The Red Horizon Part 9

"Firin' at beastly sandbags!" one of the men said to me, "Blimey, (p. 103) that's no game. Yer 'ere and the sandbags is there, you never see anything, and you've to fire at nothin'. They call this war. Strike me ginger if it's like the pictures in _The Daily ----_; them papers is great liars!"

"Do you want to kill men?" I asked.

"What am I here for?" was the rejoinder, "If I don't kill them they'll kill me."

No trench is straight at any place; the straight line is done away with in the makeup of a trench. The traverse, jutting out in a sharp angle to the rear, gives way in turn to the fire position, curving towards the enemy, and there is never more than twelve yards liable to be covered by enfilade fire. The traverse is the home of spare ammunition, of ball cartridge, bombs, and hand-grenades. These are stored in depots dug into the wall of the trench. There are two things which find a place anywhere and everywhere, the biscuit and the bully beef. Tins of both are heaped in the trenches; sometimes they are used for building dug-outs and filling revetements. Bully beef and biscuits are seldom eaten; goodness knows why we are supplied with them.

We came into the territory of another battalion, and were met by (p. 104) an officer.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"For water, sir," said Pryor.

"Have you got permission from your captain?"

"No, sir."

"Then you cannot get by here without it. It's a Brigade order," said the officer. "One of our men got shot through the head yesterday when going for water."

"Killed, sir," I enquired.

"Killed on the spot," was the answer.

On our way back we encountered our captain superintending some digging operation.

"Have you got the water already?" he asked.

"No, sir."

"How is that?"

"An officer of the ---- wouldn't let us go by without a written permission."

"Why?"

"He said it was a Brigade order," was Pryor's nave reply. He wanted to go up that perilous road. The captain sat down on a sandbag, took out a slip of paper (or borrowed one from Pryor), placed his hat on his knee and the paper on his hat, and wrote us out the pa.s.s. (p. 105)

For twenty yards from the trench the road was sheltered by our parapet, past that lay the beaten zone, the ground under the enemy's rifle fire. He occupied a knoll on the left, the spot where the fighting was heavy on the night before, and from there he had a good view of the road. We hurried along, the jars striking against our legs at every step. The water was obtained from a pump at the back of a ruined villa in a desolate village. The shrapnel s.h.i.+vered house was named Dead Cow Cottage. The dead cow still lay in the open garden, its belly swollen and its left legs sticking up in the air like props in an upturned barrel. It smelt abominably, but n.o.body dared go out into the open to bury it.

The pump was known as c.o.c.k Robin Pump. A pencilled notice told that a robin was killed by a Jack Johnson near the spot on a certain date.

Having filled our jars, Pryor and I made a tour of inspection of the place.

In a green field to the rear we discovered a graveyard, fenced in except at our end, where a newly open grave yawned up at us as if aweary of waiting for its prey.

"Room for extension here," said Pryor. "I suppose they'll not (p. 106) close in this until the graves reach the edge of the roadway. Let's read the epitaphs."

How peaceful the place was. On the right I could see through a s.p.a.ce between the walls of the cottage the wide winding street of the village, the houses, cornstacks, and the waving bushes, and my soul felt strangely quieted. In its peace, in its cessation from labour, there was neither anxiety nor sadness, there remained rest, placid and sad. It seemed as if the houses, all intact at this particular spot, held something sacred and restful, that with them and in them all was good. They knew no evil or sorrow. There was peace, the desired consummation of all things--peace brought about by war, the peace of the desert, and death.

I looked at the first grave, its cross, and the rude lettering. This was the epitaph; this and nothing more:--

"An Unknown British Soldier."

On a grave adjoining was a cheap gilt vase with flowers, English flowers, faded and dying. I looked at the cross. One of the Coldstream Guards lay there killed in action six weeks before. I turned up the black-edged envelope on the vase, and read the badly spelt message, "From his (p. 107) broken-hearted wife and loving little son Tommy."

We gazed at it for a moment in silence. Then Pryor spoke. "I think we'll go back," he said, and there was a strained note in his voice; it seemed as if he wanted to hide something.

On our way out to the road we stopped for a moment and gazed through the shattered window of Dead Cow Cottage. The room into which we looked was neatly furnished. A round table with a flower vase on it stood on the floor, a number of chairs in their proper position were near the wall, a clock and two photos, one of an elderly man with a heavy beard, the other of a frail, delicate woman, were on the mantlepiece. The pendulum of the clock hung idle; it must have ceased going for quite a long time. As if to heighten a picture of absolute comfort a cat sat on the floor was.h.i.+ng itself.

"Where will the people be?" I asked.

"I don't know," answered Pryor. "Those chairs will be useful in our dug-out. Shall we take them?"

We took one apiece, and with chair on our head and jar in hand we (p. 108) walked towards the trenches. The sun was out, and it was now very hot.

We sweated. My face became like a wet sponge squeezed in the hand; Pryor's face was very red.

"We'll have a rest," he said, and laying down the jar he placed his chair in the road and sat on it. I did the same.

"You know Omar?" he asked.

"In my calf-age I doated on him," I answered.

"What's the calf-age?"

"The sentimental period that most young fellows go through," I said.

"They then make sonnets to the moon, become pessimistic, criticise everything, and feel certain that they will become the hub of the universe one day. They prefer vegetable food to pork, and read Omar."

"Have you come through the calf-age?"

"Years ago! You'll come through, too, Pryor--"

A bullet struck the leg of my chair and carried away a splinter of wood. I got to my feet hurriedly. "Those trenches seem quite a distance away," I said, hoisting my chair and gripping the jar as I moved off, "and we'll be safer when we're there."

All the way along we were sniped at, but we managed to get back (p. 109) safely. Finding that our supply of c.o.ke ran out we used the chairs for firewood.

CHAPTER VIII (p. 110)

TERRORS OF THE NIGHT

Buzz fly and gad fly, dragon fly and blue, When you're in the trenches come and visit you, They revel in your b.u.t.ter-dish and riot on your ham, Drill upon the army cheese and loot the army jam.

They're with you in the dusk and the dawning and the noon, They come in close formation, in column and platoon.

There's never zest like Tommy's zest when these have got to die: For Tommy takes his puttees off and straffs the blooming fly.

"Some are afraid of one thing, and some are afraid of another," said Stoner, perching himself on the banquette and looking through the periscope at the enemy's lines. "For myself I don't like sh.e.l.ls--especially when in the open, even if they are bursting half a mile away."

"Is that what you fear most?" I asked.