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 FRONT LINES
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 BETWEEN THE LINES, Net, $1.50 
 ACTION FRONT, . . Net, $1.50 
 DOING THEIR BIT, . Net, $1.25 
 GRAPES OF WRATH, Net, $1.50 
 
 E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 
 NEW YORK
 
 FRONT LINES 
 
 BY BOYD CABLE 
 
 author of 
 "between the lines," "action front," "grapes of wrath' 
 
 NEW YORK 
 E. p. BUTTON & COMPANY 
 
 681 FIFTH AVENUE
 
 COPTKIQHT, 1918, 
 
 BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 Printed in the United States of America
 
 THESE LINES, WRITTEN AT AND TELLING 
 ABOUT THE FRONT, ARE DEDICATED— WITH 
 THE FERVENT WISH THAT THOSE THERE 
 MAY SOON SEE THE LAST OF IT— TO THE 
 FRONT, BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR
 
 FOREWOED 
 
 These tales have been written over a period 
 running from the later stages of the Sonmie 
 to the present time. For the book I have two 
 ambitions— the first, that to my Service read- 
 ers it may bring a few hours of interest and 
 entertainment, may prove some sort of a pic- 
 ture and a record of what they themselves 
 have been through; the second, that it may 
 strike and impress and stir those people at 
 home who even now clearly require awaken- 
 ing to all that war means. 
 
 I know that a great many war workers 
 have been, and still are, bearing cheerfully 
 and willingly the long strain of war work, 
 and I very gladly and thankfully offer my 
 testimony to what I have seen of this good 
 spirit. But it would be idle to deny, since the 
 proofs have been too plain, that many war 
 workers are not doing their best and utmost, 
 
 are not playing the game as they might do 
 
 vu
 
 viii FOREWORD 
 
 and ought to do, and it is to these in particu- 
 lar I hope this book may speak. 
 
 Surely by now every worker might appre- 
 ciate the fact that whatever good cause they 
 may have for ''war weariness '' they are at 
 least infinitely better off than any man in the 
 firing line; surely they can understand how 
 bitter men here feel when they hear and read 
 of all these manifestations of labour ''dis- 
 content" and "unrest." We know well how 
 dependent we are on the efforts of the work- 
 ers at home, and there are times when we 
 are forced to the belief that some workers also 
 know it and trade on it for their own benefit, 
 are either woefully ignorant still of what the 
 failure of their fullest effort means to us, or, 
 worse, are indifferent to the sufferings and 
 endurings of their men on active service, are 
 unpatriotic, narrow, selfish enough to put the 
 screw on the nation for their own advantage. 
 
 I beg each war worker to remember that 
 every slackening of their efforts, every re- 
 duction of output, every day wasted, every 
 stoppage of work, inevitably encourages the 
 enemy, prolongs the war, keeps men chained
 
 FOREWORD ix 
 
 to the misery of the trenches, piles up the 
 casualties, continues the loss of life. A 
 strike, or the threat of a strike, may win for 
 the workers their 12y2 per cent, increase of 
 pay, the "recognition" of some of their offi- 
 cials, their improved comfort ; but every such 
 ''victory'* is only gained at the expense of 
 the men in the trenches, is paid for in flesh 
 and blood in the firing line. 
 
 When men here are suffering as they must 
 suffer, are enduring as they do endure with 
 good heart and courage, it comes as a pro- 
 found shock and a cruel discouragement to 
 them to read in the papers, or go home and 
 discover, that any people there are ap- 
 parently indifferent to their fate, are ready 
 to sacrifice them ruthlessly for any trivial 
 personal benefit, refuse to share the pinch 
 of war, must have compensating advantages 
 to level up ''the increased cost of living," 
 will even bring a vital war industry to a 
 standstill — it has been done — as a "protest" 
 against the difficulty of obtaining butter or 
 margarine and tea. It may be that one grows 
 one-sided in ideas after more than three
 
 X FOREWORD 
 
 years' soldiering, but can you blame us if 
 we feel contempt for pitiful grumblers and 
 complainers who have a good roof overhead, 
 a warm room and fire, a dry bed, and no real 
 lack of food, if we feel anger against men 
 who have all these things and yet go on 
 strike, knowing that we must pay the pen- 
 alty? And let me flatly deny the claim which 
 some strikers and agitators still make that 
 in these upheavals and checks on war indus- 
 try they are ' ' fighting for the rights of their 
 mates in the trenches. '* Their * 'mates in the 
 trenches" will be ready and able to, and cer- 
 tainly will, fight for their own rights when 
 the war is won and they can do so without 
 endangering or delaying the winning. 
 
 Meantime can any man be fool enough 
 honestly to believe that ** mates in the 
 trenches ' ' want anything more urgently than 
 to win the war and get out of it! If there 
 are any such fools let them try to imagine 
 the feelings of the ''mate" cowering and 
 shivering over a scanty handful of wet wood 
 or black-smoky dust "coal ration" who hears 
 that coal miners at home threaten a strike;
 
 FOREWORD xJ 
 
 of the man crouched in a battered trench 
 that is being blasted to bits by German steel 
 shells from steel guns, who learns that our 
 steel-makers are ''out" and if their demands 
 were not satisfied would continue to strike 
 indefinitely and hold up the making of the 
 guns and shells which alone can protect us ; of 
 the man who is being bombed from the air 
 night after night in his billets and reads that 
 50,000 aircraft workers are on strike, and 
 that the Front will be poorer as a result by 
 hundreds of the aircraft which might bomb 
 the enemy 'dromes out of action and stop 
 their raiding; the dismay of the man about 
 to go on a long deferred and eagerly waited 
 leave when he is told that all leaves may have 
 to be stopped because a threatened strike of 
 *'foot-plate" workers may strand him at his 
 debarkation port. Will it soothe or satisfy a 
 man in any of these cases to be told the 
 strikes are really fights for his rights, espe- 
 cially when you remember he knows that as 
 a result of the strike he may be too dead to 
 have any rights to be fought for? 
 
 The best I can wish for this book is that
 
 xii FOREWORD 
 
 it may do even one little bit to make plain 
 with what cheerfulness — cheerfulness and 
 even at times almost incredible humour — the 
 Front is sticking it out, with what complete 
 confidence in final victory this year's fight is 
 being begun; and may make yet more plain 
 the need for every man and woman at home 
 to give their last ounce of energy to help win 
 the war speedily and conclusively. 
 
 Boyd Cable. 
 
 On the Westeen Feont, 
 January 7th, 1918.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTEB PAGE 
 
 I. Trench-made Art 1 
 
 II. The Suicide Club 21 
 
 III. In the Wood 44 
 
 IV. The Diving Tank 62 
 
 V. In the Mist 74 
 
 VI. Seeing Red 99 
 
 VII. An Air Barrage .117 
 
 VIII. Nightmare 137 
 
 IX. The Gilded Staff . . . . . 156 
 
 X. A Raid 172 
 
 XI. A Roaring Trade 183 
 
 XII. Home 205 
 
 XIII. Bring up the Guns 227 
 
 XIV. Our Battery's Prisoner . . . 246 
 XV. Our Turn 262 
 
 XVI. According to Plan 277 
 
 XVII. Down in Hunland 297 
 
 XVIII. The Final Objective .... 318 
 
 XIX. Artillery Preparation .... 327 
 
 XX. Stretcher-bearers 336 
 
 XXI, The Conquerors 345
 
 FRONT LINES 
 
 I 
 
 TRENCH-MADE ART 
 
 By the very nature of their job the R.A.M.C. 
 men in the Field Ambulances have at inter- 
 vals a good deal of spare time on their hands. 
 The personnel has to be kept at a strength 
 which will allow of the smooth and rapid 
 handling of the pouring stream of casualties 
 which floods back from the firing line when 
 a big action is on ; and when a period of in- 
 activity comes in front the stream drops to a 
 trickle that doesn't give the field ambulances 
 ''enough work to keep themselves warm." 
 
 It was in one of these slack periods that 
 Corporal Richard, of the Oughth London 
 Field Ambulance, resumed the pleasurable 
 occupation of his civilian days, to his own 
 great satisfaction and the enormous interest
 
 2 FRONT LINES 
 
 of his comrades. Richard in pre-war days 
 had been a sculptor, and the chance discov- 
 ery near the ambulance camp of a stream 
 where a very fair substitute for modelling 
 clay could be had led him to experiments and 
 a series of portrait modellings. He had no 
 lack of models. Every other man in his squad 
 was most willing to be ''took," and would sit 
 with most praiseworthy patience for as long 
 as required, and for a time Richard revelled 
 in the luxury of unlimited (and free-of-cost) 
 models and in turning out portraits and cari- 
 catures in clay. He worked with such speed, 
 apparent ease, and complete success that be- 
 fore long he had half the men endeavouring 
 to imitate his artistic activities. 
 
 Then Richard attempted more serious 
 work, and in the course of time turned out a 
 little figure study over which the more edu- 
 cated and artistic of his friends waxed most 
 enthusiastic, and which he himself, consider- 
 ing it carefully and critically, admitted to be 
 "not bad." On the other hand, it is true that 
 many members of the company regarded the 
 masterpiece with apathy, and in some cases
 
 TRENCH-MADE ART 8 
 
 almost with disapproval. *' Seems a pity,'* 
 said one critic, 'Hliat the corp'ril should 'ave 
 wasted all this time over the one job. Spent 
 every minute of 'is spare time, 'e 'as, fiddlin' 
 an' touchin' up at it; could 'ave done a dozen 
 o' them picturs o' us chaps in the time. An', 
 now it is done, 'tain't quarter sich a good 
 joke as that one o' the sergeant-major wi' the 
 bottle nose. Fair scream, that was." 
 
 But in due time the corporal went home 
 on leave, and took his study along with him. 
 Later it gained a place in an exhibition of 
 *' Trench-made Art" in London, many news- 
 paper paragraphs, and finally a photo in a 
 picture paper and a note stating who the 
 work was by and the conditions under which 
 it was performed. 
 
 A good score of the picture papers arrived 
 at the Oughth London from friends at home 
 to men in the unit. That did it. There waS 
 an immediate boom in Art in the Oughth Lon- 
 don, and sculpture became the popular spare- 
 time hobby of the unit. This was all, as I 
 have said, at a period when spare time was 
 plentiful. The unit was billeted in a village
 
 4 FRONT LINES 
 
 well behind the firing-line in a peacefully 
 sylvan locality. It was early summer, so that 
 the light lasted long in the evenings, and gave 
 plenty of opportunity to the sculptors to pur- 
 sue their Art after the day's duties were 
 done. 
 
 As a consequence the output of sculpture 
 would have done credit — in quantity if not, 
 perhaps, in quality — to a popular atelier in 
 full swing. The more enterprising attempted 
 to follow the corporal's path in portrait and 
 caricature, and it must be confessed were a 
 good deal more successful in the latter 
 branch. The portraits usually required an 
 explanatory inscription, and although the 
 caricatures required the same in most cases, 
 they only had to be ugly enough, to show a 
 long enough nose, or a big enough mouth, 
 and to be labelled with the name of some fair 
 butt or sufficiently unpopular noncom. to se- 
 cure a most satisfying and flattering meed 
 of praise. 
 
 Less ambitious spirits contented themselves 
 with simpler and more easily recognisable 
 subjects. The cross or crucifix which, as a
 
 TRENCH-MADE ART 5 
 
 rule, marks the cross or forked roads in this 
 part of France had from the first caught the 
 attention and interest of the Londoners, and 
 now, in the new flush of Art, provided imme- 
 diate inspiration. Almost every man in the 
 new school of sculpture graduated through a 
 course of plain crosses to more fancy ones, 
 and higher up the scale to crucifixes. 
 
 But in point of popularity even the cross 
 sank to second place when Private Jimmy 
 Copple, with an originality that amounted 
 almost to genius, turned out a miniature 
 model coffin. The coffin, as a work of art, had 
 points that made it an unrivalled favourite. 
 It was so obviously and unmistakably a coffin 
 that it required no single word of explanation 
 or description ; it was simple enough in form 
 to be within the scope of the veriest beginner ; 
 it lent itself to embellishment and the finer 
 shades of reproduction in nails and tassels 
 and name-plate; and permitted, without evi- 
 dence of undue *' swank" on the part of the 
 artist, of his signature being appended in the 
 natural and fitting place on the name-plate. 
 
 There was a boom in model coffins of all
 
 6 FRONT LINES 
 
 sizes, and a constantly flickering or raging 
 discussion on details of tassels, cords, han- 
 dles, and other funereal ornaments. Private 
 Copple again displayed his originality of 
 thought by blacking a specially fine specimen 
 of his handiwork with boot polish, with nails 
 and name-plate (duly inscribed with his own 
 name and regimental number) picked out in 
 the white clay. He was so pleased with this 
 that he posted it home, and, on receiving 
 warm words of praise from his mother in 
 Mile End, and the information that the coffin 
 was installed for ever as a household orna- 
 ment and an object of interest and admira- 
 tion to all neighbours, a steady export trade 
 in clay coffins was established from the 
 Oughth London to friends and relatives at 
 home. 
 
 The Art School was still flourishing when 
 the unit was moved up from its peaceful and 
 prolonged rest to take a turn up behind the 
 firing-line. The removal from their clay sup- 
 ply might have closed down the artistic ac- 
 tivities, but, fortunately, the Oughth had 
 hardly settled in to their new quarters when
 
 TRENCH-MADE ART 7 
 
 it was found that the whole ground was one 
 vast bed of chalk, chalk which was easily ob- 
 tainable in any shaped and sized lumps and 
 which proved most delightfully easy to 
 manipulate with a jack or pen-knife. The 
 new modelling material, in fact, gave a fillip 
 of novelty to the art, and the coffins and 
 crosses proved, when completed, to have a 
 most desirable quality of solidity and of last- 
 ing and retaining their shape and form far 
 better than the similar objects in clay. 
 
 Better still, the chalk could be carried about 
 on the person as no clay could, and worked 
 at anywhere in odd moments. Bulging side- 
 pockets became a marked feature of inspec- 
 tion parades, until one day when the CO. 
 went round, and noticing a craggy projection 
 under the pocket of Private Copple, de- 
 manded to know what the private was load- 
 ing himself with, and told him abruptly to 
 show the contents of his pocket. On Copple 
 producing with difficulty a lump of partially 
 carved chalk, the CO. stared at it and then 
 at the sheepish face of the private in blank
 
 8 FRONT LINES 
 
 amazement. *' What's this?" he demanded. 
 ''What is it?" 
 
 "It — it's a elephant, sir," said Copple. 
 
 ''An elephant," said the CO. dazedly. 
 *'An elephant?" 
 
 "Yessir — leastways, it will be a elephant 
 when it's finished," said Copple bashfully. 
 
 "Elephant — will be " spluttered the 
 
 CO., turning to the officer who accompanied 
 him. "Is the man mad!" 
 
 "I think, sir," said the junior, "he is try- 
 ing to carve an elephant out of a lump of 
 chalk." 
 
 "That's it, sir," said Copple, and with a 
 dignified touch of resentment at the "try- 
 ing, " " I am carving out a elephant. ' ' 
 
 The CO. turned over the block of chalk 
 with four rudimentary legs beginning to 
 sprout from it, and then handed it back. 
 "Take it away," he said. "Fall out, and 
 take the thing away. And when you come 
 on parade next time leave — ah — your ele- 
 phants in your billet." 
 
 Copple fell out, and the inspection pro- 
 ceeded. But now the eye of the CO. went
 
 TRENCH-MADE ART 9 
 
 straight to each man's pocket, and further 
 lumps of chalk of various sizes were pro- 
 duced one by one. * * Another elephant ? ' ' said 
 the CO. to the first one. **No, sir," said the 
 sculptor. ''It's a coffin." "A co — coffin," 
 said the CO. faintly, and, turning to the offi- 
 cer, "A coffin is what he said, eh?" The 
 officer, who knew a good deal of the existing 
 craze, had difficulty in keeping a straight 
 face. "Yes, sir," he said chokily, "a coffin." 
 The CO. looked hard at the coffin and at its 
 creator, and handed it back. "And you," he 
 said to the next man, tapping with his cane a 
 nobbly pocket. "Mine's a coffin, too, sir," 
 and out came another coffin. 
 
 The CO. stepped back a pace, and let his 
 eye rove down the line. The next man shiv- 
 ered as the eye fell on him, as well he might, 
 because he carried in his pocket a work de- 
 signed to represent the head of the CO. — a 
 head of which, by the way, salient features 
 lent themselves readily to caricature. None 
 of these features had been overlooked by the 
 artist, and the identity of the portrait had 
 been further established by the eye-glass
 
 10 FRONT LINES 
 
 which it wore, and by the exaggerated badges 
 of rank on the shoulder. Up to the inspec- 
 tion and the horrible prospect that the cari- 
 cature would be confronted by its original, 
 the artist had been delighted with the praise 
 bestowed by the critics on the "likeness." 
 Now, with the eye of the CO. roaming over 
 his shrinking person and protruding pocket, 
 he cursed despairingly his own skill. 
 
 *'I think," said the CO. slowly, ''the pa- 
 rade had better dismiss, and when they have 
 unburdened themselves of their — ah — ele- 
 phants and — ah — coffins — ah — fall in again 
 for inspection." 
 
 The portrait sculptor nearly precipitated 
 calamity by his eager move to dismiss with- 
 out waiting for the word of command. And 
 after this incident sculpings were left out of 
 pockets at parade times, and the caricaturist 
 forswore any attempts on subjects higher 
 than an N.C.O. 
 
 The elephant which Private Copple had 
 produced was another upward step in his art. 
 He had tried animal after animal with faint 
 success. The features of even such well-
 
 TRENCH-MADE ART 11 
 
 known animals as cats and cows had a baf- 
 fling way of fading to such nebulous outlines 
 in his memory as to be utterly unrecognisable 
 when transferred to stone or chalk. A horse, 
 although models in plenty were around, 
 proved to be a more intricate subject than 
 might be imagined, and there were trying 
 difficulties about the proper dimensions and 
 proportions of head, neck, and body. But an 
 elephant had a beautiful simplicity of out- 
 line, a solidity of figure that was excellently 
 adapted for modelling, and a recognisability 
 that was proof against the carping doubts 
 and scorn of critics and rival artists. Alter 
 all, an animal with four legs, a trunk, and a 
 tail is, and must be, an elephant. But there 
 was one great difficulty about the elephant — 
 his tail was a most extraordinarily difficult 
 thing to produce whole and complete in brit- 
 tle chalk, and there was a distressing casualty 
 list of almost-finished elephants from this 
 weakness. 
 
 At first Private Copple made the tail the 
 last finishing touch to his work, but when ele- 
 phant after elephant had to be scrapped be-
 
 12 FRONT LINES 
 
 cause the tail broke off in the final carving, 
 he reversed the process, began his work on 
 the tail and trunk — another irritatingly 
 breakable part of an elephant's anatomy — 
 and if these were completed successfully, 
 went on to legs, head, etc. If the trunk or 
 tail broke, he threw away the block and 
 started on a fresh one. He finally improved 
 on this and further reduced the wastage and 
 percentage of loss by beginning his elephant 
 with duplicate ends, with a trunk, that is, at 
 head and stern. If one trunk broke off he 
 turned the remaining portion satisfactorily 
 enough into a tail; if neither broke and the 
 body and legs were completed without acci- 
 dent, he simply whittled one of the trunks 
 down into a tail and rounded off the head at 
 that end into a haunch. 
 
 But now such humour as may be in this 
 story must give way for the moment to the 
 tragedy of red war — as humour so often has 
 to do at the front. 
 
 Copple was just in the middle of a specially 
 promising elephant when orders came to 
 move. He packed the elephant carefully in
 
 TRENCH-MADE ART 13 
 
 a handkercliief and his pocket and took it 
 with him back to the training area where for 
 a time the Oughth London went through a 
 careful instruction and rehearsing in the part 
 they were to play in the next move of the 
 ''Show'' then running. He continued to 
 work on his elephant in such spare time as 
 he had, and was so very pleased with it that 
 he clung to it when they went on the march 
 again, although pocket space was precious 
 and ill to spare, and the elephant took up one 
 complete side pocket to itself. 
 
 Arrived at their appointed place in the 
 show, Copple continued to carry his elephant, 
 but had little time to work on it because he 
 was busy every moment of the day and many 
 hours of the night on his hard and risky 
 duties. The casualties came back to the Aid 
 Post in a steady stream that swelled at times 
 to an almost overwhelming rush, and every 
 man of the Field Ambulance was kept going 
 at his hardest. The Aid Post was established 
 in a partly wrecked German gun emplacement 
 built of concrete, and because all the ground 
 about them was too ploughed up and cratered
 
 14 FRONT LINES 
 
 with shell-fire to allow a motor ambulance to 
 approach it, the wounded had to be helped 
 or carried back to the nearest point to which 
 the hard-working engineers had carried the 
 new road, and there were placed on the mo- 
 tors. 
 
 Private Copple was busy one morning help- 
 ing to carry back some of the casualties. A 
 hot ''strafe" was on, the way back led 
 through lines and clumped batches of bat- 
 teries all in hot action, the roar of gun-fire 
 rose long and unbroken and deafeningly, and 
 every now and then through the roar of their 
 reports and the diminishing wails of their 
 departing shells there came the rising shriek 
 and rush of a German shell, the crump and 
 crash of its burst, the whistle and hum of fly- 
 ing splinters. Private Copple and the rest 
 of the E.A.M.C. men didn't like it any more 
 than the casualties, who appeared to dread 
 much more, now that they were wounded, the 
 chance of being hit again, chiefly because it 
 would be such "rotten luck" to get killed 
 now that they had done their share, got their 
 "Blighty," and with decent luck were soon
 
 TRENCH-MADE ART 15 
 
 to be out of it all, and safely and comfortably 
 back in hospital and home. 
 
 But, although many times the wounded 
 asked to be laid down in a shell-hole, or al- 
 lowed to take cover for a moment at the warn- 
 ing shriek of an approaching shell, the ambu- 
 lance men only gave way to them when, from 
 the noise, they judged the shell was going to 
 fall very perilously close. If they had 
 stopped for every shell the work would have 
 taken too long, and the Aid Post was too 
 cram-full, and too many fresh cases were 
 pouring in, to allow of any delay on the mere 
 account of danger. So there were during the 
 day a good many casualties amongst the am- 
 bulance men, and so at the end Private Cop- 
 pie was caught. He had hesitated a moment 
 too long in dropping himself into the cover 
 of the shell crater where he had just lowered 
 the ''walking wounded" he was supporting 
 back. The shell whirled down in a crescendo 
 of howling, roaring noise, and, just as Copple 
 flung himself down, burst with an earth- 
 shaking crash a score or so of yards away. 
 Copple felt a tremendous blow on his side.
 
 16 FRONT LINES 
 
 They had ripped most of the clothes off him 
 and were busy with first field dressings on 
 his wounds when he recovered enough to take 
 any interest in what was going on. The 
 dressers were in a hurry because more shells 
 were falling near ; there was one vacant place 
 in a motor ambulance, and its driver was in 
 haste to be off and out of it. 
 
 **You're all right," said one of the men, 
 in answer to Copple's faint inquiry. *'A11 
 light wounds. Lord knows what you were 
 carrying a lump of stone about in your pocket 
 for, but it saved you this trip. Splinter hit 
 it, and smashed it, and most of the wounds 
 are from bits of the stone — luckily for you, 
 because if it hadn't been there a chunk of 
 Boche iron would just about have gone 
 through you. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Stone ? ' ' said Copple faintly. * ' Strewth ! 
 That was my blessed elephant in my bloomin' 
 pocket. ' ' 
 
 "Elephant?" said the orderly. '*In your 
 pocket? An' did it have pink stripes an' a 
 purple tail? Well, never mind about ele- 
 phants now. You can explain 'em to the
 
 TRENCH-MADE ART 17 
 
 Blighty M.O.* Here, up you get.'* And he 
 helped Copple to the ambulance. 
 
 Later on, the humour of the situation 
 struck Private Copple. He worked up a 
 prime witticism which he afterwards played 
 off on the Sister who was dressing his 
 wounds in a London hospital. 
 
 *'D'you know," he said, chuckling, **I'm 
 the only man in this war that's been wounded 
 by a elephant?" 
 
 The Sister stayed her bandaging, and 
 looked at him curiously. '' Wounded by a 
 elephant," repeated Copple cheerfully. 
 "Funny to think it's mebbe a bit of 'is trunk 
 made the 'ole in my thigh, an' I got 'is 'ead 
 and 'is 'ind leg in my ribs." 
 
 *'You mustn't talk nonsense, you know," 
 said the Sister hesitatingly. Certainly, Cop- 
 ple had shown no signs of shell-shock or un- 
 balanced mind before, but 
 
 *'We used to carve things out o' chalk 
 stone in my lot," went on Copple, and ex- 
 plained how the shell splinter had been 
 stopped by the elephant in his pocket. The 
 
 * M. O, Medical Officer
 
 18 iFRONT LINES 
 
 Sister was immensely interested and a good 
 deal amused, and laughed — rather immoder- 
 ately and in the wrong place, as Copple 
 thought when he described his cofiBn master- 
 piece with the name-plate bearing his own 
 name, and the dodge of starting on the ele- 
 phant with a trunk at each end. 
 
 ''Well, I've heard a lot of queer things 
 about the front, Copple," she said, busying 
 herself on the last bandage. "But I didn't 
 know they went in for sculpture. ' Ars longa, 
 vitse brevis.' That's a saying in Latin, and 
 it means exactly, 'Art is long, life is short.' 
 You'd understand it better if I put it an- 
 other way. It means that it takes a long, 
 long time to make a perfect elephant " 
 
 "It does," said Copple. "But if you be- 
 gins 'im like I told you, with a trunk each 
 end " 
 
 "There, that'll do," said the Sister, pin- 
 ning the last bandage. "Now lie down and 
 I'll make you comfortable. A long time to 
 make a perfect elephant; and life is very 
 short "
 
 TRENCH-MADE ART 19 
 
 ''That's true," said Copple. ''Especially 
 up Wipers way. ' ' 
 
 "So, if making elephants gives some peo- 
 ple the greatest possible pleasure in life, why 
 not let them make elephants'? I'm an artist 
 of sorts myself, or was trying to be before 
 the war, so I speak feelingly for a brother 
 elephant-maker, Copple." 
 
 "Artist, was you?" said Copple, with 
 great interest. "That must be a jolly sorter 
 job." 
 
 "It is, Copple — or was," said the Sister, 
 finishing the tucking-up. "Much jollier than 
 a starched-smooth uniform and life — and lots 
 in it." And she sighed and made a little 
 grimace at the stained bandages she picked 
 up. "But if you and thousands of other 
 men give up your particular arts and go out 
 to have your short lives cut shorter, the least 
 I can do is to give up mine to try to make 
 them longer." 
 
 Copple didn't quite follow all this. "I 
 wish I'd a bit o' chalk stone, Sister," he said; 
 "I'd teach you how to do a elephant with the 
 two trunks."
 
 20 FRONT LINES 
 
 ''And how if a trunk breaks off one's ele- 
 phant — or life, one can always try to trim it 
 down to quite a useful tail," said the Sister, 
 smiling at him as she turned to go. ' ' You Ve 
 already taught me something of that, Copple 
 — ^you and the rest there in the trenches — 
 better than you know."
 
 n 
 
 THE SUICIDE CLUB 
 
 The Royal Jocks (Ouglith Battalion) had 
 suffered heavily in the fighting on the Sonune, 
 and after they had been withdrawn from ac- 
 tion to another and quieter part of the line, 
 all ranks heard with satisfaction that they 
 were to be made up to full strength by a big 
 draft from Home. There were the usual 
 wonderings and misgivings as to what sort 
 of a crowd the draft would be, and whether 
 they would be at all within the limits of possi- 
 bility of licking into something resembling 
 the shape that Royal Jocks ought to be. 
 
 '^ Expect we'll 'ave a tidy job to teach 'em 
 wot's wot," said Private '* Shirty" Low, 
 *'but we must just pass along all the fatigues 
 they can 'andle, and teach 'em the best we 
 can. ' ' 
 
 ''Let's hope," said his companion, **that 
 
 they get an advance o ' pay to bring with 'em. 
 
 21
 
 22 FEONT LINES 
 
 We'll be goin' back to billets soon, and we'll 
 be able to introduce 'em proper to the 
 estaminets. " 
 
 *'Yoii boys '11 have to treat 'em easy to 
 begin with," said a corporal. ''Don't go 
 breakin' their hearts for a start. They'll be 
 pretty sick an' home-sick for a bit, and you 
 don't want to act rough before they begin 
 to feel their feet." 
 
 This was felt to be reasonable, and there 
 was a very unanimous opinion that the best 
 way of treating the new arrivals was on the 
 lines of the suggestion about introducing 
 them carefully and fully to the ways of the 
 country, with particular attention to the cus- 
 toms of the estaminets. 
 
 ''And never forget," said the Corporal in 
 conclusion, "that, good or bad, they're Royal 
 Jocks after all ; and it will be up to you fel- 
 lows to see that they don't get put on by any 
 other crush, and to give 'em a help out if they 
 tumble into any little trouble." 
 
 The sentiments of the battalion being 
 fairly well summed up by this typical con- 
 versation, it will be understood with what
 
 THE SUICIDE CLUB 23 
 
 mixed feelings it was discovered on the ac- 
 tual arrival of the draft that they, the draft, 
 were not in the slightest degree disposed to 
 be treated as new hands, declined utterly to 
 be in any way fathered, declined still more 
 emphatically to handle more than their fair 
 share of fatigues, aiid most emphatically of 
 all to depend upon the good offices of the old 
 soldiers for their introduction to the ways of 
 the estaminets. The draft, which was far 
 too strong in numbers to be simply absorbed 
 and submerged in the usual way of drafts, 
 showed an inclination to hang together for 
 the first few days, and, as the Battalion soon 
 began somewhat dazedly to realise, actually 
 to look down upon the old soldiers and to 
 treat them with a tinge of condescension. 
 
 The open avowal of this feeling came one 
 night in the largest and most popular esta- 
 minet in the village to which the Battalion 
 had been withdrawn ''on rest.'* 
 
 ** Shirty" and some cronies were sitting at 
 a stone-topped table with glasses and a jug 
 of watery beer in front of them. The room 
 was fairly full and there were about as many
 
 24 FRONT LINES 
 
 of the draft present as there were of the old 
 lot, and practically all the draft were gath- 
 ered in little groups by themselves and were 
 drinking together. Close to Shirty 's table 
 was another with half a dozen of the draft 
 seated about it, and Shirty and his friends 
 noticed with some envy the liberal amount of 
 beer they allowed themselves. One of them 
 spoke to the girl who was moving about 
 amongst the tables with a tray full of jugs. 
 *'Here, miss, anither jug o' beer, please," 
 and held out the empty jug. Shirty saw his 
 opportunity, and with an ingratiating smile 
 leaned across and spoke to the girl. ^'Don- 
 nay them encore der bee-are," he said, and 
 then, turning to the other men, ''She don't 
 understand much English, y'see. But jus' 
 ask me to pass 'er the word if you wants 
 anything. ' ' 
 
 A big-framed lad thanked him civilly, but 
 Shirty fancied he saw a flicker of a smile pass 
 round the group. He turned back and spoke 
 to the girl again as she halted at their table 
 and picked up the empty jug. "Encore si 
 voo play," he said. "Eh les messieurs la
 
 THE SUICIDE CLUB 25 
 
 ba " jerking a thumb back at the other 
 
 table, but quite unostentatiously, so that the 
 other group might not see, *4a ba, voo com- 
 pree, payay voo toot la bee-are." He winked 
 slyly at his fellows and waited developments 
 complacently, while all smoked their cig- 
 arettes gravely and nonchalantly. 
 
 The girl brought the two jugs of beer pres- 
 ently and put one on each table. *^Com- 
 bien?" said one of the draft who had not 
 spoken before — a perky little man with a 
 sharp black moustache. He hesitated a mo- 
 ment when the girl told him how much, and 
 then spoke rapidly in fluent French. Shirty 
 at his table listened uneasily to the conversa- 
 tion that followed, and made a show of great 
 indifference in filling up the glasses. The 
 little man turned to him. ''There's some 
 mistake here, m' lad," he said. ''The girl 
 says you ordered your beer and said we'd 
 pay for it. ' ' 
 
 Shirty endeavoured to retrieve the lost 
 position. "Well, that's good of you," he 
 said pleasantly. "An' we don't mind if we 
 do 'ave a drink wi' you."
 
 26 FRONT LINES 
 
 The big man turned round. ''Drink wi's 
 when ye 're asked," he said calmly. ''But 
 that's no' yet," and he turned back to his own 
 table. "Tell her they'll pay their ain, Wat- 
 tie." Wattie told her, and Shirty 's table 
 with some difficulty raised enough to cover 
 the cost of the beer. Shirty felt that he had 
 to impress these new men with a true sense 
 of their position. "My mistake," he said to 
 his companions, but loudly enough for all to 
 hear. "But I might 'ave twigged these raw 
 rookies wouldn't 'ave knowed it was a reg'lar 
 custom in the Army for them to stand a drink 
 to the old hands to pay their footing. An' 
 most likely they haven't the price o' a drink 
 on them, anyway." 
 
 "Lauchie," said the big man at the other 
 table, "have ye change o' a ten-franc note! 
 No. Wattie, maybe ye '11 ask the lassie to 
 change it, an' tell her to bring anither beer. 
 This is awfu' swipes o' stuff t' be drinkin'. 
 It's nae wonder the men that's been oot here 
 a whilie has droppit awa' to such shauchlin', 
 knock-kneed, weak-like imitations of putty 
 
 men."
 
 THE SUICIDE CLUB 27 
 
 This was too much. Shirty pushed back 
 his chair and rose abruptly. *'If you're 
 speakin' about the men o' this battalion," he 
 began fiercely, when a corporal broke in, 
 ''That'll do. No rough-housin ' here. We 
 don't want the estaminets put out o' bounds." 
 He turned to the other table. * ' And you keep 
 a civil tongue between your teeth," he said, 
 ''or you'll have to be taught better manners, 
 young fella me lad." 
 
 "Ay," said the big man easily, "I'll be 
 glad enough t' be learned from them that 
 can learn me. An' aifter the cafe closes will 
 be a good enough time for a first lesson, if 
 there's anybody minded for't," and he 
 glanced at Shirty. 
 
 "Tak him ootside an' gie him a deb on the 
 snoot, Rabbie," said another of the draft, 
 nodding openly at the enraged Shirty. 
 
 "Ay, ay, Wullie," said Rabbie gently. 
 "But we'll just bide till the Corporal's no 
 about. We'll no be gettin' his stripes into 
 trouble. ' ' 
 
 All this was bad enough, but worse was to 
 follow. It was just before closing-time that
 
 28 FRONT LINES 
 
 a Gnnner came in and discovered a frigid 
 amongst the many sitting at Rabbie's table. 
 He accepted the pressing invitation to a 
 drink, and had several in quick succession in 
 an endeavour to make an abundant capacity 
 compensate for the inadequate time. 
 
 *'An' how are you gettin' onf he asked 
 as they all stood to go. ''Shaken down wi' 
 your new chums all right?'* 
 
 And the whole room, new hands and old 
 alike, heard Rabble's slow, clear answer: 
 
 **We're thinkin' they're an awfu' saft 
 kneel-an'-pray kind o' push. But noo we've 
 jined them we '11 sune learn them to be a bat- 
 talyun. I wish we'd a few more o' the real 
 stuff from the depot wi's, but Lauchie here's 
 the lad tae learn them, and we'll maybe mak 
 a battaljTin o' them yet." 
 
 The ** learning" began that night after the 
 estaminets closed, and there was a liberal 
 allowance of black eyes and swollen features 
 on parade next morning. It transpired that 
 boxing had been rather a feature back at the 
 depot, and the new men fully held their own 
 in the "learning" episodes. But out of the
 
 THE SUICIDE CLUB 29 
 
 encounters grew a mutual respect, and be- 
 fore long the old and the new had mixed, 
 and were a battalion instead of the battalion 
 and the draft. ' * 
 
 Only ''Shirty" of the whole lot retained 
 any animus against the new, and perhaps 
 even with him it is hardly fair to say it was 
 against the one-time draft, because actually 
 it was against one or two members of it. He 
 had never quite forgiven nor forgotten the 
 taking-down he had had from Rabbie Mac- 
 gregor and Lauchie McLauchlan, and con- 
 tinued openly or veiledly hostile to them. 
 
 Thrice he had fought Rabbie, losing once 
 to him — that was the first time after the es- 
 taminet episode — fighting once to an unde- 
 cided finish (which was when the picket broke 
 in and arrested both), and once with the 
 gloves on at a Battalion Sports, when he had 
 been declared the winner on points — a de- 
 cision which Rabbie secretly refused to ac- 
 cept, and his friend Lauchie agreed would 
 have been reversed if the fight had been al- 
 lowed to go to a finish. 
 
 Shirty was in the bombing section, or
 
 30 FRONT LINES 
 
 ''Suicide Club," as it was called, and both 
 Rabbie and Lauchie joined the same section, 
 and painfully but very tboroughly acquired 
 the art of hurling Mills ' grenades at seen or 
 unseen targets from above ground or out of 
 deep and narrow and movement-cramping 
 trenches. 
 
 And after a winter and spring of strenu- 
 ous training, the battalion came at last to 
 move up and take a part in the new offensive 
 of 1917. This attack had several features 
 about it that pleased and surprised even the 
 veterans of the Somme. For one thing, the 
 artillery fire on our side had a weight and a 
 precision far beyond anything they had ex- 
 perienced, and the attack over the open of 
 No Man's Land was successfully made with 
 a low cost in casualties which simply amazed 
 them all. 
 
 Eabbie openly scoffed at the nickname of 
 ''Suicide Club" for the Bombing Section. 
 They had lost a couple of men wounded in 
 the first attack, and had spent a merry morn- 
 ing frightening Boche prisoners out of their
 
 THE SUICIDE CLUB 31 
 
 dug-outs, or in obstinate cases flinging Mills' 
 grenades down the stairways. 
 
 They had waited to help stand off the 
 counter-attack the first night, but never 
 needed to raise their heads or fling a bomb 
 over the edge of the broken parapet, because 
 the counter-attack was wiped out by artil- 
 lery and rifle fire long before it came within 
 bombing distance. 
 
 **You an' yer Suicide Club!" said Rabbie 
 contemptuously to Shirty after this attack 
 had been beaten off. ''It's no even what the 
 insurance folks would ca' a hazardous occu- 
 pation. ' ' 
 
 "Wait a bit," said Shirty. '*We all knows 
 you're a bloomin' Scots-wha-hae hero, but 
 you 'aven't bin in it proper yet. Wait till 
 you 'ave, an' then talk." 
 
 The Bombing Section went into it 
 "proper" next day, when the battalion made 
 a little forward move that cost them more 
 casualties to take a trench and a hundred 
 yards of ground than the mile advance of the 
 previous day. 
 
 And when they had got the battered trench,
 
 32 FRONT LINES 
 
 the bombers were sent to clear a commmiica- 
 tion trench leading out of it and held by the 
 Germans. This trench was more or less 
 broken down, with fallen sides or tumbled 
 heaps of earth and gaping shell craters every 
 here and there along its length. The Ger- 
 mans contested it stoutly, and the bombers 
 had to keep below the level of the ground and 
 strictly to the trench, because above-ground 
 was being swept by a hurricane of rifle and 
 machine-gun fire from both sides. Length by 
 length of the zig-zag trench they pushed their 
 way, their grenades curving up and ahead of 
 them, the German ''potato-masher" grenades 
 whirling over and down in on them, explod- 
 ing with a prodigious noise and smoke but 
 comparatively little damage, and yet cutting 
 down the attackers one by one 
 
 Rabbie, Lauchie, and Shirty were all in the 
 trench together, and were still on their feet 
 when they came to the point where the com- 
 munication trench ran into another, a sup- 
 port trench presumably, running across it. 
 At this point they were supposed to hold on 
 and consolidate. All had gone well accord-
 
 THE SUICIDE CLUB 33 
 
 ing to programme with Babble and bis com- 
 panions, and they turned into the support 
 trench, cleared a couple of bays to either side 
 of the communication way, pulled down sand- 
 bags, and piled earth to make a ''block" on 
 either side, and settled down to hold their 
 position and to await orders. 
 
 They were not left in peaceful possession 
 for long. A vigorous attack was delivered, 
 first at one barricade and then on the other, 
 and both were beaten off with some difficulty 
 and a number of casualties. The bombers 
 had been reinforced several times to make up 
 their reduced numbers, but no further rein- 
 forcements had come to them for some time, 
 and now there were only half a dozen of them 
 and one officer left. The officer sent back a 
 lightly wounded man to say they held their 
 point, but wanted support. The message, as 
 they found afterwards, never got through, be- 
 cause the messenger was killed on the way by 
 a shell splinter. 
 
 Another heavy and determined attack of 
 bombers came soon after. For five minutes 
 the Germans showered over their grenades,
 
 34 FRONT LINES 
 
 and the short section of trench held hy the 
 little party of Royal Jocks was shaken to 
 pieces by the force of the explosions, the 
 sandbag "blocks" almost destroyed, several 
 more men hit, and the officer killed. The 
 Jocks returned the shower of bombs with 
 plentiful Mills' grenades, but they were 
 forced back, and almost the last thing the offi- 
 cer did before he was killed was to retire the 
 remnants of the party to the communication 
 trench entrance, build a fresh block, and pre- 
 pare to hold on there. There were only four 
 men left, and all were more or less lightly 
 wounded with splinters from the German 
 grenades. Just before another attack came 
 they were reinforced by two bayonet men, 
 and one bomber with buckets of Mills '. 
 
 ''We're all that's left o' C Company's 
 bombers," said one of them. "We were sent 
 up to reinforce, but they're shellin' the 
 trench back there, an' the others was 
 knocked out." 
 
 Another savage attack followed, and was 
 beaten off with difficulty and the loss of an- 
 other couple of men. Since there was no
 
 THE SUICIDE CLUB 35 
 
 officer and no N.C.O. there, Shirty, as the 
 oldest soldier, took charge. 
 
 ''This isn't good enough,'' he shouted as 
 another shower of grenades began to pitch 
 over and burst with rending explosions in 
 and about the trench. ''Why don't they rein- 
 force. I'm goin' to retire if they don't send 
 supports soon." 
 
 Now, as a matter of fact, the officer bring- 
 ing up the last supports had received orders 
 to retire the party if they were hard pressed, 
 because the attacks up the other communica- 
 tion trenches had failed to clear a way, and 
 this one party was in danger of being over- 
 whelmed. But since the little party knew 
 nothing of these orders they were reluctant 
 to retire, and unfortunately there was little 
 prospect of the supports they expected com- 
 ing. 
 
 Their grenades were running short, too, 
 and that decided the point for them. Shirty 
 Low and Rabbie were crouched close up 
 against their barricade, and Lauchie took 
 what cover he could get behind the heaped 
 debris of the broken-down trench wall close
 
 36 FRONT LINES 
 
 at Rabble's side. He was squatted in a little 
 niclie of the wall and high enough up to allow 
 him to lift his head and peep over the para- 
 pet. He ducked his head as several grenades 
 spun over, lifted it, and peered out again. 
 
 ' ' Here they come, ' ' he shouted. * * Lat them 
 hae't. Eabbie, pass me up some o' they 
 bombs.'* 
 
 *'Wull I hell," retorted Rabbie, rapidly 
 pulling the pins out, and tossing his grenades 
 over. *'Get yer bombs yersel'." 
 
 ''One of you two must go back and get 
 some Mills','' shouted Shirty. "We'll 'ave to 
 duck back, but we'll need supplies to stand 
 'em off with. Go on now, one o' you. Look 
 nippy. We've 'ardly any left." 
 
 ' ' Go on, Lauchie, ' ' said Rabbie. ' ' I 've half 
 a dizen left, an' you've nane." 
 
 ''I will no," said Lauchie indignantly. 
 ''Gang yersel'. I'm the senior o' us twa, an' 
 I'm tellin' ye." 
 
 "You ma senior," shouted Rab indig- 
 nantly. "Yer no ma senior. I was sojerin' 
 lang afore ever ye jined up."
 
 THE SUICIDE CLUB 37 
 
 "Havers, man. YeVe hardly been off the 
 square five meenutes." 
 
 Shirty broke in angrily. "Will you shut 
 yer heads, and get back, one o' you? We'll 
 be done in if they rush us again." 
 
 "See here, Rabbie," said Lauchie, "I'll 
 prove yer no ma senior, and then mebbe ye '11 
 dae what yer telled. Here's ma paybook, 
 wi' date o' enlistment. Let's see yours." 
 
 And he was actually proceeding to fumble 
 for his paybook, and Rabbie eagerly doing 
 the same, when Shirty again intervened, curs- 
 ing savagely, and ordering Rabbie back. 
 
 "I'm his senior. Shirty, an' he should go," 
 said Rabbie. "Lat him show you his book." 
 
 "Book be blistered," yelled Shirty. "Go 
 for them Mills' or I'll have you crimed for 
 refusin* an order." 
 
 Rabbie slid down from his place. "I sup- 
 pose yer in chairge here, Shirty," he said. 
 "But mind this — I'll bring the Mills', but as 
 sure 's death I '11 hammer the heid aff ye when 
 I get ye back yonder again. Mind that now, ' * 
 and he scrambled off back along the trench. 
 
 He carried a couple of empty buckets with
 
 38 FRONT LINES 
 
 him, and as he went he heard the renewed 
 crash of explosions behind him, and hastened 
 his pace, knowing the desperate straits the 
 two would be in without bombs to beat off the 
 attack. The trench was badly wrecked, and 
 there were many dead of both sides in it, so 
 that for all his haste he found the going des- 
 perately slow. 
 
 The guns were firing heavily on both sides, 
 but presently above the roar of their fire and 
 the wailing rush of the passing shells Rabbie 
 heard a long booming drone from overhead, 
 glanced up and saw the plunging shape of an 
 aeroplane swooping down and over his head 
 towards the point he had left the others. It 
 was past in a flash and out of sight beyond 
 the trench wall that shut him in. But next 
 instant Rabbie heard the sharp rattle of her 
 machine-gun, a pause, and then another long 
 rattle. Rabbie grunted his satisfaction, and 
 resumed his toilsome clambering over the 
 debris. ''That'll gie the Fritzez something 
 tae think about," he murmured, and then 
 pounced joyfully on a full bucket of Mills' 
 grenades lying beside a dead bomber. Many
 
 THE SUICIDE CLUB 39 
 
 more grenades were scattered round, and 
 Rabbie hastily filled one of his own buckets 
 and grabbed up a sandbag he found partially 
 filled with German grenades. 
 
 He turned to hurry back, hearing as he 
 did so another crackle of overhead machine- 
 gun fire. Next moment the plane swept over- 
 head with a rush, and was gone back towards 
 the lines before Rabbie could well look up. 
 Half-way back to where he had left the others 
 he heard the crash of detonating bombs, and 
 next moment came on Lauchie crouching at 
 a corner of the trench, the blood streaming 
 down his face, his last grenade in his hand, 
 and his fingers on the pin ready to pull it. 
 Rabbie plumped a bucket down beside him, 
 and without words the two began plucking 
 out the pins and hurling the grenades round 
 the corner. 
 
