Chapter 8

Private Flannigan looked over his shoulder at him, "Mong capitaine," he said, "you ought, you reely ought, to ring up your telephone; turn the handle round an' say something."

"Drop two pennies in," mocked another as the captain birr-r-red the handle and yelled again.

Whether he got through, or whether the burst of rifle fire reached the listening ears at the guns, nobody knew; but just as 'Enery did his ear-embracing shoulder-shrug the first shells screamed over, burst and leaped down along the German parapet. After that there was no complaint about the guns. They scourged the parapet from end to end, up and down, and up again; they shook it with the blast of high explosive, ripped and flayed it with, driving blasts of shrapnel, smothered it with a tempest of fire and lead, blotted it out behind a veil of writhing smoke.

At the sound of the first shot the gunner captain had leaped back to the trench. "Is he in? Is he arrived?" he shouted in the ear of the B Company captain who leaned anxiously over the parapet. The captain drew back and down. "He's in--bless him--I mean dash his impudent hide!"

The Frenchman turned and called to his signaler, and the next moment the guns ceased. But the captain waited, watching with narrowed eyes the German parapet. The storm of his shells had obliterated the rifle fire, but after a few minutes it opened up again in straggling shots.

The captain snapped back a few orders, and prompt to his word the shells leaped and struck down again on the parapet. A dozen rounds and they ceased, and again the captain waited and watched. The rifles were silent now, and presently the captain relaxed his scowling glare and his tightened lips. "Vermin!" he said. He used just the tone a man gives to a ferocious dog he has beaten and cowed to a sullen submission.

But he caught sight of 'Enery making his way along the trench past his laughing and chaffing mates, and leaped down and ran to him. "Bravo!" he beamed, and threw his arms round the astonished soldier, and before he could dodge, as the disgusted 'Enery said afterwards, "planted two quick-fire kisses, smack, smack," on his two cheeks.

"_Mon brave_!" he said, stepping back and regarding 'Enery with shining eyes, "_Mon brave, mon beau Anglais, mon_----"

But 'Enery's own captain arrived here and interrupted the flow of admiration, cursing the grinning and sheepish private for a this, that, and the other crazy, play-acting idiot, and winding up abruptly by shaking hands with him and saying gruffly, "Good work, though. B Company's proud of you, and so'm I."

"An' I admit I felt easier after that rough-tonguin'," 'Enery told B Company that night over a mess-tin of tea. "It was sort of natural-like, an' what a man looks for, and it broke up about as unpleasant a sit-u-ation as I've seen staged. I could see you all grinnin', and I don't wonder at it. That slobberin' an' kissin' business, an' the Mong Brav Conkerin' 'Ero may be all right for a lot o' bloomin' Frenchies that don't know better--"

He took a long swig of tea.

"Though, mind you," he resumed, "I haven't a bad word to fit to a Frenchman. They're real good fighting stuff, an' they ain't arf the light-'earted an' light-'eaded grinnin' giddy goats I used to take 'em for."

"There wasn't much o' the light 'eart look about the Mong Cappytaine to-night," said Robinson. "'Is eyes was snappin' like two ends o' a live wire, and 'e 'andled them guns as business-like as a butcher cutting chops."

"That's it," said 'Enery, "business-like is the word for 'em. I noticed them 'airy-faces shootin' to-day. They did it like they was sent there to kill somebody, and they meant doin' their job thorough an' competent. Afore I come this trip on the Continong I used to think a Frenchman was good for nothing but fiddlin' an' dancin' an' makin' love. But since I've seen 'em settin' to Bosh partners an' dancin' across the neutral ground an' love-makin' wi' Rosalie,[Footnote: _Rosalie_--the French nickname for the bayonet.] I've learned better. 'Ere's luck to 'im," and he drained the mess-tin.

And the French, if one might judge from the story _mon capitaine_ had to tell his major, had also revised some ancient opinions of their Allies.

