PART SIXTEEN

ACTION LEFT!

§ 1

Daylight revealed an irregular line of fifteen field-guns and limbers, weary men piling sandbags round their wheels. Already the sandbags had risen to the gun-axles.

The line of guns lay in the centre of a great shallow saucer of ground, scarred with zig-zag trenches; and as the first blue of dawn cleared to white, the men who laboured could see, straight to their front and on the lip of the saucer, the shattered top of a solitary tree. And looking to the left of the tree, they saw,—first of all—a road, and then a big battered farm-house, beyond which—miles away as it seemed to the weary men—rose over the ultimate edge of the huge saucer a something which Gunner Mucksweat, miner by trade, pronounced to be the wheel of a pithead. Had Gunner Mucksweat been able to read a map, he would have known the pithead wheel for the top of Fosse Eight.

Prolonging the line of guns on the left ran the road they had traversed during the night—at its end, the torn roofs of Vermelles; and behind the guns, bunched together over a square mile of ground, stood horses—hundreds and hundreds of horses. For the fourth Southdown Brigade was not alone in that huge saucer of chalk! And behind the horses, parallel to the guns, lay another road, lined with red brick houses, above which towered the huge slag-cone of Fosse Seven.

§ 2

The toe of a boot woke 2nd Lieutenant Stanley Purves to consciousness of the fact that he was sleeping in the lee of a particularly noisome hay-stack.

“Get up,” said P.J. “The Colonel wants you.”

“What’s the time?” asked the thing under the hay.

“Half-past four.”

“My grief, what a time to get up!”

He struggled to his feet, pulling wet wisps from his hair; realized that he could hardly walk for cramp; limped forward; stumbled over a low stretcher on two-cycle wheels, into the shafts of a hooded cart painted with a large Red Cross.

“Anybody want me?” Doctor Carson, a light sleeper, pushed his white head out from the tilt; saw Purves making for the guns. “Suppose I’d better get up,” said the Doctor; and in doing so, woke Horrocks the Vet. They cursed each other, and stepped out onto the wet ground.

Said Purves, returning: “The Weasel wants his breakfast, and he wants it damn quick.” He limped off to find Gunner Horne, found him asleep under the spidery telephone-waggon. Him, by right of seniority, Purves kicked also. Moreover, after a careful reconnaissance, the Balliol man discovered two foreign-looking boots projecting from the afore-said hay-stack, which—being sternly pulled—produced Morency.

Meanwhile the four battery commanders—Torrington, hobbling along somehow in the rear—followed by two men carrying a red drum of wire, were toiling up the slope towards “Lone Tree.”

§ 3

“Have you been smoking those cab-rankers of yours _all_ night, P.J.?” asked the Weasel.

They were standing in the middle of the gun-line, watching Charlie Straker as he bent over the pointer of his No. 1 director.

“I should lay on that tree till you hear from Torrington,” said Stark; and repeated his question to Peter.

“Pretty well, sir.”

“I wonder they don’t make you sick. Had any sleep?”

“No, sir.”

They looked at each other, the two unshaven men; and both laughed for the first time in twenty-four hours. Whatever else happened, the fourth Brigade was at least in position. Merrilees, solemn as an owl, came up with “Mr. Conway’s compliments” and “should he lay his guns on that tree”; departed with his instructions.

By now, sticks were crackling in the deserted trench, tea boiling and bacon sizzling. Weary men struggled into their tunics; ate and drank gratefully. “Keep ’em at it,” said the Weasel, as they passed the last gun on their way to breakfast. “Very good, sir,” answered horsy Hutchinson; and added _sotto voce_, “what the devil does the old man think we’re all made of—pigskin!” . . .

“Rotten job, driving tired men, isn’t it, P.J.?” said the Weasel, balancing himself—mug in hand—on the shafts of the doctor’s cart. “But I don’t like the look of that,” he pointed to the far pit-wheel, “and I don’t like the look of this,” he indicated the cross-roads, “in fact, _entre nous_, the more I see of things all round, the less I like any of ’em.”

Half way through breakfast, Peter—called to the telephone—heard Lodden’s voice. They had made out, roughly, the infantry’s position; were coming back. Would Peter send up O’Grady and one other subaltern to observe? At half-past six, the four battery commanders returned. It was still too misty for shooting.