 ''Where's the ithers?" shouted Rabbie 
 when the shattering roar of their exploding 
 grenades had died down. 
 
 ''Dead," said Lauchie tersely. *' Except 
 Shirty, an' he's sair wounded. I left him
 
 40 FRONT LINES 
 
 hidin' in a bit broken dug-out half-a-dizen 
 turns o' the trench back." 
 
 ''Come on," said Rabbie, rising abruptly. 
 ''We'll awa' back an' get him. 
 
 ''He said I was t' retire slow, an' hand 
 them back as well's I could," said Lauchie. 
 
 "I'm awa' back for him," said Rabbie. 
 "Ye needna come unless ye like." 
 
 He flung a couple of grenades round the 
 comer ; Lauchie followed suit, and the instant 
 they heard the boom of the explosions both 
 pushed round and up the next stretch through 
 the eddying smoke and reek, pulling the pins 
 as they ran, and tossing the bombs ahead of 
 them into the next section of trench. And 
 so, in spite of the German bombers' resist- 
 ance, they bombed their way back to where 
 Shirty had been left. Several times they trod 
 over or past the bodies of men killed by their 
 bombs, once they encountered a wounded offi- 
 cer kneeling with his shoulder against the 
 trench wall and snapping a couple of shots 
 from a magazine pistol at them as they 
 plunged through the smoke. Rabbie stunned 
 him with a straight and hard-flung bomb.
 
 THE SUICIDE CLUB 41 
 
 leapt, dragging Lauchie with him, back into 
 cover until the bomb exploded, and then ran 
 forward again. He stooped in passing and 
 picked np the pistol from beside the shat- 
 tered body. "Might be useful," he said, 
 *'an' it's a good sooveneer onyway. I prom- 
 ised a sooveneer tae yon French lassie back 
 in Poppyring." 
 
 They found Shirty crouched back and hid- 
 den in the mouth of a broken-down dug-out, 
 and helped him out despite his protests. '^I 
 was all right there, ' ' he said. ' ' You two get 
 back as slow as you can, and keep them back 
 all " 
 
 ''See here, Shirty," Rabbie broke in, "yer 
 no in charge o' the pairty now. Yer a cas- 
 ualty an' I'm the senior — I've ma paybook 
 here t' prove it if ye want, so just baud your 
 wheesh an' come on." 
 
 He hoisted the wounded man — Shirty 's leg 
 was broken and he had many other minor 
 wounds — to his shoulder, and began to move 
 back while Lauchie followed close behind, 
 halting at each corner to cover the retreat 
 with a short bombing encounter.
 
 42 FRONT LINES 
 
 Half-way back they met a strong support 
 party which had been dispatched immediately 
 after the receipt by the H.Q. signallers of a 
 scribbled note dropped by a low-flying aero- 
 plane. The party promptly blocked the 
 trench, and prepared to hold it strongly until 
 the time came again to advance, and the three 
 bombers were all passed back to make their 
 way to the dressing station. 
 
 There Shirty was placed on a stretcher and 
 made ready for the ambulance, and the other 
 two, after their splinter cuts and several 
 slight wounds had been bandaged, prepared 
 to walk back. 
 
 "So long, Shirty,'* said Rabbie. ''See ye 
 again when ye come up an' rejine." 
 
 ''So long, chum," said Shirty, "an' I'm — 
 er — I " And he stammered some halt- 
 ing phrase of thanks to them for coming back 
 to fetch him out. 
 
 "Havers," said Rabbie, "I wisna go in' t' 
 leave ye there tae feenish the war in a Fritz 
 jail. An' yer forgettin' whit I promised ye 
 back there when ye ordered me for they 
 bombs — that I'd hammer yer heid aff when
 
 THE SUICIDE CLUB 43 
 
 we came oot. I'll just mind ye o* that when 
 ye jine up again.'* 
 
 **Right-o,'^ said Shirty happily. *'I won't 
 let you forget it. " 
 
 *'I wunner," said Rabhie reflectively, light- 
 ing a cigarette after Shirty had gone — '*I 
 wunner if he'll ever be fit t' jine again. I'd 
 fair like t' hae anither bit scrap wi' him, for 
 I never was richt satisfied wi' yon decesion 
 against me." 
 
 '^He's like t' be Corporal or Sairgint time 
 he comes oot again," said Lauchie. ** Promo- 
 tion's quick in they Reserve an' Trainin' 
 Brigades at hame." 
 
 "If we're no killed we're like t' be Cor- 
 porals or Sairgints oor selves," said Rabbie. 
 ''When we're in action I'm thinkin' promo- 
 tions are quick enought oot here in the Sui- 
 cide Club."
 
 m 
 
 IN THE WOOD 
 
 The attack on the wood had begun soon after 
 dawn, and it was no more than 8 a.m. when 
 the Corporal was dropped badly wounded in 
 the advance line of the attack where it had 
 penetrated about four hundred yards into the 
 wood. But it was well into afternoon before 
 he sufficiently woke to his surroundings to 
 understand where he was or what had hap- 
 pened, and when he did so he found the real- 
 isation sufficiently unpleasant. It was plain 
 from several indications — the direction from 
 which the shells bursting in his vicinity were 
 coming, a glimpse of some wounded Germans 
 retiring, the echoing rattle of rifle fire and 
 crash of bombs behind him — that the bat- 
 talion had been driven back, as half a dozen 
 other battalions had been driven back in the 
 course of the ebb-and-flow fighting through 
 the wood for a couple of weeks past, that he 
 
 44
 
 IN THE WOOD 45 
 
 was lying badly wounded and helpless to de- 
 fend himself where the Germans could pick 
 him up as a prisoner or finish him off with 
 a saw-backed bayonet as the mood of his dis- 
 coverers turned. His left leg was broken be- 
 low the knee, his right shoulder and ribs 
 ached intolerably, a scalp wound six inches 
 long ran across his head from side to side^- 
 a wound that, thanks to the steel shrapnel 
 helmet lying dinted in deep across the crown, 
 had not split his head open to the teeth. 
 
 He felt, as he put it to himself, ''done in," 
 so utterly done in, that for a good hour he 
 was willing to let it go at that, to lie still and 
 wait whatever luck brought him, almost in- 
 different as to whether it would be another 
 rush that would advance the British line and 
 bring him within reach of his own stretcher- 
 bearers, or his discovery by some of the Ger- 
 man soldiers who passed every now and then 
 close to where he lay. 
 
 Thirst drove him to fumble for his water- 
 bottle, only to find, when he had twisted it 
 round, that a bullet had punctured it, and 
 that it was dry; and, after fifteen tortured
 
 46 FRONT LINES 
 
 minutes, thirst drove him to the impossible, 
 and brought him crawling and dragging his 
 broken leg to a dead body and its full bottle. 
 An eager, choking swallow and a long breath- 
 stopping, gurgling draught gave him more 
 life than he had ever thought to feel again, 
 a sudden revulsion of feeling against the 
 thought of waiting helpless there to be picked 
 up and carted to a German prison camp or 
 butchered where he lay, a quick hope and a 
 desperate resolve to attempt to escape such 
 a fate. He had managed to crawl to the 
 water-bottle; he would attempt to crawl at 
 least a little nearer to the fighting lines, to 
 where he would have more chance of coming 
 under the hands of his own men. Without 
 waste of time he took hasty stock of his 
 wounds and set about preparing for his at- 
 tempt. The broken leg was the most seri- 
 ously crippling, but with puttees, bayonets, 
 and trenching-tool handles he so splinted and 
 bound it about that he felt he could crawl 
 and drag it behind him. He attempted to 
 bandage his head, but his arm and shoulder 
 were so stiff and painful when he lifted his
 
 IN THE WOOD 47 
 
 hand to his head that he desisted and satis- 
 fied himself with a water-soaked pad placed 
 inside a shrapnel helmet. Then he set out to 
 crawl. 
 
 It is hard to convey to anyone who has not 
 seen such a place the horrible difficulty of the 
 task the Corporal had set himself. The 
 wood had been shelled for weeks, until al- 
 most every tree in it had been smashed and 
 knocked down and lay in a wild tangle of 
 trunks, tops, and branches on the ground. 
 The ground itself was pitted with big and 
 little shell-holes, seamed with deep trenches, 
 littered with whole and broken arms and 
 equipments, German and British grenades 
 and bombs, scattered thick with British and 
 German dead who had lain there for any time 
 from hours to weeks. And into and over it 
 all the shells were still crashing and roaring. 
 The air palpitated to their savage rushing, 
 the ground trembled to the impact of their 
 fall, and without pause or break the deep roll 
 of the drununing gun-fire bellowed and thun- 
 dered. But through all the chaos men were 
 still fighting, and would continue to fight, and
 
 48 FRONT LINES 
 
 the Corporal had set his mind doggedly to 
 come somewhere near to where they fought. 
 The penetration of such a jungle might have 
 seemed impossible even to a sound and unin- 
 jured man; to one in his plight it appeared 
 mere madness to attempt. And yet to at- 
 tempt it he was determined, and being with- 
 out any other idea in his throbbing head but 
 the sole one of overcoming each obstacle as 
 he came to it, had no time to consider the 
 impossibility of the complete task. 
 
 Now, two hundred yards is a short dis- 
 stance as measurement goes, but into those 
 two hundred yards through the chaos of 
 wrecked wood the Corporal packed as much 
 suffering, as dragging a passage of time, as 
 many tortures of hope and fear and pain, as 
 would fill an ordinary lifetime. Every yard 
 was a desperate struggle, every fallen tree- 
 trunk, each tangle of fallen branch, was a 
 cruel problem to be solved, a pain-racked and 
 laborious effort to overcome. A score of 
 times he collapsed and lay panting, and re- 
 signed himself to abandoning the struggle; 
 and a score of times he roused himself and
 
 IN THE WOOD 49 
 
 fought down numbing pain, and raised him- 
 self on trembling arms and knees to crawl 
 again, to wriggle through the wreckage, to 
 hoist himself over some obstacle, to fight his 
 way on for another yard or two. 
 
 Every conscious thought was busied only 
 and solely with the problems of his passage 
 that presented themselves one by one, but at 
 the back of his mind some self-working rea- 
 son or instinct held him to his direction, took 
 heed of what went on around him, guided 
 him in action other than that immediately 
 concerned with his passage. When, for in- 
 stance, he came to a deep trench cutting 
 across his path, he sat long with his whole 
 mind occupied on the question as to whether 
 he should move to right or left, whether 
 the broken place half a dozen yards off the 
 one way or the more completely broken one 
 a dozen yards the other would be the best to 
 make for, scanning this way down and that 
 way up, a litter of barbed wire here and a 
 barrier of broken branches there; and yet, 
 without even lifting his mind from the prob- 
 lem, he was aware of grey coats moving along
 
 50 FRONT LINES 
 
 the trencli towards Mm, had sense enough to 
 drop flat and lie huddled and still until the 
 Germans had passed. And that second mind 
 again advised him against crawling down 
 into the trench and making his easier way 
 along it, because it was too probable it would 
 be in use as a passage for Germans, wounded 
 and unwounded. 
 
 He turned and moved slowly along the edge 
 of the trench at last, and held to it for some 
 distance, because the parapet raised along 
 its edge held up many of the fallen trees and 
 branches enough to let him creep under them. 
 That advantage was discounted to some ex- 
 tent by the number of dead bodies that lay 
 heaped on or under the parapet and told of 
 the struggles and the fierce fighting that had 
 passed for possession of the trench, but on 
 the whole the dead men were less diflScult to 
 pass than the clutching, wrenching fingers of 
 the dead wood. The pains in his head, shoul- 
 der, and side had by now dulled down to a 
 dead numbness, but his broken leg never 
 ceased to burn and stab with red-hot needles 
 of agony; and for all the splints encasing it
 
 IN THE WOOD 51 
 
 and despite all the care he took, there was 
 hardly a yard of his passage that was not 
 marked by some wrenching catch on his foot, 
 some jarring shock or grind and grate of the 
 broken bones. 
 
 He lost count of time, he lost count of dis- 
 tance, but he kept on crawling. He was ut- 
 terly indifferent to the turmoil of the guns, 
 to the rush and yell of the near-falling shells, 
 the crash of their bursts, the whirr of the 
 flying splinters. When he had been well and 
 whole these things would have brought his 
 heart to his mouth, would have set him duck- 
 ing and dodging and shrinking. Now he paid 
 them no fraction of his absorbed attention. 
 But to the distinctive and rising sounds of 
 bursting grenades, to the sharp whip and 
 whistle of rifle bullets about him and through 
 the leaves and twigs, he gave eager attention 
 because they told him he was nearing his 
 goal, was coming at last to somewhere near 
 the fringe of the fighting. His limbs were 
 trembling under him, he was throbbing with 
 pain from head to foot, his head was swim- 
 ming and his vision was blurred and dim, and
 
 52 FRONT LINES 
 
 at last he was forced to drop and lie still and 
 fight to recover strength to move, and sense 
 to direct his strength. His mind cleared 
 slowly, and he saw at last that he had come 
 to a slightly clearer part of the wood, to a 
 portion nearer its edge where the trees had 
 thinned a little and where the full force of 
 the shell blast had wrecked and re-wrecked 
 and torn fallen trunks and branches to frag- 
 ments. 
 
 But although his mind had recovered, his 
 body had not. He found he could barely raise 
 himself on his shaking arms — ^had not the 
 strength to crawl another yard. He tried and 
 tried again, moved no more than bare inches, 
 and had to drop motionless again. 
 
 And there he lay and watched a fresh at- 
 tack launched by the British into the wood, 
 heard and saw the tornado of shell-fire that 
 poured crashing and rending and shattering 
 into the trees, watched the khaki figures 
 swarm forward through the smoke, the spit- 
 ting flames of the rifles, the spurting fire and 
 smoke of the flung grenades. He still lay on 
 the edge of the broken trench along which he
 
 IN THE WOOD 53 
 
 had crept, and he could just make out that 
 this ran off at an angle away from him and 
 that it was held by the Germans, and formed 
 probably the point of the British attack. He 
 watched the attack with consuming eager- 
 ness, hope flaming high as he saw the khaki 
 line press forward, sinking again to leaden 
 depths as it halted or held or swayed back. 
 To him the attack was an affair much more 
 vital than the taking of the trench, the ad- 
 vance by a few score yards of the British line. 
 To him it meant that a successful advance 
 would bring him again within the British 
 lines, its failure leave him still within the 
 German. 
 
 Into the trench below him a knot of Ger- 
 mans scrambled scuffling, and he lay huddled 
 there almost within arm's length of them 
 while they hoisted a couple of machine-guns 
 to the edge of the trench and manned the par- 
 apet and opened a hail of fire down the 
 length of the struggling British line. Under 
 that streaming fire the line wilted and with- 
 ered; a fresh torrent of fire smote it, and it 
 crumpled and gave and ebbed back. But
 
 54 FKONT LINES 
 
 almost immediately another line swarmed up 
 out of the smoke and swept forward, and this 
 time, although the same flank and frontal fire 
 caught and smote it, the line straggled and 
 swayed forward and plunged into and over 
 the German trench. 
 
 The Corporal lying there on the trench edge 
 was suddenly aware of a stir amongst the 
 men below him. The edge where he lay half 
 screened in a debris of green stuff and hud- 
 dled beside a couple of dead Germans was 
 broken down enough to let him see well into 
 the trench, and he understood to the full the 
 meaning of the movements of the Germans 
 in the trench, of their hasty hauling down of 
 the machine-guns, their scrambling retire- 
 ment crouched and hurrying along the trench 
 back in the direction from which he had come. 
 The trench the British had taken ran out at 
 a right angle from this one where he lay, 
 and the Germans near him were retiring be- 
 hind the line of trench that had been taken. 
 And that meant he was as good as saved. 
 
 A minute later two khaki figures emerged 
 from a torn thicket of tree stumps and
 
 IN THE "WOOD 55 
 
 branches a dozen yards beyond the trench 
 where he lay, and ran on across towards the 
 denser wood into which the Germans had 
 retreated. One was an officer, and close on 
 their heels came half a dozen, a dozen, a 
 score of men, all following close and pressing 
 on to the wood and opening out as they went. 
 One came to the edge of the trench where the 
 machine-guns had been, and the Corporal 
 with an effort lifted and waved an arm and 
 shouted hoarsely to him. But even as he did 
 so he realised how futile his shout was, how 
 impossible it was for it to carry even the few 
 yards in the pandemonium of noise that raved 
 about them. But he shouted again, and yet 
 again, and felt bitter disappointment as the 
 man without noticing turned and moved along 
 the trench, peering down into it. 
 
 The Corporal had a sudden sense of some- 
 one moving behind him, and twisted round in 
 time to see another khaki figure moving past 
 a dozen paces away and the upper half bodies 
 of half a score more struggling through the 
 thickets beyond. This time he screamed at 
 them, but they too passed, unhearing and
 
 56 FEONT LINES 
 
 unheeding. The Corporal dropped quivering 
 and trying to tell himself that it was all right, 
 that there would be others following, that 
 some of them must come along the trench, 
 that the stretcher-bearers would be following 
 close. 
 
 But for the moment none followed them, 
 and from where they had vanished came a 
 renewed uproar of grenade-bursts and rifle 
 fire beating out and through the uproar of the 
 guns and the screaming, crashing shells. The 
 Corporal saw a couple of wounded come stag- 
 gering back . . . the tumult of near fighting 
 died down ... a line of German grey-clad 
 shoulders and bobbing "coal-scuttle" helmets 
 plunged through and beyond the thicket from 
 which the khaki had emerged a few minutes 
 before. And then back into the trench below 
 him scuffled the Germans with their two 
 machine-guns. "With a groan the Corporal 
 dropped his face in the dirt and dead leaves 
 and groaned hopelessly. He was ''done in," 
 he told himself, ''clean done in." He could 
 see no chance of escape. The line had been 
 driven back, and the last ounce of strength to
 
 IN THE WOOD 57 
 
 crawl. ... He tried once before he would 
 finally admit that last ounce gone, but the 
 effort was too much for his exhausted limbs 
 and pain-wrenched body. He dropped to the 
 ground again. 
 
 The rapid clatter of the two machine-guns 
 close to him lifted his head to watch. The 
 main German trench was spouting dust and 
 debris, flying clouds of leaves, flashing white 
 slivers of bark and wood, under the torrent of 
 shells that poured on it once more. The 
 machine-guns below him ceased, and the 
 Corporal concluded that their target had gone 
 for the moment. But that intense bombard- 
 ment of the trench almost certainly meant 
 the launching of another British attack, and 
 then the machine-guns would find their target 
 struggling again across their sights and un- 
 der their streaming fire. They had a good 
 ''field of fire," too, as the Corporal could 
 see. The British line had to advance for the 
 most part through the waist-high tangle of 
 wrecked wood, but by chance or design a 
 clearer patch of ground was swept close to 
 the German trench, and as the advance
 
 58 FRONT LINES 
 
 crossed this the two machine-guiis on the 
 flank near the Corporal would get in their 
 work, would sweep it in enfilade, would be 
 probably the worst obstacle to the advance. 
 And at that a riot of thoughts swept the 
 Corporal's mind. If he could out those 
 machine-guns ... if he could out those 
 machine-guns . . . but how? There were 
 plenty of rifles near, and plenty of dead about 
 with cartridges on them . . . but one shot 
 would bring the Germans jumping from their 
 trench on him. . . . Bombs now ... if he 
 had some Mills ' grenades . . . where had he 
 seen. . . . 
 
 He steadied himself deliberately and 
 thought back. The whole wood was littered 
 with grenades, spilt and scattered broadcast 
 singly and in heaps — German stick-grenades 
 and Mills'. He remembered crawling past a 
 dead bomber with a bag full of Mills' beside 
 him only a score of yards away. Could he 
 crawl to them and back again ? The Germans 
 in the trench might see him; and anyhow — 
 hadn't he tried? And hadn't he found the 
 last ounce of his strength gone ?
 
 IN THE WOOD 59 
 
 But lie found another last ounce. He half 
 crawled, half dragged himself back and found 
 his bag of grenades, and with the full bag 
 hooked over his shoulder and a grenade 
 clutched ready in his hand felt himself a new 
 man. His strength was gone, but it takes 
 little strength to pull the pin of a grenade, 
 and if any German rushed him now, at least 
 they'd go together. 
 
 The machine-guns broke out again, and the 
 Corporal, gasping and straining, struggled 
 foot by foot back towards them. The per- 
 sonal side — the question of his own situation 
 and chances of escape — had left him. He had 
 forgotten himself. His whole mind was 
 centered on the attack, on the effect of those 
 machine-guns' fire, on the taking of the Ger- 
 man trench. He struggled past the break in 
 the trench and on until he had shelter behind 
 the low parapet. He wanted some cover. 
 One grenade wasn't enough. He wanted to 
 make sure, and he wouldn't chance a splinter 
 from his own bomb. 
 
 The machine-guns were chattering and 
 clattering at top speed, and as he pulled the
 
 60 FRONT LINES 
 
 pin of his first grenade the Corporal saw 
 another gun being dragged up beside the 
 others. He held his grenade and counted 
 " one-and-two-and-^/irow — " and lobbed the 
 grenade over into the trench under the very 
 feet of the machine-gunners. He hastily 
 pulled another pin and threw the grenade 
 . . . and as a spurt of smoke and dust leaped 
 from the trench before him and the first 
 grenades crash-crashed, he went on pulling 
 out the pins and flinging over others as fast 
 as he could pitch. The trench spouted fire 
 and dust and flying dirt and debris, the 
 ground shook beneath him, he was half 
 stunned with the quick-following reports — 
 but the machine-guns had stopped on the 
 first burst. 
 
 That was all he remembered. This time 
 the last ounce was really gone, and he was 
 practically unconscious when the stretcher- 
 bearers found him after the trench was taken 
 and the attack had passed on deep into the 
 wood. 
 
 And weeks after, lying snug in bed in a 
 London hospital, after a Sister had scolded
 
 IN THE WOOD 61 
 
 him for moving in bed and reaching out for 
 a magazine that had dropped to the floor, and 
 told him how urgent it was that he must not 
 move, and how a fractured leg like his must 
 be treated gently and carefully if he did not 
 wish to be a cripple for life, and so on and so 
 forth, he grinned up cheerfully at her. * * Or- 
 right. Sister." he said, "I'll remember. But 
 it's a good job for me I didn't know all that, 
 back there — ^in the wood."
 
 IV 
 
 THE DIVING TANK 
 
 His Majesty's land-ship Hotstuff was busy 
 rebunkering and refilling anununition in a 
 nicely secluded spot under the lee of a cluster 
 of jagged stumps that had once been trees, 
 while her Skipper walked round her and made 
 a careful examination of her skin. She bore, 
 on her blunt bows especially, the marks of 
 many bullet splashes and stars and scars, and 
 on her starboard gun turret a couple of 
 blackened patches of blistered paint where a 
 persistent Hun had tried his ineffectual best 
 to bomb the good ship at close quarters, with- 
 out any further result than the burnt paint 
 and a series of bullet holes in the bomber. 
 
 As the Skipper finished his examination, 
 finding neither crack, dent, nor damage to 
 anything deeper than the paintwork, ''All 
 complete" was reported to him, and he and 
 his crew proceeded to dine otf bully beef, bis- 
 
 62
 
 THE DIVING TANK 63 
 
 cuits, and uncooked prunes. The meal was 
 interrupted by a motor-cyclist, who had to 
 leave his cycle on the roadside and plough 
 on foot through the sticky mud to the Hot- 
 stuff's anchorage, with a written message. 
 The Skipper read the message, initialled the 
 envelope as a receipt, and, meditatively chew- 
 ing on a dry prune, carefully consulted a 
 squared map criss-crossed and wriggled over 
 by a maze of heavy red lines that marked the 
 German trenches, and pricked off a course to 
 where a closer-packed maze of lines was 
 named as a Redoubt. 
 
 The Signals dispatch-rider had approached 
 the crew with an enormous curiosity and a 
 deep desire to improve his mind and his 
 knowledge on the subject of "Tanks." But 
 although the copybook maxims have always 
 encouraged the improvement of one's mind, 
 the crew of the Hotstuff preferred to re- 
 member another copybook dictum, ' ' Silence is 
 golden," and with the warnings of many 
 months soaked into their very marrows, and 
 with a cautious secrecy that by now had be- 
 come second, if not first, nature to them, re-
 
 64 FRONT LINES 
 
 turned answers more baffling in their fullness 
 than the deepest silence would have been. 
 
 "Is it true that them things will turn a 
 point-blank bullet!" asked the dispatch- rider. 
 
 "Turn them is just the right word, 
 Signals, ' ' said the spokesman. ' ' The armour 
 plating doesn't stop 'em, you see. They go 
 through, and then by an in-genious arrange- 
 ment of slanted steel Venetian shutters just 
 inside the skin, the bullets are turned, rico 
 up'ard on to another set o' shutters, deflect 
 again out'ards an' away. So every bullet 
 that hits us returns to the shooters, with 
 slightly decreased velocity nat 'rally, but suf- 
 ficient penetratin' power to kill at cofi^sidei- 
 able range." 
 
 Signals stared at him suspiciously, but he 
 was so utterly solemn and there was such an 
 entire absence of a twinkling eye or ghostly 
 smile amongst the biscuit-munchers that he 
 was puzzled. 
 
 *'An' I hear they can go over almost 
 anythin'- trenches, an' barbed wire, an' shell- 
 holes, an' such-like ?" he said interrogatively. 
 •Almost anything," repeated the spokes- 
 
 <(
 
 THE DIVING TANK 65 
 
 man, with just a shade of indignation in his 
 tone. ' ' She 's built to go over anything with- 
 out any almost about it. Why, this mornin','' 
 he turned to the crew, "what was the name o' 
 that place wi' the twelve-foot solid stone wall 
 round it? You know, about eleven, miles 
 behind the German lines. ' ' 
 
 "Eleven miles?" said the Signaller in 
 accents struggling between doubt and 
 incredulity. 
 
 "About that, accordin' to the map," said 
 the other. "That's about our average 
 cruise. ' ' 
 
 "But — but," objected the Signaller, "how 
 wasn't you cut off — surrounded — er " 
 
 "Cut off," said the Hotstuff cheerfully, 
 "why, of course, we was surrounded, and cut 
 off. But what good was that to 'em? You've 
 seen some of us walkin' up an' over their 
 front lines, and them shootin' shells an' rifles 
 an' Maxims at us. But they didn't stop us, 
 did they? So how d'you suppose they stop 
 us comin' back? But about that wall," he 
 went on, having reduced the Signaller to pon- 
 dering silence. ' ' We tried to butt through it
 
 66 FRONT LINES 
 
 an' couldn't, so we coupled on the grapplin'- 
 hook bands, an' walked straight up one side 
 an' down the other." 
 
 "Yes," put in one of the other Hotstuffs, 
 "an' doin' it the boxful o' tea an' sugar that 
 was up in the front locker fell away when she 
 upended and tumbled down to the other end. 
 Spilt every blessed grain we had. I don't 
 hold wi' that straight-up-and-down manoover 
 myself. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, well," said the first man, "I don't 
 know as it was worse than when we was bein' 
 towed across the Channel. She makes a 
 rotten bad sea boat, I must confess." 
 
 "Towed across?" said the startled Signal- 
 ler. "You don't mean to say she floats!" 
 
 "Why, of course," said the Hotstuff 
 simply. "Though, mind you, we're not de- 
 signed for long voyages under our own 
 power. The whole hull is a watertight tank — 
 wi' longtitoodinal an' transverse bulkheads, 
 an' we've an adjustable screw propeller. I 
 dunno as I ought to be talkin' about that, 
 though," and he sank his voice and glanced 
 cautiously round at the Skipper folding up
 
 THE DIVING TANK 67 
 
 his map. "Don't breathe a word o' it to a 
 soul, or I might get into trouble. It's a little 
 surprise," he concluded hurriedly, as he saw 
 the Skipper rise, ''that we're savin' up for 
 the Hun when we gets to the Ehine. He 
 reckons the Rhine is goin' to hold us up, don't 
 he? Wait till he sees the Tanks swim it an' 
 walk up the cliffs on the other side. ' ' 
 
 The Skipper gave a few quiet orders and 
 the crew vanished, crawling, and one by one, 
 into a little man-hole. The Signaller's in- 
 formant found time for a last word to him in 
 passing. * ' I b 'lieve we 're takin ' a turn down 
 across the river an ' canal, ' ' he said. ' ' If you 
 follow us you'll most likely see us do a prac- 
 tice swim or two." 
 
 ''WeU, I've met some dandy liars in my 
 time," the Signaller murmured to himself, 
 ''but that chap's about IT." 
 
 But he stayed to watch the Tank get under 
 way, and after watching her performance and 
 course for a few hundred yards he returned to 
 his motor-bike with struggling doubts in his 
 own mind as to how and in which direction he
 
 68 FRONT LINES 
 
 was likely to be the bigger fool — in believing 
 or in refusing to believe. 
 
 The Hotstuff snorted once or twice, shook 
 herself, and rumbled internally; her wheel- 
 bands made a slow revolution or two, churn- 
 ing out a barrowload or so of soft mud, and 
 bit through the loose upper soil into the 
 j&rmer ground; she jerk-jerked convulsively 
 two or three times, crawled out of the deep 
 wheel-ruts she had dug, turned, nosing a cau- 
 tious way between the bigger shell craters, 
 and then ploughed off on a straight course 
 towards the road across the sticky mud — ^mud 
 which the dispatch-rider had utterly failed to 
 negotiate, and which, being impassable to him, 
 he had, out of the knowledge born of long 
 experience, concluded impassable to anything, 
 light or heavy, that ran on wheels. A wide 
 ditch lay between the field and the road, but 
 the Hotstuff steered straight for it and 
 crawled tranquilly across. The dispatch-rider 
 watched the progress across the mud with 
 great interest, whistled softly as he saw the 
 Tank breast the ditch and reach out for the 
 far bank, with her fore-end and nearly half
 
 THE DIVING TANK 69 
 
 her length hanging clear out over the water, 
 gasped as the bows dipped and fell down- 
 ward, her fore-feet clutching at and resting 
 on the further bank, her bows and under-body 
 — the descriptive terms are rather mixed, but 
 then, so is the name and make-up of a Land 
 Ship — hitting the water with a mighty splash. 
 And then, in spite of himself, he broke from 
 wide grins into open laughter as the Hotstuff 
 got a grip of the far bank, pushed with her 
 hind and pulled with her fore legs and 
 dragged herself across. If ever you have 
 seen a fat caterpillar perched on a cabbage 
 leaf's edge, straining and reaching out with 
 its front feet to reach another leaf, touching 
 it, catching hold, and letting go astern, to 
 pull over the gap, you have a very fair idea 
 of what the Hotstuff looked like crossing that 
 ditch. 
 
 She wheeled on to the road, and as the dis- 
 patch-rider, with mingled awe, amazement, 
 and admiration, watched her lumbering off 
 down it he saw an oil-blackened hand poked 
 out through a gun port and waggled trium- 
 phantly back at him. *' Damme," he said, "I
 
 70 FRONT LINES 
 
 believe she can swim, or stand on her head, 
 or eat peas off a knife. She looks human- 
 intelligent enough for anything." 
 
 But the Hotstuff on that particular trip was 
 to display little enough intelligence, but in- 
 stead an almost human perversity, adding 
 nothing to her battle honours but very much 
 to her skipper's and crew's already over- 
 crowded vocabulary of strong language. 
 The engineer showed signs of uneasiness as 
 she trundled down the road, cocking his head 
 to one side and listening with a look of 
 strained attention, stooping his ear to various 
 parts of the engines, squinting along rods, 
 touching his finger-tips to different bearings. 
 
 "What's wrong?" asked the Skipper. 
 "Isn't she behaving herself?" 
 
 The engineer shook his head. "There's 
 something not exactly right wi' her," he said 
 slowly. "I doubt she's going to give trou- 
 ble." 
 
 He was right. She gave trouble for one 
 slow mile, more trouble for another half- 
 mile, and then most trouble of all at a spot 
 where the road had degenerated into a sea
 
 THE DIVING TANK 71 
 
 of thin, porridgy mud. We will say nothing 
 of the technical trouble, but it took four solid 
 hours to get the Hotstuff under way again. 
 The road where she halted was a main thor- 
 oughfare to the firing line, and the locality 
 of her break-down, fortunately for the traffic, 
 was where a horse watering trough stood a 
 hundred yards back from the road, and there 
 was ample room to deflect other vehicles past 
 the Hotstuff obstacle, which lay right in the 
 fair-way. All the four hours a procession of 
 motor-cars and lorries, G.S. waggons, and 
 troops of horses streamed by to right and left 
 of the helpless Hotstuff. The cars squirted 
 jets of liquid mud on her as they splashed 
 past, the lorries flung it in great gouts at 
 her, the waggons plastered her lower body 
 liberally, and the horses going to and from 
 water raised objections to her appearance 
 and spattered a quite astonishing amount of 
 mud over her as high as her roof. 
 
 When finally she got her engines running 
 and pulled out of the quagmire, it was too 
 late to attempt to get her up into the ac- 
 tion she had been called to, so her bows were
 
 72 FRONT LINES 
 
 turned back to lier anchorage and she plodded 
 off home. And by the luck of war, and his 
 volunteering out of turn for the trip, the same 
 dispatch-rider brought another message to 
 her early next morning in her berth behind 
 the line. 
 
 The crew's night had been spent on in- 
 ternal affairs, and, since there had been no 
 time to attempt to remove any of the accu- 
 mulation of mud that covered every visible 
 inch of her, she looked like a gigantic wet 
 clay antheap. 
 
 The dispatch-rider stared at her. 
 
 ''Looks as if she wanted her face washed," 
 he remarked. ''What has she been up to? 
 Thought you said she was going swimming. 
 She don't look much as if she'd had a bath 
 lately." 
 
 His former glib informant slowly straight- 
 ened a weary back, checked a tart reply, and 
 instead spoke with an excellent simulation 
 of cheeriness. 
 
 "Didn't you come an' watch us yesterday, 
 then?" he said. "Well, you missed a treat — 
 brand-new dodge our Old Man has invented
 
 THE DIVING TANK 73 
 
 Msself. When we got 'er in the canal, we 
 closed all ports, elevated our periscope an' 
 new telescopic air-toob, submerged, and sank 
 to the bottom. And she walked four meas- 
 ured miles under water along the bottom o' 
 the canal. That" — and he waved his hand 
 towards the mud-hidden Hotstuff — ' ' is where 
 she got all the mud from." 
 
 And to this day that dispatch-rider doesn't 
 know whether he told a gorgeous truth or a 
 still more gorgeous lie.
 
 V 
 
 IN THE MIST 
 
 When the Lieutenant turned out of his dug- 
 out in the very small hours, he found with 
 satisfaction that a thin mist was hanging over 
 the ground. 
 
 *' Can't see much," he said half an hour 
 later, peering out from the front trench. 
 ''But so much the better. Means they won't 
 be so likely to see us. So long, old man. 
 Come along, Studd." 
 
 The other ofl&cer watched the two crawl out 
 and vanish into the misty darkness. At in- 
 tervals a flare light leaped upward from one 
 side or the other, but it revealed nothing of 
 the ground, showed only a dim radiance in 
 the mist and vanished. Rifles crackled spas- 
 modically up and down the unseen line, and 
 very occasionally a gun boomed a smothered 
 report and a shell swooshed over. But, on the 
 
 whole, the night was quiet, or might be called 
 
 74
 
 IN THE MIST 75 
 
 so by comparison with other nights, and the 
 quietness lent colour to the belief that the 
 Hun was quietly evacuating his badly battered 
 front line. It was to discover what truth was 
 in the report that the Lieutenant had crawled 
 out with one man to get as near as possible 
 to the enemy trench — or, still better, into or 
 over it. 
 
 Fifty yards out the two ran into one of their 
 own listening posts, and the Lieutenant halted 
 a moment and held a whispered talk with the 
 N.C.O. there. It was all quiet in front, he 
 was told, no sound of movement and only a 
 rifle shot or a light thrown at long intervals. 
 
 ''Might mean anything, or nothing," 
 thought the Lieutenant. "Either a trench 
 full of Boche taking a chance to sleep, or a 
 trench empty except for a 'caretaker' to 
 shoot or chuck up an odd light at intervals. ' ' 
 
 He whispered as much to his companion and 
 both moved carefully on. The -ground was 
 riddled with shell-holes and was soaking wet, 
 and very soon the two were saturated and 
 caked with sticky mud. Skirting the holes 
 and twisting about between them was con-
 
 76 FRONT LINES 
 
 fusing to any sense of direction, but the two 
 had been well picked for this special work and 
 held fairly straight on their way. No light 
 had shown for a good many minutes, and the 
 Lieutenant fancied that the mist was thick- 
 ening. He halted and waited a minute, strain- 
 ing his eyes into the mist and his ears to 
 catch any sound. There was nothing appar- 
 ently to see or hear, and he rose to his knees 
 and moved carefully forward again. As he 
 did so a flare leaped upward with a long 
 hiss and a burst of light glowed out. It 
 faintly illumined the ground and the black 
 shadows of shell-holes about them, and — the 
 Lieutenant with a jump at his heart stilled 
 and stiffened — ^not six feet away and straight 
 in front, the figure of a man in a long grey 
 coat, his head craned forward and resting 
 on his arms crossed in front of him and 
 twisted in an attitude of listening. Studd, 
 crawling at the Lieutenant's heels, saw at 
 the same moment, as was told by his hand 
 gripped and pressing a warning on the Lieu- 
 tenant's leg. The light died out, and with 
 infinite caution the Lieutenant slid back level
 
 IN THE MIST 77 
 
 with Studd and, motioning him to follow, 
 lay flat and hitched himself a foot at a time 
 towards the right to circle round the re- 
 cumbent German. The man had not been 
 facing full on to them, but lay stretched 
 and looking toward their left, and by a care- 
 ful circling right the Lieutenant calculated 
 he would clear and creep behind him. A 
 big shell-crater lay in their path, and after 
 a moment's hesitation the Lieutenant slid 
 very quietly down into it. Some morsels 
 of loose earth crumbled under him, rolled 
 down and fell with tiny splashings into the 
 pool at the bottom. To the Lieutenant the 
 noise was most disconcertingly loud and 
 alarming, and cursing himself for a fool not 
 to have thought of the water and the cer- 
 tainty of his loosening earth to fall into it, 
 he crouched motionless, listening for any 
 sound that would tell of the listening Ger- 
 man's alarm. 
 
 Another light rose, filling the mist with 
 soft white radiance and outlining the edge 
 of the crater above him. It outlined also 
 the dark shape of a figure halted apparently
 
 78 FRONT LINES 
 
 in the very act of crawling down into the 
 crater from the opposite side. The Lieuten- 
 ant's first flashing thought was that the Ger- 
 man watcher had heard him and was mov- 
 ing to investigate, his second and quick-fol- 
 lowing was of another German holding still 
 until the light fell. But a third idea came 
 so instantly on the other two that, before the 
 soaring flare dropped, he had time to move 
 sharply, bringing the man's outline more 
 clearly against the light. That look and 
 the shape, beside but clear of the body, of a 
 bent leg, crooked knee upward, confirmed his 
 last suspicion. Studd slid over soundless 
 as a diving otter and down beside him, and 
 the Lieutenant whispered, ''See those two 
 on the edge?" 
 
 ' ' Both dead, sir, ' ' said Studd, and the Lieu- 
 tenant nodded and heaved a little sigh of 
 relief. "And I think that first was a dead 
 'un too." 
 
 "Yes," whispered the Lieutenant. "Looked 
 natural and listening hard. Remember now, 
 though, he was bareheaded. Dead all right. 
 Come on."
 
 IN THE MIST 79 
 
 They crept out past the two dead men, and, 
 abating no fraction of their caution, moved 
 noiselessly forward again. They passed 
 many more dead in the next score of yards, 
 dead twisted and contorted to every possible 
 and impossible attitude of unmistakable death 
 and uncannily life-like postures, and came 
 at last to scattered fragments and loose 
 hanging strands of barbed-wire entangle- 
 ments. Here, according to previous arrange- 
 ments, Studd — ex-poacher of civilian days 
 and expert scout of the battalion — moved 
 ahead and led the way. Broken strands of 
 wire he lifted with gingerly delicate touch 
 and laid aside. Fixed ones he raised, rolled 
 silently under and held up for the Lieutenant 
 to pass. Taut ones he grasped in one hand, 
 slid the jaws of his wire-nippers over and cut 
 silently between his left-hand fingers, so that 
 the fingers still gripped the severed ends, re- 
 leased the ends carefully, one hand to each, 
 and squirmed through the gap. 
 
 There was very little uncut wire, but the 
 stealthy movements took time, and half an 
 hour had passed from first wire to last and
 
 80 FRONT LINES 
 
 to the moment when the Lieutenant, in imita- 
 tion of the figure before him, flattened his 
 body close to the muddy ground and lay 
 still and listening. For five long minutes 
 they lay, and then Studd twisted his head 
 and shoulders back. ''Nobody," he whis- 
 pered. ' ' Just wait here a minute, sir. ' ' He 
 slipped back past the Lieutenant and al- 
 most immediately returned to his side. " I 've 
 cut the loose wires away," he said. "Mark 
 this spot and try'n hit it if we have to bolt 
 quick. See— look for this," and he lifted 
 a bayoneted rifle lying beside them, and 
 stabbed the bayonet down into the ground 
 with the rifle butt standing up above the edge 
 of the broken parapet. 
 
 ''Cross the trench," whispered the Lieu- 
 tenant, "and along behind it. Safer there. 
 Any sentry looking out forward!" 
 
 Studd vanished over the parapet and the 
 Lieutenant squirmed after him. The trench 
 was wide and broken-walled back and front, 
 and both clambered up the other side and 
 began to move along the far edge. In some 
 places the trench narrowed and deepened, in
 
 IN THE MIST 81 
 
 others it widened and shallowed in tumbled 
 shell-craters, in others again was almost 
 obliterated in heaped and broken earth. The 
 mist had closed down and thickened to a 
 white-grey blanket, and the two moved more 
 freely, standing on their feet and walking 
 stooped and ready to drop at a sound. They 
 went for a considerable distance without 
 seeing a single German. 
 
 Studd halted suddenly on the edge of a 
 trench which ran into the one they were 
 following. 
 
 "Communication trench," said the Lieu- 
 tenant softly. ''Doesn't seem to be a soul 
 in their front line." 
 
 '*No, sir," said Studd, but there was a 
 puzzled note in his voice. 
 
 ''Is this their front line we've been mov- 
 ing along!" said the Lieutenant with sudden 
 suspicion. "Those lights look further off 
 than they ought." 
 
 The dim lights certainly seemed to be far 
 out on their left and a little behind them. 
 A couple of rifles cracked faintly, and they 
 heard a bullet sigh and whimper overhead.
 
 82 FRONT LINES 
 
 Closer and with sharper reports half a dozen 
 rifles rap-rapped in answer — but the reports 
 were still well out to their left and behind 
 them. 
 
 ' ' Those are German rifles behind us. We Ve 
 left the front line, ' ' said the Lieutenant with 
 sudden conviction. "Struck slanting back. 
 Been following a communication trench. 
 Damn!^ 
 
 Studd without answering dropped suddenly 
 to earth and without hesitation the Lieuten- 
 ant dropped beside him and flattened down. 
 A long silence, and the question trembling 
 on his lips was broken by a hasty movement 
 from Studd. "Quick, sir — back," he said, 
 and hurriedly wriggled back and into a shal- 
 low hole, the Lieutenant close after him. 
 
 There was no need of the question now. 
 Plainly both could hear the squelch of feet, 
 the rustle of clothes, the squeak and click of 
 leather and equipment. Slowly, one by one, 
 a line of men filed past their hiding-place, 
 looming grey and shadowy through the mist, 
 stumbling and slipping so close by that to 
 the Lieutenant it seemed that only one down-
 
 IN THE MIST 83 
 
 ward glance from one passing figure was 
 needed to discover them. Tumultuous 
 thoughts raced. What should he do if they 
 were discovered? Pass one quick word to 
 Studd to lie still, and jump and run, trusting 
 to draw pursuit after himself and give Studd 
 a chance to escape and report ? Or call Studd 
 to run with him, and both chance a bolt back 
 the way they came? The thick mist might 
 help them, but the alarm would spread quick- 
 ly to the front trench. ... Or should he 
 snatch his revolver — he wished he hadn't 
 put it back in his holster — blaze oif all his 
 rounds, yell and make a row, rousing the 
 German trench to fire and disclose the 
 strength holding it? Could he risk move- 
 ment enough to get his revolver clear? And 
 all the time he was counting the figures 
 that stumbled past — five . . . six . . . seven 
 . . . eight. . . . Thirty-four he counted and 
 then, just as he was going to move, another 
 lagging two. After that and a long pause he 
 held hurried consultation with Studd. 
 
 "They're moving up the way we came 
 down," he said. ''We're right off the front
 
 84 FRONT LINES 
 
 line. Must get back. Daren't keep too close 
 to this trench though. D'you think we can 
 strike across and find the front line about 
 where we crossed?" 
 
 "Think so, sir," answered Studd. ''Must 
 work a bit left-handed." 
 
 ' ' Come on then. Keep close together, ' ' and 
 they moved off. 
 
 In three minutes the Lieutenant stopped 
 with a smothered curse at the jar of wire 
 caught against his shins. " 'Ware wire," 
 he said, and both stooped and felt at it. * ' Nip- 
 pers," he said. "We must cut through." 
 He pulled his own nippers out and they 
 started to cut a path. "Tang!" his nippers 
 swinging free of a cut wire struck against 
 another, and on the sound came a sharp word 
 out of the mist ahead of them and apparently 
 at their very feet a guttural question in un- 
 mistakable German. Horrified, the Lieuten- 
 ant stood stiff frozen for a moment, turned 
 sharp and fumbled a way back, his heart 
 thumping and his nerves tingling in antici- 
 pation of another challenge or a sudden shot. 
 But there was no further sound, and pres-
 
 IN THE MIST 85 
 
 ently he and Studd were clear of the wire and 
 hurrying as silently as they could away from 
 the danger. 
 
 They stopped presently, and the Lieuten- 
 ant crouched and peered about him. ''Now 
 where are weT' he said, and then, as he 
 caught the sound of suppressed chuckling 
 from Studd crouched beside him, "What's 
 the joke? I don't see anything specially 
 funny about this job." 
 
 ''I was thinkin' of that Germ back there, 
 sir," said Studd, and giggled again. ''About 
 another two steps an' we'd have fell fair 
 on top of 'im. Bit of a surprise like for 'im, 
 sir." 
 
 The Lieutenant grinned a little himself. 
 "Yes," he said, "but no more surprise than 
 I got when he sang out. Now what d'you 
 think is our direction?" 
 