"Cold!" he said scornfully; "never again tell me these English are cold. Children--perhaps. Foolish--but yes, a little. They try to kill a man between jests; they laugh if a bullet wounds a comrade so that he grimaces with pain--it is true; I saw it." It _was_ true, and had reference to a sight scrape of a bullet across the tip of the nose of a Towers private, and the ribald jests and laughter thereat. "They make jokes, and say a man 'stopped one,' meaning a shell had been stopped in its flight by exploding on him--this the interpreter has explained to me. But cold--no, no, no! If you had seen this man--ah, sublime, magnificent! With the whistling balls all round him he stands, so brave, so noble, so fine, stands--so! '_Vive la France_!' he cried aloud, with a tongue of trumpets; '_Vive la France! A bas les Boches_!'"

The captain, as he declaimed "with a tongue of trumpets," leaped to his feet and struck an attitude that was really quite a good imitation of 'Enery's own mock-tragedian one. But the officers listening breathed awe and admiration; they did not, as the Towers did, laugh, because here, unlike the Towers, they saw nothing to laugh at.

The captain dropped to his chair amid a murmur of applause. "Sublime!" he said. "That posture, that cry! Indeed, it was worthy of a Frenchman. But certainly we must recommend him for a Cross of France, eh, my major?"

'Enery Irving got the Cross of the Legion of Honor. But I doubt if it ever gave him such pure and legitimate joy as did a notice stuck up in the German trench next day. Certainly it insulted the English by stating that their workers stayed at home and went on strike while Frenchmen fought and died. _But_ it was headed "Frenchman!" _and it was written in French._

THE FEAR OF FEAR

_"At ---- we recaptured the portion of front line trench lost by us some days ago."_--EXTRACT FROM DISPATCH.

"In a charge," said the Sergeant, "the 'Hotwater Guards' don't think about going back till there's none of them left to go back; and you can always remember this: if you go forward you _may_ die, if you go back you _will_ die."

The memory of that phrase came back to Private Everton, tramping down the dark road to the firing-line. Just because he had no knowledge of how he himself would behave in this his baptism of fire, just because he was in deadly fear that he would feel fear, or, still worse, show it, he strove to fix that phrase firmly in front of his mind. "If I can remember that," he thought, "it will stop me going back, anyway," and he repeated: "If you go back you _will_ die, if you go back you _will_ die," over and over.

It is true that, for all his repetition, when a field battery, hidden close by the side of the road on which they marched, roared in a sudden and ear-splitting salvo of six guns, for the instant he thought he was under fire and that a huge shell had burst somewhere desperately close to them. He had jumped, his comrades assured him afterwards, a clear foot and a half off the ground, and he himself remembered that his first involuntary glance and thought flashed to the deep ditch that ran alongside the road.

When he came to the trenches, at last, and filed down the narrow communication-trench and into his Company's appointed position in the deep ditch with a narrow platform along its front that was the forward fire-trench, he remembered with unpleasant clearness that instinctive start and thought of taking cover. By that time he had actually been under fire, had heard the shells rush over him and the shattering noise of their burst; had heard the bullets piping and humming and hissing over the communication- and firing-trenches. He took a little comfort from the fact that he had not felt any great fear then, but he had to temper that by the admission that there was little to be afraid of there in the shelter of the deep trench. It was what he would do and feel when he climbed out of cover on to the exposed and bullet-swept flat before the trench that he was in doubt about; for the Hotwaters had been told that at nine o'clock there was to be a brief but intense bombardment on a section of trench in front of them which had been captured from us the day before, and which, after several counter-attacks had failed, was to be taken that morning by this battalion of Hotwaters.

At half-past eight, nobody entering their trench would have dreamed that the Hotwaters were going into a serious action in half an hour. The men were lounging about, squatting on the firing-step, chaffing and talking--laughing even--quite easily and naturally; some were smoking, and others had produced biscuits and bully beef from their haversacks and were calmly eating their breakfast.

