With Haig on the Somme Part 23

Suddenly, where the shattered trees thinned out and the still rising ground showed an irregular ridge against the skyline, a sound which they all knew only too well fell upon their ears.

There were two machine-gun emplacements on the ridge, and a murderous fire was opened upon the victorious pursuers.

Bob Dashwood blew the order to take cover, and, as there was plenty of it, A Company promptly flopped down behind the fallen trunks which our bombardment had uprooted in every direction.

"Phew! 'Ot stuff!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Harry Hawke, as he made room for Dennis beside him, and wiped the perspiration from his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket.

He was blowing like a grampus, for the pace had been fast.

"When we've got our wind, I reckon there's a little job up there for us, sir," said Hawke, pointing over the top of the fallen beech behind which they crouched.

"You mean the machine-gun, of course," said Dennis, nodding. "But unfortunately, whilst we're getting our wind, so are the enemy, and there's forty yards of open climb before we reach those sandbags up yonder. It isn't like that village behind us, and you may bet your boots the trench on the top of the ridge is packed with Germans like herrings in a barrel, waiting for us. We'll have to lie low until the battalion overtakes us."

Harry Hawke squinted thoughtfully down the short length of his snub nose.

"There's two of those bloomin' tac-tacs of theirs--one covering the communication trench, and t'other one yonder sweeping the front of the wood," he said. "What price that Lewis gun, sir, that chipped in on our right flank? Couldn't I go back and 'urry it up? If we could bring it into action from the other corner of this 'ere wood, it 'ud mean saving a lot of lives, for it's a sure thing the ridge has got to be taken."

While he was speaking they heard men running behind them, and looked round, hoping to see their own people, but it turned out to be a little party of the engineers laying a field telephone; and Dennis crawled on hands and knees towards them.

"What's become of the machine-guns?" he inquired of an intelligent corporal.

"Can't get 'em through the wood, sir. There are half a dozen on the other side hung up. I rather think they're waiting for you to give 'em a lead."

"Oh, are they? Any Lewis guns there?"

"Yes, there's one, sir. They were just starting along a path over yonder when we left."

"I say, do you hear that, Bob?" Dennis called out, as his brother came back, dodging from trunk to trunk, as every now and then one of the German guns on the ridge raked the wood with a stream of bullets. "The corporal says our Lewis is over yonder. What about my going over with a couple of chaps to give them a hand? I believe we could do something."

"Right you are," said Bob. "I've just been talking to that Highland officer, and he agrees with me that we must lie doggo until we are reinforced. I have sent two men back to the C.O. Bunk off and see what you can do."

"Thanks, old man," said Dennis, his face beaming with delight. "Hawke and Tiddler, this way!" And at his call the two inseparables crept back to where he stood.

"We're through now, sir, if you'd like to give them a shout at the other end," said the corporal of the engineers.

"Oh, good business!" cried Captain Bob. "If I can get on to the Governor that will buck things up a bit." And, leaving him kneeling behind a tall poplar, the telephone receiver in his hand, Dennis and his companions ran back a few yards into the shelter of the trees, and struck away at right angles.

CHAPTER XVIII

With the Lewis Gun--and After!

In the old Elizabethan days, before scene-painting was invented, they used to hang a placard on a black cloth behind the actors with such inscriptions as "This is the seash.o.r.e," "This is a wood." And such a description would have well pa.s.sed for the spot through which they now threaded their way.

It _had_ been a wood--a wood of tall, straight trees in full summer leaf, with bramble bushes and pleasant undergrowth before the British batteries had flung their devastating hail into it; but now it resembled an old toothbrush more than anything else, with bristles long and short, and sticking out at every angle.

Hundreds of fallen saplings barred their way. Here and there a beech had been uprooted, and a great sh.e.l.l crater yawned where it had stood, and the scarred trunks and bare poles were stained orange and yellow and vivid metallic green by the explosive agents.

A line of Tennyson occurred to Dennis, as odd things will occur at the oddest of moments.

"'I hate the little hollow behind the dreadful wood,'" he murmured, as he made an enforced circuit round a larger crater than usual; and Hawke, who was just ahead of him, stopped short and shrank back with a shout of "Mind your eye, sir!"

Something had crashed among the stumps in front of them, and a German 60-pound sh.e.l.l burst with a deafening roar.

For an instant everything was obscured by a volume of dense black smoke, and a rain of splinters and broken branches fell about them as the smoke curled away.

"That was a near thing," said Dennis. "Another minute, and there would have been three vacancies in the company."

"I'm not sure there ain't some already, sir," said Hawke in a curious, hushed voice. "What's that yonder?"

They hurried forward, for they had all seen a writhing figure in khaki a few yards ahead, and a sickening chill pa.s.sed over Dennis as he recognised his brother subaltern, young Delavoy-Bagotte, lying on his back with a tree-trunk across his legs. Over the same trunk was another figure, which did not move, and face downwards a yard away lay a third man with his back broken.

Half buried in the chalky soil was the Lewis gun they had been carrying forward when the sh.e.l.l fell.

"By Jove, Bagotte, old man, this is rotten luck!" exclaimed Dennis. "I'm afraid you've got it badly."

The boy--he was only eighteen, but the ribbon of the Military Cross was on the breast of his tunic--set his teeth hard and nodded as they removed the body of the other man and lifted the tree-trunk away from his legs by main force.

"Yes, pretty badly, Dashwood. My thighs are smashed to a jelly," he said. "But don't worry about me. I believe the Lewis is all right. Get along with it. The stretcher bearers will be up presently. Are my mates dead?"

"Yes," said Dennis--it was no good mincing matters--"but I can't leave you like this."

"Don't be an a.s.s," said Delavoy-Bagotte. "You can do no good by staying, and you will only worry me. Look to the gun, I tell you. Your company would never have crossed that stream behind yonder if I hadn't got on to the beggars' flank with it."

"That's a fact, old man," a.s.sented Dennis. "And it won't be forgotten when Bob makes his report." And while he was speaking he picked up that most marvellous of modern weapons, the Lewis gun, and found it unharmed.

"She's all right," he said. "Do you really mean me to go on?"

"Yes, confound you! I shall have to howl in another minute, and I want to do it alone," said the plucky boy between his teeth.

He was suffering untold agonies and they knew it; but they knew also that he was right; and Dennis made a sign to Hawke and Tiddler, who saluted the young lieutenant as they left him.

Keeping just within the fringe of the wood, Dennis shouldering the gun, while Hawke and Tiddler carried the field mount and the spare magazines, the adventurous three soon reached the angle in front of the ridge.

The stump of a well-grown beech stood up there, towering above the ground twenty feet or more. Its crest had been carried away by a sh.e.l.l, but one stout branch jutted out like the arm of a gallows; and Harry Hawke had a brain wave.

"'Arf a mo, sir," he said, laying his wallet down. And the next moment he was clambering up the tree until he reached the bough, where he supported himself for a minute or two on his elbows, taking stock of the enemy.

When he came sliding down again his eyes were dancing, and his voice was husky.

"If we could only get the gun up there, sir," he whispered excitedly, "the rest's as easy as kiss your hand. You can see the trench and the head of the bloke what's working that tac-tac of theirs. Have a look for yourself, sir." And Dennis made the climb, finding it as Hawke had said.

He saw something else, too--C Company now creeping through the wood, and taking possession of the cover along its northern edge, which told him that the battalion had arrived.

When he descended, after a careful reconnaissance, he found that Hawke and Tiddler had already antic.i.p.ated his decision, and were buckling their straps together.