Chapter II: Part 2

"Oh, they ante-d up all right later on," admitted the sergeant, "when they'd discovered this column and roped in my captain to identify me. One old leather-face, 'specially--they told me after he was a General--was as nice as pie, an' had me in an' fed me a fresh meat and canned asparagus lunch and near chuckled himself into a choking fit when I told him about dad, an' my being booked up as a Benevolent Neutral. He was so mighty pleasant that I told him I'd like to have my dad make him a present of as dandy an auto as rolls in France. I would have, too, but he simply wouldn't listen to me; told me he'd send it back freight if I did; and I had to believe him, though, it seemed unnatural. But they wouldn't let me go look at their blame trenches. I tried to get this General joker to pass me in, but he wouldn't fall for it. 'No, no,' he gurgles and splutters. 'A Benevolent Neutral in the trenches! Never do, never do. We'll have to put some new initials on the Mechanical Transport,' he says, 'B.N.M.T. Benevolent Neutral! I must tell Dallas of the Transport that.' And he shooed me off with that."

The sergeant had worked busily as he talked, and now, as he commenced to replace the repaired fork, he was thoughtfully silent a moment.

"I suppose there's some dandy sna-aps up in those trenches, Loo-tenant?" he said at last.

"Oh, well, I dunno," said Courtenay. "Sort of thing you see in the picture papers, of course."

"Them!" said the sergeant contemptuously. "I could make better sna-aps posin' some of the transport crowd in these emergency trenches dug twenty miles back from the front. I mean real pictures of the real thing--fellows knee-deep in mud, and a shell lobbing in, and such like--real dandy snaps. It makes my mouth water to think of 'em. But I suppose I'll go through this darn war and never see enough to let me hold up my head when I get back home and they ask me what was the war really like and to tell 'em about the trenches. I could have made out if I'd even seen those blame trenches and got some good snaps of 'em."

Courtenay was moved to a rash compassion and a still more rash promise.

"Look here, sergeant," he said, "I'm dashed if I don't have a try to get you a look at the trenches. We go in again in two days and it might be managed."

* * * * *

Three days later Sergeant Rawbon, mounted on the motor-cycle which he had repaired and which had been sent over to him, found all his obstacles to the trenches melt and vanish before a couple of passes with which he was provided--one readily granted by his captain on hearing the reason for its request, and one signed by Second Lieutenant Courtenay to pass the bearer, Sergeant Rawbon, on his way to the headquarters of the 1st Footsloggers with motor-cycle belonging to that battalion. The last quarter mile of the run to the headquarters introduced Sergeant Rawbon to the sensation of being under fire, and, as he afterwards informed Courtenay, he did not find the sensation in any way pleasant.

"Loo-tenant," he said gravely, "I've had some of this under fire performance already, and I tell you I finds it no ways nice. Coming along that last bit of road I heard something whistling every now an' then like the top note of a tin whistle, and something else goin' _whisk_ like a cane switched past your ear, and another lot saying _smack_ like a whip-lash snapping. I was riding slow and careful, because that road ain't exactly--well, it would take a lot of sandpapering to make it really smooth. But when I realized that those sounds spelt bullets with a capital B, I decided that road wasn't as bad as I'd thought, and that anything up to thirty knots wasn't outside its limits."

"Oh, you were all right," said Courtenay carelessly, "bullets can't touch you there, except a few long-distance ones that fall in enfilade over the village. From the front they go over your head, or hit that parapet along the side of the road."

"Which is comforting, so far," said the sergeant, "though, personally, I've just about as much objection to be hit by a bullet that comes over a village as any other kind."

They were outside the remains of a house in the cellar of which was headquarters, Courtenay having timed the sergeant to arrive at an hour when he, Courtenay, could arrange to be waiting at headquarters.

"Now we'll shove along down and round the trenches. I spoke to the O.C. and explained the situation--partly. He didn't raise any trouble so just follow me, and leave me to do any talking there is to do. You must keep your eyes open and ask any questions about things after. It would look a bit odd and raise remarks if the men saw me showing you round and doing the Cook's Tour guide business. And if you've brought that camera, keep it out of sight till I give you the word. When we get along to my own company's bit of trench I'll tell you, and you can take some snaps--when I'm not looking at you. Just tip the wink to any men about and they'll be quite pleased to pose or anything you like."

"Loo-tenant," said Sergeant Rawbon earnestly, "you're doin' this thing real handsome, and I won't forget it. If ever you hit the U-nited States----"

"Oh, that's all right," said Courtenay, "come along now."

"When we find your bunch," said Rawbon as they moved off, "if you could make some sort of excuse out loud, and fade from the scene a minute and leave me there with the men, I'll sure get some of the dandiest snaps I'd wish. I reckon it'll satisfy the crowd if I promise to send 'em copies. It will if they're anything like my lot in the Mechanical Transport."

They slid down into a deep and narrow and very muddy ditch that ran twistingly through the wrecked village. Courtenay explained that usually they could walk this part above ground, sheltered from bullets by the broken-down houses and walls, but that a good few shells had been coming over all day, and that in the communication trench they were safe from all shells but those which burst directly over or in the part they were in.

"You want to run across this bit," he said presently. "A high explosive broke that in this morning, and it can't be repaired properly till dark. You go first and wait the other side for me. Now--jump lively!"