Everton felt a glow of pride as he looked at them. These men were his friends, his fellows, his comrades: they were of the Hotwater Guards--his regiment, and his battalion. He had heard often enough that the Guards Brigades were the finest brigades in the Army, that this particular brigade was the best of all the Guards, that his battalion was the best of the Brigade. Hitherto he had rather deprecated these remarks as savoring of pride and self-conceit, but now he began to believe that they must be true; and so believing, if he had but known it, he had taken another long step on the way to becoming the perfect soldier, who firmly believes his regiment the finest in the world and is ready to die in proof of the belief.

"Dusty Miller," the next file on his left, who was eating bread and cheese, spoke to him.

"Why don't you eat some grab, Toffee?" he mumbled cheerfully, with his mouth full. "In a game like this you never know when you'll get the next chance of a bite."

"Don't feel particularly hungry," answered Toffee with an attempt to appear as off-handed and casual and at ease as his questioner. "So I think I'd better save my ration until I'm hungry."

Dusty Miller sliced off a wedge of bread with the knife edge against his thumb, popped it in his mouth, and followed it with a corner of cheese.

"A-ah!" he said profoundly, and still munching; "there's no sense in saving rations when you're going into action. I'd a chum once that always did that; said he got more satisfaction out of a meal when the job was over and he was real hungry, and had a chance to eat in comfort--more or less comfort. And one day we was for it he saved a tin o' sardines and a big chunk of cake and a bottle of pickled onions that had just come to him from home the day before; said he was looking forward to a good feed that night after the show was over. And--and he was killed that day!"

Dusty Miller halted there with the inborn artistry that left his climax to speak for itself.

"Hard luck!" said Toffee sympathetically. "So his feed was wasted!"

"Not to say wasted exactly," said Dusty, resuming bread and cheese. "Because I remembers to this day how good them onions was. Still it was wasted, far as he was concerned--and he was particular fond o' pickled onions."

But even the prospect of wasting his rations did nothing to induce Toffee to eat a meal. The man on Toffee's right was crouched back on the firing-step apparently asleep or near it. Dusty Miller had turned and opened a low-toned conversation with the next man, the frequent repetition of "I says" and "she says" affording some clew to the thread of his story and inclining Toffee to believe it not meant for him to hear. He felt he must speak to some one, and it was with relief that he saw Halliday, the man on his other side, rouse himself and look up. Something about Toffee's face caught his attention.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, leaning forward and speaking quietly. "This is your first charge, isn't it!"

"Yes," said Toffee, "I'm all right. I--I think I'm all right."

The other moved slightly on the firing-step, leaving a little room, and Toffee took this as an invitation to sit down. Halliday continued to speak in low tones that were not likely to pass beyond his listener's ear.

"Don't you get scared," he said. "You've nothing much to be scared about."

He threw a little emphasis, and Toffee fancied a little envy, into the "you."

"I'm not scared exactly," said Toffee. "I'm sort of wondering what it will be like."

"I know," said Halliday, "I know; and who should, if I didn't? But I can tell you this--you don't need to be afraid of shells, you don't need to be afraid of bullets, and least of all is there any need to be afraid of the cold iron when the Hotwaters get into the trench. You don't need to be afraid of being wounded, because that only means home and a hospital and a warm dry bed; you don't need to be afraid of dying, because you've got to die some day, anyhow. There's only one thing in this game to be afraid of, and there isn't many finds that in their first engagement. It's the ones like me that get it."

Toffee glanced at him curiously and in some amazement. Now that he looked closely, he could see that, despite his easy loungeful attitude and steady voice, and apparently indifferent look, there was something odd and unexplainable about Halliday: some faintest twitching of his lips, a shade of pallor on his cheek, a hunted look deep at the back of his eyes. Everton tried to speak lightly.

"And what is it, then, that the likes o' you get?"

Halliday's voice sank to little more than a whisper. "It's the fear o' fear," he said steadily. "Maybe, you think you know what that is, that you feel it yourself. You know what I mean, I suppose?"

Toffee nodded. "I think so," he said. "What I fear myself is that I'll be afraid and show that I'm afraid, that I'll do something rotten when we get out up there."

He jerked his head up and back towards the open where the rifles sputtered and the bullets whistled querulously.

