Behind the Lines (13 page)

“I'm just coming. What's the hurry?” answered Rumbald.

“Just coming be damned. Come on out of it
toute suite
. You've left that party parading on the road and the Bosche is whiz-banging it.”

“All right, all right,” came Rumbald's voice. “Are you taking up this bloody party or am I?”

“You are, and you should have been off ten minutes ago—and if you are not up by the time I've counted ten I am going back to the mess to tell Cane that you are hiding in your dug-out while the party is waiting on the road. One-two-three-four-five-six—”

The light disappeared and Rumbald came slowly up the steps. “You're always in a hell of a sweat about being a second or two late on parade, aren't you?” he growled. “As a matter of fact I forgot my gas gadget and came back for it.”

“Well, you've got it now,” answered Rawley grimly.

Rumbald's bulky figure disappeared in the darkness, and Rawley walked over to the guns, but he waited at the top of the control dug-out steps till he heard Corporal Turner's “Fall in!” and the tramp of feet as the party moved off.

CHAPTER IX

I

Piddock opined that things were working up for a lot of unpleasantness. “I recognize the symptoms,” he said. “That valley behind Lagnicourt that used to be all truly rural was full of dumps and hutments when I came through it yesterday. There is a labour battalion making up the road out of Heninville and I'm told they've shoved a railway gun back in Mailly wood. And a positive rash of red hats has broken out all over the district. I met three staff wallahs on my way up to the O.Pip today. Brass hats in the trenches are always a sign of incipient offensiveness.

“Yes, I diagnose a push in the offing; though not yet awhile. We haven't stirred up the Bosche quite enough yet. But when he has brought up a lot of new batteries to counter our new ones registering, and when we have another half-dozen observation balloons up and the whole countryside draped with dumps and huts for his airmen to photograph, we shall be ready. In about another fortnight the civilians will be able to give us the date, I expect; and then perhaps in another fortnight after that we shall get our ‘secret and confidential' orders for the surprise attack. Oh, it's a great life!”

“Well, I hope you are right,” Rawley told him. “I have never seen a push yet, and I would rather like to.”

“They are all right at first,” agreed Piddock. “But the trouble is that after a few days things get mixed and it
becomes a bit difficult to know who is doing the pushing—we or they.”

“Well, I will push off to see Anderson and leave you to it,” grinned Rawley.

They had been standing outside the battery canteen which had been installed in a cellar, and Rawley went off towards A Battery mess while Piddock went straight on towards the battery position.

Rawley heard the shell coming, and with the speed of instinctive movement went flat. The hurtling, train-like roar leapt upon him out of the distance, engulfing every other sound; but in the half second that he crouched with eyes tightly shut and taut muscles awaiting the impact he was conscious that Piddock, a few yards ahead of him, between the horse pond and the pulverized church, had not dropped quickly enough. Then came the bump of impact and an unfamiliar muffled roar, instead of the expected “cr-r-r-ump” of a five-nine.

He opened his eyes to see a great black plume as high as the ragged church tower poised on the roadside ahead. The fan-shaped crest had a halo of up-flung particles that glittered like countless diamonds in the sun. For a moment it hung motionless and then slowly descended and dissolved; and a brief torrent of rain fell from the clear sky. The dusty white surface of the road around him was pitted with rain-drops, and lumps of wet black mud lay upon it. By the horse pond, which he noticed was now quite empty, the road was obliterated under hummocks of black mud from which trickled countless streams of water.

He could not see Piddock. And then the foul stinking mess stirred and formed itself into the shape of a human figure that rose slowly and stood black and shining and dribbling dollops of mud and water.

“My God!” exclaimed Rawley. “Are you hit, old man?”

The black, featureless head shook emphatically, and the filthy hands rubbed the face so that streaks of grey showed through the damp, black mask. “D-dirty work at the c-cross-roads!” spluttered the voice of Piddock.