Rawbon took one quick jumping stride to the middle of the gap, and another and very much quicker one beyond it, as a bullet smacked venomously into the broken side of the trench. Another threw a spurt of mud at Courtenay's heels as he made the rush. "A sniper watches the gap and pots at anyone passing," he explained to Rawbon. "It's fairly safe, because at the range he's firing a bullet takes just a shade longer to reach here than you take to run across. But it doesn't do to walk."

"No," said Rawbon, "and going back somehow I don't think I will walk. I can see without any more explainin' that it's no spot for a pleasant, easy little saunter." He stopped suddenly as a succession of whooping rushes passed overhead. "Gee! What's that?"

"Shells from our own guns," said Courtenay, and took the lead again. In his turn he stopped and crouched, calling to Rawbon to keek down. They heard a long screaming whistle rising to a tempestuous roar and breaking off in a crash which made the ground shake. Next moment a shower of mud and earth and stones fell rattling and thumping about and into the trench.

"Coal-box," said Courtenay hurriedly. "Come on. They're apt to drop some more about the same spot."

"I'm with you," said Rawbon. "The same spot is a good one to quit, I reckon."

They hurried, slipping and floundering, along the wet trench, and turned at last into another zig-zag one where a step ran along one side, and men muffled in wet coats stood behind a loopholed parapet. Along the trench was a series of tiny shelters scooped out of the bank, built up with sand-bags, covered ineffectually with wet, shiny, waterproof ground-sheets. In these, men were crouched over scantily filled braziers, or huddled, curled up like homeless dogs on a doorstep. At intervals along the parapet men watched through periscopes hoisted over the top edge, and every now and then one fired through a loophole. The trench bottom where they walked was anything from ankle- to knee-deep in evil-looking watery mud of the consistency of very thin porridge. The whole scene, the picture of wet misery, the dirt and squalor and discomfort made Rawbon shiver as much from disgust as from the raw cold that clung about the oozing clay walls and began to bite through to his soaking feet and legs. Courtenay stopped near a group of men, and telling the sergeant to wait there a moment, moved on and left him. A puff of cold wet wind blew over the parapet, and the sergeant wrinkled his nose disgustedly. "Some odorous," he commented to a mud-caked private hunkered down on his heels on the fire-step with his back against the trench wall. "Does, the Boche run a glue factory or a fertilizer works around here?"

"The last about fits it," said the private grimly. "They made an attack here about a week back, and there's a tidy few fertilizin' out there now--to say nothin' of some of ours we can't get in."

Rawbon squirmed uneasily to think he should, however unwittingly, have jested about their dead, but nobody there seemed in any way shocked or resentful. The sergeant suddenly remembered his camera, and had thrust his hand under his coat to his pocket when the warning screech of an approaching shell and the example of the other men in the traverse sent him crouching low in the trench bottom. The trench there was almost knee-deep in thin mud, but everyone apparently took that as a matter of course. The shell burst well behind them, but it was followed immediately by about a dozen rounds from a light gun. They came uncomfortably close, crashing overhead and just in front of the parapet. A splinter from one lifted a man's cap from his head and sent it flying. The splinter's whirr and the man's sharp exclamation brought all eyes in his direction. His look of comical surprise and the half-dazed fashion of his lifting a hand to fumble cautiously at his head raised some laughter and a good deal of chaff.

"Orright," he said angrily. "Orright, go on; laugh, dash yer. Fat lot t' laugh at, seein' a man's good cap pitched in the mud."

"No use you feelin' that 'ead o' yours," said his neighbor, grinning. "You can't even raise a sick 'eadache out o' that squeak. 'Arf an inch lower now an' you might 'ave 'ad a nice little trip 'ome in an 'orspital ship."

"You're wrong there, Jack," said another solemnly. "That splinter hit fair on top of his nut, an' glanced off. You don't think a pifflin' little Pip-Squeak shell could go through _his_ head?" He stepped up on the firing-step as he spoke, and on the instant, with a rush and crash, another "Pip-Squeak" struck the parapet immediately in front of him, blowing the top edge off it, filling the air with a volcano of mud, dirt, smoke, and shrieking splinters, and, either from the shock of the explosion or in an attempt to escape it, throwing the man off his balance on the ledge of the firing-step to sprawl full length in the mud. In the swirl of noise and smoke and flying earth Rawbon just glimpsed the plunging fall of a man's body, and felt a curious sickly feeling at the pit of his stomach. He was relieved beyond words to see the figure rise to his knees and stagger to his feet, dripping mud and filth, and swearing at the pitch of his voice. He paid no attention to the stutter of laughter round him as he retrieved his mud-encrusted rifle, and looked about him for his cap. The laughter rose as he groped in the thin mud for it, still cursing wildly; and then the sergeant noticed that the man who had lost his cap a minute before had quietly snatched up the other one from the firing-step, clapped it on his own head and pretended to help the loser to search.