"There's plenty fear that," admitted Halliday, "before their first action; but mostly it passes the second they leave cover and can't protect themselves and have to trust to whatever there is outside, themselves to bring them through. You don't know the beginning of how bad the fear o' fear can be till you have seen dozens of your mates killed, till you've had death no more than touch you scores of times, like I have."

"But you don't mean to tell me," said Toffee incredulously, "that you are afraid of yourself, that you can't trust yourself now? Why, I've heard said often that you're one of the coolest under fire, and that you don't know what fear is!"

"It's a good reputation to have if you can keep it," said Halliday. "But it makes it worse if you can't."

"I wish," said Toffee enviously, "I was as sure of keeping it as you are to-day."

Halliday pulled his hand from his pocket and held it beside him where only Toffee could see it. It was quivering like a flag-halliard in a stiff breeze. He thrust it back in his pocket.

"Doesn't look too sure, does it?" he said grimly. "And my heart is shaking a sight worse than my hand."

He was interrupted by the arrival of a group of German shells on and about the section of trench they were in. One burst on the rear lip of the trench, spattering earth and bullets about them and leaving a choking reek swirling and eddying along the trench. There was silence for an instant, and then an officer's voice called from the near traverse. "Is anybody hit there!" A sergeant shouted back "No, sir," and was immediately remonstrated with by an indignant private busily engaged in scraping the remains of a mud clod from his eye.

"You might wait a minute, Sergeant," he said, "afore you reports no casualties, just to give us time to look round and count if all our limbs is left on. And I've serious doubts at this minute whether my eye is in its right place or bulging out the back o' my head; anyway, it feels as if an eight-inch Krupp had bumped fair into it."

When the explosion came, Toffee Everton had instinctively ducked and crouched, but he noticed that Halliday never moved or gave a sign of the nearness of any danger. Toffee remarked this to him.

"And I don't see," he confessed, "where that fits in with this hand- and heart-shaking o' yours."

Halliday looked at him curiously.

"If that was the worst," he said, "I could stand it. It isn't. It isn't the beginning of the least of the worst. If it had fell in the trench, now, and mucked up half a dozen men, there'd have been something to squeal about. That's the sort o' thing that breaks a man up--your own mates that was talking to you a minute afore, ripped to bits and torn to ribbons. I've seen nothing left of a whole live man but a pair o' burnt boots. I've seen--" He stopped abruptly and shivered a little. "I'm not going to talk about it," he said. "I think about it and see it too often in my dreams as it is. And, besides," he went on, "I didn't duck that time, because I've learnt enough to know it's too late to duck when the shell bursts a dozen yards from you. I'm not so much afraid of dying, either. I've got to die, I've little doubt, before this war is out; I don't think there's a dozen men in this battalion that came out with it in the beginning and haven't been home sick or wounded since. I've seen one-half the battalion wiped out in one engagement and built up with drafts, and the other half wiped out in the next scrap. We've lost fifty and sixty and seventy per cent. of our strength at different times, and I've come through it all without a scratch. Do you suppose I don't know it's against reason for me to last out much longer? But I'm not afraid o' that. I'm not afraid of the worst death I've seen a man die--and that's something pretty bad, believe me. What I'm afraid of is myself, of my nerve cracking, of my doing something that will disgrace the Regiment."

The man's nerves were working now; there was a quiver of excitement in his voice, a grayer shade on his cheek, a narrowing and a restless movement of his eyes, a stronger twitching of his lips. More shells crashed sharply; a little along the line a gust of rifle-bullets swept over and into the parapet; a Maxim rap-rap-rapped and its bullets spat hailing along the parapet above their heads.

Halliday caught his breath and shivered again.

"That," he said--"that is one of the devils we've got to face presently." His eyes glanced furtively about him. "God!" he muttered, "if I could only get out of this! 'Tisn't fair, I tell ye, it isn't fair to ask a man that's been through what I have to take it on again, knowing that if I do come through, 'twill be the same thing to go through over and over until they get me; or until my own sergeant shoots me for refusing to face it."

