Pass Guard at Ypres (12 page)

That was the worst part over. As usual he and Robbie had managed to pull it off.
Patrols always seemed to go right when he was with Robbie. It didn't matter
how often the German star-shells rose flickering in the air to throw a sudden
whiteness over No Man's Land and fall to the earth apparently just beside
them, so long as Robbie's angular features and blunt almost bullet-like head
were near him as they lay doggo in grass or shell-hole. Robbie was just the fellow
for the game: Harry's temper tended to be a bit trying in No Man's
Land, and most of the others, like Barnes or Cadell, were about as much use as babes
unborn. But it was a different thing with Robbie: if poor Bill had been going out
with Robbie he wouldn't have cracked the way he had: he wouldn't have
cracked either, if he had known it was going to be an easy job like this. Here was
the opening, straight in front of them, with nobody apparently in the sap-head by
its side, and very little wire. All they would have to do when they came over next
week would be just to walk through, spend as long as they liked on the advanced
trench, and then come quietly home. Anyway, they'd done their bit tonight.
Pity all jobs in No Man's Land weren't as soft as this. Times without
number they'd been chivvied home with machine guns
and
grenades. There was hardly a bullet about tonight, and as for shells or
bombs—ah, there was that Mortaldje Estaminet machine gun getting busy; it
often did, about this time. Didn't really matter, as from where they were the
bullets were all overs. However, here was a shell-hole handy, and there was plenty
of time to go. Only two hundred yards back, and five hours before daylight.
They'd stop here for a bit: it was a good-sized hole with plenty of room for
both of them. They'd done their job, and they could easily get back when the
machine-gun fellow stopped. A good sort of patrol altogether; the best they'd
been on since they came to the northern sector; the sort of job that brought back
something of the old thrill, and almost made the war worth while. His first patrol
had been with Robbie: if only it could be with Robbie to the end. They'd got
through one more patrol together, anyway. Nothing could very well go wrong tonight.

The German trench mortar officer lazily bestirred himself and moved from his dug-out to the parapet. He grunted as he moved, as he objected to these disturbances. This new Colonel of theirs, this Bavarian fusspot, was always imagining figures and movements in No Man's Land where none existed: he was perfectly capable of mistaking a stake for a fixed rifle or a line of willows for a patrol. Fussy devil. There wasn't any noise and there wasn't anything moving at the bottom of the redoubt.
However, there wasn't any point in making a row about it. If the Colonel said there was something there, he'd better poop one off and think no more about it. He idly let off two grenades, looked round the redoubt and the marshes in front of them with a full appreciation of their position, let off a third for luck and turned in to sleep till dawn.

Freddy Mann wished he wouldn't talk so much. The only thing he asked was
to be allowed to lie quiet on the stretcher, now that the shelling had stopped. He
didn't want to move, because that hurt his shoulder, and he didn't
want to hear how this fellow had stopped his packet, or exchange confidences or
cigarettes. But he was a persistent customer, this “wounded
'ero” as he insisted on calling himself with a grin; a cheerful
undersized Cockney subaltern, whose natural optimism was accentuated by the
possession of what he termed “a Blighty that he wouldn't exchange for
fifty quid.”

“No, nor for £100 I wouldn't,” he continued, “£100
and
drinks included. Here, old sport, you try one o' these. Trois Maisons, that's what we calls 'em at the Ritz. Talk about Blighties——” He lifted his bandaged arm. “Talk about a bit o' luck. Smashed bone, and two nerves gone, but elbow untouched. Nine months to heal, the doctor bird says, but nothing permanent—what d'yer think o' that? Last lap. Get us away from this 'ere Wipers, and there we are. Shifting us tonight at 7—then Pop, and Watou—oh, what-ho for Watou (ha, ha, good one that) and carry me back to Blighty. Gawd's own luck, I calls it.” He nodded his head in general recognition of the fortune that had come his way.

