Chapter 15

"The men," said the Colonel tartly, "are not going to be asked what they'd like any more than I've been. I want you each to go down quietly and have a look over at the new ground, tell the company commanders what the job is, and have a talk with me after as to what you think is the best way of setting about it."

That afternoon Lieutenant Riley and Lieutenant Brock took turns in peering through a periscope at the line of the new trench, and discussed the problem presented.

"It's all very fine," grumbled Riley, "for the O.C. to say the men must dig because he says so. You can take a horse to the water where you can't make it drink, and by the same token you can put a spade in a man's hand where you can't make him dig, or if he does dig he'll only do it as slow and gingerly as if it were his own grave and he was to be buried in it as soon as it was ready."

"Don't talk about burying," retorted Brock. "It isn't a pleasant subject with so many candidates for a funeral scattered around the front door."

He sniffed the air, and made an exclamation of disgust:

"They haven't even been chloride-of-limed," he said. "A lot of lazy, untidy brutes that battalion must have been we have just relieved."

Riley stared again into the periscope: "It's German the most of them are, anyway," he said, "that's one consolation, although it's small comfort to a sense of smell. I say, have a look at that man lying over there, out to the left of the listening-post. His head is towards us, and his hair is white as driven snow. They must be getting hard up for men to be using up the grandfathers of that age."

Brock examined the white head carefully. "He's a pretty old stager," he said, "unless he's a young 'un whose hair has turned white in a night like they do in novels; or, maybe he's a General."

"A General!" said Riley, and stopped abruptly. "Man, now, wait a minute. A General!" he continued musingly, and then suddenly burst into chuckles, and nudged Brock in the ribs. "I have a great notion," he said, "gr-r-reat notion, Brockie. What'll you bet I don't get the men coming to us before night with a petition to be allowed to do some digging?"

Brock stared at him. "You're out of your senses," he said. "I'd as soon expect them to come with a petition to be allowed to sign the pledge."

"Well, now listen," said Riley, "and we'll try it, anyway."

He explained swiftly, while over Brock's face a gentle smile beamed and widened into subdued chucklings.

"Here's Sergeant Clancy coming along the trench," said Riley. "You have the notion now, so play up to me, and make sure Clancy hears every word you say."

"I want to see that General of theirs the Bosche prisoner spoke about," said Riley, as Clancy came well within earshot. "An old man, the Bosche said he was, with a head of hair as white and shining as a gull's wing."

"I'm not so interested in his shining head," said Brock, "as I am in the shining gold he carries on him. Doesn't it seem sinful waste for all that good money to be lying out there?"

Out of the tail of his eye Riley saw the sergeant halt and stiffen into an attitude of listening. He turned round.

"Was it me you wanted to see, Clancy?" he said.

"No, sorr--yes, sorr," said Clancy hurriedly, and then more slowly, in neat adoption of the remarks he had just heard: "Leastways, sorr, I was just afther wondering if you had heard anything of this tale of a German Gineral lying out there on the ground beyanst."

"You mean the one that was shot last week?" said Riley.

"Him with the five thousand francs in his breeches pocket, and the diamond-studded gold watch on his wrist?" said Brock.

"The same, sorr, the same!" said Clancy eagerly, and with his eyes glistening. "And have you made out which of them he is, sorr?"

"No," said Riley shortly. "And remember, Sergeant, there are to be no men going over the parapet this night without orders. The last battalion in here lost a big handful of men trying to get hold of that General, but the Germans were watching too close, and they've got a machine-gun trained to cover him. See to it, Clancy! That's all now."

Sergeant Clancy moved off, but he went reluctantly.

"Why didn't you give him a bit more?" asked Brock.

"Because I know Clancy," said Riley, whispering. "If we had said more now, he might have suspected a plant. As it is, he's got enough to tickle his curiosity, and you can be sure it won't be long before a gentle pumping performance is in operation."

