With Haig on the Somme
by D. H. Parry · English · Gutenberg #26982 · 433,820 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: With Haig on the Somme
Author: D. H. Parry
Illustrator: Archibald Webb
Release date: October 21, 2008 [eBook #26982]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26982
Credits: Produced by Chris Curnow, Barbara Kosker, Lindy Walsh and
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITH HAIG ON THE SOMME ***
Produced by Chris Curnow, Barbara Kosker, Lindy Walsh and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net
WITH HAIG ON THE SOMME
WITH HAIG ON THE SOMME
BY
D. H. PARRY
_Author of "Gilbert the Outlaw"; "The Scarlet Scouts"; "The V.C.: Its
Heroes and their Valour," etc. etc._
WITH FOUR COLOUR PLATES BY
ARCHIBALD WEBB
CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
First Published 1917 [Illustration: "The Commandant threw up his arms
and pitched backward; Dennis dropped his weapon and caught him as he
fell"]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
1. AN UNCENSORED LETTER READ ALOUD 1
2. OFF TO THE FRONT 14
3. "AT TEN O'CLOCK SHARP!" 22
4. HIS FIRST TIME UNDER FIRE 33
5. HOW DENNIS CAME IN FOR A TASTE OF DISPATCH RIDING 42
6. A TERRIBLE ADVENTURE AT DAWN 50
7. A FRIEND IN NEED 60
8. IN THE ENEMY TRENCHES 70
9. IN THE SNIPER'S LAIR 78
10. IN WHICH DENNIS MEETS CLAUDE LAVAL, PILOTE AVIATEUR 87
11. A DARING DASH 97
12. IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY 107
13. A MAD GAMBLE FOR LIBERTY 116
14. THE SING-SONG IN THE DUG-OUT 128
15. "REEDSHIRES!--GET OVER!" 136
16. THE SILENCING OF THE GUNS 146
17. THE EXPLOITS OF A COMPANY 155
18. WITH THE LEWIS GUN--AND AFTER 163
19. WHAT THEY LEARNED ON THE GERMAN TELEPHONE 173
20. THE LAST RUNG OF A BROKEN LADDER 183
21. VON DUSSEL'S REVENGE 191
22. THE ROW IN THE RESTAURANT 200
23. "GAS!" 210
24. THE CHATEAU AT THE TRENCH END 219
25. FROM KITE BALLOON TO SADDLE 229
26. UNDER THE GERMAN EAGLE 240
27. ON THE PART DENNIS PLAYED IN THE RECAPTURE OF BIACHES 247
28. THE EXCITING ADVENTURES OF "CARL HEFT" 255
29. AN OLD FRIEND--AND A BITTER ENEMY! 265
30. UNDER THE ENEMY WALL 275
31. WITH DASHWOOD'S BRIGADE 284
32. THE REWARDS OF VALOUR 295
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"THE COMMANDANT THREW UP HIS ARMS AND PITCHED _Frontispiece_
BACKWARD; DENNIS DROPPED HIS WEAPON, CAUGHT HIM
AS HE FELL"
PAGE
"DENNIS FLUNG HIS BOMBS INTO THE SPACE AND
TREMENDOUS EXPLOSIONS ENSUED" 96
"BEFORE THE GERMANS REALISED WHAT WAS HAPPENING,
THERE WAS AN UGLY BIT OF BAYONET WORK" 150
"NOTHING COULD CHECK THE VICTORIOUS RUSH" 286
WITH HAIG ON THE SOMME
CHAPTER I
An Uncensored Letter Read Aloud
Private Harry Hawke, of the 2/12th Battalion Royal Reedshire Regiment
(T.F.), sat on the step of the fire trench, his back against the
parapet, busy with the bolt of his rifle.
There were two things he loved more than anything else in life, and that
rifle was one of them. The other was his platoon commander, Captain Bob
Dashwood, who chanced to be coming along the communication at the
moment, and the Cockney private's eyes lit up as he saw him.
"Hallo, Hawke! All quiet?" said Captain Dashwood with a jerk of his head
in the direction of the German lines, only one hundred and twenty yards
across the mangled strip of Dead Man's Land that intervened.
"Quiet as the bloomin' grave, sir," replied Harry Hawke with a grin,
though he had almost to shout to make himself heard.
A howitzer battery was shelling the enemy from the wood on the left, and
the Germans were replying with "crumps," which luckily all went wide.
"Seen anything more of that sniper that picked Marshall and Brown off
last night?" questioned the captain.
"Not likely, sir. I got 'im 'arf an hour after we took over the relief,"
grinned the marksman of A Company, pointing with an oily finger to a
fresh notch cut on the rifle stock. "He tumbled out of the willer tree
flat, same as if you chucked a kipper from the top of a bus."
Dashwood smiled, and the smile was reflected with interest in the
wizened, mahogany-coloured face that looked up at his own from under the
rim of the steel helmet.
"You're a terrible chap, Hawke," he said. "How many does that make?"
"Seventeen with the rifle, sir, but I've kept no tally of all I've done
in wiv the bayonet," and he caressed his beloved weapon.
"Don't get up, Hawke," said his officer, moving along the trench. "I'm
only going to take a squint at the beggars," and as the private dropped
back into his seat again, Bob Dashwood put his foot on the fire step and
raised his head above the parapet.
He looked across a broken waste, full of shell holes and mine craters,
with a line of barbed wire fencing that followed the curve of the white
enemy trench capped by sandbags.
The marksman, having got rid of an imaginary speck of rust that had
troubled his soul, replaced the bolt, and was putting away the oil rag,
when there was a sharp stifled gasp, followed by a slithering fall, and
Captain Dashwood lay in a heap among the white wet mud at the bottom of
the trench. His cap had spun round and dropped into a sump, and the
blood was pouring down his face and neck as Hawke reached him.
"'Strewth, he's dead, and it's my fault!" he moaned, as a sergeant and
several other men ran up.
"It was nobody's fault but his own," said the sergeant savagely. "I've
warned him a dozen times--and he's not dead, either. Pass the word
there. We must get him down to the aid post sharp."
While Hawke supported the battered head upon his knee the sergeant
hastily applied a field dressing, and when a couple of bearers came
running along the communication trench they laid the wounded man
carefully on the stretcher, Hawke watching the receding figures with a
dazed look until the angle hid them from view.
"Now, you rotter, I've got to get you set!" he muttered, bending down
and peering into the periscope with his rifle gripped tightly in his
hands.
Two or three days later news came up that the captain, still
unconscious, had been sent to London straightway from the base hospital,
and then for several weeks they heard no more of him, and a fresh notch
cut on the stock of the Mark III. gave Private Harry Hawke very little
satisfaction.
"If I hadn't told him that all was clear he'd never have shoved his 'ead
over the blinkin' sandbags," he kept muttering to himself. "Home ain't
like home without a mother, and I reckon 'e was father and mother to us
all art 'ere. Wish I was dead--I'm fed up!"
* * * * *
"By Jove, mater, this is good news indeed. Fancy Dennis being gazetted
to our battalion after all!" and Captain Bob's face lit up as he looked
across the breakfast table with the telegram that had just arrived in
his hand. "Only got a week's kit leave too, which means that he's to
join at once. I'll put him through his facings and show him just what to
get and what not to get, and if the Medical Board will only pass me fit
for service again we can go over together. He will be here this morning
too!"
A chorus of delight went up from the four youngsters on one side of the
table, and Master Billy Dashwood, aged eight, clapped his hands and
overturned the milk jug.
"Billy, Billy!" said his mother reprovingly. "When will you learn to
behave yourself and to take care?"
"When will you let me join the Boy Scouts?" retorted her youngest born,
gazing up at the ceiling with the face of an innocent cherub, and Mrs.
Dashwood was obliged to smile as she looked at her eldest son.
"Your father will be very pleased, Bob," she said. "There have been
Dashwoods in the regiment for generations, and it is nice to feel that
both my boys will be in a battalion in their father's brigade."
"You should be very proud, madame, that yours is such a military
family," said a young man who sat opposite to the children with his back
to the tall windows. "Let me see, you will now have four members serving
at this great crisis?"
"Yes, it is an honour of which I am indeed more than proud, Monsieur Van
Drissel," said his hostess.
"But Uncle Eric doesn't count--he's only at the War Office, and they do
nothing there," interposed the irrepressible Billy.
"I shall send you out of the room if you're rude," said his mother. "The
War Office is a most important branch."
It was a pleasant room in a charming house, whose grounds sloped down to
the ornamental water in Regent's Park, and if one had not known it, one
might have imagined it to be one of those countless English homes into
which the war had not penetrated.
Captain Bob, looking very different now from the crumpled figure at the
bottom of the trench, had escaped death from the sniper's bullet by a
fraction of an inch, but he had made quick recovery, and before his
month's sick furlough was at an end he was already secretly yearning to
get back again. He knew that there was a great push in contemplation,
and his only fear was that he might not be in it.
Everything in that room spoke of comfort and money, and everything was
very English, except the young man with his back to the windows, and the
young woman with the dark eyes on the opposite side of the table.
Lieutenant Van Drissel, of the Belgian army, whose wound, received in
the fighting outside Dixmude long months before, obstinately refused to
heal, found himself in very pleasant quarters, thanks to the hospitality
of Mrs. Dashwood, who had also given his sister an asylum as French
governess to the small fry.
Like Captain Bob, he was in khaki, but the contrast between the two
officers was very striking. The one was lean and athletic in every line
of his figure, with laughing grey eyes in a handsome face; the other, a
stolid, fair-haired Fleming, whose square visage would have been rather
colourless and commonplace but for the pleasant smile which showed his
white teeth.
He followed Mrs. Dashwood's every movement with the expression of a
grateful dog, and waited upon her hand and foot, doing his best to
justify his presence there.
"Ah, you have better luck than I, Dashwood," he said in perfect English,
with a doleful shrug of his shoulders.
"Don't worry, Van Drissel; keep smiling, as my fellows sing," laughed
Captain Bob encouragingly. "Your turn will come, and we shall both march
into Berlin one of these days."
"It is a long time," said the Belgian lieutenant gravely. "Even Ottilie
here loses heart," and he looked across the table at his sister.
Mademoiselle Ottilie, as dark as her brother was fair, heaved a deep
sigh and made a funny little gesture with her hands. "For myself, I
dread to go back to poor Belgium," she murmured in broken English. "I
wish it might be possible that perhaps I might stay here for evaire--you
are all to me so kind."
"Mamma," said Billy with a perfectly grave face as he mimicked her
accent, "I wish it might be possible that perhaps I could have that last
piece of toast, eh?"
"Billy, go out of the room," said Mrs. Dashwood severely, but
Mademoiselle Ottilie threw an impulsive arm round the young monkey's
neck, and looked appealingly at his mother.
"Oh, no, please not, madame. He is so young," she interposed.
"Well," said Captain Bob, rising, "I think it's the weather that has
given you the hump, old chap. Still raining," and he glanced at the
windows. "What do you say to a game of billiards? I'll play you three
hundred up if you like."
"With all my heart," replied Van Drissel, getting up with a limp and
opening the door for Mrs. Dashwood, and the two officers went into the
billiard-room, whence they were no more seen for a couple of hours.
"Hard luck," said Bob Dashwood at last, as the Belgian missed an easy
shot. "And you've left them for me, too. I'm afraid your leg is worrying
you."
"Oh, that is nothing," replied his companion with a wry smile, as he
limped towards the scoring board. "You only want five to win."
"And there they are," said Bob apologetically, as the white ball
followed the red into a pocket. "But, you know, you're playing a very
good game."
"It is nice of you to say so," replied the Belgian. "Unhappily, I have
so much time for practice these days," and he lit a cigarette. "There is
not much news in the papers this morning."
"The calm before the storm, my boy," smiled the captain with a twinkle
of his grey eyes. "There will be some big news directly. By Jove! you
ought to see the munitions they're piling up behind us. It is
incredible! The worst of it is, our sector simply swarms with spies, and
the beggars get to know everything almost as soon as we know it
ourselves; in fact, sometimes before.
"They're very slick," the captain went on. "As a matter of fact, Germans
often come over into our lines in British uniforms, and they are so
thundering clever that you can't tell the difference. Why, not long ago,
I yarned for half an hour with a major of the R.E., as I thought--didn't
tell him much, luckily, but we hadn't parted five minutes when he was
'wanted,' and there was no end of a hunt, but he managed to get clear,
and a genuine English major was within an ace of being shot in mistake
for him if he hadn't been recognised by one of the staff in time."
"Ah, there you are," said Van Drissel. "When do you think Sir Douglas
Haig will make a move?"
"Almost directly," said Captain Bob. "The day before I was wounded I had
it on first-rate authority that---- Hallo! here's my young brother.
Excuse me, Van Drissel," and without further ceremony he darted into the
hall as a lad in the uniform of the O.T.C., who had just got out of a
taxi, flew up the steps three at a time and dashed in with a shout.
"Why, Bob, old boy!"
"Dennis, dear old man! This is a bit of luck! How are you?"
"Top-hole!" laughed the new-comer, beaming all over his face, which was
a clean-shaven, boyish reproduction of his brother's, brown as a berry
from the arduous training he had undergone with the Artists', and,
breaking loose from Bob's grip, he kissed his mother tenderly.
"You got my wire, dear little mater, but you didn't expect me so soon.
It is good to be home again, even if it's only 'How d'you do?' and
'Bye-bye.' But isn't it fine putting me in Bob's battalion? How are the
kids? And, I say, mater, is there any grub going? I didn't wait for
breakfast before I left, and I'm hungry as a hunter."
The wounded Belgian lieutenant in the adjoining room bit his lips as he
overheard the joyful greetings. The rain had cleared, and as he stood
looking out where the trim lawn sloped down to the water, he saw a
couple of English Tommies in hospital blue sculling round one of the
tufted islets.
"Dennis, let me introduce you to Lieutenant Van Drissel, of the Belgian
army," said Bob, coming in as Van Drissel turned round. "This is my
brother whom we have been talking about," and the two shook hands.
"Glad to meet you," said Dennis frankly.
"Lucky bargee," smiled Van Drissel. "Isn't that right?"
"Ah, you speak English? Yes, it is quite right. I am," laughed Dennis.
"He speaks everything under the sun," said his brother. "And, by the
way, Dennis is a great stunt on languages. You two will be able to make
us feel thoroughly ashamed of ourselves. My regular verbs are as rusty
as a trench button."
"Will you smoke?" said the Belgian, producing a silver cigarette-case.
"Not just now, thanks. I'm going to have some grub first, and if you
don't mind I'll bunk upstairs and get a sluice."
"That boy is one of the best in the world, although he's my own
brother," explained Bob Dashwood when Dennis had gone.
"How old?"
"Eighteen and a half," replied Bob.
"It is young to be killed," said Van Drissel gravely.
"But he isn't killed yet. Never knew such a fellow for falling on his
feet. Of course, we all have to take our chances out there, but I don't
mind betting you he comes off with a D.S.O. or a Military Cross, or
something or other. You will hear of him yet, mark my words."
Thanks to Bob's experience, the kit buying did not take long, and in
three days the boy sported his service uniform, to the rather oppressive
admiration of Billy and the huge delight of his sisters. The Medical
Board, too, had passed Bob as fit for service again, and the kit leave
went like a flash.