Appeared, on a frisky charger, red hat glowing, eagerness personified, Murchison the Brigade Major. He waved a large white map at the Weasel; pointed with his finger to a wriggly red line on it. “We want you to open fire on that trench, Colonel. Fire as much as you like: but don’t fire a round after 10:30; because the Infantry are going to charge then.”

“Who’s going to cut the enemy wire?” To Peter, overhearing, the tired voice sounded very serious.

“Oh, that’ll be all right.” Murchison galloped off.

The right-hand gun of the Brigade shot out a tongue of flame; a sandbag dropped from its parapet. O’Grady, beyond the crest, had begun his ranging.

Appeared, on a quiet brown mare, Coolsdon, the Staff Captain. He, too, had a white map in his hand; indicated a target.

“Oh, if Murchison’s been here,” said Coolsdon; and galloped off. . . .

Now, all round the great saucer of chalk, men bent to telephone receivers. “Add 100. Five minutes more right,” shouted the men, and voices down the gun-line repeated, “Add 100. Five minutes more right.” The thing that ballooned slowly into the air behind Fosse Eight, could not hear the shouting men; but it could see, vaguely through the low mist, tiny sparks of fire in the great saucer!

§ 4

“_Three rounds Battery-fire. One-O seconds._” “_Stop._” “_Add twenty-five._” “_Two rounds Battery fire, One-O seconds._” “_Go on._” “_At Battery fire, sweep one five minutes._”

Up and down the long line, men stood shouting, men jerked triggers, muzzles roared and recoiled, shells leapt to open breech, breech-blocks twirled home, gunners—knees astride—clung to rocking seats. And round the rocking, roaring guns, deafened men still toiled with pick and shovel at the sandbag epaulments.

Batteries were firing independently: and Stark, mackintosh spread on the parados of a crumbling trench, watched them without a word. He felt a hand on his arm; saw two fingers and a cigar pointing over his shoulder, forward and upward through the gun-flashes. “See that sausage, sir,” shouted P.J. in his ear.

The Weasel looked round at his Adjutant: the Adjutant flickered an eye towards the crowded horse-lines.

“Behind those houses,” rasped the Weasel. “Get ’em away quietly, or they’ll panic. And tell ’em to post a look-out man to watch for signals.”

“Not bad for a civilian,” thought the Weasel as he watched Peter stroll calmly to the haystack, tap Horrocks on the shoulder.

The balloon had gone down again; guns were still firing; and across the fields—veterinary officer’s white breeches at their head—filed at a walk the horses of the Headquarters Staff. Now, in and out among the tethered teams at the battery horse-lines, cigar in mouth, strode a stocky figure, whispering, “Hook in and get away quietly. Behind those houses. At a walk, please, Quartermaster Sergeant.” Like figures in a quadrille, the bays and browns and blacks of the teams, the dark green of the ammunition wagons, curved to slow life; emerged into four long lines that unrolled steadily across the dun fields to safety. But as the lines drew clear, they revealed behind them, low dark bunches in the middle distance; other horses—hundreds and hundreds of horses. . . .

“_Ich kann nicht genau sehen_,” mumbled a guttural voice three and a half miles away, “_aber am Dreiweg finden wir sicher etwas. Also, los damit, lieber Oberleutnant._” . . .

Peter heard, above the roar of his own guns, a high shrill scream; saw a black fountain spurt from the ground three hundred yards in front. The Weasel was on his feet, hands to mouth, “Take cover,” roared the Weasel. “Take cover. All except gun-numbers into the trench.” For the diggers had stopped work, stood staring at the dropping fountain.

Rose another scream up the sky. . . . “Get down, you fools, get down.” Now the Weasel was half way along the flashing line. . . . The scream came shrieking to earth, stopped. A hundred yards in front, a few clods leapt from the ground. “Under cover. . . . Under cover.” . . . Like rabbits to burrow men popped to earth. . . . But still the guns went on.

Peter, kneeling behind quivering sandbags, was conscious of a mule braying high in air, of a second’s deadly silence, of a thudding crash; felt a rush of air at his ears; saw something slice the sandbag at his side as a knife slices cheese, plunge into the turf. . . . Then he heard fragments pattering on the hard earth behind him; looked up; and saw, a hundred yards away, standing upright, hands in his pockets, the Weasel; and the Weasel was still shouting “Under cover, you fools, get under cover.” The gun behind which Peter had knelt, went off with a crash. . . .

