Chapter II: Part 2

"Pongo" rose to his feet, and edged towards the traverse. "It ain't such an escape as what you blokes think, because, you see, the bomb ain't nothin' more nor an ornary jam tin with a bit of fuse what I stuck in it."

And he disappeared down the trench as rapidly as had his comrades a few minutes before.

VI

THE SCHOOLMASTER OF PONT SAVERNE

I

"So, you see, Schoolmaster," said Oberleutnant von Scheldmann, "you French are a race of dogs. We are the real masters here, and, by Heaven, we have come to make you realise it. Your beloved defenders are running for their lives from the nation they ventured to defy a month ago. They are beaten, routed. What is it they say in your Latin books? 'Vae Victis.' Woe to the conquered!"

Gaston Baudel, schoolmaster in the little village of Pont Saverne, looked out of the window along the white road to Chalons-sur-Marne, four miles away. Between the poplar trees he could catch glimpses of it, and the river wound by its side, a broad ribbon of polished silver. From the road there rose, here and there, clouds of dust, telling of some battery or column on the move. The square of the little village, where he had lived for close on forty years, was crowded with German troops; the river was dirtied by hundreds of Germans, washing off the dust and blood; the inns echoed to German laughter and German songs, and, even as he looked, someone hurled a tray of glasses out of the window of the Lion d'Or into the street. His blood boiled with hate of the invading hosts that had so rudely aroused the sleepy, peaceful village, and he felt his self-control slipping, slipping....

"Get me some food," said the German suddenly. "We have hardly had one decent meal since your dogs of soldiers began running. Bring food and wine at once, so that I may go on and help to wipe the French and British scum from off the earth."

The insult was too much for Gaston Baudel. "May I be cursed," he shouted, "if I lift hand or foot to feed you and your like. I hate you all, for did you not kill my own father, when your soldiers overran France forty-four years ago! Go and find food elsewhere."

Von Scheldmann laughed to himself, amused at the Frenchman's rage. He leant out of the window, and called to his servant and another man, who were seated on the doorstep outside.

"Tie this fighting cock up with something," he ordered, "and go to see if there is anyone else in the house."

An unarmed schoolmaster is no even match for two armed and burly Germans. Gaston Baudel kicked and struggled as he had never done before, but he was old and weak, his eyes were watery through much reading, and his arm had none of the strength of youth left in it. In a few seconds he lay gasping on the floor, while a German, kneeling on him, tied his hands behind his back with strips of his own bedsheets.

"Now, you pig," said von Scheldmann when the soldiers had gone off to search the house, "remember that you are the conquered dog of a conquered race, and that my sword thirsts for French blood," and he added meaning to his words by drawing his weapon and pricking the schoolmaster's thin legs with it. "If I don't get food in a few minutes, I shall have to run this through your body."

Gaston Baudel had heard too much of war to put any trust in what we call "civilisation," which is, at best, merely a cloak that hides the savage beneath. He knew that the command to kill and pillage was more than enough to bring forth all the latent passions which man has tried to conceal since the days when he first clothed himself in skins; that it was no idle threat on the part of the German officer. He lay, then, in silence, on the floor of his own schoolroom, until the two soldiers returned, dragging between them the terrified Rosine, his old housekeeper.

"Are you the schoolmaster's servant?" asked von Scheldmann, in French.

Rosine nodded, for no words would come to her.

"Well, bring me the best food and wine in the house at once, or your master will suffer for it."

Rosine glanced at Gaston Baudel, who nodded to her as well as his position would allow him to. With tears in her eyes, the old servant hurried off to her kitchen to prepare the meal.

"Tie the schoolmaster down to that chair," ordered the German officer, "and place him opposite me, so that he may see how much his guest enjoys his lunch."

Thus they sat, the host and the guest, face to face across the little deal table near the window. The sun shone down on the clean cloth and the blood-coloured wine, and on the schoolmaster's grey hair. In the shade cast by the apple tree outside, sat the German, now drinking, now glancing mockingly at his unwilling host. The meal was interrupted by an orderly, who came in with a note.

Von Scheldmann read it, and swore. "In five minutes we parade," he said, "to follow on after your cowardly dogs of _poilus_. Here's a health to the new rulers of France! Here's to the German Empire!" and he leant across the table towards the schoolmaster. "Drink, you dog," he said, "drink to my toast," and he held his glass close to the other's lips.

Gaston Baudel hesitated for a moment. Then he suddenly jerked his head forward, and, with his chin, knocked the glass out of the German's hand. As the wine splashed over the floor, von Scheldmann leaped to his feet.

"Swine!" he shouted. "It is lucky for you that your wine was good and has left me in a kind mood, otherwise you would certainly die for that insult. As it is, you shall but lose your ears, and I shall benefit the world by cutting them off. If you move an inch I shall have to run my sword through your heart."

He lifted his sword, and brought it down twice. Then he called to his servant and hastened out into the sunlit street, leaving Gaston Baudel tied to his chair, with the warm blood running down each side of his face.

