AFTER writing my prophecy concerning Driver Trottrot, I lay down to snatch a few hours sleep. My batman had spread my sleeping-sack on the tiled floor of the cottage bedroom in which I and three of my brother officers were billeted. The other three had been breathing heavily for some hours, wearied by the night’s march. They had not removed more than their boots and tunics for fear we should receive hurried orders to take to the road again. They lay curled up like dogs, with their knees drawn to their chins, for all the world like aborigines who had scooped a hole in the leaves of a forest. One learns to sleep that way on active service and to lose no time in tumbling off. My last memory was of wide-open lattice-windows, the heavy listlessness of garden-flowers and the perfumed stillness of trees drowsing in the sultry August sun.

I was wakened by someone shaking my arm, and opened my eyes to find Driver Trottrot bending over me. His expression was a little alarmed at the liberty he was taking. “I wasn’t told to come to you, sir,” he explained quickly; “but I thought you ought to know. The boys were paid after morning stables, before they’d had anything to eat. A lot of these Frenchies started selling them vin blink. What with having had no sleep and then getting that stuff on their empty stomachs, they’re getting fighting drunk. It’s none of my business, but I thought you ought to stop it.”

“Good for you, Trottrot,” I said. “Chuck me over my boots; I’ll be with you in half a second.”

For a moment I had a mind to rouse the other, officers, but they looked so fagged that I determined to let them sleep on. I finished buttoning my tunic and buckling my Sam Browne as I hurried across the common. We passed over the little bridge, consisting of a single plank, and struck the road which led towards the horse-lines and the centre of the village. As we walked I questioned Trottrot, trying to tap the experience he possessed as the exprofessional “bad man” of the Canadian Corps. “Why do the chaps do things like this? Getting drunk isn’t enjoyable and the after effects must be rotten.”

“Chaps get drunk for various reasons.” he answered. “They do it to forget; it isn’t all honey being a gunner or a driver, and kicked around by everybody. They do it because some N. C. O. or officer has got a grouch against them, and picks on them so that they can’t do anything right. They do it because they get tired of going straight; polishing harness and grooming horses three times a day is monotonous. They do it because there’s nothing else to do, and they do it because they’re lonely. Some does it because they likes it—it makes them feel that they own the world for a little while and are as good as anybody. And then there’s those that does it because they’re frightened.”

“How do you mean, frightened?”

“Well, sir, the war’s been going on for four years and it looks as though it might go on for twenty. A good many of us chaps have been wounded several times; we’ve not been killed yet, but we feel that our luck can’t last. Each new attack that we come through lessens our chances. We know that sooner or later we’re going to get it—and then it’s pushing daisies for us, with nobody caring much. This new attack is worse than the others; we’re told nothing and can only imagine. It isn’t good to imagine. It’s the suspense and the guessing that wears one. It’s different for you, sir, than it is for us—you have to set an example. It’s much harder just to follow. One has an awful lot of time for thinking on a long night march—he sees himself all messed up. It’s to stop thinking that most chaps get drunk.”

We were in the village by now, approaching the horse-lines. From the pretty cottages, which had looked so innocent in the early morning, came sounds of coarse laughter and discordant singing. Groups of men, swaying on their feet and arguing with uncouth, threatening gestures, tried to stand absurdly to attention and salute as we passed. “Vin blink,” as the Tommies call the poisonous concoction which is sold them as “white wine,” was doing its worst. No poilu would pour it down his gullet. Whatever it is made of, it acts like acid and works like poison in. the blood; especially is this the case with men who have been free from alcohol up front and are wearied in mind and body. A good deal of the traffic is carried on during prohibited hours and by unlicensed persons, at exorbitant rates and with a criminal disregard for consequences. Yet if property is damaged or a civilian assaulted the last centime of indemnity is exacted, the claims being pressed against defendants who are again in the line, making life safe for the relentless plaintiffs. Temptation is made easy for the Tommy; under the influence of “vin blink” he causes most of his trouble. A girl is usually the bait; she stands woodenly smiling in the doorway of her particular estaminet that he may see her as his unit enters a village. During all the four years of fighting this peculiarly cowardly form of profiteering has been going on. Nothing effectual has been done to stop it.

This being a village in which we had formerly been billeted, our men had required no one to give them pointers. At the morning stables they had been warned to keep sober and get all the sleep that was possible; but the moment they were dismissed, they had scattered to the various cottages where drink was obtainable. By this time many of them were mellow and some were completely intoxicated. On arriving at the horse-lines we found them lying beneath the guns and wagons and on the bales of hay, either dead to the world or staring dreamily at nothing. “One sees himself all messed up. It’s to stop thinking that most chaps get drunk!”