"It was blame funny, I suppose," Rawbon told the lieutenant a few minutes after, as they moved from the spot. "Him chasin' round in the mud cussin' all blue about his 'blarsted cap'; and t'other fellow wi' the cap on his head and pretending to hunt for it, and callin' the rest to come help. I dessay I'll laugh some myself, if I remember it when I'm safe back about ten mile from here. Just at the moment my funny bone hasn't got goin' right after me expectin' to see that feller blowed to ribbons an' remnants. But them others--say, I've seen men sittin' comfortable in an armchair seat at a roof-garden vaudeville that couldn't raise as hearty a laugh at the prize antics of the thousand dollar star comedian, as them fellers riz on that cap episode."

"Well, it was rather funny, you know," said Courtenay, grinning a little himself.

"Mebbe, mebbe," said Rawbon. "But me--well, if you'll excuse it, I'll keep that laugh in pickle till I feel more like usin' it."

"You wanted to come, you know," said Courtenay. "But I won't blame you if you say you've had enough and head for home. As I told you before, this 'joy-riding' game is rather silly. It's bad enough us taking risks we have to, but----"

"Yes, you spoke that piece, Loo-tenant," said Rawbon, "but I want to see all there is on show now I'm here. Only don't expect me to shriek with hilarious mirth every time a shell busts six inches off my nose."

They had halted for a moment, and now another crackling string of light shells burst along the trench.

"There's another bunch o' humor arriving," said Rawbon. "But I don't feel yet like encoring the turn any;"

They moved on to a steady accompaniment of shell bursts and Courtenay looked round uneasily.

"I don't half like this," he said. "They don't usually shell us so at this time of day. Hope there's no attack coming."

"I agree with all you say, Loo-tenant, and then some. Especially about not liking it."

"I'm beginning to think you'd be better off these premises," said Courtenay. "I ought to be with my company if any trouble is coming off. And it might lead to questions and unpleasantness if you were found here--especially if you're a casualty, or I am."

"Nuff sed, Loo-tenant," said Rawbon promptly. "I don't want that sort o' trouble for various reasons. I'd have an everlastin' job explaining to my dad what I was doin' in the front seats o' the firing line. It wouldn't just fit wi' my bein' a Benevolent Neutral, not anyhow."

"We're only about thirty or forty yards from the Germ trench in this bit," said Courtenay. "Here, carry my periscope, and when I'm talking to some of the men just take a look quietly."

But Rawbon was not able to see much when, a little later, he had a chance to use the periscope. For one thing the short winter day was fading and the light was already poor; for another any attempt to keep the periscope above the parapet for more than a few seconds brought a series of bullets hissing and zipping over, and periscope glasses in those days were too precious to risk for mere curiosity's sake.

"We'll just have a look at the Frying Pan," said Courtenay, "and then you'll have seen about the lot. We hold a bit of the trench running out beyond the Pan and the Germs are holding the same trench a little further along. We've both got the trench plugged up with sandbag barricades."

They floundered along the twisting trench till it turned sharply to the right and ran out into the shallow hollow of the Frying Pan. It was swimming in greasy mud, and across the far side from where they stood Rawbon could see a breastwork of sandbags.

"We call this entrance trench the Handle, and the trench that runs out from behind that barricade the Leak. There's always more or less bombing going on in the Leak, and I don't know if it's very wise of you to go up there. We call this the Frying Pan because--well, 'into the fire,' you know. Will you chance it?"

"Why, sure; if you don't mind, Loo-tenant," said Rawbon, "I might as well see--" He was interrupted by a sudden crash and roar, running bursts of flaring light, hoarse yells and shouts, and a few rifle shots from somewhere beyond the barricade across the Leak. The work of the next minute was too fast and furious for Rawbon to follow or understand. The uproar beyond the barricade swelled and clamored, and the earth shook to the roar of bursting bombs. In the Frying Pan there was a sudden vision of confused figures, dimly seen through the swirling smoke, swaying and struggling, threshing and splashing in the liquid mud. He was just conscious of Courtenay shouting something about "Get back," of his being thrust violently back into the wide trench, of two or three figures crowding in after him, cursing and staggering and shooting back into the Frying Pan, of Courtenay's voice shouting again to "Stand clear," of a knot of men scrambling and heaving at something, and then of a deafening "Rat-tat-tat-tat," and the streaming flashes of a machine-gun. It stopped firing after a minute, and Rawbon, flattened back against a corner of the trench wall, heard an explanation given by a gasping private to Courtenay and another mud-bedaubed officer who appeared mysteriously from somewhere.

"Flung a shower o' bombs an' rushed us, sir," said the private. "They was over a-top o' us 'fore you could say 'knife.' Only two or three o' us that wasn't downed and was able to get back out o' the Leak an' across the Pan to here."

"We stopped them with the maxim," said Courtenay, "but I suppose they'll rush again in a minute."

He and the other officer conferred hastily. Rawbon caught a few words about "counterattack" and "quicker the better" and "all the men I can find," and then the other officer moved hurriedly down the trench and men came jostling and crowding to the end of the Handle, just clear of the corner where it turned into the Pan. A few sandbags were pulled down off the parapet and heaped across the end of the trench, the machine-gun was run close up to them and a couple of men posted, one to watch with a periscope, and the other to keep Verey pistol lights flaring into the Frying Pan.

