Part 23

“Quite right! Your experience will at all events bring sympathy to his work.”

“That’s why I took up nursing, four years ago.”

“Good girl! You’re the right kind for a doctor’s wife,” and then he shook hands with them, patted Con on the shoulder and bade him get ready for the move into town, shook hands cordially also with Robert Grant and told him they would know one another better before long, and then hurried into his impatient motor and whirled away back to town.

“Now isn’t that wonderful?” said Con, with a happier face than he had worn since Landrecies.

“He’s splendid,” said Alma. “I love him already.”

“For your sake I am very thankful, my dear boy,” said his mother. “God is very gracious to us. If He takes, He also gives, and His ways are very wonderful.”

XXXVI

Ray Luard was having the time of his life out there, in the sodden fields and soggy mud-holes which did duty for trenches in north-west France.--The time of his life, but not in most respects as the term is usually applied.

It was a perpetual amazement to him that anything human and non-amphibious could stand it. That boys, brought up to the comforts and amenities of life, could not only stand it but could and did maintain exceeding cheerfulness under it, provoked his profoundest admiration. And regarding himself aloofly, and from the outside as it were, he shared in his own amazement at his own share in it, and took no little credit to himself, for he certainly never would have believed himself capable of it.

But they all kept in mind, and constantly chuckled over, the vehement exhortation of a certain well-known General, who had inspected them shortly after that ghastly-glorious night at Messines.

“Keep your billets clean! Keep your bodies clean! Cock your bonnets! And, for God’s sake, smile!”--was what he asked of them; and there had been no more-smiling faces or perkier fighters along that sorely-pressed Western front than the boys with the bare knees and swinging kilts since he said it.

They splashed and floundered along roads a foot deep in slime to get to their advance trenches, where the mud and water were at times up to their waists.

They sank and stuck bodily in affectionately glutinous mixtures which would not let them go till at times they paid toll of shoes and almost of the feet inside them.

For ten days at a time, on occasion, they never had their boots off--unless the mud took them by force,--nor their sodden clothes.

They were plastered with mud from head to foot. Their kilts, water-logged and frozen and tagged with mud, scored their bare legs. They ate in mud, they slept in mud. And when their off-time came, if they could find a blanket to wrap round their muddy bodies before depositing them on a stony floor in the rear, they thanked God for it and accounted themselves rich, and slept like troopers.

Circumstances rendered full compliance with the vehement General’s exhortations impossible, but what they could they did,--they cocked their bonnets, and for God’s sake and their country’s, they smiled.

It was the most wonderful and soul-bracing exhibition of the power of mind over matter that Ray Luard had ever seen, and he would not have missed his share in it for any money.

At times they had a few days’ rest in the rear,--for the time being no longer actual targets for shells though an occasional one came closer than was necessary to their comfort, but the sound of the guns was never out of their ears, and at all times they were liable to sudden urgent summons to stiffen the front against unexpected assault.

It snowed, and it sleeted, and it rained and froze, and the trampled mud of the highways and byways got deeper and deeper and ever more tenacious in its grip on them.

At the rear they slept off their first dog-tiredness and had hot baths and an occasional impromptu concert. They ate and drank in peace and comparative comfort, and always, for God’s sake and their country’s, they smiled. And now and again,--impressive under such circumstances even to the most frivolous,--they had Church Parade and Communion. Then, rest-time over, away back to the water-logged trenches and all the stress and strain, and the ever-present chance of sudden death.

Ray’s great time came about the end of January, when the Hodden-Grays were sent to hold some trenches in a brickfield, and they had barely taken possession when, in the early morning, the enemy made a dead set all along that portion of the line and succeeded in denting it in places. They had quietly sapped up close to the advance trench and mined it. They fired their mines, threw in smoky bombs, and in the confusion got in under cover of the smoke with the bayonet.

The Scots gave them a warm welcome, and there was some very pretty fighting in the dark, and many a fine deed done of which none but the doers and the done ever heard a word.

But, as it chanced, Ray’s doings stood out somewhat prominently.

When he raced with his company into the brickfield, floundering all of them in the dark over piles of bricks and into shell-craters full of water, they found the late occupants of the trench holding a brick-kiln as a defensive work against the irrupting Huns who seemed all over the place.

A Sergeant was in charge and gave Ray hasty word of what had happened. Their officers were down, and the enemy’s onrush had been so sudden and overwhelming that it had been impossible to bring in either them or the machine-gun which was on a small platform at this end of the trench.

Ray saw his obvious work. He mustered his men behind the kiln, ordered bayonets, explained in two words what was required of them, and then with a cheery, “Strike sure, boys!”--they were off, with a Scottish yell that told the Huns their time was up and their presence there no longer desired.