Poor laddies! They were little more than boys. Life hadn’t been over-gay for them since war started; by all accounts it would be even less gay in the coming months. Their faces told the story; boys of twenty looked forty. Their cheeks were hollow and lined; in their eyes was a strained expression of haggard expectancy. They were brave; they always would be brave. Their pride of race kept them up. Directly the battle had really started they would become alert and eager as runners. But for the moment they had broken training; the long tension had proved too much. They had seized their opportunity for forgetfulness. Throughout the fields and beneath the trees, wherever there was a bit of shade they lay fallen and crumpled, their tunics flung aside and their shirts torn open to the chest. They would look very much like this one day when the tornado of bullets and shell-fire had swept over them. The thought made me sick; the picture was too horribly similar and realistic. It was only when I looked at the horses, strung out in three long lines, peacefully swishing their tails and nosing round for any wisps of hay that were remaining, that I felt assured that the catastrophe which was always coming nearer, had not yet befallen.

The important task before us was to get them collected up and safely into billets, where they could sleep off the effects of their debauch. Any moment we might get orders to hook in and continue the march. It was unlikely that we would be given such orders until the cool of the evening; but should some emergency make the step necessary, we would find ourselves in a pretty mess. Suzette had already realised the seriousness of the situation; out in the meadows, where men had thrown themselves down in the glaring sun, I could see her rousing them and helping them to get under cover. The great danger from the individual man’s point of view, was that in his befuddled state he might wander away and be missing when we took up our march again. What would follow would depend on each particular Tommy. If he had sense, when he found that he had lost his unit, he would report to the first British officer he encountered and get a written statement from the officer to that effect. Every day that he was absent, until he re-found us, he would get a signed reference as to his movements. If, however, on coming out of his stupor he got frightened, he might hide himself; in which case, though he originally had no intention to desert, his action would be interpreted as desertion. Many a man has been court-martialed and condemned, when his only fault was stupidity ana ignorance of military procedure.

You can’t “crime” two-thirds of a battery; the only thing to be done was to take steps to avoid the consequences. I sent the guard to summon all the N.C.O.’. and officers to the horse-lines. We then brought together all the men who were still fit for duty and, having increased the guard, set to work to carry or lead all those who were incapable back to their quarters. When we had called the roll and knew that no one was absent, we made a search for any drink that might be concealed about the men’s persons and then proceeded to sober up the worst cases by dashing buckets of water over them. When this had been done, we placed an armed guard at the entrance to every billet, with orders to permit no one to go out or to enter. We then left them to sleep it off.

At sun-down a dispatch-rider dashed up to Brigade Headquarters. The sound of his motorbike chugging through the village had been sufficient warning to all the officers’ messes; there were representatives from all the batteries waiting in the courtyard when the adjutant came out to give us the Colonel’s orders. “The orders are to hook in at once and be ready to move off by 9 p.m.”

“In what direction?” we asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, “and that’s no lie. The Colonel doesn’t know, but he’s off to see the General. In any case we shan’t be told until the last minute.” Then commenced the appalling job of getting a half-sober battery harnessed up, hooked in and looking sufficiently respectable that its true condition might not be apparent. This was a case when the Iron discipline of the Army showed at its best. A well-disciplined unit is never so drunk that it can’t beat a teetotal one in which the discipline is lax. It was extraordinary how under the spur of necessity the men pulled themselves together; they had learnt how to make their insubordinate bodies obey their wills up front, flogging them forward to victory through mud and cold and weariness. With leaden eyes and shaking hands, they went through all the familiar motions, so that the battery was mounted and sitting to attention a quarter of an hour before the time appointed struck. In the inspection that followed, hardly a buckle was out of place or a piece of equipment ill-adjusted.

But there were some men who were kept hidden till the last moment—these were the dead drunk. It was our purpose to bring them out only at the last moment when, trusting to the gathering darkness to conceal their condition, we planned to bind them to the seats of the guns with drag-ropes. It takes all kinds to make an army; some who are the worst actors out at rest, are the finest heroes in action.

“There’s those that does it because they’re frightened.” That thought kept running through my head as I searched the stern and haggard faces of these boys who had been shipped from the ends of the earth to die together. They didn’t took the kind to be easily frightened. I knew they weren’t the kind, for I’d seen them fighting forward through the mud-bath of the Somme and driving their guns into action through the death-drops of Farbus. But no one can guess rightly the agony which lies hidden behind the impassive masque of the external.

The sunset, lying low on the horizon, cut a brilliant line behind the shoulders of the drivers, causing their metal-work to glitter and emphasising the erectness of their soldierly bearing in the saddle. They looked a very different lot from the disorganized mob which eight hours earlier had lain scattered throughout the ditches of the countryside.