“My aunt,” he thought.

Except for the Colonel’s figure, nothing moved behind the guns. Purves and the Doctor, noses to ground, were lying flat against the haystack. Very high in air, another shell went howling on its way. Peter, following the noise with his eyes, found dark clumps of horses; was conscious noise ceased; saw a great black earth-spout shoot up among the horses; heard the double crash of shell’s alighting; saw terrified teams rear and plunge; saw little figures hurling themselves at bridles. . . .

Another shell swished over; and another; plunged to ground in rear of him. The whole middle distance seemed a mass of stampeding beasts that hurled themselves through black fountains across the plains.

“Didn’t you hear me say get under cover, you sanguinary cigar-merchant?” rasped a voice at his ear. . . .

§ 5

“Another five minutes,” ordered the Weasel. “Tell ’em they can go to gun-fire if they like.”

Hostile shelling had ceased. Only, far away over the roofs of Vermelles, an occasional gray puff-ball betokened shrapnel. Sun shone on bare plain behind, on bare crest in front. Round the farm, little figures moved.

Torrington, V.C., pale and shaky, lay in the bottom of the recess between his sections: “What’s that, Sergeant Major?” he asked the man standing behind him. “Colonel says we can go to gun-fire, sir.” “All right. Tell ’em five rounds.” “Five rounds gun-fire,” megaphoned the Sergeant Major. Straker and Pettigrew, kneeling between their pieces, flung out hands in acknowledgment; repeated the order. Flames roared above Torrington’s head; chalk pattered down on him from the trench-walls. “How much longer, Sergeant Major?” “Four minutes yet, sir.” “Battery fire, till the last minute.” “Right sir. . . . At Battery fire, go on.”

“God’s teeth,” muttered Torrington, V.C. “I can’t stand this racket much longer.” . . .

“_Stop!_”

All round the hollow saucer of ground, noise ceased miraculously. Only, every now and then, the howitzers roared separately at their far targets. And from beyond the lip of the saucer came a distant stutter, as of men swinging gigantic rattles—the chattering of machine-guns.

Behind the tattered hay-stack, stood a signaller, flags outstretched. “W N,” wagged the signaller. “W N,” replied far flags at the corner of the houses under the Fosse Seven. Ammunition wagons came trotting across the field. . . . Down in the trench, black instrument in front of him, another signaller buzzed frantically. “F.O.O.” buzzed the signaller, “F.O.O.” But no answering buzz sounded in his ears. For the red wire lay frayed beyond the crest-line—and the guns were blind!

“This is nice muck-up,” said the Weasel to Lethbridge. “Strict orders not to fire after ten-thirty. The line dished and the Lord knows what may be happening.”

A man, telephone-case on his arms, climbed out of the trench; began making his way up the wire.

At the end of the gun-line, by an emptying ammunition-wagon, Peter stood talking to Bromley. They looked towards Vermelles. Suddenly, under a gray smoke-puff they saw a horseman at full gallop; behind him—drivers bending low in their saddles, whips plying,—a six-horse team came hell for leather, and behind the team, a leaping bumping thing on wheels. “Charge of the horse-artillery?” laughed Bromley. “No,” said Peter, “Lodden’s missing gun.” The team arrived with a clatter and jingle at the cross-roads. Lodden leapt by. They heard his furious voice. “Who told you to gallop, Bombardier? Who the hell told you to gallop?” Drivers grinning from their sweating mounts, the gun creaked past.

“Hurry up with those shells, you chaps,” said Bromley to his gunners. . . .

There jog-trotted slowly to the cross-roads a young Staff officer. He put hand to eyes, shading them from the sun; said, “Good Lord, it’s Peter”; trotted over to the guns. The horseman in the creaseless tunic looked very out of place, as he leaned from his saddle talking to the unshaven tired-eyed Gunners.

“What are you doing up here, Francis?” asked Peter.

“Trying to find Le Rutoire, and a prisoner or two. That’s it, I suppose.” He switched riding-stick towards the red buildings in front. “What’s supposed to be happening here—a battle?”