II

Six days later, shortly before the middle of September, an unwonted noise in the street brought the old schoolmaster from his breakfast. He walked down the little flagged path of the garden to the gate, and looked up and down the road. By the green, in the square, a group of villagers were talking and gesticulating, and from the direction of Ecury came the deep rumble of traffic and the sound of heavy firing.

The schoolmaster called to one of the peasants. "He, Jeanne," he cried. "What is the news?"

"The Boches are coming back, M. Baudel," said Jeanne Legrand. "They are fleeing from our troops, and will be passing through here, many of them. Pray God they may be in too much of a hurry to stop!" And her face grew anxious and frightened.

Old Gaston Baudel stepped out of his garden, and joined the group in the square. "Courage, mes amies," he said. "Even if they do stay awhile, even if our homes are shelled, what does it matter? France is winning, and driving the Germans back. That at any rate, is good news."

"All the same," said fat Madame Roland, landlady of the Lion d'Or, "if they break any more of my glasses, I shall want to break my last bottle of wine over their dirty heads." And she went off to hide what remained of her liqueurs and champagne under the sacking in the cellar.

"Let us all go back to our homes," counselled Gaston Baudel, "to hide anything of value. Even I, with this bandage round my head, can hear how swiftly they are retiring. There will, alas! be no school to-day. May our brave soldiers drive the devils from off our fair land of France."

Even as he spoke, the first transport waggons came tearing down the road, and swung northward over the river. Away in the morning haze, the infantry could be seen--dark masses stumbling along the white road--till a convoy of motor lorries hid them from view.

Gaston Baudel sat down in his stone-paved schoolroom to await the passing of the Germans, and to correct the tasks of his little pupils. He had given them a _devoir de style_ to write on the glory of France, and, as he read the childish, ill-spelt prophecies of his country's greatness, he laughed, for the Germans were in retreat, the worst of the anxiety was over, and Paris was saved. And, hour by hour, he listened to the rumble of cannon, the rattle of transport waggons and ambulances, and the heavy tramp of tired-out soldiers on the dusty road.

Suddenly he heard the clank of boots coming up his little garden path, and a large figure loomed in the doorway. A German officer, covered with dirt, entered the room, and threw himself down in a chair.

"You still here, earless dog?" he said, and the schoolmaster recognised his tormentor of a week ago. "Give me something to take with me, and at once. I have no time to stop, but I shall certainly kill you this time if you don't bring me food, and more of that red wine."

Gaston Baudel glanced towards the drawer where he kept his revolver--though he would have never used it against any number of burglars--but a sudden idea came to him, and he checked his movement. With a few muttered words, he hastened off to the kitchen to get food for the German.

"Rosine," he said, "cut a sandwich for that German dog, and then run into my room and fetch the black sealing wax from my desk."

When she had gone off to obey him, Gaston Baudel opened a bottle of red wine and poured a little away. Then, fetching a small glass-stoppered bottle from his room, he emptied the contents--pure morphia--into the wine and recorked the bottle.

"So much," he said to himself, "for the doctor and his drugs. He may have told me how much to dilute it to deaden the pain of my ears, but he gave me no instructions about dosing Germans. They have strong stomachs; let them have strong drink."

But as he sealed the cork and mouth of the bottle, to allay any suspicions the German might have, a thought came to him. Was he not committing murder? Was he not taking away God's gift of life from a fellow creature? Unconsciously he touched the bandage that covered his mutilated ears. Surely, though, it could not be wrong to kill one of these hated oppressors? Should not an enemy of France be destroyed at any cost?

As he hesitated, the impatient voice of von Scheldmann sounded from the schoolroom. "You swine!" he shouted, "are you bringing me food, or must I come and fetch it?"

The schoolmaster seized a scrap of paper, and scribbled a few words on it. Then, slipping it between the cheese and bread of the sandwich, he made a little packet of the food, and hastened from the room. God, or Fate, must decide.

He handed the food and wine to the German, and watched him as he tramped down the garden path, to join in the unending stream of grey-coated soldiers who straggled towards the north.

III

Oberleutnant von Scheldmann sat on a bank by the roadside, to lunch in haste. Behind him, parallel to him, in front of him, went the German army; and the thunder of the guns, down by the Marne, told of the rearguard fight. As they tramped past, the soldiers gazed enviously at the bread and cheese and wine, for the country was clear of food, and, even had it not been, the rapid advance and rapid retreat left but little time for plundering.

Von Scheldmann knocked the top off the wine bottle with a blow from a stone, and, with care to avoid the sharp edges of the glass, he drank long and deep. As he bit greedily into the sandwich, his teeth met on something thin and tenuous, and he pulled the two bits of bread apart. Inside was a scrap of paper. With a curse, he was about to throw the paper away, when some pencilled words caught his eye.

"I leave it to God," he read, "to decide whether you live or die. If you have not drunk any wine, do not, for it is poisoned. If you have, you are lost, and nothing can save you. The victorious French will find your corpse, and will rejoice. Vae victis! Woe to the conquered!"