Two minutes later the other officer returned, spoke hastily to Courtenay, and then calling to the men to follow, jumped the low barricade and ran splashing out into the open hollow with the men streaming after him. A burst of rifle fire and the shattering crash of bombs met them, and continued fiercely for a few minutes after the last of the counter-attacking party had swarmed out. But the attack broke down, never reached the barricade beyond the Pan, was, in fact, cut down almost as fast as it emerged into the open. A handful of men came limping and floundering back, and Courtenay, waiting by the machine-gun in case of another German rush, caught sight of the face of the last man in.

"Rawbon!" he said sharply. "Good Lord, man! I'd forgotten--What took you out there?"

"Say, Loo-tenant," said Rawbon, panting hard. "There's no crossin' that mud puddle Fry-Pan. They're holding the barricade 'cross there; got loopholes an' shootin' through 'em. Can't we climb out an' over the open an' on top of 'em?"

"No good," said Courtenay. "They're sweeping it with maxims. Listen!"

Up to then Rawbon had heeded nothing above the level of the trench and the hollow but now he could hear the steady roar of rifle and maxim fire, and the constant whistle of bullets streaming overhead.

"I must rally another crowd and try'n' rush it," said Courtenay. "Stand ready with that maxim there. I won't be long."

"I've got a box of bombs here, sir," said a man behind him.

Courtenay turned sharply. "Good," he said. "But no--it's too far to throw them."

"I think I could just about fetch it, sir," said the man.

"All right," said Courtenay. "Try it while I get some men together."

"Here y' are, chum," said the man, "you light 'em an' I'll chuck 'em. This way for the milky coco-nuts!"

Rawbon watched curiously. The bomb was round shaped and rather larger than a cricket ball. A black tube affair an inch or two long projected from it and emitted, when lit, a jet of hissing, spitting sparks. The bomb-thrower seized the missile quickly, stepped clear of the sheltering corner of the trench, threw the bomb, and jumped back under cover. A couple of bullets slapped into the wall of the trench, and next moment the bomb burst.

"Just short," said the thrower, who had peeped out at sound of the report. "Let's 'ave another go."

This time a shower of bullets greeted him as he stepped out, but he hurled his bomb and stepped back in safety. A third he threw, but this time a bullet caught him and he reeled back with blood staining the shoulder of his tunic.

"You'll 'ave to excuse me," he remarked gravely to the man with the match. "Can't stay now. I 'ave an urgent appointment in _Blighty_.[Footnote: England. A soldier's corruption of the Hindustani word "Belati."] But I'll drink your 'ealth when I gets to Lunnon."

Rawbon had watched the throwing impatiently. "Look here," he said suddenly. "Just lemme have a whale at this pitching. I'll show 'em some curves that'll dazzle 'em."

The wounded man peered at him and then at his cap badge. "Now 'oo the blank is this?" he demanded. "Blimey, Joe, if 'ere ain't a blooming Universal Plum-an'-Apple Provider. 'Ere, 'oo stole the strawberry jam?"

"You let me in on this ball game," said Rawbon. "Light 'em and pass 'em quick, and see me put the Indian sign on that bunch."

A minute later Courtenay came back and stared in amazement at the scene. Two men were lighting and passing up bombs to the sergeant, who, standing clear out in the opening, grabbed and hurled the balls with an extraordinary prancing and dancing and arm-swinging series of contortions, while the crowded trench laughed and applauded.

"Some pitchin', Loo-tenant," he panted beamingly, stepping back into shelter. "Hark at 'em. And every darn one right over the plate. Say, step out here an' watch this next lot."

"No time now," said Courtenay hurriedly.

"They're strengthening their defense every minute. Are you all ready there, lads?"

"I don't know who this man is, sir," said a sergeant quickly. "But he's doing great work. Every bomb has gone in behind the parado there. He might try a few more to shake them before we advance."

"Behind the parakeet," snorted Rawbon. "I should smile. You watch! I'll put some through the darn loopholes for you. Didn't know I was pitcher to the Purple Socks, the year we whipped the League, did you? Gimme thirty seconds, Loo-tenant, and I'll put thirty o' these balls right where they live."

As he spoke he picked up two of the bombs from a fresh box and held them to the lighter. As he plunged out a shower of bullets spattered the trench wall about him, but without heeding these he began to throw. As the roar of the bursting bombs began, the bullets slowed down and ceased. "Keep the lights blazing," Rawbon paused to shout to the man with the pistol flares. "You slide out for the home base, Loo-tenant, and I'll keep 'em too busy to shoot their nasty little guns." He commenced to hurl the bombs again. Courtenay stepped out and watched a moment. Bomb after bomb whizzed true and hard across the hollow, just skimmed the breastwork, struck on the trench wall that showed beyond and a foot above it, and fell behind the barricade. Billowing smoke-clouds and gusts of flame leaped and flashed above the parapet. Courtenay saw the chance and took it. He plunged out into the lake of mud and plowed through it towards the barricade, the men swarming behind him, and the sergeant's bombs hurtling with trailing streams of sparks over their heads.

"Come on, son," said the sergeant. "You carry that box and gimme the slow match. I pitch better with a little run."

Courtenay reached the barricade and led his men over and round it without a casualty. The space behind the barricade was deserted--deserted, that is, except by the dead, and by some unutterable things that would have been better dead.

The lost portion of trench was recaptured, and more, the defense, demoralized by that tornado of explosions, was pushed a good fifty yards further back before the counter-attack was stayed.