The three stood gossiping. The ammunition wagon, empty of its contents, wheeled past them; trotted across the field. “Well, so long,” said Francis, “I must be off.” He puts his horse to a trot. . . .

Peter heard the shell scream; flung himself on his face; heard the burst of it, the clods falling about him. “Christ!” he thought, “Francis. . . .”

Bromley, unhurt, was first to reach the bloody kicking heap at the roadside. Even as he came to it, the kicking legs jerked convulsively—the beast rolled over—lay still. Peter, rushing up, saw a gaping, steaming belly, a scarlet boot protruding from it. . . . Together, they dragged out the tortured thing that had been Francis Gordon. He lay there, face dead white, just muttering. Only the upper part of his body seemed human—the rest was blood, blood and dirt.

Across the turf towards him, white hair ruffling in the breeze, darted the doctor, looked for a second at the thing on the ground.

“Shell-dressings! In my cart. Quick as you can. Case of instruments. My orderly!” Peter rushed off. . . . He came back carrying a great armful of lint, to find the doctor and Bromley on their knees. A boot, bloodsoaked, was lying on the ground. “Cut the seam,” he heard; and “all right, Doc,” from Bromley. Something ripped: they were turning over the thing which had been his cousin.

“Dressings,” said the doctor, “thanks.” He took them, began bandaging the ripped flesh.

Francis opened his eyes; saw Peter standing over him. “Make—him—give—me—morphia,” gasped Francis. Then pain stunned him; he lay there, as a shot rabbit lies, eyes still open. . . .

The doctor’s orderly came running, case under his arm. “Morphia,” said the doctor calmly, not looking up from his work. “Rip that sleeve, please.” . . .

Blessed needle slid under white flesh: eyes closed. “More dressings, please,” said Doctor Carson, “and you can be getting up that wheeled stretcher, Masterson.”

§ 6

“Will he live, Doc?” Peter, rather white about the gills, watched the stretcher down the road, out of sight.

“I’m afraid not. Though mind you, there’s a chance. The left femur’s broken; that right foot. . . . But there, you saw for yourself.”

“You’d better look after these, P.J.” Bromley handed over a bundle of papers, a wrist-watch, a morocco leather photograph-case. Peter stuffed them into his pocket; walked back to the Colonel. He had been awake so long, the thing had happened so suddenly, that the fact of the casualty being his cousin hardly touched him. He felt the horror—but horror numbed, impersonal. . . .

At the Colonel’s side, leaning over from his horse, Peter found Murchison.

“Any news from your F.O.O.?” asked the Brigade Major.

“No. Wire’s broken. I’m having it repaired. Hallo, what the devil’s that?”

He pointed to the crest on their right. Little figures, figures of men running, rose over the skyline; bunched together as they streaked down the hill. A shell burst black among the figures—a second shell. And up the slopes towards the figures, galloped miniature horses with tiny jockeys; and as they reached the crest, horses silhouetted black against the sky-rim, the jockeys flung themselves from their saddles; dashed forward out of sight. And still little men poured back over the hill, past the waiting horses. . . .

“My God,” said Murchison, “I thought at first they must be Boches.” (For there were two hundred British guns in that great saucer of ground.) . . .

“My God,” rasped the Weasel, “I wish they had been.” (For it is not good to watch the unofficial side of history in the making.) . . .

Suddenly, they heard a voice, roaring, “Action”; an orderly dashed up; “Through to F.O.O. sir.”

“Shrapnel. . . . Four six hundred. . . .” roared the voice. . . . “At gun-fire sweep five minutes from your zero lines. . . .”

The rest of the orders were howled down by a hurricane of gun crashes. . . .

§ 7

Beyond the farthest lip of the chalk-saucer; beyond the zig-zag communication trench; beyond the old front-line, cut deep into the chalk, studded with empty gas-cylinders, littered with rifles and the uncleanly débris of war; beyond the lonely tree; beyond the burrow where O’Grady’s telephonist crouched at his instrument; beyond sight and touch and hearing, and every human emotion save that last instinct which is the naked life—lay Second Lieutenant Peabody of the Chalkshires.