And even as he read the hurriedly written words, von Scheldmann felt the first awful sense of numbness that presaged the end.

VII

THE ODD JOBS

We sat in a railway carriage and told each other, as civilians love to do, what was the quickest way to end the war. "You ought to be able to hold nearly 400 yards of trench with a company," my friend was saying. "You see, a company nowadays gives you 250 fighting men to man the trenches."

And then the muddy figure in the corner, the only other occupant of the carriage, woke up. "You don't know what you're talking about," he snorted as he tossed his cap up on to the rack, and put his feet on the opposite seat.

"You don't know what you're talking about," he repeated. "You're lucky if your company can produce more than 150 men to man the trenches; you forget altogether about the odd jobs. Take the company I'm in at the front, for instance. Do you imagine we've got 250 men to man the trenches? First of all there are always men being hit and going sick, or men who are sent off to guard lines of communication, and their places aren't filled up by fresh drafts for weeks. As for the odd jobs, there's no end to them. My own particular pal is a telephone orderly--he sits all day in a dug-out and wakes up at stated hours to telephone 'No change in the situation' to battalion headquarters. It's true that he does jolly good work when the Huns 'strafe' his wire and he has to go out and mend it, but he doesn't go forward in an attack; he sits in his dug-out and telephones like blazes for reinforcements while the Germans pepper his roof for him with 'whizz-bangs.'

"Then there's old Joe White, the man like a walrus, who left us months ago to go and guard divisional headquarters; there are five officers' servants who are far too busy to man a trench; there is a post corporal, who goes down to meet the transport every night to fetch the company's letters, and who generally brings up a sack of bread by mistake or drops the parcels into shell holes that are full of water; there's a black, greasy fellow who calls himself a cook, and who looks after a big 'tank' called a 'cooker,' from which he extracts oily tea, and meat covered with tea-leaves. Besides all these fellows there are sixteen sanitary men who wander about with tins of chloride of lime and keep the trench clean--they don't man the trenches; then there are three battalion orderlies, who run about with messages from headquarters and who wake the captain up, as soon as he gets to sleep, to ask him to state in writing how much cheese was issued to his men yesterday or why Private X has not had his hair cut.

"Do you imagine this finishes the list? Not a bit of it. There are half a dozen machine gunners who have nothing to do with company work; half a dozen men and a quartermaster-sergeant attached to the transport to look after the horses and to flirt with girls in farms; two mess waiters whose job it is to feed the officers; and there are four men who have the rottenest time of anyone--they're the miners who burrow and dig, dig and burrow day and night towards the German lines; poor half-naked fellows who wheel little trucks of earth to the pit shaft or who lie on their stomachs working away with picks. And it's always an awful race to see if they'll blow up the Germans, or if it will be the other way about.

"There are still more odd jobs, and new ones turn up every day. Mind you, I'm not grumbling, for many of these fellows work harder than we do, and we must have someone to feed us and to keep the place clean. But the difficulty is nowadays to find a man who's got time to stand in the trench and wait for the Hun to attack, and that's what you people don't seem to realise."

"And what do you do?" asked my friend as the other stopped to yawn.

"What do I do? What do you think I've been talking for all this time?" said the man in khaki. "I'm the fellow who stands in the trench and waits for the Hun to attack. That's a jolly long job, and I've got some sleep owing to me for it, too."

Whereupon he stretched himself out on the seat, pillowed his head on his pack, and proceeded to extract noisy payment of his debt.

"That rather complicates matters, doesn't it?" said my friend, when the muddy figure had safely reached the land of dreams. "If you've only got 150 fighting men in a company, your division has a strength of ..." and he proceeded to count away on his fingers as hard as he could. Presently he gave it up in despair, and a brilliant idea seemed to strike him.

"Those generals and staff fellows," he said, "must have a lot of brains after all." And we have come to the conclusion that we will not criticise them any more, for they must know as well as we do, if not still better, how to win the war.

VIII

THE "KNUT"

We were sitting round the fire in the club, discussing that individual colloquially known as the "knut."

"The 'knut,'" said Green, "is now virtually extinct, he is killed by war. As soon as he gets anywhere near a trench, he drops his cloak of affectation, and becomes a reasonable human being--always excepting, of course, certain young subalterns on the staff."

Rawlinson leant forward in his chair. "I'm not sure," he said, "that I agree with you. It all depends upon how you define a 'knut.'"

"A 'knut' is a fellow with a drawl and an eyeglass," said someone.

"That just fits my man. I know of an exception to your rule. I know of a 'knut' who did not disappear at the front."

"Tell us about him," suggested Jepson.

Rawlinson hesitated, and glanced round at each of us in turn. "It's not much of a story," he said at length, "but it stirred me up a bit at the time--I don't mind telling it you if you think it sufficiently interesting."

