PART TWENTY-FOUR

IN THE NIGHT

§ 1

The “Somme Offensive” of 1916 is ancient history now: a thing of Staff maps and war-diaries, of barren paper and profitless arguments, flat as the faked film of it men once sold for profit in the market-place. The very ground over which it raged has been obliterated by the shells of vastier battles.

Yet the “Somme Offensive,” bloodiest experiment ever undertaken in the laboratory of war, marked the beginning of the ending—of War’s ending, as softies dream today. Compared to this holocaust, Loos was a skirmish.

Day after day, night after night, week after week, men flung themselves upon the Beast; drove him wave by wave across the barren swells of Picardy: till, at last, burning and ravaging, defiling the very beds in which he had slept, wreaking vengeance on the very trees whose fruit he had eaten, the Beast withdrew for a while—withdrew, and came on again, and was overthrown. . . . There died and were wounded in those drivings of the Beast more than two million English-speaking men.

The “Somme Offensive”! What remains of it today? Only memories, bitter memories that waken men o’ nights: so that they see once more the golden Virgin of Albert, poised miraculously on her red and riven tower; Carnoy shattered in its hollow, a giant-baby’s toy-village, dropped from careless hand and smashed in the falling; the ruins that were Mametz and the ruins that were Contalmaison and the ruins that were Fricourt and the ruins that were Pozières: see once more the crowded horselines blackening Happy Valley, the balloons strung like sausages across the sky, the thousand planes circling like hawks above them! So that they hear once more the staccato of machine-gun fire high in the air, the dull thump of the huge and hidden naval guns at Etinehem, the roar of squat nine-point-two’s on their wheel-less mountings, the roar of the railway-gun at Becordel, the thunder of eight-inch and six-inch Howitzers in Caterpillar Valley, the ear-splitting crash of Six-Inch Mark VII’s from the road by the Craters, the manifold clamour of the Archies at Montauban, the constant bark of the field-guns beyond: so that they walk once more, naked and alone, among the careless ghosts of men they knew, through that horror which was Trônes Wood. . . .

§ 2

“God, P.J., this is too damned awful.”

Sandiland stretched grimed fingers across the bacon-box which served for table; jerked a Gold-flake from its tin; lit it shakily at the guttering candle.

“Pretty bad,” admitted Peter: but his hand too shook as he tilted the whisky-bottle into his tin mug. “Better have some of this.”

A shell whistled over the dripping corrugated-iron above their heads, burst hollowly on the twisted railway behind.

“Blast that gun,” said Sandiland. . . .

They had been in action for eighteen days; and not once during that time had “B” battery’s guns been wholly silent. Of the men who had served those guns so blithely under the trees of Neuve Eglise barely one-third remained. Sergeant Ackroyd was dead, breast riven by direct hit of a gas-shell; Sergeant Duncan was dead, blown to bits as he ran for shelter; Corporal Haviland’s body lay drilled with machine-gun bullets in the No Man’s Land beyond Arrowhead Copse; seven signallers were dead, five they had watched hobble, one by one, up the sodden path to the dressing-station in Montauban. Now this ultimate horror had screamed down upon them out of the night, tearing the last veils between them and Hell. . . .

They had laboured three hours to cleanse that Hell, laboured calmly and cheerfully among their men, snatching only this brief respite for food and drink. But the Hell they had cleansed from the ground still remained, desperately and damnably clear, in their brains.

For the moment, the reticences of civilized life were in abeyance. Each of these two knew, as he crouched over the bacon-box in the sodden broken chalk-trench, that he was hanging on by the eye-teeth to his last remnant of sanity.

Each still saw the same bestial vision: smashed pit, half-buried gun, slithering soil, mangled men writhing and groaning, mangled men lying deadly still, Charlie Straker’s face white and drawn in the light of the hurricane-lamp—and the Head that watched him, the Head that still grinned under its shrapnel-helmet, the Head which had been Pettigrew. . . .

“That leaves only you and me, P.J.” Sandiland’s fingers plucked at one of the rents in his tunic sleeve. “Only you and me.” His voice quivered up into his head, and he began singing—“You and me together, love; never mind the weather, love.”

“Shut up, you bloody fool”—Peter’s haggard eyes stared across the candle-flame. “Shut up, I tell you. Why the hell don’t you drink that whisky?”