 Studd looked round him, and pointed 
 promptly. The Lieutenant disagreed and 
 thought the course lay nearly at right angles 
 to Studd 's selection. He had his compass 
 with him and examined it carefully. "This 
 bit of their front line ran roughly north and
 
 86 FRONT LINES 
 
 south," lie said. ''If we move west it must 
 fetch us back on it. We must have twisted 
 a bit coming out of that wire — but there's 
 west," and he pointed again. 
 
 "I can't figure it by compass, sir," said 
 Studd, ''but here's the way I reckon we 
 came." He scratched lines on the ground 
 between them with the point of his wire nip- 
 pers. "Here's our line, and here's theirs — 
 running this way. ' ' 
 
 "Yes, north," said the Lieutenant. 
 
 "But then it bends in towards ours — like 
 this — an' ours bends back." 
 
 "Jove, so it does," admitted the Lieuten- 
 ant, thinking back to the trench map he had 
 studied so carefully before leaving. "And 
 we moved north behind their trench, so might 
 be round the corner; and a line west would 
 just carry us along behind their front line." 
 
 Studd was still busy with his scratchings. 
 "Here's where we came along and turned 
 oif the communication trench. That would 
 bring them lights where we saw them — about 
 here. Then we met them Germs and struck 
 off this way, an' ran into that wire, an' then
 
 IN THE MIST 87 
 
 back — ^here. So I figure we got to go that 
 way," and lie pointed again. 
 
 ''That's about it," agreed the Lieutenant. 
 ''But as that's toward the wire and our 
 friend who sang out, we'll hold left a bit 
 to try and dodge him." 
 
 He stood and looked about him. The mist 
 was wreathing and eddying slowly about 
 them, shutting out everything except a tiny 
 patch of wet ground about their feet. There 
 was a distinct whiteness now about the mist, 
 and a faint glow in the whiteness that told 
 of daylight coming, and the Lieutenant moved 
 hurriedly. "If it comes day and the mist 
 lifts we're done in," he said, and moved in 
 the chosen direction. They reached wire 
 again, but watching for it this time avoided 
 striking into it and turned, skirting it to- 
 wards their left. But the wire bent back 
 and was forcing them left again, or circling 
 back, and the Lieutenant halted in despair. 
 ' ' We '11 have to cut through again and chance 
 it," he said. "We can't risk hanging about 
 any longer." 
 
 "I'll just search along a few yards, sir,
 
 88 FRONT LINES 
 
 and see if there's an opening," said Studd. 
 
 ''Both go," said the Lieutenant. "Better 
 keep together." 
 
 Within a dozen yards both stopped 
 abruptly and again sank to the ground, the 
 Lieutenant cursing angrily under his breath. 
 Both had caught the sound of voices, and 
 from their lower position could see against 
 the light a line of standing men, apparently 
 right across their path. A spatter of rifle- 
 fire sounded from somewhere out in the mist, 
 and a few bullets whispered high overhead. 
 Then came the distant thud, thud, thud of 
 half a dozen guns firing. One shell wailed 
 distantly over, another passed closer with 
 a savage rush, a third burst twenty yards 
 away with a glaring flash that penetrated 
 even the thick fog. The two had a quick 
 glimpse of a line of Germans in long coats 
 ducking their ''coal-scuttle" helmets and 
 throwing themselves to ground. They were 
 not more than thirty feet away, and there 
 were at least a score of them. When their 
 eyes recovered from the flash of the shell, 
 the two could see not more than half a dozen
 
 IN THE MIST 89 
 
 fibres standing, could hear talking and 
 laughing remarks, and presently heard scuf- 
 fling sounds and saw figure after figure 
 emerge from the ground. 
 
 ' ' Trench there, ' ' whispered Studd, leaning 
 in to the Lieutenant's ear. ''They jumped 
 down. ' ' 
 
 "Yes," breathed the Lieutenant. He was 
 fingering cautiously at the wire beside him. 
 It was staked out, and as far as he could 
 discover there was something like a two-foot 
 clearance between the ground and the bot- 
 tom strands. It was a chance, and the po- 
 sition was growing so desperate that any 
 chance was worth taking. He touched 
 Studd 's elbow and began to wriggle under 
 the wires. Six feet in they found another 
 line stretched too low to crawl under and 
 could see and feel that the patch of low wire 
 extended some feet. "More coming," whis- 
 pered Studd, and the Lieutenant heard again 
 that sound of squelching steps and moving 
 men. They could still see the grey shadowy 
 figures of the first lot standing in the same 
 place, and now out of the mist emerged
 
 90 FRONT LINES 
 
 another shadowy group moving down the line 
 and past it. There was a good deal of low- 
 toned calling and talking between the two 
 lots, and the Lieutenant, seizing the chance 
 to work under cover of the noise, began 
 rapidly to nip his way through the wire. It 
 was only because of their low position they 
 could see the Germans against the lighter 
 mist, and he was confident, or at least hoped, 
 that from the reversed position it was un- 
 likely they would be seen. The second party 
 passed out of sight, and now the two could see 
 a stir amongst the first lot, saw them hoist 
 and heave bags and parcels to their shoulders 
 and backs, and begin to move slowly in the 
 opposite direction to that taken by the party 
 passing them. 
 
 '^Eation party or ammunition carriers," 
 said Studd softly. 
 
 ''And moving to the front line," said the 
 Lieutenant quickly. In an instant he had a 
 plan made. " We must follow them. They'll 
 guide us to the line. We keep close as we 
 can . . . not lose touch and not be seen. 
 Quick, get through there. ' ' He started to nip
 
 IN THE MIST 91 
 
 rapidly througli the wires. The party had 
 moved and the outline of the last man was 
 blurring and fading into the mist. The Lieu- 
 tenant rose and began to stride over the low 
 wires. A last barrier rose waist high. With 
 an exclamation of anger he fell to work with 
 the nippers again, Studd assisting him. The 
 men had vanished. The Lieutenant thrust 
 through the wires. His coat caught and he 
 wrenched it free, pushed again and caught 
 again. This time the stout fabric of the 
 trench coat held. There was no second to 
 waste. The Lieutenant flung loose the waist- 
 belt, tore himself out of the sleeves and broke 
 clear, leaving the coat hung in the wires. 
 ' ' Freer for running if we have to bolt at the 
 end," he said, and hurried after the vanished 
 line, with Studd at his heels. They caught 
 up with it quickly — almost too quickly, be- 
 cause the Lieutenant nearly overran one lag- 
 gard who had halted and was stooped or 
 kneeling doing something to his bundle on 
 the ground. The Lieutenant just in time saw 
 him rise and swing the bundle to his shoul- 
 der and hurry after the others. Behind him
 
 92 FRONT LINES 
 
 came the two, close enough to keep his dim 
 outline in sight, stooping low and ready to 
 drop flat if need be, moving as silently as 
 possible, checking and waiting crouched down 
 if they found themselves coming too close on 
 their leader. So they kept him in sight until 
 he caught the others up, followed them again 
 so long that a horrible doubt began to fill the 
 Lieutenant 's mind, a fear that they were be- 
 ing led back instead of forward. He would 
 have looked at his compass, but at that mo- 
 ment the dim grey figures before him van- 
 ished abruptly one by one. 
 
 He halted, listening, and Studd at his el- 
 bow whispered ''Down into a trench, sir.*' 
 Both sank to their knees and crawled care- 
 fully forward, and in a minute came to the 
 trench and the spot where the man had van- 
 ished. ''Coming near the front line, I ex- 
 pect," said the Lieutenant, and on the word 
 came the crack of a rifle from the mist ahead. 
 The Lieutenant heaved a sigh of relief. 
 "Keep down," he said. "Work along this 
 trench edge. Sure to lead to the front line." 
 
 A new hope flooded him. There was still
 
 IN THE MIST 93 
 
 tlie front trench to cross, but the ease with 
 which they had first come over it made him 
 now, turning the prospect over in his mind 
 as he crawled, consider that difficulty with 
 a light heart. His own trench and his friends 
 began to seem very near. Crossing the neu- 
 tral ground, which at other times would have 
 loomed as a dangerous adventure, was noth- 
 ing after this hair-raising performance of 
 blundering about inside the German lines. 
 He moved with certainty and confidence, al- 
 though yet with the greatest caution. Twice 
 they came to a belt of wire running down 
 to the edges of the trench they followed. 
 The Lieutenant, after a brief pause to look 
 and listen, slid down into the trench, passed 
 the wire, climbed out again, always with 
 Studd close behind him. Once they lay flat 
 on the very edge of the trench and watched 
 a German pass along beneath them so close 
 they could have put a hand on his helmet. 
 Once more they crouched in a shell-hole while 
 a dozen men floundered along the trench. 
 And so they came at last to the front line. 
 Foot by foot they wriggled close up to it.
 
 94 FRONT LINES 
 
 The Lieutenant at first saw no sign of a 
 German, but Studd beside him gripped his 
 arm with a warning pressure, and the Lieu- 
 tenant lay motionless. Suddenly, what he 
 had taken to be part of the outline of the 
 parapet beyond the trench moved and raised, 
 and he saw the outline of a steel-helmeted 
 head and a pair of broad shoulders. The 
 man turned his head and spoke, and with a 
 shock the Lieutenant heard a murmur of 
 voices in the trench, saw figures stir and 
 move in the mist. Studd wriggled noise- 
 lessly closer and, with his lips touching the 
 Lieutenant's ear, whispered ''I know where 
 we are. Eemember this bit we're on. We 
 crossed to the left of here." 
 
 They backed away from the trench a little 
 and worked carefully along it to their left, 
 and presently Studd whispered, ' ' About here, 
 I think." They edged closer in, staring 
 across for sight of the silhouette of the rifle 
 butt above the parapet. The mist had grown 
 thicker again and the parapet showed no 
 more than a faint grey bulk against the 
 lighter grey. The trench appeared to be full
 
 IN THE MIST 95 
 
 of men— ''standing to" the Lieutenant sup- 
 posed they were — and they moved at the most 
 appalling risk, their lives hanging on their 
 silence and stealth, perhaps on the chance 
 of some man climbing back out of the trench. 
 The Lieutenant was shivering with excite- 
 ment, his nerves jumping at every movement 
 or sound of a voice from the trench beside 
 them. 
 
 Studd grasped his elbow again and pointed 
 to the broken edge of trench where they lay, 
 and the Lieutenant, thinking he recognised 
 the spot they had climbed out on their first 
 crossing, stared hard across to the parapet 
 in search of the rifle butt. He saw it at last. 
 But what lay between it and them I Were 
 there Germans crouching in the trench bot- 
 tom? But they must risk that, risk every- 
 thing in a dash across and over the parapet. 
 A puff of wind stirred and set the mist eddy- 
 ing and lifting a moment. They dare wait 
 no longer. If the wind came the mist would 
 go, and with it would go their chance of 
 crossing the No Man's Land. He whispered 
 a moment to Studd, sat up, twisted his
 
 96 FRONT LINES 
 
 legs round to the edge of the trench, slid 
 his trench dagger from its sheath and set- 
 tled his fingers to a firm grip on the handle, 
 took a deep breath, and slid over feet fore- 
 most into the trench. In two quick strides 
 he was across it and scrambling up the para- 
 pet. The trench here was badly broken down 
 and a muddy pool lay in the bottom. Studd 
 caught a foot in something and splashed 
 heavily, and a voice from a yard or two on 
 their left called sharply. The Lieutenant 
 slithering over the parapet heard and cringed 
 from the shot he felt must come. But a 
 voice to their right answered; the Lieuten- 
 ant slid down, saw Studd scramble over after, 
 heard the voices calling and answering and 
 men splashing in the trench behind them. 
 He rose to his feet and ran, Studd following 
 close. From the parapet behind came the 
 spitting bang of a rifle and the bullet whipped 
 past most uncomfortably close. It would 
 have been safer perhaps to have dropped to 
 shelter in a shell-hole and crawled on after 
 a reasonable wait, but the Lieutenant had 
 had enough of crawling and shell-holes for
 
 IN THE MIST 97 
 
 one night, and was in a most single-minded 
 hurry to get away as far and as fast as he 
 could from Germans' neighbourhood,. He 
 and Studd ran on, and no more shots followed 
 them. The mist was thinning rapidly, and 
 they found their own outposts in the act of 
 withdrawal to the trench. The Lieutenant 
 hurried past them, zigzagged through their 
 own wire, and with a gasp of relief jumped 
 down into the trench. He sat there a few 
 minutes to recover his breath and then started 
 along the line to find Headquarters and make 
 his report. 
 
 On his way he met the officer who had 
 watched them leave the trench and was 
 greeted with a laugh. ''Hullo, old cock. 
 Some mud! You look as if you'd been crawl- 
 ing a bit. See any Boche?" 
 
 ''Crawling!" said the Lieutenant. "Any 
 Boche! I've been doing nothing but crawl 
 for a hundred years — except when I was 
 squirming on my face. And I've been fall- 
 ing over Boche, treading on Boche, bumping 
 into Boche, listening to Boche remarks — oh,
 
 98 FRONT LINES 
 
 ever since I can remember, ' ' and he laughed, 
 just a trifle hysterically. 
 
 "Did you get over their line then? If 
 so, you're just back in time. Mist has clean 
 gone in the last few minutes." A sudden 
 thought struck the Lieutenant. He peered 
 long and carefully over the parapet. The 
 last wisps of mist were shredding away and 
 the jumble of torn ground and trenches and 
 wire in the German lines was plainly visible. 
 ''Look," said the Lieutenant. "Three or 
 four hundred yards behind their line — ^hang- 
 ing on some wire. That's my coat. ..."
 
 VI 
 
 SEEING RED 
 
 The Mess, having fiDished reading the letters 
 just brought in, were looking through the 
 home papers. Harvey, who used to be a bank 
 clerk, giggled over a page in Punch and 
 passed it round. ' ' Pretty true, too, isn 't it ? " 
 he said. The page was one of those silly 
 jolly little drawings by Bateman of men with 
 curly legs, and the pictures showed typical 
 scenes from the old life of an average City 
 clerk, trotting to business, playing dominoes, 
 and so on, and the last one of a fellow tear- 
 ing over the trenches in a charge with a 
 real teeth-gritted, blood-in-his-eye look, and 
 the title of the lot was ''It's the Same Man." 
 
 Everyone grinned at it and said "Pretty 
 true," or something like that. "It reminds 
 me ..." said the Australian. 
 
 Now this is the Australian's story, which 
 he said he had got from one of the fellows 
 
 99
 
 100 FRONT LINES 
 
 in the show. For the truth or untnith I give 
 no guarantee, but just tell the tale for what 
 it's worth. 
 
 Teddy Silsey was an Australian born and 
 bred, but he could not be called a typical Aus- 
 tralian so far as people in the Old Country 
 count him ''typical." With them there is a 
 general impression that every real Austra- 
 lian can *'ride and shoot," and that men in 
 Australia spend the greater part of their nor- 
 mal existence galloping about the ''ranch" 
 after cattle or shooting kangaroos. Teddy 
 Silsey wasn't one of that sort. He was one 
 of the many thousands of the other sort, who 
 have been reared in the cities of Australia, 
 and who all his life had gone to school and 
 business there and led just as humdrum and 
 peaceable a life as any London City clerk 
 of the Punch picture. 
 
 When the War came, Teddy was thirty 
 years of age, married, and comfortably set- 
 tled in a little suburban house outside Syd- 
 ney, and already inclined to be — well, if not 
 fat, at least distinctly stout. He had never 
 killed anything bigger than a fly or met any-
 
 SEEING RED 101 
 
 thing more dangerous than a mosquito; and 
 after an unpleasant episode in which his wife 
 had asked him to kill for the Sunday dinner a 
 chicken which the poultry people had stupidly 
 sent up alive, an episode which ended in 
 Teddy staggering indoors with blood-smeared 
 hands and chalky face while a headless fowl 
 flapped round the garden, both Teddy and 
 his wife settled do^vn to a firm belief that he 
 "had a horror of blood," and told their 
 friends and neighbours so with a tinge of 
 complacency in the fact. 
 
 Eemembering this, it is easy to understand 
 the consternation in Mrs. Teddy's mind when, 
 after the War had been running a year, Teddy 
 announced that he was going to enlist. He 
 was firm about it too. He had thought the 
 whole thing out — house to be shut up, she 
 to go stay with her mother, his separation 
 allowance so much, and so much more in 
 the bank to draw on, and so on. Her re- 
 monstrances he met so promptly that one can 
 only suppose them anticipated. His health? 
 Never had a day's sickness, as she knew. 
 His business prospects? The country's pros-
 
 102 FRONT LINES 
 
 pects were more important, and his Country- 
 Wanted Him. His ''horror of blood"? 
 Teddy twisted uneasily. ''I've a horror of 
 the whole beastly business,'* he said — "of 
 war and guns and shooting, of being killed, 
 and ... of leaving you." This was diplo- 
 macy of the highest, and the resulting inter- 
 lude gently slid into an acceptance of the 
 fact of his going. 
 
 He went, and — ^to get along with the War — 
 at last came to France, and with his battalion 
 into the trenches. He had not risen above 
 the rank of private, partly because he lacked 
 any ambition to command, and in larger part 
 because his superiors did not detect any 
 ability in him to handle the rather rough- 
 and-ready crowd who were in his lot. Far 
 from army training and rations doing him 
 physical harm, he throve on them, and even 
 put on flesh. But because he was really a 
 good sort, was always willing to lend any 
 cash he had, take a fatigue for a friend, joke 
 over hardships and laugh at discomforts, he 
 was on excellent terms with his fellows. He 
 shed a good many, if not all, of his suburban
 
 SEEING RED 103 
 
 peace ways, was a fairly good shot on the 
 ranges, and even acquired considerable skill 
 and agility at bayonet practice. But he never 
 quite shed his "horror of blood." Even 
 after he had been in action a time or two 
 and had fired many rounds from his rifle, 
 he had a vague hope each time he pulled 
 trigger that his bullet might not kill a man, 
 might at most only wound him enough to 
 put him out of action. The first shell cas- 
 ualty he saw in their own ranks made him 
 literally and actually sick, and even after 
 he had seen many more casualties than he 
 cared to think about he still retained a 
 squeamish feeling at sight of them. And in 
 his battalion's share of The Push, where 
 there was a good deal of close-quarter work 
 and play with bombs and bayonet, he never 
 had urgent need to use his bayonet, and when 
 a party of Germans in a dugout refused to 
 surrender, and persisted instead in firing up 
 the steps at anyone who showed at the top, 
 Teddy stood aside and left the others to do 
 the bombing-out. ! 
 
 It was ridiculous, of course, that a fight-
 
 104 FRONT LINES 
 
 ing man who was there for the express pur- 
 pose of killing should feel any qualms about 
 doing it, but there it was. 
 
 Then came the day when the Germans made 
 a heavy counter-attack on the positions held 
 by the Australians. The positions were not 
 a complete joined-up defensive line along the 
 outer front. The fighting had been heavy 
 and bitter, and the German trenches which 
 were captured had been so thoroughly pound- 
 ed by shell fire that they no longer existed 
 as trenches, and the Australians had to be 
 satisfied with the establishment of a line of 
 posts manned as strongly as possible, with 
 plenty of machine-guns. 
 
 Teddy's battalion was not in this front 
 fringe when the counter-attack, launched 
 without any warning bombardment, flooded 
 suddenly over the outer defences, surged 
 heavily back, drove in the next lines, and 
 broke and battered them in and down under- 
 foot. 
 
 Something like a couple of thousand yards 
 in over our lines that first savage rush 
 brought the Germans, and nearly twoscore
 
 SEEING EED 105 
 
 guns were in tlieir hands before they checked 
 and hesitated, and the Australian supports 
 flung themselves in on a desperate counter- 
 attack. The first part of the German pro- 
 gramme was an undoubted and alarming suc- 
 cess. The posts and strong points along 
 our front were simply overwhelmed, or sur- 
 rounded and cut off, and went under, mak- 
 ing the best finish they could with the bayo- 
 net, or in some cases — ^well, Teddy Silsey and 
 a good many other Australians saw just what 
 happened in these other cases, and are not 
 likely ever to forget it. The German attack 
 — as in many historic cases in this war — ap- 
 peared to fizzle out in the most amazing fash- 
 ion after it had come with such speed and 
 sweeping success for so far. Our guns, of 
 course, were hard at work, and were doing 
 the most appalling damage to the dense 
 masses that offered as targets ; but that would 
 hardly account for the slackening of the rush, 
 because the guns had waked at the first crash 
 of rifle and bomb reports, and the Germans 
 were under just about as severe a fire for 
 the second half of their rush as they were
 
 106 FRONT LINES 
 
 at the end of it when they checked. There 
 appeared to be a hesitation about their move- 
 ments, a confusion in their plans, a doubt as 
 to what they ought to do next, that halted 
 them long enough to lose the great advantage 
 of their momentum. The first hurried coun- 
 ter-attack flung in their face was compara- 
 tively feeble, and if they had kept going 
 should easily have been brushed aside. Thir- 
 ty-odd guns were in their hands; and, most 
 dangerous of all, one other short storm for- 
 ward would have brought them swamping 
 over a whole solid mass of our field guns — 
 which at the moment were about the only 
 thing left to hold back their attack — and 
 within close rifle and machine-gun range of 
 the fringe of our heavies. But at this criti- 
 cal stage, for no good reason, and against 
 every military reason, they, as so often be- 
 fore, hesitated, and were lost. Another Aus- 
 tralian counter-attack, this time much bet- 
 ter organised and more solidly built, was 
 launched headlong on their confusion. They 
 gave ground a little in some places, tried to 
 push on in others, halted and strove to se-
 
 SEEING RED 107 
 
 cure positions and grip the trenches in others. 
 The Australians, savagely angry at being so 
 caught and losing so much ground, drove 
 in on them, bombing, shooting, and bayonet- 
 ing; while over the heads of the front-rank 
 fighters the guns poured a furious tempest 
 of shrapnel and high explosive on the masses 
 that sifted and eddied behind. The issue 
 hung in doubt for no more than a bare five 
 minutes. The Germans who had tried to 
 push on were shot and cut down ; the parties 
 that held portions of trench were killed or 
 driven out ; the waverers were rushed, beaten 
 in, and driven back in confusion on the sup- 
 ports that struggled up through the tornado 
 of shell-fire. Then their whole front crum- 
 pled, and collapsed, and gave, and the Aus- 
 tralians began to recover their ground almost 
 as quickly as they had lost it. 
 
 Now Teddy Silsey, while all this was going 
 on, had been with his company in a position 
 mid-way across the depth of captured ground. 
 He and about forty others, with two officers, 
 had tried to hold the battered remnant of 
 trench they were occupying, and did actually
 
 108 FRONT LINES 
 
 continue to hold it after the rush of the Ger- 
 man front had swept far past them. They 
 were attacked on all sides, shot away their 
 last cartridge, had their machine-guns put 
 out of action by bombs, had about half their 
 number killed, and almost every man of the 
 remainder wounded. They were clearly cut 
 off, with thousands of Germans between them 
 and their supports, could see fresh German 
 forces pressing on past them, could hear the 
 din of fighting receding rapidly farther and 
 farther back. The two officers, both wounded/ 
 but able more or less to stand up, conferred 
 hastily, and surrendered. 
 
 Of this last act Teddy Silsey was unaware, 
 because a splinter of some sort, striking on 
 his steel helmet, had stunned him and dropped 
 him completely insensible. Two dead men 
 fell across him as he lay, and probably ac- 
 counted for the Germans at the moment over- 
 looking him as they collected their prisoners. 
 
 Teddy wakened to dim consciousness to 
 find a number of Germans busily and con- 
 fusedly engaged in setting the bit of trench 
 in a state of defence. They trod on him and
 
 SEEING RED 109 
 
 the two dead men on top of him a good deal, 
 but Teddy, slowly taking in his situation, and 
 wondering vaguely what his next move should 
 be, did the wisest possible thing under the 
 circumstances — ^lay still. 
 
 A little before this the Australian counter- 
 attack had been sprung, and before Teddy 
 had made up his mind about moving he be- 
 gan to be aware that the battle was flood- 
 ing back on him. The Germans beside him 
 saw it too, and, without any attempt to de- 
 fend their position, clambered from the 
 trench and disappeared from Teddy's imme- 
 diate view. Teddy crawled up and had a 
 look out. It was difficult to see much at 
 first, because there was a good deal of smoke 
 about from our bursting shells, but as the 
 counter-attack pushed on and the Germans 
 went back, the shells followed them, and pres- 
 ently the air cleared enough for Teddy to 
 see glimpses of khaki and to be certain that 
 every German he saw was getting away from 
 the khaki neighbourhood as rapidly as pos- 
 sible. In another minute a couple of Aus- 
 tralians, hugging some machine-guns parts,
 
 110 FRONT LINES 
 
 tumbled into his trench, two or three others 
 arrived panting, and in a moment the ma- 
 chine-gun was in action and streaming fire 
 and bullets into the backs of any parties of 
 Germans that crossed the sights. 
 
 One of the new-comers, a sergeant, looked 
 round and saw Teddy squatting on the broken 
 edge of the trench and looking very sick and 
 shaken. "Hullo, mate," said the sergeant, 
 glancing at the patch of coloured cloth on 
 Teddy's shoulder that told his unit. ''Was 
 you with the bunch in this hole when Fritz 
 jumped you?" Teddy gulped and nodded. 
 "You stopped one?" said the sergeant. 
 " Where 'd it get you?" 
 
 "No," said Teddy; "I— I think I'm all 
 right. Got a bit of a bump on the head." 
 
 " 'Nother bloke to say 'Go' bless the tin- 
 'at makers ' in 'is prayers every night. ' ' He 
 turned from Teddy. "Isn't it time we 
 humped this shooter a bit on again, boys?" 
 he said. 
 
 "Looks like the Boche was steadyin' up a 
 bit, ' ' said a machine-gunner. * ' An ' our line 's 
 bumped a bit o ' a snag along on the left there.
 
 SEEING RED 111 
 
 I think we might spray 'em a little down that 
 way.'' 
 
 They slewed the gun in search of fresh 
 targets, while from a broken trench some 
 score yards from their front a gathering vol- 
 ume of rifle-fire began to pelt and tell of 
 the German resistance stiffening. 
 
 '^Strewth," growled the sergeant, ''this is 
 
 no bon ! If we give 'em time to settle in 
 
 Hullo," — he broke off, and stared out in front 
 over the trench edge — ' ' wot 's that lot ? They 
 look like khaki. Prisoners, by cripes!" 
 
 Every man peered out anxiously. Two to 
 three hundreds yards away they could see 
 emerging from the broken end of a communi- 
 cation trench a single file of men in khaki 
 without arms in their hands, and with half a 
 dozen rifle- and bayonet-armed Germans 
 guarding them. Teddy, who was watching 
 with the others, exclaimed suddenly. ''It's 
 my lot," he said. "That's the captain — him 
 with the red hair; and I recognise Big Mick, 
 and Terry — Terry's wounded — see him limp. 
 That's my mate Terry." 
 
 The firing on both sides had slacked for a
 
 112 FRONT LINES 
 
 moment, and none of the watchers missed 
 one single movement of what followed. It 
 is unpleasant telling, as it was unutterably 
 horrible watching. The prisoners, except the 
 two officers, who were halted above ground, 
 were guided down into a portion of trench 
 into which they disappeared. The guards 
 had also remained above. What followed 
 is best told briefly. The two officers, in full 
 view of the watchers, were shot down as 
 they stood, the rifle muzzles touching their 
 backs. The Germans round the trench edge 
 tossed bombs down on the men penned below. 
 Before the spurting smoke came billowing 
 up out of the trench, Teddy Silsey leaped to 
 his feet with a scream, and flung himself 
 scrambling up the trench wall. But the ser- 
 geant, with a gust of bitter oaths, gripped 
 and held him. ' ' Get to it there, ' ' he snarled 
 savagely at the men about the gun. "D'you 
 want a better target?" The gun muzzle 
 twitched and steadied and ripped out a stream 
 of bullets. The Germans about the trench 
 lip turned to run, but the storm caught and 
 cut them down — except one or two who
 
 SEEING RED 113 
 
 ducked down into the trench on top of their 
 victims. Teddy found them there three min- 
 utes after, stayed only long enough to finish 
 them, and ran on with the other Australians 
 who swarmed yelling forward to the attack 
 again. Others had seen the butchery, and 
 those who had not quickly heard of it. Every 
 group of dead Australians discovered as the 
 line surged irresistibly forward was declared, 
 rightly or wrongly, to be another lot of mur- 
 dered prisoners. The advance went with a 
 fury, with a storming rage that nothing could 
 withstand. The last remnant of organised 
 German defence broke utterly, and the sup- 
 ports coming up found themselves charged 
 into, hustled, mixed up with, and thrown into 
 utter confusion by the mob of fugitives and 
 the line of shooting, bombing, bayoneting 
 Australians that pressed hard on their heels. 
 The supports tried to make some sort of 
 stand, but they failed, were borne back, bus- 
 tled, lost direction, tried to charge again, 
 broke and gave, scattering and running, were 
 caught in a ferocious flank fire, reeled and 
 swung wide from it, and found themselves
 
 114 FRONT LINES 
 
 penned and jammed back against .a broad, 
 deep, and higli belt of their own barbed wire. 
 Some of them, by quick work and running 
 the gauntlet of that deadly flanking fire, won 
 clear and escaped round the end of the belt. 
 The rest — and there were anything over two 
 thousand of them — were trapped. The Aus- 
 tralian line closed in, pouring a storm of 
 rifle fire on them. Some tried to tear a way 
 through, or over, or under the impenetrable 
 thicket of their own wire; others ran wildly 
 up and down looking for an opening, for any 
 escape from those pelting bullets; others 
 again held their hands high and ran towards 
 the crackling rifles shrieking ''Kamerad" 
 surrenders that were drowned in the drum- 
 ming roll of rifle fire; and some few threw 
 themselves down and tried to take cover 
 and fire back into the teeth of the storm that 
 beat upon them. But the Australian line 
 closed in grimly and inexorably, the men 
 shooting and moving forward a pace or two, 
 standing and shooting — shooting — shooting. 
 . . . Teddy Silsey shot away every round 
 he carried, ceased firing only long enough to
 
 SEEING RED 115 
 
 snatcli up a fresh supply from a dead man's 
 belt, stood again and shot steadily and with 
 savage intensity into the thinning crowd that 
 struggled and tore at the tangled mass of 
 wire. 
 
 And all the time he cursed bitterly and 
 abominably, reviling and pouring oaths of 
 vengeance on the brutes, the utter savages 
 who had murdered his mates in cold blood. 
 To every man who came near him he had 
 only one message — ''Kill them out. They 
 killed their prisoners. I saw them do it. 
 
 Kill the !" with a shot after each 
 
 sentence. 
 
 And there was a killing. There were other 
 results — the lost ground recaptured and 
 made good; the taken guns retaken, five of 
 them damaged and others with the unex- 
 ploded destroying charges set and ready for 
 firing; some slight gains made at certain 
 points. But the Australians there will always 
 remember that fight for the big killing, for 
 those murderer Huns pinned against their 
 own wire, for the burning hot barrels of the 
 rifles, for the scattered groups of their own
 
 116 FRONT LINES 
 
 dead — their murdered-prisoner dead — and 
 for the two thousand-odd German bodies 
 counted where they fell or hung limp in the 
 tangles of their barbed wire. 
 
 And next day Teddy Silsey volunteered for 
 the Bombing Company, the Suicide Club, as 
 they call themselves. He wanted close-up 
 work, he explained. With a rifle you could 
 never be sure you got your own man. With 
 a bomb you could see him — — and he detailed 
 what he wanted to see. He appeared to have 
 completely forgotten his ''horror of blood 
 
 n
 
 vn 
 
 AN AIE BARRAGE 
 
 The Gunnery Officer was an enthusiast on 
 his work — in fact, if you took the Squadron's 
 word for it, he went past that and was an 
 utter crank on machine-guns and everything 
 connected with them. They admitted all the 
 benefits of this enthusiasm, the excellent 
 state in which their guns were always to be 
 found, the fact that in air fighting they prob- 
 ably had fewer stoppages and gun troubles 
 than any other Squadron at the Front; but 
 on the other hand they protested that there 
 was a time and place for everything, and that 
 you could always have too much of a good 
 thing. It was bad enough to have *'Guns" 
 himself cranky on the subject, but when he 
 infected the Recording Officer with his craze, 
 it was time to kick. ''Guns" usually had 
 some of the mechanism of his pets in his 
 
 pockets, and he and the R.O. could be seen 
 
 117
 
 118 FRONT LINES 
 
 in the ante-room fingering these over, gloat- 
 ing over them or discussing some technical 
 points. They had to be made to sit apart 
 at mess because the gun-talk never ceased 
 so long as they were together, and the two at 
 the same table were enough to bring any real 
 game of Bridge or Whist to utter confusion. 
 As one of their partners said, ' ^ I never know 
 whether Guns is declaring No TiTimps or 
 tracer bullets or Hearts or ring sights. If 
 you ask what the score is, he starts in to reel 
 off the figures of the Squadron's last shoot- 
 ing test; he'll fidget to finish the most ex- 
 citing rubber you ever met and get away to 
 his beastly armoury to pull the innards out 
 of some inoffensive Lewis. He's hopeless." 
 
 Guns and the E.O. between them appar- 
 ently came to a conclusion that we were 
 chucking the war away because we didn't 
 concentrate enough on machine-gun fright- 
 fulness. They'd have washed out the whole 
 artillery probably, Archies included, if they'd 
 been asked, and given every man a machine- 
 gun on his shoulder and a machine-pistol in 
 his hip-pocket. They wasted a morning and
 
 AN AIR BARRAGE 119 
 
 an appalling number of rounds satisfying 
 themselves that machine-guns would cut away 
 barbed-wire entanglements, stealing a roll 
 of wire from some unsuspecting Engineers' 
 dump, erecting a sample entanglement in 
 the quarry, and pelting it with bullets. And 
 they called the CO. ''narrow-minded" when 
 he made a fuss about the number of rounds 
 they'd used, and reminded them barbed wire 
 didn't figure in air fighting. They tramped 
 miles across country, one carrying a Vickers 
 and the other a Lewis, to settle some argu- 
 ment about how far or how fast a man could 
 hump the guns; they invented fakements 
 enough to keep a private branch of the Pat- 
 ents Office working overtime logging them up. 
 
 It sounds crazy, but then, as the Squadron 
 protested, they, Guns especially, were crazy, 
 and that's all there was to it. 
 
 But with these notions of theirs about the 
 infallibility of machine-guns, and the range 
 of their usefulness, you will understand how 
 their minds leaped to machine-gun tactics 
 when the Hun night-fliers began to come over 
 and bomb around the 'drome. The first night
 
 120 FEONT LINES 
 
 they came Guns nearly broke his neck by 
 falling into a deep hole in his mad rush to 
 get to the anti-aircraft machine-guns on the 
 'drome near the sheds, and he alternated be- 
 tween moping and cursing for three days be- 
 cause the Huns had gone before he could get 
 a crack at them. He cheered up a lot when 
 they came the next time and he and the E.O. 
 shot away a few-million rounds, more or 
 less. But as he didn't fetch a feather out 
 of them, and as the Huns dropped their eggs 
 horribly close to the hangars, the two were 
 not properly satisfied, and began to work out 
 all sorts of protective schemes and sit up as 
 long as the moon was shining in hopes of a 
 bit of shooting. 
 
 Their hopes were fully satisfied, or anyhow 
 the Squadron's more than were, because the 
 Huns made a regular mark of the 'drome 
 and strafed it night after night. And for 
 all the rounds they shot, neither Guns nor 
 the E.O. ever got a single bird, although 
 they swore more than once that they were 
 positive they had winged one. As none came 
 down on our side of the lines, this claim
 
 AN AIR BARRAGE 121 
 
 was a washout, and the two got quite wor- 
 ried about it and had to stand an unmerci- 
 ful amount of chaff from the others on the 
 dud shooting. 
 
 After a bit they evolved a new plan. Care- 
 ful investigation and inquiry of different 
 pilots in the Squadron gave them the ground- 
 work for the plan. In answer to questions, 
 some of the pilots said that if they were in 
 the place of the Huns and wanted to tind the 
 'drome in the dark, they would steer for the 
 unusual-shaped clump of wood which lay be- 
 hind the 'drome. Some said they would fol- 
 low the canal, others the road, others various 
 guides, but all agreed that the wood was 
 the object the Huns would steer for. This 
 found, all the pilots again agreed it was a 
 simple matter to coast along the edge of the 
 wood, which would show up a black blot on 
 the ground in the moonlight, find the tongue 
 or spur of trees that ran straight out towards 
 the 'drome, and, keeping that line, must fly 
 exactly over the hangars. One or two nights' 
 careful listening to the direction of the ap- 
 proaching and departing Hun engines con-
 
 122 FRONT LINES 
 
 firmed the belief that the Huns were working 
 on the lines indicated, and after this was 
 sure the plan progressed rapidly. 
 
 The two machine-guns on the 'drome were' 
 trained and aimed in daylight to shower bul- 
 lets exactly over the tip of the tongue of 
 wood. A patent gadget invented by Guns 
 allowed the gun-muzzles a certain amount 
 of play up and down, play which careful 
 calculation showed would pour a couple of 
 streams of bullets across the end of the 
 wood up and down a height extending to 
 about a thousand feet, that is, 500 above and 
 500 below the level at which it was estimated 
 the Huns usually flew on these night raids. 
 It simply meant that as soon as the sound 
 was judged to be near enough the two guns 
 only had to open fire, to keep pouring out 
 bullets to make sure that the Huns had to 
 fly through the stream and "stop one" or 
 more. It was, in fact, a simple air barrage 
 of machine-gun bullets. 
 
 With the plan perfected, the two enthusi- 
 asts waited quite impatiently for the next 
 strafe. Fortunately the moon was up fairly
 
 AN AIR BARRAGE 123 
 
 early, so that now there was no need to sit 
 up late for the shoot, and the second night 
 after the preparations were complete, to the 
 joy of Guns and the R.O. (and the discomfort 
 of the others), there was a beautiful, still, 
 moonlight night with every inducement for 
 the Huns to come along. 
 
 The two ate a hurried dinner with ears 
 cocked for the first note of the warning 
 which would sound when the distant noise of 
 engines was first heard. Sure enough they 
 had just reached the sweets when the signal 
 went, and the two were up and off before the 
 lights could be extinguished. They arrived 
 panting at their stations to find the gun- 
 crews all ready and waiting, made a last 
 hasty examination to see everything was in 
 order, and stood straining their ears for the 
 moment when they reckoned the Huns would 
 be approaching the barrage area, and when 
 they judged the moment had arrived opened 
 a long steady stream of fire. The drone of 
 the first engine grew louder, passed through 
 the barrage, and boomed on over the 'drome 
 without missing a beat. There came the old
 
 124 FRONT LINES 
 
 familiar ''Phe>-e-e-w — BANG! . . . e^e-e-ew 
 — BANG ! " of a couple of falling bombs, and 
 the first engine droned on and away. Two 
 minutes later another was heard, and Guns 
 and the R.O., no degree disheartened or dis- 
 couraged by their first failure, let go an- 
 other stream of lead, keeping the gun-muz- 
 zles twitching up and down as rapidly as 
 they could. The second Hun repeated the 
 performance of the first ; and a third did like- 
 wise. After it was all over Guns and the 
 R.O. held a council and devised fresh and 
 more comprehensive plans, which included 
 the use of some extra guns taken from the 
 machines. For the moment we may leave 
 them, merely mentioning that up to now and 
 even in their newer plans they entirely neg- 
 lected any consideration of rather an impor- 
 tant item in their performance, namely, the 
 ultimate billet of their numerous bullets. 
 
 From the point of view of the defence it is 
 an important and unpleasant fact that an air 
 barrage eventually returns to the ground. 
 Guns and the R.O. had been pumping out 
 bullets at a rate of some hundreds per min-
 
 AN AIR BARRAGE 125 
 
 ute eacli, and all those bullets after miss- 
 ing their target had to arrive somewhere 
 on the earth. The gunners' interest in them 
 passed for the moment as soon as the bul- 
 lets had failed to hit their mark, and after- 
 wards they came to remember with amaze- 
 ment that ever they could have been so 
 idiotically unconsidering. 
 
 Some distance from the 'drome, and in a 
 line beyond the tip of the wood, there stood 
 a number of Nissen huts which housed a 
 Divisional Staff, and the inevitable conse- 
 quence was that those up-and-down twitch- 
 ing gun-muzzles sprayed showers of lead in 
 gusts across and across the hutments. The 
 G-eneral Commanding the Division was in 
 the middle of his dinner with about five staff 
 ofi&cers round the table when the first ''aero- 
 plane over" warning went on this particular 
 night of the new air barrage. The lights in 
 the Mess hut were not extinguished, because 
 full precautions had been taken some nights 
 before to have the small window-space fully 
 and closely screened against the possibility 
 of leakage of a single ray of light. One or
 
 126 FRONT LINES 
 
 two remarks were made quite casually about 
 the nasty raiding habits of the Huns, but 
 since no bombs had come near in the earlier 
 raids, and the conclusion was therefore rea- 
 sonable that the Divisional H.Q. had not been 
 located, nobody there worried much over the 
 matter, and dinner proceeded. 
 
 They all heard the drone of the Hun en- 
 gine, and, because it was a very still night, 
 they heard it rather louder than usual. Some- 
 one had just remarked that they seemed to 
 be coming closer to-night, when the further 
 remarks were violently interrupted by a 
 clashing and clattering B-hang . . . hr-r-rip- 
 rap, ba-bang-bang, the splintering, ripping 
 sound of smashed wood, the crash, clash 
 tinkle of a bottle burst into a thousand frag- 
 ments on the table under their startled eyes. 
 The barrage bullets had returned to earth. 
 
 The group at the table had time for no more 
 than a pause of astonishment, a few exclama- 
 tions, a hasty pushing back of chairs, when 
 rip-rap-bang-bang-bang dovra came the sec- 
 ond spray of bullets from those jerking muz- 
 zles over on the 'drome. Now a bullet hitting
 
 AN AIE BARRAGE 127 
 
 any solid object makes a nasty and most dis- 
 concerting sort of noise; but when it hits the 
 tin roof of a Nissen hut, tears through it and 
 the wood lining inside, passes out again or 
 comes to rest in the hut, the noises become 
 involved and resemble all sorts of queer 
 sounds from kicking a tea-tray to treading on 
 an empty match-box. The huts were solidly 
 sand-bagged up their outside walls to a height 
 of some feet, but had no overhead cover what- 
 ever. The third burst from Guns and the 
 E.O. arrived on the hut at exactly the same 
 moment as the General and his Staff arrived 
 on the floor as close as they could get to the 
 wall and the protecting sandbags. They 
 stayed there for some exciting minutes while 
 Guns shot numerous holes in the roof, splin- 
 tered the furniture, and shot the dinner piece- 
 meal off the table. 
 
 The shooting and the hum of the enemy 
 engine ceased together, and the General and 
 his Staff gathered themselves off the floor 
 and surveyed the wreckage about them. "I 
 just moved in time," said the Brigade-Major, 
 and pointed to a ragged hole in the seat of
 
 128 FRONT LINES 
 
 his chair. ''D'you suppose it was a fluke, 
 or have they got this place spotted?" asked 
 the Captain. ' ' Nasty mess of the roof, ' ' said 
 someone else. The General confined himself 
 to less coherent but much more pungent re- 
 marks on all Huns in general, and night- 
 raiders in particular. They seated them- 
 selves, and the waiter was just beginning to 
 mop up the smashed bottle of red wine, when 
 the distant hum of another engine was heard. 
 This time the barraged ones reached the floor 
 just a shade ahead of the first tearing burst 
 from Guns and the R.O., and again they held 
 their breath and cowered while the bullets 
 clashed and banged on the tin roof, smacked 
 and cracked on the ground outside, beat an- 
 other noisy banging tattoo across the next- 
 door huts. The group stayed prone rather 
 longer after the ceasing of fire and engine 
 hum, and had little more than risen to their 
 feet when the third outbreak sent them fling- 
 ing down into cover again. 
 
 After another and very much longer pause 
 they very gingerly resumed their places at 
 the table, sitting with chairs turned to posi-
 
 AN AIR BARRAGE 129 
 
 tions which would allow evacuation with the 
 least possible delay. The conversation for 
 the rest of the dinner was conducted in 
 hushed whispers and with six pair of ears on 
 the alert for the first suspicion of the sound 
 of an approaching engine. It was agreed by 
 all that the Hun must have them spotted, and 
 the only matter for surprise was that some 
 of the bombs heard exploding in the distance 
 had not been dropped on them. It was also 
 agreed very unanimously, not to say emphat- 
 ically, that the first job for a party in the 
 morning was the digging of a solidly con- 
 structed dug-out. ''Sand-bags on the roof 
 might be good enough for bullets," said the 
 General, "but we've got to allow for bombs 
 next time, and there's nothing for that but 
 a good dug-out." 
 
 Someone suggested moving the H.Q., but 
 this was rejected since they were busy at 
 the time, and it would mean a good deal of 
 time lost and work dislocated. The General 
 decided to hang on for a bit and see what 
 turned up. 
 
 Next morning dug-outs were started and
 
 130 FRONT LINES 
 
 thickisli weather the next night prevented 
 further raids and allowed satisfactory prog- 
 ress to be made on the shelters. The fol- 
 lowing night was clear again, but dinner 
 passed without any alarm, and everyone, ex- 
 cept the Brigade-Major, who had some ur- 
 gent work to keep him up, turned in early. 
 
 At about 11.30 p.m. the first Hun came 
 over, and at the 'drome the waiting and ex- 
 pectant Guns and E.O. set up their new and 
 improved barrage, with four machine-guns 
 all carefully trained and set to sweep over 
 the same end of the same wood. 
 
 The General was awakened by the first tea- 
 tray bang-banging on adjacent tin roofs, and, 
 without pausing to think, rolled out of bed 
 and bumped on to the floor just as a couple 
 of strays from the outside edge of the bar- 
 rage banged, ripped, and cracked through 
 his roof and walls. He crawled at top pace 
 to the wall, cursing his hardest, groped round 
 in the dark and found a pair of boots and 
 a British Warm, struggled into these, sitting 
 on the cold floor in his pyjamas, while a tor- 
 nado of bullets hailed and clashed and banged
 
 AN AIR BARRAGE 131 
 
 across the Nissen hut roofs of the camp. He 
 took a quick chance offered by a lull in the 
 firing, flung the door open, and set off at a 
 floundering run for the dug-out. As he dou- 
 bled along the duckboards he heard the dron- 
 ing roar of an eiUgine coming closer and 
 closer, made a desperate spurt, expecting 
 every moment to hear the ominous whistle 
 and resounding crash of a falling and burst- 
 ing bomb, reached the dug-out entrance, 
 hurled himself through it, and fell in a heap 
 on top of the Brigade-Major cautiously feel- 
 ing his way down the dark steps. They 
 reached the bottom in a tumbled heap and 
 with a bump, their language rising in a min- 
 gled and turgid flow to the delighted ears of 
 a Staff-Lieutenant, shivering at the top of 
 the stairs in his pyjamas with his breeches 
 under his arm and his tunic thrown round his 
 chilly shoulders. But his grins cut off short, 
 and he, too, hurtled down the steps as a bomb 
 burst a few hundred yards off with a re- 
 sounding and earth-shaking crash. 
 