“That's just what it is with Blighties, yer know, all luck. Feller, for example, next to me when that crump bust last night—Johnson, the Q.M. bloke—he was talking about Blighties and what he'd pay for one, same as one does when up in them blooming trenches. He says he'd take a leg Blighty for £25—just says it natural, talking, same as we're talking now, and the crump comes and takes 'em both off, clean above the knee. Going a bit strong, that. Still, it's what he said. What he asked for he got. But as for me——”

Silence for a moment, while he screwed himself round on his stretcher to look at Freddy Mann.

“You've done rather well, mate, too, ain't yer? Shoulder, ain't it?”

“Yes.”

“Walking case, ain't yer?”

“Suppose so, but I bled a bit and they shoved me here.”

“Yes; oh well, no complaints—not like 'im.” He jerked his finger to the dying man who was moaning on the stretcher to his right. “Half his chest blown away, that R.A.M.C. feller tells me—all up for 'im. But as for us—once they gets us out of 'ere and on the road to Pop-What 'appened?” With a sudden interest. “Chance crump, or was yer asking for it?”

“Half and half. Patrol, you know. Usual sort of thing. Got us by the wire in front of the High Command Redoubt. Thought it was a soft job, too, that was the funny thing about it. They spotted us and sent a bomb or something over and got me. Other fellow took five hours to get me back. I was unconscious half the time.”

“Um—ah—yes,” replied the Blighty specialist. “Yes, that's good enough—ought to be able to make something of a tale out of that for the pretty darlings that'll nurse yer. Deck it up a bit, shells crashing round, knee deep in blood, yer know. Expect a bit o' colour, do the sweet little bits at home. Damned glad, I suppose you are, like me?”

“Well I suppose I am—dunno.”

“What d'yer mean—‘dunno'? How long 'ave yer been out?”

“Six months—no, seven.”

“You must be glad, then. Three times as long as me, that is, and I'm glad enough. Back to the gels at 'ome—you got a gel at 'ome?”

“Yes.” Curse the fellow, couldn't he shut up? The chap on his left was dying, and he wanted to get to sleep, if his shoulder would give him half a chance. Of course he was glad. Why shouldn't he be? Why worry about Harry and Robbie and Chips, and his own crowd, Mitchell, Bartlett, Bettson, and, yes, old Bamford. He knew they'd have to pass on one day. Most of them had faded away before. How he'd prayed for this, like everybody else he'd ever met. Hadn't he cursed the very sight of Wipers? Well, he was leaving Wipers now. It was Blighty now. Of course he was glad—damned glad.

“Course you're glad—and if you've got a gel at home——”

Of course he'd got a girl at home: he'd said so once. Why couldn't he stop, and let him go to sleep?

“Fact of the matter is, old son, we're damned lucky, you and I. Anybody's lucky to get out of this show alive. Only thing to do, if you're fool enough to have come out, is to
get back p.d.q. We've pulled it off, old feller. Damned lucky, ain't we, eh?”

He was right, after all; that was what it all came to. Never mind the hopes with which you once marched eastward, never mind the comradeship, days in billets with Harry, nights in No Man's Land with Robbie, never mind the rot you believed in when first you came: and as for Ypres—get out of it, if possible, alive. He was right, but why the devil couldn't he shut up, instead of harping on the truth?

“Funny,” the Irrepressible continued, as he raised himself on his stretcher and looked around. “Deuce of a lot you can see from here, now the sun's come out a bit. There's Salvation Corner, down there, and that's the St. Jean road, just up there to the left, and there's the line just over there. Be able to see the flashes, we will, when the sun's gone down.”

Freddy Mann lay still. He didn't want to see the flashes of the guns across the ridge, or the battalions marching to the trenches, or the torn poplars by the wayside. He'd had enough.

“And there's old Wipers. That's the Cloth Hall, that is. That's the tower.”

Freddy Mann drew himself down lower on the stretcher and shut his eyes. Wipers, was it? He didn't want to see Wipers or the Cloth Hall any more. He was tired, and he wanted sleep.