Sergeant Clancy came in sight round the traverse again, moving briskly, but obviously slowing down as he passed them, and very obviously straining to hear anything they were saying. But they both kept silent, and when he had disappeared round the next traverse, Riley grinned and winked at his companion.

"He's hooked, Brockie," he said exultantly.

"Now you wait and--" He stopped as a rifle-man moved round the corner and took up a position on the firing step near them.

"I'll bet," said Riley delightedly, "Clancy has put him there to listen to anything he can catch us saying."

He turned to the man, who was clipping a tiny mirror on to his bayonet and hoisting it to use as a periscope.

"Are you on the look-out?" he asked. "And who posted you there?"

"It was Sergeant Clancy, sir," answered the man. "He said I could hear better--I mean, see better," he corrected himself, "from here."

Riley abruptly turned to their own periscope and apparently resumed the conversation.

"I'm almost sure that's him with the white head," said Riley. "Out there, about forty or fifty yards from the German parapet, and about a hundred yards ten o'clock from our listening-post. Have a look."

He handed the periscope over to Brock, and at the same time noticed how eagerly the sentry was also having a look into his own periscope.

"I've got him," said Brock. "Yes, I believe that's the man."

"What makes it more certain," said Riley, "is that hen's scratch of a trench the other battalion started to dig out to the listening-post. They couldn't crawl out in the open to get to the General, and it's my belief they meant to drive a sap out to the listening-post, and then out to the General, and yank him in, so they could go through his pockets."

"It's a good bit of work to get at a dead man," said Brock reflectively.

"It is," said Riley, "but it isn't often you can drive a sap with five thousand francs at the end of it."

"To say nothing of a diamond-studded gold watch," said Brock.

"Well, well," said Riley, "I suppose the Germans won't be leaving him lying out there much longer. I hear the last battalion bagged quite a bunch that tried to creep out at night to get him in; but I suppose our fellows, not knowing about it, won't watch him so carefully."

They turned the conversation to other and more casual things, and shortly afterwards moved off.

The first-fruits of their sowing showed within the hour, when some of the officers were having tea together in a corner of a ruined cottage, which had been converted into a keep.

The servant who was preparing tea had placed a battered pot on the half of a broken door, which served for a mess table; had laid out a loaf of bread, tin pots of jam, a cake, and a flattened box of flattened chocolates, and these offices having been fully performed he should have retired. Instead, however, he fidgeted to and fro, offered to pour the tea from the dented coffee-pot, asked if anything more was wanted, pushed the loaf over to the Captain, apologizing at length for the impossibility of getting a scrape of butter these days; hovered round the table, and generally made it plain that he had something he wished to say, or that he supposed they had something to say he wished to hear.

"What are you dodging about there for, man?" the Captain asked irritably at last. "Is it anything you want?"

"Nothing, sorr," said the man, "only I was just wondering if you had heard annything of a Gineral with fifty thousand francs in his pocket, lying out there beyond the trench."

"Five thousand francs," corrected Riley gently.

"'Twas fifty thousand I heard, sorr," said the man eagerly; "but ye have heard, then, sorr?"

"What's this about a General?" demanded the Captain.

"Yes!" said Riley quickly. "What is it? We have heard nothing of the General."

"Ah!" said the messman, eyeing him thoughtfully, "I thought maybe ye had heard."

"We have heard nothing," said Riley. "What is it you are talking about?"

"About them fifty thousand francs, sorr," said the messman, cunningly, "or five thousand, was it?"

"What's this?" said the Captain, and the others making no attempt to answer his question, left the messman to tell a voluble tale of a German General ("though 'twas a Field-Marshal some said it was, and others went the length of Von Kluck himself") who had been killed some days before, and lay out in the open with five thousand, or fifty thousand, francs in his breeches pocket, a diamond-studded gold watch on his wrist, diamond rings on his fingers, and his breast covered with Iron Crosses and jeweled Orders.