 Sitting there in the dark for the next hour 
 the General meditated many things, including
 
 132 FRONT LINES 
 
 the mysterious ways of air Huns who so ac- 
 curately machine-gunned his camp, and yet 
 dropped nine out of ten of their bombs at 
 various distances up to a full mile away 
 from it. 
 
 This mystery led him next day to diverge 
 from his way and ride across the fields to the 
 'drome to make a few inquiries into the ways 
 of night-fliers. Guns was busy making some 
 adjustments to his barrage guns with re- 
 newed determination to bring a Hun down 
 some night. The General saw him, and rode 
 over and asked a few questions, and listened 
 with a growing suspicion darkening his brow 
 to Guns' enthusiastic description of the bar- 
 rage plan. He cut Guns short with an abrupt 
 question, ''Where do your bullets come 
 down?" 
 
 Guns paused in bewilderment, and stared 
 vacantly a moment at the empty sky. Some- 
 how now in daylight it seemed so very ob- 
 vious the bullets must come down; whereas 
 shooting up into the dark it had never oc- 
 curred. The General pulled his horse round 
 and rode straight over to the Squadron of-
 
 AN AIR BARRAGE 133 
 
 fice. There he found the Major and a map, 
 had the exact position of the barrage guns 
 pointed out to him, and in turn pointed out 
 where the H.Q. camp lay. The R.O., who 
 was working in the outer office, sat shivering 
 at the wrathful remarks that boiled out of 
 the next room and ended with a demand for 
 the presence of the Gunnery Officer. The 
 E.O. himself departed hurriedly to send him, 
 and then took refuge in the hangar farthest 
 removed from the office. A sense of fair play 
 and sharing the blame drove him reluctantly 
 back to the office in time to hear the effective 
 close of the General's remarks. 
 
 ' ' Barrage, sir ! — barrage ! Splashing thou- 
 sands of bullets all over a country scattered 
 with camps. Are you mad, sir? Air bar- 
 rage! Go' bless your eyes, man, d'you think 
 you're in London that you must go filling the 
 sky with barrages and bullets and waking 
 me and every other man within miles with 
 your cursed row. Suppose you had shot 
 someone — suppose you have shot someone. 
 Blank blank your air barrage. You'd bet- 
 ter go back to England, where you'll be in
 
 134 FRONT LINES 
 
 the fasliion with your air barrages and anti- 
 aircraft. Am I to be driven from my bed on 
 a filthy cold night to . o ."he spluttered ex- 
 plosively and stopped short. If the Division 
 heard the details of his share in the incident, 
 had the chance to picture him racing for the 
 dug-out, sitting shivering in scanty night at- 
 tire, and add to the picture as they'd cer- 
 tainly do, the joke would easily outlive the 
 war and him. "That will do, sir," he said 
 after a brief pause, "I'll have a word with 
 your Major and leave him to deal with you." 
 
 Guns came out with his head hanging, to 
 join the pale-cheeked E.O. and escape with 
 him. 
 
 Ten minutes after a message came to him 
 that the General wanted him in the C.O.'s 
 office, and Guns groaned and went back to 
 hear his sentence, estimating it at anything 
 between "shot at dawn" and cashiered, 
 broke, and sent out of the Service. 
 
 Now, what the CO. had said in those ten 
 minutes nobody ever knew, but Guns found 
 a totally different kind of General awaiting 
 him.
 
 AN AIR BARRAGE 135 
 
 ''Come in," lie said, and after a pause a 
 twinkle came in his eye as he looked at the 
 dejected, hangdog air of the culprit. ''H-m-m! 
 You can thank your CO. and the excellent 
 character he gives you, sir, for my agree- 
 ing to drop this matter. I think you realise 
 your offence and won't repeat it. Zeal and 
 keenness is always commendable; but please 
 temper it with discretion. I am glad to know 
 of any officer keen on his work as I hear you 
 are; but I cannot allow the matter to pass 
 entirely without punishment ..." (Guns 
 braced himself with a mental ''Now for it.") 
 " ... So I order you to parade at my Head- 
 quarters at 7.30 to-night, and have dinner 
 with me." He paused, said, "That'll do, 
 sir," very abruptly, and Guns emerged in a 
 somewhat dazed frame of mind. 
 
 He said, after the dinner, that the punish- 
 ment was much worse than it sounded. 
 "Roasting! I never had such a dose of chaff- 
 ing in my life. Those red-tabbed blighters 
 . . . and they were all so infernally polite 
 with it ... it was just beastly — all except 
 the General. My Lord, he 's a man, a proper
 
 136 FRONT LINES 
 
 white man, a real brick. And lie was as keen 
 to know all about machine-guns as I am my- 
 self." 
 
 **Well, you taught him something about 
 them — especially about barrages and the re- 
 sult of indirect fire," said the Mess, and, 
 ''Are you going to barrage the next Huns?" 
 
 But on his next barrage plans. Guns in the 
 first place — the very first and preliminary 
 place — used a map, many diagrams, and end- 
 less pages of notebooks in calculations on 
 where his bullets would come down.
 
 VIII 
 
 NIGHTMARE 
 
 Jake Harding from early childhood had suf- 
 fered from a horribly imaginative mind in 
 the night hours, and had endured untold tor- 
 tures from dreams and nightmares. One of 
 his most frequent night terrors was to find 
 himself fleeing over a dreary waste, strug- 
 gling desperately to get along quickly and 
 escape Something, while his feet and legs 
 were clogged with dragging weights, and 
 dreadful demons and bogies and bunyips 
 howled in pursuit. This was an odd dream, 
 because having been born and brought up 
 in the bush he had never seen such a dreary 
 waste as he dreamed of, and had never walked 
 on anything worse than dry, springy turf or 
 good firm road. There was one night he 
 remembered for long years when he had a 
 specially intensified edition of the same 
 nightmare. It was when he was laid up as 
 
 a child with a broken arm, and a touch of 
 
 137
 
 138 FRONT LINES 
 
 fever on top of it, and he went through all 
 the usual items of dreary waste, clogged feet 
 trying to run, nowling demons in pursuit, 
 and a raging, consuming throat-drying fear. 
 He woke screaming just as he was on the 
 point of being seized and hurled into a yawn- 
 ing furnace filled with flaming red fire, saw a 
 dim light burning by his bedside, felt a cool 
 hand on his brow, heard a soothing voice 
 murmur, ''H-sh-sh! There's nothing to be 
 afraid of. You're quite safe here. Go to 
 sleep again." 
 
 "I'm glad, Nursie," said Jake, "I'm glad 
 I've waked up; I've had a drefful dream." 
 
 All that is a long way back, but it serves 
 to explain, perhaps, why Long Jake, 6ft. 3 in. 
 in height, thin as a lath, but muscled ap- 
 parently with whipcord and wire rope, known 
 throughout the regiment as a "hard case," 
 felt a curious and unaccountable jerk back to 
 childhood in his memory as he lay on the 
 edge of a wet shell-hole peering out into the 
 growing grey light. "I've never been up 
 here before," he thought wonderingly, "and 
 I've never seen any bit of front like it. Yet I
 
 NIGHTMARE 139 
 
 seem to know it by heart." He knew after- 
 wards, though not then, that it was 
 the ''dreary waste" of past dreams — a wide 
 spreading welter of flat ground, broken and 
 tumbled and torn and shiny wet, seen dimly 
 through a misty haze, with nothing in sight 
 but a few splintered bare poles of trees. 
 
 But Long Jake did not get much time to 
 cudgel his memory. It was ahnost time for 
 the battalion to "go over the top," although 
 here to be sure there was no top, and the 
 going over merely meant their climbing out of 
 the chain of wet shell-craters they occupied, 
 and advancing across the flat and up the long 
 slope. Both sides were shelling heavily, but 
 the British, as Jake could judge, by far the 
 heavier of the two. The noise was deafening. 
 The thunder of the guns rose roaring and bel- 
 lowing without an instant's break. Overhead 
 the shells howled and yelled and shrieked 
 and whistled and rumbled in every conceiv- 
 able tone and accent from the slow, lumbering 
 moan and roll of a passing electric tram to 
 the sharp rush of a great bird's wings. The 
 ground quaked to the roll of the guns like jelly
 
 140 FRONT LINES 
 
 in a shaken mould; out in front of them the 
 barrage was dropping into regular line, spout- 
 ing in vivid flame that rent the twisting smoke 
 veil quick instant after instant, flinging foun- 
 tains of water and mud and smoke into the 
 air. 
 
 Jake heard no order given, did not even 
 hear any whistle blown, but was suddenly 
 aware that dim figures were rising out of the 
 shell-holes to either side, and moving slowly 
 forward. He scrambled out of his crater 
 and moved forward in line with the rest. 
 They went close up to the line of our burst- 
 ing shells, so close that they could see the 
 leaden hail splashing and whipping up the 
 wet ground before them, so close that Jake 
 more than once ducked instinctively at the 
 vicious crack above his head of one of our 
 own shells bursting and flinging its tearing 
 bullets forward and down. But the line 
 pressed on, and Jake kept level with it ; and 
 then, just when it seemed that they must 
 come into that belt of leaping, splashing bul- 
 lets, the barrage lifted forward, dropped 
 again twenty or thirty yards ahead in another
 
 NIGHTMAEE 141 
 
 wall of springing smokeclouds and spurting 
 flame. 
 
 Jake pushed on. It was terribly heavy 
 going, and he sank ankle deep at every step 
 in the soft, wet ground. It was hard, too, 
 to keep straight on, because the whole surface 
 was pitted and cratered with holes that ran 
 from anything the size of a foot-bath to a 
 chasm big enough to swallow a fair-sized 
 house. Jake skirted the edges of the larger 
 holes, and plunged in and struggled up out 
 of the smaller ones. The going was so heavy, 
 and it was so hard to keep direction, that for 
 a long time he thought of nothing else. Then a 
 man who had been advancing beside him 
 turned to him and yelled something Jake 
 could not hear, and next instant lurched stag- 
 gering against him. Jake just caught a 
 glimpse of the wild terror in the staring eyes, 
 of the hand clutched about the throat, and 
 the blood spurting and welling out between 
 the clenched fingers, and then the man slid 
 down in a heap at his feet. Jake stooped an 
 instant with wild thoughts racing through his 
 mind. What was he to do for the man? How
 
 142 FRONT LINES 
 
 did one handle — couldn't stop bleeding by a 
 tourniquet or even a tight bandage — choke 
 the man that way — why'n blazes hadn't the 
 ambulance classes told them how to handle a 
 man with a bullet in his throat ? (The answer 
 to that last, perhaps, if Jake had only known, 
 being that usually the man is past handling or 
 helping.) 
 
 Then before Jake could attempt anything 
 he knew the man was dead. Jake went on, 
 and now he was conscious of vicious little 
 hisses and whutts and sharp slaps and 
 smacks in the wet ground about him, and 
 knew these for bullets passing or striking 
 close. 
 
 The barrage lifted again, this time before 
 they were well up on it, and the line ploughed 
 on in pursuit of it. That was the third lift. 
 Jake tried to recall how many times the pre- 
 tended barrage had lifted in the practice at- 
 tacks behind the lines, how many yards there 
 were there from their own marked position 
 to the taped-out lines representing the Ger- 
 man positions. 
 
 Then through the bellowing of the guns,
 
 NIGHTMARE 143 
 
 the unceasing howl of the shells, the running 
 crashes of their bursts Jake heard a sharp 
 tat-tat-tat, another like an echo joining it, 
 another and another until the whole blended 
 in a hurrying clatter and swift running rattle. 
 ' ' Machine-guns, ' ' he gasped. ' ' Now we 're 
 for it," but plunged on doggedly. He could 
 see something dimly grey looming through 
 the smoke haze, with red jets of fire sparkling 
 and spitting from it . . . more spurting jets 
 . . . and still more, both these last lots seen 
 before he could make out the loom of the 
 block-house shelters that covered them. Jake 
 knew where he was now. These were the 
 concrete redoubts, emplacements, "pill- 
 boxes." But they were none of his business. 
 Everyone had been carefully drilled in their 
 own jobs ; there were the proper parties told 
 off to deal with the pill-boxes; his business 
 was to push straight on past them, clearing 
 any Germans out of the shell-hole they might 
 be holding, then stop and help dig some sort 
 of linked-up line of holes, and stand by to 
 beat off any counter-attack. So Jake went 
 steadily on, looking sharply about him for
 
 144 FRONT LINES 
 
 any Germans. A rifle flamed suddenly from 
 a couple of yards ahead of him, and he felt 
 the wind of the bullet by his face, thought 
 for a moment he was blinded by the flash. 
 But as he staggered back a bomber thrust 
 past him and threw straight and hard into 
 the shell-hole where the rifle had flashed. 
 Jake saw a jumping sheet of flame, heard the 
 crash of the bomb, felt the shower of dirt 
 and wet flung from off the crater lip in his 
 face, steadied himself, and plunged off after 
 the hurrying bomber. 
 
 The next bit was rather involved, and Jake 
 was never sure exactly what happened. There 
 were some grey figures in front of him, scur- 
 rying to and fro confusedly, some with long 
 coats flapping about their ankles, others with 
 only half bodies or shoulders showing above 
 the shell-hole edges. He thought some were 
 holding their hands up ; but others — this was 
 too clear to doubt — were shooting rapidly 
 at him and the rest of the line, the red tongues 
 of flame licking out from the rifles straight 
 at them. Jake dived to a shell hole and be- 
 gan firing back, felt somebody slide and
 
 NIGHTMARE 145 
 
 scramble down beside him, turned to find tbe 
 bomber picking himself up and shaking a 
 blood-dripping left hand. "Come on, Jake,'' 
 yelled the bomber. "Rush 'em's the game," 
 and went scrambling and floundering out of 
 the hole with Jake close at his heels. There 
 was a minute's wild shooting and bombing, 
 and the rest of the Germans either ran, or 
 fell, or came crouching forward towards 
 them with their empty hands high and wav- 
 ing over their heads. 
 
 An officer appeared suddenly from some- 
 where. "Come along. Push on!" he was 
 shouting. "Bit further before we make a 
 line to hold. Push on," and he led the way 
 forward at a staggering trot. Jake and the 
 others followed. 
 
 They reached the wide flattened crest of 
 the slope they were attacking and were push- 
 ing on over it when a rapid stutter of ma- 
 chine-gun fire broke out on their left flank, 
 and a stream of bullets came sheeting and 
 whipping along the top of the slope. The 
 line was fairly caught in the bullet-storm, 
 and suffered heavily in the next minute.
 
 146 FRONT LINES 
 
 There was some shooting from shell holes 
 in front, too, but that was nothing to the 
 galling fire that poured on them from the 
 flank. Jake heard suddenly the long, in- 
 sistent scream of a whistle, looked round and 
 saw an officer signalling to take cover. He 
 dropped promptly into a shell crater, and, 
 hearing presently the bang of rifles round 
 him, peered out over the edge for a mark to 
 shoot at. Out to his left he caught sight of 
 a sparkle of fire, and heard the rapid clatter 
 of the machine-guns. He could just make 
 out the rounded top of a buried concrete 
 emplacement, and the black slit that marked 
 the embrasure, and began to aim and fire 
 steadily and carefully at it. The emplace- 
 ment held its fire more now, but every now 
 and then delivered a flickering string of 
 flashes and a venomous rat-at-at-at. Jake 
 kept on firing at it, glancing round every lit- 
 tle while to be sure that the others were not 
 moving on without him. The noisy banging 
 raps of close-by machine-gunning broke out 
 suddenly, and on Jake looking round from 
 his shell hole he found a gun in action not
 
 NIGHTMARE 147 
 
 more than a dozen yards away; and while 
 he looked another one began to fire steadily 
 from another shell crater fifty or sixty yards 
 farther along. Jake crawled out of his hole, 
 slithered over the rough ground and down 
 into the crater where the nearest machine- 
 gun banged rapidly. A sergeant was with 
 the team, and Jake bawled in his ear, ''If 
 you'll keep pottin' at him every time he opens 
 fire, I'll try'n sneak over an' out him with 
 a bomb in the letter-box." 
 
 ''Please yerself," returned the sergeant. 
 "My job's to keep pump in' 'em down 'is 
 throat every time 'e opens 'is mouth." 
 
 "Watch you don't plug'me in mistake when 
 I get there," said Jake, and crawled out of 
 the hole. He ducked hastily into another as 
 he heard the enemy bullets spatter about him, 
 shift and begin to smack and splash about 
 the gun he had just left. That gun ceased 
 fire suddenly, but the one fifty yards farther 
 round kept on furiously. "Got him in the 
 neck, I s'pose," said Jake, "worse luck." 
 
 He had a couple of Mills' bombs in his 
 pockets, but added to his stock from a half-
 
 148 FRONT LINES 
 
 empty bucket he found lying by a dead bomber 
 in a crater. He advanced cautiously, wrig- 
 gling hurriedly over the dividing ground be- 
 tween craters, keeping down under cover as 
 much as possible, working out and then si- 
 dling in towards the red flashes that kept 
 spurting out at intervals from the emplace- 
 ment. Once it seemed that the enemy gun- 
 ners had spotted him as he crawled and wrig- 
 gled from one hole to another, and a gust 
 of bullets came suddenly ripping and whip- 
 ping about him as he hurled himself forward 
 and plunged head foremost into a crater with 
 his left side tingling and blood trickling from 
 his left arm. He fingered the rent in his 
 tunic and satisfied himself that the side 
 wound was no more than a graze, the arm 
 one a clean perforation which did not appear 
 to have touched the bone. Twice after that 
 he heard the bullets' swish-ish-ish sweeping 
 over his head, or dropping to spatter the dirt 
 flying from the edge of a hole he had reached. 
 But he worked steadily on all the same, 
 passed the line of the front and side em- 
 brasures, and was pondering his next move,
 
 NIGHTMARE 149 
 
 when a sudden rapid outburst of fire made 
 him lift his head and peer out. A dozen men 
 had appeared suddenly within twenty yards 
 of the emplacement and were making as rapid 
 a dash for it as the ground allowed. The 
 machine-guns were hailing bullets at them 
 as hard as they could fire, and man after 
 man plunged and fell and rolled and squirmed 
 into holes or lay still in the open. 
 
 Jake did not wait to see the result of the 
 dash. He was up and out of his cover and 
 running in himself as fast as the wet ground 
 would allow him. He was almost on the em- 
 placement when a gun slewed round and 
 banged a short burst at him. He felt the 
 rush of bullets past his face, a pluck at his 
 sleeve and shoulder strap, a blow on his 
 shrapnel helmet, made a last desperate plunge 
 forward, and scrambled on to the low roof. 
 Hurriedly he pulled a bomb from his pocket 
 and jerked the pin out, when a couple of 
 rifles banged close behind them, a bullet 
 whipped past overhead, and another smacked 
 and ricochetted screaming from the concrete. 
 Jake twisted, saw the head and shoulders of
 
 150 FRONT LINES 
 
 two men with rifles levelled over a hole, and 
 quick as a flash hurled his bomb. The men 
 ducked, and Jake drew the pin from an- 
 other bomb and lobbed it carefully over just 
 as the first bomb burst. The other followed, 
 exploding fairly in the hole and evidently 
 deep down since the report was low and 
 muffled. Jake pulled another pin, and was 
 leaning over to locate an embrasure when 
 the gun flamed out from it. Jake released 
 the spring, counted carefully ''One and two 
 
 and three and " leaned over and slammed 
 
 the bomb fairly into the slit. He had another 
 bomb out as it burst — well inside by the 
 sound of it — and this time leaned over and 
 deliberately thrust it in through the opening. 
 He had barely snatched his hand out when 
 it went off with a muffled crash. Jake heard 
 screams inside, and then an instant later 
 loud calls behind him. He jerked round to 
 see half a dozen arms waving from the hole 
 where he had flung the first bomb. This, as 
 he found after, was the underground stair 
 down and up again into the emplacement,
 
 NIGHTMARE 151 
 
 and the ■waving arms were in token of the 
 garrison's surrender 
 
 Jake stood on the roof and waved his arm, 
 while keeping a cautious eye on the sur- 
 renderers, saw the mud-daubed khaki figures 
 rise from their holes and come scrambling 
 forward, and sat down suddenly, feeling un- 
 pleasantly faint and sickish. 
 
 His officer's voice recalled him. ''Well 
 done, lad, well done. This cursed thing was 
 fairly holding us up till you scuppered it. 
 We've got our objective line now." 
 
 Jake staggered to his feet. 
 
 ''You're wounded," went on the officer. 
 "Get back out of this, and give a message 
 to anyone that'll take it, that we've got our 
 third objective line, and want supports and 
 ammunition quick as possible. Go on, off 
 with you, now." 
 
 "Eight, sir!" said Jake with an effort, 
 and started off back across the shell-torn 
 ground again. 
 
 He felt a bit dizzy still — side hurt a heap — 
 arm getting numb, too — must keep going and 
 get that message through
 
 152 FRONT LINES 
 
 A high-explosive shrapnel burst directly 
 overhead, and Jake heard several small pieces 
 whip-down and one heavy bit splash thud- 
 ding into the ground a yard from his feet. 
 And this was only the first shell of many. 
 The Germans had seen that their ground 
 was lost, and were beginning to barrage it. 
 Jake staggered blindly across the broken 
 ground, in and out and round the craters, 
 over sodden mounds that caught at his feet 
 and crumbled wetly under his tread. Huge 
 clods of wet earth clung to his feet and legs 
 and made every step an effort. The shell 
 fire was growing more and more intense, 
 thundering and crashing and hurling cas- 
 cades of mud and splinters in every direc- 
 tion, passing overhead in long-drawn howls 
 and moans and yellings, or the short savage 
 screams and rush of the nearer passing. The 
 ground was veiled in smoke and drifting 
 haze, and stretched as far as he could see 
 in a dreary perspective of shiny wet earth 
 and ragged holes. He felt that he'd never 
 cover it, never get clear of these cursed — 
 what were they — shells, bogies, demons
 
 NIGHTMARE 153 
 
 screaming and howling for his life. He 
 plunged into a patch of low-lying ground, 
 sticky swamp that sank him knee deep at 
 every step, that clutched and clung about his 
 feet and held each foot gripped as he dragged 
 it sucking out and swung it forward. He 
 wanted to run — run — run — but his legs were 
 lead — and the bogies were very close — and 
 now there were dead men amongst his feet — 
 horribly mud-bedaubed dead, half-buried in 
 the ooze — and helmets, and scattered packs, 
 and haversacks. A festering* stench rose 
 from the slime he waded through. He tried 
 again to run, but could only stagger slowly, 
 dragging one foot clear after the other. Once 
 he trod on something he thought a lump of" 
 drier mud, and it squirmed weakly under his 
 foot, and a white face twisted round and 
 up, mouthing feeble curses at him. There 
 were other things, horrible things he turned 
 his eyes from as he tried to hurry past — 
 and red stains on the frothy green scum. He 
 reeled on, stupid and dazed, with the thun- 
 derous crashes of a world shattering and 
 dissolving about him, deafened by the demon
 
 154 FRONT LINES 
 
 screeches and howlings. There were other 
 people with him, some wandering aimlessly, 
 others going direct the one way, meeting still 
 others going the opposite, but all dragging 
 clogged, weighted feet. Some fell and did 
 not rise. Jake knew they had been caught. 
 He saw two men who were carrying some- 
 thing, a stretcher, stop and look up, and 
 lower the stretcher hastily and drop, one flat 
 on his face, the other crouched low and still 
 looking up. A spurt of red flame flung a roll- 
 ing cloud of black smoke about them, and 
 seconds after a flattened steel helmet whis- 
 tled down out of the sky and thudded in 
 the mud by Jake. When he came to where 
 they had been there was only a hole with 
 blue and grey reek curling slowly up its 
 black calcined sides. Jake knew the three 
 had been caught, too — as he would be caught, 
 if he didn't hurry. He struggled, panting. 
 
 They were still yelling and howling, look- 
 ing for him. Demons, bogymen — and here 
 was the loudest, and fiercest, the worst of 
 them all — louder and louder to a tremendous 
 chorus of all the noises devils ever made.
 
 NIGHTMARE 155 
 
 He was flinging himself down to escape the 
 demon clutch (thereby probably saving his 
 life, since the great shell burst a bare score 
 yards away) when he heard the thunderous 
 clash of the furnace-doors flung back, caught 
 a searing glimpse of the leaping red flames, 
 and was hurled headlong. 
 
 As he fell he tried to scream. He did 
 scream, but — although he knew nothing of the 
 gap, and thought it was on the instant of his 
 falling — it was days later — a queer choking, 
 strangled cry that brought a cool hand on 
 his hot forehead, a quiet voice hushing and 
 soothing him and saying he was ''all right 
 
 now. ' ' 
 
 He opened his eyes and closed them again 
 with a sigh of relief and content. A low 
 light was burning by his bed, the shadowy 
 figure of a woman bent over him, and between 
 the opening and closing of his eyes, his mind 
 flicked back to full fifteen years. 
 
 ''I'm glad I waked, Nursie," he said 
 weakly. " I Ve had a drefful dream ; the very 
 dreffulest I've ever had."
 
 IX 
 
 THE GILDED STAFF 
 
 A TALE OF THE OLD CONTEMPTIBLES 
 
 Broadly speaking, the average regimental 
 officer and man of the fighting units is firmly- 
 convinced beyond all argument that a ' ' Staff 
 job" is an absolutely safe and completely 
 cushy'^ one, that the Staff-wallah always has 
 the best of food and drink, a good roof over 
 him, and a soft bed to lie on, nothing to do 
 except maybe sign his name to a few papers 
 when he feels so inclined, and perhaps in a 
 casual and comfortable chat after a good 
 dinner decide on a tactical move, a strafe of 
 some sort, issue the orders in a sort of brief 
 ''Take Hill 999" or "retire by Dead Cow 
 Corner to Two Tree Trench" style, and leave 
 the regiments concerned to carry on. Briefly, 
 the opinion of the firing line might be summed 
 up in a short Credo : 
 
 * Cushy — easy. 
 156
 
 THE GILDED STAFF 157 
 
 "I believe the Staff is No Good. 
 
 <*I believe the Staff has the cushiest of 
 cushy jobs. 
 
 ''I believe the Staff never hears a bullet 
 whistle or sees a shell burst except through 
 a telescope. 
 
 "I believe the Staff exists solely to find 
 soft jobs for the wealthy and useless portion 
 of the aristocracy. 
 
 ''I believe the Staff does nothing except 
 wear a supercilious manner and red tabs and 
 trimmings. 
 
 "I believe the Staff is No Good." 
 
 As to the average of correctness in this 
 Credo I say nothing, but I can at least show 
 that these things are not always thus. 
 
 The Staff had been having what the Gen- 
 eral's youthful and irrepressibly cheerful 
 aide-de-camp called "a hectic three days." 
 The Headquarters signallers had been going 
 hard night and day until one of them was 
 driven to remark bitterly as he straightened 
 his bent back from over his instrument and 
 waggled his stiffened fingers that had been
 
 158 FRONT LINES 
 
 tapping the ** buzzer" for hours on end, ''I'm 
 develop in' a permanent hump on my back 
 like a dog scrapin' a pot, an' if my fingers 
 isn't to be wore off by inches I'll have to 
 get the farrier to put a set of shoes on 'em. ' ' 
 But the signallers had some advantages that- 
 the Staff hadn't, and one was that they could 
 arrange spells of duty and at least have 
 a certain time off for rest and sleep. The 
 Staff Captain would have given a good deal 
 for that privilege by about the third night. 
 The worst of his job was that he had no 
 time when he could be sure of a clear ten 
 minutes' rest. He had messages brought to 
 him as he devoured scratch meals; he was 
 roused from such short sleeps as he could 
 snatch lying fully dressed on a camp bed, 
 by telephone and telegraph messages, or, still 
 worse, by horrible scrawls badly written in 
 faint pencillings that his weary eyes could 
 barely decipher as he sat up on his bed with 
 a pocket electric glaring on the paper; once 
 he even had to abandon an attempt to shave, 
 wipe the lather from his face, and hustle to 
 impart some information to a waiting Gen-
 
 THE GILDED STAFF 159 
 
 eral. A very hot fight was raging along that 
 portion of front, and almost every report 
 from the firing line contained many map ref- 
 erences which necessitated so many huntings 
 of obscure points on the maps that the mere 
 reading and understanding of a message 
 might take a full five or ten minutes; and 
 in the same way the finding of regiments' 
 positions for the General's information or 
 the sending of orders added ten-fold to the 
 map-hunting. 
 
 The third day was about the most ''hectic" 
 of all. For the Captain it began before day- 
 break with a call to the telephone which 
 came just two hours after he had shuffled and 
 shaken together the papers he had been 
 working on without a break through the 
 night, pulled off his boots, blown out his lamp, 
 and dropped with a sigh of relief on his bed 
 in a corner of the room. It was an urgent 
 and personal call, and the first dozen words 
 effectually drove the lingering sleep from the 
 Captain's eyes and brain. "Yes, yes, 'heav- 
 ily attacked,' I got that; go on . . . no, I 
 don't think I need to refer to the map; I
 
 160 FRONT LINES 
 
 very nearly know the beastly thing by heart 
 now . . . yes . . . yes . . . Who I . . . killed 
 outright . . . that's bad. . . . Who's in com- 
 mand now then . . . right. The Dee and Don 
 Trenches — ^wait a minute, which are they I 
 Oh yes, I remember, south from the Pigsty 
 and across to Stink Farm . . . right. I'll 
 pass it on at once and let you know in five 
 minutes . . . just repeat map references so 
 I can make a note . . . yes . . . yes . . . yes 
 . . . right . . . 'Bye." 
 
 The urgency of the message, which told of 
 a heavy and partially successful attack on the 
 Divisional Front, wiped out any hope the 
 Captain might have had of a return to his 
 broken sleep. For the next two hours his 
 mind was kept at fuU stretch reducing to 
 elaborated details the comprehensive com- 
 mands of the General, locating reserves and 
 supports and Battalion H.Q.s, exchanging 
 long messages with the Artillery, collecting 
 figures of ammunition states, available 
 strengths, casualty returns, collating and sift- 
 ing them out, reshuffling them and offering 
 them up to the Brigade Major or the Gen-
 
 THE GILDED STAFF 161 
 
 eral, absorbing or distributing messages 
 from and to concrete personalities or nebu- 
 lous authorities known widely if vaguely 
 as tbe D.A.A.O., D.A.Q.M.G., D.A.D.O.S., 
 A.D.M.S., C.D.S., and T., and other strings 
 of jumbled initials. 
 
 He washed in the sparing dimensions of a 
 canvas wash-stand, Field Service, x Pattern, 
 deliberately taking off his coat and rolling up 
 his shirt-sleeves, and firmly turning a deaf 
 and soap-filled ear to the orderly who placed 
 a ruled telephone message form on his table 
 and announced it urgent. Afterwards he at- 
 tended to the message, and talked into the 
 telephone while his servant cleared one side 
 of his table and served plentiful bacon, and 
 eggs of an unknown period. Immediately 
 after this a concentrated bombardment sud- 
 denly developed on a ruined chateau some 
 three or four hundred yards from the H.Q. 
 farm. To the youthful aide-de-camp who had 
 arrived from the outer dampness dripping 
 water from every angle of a streaming mack- 
 intosh he remarked wrathfully on the pros- 
 pect of having to move once again in the
 
 162 FRONT LINES 
 
 middle of such beastly waterfall weather. 
 The aide stood at the brown-paper patched 
 window, chuckling and watching the shells 
 rewreck the already wrecked chateau. 
 ''Looks as if their spies had sold 'em a pup 
 this time," he said gleefully. "I believe 
 they must have been told we were in that old 
 ruin instead of here. Or they were told 
 this place and mistook it on the map for the 
 chateau. Eather a lark — what!" 
 
 ''Confound the larks," said the Captain 
 bitterly, "especially if they come any nearer 
 this way. This place is quite leaky and 
 draughty enough now without it getting any 
 more shrap or splinter holes punched in it." 
 
 Here the Captain had a short break from 
 his inside job, leaving another officer to look 
 after that and accompanying the General on 
 horseback to a conference with various Briga- 
 diers, Colonels, and Commanding Officers. 
 The ride was too wet to be pleasant, and 
 at no time could a better pace than a jog 
 trot be made because on the road there was 
 too much horse, foot, and wheeled traffic, 
 and off the road in the swimming fields it
 
 THE GILDED STAFF 163 
 
 took the horses all their time to keep their 
 feet. 
 
 The conference was held under the remain- 
 ing quarter-roof of a shell-smashed farm, and 
 the Captain listened and made notes in a 
 damp book, afterwards accompanying the 
 General on a ride round to where something 
 could be seen of the position, and back to 
 H.Q. Here, under the General's direction 
 in consultation with the Brigade Major, he 
 elaborated and extended his notes, drafted 
 detailed directions for a number of minor 
 moves next day, and translated them into 
 terms of map-reference language, and a mul- 
 titude of details of roads to be followed by 
 different units, billeting areas, rationing, and 
 refilling points, and so on. 
 
 He made a hasty, tinned lunch, and at the 
 General's request set out to find one of the 
 Battalion Headquarters and there meet some 
 C.O.s and make clear to them certain points 
 of the dispositions arranged. He went in a 
 motor, sped on his way by the cheerful infor- 
 mation of the aide that the town through 
 v^hich he must pass had been under ''a deuce
 
 164 FRONT LINES 
 
 of a hot fire" all day, had its streets full of 
 Jack Johnson holes, and was in a continual 
 state of blowing up, falling down, or being 
 burnt out. ''I was through there this morn- 
 ing," said the aide, "and I tell you it was 
 warmish. Sentry outside on the road wanted 
 to stop me at first; said he'd orders to warn 
 everybody it wasn't safe. Wasn't safe," re- 
 peated the youth, chuckling, "Lord, after I'd 
 been through there I'd have given that sentry 
 any sort of a certificate of truthfulness. It 
 was not safe." 
 
 The Captain went off with his motor skat- 
 ing from ditch to ditch down the greasy 
 road. The guns were rumbhng and banging 
 up in front, and as the car bumped and slith- 
 ered nearer to the town the Captain could 
 hear the long yelling whistle and the deep 
 rolling crashes of heavy shells falling some- 
 where in it. He too was stopped at the out- 
 skirts by a sentry who held up his hand to 
 the driver, and then came and parleyed with 
 the Captain through the window. The Cap- 
 tain impatiently cut his warning short. There 
 was no other road that would take him near
 
 THE GILDED STAFF 165 
 
 the point he desired to reach; he must go 
 through the town ; he must ride since he could 
 not spare time to walk. He climhed out and 
 mounted beside the driver, with some instinc- 
 tive and vaguely formed ideas in his mind 
 that if the driver were hit he might have 
 to take the wheel, that the car might be upset 
 and pin him underneath, that he might be 
 able to assist in picking a course through rub- 
 bish and shell-holes, to jump out and clear 
 any slight obstruction from in front of the 
 wheels. The car ran on slowly into the town. 
 Decidedly the aide had been right, except that 
 ''warmish" was a mild word for the state 
 of affairs. The Germans were flinging shells 
 into the town as if they meant to destroy 
 it utterly. The main street through was lit- 
 tered with bricks and tiles and broken fur- 
 niture ; dead horses were sprawled in it, some 
 limp and new killed with the blood still run- 
 ning from their wounds, others with their 
 four legs sticking out post-stiff in the air; 
 in several places there were broken-down 
 carts, in one place a regular mass of them 
 piled up and locked in a confused tangle of
 
 166 FRONT LINES 
 
 broken wheels, splintered shafts, cut harness, 
 and smashed woodwork, their contents spilled 
 out anyhow and mixed up inextricably with 
 the wreckage. 
 
 There was not much traffic in the main 
 street, and such as was there was evidently, 
 like the Captain himself, only there because 
 no other road offered. There were half a 
 dozen artillery ammunition waggons, a few 
 infantry transport carts, several Army Serv- 
 ice Corps vehicles. All of them were moving 
 at a trot, the waggons rumbling and lum- 
 bering heavily and noisily over the cobble- 
 stones, the drivers stoojoed forward and peer- 
 ing out anxiously to pick a way between the 
 obstacles in their path. The shells were 
 coming over continuously, moaning and 
 howling and yelling, falling with tearing 
 crashes amongst the houses, blowing them 
 wall from wall, slicing corners off or cutting 
 a complete top or end away, breaking them 
 down in rattling cascades of tiles and bricks, 
 bursting them open and flinging them high 
 and far upwards and outwards in flying frag- 
 ments. As the car crawled cautiously through
 
 THE GILDED STAFF 167 
 
 the debris that littered the street, pieces of 
 brick and mortar, whole or broken slates, 
 chips of wood and stone, pattered and rapped 
 constantly down about and on the car; the 
 wheels crunched and ground on splintered 
 glass from the gaping windows. A shell 
 roared down on the street ahead of them, 
 burst thunderously in a vivid sheet of flame 
 and spurting black cloud of smoke, an appall- 
 ing crash that rolled and reverberated loud 
 and long up and down the narrow street. 
 *'Go easy," cautioned the Captain as the 
 black blinding reek came swirling down to 
 meet them, "or you'll run into the hole that 
 fellow made." The driver's face was set 
 and white, and his hands gripped tight on 
 the wheel; the Captam had a sudden com- 
 punction that he had brought him, that he 
 had not left the car outside the town and 
 walked through. They edged carefully past 
 the yawning shell-crater with the smoke still 
 clinging and curling up from its edges, and, 
 free of the smoke again, saw a fairly clear 
 stretch ahead of them. The Captain heard 
 the thin but rising whistle of another heavy
 
 168 FRONT LINES 
 
 shell approaching, and ''Open her out," he 
 said quickly, ''and let her rip." The driver, 
 he noticed, for all his white face had his 
 nerves well under control, and steadily 
 caught the change of gear on the proper in- 
 stant, speeded up sharply but quite smoothly. 
 The car swooped down the clear stretch, the 
 roar of the shell growing louder and closer, 
 and just as they reached and crammed the 
 brakes on to take the corner, they heard the 
 shell crash down behind them. The Captain 
 leaned out and looked back, and had a mo- 
 mentary glimpse of a house on the street 
 spouting black smoke, dissolving and cascad- 
 ing down and out across the road in a torrent 
 of bricks and wreckage. In another two min- 
 utes they shot out clear of the town. A mile 
 farther on a soldier warned them that the 
 cross-roads were practically impassable, the 
 roadway being broken and churned up by 
 the heavy shells that all afternoon had been 
 and were still at intervals falling upon it. 
 So the Captain left the car and went on a-f oot. 
 He was nearly caught at the cross-roads, a 
 shell fragment ripping a huge rent in his
 
 THE GILDED STAFF 169 
 
 mackintosh just over his ribs. Before he 
 reached the communication trenches too he 
 had a highly uncomfortable minute with light 
 high-explosive shells bursting round him 
 while he crouched low in a muddy shell-crater. 
 He reached the meeting-place at last, and 
 spent an hour talking over plans and move- 
 ments, and by the time he was ready to start 
 back it w?s rapidly growing dark. It was 
 completely dark before he found his way 
 back to the road again, stumbling over the 
 shell-holed ground, slipping and floundering 
 through the mud, tripping once and falling 
 heavily over some strands of barbed wire. 
 When he found the car again he was so dirty 
 and draggled and dishevelled and ragged — 
 the barbed wire had taken the cap from his 
 head and dropped it in a mud puddle^ and left 
 another tear or two in his mackintosh — so 
 smeared and plastered with mud, that his 
 driver at first failed to recognise him. In 
 the town he found parties of the Sappers 
 filling up the worst of the shell-holes and 
 clearing away the debris that blocked the road 
 where he had seen the house blown down,
 
 170 FRONT LINES 
 
 while the shells still screamed up and burst 
 clattering over and amongst the houses, and 
 bullets and splinters whistled and sang over- 
 head, clashed and rattled on the causeway. 
 
 He slept snatchily through the rest of the 
 journey, waking many times as the car 
 bumped badly, and once, when it dropped 
 heavily into a shell-hole and bounced out 
 again, flinging him bodily upwards until 
 his head and shoulder banged solidly against 
 the roof, taking half a minute to regain 
 his scattered wits and dissipate a wild dream 
 that the car had been fairly hit by a shell. 
 
 And when at last he reached H.Q., crawled 
 wearily out of the car, and staggered, half 
 asleep and utterly worn out, into his room, 
 he found there the other officer he had left 
 to handle his work and the youthful aide 
 humped over the table copying out reports, 
 
 *' Hullo," said the senior, ''you're late. I 
 say, you do look tucked up." 
 
 The Captain grunted. ''Not more'n I 
 feel, ' ' he said, blinking at the light. ' ' Thank 
 the Lord my job's over and everything fixed 
 and ready so far's this end goes."
 
 THE GILDED STAFF 171 
 
 ** You've heard, I suppose?" said the other. 
 *'Nof Baddish news. Our left has cracked 
 and the Germ has a slice of their trenches. 
 It upsets all our plans, and we've got 'em 
 all to make over again." 
 
 The Captain stared blankly at him. "All 
 to make . . . that means all to-day's work 
 to begin and go through again. All to-day's 
 work — well, I'm . . ." 
 
 The aide had been eyeing the mud-bedaubed 
 figure with water dripping from the torn coat, 
 the sopping cap dangling in the dirty hand, 
 the blue unshaven chin and red-rimmed eyes. 
 He giggled suddenly. ' ' I say, you know what 
 the troops call the Staff?" He spluttered 
 laughter. ' ' The Gilded Staff, ' ' he said, point- 
 ing at the Captain. * ' Behold — oh, my aunt — 
 behold the Gilded Staff,'*
 
 X 
 
 A RAID 
 
 Foe several days our artillery had been bom- 
 barding stretches of the front German 
 trenches and cutting the wire entanglements 
 out in front of them preparatory to a big 
 attack. The point actually selected for the 
 raid was treated exactly the same as a score 
 of other points up and down the line. By 
 day the guns poured a torrent of shrapnel 
 on the barbed wire, tearing it to pieces, up- 
 rooting the stakes, cutting wide swathes 
 through it. Because the opposing lines were 
 fairly close together, our shells, in order to 
 burst accurately amongst and close over the 
 wire, had to skim close over our own parapet, 
 and all day long the Forward Officers 
 crouched in the front trench, observing and 
 correcting the fall of their shells that shrieked 
 close over them with an appalling rush of 
 savage sound. And while they busied them- 
 
 172
 
 A RAID 173 
 
 selves on the wire, the howitzers and heav- 
 ier guns methodically pounded the front-line 
 trench, the support and communication 
 trenches, and the ground behind them. At 
 night the tempest might slacken at intervals, 
 but it never actually ceased. The guns, care- 
 fully laid on "^'registered" lines and ranges 
 during the day, continued to shoot with ab- 
 solute accuracy during the darkness — al- 
 though perhaps ''darkness" is a misleading 
 term where the No Man's Land glowed with 
 light and flickered with dancing shadows 
 from the stream of flares that tossed con- 
 stantly into the air, soaring and floating, 
 sinking and falling in balls of vivid light. 
 If no lights were flung up for a period from 
 the German line, our front line fired Verey 
 pistol lights, swept the opposing trench and 
 wire with gusts of shrapnel and a spattering 
 hail of machine-gun bullets to prevent any 
 attempt on the enemy's part to creep out and 
 repair their shattered defences. 
 
 Our bombardment had not been carried 
 out unmolested. The German gunners 
 ''crumped" the front and support lines stead-
 
 174 FRONT LINES 
 
 ily and systematically, searched the ground 
 behind, and sought to silence the destroying 
 guns by careful '* counter-battery " work. 
 But all their efforts could not give pause to 
 our artillery, much less silence it, and the 
 bombardment raged on by day and night for 
 miles up and down the line. It was necessary 
 to spread the damage, because only by doing 
 so, only by threatening a score of points, was 
 it possible to mislead the enemy and prevent 
 them calculating where the actual raid was 
 to be made. 
 
 The hour chosen for the raid was just about 
 dusk. There was no extra-special prepara- 
 tion immediately before it. The guns con- 
 tinued to pour in their fire, speeding it up a 
 little, perhaps, but no more than they had 
 done a score of times in the past twenty- 
 four hours. The infantry clambered out of 
 their trench and filed out through the nar- 
 row openings in their own wire entangle- 
 ments, with the shells rushing and crashing 
 over them so close that instinctively they 
 crouched low to give them clearance. Out 
 in front, and a hundred yards away, the
 
 A RAID 175 
 
 ground was hidden and indistinct under the 
 pall of smoke that curled and eddied from 
 the bursting shrapnel, only lit by sharp, 
 quick-vanishing glare after glare as the 
 shells burst. In the trench the infantry had 
 just left, a Forward Officer peered out over 
 the parapet, fingered his trench telephone, 
 glanced at the watch on his wrist, spoke an 
 occasional word to his battery checking the 
 flying seconds, and timing the exact moment 
 to '4ift." 
 
 Out in front a faint whistle cut across 
 the roar of fire. ''They're off," said the 
 Forward Officer into his 'phone, and a mo- 
 ment later a distinct change in the note of 
 sound of the overhead shells told that the 
 fire had lifted, that the shells were passing 
 higher above his head, to fall farther back 
 in the enemy trenches and leave clear the 
 stretch into which the infantry would soon 
 be pushing. 
 
 For a minute or two there was no change 
 in the sound of battle. The thunder of the 
 guns continued steadily, a burst of rifle or 
 machine-gun fire crackled spasmodically.
 
 176 FRONT LINES 
 
 Over the open No Man's Land the infantry 
 pressed rapidly as the broken ground would 
 allow, pressed on in silence, crouching and 
 dodging over and amongst the shell-holes and 
 craters. Four German "crumps" roared 
 down and past, bursting with shattering 
 roars behind them. A group of light ' ' Whizz- 
 bang" shells rushed and smashed overhead, 
 and somewhere out on the flank an enemy 
 machine-gun burst into a rapid stutter of 
 fire, and its bullets sang whistling and whip- 
 ping about the advancing line. Men gulped 
 in their throats or drew long breaths of ap- 
 prehension that this was the beginning of 
 discovery of their presence in the open, the 
 first of the storm they knew would quickly 
 follow. But there were no more shells for 
 the moment, and the rattle of machine-gun 
 fire diminished and the bullets piped thinner 
 and more distant as the gun muzzle swept 
 round. The infantry hurried on, thankful 
 for every yard made in safety, knowing that 
 every such yard improved their chance of 
 reaching the opposing trench, of the raid be- 
 ing successfully accomplished.
 
 A RAID 177 
 
 Now they were half -way across, and still 
 they were undiscovered. But of a sudden a 
 rifle spat fire through the curling smoke; a 
 machine-gun whirred, stopped, broke out 
 again in rapid and prolonged fire. From 
 somewhere close behind the German line a 
 rocket soared high and burst in a shower of 
 sparks. There was a pause while the ad- 
 vancing men hurried on, stumbling forward 
 in silence. Another rocket leaped, and be- 
 fore its sparks broke downward the German 
 guns burst into a deluge of fire. They swept 
 not only the open ground and trenches where 
 the raiders were attacking, but far up and 
 down the line. Rocket after rocket whizzed 
 up, and to right and left the guns answered 
 with a fire barrage on thej British front 
 trench and open ground. 
 