We filled up our glasses, and lay back in our chairs to listen to the following tale:

* * * * *

"When I was at Trinity I kept rooms just above a fellow called Jimmy Wynter. He wasn't a pal of mine at all, as he had far too much money to chuck about--one of these rich young wastrels, he was. He could drop more than my annual allowance on one horse, and not seem to notice it at all. In the end he got sent down for some rotten affair, and I was rather glad to see the last of him, as the row from his rooms was appalling. He always had an eyeglass and wonderfully cut clothes, and his hair was brushed back till it was as shiny as a billiard ball. I put him down, as did everyone else, as an out-and-out rotter, and held him up as an example of our decadent aristocracy.

"When I went out to the front, our Regular battalion was full up, and I was sent to a Welsh regiment instead. The first man I met there was none other than this fellow Wynter, still with his eyeglass and his drawl. In time, one got quite accustomed to him, and he was always fairly amusing--which, of course, is a great thing out there--so that in the end I began to like him in a sort of way.

"All this seems rot, but it helps to give you an idea of my man, and it all leads up to my story, such as it is.

"We came in for that Loos show last year. After months and months of stagnation in the trenches, we were suddenly called to Headquarters and told that we were to make an attack in about two hours' time.

"I don't know if any of you fellows came in for a bayonet charge when you were out at the Front. Frankly, I felt in a hell of a funk, for it's not the same thing to leave your trench and charge as it is to rush an enemy after you've been lying in an open field for an hour or two. The first hour and a half went all right, what with fusing bombs, arranging signals, and all that sort of thing, but the last half-hour was the very devil.

"Most of us felt a bit jumpy, and the double rum ration went in two shakes. We knew that we shouldn't worry when the whistles went for the charge, but the waiting was rather trying. Personally I drank more neat brandy than I have ever done before or since, and then sat down and tried to write one or two letters. But it wasn't a brilliant success, and I soon left my dug-out and strolled along to C Company.

"The idea was for A and C Companies to attack first, followed by B and D companies. A battalion of the Westshires was in support to us.

"C Company Officer's dug-out was not a mental haven of rest. With one exception, everyone was a bit nervy, everyone was trying not to show it, and everyone was failing dismally. The exception was Jimmy Wynter. He was sitting on a pile of sandbags in the corner, his eyeglass in his eye, looking at an old copy of _La Vie Parisienne_, with evident relish. His hand was as steady as a rock, and he hadn't had a drop of rum or brandy to give him Dutch courage. While everyone else was fighting with excitement, Jimmy Wynter was sitting there, studying the jokes of his paper, as calmly as though he were sitting here in this old club. It was only then that it occurred to me that there was something in the fellow after all.

"At last the time drew near for our push, and we waited, crouching under the parapet, listening to our artillery plunking away like blazes. At last the whistles blew, a lot of fellows cheered, yelled all sorts of idiotic things, and A and C Companies were over the parapet on the way to the Huns.

"I am no hand at a description of a charge, but it really was wonderful to watch those fellows; the sight of them sent every vestige of funk from me, and the men could hardly wait for their turn to come. Just before we went, I had one clear vision of Jimmy Wynter. He was well ahead of his platoon, for he was over six foot and long-legged at that. I could see his eyeglass swinging on the end of its black cord, and in his hand he carried a pickaxe. Such ordinary weapons as revolvers, rifles, and bayonets had no apparent attraction for him.

"What happened next I had no time to see, for our turn came to hop over the parapet, and there wasn't much time to think of other people. Allan, his servant, told me later all that occurred, for he was next to Jimmy all the time. They got to the Hun trenches and lost a lot of men on the wire. Away to the left the enemy had concealed a crowd of machine guns in one of the slag heaps, and they played awful havoc among our chaps. According to Allan, Jimmy chose a place where the wire had almost all gone, took a huge leap over the few remaining strands, and was the first of C Company to get into the trench.

"Somehow he didn't get touched--I'll bet Allan had something to do with that; for he loved his master. With his pick he cracked the skull of the first Boche who showed signs of fight, and, losing his hold of his weapon, he seized the man's rifle as he fell. No wonder the poor blighters fled, for Jimmy Wynter must have looked like Beelzebub as he charged down on them. His hat had gone, and his hair stuck out from his head like some modern Struwwelpeter. With the rifle swinging above his head, he did as much to clear the trench as did the rest of the platoon all put together.

"When we arrived on the scene the few who remained of A and C Companies were well on their way to the second line of trenches. Here again Jimmy Wynter behaved like a demon with his rifle and bayonet, and in five minutes' time we were in complete possession of two lines of trenches along a front of two hundred yards. I do not even mention the number of Germans that Allan swore his master had disposed of, but the name of Wynter will long be a by-word in the regiment. The funny part of it is that, up to that time, he hadn't had a single scratch. However, Fate may overlook a man for a short time, but he is generally remembered in the end. So it was with poor old Jimmy.

"He was leading a party down a communicating trench, bombing the Huns back yard by yard, when a hand grenade landed almost at his feet. He jumped forward, in the hope that he would have time to throw it away before it went off, but it was fused too well. Just as he picked it up, the damned thing exploded, and Jimmy Wynter crumpled up like a piece of paper.