At daybreak next morning Courtenay and the sergeant stood together on the road leading to the communication trench. Both were crusted to the shoulders in thick mud; Rawbon's cap was gone, and his hair hung plastered in a wet mop over his ears and forehead, and Courtenay showed a red-stained bandage under his cap.

"Rawbon," he said, "I feel rotten over this business. Here you've done some real good work--I don't believe we'd ever have got across without your bombing--and you won't let me say a word about it. I'm dashed if I like it. Dash it, you ought to get a V.C., or a D.C.M. at least, for it."

"Now lookahere, Loo-tenant," said Rawbon soothingly. "There's no need for you to feel peaked--not any. It was darn good of you to let me in on these sacred no-admittance-'cept-on-business trenches, and I'm plumb glad I landed in the mix-up. It would probably raise trouble for you if your boss knew you'd slipped me in; and it sure would raise everlasting trouble for me at home if my name was flourishin' in the papers gettin' an A.B.C. or D.A.M.N. or whatever the fixin' is. And I'd sooner have this"--slapping the German helmet that dangled at his belt--"than your whole darn alphabet o' initials. Don't forget what I told you about the dad an' those Schwartzeheimer friends o' his, the cousins o' which same friends I've been blowin' off the earth with bomb base-balls. Let it go at that, and never forget it, friend--I'm a Benevolent Neutral."

"I won't forget it," said Courtenay, laughing and shaking hands. He watched the sergeant as he bestrode the motor-cycle, pushed off, and swung off warily down the wet road into the morning mist.

"What was it that despatch said a while back!" he mused. "Something about 'There are few who appreciate or even understand the value of the varied work of the Army Service Corps.' Well, this lot was a bit more varied than usual, and I fancy it might astonish even the fellow who wrote that line."

DRILL

"_Yesterday one of the enemy's heavy guns was put out of action by our artillery._"--EXTRACT FROM DESPATCH.

"Stand fast!" the instructor bellowed, and while the detachment stiffened to immobility he went on, without stopping to draw breath, bellowing other and less printable remarks. After he had finished these he ordered "Detachment rear!" and taking more time and adding even more point to his remarks, he repeated some of them and added others, addressing abruptly and virulently the "Number" whose bungling had aroused his wrath.

"You've learnt your gun drill," he said, "learned it like a sulphur-crested cockatoo learns to gabble 'Pretty Polly scratch a poll'; why in the name of Moses you can't make your hands do what your tongue says 'as me beat. You, Donovan, that's Number Three, let me hear you repeat the drill for Action Front."

Donovan, standing strictly to attention, and with his eyes fixed straight to his front, drew a deep breath and rattled off:

"At the order or signal from the battery leader or section commander, 'Halt action front!' One orders 'Halt action front!'--At the order from One, the detachment dismounts, Three unkeys, and with Two lifts the trail; when the trail is clear of the hook, Three orders 'Limber drive on.'"

The instructor interrupted explosively.

"You see," he growled, "you know it. Three orders 'Limber drive on.' You're Three! but did you order limber drive on, or limber drive off, or drive anywhere at all? Did you expect drivers that would be sitting up there on their horses, with their backs turned to you, to have eyes in the backs of their heads to see when you had the trail lifted, or did you be expectin' them to thought-read that you wanted them to drive on!"

Three, goaded at last to a sufficiency of daring, ventured to mutter something about "was going to order it."

The instructor caught up the phrase and flayed him again with it. "'Was going to,'" he repeated, "'was going to order it.' Perhaps some day, when a bullet comes along and drills a hole in your thick head, you will want to tell it you 'was going to' get out of the way. You maybe expect the detachment to halt and stand easy, and light a cigarette, and have a chat while you wait to make up your mind what you're going to say, and when you're going to say it! And if ever you get past recruit drill in the barracks square, my lad, and smell powder burnt in action, you'll learn that there's no such thing as 'going to' in your gun drill. If you're slow at it, if you fumble your fingers, and tie knots in your tongue, and stop to think about your 'going to,' you'll find maybe that 'going to' has gone before you make up your mind, and the only thing 'going to' will be you and your detachment; and its Kingdom Come you'll be 'going to' at that. And now we'll try it again, and if I find any more 'going to' about it this time it's an hour's extra drill a day you'll be 'going to' for the next week."

He kept the detachment grilling and grinding for another hour before he let them go, and at the end of it he spent another five minutes pointing out the manifold faults and failings of each individual in the detachment, reminding them that they belonged to the Royal Regiment of Artillery that is "The right of the line, the terror of the world, and the pride of the British Army," and that any man who wasn't a shining credit to the Royal Regiment was no less than a black disgrace to it.

When the detachment dismissed, and for the most part gravitated to the canteen, they passed some remarks upon their instructor almost pungent enough to have been worthy of his utterance. "Him an' his everlastin' 'Cut the Time!'"

"I'm just about fed up with him," said Gunner Donovan bitterly, "and I'd like to know where's all the sense doing this drill against a stop-watch. You'd think from the way he talks that a man's life was hanging on the whiskers of a half-second. Blanky rot, I call it."

