by Thomas Boyd
As one man, the party fell flat on their stomachs.
“Put-put-put. Put-put-put,” said the automatic rifle.
“Damnation,” Bedford cursed. “It’s somebody from our lines firing at us.”
“Well, don’t talk so loud,” one of the men said angrily, “or you’ll have both sides on us.”
The lieutenant from the Intelligence section gave orders for the men to lie prone and to crawl after him. After a while he rose, motioning for the others to get up.
“I think,” he said, talking to Bedford in an undertone, “that this is the place where we get back in the trench. Let’s count up our men and see if they are all here.”
They counted as many times as a surgeon counts the sponges he uses in an operation, but each count only made more certain that there was one man missing. Investigation showed them that the lost man was Corporal Olin, from the adjoining company.
While they were debating upon what course to take, they noticed from their lines a green rocket fired into the air.
“Gas,” hoarsely cried the lieutenant of the Intelligence section, struggling to get on his respirator.
Poor Hicks knew not what to do. Before the rocket had been fired he had about decided to return to look for the missing corporal. But with a respirator on he could hardly breathe, not to consider finding his way in the dark. But of a sudden he whipped off his mask and started off in the direction from which they had crawled. No one noticed his leaving, for each man was too much taken up with his own affairs.
Hicks walked for a while, until he felt that he had neared the place where the automatic rifle had begun firing at them. Then he dropped upon his knees, and with his hands spread out as far along the ground as he could spread them, felt for the lost body. Perspiration was drenching him. It ran down his face and dropped off his chin, to splash unconcernedly on the canvas covering of his mask. He felt as if all the blood of his body was in the veins of his face. There! Certainly it was a body.
“Olin,” he whispered. “Olin.” But there was no answer. He felt along the body until his hand touched the face. It was warm, and then he knew that he had found Olin. But not Olin! Just a body that had once been Olin. For Olin was dead. Along the tunic and under the respirator box was a warm, sticky substance. Hicks placed his hand over the breast above the heart. It failed to beat.
“Oh, hell!” he muttered, and started to crawl back, hardly caring whether he reached the raiding party or not.
To have saved Corporal Olin, to have brought him into the trench, staggering under the weight over his shoulder, would, he realized, have exonerated him completely in the eyes of Major Adams. Further, he would have received either a Distinguished Service Cross or a Croix de Guerre. But how could he, what sort of a fool would he have looked like, carrying a dead man over his shoulder all the way into the trench! Well, it was simply a case of misplaced heroism. He shrugged his shoulder and went on.
When he arrived at the place where he had left the party, just enough light had broken to enable him to see them sprawled on the ground. With their respirators still on they seemed, in the dim light, like pompous owls.
Hicks approached, casually inquiring why they had not taken off their masks. The lieutenant of the Intelligence section, after wildly motioning with his hands, took off his mask, sniffed, and proceeded to curse Hicks for not informing him that the gas had blown away.
“We might have been killed out here any minute, you damned bonehead.”
“Yes, and we probably will be killed now if we don’t get out of this pretty soon. In five minutes it will be broad daylight. Besides, the gas alarm was all a fake,” Hicks answered.
Now all the men had returned their respirators to the boxes which were fastened by a cord around their necks to their breasts. The sergeant of the Intelligence section set out to find the path in the barbed wire, but there was none where he looked. He turned back, the men following after him like lost sheep, and after sneaking along the wire for some minutes, stopped.
“Hey, you over there in the trench. Pass the word along that the raiding party’s coming in,” the sergeant of the Intelligence section called toward the trench.
One of the sentries in the firing bay heard him, obeyed, and the raiding party dashed through the wire and spilled into the trench. The company commander, a former professor of English at a Texas college, emerged from a near-by dugout and warmly wrung the hand of the lieutenant from the Intelligence section.
“My God, I thought you boys were surely to be killed! You see, I—I must have forgotten that the raiding party was still out, and when I heard that machine-gun firing I thought the Germans were making an attack, so I signalled for a barrage.”
“But you sent up the gas signal instead of the barrage signal,” Bedford interposed.
“Yes, that was just it. I thought that I was firing a red rocket and instead I was firing a green one.” He broke off quickly. “But you got in all right?”
“All right but for one man,” said Bedford.
“And where is he?” the captain asked.
“He—he’s dead,” Hicks told the assembly.
Bedford turned quickly. “Hicks, how do you know he’s dead?”
“Well, I saw him. You can see for yourself. He’s out there dead.”
Chapter V
THE platoon had been promised a relief for three weeks. Each day some orderly or other would come past, announcing that on the following night there was certain to be a relief. Sometimes it was the French who once more were to take over the sector. Again it was the British. British soldiers were reported to have been seen in a near-by town. And the platoon? First it was going to Zeebrugge to storm the Mole. Another time the platoon was to be disorganized and returned to the United States to be used as recruiting and training officers. Sometimes they were all to go on board ship as a mark of appreciation of their valor. This last always was circulated about by one of the older men who had seen service on the battleships.