It was an obvious mistake upon the part of the appropriate military authority to
allow Dick Leverett to mix with the other inhabitants in Millfield Hospital. Such an
oversight was in marked contrast with the devoted care with which in all other
respects the interests of the patients were watched. The wounded officer could not
in most matters affecting his moral welfare complain of negligence or indifference.
He was relieved of all responsibility for protecting himself from the pitfalls of
the night by the simple regulation that he had to be within the hospital by 10 p.m.
As dancing is in so many cases the first step downhills, he was categorically
forbidden to dance within the military area of the Metropolis. Lest, by a simple
subterfuge, he should escape observation when engaged upon nefarious pursuits, he
was forbidden to wear mufti upon any occasion. In order that no insidious slackness
might undermine his efficiency as a soldier, he would rise to stand as best he could
at the foot of his bed at attention when the Colonel carried out his morning tour of
inspection. Conversation with sisters or nurses was not encouraged: a watchful eye
was kept upon his visitors. The number of restaurants, caves and dug-outs which were
out of bounds at any given moment tended,
particularly in the
heart of London, to exceed those which he was allowed to enter. It was considered
desirable that he should not leave the hospital premises till twelve o'clock,
in order that the best hours of the day should be devoted to contemplation of the
management of the ward and the sufferings of those more seriously wounded than
himself. Care, and more than care, was taken, but no system can be faultless and it
must remain as one blot upon an otherwise excellent record of surveillance that Dick
Leverett, full charged with his ideas and views, “got abroad” at
Millfield in the second summer of the war.

By an odd perversity of genius, Dick Leverett managed to turn many of the best-meant rules and regulations displayed so prominently in the entrance hall to his own fell purposes. Those long mornings of dead monotony, and evenings enlivened only by bridge and the narration of innumerable non-drawing-room stories of an advanced description, gave him his chance, and when Dick Leverett saw his chance he took it. He was a cadaverous individual, not conspicuously military in appearance, who spoke in a rather thick, blurred voice and whose words were accompanied by nervous gestures of his hands. He had returned, it was understood, from a rather hazy career as professor of history in America to “tumble into a commission” and get out to France in the early stages of the war. To be a professor of European history and to assimilate whole-heartedly the statements of the official propagandists upon the causes and nature of the war requires a degree of mental elasticity that Dick Leverett
neither possessed nor had any ambition to acquire. It seemed better, as things were, to stick to his views and enjoy himself; there were always one or two who from lack of anything better to do would listen, and Dick Leverett was happy enough when talking. This baby-faced individual in the next bed to him was just the sort of partner that he liked to have for his conversations—green, but not too green; a fellow who would smile in a sour manner when you tried him out with some remark about the privilege of shedding one's blood for the flag; a fellow who would attend keenly enough when you dropped some chance observations concerning the French policy of encirclement, or the financial relations between Poland and the Allied Powers, the courses of lectures delivered at Staff colleges since 1911 on the advantages of the attack through Belgium or the Vosges, the terms, as disclosed in America, upon which Italy entered the war, or the nature of the
Ruritania's
cargo. A good chap, Freddy Mann; a fellow to talk to; not one of these ardent unfledged public school patriots, or these “damn-you-for-a-Hun” Regulars, or these brainless long-suffering middle-aged business men who seemed to be pleased enough to do their bit. Incidentally, it was an advantage that Freddy Mann was near: Dick Leverett did not care to make himself conspicuous by walking about the ward; he preferred to do his work in corners, unobserved. He liked to borrow money, too, for drinks, and Freddy Mann's pockets were easily opened: he knew a trick or two at bridge, and Freddy Mann never objected to making a fourth at a quiet rubber, or meeting his I.O.U.s at the end
of the evening. A good chap; he was sorry he was going; he wished he had come across him before: however, there was still a morning left, and the ways of Millfield suited Dick Leverett very well.

“But how do you know all this?”

It was not the first time that Freddy Mann, sitting fully dressed on his bed at 10.30 on a summer morning, had asked the question.

