Читать книгу Men, Women and Guns - Sapper - Страница 17

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This particular visit to the trenches was destined to be of a very different nature to former ones. On previous occasions peace had reigned; nothing untoward had occurred to mar the quiet restful existence which trench life so often affords to its devotees. But this time...

It started about six o'clock in the morning on the second day of their arrival—a really pleasant little intensive bombardment. A succession of shells came streaming in, shattering every yard of the front line with tearing explosions. Then the Huns turned on the gas and attacked behind it. A few reached the trenches—the majority did not; and the ground outside was covered with grey-green figures, some of which were writhing and twitching and some of which were still. The attack had failed...

But that sort of thing leaves its mark on the defenders, and this was their first baptism of real fire. Seymour had passed rapidly down the trench when he realised that for the moment it was over; and though men's faces were covered with the hideous gas masks, he saw by the twitching of their hands and by the ugly high-pitched laughter he heard that it would be well to get into touch with those behind. Moreover, in every piece of trench there lay motionless figures in khaki...

It was as he entered his dugout that the bombardment started again. Quickly he went to the telephone, and started to get on to brigade headquarters. It took him twenty seconds to realise that the line had been cut, and then he cursed dreadfully. The roar of the bursting shells was deafening; his cursing was inaudible; but in a fit of almost childish rage—he kicked the machine. Men's nerves are jangled at times...

It was merely coincidence doubtless, but a motionless figure in a gas helmet crouching outside the dugout saw that kick, and slowly in his bemused brain there started a train of thought. Why should his company officer do such a thing; why should they all be cowering in the trench waiting for death to come to them; why...? For a space his brain refused to act; then it started again.

Why was that man lying full length at the bottom of the trench, with the great hole torn out of his back, and the red stream spreading slowly round him; why didn't it stop instead of filling up the little holes at the bottom of the trench and then overflowing into the next one? He was the corporal who'd called him balmy; but why should he be dead? He was dead—at least the motionless watcher thought he must be. He lay so still, and his body seemed twisted and unnatural. But why should one of the regiment be dead; it was all so unexpected, so sudden? And why did his Major kick the telephone?...

For a space he lay still, thinking; trying to figure things out. He suddenly remembered tripping over a wire coming up to the trench, and being cursed by his sergeant for lurching against him. "You would," he had been told—"you would. If it ain't a wire, you'd fall over yer own perishing feet."

"What's the wire for, sergint?" he had asked.

"What d'you think, softie. Drying the washing on? It's the telephone wire to Headquarters."

It came all back to him, and it had been over by the stunted pollard that he'd tripped up. Then he looked back at the silent, motionless figure—the red stream had almost reached him—and the Idea came. It came suddenly—like a blow. The wire must be broken, otherwise the officer wouldn't have kicked the telephone; he'd have spoken through it.

"I wants the regiment to be proud of me—and then they calls me the Company Idiot." He couldn't do the little things—he was always forgetting, but...! What was that about "lifting 'em through the charge that won the day"? There was no charge, but there was the regiment. And the regiment was wanting him at last. Something wet touched his fingers, and when he looked at them, they were red. "B-A-R-M-Y. You ought to 'ave a nurse..."

Then once again coherent thought failed him—utter physical weakness gripped him—he lay comatose, shuddering, and crying softly over he knew not what. The sweat was pouring down his face from the heat of the gas helmet, but still he held the valve between his teeth, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth as he had been told. It was automatic, involuntary; he couldn't think, he only remembered certain things by instinct.

Suddenly a high explosive shell burst near him—quite close: and a mass of earth crashed down on his legs and back, half burying him. He whimpered feebly, and after a while dragged himself free. But the action brought him close to that silent figure, with the ripped up back...

"You ought to 'ave a nurse..." Why? Gawd above—why? Wasn't he as good a man as that there dead corporal? Wasn't he one of the regiment too? And now the Corporal couldn't do anything, but he—well, he hadn't got no hole torn out of his back. It wasn't his blood that lay stagnant, filling the little holes at the bottom of the trench...

Kipling came back to him—feebly, from another world. The dreamer was dreaming once again.

"If your officer's dead and the sergeants look white,

Remember it's ruin to run from a fight."

