Behind the Lines (14 page)

“That was one of my reasons for wanting to come,” answered Rawley. “I wanted to get away from the horse show. I was afraid Rumbald might see us together,” he confessed.

She looked up at him and wrinkled her brow in an exaggerated effort to decide what was the exact implication of his confession. “I am not sure whether that is very nice or very nasty of you,” she said.

“He is a fellow that always has a lot to say,” explained Rawley. “If he had seen us together he would have gone back and made a lot of silly remarks in the mess—and his remarks are not always in good taste.”

“You mean that you don't like being ragged?”

“Oh, I can stand chipping as well as most people,” he answered seriously. “But if Rumbald had gone back and made some of his so-called jokes I should probably have hit him.”

“That's rather nice of you, Peter,” she said, becoming serious. “But you must not go fighting every man who makes—silly remarks about girls.”

He dabbed his mouth with his napkin viciously and went on quickly and earnestly. “It's not that—it's because it's you. Anyone else—well, I would just tell him to shut up . . . but if he had made one of his cad's remarks about you I should have hit him—hard.” He moistened his lips with his tongue: “You see—you're different . . . you . . . I . . .” He floundered helplessly in his embarrassment. “I mean . . .” he tried again, and then giving up the attempt and flushing
to the roots of his hair he attacked his food with fierce concentration.

Berney crumbled her bread and stared at her plate. “You mean . . .” she began. “Peter, hadn't we better be frank? You mean—you—rather like me?”

He nodded vigorously with his mouth full. “Um! That's it—awfully. Most awfully.”

In the pause that followed, she said softly: “That's very sweet of you, Peter.”

“Well, it's out now,” he said gruffly, without looking at her. “Though, of course, you knew it all along.”

“I did not know for certain,” she answered slowly. And then she added: “But I hoped you did.”

He looked at her quickly and their eyes met. Hers, in the shadow of her hat, were misty and very tender. She went on very softly, but her words reached him clearly, in spite of the loud buzz of conversation around them. “And, of course, I like you too, Peter—most awfully.”

Her eyes were shining like stars, he thought—stars in a mist. He gulped quickly and grinned foolishly. He put out his hand under the little table and found hers, and they ate in silence left-handed and awkwardly for a moment or two.

“Berney,” he said presently, “I suppose we are engaged. Isn't it funny!”

“Are we?” she asked, with motherly eyes on his.

He grinned happily. “Well, I mean to say—aren't we?”

She nodded slowly. “Um-m, I suppose we are,” she answered softly, and smiled shyly.

“Wouldn't you like to tell everybody? I would,” he cried in an eager whisper. “All these dear old farm women.”

She nodded with shining eyes. “Dear Peter!”

He squeezed her hand under the table. “Berney,” he whispered. “Berney—darling!”

Out again in the village street they bought bulls'-eyes in a little shop with a jangling bell. In another, more pretentious shop window, among such objects as terra-cotta figures, a bundle of Venus pencils, a
croix de guerre
in velvet case, and metal napkin rings embossed with the arms of various towns, Rawley spied a plush rack containing four or five rings. He took Berney by the elbow and led her into the shop.

“You must have one of some sort today,” he asserted. “And we will get a proper one as soon as we can.”

Two only of the five rings were at all suitable: one a thin gold circle with a moonstone, and the other a red stone surrounded by tiny pearls. The old shop dame watched them with interest as they examined the rings, and her wrinkled old face broke into a smile when Rawley tried one of them on Berney's finger. “
Fiancée, M'sieu?
” she asked, with her dark veined hands clasped on her breast.

“Oui, Madame
,” answered Rawley proudly. “
Depuis une heure seulement
.” The old dame beamed at them through her thick glasses. The ring set with pearls fitted, and Rawley put his arms round Berney's shoulders as she stood with arm outstretched, shyly admiring it on her finger.

“
La veille guerre ce n'est pas trop mal, Madame
—eh?” asked Rawley gaily. And the dame threw up her hands
and cried, “
La guerre! La guerre! Oh, là, là! Mes pauvres enfants
.” From the door of her shop she watched “
les pauvres enfants anglais
” pass up the street.

