CHAPTER IX

TRENCH FEVER

Now out in the trenches you'll find to your cost That the slower you shuffle the sooner you're lost; There are actions done better the quicker they're done, Like getting your rations or bombing a Hun, Or dodging a pip-squeak or catching a flea,-- The quicker you do them the better they be.

(_From "Trench Wisdom."_)

The Irish were back in the trenches again. It was night; the ground was covered with snow, and Spudhole who did not feel well was glad of an hour's rest in a dug-out.

The dug-out belonged at one time to the Germans. It was a spacious apartment stretching out into unfathomable corners. The dry floor was level as a board and all round the walls snug little crannies were scraped out in the clay. Here were stored all manner of odds and ends, bully beef tins, loaves, biscuits, coils of barbed wire, hand grenades, bandoliers, water jars, tins of jam, candles and firewood.

A brazier burned on the floor, the smoke curled upwards and was sucked out through a hole in the roof as through a chimney. A dozen men sat around the fire, their sheepskin jackets steaming and the brass buckles of their equipment shining like gold. The blaze, burning high, lit up the steady eyes and ruddied the strong features of the men. Spudhole, half asleep, leant forward over his knees, his arms folded, his shoulders humped up and his helmet well down over his face. Bowdy Benners was writing a letter, his notepaper spread out on Bubb's back, his knees crossed. An old, wrinkled man of forty-eight, named Bill Hurd, was telling how his own son had joined the Army at the outbreak of war. Hurd was an Irishman and had worked as a carpenter on a big estate in Devon, and his son John had a job in his father's workshop.

"'Twas two days after war was declared," Bill was saying, "and I was down in the kitchen waitin' till it was time to go out till my job. I was always an early riser. Upstairs I heard John singin' like a thrush. 'What's wrong with him?' I says till myself, for, though he was a good, willin' cub, he was not an early riser. When he came down I says till him, 'What's up wid ye this mornin'?' I says. 'I'm goin' till jine up,' he says. It most took my breath away. 'But ye're not only eighteen come the end of next week,' I says till him. 'But I can be nineteen at a pinch,' he answers, and what was to be said to that? I ups and shakes him by the hand. 'Ye're a man, that's what ye are,' I says till him. 'And where are ye goin' to jine up?' I asks him. 'In the town,' he says, meanin' the town nearest where there was a recruitin' station. 'Then I'll go 'long wid ye an' see that ye're right fitted up,' I says to him. 'I must go out an' do an hour's work,' he then says. 'When I've finished that I'll be ready to go.' 'Right, me boy,' I says, for I knew that he wanted to go out and tell the other men what he was going to do.

"So we goes to the recruitin' station and the corp'ral there runs a tape over John. 'Ye'll do,' he says. 'Ye'll make a fine sodger.' So we went out, me an' him, and I goes wid him to the nearest tobacco shop. 'Now think of what ye're goin' to do,' I says till him. 'It's not an easy job, the job of a sodger. Now think,' I said, 'think, me boy.' He looked at me straight in the face and said, as if he was offended: 'Ye don't think I've done wrong, do ye?' Begorra, there and then, I just--and there were a lot iv people lookin' at us--I just caught him be the hand and squeezed it. 'Ye're a man,' I says, 'an' I'll get ye a pipe an' tobacco.'

"And so I did, and would ye misdoubt me when I say that he was as handy puttin' a match to a pipe as I was meself. But it's not easy to understand young cubs."

"When did you join up?" asked Snogger, who came into the dug-out at that moment.

