Behind the Lines

by Morris, W. F. ;

  III

  “Hullo! What the devil!” exclaimed the sergeant. And he reached out a hand and dragged the apparently sleeping figure to its knees. “What the hell are you up to?” he demanded, holding up the lantern, so that its light fell upon the disreputable figure.

  “What’s that, sergeant?” said a voice from the road. The sergeant jerked Rawley to his feet. “A Frenchy, sir, after rations. I found him here under the tarpaulin—shamming sleep.”

  Rawley was dragged down to the road where the lights of the car fell full upon him. An A.S.C. captain and subaltern eyed the miserable-looking object from head to foot. What they saw was an old man with bent shoulders and knees, long, tousled hair, grimy face and unkempt scrubby beard. He wore a dirty shirt of nondescript colour, no collar or tie, a tattered mud-stained jacket and baggy, muddy-kneed corduroy trousers, tied with string around his waist. His hands were filthy, and the nails long and black.

  “Looks like the boy whom France forgot!” commented the subaltern.

  The A.S.C. captain spoke in halting French. “Qui êtes-vous? Que faites vous sous le—le drap là?” He waved a hand towards the tarpaulin. “Vous volez les choses Anglais, eh?”

  Rawley shook his head vigorously, and waved his hands in the manner of the French peasant, and then broke into a torrent of incoherence punctuated here and there with a word of French.

  The officer rubbed his chin. “What the hell does he say. They all talk so damned fast. Look here, Mosu. Parlez lentement, très lentement. Et prenez garde. Il est très serieuse pour vous. Come on now. What—er—que faites vous ici?”

  Rawley went off again into a torrent of incoherence, and then stood twisting his hands and wobbling his head in the manner of an old Frenchman he had seen suffering from shell-shock.

  “He’s dippy,” said the subaltern.

  “Or shamming,” said the captain. “Search him, sergeant.”

  Rawley’s pockets were turned out, but they revealed nothing more illuminating than an old jack-knife and some bits of string.

  “Anything gone from the dump?” asked the captain.

  “There’s a bread sack slit open here,” called one of the men presently. “And there’s several loaves gone by the look of it.”

  “What has he done with them, I wonder,” said the captain. “Can’t have eaten several loaves.” He turned again to Rawley. “Vous avez prenez les pains, n’est-ce pas?”

  Rawley took refuge again in voluble incoherence.

  “Oh, damn the fellow!” exclaimed the captain impatiently. “He’s probably only some old daftie trying to steal a mouthful, but we had better hand him over to the French Mission or the A.P.M. Put him in the guard-room, sergeant. I will take him in to Peronne when I come back.”

  The corporal of the guard was called, and the prisoner was handed over. The corporal jerked his head towards the guard-hut and took his prisoner by the sleeve. “Come on, Charley,” he said. And Rawley shuffled off between his captors.

  The guard-hut was small, but its occupants consisted only of the corporal, the two men not on sentry-go, and their prisoner. A short form ran along the wall facing the door, and here Rawley sat, staring vacantly at the floor and twisting his hands and wobbling his head whenever he felt that eyes were upon him. He felt that his only chance was to sustain this role of a harmless half-wit in the hope that the guard would become careless and allow him an opportunity of making a sudden dash for it. He could not hope to deceive the A.P.M. with his incoherent pseudo-French.

  The guard took little notice of him. The corporal read a tattered, paper-covered novelette by the light of a candle-end stuck in a tin, and the two men played some obscure card game on the floor. Once he heard a faint tapping on the wall of the hut behind him, and wondered whether Alf were trying to signal to him. He waited till the two men on the floor made some remark to each other, and then, under cover of the sound, he cautiously tapped back. An answering tap followed. It was cheering to know that he had not been abandoned, although it did not seem possible that Alf could be of any help at the moment.