 But at the attacking point the infantry 
 were almost across when the storm burst, 
 and the shells for the most part struck down 
 harmlessly behind them. The men were into 
 the fragments of broken wire, and the shat- 
 tered parapet loomed up under their hands 
 a minute after the first shell burst. Up to
 
 178 FRONT LINES 
 
 this they had advanced in silence, but now 
 they gave tongue and with wild yells leaped 
 at the low parapet, scrambled over and down 
 into the trench. Behind them a few forms 
 twisted and sprawled on the broken ground, 
 but they were no sooner down than running 
 stretcher-bearers pounced on them, lifted and 
 bore them back to the shelter of their own 
 lines. The men with the stretchers paid no 
 more heed to the pattering shrapnel, the rush 
 and crack of the shells, the hiss and whistle 
 of bullets, than if these things had been 
 merely a summer shower of rain. 
 
 In the German trench the raiders worked 
 and fought at desperate speed, but smoothly 
 and on what was clearly a settled and re- 
 hearsed plan. There were few Germans to 
 be seen and most of these crouched dazed and 
 helpless, with hands over their heads. They 
 were promptly seized, bundled over the par- 
 apet, and told by word or gesture to be off. 
 They waited for no second bidding, but ran 
 with heads stooped and hands above their 
 heads straight to the British line, one or 
 two men doubling after them as guards.
 
 A RAID 179 
 
 Some of the prisoners were struck down by 
 their own guns' shell-fire, and these were 
 just as promptly grabbed by the stretcher- 
 bearers and hurried in under cover. Where 
 any Germans clung to their weapons and at- 
 tempted to resist the raiders, they were shot 
 down or rushed with the bayonet. Little par- 
 ties of British sought the communication 
 ways leading back to the support trenches, 
 forced a way down, hurling grenades over as 
 they advanced, halted at suitable spots, and, 
 pulling down sandbags or anything available 
 to block the way, took their stand and beat 
 back with showers of bombs any appearance 
 of a rush to oust them. 
 
 Up and down the selected area of front- 
 line trench the raiders spread rapidly. There 
 were several dug-outs under the parapet, and 
 from some of these grey-coated figures 
 crawled with their hands up on the first sum- 
 mons to surrender. These too were bundled 
 over the parapet. If a shot came from the 
 black mouth of the dug-out in answer to the 
 call to surrender, it was promptly bombed. 
 At either end of the area of front line marked
 
 180 FRONT LINES 
 
 out as the limits of the raid, strong parties 
 made a block and beat off the feeble attacks 
 that were made on them. There was little 
 rifle or bayonet work. Bombs played the 
 principal part, and the trench shook to their 
 rapid re-echoing clashes, flamed and flared 
 to their bursts of fire, while overhead the 
 British shells still rushed and dropped a roar- 
 ing barrage of fire beyond the raided area. 
 
 In five minutes all sign of resistance had 
 been stamped out, except at one of the com- 
 munication-way entrances and at one end of 
 the blocked front line. At both of these 
 points the counter-attack was growing 
 stronger and more pressing. At the com- 
 munication trench it was beaten back by 
 sheer weight of bombing, but at the trench 
 end, where heavy shells had smashed in the 
 walls, and so rendered the fighting less con- 
 fined to a direct attack, the defenders of 
 the point were assailed from the German 
 second line, man after man fell fighting 
 fiercely, and there looked to be a danger 
 of the whole trench being flooded by the 
 counter-attack. The prompt action of a
 
 A RAID 181 
 
 young officer saved the situation. It had 
 been no plan of the raid to touch the sup- 
 port or second trench, but, ignoring this un- 
 derstanding, the officer gathered a handful 
 of men, climbed from the front trench, and 
 dashed across the open to the second one. 
 His party pelted the counter-attackers mass- 
 ing there with as many bombs as they could 
 fling in a few seconds, turned and scrambled 
 back to the front line, and fell into the scuffle 
 raging there in a vigorous butt-and-bayonet 
 onslaught. 
 
 But now it was time to go. The object 
 of the raid had been carried out, and it was 
 risking all for nothing to wait a moment 
 longer. The word was passed, and half the 
 men climbed out and ran for their own line. 
 A minute later the remainder followed them, 
 carrying the last of their wounded. An offi- 
 cer and two or three men left last, after 
 touching off the fuses connected up with 
 charges placed in the first instance in their 
 duly selected places. 
 
 A moment later, with a muffled report, a 
 broad sheet of fire flamed upward from the
 
 182 FEONT LINES 
 
 trench. Three other explosions followed on 
 the heels of the first, and a shower of earth 
 and stones fell rattling about the ground and 
 on the shrapnel-helmets of the retiring raid- 
 ers, and the ear*th shuddered under their 
 feet. The German gunners slackened and 
 ceased their fire, probably waiting to hear 
 from the front what this new development 
 meant, or merely checking instinctively at 
 the sight and sound. For a moment the shells 
 ceased to crash over the open ground, the 
 raiders took advantage of the pause, and 
 with a rush were back and over their own 
 parapet again. 
 
 Over their heads the British shells still 
 poured shrieking and crashing without pause 
 as they had done throughout. 
 
 In military phraseology the raid had been 
 entirely successful, a score of prisoners being 
 taken, a stretch of trench completely de- 
 stroyed, and few casualties sustained. The 
 raiders themselves summed it up in words 
 more terse but meaning the same — '*a good 
 bag, and cheap at the price. '*
 
 XI 
 
 A ROARING TRADE 
 
 The ''O.C. Dump," a young Second Lieu- 
 tenant of Artillery, thumped the receiver 
 down disgustedly on the telephone and made 
 a few brief but pungent remarks on railways 
 and all connected therewith. 
 
 ''What's the trouble, Vickers?" said a 
 voice at the door, and the Lieutenant wheeled 
 to find the Colonel commanding the Ammu- 
 nition Column and the dump standing just 
 inside. 
 
 "I was just going to look for you, sir," 
 said Vickers. "They've cut our line again — 
 put two or three heavy shells into that bit 
 of an embankment a mile or so from here, 
 and blown it to glory evidently." 
 
 "I don't suppose the Engineers will take 
 
 long to repair that, ' ' said the Colonel. ' ' They 
 
 can slap down the metals and sleepers quick 
 
 enough if the embankment isn't smashed." 
 
 183
 
 184 FRONT LINES 
 
 ''But it is, sir," said Vickers. ''I was just 
 talking to Division, and they say the trains 
 won't run in to-night, and that supplies will 
 come up by lorry. And we've some heavy 
 lots due in to-night," he concluded despair- 
 ingly. 
 
 ''Let's see," said the Colonel, and for five 
 minutes listened and scribbled figures while 
 Vickers turned over notes and indents and 
 'phone messages and read them out. 
 
 ''Yes," said the Colonel reflectively, when 
 they had finished. "It'll be a pretty heavy 
 job. But you can put it through all right, 
 Vickers," he went on cheerfully. "It won't 
 be as bad as that bit you pulled off the first 
 week on the Somme. I'll leave it to you, 
 but I'll be round somewhere if you should 
 want me. When will the first of the lorries 
 come along?" 
 
 They talked a few minutes longer, and then 
 the Colonel moved to the door. The ' ' office ' ' 
 was a square shanty built of empty ammu- 
 nition boxes, with a tarpaulin spread over 
 for a roof. It was furnished with a roughly- 
 built deal table, littered with papers held in
 
 A ROARING TRADE 185 
 
 clips, stuck on files, or piled in heaps, seats 
 made of 18-pounder boxes, a truckle-bed and 
 blankets in one corner, a telephone on a 
 shelf beside the table. Light and ventilation 
 were provided by the leaving-out of odd boxes 
 here and there in the building up of the walls, 
 and by a wide doorway without a door to it. 
 The whole thing was light and airy enough, 
 but, because it was one of the hot spells of 
 summer, it was warm enough inside to be 
 uncomfortable. Everything in the place — 
 table, papers, bed, seats — ^was gritty to the 
 touch and thick with dust. 
 
 The two men stood in the doorway a min- 
 ute, looking out on the depleted stacks of am- 
 munition boxes piled in a long curving row 
 beside the roadway that ran in off the main 
 road, swung round, and out on to it again. 
 A few men were working amongst the boxes, 
 their coats off and their grey shirt sleeves 
 rolled up, and a stream of traffic ran steadily 
 past on the main road. 
 
 * ' Pretty quiet here now, ' ' said the Colonel. 
 ''But, by the sound of it, things are moving
 
 186 FRONT LINES 
 
 brisk enough up there. You'll get your turn 
 presently, I expect/' 
 
 '*I expect so, sir," said the Lieutenant; 
 ** especially if the yarn is true that we push 
 'em again at daybreak to-morrow. ' ' 
 
 ''Come over and get your tea before the 
 lorries come in, if you've time," said the 
 Colonel, and moved off. 
 
 The Lieutenant stood a moment longer lis- 
 tening to the steady roll and vibrating rum- 
 ble of the guns up in the line, and then, at a 
 sharp birr-r-r from the telephone, turned 
 sharply into the office. 
 
 The lorries began to arrive just after 
 sunset, rumbling up the main road and swing- 
 ing off in batches as there was room for them 
 in the curved crescent of track that ran 
 through the dump and back to the main road. 
 As quickly as they were brought into position 
 the dump working party jerked off the tail- 
 boards and fell to hauling the boxes of shell 
 out and piling them in neat stacks along a 
 low platform which ran by the edge of the 
 dump track. The dump was a distributing 
 centre mainly for field artillery, so that the
 
 A ROARING TRADE 187 
 
 shells were 18-pouiider and 4' 5 howitzer, in 
 boxes just comfortably large enough for a 
 man to lift and heave about. As the light 
 failed and the darkness crept down, candle 
 lamps began to appear, flitting about amongst 
 the piled boxes, dodging in and out between 
 the lorries, swinging down the track to guide 
 the drivers and show them the way in one 
 by one. Vickers and the Army Service Corps 
 officer in charge of the M.T. lorries stood on 
 a stack of boxes midway round the curve, 
 or moved about amongst the workers direct- 
 ing and hastening the work. 
 
 But about an hour after dark there came 
 some hasteners a good deal more urgent and 
 effective than the officers. All afternoon and 
 early evening a number of shells had been 
 coming over and falling somewhere out from 
 the dump, but the faintness of their whistle 
 and sigh, and the dull thump of their burst, 
 told that they were far enough off not to be 
 worth worrying about. But now there came 
 the ominous shriek, rising into a louder but 
 a fuller and deeper note, that told of a shell 
 dropping dangerously near the listeners. As
 
 188 FRONT LINES 
 
 the shriek rose to a bellowing, vibrating roar, 
 the workers amongst the boxes ducked and 
 ran in to crouch beside or under the lorries, 
 or flatten themselves close up against the 
 piles of ammunition. At the last second, 
 when every man was holding his breath, and 
 it seemed that the shell was on the point of 
 falling fairly on top of them, they heard the 
 deafening roar change and diminish ever so 
 slightly, and next instant the shell fell with 
 an earth-shaking crash just beyond the dump 
 and the main road. Some of the splinters sang 
 and hummed overhead, and the workers were 
 just straightening from their crouched posi- 
 tions and turning to remark to one another, 
 when again there came to them the same 
 rising whistle and shriek of an approaching 
 shell. But this time, before they could duck 
 back, the voice of the "O.C. Dump," mag- 
 nified grotesquely through a megaphone, bel- 
 lowed at them, ''Gas masks at alert position 
 every man. Sharp now." 
 
 A good many of the men had stripped off 
 gas masks and coats, because the masks 
 swinging and bobbing about them were awk-
 
 A ROARING TRADE 189 
 
 ward to work in, and the night was close 
 and heavy enough to call for as little ham- 
 pering clothing as possible in the job of 
 heaving and hauling heavy boxes about. 
 
 A word from Vickers to the A.S.C. officer 
 explained his shout. *'If one of those shells 
 splashes down on top of that stack of gas- 
 shells of ours, this won 't be a healthy locality 
 without a mask on." The men must have 
 understood or remembered the possibility, 
 because, heedless of the roar of the approach- 
 ing shell, they grabbed hastily for their 
 masks and hitched them close and high on 
 their chests, or ran to where they had hung 
 them with their discarded tunics, and slung 
 them hastily over shoulder, and ready. 
 
 The second shell fell short of the dump 
 with another thunderous bang and following 
 shrieks of flying splinters. Close after it 
 came the voice of Vickers through his mega- 
 phone shouting at the workers to get a move 
 on, get on with the job. And partly because 
 of his order, and partly, perhaps, because 
 they could see him in the faint light of the 
 lantern he carried standing man-high and
 
 190 FRONT LINES 
 
 exposed on top of the highest stack of boxes, 
 and so absorbed some of that mysterious con- 
 fidence which passes from the apparent ease 
 of an officer to his men in time of danger, they 
 fell to work again energetically, hauling out 
 and stacking the boxes. Another half -dozes 
 shells fell at regular intervals, and although 
 all were uncomfortably close, none actually 
 touched the dump. One man, an A.S.C. mo- 
 tor-driver, was wounded by a flying splinter, 
 and was half-led, half-carried out from the 
 dump streaming with blood. 
 
 ''Ain't you glad. Bill," said another A.S.C. 
 driver, as the group passed his lorry, ''that 
 we're in this Army Safety Corps ?"^ 
 
 ' ' Not 'arf , ' ' said Bill. ' ' There 's sich a fat 
 lot o' safety about it. Hark at that. . . . 
 Here she comes again." 
 
 This time the shell found its mark. The 
 crash of its fall was blended with and followed 
 by the rending and splintering of wood, a 
 scream and a yell, and a turmoil of shout- 
 ing voices. The dump officer bent down and 
 
 * A derisive nickname bestowed by other troops on the 
 A.S.C.
 
 A ROARING TRADE 191 
 
 shouted to the A.S.C. officer below him: ''In 
 the road . . . amongst your lorries, I fancy. 
 You'd better go'n look to it. I'll keep 'em 
 moving here." 
 
 The A.S.C. man went off at the double 
 without a word. He found that the shell had 
 fallen just beside one of the loaded lorries 
 which waited their turn to pull in to the 
 dump, splitting and splintering it to pieces, 
 lifting and hurling it almost clear of the 
 road. Some of the ammunition boxes had 
 been flung off. The officer collected some of 
 his M.T. drivers and a few spare men, emp- 
 tied the smashed lorry, and picked up the 
 scattered boxes and slung them aboard other 
 lorries; and then, without giving the men 
 time to pause, set them at work heaving and, 
 hauling and levering the broken lorry clear 
 of the road, and down a little six-foot sloping 
 bank at the roadside. Another shell came 
 down while they worked, but at their instinc- 
 tive check the officer sprang to help, shout- 
 ing at them, and urging them on. "Get to 
 it. Come along. D'you want to be here 
 all night? We have to off-load all this lot
 
 192 FRONT LINES 
 
 before we pull out. I don't want to wait 
 here having my lorries smashed up, if you 
 do. Come along now — all together." The 
 men laughed a little amongst themselves, and 
 came ''all together," and laughed again and 
 gave little ironical cheers as the wrecked 
 lorry slid and swayed and rolled lurching 
 over the bank and clear of the road. The 
 officer was running back to the dump when 
 he heard the officer there bellowing for an- 
 other six lorries to pull in. He climbed to 
 the step of one as it rolled in, dropped off 
 as it halted, and hurried over to the officer 
 in charge. 
 
 ''Hark at 'em," said Vickers, as another 
 shell howled over, and burst noisily a hun- 
 dred yards clear. "They're laying for us all 
 right this trip. Pray the Lord they don't 
 lob one into this pile — the gas-shells espe- 
 cially. That would fairly hang up the job; 
 and there are Heaven knows how many bat- 
 teries waiting to send in their waggons for 
 the stuff now." 
 
 "They got my lorry," said the A.S.C. man. 
 "Wrecked it and killed the driver."
 
 A ROARING TRADE 193 
 
 *'Hard luck," said Vickers. ''Hasn't 
 blocked the road, I hope?" 
 
 ''No; spilt the shells all over the place, 
 but didn't explode any. We cleared the 
 road." 
 
 "Don't forget," said Vickers anxiously, 
 "to tell me if there's any of the load miss- 
 ing. It'll tie me up in my figures abomin- 
 ably if you deliver any short." He broke 
 oif to shout at the men below, "Get along 
 there. Move out those empty ones. Come 
 along, another six. Pass the word for an- 
 other six, there." 
 
 The shelling eased off for a couple of hours 
 after that, and by then the last of the lorries 
 had gone, and their place in the road outside 
 and along the dump track had been taken by 
 long lines of ammunition waggons from the 
 batteries and the Divisional Ammunition 
 Column. Every officer or N.C.O. who came in 
 charge of a batch brought in the same im- 
 perative orders — to waste no minute, to load 
 up, and to get to the gun line at the earliest 
 possible moment, that action was brisk, and 
 the rounds were wanted urgently. There
 
 194 FRONT LINES 
 
 was no need to report that action was brisk, 
 because the dump was quite near enough 
 to the line for the steady, unbroken roar 
 of gunfire, to tell its own tale. The sound 
 of the field guns in the advanced positions 
 came beating back in the long, throbbing roll 
 of drum-fire, and closer to the dump, to both 
 sides of it, in front and rear of it, the sharp, 
 ear-splitting reports of the heavies crashed 
 at quick intervals. The dump was the centre 
 of a whirlwind of activity. The ammunition 
 waggons came rumbling and bumping in 
 round the curved track, the drivers steering 
 in their six-horse teams neatly and cleverly, 
 swinging and halting them so that the tail 
 of each waggon was turned partly in to the 
 piled boxes, and the teams edged slanting 
 out across the road. The moment one halted 
 the drivers jumped down from the saddles, 
 the lead driver standing to his horses ' heads, 
 the centre and wheel running to help with the 
 work of wrenching open the ammunition 
 boxes and cramming the shells into the 
 pigeon-hole compartments of the waggons. 
 The instant a waggon was filled the drivers
 
 A ROARING TRADE 195 
 
 mounted and the team pulled out to make way 
 for another. 
 
 The lanterns perched on vantage points on 
 the piles of boxes or swinging to and fro 
 amongst the teams revealed dimly and patch- 
 ily a scene of apparent confusion, of jerking 
 and swaying shadows, quick glints of light on 
 metal helmets and harness buckles and wheel 
 tyres, the tossing, bobbing heads of animals, 
 the rounded, shadowy bulk of their bodies, 
 the hurriedly moving figures of the men 
 stooping over the boxes, snatching out the 
 gleaming brass and grey steel shells, tossing 
 empty boxes aside, hauling down fresh ones 
 from the pile. Here and there a wet, sweat- 
 ing face or a pair of bared arms caught the 
 light of a lantern, stood out vividly for a 
 moment, and vanished again into the shad- 
 owed obscurity, or a pair or two of legs were 
 outlined black against the light, and cast dis- 
 torted wheeling shadows on the circle of 
 lamp-lit ground. A dim, shifting veil of dust 
 hung over everything, billowing up into thick 
 clouds under the churning hoofs and wheels
 
 196 FRONT LINES 
 
 as the teams moved in and out, settling slowly 
 and hanging heavily as they halted and stood. 
 
 The dim white pile of boxes that were 
 walled round the curve was diminishing rap- 
 idly under the strenuous labour of the drivers 
 and working party; the string of teams and 
 waggons in the road outside kept moving up 
 steadily, passing into the dump, loading up, 
 moving out again, and away. Vickers, the 
 officer in charge, was here, there, and every- 
 where, clambering on the boxes to watch the 
 work, shouting directions and orders, down 
 again, and hurrying into the office shanty 
 to grab the telephone and talk hurriedly into 
 it, turning to consult requisition ''chits" for 
 different kinds of shells, making hurried cal- 
 culations and scribbling figures, out again to 
 push in amongst the workers, and urge them 
 to hurry, hurry, hurry. 
 
 Once he ran back to the office to find the 
 Colonel standing there. ''Hullo, Vickers," 
 he said cheerfully. "Doing a roaring trade 
 to-night, aren't you?" 
 
 **I just am, sir," said Vickers, wiping his
 
 A ROARING TRADE 197 
 
 wet foreliead. "I'll be out of Beer-Ex ^ pres- 
 ently if they keep on rushing me for it at 
 this rate." 
 
 * ' Noisy brute of a gun that, ' ' said the Colo- 
 nel, as a heavy piece behind them crashed 
 sharply, and the shell roared away overhead 
 in diminishing howls and moans. 
 
 "And here's one coming the wrong way," 
 said Vickers hurriedly. "Hope they're not 
 going to start pitching 'em in here again. ' ' 
 
 But his hopes were disappointed. The Ger- 
 man gun or guns commenced another regu- 
 lar bombardment of and round the dump. 
 Shell after shell whooped over, and dropped 
 with heavy rolling c-r-r-umps on the ground, 
 dangerously near to the piled boxes. Then 
 one fell fairly on top of a pile of shells with 
 an appalling crash and rending, splintering 
 clatter, a spouting gush of evil-smelling black 
 smoke, and clouds of blinding dust. The pile 
 hit was flung helter-skelter, the boxes crash-, 
 ing and shattering as they fell and struck 
 heavily on the ground, the loose shells whirl- 
 
 * Telephone language for Bx — the technical name for cer- 
 tain shells.
 
 ]98 FRONT LINES 
 
 ing up and out from the explosion, and 
 thumping and thudding on the other piles or 
 in the dust. 
 
 At first sound of the burst, or, in fact, a 
 second or so before it, the dump officer was 
 yelling at the pitch of his voice, over and 
 over again, "Gas masks on — gas masks on"; 
 and before the ripping and splintering crashes 
 had well finished he was running hard to the 
 spot where the shell had fallen. He freed 
 his own mask as he ran, and slipped it over 
 his face, but even before he had pushed into 
 the drifting reek of the burst he had snatched 
 it off, and was turning back, when he found 
 the Colonel on his heels. 
 
 ''I was afraid of those gas-shells of ours, 
 sir," he said hurriedly. "Pretty near 'em, 
 but they're all right, and nothing's afire, evi- 
 dently." 
 
 "Good enough," said the Colonel quietly. 
 "Better hurry the men at the job again." 
 
 "Masks off," shouted Vickers. "All right 
 here. Masks off, and get on with it, men." 
 
 The working party and the drivers 
 snatched their masks off, and before the dust
 
 A ROARING TRADE 199 
 
 of the explosion had settled were hard at 
 work again. But the shells began to fall with 
 alarming regularity and in dangerous prox- 
 imity to the dump and road outside. The 
 Colonel moved over to the office, and found 
 Vickers there gripping a notebook, a handful 
 of papers under his arm, and talking into the 
 telephone. He broke off his talk at sight of 
 the Colonel. 
 
 ' ' One moment. Here he is now. Hold the 
 wire. ' ' He held the receiver out. * ' Will you 
 speak to Divisional H.Q., sir? They're ask- 
 ing about the shelling here." 
 
 The Colonel took the 'phone and spoke 
 quietly into it. Another shell dropped with 
 a rending crash somewhere outside, and Vick- 
 ers jumped for the door and vanished. The 
 piled boxes of the ''office" walls shivered and 
 rocked, and dust rained down on the paper- 
 strewn table. But the Colonel went on talk- 
 ing, telling what the shelling was like and how 
 heavy it was, the number of waggons wait- 
 ing, and so on. 
 
 He was putting the 'phone down as Vickers 
 entered hurriedly and reported, ''Just out-
 
 200 FRONT LINES 
 
 side in the road, sir. Did in a waggon and 
 team and two drivers." 
 
 ' ' We Ve got to carry on as long as we can, 
 Vickers," said the Colonel. **The stuff is 
 urgently wanted up there, and we 'd lose a lot 
 of time to clear the teams out and bring them 
 back.'^ 
 
 ''Very good, sir," said Vickers, and van- 
 ished again. 
 
 The shelling continued. Most of the shells 
 fell close to, but clear of, the dump, but an- 
 other hit a pile of shells, exploding none, but 
 setting a few splintered boxes on j&re. The 
 fire, fortunately, was smothered in a moment. 
 Another burst just at the entrance to the 
 curved road through the dump, smashing an 
 ammunition waggon to a wreck of splintered 
 woodwork and twisted iron, blowing two 
 teams to pieces, and killing and wounding 
 half a dozen men. There was a moment's 
 confusion, a swirl of plunging horses, a 
 squealing of braked wheels, a shouting and 
 calling and cursing. But as the smoke and 
 dust cleared the confusion died away, and in 
 five minutes the wrecked waggon and dead
 
 !A ROARING TRADE 201 
 
 animals were dragged clear, and the work was 
 in full swing again. Vickers, moving amongst 
 the teams, heard two drivers arguing noisily. 
 ''What did I tell you?" one was shouting. 
 "What did I tell you! Didn't I say mules 
 would stand shell-fire good as any hosses? 
 Here 's my pair never winked an eye. ' ' 
 
 ** Winked a eye?" said the other scorn- 
 fully. ' ' They tried to do a obstacle race over 
 my waggon. An' they kicked sufferin' Saul 
 outer your centres an' each other. Yer off- 
 lead's near kicked the hin' leg off 'n his mate, 
 anyway. ' ' 
 
 ** Kicked?" said the first, and then stopped 
 as his eye caught the red gleam of flowing 
 blood. ''Strewth, he's wounded. Mybloomin' 
 donkey's casualtied. Whoa, Neddy; stan' 
 till I see what 's wrong. You '11 get a bloomin ' 
 wound stripe to wear for this, Neddy. Whoa, 
 you '^ 
 
 Vickers, remembering the snatch of talk, 
 was able to tell the Colonel a moment later, 
 **No, sir; the men don't seem rattled a mite; 
 and they're working like good 'uns." 
 
 The shelling continued, but so did the work.
 
 202 FRONT LINES 
 
 The waggons continued to roll in, to fill up, 
 and puir out again; the pile of ammunition 
 boxes to dwindle, the heap of empty boxes to 
 grow. Vickers scurried round, keeping an 
 eye on smooth working, trying at intervals 
 to press some of his stock of gas-shells on 
 any battery that would take them. " I Ve fair 
 got wind up about them," he confided to one 
 waggon-line officer. "If a shell hits them it 
 will stop the whole blessed dump working. 
 Then where will your guns be for shell 1 ' ' 
 
 The shelling continued, and caught some 
 more casualties. Vickers superintended their 
 removal, wiped his hands on his breeches, 
 and went back to his office and his ' ' returns ' ' 
 and the worry of trying to account for the 
 shells scattered by the enemy shell in his 
 dump. The men worked on doggedly The 
 gun-line wanted shells, and the gun-line would 
 get them — unless or until the dump blew 
 up. 
 
 The shelling continued — although, to be 
 sure, it eased off at intervals — until dawn; 
 but by that time the last loaded waggon had 
 departed and the dump was almost empty of
 
 A ROARING TRADE 203 
 
 shells. The German gunners were beaten 
 and the dump had won. Presently the Ger- 
 man line would feel the weight of the dump 's 
 work. 
 
 Three hours later, after a final struggle 
 with his ' ' returns, ' ' Vickers, dirty and dusty, 
 grimed with smoke and ash, a stubble of 
 beard on his chin and tired rings under his 
 eyes, trudged to the mess dug-out for break- 
 fast and tea — tea, hot tea, especially. He 
 met the Colonel, and recounted briefly the va- 
 rious thousands of assorted shells — high ex- 
 plosive, shrapnel, lyddite, and so on — he had 
 sent up to the gun-line during the night. He 
 also recounted sorrowfully the night's casu- 
 alties amongst his dump party, and spoke 
 with a little catch in his voice of his dead 
 sergeant, ''the best N.C.O. he'd ever known." 
 
 *'A good night's work well done, Vickers," 
 said the Colonel quietly. 
 
 *'A roaring trade, sir, as you said," an- 
 swered Vickers, with a thin smile. **And 
 hark at 'em up there now," and he nodded 
 his head towards the distant gun-line. They 
 stood a moment in the sunshine at the top of
 
 204 FRONT LINES 
 
 the dug-out steps. Round them the heavies 
 still thundered and crashed and cracked sav- 
 agely, and from the gun line where the field 
 guns worked the roar of sound came rolling 
 and throbbing fiercely and continuously. 
 
 ''They'll pay back for what you got last 
 night, ' ' said the Colonel, ' ' and some of them 
 wouldn't be able to do it but for your work 
 last night.'* 
 
 The ground under them trembled to the 
 blast of a near-by heavy battery, the air vi- 
 brated again to the furious drumming fire 
 that thundered back from the front lines. 
 
 ''That's some consolation," said Vickers, 
 "for my sergeant. Small profit and quick 
 returns to their shells ; the right sort of motto, 
 that, for a roaring trade." 
 
 The fire of the gun-line, rising to a fresh 
 spasm of fury, fairly drowned the last of his 
 words. "A proper roaring trade," he re- 
 peated loudly, and nodded his head agaiQ in 
 the direction of the sound.
 
 XII 
 
 HOME 
 
 If anybody had told Lieutenant "Lollie** 
 Dutford, Lieutenant and Adjutant of the 
 Stolidshire Buffs, that he would come one 
 day to be glad to get back to the battalion and 
 the front, Lollie would have called that 
 prophet an unqualified idiot. And, yet, he 
 would later have been convicted out of his 
 own mouth. 
 
 Lollie was a hardened veteran campaigner, 
 twenty-two years of age, and full two years* 
 trench-age — which means a lot more — and he 
 started to return from his latest leave with 
 a pleasing consciousness of his own knowl- 
 edge of the ropes, and a comforting belief that 
 he would be able to make his return journey 
 in comparative ease. Certainly, the start 
 from Victoria Station at seven o'clock on a 
 drizzling wet morning, which had necessi- 
 tated his being up at 5.30 a.m., had not been 
 
 205
 
 206 FRONT LINES 
 
 pleasant, but even the oldest soldier has to 
 put up with these things, and be assured that 
 no ''old soldiering" can dodge them. It an- 
 noyed him a good deal to find when they 
 reached Folkestone that the boat would not 
 start until well on in the afternoon, and that 
 he had been dragged out of bed at cock-crow 
 for no other purpose than to loaf disconso- 
 lately half a day round a dead-and-alive 
 pleasure resort. He was irritated again when 
 he went to have lunch in a certain hotel, to 
 have the price of his meal demanded from 
 him before he was allowed into the dining- 
 room. ''It's not only buying a pig in a poke," 
 as he told his chance table companion, "but 
 it's the beastly insinuation that we're not to 
 be trusted to pay for our lunch after we've 
 had it that I don't like." He also didn't like, 
 and said so very forcibly, the discovery that 
 there is a rule in force which prohibits any 
 officer proceeding overseas from having any 
 intoxicating liquor with his meal, although 
 any other not for overseas that day could 
 have what he liked. "If that's not inviting a 
 fellow to lie and say he is staying this side I
 
 HOME 207 
 
 dunno what is," said Lollie disgnstedly. 
 "But why should I be induced to tell lies for 
 the sake of a pint of bitter. And if I'm 
 trusted not to lie, why can't I be trusted not 
 to drink -too much. However, it's one more 
 of their mysterious ways this side, I s'pose." 
 He evaporated a good deal of his remaining 
 good temper over the lunch. "Not much 
 wonder they want their cash first," he said; 
 "I haven't had enough to feed a hungry spar- 
 
 row. ' ' 
 
 Old-soldier experience took him straight to 
 a good place on the boat, and room to lie down 
 on a cushioned settee before it was filled up, 
 and he spent the passage in making up some 
 of his early morning lost sleep. On arrival 
 at the other side he found that his train was 
 not due to start for up-country until after 
 midnight — "not late enough to be worth go- 
 ing to bed before, and too late to sit up with 
 comfort," as he declared. He had a good 
 dinner at the Officers' Club, after rather a 
 long wait for a vacant seat, but after it could 
 find no place to sit down in the crowded 
 smoke-room or reading-rooms. However, he
 
 208 FRONT LINES 
 
 knew enough to take liim round to a popular 
 hotel bar, where he spent a couple of joyful 
 hours meeting a string of old friends passing 
 to or from all parts of ' ' the line, ' ' and swap- 
 ping news and gossip of mutually known 
 places and people up front. Lollie had 
 brought along with him a young fellow he had 
 met in the club. Bullivant was returning 
 from his first leave, and so was rather ig- 
 norant of * 'the ropes," and had begged Lollie 
 to put him wise to any wrinkles he knew for 
 passing the time and smoothing the journey 
 up. ^' 'Pon my word," Lollie confided to 
 him after the departure of another couple of 
 old friends, ''it's almost worth coming back 
 to meet so many pals and chin over old times 
 and places." 
 
 ''I don't like this fool notion of no whisky 
 rdowed," said Bullivant. "Now, you're an 
 old bird; don't you know any place we can 
 get a real drink?" 
 
 ' ' Plenty, ' ' said Lollie. ' ' If you don 't mind 
 paying steep for 'em and meeting a crowd of 
 people and girls I've no use for myself." 
 
 " I 'm on, ' ' replied Bullivant. * * Lead me to
 
 HOME 209 
 
 it. But don't let's forget that twelve-some- 
 thing train." 
 
 They spent half an hour in the "place," 
 where Lollie drank some exceedingly bad 
 champagne, and spent every minute of the 
 time in a joyful reunion with an old school 
 chum he hadn't seen for years. Then he 
 searched Bullivant out and they departed for 
 the hotel to pick up their kits and move to the 
 station. At the hotel the barman told him in 
 confidence that the midnight train was can- 
 celled, and that he 'd have to wait till next day. 
 "He's right, of course," Lollie told Bulli- 
 vant. "He always gets these things right. 
 He has stacks more information about every- 
 thing than all the Intelligence crowd together. 
 If you want to know where your unit is in the 
 line or when a train arrives or a boat leaves, 
 come along and ask Henri, and be sure you'll 
 get it right — if he knows you well enough; 
 but all the same we must go to the station 
 and get it officially that our train's a wash- 
 out to-night." They went there and got it 
 officially, with the added information that 
 they would go to-morrow night, same time,
 
 210 FRONT LINES 
 
 but to report to R.T.O. (Railway Transport 
 Officer) at noon. There were no beds at the 
 club (''Never are after about tea-time," Lol- 
 lie told Bullivant), and, to save tramping in 
 a vain search around hotels, they returned 
 to their barman-information-bureau, and 
 learned from him that all the leading hotels 
 were full up to the last limits of settees, 
 made-up beds, and billiard rooms. LoUie's 
 knowledge saved them further wanderings by 
 taking them direct to another ''place," where 
 they obtained a not-too-clean bedroom. ' ' Not 
 as bad as plenty we Ve slept in up the line, ' ' 
 said LoUie philosophically; "only I'd advise 
 you to sleep in your clothes ; it leaves so much 
 the less front open to attack." 
 
 They reported at the station at noon next 
 day, and were told their train would leave 
 at 1 p.m., and "change at St. Oswear." They 
 rushed to a near hotel and swallowed lunch, 
 hurried back to the train, and sat in it for 
 a solid two hours before it started. It was long 
 after dark when they reached St. Oswear, 
 where they bundled out onto the platform and 
 sought information as to the connection.
 
 HOME 211 
 
 They were told it was due in any minute, 
 would depart immediately after arrival, and 
 that anyone who had to catch it must not 
 leave the station. ''Same old gag," said Lol- 
 lie when they had left the R.T.O. ' ' But you 
 don't catch me sitting on a cold platform 
 half the night. I've had some, thanks." For 
 the sum of one franc down and a further 
 franc on completion of engagement he bought 
 the services of a French boy, and led Bulli- 
 vant to a cafe just outside. They had a leis- 
 urely and excellent dinner there of soup, ome- 
 lette, and coffee, and then spent another hour 
 in comfortable arm-chairs until their train 
 arrived. Lollie's boy scout reported twice 
 the arrival of trains for up the line, but in- 
 vestigation found these to be the wrong 
 trains, and the two friends returned to their 
 arm-chairs and another coffee. Their right 
 train was also duly reported, and Lollie paid 
 off his scout, and they found themselves seats 
 on board. 
 
 ''I'm mighty glad I struck you," said Bul- 
 livant gratefully. "I'd sure have worn my 
 soul and my feet out tramping this platform
 
 212 FRONT LINES 
 
 all these hours if you hadn't been running 
 the deal." 
 
 ''I'm getting up to all these little dodges," 
 said Lollie modestly. ' ' I know the way things 
 run this side now a heap better 'n I do in 
 England." 
 
 But all his knowledge did not save them a 
 horribly uncomfortable night in an over- 
 crowded compartment, and even when Bulli- 
 vant dropped off at his station two others 
 got in. Lollie reached his station only to be 
 told his Division had moved, that to find them 
 he must go back by train thirty kilometres, 
 change, and proceed to another railhead and 
 inquire there. He was finally dumped off at 
 his railhead in the shivery dawn — ''always 
 seems to be an appalling lot of daybreak 
 work about these stunts somehow," as he 
 remarked disgustedly — and had a subsequent 
 series of slow-dragging adventures in his 
 final stages of the journey to the battalion by 
 way of a lift from the supply officer's car and 
 a motor lorry to Refilling Point, a sleep there 
 on some hay bales, a further jolty ride on 
 the ration waggons towards the trenches, and
 
 HOME 213 
 
 a last tramp up with the ration party. The 
 battalion had just moved in to rather a quiet 
 part of the line, and were occupying the sup- 
 port trenches, and Lollie found the H.Q. mess 
 established in a commodious dug-out, very 
 comfortably furnished. 
 
 **Yes, sir," he said, in answer to a ques- 
 tion from the CO., ''and I tell you I'm real 
 glad to be home again. I've been kicking 
 round the country like a lost dog for days, 
 and I feel more unwashed and disgruntled 
 than if I'd just come out of a push." 
 
 The door-curtain of sacking pushed aside, 
 and the Padre came in. "Ha, Lollie. Glad 
 to have you back again," he said, shaking 
 hands warmly. ' ' Mess has been quite missing 
 you. Sorry for your own sake you're here, of 
 course, but " 
 
 "You needn't be, Padre," said Lollie 
 cheerfully. "I was just saying I'm glad to 
 be back. And 'pon my word it's true. It's 
 quite good to be home here again." 
 
 "Home!" said the Padre and the Acting- 
 Adjutant together, and laughed. "I like 
 that."
 
 214 FRONT LINES 
 
 *'Well, it is," said Lollie stoutly. *' Any- 
 way, it feels like it to me." 
 
 That feeling apparently was driven home 
 in the course of the next hour or two. His 
 servant showed him to his dug-out, which he 
 was to share with the second in command, 
 had a portable bath and a dixie full of boiling 
 water for him, his valise spread on a comfort- 
 able stretcher-bed of wire netting on a 
 wooden frame, clean shirt and things laid 
 out, everything down to soap and towel and 
 a packet of his own pet brand of cigarettes 
 ready to his hand. Lollie pounced on the 
 cigarettes. ' 'Like a fool I didn't take enough 
 to last me, ' ' he said, lighting up and drawing 
 a long and deep breath and exhaling slowly 
 and luxuriously. ''And I couldn't get 'em 
 over the other side for love or money. ' ' 
 
 While he stripped and got ready for his 
 bath, his servant hovered round shaking out 
 the things he took off and giving him snatches 
 of gossip about the battalion. Lollie saw 
 him eyeing the exceedingly dull buttons on 
 his tunic and laughed. "Rather dirty, aren't 
 they?" he said. "I'm afraid I forgot 'em
 
 HOME 215 
 
 most of the time I was over there. And I 
 hate cleaning buttons anyhow; always get 
 more of the polish paste on the tunic than on 
 the buttons." 
 
 After his bath and change, Lollie wandered 
 round and had a talk to different officers, to 
 his orderly-room sergeant, and the officers' 
 mess cook, inspected the kitchen arrange- 
 ments with interest, and discussed current 
 issue of rations and meals. ''Glad you're 
 back, sir," said the mess cook. ''I did the 
 best I could, but the messing never seems to 
 run just right when you 're away. I never can 
 properly remember the different things some 
 of them don't like." 
 
 The same compliment to his mess-catering 
 abilities was paid him at dinner that night. 
 ' ' Ha, dinner, ' ' said the Padre ; ' ' we can look 
 for a return to our good living again now 
 that you're ho — back again, Lollie." 
 
 Lollie laughed. "Nearly caught you that 
 time, Padre," he said. "You almost said 
 'home again,' didn't you?" And the Padre 
 had to confess he nearly did. 
 
 They had a very pleasant little dinner, and.
 
 216 FEONT LINES 
 
 even if the curry was mostly bully beef and 
 the wine was the thin, sharp claret of local 
 purchase, Lollie enjoyed every mouthful and 
 every minute of the meal. Several of the 
 other officers of the battalion dropped in after 
 dinner on one excuse or another, but, as Lollie 
 suspected, mainly to shake hands with him 
 and hear any of the latest from the other 
 side. 
 
 *' There's a rum ration to-night," said the 
 Second, about ten. ^'What about a rum 
 punch, Lollie?" 
 
 ''I tell you this is good," said Lollie con- 
 tentedly a quarter of an hour later, as they 
 sat sipping the hot rum. " 'Pon my word, 
 it's worth going away, if it's only for the 
 pleasure of«coming back." 
 
 The others laughed at him. ' ' Coming back 
 home, eh!" scoffed the Second. 
 
 ''Yes, but look here, 'pon my word, it is 
 home, ' ' said Lollie earnestly. * ' I tell you it 's 
 like going to a foreign country, going to the 
 other side now. There's so many rules and 
 regulations you can't keep up with them. 
 You always seem to want a drink, or meet a
 
 HOME 217 
 
 pal you'd like a drink with, just in the no- 
 drink hours. In uniform you can't even get 
 food after some silly hour like nine or ten 
 o'clock. Why, after the theatre one night, 
 when I was with three people in civvies, we 
 went to a restaurant, and I had to sit hungry 
 and watch them eat. They could get food, 
 and I couldn 't. And one day a pal didn 't turn 
 up that I was lunching at the Emperor's, 
 and I found I couldn 't have any of the things 
 I wanted most, because it cost more than 
 3s. 6d. I'd set my heart on a dozen natives 
 and a bit of grilled chicken — you know how 
 you do get hankering for certain things after 
 a spell out here — but I had to feed off poached 
 eggs or some idiotic thing like that." 
 
 "But isn't there some sense in that rule?" 
 said the Padre. "Isn't the idea to prevent 
 young officers being made to pay more than 
 they can afford?" 
 
 Lollie snorted. "Does it prevent it?" he 
 said. "My lunch cost me over fifteen bob 
 rather than under it, what with a bottle of 
 decent Burgundy, and coffee and liqueur, and 
 tip to the waiter, and so on. And, anyhow.
 
 218 FRONT LINES 
 
 who but an ntter ass would go to the Em- 
 peror's if he couldn't afford a stiff price for 
 a meal? But it isn't only these rules and 
 things over there that makes it 'coming home' 
 to come back here. In England you're made 
 to feel an outsider. D 'you know I had a mili- 
 tary police fellow pull me up for not carrying 
 gloves in the first hour of my leave ? ' ' 
 
 The others murmured sympathy. "What 
 did you say, Lolliel" asked the Acting- Adju- 
 tant. 
 
 ' ' I made him jump, ' ' said LoUie, beaming. 
 "I was standing looking for a taxi, and this 
 fellow came alongside and looked me up and 
 down. 'Your gloves have ,' he was be- 
 ginning, when I whipped round on him. * Are 
 you speaking to me?' I snapped. 'Yessir,' 
 he said, stuttering a bit. ' Then what do you 
 mean by not saluting?' I demanded, and 
 sailed into him, and made him stand to at- 
 tention while I dressed him down and told 
 him I'd a good mind to report him for inso- 
 lent and insubordinate behaviour. 'And, 
 now,' I finished up, 'there's a brigadier-gen- 
 eral just crossing the street, and he's not
 
 HOME 219 
 
 carrying gloves. Go 'n speak to him about it, 
 and then come back, and I '11 give you my card 
 to report me. ' He sneaked off — and he didn 't 
 go after the general. ' ' 
 
 The others laughed and applauded. ' ' Good 
 stroke." ''Rather smart, Lollie." **It is 
 rather sickening." 
 
 ''But as I was saying," went on LoUie, 
 after another sip at his steaming punch, "it 
 isn't so much these things make a fellow glad 
 to be back here. It's because this side really 
 is getting to feel home-like. You know your 
 way about Boulogne, and all the railways, and 
 where they run to and from, better than you 
 do lines in England. I do, anyhow. You 
 know what's a fair price for things, and what 
 you ought to pay, and you haven't the faint- 
 est idea of that in England. You just pay, 
 and be sure you're usually swindled if they 
 know you're from this side. Here you know 
 just the things other people know, and very 
 little more and very little less, and you're 
 interested in much the same things. Over 
 there you have to sit mum while people talk 
 by the hour about sugar cards and Sinn Fein,
 
 220 FRONT LINES 
 
 and whether there'll be a new Ministry of 
 Coke and Coal, and, if so, who '11 get the job ; 
 and you hear people grouse, and read letters 
 in the papers, about the unfair amusement 
 tax, and they pray hard for pouring rain so 
 it'll stop the Zepps coming over — not think- 
 ing or caring, I suppose, that it will hang 
 up our Push at the same time, or thinking of 
 us in the wet shell-holes — and they get agi- 
 tated to death because the Minister for For- 
 eign Affairs " Lollie stopped abruptly 
 
 and glanced round the table. ' ' Can anybody 
 here tell me who IS the Minister for Foreign 
 Affairs?" he demanded. There was a dead 
 silence for a moment and an uneasy shuffle. 
 Then the Padre cleared his throat and be- 
 gan, slowly, "Ha, I think it is " 
 
 Lollie interrupted. "There you are!" he 
 said triumphantly. ' ' None of you know, and 
 you only thiak. Padre. Just what I'm say- 
 ing. We don't know the things they know 
 over there, and, what's more, don't care a 
 rush about 'em." 
 
 ' ' There 's a good deal in what you say, Lol-
 
 HOME 221 
 
 lie," said the CO. "But, after all, Home's 
 Home to me." 
 
 ''I know, sir," said the Second. ''So it is 
 to me." 
 
 But Lollie fairly had the bit between his 
 teeth, although, perhaps, the rum punch was 
 helping. "Well, I find this side gets more 
 and more home to me. Over there you keep 
 reading and hearing about the pacifist dan- 
 ger, and every other day there are strikes 
 and rumours of strikes, either for more 
 money or because of food shortage — makes 
 one wonder what some of 'em would say to 
 our fellows' bob a day or twenty-four hours 
 living on a bully and biscuit iron ration. I 
 tell you at the end of ten days over there you 
 begin to think we've lost the blessed war and 
 that it'd serve some of 'em right if we did. 
 Here we're only interested in real things and 
 real men. There's hardly a man I know in 
 England now — and probably you're the same 
 if you stop to think. And I come back here 
 and drop into a smooth little routine, and 
 people I like, and a job I know, and talk 
 and ways I'm perfectly familiar with and
 
 222 FRONT LINES 
 
 at home in — tliat^s the only word, at home 
 
 in." 
 
