CHAPTER XV

A WATER PATROL

For several days the Germans had been at work making changes opposite our salient on the banks of the Somme. Probably it was a machine-gun emplacement to prevent any attempt at attack from that side. But as there must be no obstacle in the way of our next advance, the major, after talking with the colonel, sent for Lieutenant Delpos, who was in charge of the section in that sector and asked him what he thought of the work.

“It’s hard to say,” he answered. “If they’ve brought two or three machine guns it will be humanly impossible even to try to advance. It all depends on the importance of the work. We can’t tell from here what it is.”

“Our aeroplane observations and photographs don’t tell us anything,” said the major. “The view is partly cut off by the tops of the trees along the river.”

“Aeroplane observations aren’t everything,” answered Delpos.

“But I can’t send a patrol over such unprotected ground. It would be utterly wiped out before it discovered anything.”

“Will you give me an order,” asked Delpos, “to make a reconnaissance in whatever way I think best? In twenty-four hours, at the latest, I think I can bring you the exact details.”

“Go ahead. Do your best. I’ll send you a written order to cover it.”

When he got back to his post, Lieutenant Delpos examined the strip of terrain as thoroughly as he could by peering over the top of the parapet, and then asked for the photographs the aeroplanes had taken. Finally, he studied the map of the country which the enemy occupied opposite us. Then, he went to Éclusier, borrowed a boat, and stayed out in the current calculating its direction by bunches of grass pulled from the banks.

He came back to the company towards noon and sent me to the echelon for Gondran, whom I brought back about three o’clock. At seven Delpos had his plans made. He went to the major, who received him at once, and explained the project he wanted to put into execution that evening.

Delpos asked him, as it would probably be useful in distracting attention, to have the sections at the extreme north of the sector fire several heavy volleys between eleven o’clock and midnight.

When this was arranged, everything was ready for his departure and he invited me to dinner as he ordinarily did. His dinners were always good and there was excellent wine which his servant had managed to find in the ruins of Harbonnière and Villers.

As he was lighting his cigar after the dessert, he said:

“We’re going to pay a call on the Boches this evening. The chances of staying there are about even, but, in any case, even if we remain, the performance won’t be uninteresting. It will be as good as a first night at the ‘Grand-Guignol!’ Take your revolver, some grenades and come along.”

I would have been highly unappreciative to have refused such a kind invitation, although adventure, to say nothing of such a mad adventure, has never been to my taste. But Lieutenant Delpos had the reputation of always getting out, so why shouldn’t he get out this time.

Gondran was waiting for us a little ways from Éclusier, in a small creek, hidden under the trees.

Gondran and his boat!

It was one of those flat-bottomed, square-ended boats that fishermen use to cross marshes where the water is shallow. He had covered it with a camouflage of grass, weeds, and moss so that even close to it was impossible to tell it from one of the thousand little islands which obstruct the Somme at this point.

We slipped into the boat and stretched out at once—it wouldn’t have held us in any other way—and waited for total darkness. When it came, Gondran began to push the boat ahead. He was used to fishing for eels with a spear in the clear waters of the canals and knew how to move silently, without a splash, almost without making a ripple on the surface of the water. If our course had not been against the current, we might have been mistaken for a pile of drifting grass.

Flat on his stomach in the stern with both arms in the water up to his elbows and a stick of wood in each hand, slowly and silently he paddled like a duck.

The officer and I were both flat also, in the bow, and we peered into the darkness. I held a string in one hand, and the other end was tied around Gondran’s arm. We had arranged that one pull meant to stop and stay where we were; two to go back.

We went on without accident for nearly two hours. Suddenly, a bump, a hard jolt, fortunately without any noise besides the rustling of the weeds. The night was so thick that it was impossible to tell what the obstacle was, whether it was the bank or an island. We tried in vain to see through the fathomless darkness. We ventured to feel about with our hands, and, in the middle of the weeds and reeds, I was gripped by something. I pulled back my arm, in a hurry, to get away. A sharp point cut the skin, then another, and I felt a scratch from my elbow to my fist.

I whispered in Delpos’s ear, “Barbed wire.”

A network of barbed wire barred the river here. The Germans had foreseen the possibilities of an approach and had taken precautions to prevent it. Was the network large, or was there only a single barrier, that was the question. Or, should we go back? In any case there was no use in re-appearing before we were expected, for we had reached their lines.

Since the work under suspicion was a little in advance of their first trench, we must be nearly even with it. We had brought wire cutters, but what was the use of cutting the first net, if we were to find another beyond it, and then another, and so on for fifty or a hundred yards perhaps.