That both Riley and Brock, as well as the Captain, professed their profound ignorance of the tale only served, as they well knew, to strengthen the Tearaways Rifles' belief in it, and after the man had gone they imparted their plan with huge delight and joyful anticipation to the Captain.

When they had finished tea and left the keep to return to their own posts, they were met by Sergeant Clancy.

"I just wanted to speak wid you a moment, sorr," he said. "I have been looking at that listening-post, and thinking to myself wouldn't it be as well if we ran a sap out to it; it would save the crawling out across the open at night, and keeping the men--and some wounded among them maybe--cooped up the whole day."

"There's something in that," said the Captain, pretending to reflect. "And I see the last battalion had made something of a beginning to dig a trench out to the post."

"And they must have been thinking with their boots when they dug it there," said Riley. "A trench on that side is open to enfilade fire. It should have been dug out from the left corner of that curve instead of the right."

"If you would speak to the O.C. about it, sorr," said Clancy, "he might be willing to let us dig it. The men is fresh, too, and won't harm for a bit of exercise."

"Very well," said the Captain carelessly, "we'll see about it to-morrow."

"Begging your pardon, sorr," said Clancy, "I was thinking it would be a good night tonight, seein' there's a strong wind blowing that would deaden the sound of the digging."

"That's true enough," the Captain said slowly. "I think it's an excellent idea, Clancy, and I'll speak to the O.C., and tell him you suggested it."

A few minutes after, an orderly brought a message that the O.C. was coming round the trenches to see the company commanders. The company commanders found him with rather a sharp edge to his temper, and Captain Conroy, to whom Riley and Brock had confided the secret of their plans, concluded the moment was not a happy one for explaining the ruse to the O.C. He, therefore, merely took his instructions for the detailing of a working party from his company, and the hour at which they were to commence.

"And remember," said the O.C. sharply, "you will stand no nonsense over this work. If you think any man is loafing or not doing his full share, make him a prisoner, or do anything else you think fit. I'll back you in it, whatever it is."

Conroy murmured a "Very good, sir," and left it at that. When he returned to his company he made arrangements for the working party, implying subtly to Sergeant Clancy that the trench was to be started as the result of his, the sergeant's, arguments.

Clancy went back to the men in high feather:

"I suppose now," he said complacently, "there's some would be like to laugh if they were told that a blessed sergeant could be saying where and when he'd be having this trench or that trench dug or not dug; but there's more ways of killing a cat than choking it with butter, and Ould Prickles can take a hint as good as the next man when it's put to him right."

"Prickles," be it noted, being the fitting, if somewhat disrespectful, name which the O.C. carried in the Rifles.

"It's yourself has the tongue on ye," admitted Rifleman McRory admiringly, "though I'm wonnering how'll you be schamin' to get another trench dug from the listening-post out to the Gineral."

"'Twill take some scheming," agreed another rifleman, "but maybe we can get round the officer that's in the listening-post to-night to let us drive a sap out."

"It's not him ye'll be getting round," said McRory, "for it's the Little Lad himself that's in it. But sure the Little Lad will be that glad to see me offer to take a pick in my hand that I believe he'd be willing to let me dig up his own grandfather's grave."

"We'll find some way when the time comes, never fear," said Sergeant Clancy, and the men willingly agreed to leave the matter in his capable hands.

Immediately after dark, the Little Lad, otherwise Lieutenant Riley, led his party at a careful crawl and in wide-spaced single file out to the listening-post, while Brock and the Captain crawled out with a couple of men, a white tape, and a handful of pegs apiece to mark out the line of the new trenches converging from the outside ends of the curved main trench to the listening-post.

When they returned and reported their job complete, the working parties crawled cautiously out. There were plenty of flares being thrown up from the German lines and a more or less erratic rifle fire was crackling up and down the trenches on both sides, the Tearaways taking care to keep their bullets clear of the working party, to fire no more than enough to allay any German suspicions of a job being in hand, and not to provoke any extra hostility.