Altogether, it had been a great week, with Dennis like a sea breeze
filling the house with his wonderful spirits. There were people to
dinner almost every evening, among them Uncle Eric, who was a staff
captain at the War Office.
And then it all came to an end, and the last night arrived, and the
mother and her two soldier sons sat down to dinner alone.
Mademoiselle Ottilie pleaded a headache, and her brother also invented
an excuse for being absent.
"You would like to be together," he had said confidentially in Bob's
ear.
"They are very charming and considerate," said Mrs. Dashwood when Bob
told her. "I do not care very much for Belgians, as a rule, but the Van
Drissels are exceptionally nice people."
Dennis said nothing, but he had his own thoughts. He did not like
mademoiselle's bright black eyes, and the lieutenant's perpetual smile
had begun to get on his nerves.
Mrs. Dashwood had kept up very bravely, though her heart was sad enough
in all conscience, and when eleven o'clock struck, and Dennis, who had
been living at high pressure, suddenly yawned and said: "Would you mind,
mater, if I turned in? I'm as tired as a dog." Mrs. Dashwood made no
demur, but signed to her eldest son to remain a little longer.
"Come into the drawing-room, Bob," she said, when they heard Dennis
close his bedroom door with a bang. "I have a letter from your father
which I want you to read. I did not show it to Dennis because he is
excited enough already."
"Any news, dear?" questioned the captain as they seated themselves on
the great padded settee, into which one sank so luxuriously that one
never wanted to get out of it again.
"Yes, there is news. I suppose he has really told me more than he ought
to have done. The date of the Great Push is fixed. But here is the
letter; it only came this evening, and you can read it aloud to me."
As he did so, Captain Bob's eyebrows lifted, for the brigadier had been
remarkably outspoken.
* * * * *
"We are going to make a simultaneous advance, we and the French on our
right," he wrote in one place. "Our sector will bear the brunt of it.
The thing has been kept wonderfully quiet, and so far the enemy knows
nothing. All their attention is turned on the 'Clown' Prince's insane
operations against Verdun, and the German General Staff seem to have
forgotten the Somme region altogether, and to underrate the British as
usual. But there will be a big surprise for them.
"My fellows are in fine fettle; in fact, so is the whole army corps in
this region," he continued. "You should see the artillery we have massed
ready for the preliminary bombardment, which promises to be the biggest
in history. I hope Bob will be out in time, but I have no news of
Dennis, and, between ourselves, I am not really sorry."
* * * * *
"By Jove! the governor's let himself go for once in his life," said Bob,
when he had finished the letter. "Half a minute, mater, I'll show you
all these places on the map, and then when the thing comes off you will
be able to follow it," and, going out into the hall where his brother's
kit was ready for the morning and his own simple outfit with it, he
returned with a chart of that sector of the British line where it joined
up with the French.
The ormolu clock on the mantelpiece struck half-past twelve before he
had finished his lecture, which Mrs. Dashwood followed with the keenest
interest, and when at last they got up, the brave little mother clung to
him for a moment, very near to the breaking point.
"You will look after Dennis, Bob, as far as you can?" she said in a
hushed voice. "He is very young and very impetuous, and regards the
whole thing as a glorious game to be played as keenly as he plays
rugger."
"You know I will do all I can, darling," he said, taking her face in his
hands and kissing it, and then she passed out, and he switched off the
lights.
When the drawing-room door closed a figure rose from behind the settee,
where he had crouched all the time, and Anton Van Drissel dusted the
knees of his khaki trousers.
"Ach Himmel!" he muttered in German. "It is worth a stiff back to have
heard what I have heard to-night!"
CHAPTER II
Off to the Front
He stood quite still for fully five minutes to make sure that they had
really gone, and then he stole with catlike tread over the noiseless
carpet, and, opening the door, listened again.
The billiard-room was at the opposite end of the vestibule, and, closing
the door gently behind him, he switched on the electric light, which
revealed Mademoiselle Van Drissel evidently waiting for him.
"What have you learned, Anton?" she whispered in German.
"I have learned everything, my little wife," he replied. "We leave this
house to-morrow, as soon as those two fools have gone to catch their
boat-train."
"Zo!" she exclaimed, clasping her hands. "I, for one, shall be
delighted. I shall have but one regret."
"And what is that, Ottilie?" inquired her husband.
"That I shall not be able to twist the neck of that detestable little
pig-dog, Billy, before I go. Ach, Anton, you do not know how I hate the
little beast!"
"I do not love him myself," said the spy, seating himself beside her.
"Listen, this is a good opportunity for us to talk without interruption,
and there is much to be arranged. You will stay in London; I shall cross
over to-morrow night from the usual place, for my information must be
in the Kaiser's hands without delay. It is now June 20, and the great
attack is to take place on the first day of July."
As he spoke he drew out a pocket-book, and the girl leaning over his
shoulder read the words he wrote down rapidly while all he had overheard
was still fresh in his memory.
"Is it possible?" murmured his female confederate. "Our time has not
been wasted after all, then. Our people knew what they were doing when
they sent us to this house."
"Our people always know what they are doing," said the sham Belgian,
with a cunning leer. "What would you have? A family, the father of which
is a brigadier-general at the front; the eldest son also a captain at
the front; and the young boy on the point of joining the Army. They were
just the very people likely to talk, to say nothing of that greatest
fool of all, Uncle Staff Captain, who told me a great deal when he dined
here on Wednesday. Ottilie, these English are lunatics, and it is not
for nothing that we have opened their letters for the last six months
without their discovering it. Still, I must confess I had never expected
a piece of luck so complete and so timely as this," and he tapped the
notebook in which he had recorded everything.
He stooped towards her and kissed with as much affection as lies in the
German nature to bestow upon anyone outside itself, and when he spoke
again his whisper was very earnest.
"You had a headache to-night--good. You can make the excuse in the
morning to visit the pharmacy in Shaftesbury Avenue. I need not tell you
where you will really go. But tell them that word must be sent to Fritz
Hoffer to take me off at the old spot at seven o'clock to-morrow night."
"Are you certain of a train that will get you there in time?"
"I shall not bother about trains," he replied. "The Kilburn Rifles are
doing coast duty there, and I will borrow Dennis Dashwood's motor-bike
ten minutes after their car has left for Charing Cross. I shall be in
the vicinity of Folkestone before their train arrives, and may possibly
pass them in the Channel."
* * * * *
"Sure everything's in?" said Captain Bob with a keen glance round the
hall, which looked so pathetically empty now that the little pile of
brown cases had been carried to the car. "Well, time's up. Au revoir,
mon lieutenant. I must air my bad French, you know," and he shook hands
warmly with the "Belgian officer," who stood bareheaded on the step to
see them off. "Hope to meet you over there one of these days. Buck up
and get all right, you know."
"We shall meet, never fear; perhaps sooner than you think," said Van
Drissel with a quiet smile. "Good-bye and good luck to you both."
Then the skunk saluted, and the car drove off, Mademoiselle Ottilie
waving her handkerchief. Now they were gone, and as the three little
girls filed back into the hall wiping their eyes, the Van Drissels
exchanged a look.
"You have nothing that matters if you leave it behind?" said the man.
"Nothing at all--a refugee is not supposed to have belongings," replied
his wife.
"Very well, do not go yet until you have heard me start the engine. Then
when I have gone, walk quietly out of the house just as you are. They
might trace a taxi."
* * * * *
The motor-car came to a stand outside Charing Cross Station, and Mrs.
Dashwood's heart seemed to come to a stand with it. In less than half an
hour she knew she would have parted with her boys, perhaps for the last
time, but she kept a brave face as Bob helped her out, and they found
themselves on the fringe of the busy throng that every day marks the
departure of the boat-train.
There were not quite so many people as usual, for nearly all leave had
been stopped.
A porter, well over military age, followed them through the barrier on
to No. 2 platform, where the long train was waiting. Three men of the
Lincolns, loaded with packs and rifles and bulging haversacks, were
looking for three seats in the same compartment.
A family of eight, of assorted sizes, were gathered round a short
private of the A.S.C., all talking at once. Farther along, a very pale
officer of the Northamptons, going out for the first time, stood with
three ladies, keeping his end up very well. Three lieutenants going back
from short leave, and lucky to get it, stood chattering, with red V's on
the back of their tunics, and as he passed them Dennis saw that they
belonged to the Northumberland Fusiliers.
Bob had secured places in the Pullman, and they walked along the train
until they reached it, and read the name "Clementina, seats 1-19," and
when their clobber had been put inside they stood on the curving
platform, watching the scene.
A chaplain with three stars on his black shoulder-straps and a pipe in
his mouth was talking to a tall curate, and two French officers in the
new blue-grey uniform, with black belts and gaiters, gave a touch of
unusual colour as they passed backwards and forwards through the groups.
One of them had a long beard; the other, a merry little man talking very
good English to three friends, wore the red ribbon of the Military Cross
on his breast.
Quite a number of British staff officers came along, one with a very
purple face, and the three Lincolns, who had been turned out of a
second-class carriage, made their way back again in search of a third.
A collector came along and examined the tickets, and everyone drew a
little closer to his carriage door.
"Only five minutes now," said Bob, glancing at the clock.
The staff officer with the purple face sat in his corner in the
dining-car, but almost everybody else was still out on the platform.
Then the railway officials moved quietly among the little groups,
saying: "Time is up, gentlemen. Please take your seats," and the little
groups separated, the officers climbing into the carriages.
From the rear of the platform a low whistle sounded, and another
official pressed a button close to the clock at the other end and blew a
little note himself. That was all, and almost imperceptibly the
boat-train glided away, with here and there a wave of a khaki arm, and
from the third-class compartments at the end a heedless cheer from some
youngsters who were going back again and did not seem to mind.
* * * * *
"What is this, Smithson?" said Mrs. Dashwood, as the parlourmaid handed
her an envelope when she reached home.
"Mademoiselle asked me to give it to you as soon as you arrived, ma'am,"
said the maid, and she opened the letter.
"My husband and I are much obliged to you for your
hospitality," the German girl had written in scornful mood. "We
shall not trouble you any further, as we have learned all we
came to know. Gott strafe the English, and in particular your
detestable little boy.
"OTTILIE VAN DRISSEL."
"Good heavens! What vile ingratitude!" exclaimed Mrs. Dashwood. "I have
harboured spies!"
* * * * *
A drizzling rain blurred the Channel, and it was high tide.
The lap of the wavelets on the pebbles sounded in the ears of a sentry
who swung suddenly round and challenged, rather surprised to see by the
scarlet band that the man who had approached to within two paces of him
unheard was a staff officer.
"That's all right, my boy, you needn't look so flurried," said the
"brass hat." "Do you know if the boat has gone over yet?"
"I ain't seen her, sir, but, then, you can't see much in this drizzle.
But I'll tell you what happened last night, sir; them there lights
showed again up yonder."
"That is precisely what I have been sent down to investigate," said his
interrogator.
"We are all certain there's something going on," said the sentry,
"though they ain't been seen for ten days now."
They stood side by side looking inland, and the staff officer, with his
hands behind the back of his drab mackintosh, pressed the button of a
tiny electric torch rapidly three times.
The sentry was only a boy, and he talked volubly, not heeding the
melancholy call of a sea-bird from the water.
"Ah, well, I think we shall have them to-night," said the staff officer.
"I see you have still got the old Mark II.?"
"Yes, sir," smiled the unsuspecting lad. "They took the others away from
us when we came down on this job."
"Let me look at it," said the staff captain, holding out his hand, and
the moment his fingers closed round the rifle the boy dropped senseless
on to the stones, felled by a smashing blow from the heavy butt.
"You'll do!" said his assailant, and, laying the rifle down and
gathering up the skirts of his mackintosh, he walked deliberately into
the sea!
A collapsible boat, rowed by two men in German naval uniforms, was
rising and falling on the top of the tide, and in another moment the men
were pulling out into the rain blur with their mysterious passenger.
No one spoke, until the nose of the boat met the dark grey hull of the
submarine waiting less than a quarter of a mile out, and as the beam of
a searchlight suddenly flashed through the mist, the top of the
periscope sank noiselessly beneath the waves, and Captain Von Dussel,
alias Van Drissel, sank with it.
"Good luck again, Kamerad?" inquired the commander as they stood in the
conning-tower.
"The best of good luck this time, Heffer," laughed the spy. "How soon
can you put me ashore on the other side?"
"As soon as I have accomplished a little scheme of my own," replied the
commander of the U50, with a strange glitter in his eyes. "The boat is
coming out of Folkestone now."
"That is not my affair," said Von Dussel.
"No, it is mine," replied the commander haughtily. "In less than an hour
I shall send her to the bottom."
"You will do no such thing," said the spy in a low piercing voice,
producing a Browning pistol and clapping it to his head. "In an hour I
must be in France. The news I carry is worth the loss of forty Channel
steamers. Hesitate another moment, and I will shoot you like a dog!"
CHAPTER III
"At Ten o'Clock Sharp!"
"Hawke!"
"Sir!" And the marksman of A Company jumped across the floor of the
trench to the door of the dug-out with surprising alacrity, as the merry
laughing face of Dennis Dashwood showed in the square hole in the wall
of the parados.
From the moment Bob Dashwood had made Dennis known to Harry Hawke as "my
brother," that worthy had attached himself to the new arrival with the
same devotion he showed to the captain, and the more he saw of Dennis
the more devoted he became.
"Hawke," said the subaltern, "I'm going over to-night, and I want three
old hands to go with me. The Divisional C.O. wishes the enemy wire
examined, and I've put in for the job. You can come if you fancy it.
What do you say?"
"I says yus!" cried Harry Hawke, with a widening of the grin that
puckered his dirty, mahogany-coloured face. "Better let me pick you out
two more, sir, what knows the game."
"Right-o!" assented Dennis. "Of course, it all depends on whether their
guns start strafing our trench at dusk. If not, and everything is fairly
quiet, we'll move out at ten sharp," and he consulted his wristlet
watch--Mrs. Dashwood's last present.
"What's this conspiracy? Can't I be in it too?" said a strange voice
that made Harry Hawke jump round, ready to salute, but his hand dropped
to his side again, for it was only an Australian corporal, who had come
along the trench behind him unnoticed.
"Why, Dan, old fellow! Where on earth have you sprung from?" cried
Dennis, emerging from his burrow and seizing the outstretched hand as
though he never meant to let it go again.
"It isn't a long story, Dennis," laughed the corporal, who was a
broad-shouldered young fellow a year or two the boy's senior. "They've
just moved our crowd in behind the brigade on your right, and the first
person I set eyes on was Uncle Arthur, who happens to know our old man.
So, as we are in the reserve trenches and nothing doing, I asked leave
to come over here to see you, and got it too. Uncle told me you had only
just arrived. How long have you been here?"
"Forty-eight hours," said Dennis. "Come and see my quarters."
His cousin ducked his head and followed him down the three steps that
led into the dug-out.
"'Will you walk into my parlour, said the spider to the fly,'" murmured
Dan Dunn.
"Quite so," laughed Dennis. "But we haven't room for even a spider's
web, though the rats are an infernal nuisance."
"There are worse things in this world than rats," said his cousin,
looking round at the little square cave excavated months before by the
Germans in the chalky soil, and seating himself on one of the two cots.
"Who's your room-mate?"