"I wouldn't mind so much," said another gunner, "if ever he thought to say we done it good, but not 'im. The better we does it and the faster, the better and the faster he wants it done. It's my belief that if he had a gun detachment picked from the angels above he'd tell 'em their buttons and their gold crowns was a disgrace to Heaven, that they was too slow to catch worms or catch a cold, and that they'd 'ave to cut the time it took 'em to fly into column o' route from the right down the Golden Stairs, or to bring their 'arps to the 'Alt action front."

These were the mildest of the remarks that passed between the smarting Numbers of the gun detachment, but they would have been astonished beyond words if they could have heard what their instructor Sergeant "Cut-the-Time" was saying at that moment to a fellow-sergeant in the sergeants' mess.

"They're good lads," he said, "and it's me, that in my time has seen the making and the breaking and the handling and the hammering of gun detachments enough to man every gun in the Army, that's saying it. I had them on the 'Halt action front' this morning, and I tell you they've come on amazing since I took 'em in hand. We cut three solid seconds this morning off the time we have been taking to get the gun into action, and a second a round off the firing of ten rounds. They'll make gunners yet if they keep at it."

"Three seconds is good enough," said the other mildly.

"It isn't good enough," returned the instructor, "if they can make it four, and four's not good enough if they can make it five. It's when they can't cut the time down by another split fraction of a second that I'll be calling them good enough. They won't be blessing me for it now, but come the day maybe they will."

* * * * *

The battery was moving slowly down a muddy road that ran along the edge of a thick wood. It had been marching most of the night, and, since the night had been wet and dark, the battery was splashed and muddy to the gun-muzzles and the tops of the drivers' caps. It was early morning, and very cold. Gunners and drivers were muffled in coats and woolen scarves, and sat half-asleep on their horses and wagons. A thick and chilly mist had delayed the coming of light, but now the mist had lifted suddenly, blown clear by a quickly risen chill wind. When the mist had been swept away sufficiently for something to be seen of the surrounding country, the Major, riding at the head of the battery, passed the word to halt and dismount, and proceeded to "find himself on the map." Glancing about him, he picked out a church steeple in the distance, a wayside shrine, and a cross-road near at hand, a curve of the wood beside the road, and by locating these on the squared map, which he took from its mud-splashed leather case, he was enabled to place his finger on the exact spot on the map where his battery stood at that moment. Satisfied on this, he was just about to give the order to mount when he heard the sound of breaking brushwood and saw an infantry officer emerge from the trees close at hand.

The officer was a young man, and was evidently on an errand of haste. He slithered down the steep bank at the edge of the wood, leaped the roadside ditch, asked a question of the nearest man, and, getting an answer from him, came at the double past the guns and teams towards the Major. He saluted hastily, said "Mornin', sir," and went on breathlessly: "My colonel sent me across to catch you. We are in a ditch along the edge of the far side of this wood, and could just see enough of you between the trees to make out your battery. From where we are we can see a German gun, one of their big brutes, with a team of about twenty horses pulling it, plain and fair out in the open. The Colonel thinks you could knock 'em to glory before they could reach cover."

"Where can I see them from!" said the Major quickly.

"I'll show you," said the subaltern, "if you'll leave your horse and come with me through this wood. It's only a narrow belt of trees here."

The Major turned to one of his subalterns who was with him at the head of the battery.

"Send back word to the captain to come up here and wait for me!" he said rapidly. "Tell him what you have just heard this officer say, and tell him to give the word, 'Prepare for action.' And now," he said, turning to the infantryman, "go ahead."

The two of them jumped the ditch, scrambled up the bank, and disappeared amongst the trees.

A message back to the captain who was at the rear of the battery brought him up at a canter. The subaltern explained briefly what he had heard, and the captain, after interrupting him to shout an order to "Prepare for action," heard the finish of the story, pulled out his map, and pointing out on it a road shown as running through the trees, sent the subaltern off to reconnoiter it.

The men were stripping off their coats, rolling them and strapping them to the saddles and the wagon seats; the Numbers One, the sergeants in charge of each gun, bustling their gunners, and seeing everything about the guns made ready: the gunners examining the mechanism and gears of the gun, opening and closing the hinged flaps of the wagons, and tearing the thin metal cover off the fuses.

It was all done smartly and handily, and one after another the sergeants reported their subsections as ready. Immediately the captain gave the order to mount, drivers swung themselves to their saddles, and the gunners to their seats on the wagons, and all sat quietly waiting for whatever order might come next.

The lifting of the mist had shown a target to the gunners on both sides apparently, and the roar and boom of near and distant guns beat and throbbed quicker and at closer intervals.

In three minutes the Major came running back through the wood, and the captain moved to meet him.

"We've got a fair chance!" said the Major exultingly. "One of their big guns clear in the open, and moving at a crawl. I want you to take the battery along the road here, sharp to the right at the cross-road, and through the wood. The Inf. tell me there is just a passable road through. Take guns and firing battery wagons only; leave the others here. When you get through the wood, turn to the right again, and along its edge until you come to where I'll be waiting for you. I'll take the range-taker with me. The order will be 'open sights'; it's the only way--not time to hunt a covered position! Now, is all that clear?"

"Quite clear," said the captain tersely.

"Off you go, then," said the Major; "remember, it's quick work. Trumpeter, come with me, and the range-taker. Sergeant-major, leave the battery staff under cover with the first line."