 ''Bully beef and bullets and Stand To at 
 dawn," murmured the Acting- Adjutant. 
 ''There were two men reported killed in the 
 trench to-night." 
 
 "And they might have been killed by a 
 taxi in the Strand if they'd been there," 
 retorted Lollie. 
 
 ' ' Eemember those billets near Pop ! ' ' asked 
 
 the Acting- Adjutant. "Lovely home that, 
 
 wasn't it?" 
 
 The others burst into laughter. "Had you 
 
 there, Lollie," chuckled the CO. "It was a 
 hole, eh?" said the Second, and guffawed 
 again. "D'you remember Madame, and the 
 row she made because my man borrowed her 
 wash-tub for me to bath in," said the Padre. 
 "And the struggle Lollie had to get a cook- 
 house for the mess, and fed us on cold bully 
 mainly," said the CO., still chuckling. 
 
 "Yes, now, but just hold on," said Lollie. 
 ' ' Do any of you recollect anything particular 
 about Blankchester — ^in England!" 
 
 There was silence again. ' ' Didn 't we halt
 
 HOME 223 
 
 there a night that time we marched from 
 Blank?" said the CO. hesitatingly. "No, 
 I remember," said the Padre. "We halted 
 and lunched there. Ha, Red Lion Inn, roses 
 over the porch. Pretty place. ' ' The Second 
 evidently remembered nothing. 
 
 "You're right, sir," said Lollie. "We 
 halted there a night. The Red Lion village I 
 forget the name of. Padre, though I remem- 
 ber the place. Now, let's see if a few other 
 places stir your memories." He went over, 
 slowly and with a pause after each, the names 
 of a number of well-known towns of Eng- 
 land and Scotland. The CO. yawned, and 
 the others looked bored. "What are you get- 
 ting at, Lollie?" demanded the Acting-Adju- 
 tant wearily. Lollie laughed. "Those are 
 'home' towns," he said, "and they don't 
 interest you a scrap. But I could go through 
 the list of every town in the North of France 
 and Flanders — Ballieul and Poperinghe, and 
 Bethune and Wipers, and Amiens and Ar- 
 mentieres and all the rest — and there isn't 
 one that doesn't bring a pleasant little homey 
 thrill to the sound; and not one that hasn't
 
 224 FRONT LINES 
 
 associations of people or times that you'll re- 
 member to your dying day. Even that rotten 
 billet at Pop you remember and can make 
 jokes and laugh over — as you will for the 
 rest of your lives. It's all these things that 
 make me say it's good to be back here — 
 home, ' ' and he stood up from the table. 
 
 They all chaffed him again, but a little less 
 briskly and with a doubt evidently dawning 
 in their minds. 
 
 Lollie went off to his bed presently, and the 
 others soon followed. The Second and the 
 Padre sat on to finish a final pipe. When the 
 Second went along to the dug-out which Lollie 
 was sharing, he went in very quietly, and 
 found the candle burning by Lollie 's bed 
 and Lollie fast asleep. He was taking his 
 coat off when Lollie stirred and said some- 
 thing indistinctly. ''What's that?" said the 
 Major. "Thought you were asleep." 
 
 "It's good, Lord, but it's good to be 
 home again," said Lollie sleepily, and mut- 
 tered again. The Major looked closely at 
 him. "Talking in his sleep again," he 
 thought. "Poor lad. Funny notion that
 
 HOME 225 
 
 about back home — here," and he glanced 
 round the rough earth walls, the truckle bed, 
 the earth floor, and the candle stuck in a bot- 
 tle. "Home! Good Lord!" 
 
 '*. . . So good to be back home," Lollie 
 
 went on . . . "good to find you here " 
 
 The Major "tch-tch-ed" softly between his 
 teeth and stooped to pull his boots off, and the 
 voice went on, evenly again: "That's the 
 best bit of coming home, all that really makes 
 it home — just being with you again — 
 dearest." The Major stood erect abruptly. 
 ". . . Some day we'll have our own little 
 home ..." and this time at the end of the 
 sentence, clear and distinct, came a girl's 
 name . . . "Maisie.'* 
 
 With sudden haste the Major jerked off his 
 remaining boot, blew out the light, and tum- 
 bled into bed. He caught a last fragment, 
 something about "another kiss, dear," before 
 he could pull the blankets up and muffle them 
 tight about his ears to shut out what he had 
 neither right nor wish to hear. After that 
 he lay thinking long and staring into the 
 darkness. "So — that's it. Talked brave
 
 226 FRONT LINES 
 
 enough, too. I was actually Taelieving he 
 meant it, and cursing the old war again, and 
 thinking what a sad pity a fine youngster 
 like that should come to feel a foreign country 
 home. Sad pity, but" — his mind jumped 
 ahead a fortnight to the next Push-to-Be — ' ^ I 
 don't know that it's not more of a pity as it 
 is, for her, and — him.'*
 
 XIII 
 
 BRINa UP THE GUNS 
 
 When Jack Duncan and Hugh Morrison sud- 
 denly had it brought home to them that they 
 ought to join the New Armies, they lost little 
 time in doing so. Since they were chums of 
 long standing in a City office, it went without 
 saying that they decided to join and ''go 
 through it" together, but it was much more 
 open to argument what branch of the Service 
 or regiment they should join. 
 
 They discussed the question in all its bear- 
 ings, but being as ignorant of the Army and 
 its ways as the average young Englishman 
 was in the early days of the war, they had 
 little evidence except varied and contradic- 
 tory hearsay to act upon. Both being about 
 twenty-five they were old enough and busi- 
 ness-like enough to consider the matter in a 
 business-like way, and yet both were young 
 enough to be influenced by the flavour of ro- 
 
 227
 
 228 . FRONT LINES 
 
 mance they found in a picture they came 
 across at the time. It was entitled "Bring 
 up the Guns, ' ' and it showed a horsed battery 
 in the wild whirl of advancing into ac- 
 tion, the horses straining and stretching in 
 front of the bounding guns, the drivers 
 crouched forward or sitting up plying whip 
 and spur, the officers galloping and waving 
 the men on, dust swirling from leaping hoofs 
 and wheels, whip-thongs streaming, heads 
 tossing, reins flying loose, altogether a blood- 
 stirring picture of energy and action, speed 
 and power. 
 
 "I've always had a notion," said Duncan 
 reflectively, "that I'd like to have a good 
 whack at riding. One doesn't get much 
 chance of it in city life, and this looks like a 
 good chance. ' ' 
 
 "And I've heard it said," agreed Mor- 
 rison, "that a fellow with any education 
 stands about the best chance in artillery work. 
 We might as well plump for something where 
 we can use the bit of brains we 've got. ' ' 
 
 ' ' That applies to the Engineers too, doesn 't 
 it?" said Duncan. "And the pottering about
 
 BRING UP THE GUNS 229 
 
 we did for a time with electricity might help 
 there. ' ' 
 
 *'Um-m," Morrison agreed doubtfully, still 
 with an appreciative eye on the picture of the 
 flying guns. ''Eather slow work though — 
 digging and telegraph and pontoon and that 
 sort of thing." 
 
 * ' Eight-oh, ' ' said Duncan with sudden deci- 
 sion. ' * Let 's try for the Artillery. ' ' 
 
 "Yes. We'll call that settled," said Mor- 
 rison ; and both stood a few minutes looking 
 with a new interest at the picture, already 
 with a dawning sense that they "belonged," 
 that these gallant gunners and leaping teams 
 were "Ours," looking forward with a little 
 quickening of the pulse to the day when they, 
 too, would go whirling into action in like des- 
 perate and heart-stirring fashion. 
 
 "Come on," said Morrison. "Let's get it 
 over. To the recruiting-office — quick march. ' ' 
 
 And so came two more gunners into the 
 Koyal Eegiment. 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 When the long, the heart-breakingly long 
 period of training and waiting for their guns,
 
 230 FRONT LINES 
 
 and more training and slow collecting of their 
 horses, and more training was at last over, 
 and the battery sailed for France, Morrison 
 and Duncan were both sergeants and ' ' Num- 
 bers One" in charge of their respective guns ; 
 and before the battery had been in France 
 three months Morrison had been promoted 
 to Battery Sergeant-Ma j or. 
 
 The battery went through the routine of 
 trench warfare and dug its guns into deep 
 pits, and sent its horses miles away back, and 
 sat in the same position for months at a time, 
 had slack spells and busy spells, shelled and 
 was shelled, and at last moved up to play its 
 part in The Push. 
 
 Of that part I don't propose to tell more 
 than the one incident — an incident of ma- 
 chine-pattern sameness to the lot of many 
 batteries. 
 
 The infantry had gone forward again and 
 the ebb-tide of battle was leaving the battery 
 with many others almost beyond high-water 
 mark of effective range. Preparations were 
 made for an advance. The Battery Comman- 
 der went forward and reconnoitred the new
 
 BRING UP THE GUNS 231 
 
 position the battery was to move into, every- 
 tMng was packed up and made ready, while 
 the guns still continued to pump out long- 
 range fire. The Battery Commander came 
 in again and explained everything to his offi- 
 cers and gave the necessary detailed orders 
 to the Sergeant-Ma j or, and presently re- 
 ceived orders of date and hour to move. 
 
 This was in the stages of The Push when 
 rain was the most prominent and uncomfort- 
 able feature of the weather. The guns were 
 in pits built over with strong walls and roof- 
 ing of sandbags and beams which were 
 weather-tight enough, but because the floors 
 of the pits were lower than the surface of the 
 ground, it was only by a constant struggle 
 that the water was held back from draining 
 in and forming a miniature lake in each pit. 
 Round and between the guns was a mere 
 churned-up sea of sticky mud. As soon as 
 the new battery position was selected a party 
 went forward to it to dig and prepare places 
 for the guns. The Battery Commander went 
 off to select a suitable point for observation 
 of his fire, and in the battery the remaining
 
 232 FRONT LINES 
 
 gunners busied themselves in preparation for 
 the move. The digging party were away all 
 the afternoon, all night, and on through the 
 next day. Their troubles and tribulations 
 don't come into this story, but from all they 
 had to say afterwards they were real and 
 plentiful enough. 
 
 Towards dusk a scribbled note came back 
 from the Battery Commander at the new 
 position to the officer left in charge with the 
 guns, and the officer sent the orderly straight 
 on down with it to the Sergeant-Ma j or with 
 a message to send word back for the teams to 
 move up. 
 
 ''All ready here," said the Battery Com- 
 mander's note. "Bring up the guns and fir- 
 ing battery waggons as soon as you can. I'll 
 meet you on the way. ' ' 
 
 The Sergeant-Major glanced through the 
 note and shouted for the Numbers One, the 
 sergeants in charge of each gun. He had al- 
 ready arranged with the officer exactly what 
 was to be done when the order came, and now 
 he merely repeated his orders rapidly to the 
 sergeants and told them to ' ' get on with it. ' '
 
 BRING UP THE GUNS 233 
 
 When the Lieutenant came along five minutes 
 after, muffled to the ears in a wet mackintosh, 
 he found the gunners hard at work. 
 
 ''I started in to pull the sandbags clear, 
 sir," reported the Sergeant-Major. "Right 
 you are, ' ' said the Lieutenant. ' ' Then you 'd 
 better put the double detachments on to pull 
 one gun out and then the other. We must 
 man-handle 'em back clear of the trench 
 ready for the teams to hook in when they 
 come along." 
 
 For the next hour every man, from 
 the Lieutenant and Sergeant-Major down, 
 sweated and hauled and slid and floundered 
 in slippery mud and water, dragging gun 
 after gun out of its pit and back a half-dozen 
 yards clear. It was quite dark when they 
 were ready, and the teams splashed up and 
 swung round their guns. A fairly heavy 
 bombardment was carrying steadily on along 
 the line, the sky winked and blinked and 
 flamed in distant and near flashes of gun fire, 
 and the air trembled to the vibrating roar 
 and sudden thunder-claps of their discharge, 
 the whine and moan and shriek of the flying
 
 234 FEONT LINES 
 
 shells. No shells had fallen near the battery 
 position for some little time, but, unfortu- 
 nately, just after the teams had arrived, a 
 German battery chose to put over a series of 
 five-point-nines unpleasantly close. The 
 drivers sat, motionless blotches of shadow 
 against the flickering sky, while the gunners 
 strained and heaved on wheels and drag-ropes 
 to bring the trails close enough to slip on 
 the hooks. A shell dropped with a crash about 
 fifty yards short of the battery and the 
 pieces flew whining and whistling over the 
 heads of the men and horses. Two more 
 swooped down out of the sky with a rising 
 wail-rush-roar of sound that appeared to be 
 bringing the shells straight down on top of 
 the workers' heads. Some ducked and 
 crouched close to earth, and both shells 
 passed just over and fell in leaping gusts of 
 flame and ground-shaking crashes beyond 
 the teams. Again the fragments hissed and 
 whistled past and lumps of earth and mud 
 fell spattering and splashing and thumping 
 over men and guns and teams. A driver 
 yelped suddenly, the horses in another team
 
 BRING UP THE GUNS 235 
 
 snorted and plunged, and then out of the thick 
 darkness that seemed to shut down after the 
 searing light of the shell-burst flames came 
 sounds of more plunging hoofs, a driver's 
 voice cursing angrily, thrashings and splash- 
 ings and stamping. "Horse down here . . . 
 bring a light . . . whoa, steady, boy . . . 
 Where's that light?" 
 
 Three minutes later : ' ' Horse killed, driver 
 wounded in the arm, sir," reported the Ser- 
 geant-Ma j or. "Eiding leader Number Two 
 gun, and centre driver of its waggon. ' ' 
 
 ''Those spare horses near?" said the Lieu- 
 tenant quickly. ' ' Eight. Call up a pair ; put 
 'em in lead ; put the odd driver waggon cen- 
 tre." 
 
 Before the change was completed and the 
 dead horse dragged clear, the first gun was 
 reported hooked on and ready to move, and 
 was given the order to "Walk march" and 
 pull out on the wrecked remnant of a road 
 that ran behind the position. Another group 
 of five-nines came over before the others were 
 ready, and still the drivers and teams waited
 
 236 FRONT LINES 
 
 motionless for the clash that told of the trail- 
 eye dropping on the hook. 
 
 ''Get to it, gunners," urged the Sergeant- 
 Major, as he saw some of the men instinc- 
 tively stop and crouch to the yell of the ap- 
 proaching shell. "Time we were out of this." 
 
 "Hear, bloomin' hear," drawled one of 
 the shadowy drivers. "An' if you wants to 
 go to bed, Lanky" — to one of the crouching 
 gunners — "just lemme get this gun away 
 fust, an' then you can curl up in that blanky 
 shell- 'ole." 
 
 There were no more casualties getting out, 
 but one gun stuck in a shell-hole and took the 
 united eiforts of the team and as many gun- 
 ners as could crowd on to the wheels and 
 drag-ropes to get it moving and out on to 
 the road. Then slowly, one by one, with a 
 gunner walking and swinging a lighted lamp 
 at the head of each team, the guns moved off 
 along the pitted road. It was no road really, 
 merely a wheel-rutted track that wound in 
 and out the biggest shell-holes. The smaller 
 ones were ignored, simply because there were 
 too many of them to steer clear of, and into
 
 BRING UP THE GUNS 237 
 
 them the limber and gun wheels dropped 
 bumping, and were hauled out by sheer team 
 and man power. 
 
 It took four solid hours to cover less than 
 half a mile of sodden, spongy, pulpy, wet 
 ground, riddled with shell-holes, swimming 
 in greasy mud and water. The ground they 
 covered was peopled thick with all sorts of 
 men who passed or crossed their way singly, 
 in little groups, in large parties — wounded, 
 hobbling wearily or being carried back, par- 
 ties stumbling and fumbling a way up to some 
 vague point ahead with rations and ammu- 
 nition on pack animals and pack-men, the 
 remnants of a battalion coming out crusted 
 from head to foot in slimy wet mud, bowed 
 under the weight of their packs and kits and 
 arms; empty anununition waggons and lim- 
 bers lurching and bumping back from the 
 gun-line, the horses staggering and slipping, 
 the drivers struggling to hold them on their 
 feet, to guide the wheels clear of the worst 
 holes; a string of pack-mules filing past, 
 their drivers dismounted and leading, and 
 men and mules ploughing anything up to knee
 
 238 FRONT LINES 
 
 depth in the mud, flat pannier-pouches swing- 
 ing and jerking on the animals' sides, the 
 brass tops of the 18-pounder shell-cases wink- 
 ing and gleaming faintly in the flickering 
 lights of the gun flashes. 
 
 But of all these fellow wayfarers over the 
 battle-field the battery drivers and gunners 
 were hardly conscious. Their whole minds 
 were so concentrated on the effort of holding 
 and guiding and urging on their horses round 
 or over the obstacle of the moment, a deeper 
 and more sticky patch than usual, an extra 
 large hole, a shattered tree stump, a dead 
 horse, the wreck of a broken-down waggon, 
 that they had no thought for anything out- 
 side these. The gunners were constantly em- 
 ployed manning the wheels and heaving on 
 them with cracking muscles, hooking on drag- 
 ropes to one gun and hauling it clear of a 
 hole, unhooking and going floundering back 
 to hook on to another and drag it in turn 
 out of its difficulty. 
 
 The Battery Commander met them at a bad 
 dip wh^re the track degenerated frankly into 
 a mud bath — and how he found or kept the
 
 BRING UP THE GUNS 239 
 
 track or ever discovered them in that aching 
 wilderness is one of the mysteries of war and 
 the ways of Battery Commanders. It took 
 another two hours, two mud-soaked night- 
 mare hours, to come through that next hun- 
 dred yards. It was not only that the mud 
 was deep and holding, but the slough was 
 so soft at bottom that the horses had no foot- 
 hold, could get no grip to haul on, could little 
 more than drag their own weight through, 
 much less pull the guns. The teams were 
 doubled, the double team taking one gun or 
 waggon through, and then going back for the 
 other. The waggons were emptied of their 
 shell and filled again on the other side of the 
 slough; and this you will remember meant 
 the gunners carrying the rounds across a 
 couple at a time, wading and floundering 
 through mud over their knee-boot tops, re- 
 placing the shells in the vehicle, and wading 
 back for another couple. In addition to this 
 they had to haul guns and waggons through 
 practically speaking by man-power, because 
 the teams, almost exhausted by the work and 
 with little more than strength to get them-
 
 240 FRONT LINES 
 
 selves through, gave bare assistance to the 
 pull. The wheels, axle deep in the soft mud, 
 were hauled round spoke by spoke, heaved 
 and yo-hoed forward inches at a time. 
 
 When at last all were over, the teams had 
 to be allowed a brief rest — brief because the 
 guns must be in position and under cover be- 
 fore daylight came — and stood dejectedly 
 with hanging ears, heaving flanks, and trem- 
 bling legs. The gunners dropped prone or 
 squatted almost at the point of exhaustion in 
 the mud. But they struggled up, and the 
 teams strained forward into the breast col- 
 lars again when the word was given, and the 
 weary procession trailed on at a jerky snail's 
 pace once more. 
 
 As they at last approached the new posi- 
 tion the gun flashes on the horizon were turn- 
 ing from orange to primrose, and although 
 there was no visible lightening of the eastern 
 sky, the drivers were sensible of a faintly re- 
 covering use of their eyes, could see the dim 
 shapes of the riders just ahead of them, the 
 black shadows of the holes, and the wet shine 
 of the mud under their horses' feet.
 
 BRING UP THE GUNS 241 
 
 The hint of dawn set the guns on both sides 
 to work with trebled energy. The new posi- 
 tion was one of many others so closely set 
 that the blazing jflames from the gun muz- 
 zles seemed to run out to right and left in a 
 spouting wall of fire that leaped and van- 
 ished, leaped and vanished without ceasing, 
 while the loud ear-splitting claps from the 
 nearer guns merged and ran out to the flanks 
 in a deep drum roll of echoing thunder. The 
 noise was so great and continuous that it 
 drowned even the roar of the German shells 
 passing overhead, the smash and crump of 
 their fall and burst. 
 
 But the line of flashes sparkling up and 
 down across the front beyond the line of our 
 own guns told a plain enough tale of the 
 German guns' work. The Sergeant-Major, 
 plodding along beside the Battery Comman- 
 der, grunted an exclamation. 
 
 *'Boche is getting busy,'' said the Battery 
 Commander. 
 
 *' Putting a pretty solid barrage down, isn't 
 he, sir?" said the Sergeant-Major. **Can 
 we get the teams through that?"
 
 242 FRONT LINES 
 
 **Not mucli hope," said the Battery Com- 
 mander, ''but, thank Heaven, we don't have 
 to try, if he keeps barraging there. It is be- 
 yond our position. There are the gun-pits 
 just off to the left." 
 
 But, although the barrage was out in front 
 of the position, there were a good many long- 
 ranged shells coming beyond it to fall spout- 
 ing fire and smoke and earth-clods on and 
 behind the line of guns. The teams were 
 flogged and lifted and spurred into a last 
 desperate effort, wrenched the guns forward 
 the last hundred yards and halted. Instantly 
 they were unhooked, turned round, and 
 started stumbling wearily back towards the 
 rear; the gunners, reinforced by others 
 scarcely less dead-beat than themselves by 
 their night of digging in heavy wet soil, seized 
 the guns and waggons, flung their last ounce 
 of strength and energy into man-handling 
 them up and into the pits. Two unlucky 
 shells at that moment added heavily to the 
 night's casualty list, one falling beside the 
 retiring teams and knocking out half a dozen 
 horses and two men, another dropping
 
 BRING UP THE GUNS 243 
 
 within a score of yards of the gun-pits, killing 
 three and wounding four gunners. Later, 
 at intervals, two more gunners were wounded 
 by flying splinters from chance shells that 
 continued to drop near the pits as the guns 
 were laboriously dragged through the quag- 
 mire into their positions. But none of the 
 casualties, none of the falls and screamings 
 of the high-explosive shells, interrupted or 
 delayed the work, and without rest or pause 
 the men struggled and toiled on until the 
 last gun was safely housed in its pit. 
 
 Then the battery cooks served out warm 
 tea, and the men drank greedily, and after, 
 too worn out to be hungry or to eat the bis- 
 cuit and cheese ration issued, flung them- 
 selves down in the pits under and round 
 their guns and slept there in the trampled 
 mud. 
 
 The Sergeant-Major was the last to lie 
 down. Only after everyone else had ceased 
 work, and he had visited each gun in turn 
 and satisfied himself that all was correct, and 
 made his report to the Battery Commander,
 
 244 FRONT LINES 
 
 did he seek his own rest. Then he crawled 
 into one of the pits, and before he slept had 
 a few words with the "Number One" there, 
 his old friend Duncan. The Sergeant-Major, 
 feeling in his pockets for a match to light a 
 cigarette, found the note which the Battery 
 Commander had sent back and which had 
 been passed on to him. He turned his torch- 
 light on it and read it through to Duncan — 
 ''Bring up the guns and firing battery wag- 
 gons ..." and then chuckled a little. ''Bring 
 up the guns. . . . Eemember that picture we 
 saw before we joined, Duncan! And we fan- 
 cied then we'd be bringing 'em up same fash- 
 ion. And, good Lord, think of to-night." 
 
 "Yes," grunted Duncan, "sad slump from 
 our anticipations. There was some fun in 
 that picture style of doing the job — some sort 
 of dash and honour and glory. No honour 
 and glory about 'Bring up the guns' these 
 days. Napoo in it to-night anyway." 
 
 The Sergeant-Major, sleepily sucking his 
 damp cigarette, wrapped in his sopping Brit- 
 ish Warm, curling up in a corner on the wet
 
 BRING UP THE GUNS 245 
 
 cold earth, utterly spent with the night's 
 work, cordially agreed. 
 
 Perhaps, and anyhow one hopes, some peo- 
 ple will think they were wrong.
 
 XI7 
 
 OUR BATTERY'S PRISONER 
 
 It was in the very small hours of a misty 
 grey morning that the Lieutenant was re- 
 lieved at the Forward Observing Position in 
 the extreme front line established after the 
 advance, and set out with his Signaller to re- 
 turn to the Battery. His way took him over 
 the captured ground and the maze of cap- 
 tured trenches and dug-outs more or less de- 
 stroyed by bombardment, and because there 
 were still a number of German shells coming 
 over the two kept as nearly as possible to a 
 route which led them along or close to the old 
 trenches, and so under or near some sort of 
 cover. 
 
 The two were tired after a strenuous day, 
 which had commenced the previous dawn in 
 the Battery O.P.,^ and finished in the ruined 
 building in the new front line, and a couple 
 
 * Observation Post. 
 246
 
 OUR BATTERY'S PRISONER 247 
 
 of hours* sleep in a very cold and wet cellar. 
 The Lieutenant, plodding over the wet 
 ground, went out of his way to walk along 
 a part of trench where his Battery had been 
 wire-cutting, and noted with a natural pro- 
 fessional interest and curiosity the nature 
 and extent of the damage done to the old 
 enemy trenches and wire, when his eye sud- 
 denly caught the quick movement of a shad- 
 owy grey figure, which whisked instantly out 
 of sight somewhere along the trench they 
 were in. 
 
 The Lieutenant halted abruptly. "Did 
 you see anyone move?" he asked the Sig- 
 naller, who, of course, being behind the officer 
 in the trench, had seen nothing, and said so. 
 They pushed along the trench, and, coming to 
 the spot where the figure had vanished, 
 found the opening to a dug-out with a long 
 set of stairs vanishing down into the dark- 
 ness. Memories stirred in the officer's mind 
 of tales about Germans who had "lain 
 doggo" in ground occupied by us, and had, 
 over a buried wire, kept in touch with their 
 batteries and directed their fire on to our new
 
 248 FRONT LINES 
 
 positions, and this, with some vague instinct 
 of the chase, prompted the decision he an- 
 nounced to his Signaller that he was ''going 
 down to have a look." 
 
 "Better be careful, sir," said the Signaller. 
 ''You don't know if the gas has cleared out of 
 a deep place like that." This was true, be- 
 cause a good deal of gas had been sent over 
 in the attack of the day before, and the offi- 
 cer began to wonder if he'd be a fool to go 
 down. But, on the other hand, if a German 
 was there he would know there was no gas, 
 and, anyhow, it was a full day since the gas 
 cloud went over. He decided to chance it. 
 
 **You want to look out for any Boshies 
 down there, sir," went on the Signaller. 
 *'With all these yarns they're fed with, about 
 us killin' prisoners, you never know how 
 they're goin' to take it, and whether they'll 
 kamerad or make a fight for it." 
 
 This also was true, and since a man crawl- 
 ing down a steep and narrow stair made a 
 target impossible for anyone shooting up 
 the tunnel to miss, the Lieutenant began to 
 wish himself out of the job. But something.
 
 OUR BATTERY'S PRISONER 249 
 
 partly obstinacy, perhaps partly an nnwill- 
 ingness to back down after saying he would 
 go, made him carry on. But before he started 
 he took the precaution to push a sandbag off 
 where it lay on the top step, to roll bumping 
 and flopping down the stairs. If the Boche 
 had any mind to shoot, he argued to himself, 
 he'd almost certainly shoot at the sound, since 
 it was too dark to see. The sandbag bumped 
 down into silence, while the two stood strain- 
 ing their ears for any sound. There was 
 none. 
 
 "You wait here," said the Lieutenant, and, 
 with his cocked pistol in his hand, began to 
 creep cautiously down the stairs. The pas- 
 sage was narrow, and so low that he almost 
 filled it, even although he was bent nearly 
 double, and as he went slowly down, the dis- 
 comforting thought again presented itself 
 with renewed clearness, how impossible it 
 would be for a shot up the steps to miss him, 
 and again he very heartily wished himself 
 well out of the job. 
 
 It was a long stair, fully twenty-five to 
 thirty feet underground he reckoned by the
 
 250 FRONT LINES 
 
 time he reached the foot, but he found him- 
 self there and on roughly levelled ground 
 with a good deal of relief. Evidently the 
 Boche did not mean to show fight, at any rate, 
 until he knew he was discovered. The Lieu- 
 tenant knew no German, but made a try with 
 one word, putting as demanding a tone into 
 it as he could — ''Kamerad!" He had his 
 finger on the trigger and his pistol ready for 
 action as he spoke, in case a pot-shot came in 
 the direction of the sound of his voice. 
 
 There was a dead, a very dead and creepy 
 silence after his word had echoed and whis- 
 pered away to stillness. He advanced a step 
 or two, feeling carefully foot after foot, with 
 his left hand outstretched and the pistol in his 
 right still ready. The next thing was to try 
 a light. This would certainly settle it one 
 way or the other, because if anyone was there 
 who meant to shoot, he'd certainly loose off 
 at the light. 
 
 The Lieutenant took out his torch and held 
 it out from his body at full arm's length, to 
 give an extra chance of the bullet missing 
 him if it were shot at the light. He took a
 
 OUR BATTERY'S PRISONER 251 
 
 long breath, flicked the light on in one quick 
 flashing sweep round, and snapped it out 
 again. There was no shot, no sound, no 
 movement, nothing but that eerie stillness. 
 The light had given him a glimpse of a long 
 chamber vanishing into dimness. He ad- 
 vanced very cautiously a few steps, switched 
 the light on again, and threw the beam 
 quickly round the walls. There was no sign 
 of anyone, but he could see now that the long 
 chamber curved round and out of sight. 
 
 He switched the light off, stepped back to 
 the stair foot, and called the Signaller down, 
 hearing the clumping sound of the descending 
 footsteps and the man's voice with a child- 
 ish relief and sense of companionship. He 
 explained the position, threw the light boldly 
 on, and pushed along to where the room ran 
 round the corner. Here again he found no 
 sign of life, but on exploring right to the end 
 of the room found the apparent explanation 
 of his failure to discover the man he had 
 been so sure of finding down there. The 
 chamber was a long, narrow one, curved al- 
 most to an S-shape, and at the far end was
 
 252 FRONT LINES 
 
 another steep stair leading up to the trench. 
 The man evidently had escaped that way. 
 
 The dug-out was a large one, capable of 
 holding, the Lieutenant reckoned, quarters 
 for some thirty to forty men. It was hung 
 all round with greatcoats swinging against 
 the wall, and piled on shelves and hanging 
 from hooks along wall and roof were packs, 
 haversacks, belts, water-bottles, bayonets, and 
 all sorts of equipment. There were dozens of 
 the old leather "pickelhaube" helmets, and at 
 sight of these the Lieutenant remembered an 
 old compact made with the others in Mess 
 that if one of them got a chance to pick up any 
 helmets he should bring them in and divide 
 up. 
 
 **I*m going to take half a dozen of those 
 helmets," he said, uncocking his pistol and 
 pushing it into the holster. 
 
 ''Eight, sir," said the Signaller. *'I'd like 
 one, too, and we might pick up some good 
 sooveneers here." 
 
 "Just as well, now we are here, to see 
 what's worth having," said the Lieutenant.
 
 OUR BATTERY'S PRISONER 253 
 
 **I'd rather like to find a decent pair of field- 
 glasses, or a Mauser pistol." 
 
 He held the light while the Signaller hauled 
 down kits, shook out packs, and rummaged 
 round. For some queer reason they still 
 spoke in subdued tones and made little noise, 
 and suddenly the Lieutenant's ears caught a 
 sound that made him snap his torch off and 
 stand, as he confesses, with his skin pringling 
 and his hair standing on end. 
 
 "Did you hear anything!" he whispered. 
 The Signaller had stiffened to stock stillness 
 at his first instinctive start and the switching 
 off of the light, and after a long pause whis- 
 pered back, **No, sir; but mebbe you heard 
 a rat." 
 
 *'Hold your breath and listen," whispered 
 the Lieutenant. * * I thought I heard a sort of 
 choky cough." 
 
 He heard the indrawn breath and then dead 
 silence, and then again — once more the hair 
 stirred on his scalp — ^plain and unmistakable, 
 a sound of deep, slow breathing. ' ' Hear it ? " 
 he said very softly. ''Sound of breathing," 
 and '*Yes, believe I do now," answered the
 
 254 FRONT LINES 
 
 Signaller, after a pause. They stood there 
 in the darkness for a long minute, the Lieu- 
 tenant in his own heart cursing himself for 
 a fool not to have thoroughly searched the 
 place, to have made sure they would not be 
 trapped. 
 
 Especially he was a fool not to have looked 
 behind those great coats which practically 
 lined the walls and hung almost to the floor. 
 There might be a dozen men hidden behind 
 them ; there might be a door leading out into 
 another dug-out ; there might be rifles or pis- 
 tols covering them both at that second, fin- 
 gers pressing on the triggers. He was, to 
 put it bluntly, "scared stiff," as he says him- 
 self, but the low voice of the Signaller brought 
 him to the need of some action. *'I can't 
 hear it now, sir." 
 
 *'I'm going to turn the light on again," 
 he said. ''Have a quick look round, espe- 
 cially for any men's feet showing under the 
 coats round the wall. ' ' He switched his torch 
 on again, ran it round the walls, once, swiftly, 
 and then, seeing no feet under the coats, 
 slowly and deliberately yard by yard.
 
 OUR BATTERY'S PRISONER 255 
 
 **I'll swear I heard a man breathe," he 
 said positively, still peering round. "We'll 
 search the place properly." 
 
 In one corner near the stair foot lay a heap 
 of clothing of some sort, with a great-coat 
 spread wide over it. It caught the Lieuten- 
 ant's eye and suspicions. Why should coats 
 be heaped there — smooth — at full length? 
 
 Without moving his eyes from the pile, he 
 slid his automatic pistol out again, and 
 slipped off the safety catch. ''Keep the light 
 on those coats," he said, softly, and tip-toed 
 over to the pile, the pistol pointed, his finger 
 close and tight on the trigger. His heart was 
 thumping uncomfortably, and his nerves tight 
 as fiddle-strings. He felt sure somehow that 
 here was one man at least; and if he or any 
 others in the dug-out meant fight on discov- 
 ery, now, at any second, the first shot must 
 come. 
 
 He stooped over the coats and thrust the 
 pistol forward. If a man was there, had a 
 rifle or pistol ready pointed even, at least he, 
 the Lieutenant, ought to get off a shot with 
 equal, or a shade greater quickness. With his
 
 256 FRONT LINES 
 
 left hand he picked up the coat comer, turned 
 it back, and jerked the pistol forward and 
 fairly under the nose of the head his move- 
 ment had disclosed. ''Lie still," he said, not 
 knowing or caring whether the man under- 
 stood or not, and for long seconds stood star- 
 ing down on the white face and into the fright- 
 ened eyes that looked unblinking up at him. 
 
 ''Kamerad," whispered the man, still as 
 death under the threat of that pistol muzzle 
 and the finger curled about the trigger. 
 "Eight," said the Lieutenant. ''Kamerad. 
 Now, very gently, hands up," and again, 
 slowly and clearly, ''Hands up." The man 
 understood, and the Lieutenant, watching like 
 a hawk for a suspicious movement, for sign 
 of a weapon appearing, waited while the 
 hands came slowly creeping up and out from 
 under the coat. His nerves were still on a 
 raw edge — perhaps because long days of ob- 
 serving in the front lines or with the battery 
 while the guns are going their hardest in a 
 heavy night-and-day bombardment are not 
 conducive to steadiness of nerves — but, satis- 
 fied at last that the man meant to play no
 
 OUR BATTERY'S PRISONER 257 
 
 tricks, he flung the coat back off him, made 
 him stand with his hands up, and ran his left 
 hand over breast and pockets for feel of any 
 weapon. That done, he stepped back with a 
 sigh of relief. ''Phew! I beheve I was just 
 about as cold scared as he was," he said. 
 ''D'you speak English? No. Well, I sup- 
 pose you'll never know how close to death 
 you've been the last minute." 
 
 *'I was a bit jumpy, too, sir," said the Sig- 
 naller. ''You never know, and it doesn't do 
 to take chances wi' these chaps." 
 
 "I wasn't," said the Lieutenant. "I be- 
 lieve, if I'd seen a glint of metal as his hands 
 came up, I'd have blown the top of his blessed 
 head off. Pity he can't speak English." 
 
 "Mans," said the prisoner, nodding his 
 head towards the other end of the dug-out. 
 "Oder mans." 
 
 The Lieutenant whipped round with a 
 startled exclamation. "What, more of 'em. 
 G' Lord ! I've had about enough of this. But 
 we'd better make all safe. Come on, Fritz; 
 lead us to 'em. No monkey tricks, now," and 
 he pushed his pistol close to the German's
 
 258 FRONT LINES 
 
 flinching head. ''Oder mans, kamerad, ehl 
 Savvy! '» 
 
 **Ge-wounded," said the prisoner, making 
 signs to help his meaning. Under his guid- 
 ance and with the pistol close to his ear all 
 the time, they pulled aside some of the coats 
 and found a man lying in a bunk hidden be- 
 hind them. His head was tied up in a soak- 
 ing bandage, the rough pillow was wet with 
 blood, and by all the signs he was pretty badly 
 hit. The Lieutenant needed no more than a 
 glance to see the man was past being danger- 
 ous, so, after making the prisoner give him 
 a drink from a water-bottle, they went round 
 the walls, and found it recessed all the way 
 round with empty bunks. 
 
 "What a blazing ass I was not to hunt 
 rounrl," said the Lieutenant, puffing another 
 sigh of relief as they finished the jumpy busi- 
 ness of pulling aside coat after coat, and 
 never knowing whether the movement of any 
 one of them was going to bring a muzzle-close 
 shot from the blackness behind. "We must 
 get out of this, though. It's growing late,
 
 OUR BATTERY'S PRISONER 259 
 
 and the Battery will be wondering and think- 
 ing we've got pipped on the way back." 
 
 ''What about these things, sir?" said the 
 Signaller, pointing to the helmets and equip- 
 ment they had hauled down. 
 
 ''Right," said the Lieutenant; "I'm cer- 
 tainly not going without a souvenir of this 
 entertainment. And I don't see why Brother 
 Fritz oughtn't to make himself useful. Here, 
 spread that big ground-sheet " 
 
 So it came about that an hour after a pro- 
 cession tramped back through the lines of the 
 infantry and on to the gun lines — one Ger- 
 man, with a huge ground-sheet, gathered at 
 the corners and bulging with souvenirs, slung 
 over his shoulder, the Lieutenant close be- 
 hind him with an automatic at the ready, and 
 the Signaller, wearing a huge grin, and with 
 a few spare helmets slung to his haversack 
 strap. 
 
 "I thought I'd fetch him right along," the 
 Lieutenant explained a little later to the O.C. 
 Battery. ' ' Seeing the Battery 's never had a 
 prisoner to its own cheek, I thought one might 
 please 'em. And, besides, I wanted him to
 
 260 FRONT LINES 
 
 lug the loot along. IVe got full outfits for 
 the mess this time, helmets and rifles and 
 bayonets and all sorts." 
 
 The Battery were pleased. The Gunners 
 don't often have the chance to take prisoners, 
 and this one enjoyed all the popularity of a 
 complete novelty. He was taken to the men's 
 dug-out, and fed with a full assignment of 
 rations, from bacon and tea to jam and cheese, 
 while the men in turn cross-questioned him by 
 the aid of an English-French-German phrase- 
 book unearthed by some studious gunner. 
 
 And when he departed under escort to be 
 handed over and join the other prisoners, the 
 Battery watched him go with complete regret. 
 
 *'To tell the truth, sir," the Sergeant- 
 Major remarked to the Lieutenant, ''the men 
 would like to have kept him as a sort of Bat- 
 tery Souvenir — ^kind of a cross between a 
 mascot and a maid-of-all-work. Y'see, it's 
 not often — in fact, I don't know that we're 
 not the first Field Battery in this war to bring 
 in a prisoner wi' arms, kit, and equipment 
 complete. ' ' 
 
 ''The first battery," said the Lieutenant
 
 OUR BATTERY'S PRISONER 261 
 
 fervently, ''and when I think of that minute 
 down a deep hole in pitch dark, hearing some- 
 one breathe, and not knowing— well, we may 
 be the first battery, and, as far as I'm con- 
 cerned, we'll jolly well be the last."
 
 xv; 
 
 OUR TURN 
 
 No. II platoon had had a bad mauling in their 
 advance, and when they reached their *' final 
 objective line" there were left out of the 
 ninety-odd men who had started, one ser- 
 geant, one corporal, and fourteen men. But, 
 with the rest of the line, they at once set to 
 work to consolidate, to dig in, to fill the sand- 
 bags each man carried, and to line the lip of 
 a shell crater with them. Every man there 
 knew that a counter-attack on their position 
 was practically a certainty. They had not a 
 great many bombs or very much ammunition 
 left; they had been struggling through a 
 wilderness of sticky mud and shell-churned 
 mire all day, moving for all the world like 
 flies across a half-dry fly-paper; they had 
 been without food since dawn, when they had 
 consumed the bully and biscuit of their iron 
 ''ration"; they were plastered with a casing 
 
 262
 
 OUR TURN 263 
 
 of chilly mud from head to foot; they were 
 wet to the skin ; brain, body, and bone weary. 
 
 But they went about the task of consolidat- 
 ing with the greatest vigour they could bring 
 their tired muscles to yield. They worried 
 not at all about the shortage of bombs and 
 ammunition, or lack of food, because they 
 were all by now veterans of the new 
 ''planned" warfare, knew that every detail 
 of re-supplying them with all they required 
 had been fully and carefully arranged, that 
 these things were probably even now on the 
 way to them, that reinforcements and work- 
 ing parties would be pushed up to the new 
 line as soon as it was established. So the 
 Sergeant was quite willing to leave all that 
 to work out in its proper sequence, knew that 
 his simple job was to hold the ground they 
 had taken, and, therefore, bent all his mind 
 to that work. 
 
 But it suddenly appeared that the ground 
 was not as completely taken as he had sup- 
 posed. A machine-gun close at hand began 
 to bang out a string of running reports; a 
 stream of bullets hissed and whipped and
 
 264 FRONT LINES 
 
 smacked the ground about him and his party. 
 A spasmodic crackle of rifle-fire started again 
 farther along the line at the same time. The 
 Sergeant paid no heed to that. He and his 
 men had flung down into cover, and dropped 
 spades and trenching tools and sandbags, and 
 whipped up their rifles to return the fire, at 
 the first sound of the machine-gun. 
 
 The Sergeant peered over the edge of the 
 hole he was in, locating a bobbing head or 
 two and the spurting flashes of the gun, and 
 ducked down again. ''They're in a shell-hole 
 not more'n twenty, thirty yards away," he 
 said rapidly. "Looks like only a handful. 
 
 We'll rush 'em out. Here " and he went 
 
 on into quick detailed orders for the rushing. 
 Three minutes later he and his men swarmed 
 out of their shelter and went forward at a 
 scrambling run, the bombers flinging a shower 
 of grenades ahead of them, the bayonet men 
 floundering over the rough ground with 
 weapons at the ready, the Sergeant well in 
 the lead. 
 
 Their sudden and purposeful rush must 
 have upset the group of Germans, because the
 
 OUR TURN 265 
 
 machine-gun fire for a moment became er- 
 ratic, the muzzle jerked this way and that, 
 the bullets whistled wide, and during that 
 same vital moment no bombs were thrown by 
 the Germans ; and when at last they did begin 
 to come spinning out, most of them went too 
 far, and the runners were well over them be- 
 fore they had time to explode. In another 
 moment the Sergeant leaped down fairly on 
 top of the machine-gun, his bayonet thrust- 
 ing through the gunner as he jumped. He 
 shot a second and bayoneted a third, had his 
 shoulder-strap blown away by a rifle at no 
 more than muzzle distance, his sleeve and his 
 haversack ripped open by a bayonet thrust. 
 
 Then his men swarmed down into the wide 
 crater, and in two minutes the fight was over. 
 There were another few seconds of rapid fire 
 at two or three of the Germans who had 
 jumped out and run for their lives, and that 
 finished the immediate performance. The 
 Sergeant looked round, climbed from the hole, 
 and made a hasty examination of the ground 
 about them. 
 
 ** 'Tisn't as good a crater as we left," he
 
 266 FRONT LINES 
 
 said, ''an' it's 'way out front o' the line the 
 others is digging, so we'd best get back. Get 
 a hold o' that machine-gun an' all the spare 
 ammunition you can lay hands on. We might 
 find it come in useful. Good job we had the 
 way a Fritz gun works shown us once. Come 
 on." 
 
 The men hastily collected all the ammuni- 
 tion they could find and were moving back, 
 when one of them, standing on the edge of the 
 hole, remarked: "We got the top o' the 
 ridge all right this time. Look at the open 
 flat down there." 
 
 The Sergeant turned and looked, and an ex- 
 clamation broke from him at sight of the view 
 over the ground beyond the ridge. Up to now 
 that ground had been hidden by a haze of 
 smoke from the bursting shells where our 
 barrage was pounding steadily down. But 
 for a minute the smoke had lifted or blown 
 aside, and the Sergeant found himself look- 
 ing down the long slope of a valley with gently 
 swelling sides, looking right down on to the 
 plain below the ridge. He scanned the lie of 
 the ground rapidly, and in an instant had
 
 OUR TURN 267 
 
 made up his mind. ''Hold on there, '^ he or- 
 dered abrnptly; ''we'll dig in here instead. 
 Sling that machine-gun back in here and 
 point her out that way. You, Lees, get 'er 
 into action, and rip out a few rounds just to 
 see you got the hang o' it. Heave those dead 
 Boches out; an', Corporal, you nip back with 
 half a dozen men and fetch along the tools and 
 sandbags we left there. Slippy now." 
 
 The Corporal picked his half-dozen men 
 and vanished, and the Sergeant whipped out 
 a message-book and began to scribble a note. 
 Before he had finished the rifle-fire began to 
 rattle down along the line again, and he thrust 
 the book in his pocket, picked up his rifle, and 
 peered out over the edge of the hole. "There 
 they go. Lees," he said suddenly. "Way 
 along there on the left front. Pump it into 
 'em. Don't waste rounds, though; we may 
 need 'em for our own front in a minute. 
 Come on. Corporal, get down in here. Looks 
 like the start o' a counter-attack, though I 
 don't see any of the blighters on our own 
 front. Here, you two, spade out a cut into 
 the next shell-hole there, so's to link 'em up.
 
 268 FRONT LINES 
 
 Steady that gun, Lees; don't waste 'em. Get 
 on to your sandbag-fillin ', the others, an' 
 make a bit o' a parapet this side." 
 
 *'We're a long ways out in front of the rest 
 o' the line, ain't we?" said the Corporal. 
 