II

It was an unofficial regulation of B Battery mess that each officer returning from leave should bring back with him at least one record for the gramophone, and selections from the musical comedies and revues popular in London at the moment were to be heard any evening in the now rather battered cottage in the orchard. Piddock usually selected the programme, wound up the gramophone, and put on the records; and he accompanied each item appropriately with a step dance on the bare boards by the door, by singing American rag-time choruses in a nasally sentimental voice, or by gliding gracefully about the room whilst conversing conventionally with an imaginary dancing partner. Ever since his visit to the Corps concert party with Rawley his favourite air had been “Roses in Picardy.” At least once each evening this record, after being flicked with a pocket handkerchief, was put on and the needle and sound-box were carefully adjusted. Then he
would refill his pipe whilst listening silently to the verse, but as soon as the plaintive notes of the refrain rang out he would glance across at Rawley and their eyes would meet understandingly.

Rawley had written to Berney Travers, and one memorable evening when the ration limber from the wagon lines brought up the mail came her reply. He remembered vividly standing in the gloaming at the top of the steps of the control dug-out with the unopened letter in his hand. It was one of those rare peaceful evenings when darkness came down upon the front on tip-toe as if afraid of waking some nocturnal monster. The men's gruff voices as they threw out the rations from the limber on the road came to his ears pleasantly subdued by distance. There was a distant rumble of gun fire far to the south, but the immediate front where the first Verey light was glowing halfheartedly against the purple sky was still. Before him the ragged apple trees stood out black and twisted against the dying embers in the western sky.

It was a friendly little letter, written in a round schoolgirlish hand, thanking him for his letter and for the very jolly evening at the Corps concert party. She related one or two amusing incidents that had occurred at her C.C.S.; said that Mary Hamilton wished to be remembered to him; inquired politely after Mr. Piddock; and ended decorously with “Yours sincerely, Berney Travers.”

Rawley read the letter three times before putting it into the breast pocket of his tunic, and in the night watches he wrote a reply, sitting on an upturned box at the
rough table containing the war map and lighted stump of candle in the control dug-out—a reply interrupted by a call for retaliation from the battalion in front, and completed after a short interval, during which the dark and silent orchard was transformed into a devil's smithy filled with clanging anvils served by intent and swiftly working minions seen kaleidoscopically in the flashes of the guns.

Other letters written in the same cheerful, healthy strain passed between them, and in one of these she mentioned that the Corps was shortly holding a horse show in the neighbourhood of the village and that she hoped to get permission to go to it. Rawley, too, determined to be there if possible, and thus one morning it came about that he and Rumbald were seated together in a car on the road to Hocqmaison. On the previous evening Rumbald had suddenly announced that he was going and had offered Rawley a lift in the car which one of his numerous cronies among the A.S.C., Ordnance, and supply officers was providing, and Rawley, though not at all pleased to know that Rumbald would be there, had accepted the offer in preference to the unsatisfactory alternative of lorry jumping.

III

An open stretch of grass land on the outskirts of Hocqmaison had been converted into the showground, and a very good job Corps Headquarters had made of
it. As Rumbald and Rawley walked from the car-park towards the long grandstand that had been erected down one side of the centre arena a number of limbered wagon turn-outs, unfamiliarly resplendent with burnished metal work, snow-white head ropes, and spruce drivers were being judged in a smaller arena enclosed by ropes and whitewashed posts. A band was playing in the larger arena where a number of riders were taking their perfectly groomed horses over the jumps; and here and there were little groups of officers whose long peaked caps, spidery legs and perfect riding breeches would have proclaimed them judges of horseflesh even had they not been wearing the official rosette.

Rawley was very glad when Rumbald was hailed by a rather boisterous group of officers and he was able to wander off by himself. The grandstand was already more than half-filled, but the ladies were so much in the minority that it was an easy matter for him to satisfy himself that Berney was not among the number. He threaded his way between the groups of officers who stood chatting in the open space, between the luncheon marquee and a small arena, and spied her at last watching a fine pair of horses having the finishing touches put to their toilet.

