Читать книгу The Test of Scarlet - Coningsby Dawson - Страница 3

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THE raid is over. The frenzied appeal of the Hun flares has died down. Flares are the deaf and dumb language of the Front. Sometimes they say, “We are advancing”; sometimes, “We are beaten back.” Most often they say, “We are in danger; call upon the artillery for help.” Tonight they seemed to be crying out for mercy—speaking not to friends, but to us. We were silent as God, and now they too are silent.

In the welter of darkness one can still make out the exact location of the enemy’s front-line by the glow of his burning dug-outs. Our chaps set them on fire, standing in the doorways like avenging angels, and hurling down incendiary bombs as he tried to rush up the stairs. A horrid way to die, imprisoned underground in a raging furnace! Yet at this distance the destruction looks comfortable as the reflection of many camp-fires about which companions sit and warm their hands. The only companions in those trenches now are Corruption and his old friend Death.

I can see it all—the twisted terror of the bodies, the mangled redness of what once were men. I see these things too clearly—before they happen, while they are happening and when I ‘m not there. It is only when I am there that I do not see them, and they fail to impress me. It was so tonight as I crouched in my observation post, my telephonist beside me, waiting for the show to commence. As the second-hand ticked round to zero hour, I had an overpowering desire to delay the on-coming destruction. I peopled the enemy line with imaginary characters and built up stories about them. I pictured the homes they had left, the affections, the sweethearts, the little children. God knows why I should pity them. And then our chaps—they are known personalities; I can paint with exact precision the contrast between what they are and what they were. I see them always with laughter in their eyes, however desperate the job in hand. Their faces lean and eager as bayonets, they assemble in some main trench, as likely as not facetiously named after some favorite actress. On our present front we have the Doris Keane, the Teddie Gerrard and the Gaby. A sharply whispered word of command! They move forward, shuffling along the duckboard, come to the jumping-off point and commence to follow the lanes in the wire which lead out from safety across No Man’s Land. They crouch like panthers, flinging themselves flat every time a rocket ascends. Within shouting distance of the enemy, they drop into shell-holes and lie silent. All this I see in my mind as I gaze impotently through the blackness. My turn comes later when the raid is in full swing; it consists in directing the artillery fire and reporting to the rear what is happening.

I consult the illuminated dial of my wrist-watch—five seconds to go. Some battery, which has grown nervous, starts pooping off its rounds. A machine-gunner, imitating the bad example, commences a swift rat-a-tat-tat: Destiny demanding entrance on the door of some sleeping house. In the wall of darkness, as though a candle had been lighted and a blind pulled aside, a solitary flare ascends—then another, then another. North end south, like panic spreading, the illumination runs. With the clash of an iron door flung wide, all our batteries open up. I look behind me; flash follows flash. The horizon is lit up from end to end. The gunners are baking their loaves of death. The air is filled with a hissing as of serpents. Shells travel so thick and fast overhead that they seem to jostle and struggle for a passage. The first of them arrive. So far no eye has followed their flight. Suddenly they halt, reined in by their masters at the guns, and plunge snarling and golden on the heads of the enemy. Where a second ago there was blackness, a wall of fire and lead has grown up. Poor devils! Those who escape the shells will be destroyed by bomb and bayonet. Pity there is none; this is the hour of revenge. We shall take three prisoners, perhaps, in order that we may gather information, but the rest.... Our chaps have to think of their own safety. There is only one company in the raid, consisting of not over a hundred men. They might easily be surrounded. Their success depends on the element of surprise and the quickness of their get-away when they have done their work. If they took too many prisoners they would be hampered in their return. If they left any of the enemy alive behind them, they would be fired on as they retired. So the order is “No quarter and kill swiftly.”