"My brother Bob. He's our platoon commander, you know. He'll be in
presently for tea. But, I say, isn't this just ripping?"
"It's certainly better than Gallipoli," said Dunn with a quiet,
retrospective smile. "Gad, Dennis, that was an awful hash up!" And he
blew a cloud of tobacco smoke to circle upwards among the shelves and
lockers, where all sorts of things were stowed away.
"Beg pardon, sir," said Private Hawke, thrusting his head in at the
door. "You didn't answer this gentleman's question. Does he want to come
with us to-night?"
"Oh, yes--did you mean that, Dan? It's like this," explained Dennis.
"The Boches have been putting up some fresh wire over yonder, and they
want to know at D.H.Q. whether it's permanent or temporary. I rather
fancy there's a bit of a raid on the cards, and I'm going out to
reconnoitre."
"Do I mean it!" laughed his cousin. "As long as I report myself at
sun-up it's all right."
"Very well, Hawke, my cousin will go with us."
"Then we'll only want one other man, sir, and I'll warn Tiddler. He can
smell Germans in the dark."
"That doesn't take much doing," smiled Dennis. "They're a filthy crowd,
anyhow. Ten o'clock sharp! And ask Smithers if that kettle's boiling."
Harry Hawke had scarcely removed his drab figure from the doorway when
Captain Dashwood blotted out the light and dived in upon them with a
dexterity born of much practice.
His greeting with the Australian cousin was warm enough, but they both
saw something unusual in his face as Dan squeezed up on the cot and made
room for him.
"Read this, Dennis," he said. "The mater's just sent it over," and he
tossed Ottilie's farewell letter across the dug-out.
"The pigs!" cried Dennis hotly. "I can't say it doesn't surprise me,
because it does; but, you know, I never tumbled either to the man or to
his sister. What does the governor say?"
"He's very sick," replied Bob. "Especially as he gave the whole show
away in his letter. Luckily the mater took it from the postman herself,
and she doesn't think they can possibly have seen it. But there it
is--one never knows. It is the beastly ingratitude that gets over me.
The mater rigged that girl out from top to toe, and paid her jolly well,
too, and Van Drissel had the run of the house, and then went away with
three boxes of the brigadier's cigars into the bargain. A German isn't a
human being when you come to look at it--he's just a mean beast, a bully
when he's top dog, and a grovelling worm when he's cornered. Does your
crush take many prisoners, Dan?"
Dan Dunn smiled, and his faultless teeth gleamed in the coffee-brown of
his face.
"Am I compelled to answer that question, your worship?" he said, with an
odd twinkle in his grey eyes, but he had already answered it to their
complete satisfaction. "Do you?" he said.
"A few Saxons now and again, when they put up their hands," replied
Captain Bob. "They're sick to death of the whole business, but Prussians
or Bavarians, no. We've 'had some,' and we're not looking for more
trouble."
Smithers made his appearance from the adjoining dug-out, which was their
kitchen, and when Bob had fixed up the folding table and Dennis had
dragged a Tate sugar box, which acted as cupboard, into the centre of
the floor, they drank hot tea, which was good, and ate sardines and
bread and butter, and finished up with jam, which Dan Dunn passed with
an apologetic grin.
"No, thanks; we had enough of that at Anzac," he said. "Forty flies to
the spoonful and enteric to follow. Our boys put in a requisition for
apricot so that you could see them better, but it didn't come off."
After tea they smoked and talked over things, especially the new
divisions that were marching up in a never-ending stream, and the huge
shell stores at the artillery dumps, which had struck Dan Dunn very
forcibly as his battalion passed them. And then Bob, having duties to
attend to, went away in the gathering dusk, and they hung a ground sheet
over the door and lit a candle, and Dan, with his huge arms behind his
head, told in his quiet drawl of Quinn's Post and Lone Pine, and had
hard things to say about the Higher Command, to all of which Dennis
listened, enthralled, with his elbows on his knees.
At five minutes to ten by the wristlet watch there came a cough from the
other side of the ground sheet, and Dan picked himself up.
"Right-o, Hawke!" called Dennis, with a glance at the watch. "Here's a
spare revolver for you, Dan, or would you rather have a rifle?"
"Rifle's in the way if it's a long crawl," said his cousin. "I'll take
the Smith and Wesson, old man."
Dennis settled his cap firmly on his head and extinguished the candle.
On either side of the door of the dug-out, as they pulled aside the
ground sheet and came up the steps, a dark figure loomed--Harry Hawke
and his chum, Tiddler.
Against the lighter grey of the sky one could make out the ragged edge
of the sandbags, and a little way off the rosy glow from a brazier
showed through the trench mist which hung low over the ground.
"The listening post knows we're coming through 'em, sir; they're lying
out in front of the bay on the left," volunteered Hawke.
"Very well," said Dennis in a low voice, "the idea is this: we want to
strike a bee-line--barring shell holes, of course--straight out to their
wire. You and Tiddler will keep twenty yards behind to cover us if
necessary, but no firing unless you are absolutely obliged. You
understand that?"
Both men whispered "Yus, sir!" in a ready chorus, and Dennis led the way
to the bay in the trench, and climbed on to the fire step.
Another figure stood motionless there, his rifle on a sandbag before
him, and everything was unusually still.
"Anything moving?" said Dennis, in the man's ear.
"Haven't known it so quiet all the week, sir," was the reply. "But don't
forget there's a machine-gun yonder, thirty paces to the left of the
willow stump, and they generally shove one of their posts out in front
of that, sir."
"I won't forget," said Dennis. "Come on, Dan! Over we go!" And the next
moment four dark forms clambered across the parapet and dropped on to
their faces on the other side.
A little way out, glued to the ground with their eyes and ears wide
open, our listening post lay, and as they crawled towards it one of the
men tapped with the toe of his boot to let them know that their coming
had been heard.
A long way off to southward, so far that it came only as a dull booming,
the German guns were shelling the French lines intermittently, and there
was the sharp bark of rifles to the north.
"How long do you calculate it will take us to reach their wire, Baker?"
whispered Dennis to the last man of the listening post as he crawled up
beside him.
"Somewhere about ten minutes, sir," was the reply. "There's one biggish
crump-hole straight ahead, and two more on the left a bit farther on,
and there's a tidy lot of dead lying out there."
Shoulder to shoulder Dennis and Dan crept forward across that No Man's
Land, the wind rustling in the tangled grass, bringing with it the acrid
odour of unburied corpses. Dan's hand encountered one of them, and he
nudged his cousin to work away more to the right.
This brought them to the edge of the first crump-hole, and glancing
every few yards at the luminous dial, they kept on for some distance
unchecked.
"We ought to be on it now," murmured Dennis. "It's a quarter of an hour
since we left the listening post." And he felt cautiously to the full
extent of his arms, but without encountering an upright standard.
They did not know it, but they had passed through a gap!
"Hold on!" whispered the Australian; "I thought I heard something quite
close on the left there."
Dennis heard it, too, at the same moment. It was like the solemn rattle
of earth falling into a newly made grave.
"It's only the chalk settling in those other crump-holes Baker warned us
about," he said, after they had listened breathlessly for a few moments.
"Our two fellows must have gone wide and struck them."
But he was wrong. The crump-holes were on the left, far behind, if they
had only known it; and it was from their right rear that a sudden
muffled exclamation came out of the stillness.
"'Evins!" said Tiddler, as he felt the sharp barbs of a low-stretched
strand bury themselves in the slack of his pants. "'Arry, I'm 'ung up!"
"Shut yer 'ead! What's the trouble?" growled his companion; and as Harry
Hawke groped for his mate he shook the strand; the well-known jangle of
an empty bully-beef tin warning them all that they had struck one of the
simplest expedients of modern warfare, freely used by both sides.
A tin dangling on the barbed wire does not ring like a cracked bell
unless somebody touches it; and from the darkness just in front and
above their heads, Dan and Dennis heard a guttural whisper, and,
realising that they were immediately under the enemy's parapet, lay as
flat as playing cards.
"It's those two fellows of mine," breathed Dennis in his cousin's ear.
"But how the dickens have we passed the wire without giving the alarm?"
Dan, with recollections of Anzac fresh upon him, remembered that slither
of earth from those crump-holes on the left.
"I'll bet you anything there's a party gone out to your trench, and
they've shifted a section of the wire to let them through," he replied.
"We may meet them on the way back. Don't move! We know, anyhow, that
their new wire's not fixed!"
Voices were humming above them now, and the German trench guards were
evidently on the alert. Still nothing happened, and Dennis was just
congratulating himself that their presence there was unsuspected when
there was a sharp sound from the top of the sandbags, and a pistol light
soared above their heads, illuminating the darkness.
For a moment everything was distinctly visible, although they themselves
were so far hidden by the German sandbags; but as Dennis looked back
over his shoulder, he saw the luckless Tiddler lying prone and helpless
in the open, and the white face of Hawke telling out strong in the
glare.
A hoarse shout from the German trench went up as the pistol flare died
down, showing that they had been seen.
"Give us a hand, matey; I ain't 'arf caught!" entreated Tiddler, who,
resting principally on his face and one knee, was making violent efforts
to disengage himself.
"'Old still!" growled Hawke, producing his nippers and snapping the
strand in two places, leaving a short piece about a foot in length
embedded in the tough cloth. "Now yer clear; back out of it." And as he
seized his rifle a green star-shell soared overhead, and there was an
ear-splitting screech above them.
"That's high velocity," whispered Dan Dunn, as they heard the splosh of
a heavy shell in rear of the British parapet, followed by a deafening
explosion and a red flame. "We've drawn them this time, old man, but I
can't make out why these beggars in the trench here don't fire. I'm for
making a bolt for it before they start. What do you say?"
Dennis gathered his legs under him, and signalled with his arm to Hawke
and Tiddler to go back, and expecting nothing but death for themselves,
the two cousins suddenly jumped up under the very noses of the men
lining the parapet behind them, and sprinted for the gap in the barbed
wire.
One bullet sang by Dan's ear, and another spurted up the chalk dust a
few feet ahead of Dennis, and as the vicious rat-tat of the machine-gun
farther down the trench opened, they found themselves at the edge of a
deep crump-hole, into which they rolled.
It was cover from the machine-gun, at any rate, but a cry of surprise
broke from the young lieutenant's lips as he landed on something soft at
the bottom of the hole, something which gripped him with a similar cry
of surprise.
* * * * *
A shell-burst eighty yards away drowned the crack of Dan Dunn's
revolver, and two out of the three Germans who had taken refuge in the
same place rolled back and lay very still, just as another star-shell, a
bright white one this time, broke above them and lit up the hole like
day.
CHAPTER IV
His First Time Under Fire
Over the edge leapt Hawke and his companion, and Hawke shortened his
bayonet as he saw his idol's brother clutching the Saxon in tight
embrace.
"Stand clear, sir!" he shouted, but the German's hands went up above his
head, and in a quavering voice he cried, "Kamerad! Mercy, officer! I am
married with two little ones, and this hateful war is not my fault!"
Harry Hawke's bayonet was only half its length from the man's ribs when
Dennis put it aside.
"Strewth, Tiddler! I can't see no difference myself between one Boche
and another," grumbled Hawke. "It's one more prisoner to feed, and Lloyd
George talks about economy."
"I will tell you," said the Saxon, crouching down as half a dozen shells
in quick succession hummed overhead. "We were sent out to reconnoitre
your trench. You passed us just now, and we hid ourselves here. There is
going to be an attack in a few minutes, only you gave the alarm a little
sooner."
"Do you hear that, Dan?" said Dennis. "We must let them know somehow."
"Hum! If we'd nine lives apiece like a cat there might be some sense in
risking eight of them," said the Australian corporal. "But it's no good
stirring out of this hole just yet. Look at that!"
A perfect hurricane of shells was going over now, and the air was filled
with a succession of explosions.
"They're firing shrapnel!" shouted Tiddler in Dennis's ear. "You can
tell by the white burst and the sound of the flying balls, but we're
safe enough in here for the present."
He dropped into a sitting position as he spoke, and instantly sprang up
again with a yell.
"Are you hit?" said Dennis, feeling himself turn pale.
"No, I ain't hit, sir, but I'm 'urt. You don't do your jobs 'arf
properly, 'Arry!" And he exhibited the piece of barbed wire on which,
forgetting all about it, Tiddler had sat down heavily.
Hawke's uproarious laughter as he disengaged the offending thing sounded
oddly to Dennis in the midst of that fearful din that shook the ground
and brought the chalk rattling down into the hollow, but it was the
first time he had been under fire, and he was yet to learn the absolute
disregard of danger which the best and worst alike learn in the
trenches.
"What's the strength of the attack?" said Dan Dunn to their prisoner,
while the two privates went through the pockets of the men he had shot.
"Three battalions of us, and we were told the Brandenburgers were to be
brought up in reserve," replied the Saxon. "Look! they are beginning
now. That is a smoke shell that has just burst to cover our advance, and
the other guns have ceased."
A dense white cloud rolled along the ground in front of the crump-hole,
and Hawke and Tiddler instantly faced round, gripping their rifles as
they looked up the jagged slope behind them.
"Don't say no this time, sir," said the Cockney private, "or there'll be
a rare shermozzle darn 'ere if some of the blighters come on top of us
in the dark."
"You can do as you like, Hawke," replied Dennis abstractedly. "But, I
say, Dan, I can't stick this any longer. I wonder if our chaps would
hear us if we shouted together?"
"Don't shout!" said the Saxon, pulling his sleeve. "See, they are going
past now."
Looking up, Dennis made out a bunch of men against the smoke cloud
passing on either side of their hole, and his impulse was to scramble up
out of it and empty his revolver into their midst.
"What's the northernmost limit of the attack just here?" he said to the
Saxon, speaking in such excellent German that the man was obviously
surprised.
"Ten yards this side of the machine-gun, Herr Officer, and they will
keep well within it," he added. "They are Prussians on that gun, and
they don't care who they kill as long as they hit somebody."
"Look here, Dan, you can stay where you are if you like," said Dennis.
"I'm off!"
"Wait a moment--don't be an ass," expostulated his cousin. "What's your
plan? I'm with you if there's an earthly chance of doing anything."
"It's this," replied Dennis, slipping his revolver back into its case.
"The top of our parapet is a couple of feet higher than that
machine-gun emplacement. I noticed that yesterday. I'm going to crawl
out under the line of their fire, and I'll bet you I'm back in our
trench in ten minutes."
"It's risky," said his cousin. "But not as bad as Lone Pine. What about
the prisoner?"
"If I am alive and we have not carried your trench," said the Saxon very
earnestly, "I shall report myself to your people before daybreak."
"All right, that's a promise," said Dennis, and he climbed cautiously up
to the lip of the hole and peeped over.
A wave of the enemy had just passed on, swallowed up in the dense vapour
of the smoke-bombs, and as the two cousins flung themselves on their
faces they heard the Lee-Enfields opening from their own trench.
So long as the smoke lasted they were safe from detection, but the whole
air seemed alive with singing bullets, and Dennis felt a jar all along
his right side as one of our own shots carried off the heel of his boot.
"Keep your direction, for Heaven's sake!" he called over his shoulder.
"We've a hundred yards to go in a straight line," and then no one spoke,
as the quartet wormed themselves on their stomachs as fast as they could
crawl, parallel with the two trench lines which bordered that strip of
No Man's Land.
