All that afternoon they stole wraithlike through the wilderness, beating up only rabbits and birds. But by night they had come into a one-time industrial area which scarred the earth for a mile around with the fragments of buildings and machinery.
Although this city had been splattered into atoms at the very beginning of the war, it had been rebuilt, in lessening degree, in each lull which followed in order, to utilize the coal here found. But after each retreating army had damaged the mines turn after ceaseless turn, at last they were wholly unworkable.
Water tanks leaned crazily¯great blobs of rust against the sky. Buildings were heaps of rubble, overgrown with creeping vines and brown weeds. Within a few years the place would be swallowed except for the few battered walls which made ragged patterns against the hazy dusk. Fused glass crunched under foot and twisted chunks of metal attested the violence of thermite bombs and shells.
The brigade, having ascertained that the place was not radioactive, filtered through the tangle, alert and silent. Gian's men sweated the light guns over the unevenness, cursing both guns and the laborious works of man.
The lieutenant caught sight of the Weasel's runner signaling him ahead from the side of an overturned railroad car. He quickened his pace and followed the fellow up to the vanguard.
Weasel, his small self very still, pointed mutely to a crazily suspended railroad rail which jutted out from a wall like a gibbet. It was a gibbet.
Four soldiers, their necks drawn to twice their length, were rotting in their uniforms, swaying to and fro in the gentle wind. Below them was a painted scrawl upon the stone:
SOLDIERS! MOVE ON!
"British," whispered Pollard, coming up.
The lieutenant looked around. Ahead he could see the mine entrances and piles of waste which bore lines like trails. He gave the place a careful scout and returned to his men.
"I hear people down there," said Weasel, ear to earth.
A bullet smashed into the truck of a railroad car and went yowling away like a broken banjo string.
"I think," said the lieutenant, "that this is a very good place to spend the night. Gian! Gian front into action!
All the following day and the day after, Malcolm was increasingly morose.
He had encountered a problem which he could not solve and it was giving him nerves. He had known the lieutenant very casually at Sandhurst when they were sixteen and cadets. But he did not remember such a man as this, rather, a somewhat quiet, cheerful lad with only a hint of the devil in his eyes. But the blank had been filled by seven battlesome years, two for the lieutenant in England, five for Malcolm. And the five which the lieutenant had spent on the Continent seemed to have forged a steel blade which might stab anywhere.
It was all so irrational! Malcolm had counted on his order and the habit of obedience to the source to bring the lieutenant back. That and tales about what Victor wished to do for the lieutenant. But the lieutenant's mind was not one to run in grooves or to be duped, and here he was, walking back to a loss of command! And Malcolm was fairly certain now that the lieutenant knew what was waiting for him.
Hadn't the lieutenant failed to take any cognizance of the general orders to reorganize on the outline of the B.C.R? Hadn't he been all too successful in his campaigning¯too successful to be safe? Certainly such a man, asserting such independence, could not be left with a body of troops while the general staff was so weak.
And Malcolm was suffering from jealousy. He was used to a close understanding between an officer and his troops, yes, but these fellows actually seemed to wriggle when the lieutenant saw fit to look at them. It was rather disgusting. Well, that would be changed. They'd recognize their rights, these fellows, and know that the new order of things was best. A clever officer was better off under a committee than he was by himself, for he could always manipulate the membership of that committee with benefit to himself and could always blame all failure upon it. Soldiers were such stupid brutes.
Malcolm could understand that the lieutenant was not anxious to check in at G.H.Q., in the light of what he must know. But why, then, didn't he just quietly put a bullet in Malcolm and head south, forgetting that any organization such as G.H.Q. ever existed?
This devious traveling was an annoyance to a man who feels he is constantly being put off from control of his command. And Malcolm had thought about it so often and so long that he was now under the impression that he was truly commanding here and so every order from the lieutenant came as a definite affront.
Then, damn it, those people in that first village had instinctively turned to the lieutenant! And the people there at the mines, even though they had been terribly knocked about in the short fight, had calmed into quiet obedience as soon as the lieutenant confronted them with his orders.
And last night, when they had raided that old fort, the noncom in charge had almost licked the lieutenant's boots!
This brigade was all wrong. Their haversacks were stuffed. Forty impressed carriers were lugging the guns and the carts of provisions. It was glutting itself from the best in the countryside, poor as that best was, but it was also marching and fighting like people possessed. What was the sense of that when a two-day fast march would take them across the looted soil which stood like a band around G.H.Q.? What use did the lieutenant have for all this loot?
That night, secure in a cave-pocked hill which had been taken by assault with the loss of only one man and that a carrier, Malcolm brooded long. He felt he had a very definite quarrel with the lieutenant and, the way Malcolm stood with Victor, a quarrel which would very soon be settled.
The G.H.Q. of the B.E.F. in France was the only thing of permanence which had survived the last mass bombardments. It had been constructed under the direct supervision of the general staff some fifteen years before and was, therefore, probably the only safe refuge in this, now borderless, country. Every artifice discovered for camouflaging and armor-plating a fortress had gone into its making, until neither shell nor gas could make the slightest impression upon it. And its deepest recesses were even proof against atom bombs and radioactive dust. Sickness and bacteria only took toll of men.