He swung into the saddle, set his horse at the ditch, and with a leap and scramble was over and up the bank and crashing into the undergrowth, followed by his trumpeter and a man with the six-foot tube of a range-finder strapped to the saddle.

Before he was well off the road the captain shouted the order to walk march, and as the battery did so the subaltern who had been sent out to reconnoiter the road came back at a canter.

"We can just do it," he reported; "it's greasy going, and the road is narrow and rather twisty, but we can do it all right."

The captain sent back word to section commanders, and the other two subalterns spurred forward and joined him.

"We go through the wood," he explained, "and come into action on the other side. The order is 'open sights,' so I expect we'll be in an exposed position. You know what that means. There's a gun to knock out, and if we can do it and get back quick before they get our range we may get off light. If we can't----" and he broke off significantly. "Get back and tell your Numbers One, and be ready for quick moving."

Immediately they had fallen back the order was given to trot, and the battery commenced to bump and rumble rapidly over the rough road. As they neared the cross-roads they were halted a moment, and then the guns and their attendant ammunition wagons only went on, turned into the wood, and recommenced to trot.

They jolted and swayed and slid over the rough, wet road, the gunners clinging fiercely to the handrails, the drivers picking a way as best they could over bowlders and between ruts. They emerged on the far side of the wood, found themselves in an open field, turned sharply to the right, and kept on at a fast trot. A line of infantry were entrenched amongst the trees on the edge of the wood, but their shouted remarks were drowned in the clatter and rattle and jingle of wheels and harness. Out on their left the ground rose very gently, and far beyond a low crest could be seen clumps of trees, patches of fields, and a few scattered farm? houses. At several points on this distant slope the White smoke-clouds of bursting shells were puffing and breaking, but so far there was no sign to be seen of any man or of any gun. When they came to where the Major was waiting he rode out from the trees, blew sharply on a whistle, and made a rapid signal with hand and arm. The guns and wagons had been moving along the edge of the wood in single file, but now at the shouted order each team swung abruptly to its left and commenced to move in a long line out from the wood towards the low crest, the whole movement being performed neatly and cleanly and still at a trot. The Major rode to his place in the center of the line, and the battery, keeping its place close on his heels, steadily increased its pace almost to a canter. The Major's whistle screamed again, and at another signal and the shouted orders the battery dropped to a walk. Every man could see now over the crest and into the shallow valley that fell away from it and rose again in gentle folds and slopes. At first they could see nothing of the gun against which they had expected to be brought into action, but presently some one discovered a string of tiny black dots that told of the long team and heavy gun it drew. Another sharp whistle and the Major's signal brought the battery up with a jerk.

"Halt! action front!" The shouted order rang hoarsely along the line. For a moment there was wild commotion; a seething chaos, a swirl of bobbing heads and plunging horses. But in the apparent chaos there was nothing but the most smooth and ordered movement, the quick but most exact following of a routine drill so well ground in that its motions were almost mechanical. The gunners were off their seats before the wheels had stopped turning, the key snatched clear, and the trail of the gun lifted, the wheels seized, and the gun whirled round in a half-circle and dropped pointing to the enemy. The ammunition wagon pulled up into place beside the gun, the traces flung clear, and the teams hauled round and trotted off. As Gunner Donovan's trail was lifted clear his yell of "Limber, drive on," started the team forward with a jerk, and a moment later, as he and the Number Two slipped into their seats on the gun the Number Two grinned at him. "Sharp's the word," he said: "d'you mind the time----" He was interrupted roughly by the sergeant, who had just had the target pointed out to him, jerking up the trail to throw the gun roughly into line.

"Shut yer head, and get on to it, Donovan. You see that target there, don't you?"

"See it a fair treat!" said Donovan joyfully; "I'll bet I plunk a bull in the first three shots."

Back in the wood the infantry colonel, from a vantage-point half-way up a tall tree, watched the ensuing duel with the keenest excitement.

The battery's first two ranging shots dropped in a neat bracket, one over and one short; in the next two the bracket closed, the shorter shot being almost on top of the target. This evidently gave the range closely enough, and the whole battery burst into a roar of fire, the blazing flashes running up and down the line of guns like the reports of a gigantic Chinese cracker. Over the long team of the German gun a thick cloud of white smoke hung heavily, burst following upon burst and hail after hail of shrapnel sweeping the men and horses below. Then through the crashing reports of the guns and the whimpering rush of their shells' passage, there came a long whistling scream that rose and rose and broke off abruptly in a deep rolling cr-r-r-rump. A spout of brown earth and thick black smoke showed where the enemy shell had burst far out in front of the battery.

The infantry colonel watched anxiously. He knew that out there somewhere another heavy German gun had come into action; he knew that it was a good deal slower in its rate of fire, but that once it had secured its line and range it could practically obliterate the light field guns of the battery. The battery was fighting against time and the German gunners to complete their task before they could be silenced. The first team was crippled and destroyed, and another team, rushed out from the cover of the trees, was fallen upon by the shrapnel tornado, and likewise swept out of existence.

Then another shell from the German gun roared over, to burst this time well in the rear of the battery.