Tiddler's bayonet was wrenched from the muzzle of his rifle, and a
bullet chipped the brim of Hawke's steel helmet.
"Now look out for yourselves," called Dennis. "We're level with the
gun," and, trying to squeeze themselves flatter, if such a performance
had been humanly possible, they heard the rhythmical tac-tac abreast of
them and the weird whistle of the deadly stream of bullets a few feet
above their heads.
"That's better," said Dan Dunn when they had left it behind them. "Where
shall we turn off, old chap?"
"Not yet," replied Dennis through his clenched teeth. "A bit farther,
and then we shall have to face the music of our own men. That's why I'd
rather have come on this job alone."
"Are you playing up for the V.C.?" he heard his cousin say, but he made
no answer, and at the end of another couple of minutes he paused to take
breath.
"Talk abart a bloomin' obstacle race--I got fust prize at Aldershot at
the regimental sports--but this 'ere takes the cake," said Harry Hawke,
as he and Tiddler overtook them.
"Hawke!" said Dennis sharply, "we're going to turn here and make for our
own trench. Do you know any signal or any call that would prevent our
platoon blazing at us?"
"Let's get a bit nearer fust," replied Harry Hawke. "Then I'll tip 'em a
whistle. Wust of it is, the Boches are so bloomin' ikey--they 'aven't
'arf played us up before--but we'll try it on," and he said something to
his companion.
Still on their faces, but swinging round at right angles now, the little
party groped its perilous way towards their own sandbags, hearing the
roar of the fight apparently limited in their direction by the spot on
which the German machine-gun was working.
In front of them all was quiet.
The whole air trembled with the roar of firing, but perhaps the most
trying thing to the nerves was the sudden transition from brilliant
glare to black darkness in the momentary intervals between the
extinguishing of one star-shell and the bursting of the next. For an
instant they would see the line of their trench standing out as clear as
at noonday, with the glint of bayonets above the sandbags, and then it
would be blotted out, to be lit up again the next moment.
When they had crawled to within fifty yards of it, Harry Hawke thrust
two fingers into his gash of a mouth and let loose a piercing whistle.
"Now, Tiddler, pipe up!" he shouted, and their two voices rose in a
discordant rendering of a popular trench song, their rifles waving
wildly the while.
At any other time Dennis would have been constrained to laugh at the
incongruity of their choice, but Harry Hawke knew what he was doing, and
that no German could have imitated the Cockney twang in which they
brayed their chant at the top of their strident voices.
"There's a silver linin'--froo the dyark clard shinin',
Turn the dyark clard inside art till the boys come 'ome!"
they howled, and as a fresh star-shell lit up the trench they saw a man
in khaki thrust his head and shoulders over the topmost bag and look
under his hand in their direction.
"Cut it out, 'Arry--there's Ginger Bill, and 'e's 'eard!" cried
Tiddler, jumping to his feet. "Run for all you're worth, sir!"
His companions needed no second bidding, and in another minute they were
clambering up the outer face of the parapet and falling in a heap on to
the fire step inside.
"Well, I'm blowed!" said Ginger Bill, as they picked themselves up.
"And you ain't the only one," panted Harry Hawke. "Where's the other
chaps?"
And then he saw that Ginger Bill was bleeding badly.
"Ordered over there at the double--ain't none of you got any ears?" said
Ginger Bill, pointing to the hand-to-hand scrimmage which seemed to end
in front of the Dashwoods' dug-out.
Harry Hawke, very excusably overstepping the deference due to
commissioned rank, clutched the skirt of Dennis's tunic and nearly
pulled him backwards.
"We four ain't no good, sir, in that scrum, but there's a shell-proof
bomb store not a minute's run down this 'ere traverse. We could give 'em
socks then!"
"Bravo, Hawke!" shouted Dennis. "Come on, Dan; he's right!" And they
tore along the traverse like men possessed.
Back they came, Hawke and Tiddler girdled with a belt of racket bombs,
Dennis and Dan Dunn each laden with two bags of that deadly variety so
handy to the arm of the bowler.
Ginger Bill gave them a cheer as they went past him, but they heard
nothing and saw nothing but that solid mass of grey German uniforms,
wedged like herrings in a barrel where they had no right to be--in a
British trench!
Without a moment's hesitation Dennis sprang on to the parados, and
hurled bomb after bomb with perfect aim into the grey mass, which
instantly began to yell and squirm as panic seized it. Nothing human
could withstand that terrific shower that rained upon the victorious
Saxons, who had been recovering their second wind; and as a lucky shell
from one of our 18-pounders put the Prussian machine-gun out of action,
Dan Dunn mounted the parapet, leaving the trench clear for Hawke and
Tiddler.
The four advanced steadily, bombing as they went.
"Hold on!" sang a voice as Dennis reached the mouth of the next
traverse. And, looking down, he saw that it was Bob who spoke, and
behind him thirty or forty men of the platoon, who had been forced to
take refuge there from the overwhelming rush of the enemy.
"Oh, it's you, is it?" cried the captain, darting out, revolver in hand.
"Come on, boys! The bombers have got a move on them; it's our turn now!"
And as Dennis launched a long ball, the men of the platoon poured out
into the trench again and clambered over the hideous carpet of dead and
dying.
Without hesitation Dennis leapt across the traverse, and was soon at the
head of the bayonet party, Dan Dunn keeping neck and neck with him on
the parapet, and only when he groped to the bottom of his second bag and
found it empty did he jump down and flatten himself against the side of
the trench.
"Here, what's wrong?" he shouted, as his own men came pouring back.
"Order's come to retire, sir; we've got to fall back on the next
trench!" cried a panting private.
"Oh, hang it! I thought we'd got the beggars out!" exclaimed the lad,
almost overthrown by the jostling crowd with packs and rifles that
streamed past him. "I wonder what's become of Bob?"
Tiddler and Harry Hawke were nowhere to be seen, and Bob was equally
invisible; but there could be no doubt about the order, for a
staff-captain, his uniform stained with the white chalk, came running
along the trench, crying: "Retire! Hurry up, there! Here come the
Bavarians!"
"But I say, sir," expostulated Dennis, "isn't this all wrong? We've
piled the Saxons up six deep behind us yonder, and surely we can hold on
here?"
"The order has been given by the Brigade Commander. Who the deuce are
you, young man, to dispute it?" thundered the staff-captain furiously.
Dan Dunn saw his cousin's eyes suddenly blaze and his clear-cut face
turn crimson as he whipped out his revolver and covered the speaker!
The Australian's first impression was that in the excitement of it all
his cousin had gone stark staring mad--he had seen such things happen in
Anzac.
"Great Scott, Den! Do you know what you're doing?" he yelled, flinging
his powerful arms round him.
But he was too late. The barrel of the revolver gleamed blue in the
lurid glare of a big H.E. which burst behind them, and Dennis had
already pressed the trigger!
CHAPTER V
How Dennis Came in for a Taste of Dispatch Riding
The staff cap, with its scarlet band and gold-edged peak, spun round in
the air and dropped half a dozen yards away, as its late wearer sprang
on to the parapet and vanished out of sight.
"Great Scott! Are you mad, Dennis?" shouted Dan, still holding him
tightly; but there was no madness in the boy's face as he turned it to
his cousin.
"You blithering ass! You seventeen different assorted kinds of an utter
idiot!" yelled Dennis. "I know that man--he is a German spy, and you've
made me miss him!"
Dan Dunn's arms released their grip and fell nerveless to his sides.
"Old chap!" he exclaimed in a voice of bitter regret. "How was I
possibly to tell that? Perhaps it's not too late now!" And he bounded on
to the sandbags, but there was no sign of Anton van Drissel.
For a moment they leaned side by side over the parapet, trying to
penetrate the darkness that once more enveloped No Man's Land, and then
as Captain Bob came hurrying up, blowing his whistle for all he was
worth to recall the retiring platoon, Dennis drew his own, and the
shrill signal brought the men tumbling back again into the fire trench.
"Line up!" cried the captain as Dennis and Dan, both speaking at once,
told him what had happened.
"I knew something had gone wrong," said Bob bitterly. "What a thousand
pities the skunk got clear! Well, it's no use crying over spilt milk,
and the artillery's on them now. Do you hear that?"
The momentary lull was broken by a tremendous booming from our guns in
the rear, and a hurricane of shells began to burst on the German front
line trench and the ground beyond it, a steady, systematic bombardment,
which grew in volume and increased in intensity.
"Do I hear it?" shouted Dennis. "One can't help hearing it. What do you
mean?"
"I mean," replied his brother, making himself heard with considerable
difficulty, "that it is the beginning of the artillery preparation,
which will continue day and night without ceasing for the next week.
After that the great push is coming. That is what I mean!"
The 18-pounders, the 9.2's, the big howitzers farther to the rear--guns
of every kind and calibre blended in one infernal concert, which
extended for more than eighty miles, from the Yser to the Somme.
"If those Brandenburgers are wise they'll stay where they are to-night,"
said the Australian corporal. "Hallo, Fritz! Why, Dennis, here's your
prisoner, after all."
A white-faced man, crying "Kamerad!" at the top of his voice, climbed in
over the sandbags, trembling like a leaf, and Dennis saw that it was
indeed the Saxon he had captured at the bottom of the crump-hole over
there.
"I told you I would come," said the prisoner. "I am sick of it all--it
is horrible. The Emperor is a man without heart. He takes good care to
keep out of harm's way, and sends us to our death by the thousand.
Himmel! Look! This was my company!" And he lifted his quivering hands as
he saw the litter of corpses that filled the trench from side to side.
"We are told that you kill all prisoners and all the wounded, but I do
not believe that. They feed us on lies and very little bread, while our
officers have wine and even pianos in their dug-outs," and the
nerve-shattered man burst into tears.
Captain Bob was in the act of giving instructions to one of his
sergeants to pass the deserter to the rear, when another "brass hat"
came along the trench--the genuine article this time, and one of the
best, for it was Brigadier-General Dashwood himself, followed by his
brigade-major.
The brigadier was a thick-set, soldierly looking man, fit as a fiddle in
spite of the grey hairs which mingled with his brown moustache, and his
eyes lit up as he saw his two sons still safe and well.
He was not one of those officers who paid a hasty visit now and then to
the lines, ducking his head when his guide said, "Duck, sir!" where the
wall of the traverse was low, and who, after a perfunctory glance about
him through a gold-rimmed monocle went back again to headquarters,
"having seen nothing and learned nothing." General Dashwood knew that he
had a certain section of the front to defend, and did his work
thoroughly, and the whisper often ran along the fire trench by night as
well as day: "Look out, boys, here's the brigadier!"
He listened to all they had to tell him, and questioned the deserter
closely, turning to his brigade-major several times and exchanging a
meaning nod.
"The battalion has done very well, but that is nothing new," he said
with a proud smile. "Still, it won't hurt them to hear my opinion. You'd
better come with me, Dennis; there'll be nothing more doing here
to-night, and I want someone to go to Divisional Headquarters with a
message. You'll be back at your post by daylight," and, after picking
his way along the trench to the far end and examining the German line
carefully through a periscope, he returned, to find the men of Bob's
platoon lifting out the dead Saxons and laying them on the reverse side
of the parados to await the arrival of the sanitary squad with their
picks and shovels.
"Well, so long, old chap," said Dan Dunn, as Dennis passed him. "I've
enjoyed my visit. When you look me up I hope we shall be able to give
you an equally good time. Fearfully sorry I spoiled your shot."
The cousins shook hands, and as Dennis followed his father and the
brigade-major, Bob carried Dan into their dug-out, where he found that
Australian panacea for all evils--hot tea.
It was only a short walk to Brigade Headquarters, a couple of cottages
by the roadside under the lee of a rising bank which had so far
preserved them from the German shells. One red lamp burned there, and a
sentinel stood by the doorway, leaning on his rifle.
"I'm sorry you have got that confounded cigarette habit so soon," said
Dashwood senior with a dry smile. "But you will find a box on that
table, and you can amuse yourself while we get out a report."
Dennis looked round the bare little room, contrasting it with their
luxurious home in London. A flagged map was pinned on one wall, some
British warms and mackintoshes hung on pegs, a couple of field
bedsteads, whose disarranged blankets showed that they had been hastily
left when the alarm was given, occupied one end, everything else was
bare and comfortless.
Standing in the doorway, Dennis heard the click of a typewriter, and
could not help catching some of the report as his father paced backwards
and forwards, filling a pipe with his favourite mixture as he dictated.
"Three Saxon battalions delivered a surprise attack at 10.35 to-night,
and one of them succeeded in penetrating my first line trench, No. ----,
through the failure of a machine-gun, which was put out of action by an
H.E.," began the brigadier. "The 2/12th Royal Reedshire Battalion,
Platoons 1 and 2, behaved with great gallantry, and scarcely a man of
the enemy was left alive. The bodies were lying six deep when I visited
the position. Some confusion was caused by a German in British staff
uniform making his way along the trench shouting 'Retire!' but I have
the honour to report that through the initiative of Second-Lieutenant
Dashwood, of the battalion, and Corporal Daniel Dunn, of the
Australians, gallantly supported by two privates, whose names I shall
forward later on, and who successfully bombed the enemy, the attack
completely broke down, and was not supported by the Brandenburg
Division, which, I am informed by a prisoner, was waiting in reserve."
When Dennis heard his own name mentioned he stepped out into the
darkness with a strange tingling all over him. It seemed like
eavesdropping to listen any more, but he knew that proud thrill in his
father's voice, and the boy's heart beat high with a great happiness.
Some horses, picketed under the lee of the bank, fidgeted at their
shackles, and over everything was the thunder of that incessant
bombardment which, as Bob had said, was to go on night and day. He was
watching the shrapnel bursting in the distance far over the German
lines, where our guns were delivering a barrage fire to isolate the
front enemy trenches from food and supports, when the sentry called to
him.
"The general is asking for you, sir," said the man, and Dennis stepped
back and re-entered the cottage.
"Here you are, my boy," said his father. "You know the way to Divisional
Headquarters. There are a couple of motor-cycles standing at the end of
the cottage, take your pick and away with you."
"You will find the road has been badly shelled at the next village,"
said the brigade-major, holding up his map-case and tracing the route
Dennis would have to follow. "And here, at this point, the supply column
got it rather badly earlier in the night--there may be wagons still
lying about. When you've passed that it's all plain sailing."
"Do I report to you, sir, on my return?" inquired the boy.
"Yes," said the brigadier. "Then you can leave the bike and rejoin your
company. I could have 'phoned this, but it's all experience, and may
stand you in good stead."
Perhaps the brigade-major, as he nodded a cheery good night, understood
the father's wish to place the youngster out of danger, if it were only
for a few hours, but as Dennis swung into the saddle and waved his hand,
neither he nor the brigadier foresaw the things that were going to
happen.
The road was a fairly straight one, and Dennis found the shell holes
without difficulty, shutting off his engine only just in time as he
plunged down into the first of them like Quintus Curtius of old.
"Hang it, that's a bad start," he laughed when he found the machine had
sustained no injury, but it took him a good five minutes to get it up
again, and after that he was more careful.
A little farther on he encountered a supply column of the A.S.C., and
coasted by them without much difficulty, until at last a red lantern
gleaming above a green one told him that he had reached Divisional
Headquarters.