The enemy is meticulous in his defenses and spares no means of protecting himself. It was also a question whether we were in the middle of the river or near the bank. By shoving his paddle down at arm’s length Gondran touched bottom. So we were going to reach the bank, but first we must prepare for our retreat. Using the barbed wire as a guide, we put the boat out into the middle of the river, but not in the strength of the current, and then on a stick we had brought along set up a dummy dressed in the uniform of one of the Colonials. Then we went back to the bank.

Here was the most ticklish and dangerous moment of our mission. What, we asked ourselves, was the shape of the bank and would we find a sentinel? We brought the boat as near the shore as possible and in as far as we could. By feeling to the right we could touch solid ground. The time had come!... We glided from the boat like snakes and once on land remained motionless, holding our breaths. It was impossible to see anything a yard off; there was no noise except the far-off rumbling of the guns in the English sector. We went ahead.... The heavy socks we had drawn over our boots deadened our steps. The damp grass bent but did not crackle.

“Conrad! Come here. It is time.”

“What time?”

“Nearly midnight.”

“Good.”

“The lieutenant isn’t here.”

“No?”

“He is with the major and will come back.”

“Come along.”

“But there’s no one here.”

“What of it? Come along.”

This conversation in German stopped us short. The voices seemed to come from the ground two steps in front of us. Doubtless there was a sap there.... We heard steps getting farther away. I grabbed the officer and making a megaphone of my hands whispered in his ear what I had just understood from their conversation. In the same way, he responded:

“Inviting you was an inspiration. Since they’ve gone, we can get in there.”

A few steps beyond in the open ground a feeble light filtered through sacks hung as shutters. It was the sap!... We stretched out on the ground and tried to see inside. There was no one standing, but if anyone was left he must be asleep, and we could surprise him.... We jumped in. Not a soul. Without a doubt it was a post momentarily empty during a relief. On some overturned chairs there was a platter with a candle on it and we put it out. We examined the place with our flashlight. A communication trench opened into the post and we started down.

No matter where it led or whether we could retrace our steps or not, the die was cast. The number of chances of our getting back alive which Delpos had said were even seemed to me to have grown beautifully less. The trench stopped short within ten yards. Ahead, to the right, to the left, we stuck our noses into the solid wall. But the men had got out someway....

Delpos risked another flash of his light—the way out was over our heads. It was a shaft with a ladder leading up it. We heard someone talking above. The relief was coming down....

Just then the noise of firing came from our own lines. The sections were firing as had been arranged. This wise precaution served beyond our utmost expectations, for above us began at once the rapid tac-tac of the machine guns and we heard commands.

So the shaft led into the machine-gun emplacement. That was just what we wanted to know; our reconnaissance was at an end.

Delpos drove a cheddite bomb into the wall beneath the ladder, and I tied a slow fuse to it. We jumped towards the river. I lighted the fuse as I jumped from the sap, just as an immense body appeared in the opening and blocked the way.

“_Wer da?_”

“‘_Wer da?_’ you’ll find out who is there,” Delpos muttered, and with a blow full on the chest, while I threw myself on his legs, we got the colossus down, as he shouted for help.

But the firing drowned his cries.

Then, to deprive him of all interest in keeping on, I applied my revolver to his forehead, and Delpos kicked him under the chin. We left him senseless and voiceless for at least a quarter of an hour.

We jumped into our boat and slid under the camouflage. Whether we had made too much noise or a sentinel had heard us, I don’t know, but we were hardly there, and were just pushing off, when shots came in our direction, star shells lighted the river, and men ran up and down the bank.

We heard them cry, “There he is ... there....” They had seen our dummy in the middle of the river and were firing at him with rifles and bombarding him with grenades. We did not move. By stretching out an arm we could almost have touched the legs of the men who came down to the water’s edge to hurl their grenades. None of them dreamed we were so near.

The alarm lasted about twenty seconds; it seemed like a century.

We knew that the blockhouse was going to blow up and we wanted to be far away for the débris were likely to reach us and crush us.

Suddenly, terribly, came the explosion.

It was fortunate for us that the alarm had held us close to the bank. Whole blocks of granite were hurled into the middle of the river just where we would have been. We were too near and too low and everything went over us.

The violence of the waves tore us from the bank and drove us into the strength of the current, and we weren’t fired on once. The whole garrison had been blown up.

* * * * *

At daybreak, three o’clock in the morning, Lieutenant Delpos woke up the major.

“Major,” he said, “it was a machine-gun emplacement. But it is no more. If you will allow me, I’m going to bed. I couldn’t get any sleep over there; there was too much noise.”