  The time passed slowly, and Rawley’s hopes rose when the corporal glanced at the watch hanging on a nail above his head and said, “Just time for you to go on, Baker.” For a few moments during which the relief took place there would be only one man in the hut. Then it ought to be possible to make a dash for it. But his hopes fell again when he heard the sentry’s voice outside the door. “What’s the time, corp? Ain’t George ever coming on?”

  The corporal tightened his belt and rose to his feet. “Come on,” he said. One of the men also rose grumbling to his feet and took up his rifle. They went outside, and as Rawley had feared, the relief took place within a yard of the door. In a few moments the corporal was back again, and the relieved sentry was drinking tea from a canteen.

  The men dozed, but always one of them was sufficiently awake to make any attempt at escape hopeless. Rawley sat on, sick at heart, fighting against his desire to sleep, hoping against hope that at the last moment some chance of escape, however desperate, would present itself. But none did. Dawn came and when the sound of voices and of men moving about outside told him that his vigil had been useless he allowed his eyes to close.

  He was awakened by someone shaking his arm. One of the guard stood beside him with a mug of hot tea and a chipped enamel plate of greasy pork. “Here y’are, Charley. Muck in. Make your miserable life happy.” He ‘mucked in,’ and the hot strong tea and the pork and bread, which was a banquet in comparison with his previous breakfasts of broken biscuit and bully, put new life into him.

  IV

  Towards the middle of the morning the captain of the previous night returned, and Rawley was taken from the guard-hut and put into the back of a car. “Here, Ellworthey, you come along with him,” said the captain. “And see that he doesn’t jump out.” An A.S.C. private climbed in beside him, and the car moved off.

  They went south through country new to Rawley, but the same dreary landscape stretched around him—weed-grown, shell-pitted earth, villages that were mere heaps of rubble, derelict huts, and woods that were clumps of bare, white splintered poles. Occasionally the truncated chimney of a sucrerie stood ragged against the sky or a rusty perforated water tank hung drunkenly on its twisted supports. The road switchbacked through the wilderness between the white splintered corpses of its bordering tree stumps.

  The car stopped before a house in one of the shattered streets of Peronne. A sentry stood on guard beside the two splinter-pocked brick pillars that led to the little rubble-littered garden beyond. The heavy iron gates were open; one of them lay among the weeds and tumbled bricks in the garden, and the other, rusty and ripped and perforated like a colander, hung crazily from one twisted hinge. Rawley was taken from the car and led over the broken pavement of the garden path towards the house. Many of the tiles had gone from the mansard roof and the rafters showed skeleton-like beneath. The ornate brickwork and stone facing of the windows was pitted by splinters, and the window spaces themselves were filled with yellow aeroplane fabric. He was led up three chipped stone steps to the hall and into a small room on the left.

  He was relieved to find that it was a guard-room and not the office of the A.P.M., for desperately though he still clung to the hope of escape he could not disguise from himself how small his chances would be once he were examined by that officer. Outside in the hall the A.S.C. captain who had brought him to Peronne was talking to another officer, and he gathered from the conversation that he was to be lodged in the guard-room pending the return of the A.P.M., who was away at the moment.

  The men of the guard were just about to have their dinner. They were taking mess-tins and knives and forks from packs which hung from nails on the wall. One of them in shirt sleeves and with tousled hair came in drying his face on a grubby towel, and a moment later there came a cry of “Dinner’s up!” and a man entered carrying an iron dixie of hot stew. Rawley was given a share and a battered lead spoon to eat it with.

&n
bsp; The men paid no attention to him; they sat on their kits on the floor and jabbered noisily as they ate. Rawley sat on the floor at one end of the room facing the door. The room was bare of furniture, and the plaster of the wall behind him was furrowed fan-wise by splinters that had evidently passed through a window in the wall on his left from a shell-burst outside. This was the only window in the room, and like those in the front of the house was covered with aeroplane fabric which imparted a warm, rich orange light, like summer evening sunshine. A black, twisted bit of wire, like a dirty bootlace, hanging from a broken ornamental medallion on the ceiling was all that remained of the electrolier, and the laths showed through in many places from which the plaster had fallen. The door was open, but Rawley’s view of the narrow hall beyond was limited to a portion of the staircase with its banisters as it cut diagonally across the upper part of the doorway. Below the staircase was a small cupboard door standing ajar.