"Long after that," said Billy. "There was a young fellow on the estate, the son of me mistress. A fine, hearty-lookin' fellow, a rale good lump iv a cub with laughey eyes and so handsome. He was a great friend iv mine. Well, he was an officer in the regulars, and he got hit in the eyes out here be a splinter iv a shell and he was knocked stone blind. He comes home, goes into hospital, and was there for long enough, but nothin' could be done. All hope was lost; he would be blind for life. And his mother, she took it as calm as anything. 'Billy,' she used to say to me, 'somebody must suffer and it's all for the country when all's said and done.' She was a brave woman; didn't wear her heart on her sleeve. I never saw her eyes wet, not until one day. 'Twas when her boy sent a wee fretwork letter-rack home from hospital as a present to his mother. He had made it himself, blind as he was, and it was very purty. I was doin' a bit of woodwork in the hall when it came in a parcel. The mother opened the parcel and saw what was inside.... And she began to cry as if she would never stop. After that, when anybody spoke of her boy, she would burst out weepin'.

"Well, I liked the boy," said Billy. "So I thought 'twas up to me to have revinge for him on the Germans. So I had a clean shave and went to the recruitin' office and signed on as a man of thirty-nine."

"Ye should have had more sense," said Bubb, getting to his feet, and disappearing into a corner. No doubt the boy, who was not feeling well, wanted to snatch an hour's sleep.

Snogger looked at the men.

"Six of you for rashun fatigue," he said. "Two to relieve the men on guard. Whose turn is it?"

"I'm one," said Bowdy.

"Me as well," said Billy Hurd.

"Pull yourselves together, then, and git out," said Snogger. "It's two minutes past time."

Bowdy and Billy got to their feet, buckled their equipment and went out to their posts. An hour later they came back. Bowdy shook the snow from his sheepskin jacket and sat down on the ground beside the brazier.

"It's a very cold night outside," he said. "Freeze the horns off a brass monkey, it would. Where's Spudhole?" he asked.

"Wot's wrong now? Wot d'yer want?" asked a feeble voice, as Spudhole peeped out from a dark corner by the wall. He rose to his feet and buttoned his sheepskin jacket which had become loose.

"How are you feeling now, Spudhole?" asked Benners.

"Oh, I'm all right; in the pink," said Spud. "'Ave yer a drop of water to spare?"

Bowdy handed a water-bottle to Spud; the youngster raised it to his lips and drank greedily.

"Cold water's not a drink for a night like this," said Bowdy. "What you want is something hot. If I make a mess-tin of tea, will you have some?"

"Thank you," said Bubb, handing the bottle back.

"I'm goin' to 'ave another kip now," he added. "Rouse me up when it's my turn for sentry-go."

He lay back, closed his eyes and felt very cold. At intervals he shivered, shaking from head to foot. Innumerable currents of icy air seemed to have taken up their abode in the dug-out, living, crafty currents as cruel as enemies, which stole slyly down his back penetrating between flesh and underclothing. They blew on the back of his neck; when he turned round he encountered them on his face, they stole out from all corners incessantly chilling him with their treacherous, frozen breath. He fell asleep, woke up, and it seemed to him that a swarm of ants had got into his throat and that other ants, thousands of them, were crawling over his arms and legs.

He got up, shook himself. His legs felt very weak, his head was spinning. He tottered over to the fire. Bowdy, who was pouring a handful of tea into the boiling water, looked up.

"Good heavens, Spudhole, you are looking bad," he said. "Feeling cold?"

"Cold's not the word," Bubb replied. "I wouldn't be worse off 'andcuffed to a ghost. Wot's the time?" he asked.

"Ten to eleven," said Bowdy, looking at his wrist watch.

"Just 'bout my time for sentry-go," said Bubb in a weak voice. "I s'pose I'm gettin' trench fever or somefin'," he added.

Bowdy placed a spoonful of condensed milk in the tea, stirred it and added sugar.

"This will warm you up," he said, filling the mess-tin lid with tea and handing it to Bubb. "Then you can lie down agin near the fire and I'll do your turn as sentry."

Spudhole had the lid half raised to his lips. His hand shook, the tea splashed out in little drops which fell on the brazier.

"Bowdy!" he said, in a slow voice.

"What is it?"

"I've never failed at my work yet," said Spudhole. "I'm not 'ere in the trenches to shift my jobs on to other blokes."