 ''Yes, I know," said the Sergeant. ''I 
 want to send a message back presently. This 
 is the spot to hold, an' don't you forget it. 
 Just look down — hullo, here's our barrage 
 droppin' again. Well, it blots out the view, 
 but it'll be blottin' out any Germs that try to 
 
 push us ; so hit 'er up, the Gunners. But " 
 
 He broke off suddenly, and stared out into 
 the writhing haze of smoke in front of them. 
 ''Here they come," he said sharply. "Now, 
 Lees, get to it. Stand by, you bombers. 
 Range three hundred the rest o' you, an' fire 
 steady. Pick your marks. We got no rounds 
 to waste. Now, then " 
 
 The rifles began to bang steadily, then at 
 a rapidly increasing rate as the fire failed to 
 stop the advance, and more dim figures after 
 figures came looming up hazily and emerging 
 from the smoke. The machine-gunner held 
 his fire until he could bring his sights on a
 
 OUR TURN 269 
 
 little group, fired in short bursts with a side- 
 ways twitch that sprayed the bullets out fan- 
 wise as they went. The rifle-fire out to right 
 and left of them, and almost behind them, 
 swelled to a long, rolling beat with the tattoo 
 of machine-guns rapping through it in gusts, 
 the explosions of grenades rising and falling 
 in erratic bursts. 
 
 Farther back, the guns were hard at it 
 again, and the shells were screaming and 
 rushing overhead in a ceaseless torrent, the 
 shrapnel to blink a star of flame from the 
 heart of a smoke-cloud springing out in mid- 
 air, the high explosive crashing down in pon- 
 derous bellowings, up-flung vivid splashes of 
 fire and spouting torrents of smoke, flying 
 mud and earth clods. There were German 
 shells, too, shrieking over, and adding their 
 share to the indescribable uproar, crashing 
 down along the line, and spraying out in cir- 
 cles of fragments, the smaller bits whistling 
 and whizzing viciously, the larger hurtling 
 and humming like monster bees. 
 
 ''Them shells of ours is comin' down a 
 sight too close to us, Sergeant," yelled the
 
 270 FRONT LINES 
 
 Corporal, glancing up as a shrapnel shell 
 cracked sharply almost overhead and sprayed 
 its bullets, scattering and splashing along the 
 wet ground out in front of them. 
 
 ''All right — it's shrap," the Sergeant 
 yelled back. ''Bullets is pitchin' well for- 
 rad." 
 
 The Corporal swore and ducked hastily 
 from the wJiitt-wJiitt of a couple of bullets 
 past their ears. ' ' Them was from behind us, ' ' 
 he shouted. "We're too blazin' far out in 
 front o' the line here. Wot's the good '* 
 
 "Here," said the Sergeant to a man who 
 staggered back from the rough parapet, right 
 hand clutched on a blood-streaming left shoul- 
 der, "whip a field dressin' round that, an' try 
 an' crawl back to them behind us. Find an 
 officer, if you can, an' tell him we're out in 
 front of 'im. An' tell 'im I'm going to hang 
 on to the position we have here till my blanky 
 teeth pull out. ' ' 
 
 "Wot's the good " began the Corporal 
 
 again, ceasing fire to look round at the Ser- 
 geant. 
 
 "Never mind the good now," said the Ser-
 
 OUR TURN 271 
 
 geant shortly, as lie recharged his magazine. 
 ''You '11 see after — if we live long enough." 
 He levelled and aimed his rifle. "An' we 
 won't do that if you stand there" — (he fired 
 a shot and jerked the breech open) — "jawin' 
 instead" — (he slammed the breech-bolt home 
 and laid cheek to stock again) — ''o' shoot- 
 in' " ; and he snapped another shot. 
 
 On their own immediate front the attack 
 slackened, and died away, but along the line 
 a little the Sergeant's group could see a 
 swarm of men charging in. The Sergeant im- 
 mediately ordered the machine-gun and every 
 rifle to take the attackers in enfilade. For the 
 next few minutes every man shot as fast as 
 he could load and pull trigger, and the cap- 
 tured machine-gun banged and spat a steady 
 stream of fire. The Sergeant helped until he 
 saw tlie attack dying out again, its remnants 
 fading into the smoke haze. Then he pulled 
 his book out, and wrote his message: *'Am 
 holding crater position with captured ma- 
 chine-gun and eight men of No. 2 Platoon. 
 Good position, allowing enfilade fire on at- 
 tack, and with command of farther slopes.
 
 272 FRONT LINES 
 
 Urgently require men, ammunition, and 
 bombs, but will hold out to the finish." 
 
 He sent the note back by a couple of 
 wounded men, and set his party about 
 strengthening their position as far as pos- 
 sible. In ten minutes another attack com- 
 menced, and the men took up their rifles and 
 resumed their steady fire. But this time the 
 field-grey figures pressed in, despite the pour- 
 ing fire and the pounding shells, and, although 
 they were held and checked and driven to tak- 
 ing cover in shell-holes on the Sergeant's im- 
 mediate front, they were within grenade- 
 throwing distance there, and the German * ' po- 
 tato-masher" bombs and the British Mills' 
 began to twirl and curve over to and fro^ and 
 burst in shattering detonations. Three more 
 of the Sergeant's party were wounded inside 
 as many minutes, but every man who could 
 stand on his feet, well or wounded, rose at 
 the Sergeant's warning yell to meet the rush 
 of about a dozen men who swung aside from 
 a large group that had pressed in past their 
 flank. The rush was met by a few quick shots, 
 but the ammunition for the machine-gun had
 
 OUR TURN 273 
 
 run out, and of bombs even there were only a 
 few left. So, in the main, the rush was met 
 with the bayonet — and killed with it. The 
 Sergeant still held his crater, but now he had 
 only two unwounded men left to help him. 
 
 The Corporal, nursing a gashed cheek and 
 spitting mouthfuls of blood, shouted at him 
 again, ** Y' ain't goin' to try 'n hold on longer, 
 surely. We've near shot the last round 
 away. ' ' 
 
 ''I'll hold it," said the Sergeant grimly, 
 *'if I have to do it myself wi' my bare fists." 
 
 But he cast anxious looks behind, in hope of 
 a sight of reinforcements, and knew that if 
 they did not come before another rush he and 
 his party were done. His tenacity had its due 
 reward. Help did come — men and ammuni- 
 tion and bombs and a couple of machine-guns 
 — and not three minutes before the launching 
 of another attack. An officer was with the 
 party, and took command, but he was killed 
 inside the first minute, and the Sergeant again 
 took hold. 
 
 Again the attack was made all along the 
 line, and again, under the ferocious fire of the
 
 274 FRONT LINES 
 
 reinforced line, it was beaten back. The line 
 had at the last minute been hinged outward 
 behind the Sergeant, and so joined up with 
 him that it formed a sharpish angle, with the 
 Sergeant's crater at its point. The enfilade 
 fire of this forward-swung portion and the 
 two machine-guns in the crater did a good 
 deal to help cut down the main attack. 
 
 When it was well over, and the attack had 
 melted away, the Captain of the Sergeant's 
 Company pushed up into the crater. 
 
 * ' Who 's in charge here ? " he asked. ' * You, 
 Sergeant? Your note came back, and we sent 
 you help ; but you were taking a long risk out 
 here. Didn't you know you had pushed out 
 beyond your proper point? And why didn't 
 you retire when you found yourself in the 
 air?" 
 
 The Sergeant turned and pointed out where 
 the thinning smoke gave a view of the wide 
 open flats of the plain beyond the ridge. 
 
 **I got a look o' that, sir," he said, ''and I 
 just thought a commanding position like this 
 was worth sticking a lot to hang to." 
 
 ** Jove! and you were right," said the Cap-
 
 OUR TURN 275 
 
 tain, looking gloatingly on the flats, and went 
 on to add other and warmer words of praise. 
 
 But it was to his corporal, a little later, 
 that the Sergeant really explained his hang- 
 ing on to the point. 
 
 "Look at it!" he said enthusiastically; 
 "look at the view you get!" 
 
 The Corporal viewed dispassionately for a 
 moment the dreary expanse below, the shell- 
 churned morass and mud, wandering rivulets 
 and ditches, shell-wrecked fragments of farms 
 and buildings, the broken, bare-stripped poles 
 of trees. 
 
 "Bloomin' great, ain't it?" he mumbled 
 disgustedly, through his bandaged jaws. 
 "Fair beautiful. Makes you think you'd like 
 to come 'ere after the war an' build a 'ouse, 
 an' sit lookin' out on it always — ^I don't 
 think." 
 
 "Exactly what I said the second I saw it," 
 said the Sergeant, and chuckled happily. 
 "Only my house 'd be a nice little trench an' 
 a neat little dug-out, an' be for duration o' 
 war. Think o' it, man — just think o' this 
 winter, with us up here along the ridge, an'
 
 276 FRONT LINES 
 
 Fritz down in his trenches below there, up to 
 the middle in mud. Him cursin' Creation, 
 and strugglin' to pmnp his trenches out; and 
 us sitting nicely up here in the dry, snipin' 
 down in enfilade along his trench, and pump- 
 in' the water out of our trenches down on to 
 the flat to drown him out. ' ' 
 
 The Sergeant chuckled again, slapped his 
 hands together. ''I've been havin' that side 
 of it back in the salient there for best part o' 
 two years, off and on. Fritz has been up top, 
 keepin' his feet dry and watchin' us gettin' 
 shelled an' shot up an' minnie-werfered to 
 glory — squattin' up here, smokin' his pipe 
 an' takin' a pot-shot at us, and watchin' us 
 through his field-glasses, just as he felt like. 
 And now it's our turn. Don't let me hear 
 anybody talk about drivin' the Hun back for 
 miles from here. T don't want him to go 
 back ; I want him to sit down there the whole 
 dam winter, freezin' an' drownin' to death 
 ten times a day. Fritz isn't go in' to like that 
 — ^not any. I am, an' that's why I hung like 
 grim death to this look-out point. This is 
 where we come in; this is our turn!" 
 
 I
 
 XVI 
 
 ACCORDING TO PLAN 
 
 "Ratty" Teavers dropped his load with a 
 grunt of satisfaction, squatted down on the 
 ground, and tilting his shrapnel helmet back, 
 mopped a streaming brow. As the line in 
 which he had moved dropped to cover, an- 
 other line rose out of the ground ahead of 
 them and commenced to push forward. Some 
 distance beyond, a wave of kilted Highlanders 
 pressed on at a steady walk up to within about 
 fifty paces of the string of flickering, jump- 
 ing white patches that marked the edge of the 
 ''artillery barrage." 
 
 Ratty Travers and the others of the ma- 
 chine-gun company being in support had a 
 good view of the lines attacking ahead of 
 them. 
 
 ''Them Jocks is goin* along nicely," said 
 
 the man who had dropped beside Ratty. 
 
 Ratty grunted scornfully. "Beautiful," he 
 
 277
 
 278 FRONT LINES 
 
 said. *'An' we're doin' wonderful well our- 
 selves. I never remember gettin* over the No 
 Man's Land so easy, or seein' a trench took 
 so quick an' simple in my life as this one 
 we're in; or seein' a 'tillery barrage move so 
 nice an' even and steady to time." 
 
 ''You've seed a lot, Ratty," said his com- 
 panion. "But you ain't seed everything." 
 
 "That's true," said Ratty. "I've never 
 seen a lot o' grown men playin' let's-pretend 
 like a lot of school kids. Just look at that 
 fool wi' the big drum, Johnny." 
 
 Johnny looked and had to laugh. The man 
 with the big drum was lugging it off at the 
 double away from the kilted line, and strung 
 out to either side of him there raced a scat- 
 tered line of men armed with sticks and 
 biscuit-tins and empty cans. Ratty and his 
 companions were clothed in full fighting kit 
 and equipment, and bore boxes of very real 
 ammunition. In the "trenches" ahead of 
 them, or moving over the open, were other 
 men similarly equipped ; rolling back to them 
 came a clash and clatter, a dull prolonged 
 hoom-hoom-hoom. In every detail, so far as
 
 ACCORDING TO PLAN 279 
 
 the men were concerned, an attack was in full 
 swing; but there was no yell and crash of 
 falling shells, no piping whistle and sharp 
 crack of bullets, no deafening, shaking thun- 
 der of artillery (except that steady boom- 
 boom), no shell-scorched strip of battered 
 ground. The warm sun shone on trim green 
 fields, on long twisting lines of flags and tapes 
 strung on sticks, on ranks of perspiring men 
 in khaki with rifles and bombs and machine- 
 guns and ammunition and stretchers and all 
 the other accoutrements of battle. There 
 were no signs of death or wounds, none of the 
 horror of war, because this was merely a 
 '^practice attack," a full-dress rehearsal of 
 the real thing, full ten miles behind the front. 
 The trenches were marked out by flags and 
 tapes, the artillery barrage was a line of men 
 hammering biscuit-tins and a big drum, and 
 waving fluttering white flags. The kilts came 
 to a halt fifty paces short of them, and a mo- 
 ment later, the ** barrage" sprinted off ahead 
 one or two score yards, halted, and fell to 
 banging and battering tins and drum and 
 waving flags, while the kilts solemnly moved
 
 280 FRONT LINES 
 
 on after them, to halt again at their measured 
 distance until the next ''lift" of the ''bar- 
 rage." It looked sheer child's play, a silly 
 elaborate game; and yet there was no sign 
 of laughter or play about the men taking part 
 in it — except on the part of Ratty Travers. 
 Ratty was openly scornful. "Ready there," 
 said a sergeant rising and pocketing the note- 
 book he had been studying. ' ' We Ve only five 
 minutes in this trench. And remember you 
 move half- right when you leave here, an* the 
 next line o' flags is the sunk road wi' six 
 machine-gun emplacements along the edge." 
 
 Ratty chuckled sardonically. "I 'ope that 
 in the real thing them machine-guns won't 
 *ave nothing to say to us movin' half -right 
 across their front, ' ' he said. 
 
 "They've been strafed out wi' the guns," 
 said Johnny simply, "an' the Jocks 'as 
 mopped up any that's left. We was told that 
 yesterday." 
 
 "I dare say," retorted Ratty. "An' I 
 hopes the Huns 'ave been careful instructed 
 in the same. It 'ud be a pity if they went an' 
 did anything to spoil all the plans. But they
 
 ACCORDING TO PLAN 281 
 
 wouldn't do that. Oh, no, of course not — I 
 don't think!" 
 
 He had a good deal more to say in the same 
 strain — ^with especially biting criticism on the 
 '' artillery barrage" and the red-faced big 
 drummer who played lead in it^ — during the 
 rest of the practice and at the end of it when 
 they lay in their *' final objective" and rested, 
 smoking and cooling off with the top buttons 
 of tunics undone, while the officers gathered 
 round the CO. and listened to criticism and 
 made notes in their books. 
 
 ''I'll admit," he said, ''they might plan out 
 the trenches here the same as the ones we're 
 to attack from. It's this rot o' layin' out the 
 Fritz trenches gets me. An' this attack — it's 
 about as like a real attack as my gasper's like 
 a machine-gun. Huh ! Wi' one bloke clockin' 
 you on a stop-watch, an' another countin' the 
 paces between the trenches — Boche trenches a 
 mile behind their front line, mind you — an' 
 another whackin' a big drum like a kid in a 
 nursery. An' all this 'Go steady here, this is 
 a sharp rise,' or 'hurry this bit, 'cos most 
 likely it'll be open to enfiladin' machine-gun
 
 282 FRONT LINES 
 
 fire,' or 'this here's the sunk road wi' six 
 machine-gun emplacements.' Huh! Plunky 
 rot I calls it. " 
 
 The others heard him in silence or with 
 mild chaffing replies. Ratty was new to this 
 planned-attack game, of course, but since he 
 had been out and taken his whack of the early 
 days, had been wounded, and home, and only 
 lately had come out again, he was entitled to 
 a certain amount of excusing. 
 
 Johnny summed it up for them. ''We've 
 moved a bit since the Noove Chapelle days, 
 you know," he said. "You didn't have no 
 little lot like this then, did you?" jerking his 
 head at the bristling line of their machine- 
 guns. ''An' you didn't have creepin' bar- 
 rages, an' more shells than you could fire, eh? 
 Used to lose seventy an' eighty per cent, o' 
 the battalion's strength goin' over the bags 
 them days, didn't you? Well, we've changed 
 that a bit, thank Gawd. You'll see the differ 
 presently." 
 
 Later on Ratty had to admit a considerable 
 "differ" and a great improvement on old 
 ways. He and his company moved up towards
 
 ACCORDING TO PLAN 283 
 
 the front leisurely and certainly, without 
 haste and without confusion, having the or- 
 ders detailed overnight for the next day's 
 march, finding meals cooked and served reg- 
 ularly, travelling by roads obviously known 
 and "detailed" for them, coming at night to 
 camp or billet places left vacant for them 
 immediately before, finding everything 
 planned and prepared, foreseen and provided 
 for. But, although he admitted all this, he 
 stuck to his belief that beyond the front line 
 this carefully-planned moving must cease 
 abruptly. ''It'll be the same plunky old 
 scramble an ' scrap, I '11 bet, ' ' he said. ' ' We '11 
 see then if all the Fritz trenches is just where 
 we've fixed 'em, an' if we runs to a regular 
 time-table and follows the laid-down route 
 an ' first-turn-to -the-right-an '-mind-the-step- 
 performance we've been practisin'." 
 
 But it was as they approached the fighting 
 zone, and finally when they found themselves 
 installed in a support trench on the morning 
 of the Push that Ratty came to understand 
 the full difference between old battles and 
 this new style. For days on end he heard
 
 284 FRONT LINES 
 
 such gun-fire as lie had never dreamed of, 
 heard it continue without ceasing or slacken- 
 ing day and night. By day he saw the distant 
 German ground veiled in a drifting fog-bank 
 of smoke, saw it by night starred with wink- 
 ing and spurting gusts of flame from our 
 high-explosives. He walked or lay on a 
 ground that quivered and trembled under the 
 unceasing shock of our guns' discharges, 
 covered his eyes at night to shut out the flash- 
 ing lights that pulsed and throbbed constantly 
 across the sky. On the last march that had 
 brought them into the trenches they had 
 passed through guns and guns and yet again 
 guns, first the huge monsters lurking hidden 
 well back and only a little in advance of the 
 great piles of shells and long roofed sidings 
 crammed with more shells, then farther on 
 past other monsters only less in comparison 
 with those they had seen before, on again 
 past whole batteries of 60-pounders and * ' six- 
 inch" tucked away in corners of woods or 
 amongst broken houses, and finally up 
 through the field guns packed close in every 
 comer that would more or less hide a battery,
 
 ACCORDING TO PLAN 285 
 
 or brazenly lined up in the open. They 
 tramped down the long street of a ruined vil- 
 lage — a street that was no more than a 
 cleared strip of cobble-stones bordered down 
 its length on both sides by the piled or scat- 
 tered heaps of rubble and brick that had once 
 been rows of houses — with a mad chorus of 
 guns roaring and cracking and banging in 
 numberless scores about them, passed over 
 the open behind the trenches to find more 
 guns ranged battery after battery, and all 
 with sheeting walls of flame jumping and 
 flashing along their fronts. They found and 
 settled into their trench with this unbroken 
 roar of fire bellowing in their ears, a roar so 
 loud and long that it seemed impossible to in- 
 crease it. When their watches told them it 
 was an hour to the moment they had been 
 warned was the ''zero hour," the fixed mo- 
 ment of the attack, the sound of the gun-fire 
 swelled suddenly and rose to a pitch of fury 
 that eclipsed all that had gone before. The 
 men crouched in their trench listening in 
 awed silence, and as the zero hour approached 
 Ratty clambered and stood where he could
 
 286 FRONT LINES 
 
 look over the edge towards the German lines. 
 A sergeant shouted at him angrily to get 
 down, and hadn 't he heard the order to keep 
 under cover ? Ratty dropped back beside the 
 others. "Lumme," he said disgustedly, ''I 
 dunno wot this bloomin' war's comin' to. Or- 
 ders, orders, orders ! You mustn't get plunky 
 well killed nowadays, unless you 'as orders 
 to." 
 
 "There they go," said Johnny suddenly, 
 and all strained their ears for the sound of 
 rattling rifle-fire that came faintly through 
 the roll of the guns. ''An' here they come," 
 said Ratty quickly, and all crouched low and 
 listened to the rising roar of a heavy shell 
 approaching, the heavy cr-r-rump of its fall. 
 A message passed along, ** Ready there. 
 Move in five minutes." And at five minutes 
 to the tick, they rose and began to pass along 
 the trench. 
 
 ''Know where we are. Ratty?" asked 
 Johnny. Ratty looked about him. "How 
 should I know?" he shouted back, "I was 
 never 'ere before." 
 
 "You oughter," returned Johnny. "This
 
 ACCORDING TO PLAN 287 
 
 is the line we started from back in practice 
 attack — the one that was taped out along by 
 the stream. ' ' 
 
 *'I'm a fat lot better for knowin' it too," 
 said Eatty sarcastically, and trudged on. 
 They passed slowly forward and along 
 branching trenches until they came at last to 
 the front line, from which^ after a short rest, 
 they climbed and hoisted their machine-guns 
 out into the open. From here for the first 
 time they could see something of the battle- 
 ground; but could see nothing of the battle 
 except a drifting haze of smoke, and, just 
 disappearing into it, a shadowy line of fig- 
 ures. The thunder of the guns continued, and 
 out in front they could hear now the crackle 
 of rifle fire, the sharp detonations of gren- 
 ades. There were far fewer shells falling 
 about the old ''neutral ground" than Ratty 
 had expected, and even comparatively few 
 bullets piping over and past them. They 
 reached the tumbled wreckage of shell-holes 
 and splintered planks that marked what had 
 been the front German line, clambered 
 through this, and pushed on stumbling and
 
 288 FRONT LINES 
 
 climbing in and out the shell-holes that rid- 
 dled the ground. *' Where's the Buffs that's 
 supposed to be in front o' us," shouted 
 Eatty, and ducked hastily into a deep shell- 
 hole at the warning screech of an approach- 
 ing shell. It crashed down somewhere near 
 and a shower of dirt and earth rained down 
 on him. He climbed out. * * Should be ahead 
 about a ^here's some o' them now wi' pris- 
 oners,*' said Johnny. They had a hurried 
 glimpse of a huddled group of men in grey 
 with their hands well up over their heads, 
 running, stumbling, half falling and recover- 
 ing, but always keeping their hands hoisted 
 well up. There may have been a full thirty 
 of them, and they were being shepherded back 
 by no more than three or four men with bay- 
 onets gleaming on their rifles. They dis- 
 appeared into the haze, and the machine- 
 gunners dropped down into a shallow test- 
 ing depression and pressed on along it. 
 * ' This is the communication trench that used 
 to be taped out along the edge o' that corn- 
 field in practice attack," said Johnny, when 
 they halted a moment. ** Trench?" said
 
 ACCORDING TO PLAN 289 
 
 Ratty, glancing along it, ''Strewth!" The 
 trench was gone, was no more than a wide 
 shallow depression, a tumbled gutter a foot 
 or two below the level of the ground; and 
 even the gutter in places was lost in a patch 
 of broken earth-heaps and craters. It was 
 best traced by the dead that lay in it, by the 
 litter of steel helmets, rifles, bombs, gas- 
 masks, bayonets, water-bottles, arms and 
 equipment of every kind strewed along it. 
 
 By now Ratty had lost all sense of direc- 
 tion or location, but Johnny at his elbow was 
 always able to keep him informed. Ratty at 
 first refused to accept his statements, but was 
 convinced against all argument, and it was 
 always clear from the direct and unhesitating 
 fashion in which they were led that those in 
 command knew where they were and where to 
 go. *'We should pass three trees along this 
 trench somewhere soon, ' ' Johnny would say, 
 and presently, sure enough, they came to one 
 stump six foot high and two splintered butts 
 just showing above the earth. They reached 
 a wide depression, and Johnny pointed and 
 shouted, "The sunk road," and looking round.
 
 290 FRONT LINES 
 
 pointed again to some whitish-grey masses 
 broken, overturned, almost buried in the tum- 
 bled earth, the remains of concrete machine- 
 gun emplacements which Ratty remembered 
 had been marked somewhere back there on 
 the practice ground by six marked boards. 
 * * Six, ' ' shouted Johnny, and grinned triumph- 
 antly at the doubter. 
 
 The last of Ratty 's doubts as to the cor- 
 rectness of battle plans, even of the German 
 lines, vanished when they came to a bare 
 stretch of ground which Johnny reminded him 
 was where they had been warned they would 
 most likely come under enfilading machine- 
 gun fire. They halted on the edge of this 
 patch to get their wind, and watched some 
 stretcher-bearers struggling to cross and a 
 party of men digging furiously to make a line 
 of linked-up shell-holes, while the ground 
 about them jumped and splashed imder the 
 hailing of bullets. 
 
 ''Enfiladin' fire," said Ratty. "Should 
 think it was too. Why the 'ell don't they 
 silence the guns doin' it?" 
 
 ''Supposed to be in a clump o* wood over
 
 ACCORDING TO PLAN 291 
 
 there," said Johnny. *'And it ain't due to 
 be took for an hour yet.'* 
 
 The word passed along, and they rose and 
 began to cross the open ground amongst the 
 raining bullets. *' There's our objective," 
 shouted Johnny as they ran. *'That rise — 
 come into action there. ' ' Eatty stared aghast 
 at the rise, and at the spouting columns of 
 smoke and dirt that leaped from it under a 
 steady fall of heavy shells. ''That," he 
 screeched back, "Gorstrewth. Good-bye us 
 then." But he ran on as well as he could 
 under the weight of the gun on his shoulder. 
 They were both well out to the left of their 
 advancing line and Ratty was instinctively 
 flinching from the direct route into those 
 gusts of flame and smoke. ''Keep up," 
 yelled Johnny. "Remember the trench. 
 You'll miss the end of it." Ratty recalled 
 vaguely the line of flags and tape that had 
 wriggled over the practice ground to the last 
 position where they had halted each day and 
 brought their guns into mimic action. He 
 knew he would have slanted to the right to 
 hit the trench end there, so here he also
 
 292 FRONT LINES 
 
 slanted right and presently stumbled thank- 
 fully into the broken trench, and pushed 
 along it up the rise. At the top he found him- 
 self looking over a gentle slope, the foot of 
 which was veiled in an eddying mist of smoke. 
 A heavy shell burst with a terrifying crash 
 and sent him reeling from the shock. He sat 
 down with a bump, shaken and for the mo- 
 ment dazed, but came to himself with John- 
 ny's voice bawling in his ear, * ' Come on, man, 
 come on. Hurt? Quick then — yergun." He 
 staggered up and towards an officer whom he 
 could see waving frantically at him and open- 
 ing and shutting his mouth in shouts that 
 were lost in the uproar. He thrust forward 
 and into a shell-hole beside Johnny and the 
 rest of the gun detachment. His sergeant 
 jumped down beside them shouting and point- 
 ing out into the smoke wreaths. **See the 
 wood . . . six hundred . . . lay on the 
 
 ground-line — they're counter-attack " He 
 
 stopped abruptly and fell sliding in a tumbled 
 heap down the crater side on top of the gun. 
 The officer ran back mouthing unheard angry 
 shouts at them again. Ratty was getting
 
 ACCORDING TO PLAN 293 
 
 angry himself. How could a man get into 
 
 action with a fellow falling all over his gun 
 
 like that? They dragged the sergeant's 
 
 twitching body clear and Ratty felt a pang of 
 
 regret for his anger. He'd been a good chap, 
 
 the sergeant. . . . But anger swallowed him 
 
 again as he dragged his gun clear. It was 
 
 drenched with blood. ' ' Nice bizness, ' ' he said 
 
 savagely, ''if my breech action's clogged up." 
 
 A loaded belt slipped into place and he 
 
 brought the gun into action with a savage 
 
 jerk on the loading lever, looked over his 
 
 sights, and layed them on the edge of the 
 
 wood he could just dimly see through the 
 
 smoke. He could see nothing to fire at — 
 
 cursed smoke was so thick — ^but the others 
 
 were firing hard — ^must be something there. 
 
 He pressed his thumbs on the lever and his 
 
 gun began to spurt a stream of fire and lead, 
 
 the belt racing and clicking through, the 
 
 breech clacking smoothly, the handles jarring 
 
 sharply in his fingers. 
 
 The hillock was still under heavy shell-fire. 
 They had been warned in practice attack that 
 there would probably be shell-fire, and here
 
 294 FRONT LINES 
 
 it was, shrieking, crashing, tearing the 
 wrecked ground to fresh shapes of wreckage, 
 spouting in fountains of black smoke and 
 earth, whistling and hurtling in jagged frag- 
 ments, hitting solidly and bursting in whirl- 
 winds of flame and smoke. Ratty had no 
 time to think of the shells. He strained his 
 eyes over the sights on the foot of the dimly 
 seen trees, held his gun steady and spitting 
 its jets of flame and lead, until word came to 
 him, somehow or from somewhere to cease 
 firing. The attack had been wiped out, he 
 heard said. He straightened his bent shoul- 
 ders and discovered with immense surprise 
 that one shoulder hurt, that his jacket was 
 soaked with blood. 
 
 "Nothing more than a good Blighty one," 
 said the bearer who tied him up. "Keep you 
 home two-three months mebbe." 
 
 ' ' Good enough, ' ' said Ratty. " I '11 be back 
 in time to see the finish," and lit a cigarette 
 contentedly. 
 
 Back in the Aid Post later he heard from 
 one of the Jocks who had been down there in 
 the smoke somewhere between the machine-
 
 ACCORDING TO PLAN 295 
 
 guns and the wood, that the front line was 
 already well consolidated. He heard too that 
 the German counter-attack had been cut to 
 pieces, and that the open ground before our 
 new line front was piled with their dead. 
 ''You fellies was just late enough wi' your 
 machine-guns," said the Highlander. "In 
 anither three-fower meenits they'd a been 
 right on top o ' us. " 
 
 ''Late be blowed," said Ratty. "We was 
 on the right spot exackly at the programme 
 time o' the plan. We'd rehearsed the dash 
 thing an' clocked it too often for me not to 
 be sure o' that. We was there just when we 
 was meant to be, an' that was just when they 
 knew we'd be wanted. Whole plunky attack 
 went like clockwork, far's our bit o' the plans 
 went." 
 
 But it was two days later and snug in bed 
 in a London hospital, when he had read the 
 dispatches describing the battle, that he had 
 his last word on "planned attacks.'* 
 
 "Lumme," he said to the next bed, "I likes 
 this dispatch of ole 'Indenburg's. Good mile 
 an' a half we pushed 'em back, an' held all
 
 296 FRONT LINES 
 
 the ground, an' took 6,000 prisoners; an', 
 says 'Indenburg, 'the British attack was com- 
 pletely repulsed . . . only a few crater posi- 
 tions were abandoned by us according to 
 plan.' " 
 
 He dropped the paper and grinned. *'Ac- 
 cordin' to plan," he said. "That's true 
 enough. But 'e forgot to say it was the same 
 as it always is — accordin' to the plan that was 
 made by 'Aig an' us."
 
 XVII 
 DOWN IN HUNLAND 
 
 It was cold — bitterly, bitingly, fiercely cold. 
 It was also at intervals wet, and misty, and 
 snowy, as the 'plane ran by turns through 
 various clouds ; but it was the cold that was 
 uppermost in the minds of pilot and observer 
 as they flew through the darkness. They were 
 on a machine of the night-bombing squadron, 
 and the *' Night-Fliers " in winter weather 
 take it more or less as part of the night's 
 work that they are going to be out in cold and 
 otherwise unpleasant weather conditions ; but 
 the cold this night was, as the pilot put it in 
 his thoughts, **over the odds." 
 
 It was the Night-Fliers' second trip over 
 Hunland. The first trip had been a short one 
 to a near objective, because at the beginning 
 of the night the weather looked too doubtful 
 to risk a long trip. But before they had come 
 back the weather had cleared, and the Squad- 
 
 297
 
 298 FRONT LINES 
 
 ron Commaiider, after full deliberation, had 
 decided to chance the long trip and bomb a 
 certain place which he knew it was urgent 
 should be damaged as much and as soon as 
 possible. 
 
 All this meant that the Fliers had the short- 
 est possible space of time on the ground be- 
 tween the two trips. Their machines were 
 loaded up with fresh supplies of bombs just 
 as quickly as it could be done, the petrol and 
 oil tanks refilled, expended rounds of ammu- 
 nition for the machine-guns replaced. Then, 
 one after another, the machines steered out 
 into the darkness across the 'drome ground 
 towards a twinkle of light placed to guide 
 them, wheeled round, gave the engine a pre- 
 liminary whirl, steadied it down, opened her 
 out again, and one by one at intervals lum- 
 bered off at gathering speed, and soared off 
 up into the darkness. 
 
 The weather held until the objective was 
 reached, although glances astern showed om- 
 inous clouds banking up and darkening the 
 sky behind them. The bombs were loosed and 
 seen to strike in leaping gusts of flame on the
 
 DOWN IN HUNLAND 299 
 
 ground below, while searchliglits stabbed np 
 into the sky and groped round to find the raid- 
 ers, and the Hun ** Archies" spat sharp 
 tongues of flame up at them. Several times 
 the shells burst near enough to be heard 
 above the roar of the engine; but one after 
 another the Night Fliers "dropped the eggs" 
 and wheeled and drove off for home, the ob- 
 servers leaning over and picking up any vis- 
 ible speck of light or the flickering spurts of 
 a machine-gun's fire and loosing off quick 
 bursts of fire at these targets. But every 
 pilot knew too well the meaning of those bank- 
 ing clouds to the west, and was in too great 
 haste to get back to spend time hunting tar- 
 gets for their machine-guns ; and each opened 
 his engine out and drove hard to reach the 
 safety of our own lines before thick weather 
 could catch and bewilder them. 
 
 The leaders had escaped fairly lightly — 
 "Atcha" and **Beta" having only a few 
 wides to dodge; but their followers kept 
 catching it hotter and hotter. 
 
 The "Osca" was the last machine to ar- 
 rive at the objective and deliver her bombs
 
 300 FRONT LINES 
 
 and swing for home, and because she was the 
 last she came in for the fully awakened de- 
 fence's warmest welcome, and wheeled with 
 searchlights hunting for her, with Archie 
 shells coughing round, with machine-guns 
 spitting fire and their bullets zizz-izz-ipping 
 up past her, with "flaming onions" curving 
 up in streaks of angry red fire and falling 
 blazing to earth again. A few of the bullets 
 ripped and rapped viciously through the fab- 
 ric of her wings, but she suffered no further 
 damage, although the fire was hot enough and 
 close enough to make her pilot and observer 
 breathe sighs of relief as they droned out 
 into the darkness and left all the devilment 
 of fire and lights astern. 
 
 The word of the Night-Fliers ' raid had evi- 
 dently gone abroad through the Hun lines 
 however, and as they flew west they could see 
 searchlight after light switching and scything 
 through the dark in search of them. Red- 
 mond, or *'Eeddie," the pilot, was a good 
 deal more concerned over the darkening sky, 
 and the cold that by now was piercing to his 
 bones, than he was over the searchlights or
 
 DOWN IN HUNLAND 301 
 
 the chance of running into further Archie fire. 
 He lifted the ^'Osca" another 500 feet as he 
 flew, and drove on with his eyes on the com- 
 pass and on the cloud banks ahead in turn. 
 
 Flying conditions do not lend themselves 
 to conversation between pilot and observer, 
 but once or twice the two exchanged remarks, 
 very brief and boiled-down remarks, on their 
 position and the chances of reaching the lines 
 before they ran into ''the thick." That a 
 thick was coming was painfully clear to both. 
 The sky by now was completely darkened, and 
 the earth below was totally and utterly lost 
 to sight. The pilot had his compass, and his 
 compass only, left to guide him, and he kept 
 a very close and attentive eye on that and his 
 instrument denoting height. Their bombing 
 objective had been a long way behind the Ger- 
 man lines, but Eeddie and "Walk" Jones, the 
 observer, were already beginning to congrat- 
 ulate themselves on their nearness to the lines 
 and the probability of escaping the storm, 
 when the storm suddenly whirled down upon 
 them. 
 
 It came without warning, although warn-
 
 302 FRONT LINES 
 
 ing would have been of little use, since they 
 could do nothing but continue to push for 
 home. One minute they were flying, in dark- 
 ness it is true, but still in a clear air; the 
 next they were simply barging blindly 
 through a storm of rain which probably 
 poured straight down to earth, but which to 
 them, flying at some scores of miles per hour, 
 was driving level and with the force of whip 
 cuts full in their faces. Both pilot and ob- 
 server were blinded. The water cataracting 
 on their goggles cut off all possibility of 
 sight, and Reddie could not even see the com- 
 pass in front of him or the gleam of light 
 that illuminated it. He held the machine as 
 steady and straight on her course as instinct 
 and a sense of direction would allow him, and 
 after some minutes they passed clear of the 
 rain-storm. Everything was streaming wet — 
 their faces, their goggles, their clothes, and 
 everything they touched in the machine. Red- 
 die mopped the wet off his compass and 
 peered at it a moment, and then with an an- 
 gry exclamation pushed rudder and joy-stick 
 over and swung round to a direction fairly
 
 DOWN IN HUNLAND 303 
 
 opposite to the one they had been travelling. 
 Apparently he had turned completely round 
 in the minutes through the rain — once round 
 at least, and Heaven only knew how many 
 more times. 
 
 They flew for a few minutes in compara- 
 tively clear weather, and then, quite sud- 
 denly, they whirled into a thick mist cloud. 
 At first both Reddie and "Walk'' thought it 
 was snow, so cold was the touch of the wet 
 on their faces; but even when they found it 
 was no more than a wet mist cloud they were 
 little better off, because again both were com- 
 pletely blinded so far as seeing how or where 
 they were flying went. Reddie developed a 
 sudden fear that he was holding the ma- 
 chine's nose down, and in a quick revulsion 
 pulled the joy-stick back until he could feel 
 her rear and swoop upwards. He was left 
 with a sense of feeling only to guide him. He 
 could see no faintest feature of the instru- 
 ment-board in front of him, had to depend en- 
 tirely on his sense of touch and feel and in- 
 stinct to know whether the '*Osca" was on a
 
 304 FRONT LINES 
 
 level keel, flying forward, or up or down, or 
 lying right over on either wing tip. 
 
 The mist cleared, or they flew clear of it, 
 as suddenly as they had entered it, and Red- 
 die found again that he had lost direction, 
 was flying north instead of west. He brought 
 the 'bus round again and let her drop until 
 the altimeter showed a bare two hundred feet 
 above the ground and peered carefully down 
 for any indication of his whereabouts. He 
 could see nothing — blank nothing, below, or 
 above, or around him. He lifted again to the 
 thousand-foot mark and drove on towards the 
 west. He figured that they ought to be com- 
 ing somewhere near the lines now, but better 
 be safe than sorry, and he'd get well clear of 
 Hunland before he chanced coming down. 
 
 Then the snow shut down on them. If they 
 had been blinded before, they were doubly 
 blind now. It was not only that the whirling 
 flakes of snow shut out any sight in front of 
 or around them; it drove clinging against 
 their faces, their glasses, their bodies, and 
 froze and was packed hard by the wind of 
 their own speed as they flew. And it was cold.
 
 DOWN IN HUNLAND 305 
 
 bone- and marrow-piercing cold. Reddie lost 
 all sense of direction again, all sense of 
 whether lie was flying forward, or up or down, 
 right side or wrong side up. He even lost 
 any sense of time ; and when the scud cleared 
 enough for him to make out the outline of his 
 instruments he could not see the face of his 
 clock, his height or speed recorders, or any- 
 thing else, until he had scraped the packed 
 snow off them. 
 
 But this time, according to the compass, he 
 was flying west and in the right direction. 
 So much he just had time to see when they 
 plunged again into another whirling smother 
 of fine snow. They flew through that for min- 
 utes which might have been seconds or hours 
 for all the pilot knew. He could see nothing 
 through his clogged goggles, that blurred up 
 faster than he could wipe them clear ; he could 
 hear nothing except, dully, the roar of his 
 engine; he could feel nothing except the grip 
 of the joy-stick, numbly, through his thick 
 gloves. He kept the "Osca" flying level by 
 sheer sense of feel, and at times had all he 
 could do to fight back a wave of panic which
 
 306 FRONT LINES 
 
 rushed on him with a belief that the machine 
 was side-slipping or falling into a spin that 
 would bring him crashing to earth. 
 
 When the snow cleared again and he was 
 able to see his lighted instruments he made 
 haste to brush them clear of snow and peer 
 anxiously at them. He found he was a good 
 thousand feet up and started at once to lift 
 a bit higher for safety ^s sake. By the com- 
 pass he was still flying homeward, and by the 
 time — ^the time — he stared hard at his clock 
 . . . and found it was stopped. But the pe- 
 trol in his main tank was almost run out, and 
 according to that he ought to be well over the 
 British lines — if he had kept anything like a 
 straight course. He held a brief and shouted 
 conversation with his observer. * ' Don 't know 
 where I am. Lost. Think we're over our 
 lines.'* 
 
 ''Shoot a light, eh?" answered the ob- 
 server, ''and try 'n' land. I'm frozen stiff." 
 
 They both peered anxiously out round as 
 their Verey light shot out and floated down ; 
 but they could see no sign of a flare or an 
 answering light. They fired another signal,
 
 DOWN IN HUNLAND 307 
 
 and still had no reply; and then, '^'m going 
 down," yelled the pilot, shutting off his en- 
 gine and letting the machine glide down in a 
 slow sweeping circle. He could see nothing 
 of the ground when the altimeter showed 500 
 feet, nor at 300, nor at 200, so opened the 
 throttle and picked up speed again. * ' Shove 
 her down, ' ' yelled the observer. * * More snow 
 
 coming. ' ' 
 
 Another Verey light, shot straight down 
 overboard, showed a glimpse of a grass field, 
 and Reddie swung gently round, and slid 
 downward again. At the same time he fired 
 a landing light fixed out under his lower wing- 
 tip in readiness for just such an occasion as 
 this, and by its glowing vivid white light 
 made a fairly good landing on rough grass 
 land. He shut the engine off at once, because 
 he had no idea how near he was to the edge 
 of the field or what obstacles they might 
 bump if they taxied far, and the machine 
 came quickly to rest. The two men sat still 
 for a minute breathing a sigh of thankfulness 
 that they were safe to ground, then turned 
 and looked at each other in the dying light
 
 308 FRONT LINES 
 
 of the flare. Stiffly they stood up, climbed 
 clumsily out of their places, and down on to 
 the wet ground. Another flurry of snow was 
 falling, but now that they were at rest the 
 snow was floating and drifting gently down 
 instead of beating in their faces with hurri- 
 cane force as it did when they were flying. 
 
 Reddie flapped his arms across his chest 
 and stamped his numbed feet. Walk Jones 
 pulled his gloves off and breathed on his stiff 
 fingers. *'I'm fair froze," he mumbled. 
 "Wonder where we are, and how far from the 
 'drome ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' Lord knows, ' ' returned Reddie. * * I don 't 
 know even where the line is — ahead or astern, 
 right hand or left." 
 
 "Snow's clearing again," said Jones. 
 "Perhaps we'll get a bearing then, and I'll 
 go 'n' hunt for a camp or a cottage, or any- 
 one that'll give us a hot drink." 
 
 * * Wait a bit, ' ' said Reddie. * ' Stand where 
 you are and let 's give a yell. Some sentry or 
 someone's bound to hear us. Snow's stop- 
 ping all right J but, Great Scott! isn't it 
 dark."
 
 DOWN IN HUNLAND 309 
 
 Presently they lifted their voices and yelled 
 an *'Ahoy" together at the pitch of their 
 lungs. There was no answer, and after a 
 pause they yelled again, still without audible 
 result. 
 
 * ' Oh, curse ! ' ' said Jones, shivering. * ' I 'm 
 not going to hang about here yelping like a 
 lost dog. And we might hunt an hour for a 
 cottage. I'm going to get aboard again and 
 loose off a few rounds from my machine-gun 
 into the ground. That will stir somebody up 
 and bring 'em along." 
 
 ''There's the line," said Reddie suddenly. 
 *'Look!" and he pointed to where a faint 
 glow rose and fell, lit and faded, along the 
 horizon. ''And the guns," he added, as they 
 saw a sheet of light jump somewhere in the 
 distance and heard the bump of the report. 
 Other gun-flashes flickered and beat across 
 the dark sky. "Funny," said Eeddie; "I'd 
 have sworn I turned round as we came down, 
 and I thoufifht the lines were dead the other 
 
 
 way. 
 
 The observer was fumbling about to get his 
 foot in the step. "I thought they were way
 
 310 FRONT LINES 
 
 out to the right," he said. ''But I don't care 
 a curse where they are. I want a camp or a 
 French cottage with coffee on the stove. I'll 
 see if I can't shoot somebody awake." 
 
 "Try one more shout first," said Reddie, 
 and they shouted together again. 
 
 "Got 'im," said Reddie joyfully, as a faint 
 hail came in response, and Jones took his foot 
 off the step and began to fumble under his 
 coat for a torch. "Here!" yelled Reddie. 
 "This way! Here!" 
 
 They heard the answering shouts draw 
 nearer, and then, just as Jones found his 
 torch and was pulling it out from under his 
 coat, Reddie clutched at his arm. "What — 
 
 what was it " he gasped. "Did you hear 
 
 what they called?" 
 
 "No, couldn't understand," said Jones in 
 some surprise at the other's agitation. 
 "They're French, I suppose; farm people, 
 most like." 
 
 "It was German/' said Reddie hurriedly. 
 "There again, hear that? We've dropped m 
 Hwnland." 
 
 •Hu-Hunland!" stammered Jones; then 
 
 ((
 
 DOWN IN HUNLAND 311 
 
 desperately, **rt can't be. You sure it isn't 
 Frencli — Flemish, perhaps ? ' ' 
 
 ** Flemish — ^here," said Reddie, dismissing 
 the idea, as Jones admitted he might well do, 
 so far south in the line. * ' I know little enough 
 German, but I know French well enough ; and 
 that's not French. We're done in. Walk." 
 
 ** Couldn't we bolt for it," said Walk, look- 
 ing hurriedly round. "It's dark, and we 
 know where the lines are." 
 
 "What hope of getting through them?" 
 said Reddie, speaking in quick whispers. 
 "But we've got a better way. We'll make a 
 try. Here, quickly, and quiet as you can — 
 get to the prop and swing it when I'm ready. 
 We'll chance a dash for it." 
 
 Both knew the chances against them, knew 
 that in front of the machine might lie a ditch, 
 a tree, a hedge, a score of things that would 
 trip them as they taxied to get speed to rise ; 
 they knew too that the Germans were coming 
 closer every moment, that they might be on 
 them before they could get the engine started, 
 that they would probably start shooting at 
 the first sound of her start. All these things
 
 312 FRONT LINES 
 
 and a dozen others raced through their minds 
 in an instant; but neither hesitated, both 
 moved promptly and swiftly. Reddie clam- 
 bered up and into his seat; Walk Jones 
 jumped to the propeller, and began to wind 
 it backwards to "suck in" the petrol to the 
 cylinders. "When she starts, jump to the 
 wing-tip and try 'n' swdng her round," called 
 Reddie in quick low tones. "It'll check her 
 way. Then you must jump for it, and hang 
 on and climb in as we go. Yell when you're 
 aboard. All ready now. ' ' 
 
 A shout came out of the darkness — a shout 
 and an obvious question in German. "Con- 
 tact," said Walk Jones, and swung the pro- 
 peller his hardest. He heard the whirr of 
 the starter as Reddie twirled it rapidly. 
 "Off," called Jones as he saw the engine was 
 not giving sign of life, and "Off" answered 
 Reddie, cutting off the starting current. 
 
