________________________________________________
_ The following night, Claude was sent back to Division
Head-quarters at Q-- with information the Colonel did not care to
commit to paper. He set off at ten o'clock, with Sergeant Hicks
for escort. There had been two days of rain, and the
communication trenches were almost knee-deep in water. About half
a mile back of the front line, the two men crawled out of the
ditch and went on above ground. There was very little shelling
along the front that night. When a flare went up, they dropped
and lay on their faces, trying, at the same time, to get a squint
at what was ahead of them.
The ground was rough, and the darkness thick; it was past
midnight when they reached the east-and-west road--usually full
of traffic, and not entirely deserted even on a night like this.
Trains of horses were splashing through the mud, with shells on
their backs, empty supply wagons were coming back from the front.
Claude and Hicks paused by the ditch, hoping to get a ride. The
rain began to fall with such violence that they looked about for
shelter. Stumbling this way and that, they ran into a big
artillery piece, the wheels sunk over the hubs in a mud-hole.
"Who's there?" called a quick voice, unmistakably British.
"American infantrymen, two of us. Can we get onto one of your
trucks till this lets up?"
"Oh, certainly! We can make room for you in here, if you're not
too big. Speak quietly, or you'll waken the Major." Giggles and
smothered laughter; a flashlight winked for a moment and showed a
line of five trucks, the front and rear ones covered with
tarpaulin tents. The voices came from the shelter next the gun.
The men inside drew up their legs and made room for the
strangers; said they were sorry they hadn't anything dry to offer
them except a little rum. The intruders accepted this gratefully.
The Britishers were a giggly lot, and Claude thought, from their
voices, they must all be very young. They joked about their Major
as if he were their schoolmaster. There wasn't room enough on the
truck for anybody to lie down, so they sat with their knees under
their chins and exchanged gossip. The gun team belonged to an
independent battery that was sent about over the country,
"wherever needed." The rest of the battery had got through, gone
on to the east, but this big gun was always getting into trouble;
now something had gone wrong with her tractor and they couldn't
pull her out. They called her "Jenny," and said she was taken
with fainting fits now and then, and had to be humoured. It was
like going about with your grandmother, one of the invisible
Tommies said, "she is such a pompous old thing!" The Major was
asleep on the rear truck; he was going to get the V.C. for
sleeping. More giggles.
No, they hadn't any idea where they were going; of course, the
officers knew, but artillery officers never told anything. What
was this country like, anyhow? They were new to this part, had
just come down from Verdure.
Claude said he had a friend in the air service up there; did they
happen to know anything about Victor Morse?
Morse, the American ace? Hadn't he heard? Why, that got into the
London papers. Morse was shot down inside the Hun line three
weeks ago. It was a brilliant affair. He was chased by eight
Boche planes, brought down three of them, put the rest to flight,
and was making for base, when they turned and got him. His
machine came down in flames and he jumped, fell a thousand feet
or more.
"Then I suppose he never got his leave?" Claude asked.
They didn't know. He got a fine citation.
The men settled down to wait for the weather to improve or the
night to pass. Some of them fell into a doze, but Claude felt
wide awake. He was wondering about the flat in Chelsea; whether
the heavy-eyed beauty had been very sorry, or whether she was
playing "Roses of Picardy" for other young officers. He thought
mournfully that he would never go to London now. He had quite
counted on meeting Victor there some day, after the Kaiser had
been properly disposed of. He had really liked Victor. There was
something about that fellow . . . a sort of debauched baby, he
was, who went seeking his enemy in the clouds. What other age
could have produced such a figure? That was one of the things
about this war; it took a little fellow from a little town, gave
him an air and a swagger, a life like a movie-film,--and then a
death like the rebel angels.
A man like Gerhardt, for instance, had always lived in a more or
less rose-colored world; he belonged over here, really. How could
he know what hard moulds and crusts the big guns had broken open
on the other side of the sea? Who could ever make him understand
how far it was from the strawberry bed and the glass cage in the
bank, to the sky-roads over Verdure?
By three o'clock the rain had stopped. Claude and Hicks set off
again, accompanied by one of the gun team who was going back to
get help for their tractor. As it began to grow light, the two
Americans wondered more and more at the extremely youthful
appearance of their companion. When they stopped at a shellhole
and washed the mud from their faces, the English boy, with his
helmet off and the weather stains removed, showed a countenance
of adolescent freshness, almost girlish; cheeks like pink apples,
yellow curls above his forehead, long, soft lashes.
"You haven't been over very long, have you?" Claude asked in a
fatherly tone, as they took the road again.
"I came out in 'sixteen. I was formerly in the infantry."
The Americans liked to hear him talk; he spoke very quickly, in a
high, piping voice.
"How did you come to change?"
"Oh, I belonged to one of the Pal Battalions, and we got cut to
pieces. When I came out of hospital, I thought I'd try another
branch of the service, seeing my pals were gone."
"Now, just what is a Pal Battalion?" drawled Hicks. He hated all
English words he didn't understand, though he didn't mind French
ones in the least.
"Fellows who signed up together from school," the lad piped,
Hicks glanced at Claude. They both thought this boy ought to be
in school for some time yet, and wondered what he looked like
when he first came over.
"And you got cut up, you say?" he asked sympathetically.
"Yes, on the Somme. We had rotten luck. We were sent over to take
a trench and couldn't. We didn't even get to the wire. The Hun
was so well prepared that time, we couldn't manage it. We went
over a thousand, and we came back seventeen."
"A hundred and seventeen?"
"No, seventeen."
Hicks whistled and again exchanged looks with Claude. They could
neither of them doubt him. There was something very unpleasant
about the idea of a thousand fresh-faced schoolboys being sent
out against the guns. "It must have been a fool order," he
commented. "Suppose there was some mistake at Headquarters?"
"Oh, no, Headquarters knew what it was about! We'd have taken it,
if we'd had any sort of luck. But the Hun happened to be full of
fight. His machine guns did for us."
"You were hit yourself?" Claude asked him.
"In the leg. He was popping away at me all the while, but I
wriggled back on my tummy. When I came out of the hospital my leg
wasn't strong, and there's less marching in the artillery.
"I should think you'd have had about enough."
"Oh, a fellow can't stay out after all his chums have been
killed! He'd think about it all the time, you know," the boy
replied in his clear treble.
Claude and Hicks got into Headquarters just as the cooks were
turning out to build their fires. One of the Corporals took them
to the officers' bath,--a shed with big tin tubs, and carried away
their uniforms to dry them in the kitchen. It would be an hour
before the officers would be about, he said, and in the meantime
he would manage to get clean shirts and socks for them.
"Say, Lieutenant," Hicks brought out as he was rubbing himself
down with a real bath towel, "I don't want to hear any more about
those Pal Battalions, do you? It gets my goat. So long as we were
going to get into this, we might have been a little more
previous. I hate to feel small." "Guess we'll have to take our
medicine," Claude said dryly, "There wasn't anywhere to duck, was
there? I felt like it. Nice little kid. I don't believe American
boys ever seem as young as that."
"Why, if you met him anywhere else, you'd be afraid of using bad
words before him, he's so pretty! What's the use of sending an
orphan asylum out to be slaughtered? I can't see it," grumbled
the fat sergeant. "Well, it's their business. I'm not going to
let it spoil my breakfast. Suppose we'll draw ham and eggs,
Lieutenant?" _
Read next: Book Five: "Bidding the Eagles of the West Fly On": Chapter 10
Read previous: Book Five: "Bidding the Eagles of the West Fly On": Chapter 8
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