His brown face was gray in the dust. He had no cap. His outstretched hands were ripped and torn from clutching at rusty wire. His left puttee had fallen in coils over his boot. And where he lay, he panted: as a hound pants after the kill.

But Peabody had not been killed. . . .

He became aware of bees, swarms and swarms of bees that zipped and buzzed about him. Then he felt a terrific tug at his ankles; felt his face scraping against the ground. Something grabbed him round the neck; pulled him over backwards.

He wiped the dust out of his eyes and began to curse. The curses were utterly inhuman. The kind of curses doctors hear at times from perfectly respectable young mothers in milk-fever—foul blasphemies that have their roots in the subconscious dark of sex.

The soul of Second Lieutenant Peabody returned to his body. . . .

His soul remembered peculiarly little. They had arrived—in Artillery formation—somewhere or other—on a pitch-dark night—occupied some trenches. He had posted sentries—and the sentries had gone to sleep. Everybody _had_ gone to sleep—except himself and Arkwright. Arkwright, by the way, must be dead. Otherwise, why should he think of Arkwright as doubled-up over something or other, with a pair of wire-cutters clutched in his hand. . . . Oh, yes—now he came to think of it, most people were dead—because Slattery had come along and said something about “half-past ten.” Then, they had all got up—with their packs on—they ought to have been told to take their packs off. . . .

“’Ave a drop of this, sir?” said a well-known voice at his elbow.

“Thanks, Haddock. I think I will,” answered the soul of Second Lieutenant Peabody.

The mind came back to the soul. “What the hell happened?” asked the boy.

“Whizz-bang. Thought you were gone that time, sir,” answered the dirty little man with the dirty rifle. “’Tain’t no use going hover again, sir. We’ve been hover three times.”

“Get me another rifle, you son of a bitch,” said Peabody curtly. Something cracked like a whiplash in the air: he felt a terrible kick on his left ear-drum; collapsed to ground.

For a second, the boy lay perfectly still; then, to his utter amazement, he realized that he hadn’t been killed. On the contrary, the shock of that second whizz-bang seemed to have cleared his brain.

He hauled himself up very cautiously; peered over the edge of the shallow trench.

Just above him, the ground rose—two hundred yards of ground—littered with brown heaps—some of them moving—at the top of the slope, more bodies—hundreds of them—hanging grotesquely in the air. He dropped down again. . . .

“How many of us got back, Haddock?”

“Dunno, sir. Old Long. ’E’s just round the corner, sir.”

“Well, you stop here. If you see anything coming, shoot at it!”

The boy bent down; crawled along the trench; ran his head into a man’s knees. “Heasy on there,” growled Long Longstaffe. “Heasy on.” Then looking down, “Sorry, sir. Didn’t know it was you.” The boy gave his instructions; crawled on. Private Longstaffe arranged his elbows in the dirt; kicked his long legs behind him; cuddled the rifle-stock to his cheek. “Carn’t miss the sods from ’ere,” he said to himself. . . . And then, suddenly, he saw a cautious dot bob up on the near skyline. . . .

§ 8

“Blast it, oh, blast it. Get me a line, damn you.”

O’Grady, binoculars to eyes, could see the gray figures crawling through the wire; could hear rifles crackling just below him.

The man on his knees tapped key frantically. “F.X. Don,” tapped the man, “F.X. Don.”

More gray figures came through the wire. On the left of the wire, up a little white road with trees on each side, came another line of gray figures; flung themselves down. O’Grady could see flame from their rifles, toy smoke puffs.

“F.X. Don,” tapped the man, “F.X. Don.” The gray figures by the road were on their feet, running.

“F.O.O.” throbbed the plate at the man’s eardrum, “F.O.O.”

“Got ’em sir,” said the man to O’Grady, “will you speak?”

O’Grady grabbed the receiver, and said, speaking very slowly and distinctly: “Esses—O—Esses. Do you understand?”

“Esses—O—Esses” throbbed the plate at his ear.

* * * * *

Private Longstaffe, wrenching frantically at jammed breechbolt, heard a whirr as of homing pigeons over his head; was aware of white smoke puffs bursting among the gray figures all along the slope in front of him. . . . The breechbolt shot home at last, but when he lifted the rifle to his shoulder, peered through the V of the backsight, the gray figures had disappeared.