We were waiting for the Major to arrive. He had gone to Brigade Headquarters with the other battery-commanders to receive final instructions from the Colonel. As we waited the pool of darkness, which had at first washed shallowly about the gun-wheels and feet of horses, began to creep higher, till only the heads of the men and horses remained distinct against the frieze of the vanishing sunset—all else was vague and lost. A nightingale in a neighboring thicket began to pour out its solitary song; far away in the intervals of silence a second bird answered. There was a heavy and yearning melancholy in what they said which played havoc with the accustomed stoicism of our hearts.

Suddenly along the road came the sound of a rider approaching at a rapid trot. The sharp tapping of the horse’s hoofs changed to a dull thudding as he turned into the field. Then the thudding stepped. The Major’s voice rang out in an abrupt word of command, “Fall out the officers.” From the various sections the officers galloped out and formed up before him in a half-circle.

“Take out your note-books and write down these names,” he said; “they’re the villages through which we shall pass on to-night’s march. You will not tell any of the men the names of the villages and you’ll burn your list in the morning. This information is only given to you in case some of the vehicles should break down, so that you may be able to bring them on to rejoin the main party. And remember, absolute secrecy is necessary. Here are the names.... Be careful with your flashlights as you write them down: keep them shaded. We don’t want any Hun planes to get wind of us.” When we had replaced our notebooks he nodded shortly, “That’s all. In about five minutes we move off.”

As I rejoined my section the Number One of A. Sub rode up and saluted. “One of my men’s missing, sir. He’s Gunner Standish—a steady, quiet sort of lad: the chap as kept the gun in action single-handed, when all the rest of the crew was knocked out in the Willerval racket.”

I remembered Standish well; I had had him in mind for the next promotion. He had won the Military Medal for his gallantry at Willerval, for fighting his gun alone, when the pit had become a shamble? and all his comrades were lying about him, either wounded or dead. A fine piece of work, and especially fine for a chap of his nature, for he was nervous and high-strung, and only seventeen, though in his keenness to enlist he had stated his military age as twenty.

I turned to the Number One brusquely. “But you reported your subsection as complete a good half hour ago?”

“And it was complete then, sir. I spoke with the man myself. He slipped off while we was waiting for the Major; he didn’t ask no permission and didn’t say a word to any one.”

“Perhaps he’d remembered that he’d left behind some of his kit. You’d better send someone after him at the double. Probably you’ll find him in his billets.”

“I’ve done that, sir, and he wasn’t there.”

“Had he been drinking?”

The Sergeant shook his head. “It doesn’t sound like Standish. He came of good people and was a trustworthy, well-conducted chap. He’s never been up for office and was proud of it.”

“Well,” I said, “I’ll have to report to the Major, and then you and I will go and search for him. I’ll wager we’ll find him in his billets.”

The Major told me “Righto,” and not to be long. We weren’t running a kindergarten. If the chap got left behind, it was his own look-out.

As we hurried through the battery, they were carrying out the men who were incapable and lashing them with drag-ropes to the gun-seats like sacks. The billets were not more than a hundred and fifty yards from the horse-lines; they consisted of a mouldy stable, standing on one side of a farm-yard, the whole of which was made foul by an accumulation of manure, a? is the custom in French farmyards.

We tiptoed our way across the reeking mess, choosing our path so as not to sink too deeply into it. At the doorway of the low barn-like stricture, we called the man’s name, “Standish.” When he did not answer, I loosened my flashlight from my belt and swept the ray along the broken floor and into the farthest corners. It seemed not unlikely that he might have fallen asleep there. All I saw was the refuse of worn-out equipment and empty bean-tins neatly gathered up into sacks. Already I could hear the first of the teams pulling out and the rattling of the guns on the road as they left the padded surface of the turf. If we did not hurry, we should be left behind ourselves.

“I told you he wasn’t here, sir,” the Sergeant said.

Just as we were leaving, I flashed my light round the building for one last look. In so doing I tilted the lamp, so that the ray groped among the rafters of the roof. The Sergeant started back with a curse, knocking the lamp from my hand. Just above his head he had seen it hanging, its face staring down at him crookedly.

We were too late when we cut him down; so we moved out that night upon our anonymous march with an extra passenger lashed to a gun-seat, on whose incapacity we had not counted.

The nightingales were still singing in the thickets when we left, singing of things forsaken, of beauty and of passion. I could not shake off the impression that it was their sweet, intolerable melancholy which had urged him to do it. If we had taken to the road an hour earlier, he would have been saved from that act. Poor lad! He had played the game to the top of his bent, till he had passed the limit of his power to suffer. What was the limit of us who remained? How much further had we to go till we reached the breaking-point?

“There’s those that does it because they’re frightened.” Trottrot knew of what he was talking.