There he found the staff busy, and a good deal of quiet bustle as the
various brigade commanders' reports arrived, and a telegraphic operator
in a shell-proof dug-out was transmitting the night's news to Sir
Douglas Haig at ----.
Dennis handed in his dispatch, which was duly read by the
lieutenant-general commanding the division, a florid officer with a
white moustache, who held the communication in one hand while he rubbed
his chin thoughtfully with the other.
"Where is the officer from General Dashwood?" he inquired suddenly, and
word was passed for Dennis.
The divisional general looked him up and down for a moment, and his brow
cleared. "If you are not wanted immediately I should like you to carry
a query for me to the officer commanding the brigade on the right of the
division," he said. "There is something I do not quite understand in his
report, and unfortunately, the field wire has broken down somewhere and
we can't get through to him. Is your machine in order?"
"Yes, sir," said Dennis, and the general turned to a shorthand clerk.
"Just take this down, will you? And type it out quickly," he said, and
he rapidly dictated to the man.
"Captain Thompson," he said when he had finished, "kindly explain to
this officer how he is to reach Donaldson," and the staff captain took
the young lieutenant to the large scale map at the end of the room,
where everything was marked out in squares, each numbered and lettered.
The captain was lucid, and Dennis quick of intelligence, and in less
than five minutes from entering the room he was turning his cycle round
and darting off on his new mission.
CHAPTER VI
A Terrible Adventure at Dawn
The Divisional Headquarters had been fixed at a spot where several roads
branched off like the sticks of a fan, and the one Dennis followed was a
typical French chaussee, paved down the centre and bordered on either
side by tall trees.
It had been a good deal cut up by the passage of distribution columns,
but its surface was fairly free from shell holes, and he covered the
distance without much difficulty, a slight drizzle blowing in his face
as he hung low over the handle-bars with his eyes fixed on the acetylene
beam in front of him.
A man riding in the opposite direction whizzed past with a shout of,
"Cheer-oh!" and he was not challenged until he drew near the brigade.
"Thought there was something wrong with the wire," said the C.O. "I've
been trying to get through for the last half-hour."
"A wiring party went out just before I left, sir, to look for the
damage," said Dennis.
"Very well, take this back to the general--that will tell him all he
wants to know," and Dennis retraced his way, rather enjoying the ride,
although it had not proved particularly exciting so far.
But the excitement was to come. Overhead the scream and whistle of our
shells never ceased, but he was growing used to the thunder of the
bombardment, until there was an explosion not far ahead in the centre of
the road, and he slowed down with a glance over his shoulder.
"That's the enemy replying," he murmured, as another shell fell in the
dark fields on the left, and another and another, so quickly that he
lost count of them.
"Bit of a danger zone, this," he thought. "The sooner I'm through it the
better," but as his thumb sought a lever there was a blinding flash very
close to him, and following on the heels of the explosion he felt his
machine quiver and the front tyre burst with a report like a rifle shot.
"By Jingo! I'm done," he cried, jumping off as his head-lamp went out.
"That's shrapnel. Now what's to be done? The tyre's in ribbons!"
As he looked ahead his heart gave a bound as he saw a motor-car pull up
some forty yards away and the driver spring out on to the road. Dennis
left the damaged cycle where it was and ran forward.
"I say, I'm in no end of a hat, chauffeur. Can you give me a hand?" he
cried.
The man stared at him with a white face, apparently dazed, and replied
in a shaky voice: "Can you give _me_ a hand, sir? Look at this!" and
unshipping one of his lamps he turned the light on to the car.
Sitting rigidly erect was the body of a staff officer, decapitated.
"Great heavens!" exclaimed Dennis, bending over with eyes of horror as
he recognised the officer who less than half an hour before had shown
him his own route at Divisional Headquarters. "It's Captain Thompson!"
"It was Captain Thompson, and one of the nicest gentlemen I've ever
driven," said the man. "I don't know what to do. He told me he was
taking a message to the French general on the other side of Hardecourt,
and that it was of the very greatest importance. We were doing sixty
miles an hour, even on this road, when that shell copped us."
There were sobs in the man's voice as he pointed to the leather
dispatch-case still clutched tightly in the dead hand.
"Look here," said Dennis. "My machine's smashed up. How long would it
take you to reach the French lines?"
"A quarter of an hour--twenty minutes at the outside. But what's the
good of that, sir? I can't speak a word of their blooming language."
"I can," said Dennis, gently disengaging the wallet. "I'll carry the
dispatch, and I'll drive if you like, if your nerve's gone."
"My nerve's all right, sir. Haven't any left after eighteen months of
this job," and as Dennis climbed into the front seat, the chauffeur
turned the handle over and the engine began to whir.
It was good to turn one's back on that hideous thing, and when they
heard the headless trunk topple over on to the floor of the car behind
them, both shivered, and the chauffeur's knuckles stood out white as he
gripped the steering-wheel.
"I've seen two officers, one a brigadier-general, treated the same way,
and their shover huddled forward against the screen dead as a door
nail," said the man. "That was up near St. Julien, when Princess Pat's
got wiped out; but it sort of hits you when you know the man, and this
was his own car too. You'd better have your papers ready now, sir;
they'll stop us at yonder white house."
The examining post at the little cabaret detained them, but did not hold
them up more than a moment or so.
"A dispatch for Monsieur le General," said Dennis to the sergeant in
charge, who recoiled as he saw the tragedy that had taken place.
"_Decapite, mon Dieu!_" he exclaimed. "Pass, mon lieutenant," and they
proceeded, leaving a red pool on the road where the car had halted.
While Dennis was inside the farmhouse a crowd of commiserating officers
surrounded the car, and they would have rid it of its grim burden and
interred poor Thompson among the little harvest of rude crosses that
marked where their own dead were laid, but when one of them, who spoke
English, suggested so doing, the chauffeur said "No."
"Beg your pardon, sir, but he'll be better buried in our own lines,
where they'll give him the Last Post and all that." He was protesting
when Dennis came out again quickly.
"It's a very good thing we took the bull by the horns," he said. "That
message was tremendously important, and the general has been good enough
to say all kinds of nice things about our bringing it along. We've got
to go back top speed to Divisional Headquarters," and he stepped in.
All the officers saluted the dead man as the motor started on its return
journey, and already the darkness was giving place before a ghostly grey
feeling in the east, which was not light as yet, but heralded the near
approach of dawn.
The chauffeur turned up his coat collar, for it had grown very cold, and
he could not get rid of the oppression of that dread something which
they were carrying--that something which a short hour before had been so
full of life and vigour and kindly thought for all with whom it had come
in contact.
"I shall put in for a rest after this," said the man as they repassed
the post at the cabaret, and he opened out the engines. "They tell me
there's going to be a week of this firing, and upon my sam, I don't
think I can stand it now!"
"I suppose one gets used to the guns," said Dennis. "But what an
infernal row they make!"
"Been out here long, sir?" said the chauffeur, whose quick eye had
detected the newness of his companion's uniform, notwithstanding the
chalk stains which were the result of his adventure earlier in the
evening.
"As a matter of fact, I haven't been up at the front three days yet,
but, of course, I've done a lot of training at Romford with the
Artists'," replied Dennis.
"Lord! you don't know you're born yet, in a manner of speaking, sir,"
said the driver with a little toss of his head. "You've got a lot to go
through before you've seen as much as I have. Blow 'em! Those Boches are
still at it," and he craned his head forward over his wheel. "They've
got the range of this blooming road to a T. I don't funk risks, but
it's madness to shove ahead through that!" And he slowed the car down as
a rain of shells crashed among the trees in front of them, bringing half
a dozen tall poplars down on to the road itself, while the whole
_terrain_ to their left hand was alive with bursts of high explosives.
"Well, what's to be done? I must reach the general at once. Isn't there
another way round?"
"There's only this turning on the right, sir," replied the man. "It
seems to be pretty clear, and it will run us close behind our own line.
I've been there before, and we can double back past General Dashwood's
headquarters."
"Right-o!" assented Dennis eagerly, and the car swung into a narrow
track between two swelling rises that had not long before been peaceful
farm land under cultivation.
It was little more than a cart track, and they plunged and swayed like a
boat on a choppy sea, the wheels now mounting the bank at a dangerous
angle in the uncertain light of the dawn.
"It's better going a bit farther ahead," said the chauffeur. "You sit
tight, and I'll bring you through somehow."
The words had scarcely left his lips when everything seemed to be
suddenly swallowed up in a soul-terrifying roar. A vivid orange flame
rose skyward, and as Dennis soared upward through the air and fell with
a plump into a field of beetroot, the world turned black and he lost
consciousness.
How long he lay he did not know, but when he opened his eyes it was
almost light, and the face of his wristlet watch had been smashed to
atoms.
For a few seconds he remained quite still, not daring to move from fear
of what movement might tell him, but at last, sitting up, he felt
himself all over and breathed a sigh of deep thankfulness to find that
he had no bones broken.
He remembered that they had been running into an avenue where the trees
met overhead and formed a species of tunnel, and the avenue was still
there before him, one of the poplars headless like poor Captain
Thompson, and showing a great white scar where the shell had caught it.
And then he rose to his feet, to find himself half a dozen yards from
the narrow road, his heart standing still as he saw the mangled chassis
of the motor, entirely stripped of its body works, reared up on one end
at the edge of the crater.
The whole road seemed to have been scooped out to the depth of several
feet, and how he had escaped destruction was little short of miraculous.
The skirt of his own tunic was rent to rags and ribbons, his Sam Browne
belt, map-case, and glasses were gone, and the French general's message
with them, and a great sob shook the lad as he walked slowly to the
ruined car.
The first thing he saw was a human leg swathed to the knee in a stained
puttee, and a stride farther on was the rest of his companion, so
shockingly mutilated that it was only with an effort he could bring
himself to examine it.
"Poor chap, poor chap!" he muttered. "An end like this after eighteen
months at the wheel!"
There was no trace of the captain's body; it was probably buried deep
in the shell hole, or else plastered far and wide over the hillside with
the debris of the motor.
He stooped and opened the chauffeur's coat, which bulged suggestively,
and drew out a little case containing his identification papers and
driver's licence, perhaps also letters from home.
Pulling himself together, he placed the case in one of his own breast
pockets which had escaped injury, with a soldier's "small book" he had
picked up from one of the dead Saxons in their own trench as a memento
to send home to his mother, and then he looked about him, without seeing
sign or trace of living thing or human habitation.
There was a green wheatfield on his right hand, from which the mist was
curling away, and in the glory of the dawn overhead the larks were
trilling. A patch of scarlet poppies was almost startling in its
vividness, and beyond the poppies a long ribbon of yellow mustard was
backed by a thick wood.
"Where on earth am I?" was the thought that passed through his brain.
"This poor chap said the road would bring us near to our firing line,
and I may be able to borrow another motor-bike there. I must return to
the French headquarters and get that message duplicated, or I'm not
worth my salt."
He straightened one of his leggings which had been twisted round, and,
skirting the shell hole, started out on his voyage of discovery, feeling
rather dizzy at first, but surprised to find that his cap was still upon
his head, for he had not yet been served out with a trench helmet.
The narrow way wound along the edge of the wood through a hollow, the
banks of which were clothed with purple scabious, and he had gone some
distance before he thought of taking his bearings by the sun, which
showed him that he was heading due south.
"I'm on the right road, anyhow," he muttered, and then he suddenly
stopped and crouched low.
In the mist wreath that still filled the hollow he had caught sight of a
figure in uniform, which recalled the field grey of the Saxon. The man
was standing motionless beside a clump of trees that tufted the skyline,
and, uncertain whether he could gain the shelter of the wood behind him
unseen, Dennis was looking backwards over his shoulder when the decision
was taken very unexpectedly out of his hands by the appearance of
another man, who suddenly covered him with a rifle from the bank top not
a yard away, and challenged him in German.
"_Wer da!_" said the man, and although he recognised that his
interrogator was wearing a French uniform, Dennis unthinkingly replied
to the question in German also.
"I am an English officer," he said. "Perhaps you will be good enough to
direct me to our nearest brigade."
The man rose slowly from the wet wheat which had concealed his coming,
and, still covering Dennis with his rifle, slid down the bank until he
was within arm's length, a thick-set Alsatian corporal, powerful as a
bull.
"So," he said with a short laugh, as he seized Dennis by the collar.
"You are an English officer, are you? We shall see. We had one of your
sort through our lines yesterday--a staff captain, who gave us orders
from the British general which turned out to be false. Come along, my
pig. We will see what our captain has to say to you. English officers do
not speak German with a Prussian accent. You are a Boche, I tell you;
and you will breakfast off ball cartridge unless I am very wrong!"
CHAPTER VII
A Friend in Need
Dennis Dashwood laughed aloud, but though there was genuine amusement in
his voice at the beginning, it quickly tailed off into a broken quiver,
for the lad was still suffering from the effect of the shell burst.
"You will laugh on the other side of your mouth directly, if I know
anything," said his captor gravely.
"I am quite content to leave that to the judgment of your officer, my
friend," replied Dennis in French. "But have the goodness not to shake
me like a rat. I've got a splitting headache as it is."
"Ha, you spies speak all languages. _Ma foi!_ What a lot of clever
scoundrels you are!" grunted the Alsatian corporal. "What a pity, for
you have not got a really bad face when one comes to look at it."
"Is it far to your headquarters?" inquired his prisoner wearily.
"Not far, so you had better make the most of it. It will be your last
walk on earth. How beautiful is the song of the lark! The little animals
do not seem to mind the gunfire at all. Do you have larks in Prussia?"
"I hope we shall, my corporal, when you and I get there with our
battalions," but the corporal was impervious to the harmless jest, and
squared his shoulders as they came in sight of his commander's post.
The other man whom Dennis had seen on the slope had come down and joined
them, and the pair marched their prisoner in with a brisk, businesslike
stride.
The French trench ended, or began, whichever way you like to take it, in
a wood of oaks, and the smoke of many fires drifted among the
tree-trunks. At the door of a dug-out a group of officers sat round a
trestle table taking their coffee, and they all looked up as the
corporal cried, "_Halt_, prisoner!" and saluted with his rifle.
"Mon Commandant, I found this man hiding by the roadside behind yonder.
He speaks German and French and all the languages under the sun, and I
am convinced he is a spy."
The commandant was a spare, black-bearded man, whose uniform of horizon
blue gave one rather the impression that it had been made by a
dressmaker, but on the left breast was a little strip of crimson and
green ribbon, showing that he had won the Military Cross during the war.
He had black leggings and narrow black belts, and the wristbands of his
shirt were spotlessly clean.
"What have you to say for yourself, prisoner?" said the commandant,
eyeing him keenly from top to toe, through the chalk and dirt that
encrusted him, and Dennis in excellent French told him who he was.
"Where is the dispatch of which you speak?" was the next question, and
Dennis pointed to his torn tunic. "It was destroyed when the car was
blown up, Monsieur le Commandant," he replied.
"But you must still have some proofs of your identity. What is that in
his pocket?" And the commandant, who had lit a cigarette, pointed with
the match.
The corporal thrust his hand into the drab tunic and produced two things
which he laid on the table by the long loaf from which the officers had
cut slices to dip in their coffee.
"Ha!" said the commandant, opening the wallet. "You told me your name
was Dashwood, but here it is given as Alfred Robinson."