"I was coming along the trench a few minutes later, seeing that our position was being made as secure as possible before the counter-attack came, when I found him. He was lying in one of the few dug-outs that had not been hit, and Allan and another man were doing what they could for him.

"You could see he was very nearly done for, but, after a few seconds, he opened his eyes and recognised me.

"'Hullo, Rawlinson,' he whispered; 'some damned fool has hit me. Hurts like the very devil.'

"I muttered some banal words of comfort, and continued to tie him up--though God knows it was a pretty hopeless task. I hadn't even any morphia I could give him to make things better.

"Suddenly he raised his arm and fumbled about in search of something.

"'What do you want?' I asked.

"'Where the deuce is my eyeglass?' And the drawl seemed to catch horribly in his throat.

"I put the rim of the eyeglass into his hand; the glass itself had gone.

"'Must wear the damned thing,' he murmured, and he tried to raise it to his face--but his hand suddenly stopped half-way and fell, and he died."

* * * * *

There was silence in the club room for a minute or so, and the ticking of the clock was oppressively loud. Then Jepson raised his glass.

"Gentlemen," he said. "Here's to the 'Knut,'" and gravely we drank to the toast.

IX

SHOPPING

As the Captain sat down to breakfast, he turned to speak to me: "I propose ..." he began, but Lawson interrupted him. "Oh, John dear," he said, "this is so sudden."

The Captain took no notice of the interruption. "... that you and I go shopping this afternoon."

"Jane," I called to an imaginary maid, "please tell Parkes to bring the car round at eleven o'clock; we are going shopping in Bond Street, and lunching at the Ritz."

"You all seem to think you're deucedly funny this morning," growled the Captain as he pushed aside a piece of cold bacon with the end of his knife. "The pure air of the billets seems to have gone to your heads so that I think a parade would suit you this afternoon."

We sobered down at the threat. "No, seriously," I said, "I'd love to go if I can get anything to ride."

"You can have the Company's pack horse. I'll order both beasts for two o'clock."

Now the Captain's horse stands far more hands than any really respectable horse should, and the Captain is well over six feet in his socks; I, on the other hand, am nearer five feet than six, and the pack pony is none too big for me. Again, the Captain is thin and I am fat, so that even the sentry could scarcely repress his smile as we set forth on our quest--a modern Don Quixote, and a Sancho Panza with a hole in the back of his tunic.

But we had little time to think of our personal appearances, for our way lay over the Mont Noir, and there are few places from which you can get a more wonderful view, for you can follow the firing line right away towards the sea, and your field glasses will show you the smoke rising from the steamers off Dunkirk. We paused a moment, and gazed over the level miles where Poperinghe and Dixmude and the distant Furnes lay sleepy and peaceful, but, even as we looked, a "heavy" burst in Ypres, and a long column of smoke rose languidly from the centre of the town.

"We shan't do much more shopping in that old spot," said the Captain as he turned his horse off the road, and set forth across country to Bailleul.

The Captain has hunted with nearly every pack of hounds in England, while I have hunted with none, so that I was hot and thirsty and uncommonly sore when we clattered into the town. Leaving the Captain to see the horses stabled at the Hotel du Faucon, I slipped off to get a drink.

"Here," said the Captain when he tracked me down, "don't try that game on again or you'll have to take the early parade to-morrow. Besides, you're supposed to be Company Interpreter, and you've no right to leave me to the mercy of two savage grooms like that. I advise you to take care, young man."

My qualifications for the post of Company Interpreter lie in the fact that I once, in company of various other youths of my age, spent a fortnight in and around the Casino at Trouville. Peters of our company knows a long list of nouns taking "x" instead of "s" in the plural, but my knowledge is considered more practical--more French.

And now comes a confession. To retain a reputation requires a lot of care, and to keep my position as Company Interpreter and outdo my rival Peters I always carried about with me a small pocket dictionary--if anyone ever noticed it, he probably mistook it for a Service Bible--in which I searched for words when occasion offered. I had carefully committed to memory the French equivalents for all the articles on our shopping list--a pot of honey, a bottle of Benedictine, a pair of unmentionable garments for Lawson, and a toothbrush--so that I walked across the main square with a proud mien and an easy conscience.

Pride, they tell us, comes before a fall. We had successfully fought our way through the crowds of officers and mess waiters who swarm in Bailleul, we had completed our purchases, we were refreshing ourselves in a diminutive tea shop, when the Captain suddenly slapped his thigh.

"By Jove," he said, "I promised to buy a new saucepan for the Company cook. Good job I remembered."

What on earth was the French for a saucepan? I had no opportunity of looking in my dictionary, for it would look too suspicious if I were to consult my Service Bible during tea.

"I don't think we shall have time to look for an ironmonger's," I said.

"You blithering ass," said the Captain, "there's one just across the road. Besides, we don't have dinner before eight as a rule."