“My job to know. By the way, about that five bob I borrowed yesterday. I'm awfully sorry, but——”

“Oh, that's all right. Damn that. Then do you really mean”—Freddy Mann looked rather intently at Dick Leverett—“that it's all rot—all we're fighting for?”

“Well—hardly put it that way in public, perhaps, but—say it evens out, our side and theirs. War of defence—guard hearth and home inviolate—protect the weak—all that; you know—same for both, that's all I mean.”

“Then the Boche and us——?”

“Two dogs fighting in the street, that's all. You don't believe it?” with a sideways glance and smile.

“I—I've wondered sometimes, you know. I remember once when I found a letter upon a dead Boche up at Hooge—a schoolmaster chap, written by his pupils—school somewhere in a little village in Bavaria. I remember I wondered then.”

“I could have told you if I'd been there.”

“And all this damned trench warfare—it's all just waste of time?”

“Well—good for the Regulars upon the Staff, of course, and the profiteers and people, but as for us——” Dick Leverett shrugged his shoulders.

“Way of enjoying oneself, I suppose. Some fellows batten on it. Can't say it ever appealed much to me.”

“Yes.” Freddy Mann paused. “You know, Leverett, that's just what puzzles me about you. You knew all this before. Why did you ever cross to join in. You needn't have done: it wasn't quite like us.”

Dick Leverett in his turn looked keenly at Freddy Mann. Yes, he was straight, this fellow. And he wouldn't in any case see him after tomorrow. And he seemed to want an answer. What did it matter whether he knew or no?

“Got another five bob on you?”

“Let's see—don't think so. No.”

“Glad of that. Because otherwise I'd have drunk it before the day was out. That's why.”

A smile came over the loose flabby lips. Freddy Mann noticed, not for the first time, how bloodshot were his eyes.

“Follow?”

“No.”

“Well, then—because it seemed the only thing to do. You see—it isn't as if I'd got a job.”

“But, damn it, you're a professor.”

“Was—Harvard, Yale and Lord knows where else. I repeat it,
was.
Still don't follow?”

“No.”

“D.K.O., old boy—because of this, the drink, and—other things. They found out. That's why I thought I'd better come. Wife left me, you know—don't blame her—took the kids. Easy enough to do it there. Tried again, but in our job once you're done you're done. Tried scribbling, and odd jobs—then the war came, and so I came across to fight—for—the—dear—old flag.”

“But if you don't believe any of this—what people say in England—why aren't you a conscientious objector?”

“Not me—no damned fear, not me. Bit of pluck that wants. Not in my line. Besides, had an idea I might make good, you know. Not that I have; they've caught me at it, tight on parade, playing the dirty at poker and things. No, Second Lieutenant Leverett hasn't brought it off. Bullet through the guts, and this.” He looked round the bare polished friendless ward. “So now——”

“But can't you get out and make good again?”

“Not in me, old son. Tried it once, and all for nothing. Stay here now, if I can, till it's over, then slip away. Amuses me, now, to see those other warriors and fire-eaters, but it's not for me. As for being a conchy—why—they don't even have drinks at Dartmoor: so long as I get out a little every now and then——”

The hatchet-like face with its unsteady eyes and loose mouth turned again to Freddy Mann.

“See? Doesn't matter as far as I'm concerned. All a game. But just sometimes—when I see a chap like you—you're damned young, you know, and a damned good chap. It's the truth I'm telling you, God's truth, and they
don't know here, or won't tell, and it's chaps like you that have to pay.”

His voice sounded clearer and steadier than Freddy Mann had ever known it to be before.

“Some day other fellows will tell you—good chaps, not rotters that scrounge for drinks. But whether it's they or I that tell you, it's the truth. Got you, this merry-go-round that Europe's started—won't even let you get out of here to get a breath of fresh air on a summer morning. Got you. Thank God, it lets a man out sometimes. Gives you a chance to get a drink. No, it hasn't come off with Dick Leverett. Hardly ever does, though, if you act a lie. That's what I was doing, when I got a bullet through my guts.”