Spreading some fifty thousand square yards under the earth, it occupied the better part of a rocky hill. No chamber in it was less shallow than eighty feet and all chambers were designed to withstand, at a blow, the combined blasts of twenty town busters. The appointment had overlooked nothing by way of safety and so the G.H.Q. had remained stationary, quite some distance from the wreck of Paris and still far enough from the sea to prohibit attack from that quarter. The thirty-nine generals who had, in turn, commanded here had only lacked provision for the prevention of casualty through politics.
Every ventilator was a fortress in itself, guarded by an intricate maze of filters which took all impurity from the air. In addition to this, each chamber contained oxygen tanks sufficient for a hundred men for one month.
Water was plentiful, for the place was served by half a dozen artesian wells, two of which operated on their own pressure. The lighting was alcohol driven with a helio-mirror system as auxiliary. The communications alone had been neglected, for provision had been made for telephones and radio only, whereas the lines of the former had long gone dangling for want of copper and the latter had been useless when storage batteries for field receivers had gradually become exhausted, never to be replaced. Radio communication was occasionally established even yet with England, but the occasion for this had now vanished.
Outwardly the place was just a hill, the countryside about rather torn up by constant shelling and bombing and the approach too open to be attempted.
There were a dozen such rises in the neighborhood and many an enemy pilot had mistaken one for the other until the whole terrain was similarly marked. The rusty wrecks of charred tanks and crumpled planes gradually merged with the mud.
In short, the place was an ideal G.H.Q. The generals, in perfect safety, could send the army out to die.
When the lieutenant h
ad last seen it, it had been summer. But the effect of gas upon undergrowth was enough to make little difference between summer and late autumn.
A drizzle of rain was turning the flats into bogs and obscuring the horizon and the brigade marched with helmet visors down and collars up more because it was habit than because their thin clothing could keep out the wet. They bad only had a morning of this but still they were all of a color, and that was of mud.
But there were no complaints to be heard, for the rains had held off much longer than usual this fall, and because an outfit whose bellies are full would not feel right unless something bad came along with the good.
At one time, out this far, there had been photoelectric sentries and land mines, but as these had worn out and had been exploded by occasional attacks, they had not been replaced. In fact, the brigade was almost upon the hill itself before they were decried.
"Soldiers," sniffed Weasel to Bulger in derision. "We could have walked in and stole their socks if we'd been trying."
"They get that way," said Bulger. "That was always the trouble with forts.
Eight years ago I said it always happened. They feel so safe they don't even bother to watch. You give a soldier a full belly and some sandbags to dig into and he goes to sleep."
"Naw, he don't," said Weasel. "He sits around and thinks, and pretty soon he's got it figured out that he's a Communist or a Socialist or an Individualist, and the next thing you know he shoots the officers and changes the government. I says we'd still have a king in England if they hadn't had bases to bore the soldiers to death. It ain't fightin' that ruins governments. It's eatin'."
"There ain't nothin' wrong with eatin'," said Bulger, defensively.
"Not when there's fightin'. All eat and no fight makes Tommy a politician."
"They ain't doin' much eatin' around here," said Bulger, having come within surveryal distance of the first sentry.
Indeed, the man was very gaunt. His buckle was fastened around his spine and his cheeks showed the outline of his teeth. There was a dreary hopelessness about him, and when he was supposed to port his arms he lifted the rifle up an inch or two to show that he knew he should and let the lieutenant through without so much as whispering to turn out the guard.
The Fourth Brigade went down the incline into the earth, gun wheels rumbling up the echoes. They paused in the first chamber until an officer came out of the guardroom.
"Fourth Brigade?"
"Right," said the lieutenant.
"I am Major Sterling. Oh! Hello, Malcolm. By George, old chap, we wondered what on earth had happened to you."
"We took a personally conducted tour of Europe," said Malcolm, for the first time feeling at ease when in the lieutenant's presence, and therefore giving vent to what he really thought.
"Well, now. We waited. Couldn't see what had happened. But you're here, and that's what matters. Malcolm, if I were you, I'd quarter my men in the north section. We've got sixteen hundred herr, all told, and you make almost eighteen hundred. Most everyone is quartered in the north section in those old thousand-man barracks. It's quite light and roomy now and it's better that everybody is together."
The lieutenant was not particularly surprised that the major should, call them Malcolm's troops; he was only annoyed by the actual fact. They were not Malcolm's yet.
"Sergeant major Pollard," said the lieutenant. "You will quarter the brigade in the north section. I shall be in to make an inspection as soon as I have paid my respects to General Victor."
"Yessir," said Pollard. "And the carriers, sir?"
"Retain them until further orders. I daresay they're happy enough."
"Yessir." He hesitated, and then saluted and turned away. He had not quite dared wish the lieutenant luck, no matter how much he wanted to do so.