A volley as they ran, and then quick work with the bayonet, and they were at the trench and across it, and that section was momentarily cleared.

Hasty search with electric torches--the wounded, including two officers, picked up and sent back,--the machine-gun and ammunition-boxes lifted and carried to the kiln, and as supports for the enemy came piling up and massed in front for another assault, they raced back to cover to prepare his welcome.

Ray, strung to concert pitch, flung his orders sharply.

“Wounded, down under!--Take those other kilns some of you,--lie flat,--make cover with the bricks! Don’t fire till they’re at the trench. Some of you up here! The rest where you can, and lie low! Up with that Maxim, Mac, and build a bit of a screen! Hand up those boxes, there!”

They toiled desperately, piling up little heaps of bricks on top of the kiln, and on the ground bricks, clay, mud, anything for cover, and then they lay flat, with their eyes glued to the parapet of the trench beyond.

“Here they come! Now, boys, give them blazes!” and rapider fire than the Hodden-Grays had ever produced in their lives before poured point-blank into the solid dark masses in front.

They went down in heaps before the pitiless hail. The rest came floundering over them and went down in turn.

On top of the kiln, Ray, with Mac’s good help, kept the Maxim going full blast. He pressed hard on the double button so that the trigger was held back out of the tumbler, and while Mac fed in the feed-belts for dear life, he slowly turned the muzzle from side to side so that the ceaseless stream of bullets met the stumbling line in front like a fiery fan. Nothing human could possibly stand so deadly a flailing. The floundering line yelled and cursed and withered away. That little fight was won.

Some of the boys, overstrung and mad with the blood-thirst, were for leaping out after them with the bayonet. But Ray sternly called them back.

They had won and he would take no risks.

Stretcher-bearers came hurrying up from the rear. The wounded were picked up and carried back, and Ray and Mac set the rest to work to strengthen their kiln-forts in case any further attempt should be made. Later, if the enemy’s guns found them out they would have to take to their trench again, but, for the time being, fairly dry bricks were better than eighteen inches of mud and water.

Before dawn a field kitchen came up to the rear within reach, and they got hot coffee and bread and bully beef, and ate with the gusto of men who have fought a good fight and won.

As soon as they could distinguish anything in the glimmering light, they crept out to pick up any of their wounded who might have been overlooked in the mêlée. And then they turned their attention to their fallen foes.

They lay in heaps, piled two and three on top of one another,--grim enough by reason of their numbers but, shot mostly in the body, not so ghastly as if they had been ripped to fragments by shell-fire.

Ray and his trusty Sergeant were prowling about when they came on an officer, buried all but his head under a pile of bodies. His eyes, straining and bloodshot with impotent fury, showed still plenty of life and ill-feeling in him, however sore his wounding.

Ray called up a couple of bearers and they all set to work to free him from his lugubrious load, and all the while he scowled at them like a vicious dog and said no word of thanks.

As they lifted off the last body, and bent to raise him, he drew his hand out of the breast of his unbuttoned greatcoat, and, before they knew what he was at, let fly with a large automatic pistol full at Ray. One bullet took off the lobe of his ear, the rest went crashing into his left shoulder. Before the vicious wretch could do any more mischief, Sergeant Mac brained him with a rifle-butt and hissed as requiem, “Ye dirrrty snake!” and then turned his attention to Ray.

“I’ll have to get back, Mac,” he said quietly, and started off at a quick walk.

“Ye’ll no!” and caught him as he reeled, and laid him gently on the stretcher.

“Look to things, Mac,” as he felt suddenly very tired and inclined to sleep.

“Go quick, boys!” ordered Mac. “His shoulder’s in rags and he’ll bleed out unless you get him tied up.”

One of them pulled out bandages and hastily padded and bound the ragged shoulder, and then they set off as fast as the broken ground would let them.

“During the night the enemy made a violent assault on our advanced trenches. It was repulsed with loss. Our positions are maintained,”--said the despatches.

XXXVII

Lois had had no letter from the front for four days, which was a day longer than the longest between-time for a long while now, and she was feeling somewhat anxious.

“But,” she reassured herself, “delays must happen at times, and letters may even get lost. I have been wonderfully fortunate so far, and I will not be over-anxious or upset. If I have any belief at all in the efficacy of prayer I must keep my heart up and keep on hoping.”

And she prayed as she had never prayed before, but found herself bewildered at times when she thought that millions of other women were praying just as earnestly for their own dear ones, and it was impossible that all those prayers should be answered by the safe return of those they prayed for. Women in millions were praying and men in thousands were falling. Still she would go on praying and hoping. For there was nothing else she could do.