But one night, before dark. Lieutenant Bedford passed the word along that the men were to stand by, ready to be relieved. And in an hour’s time their entire equipment had been assembled, and they stood ready to depart.
Slowly the hours passed, but about midnight the beat of the feet of heavily laden men, their curses and their comment to one another could be heard along the communication trench. Bedford, much excited, cautioned each man on sentry duty to look sharply, for it was during the time of relief that the enemy often chose to attack. Finally each of the old sentries had given his special orders to the new sentry, and had slung on his pack and assembled where the platoon stood waiting. They plodded off, sloshing through the mud, with now and again a man slipping off the duck boards and floundering hip-deep in the mud. The communication trench was tortuous and long. It was morning before the last man had got out of it and upon the road that took them on their way.
The moon was full and round. Through the shapely leaves of the trees, set at regular intervals along the winding gravel road, it shone, divinely lighting up the way for the tired, mud-caked platoon that straggled along out and away from the front. For the first three miles the platoon had kept intact, but now, one by one, the weaker were dropping out to rest by the side of the road. Lieutenant Bedford and Sergeant Harriman, whose heavy marching equipment had been thrown on the company supply cart, marched gaily in front. There were no packs on their backs to bring their shoulder-blades together until they nearly touched; nor were there any straps to cut into the muscles of their shoulders until their arms were numb.
Finally Hicks, with a nervous, infuriated, impotent “Oh, the hell with it,” dropped out and threw his equipment into the ditch. “Let the dirty dogs walk their heads off.” Two others dropped out with him and, contrary to orders, all three lighted cigarettes.
Puffing away at his cigarette, one of the men began: “If I ever get out of this man’s war the
y’ll have to hunt me with cannons to get me in another.”
“You tell ’em. They sure will. When I git out of this outfit I’m goin’ up into Montana and buy a ranch, and I’m goin’ to dig trenches and put up barbed wire and git me some guns and spit at the whole bunch of ’em.”
“Why the hell do that? You can do all of that stuff here.”
“Yeh, but I wouldn’t have no God-damned mail-order shavetails tellin’ me what to do and what not to do. That’s what I hate.”
“Well, there won’t be any more wars after this one, anyway. This is the war to end war. After we lick these Boches everything will be all right.”
Hicks rose, faintly nauseated. He flung his cigarette away, threw his equipment over his shoulders, and walked on.
When he arrived at the place where the platoon was to rest he felt quite giddy. He slipped his pack from his shoulders and leaned it against the side of the long, low, slatted bunk house. Of course there was a place there for him to sleep. But, somehow, he did not want to sleep. His stomach seemed about to tie itself into a knot, and he felt that this could be prevented by something hot to drink. He wondered where the galley was; the cooks were sure to have some hot coffee. A man passed, and Hicks asked him whether the cook wagons had yet arrived.
“No, they haven’t. They never get here, you know. But there’s an old goof in that building over there that’s got some chocolate. Why don’t you get some?”
Hicks started away in the direction the man had pointed. Sure enough, the place was crowded with soldiers, and many of them were drinking from thick mugs. Hicks edged toward the counter and asked for a drink. The Y. M. C. A. man filled a mug with hot, thin chocolate. It was the most pleasant sight Hicks had seen in months. He reached for it and was about to drink when something in the man’s eyes made him hesitate.
“Well, we don’t give this chocolate away!” said the man, turning up a corner of his long, sallow face.
“How much is it?”
“It’s half a franc, that’s what it is.”
Hicks was about to put down the mug of chocolate, when a soldier from the First Regular division stepped forward and offered him the money, and then faced the man behind the counter.
“You’re a fine dirty slacker, you are. These men have been out in the trenches for heaven knows how long, and they come back dog-tired and hungry, and you refuse to give them a glass of your skimmed chocolate.”
“Oh, never mind,” said Hicks. “You know the kind he is. Why talk to him?”
He went back to the bunk house, found his bed, and crawled into it, not stopping to undress.
For five hours the platoon had slept. When dawn, like a fifty-year-old virgin, was showing its hard, cold face, the men had stumbled down into the valley of Bois La Vec. After waiting outside for half an hour they were permitted to enter one of the long, low, vermin-infested bunk houses which lay in the valley. From their sleepless nights on sentry duty, their lack of food, and the long, punishing march from the trenches, they were thoroughly exhausted. Many of the men were in such a state of fatigue that they dropped on the straw beds which had been provided for the French army in 1914, without stopping to take off their muddy shoes. And they slept dreamlessly, sodden beings with senses so dulled they could not think of food. The mess sergeant had passed through the bunk house, loudly and virtuously asserting that the daily fare was to be had. Not one of the men had stirred.
A large touring-car, its wind-shield placarded with two white stars cut in a field of red, drove down the valley along the gravel road, and turned toward the bunk houses where the soldiers who preferred sleep to food—and they had not tasted of food for twenty-four hours—were lying.
The motor stopped, and a lieutenant, with a curled mustache, leaned a trifle forward from his seat beside the chauffeur and called:
“Where is the sentry of this camp?”
There was no answer.
The lieutenant stepped out of the car and strode precisely and firmly toward the bunk house.