The fates were working against me. I made one more effort to save my reputation. "We should look so funny, sir, riding through Bailleul with a great saucepan. We might send the Company cook to buy one to-morrow."

I remained in suspense for a few moments as the Captain chose another cake. He looked up suddenly. "We'll get it home all right," he said, "but I believe the fact of the matter is that you don't know what to ask for."

"We'll go and get the beastly thing directly after tea," I said stiffly, for it is always offensive to have doubts cast on one's capabilities, the more so when those doubts are founded on fact. Besides, I knew the Captain would love to see me at a loss, as French has been his touchy point ever since the day when, having a sore throat, he set out to buy a cure for it himself. The chemist, mistaking his French and his gestures, had politely led him to the door and pointed out a clothier's across the way, expressing his regret the while that chemists in France do not sell collars.

When we entered the ironmonger's shop I could see nothing in the shape of a saucepan that I could point out to the man, so I made a shot in the dark. "Je desire," I said, "une soucoupe."

"Parfaitement, m'sieu," said the shopman, and he produced a host of saucers of every description--saucers in tin, saucers in china, saucers big and little.

"What in the name of all that's wonderful are you getting those things for?" asked the Captain irritably. "We want a saucepan."

I feigned surprise at my carelessness and turned to the shopman again. "Non, je desire quelque chose pour bouillir les oeufs."

The poor man scratched his head for a minute, then an idea suddenly struck him. "Ah, une casserole?" he questioned.

I nodded encouragingly, and, to my intense relief, he produced a huge saucepan from under the counter, so that we trotted out of Bailleul with our saddle bags full, and the saucepan dangling from a piece of string round the Captain's neck.

Misfortunes never come singly. We were not more than a hundred yards from the town when the Captain handed the saucepan to me. "You might take it," he said, "while I shorten my stirrups."

The pack horse becomes accustomed to an enormous variety of loads, but apparently the saucepan was something in the shape of a disagreeable novelty to him. He began to trot, and that utensil rattled noisily against the bottle of liqueur protruding from my saddle bag. The more the saucepan rattled the faster went the horse, and the more precarious became my seat. In a few seconds I was going across country at a furious gallop.

If I let go my hold of the saucepan it rattled violently, and spurred the pack horse on to even greater pace; if I held on to the saucepan I could not pull up my horse and I stood but little chance of remaining on its back at all, for I am a horseman of but very little skill.

Suddenly I saw a gate barring my way ahead. I let go the saucepan and something cracked in my saddle bag. I seized the reins and dragged at the horse's mouth. Then, just as I was wondering how one stuck on a horse's back when it tried to jump, someone rode up from the other side and opened the gate.

But it was only when I was right in the gateway that I saw what lay ahead. Just before me was a major at the head of a squadron of cavalry. The next second I was amongst them.

A fleeting glimpse of the Major's horse pawing the air with its forelegs, a scattering of a hundred and fifty men before me, and I had passed them all and was galloping up the steep slope of the hill.

When at last the Captain came up with me, I was standing at the top of the Mont Noir, wiping Benedictine from my breeches and puttees. I made an attempt at jocularity. "I shall have to speak to Parkes about this engine," I said. "The controls don't work properly, and she accelerates much too quickly."

But the Captain saw the ruin of the liqueur bottle lying by the roadside, and was not in the mood for amusement. So we rode in silence down the hill, while the flames of Ypres gleamed and flickered in the distance.

Of a sudden, however, the Captain burst into a roar of laughter.

"It was worth it," he panted as he rolled in his saddle, "to see the poor blighters scatter. Lord! but it was lovely to hear that Major curse."

X

THE LIAR

For an hour and a half we had been crumped and whizz-banged and trench-mortared as never before, but it was not until the shelling slackened that one could really see the damage done. The sudden explosions of whizz-bangs, the increasing whine and fearful bursts of crumps, and, worst of all, the black trench-mortar bombs that came hurtling and twisting down from the skies, kept the nerves at a pitch which allowed of no clear vision of the smashed trench and the wounded men.

However, as the intervals between the explosions grew longer and longer the men gradually pulled themselves together and began to look round. The havoc was appalling. Where the telephone dug-out had been was now a huge hole--a mortar bomb had landed there, and had blown the telephone orderly almost on to the German wire, fifty yards away; great gaps, on which the German machine guns played at intervals, were made all along our parapet; the casualties were being sorted out as well as possible--the dead to be carried into an old support trench, and there to await burial, the wounded to be hurried down to the overcrowded dressing station as quickly as the bearers could get the stretchers away; the unhurt--scarcely half the company--were, for the most part, still gazing up into the sky in the expectation of that twisting, all too familiar, black bomb that has such a terrific devastating power. Gradually quiet came again, and the men set about their interrupted business--their sleep to be snatched, their work to be finished before the long night with its monotonous watching and digging began.

With the Sergeant-major I went down the trench to discuss repairs, for much must be done as soon as night fell. Then, leaving him to make out a complete list of the casualties, I returned to my dug-out to share the rations of rum with Bennett, the only subaltern who remained in the company.