  Occasionally men passed along the passage, men in shirt sleeves and often with greasy caps, and Rawley concluded that the old kitchens at the end of the passage were occupied by cooks and fatigue men. Feet also passed up and down the staircase, but they were visible only from the knee downwards. Some of them belonged to officers and some of them to men, and he guessed that the offices of this headquarter were upstairs, and that the ground floor was occupied only by the guard, cooks, and orderlies.

  The time passed with torturing slowness to Rawley, who maintained his vacant stare at the floor, the restless twisting of his hands and nervous movement of his head. Nobody paid any attention to him. The men played their games, wrote letters, and argued as though he were not there. He could think of no plan of escape; he could only wait on events and seize the first chance that offered itself. At any moment the A.P.M. might return and his examination begin; but he was helpless. He could only wait and hope.

  From outside a voice came faintly, “Turn out the guard.” And then a powerful voice bellowed, “Guard! Turn out!” Immediately the guard-room was in a ferment. Men dropped the letters they were writing and the novelettes they were reading, leapt to their feet, seized their rifles, and ran out straightening their caps and equipment as they went. In a moment, with the exception of Rawley, the room was empty.

  Rawley too leapt to his feet. Another such chance could not be expected, and in a moment or two the prisoner would be remembered, and one of the guard would return. He snatched up a fork that lay on top of a mess-tin and slit from top to bottom the aeroplane fabric covering the window. He parted the tattered remnants and prepared to vault through, but paused with his hand on the sill. Beyond it lay a brick and rubbish-littered yard, bounded by a high wall and the kitchens of the house. The cooks and fatigue men would probably see him, and even if he got away over the wall, he could hardly hope in daylight to escape the hue and cry which would be raised.

  He left the window and tip-toed to the door. The hall passage was empty. From one end of it came the sound of the cooks’ voices in the kitchens; from the other came the rattle of the rifles as the guard presented arms outside in the road. Upstairs a door banged and heavy footsteps sounded overhead. He whipped open the little cupboard door under the staircase and crept inside.

  Heavy footsteps came down the stairs over his head, and he lay still till they had passed. Then he crept forward, feeling cautiously ahead with his hands. Dirt and old sacks was all that his fingers encountered and he crept on till the descending stairs which formed the roof barred further progress. He covered himself with a sack, wedged himself under the bottom stair, and lay still.

  A moment later steps passed along the passage beside him, and then followed a sharp exclamation and a shout: “Corp! Corporal! Here! That old Frenchy, he’s bunked.” The corporal’s voice was heard cursing outside, and several pairs of feet ran along the passage. Then the distant shouting told Rawley that the corporal and his men had gone through the window into the yard outside.

  He could only trust to his ears to tell him how his chances varied from moment to moment. Men passed to and fro along the passage; footsteps went up and down the stairs over his head; three voices, one dominating one, raised in argument, sounded from the direction of the kitchens; in the guard-room across the passage a man was cursing to himself as he moved about, only the word “bloody” which occurred very frequently being distinguishable; and occasionally voices sounded distantly from the road or from the yard at the back. But no one opened the little door and looked under the stairs, and gradually the hurried movement ceased. The men were back in the guard-room; he could hear a low growl of voices, doubtless discussing his disappearance, and occasionally a voice was raised so that a string of oaths was distinguishable.

  His hopes began to rise and he began to plan the next step. It was obvious that nothing could be done before night. Then, however, with darkness outside, the wandering orderlies and cooks in bed and asleep, and only the guard to elude, it ought to be possible to creep away. His present sense of some security produced relaxation, and he became acutely aware that he had not slept for many hours. He pillowed his head on his arm and dozed.