He spoke loudly. “Where is the sentry of this camp?”
Most of the men were too sleepy even to curse at the intruder. One or two voices impolitely commanded him to “shut up,” and one voice mumbled: “Where do you think you are at, anyway?”
Enraged at this disrespect, the lieutenant decided not to leave until he had aroused some one.
Sergeant Harriman, who for once had been forced to sleep with the common soldiers, awakened, and, seeing the lieutenant with the insignia upon his collar worn by officers attached to the General Staff, dived from his bunk like a jack-rabbit, saluting before his feet touched the ground.
The lieutenant roared: “Where is your company commander?”
“I’ll get him, sir!” And Sergeant Harriman scurried off.
He returned three feet in rear and three inches to the left of Captain Powers.
“How do you do, lieutenant?” Captain Powers rubbed his sleepy eyes.
“Captain,” the lieutenant’s voice rang out, “Major-General Bumble will be ready to inspect our organization in”—he looked at his wrist-watch—“two hours.”
“Very well, sir.” Captain Powers returned the lieutenant’s salute. He again rubbed his eyes and turned to Sergeant Harriman.
“Harriman, have the men got up immediately, police up, and be ready to stand inspection in one hour and a half.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Sergeant Harriman saluted sharply.
“And Harriman.”
“Sir!”
“Pass the word on to the sergeants of the other platoons. We officers have had a pretty hard night of it, and I am going to try and get some sleep before the general returns.”
Sergeant Harriman ran through the bunk houses, informing the other platoon sergeants of their fortune.
That finished, he returned to his own bunk house, and, starting along the row of sleeping men, unerringly picked the corporals of the squads and instructed them to awaken their squads.
Soon the bunk house was filled with cries of: “Up you come, you dopes. Rise and shine.”
“Is everybody up?”
“Then fall in beside your bunks and answer to roll-call.”
“Now,” said Sergeant Harriman, as he finished calling the platoon call, “you’ve got jist one hour to police up and be ready to stand general inspection. Snap into it.”
Meeting between the platoon and general officers had been very limited; each man was overwhelmed with awe at the thought of a major-general inspecting him. The scene changed to one of frenzied activity.
Dampened rags were rubbed over the stocks of the rifles; the rifle bores were cleaned, their chambers, trigger-guard, and other metal pieces were meticulously brushed; knives were put into use to scrape off the mud from the shoes and clothing; the blankets were stripped from the bunks and rolled into neat packs; water was found and stubbles of beard disappeared magically under the sharp edges of razors, or else were hidden by heavy coatings of talcum powder.
An hour afterward the platoon was in line in front of the bunk house. Clicking his heels sharply, for he wore barracks shoes because his tender feet were unable to stand the heavy hobnails issued to the soldier, Sergeant Harriman halted before his command.
“Ha-right, dress.” His diaphragm, which had been expanded, noticeably contracted as he uttered the command of execution. “Back just a trifle, Hayes. Move your feet. . . . Come out, you man in the third squad of the front rank. Nobody’s going to hurt you. Step out a bit. Dammit, move your feet. All right, Corporal Kahl, suck in your gut and throw out your chest. There. . . .” The moment was tense. “Stea-a-dy. Front.” The left arms of the men were dropped smartly at their sides.
Lieutenant Bedford, traces of sleepiness still in his eyes, came forward and took charge of the platoon. He thrust out his arm, exposing a small gold wrist-watch beneath his cuff. Giving the watch
an off-hand glance, he raised his voice: “All right, men, if you’ll keep one foot in place I’ll give you at ease. No talking.” He walked to the rear of the platoon and began to converse with Sergeant Harriman.
“Pipe down, you men, or you’ll stand at attention!” Sergeant Harriman commanded.
The company commander came. He stood before the company and received the lieutenant’s report. The company, which had been called to attention during the formality, was given at ease again. They stood shuffling their feet. One man surreptitiously drew from his pocket a piece of tobacco, bit loose a small portion of it and returned it, unnoticed.
An hour passed.
Along the line voices were heard to remark: “Are we gonna stay here all day? They might at least feed us before they break us out like this. A hell of a note.”
Sergeant Harriman rose grandly to the occasion. “Shut up, you bunch of agitators. I’ll drill you till your shoes fall off.”
“You wouldn’t have to drill me much. Mine already have holes in them,” some one remarked.
“Who said that?” Sergeant Harriman was furious.
Lieutenant Bedford stepped in front of the platoon and called the men to attention.
The second hour had passed.
A huge touring-car rounded the road and stopped. The company commander, in magnificent tones, commanded them: “Company at-ten-shun. Open ranks. March. . . . Steady. . . . Front.”
He saluted Major-General Bumble, who had stepped out of the touring-car.
“How do you do, captain.”
The major-general, followed by his lieutenant, followed by another, followed by the company commander, followed by the first sergeant, walked pompously along the line of the front rank. The driver of the touring-car sent his car smoothly between the ranks. At the other end of the company the car stopped. The major-general, the lieutenant with the curled mustache, and another officer, climbed in and the car spurted away.
