasible; it was certain of success. Feverishly and clumsily they ripped the regimental letters from each other's uniforms and cast them into the fire. The identification labels, everything which could point to their connection with the army, followed. They stood, anonymous it seemed to them, in their stripped khaki.
"That's done wiv," said Sam, with a heavy sigh. "Let's 'ave some more beer."
Joyous now, their minds relieved of the fear of recapture, the trio refilled their tankards and their pipes. They settled themselves again.
"I say, mates," said Oswald, "ever 'eard the yarn of the bloke 'oo——?" He told the story and, ere the noisy laughter which greeted the end had died away, began another. He revealed himself as a fellow of rare social qualities. His repertory of anecdotes, many of them relating shady episodes of his own career, was inexhaustible. On his own confession he was a sharper or worse; the humour of his experiences the eternal humour of the sharp-witted clown and the dull policeman. He diversified his entertainment with comic songs rendered with more verve than elegance. Bill obliged with others of a sentimental nature. They drank beer and more beer. They bellowed out choruses whose rhythm was marked by the heavy beating of tankards upon the table and laughed and shouted as though they sat at a "free-and-easy" in the Old Kent Road. The fire blazed up the chimney, fed by chairs demolished one after another. Such merry men as they could not condescend to the fetching of fuel. The room was thick with tobacco-smoke. On the floor little lakes of beer communicated by a rivulet whose source was the spigot of the barrel. The three men gave themselves up to a roaring orgy. They forgot entirely the army which was marching away from them, the other army which approached.
At last, in an atmosphere heavy with debauch, they slumbered, three worthless soldiers of whom any army was well rid.
Sam was awakened from a muddled dream of a tenement near the Old Kent Road by a rough hand upon his shoulder and the sound of a peremptory voice.
"All-ri', Bill," he murmured, "revalley 'asn't sounded yet." Then he opened his eyes, tried to orientate himself in his surroundings. It was morning. He was in an unfamiliar room and the room was filled with unfamiliar men, dressed in a strange uniform. His shoulder was again roughly shaken. The voice, uttering words foreign to him, but whose meaning was not in doubt, spoke again. A strange stern face was thrust close to his. Sam got on his feet, still bewildered. Immediately he felt his arm firmly grasped. His companions were undergoing similar treatment. At the sight of them, the incidents of the previous night returned to his memory. Recapture? He was reassured by the foreign incomprehensible language about him. He would give himself up comfortable as a prisoner. His dangers were over.
Oswald was in the grasp of two stalwart captors, the frightened eyes in his cunning little face looking up wildly into their unemotional countenances. Bill, who had slid with his head under a chair in the stupor which followed their orgy, was less easy to awaken. The strange soldiers kicked him liberally, eliciting sleepy curses but scarce a movement.
Sam could not repress a grin; Bill's morning recall to the sorrows of this waking world was usually made in this manner.
Then he was pushed on by a firm, unrelenting hand which reminded him vividly of that of a policeman. As he was propelled through the door he had a glimpse of Bill being hoisted bodily on to his feet by several of the strange soldiers. Behind him, Oswald was asking imploring questions in his thin expostulating voice. They received no reply. The trio were pushed swiftly, inexorably, into the street.
Outside in the bright sunshine they perceived that the village was full of cavalrymen garbed in an unfamiliar uniform. Their position was obvious. They had been captured by the enemy's advance-guard. Just without the door they were halted and the danger of any movement was explained to them in dumb show by a soldier who allowed them a disconcerting view down the muzzle of a rifle.
In front of the inn was a rustic bench and table, occupied at the moment by a big, fair-moustached man who bent over a map. Around him a group of officers stood waiting in respectful attitudes. Presently the fair-moustached man looked up and said a few words to one of the officers. He had a good-humoured, smiling face, that man. The trio contemplated it anxiously and drew some comfort from its jovial appearance.
Sam turned to his companions.
"Mates," he said huskily, "we're copped. But mind, we don't know nuffink. We ain't goin' to give the boys away, are we?"