“Sorry, P.J.”—Sandiland crammed the mug against his teeth, sucked down the raw spirit. “By God, that’s good. Pour me out another, there’s a good chap”—he drank again—“I suppose we ought to telephone H.Q.”

“I did that while you were getting them away.”

“Thanks, dear boy. Purves say anything?”

“I spoke to the Colonel”—Peter started to cough—“and he said—damn this cough of mine—he said, ‘should he come up himself?’ I told him the gun would be in action again by midnight, and we could carry on all right if he’d get us another subaltern. He’s sending one up at once”—Peter’s voice too, quivered up into his head. “Poor old Lindsay. Do you remember?”

Once again, sanity trembled in the balance. Their haggard eyes met across the candle-flame; and from behind those eyes naked soul looked at naked soul.

“God”—Sandiland’s voice was low, but tense as a scream—“God, I never knew I was a coward. . . . I’m not a coward. . . . It’s sending the others into it I can’t stick. . . . I’d go myself. . . . You know I’d go myself, P.J. . . . But I can’t stand sending these chaps to their death, day after day, one after the other. . . . I killed Lindsay. . . . It wasn’t his turn for F.O.O. . . . I killed Haviland. . . .” The monologue went on. . . . “Seven of them—the best signallers a battery ever had—and I detailed them for duty. . . . One by one I detailed them, didn’t I? . . . I chose this battery position, didn’t I?” He began to laugh. “And it’s your turn tomorrow, P.J. . . . Your turn! . . . Bloody funny if I killed our old Adjutant, too. . . . God, I wish I could go instead of you. . . . I’ve got to be here, P.J. Do you understand that? . . . Here, waiting by these blasted cannons for some poor devil to come crawling back and tell me you’ve been killed. . . .”

But Peter, listening speechless, felt himself the greater coward of the two: for he would have given everything he possessed—everything except that last scrap of gold which is a man’s self-respect—not to go down on the morrow to those trenches whence he had brought back Lindsay’s body.

There came the scrabble of feet above their heads; some one called down out of the darkness:

“Say, is this Beer Battery, Fourth Southdown Brigade? Is this Captain Sandiland’s battery?”

“It is,”—Sandiland’s voice had lost all trace of hysteria. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Henry. Colonel Revelsworth told me to report to you for duty.”

“Stout fellow. Come down if you can find your way. Have you got a torch?”

“Yes. Is it safe to use it?”

“Quite. Mind the wire.”

Followed the sound of falling earth, and a huge man, long gloves and revolver at belt, long torch in brown hand. The newcomer flicked out his torch; saluted with a curious courteous bend of his head; stood blinking at the light of the candle. He was well over six-foot, blue-eyed and broad-shouldered, firm of chin and clean-shaven. He wore the usual cap, collar, belt and tunic of a British second lieutenant; but his breeches bagged curiously at the knee, had the appearance of being tucked loosely into his soft field-boots, at heels of which showed a pair of swan-neck spurs, loosely strapped and formidable of rowel. Boots and spurs were both caked with white chalk. He carried no cane.

“Sit down, won’t you?” said Sandiland. “There’s a box kicking about somewhere. This is Jameson.”

“Glad to know you.” Henry made a movement as if to shake hands; thought better of it; found the box Sandiland indicated; and sat down with that peculiar straddle which denotes a horseman the world over.

There was the usual awkward Anglo-Saxon silence during which men try to sum up fresh acquaintances. To the newcomer, his two hosts seemed two very ordinary British officers; they looked terribly tired, he thought, but their controlled features gave no hint of any other emotion. (For it is only to tried friends that men in battle voice the secret fears of true courage.)

“Have a drink?” asked Sandiland.

“Thanks, no.” The man extracted a small looped bag from one pocket, a packet of cigarette papers from the other; flicked off a thin leaf of paper, moistened it at his lips. Then, holding the paper between fingers and thumb of his right hand, he opened the bag with his left; poured a little heap of tobacco onto the paper, began to roll a cigarette.

“You’re a Canadian, aren’t you?” asked the battery-commander.

“Yes, sir. I’m a Canadian.”

“Been out long?”

“No, sir. About three months. I’ve been with the Ammunition Column most of that time.”

The newcomer spoke slowly, not nasally but with a curious deliberate drawl—a drawl somehow reminiscent to Peter Jameson of five men sitting round a poker-table under the awning of a zinc-decked ship in the Caribbean. One of those five men had drawled his words with just that identical deliberation—and would have been very insulted if he had been referred to as a “Canadian.”