He came up quietly and halted a pace or two away, watching her. For a few seconds she continued to gaze with amused interest at the drivers in grey shirt sleeves and looped hanging braces plying a blacking brush on the horses' hoofs, and then, becoming aware of someone near and gazing at her, she turned her head slowly.

He noted with pleasure the faint wave of colour that spread over her face as their eyes met. But her embarrassment was momentarily only; she turned her face back towards the horses and said, as though continuing a conversation: “Aren't they dears? So proud of their clean bibs and tuckers!”

He came and stood close beside her so that his elbow touched hers as it rested on the rail.

“Are you awfully keen on seeing all this?” he asked suddenly and seriously during a pause in their light-hearted conversation.

She turned her head slowly and looked at him from under the broad brim of her hat. “I am enjoying it; aren't you? But—why?” she asked.

He swung his stick between his two hands without looking at her. “What I mean is, would you hate to miss some of it? Because I have an idea.”

“And the idea is?” she asked when he paused.

“About lunch.” He made a motion of his head towards the luncheon marquee behind them. “That place will be an awful squash, and I thought we might give it a miss. There is a village tucked away in a valley about a couple of kilometres from here: it's right off the main road. We passed through it on the way here because Rumbald had to see a fellow out Queant way. It looked rather a good spot—no troops—and there was a sort of fair going on—you know, stalls and things in a meadow and those ramshackle old French carts coming in from the outlying farms.”

“And the idea is?” repeated Berney.

“To look round and have lunch. There was a rather jolly looking
estaminet
there with tables set out in the orchard. What do you say?”

“I'd love it.”

“You would?” he exclaimed eagerly, and flushed with pleasure. She nodded emphatically. “Um-m!”

“But it means walking—two kilometres or thereabouts,” he warned her.

“When do we start?” she answered smiling.

He grinned cheerfully and took her by the elbow.

“Now—
toute suite!
”

Half an hour later, as they descended a hillside by a narrow unhedged lane that separated a leafy oak wood from a breast high rampart of growing maize, they saw, within arms length it seemed, the short lead spire and the bleached stone church tower of the village rising foot by foot against the wooded slope beyond. At the bottom of the slope the narrow lane broadened into the village street. It was hung with flags, and several of the doorways had little shrines erected in them. Here and there an ancient long-maned horse, tethered to a ring bolt on a cottage wall, stood patiently with its weight on three legs, with an occasional flick of its long tail on the backboard of the weather-worn cart behind it. The village folk were dressed in their best clothes and were chatting in voluble groups in the roadway; and just beyond the little stone bridge, where the wooded slopes fell back grudgingly to
allow a small pasture to nestle between them, a number of gay-coloured booths were occupying the attention of the country folk.

“I would not have missed this for anything,” said Berney as they sauntered along the line of stalls. “This is much nicer than the horse show.”

The
estaminet
, though a large one, had its resources taxed to the utmost. When Rawley and Berney arrived they found every room filled with the hum of conversation and the clatter of plates, knives and forks; but the alert little proprietress, who somehow managed to remain calm and efficient in the midst of the holiday babel and bustle round her, bade them a smiling ‘
Bonjour, M'sieu, Madame
,' and led them outside to the orchard. All the tables were already occupied, but in response to the little woman's call a young country boy brought chairs and a small trestle table, which was placed in the shade of an apple tree and promptly covered with a spotless cloth of coarse linen.

“This is rather
bon!
” said Rawley as they sat down. “Now the question is—what are we going to eat?”

“I am in your hands,” answered Berney.

“Well,” said Rawley, “in France they know a good deal more about these things than we do, and I have always found the best plan is to say, ‘
Madame, quelque-chose à manger
,' in your best Parisian, and leave the rest to her.”

“This is really rather a discovery,” said Berney presently. “I'm sure we are the only English people in the whole village.”