A Lively Bit of the Front Part 25

"I've got the wind up this time," he muttered. "Hope I'm on the right track. I don't remember pa.s.sing this----"

His foot tripped on a strand of wire, the lowermost and only intact part of an entanglement. Down he crashed heavily, his shrapnel-helmet rolling down a declivity for a distance of nearly ten yards.

"Bucks.h.i.+e for me this time," he exclaimed, without making an effort to rise. "Wonder where I've got it?"

Gradually he made the discovery that beyond a grazed instep, for one of the barbs had penetrated his boot, he was unwounded. His ankle was throbbing painfully. In his fall he had sprained it. With an effort he regained his feet, clenched his teeth as a sharp twinge shot through his frame, and again pushed onwards. Although at a deminished pace he still ran--not from inclination but from a sense of duty.

A bang and a cloud of white smoke high above his head told Malcolm that the guns were renewing their activity.

"Shrap., and I've lost my helmet!" he exclaimed. "I'll lose my head next, if I haven't done so already. By gum, I'm out of my tracks!"

He stopped and surveyed his surroundings. He was now quite alone.

Even the dead and wounded were no longer in evidence. Smoke limited his range of vision to a distance of less than a hundred yards.

Beyond, a few gaunt stumps of trees loomed through the pungent vapour like distorted shadows. With the sun completely obscured, he had no means of ascertaining his direction. For all he knew he might have followed a semicircular course. The sound of the guns helped him not at all. Which were the hostile and which the British artillery was a question he was unable to answer.

A whiff of nauseating gas drifted across his path. His right hand sought his anti-gas mask. It had vanished. Only a portion of one of the straps remained; it had been completely severed by a bullet.

And now another difficulty arose. The deadly gas used by the Huns, having a density greater than air, has a tendency to fill the hollows and leave the high ground comparatively clear. On Malcolm's front the ground rose gradually to a height of about twenty feet.

While it might afford protection from the noxious vapour, the ridge was certainly open to rifle-fire. Nor could Carr understand why, in a temporarily-deserted expanse, there should be such a persistent hail of machine-gun fire.

"Better to risk a bullet than a dose of gas," decided the rifleman, and with this intention he breasted the slope as rapidly as his sprained ankle would allow.

"Might get a sight of the village, too," he soliloquized as he neared the summit of the ridge.

Something struck him sharply on the hip. Mechanically he glanced down. The b.u.t.t of his slung rifle was splintered, the bra.s.s heel-plate curiously twisted. A piece of sh.e.l.l, which otherwise would have inflicted a dangerous if not mortal wound, had been intercepted by the rifle.

"A miss is as good as a mile," he remarked to himself.

The sensation akin to panic had pa.s.sed. A kind of blind fatalism gripped him.

"If I'm booked to be plugged it's no use getting flurried over it,"

he continued, talking aloud. His voice seemed strange and distant, but for want of someone with whom to converse it afforded him a slight sense of companions.h.i.+p--an audible indication that he was still alive. "On the other hand, if my number isn't up, why worry?

All the same, I should like to know how far I'm away from Messines."

Fifty yards ahead was a zigzag trench, its direction only discernible by interrupted sections of sand-bags and badly-shattered wire. Subjected earlier in the day to a terrible artillery pounding, it had been abandoned, but whether by Briton or Hun there was no indication except by closer examination. Evidently it was the rearmost of an intricate system of field-fortifications, for Malcolm was on the parados side while beyond, merging into smoke and haze, were other ramifications of the maze of trenches, all silent and deserted.

"They are bound to lead somewhere," was Malcolm's surmise. "To the Messines salient most likely. I'll risk it. It's certainly safer than in the open, so here goes."

Choosing a gap in the parados, Rifleman Carr cautiously slid on to the floor of the trench. The effort gave his ankle a wrench that sent a pain through his leg like the searing of a hot iron.

"I'll get there if I have to crawl for it," he muttered. "There's one thing certain, I won't be able to go back."

The trench was dry and the floor made good going, except in places where the sand-bags had slipped and formed awkward obstacles. There were no indications as to who were the owners of the place.

Discarded British and German rifles, clips of cartridges, and other articles were impartially strewn about.

Just as Malcolm was approaching the fourth or fifth bay a heavy sh.e.l.l landed about twenty yards from the parapet. With a concussion that sent sand-bags flying and hurled tons of dirt high in air the missile exploded.