Now that the attack has started, I cease to be concerned for the Hun: all my thought is for our chaps. I knew so many of them. Silborrad, the scout officer of the nth Battalion is there; a frail appearing lad, with the look of a consumptive and the heart of a lion. It was he who with one sergeant held up sixty Huns at Avion, driving them back with bombs from traverse to traverse. Battling Brown is in charge of the company; he’s the champion raiding officer of our corps and, with the exception of the V. C., has won every decoration that a man can earn. Curious stories are told about him. It is said that in the return from one raid he had brought three prisoners within sight of our lines when suddenly, without rhyme or reason, he lined them up and shot them dead. The moment he had done so he fell to weeping. This particular raid had been put on to gain identifications of the enemy Division that was facing us. By killing his prisoners he had failed in the purpose for which the raid bad been planned. You cannot wring answer? from the dead. Having seen his men safely back into our trenches, he set out alone across No Man’s Land. What he did there or how he did it, he has never told to anyone; but by dawn he came padding back through our wire, driving three new prisoners in front of him. For every Hun he shoots he makes a notch in the handle of his revolver. He has used up the handles of three revolvers already. He’s tall and slim as a girl, with nice eyes and a wistful sort of mouth. When he came to the war he was barely eighteen; today he’s scarcely twenty-one. War hasn’t aged him; he thrives on it and looks, if anything, more boyish. It’s only in a fight that his face loses its brooding expression of thwarted tenderness. Of a sudden it becomes hard and stern—almost Satanic. There never was such a man for clutching at glory.

And then there’s big Dick Dirk. When he first joined our Brigade, he got the reputation for being yellow because he talked so freely about being afraid. He has no right to be in the raid. It isn’t his job; he’s supposed to be deep underground in the Battalion Headquarters’ dug-out, carrying on his duties as liaison-officer. None of the artillery know, except myself, that he intended to go over the top with the infantry tonight. When our Colonel learns of his escapade, he’ll give him hell.

Dick is six-foot-three, slow in speech, simple as a child and so honest that it hurts. He stoups a little at the shoulders, falls forward at the knees and is as gray as a badger. His expression is worn and kindly, and his lower lip pendulous. You would set him down as stupid, if it were not for the twinkle in his eyes. I don’t think Dick ever kissed a girl; he would not consider it honorable and, in any case, holds too humble an opinion of himself. Since he’s been at the Front he’s managed to get engaged to one of his sister’s school-girl friends. She’s a Brazilian. He knows nothing about her, has never seen her, but like all of us, dreads the loneliness of “going West” without the knowledge that there is one girl who cares. She started the friendship by adding postscripts to his sister’s letters. Then she asked that he would send her a photo of himself. For some time he dodged her request, and afterwards spent weeks of wracking nervousness lest his looks should fall below her standards. Now that he’s engaged, he treats the entire war as though it were being fought for her. He still talks of being afraid. He refuses to lie about his sensations. The more he sees of shell-fire the stronger grows his physical dread. Because of this, he continually sets traps for his cowardice. Tonight he set another trap. I suppose he got to thinking how he’d hate to be an infantryman in a raid, so he decided to go over the top with them. At the present moment he might be in England, but cut his leave short, returned from Blighty and was sent up forward as liaison-officer. It was only yesterday that he surprised me by raising the gas-blanket and pushing in his head.

“You!” I exclaimed. “I was picturing you in Piccadilly. What’s brought you back from Blighty six days ahead of time?”

He flushed, but his eyes mocked his confusion. “It was devilishly lonely in London,” he said slowly; “there were too many girls.” And then, with an embarrassed smile, “I wanted to go straight because of her.”

So because he wanted to go straight for her, he’s out in No Man’s Land tonight, re-testing his worth and taking his life in his hands. There’s a woman at the back of each one of us who inspires most of our daring. With some of us she’s the woman whom we hope to meet, with others the woman whom we’ve met. Whether she lives in the future or the present, we carry on in an effort to be worthy of her. And when it’s ended, will she be worthy? Will she guess that we did it all for her? We shall never tell her; if she loves us, she will guess.

A sunken road, rotten with rain and mud, runs twenty yards to my left. I shall know when the raiders return, for I shall hear the weary tread of the wounded and the prisoners as they pass this point. A little higher up the road I can already hear the muffled panting of an ambulance, waiting to carry back the dead. Should I miss them, the quickened beat of the engine will warn me. The enemy knows that this is the route by which they must return; he’s lobbing over gas-shells and searching with whizz-bangs. A messy way of spending life Did God know that it was for this that He was creating us when He launched us on our adventure through the world?