IV

Dusk found Rawley, a lonely figure, jogging along the pot-holed road between the wagon lines and the battery. Close ahead the leaning wayside crucifix, still guarded by its leafless, shattered trees, stood dark and desolate against the evening sky; and the lonely ragged stump of a church tower jutting darkly across a pearly rift in the purple night clouds proclaimed the village in the gloom beyond. The grumble of distant gun fire came from the south, borne fitfully upon the breeze.

The last grey sunset glow had faded when he entered the mess. There, upon the little mantelpiece lay his spare pipe, just as he had left it before going off that morning; and yet so much had happened since. Cane and Whedbee were busy at the table working out range tables for a shoot which brigade headquarters had just ordered. Piddock, with the aid of the gramophone, was conducting a duet by singing on the long bars between the lines: “Some of the time you think you love a brunette,” sang the gramophone voice; and “I know the kind who had a Spanish mother,” followed quickly the deep voice of Piddock. “Some of the time you love a blonde, Who came from Eden by way of Sweeden,” carolled Piddock. “They may be short, they may be tall: Sometimes they pam-didly um—sometimes
they fall, But you love somebody a-ll the time—ter rum ter rum.”

At the end he stopped the motor and crossed to where Rawley stood thoughtfully filling his pipe. “Everything go off all right?” he asked.

Rawley looked up and nodded.

“Good show?”

Rawley answered between pulls at his freshly-lighted pipe. “Don't know. I was there only half an hour. We went off and had lunch in a quiet little village nearby.” He pressed the charred tobacco into the bowl with the matchbox. “I've been and gone and done it, Piddock.”

Piddock cocked an eye at him. “Done what?”

Rawley glanced at Cane and Whedbee whose heads were still close together over the range tables, and he added in a low voice:

“Got engaged.”

Piddock gripped and wrung the hand that still held the matchbox. “Put it there, old son. Put it right there.”

Rawley grinned. “Thanks—but keep it dark for the moment.”

“Sure. But a drink is clearly indicated. Pugh! Pugh! Two gins and its—
beaucoup
gin and
beaucoup
it.” They sat down on their home-made settee. “Well, here's the very best!” said Piddock, raising his glass. “The very best to you and—you know.”

They set their glasses down, and Piddock rewound the gramophone and put on “Roses in Picardy.” They listened to the air in thoughtful silence.

Without warning the frenzied shriek of a shell hurtling through the outer night peremptorily engulfed the sound of the gramophone. The full-bodied ferocious note told that the shell was near the end of its flight, and that the point of impact would be very close. Cane and Whedbee had ceased mumbling figures: their heads went forward in strained attention. During the fraction of a second that elapsed before the inevitable impact the figures in the little candle-lit mess crouched motionless as a panther ready to spring. Only Piddock, with a lightning movement of his hand, whipped his glass from the table and drained it at a gulp.

Then came the rocking bump of impact and a mighty rending roar. The aeroplane fabric that covered the glassless window flew into ribbons before the draught of the titanic blow, and the walls of the mess-room bulged visibly inwards, it seemed, and then swung reluctantly back. Slabs of plaster thudded from the ceiling, and the one picture crashed to the floor.

Cane had relighted the candle before the whine and clatter of flying fragments had ceased. He was grinning at Piddock.

“You're a funny fellow,” he cried. “Did you see him, Whedbee? Polishing off his drink! Ruling passion strong in death!”

From the outer darkness came a long-drawn “Oh-e-e-e! Ho-ee-e!” Rawley was first through the door, and stumbling among the debris that littered the road. A fresh hole of unusual size yawned beneath the stars, and a black cavity
gaped in the stained lime-washed wall of the cottage beyond. The sound came from there.

Cane, behind him, switched on a torch. The beam shone on the white face of a man in shirt sleeves, sitting upright upon a palliasse. A paper-covered book was in his hand, and from the stump of candle stuck in a cigarette tin on the box beside him a thin spiral of smoke still rose. The beam moved downwards to his legs, and Rawley saw that they were buried beneath the brick and plaster wall which had been blown inwards by the blast of the shell.

It needed half an hour's unremitting effort to release him: the mortar held the bricks together in great slabs, and a pick could not be used.

