"Contemptible" Part 17

Nothing warned the Subaltern, when at length he was shown the line for his own Platoon, that this night was to be any different from any of the other nights he had spent in the face of the enemy.

It was not, strictly speaking, a line of trenches at all. As usual, each man had dug a hole by himself, and each man was his own architect. Very few holes had been connected by a rough sort of trench at the back. The Captain had described the topography of the situation very exactly. The holes were dug on the borders of the forest, but were concealed from enemy artillery observation by the trees. The field of fire was absolutely open. It stretched to the top of the hill, which formed their horizon, a distance of rather less than two hundred yards. It was smooth gra.s.s, and it struck the Subaltern as being exceptionally green. A few dead cows, in the usual grotesque att.i.tudes of animals in death, were scattered over the green gra.s.s.

He selected his hole, and then began to take careful stock of his surroundings. The fact that he could see no sign of the opposite trenches perhaps lulled him into a sense of false security. Anyway, after having disposed of his haversack, and the sacks he had brought up with him, he got up from his hole, and began to walk along behind the holes. On the extreme left he found his Sergeant.

"Well, this looks a pretty safe position," he said.

"Yes, sir. I've just had a shot at a man's head that I thought I saw out there. I can't say whether or no I shot him. He disappeared quick enough. I should put the range at two hundred and fifty, sir."

"I wonder what is on our left, here?" he asked.

"I don't know, sir. I haven't had time to look."

"I think I had better go and find out for myself."

He set off, pursuing his way through the thick undergrowth and trees. It was longer than he thought. But all was still quiet, so the thought of being "spotted" in the open did not occur to him.

He found the edge of the next trench. It was thrown forward in front of the wood. After making the usual arrangements that are vaguely called "establis.h.i.+ng touch," he turned back out of the shelter of the parapet, over the dangerous ground.

Twilight was deepening every second. He did not run; and he only hurried, because he wanted to get really established in his "funk hole"

before it grew too dark to see what he was doing.

Then, almost simultaneously, the enemy and the regiment in the trenches opened fire. He stopped short, and turned round to watch. He could see nothing but thin red spurts of fire in the grey twilight. He turned quickly on his heel, meaning to reach his own men before the attack should develop on their front, where, as yet, all was quiet.

He almost reached the end of his trenches....

There was a crisp crash, a blinding light flew up like a circular sunset around him, a dreadful twinge, as of hair and skin and skull being jerked from his head with the strength of a giant! For the millionth part of a second he was at a loss to understand what had happened. Then, with sickening horror, he realised that he had been shot in the head.

It is impossible to convey with what speed impressions rushed through his mind.

The flaring horizon tilted suddenly from horizontal nearly to perpendicular. His head rushed through half a world of black, fury-s.p.a.ce. His toes and finger-tips were infinite miles behind. A sound of rus.h.i.+ng waters filled his ears, like deathly waterfalls stamping the life from his bursting head. Black blurred figures, nebulous and meaningless, loomed up before his face.

"Hit in the head--you're done for."

"Hit in the head--you're done for."

The inadequate thought chased through his brain.

"What a pity, what a shame; you might have been so happy, later on."

"What a pity, what a shame; you might have been so happy later on."

He was conscious that it was a foolishly futile thought at a supreme moment.

His life seemed pouring out of his head, his vitality was running down as a motor engine, suddenly cut off. He felt death descending upon him with appalling swiftness. Where would the world go to? And what next?

He was afraid.

Then, with a tremendous effort he turned his thoughts on G.o.d, and waited for death.

He was swimming in that black fury-sea that was neither wet nor clinging. He was made of lead in a universe that weighed nothing. He was sinking, sinking. In vain he struggled. The dark, dry waters closed over him....

Still the waterfalls pounded in his ears, and still the dry waves reeled before his eyes, and under his head a pool, sticky and warm.

What was that? This time surely something tangible and real moving towards him. With a supreme effort he tried to jerk his body into moving. His left leg moved. It moved wearily; but still it moved. His left arm too.

What was this?

The right arm and leg were gone, gone.

The rest of him was flabbergasted at the horror of the discovery.

No, not gone! They were there. But they would not move. He could not even _try_ to move them. He could not so much as _feel_ them.

Then he awoke to the horror of the thing.

His right side was dead!

The shape was really alive. It resolved itself into a man crawling in the darkness to his rescue.

"You need not bother about me, I'm done for. Get back into the trench."

He had a feeling that though he meant his lips to frame these words, he was in reality saying something quite different. It was an exhausting effort to speak.

The form asked him questions in a fierce whisper. He had not the strength to understand or answer.

Very slowly and cautiously he was dragged over the few yards of ground that separated him from the first hole.

It was awful. His brain conceived the thought: "For G.o.d's sake let me die in peace." But his lips were all twisted, and refused to move at the bidding of his brain. He could only groan.

With wonderful gentleness the man placed his Officer's broken head over the hole, and with the help of another man lowered him into it.

His next thought was: "Well, they can only hit my feet, now!" There had not been room in the hole for all of him, so his feet had been left protruding out of it. The thought fanned some smouldering ember of humour in him. A moment later he discovered with a thrill--

"I'm going to live, I'm going to live. I _will_ live!"

The discovery, and the resolution which followed, by no means excited him. He arrived quite quietly at the conclusion. And set his mind to await the development of the next event.

The man who had dragged him in now tied the "first field dressing" over his head, and fastened the strings beneath his chin. Interminable ages pa.s.sed slowly by, and yet the Doctor did not come. He regarded the arrival of the Doctor, like the coming of the Last Day, as the end of all difficulties, and the solution of many mysteries.

Needless to say he was disappointed. The Doctor could naturally do little or nothing for him. With the aid of a match or two he "had a look," replaced the dressing by some bandages, and moved him about a little to ease his position. To carry him away that night, said the Doctor, was absolutely impossible. And with that he went away.

The Senior Subaltern, who had come up with him, stayed a little longer, and earned his eternal grat.i.tude. He made further efforts to straighten him out, a.s.sured him that the effects of the shock would wear off by morning, and that he would once more be able to move. He collected a few extra blankets and coats and spread them over him, for he was growing terribly cold. Then with cheery words on his lips he left him.