She prayed straight for Ray’s safe deliverance. She wondered at times if it were quite right to do so. But she went on praying for it, and as the days passed letterless spent much time upon her knees in great agony of mind, in spite of all her efforts after equanimity.

Why should he be spared when so many were taken? Yet, “Oh, deliver him from danger and send him back to me!” was the burden of her prayers, and at times she caught herself remonstrating with God against any smaller answer.

But by degrees she came to higher thought and sobbed, “I do not know what to ask for, Lord. Have him in Thy Care and do what is best for us.”

And it was while she was on her knees so praying one day, that there came a hasty tap on her door, and her mother’s voice--like the voice of an angel,--“Lois--a letter--from Ray,” and she thanked God fervently and ran to open the door.

There was no mistaking the handwriting. She kissed it delightedly, tore it open, and savoured its news almost at a glance.

“He is wounded,” she jerked, as she skimmed it rapidly for her mother’s benefit. “Getting over it all right.... Will be sent home shortly ... may be out of it for the rest of the war.... Oh, I can’t help wishing he might! Surely we have done our share, Mother!”

“Thank God, he is safe!” said Mrs Dare fervently.

“Now suppose you come downstairs and tell us all about it. Auntie Mitt is in a fever to know, and Vic is like a ghost.”

“I’ll follow you in one minute, dear,”--and on her knees she read her precious letter carefully through once more, then bowed her head in gratitude for its good news, and ran downstairs like herself again.

“I am glad, my dear,” said Auntie Mitt, with watery sparkles in her eyes, as Lois kissed her exuberantly, “--very glad indeed. Now we would like to hear all about it.”

“Sorry to have missed a mail or two, as I know it will have made you anxious,” Ray wrote, “but there was no help for it. We had a rather rough scrap with the Boches, the other night, and I got it at last in the arm,--the left fortunately, as you see. They attacked in force and we held them with the help of some brick-kilns and finally drove them off. One line in the papers, I expect,--if that!--but it was tolerably hot work. It was afterwards that I got my little jag. We were picking up wounded and came on an officer--a Prussian captain. He was under a pile of his own dead, and as we released him he pulled out an automatic and gave it me in the shoulder. Took off a bit of my ear also, but that’s a trifle----”

“The horrid brute!” raged Lois.

“--He didn’t get much satisfaction out of it, however,”--said the letter--“for Sergeant Mac who was with me picked up a rifle and brained him on the spot.”

“Served him right!” said Lois, and then remembered that two minutes ago she was on her knees thanking God for Ray’s safety. “It’s horrible. It makes one blood-thirsty to think of it.”

“It must be awful to be in it,” said Mrs Dare. “No wonder they do dreadful things at times, when simply hearing of a treachery like this makes our blood boil because it happens to come so close home to us.”

“It seems to me things are getting worse in war instead of better,” said Auntie Mitt plaintively.

“--They got me to the dressing station and tied me up, and eventually sent me down on the ambulance train to Boulogne, where I now am,--being very nicely attended to and as comfortable as can be. It is heavenly to be clean again and between clean sheets. It is not easy to know how we stood the trenches so well;--now that I’m out of them the conditions seem perfectly horrible. And yet we lived--and ‘for God’s sake smiled!’ They are saying that our stand that night saved a critical position. Several top-notties have called to congratulate me, and it’s said both Mac and I are to have the V.C. You see, we were lucky enough to bring in quite a respectable bag of wounded from the trench,--and so if I come back with only one arm _and_ the V.C., you’ll have to try and put up with me as best you can.”

“Won’t I?” said Lois rapturously.

“--Don’t think of coming out, dear. I know that would be your first thought----”

“Of course it was!”

“--Everything is being done for me excellently well, and as soon as I am fit again, and properly rested, I shall be sent over. Your minds may be quite easy on my account.”

“Thank God, it is no worse!” said Mrs Dare fervently.

“Amen!” said Lois.

* * * * *

And there this brief glimpse into the home-side of the war-clouds may very well stop for the time being.

In this six short months, Life and Death have been busier among us all than ever before in the history of the world.

Old and young have lived mightily and died nobly. They have died like men and fallen like princes. Not one of the lives so freely given for The Great Idea has been wasted--not one. The life of the community at large, brought so closely into touch with death, has been quickened and raised to higher levels.

But the earth is full of mourning, for War is an evil evil thing, and its fiery trail is strewn with broken lives and broken hopes and broken hearts.

_Printed by_ MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED _Edinburgh_

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced.

This book contains many words in dialect, and they are not always spelled or punctuated in the same way.