Everton had listened in amazed silence--an understanding utterly beyond him. He knew the name that Halliday bore in the regiment, knew that he was seeing and hearing more than Halliday perhaps had ever shown or told to anyone. Shamefacedly and self-consciously, he tried to say something to console and hearten the other man, but Halliday interrupted him roughly.

"That's it!" he said bitterly. "Go on! Pat me on the back and tell me to be a good boy and not to be frightened. I'm coming to it at last: old Bob Halliday that's been through it from the beginning, one o' the Old Contemptibles, come down to be mothered and hushaby-baby'd by a blanky recruit, with the first polish hardly off his new buttons."

He broke off and into bitter cursing, reviling the Germans, the war, himself and Everton, his sergeant and platoon commander, the O.C., and at last the regiment itself. But at that the torrent of his oaths broke off, and he sat silent and shaking for a minute. He glanced sideways at last at the embarrassed Everton.

"Don't take no notice o' me, chum," he said. "I wasn't speaking too loud, was I? The others haven't noticed, do you think? I don't want to look round for a minute."

Everton assured him that he had not spoken too loud, that nobody appeared to have noticed anything, and that none were looking their way. He added a feeble question as to whether Halliday, if he felt so bad, could not report himself as sick or something and escape having to leave the trench.

Halliday's lips twisted in a bitter grin.

"That would be a pretty tale," he said. "No, boy, I'll try and pull through once more, and if my heart fails me--look here, I've often thought o' this, and some day, maybe, it will come to it."

He lifted his rifle and put the butt down in the trench bottom, slipped his bayonet out, and holding the rifle near the muzzle with one hand, with the other placed the point of the bayonet to the trigger of the rifle. He removed it instantly and returned it to its place.

"There's always that," he said. "It can be done in a second, and no matter how a man's hand shakes, he can steady the point of the bayonet against the trigger-guard, push it down till the point pushes the trigger home."

"Do you mean," stammered Everton in amazement--"do you mean--shoot yourself?"

"Ssh! not so loud," cautioned Halliday. "Yes, it's better than being shot by my own officer, isn't it?"

Everton's mind was floundering hopelessly round this strange problem. He could understand a man being afraid; he was not sure that he wasn't afraid himself; but that a man afraid that he could not face death could yet contemplate certain death by his own hand, was completely beyond him.

Halliday drew his breath in a deep sigh.

"We'll say no more about it," he said. "I feel better now; it's something to know I always have that to fall back on at the worst. I'll be all right now--until it comes the minute to climb over the parapet."

It was nearly nine o'clock, and word was passed down the line for every man to get down as low as he could in the bottom of the trench. The trench they were about to attack was only forty or fifty yards away, and since the Heavies as well as the Field guns were to bombard, there was quite a large possibility of splinters and fragments being thrown by the lyddite back as far as the British trench. At nine, sharp to the tick of the clock, the _rush, rush, rush_ of a field battery's shells passed overhead. Because the target was so close, the passing shells seemed desperately near to the British parapet, as indeed they actually were. The rush of shells and the crash of their explosion sounded in the forward trench before the boom of the guns which fired them traveled to the British trench. Before the first round of this opening battery had finished, another and another joined in, and then, in a deluge of noise, the intense bombardment commenced.

Crouching low in the bottom of the trench, half deafened by the uproar, the men waited for the word to move. The concentrated fire on this portion of front indicated clearly to the Germans that an attack was coming, and where it was to be expected. The obviously correct procedure for the gunners was of course to have bombarded many sections of front so that no certain clew would be given as to the point of the coming attack. But this was in the days when shells were very, very precious things, and gunners had to grit their teeth helplessly, doling out round by round, while the German gun- and rifle-fire did its worst. The Germans, then, could see now where the attack was concentrated, and promptly proceeded to break it up before it was launched. Shells began to sweep the trench where the Hotwater Guards lay, to batter at their parapet, and to prepare a curtain of fire along their front.

Everton lay and listened to the appalling clamor; but when the word was passed round to get ready, he rose to his feet and climbed to the firing-step without any overpowering sense of fear. A sentence from the man on his left had done a good deal to hearten him.