“How did you manage to get here so quickly?” asked Sandiland.

“Well, sir, I happened to be reporting for duty at Headquarters just when your ’phone message got through. The Colonel told me to send my horses back, and come right along with the guide. He said you’d fix me somehow till my blankets arrived.”

Now a Canadian does not talk about his “blankets,” he uses the English word “kit.” Nor does he—as a general rule—smoke granulated tobacco from those looped bags which are referred to as “sacks” in the display-ads of the various firms whose communal address is 111 Fifth Avenue, New York. Also, he strongly objects to walking half-a-mile of sodden ground, trenched and littered with remnants of barbed wire, in his spurs.

These details flashed subconsciously through the mind of Peter Jameson, as the three of them sat together in the crumbling trench: but he was very tired, his cough troubled him—and anyway it was none of his business. There were, he knew from experience, many such “Canadians” among the men who originally joined Kitchener’s Army.

“But how in the devil,” thought Peter, “did he manage to get a commission?” . . .

“Number two gun ready for action, sorr,” called Sergeant Abernethy’s voice from above them.

Sandiland called back: “Splendid, Sergeant. We’ll come and have a look at it.”

The three officers scrambled up out of the trench into the noise of the night; picked their way across to the battery. It was pitch-dark with a drizzle of rain; so that the newcomer could see nothing except the occasional crimson of gun-flashes, and the circle of Sandiland’s torch as it danced over yellow pock-marked ground. They jumped a deep crumbling trench; skirted the lip of a huge shell-crater; came suddenly upon the resurrected gun.

By the vague glimmer of a hurricane lamp, men were still at work, disinterring the buried ammunition, wiping the brass cases, stacking them beside the gun-wheels. An improvised tent of tarpaulin, slung between four posts, provided the only overhead cover; a few sandbags had been piled in front of the shield.

Sergeant-Major Cresswell, a stout melancholy man with watery brown eyes and a waxed moustache, whom the death of Lindsay had summoned from the waggon-lines, saluted Sandiland, and said:

“I’m afraid that’s the best we can do for tonight, sir.”

“Very well, Sergeant Major. Have the men had their rum ration?”

“Yes, sir.” He added _sotto voce_, “They needed it, sir.”

“Right. You’d better let ’em turn in then.”

Number four gun spat its tongue of crimson flame, subsided into silence for another five minutes. “You chaps can knock off now,” called Cresswell’s voice.

Except for the two signallers in the telephone pit and Sergeant Duncan with his two “numbers” at the duty-gun, the whole battery-personnel—officers’ servants included—had been toiling with pick and shovel and dragropes since half-past eight. Now they disappeared into the darkness. Sergeant Abernethy and his six men—two of his own sub-section, the remainder told off from the other detachments—lay down to sleep under their piece.

A figure approached Peter, said, “Should I light the candles in your dug-out, sir?”

“You’d better turn in, I think, P.J.” interrupted Sandiland; “or you won’t get any sleep at all.”

“What about telephoning H.Q., and checking the night-lines of that cannon?”

“Never you mind about H.Q., or the cannon. Just do as you’re told and turn in, there’s a good chap.”

“Very well, _sir_”—chaffed Peter; and stumbled off, Garton leading, to his dug-out. . . .

Sandiland and Henry made their way towards the telephone-pit. “He’s an obstinate cove, is P.J.,” confided the battery-commander.

“He looks a mighty sick one,” replied the “Canadian.”

§ 3

The “dug-out” towards which Peter and Garton stumbled was a coffin-shaped hole burrowed in the soil, roofed with a piece of corrugated iron and one layer of sandbags. A mackintosh ground-sheet, supported on a wooden beam, prolonged this improvised roof; provided some protection from the rain which drove in at the “door”—a narrow entrance reached by three “steps,” mostly mud. Down these, the pair slithered.

Garton lit a match, revealing Peter’s valise, supported on two ammunition-boxes and a stolen stretcher. The mud-walls of the coffin touched the valise on either side, so that Garton had to scramble over it before he could light “the candles”—one guttering dip stuck on a wooden shelf above the head of the “bedstead.” A pool of slime on the “floor” served for carpet.

“You’d better turn in, Garton,” said Peter, sitting down heavily between the projecting stretcher-handles. “I’m afraid you’ll have to bring me my tea at half-past four. Rather a change from H.Q. at Neuve Eglise, what? Hope your lady friend there still writes to you, Garton?”