"Where's the rum?" I asked. "Being shelled makes one thirsty."

He handed me a cup, at the bottom of which a very little rum was to be seen. "I divided it as well as I could," he said rather apologetically.

"If you were thinking of yourself at the time, you certainly did," I answered as I prepared myself for battle, for nothing sets your nerves right again as quickly as a "scrap."

We were interrupted, however, in the preliminaries by the Sergeant-major, who brought with him a handful of letters and pay books, the effects of the poor fellows who were now lying under waterproof sheets in the support trench.

"Total killed forty-one, sir, and I'm afraid Sergeant Wall didn't get down to the dressing station in time. It's a bad day for us to-day. Oh, and by the way, sir, that fellow Spiller has just been found dead at the end of the communicating trench."

"Which end, Sergeant-major?" I asked.

"The further end, sir. He left the trench without leave. He told Jones, who was next to him, that he was not going to have any more damned shelling, and he appears to have made off immediately after."

Bennett whistled. "Is that the blighter whom poor old Hayes had to threaten with his revolver the day before we were gassed?"

The Sergeant-major nodded.

"It's just the sort of thing he would do," said Bennett, whose hand was still unsteady from the strain of an hour ago, "to bunk when Brother Boche is giving us a little crumping to keep us amused."

I turned to the Sergeant-major. "Let me have these fellows' effects," I said. "As to Spiller, I don't expect he could have really been bunking. At all events, let the other fellows think I sent him to Headquarters and he got hit on the way. I expect he was going down with a stretcher party." But, in my heart, I knew better. I knew Spiller for a coward.

It is not for me to judge such a man. God knows it is no man's fault if he is made so that his nerves may fail him at a critical moment. Besides, many a man who is capable of heroism that would win him the Victoria Cross fails when called upon to stand more than a few weeks of trench warfare, for a few minutes of heroism are very different to months of unrelieved strain. However, Spiller and his like let a regiment down, and one is bound to despise them for that.

Thoughts of our "scrap" had entirely left us, for Bennett and I had before us one of the most uncongenial tasks that an officer can have. The news has to be broken by someone when a wife is suddenly made a widow, and the task is generally taken on by the dead man's platoon commander, who sends back home his letters and papers. There were many men who had died that afternoon, and letters of condolence and bad news are always difficult to write, so that there was silence in our dug-out for the next two hours.

The last pay book I examined had belonged to Private E. Spiller. His other belongings were scanty--a few coppers, a much-chewed pencil, and two letters. I looked at the latter for a clue as to whom I ought to write; one was in his own handwriting and unfinished, the other was from a girl with whom he had been "walking out," apparently his only friend in the world, as she alone was mentioned in the little will written at the end of his pay book. But her love was enough. Her letter was ill-spelt and badly written, but it expressed more love than is given to most men.

"Take care of yourself, Erny dear, for my sake," she wrote. "I am so proud of you doing so well in them horrid trenches.... Dear Erny, you can't have no idear how pleased I am that you are so brave, but be quick and come back to me what loves you so...."

So brave! I tried to laugh at the unconscious irony of it all, but my laugh would not come, for something in my throat held it back--perhaps I was a little overwrought by the recent shelling.

I turned to the other letter, which I have thought fit to transcribe in full:

"DEAREST LIZ,

"I hope this finds you as it leaves me at present in the pink. Dear
Liz, i am doing very well and i will tell you a secret--i am going to
be rekermended for the V.C. becos i done so well in the trenches. i
don't feel a bit fritened wich is nice, and, dear Liz, i hope to be
made Lance Corpril soon as my officer is so ..."

* * * * *

And here it ended, this letter from a liar. I balanced it on my knee and wondered what to do with it. Should I tear it up and write to the girl to tell her the truth--that her lover was a liar and a coward? Should I tear his letter up and just announce his death? For some minutes I hesitated, and then I put his half-finished letter in an envelope and added a note to tell her.

"He died like a soldier," I finished. "His letter will tell you better than any words of mine how utterly without fear he was."

And I wish no other lie were heavier on my conscience than is the lie I told to her.

XI

THE CITY OF TRAGEDY

What does it matter that the Cloth Hall and the Cathedral are in ruins, that the homes and churches are but rubble in the streets? What do we care if great shells have torn gaping holes in the Grande Place, and if the station is a battered wreck where the rails are bent and twisted as bits of wire? We do not mourn for Ypres, for it is a thousand times grander in its downfall than it was ever in the days of its splendour.

In the town, the houses are but piles of stone, the streets are but pitted stretches of desolation, the whole place is one huge monument to the memory of those who have suffered, simply and grandly, for a great cause. Round the town run the green ramparts where, a few years ago, the townspeople would stroll of an evening, where the blonde Flemish girls would glance shyly and covertly at the menfolk. The ramparts now are torn, the poplars are broken, the moat is foul and sullied, and facing out over the wide plain are rows of little crosses that mark the resting-places of the dead.