The working party crept out one by one, carrying their rifles and their trenching tools, dropping flat and still in the long grass every time a light flared, rising and crawling rapidly forward in the intervals of darkness. When at last they were strung out at distances of less than a man's length, they stealthily commenced operations. A line of filled sandbags was handed out from the main trench and passed along the chain of men until each had been provided with one.

Making the sand-bag a foundation for head cover, the men began cautiously to cut and scoop the soft ground and pile it up in front of them. The grass was long and rank, and in the shifting light the work went on unobserved for over an hour. The men, cramped and uncomfortable, with every muscle aching from head to foot, worked doggedly, knowing each five minutes' work, each handful of earth scooped out and thrown up, meant an extra point off the odds on a bullet reaching them when the Germans discovered their operations and opened fire on the working party.

They still worked only in the dark intervals between the flares, and, of course, in as deep a silence as they possibly could. Brock and the Captain crawled at intervals up and down the line with a word of praise or a reproach dropped here and there as it was needed. At the end of one trip, Brock crept into the listening-post and conversed in whispers with Riley, his fellow-conspirator.

"They're working like beavers," he said, "and, if the Boche doesn't twig the game for another half-hour, we'll have enough cover scooped out to go on without losing too many men from their fire."

Riley chuckled. "It's working fine," he said. "I'm only hoping that some ruffian doesn't spoil the game by crawling out and finding our General is no more than a false alarm."

"That would queer the pitch," agreed Brock, "but I don't fancy any one will try it. They all know the working party is liable to be discovered at any minute, and any one out in the open when that comes off, is going to be in a tight corner."

"There's a good many here," said Riley, "that would chance a few tight corners if they knew five thousand francs was at the other side of it; but I took the precaution to hint gently to Clancy that our machine gun was going to keep on spraying lead round the General all night, to discourage any private enterprise."

"Anyhow," said Brock, "I suppose the whole regiment's in it, and flatter themselves this trifle of digging is for the special benefit of their pockets. But what are those fellows of ours supposed to be digging at in the corner there!"

"That," whispered the Little Lad, grinning, "is merely an improving of the amenities of the listening-post and the beginning of a dugout shelter from bombs; at least, that's Clancy's suggestion, though I have a suspicion there will be no hurry to roof-in the dug-out and that its back-door will travel an unusual length out."

"Well, so long," said Brock; "I must sneak along again and have a look at the digging."

It was when he was half-way back to the main trench that it became apparent the German suspicions were aroused, and that something--a movement after a light flared, perhaps, or the line of a parapet beginning to show above the grass--had drawn their attention to the work.

Light after light commenced to toss in an unbroken stream from their parapet in the direction of the working party, and a score of bullets, obviously aimed at them, hissed close overhead.

"Glory be!" said Rifleman McRory, flattening himself to the ground. "It's a good foot and a half I have of head-cover, and I'm thinking it's soon we will be needing it, and all the rest we can get."

The flaring lights ceased again for a moment, and the men plied their tools in feverish haste to strengthen their scanty shelter against the storm they knew must soon fall upon them.

It came within a couple of minutes; again the lights streamed upward, and flares burst and floated down in dazzling balls of fierce white light, while the rifle-fire from the German parapet grew heavier and heavier. Concealment was no longer possible, and the word was passed to get along with the work in light or dark; and so, still lying flat upon their faces, and with the bullets hissing and whistling above them, slapping into the low parapet and into the bare ground beside them, the working party scooped and buried and scraped, knowing that every inch they could sink themselves or heighten their parapet added to their chance of life.

The work they had done gave them a certain amount of cover, at least for the vital parts of head and shoulders, but in the next half-hour there were many casualties, and man after man worked on with blood oozing through the hastily-applied bandage of a first field-dressing or crawled in under the scanty parapet and crouched there helplessly.