"I brought that away from the body of the man who drove me," explained
Dennis. "That is the English chauffeur's licence from Scotland Yard."
"And this?" continued the officer, his face becoming graver as he
examined the German soldier's "small book." "Here you are described as
Hans Schrettelmeyer, Private in the 24th Reserve Battalion of the 108th
Saxons; how do you account for it?"
"That I picked up in the fire trench of my own battalion when we
repulsed the attack last night," said Dennis, drawing himself up a
little and colouring indignantly as he found his position becoming
serious.
"Oh, come, you are evidently fond of picking things up, my friend," said
the commandant with a dry smile. "Is there anything else that you have
found that will help you?"
"I have my own identification disc," said the lad hotly, and then he bit
his lips as he groped between his shirt and undervest.
"Unfortunately, monsieur, it has also gone!" he exclaimed, turning pale.
"Ah, well, I do not think we want it," said the commandant, tilting his
chair backwards. "We have had several of your kind prowling about our
lines lately--one only last night, and an example is necessary. You are
a spy, my friend, and that is the end of the matter."
"Look here, sir, this is all bosh!" exclaimed Dennis hotly in his own
language, realising for the first time that appearances were dead
against him.
"Quite right, my boy," laughed one of the other officers in English.
"You are all Boche. I think there is very little doubt about that."
The commandant leaned across the table and said something in a low voice
to the others, and they all nodded.
"May I be permitted to make an observation, sir?" said the lad.
"With pleasure," replied the commandant, bowing politely.
"A very short question over your wire to Monsieur le General commanding
this army corps will convince you that I am what I tell you I am," said
Dennis.
"Even if I thought there were any necessity it would, unfortunately, be
impossible," said the commandant in a cold voice. "Your wires are not
the only ones that suffer, and ours has undergone some damage during the
night. It may be two hours before it is repaired, and you must not be
surprised if we make short shrift of you."
"But, monsieur!" expostulated Dennis. "This is an outrage! My country
and yours are firm friends, and I repeat, upon my word of honour, that I
am an Englishman."
The officer who had laughed at him and who spoke English, said in an
undertone: "Do you know, monsieur le commandant, I should feel
inclined--with all due respect I say it--to postpone the execution. I
must confess this boy is a marvellous linguist, and there is not a trace
of fear in his bearing."
"My dear Laval, for myself I am convinced, and I shall take all
responsibility," replied the commandant. "Prisoner, if you would like to
write a letter to your friends you are at liberty to do so. We will
endeavour to forward it afterwards. Also, if you care to avail yourself
of the good offices of our chaplain they are at your disposal. But do
not waste time, for you will be shot in half an hour," and he made a
grave inclination with his head to intimate that the interview was at an
end.
A contemptuous smile passed across the young lieutenant's face, and he
bowed in return.
"Very well, sir, I can only say that you will be sorry for this
decision," he said. "I have a fountain pen--will somebody kindly lend me
a sheet of paper?"
One of the officers at the table handed him a blank form, at the same
time offering his cigarette-case.
"No, thanks, I won't smoke," said the boy, and, sitting down on a billet
of wood, he laid the paper on his knee.
"DEAR PATER," he wrote with a steady hand. "It seems a
rotten thing to have to tell you, but the French are going to
shoot me for a spy. The fool man in command here, who was
probably a successful pork butcher before the war started,
declines to communicate with headquarters, and I rather hope
you'll rub it into him when you learn all. It seems I speak
German too well, and I should not be surprised if the sham
English 'brass hat' who upset them last night were that
scoundrel, Van Drissel, whom I nearly shot."
He got thus far, the Alsatian corporal standing rigidly at his elbow,
when he became aware of a bustle at the table, and looked up.
A French _liaison_ officer had just arrived, and was explaining his
mission to the group, while the commandant read a dispatch he had
brought.
Dennis sprang to his feet, and the laugh which brought the corporal's
grip on to his collar again turned every eye towards him.
"Good morning, mon Capitaine!" he cried. "Will you be good enough to
tell the commandant the circumstances under which we met last night, and
why I came to your headquarters with a message?"
"My dear lieutenant," said the _liaison_ officer. "Enchanted to meet you
again! But what in the name of heaven has happened to you?"
"Nothing to what was going to happen in a few minutes if you had not
arrived," replied Dennis, unable to repress the triumph he felt at the
consternation in the faces of his judges.
"_Ciel_, mon Commandant!" exclaimed the _liaison_ officer. "It is a very
fortunate thing for you that I came in time. If you had shot this young
Englishman, Father Joffre would have had something to say about it."
In a few words he established the prisoner's identity beyond any shadow
of doubt, and the good-hearted fellows were round him in a moment,
clamouring out their apologies, while the commandant, with tears
rolling into his beard, kissed him on both cheeks.
Dennis was ashamed that he had called him a pork butcher, for the poor
man was pathetically apologetic, and trembled like a leaf at the thought
of what might have been.
"You certainly gave me a very tight squeeze for the moment," laughed the
lad. "But it was a string of extraordinary coincidences that might have
deceived anyone."
"Then our general's reply has not reached your headquarters?" queried
the _liaison_ officer.
"Unhappily not," said Dennis. "It is somewhere among the wreckage of the
car and the remains of those two poor fellows."
"Never mind," said his preserver. "We will let you into a little secret.
The dispatch you brought to us was a request that this division should
join with your nearest brigades in a raid on the enemy's lines. The
Allied artillery is even now lengthening its fuses, and we are on the
point of giving the Germans a surprise. Will you find your way back,
or----" And he made an expressive wave of his hand in the direction of
the German trenches.
"If Monsieur le Commandant has no objection, and somebody will lend me a
revolver, I should love to take part with the battalion that was going
to shoot me," laughed the boy.
"_Cher ami!_" cried the black-bearded officer. "You heap the coals of
fire upon my head. You and I will march together!"
While Dennis swallowed a cup of coffee the commandant dived into his
dug-out and reappeared with a revolver case, which he buckled on the
boy with his own hands; and meanwhile the little group at the wood fires
had snatched up their rifles and donned their blue-painted steel
helmets, and were falling in by companies, eager to exchange the
monotony of trench warfare for a brisk dash at the hated foe.
The Alsatian corporal, a typical poilu, still kept very close to his
late prisoner, but there was an altogether different look in his eyes
now.
"I should never have forgiven myself, mon lieutenant," he blurted out,
as he slung his rifle behind his back and festooned himself with racket
bombs. "I hope monsieur will bear me no ill will for my stupidity."
"It is nothing, my friend," said Dennis laughing. "A brave man should do
what he thinks to be his duty, and you did yours. What is the distance
to the enemy trench?"
"About a hundred metres, mon lieutenant," replied the corporal, "and
uphill all the way. _Voila!_ There goes the signal!"
A low blast on a whistle, and the long grey-blue line went quickly
forward among the trees, and jumped down into the deep excavation which
wound like a dirty white ribbon along the outskirts of the wood.
The 75's were barking loudly in their rear, the shells now falling
behind the enemy trench, the sandbags of which showed in an irregular
line on the slope against the sunrise.
The _liaison_ officer had come with them thus far, and was looking at
his watch.
"_Bon chance_, lieutenant," he said. "Unhappily, I may only see the
attack launched, but I hope this will not be our last meeting."
"My boys, it is time!" cried the commandant. "_En avant!_" And, climbing
swiftly over their parapet, the active little poilus scampered up the
hill through the yellow charlock.
Half-way up every man flung himself flat upon his face, and looking
back, Dennis saw the second line coming over to their support. Again the
whistle sounded, the little blue figures jumped up, scurrying like
rabbits, and the machine-guns on the German trench opened fire.
Down on their faces sank the first line again, so suddenly that an
onlooker might have thought that everyone of them had been shot, and as
Dennis found himself in a bed of stinging nettles close to the ruins of
a cottage, with the corporal and the commandant on either side of him,
he caught the distant sound of an English yell away to the left, and
knew that the British raid had been well timed, and was acting in
concert with his new friends.
For an instant the commandant, whistle in mouth, lifted his head and saw
that his supports had come up to within twenty yards of their comrades.
"Now, my dear friend," he mumbled, giving Dennis's arm a warm squeeze.
"One bound, and we shall be there!"
The whistle shrilled loudly, and, jumping to his feet, the commandant
shouted, "Forward with the bayonet! _Vive la patrie!_"
Instantly the sandbags in front of them bristled with heads wearing flat
caps, and the volley from the mausers mingled with the murderous tac-tac
of machine-guns.
It floated dimly through the boy's mind that he had no right to be
hazarding life and limb in that place, but the joy of that mad rush with
a fight at the end of it banished the thought on the spot, and, scarcely
conscious of those few remaining yards which they traversed at top
speed, he found himself scaling the sandbags.
Above him was the commandant, sword in one hand and revolver in the
other, but as the active little man poised for an instant on the top of
the parapet and fired into the trench at his feet, he threw up his arms
and pitched backward, Dennis dropping his weapon to dangle at his wrist,
and catching him as he fell at the foot of the obstacle.
"It is nothing," gasped the French officer, clutching at his throat, but
the blood was pouring between the fingers of his hand.
"He is wrong," said Dennis, as the Alsatian corporal knelt beside him.
"We must get him back under cover at once. It is only a surgeon who can
stop this haemorrhage."
"And I haven't thrown a bomb yet!" growled the corporal, tossing the
racket he held in his hand over the top of the sandbags.
Its explosion seemed to satisfy him for the moment, and passing his
powerful arms under the commandant's shoulders, while Dennis lifted his
legs, they walked carefully backwards down the slope again beneath a
whistling hail of bullets.
CHAPTER VIII
In the Enemy Trenches
By great good fortune, when they reached the crumpled ruins of the
cottage, they found two stretcher-bearers kneeling among the nettles, on
the look-out for casualties. They had seen them coming, and the
stretcher was already unrolled, and as they laid him upon it the wounded
man motioned with his hand.
"Stand round me," he said in a husky whisper, speaking with difficulty.
"Do not let them see who it is that is hit."
One of the brancardiers placed a pad under the commandant's ear, and
passed a bandage round his neck.
"Tighter, tighter!" motioned the sufferer. "How is it going? For me, I
do not mind if you pull my head off, provided we take the trench."
Dennis peeped through a crack in the wall and bent over him.
"The attack has been completely successful," he said. "The supports are
swarming in now."
"_Vive la patrie!_" cried the wounded man, whose grey-blue tunic was
stained crimson with his own blood. "I thank you from the bottom of my
heart, lieutenant. Again you heap the coals of fire upon me."
Then he fainted.
"Come along, Alphonse," said one of the stretcher-bearers to his
companion. "We must get him to the surgeon at once."
"And we," said the Alsatian corporal, touching Dennis on the arm. "Shall
we return up yonder?"
The commandant's revolver lay among the nettles, Dennis picked it up,
and the pair raced side by side again up the trampled slope.
Lithe and active as Dennis was, his new friend, loaded with his pack and
hung about with bulging wallets and strings of racket bombs, was over
the parapet before him, and the boy's after-recollection of the ten
minutes that followed was a chaotic jumble of mad slaughter.
The French infantry were in terrible earnest, and out to kill. They had
old scores to wipe off, and at the outset nothing could stay them.
Figures in blue grey and figures in greeny grey wrestled and fought in
the drifting smoke, and what with the hideous gas helmets and their huge
goggles, and the mediaeval-looking trench helmets, Dennis seemed to have
suddenly found himself in the company of weird demons from some other
world.
Men stabbed and hewed and hacked at each other. Others, gripped in tight
embrace, were seen revolving in a species of grim waltz, until a chance
bullet or a piece of shell ended the dance of death.
The wounded squeezed themselves against the boarded sides, the dead lay
where they fell, and the living took no notice of either. If there was
any shouting the guns drowned it, and the lust of slaughter was in every
face.
"I do not think there will be any poison gas," shouted the Alsatian
corporal, whose name was Aristide Puzzeau. "The wind is in the wrong
quarter, but you never know what these Boches are up to."
He handed him a gas helmet, which he took from a dead comrade, and
without waiting for any thanks, Corporal Puzzeau pursued his way.
Dug-out after dug-out he bombed, and when his supply was exhausted he
unslung his rifle with its long, thin bayonet, Dennis following upon his
heels.
The barrage fire, playing a couple of hundred yards in rear of the
German parados, effectually kept the enemy's supports in check, and
Dennis wisely possessed himself of a steel helmet, for the shrapnel had
a habit of raining down on friend and foe alike, but after they had gone
some distance in a northerly direction, they found that the enemy had
recovered from the first surprise, and a strong counter-attack was
forcing a company of poilus back.
At first it was difficult to find where the enemy sprang from, until
Puzzeau located the mouth of a subterranean dug-out from which they
poured in rushes, and, crouching down, he waited at one side of the
opening like a terrier at a rat-hole, Dennis standing beside him with a
revolver in his hand.
"Wait, do you hear that?" said Puzzeau. "There are plenty more of them
inside," and they waited.
"Good morning, my pig!" said Puzzeau, lunging forward, and the sergeant
reeled against the trench boards.
Almost before he could recover his weapon the opening was filled with a
surge of men, and Dennis emptied a revolver into the middle of them.
"That is the style!" grunted the corporal approvingly, as a dull shout
boomed from the dug-out and those behind paused. "If there were only
half a dozen of us here now, or, better still, a bomb-thrower," and,
lifting up his powerful voice, he bellowed to a man he knew: "Rabot,
surely there are some bombs left?"
"That is all very well," replied Rabot. "I have been sent myself for
reinforcements. Do you know every officer of our company is down, and
the men are falling back?"
"There is something yonder that will serve our purpose," cried Dennis,
pointing to an ugly grey muzzle behind an iron loophole on the parados.
It was almost opposite to the door of the dug-out, and before the
Alsatian knew what he was doing, Dennis had scrambled up to the
machine-gun emplacement and vanished. The next moment his head appeared
round one side of it.
"Stand clear!" he yelled, waving with his arm, and vanished again.
"Who is that?" inquired Rabot. "He looks English and speaks French like
Monsieur le President."
"You will hear him speak German out of that gun in a moment," laughed
the corporal. "_Voila!_ there she goes. And to think we were going to
shoot that boy less than an hour ago!"
Dennis, who had qualified as a machine-gun officer, had indeed lighted
upon a piece of great good fortune, for under the gun he found three
Germans recently bayoneted and the cartridge-jacket in position. He had
only to depress the muzzle to send a stream of bullets straight into the
mouth of the dug-out.
The stream ceased in a moment, and they saw him beckoning to them.
"Look yonder!" he cried, as the corporal and Rabot joined him. "The
rabbits will not bolt again if we can leave someone here, but the
company is in difficulties, and we are wanted. Can you take charge, _mon
garcon_? See, the mechanism is quite simple; it works like this," and he
loosed half a dozen rounds by way of illustration.
"Stay here and do as the lieutenant has shown you if they show their
noses again," said the corporal, and Rabot took his post at the
machine-gun.
The French soldier is intelligent because he has imagination, and Rabot
understood. Corporal Puzzeau understood also, and his eyes danced as
Dennis bounded along the top of the parados towards the retreating
company.
They were bunched up in the trench, and some of them were even
scrambling out over the other side, when that slim brown figure in the
uniform of their British Allies with one of their own helmets on his
head, and the corporal behind him, appeared above them.