Run! Who was talking of running? He was going to save the regiment—once he could think clearly again. Everything was hazy just for the moment.

"And wait for supports like a soldier."

But there weren't no supports, and the telephone wire was broken—the wire he'd tripped over as he came up. Until it was mended there wouldn't be any supports—until it was mended—until——

With a choking cry he lurched to his feet: and staggering, running, falling down, the dreamer crossed the open. A tearing pain through his left arm made him gasp, but he got there—got there and collapsed. He couldn't see very well, so he tore off his gas helmet, and, peering round, at last saw the wire. And the wire was indeed cut. Why the throbbing brain should have imagined it would be cut there, I know not; perhaps he associated it particularly with the pollard—and after all he was the Company Idiot. But it was cut there, I am glad to say; let us not begrudge him his little triumph. He found one end, and some few feet off he saw the other. With infinite difficulty he dragged himself towards it. Why did he find it so terribly hard to move? He couldn't see clearly; everything somehow was getting hazy and red. The roar of the shells seemed muffled strangely—far-away, indistinct. He pulled at the wire, and it came towards him; pulled again, and the two ends met. Then he slipped back against the pollard, the two ends grasped in his right hand...

The regiment was safe at last. The officer would not have to kick the telephone again. The Idiot had made good. And into his heart there came a wonderful peace.

There was a roaring in his ears; lights danced before his eyes; strange shapes moved in front of him. Then, of a sudden, out of the gathering darkness a great white light seared his senses, a deafening crash overwhelmed him, a sharp stabbing blow struck his head. The roaring ceased, and a limp figure slipped down and lay still, with two ends of wire grasped tight in his hand.

"They are going to relieve us to-night, Sergeant-Major." The two men with tired eyes faced one another in the Major's dugout The bombardment was over, and the dying rays of a blood-red sun glinted through the door. "I think they took it well."

"They did, sir—very well."

"What are the casualties? Any idea?"

"Somewhere about seventy or eighty, sir—but I don't know the exact numbers."

"As soon as it's dark I'm going back to headquarters. Captain Standish will take command."

"That there Meyrick is reported missing, sir."

"Missing! He'll turn up somewhere—if he hasn't been hit."

"Probably walked into the German trenches by mistake," grunted the C.-S.-M. dispassionately, and retired. Outside the dugout men had moved the corporal; but the red pools still remained—stagnant at the bottom of the trench...

"Well, you're through all right now, Major," said a voice in the doorway, and an officer with the white and blue brassard of the signals came in and sat down. "There are so many wires going back that have been laid at odd times, that it's difficult to trace them in a hurry." He gave a ring on the telephone, and in a moment the thin, metallic voice of the man at the other end broke the silence.

"All right. Just wanted to make sure we were through. Ring off."

"I remember kicking that damn thing this morning when I found we were cut off," remarked Seymour, with a weary smile. "Funny how childish one is at times."

"Aye—but natural. This war's damnable." The two men fell silent. "I'll have a bit of an easy here," went on the signal officer after a while, "and then go down with you."

A few hours later the two men clambered out of the back of the trench. "It's easier walking, and I know every stick," remarked the Major. "Make for that stunted pollard first."

Dimly the tree stood outlined against the sky—a conspicuous mark and signpost. It was the signal officer who tripped over it first—that huddled quiet body, and gave a quick ejaculation. "Somebody caught it here, poor devil. Look out—duck."

A flare shot up into the night, and by its light the two motionless officers close to the pollard looked at what they had found.

"How the devil did he get here!" muttered Seymour. "It's one of my men."

"Was he anywhere near you when you kicked the telephone?" asked the other, and his voice was a little hoarse.

"He may have been—I don't know. Why?"

"Look at his right hand." From the tightly clenched fingers two broken ends of wire stuck out.

"Poor lad." The Major bit his lip. "Poor lad—I wonder. They called him the Company Idiot. Do you think...?"

"I think he came out to find the break in the wire," said the other quietly. "And in doing so he found the answer to the big riddle."

"I knew he'd make good—I knew it all along. He used to dream of big things—something big for the regiment."

"And he's done a big thing, by Jove," said the signal officer gruffly, "for it's the motive that counts. And he couldn't know that he'd got the wrong wire."