 Another shout came, and with it this time 
 what sounded like an imperative command. 
 Reddie cursed his lack of knowledge of Ger- 
 man. He could have held them in play a min- 
 ute if "Contact," came Walk's voice
 
 DOWN IN HUNLAND 313 
 
 again. * ' Contact, ' ' he answered, and whirled 
 the starter madly again. There was still no 
 movement, no spark of life from the engine. 
 Reddie groaned, and Walk Jones, sweating 
 despite the cold over his exertions on the pro- 
 peller, wound it back again and swung it for- 
 ward with all his weight. His thick leather 
 coat hampered him. He tore it off and flung 
 it to the ground, and tried again._ 
 
 So they tried and failed, tried and failed, 
 time and again, while all the time the shouts 
 were coming louder and from different 
 points, as if a party had split up and was 
 searching the field. A couple of electric 
 torches threw dancing patches of light on 
 the ground, lifted occasionally and flashed 
 round. One was coming straight towards 
 them, and Reddie with set teeth waited the 
 shout of discovery he knew must come pres- 
 ently, and cursed Walk's slowness at the 
 **prop." 
 
 Again on the word he whirled the starter, 
 and this time ' ' Whur-r-r-rum, " answered the 
 engine, suddenly leaping to life ; ' ' Whur-r-r- 
 ROO-OO-OO-OOM-wr-r-r-umph," as Reddie
 
 314 FRONT LINES 
 
 eased and opened the throttle. He heard a 
 babel of shouts and yells, and saw the light- 
 patches come dancing on the run towards 
 them. A sudden recollection of the only two 
 German words he knew came to him. "Ja 
 wohl," he yelled at the pitch of his voice, 
 "Ja wohl"; then in lower hurried tones, 
 ''Swing her. Walk; quick, swing her," and 
 opened the engine out again. The running 
 lights stopped for a minute at his yell, and 
 Walk Jones jumped to the wing-tip, shouted 
 * ' Right ! ' ' and hung on while Reddie started 
 to taxi the machine forward. His weight 
 and leverage brought her lumbering round, 
 the roar of engine and propeller rising and 
 sinking as Reddie manipulated the throttle, 
 and Reddie yelling his ''Ja wohl," every 
 time the noise died down. 
 
 ''Get in, Walk; get aboard," he shouted, 
 when the nose was round and pointing back 
 over the short stretch they had taxied on 
 landing, and which he therefore knew was 
 clear running for at least a start. He heard 
 another order screamed in German, and next 
 instant the hang of a rifle, not more appar-
 
 DOWN IN HUNLAND 315 
 
 ently than a score of yards away. He kept 
 the maclime lumbering forward, restraining 
 himself from opening his engine out, wait- 
 ing in an agony of apprehension for Walk's 
 shout. He felt the machine lurch and sway, 
 and the kicking scramble his observer made 
 to board her, heard next instant his yelling 
 *'Eight-oh!" and opened the throttle full as 
 another couple of rifles bang-banged. 
 
 The rifles had little terror either for him 
 or the observer, because both knew there were 
 bigger and deadlier risks to run in the next 
 few seconds. There were still desperately 
 long odds against their attempt succeeding. 
 In the routine method of starting a machine, 
 chocks are placed in front of the wheels and 
 the engine is given a short full-power run 
 and a longer easier one to warm the engine 
 and be sure all is well; then the chocks are 
 pulled away and she rolls off, gathering speed 
 as she goes, until she has enough for her 
 pilot to lift her into the air. Here, their en- 
 gine was stone cold, they knew nothing of 
 what lay in front of them, might crash into 
 something before they left the ground, might
 
 316 FRONT LINES 
 
 rise, and even then catcli some house or tree- 
 top, and travelling at the speed they would 
 by then have attained — well, the Lord help 
 them! 
 
 Eeddie had to chance everything, and yet 
 throw away no shadow of a chance. He 
 opened the throttle wide, felt the machine 
 gather speed, bumping and jolting horribly 
 over the rough field, tried to peer down at 
 the ground to see how fast they moved, could 
 see nothing, utterly black nothing, almost 
 panicked for one heart-stilling instant as he 
 looked ahead again and thought he saw the 
 blacker shadow of something solid in front of 
 him, clenched his teeth and held straight on 
 until he felt by the rush of wind on his face 
 he had way enough, and pulled the joy-stick 
 in to him. With a sigh of relief he felt the 
 jolting change to a smooth swift rush, held 
 his breath, and with a pull on the stick 
 zoomed her up, levelled her out again (should 
 clear anything but a tall tree now), zoomed 
 her up again. He felt a hand thumping on 
 his shoulder, heard Walk's wild exultant 
 yell — ' ' 'Ra-a-ay ! ' ' and, still lifting her stead-
 
 DOWN IN HUNLAND 317 
 
 ily, swung his maclime's nose for the jump- 
 ing lights that marked the trenches. 
 
 They landed safe on their own 'drome 
 ground half an hour after. The officer whose 
 duty it was for the night to look after the 
 landing-ground and light the flares in an- 
 swer to the returning pilots' signals, walked 
 over to them as they came to rest. 
 
 ''Hullo, you two," he said. "Where th' 
 blazes you been till this time? We'd just 
 about put you down as missing." 
 
 Reddie and Walk had stood up in their 
 cock-pits and, without a spoken word, were 
 solemnly shaking hands. 
 
 Reddie looked overboard at the officer on 
 the ground. "You may believe it, Johnny, 
 or you may not," he said, "but we've been 
 down into Hunland. ' ' 
 
 "Down into hell!" said Johnny. "Quit 
 jokin'. What kept you so late?" 
 
 "You've said it, Johnny," said Reddie 
 soberly. "Down into hell — and out again." 
 
 They shook hands again, solemnly.
 
 xvni 
 
 THE FINAL OBJECTIVE 
 
 It was all apt to be desperately confusing — 
 the smoke, the shapeless shell-cratered 
 ground, the deafening unceasing tempest of 
 noise — but out of all this confusion and the 
 turmoil of their attack there were one or two 
 things that remained clear in the mind of 
 Corporal ; and after all they were the things 
 that counted. One was that he was in charge 
 for the moment of the remains of the com- 
 pany, that when their last officer was knocked 
 out he. Corporal Ackroyd, had taken the of-, 
 ficer's wrist watch and brief instructions to 
 ' ' Carry on — ^you know what to do " ; and the 
 other that they had, just before the officer 
 was casualtied, reached the "pink-line objec- 
 tive/' 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 Without going too closely into the detailed 
 methods of the attack — the normal methods 
 
 318
 
 THE FINAL OBJECTIVE 319 
 
 of this particular period — it is enough to say 
 that three objective lines had been marked 
 up on the maps of the ground to be taken, a 
 pink, a purple, and a "finjil objective" blue- 
 black line. Between the moment of occupy- 
 ing the pink line and the move to attack the 
 purple there were some twelve minutes al- 
 lowed to bring supports into position, to pour 
 further destructive artillery fire on the next 
 objective, and so on. Corporal Ackroyd, in 
 common with the rest of the battalion, had 
 been very fully instructed in the map posi- 
 tion, and rehearsed over carefully-measured- 
 out ground in practice attack, and knew fairly 
 well the time-table laid down. Before the 
 officer was carried back by the bearers he 
 gave one or two further simple guiding rules. 
 ''Send back a runner to report. If nobody 
 comes up to take over in ten minutes, push 
 on to the purple line. It's the sunk road; 
 you can't mistake it. Keep close on the bar- 
 rage, and you can't go wrong"; and finally, 
 ''Take my watch; it's synchronised time." 
 
 Ackroyd sent back his runner, and was 
 moving to a position where he could best
 
 320 FRONT LINES 
 
 keep control of the remains of the company, 
 when there came an interruption. 
 
 ''Some blighter out there flappin' a white 
 flag, Corporal," reported a look-out, and 
 pointed to where an arm and hand waved 
 from a shell-hole a hundred yards to their 
 front. The Corporal was wary. He had 
 seen too much of the "white-flag trick" to 
 give himself or his men away, but at the 
 same time was keenly sensible of the advan- 
 tage of getting a bunch of Germans on their 
 immediate front to surrender, rather than 
 have to advance in face of their fire. There 
 was not much time to spare before the laid- 
 down moment for the advance. 
 
 He half rose from his cover and waved an 
 answer. Promptly a figure rose from the 
 shell-hole and with hands well over his head 
 came running and stumbling over the rough 
 ground towards him. Three-quarter way 
 over he dropped into another shell-hole, and 
 from there waved again. At another reas- 
 suring wave from Ackroyd he rose, ran in 
 and flung himself down into the shell-hole 
 where the Corporal waited. The Corporal
 
 THE FINAL OBJECTIVE 321 
 
 met him with his bayoneted rifle at the ready 
 and his finger on the trigger, and the Ger- 
 man rose to his knees shooting both hands 
 up into the air with a quick ''Kamerad." 
 
 ''Eight-oh," said Ackroyd. ''But where 
 is your chums 1 Ain 't any more coming ? ' ' 
 
 The German answered in guttural but clear 
 enough English, ' ' Mine comrades sended me, 
 wherefore — ^because I speak English. They 
 wish to kamerad, to become prisoner if you 
 promise behave them well. You no shoot if 
 they come." 
 
 "Eight," said Ackroyd with another glance 
 at his watch. "But you'll 'ave to 'urry 
 them up. We're goin' to advance in about 
 seven minutes, and I'll promise nothin' after 
 that. Signal 'em in quick." 
 
 "If I to them wave they will come," an- 
 swered the German. "But mine officer come 
 first and make proper kamerad." 
 
 "He'll make a proper bloomin' sieve if he. 
 don't come quick," retorted Ackroyd. "The 
 barrage is due to drop in less'n seven min- 
 utes. Signal 'im along quick," he repeated 
 impatiently, as he saw the other failed to un-
 
 322 FRONT LINES 
 
 derstand. The German turned and made sig- 
 nals, and at once another figure came run- 
 ning and crouching to where they waited. 
 "Mine officer," said the first German, "he 
 no speak English, so I interpret." 
 
 "Tell 'im," said Ackroyd, "the shellin' 
 will begin again in five or six minutes, an' 
 the line wUl advance. If he fetches 'is men 
 in quick, they'll be all right, but I'll promise 
 nothing if they're not in before then." 
 
 He waited, fidgeting anxiously, while this 
 was interpreted, and the officer returned an 
 answer. 
 
 "He say why needs you advance until all 
 his men have surrender?" said the German. 
 
 "Why?" exploded Ackroyd. "Why? Does 
 *e think I'm the bloomin' Commander-in- 
 Chief an' that I'm runnin' this show? Look 
 'ere" — ^he paused a moment to find words to 
 put the position clearly and quickly. He 
 saw the urgency of the matter. In another 
 few minutes the barrage would drop, and 
 the line would begin to push on. If by then 
 these Germans had not surrendered, they 
 would conclude that the officer had not made
 
 THE FINAL OBJECTIVE 323 
 
 terms and they would remain in cover and 
 fight — which meant more casualties to their 
 already unusually heavy list. If he could 
 get the surrender completed before the mo- 
 ment for advance, the next strip of ground 
 to the "purple objective line" would be 
 taken quickly, easily, and cheaply. 
 
 ''Now look 'ere," he said rapidly. ''You 
 must fix this quick. This show, this push, 
 advance, attack, is runnin' to a set time-table. 
 Comprenny? At quarter-past — see, quarter- 
 past" — and he thrust out the watch marking 
 eleven minutes past — ' ' the barrage, the shell- 
 in', begins, an' we start on for the next ob- 
 jective " 
 
 "Start what?" interjected the interpreter. 
 
 "Objective," yelled Ackroyd angrily. 
 "Don't you know what a blazing objective 
 is? The sunk road is our nex' objective line. 
 D'you know the sunk road?" 
 
 "Ja, ja, I knows the road," agreed the 
 German. Then the officer interrupted, and 
 the interpreter turned to explain matters to 
 him. "I cannot it explain this objective," 
 he said. "Mine officer what is it asks?"
 
 324 FRONT LINES 
 
 Ackroyd swore lustily and fuU-bloodedly, 
 but bit short his oaths. There was no time for 
 spare language now. ' ' See here, tell 'im this 
 quick. A objective is the line we're told to 
 take, an' goes an' takes. The Commander- 
 in-Chief, 'Aig hisself, says where the objec- 
 tive is, an' he marks up a line on the map 
 to show where we goes to an' where we stops. 
 There's a final objective where we finishes 
 each push. D'you savvy that! Every bit o' 
 the move is made at the time laid down in at- 
 tack orders. You can't alter that, an' I can't, 
 nor nobody else can't. Old 'Aig 'e just draws 
 'is blue-black line on the map and ses, 
 'There's your final objective'; an' we just 
 goes an' takes it. Now 'ave you got all that?" 
 
 The two Germans spoke rapidly for a mo- 
 ment, but the Corporal interrupted as he 
 noted the rising sound of the gun-fire and 
 the rapidly-increasing rush of our shells over- 
 head. ''Here, 'nuff o' this!" he shouted. 
 "There's no time — there's the barrage drop- 
 pin' again. Call your men in if your goin' 
 to; or push off back an' we'll go 'n fetch 'em 
 ourselves. You must get back the both o'
 
 THE FINAL OBJECTIVE 325 
 
 you. We're movin' on." And lie made a 
 significant motion with the bayonet. 
 
 As they rose crouching the roar of gun-fire 
 rose to a pitch of greater and more savage 
 intensity; above their heads rushed and 
 shrieked a whirlwind of passing shells; out 
 over the open beyond them the puffing shell- 
 bursts steadied down to a shifting rolling wall 
 of smoke. And out of this smoke wall there 
 came running, first in ones and twos, and 
 then in droves, a crowd of grey-clad figures, 
 all with hands well over their heads, some 
 with jerking and waving dirty white rags. 
 
 At the same moment supports came strug- 
 gling in to our line, and the Corporal made 
 haste to hand over to their officer. The pris- 
 oners were being hastily collected for re- 
 moval to the rear, and our line rising to 
 advance, when the interpreter caught at the 
 Corporal. "Mine officer he say," he shouted, 
 ''where is it this fine oP objective?" 
 
 The Corporal was in rather happy mood 
 over the surrender and the prospect of ad- 
 vancing without opposition. "Where is it!" 
 he retorted. "Like 'is bloomin' cheek askin*.
 
 326 FRONT LINES 
 
 You tell 'im that 'is final objective is Doning- 
 ton 'All — an' I wish ours was 'alf as pleasant. 
 Ours ain't far this time, but we're off now 
 to take it accordin' to attack orders an' time- 
 table, like we always does. An' we'll do it 
 just the same fashion — 'cos 'e knows us an' 
 we knows 'im, an' knows 'e don't ask wot 
 we can't do — when the day comes that good 
 old 'Aig draws 'is blue-black line beyond its 
 back doors an' tells us the final objective is 
 Berlin."
 
 XIX 
 
 ARTILLERY PREPARATION 
 
 It was the sixth day of the ''artillery prepara- 
 tion" for the attack. During the past six 
 days the dispatches on both sides had re- 
 marked vaguely that there was ''artillery 
 activity," or "intense fire," or "occasional 
 increase to drum fire." These phrases may 
 not convey much to the average dispatch 
 reader, and indeed it is only the Gunners, and 
 especially the Field Batteries in the front 
 gun-line, who understand their meaning to 
 the full. 
 
 They had here no picked "battery posi- 
 tions," because they had been pushed up on 
 to captured ground which they themselves 
 in a previous attack had helped chum to a 
 muddy shell-wrecked wilderness, had blasted 
 bare of any semblance of cover or protection. 
 The batteries were simply planted down in a 
 
 long line in the open, or at best had the guns 
 
 327
 
 328 FRONT LINES 
 
 sunk a foot or two in shallow pits made by 
 spading out the connecting rims of a group 
 of shell-holes. The gunners, whether serving 
 at the guns or taking their turn of rest, were 
 just as open and exposed as the guns. The 
 gun shields gave a little protection from for- 
 ward fire of bullets, shrapnel, or splinters, 
 but none from the downward, side, or back- 
 ward blast of high-explosive shells. 
 
 There was no cover or protection for guns 
 or men simply because there had been no 
 time or men to spare for ' ' digging in. ' ' The 
 field guns had been pushed up to their pres- 
 ent position just as quickly as the soft ground 
 would allow after the last advance, and since 
 then had been kept going night and day, 
 bringing up and stacking piles of shells and 
 still keeping up a heavy fire. The return fire 
 from the Germans was spasmodic, and not to 
 be compared in volume to ours, and yet 
 against ranks and rows of guns in the bare 
 open it could not fail to be damaging, and a 
 good few of the batteries lost guns smashed 
 and many men and officers killed and 
 wounded.
 
 ARTILLERY PREPARATION 329 
 
 But the guns, and as far as possible the 
 men, were replaced, and the weight of fire 
 kept up. The men worked in shifts, half of 
 them keeping the guns going while the others 
 ate and rested, and slept the sleep of utter 
 exhaustion in shell-holes near the guns, which 
 continued to bang in running bursts of "bat- 
 tery fire," or crash out in ear-splitting and 
 ground-shaking four-gun salvos within a 
 dozen or two yards of the sleepers' heads. 
 The sheer physical labour was cruelly ex- 
 hausting — the carrying and handling of the 
 shells, the effort to improvise sandbag and 
 broken timber ''platforms" under the gun 
 wheels to keep them from sinking in the soft 
 ground, even the mere walking or moving 
 about ankle deep in the sea of sticky mud 
 that surrounded the guns and clung in heavy 
 clogging lumps to feet and legs. But the 
 mental strain must have been even worse in 
 the past six days and nights of constant 
 heavy firing, and of suffering under fire. 
 
 Now on this, the sixth and last day of the 
 preparation, the rate of fire along the whole 
 line was worked up to an appalling pitch of 
 
 /
 
 330 FRONT LINES 
 
 violence. The line of the advanced field posi- 
 tions ran in a narrow and irregular belt, at 
 few points more than a couple of thousand 
 yards from the enemy line ; the batteries were 
 so closely placed that the left flank gun of 
 one was bare yards from the right flank gun 
 of the next, and in some groups were ranged 
 in double and triple tiers. Up and down this 
 line for miles the guns poured out shells as 
 hard as they could go. Every now and again 
 the enemy artillery would attempt a reply, 
 and a squall of shells would shriek and whistle 
 and crash down on some part or other of our 
 guns' line, catching a few men here, killing 
 a handful there, smashing or overturning a 
 gun elsewhere — but never stopping or even 
 slacking the tornado of fire poured out by the 
 British line. 
 
 Each battery had a set rate of fire to main- 
 tain, a fixed number of rounds to place on 
 detailed targets ; and badly or lightly mauled 
 or untouched, as might be, each one per- 
 formed its appointed task. In any battery 
 which had lost many officers and men only a 
 constant tremendous effort kept the guns
 
 ARTILLERY PREPARATION 331 
 
 going. The men relieved from their turn at 
 the guns crawled to the craters, where they 
 had slung a ground sheet or two for shelter 
 from the rain, or had scooped a shallow niche 
 in the side, ate their bully and biscuit, 
 stretched their cramped muscles, crept into 
 their wet lairs, wrapped themselves in wet 
 blankets or coats, curled up and slept them- 
 selves into a fresh set of cramps. They were 
 lucky if they had their spell off in undisturbed 
 sleep ; most times they were turned out, once, 
 twice, or thrice, to help unload the pack mules 
 which brought up fresh supplies of shells, and 
 man-handle the rounds up from the nearest 
 points the mules could approach over the 
 welter of muddy ground so pitted and cra- 
 tered that even a mule could not pass over it. 
 When their relief finished they crawled out 
 again and took their places on the guns, and 
 carried on. By nightfall every man of them 
 was stiff with tiredness, deafened and numb 
 with the noise and shock of the piece's jar- 
 ring recoil, weary-eyed and mind-sick with 
 the unceasing twiddling and adjusting of tiny 
 marks to minute scratches and strokes on
 
 332 FRONT LINES 
 
 shell fuses, sights, and range-drums. The 
 deepening dusk was hardly noticed, because 
 the running bursts of flame and light kept 
 the dusk at bay. And dark night brought no 
 rest, no slackening of the fierce rate of fire, 
 or the labour that maintained it. 
 
 The whole gun-line came to be revealed only 
 as a quivering belt of living fire. As a gun 
 fired there flamed out in front of the battery 
 a blinding sheet of light that threw up every 
 detail of men and guns and patch of wet 
 ground in glaring hot light or hard black 
 silhouette. On the instant, the light vanished 
 and darkness clapped down on the tired eyes, 
 to lift and leap again on the following instant 
 from the next gun's spurt of vivid sheeting 
 flame. For solid miles the whole line throbbed 
 and pulsed in the same leaping and vanishing 
 gusts of fire and light ; and from either side, 
 from front, and rear, and overhead, came the 
 long and unbroken roaring and crashing and 
 banging and bellowing of the guns' reports, 
 the passing and the burst of the shells. 
 
 So it went on all night, and so it went on 
 into the grey hours of the dawn. As the
 
 ARTILLERY PREPARATION 333 
 
 ''zero hour" fixed for the attack approached, 
 the rate of fire worked up and up to a point 
 that appeared to be mere blind ravening fury. 
 But there was nothing blind about it. For all 
 the speed of the work each gun was accu- 
 rately laid for every round, each fuse was set 
 to its proper tiny mark, each shell roared 
 down on its appointed target. The guns grew 
 hot to the touch, the breeches so hot that oil 
 sluiced into them at intervals hissed and 
 bubbled and smoked like fat in a frying pan, 
 as it touched the metal. 
 
 One battery ceased fire for a few minutes 
 to allow some infantry supports to pass 
 through the line and clear of the blast of the 
 guns' fire, and the gunners took the respite 
 thankfully, and listened to the shaking 
 thunder of the other guns, the rumble and 
 wail and roar of the shells that passed 
 streaming over their heads, sounds that up 
 to now had been drowned out in the nearer 
 bang and crash of their own guns. 
 
 As the infantry picked their way out be- 
 tween the guns the "Number One" of the 
 nearest detachment exchanged a few shouted
 
 334 FRONT LINES 
 
 remarks with one of the infantry sergeants, 
 ''Near time to begin," said the sergeant, 
 glancing at his watch. ''Busy time goin' to 
 be runnin' this next day or two. You'll be 
 hard at it, too, I s'pose.'* 
 
 "Busy time! beginning!" retorted the ar- 
 tilleryman, " I 'm about fed up o ' busy times. 
 This battery hasn't been out of the line or 
 out of action for over three months, an' been 
 more or less under fire all that time. We 
 haven't stopped shootin' night or day for a 
 week, and this last 24 hours we been at it full 
 stretch, hammer an' tongs. Beginnin' — Good 
 Lord! I'm that hoarse, I can hardly croak, 
 an' every man here is deaf, dumb, and par- 
 alysed. I'm gettin' to hate this job, an' I 
 never want to hear another gun or see another 
 shell in my blanky life." 
 
 The infantryman laughed, and hitched his 
 rifle up to move. "I s'pose so," he said. 
 "An' I shouldn't wonder if them Fritzes in 
 the line you've been strafin' are feelin' same 
 way as you about guns an' shells — only more 
 
 so.'» 
 
 "That's so," agreed the Number One, and
 
 ARTILLERY PREPARATION 335 
 
 turned to the fuse-setters, urging them 
 hoarsely to get a stack of rounds ready for 
 the barrage. "We're just goin' to begin," 
 ho said, "an' if this blanky gun don't hump 
 herself in the next hour or two . . /'
 
 STRETCHER-BEARERS 
 
 Lieutenant Drew was wounded within four 
 or five hundred yards of the line from which 
 his battalion started to attack. He caught 
 three bullets in as many seconds — one in the 
 arm, one in the shoulder, and one in the side 
 — and went down under them as if he had 
 been pole-axed. The shock stunned him for 
 a little, and he came to hazily to find a couple 
 of the battalion stretcher-bearers trying to 
 lift him from the soft mud in which he was 
 half sunk. 
 
 Drew was rather annoyed with them for 
 wanting to disturb him. He was quite com- 
 fortable, he told them, and all he wanted was 
 to be left alone there. The bearers refused 
 to listen to this, and insisted in the first place 
 in slicing away some of his clothing — which 
 still further annoyed Drew because the 
 weather was too cold to dispense with clothes 
 
 336
 
 STRETCHER-BEARERS 337 
 
 — and putting some sort of first field dress- 
 ing on the wounds. 
 
 ''D'you think he can walk, BillT' one 
 asked the other. "No," said Bill. *'I fancy 
 he's got one packet through the lung, an' if 
 he walks he '11 wash out. It 's a carryin ' job. " 
 
 ''Come on, then," said the first. ''Sooner 
 we start the sooner we're there." 
 
 Quite disregarding Drew's confused 
 grumbles, they lifted and laid him on a 
 stretcher and started to carry him back to 
 the aid post. 
 
 If that last sentence conveys to you any 
 picture of two men lifting a stretcher nicely 
 and smoothly and walking off at a gentle and 
 even walk, you must alter the picture in all its 
 details. The ground where the lieutenant had 
 fallen, the ground for many acres round him, 
 was a half-liquefied mass of mud churned up 
 into lumps and hummocks pitted and cratered 
 with shell-holes intersected with rivulets and 
 pools of water. "When Drew was lifted on to 
 the stretcher, it sank until the mud oozed 
 out and up from either side and began to 
 slop in over the edges. When the bearers had
 
 338 FRONT LINES 
 
 lifted him on, they moved each to his own 
 end, and they moved one step at a time, 
 floundering and splashing and dragging one 
 foot clear after the other. When they took 
 hold of the stretcher ends and lifted, both 
 staggered to keep their balance on the slip- 
 pery foothold ; and to move forward each had 
 to steady himself on one foot, wrench the 
 other up out of the mud, plunge it forward 
 and into the mud again, grope a minute for 
 secure footing, balance, and proceed to repeat 
 the performance with the other foot. The 
 stretcher lurched and jolted and swayed side 
 to side, backward and forward. The move- 
 ment at first gave Drew severe stabs of pain, 
 but after a little the pain dulled down into a 
 steady throbbing ache. 
 
 The bearers had some 400 or 500 yards to 
 go over the ground covered by the advance. 
 After this they would find certain sketchy 
 forms of duck-board walks — if the German 
 shells had not wiped them out — and, farther 
 back, still better and easier methods of 
 progress to the aid post. But first there was 
 this shell-ploughed wilderness to cross. Drew
 
 STRETCHER-BEARERS 339 
 
 remembered vaguely what a struggle it had 
 been to him to advance that distance on his 
 own feet, and carrying nothing but his own 
 weight and his equipment. It was little won- 
 der the bearers found the same journey a 
 desperate effort with his weight sagging and 
 jolting between them and pressing them down 
 in the mud. 
 
 In the first five yards the leading bearer 
 slipped, failed to recover his balance, and 
 fell, letting his end down with a jolt and a 
 splash. He rose smothered in a fresh coat of 
 wet mud, full of mingled curses on the mud 
 and apologies to the wounded man. Drew 
 slid off into a half-faint. He woke again 
 slowly, as the bearers worked through a par- 
 ticularly soft patch. The mud was nearly 
 thigh deep, and they were forced to take a 
 step forward, half -lift, half -drag the stretcher 
 on, lay it down while they struggled on 
 another foot or two, turn and haul their load 
 after them. It took them a full hour to move 
 a fair 60 paces. 
 
 The work was not performed, either, with- 
 out distractions other than the mud and its
 
 340 FRONT LINES 
 
 circumventing, and the trouble of picking the 
 best course. An attack was in full progress, 
 and streams of shells were screaming and 
 howling overhead, with odd ones hurtling 
 down and bursting on the ground they were 
 traversing, flinging up gigantic geysers of 
 spouting mud, clods of earth, and black 
 smoke, erupting a whirlwind of shrieking 
 splinters and fragments. Several times the 
 bearers laid the stretcher down and crouched 
 low in the mud from the warning roar of an 
 approaching shell, waited the muflQed crash 
 of its burst, the passing of the flying frag- 
 ments. From the nearer explosions a shower 
 of dirt and clods rained down about them, 
 splashing and thudding on the wet ground; 
 from the farther ones an occasional piece of 
 metal would drop whistling or droning 
 angrily and ' ' whutt ' ' into the mud. Then the 
 bearers lifted their burden and resumed their 
 struggling advance. Fortunately the waves 
 of attacking infantry had passed beyond 
 them, and most of the German guns were 
 busy flogging the front lines and trying to 
 hold or destroy them; but there were still
 
 STRETCHER-BEARERS 341 
 
 shells enough being flung back on the ground 
 they had to cover to make matters unpleas- 
 antly risky. To add to the risk there was a 
 constant whistle and whine of passing bullets, 
 and every now and then a regular shower of 
 them whipping and smacking into the mud 
 about them, bullets not aimed at them, but 
 probably just the chance showers aimed a 
 little too high to catch the advancing attack, 
 passing over and coming to earth a few hun- 
 dred yards back. 
 
 The little party was not alone, although the 
 ground was strangely empty and deserted to 
 what it had been when the attack went over. 
 There were odd wounded men, walking 
 wounded struggling back alone, others more 
 seriously hurt toiling through the mud with 
 the assistance of a supporting arm, others 
 lying waiting their turn to be carried in, 
 placed for the time being in such cover as 
 could be found, the cover usually of a deep 
 shell-crater with soft, wet sides, and a deep 
 pool at the bottom. There were odd bunches 
 of men moving up, men carrying bombs, or 
 ammunition, or supplies of some sort for the
 
 342 FRONT LINES 
 
 firing line, all ploughing slowly and heavily 
 through the sticky mud. 
 
 Drew lost all count of time. He seemed to 
 have been on that stretcher, to have been 
 swaying and swinging, bumping down and 
 heaving up, for half a life-time — no, more, 
 for all his life, because he had no thought for, 
 no interest in anything that had happened in 
 the world before this stretcher period, still 
 less any interest in what might happen after 
 it ended — if ever it did end. Several times 
 he sank into stupor or semi-unconsciousness, 
 through which he was still dimly sensible 
 only of the motions of the stretcher, without 
 any connected thought as to what they meant 
 or how they were caused. Once he awoke 
 from this state to find himself laid on the 
 ground, one of his bearers lying in a huddled 
 heap, the other stooping over him, lifting 
 and hauling at him. Everything faded out 
 again, and in the next conscious period he 
 was moving on jerkily once more, this time 
 with two men in the lead with a stretcher- 
 arm apiece, and one man at the rear end. His
 
 STRETCHER-BEARERS 343 
 
 first stretcher-bearer they left there, flat and 
 still, sinking gradually in the soft ooze. 
 
 Again everything faded, and this time he 
 only recovered as he was being lifted out of 
 the stretcher and packed on a flat sideless 
 truck affair with four upright corner posts. 
 Somewhere near, a battery of field guns was 
 banging out a running series of ear-splitting 
 reports — and it was raining softly again — • 
 and he was sitting instead of lying. He 
 groped painfully for understanding of it all. 
 
 ''Where am I?" he asked faintly. 
 
 "You're all right now, sir," someone an- 
 swered him. "You'll have to sit up a bit, 
 'cos we've a lot o' men an' not much room. 
 But you're on the light railway, an' the 
 truck '11 run you the half-mile to the Post in 
 a matter o' minutes." 
 
 "What time is itT' asked Drew. "How's 
 the show going?" 
 
 "It's near two o'clock, sir. An' we hear 
 all the objectives is taken." 
 
 "Near two," said Drew, and as the truck 
 moved off, "Near two," he kept repeating 
 and strugghng to understand what had hap-
 
 344 FRONT LINES 
 
 pened to time — had started at six . . . and 
 it was ''near two" . . . ''near two" . . . 
 two o'clock, that was. He couldn't piece it 
 together, and he gave it up at last and de- 
 voted himself to fitting words and music to 
 the rhythm of the grinding, murmuring truck 
 wheels. Six o'clock . . . two o'clock. 
 
 It was little wonder he was puzzled. The 
 attack had started at six. But it had taken 
 the stretcher-bearers five hours to carry him 
 some 400 yards.
 
 XXI 
 
 THE CONQUEROES 
 
 The public room (which in England would 
 be the Public Bar) of the ''Cheval Blanc'' 
 estaminet, or ''Chevvle Blank" as its pres- 
 ent-day customers know it, had filled very 
 early in the evening. Those members of the 
 Labour Company who packed the main room 
 had just returned to the blessings of compar- 
 ative peace after a very unpleasant spell in 
 the line which had culminated in a last few 
 days — and the very last day especially — on a 
 particularly nasty ' ' job o ' work. ' ' Making a 
 corduroy road of planks across an apparently 
 bottomless pit of mud in a pouring rain and 
 biting cold wind cannot be pleasant work at 
 any time. When you stir in to the dish of 
 trouble a succession of five-point-nine high- 
 explosive shells howling up out of the rain 
 and crashing thunderously down on or about 
 
 the taped-out line of road, it is about as near 
 
 345
 
 346 FRONT LINES 
 
 the limit of unpleasantness as a Labour 
 Company cares to come. The job was rushed, 
 five-nines being a more drastic driver than 
 the hardest hustling foreman, but the German 
 gunners evidently had the old road nicely 
 ranged and had correctly estimated the chance 
 of its being reconstructed, with the result that 
 their shells pounded down with a horrible 
 persistency which might have stopped any- 
 thing short of the persistency of the Com- 
 pany and the urgency of the road being put 
 through. The men at work there, stripped to 
 open-throated and bare-armed shirts, and yet 
 running rivers of sweat for all their strip- 
 ping, drove the work at top speed on this last 
 day in a frantic endeavour to complete before 
 dark. They knew nothing of the tactical 
 situation, nothing of what it might mean to 
 the success or failure of "the Push" if the 
 road were not ready to carry the guns and 
 ammunition waggons by that nightfall, knew 
 only that ''Eoarin' Bill, The Terrible Turk," 
 had pledged the Company to finish that night, 
 and that * ' Roarin ' Bill ' ' must not be let down. 
 It must be explained here that ''Roarin'
 
 THE CONQUERORS 347 
 
 Bill" was the Captain in command of the 
 Company, and although the men perhaps 
 hardly knew it themselves, or ever stopped 
 to reason it out, the simple and obvious rea- 
 son for their reluctance to let him down was 
 merely because they knew that under no cir- 
 cumstances on earth would he let them, the 
 Company, down. His nick-name was a 
 private jest of the Company's, since he had 
 the voice and manners of a sucking dove. 
 But for all that his orders, his bare word, 
 or even a hint from him, went farther than 
 any man's, and this in about as rough and 
 tough a Company as a Captain could well 
 have to handle. ''Bill" had said they must 
 finish before dark, walked up and down the 
 plank road himself watching and directing 
 the work, and never as much as looked — that 
 they knew of — at the watch on his wrist to 
 figure whether they'd make out or not. " Th' 
 Terrible Turk 'as spoke; wot 'e 'as said, 'e 
 blanky well 'as said," Sergeant Buck re- 
 marked once as the Captain passed down the 
 road, "an' all the shells as Gerry ever pitched 
 ain't goin' to alter it. Come on, get at it;
 
 348 FRONT LINES 
 
 that blighter's a mile over.*' The gang, who 
 had paused a moment in their labour to 
 crouch and look up as a shell roared over, 
 ' * got at it, ' ' slung the log into place, and had 
 the long spike nails that held the transverse 
 planks to "the ribbon" or binding edge log 
 half hammered home before the shell had 
 burst in a cataract of mud and smoke three 
 hundred yards beyond. The shells weren't 
 always beyond. Man after man was sent 
 hobbling, or carried groaning, back over the 
 road he had helped to build ; man after man, 
 until there were six in a row, was lifted to a 
 patch of slightly drier mud near the roadside 
 and left there — because the road needed every 
 hand more than did the dead who were past 
 needing anything. 
 
 The job was hard driven at the end, and 
 with all the hard driving was barely done to 
 time. About 4 o'clock an artillery subaltern 
 rode over the planks to where the gang 
 worked at the road-end, his horse slithering 
 and picking its way fearfully over the muddy 
 wet planks. 
 
 ''Can't we come through yet?" he asked.
 
 THE CONQUERORS 349 
 
 and the Captain himself told him no, he was 
 afraid not, because it would interrupt his 
 work. 
 
 "But hang it all," said the Gunner officer, 
 "there's a couple of miles of guns and wag- 
 gons waiting back there at the Control. If 
 they're not through before dark " 
 
 "They won't be," said the Captain mildly, 
 "not till my time to finish, and that's 5 
 o'clock. You needn't look at your watch," 
 he went on, "I know it 's not five yet, because 
 I told my men they must finish by five — and 
 they're not finished yet." He said the last 
 words very quietly, but very distinctly, and 
 those of the gang who heard passed it round 
 the rest as an excellent jest which had com- 
 pleted the " 'tillery bloke's" discomfiture. 
 But the Captain's jest had a double edge. 
 "Start along at five," he had called to the 
 retiring Gunner, "and she'll be ready for you. 
 This Company puts its work through on time, 
 always. ' ' And the Company did, cramming a 
 good two hours' work into the bare one to 
 make good the boast; picking and spading 
 tremendously at the shell-torn earth to level
 
 V 
 350 FRONT LINES 
 
 a way for the planks, filling in deep and shal- 
 low holes, carrying or dragging or rolling 
 double burdens of logs and planks, flinging 
 them into place, spiking them together with 
 a rapid fusillade of click-clanking hammer- 
 blows. They ceased to take cover or even to 
 stop and crouch from the warning yells of 
 approaching shells; they flung off the gas- 
 masks, hooked at the "Alert" high on their 
 chests, to give freer play to their arms ; they 
 wallowed in mud and slime, and cursed and 
 laughed in turn at it, and the road, and the 
 job, and the Army, and the war. But they 
 finished to time, and actually at 5 o 'clock they 
 drove the last spikes while the first teams 
 were scrabbling over the last dozen loose 
 planks. 
 
 Then the Company wearily gathered up its 
 picks and shovels and dogs and sleds, and its 
 dead, and trudged back single-file along the 
 edge of the road up which the streaming 
 traffic was already pouring to plunge off the 
 end and plough its way to its appointed 
 places. 
 
 And now in the ''Cheval Blanc" as many
 
 THE CONQUERORS 351 
 
 of the Company as could find room were 
 crowded, sitting or standing contentedly in a. 
 ''fug" you could cut with a spade, drinking 
 very weak beer and smoking very strong 
 tobacco, gossiping over the past days, thank- 
 ing their stars they were behind in rest for a 
 spell. 
 
 The door opened and admitted a gust of 
 cold air; and the cheerful babel of voices, 
 shuffling feet, and clinking glasses, died in a 
 silence that spread curiously, inwards circle 
 by circle from the door, as three men came 
 in and the Company realised them. The 
 Captain was one, and the other two were — 
 amazing and unusual vision there, for all that 
 it was so familiar in old days at home — nor- 
 mal, decently dressed in tweeds and serge, 
 cloth-capped, ordinary "civilians," obviously 
 British, and of working class. 
 
 The Captain halted and waved them for- 
 ward. ''These two gentlemen," he said to 
 the Company, "are — ah — on a tour of the 
 Front. They will — ah — introduce themselves 
 to you. Corporal, please see them back to
 
 352 FRONT LINES 
 
 my Mess when they are ready to come," and 
 he went out. 
 
 The two new-comers were slightly ill at 
 ease and felt a little out of place, although 
 they tried hard to carry it off, and nodded to 
 the nearest men and dropped a ''How goes 
 it?" and "Hullo, mates" here and there as 
 they moved slowly through the throng that 
 opened to admit them. Then one of them 
 laughed, still with a slightly embarrassed air, 
 and squared his shoulders, and spoke up loud 
 enough for the room to hear. 
 
 The room heard — in a disconcerting silence 
 — while he explained that they were two of a 
 "deputation" of working men brought out to 
 "see the conditions" at the Front, and go 
 back and tell their mates in the shops what 
 they saw. 
 
 "It's a pity," said the Corporal gently 
 when he finished, "you 'adn't come to us a 
 day earlier. 'Twoulda bin some condition 
 you 'da seen." 
 
 "Wot d'jer want to see?" asked another. 
 "This . . . ain't front ezackly." "Listen!" 
 cried another, "ain't that a shell comin' over?
 
 THE CONQUERORS 353 
 
 Take cover!" And the room tittered, the 
 nearest shell being a good five miles away. 
 
 ''Want to see everything," said the deputy. 
 < ' We 're going in the trenches to-morrow, but 
 bein' here to-night we asked your Cap'n 
 where we'd meet some o' the boys, an' he 
 brought us here." 
 
 "Wot trenches — ^wot part?" he was asked, 
 and when, innocently enough, he named a part 
 that for years has had the reputation of a 
 Quaker Sunday School for peacefulness, a 
 smile flickered round. The deputy saw the 
 smile. He felt uneasy; things weren't going 
 right; there wasn't the eager welcome, the 
 anxious questions after labour conditions and 
 so on he had expected. So he lifted his voice 
 again and talked. He was a good talker, 
 which perhaps was the reason he was a chosen 
 deputy. But he didn't hold the room. Some 
 listened, others resumed their own chat, 
 others went on with the business of the 
 evening, the drinking of thin beer. When he 
 had finished the other man spoke, with even 
 less success. There is some excuse for this. 
 You cannot quite expect men who have been
 
 354 FRONT LINES 
 
 working like niggers under the filthiest pos- 
 sible conditions of wet and mud, weather and 
 squalor, have been living and working, sleep- 
 ing and eating, with sudden and violent death 
 at their very elbows, to come straight out of 
 their own inferno and be in any way deeply 
 interested in abstract conditions of Labour 
 at Home, or to be greatly sympathetic to the 
 tea-and-butter shortage troubles of men who 
 are earning good money, working in com- 
 fortable shops, and living in their own homes. 
 The men were much more interested in af- 
 fairs in France. 
 
 ''Wot's the idea anyway?" asked one man. 
 "Wot's the good o' this tour business?" 
 
 ''We've come to see the facks," said a 
 deputy. ' ' See 'em for ourselves, and go back 
 home to tell 'em in the shops what you chaps 
 is doing." 
 
 "Wish they'd let some of us swap places 
 wi' them in the shops," was the answer. ''I'd 
 tell 'em something, an' they'd learn a bit 
 too, doin' my job here." 
 
 "The workers, Labour, wants to know," 
 went on the deputy, ignoring this. "Some
 
 THE CONQUERORS 355 
 
 says finish the war, and some says get on 
 with it, and " 
 
 ''Which are you doing?" came in swift 
 reply, and ''How many is on this deputation 
 job?" 
 
 "There's three hundred a week coming 
 out," said the deputy with a touch of pride, 
 "and " 
 
 ' ' Three hundred ! ' ' said a loud voice at the 
 back of the room. "Blimey, that's boat an' 
 train room for three 'undred a week the less 
 o' us to go on leaf." 
 
 The talk drifted off amongst the men them- 
 selves again, but the deputation caught 
 snatches of it. "Same oP game as ol' Blank 
 did . . . we'll see their names in the papers 
 makin' speeches when they're home . . . 
 wearin' a tin 'at an' a gas-mask an' bein' 
 warned to keep their 'eads down cos this is 
 the front line — at Vale-o '-tears. Oh Lord!" 
 . . . "Square the Quarter-bloke an' take the 
 shrap helmet home as a souvenier to hang 
 
 over the mantel " (Here a listening 
 
 deputy blushed faintly and hastily renounced 
 a long-cherished secret idea.) "Will this
 
 356 FRONT LINES 
 
 trip entitle 'em to a war medal ? " * * Lord 'elp 
 the one of 'em I meets wearing a medal that 
 they gets for a week where they're go in', an' 
 that I've took years to earn, where we come 
 from." 
 
 The deputy began a long speech, worked 
 himself up into a warmth befitting the sub- 
 ject, begged his hearers to "hold together," 
 not to forget they were workers before they 
 were soldiers ("an' will be after — with a vote 
 apiece," struck in a voice), and finally wound 
 up with a triumphant period about ' ' Union is 
 Strength" and "Labor omnia vincit — Labour 
 Conquers All," which last he repeated sev- 
 eral times and with emphasis. 
 
 Then the Corporal answered him, and after 
 the first sentence or two the room stilled and 
 the Company held its breath to listen, break- 
 ing at times into a running murmur of ap- 
 plause. The Corporal spoke well. He had 
 the gift ; still better he had the subject ; and, 
 best of all, he had an audience that under- 
 stood and could not be shocked by blunt 
 truths. He told the deputation some details 
 of the work they had been doing and the con-
 
 THE CONQUERORS 357 
 
 ditions under which it was done; what the 
 shell-fire was like, and what some of the casu- 
 alties were like ; the hours of their labour and 
 the hours of their rest; how they had made 
 their road with the shells smashing in at 
 times as fast as it could be made; how a 
 waggon of timber, six-horse team, and driver 
 had been hit fair by a five-nine on the road, 
 and how the wreckage (and nothing else that 
 they could help) had been used to begin fill 
 in the hole ; what their daily pay was and what 
 their rations were, especially on nights when 
 a shell wrecked the ration-carrying party; 
 and, finally, their total of killed and wounded 
 in the one day, yesterday. 
 
 * ' Union is strength, ' ' he finished up. * ' But 
 does their union at home help our strength 
 here? What strength do we get when a strike 
 wins and you get more pay — at 'ome, an' 
 we're left short o' the shells or airyplanes 
 that might save us gettin' shelled an' air- 
 bombed in the ruddy trenches. Labour Con- 
 quers All! Does it? Tell that to a five-nine 
 H.E. droppin' on you. Ask Black Harry an'
 
 358 FRONT LINES 
 
 Joe Hullish an' the rest o' them we buried 
 yesterday, if Labour Conquers All." 
 
 The deputation had no answer, gave up the 
 argument, and presently withdrew. 
 
 But actually, if they had seen it, and if 
 Labour could see it, they were entirely right, 
 and the Corporal himself unwittingly had 
 proved it. Union is strength — if it be the 
 union of the workshops and the Front; 
 Labour does conquer all — if Labour, Back 
 and Front, pull together. There was no need 
 to ask the question of Black Harry and Joe 
 Hullish and the rest, because they themselves 
 were the answer, lying in their shallow 
 graves that shook and trembled about them 
 to the roar and rumble of the traffic, the guns 
 and limbers and ammunition waggons pour- 
 ing up the road which they had helped to 
 make. They were dead; but the road was 
 through. Labour had won; they were, are, 
 and — if their mates. Back and Front, so de- 
 cree — ^will be The Conquerors.
 
 BOOKS ly BOYD CABLE 
 
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 standing of the intimate details of the Great War than 
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 part within sound of the German guns, they have an 
 atmosphere of reality that no mere work of the imagi- 
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