"Comrades of the 400th of the Line!" cried Dennis. "You are surely not
going back to Paris? Berlin lies in this direction. Follow me, and I
will show you the way."
"_Vive la patrie!_" bellowed Corporal Puzzeau, and the men who had
recoiled, took up the shout and scaled the wall of the parados again.
A furious rat-tat-tat sounded a little way off, and Dennis heard Puzzeau
laugh.
"It is only Rabot," he said. "He has learnt the trick already."
In a few minutes the ground behind the German trench was strewn with
bodies in field grey, and it was with some difficulty that Dennis and
the corporal could check the victorious company from penetrating into
the zone of their own artillery barrage fire. As it was, a good many of
the helmets were dented, and not a few of the poilus paid the toll of
their own eagerness.
"Mon lieutenant, if I return to our own lines," said the Alsatian
corporal, "the general shall hear of this thing you have done. In the
name of my country I thank you," and he held out his hand.
Dennis shook it, and laughed. "There is nothing to make a fuss about,
corporal," he said. "We've taken the trench, anyhow; and as I see our
right brigade yonder, who seem to have been lucky also, I think I'll get
along now and join them."
He was gone before Aristide Puzzeau could say any more, and after a
quick sprint he came up with an English Fusilier battalion consolidating
the position they had just secured.
"Hallo, Dashwood!" hailed a voice, as a very young officer with a very
large eyeglass turned round and stared at him. "You look as though
you've had a rough night of it. Where on earth have you sprung from?"
"I've been with the French for a spell," said Dennis, looking down
ruefully at his tattered uniform. "Where shall I find my crush?"
"Good heavens! they're miles away," said his interrogator, who had been
with Dennis in the same training corps. "Pretty good raid, what? What
price Romford after this? Bet you a lemon squash your C.O. will
reprimand you for appearing on parade improperly dressed."
"I'll chance that, Jimmy. So long, old man," and he threaded his way
past the rear of the brigade, not without some good-humoured banter at
his dishevelled appearance.
It was twelve o'clock in the day when, rather leg weary, he struck the
nearest battalion of his own brigade, and arrived in time to find
himself once more in the very thick of it.
During the fighting on their right General Dashwood's command had lain
doggo, but word had just come that they, too, were now to make a
surprise attack on the enemy's first line trench, and smoke bombs were
already preparing the way for them.
"By Jove! Den. The governor's been tearing his hair about you!" was
Bob's greeting as they met on the fire-step. "You look pretty well
knocked. Better turn in, old man, for a spell."
"Turn in be hanged!" cried Dennis. "Here, Hawke, you've no business with
three bags of bombs. Give one of them to me. I'm going to be in this."
He had scarcely fitted the leather strap to his shoulder when his
brother, who had been looking at his watch for the last minute said:
"Ready, boys! Get over!" And the Reedshires cleared the parapet with a
low glad murmur.
Dennis had lost all count of time, and only knew that he had crossed
the strip of "No Man's Land" with his platoon, somehow, and was bursting
bombs mechanically along the German trench.
Turning round as he came to a narrow door on his left, he was surprised
for the moment to find the French corporal no longer at his elbow, and
his laugh of amusement as he entered alone sounded odd and hollow.
With abrupt suddenness he ran down a flight of thirty wooden steps
leading from the end of a short passage into a large hall, lit by
electric light.
The huge underground dug-out was empty, save for some wounded Germans in
bunks, and with a glance at the pictures on the walls, and the piano on
a platform, he ran towards another door at the far end.
"Great Scott! they've got a regular town here!" he exclaimed aloud,
gazing at the floor of the inner dug-out, which was quite thirty feet
below the level on which he stood. "More electric light, and cases of
ammunition enough for an army corps!"
"Perhaps you would like to count them, Dashwood?" said a mocking voice
behind him.
But before he could turn round a coward's blow flung him forward into
space. The electric lights went out, and while he was still falling he
heard the heavy slam of the shell-proof door boom out of the darkness
above him.
CHAPTER IX
In the Sniper's Lair
"You hound!" shouted the lad, as with great presence of mind he held his
right arm aloft with the last bomb tightly clutched in his fingers.
There was a moment of agonised suspense which seemed extraordinarily
protracted, and then he alighted, unhurt, on a pile of blankets, the
unexploded bomb still in his hand!
"Thank Heaven!" were his first words as he lay, his heart beating
furiously and his overwrought frame quivering from the shock.
The atmosphere of the vault--for it was nothing less--was close and
stuffy, and there was a greasy smell in the still air, emanating from
some lubricant used to protect the stocks of spare rifles which he was
presently to discover.
"By Jupiter! if this bomb had gone off down here there wouldn't be much
of me left," he muttered, gathering himself up and remembering that he
had placed a spare torch in one of his breast pockets.
He was thankful then that he had not had time to change his tattered
tunic, and, drawing it out, he pressed the button and played the bright
beam up and down the vault.
It was one of those marvellous underground constructions for which the
Germans seem to have a positive genius. The chalk had been excavated for
trench building, the walls were boarded, and square balks of timber
supported the roof in a double row of pillars.
He could not count the cases of ammunition--there were so many--nor the
stacks of rifles that were stored in the place, but he saw enough to
convince him that he had made a very important haul, if only things were
going well above ground.
The distance he had fallen surprised him when he mounted the steps, but
the steel door resisted all his efforts to open it, and though he
thundered with his fists, there was no response from the other side.
"I've got to get out of this somehow," he thought, and, descending to
the floor again, he made a minute inspection of the vast dug-out without
finding any means of egress, until he came to an open case of rifle
ammunition, from which several packets of cartridges had been removed.
As he read the description printed on the others he felt cold air
blowing on him from somewhere not far away. At first he thought there
must be some hidden ventilation shaft, but the draught was low down and
fluttered the tatters of his abbreviated tunic.
"It's a jolly odd thing," he murmured, turning his light in the
direction of the current. "Surely there is not another dug-out below
this one?"
He passed round the angle of some piled-up boxes stamped with strange
hieroglyphics, and then he stood still, for there was another door, the
entrance to a gallery, as he saw in a moment.
But this time it led upward in a rather steep slope, and the floor was
marked with the print of heavy boots, showing that the passage had been
well used.
"I suppose it would take a month of Sundays to come across some revolver
ammunition, and then the chances are it wouldn't fit these French
chambers," he thought, examining the commandant's second revolver, which
had only one charge left. "Anyway, I must find where this leads to."
And, veiling the light with his fingers, he entered the gallery.
The sides had been roughly smoothed and faced by the pioneers' shovels,
and he shivered involuntarily, for it was cold.
Making no noise, he crept for some distance in a straight line, until he
came to a right-angle bend in the gallery, which he followed for sixty
or seventy yards, and then switched off his torch as a loud explosion,
not far ahead, seemed to drive the air against his cheeks, followed by
the acrid odour of a German cartridge.
For an instant he believed himself to have penetrated an enemy sap, but
now he knew that somewhere close in front lurked a German sniper!
Dennis Dashwood dropped on to one knee and peered along the passage. A
faint light filtered through the darkness and a voice boomed dully.
"That is my first miss to-day," came the words in German. "This wind has
given me a bloodshot eye, and I am shivering. Will you go back and bring
me a couple of bottles of wine, Joachim?"
"With pleasure, Kamerad," said another voice, and the light was blotted
out as a figure rose from the ground where he had been sitting on his
heels. Dennis made out the outline of the sniper stretched at full
length on a blanket, his rifle in front of him on a wooden stand, but it
was too far to get back unseen, for the man was slouching heavily
towards him, and in another moment discovery would be inevitable.
Dennis raised his right arm and fired his last cartridge, and the
messenger fell forward, dead as a herring.
With a startled shout of surprise the sniper faced about, but Dennis was
upon him, and, locked in a terrible embrace, the pair fell with a crash
on to the chalky floor.
All fatigue seemed to vanish from the boy's limbs as he and his opponent
rolled over and over, and he strained every nerve in a struggle which he
knew could have only one end.
For a whole minute the narrow passage was filled with the sound as of a
terrific dog fight, for Dennis had managed to get his head well fixed
under the sniper's jaw, effectually preventing any words leaving his
lips. Instead there came a stream of weird snarls and hisses and
spluttering coughs, accompanied by the savage kicking of heavy boots
against the walls of the gallery.
Their arms were round each other, and they struck out with their knees,
but the thin muscular frame proved more than a match for the stouter
man, and at last, pinning him down in a corner, where he panted quite
out of breath, Dennis withdrew his head, and they looked into each
other's faces by the light that filtered in again through a crevice at
the end of the tunnel.
"You'd better surrender without any more fuss," said Dennis. "Perhaps
you don't know that we've taken your first line trench. Otherwise I
shouldn't be here."
"You are a liar," was the polite reply. "All Englishmen are liars."
"Have it your own way," said Dennis with a superior smile, as he began
to get his own breathing under control. "Judging from your official
statements, and your Bethmann-Hollweg, Germany hasn't much reputation
for truth-telling! So you are the beast we've been trying to locate, are
you?"
The man had a red moustache, the ends of which lifted as he smiled.
"Yes, I am the beast; the 'great blonde beast' your papers are so fond
of talking about," he said ironically. "I've been here for a month, and
I have shot on an average twenty of your fools every day."
"Well, you'll shoot no more," said Dennis grimly.
"That we shall see," retorted the man, suddenly stiffening his spine and
almost succeeding in reaching a sitting position.
Up went the lad's arm and down came his clenched fist full on the bridge
of the German's nose, dropping him back again. He had slid the French
officer's empty revolver into its case, and as the man blinked at him
with the water in his eyes from the force of the blow, Dennis drew it
and clapped the cold muzzle to his ear.
"Now will you surrender?" he said, and he saw a wave of terror pass over
the German's face.
"Yes, yes--don't shoot. I will surrender!" he cried, but as he spoke the
beam of daylight was eclipsed, and Dennis looked up.
It was an artfully contrived place, for the tunnel ended against a
little scarp of chalk, through which a crescent-shaped hole had been
cut, commanding a wide view of the English trench and looking from the
outside like an innocent, natural crevice. Immediately behind it was a
steel grating, firmly embedded in the sides of the tunnel, and on one of
the bars the muzzle of the sniper's rifle was laid, its stock resting on
an ingenious wooden fork, which could be raised or lowered by a rack and
pinion.
Through the crescent-shaped opening a human face looked in, and a voice,
which Dennis instantly recognised, gave warning of more trouble.
"What-oh, Fritz!" said Harry Hawke. "You shouldn't speak so loud. As you
can't come art and I can't come in, 'ere's a little present for yer."
And he stepped back with a loud chuckle.
"Hold on, Hawke, you ass!" shouted Dennis at the top of his voice, but
he was too late. Harry Hawke had already drawn the pin and lobbed a hand
grenade neatly through the crevice.
Dennis knew that there were less than five seconds between him and
eternity, but bracing his foot against the side of the tunnel, he
suddenly wrenched the German sniper on top of him and lay there.
"Ach, I have you now!" laughed the man triumphantly, but his words were
drowned by the explosion, and as the end of the passage was blown into
the open air, the steel grating with it, Dennis felt the man he clutched
grow strangely limp in his hands, and his own face bathed as with a hot
rain.
"That's the way to do 'em in, Tiddler. What-oh, it's put the tin hat on
one of 'em, and not 'arf, it 'asn't!"
"Yes, you confounded jackass; and it's nearly put the tin hat on me!"
exclaimed Dennis, rolling the thing which had once been a man to one
side with a shudder.
Harry Hawke's face was a picture. Consternation at what might have
happened, and a huge joy that it had not happened, struggled for
mastery, and between the two the game little Cockney broke down and
sobbed like a child.
"Why didn't yer sing out, sir?" he wailed.
"I did sing out, my boy, but you sang in! However, never mind. How is it
going?" said Dennis, squeezing the disconsolate one's shoulder.
"We've got the trench, sir," said Tiddler, whose face was as white as
Hawke's under the dirt that grimed it. "Our chaps are consolidating the
position now."
"Then one of you go and bring my brother here," said Dennis. "You go,
Tiddler; and Hawke, come with me."
A great rent had been torn in the mouth of the sniper's gallery, and the
sniper himself was not good to look upon, every rag of clothing having
been stripped from his back and lower limbs by the bomb, while a couple
of yards farther on lay the man whom Dennis had shot.
Picking his way past them, Dennis flashed his torch on again, and,
followed by Hawke, made his way back into that underground storehouse,
which had so nearly been his grave.
As he entered it he gave a prodigious yawn, and felt an indescribable
lassitude creep over him.
"I'm frightfully tired, Hawke. I've been through a lot since we crawled
over to their wire last night, and I'm hanged if I can keep up much
longer. You see those steps? A spy fellow pitched me down them neck and
crop. I fell just here, with a bomb in my hand too!"
"Lumme!" ejaculated his listener, as Dennis sat down heavily on the pile
of blankets, just as the shell-proof door above them was opened from the
other side.
Lights flashed into the lower vaults, and several officers chorused
their surprise, among them Captain Bob. Tiddler had not yet reached him,
and Bob was searching anxiously for some trace of his brother.
"My hat!" he cried. "We've touched lucky to-day, but Dennis can't
possibly be down there. I'll go back and question No. 2 Platoon; he may
have gone to the right."
"Arf a mo', sir!" sang out Harry Hawke. "'E is 'ere right enough, and
bust me if he ain't snorin' already!"
Hawke, looking up the steps, saw the group part and General Dashwood
himself come quickly down the ladder, and the store of shot and shell
and the piles of rifles were as nothing to the brigadier as he saw the
boy he thought he had lost for ever lying on the blanket pile, sleeping
the sleep of physical exhaustion.
"That blood's nothing, sir," explained the delighted private, coming to
attention. "It ain't 'is own. I can show you the man wot that come art
of. 'E was that sniper we never could spot, and I reckon it was 'arf me
and 'arf Mr. Dashwood wot killed him." And he gave his listeners a brief
outline of what had happened, as Dennis had told him on their way there
from the tunnel.
"And I sent him out of harm's way, as I thought!" was the brigadier's
inaudible whisper under his moustache, and then aloud he said: "Get
four men and carry him back to his own dug-out. It will do him good to
sleep the clock round, and he will do it better there."
So, oblivious of the jolting, Dennis Dashwood was borne across what had
lately been No Man's Land, and was now ours, and tucked up tenderly in
his bunk, where, if he did not exactly sleep the clock round, he
certainly did not open an eyelid until sunrise next morning.
CHAPTER X
In which Dennis Meets Claude Laval, Pilote Aviateur
When Dennis awoke he saw Captain Bob looking at him, and he became
conscious of a very pleasant odour of coffee permeating the dug-out.
"Oh, I say, why didn't you turn me out before, old chap?" Dennis cried.
"I shall be late for the blooming inspection."
"Never mind about that," laughed his brother. "And it's no use looking
about for your duds; we've moved into new quarters over yonder, and all
our clobber's gone across, but I've had some breakfast brought in here
for you, so peg in, and tell me the whole story. There are some funny
yarns knocking about, and I left the governor doing a sort of war dance.
He only left out the whoop from deference to the B.M.'s feelings. But
all joking apart, old chap, the pater's in the very seventh heaven of
delight, for a letter has come from some wounded French officer who has
recommended you for the Military Medal."