"But you're feeling queer," said Bowdy. "If I felt like that I would go down and see the M.O. and get shoved into hospital."

"Would you!" said Spudhole, placing the mess-tin lid on the floor. "I know better. Wot did I 'ear yer say once? Ye'd never leave your trenches when the regiment was there unless you were carried out on a stretcher."

"That was only swank," said Bowdy. "You drink your tea, Spudhole, and lie down. I'll put a couple of sandbags round you and if you're not better in the morning, just run down and see the M.O."

"Well, I'm damned if I goes away from the line," said Bubb. "Not until the battalion is wiv me. That's settled."

He bent down, raised the mess-tin and drank the tea. Snogger came to the door.

"Next on sentry-go?" he called.

"I'm there," said Bowdy.

"It's my turn," said Bubb.

"No chewin' the fat, or some of ye'll be damned unlucky," said Snogger. "'Ooever's on's on, that's all; so get some elbow grease on and 'urry out. Them that's on's a minute and 'arf over their time already."

Spudhole went out, crawled up on the firestep and relieved the sentry. Leaning both arms on the parapet, he looked over No Man's Land towards the German trenches. The levels in front, a shell-scarred spread of ground set off in its ghastly array of barbed wire entanglements, was covered with snow. Here Nature had only one mood, a mood of sulky menace which overawed and subdued the tempers of the onlookers. The sky was coldly clear and a million stars showed in its broad expanse. But Bubb's circle of horizon was very small, objects quite near at hand stood out weirdly silhouetted with a blurred, though definite outline. The trenches were wrapped in ghostly solitude, the brazier aflare in the dug-out which Bubb had just left added no relieving tint to the blind helplessness of the night.

The sick boy stood back from the parapet and clapped his hands together in an endeavour to warm himself.

"Gawd, it's cold 'ere," he muttered. "I wish I was in the dug-out 'avin' a kip. 'Twould be so much better than standin' out 'ere. But I wouldn't 'ave it, naw, not at any price. I wouldn't shove my job on to any bloke. Bowdy would do sentry-go for me, good old Bowdy, and so would old Flan if 'e warn't down at the dump, but why should they? I wouldn't mind lettin' them do it if it was out o' the trenches."

"How are you getting on, Spud?" asked a voice from the trench. "Feeling the cold?"

The boy looked down at Captain Thorley. The captain and he were great friends.

"Cold," said Spud, through chattering teeth. "It's not warm 'ere, is it, sir? I feel as cold as if I was 'andcuffed to a ghost."

"I hear that you're not feeling well," said the captain.

"I'm orlright, sir. Was a bit dicky a minute back, but the cold air 'asn't 'arf bucked me up."

"Well, you know that Bowdy will do your job for you if you're feeling queer," said Thorley.

"I know that, sir, but I'm orlright," said Bubb. "Besides, I wouldn't rob a man of 'is sleep."

Bubb finished his hour, but when his next turn as sentry came round he was unable to perform his duty. He looked helplessly at his mate.

"Bowdy," he said, in a low, apologetic voice. "I've no guts for anuvver hour's sentry-go. I'm washed out. I will go down to the M.O. not to-morrow mornin' but now. If I stay 'ere any longer, I'll 'ave to be carried out o't. But didn't I stick it to the last, Bowdy?"

"Of course, you did. I'm damned if I'd stick it so long."

"Clear out of it at once, Spudhole," said Billy Hurd. "Ye're like a ghost, somethin' like what a cat would take in on a wet day."

"Ye think I'm sick enough to leave 'ere then?" asked Bubb. "I don't want any o' the fellers to say, arter I go, that I was swingin' the lead."

"If ye stop 'ere any longer, they'll say that ye're stayin' here, hopin' that ye'll be so bad when ye leave that ye'll never be sent back again."

"Then I'm off out't," said Bubb, decision in his voice. "I'll try and be back as soon as I can."

He went outside and made his way to the dressing station. Dawn found him snug in a motor ambulance on his way to hospital.