For herein lies thy glory, Ypres. To capture thee there have fallen thousands of the German invaders; in thy defence there have died Belgians and French and English, Canadians and Indians and Algerians. Three miles away, on Hill 60, are the bodies of hundreds of men who have fought for thee--the Cockney buried close to the Scotchman, the Prussian lying within a yard of the Prussian who fell there a year before, and along the Cutting are French bayonets and rifles, and an occasional unfinished letter from some long-dead _poilu_ to his lover in the sunny plains of the Midi or the orchards of Normandy.

And all these men have died to save thee, Ypres. Why, then, should we mourn for thee in thy ruin? Even thy great sister, Verdun, cannot boast so proud a record as thine.

But the awful tragedy of it all! That the famous old town, quietly asleep in its plain, should be shattered and ruined; that so many hopes and ambitions can be blasted in so few hours; that young bodies can be crushed, in a fraction of a second, to masses of lifeless, bleeding pulp! The glorious tragedy of Ypres will never be written, for so many who could have spoken are dead, and so many who live will never speak--you can but guess their stories from the dull pain in their eyes, and from the lips that they close tightly to stop the sobs.

God, how they have suffered, these Belgians! Day after day for over a year the inhabitants of Ypres lived in the hell of war; day after day they crouched in their cellars and wondered if it would be their little home that would be ruined by the next shell. How many lived for months in poky little basements, or crowded together in the one room that was left of their home--anything, even death, rather than leave the place where they were born and where they had passed all their quiet, happy years.

I knew one woman who lived with her little daughter near the Porte de Menin, and one day, when the next cottage to hers had been blown to bits, I tried to persuade her to leave. For a long time she shook her head, and then she took me to show me her bedroom--such a poor little bedroom, with a crucifix hanging over the bed and a dingy rosebush growing up outside the window. "It was here that my husband died, five years ago," she said. "He would not like me to go away and leave the house to strangers."

"But think of the little one," I pleaded. "She is only a girl of five, and you cannot endanger her life like this."

For a long time she was silent, and a tear crept down her cheek as she tried to decide. "I will go, monsieur," she said at last, "for the sake of the little one."

And that night she set off into the unknown, fearful to look back at her little home lest her courage should desert her. She was dressed in her best clothes--for why leave anything of value for the Germans, should they ever come?--and she wheeled her few household treasures before her in the perambulator, while her little daughter ran beside her.

But next morning I saw her again coming back up the street to her cottage. This time she was alone, and she still trundled the perambulator in front of her.

I went out, and knocked at her door. "So you have come back," I said. "And where have you left the little one?"

She gazed at me dully for a minute, and a great fear gripped me, for I saw that her best clothes were torn and dust stained.

"It was near the big hospital on the Poperinghe road," she said in a horribly even voice. "The little one had lingered behind to pick up some bits of coloured glass on the roadside when the shell came. It was a big shell ... and I could find nothing but this," and she held up part of a little torn dress, bloody and terrible.

I tried to utter a few words of comfort, but my horror was too great.

"It is the will of God," she said, as she began to unpack the treasures in the perambulator, but, as I closed the door, I heard her burst into the most awful fit of weeping I have ever known.

* * * * *

And, day by day as the war goes on, the tragedy of Ypres grows greater. Each shell wrecks a little more of what was once a home, each crash and falling of bricks brings a little more pain to a breaking heart. The ruins of Ypres are glorious and noble, and we are proud to defend them, but the quiet, simple people of Ypres cannot even find one brick on another of their homes.

Somewhere in England, they tell me, is a little old lady who was once a great figure in Brussels society. She is nearly eighty now, and alone, but she clings on tenaciously to life till the day shall come when she can go back to her Chateau at Ypres, where she has lived for forty years. One can picture her--feeble, wizened, and small, her eyes bright with the determination to live until she has seen her home again.

I, who have seen her Chateau, pray that death may come to close those bright eyes, so that they may never look upon the destruction of her home, for it is a desolate sight, even though the sky was blue and the leaves glistened in the sun on the morning when, two years ago, I tramped up the winding drive.

The lodge was nothing more than a tumbled pile of broken bricks, but, by some odd chance, the Chateau itself had never suffered a direct hit. In front of the big white house there had once been an asphalt tennis court--there was now a plain pitted at every few yards by huge shell holes. The summer-house at the edge of the wood--once the scene of delightful little flirtations in between the games of tennis--was now a weird wreck, consisting of three tottering walls and a broken seat. Oddest of all, there lay near the white marble steps an old, tyreless De Dion motor-car.

I have often wondered what the history of that battered thing could be. One can almost see the owner packing herself in it with her most precious belongings, to flee from the oncoming Germans. The engine refuses to start, there is no time for repairs, there is the hurried flight on foot, and the car is left to the mercy of the invading troops. Perhaps, again, it belonged to the staff of some army, and was left at the Chateau when it had run its last possible mile. At all events, there it stood, half-way between Ypres and the Germans, with everything of any possible value stripped off it as thoroughly as though it had been left to the white ants.