The fair-haired Yorkshireman blushed violently; bent to unlace his master’s heavy boots.

“Don’t bother about that, I’ll do ’em myself.”

But Driver Garton went on with his work; and as his muddy fingers fumbled at the muddy laces, he thought: “Poor old P.J.! He won’t last much longer. Never saw a man look so ill in my life.”

“Should I help you off with your breeches, sir?”

“No. I’ll sleep in ’em. For God’s sake get off to bed, lad.”

With a cheery “good-night, sir,” Driver Garton disappeared. His master hauled himself painfully along the valise; sat up—head touching roof; unslung his gas-helmet, which he hung from a wooden-peg driven in the wall; took off his tunic, spread it on the bed; unstudded his soft collar; felt to make sure that the box-respirator was underneath his canvas-pillow; and inserted his body inch by inch into the Jaeger blankets.

“God,” thought Peter, “what a fool I’m making of myself. I ought to have gone sick days ago.” He blew out the candle; laid himself down for sleep; closed his eyes. “Sleep,” he thought, “sleep!” And for a moment, sleep came to him. Then he felt the warning twitch below his heart; started up; groped for his handkerchief. The cough tore at his throat, seemed to be wrenching his lungs out. . . .

Pain passed, leaving him weak and sleepless. He fumbled among the litter on the wooden shelf; found matches; lit the candle again. Number four gun fired; shook a few flakes of soil onto his valise. His whole body ached for sleep; but he was afraid to lie down again. If he lay down, there would come that warning twitch below the heart, another paroxysm. . . .

Listlessly, he pulled his tunic towards him; found the morrow’s orders; began studying them. “Infantry will attack. . . . Objectives: Guillemont—Ginchy-Maurepas Road—Bois de Leuze. . . . A/4 S.F.A.B. (‘A’ Battery Fourth Southdown Field Artillery Brigade) will detail Liaison Officer on the right. . . . B/4 S.F.A.B. will detail Liaison Officer on the left. . . .”

The blurred type danced in front of Peter’s eyes. He stuffed the orders back into his tunic-pocket: doing so, his hand touched Patricia’s last letter. This, too, he read listlessly, hardly taking in the words. . . . Number four gun fired again. . . . He closed his eyes. . . . “Sunflowers—Sunflowers—rather a jolly name.” . . . For a moment he dreamed. . . .

“_Gas-shell, sir. Gas-shell!_” The voice from without wrenched him from unconsciousness.

“Right,” he called back. “All right.” Now he was wide awake, bolt upright on his haunches. Automatically he pulled the respirator from under his pillow; took up the tube; adjusted clip to nostrils, mouthpiece to lips. . . . Cough wrenched at his throat. . . . He put the tube down again; sat listening. . . . “False alarm,” he thought. “Thank goodness for that.” . . .

Then he heard, close overhead, a low slow whistle, like a sigh through the night. . . . Sighing ceased. . . . Peter jammed the mouthpiece back to his lips, re-adjusted the clip to his nostrils. . . . Another shell sighed over him; he heard the faint plop of its grounding, the vague hiss of its burst. . . .

The roof quivered; a handful of soil pattered onto his valise. . . . The candle guttered: went out. . . .

Another shell sighed to ground. . . .

He knew himself afraid—horribly shamelessly afraid. The clip on his nostrils was torture: the mouthpiece stifled him: blood drummed at his ears: he wanted to cough. . . . But he dared not cough. . . .

The night above him was full of sighing poisonous things. . . . God, there must be thousands of them. . . . They were falling all about him: sighing slowly down out of the night: plopping to ground: sighing out their poison. . . . They were looking for him: tap-tap-tapping round the roof of his coffin. . . . They wanted to find the roof of his coffin: to break through it; stifle him as he lay. . . .

Courage fought panic—alone in the darkness. “Damn it,” thought Peter, “damn it. They _shan’t_ get my tail down.” And shelling ceased: suddenly, miraculously, the night grew still.

Peter loosed the clips from his nostrils, sniffed cautiously. The air was pure—no trace of gas. He let the mouthpiece fall, began to cough, dropped back coughing on his pillow,—and knew neither fear nor courage, but only the blissful unconsciousness of utter exhaustion till he heard Driver Garton’s “Half-past four, sir. Half-past four. Time to get up, sir.”