CHAPTER X

I

It was now officially admitted by headquarters that a push was imminent. Cane brought the news one evening on his return from brigade. “Zero hour and all that is, of course, still a secret known only to the few brass hats who dwell in and around the holy of holies. But we know this much: there will be no long-drawn-out preliminary bombardment as on the old Somme. Just a short, intense hate, and then our chaps go over.”

At night now, every man that could be spared from the guns was employed till dawn in unloading and stacking the great supplies of ammunition that would be necessary for the barrages and the preliminary bombardment. And the many other batteries that had recently taken up positions in and around the village were doing the same. After dark the road was blocked with transport, and two days of ceaseless rain had covered it with several inches of liquid mud. Double teams were necessary, and even then the heavy wagons were frequently stuck.

But at last the necessary amount of ammunition had been brought up and stacked, and everything was ready for the attack on the morrow.

It meant an early start for the gunners, for the barrage was to begin at 3.30 a.m., but Rawley lingered by the gun-pits before turning in. Apart from the tingling sensation of his own expectancy there was nothing to show that an
attack would be made within a few hours. The moon, in its third quarter, shone serenely down upon the netting that screened the guns, and threw a chequered pattern upon the floor of the pits. Behind him the ragged edge of the stump of the church was tipped with silver. The noisy howitzer behind the mess was silent. The gunfire was confined to the long-drawn whine and distant crunch of a heavy, and the periodical vicious lash and crack of a whiz-bang. But on the road dark files of men passed every few minutes: they were the attacking infantry moving up to the assembly trenches.

Rawley was called at 3 a.m. Sitting on his bunk, he drank the mug of hot tea his servant brought him. Then he pulled on his boots and went out. The stars glittered coldly overhead, but the moon, now low on the horizon, was a blurred pinkish ball half submerged in the heavy ground mist. The air was damp and chilly.

The barrage opened perfectly in one great rippling roar, and the darkness was dispersed by the myriad flashes of the guns. It was intoxicating and exhilarating this giant's tattoo that filled the vast auditorium of the night with throbbing sound and maintained its pitch tirelessly hour after hour. Dawn came, grey and desolate, and although the dancing flashes of the guns paled before it, the massed drumming of their voices did not cease.

Soon after the sun rose the first walking wounded began to trickle back—men in twos and threes, with supporting arms about each other's shoulders, with bloody bandages about heads or thighs from which the trouser leg
had been slit, and each with a white label dangling from a button. They rested on the bank beside the road and drank the water or smoked the cigarettes that were offered them before continuing their journey to the dressing-station. And an adventurous ambulance with its dark-green cover riddled with shrapnel bumped slowly down the pot-holed road with its fragile cargo.

In the gun-pits the men had thrown aside respirators, tunics and shirts, and stripped to the waist sweated at the nearly red-hot guns. Clouds of steam rose from the pools of water on the floor of the pits, water that had been cold before being poured through the bores; and the mounds of empty cases rose higher and higher.

The barrage ran its allotted course and ended, as far as B Battery was concerned, at 10.15, when extreme range had been reached. Everyone was asking “Who has won?” Nobody knew anything of what was happening. The wounded were the only source of information, and their news was very localized and often contradictory. But there had been very little hostile shelling since eight o'clock, and that was a good omen.

B Battery cleaned up and awaited the expected order to move forward. The backs of the gun-pits were broken down in preparation for hauling out the guns. Light kits stood ready packed and the mess functioned on the minimum of kit. Some batteries were already on the move.

The order to move came at last, and almost at the same moment hostile shelling began again on the ridge ahead. Cane rode off in the gathering dusk to choose the new
position. The teams arrived shortly afterwards, and the guns, which had already been manhandled out of the pits, were limbered up and driven on to the road.

The whole British Army seemed to be moving forward that night. The road was encumbered with every kind of vehicle—G.S. wagons, eighteen-pounder guns, motor bicycles, 4.5 howitzers, limber wagons, maltese carts, staff cars, caterpillar tractors and eight horse teams of hairies dragging sixty-pounders, besides the usual ration parties, water carrying parties and platoons of relieving infantry. The darkness and the hostile shelling added to the confusion.