  He was aware vaguely from time to time of footsteps passing over his head and of voices in the passage, and then came a long blank period from which he was aroused by a crash close beside his ear. He started up and struck his head with violence on the stair above. The bump restored him to consciousness of his surroundings, and with pounding heart he lay breathless in the dark, listening. Heavy footsteps were passing along the passage, and then came a second crash that he recognized as the thud of a rifle-butt on the floor. The footsteps died away and he breathed freely again.

  He had been asleep for some time, he thought. The house was strangely quiet. No sounds reached him from the guard-room across the passage. Faint footsteps could be heard crunching the rubble of the wrecked garden outside; they rang out more clearly as they mounted the stone steps to the door, and then thudded loudly along the passage beside him, two pairs of them. They halted, moved on a pace or two, and then ceased. The corporal changing sentries, he thought. Faint sounds of movement reached him from the guard-room, and a muttered word or two, and then silence.

  He waited what he judged to be ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, and then, disentangling himself from the sack, he crept towards the cupboard door. A faint strip of light that was just distinguishable from the surrounding darkness showed that it was ajar. He halted and held his breath while listening. The stair cupboard faced the guard-room door, and if that door were open any of the guard awake inside might see the cupboard door move. He would have to take that risk.

  He waited another five minutes, and when still no sound reached him from across the passage he opened the door an inch.

  He could see down the passage towards the rear of the house, but the passage was dark except for a faint glow close at hand which must come from the guard-room. Either the guard-room door was nearly closed or, if it were open, the light inside must be very faint. He opened the cupboard door another inch. Still no sound. He pushed it a further three inches and cautiously put his head through the opening.

  The guard-room door was nearly closed, and the passage was illuminated only by the narrow bar of light which escaped from the candle inside. Rawley pulled in his head and considered the situation.

  Should he crawl down the passage to the rear of the house, or up the passage to the front door? Down the passage to the rear seemed the obvious way to take, but somewhere in the rear of the house the cooks and orderlies were sleeping, there would be a door to open, and he did not know the geography of the house. In the front of the house a sentry was posted, but that grave disadvantage was somewhat counterbalanced by the fact that the breeze blowing down the passage had told him that the front door was open, and that he knew the lie of the land. He decided to try the front.

  He opened the door a few inches more and crawled silently into the passage. Round the door he went, closing it behind him, and inch by inch past the partly open guard-room door. The
sound of a slight movement came from within, and he crouched motionless and listening while debating what to do should someone come out into the passage. He would not be able to get back under the staircase. That door was closed. He would have to leap to his feet and bolt through the open front door.

  But no further sounds came from the guard-room, and after a moment’s pause he crawled on. It was a laborious progress, for he went on his knees, keeping the toes of his heavy boots up lest they should scrape on the floor. He rounded the angle of the foot of the staircase and reached the open door. The night breeze fanned his face. Cautiously he rose to his feet. There was not sufficient light behind him to betray him to the sentry on the road. He reached the edge of the top step, shifted his weight to one foot and leaned one hand heavily on the door post. Cautiously he lowered his foot to the next step and shifted his weight to it. He could not distinguish the sentry’s form, but he could hear his feet scrape occasionally on the road.

  He reached the bottom of the steps and stood on the narrow paved path that was gritty and liable to scrape underfoot. Under cover of a movement of the sentry he stepped off on to the rubble-littered garden. He went bent double and with great care to avoid displacing the fallen bricks, and reached the dividing wall. It was some seven feet high and ragged in places where the coping had been shattered. He chose a spot where the bricks seemed firm and moved a hummock of bricks and mortar to the foot. He was thankful that there was no moon. He could judge of the sentry’s movements only by sound, and when he heard the familiar clash of sloping arms he mounted his stepping stone and drew himself up. The scrape of his toes against the bricks was drowned by the sentry’s movement. He lay flat on the top of the wall for a few moments and peered into the darkness below him. Another wrecked and rubble-littered front garden lay there. He waited for the sentry to move off on his short beat, and then he lowered himself to the full extent of his arms and let go.