It was little use at that stage trying to bring in the wounded. To do so only meant exposing them to almost a certainty of another wound and of further casualties amongst the stretcher-bearers. One or two men were killed.

Lieutenant Riley, dragging himself along the line, found Rifleman McRory hard at work behind the shelter of a body rolled up on top of his parapet.

"It's killed he is," said McRory in answer to a question--"killed to the bone. He won't be feeling any more bullets that hit him, and it's himself would be the one to have said to use him this way."

Riley admitted the force of the argument and crept on. Work moved faster now that there was no need to wait for the periods between the lights; but the German fire also grew faster, and a machine gun began to pelt its bullets up and down the length of the growing parapet.

By now, fortunately, the separate chain of pits dug by each man were practically all connected up into a long, twisting, shallow trench. Down this trench the wounded were passed, and a fresh working party relieved the cramped and tired batch who had commenced the work.

In the main trench men had been hard at work filling sand-bags, and now these were passed out, dragged along from man to man, and piled up on the parapet, doubling the security of the workers and allowing them the greater freedom of rising to their knees to dig.

The rifles and maxims of the Tearaways had from the main trench kept up a steady volume of fire on the German parapet, in an endeavor to keep down its fire. They shot from the main trench in comparative safety, because the German fire was directed almost exclusively on the new trench.

Now that the new parapet had been heightened and strengthened, the casualties behind it had almost ceased, and the Tearaways were quite reasonably flattering themselves on the worst of the work being done and the worst of the dangers over. It appeared to them that the trench now provided quite sufficient shelter to fulfill both its ostensible object of allowing relief parties to move to and from the listening-post, and also their own private undertaking of attaining the dead General; but the O.C. and company commanders did not look on it in that light.

The order was to construct a firing trench, and that meant a good deal more work than had been done, so reliefs were kept going and the work progressed steadily all night, a good deal of impetus being given to it by some light German field-guns which commenced to scatter high-explosive shrapnel over the open ground.

The shooting, fortunately, was not very accurate, no doubt because, by the light of the flares, it was difficult for the German observers to direct their fire. But the hint was enough for the Tearaways, and they knew that daybreak would bring more accurate and more constant artillery fire upon the new position.

The British gunners had been warned not to open fire unless called upon, because a working party was in the open; but now the batteries were telephoned to with a request for shrapnel on the German parapets to keep down some of the heavy rifle fire.

Since the gunners had already registered the target of the German trench, their fire was just as accurate by night as it would be by day, and shell after shell burst over the German parapet, sweeping their trench with showers of shrapnel.

While all this was going on the men at the listening-post had tackled the job of driving their sap out to the German General. This work was done in a different fashion from the digging of the new trench.

The listening-post was merely a pit in the ground, originally a large shell crater, and deepened and widened until it was sufficiently large to hold half-a-dozen men. At one side of the pit the men commenced with pick and spade to hack out an opening like a very narrow doorway.

As the earth was broken down and shoveled back, the doorway gradually grew to be a passage. In this two men at a time worked in turn, the one on the right-hand side making a narrow cut that barely gave him shoulder-play, the second man on the left working a few paces in the rear and widening the passage.

Necessarily it was slow work, because only these two men could reach the face of the cut, and because it had to be of sufficient depth to allow a man to work upright without his head showing above the ground. But because they worked in short reliefs and put every ounce of energy into their task, they made surprising and unusual progress.

Lieutenant Riley, who was in command of the listening-post for that night, left the workers to themselves, both because it was necessary for him to keep a sharp look-out in order to give warning of any attempt to rush the working party, and because officially he was not supposed to know anything of any sap to an officially unrecognized dead German General.

When he was relieved after daybreak, Riley told the joke and explained the position to the subaltern who took over from him, and that subaltern in turn looked with a merely unofficial eye on the work of the sapping party. As the day and the work went on, it was quite obvious that a good many more men were working on the new trench than had been told off to it.