The colonel knew what this meant. The German gun had got its bracket. The battery had ceased to fire shrapnel, and was pouring high-explosive about the derelict gun. The white bursts of shrapnel had given place to a series of spouting volcanoes that leaped from the ground about the gun itself. Another German shell fell in front of the battery and a good 200 yards nearer to it. A movement below attracted the colonel's attention, and he saw the huddled teams straighten out and canter hard towards the guns. He turned his glasses on the German gun again, and could not restrain a cry of delight as he saw it collapsed and lying on its side, while high-explosive shells still pelted about it.

The teams came up at a gallop, swept round the guns, and halted. Instantly they were hooked in, the buried spades of the guns wrenched free, the wheels manned, the trails dropped clashing on the limber hooks. And as they dropped, another heavy shell soared over burst behind the battery, so close this time that the pieces shrieked and spun about the guns, wounding three horses and a couple of men. The Major, mounted and waiting, cast quick glances from gun to gun. The instant he saw they were ready he signaled an order, the drivers' spurs clapped home, and the whips rose and fell whistling and snapping. The battery jerked forward at a walk that broke immediately into a trot, and from that to a hard canter.

Even above the clatter and roll of the wheels and the hammering hoof-beats the whistle and rush of another heavy shell could be heard. Gunner Donovan, twisted sideways and clinging close to the jolting seat, heard the sound growing louder and louder, until it sounded so close that it seemed the shell was going to drop on top of them. But it fell behind them, and exactly on the position where the battery had stood. Donovan's eye caught the blinding flash of the burst, the springing of a thick cloud of black smoke. A second later something shrieked hurtling down and past his gun team, and struck with a vicious thump into the ground.

"That was near enough," shouted Mick, on the seat beside him. Donovan craned over as they passed, and saw, half-buried in the soft ground, the battered brass of one of their own shell cartridges. The heavy shell had landed fairly on top of the spot where their gun had stood, where the empty cartridge cases had been flung in a heap from the breech. If they had been ten or twenty seconds later in getting clear, if they had taken a few seconds longer over the coming into action or limbering up, a few seconds more to the firing of their rounds, the whole gun and detachment ...

Gunner Donovan leaned across to Mick and shouted loudly.

But his remark was so apparently irrelevant that Mick failed to understand. A sudden skidding swerve as the team wheeled nearly jerked him off his seat, the crackling bursts of half a dozen light shells over the plain behind him distracted his attention for a moment further. Then he leaned in towards Donovan, "What was that?" he yelled. "What didjer say?"

Donovan repeated his remark. "Gawd--bless--old 'Cut-the-Time.'"

The battery plunged in amongst the trees, and into safety.

A NIGHT PATROL

"_During the night, only patrol and reconnoitering engagements of small consequence are reported."_--EXTRACT FROM DESPATCH.

"Straff the Germans and all their works, particularly their mine works!" said Lieutenant Ainsley disgustedly.

"Seeing that's exactly what you're told off to do," said the other occupant of the dug-out, "why grouse about it?"

Lieutenant Ainsley laughed. "That's true enough," he admitted; "although I fancy going out on patrol in this weather and on this part of the line would be enough to make Mark Tapley himself grouse. However, it's all in the course of a lifetime, I suppose."

He completed the fastening of his mackintosh, felt that the revolver on his belt moved freely from its holster, and that the wire nippers were in place, pulled his soft cap well down on his head, grunted a "Good-night," and dropped on his hands and knees to crawl out of the dug-out.

He made his way along the forward firing trench to where his little patrol party awaited his coming, and having seen that they were properly equipped and fully laden with bombs, and securing a number of these for his own use, he issued careful instructions to the men to crawl over the parapet one at a time, being cautious to do so only in the intervals of darkness between the flaring lights.

He was a little ahead of the appointed time; and because the trench generally had been warned not to fire at anyone moving out in front at a certain hour, it was necessary to wait until then exactly. He told the men to wait, and spent the interval in smoking a cigarette. As he lit it the thought came to him that perhaps it was the last cigarette he would ever smoke. He tried to dismiss the thought, but it persisted uncomfortably. He argued with himself and told himself that he mustn't get jumpy, that the surest way to get shot was to be nervous about being shot, that the job was bad enough but was only made worse by worrying about it. As a relief and distraction to his own thoughts, he listened to catch the low remarks that were passing between the men of his party.

"When I get home after this job's done," one of them was saying, "I'm going to look for a billet as stoker in the gas works, or sign on in one o' them factories that roll red-hot steel plates and you 'ave to wear an asbestos sack to keep yourself from firing. After this I want something as hot and as dry as I can find it."

"I think," said another, "my job's going to be barman in a nice snug little public with a fire in the bar parlor and red blinds on the window."

"Why don't you pick a job that'll be easy to get?" said the third, with deep sarcasm--"say Prime Minister, or King of England. You've about as much chance of getting them as the other."

Lieutenant Ainsley grinned to himself in the darkness. At least, he thought, these men have no doubts about their coming back in safety from this patrol; but then of course it was easier for them because they did not know the full detail of the risk they ran. But it was no use thinking of that again, he told himself.

He took his place in readiness, waited until one flare had burned out and there was no immediate sign of another being thrown up, slipped over the parapet and dropped flat in the mud on the other side. One by one the men crawled over and dropped beside him, and then slowly and cautiously, with the officer leading, they began to wend their way out under their own entanglements.