Bending to avoid the flying fragments that were descending like rain, Malcolm, regardless of his sprained foot, bolted round the traverse, and before he was fully aware of the fact he had blundered right into a party of Huns.

CHAPTER XXII

A Prisoner of War

It would be difficult to say who were the most taken aback: the Boches at the sight of a khaki-clad man who might or might not be the foremost of a party of trench raiders, or Malcolm on finding himself confronted by a score of fully-armed Germans.

The New Zealander's first impulse was to unsling his rifle. By use of his magazine he might drive the Huns into the next bay, and, profiting by the diversion, effect a smart retirement. The weapon was useless; the piece of sh.e.l.l that had smashed the b.u.t.t had jammed the bolt action. The rifle was little better than a broken reed.

Malcolm turned and ran, but he had forgotten his sprained ankle.

Before he had taken a couple of strides his legs gave way under him, and like a felled ox he collapsed upon the duck-boards.

Even as he lay prostrate his wits did not desert him. At all costs the note entrusted to him by his captain must be destroyed. Although ignorant of its contents, Malcolm felt a.s.sured that it was of great importance, otherwise Captain Nicholson would not have sent anyone across the open under a hail of bullets. With a deft movement the trapped rifleman removed the paper from his pocket and conveyed it to his mouth, and before the approaching Huns were upon him he had swallowed the paper.

Ten seconds later he was in the grip of three hulking Saxons, who promptly bound his wrists behind his back and propped him up against the fire-step of the trench. The others, having satisfied themselves that the prisoner was an isolated straggler, crowded round and regarded him with undisguised interest.

Unable to understand a word Of German, Malcolm was at a loss to follow their excited conversation. He managed to glean that there was a discussion as to what the Huns would do with their prisoner.

One particularly villainous-looking Boche was apparently advising that he should be shot outright, fingering the trigger of his rifle as if in joyous antic.i.p.ation of playing the joint role of judge and executioner.

This amiable proposal was overruled by the others, and, after the prisoner had been searched and his belongings confiscated, Malcolm was marched along the trench, preceded and followed by men with loaded rifles.

Almost every yard of the way was occupied by troops. The men regarded the pa.s.sing of the prisoner with slight interest. Their attention was princ.i.p.ally directed upon some distant object, as if they were momentarily expecting an attack.

By one of those freaks of misfortune Rifleman Carr had completely lost his bearings, and in his wanderings had made his way towards the German trenches instead of towards the village of Messines. The sh.e.l.ls and bullets that had given him such a warm time had come from his own lines, and in endeavouring to seek cover he had stumbled upon a temporarily-unoccupied section of the original enemy support-trenches. Even then he had no warning of his expensive mistake until he literally walked into a trap, the bay being filled with Saxons of the 209th Reserve Regiment.

Conducted into a deep and s.p.a.cious dug-out, the prisoner was brought before two German officers. One, a major, was short and corpulent.

Bald-headed, of florid complexion, and with abnormally-puffed eyelids, magnified still more by a pair of heavy convex gla.s.ses, the Saxon had Landsturmer written all over him. His companion was a tall, cadaverous lieutenant of about twenty-five, narrow-chested, and with protruding shoulder-blades. His hawkish features, upturned moustache, and colourless skin gave him a truly Machiavellian aspect. He wanted only a pointed beard and a ruff to complete the living representation of a sixteenth-century portrait of one of the ruffianly Margraves of the Palatinate.

"It's the long chap who will cause trouble," mentally decided Malcolm. "The big-paunched fellow won't count. They're going to question me, that's evident. If I try to bamboozle them there will be trouble. By Jove! I'll give them a few choice New Zealand catch-phrases, and see what happens."

At a sign from the Lieutenant the sergeant in charge of the escort deftly removed the prisoner's ident.i.ty disc and handed it to his superior officer for inspection. The cadaverous one jotted down something in a pocket-book, and exchanged a few words with his confrere.

"Now listen," began the Lieutenant in broken English; "der truth we must haf. If lies you tell it useless is. We vill haf you shot at vonce. Tell me where you come from?"

"Ask me?" replied Malcolm promptly.

The Lieutenant frowned.

"I haf asked," he rejoined. "Where you come from--what position?"

"Cut it out!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the lad.

His questioner bent over a map spread out on the table in front of him. With a puzzled expression on his face he addressed the Major.

Malcolm distinctly heard the words "Cut it out" mentioned more than once.

The lad smiled inwardly. The sight of the two Germans poring over a map to find this non-existent locality of "Cut it out" tickled his sense of humour.