The lieutenant looked at Sterling. He did not like the fellow. General Victor had brought rabble with him instead of a staff. Every bootlicker that had skulked throughout the war in the shelters of London had been ousted by the last reversal of government. Sending a man to France since the quarantine was placed was tantamount to exiling him for life. None of these fellows had seen real war. They had dodged bombs and fawned upon superiors. In the latter they had become very adept.
Long ago the last competent officer had taken the field. And now, where were they? Adrift somewhere in Europe or deposed and languishing here without command.
Major Sterling was not quite able to bear the censure which was leveled upon him by the lieutenant's men, nor did he like the slight smile which lingered about the mouth. There were around eighty-seven field officers still unreported and it was apparent now that they would never report; why, then, should a man with a record as brilliant as the lieutenant's come back? Only twenty-one fragments of organizations had come in, and these because of starvation. But the Fourth Brigade, quite obviously, was not starving. However, it was a strange thing, this habit of duty.
"This orderly will show you your quarters," said Major Sterling. "You will please prepare a written report and send it, by him, to the adjutant colonel."
Dismissed, the lieutenant looked for a moment at Malcolm who, very obviously, was on his way right now to see General Victor. Malcolm, too, was unable to support the directness of those eyes. The lieutenant followed the orderly and Mawkey followed the lieutenant.
They went deeper into the labyrinth, along dank corridors which long had gone unswept and unlit. Here and there the concrete had faulted and drips of water were outlined by a pattern of moss.
Row upon row of officers' apartments were musty with disuse, their doors, untouched for two years and more, sagging out from their weary hinges. The lieutenant remembered this place from its yesterdays. Five years before, when England had sent her last flood of men to the Continent and when the army here was still great and proud, these corridors had resounded with cheerful voices and hurrying boots; sergeant majors had bustled along to receive or to obey orders; subalterns' dog-robbers worried themselves frantic as they raced about with hot water and laundry; canteen runners had flashed along with their trays of drinks; and officers would have popped forth as the word raced along to give him greeting and beg for news.
It was all quiet now. Not even a rat scuttled in the dead gloom. These voices which should have called out a welcome were forever stilled, these faces were decomposed in some common grave out in the endless leagues of mud. Only the ghosts were here, crying a little, naked and cold and forgotten¯or was it just the wind?
The runner tiredly indicated a door and slumped down on the bench outside as though the effort had been too much. Mawkey entered and finally found the trap which opened the helio-mirror.
The apartment was littered with scraps of baggage, Gladstones, and locker trunks and valises. It had been a long while since they had been ransacked for valuables and the mold was thick and clammy upon them. Useless knicks, dear only to their dead owners, were thrown carelessly about. A large picture of a girl lay in the center of the room.
A careless foot had broken the glass and the dampness had seeped in to almost blot the face with dirt. A sheaf of letters were scattered about, crumpled and smudged; one on the table was decipherable only as far as "My dearest Tim. I know this will find you safe and¯" A pair of boots, too well-tailored to be comfortable, stuck out from the lid of a locker. But the rats had eaten the leather nearly to the soles.
The lieutenant leaned against the table while Mawkey tried to straighten the place by heaving everything into a trunk. The lieutenant's eyes wandered up and fastened upon a stenciled box, the last piece of baggage upon the rack, where all of it had been placed so carefully so long ago.
Forsythe, A. J.
Col. Cmmdg. 4th Brigade, 2nd Div.
10th Army Corps B.E.F
For an instant there flashed across the lieutenant's memory the picture of a straight-backed, gray-mustached soldier, trying hard not to show the agony of his wound as he looked levelly at the lieutenant.
"They're gone, son. They
're gone and I'm gone. It is up to you now, son."
Suddenly the lieutenant was filled with a great restlessness. Angrily, he swept the litter from the table and began to pace back and forth from wall to wall. Mawkey was startled, for he had never seen his lieutenant give way to any emotion before which even slightly resembled nerves. Hastily the hunchback finished cramming the refuse into the trunk and got the baggage out of the way. He set the lieutenant's effects upon a bunk and got out the razor and some clean clothing and started away to see if he could find any hot water.
"I'm not changing," said the lieutenant.
Mawkey looked at the mud-caked cape and the crusted boots and then turned back to put away the clean clothes.
"Get me some paper."
Mawkey found some in the refuse and smoothed it out upon the table. He put a pencil down and pulled up a chair.
The lieutenant sat and wrote.
Report 4th Brigade May to Nov.
To General Commanding B.E.F
From Lieutenant Commanding 4th Brigade
Via Adjutant Colonel, official channels
1. The 4th Brigade patrolled region north of Amiens.
2. The 4th Brigade met and defeated several commands of enemy troops.
3. The 4th Brigade provisioned itself on the country.
4. The 4th Brigade now numbers 168 men, 5 senior noncoms, I officer.
5. The 4th Brigade, on receiving orders, reported to G.H.Q. Commanding Officer 4th Brigade
Mawkey gave the report to the runner, who slouched off with it trailing limply from his fingers.
"Beg pardon, sir," said Mawkey.
"Well?"
"I don't like this, sir."
The lieutenant looked at him.
Final Blackout: A Futuristic War Novel Page 7