Dennis sprang out of his bunk, fresh as paint, and flung himself on the
coffee and bacon ravenously, and while he ate he talked in his simple
boyish way, making light of his own share in the story, and Captain Bob,
filling in the gaps for himself, beamed like the rising sun which flung
a rosy glow into that dismal mud-hole.
"By Jove! old chap, I congratulate you heartily," he said, grasping his
brother by both shoulders. "If you go on like this you'll either go far,
or you'll be very suddenly nipped in the bud. You mustn't take too many
chances, Dennis, for the sake of the little mater at home. But this is
good news!"
"Some have greatness thrust upon them, and I've had the luck to be one
of those," said Dennis, looking rather ashamed of himself. "I did
nothing at all, old man, that you wouldn't have done, or any of our
crush. It just happened to come my way, and it just happened to come out
all right, but I don't know which was the worst--that ride with poor old
Thompson and that shell that blew us to smithereens, or Hawke's bomb.
They were tight places, both of them! And, I say, Bob, I'll swear on
oath it was Van Drissel or Von Dussel, or whatever he calls himself, who
pitched me down that ladder. I recognised his voice distinctly."
"I should like to recognise his ugly mug," said the captain. "But he
must have gone under, for he certainly wasn't among the prisoners. I saw
them all."
"Well, Bob, I'd rather have a wash now than the Victoria Cross itself,
and I must get into another tunic. Where's our new Little Grey Home on
the western front?"
"Come on," said his brother. "I'll show you."
The Germans had sunk a well deep down through the chalk, and there was a
stand-pipe close to the Dashwoods' new quarters.
Dennis stripped himself to the buff, and sallying out to the pipe,
enjoyed the unexpected luxury of a glorious shower-bath, which he
wanted badly. Then he dressed himself, appropriating the belts and
equipment of a poor youngster named Binks, who had been killed during
the raid, and, emerging from the door, almost ran into the arms of his
father and the Divisional General.
"You are the very man I have been looking for," said the general. "Let
me give you my heartiest congratulations, Mr. Dashwood. I have been in
communication this morning with the G.O.C., and I think there's another
slice of good luck coming your way. I wish I'd paid as much attention to
languages when I was your age."
For a moment Dennis failed to grasp the drift of his words, but the
Divisional Commander soon made himself quite clear.
"I had no sooner telegraphed a report of your doings from the commandant
of the 400th Regiment of the Line than a wire came back from Sir Douglas
Haig, who wants an intelligent officer with a fluent knowledge of
French, and he asked me if I thought you would fill the bill. I at once
answered in the affirmative, and you will go back with me in my car on
your way to Sir Douglas, and it may be a very good thing for you."
Dennis glanced at his father, and saw approval in his face, and after a
brief consultation between the generals about the consolidation of the
ground we had gained, Dennis found himself whirling along the familiar
road that he had traversed on the motorcycle two evenings before.
"I hope I shall be back in time for the big push, sir," he said, as the
car pulled up in front of D.H.Q., and the general smiled.
"You must leave that to circumstances," he replied. "I'm afraid the 'big
push,' as you call it, is becoming too much public property." And he
turned to an officer who was just mounting a motorcycle.
"One moment, Spencer," he called. "You going to Sir Douglas? Ah, yes, I
remember. Will you give Mr. Dashwood a lift and take him with you?"
There was a blanket strapped on the carrier, and away they whizzed, the
continued thunder of the guns making conversation difficult, and the
Allied aircraft circling high above their heads.
League after league they passed through a vast camp of armed men; brown
battalions marching up to the front singing as they marched, brigades
under canvas to right and left of them, miles of supply columns, some
cavalry eating their hearts out, kite balloon sections 'phoning results
to hidden batteries, all the seething mass of military activities to be
found behind the firing line.
And then his companion slowed down as they approached the quiet chateau,
where worked the keen, well-balanced brain that guided and controlled
all those activities, and Dennis found himself in the presence of Sir
Douglas Haig, who, after an interview of half an hour's duration, summed
up the result of it in a few brief soldierly words.
"You are the very man I was wanting, Mr. Dashwood," he said pleasantly.
"Your one object in life now is to find General Joffre, lay these
papers before him, and explain any point upon which the French
Generalissimo may be doubtful. Exactly where he is you will have to
discover, but if you are fortunate you should be back here again before
the end of the week."
"I hope to return well before that, sir!" said Dennis, and Sir Douglas
smiled.
"I know what is in your mind, Mr. Dashwood, but that will rest entirely
with yourself," said the Commander-in-Chief. "So far, from what I am
told, you seem to have surprisingly good luck. Good-bye, the car is
ready for you now."
The frank, handsome face of the distinguished cavalry soldier was still
before Dennis's eyes as the little six-cylinder motor, with the small
Union Jack fluttering from one of the lamp brackets, whirled him away on
a long journey and an important errand.
His driver was a young Frenchman, who enjoyed that mad dash every whit
as much as the English lad.
At Soissons they were told that the Generalissimo had left for Chalons
that morning, and at Chalons opinions were divided as to whether he
would be found at Reims, or Bar-le-Duc, which were in opposite
directions.
"Which shall we try?" said the driver. "Reims means going back."
"Then get ahead," decided Dennis. "We can always return." And opening
out the magnificent little car, they tore along the white ribbon of
road at terrific speed.
"Peste!" cried an officer to whom they made known the object of their
search when they reached Bar. "Only one hour ago Father Joffre passed
through here. How unfortunate! But I can tell you where you will find
him. He has gone to Saint Die to present medals to a battalion of the
'Little Blue Devils' at that place. Lose no time, and you may assist at
the very interesting ceremony."
"Allons!" said the chauffeur, using the stump of his nineteenth
cigarette to light the twentieth. "If we finish up on two wheels we will
reach him." And reach him they did in a small village half a dozen
leagues farther on, where they pulled up, white with dust from head to
foot, after a fine run.
The well-known figure of the famous general paced backwards and forwards
under the shade of a row of lime trees, in earnest conversation with
another officer with three silver stars on his cuffs, and Dennis paused
a moment as he got out of the car.
"I am going to put on two fresh front tyres," said his driver. "But I
shall be ready in half an hour, and if you are going back we have still
two hours of daylight left."
Dennis nodded, and stepped forward, saluting as the two generals turned
towards him, and a genial smile widened Father Joffre's good-humoured
visage.
"At your service, monsieur," he said, unable to distinguish the
officer's rank for the white chalk dust that hid his solitary star.
"I have come straight from Sir Douglas Haig, mon General," said Dennis,
presenting his dispatches, which General Joffre instantly opened and
perused intently.
"There are matters here," he said to his companion, "which will require
some consideration. You are the Lieutenant Dashwood whom Sir Douglas
mentions?" And he turned to Dennis: "I am going forward now, but I shall
be back in this place at eight o'clock to-morrow morning. Our officers
here will amuse you, mon lieutenant, in the meantime, and find you a
bed. I am greatly indebted to you for the rapidity with which you have
carried this most important document." And he walked quickly to the
powerful car which was waiting by the side of the road. He was gone in a
moment in a whirl of dust, the dispatch still in his hand, and the young
Frenchman followed the general's automobile with an envious look in his
eyes.
"That is a beauty," he said. "One could get seventy or eighty miles an
hour out of her. But here comes an interesting personality, monsieur.
This man who is approaching is Claude Laval, one of our most famous
aviators, who has brought down sixteen German machines already, and
killed fifteen enemy pilots. Something has vexed him too. He looks like
a bear with a sore ear."
A tall man approached, clad in leather flying costume, with a
close-fitting helmet on his head, and his thin, good-looking face bore
an expression of extreme annoyance.
"Ah, Martique, my friend, is that you?" he said, nodding curtly to the
chauffeur. "It is easy to see you have come from the other end of
everywhere. I suppose it is not possible that you have any news of my
brother?"
"If monsieur's brother is the Capitaine Felix Laval, _officier de
liaison_, with the --th Division, I can give you some news of him," said
Dennis, who had been struck by the strong resemblance between the
aviator and the man who had saved his own life.
"It is the same," said the aviator, all trace of ill-humour vanishing as
they shook hands. "Well, well," he continued after Dennis had told him
of his adventure and how he came to be acquainted with his brother. "Yon
will dine with me, and, _ma foi_, I want a good comrade to put me in a
better temper."
"Might I inquire what it is that troubles you?" said Dennis, as they
walked towards the door of a little restaurant with green-painted chairs
and tables outside it.
"Oh, it is too bad!" exclaimed his new acquaintance with a despairing
shrug of his shoulders. "I brought down a German Aviatik this afternoon,
and by the greatest good luck in the world it is absolutely unhurt.
To-night I had planned a little expedition across into the enemy's
country, a friendly visit to a Zeppelin shed, whose existence none of
our fellows are aware of. I have overhauled the engines myself; I have
got ten beautiful bombs all ready, and now my observer has broken his
arm, and I cannot find anyone to assist me."
Dennis looked at him with a pair of twinkling eyes.
"Could you be certain of returning to this village by eight o'clock in
the morning?" he said eagerly, "for I am to meet General Joffre here at
that hour. I hold an English pilot's certificate from the Hendon
school."
"_Embrassons nous!_ (let us embrace), my dear friend!" exclaimed Claude
Laval. "I am now the happiest man in all France. Listen! The machine is
at the edge of the wood not a kilometre from this spot, and the Zeppelin
hangar is in the centre of the Black Forest. Come, let us eat something
and drink a bottle of the good red wine. We will give the Boche a fine
surprise, and I swear to bring you back in plenty of time for Father
Joffre in the morning. Martique, remember, not a word to a living soul,
and come you to the cafe with us; you can attend to that sewing-machine
of yours after monsieur and I have gone on our little trip."
They dined in the open air, and the meal was a joyous one, Lieutenant
Claude Laval keeping a keen eye on the sinking sun at the same time.
* * * * *
As the red rim dipped into the jagged line of dark poplars on a low
ridge to westward Laval called for the bill, lit his pipe, and rose with
an air of supreme indifference for the benefit of the groups of other
officers at the adjoining tables, but his eyes spoke to Dennis as they
walked away into the shadow of the trees.
"Now, lieutenant," he said, with a fierce thrill of exultation in his
voice, "you know, of course, that old scoundrel, Count Zeppelin, stole
the idea of his invention during the war of '70. We will see if we can't
get a little of our own back to-night!"
[Illustration: "Dennis flung his bombs into the space, and tremendous
explosions ensued"]
CHAPTER XI
A Daring Dash
As they left the village the two companions, who seemed quite old
friends already, quickened their pace to a run.
"My observer is in there," said the French _pilote aviateur_, pointing
to an isolated cottage as they passed it. "It would be cruel to tell him
that I have already found a fresh comrade. The good news shall keep
until we return. And now, _cher ami_, we have no time to lose, as we
have only something like four hours of darkness before us, and we must
be well on the way back when daylight breaks."
"How far is it to the Zeppelin den?" inquired Dennis, as they turned
aside through a cornfield.
"About two hundred kilometres," replied the pilot. "A trifle more than a
hundred of your English miles. _Voila_, there she lies--a brand-new
Aviatik, and that is my machine over there."
"How did you succeed in bringing the German down without injury?" asked
Dennis, as they reached the biplane, which loomed large and weird in the
twilight.
"More by good fortune than anything else," said Lieutenant Laval
modestly. "You see, first of all I killed his observer with a lucky
shot from my mitrailleuse and wounded the pilot himself. It was death or
capture for him--it proved to be both. My machine--a Voisin--was one of
the best, and, finding it impossible to escape, the Hun certainly made a
very fine descent. He must have died at the moment the 'plane came to
ground. And that reminds me--our success will depend on our masquerading
as Germans, and we must use their clothing; they are both here."
There was a tinge of gravity in his voice as he led the way to some
bushes a few yards off, where, stretched out side by side, lay two dead
men with a mackintosh spread over them.
"They were brave, although they were Boches," said Laval. "And you will
see that one of them is wearing an Iron Cross; I have not disturbed it."
In a few minutes they had removed the leather jackets lined with
sheepskin from the two aviators.
"Henceforward we had better speak entirely in German, you and I; it will
be good practice in case we require to use it," said Laval. And when
they had equipped themselves they climbed up, and the Frenchman
explained the compressed-air starting-gear and the various methods of
control to Dennis.
"You must know these things," he said, with a smile, "so that you can
take charge if anything happens to me; but these are first-rate
machines, and with their dual ignition and the two separate carburettors
they tell me there is very little engine trouble with them. However, my
friend, we are about to see what we are about to see."
He glanced at his watch in the rapidly fading light.
"For some reason observer and pilot sit back to back," said Laval. "But
you can slue your seat round and work your gun from the right if you
like. You will find everything ready for use, signalling lamp and a fine
map." And with a blue pencil he marked off the course they were about to
take and the various landmarks, for which a sharp look out must be kept.
Then the whir of machinery cut off all possibility of further
conversation; Dennis gazed round at the darkening landscape as Laval
released her, and after a short run forward over the grassland the
Aviatik began to rise.
So far, Dennis had not counted the cost of his adventurous expedition,
or the by no means remote possibilities of his being captured and sent
to terrible Ruhleben. He had only seen the dash and daring of it all,
and now he could only see the velvety blackness that lay thousands of
feet beneath, where the earth was.
Once from very far below them the boom of guns made itself heard, even
above the flogging of the engines and the whir of the tractor in front
of him, and his pilot handed back a scrap of paper on which he had
scrawled some words.
Switching on his torch Dennis read: "We are crossing our own lines now.
That light away to my left is Metz. We are over Lorraine, and I am going
to turn south-east."
Through his glasses Dennis could see a dull glow in the distance, which
was soon left behind as Laval altered the course, and for some time
their flight was through cloud-banks which hid everything.
After a while the pilot passed him another message. "Look down; we
cannot be far from the Rhine now, and it is important to know when we
cross it. Keep a sharp look out."
The depression of the point of the _nacelle_ told Dennis that the
Aviatik was planing down to a lower altitude, and when, some distance
ahead, he saw the milky gleam of a river winding away to right and left,
he hung over the side with the powerful German glasses glued to his
eyes.
The moment it passed beneath them he touched Laval on the shoulder, and,
swinging round again to the right, they flew almost due south, still
coming down lower and lower.
It was a clear night, and the visible difference in the blackness of the
ground here and there told Dennis that they were traversing above
mountainous country, while the little bright specks shining like
glow-worms marked the existence of enemy towns and villages, whose
inhabitants fancied themselves secure from the daring French airmen.
With the exception of the historic raid upon Karlsruhe they had seldom
journeyed so far afield.
For a moment the engines ceased working, and Laval shouted to his
companion: "We must be close to the place now. There should be a hill
covered with pine trees in front of us, and the hangar lies within a
league beyond it on a flat plain."
"Then yonder it is!" cried Dennis. "There is no end of a strong light
showing ahead. That ragged edge that looms against it must be your tree
tops."
"Good!" replied the pilot. "Get your bombs ready. When I shut off again
we shall he as nearly above the spot as one can judge."
He restarted the engines. In the distance a curious yellow glow outlined
the hill, and as they sailed clear of the pines the glow resolved itself
into a considerable illumination, for which the pilot steered.
Rows of electric lamps formed a huge parallelogram, in the centre of
which was a long black object, undoubtedly the airship hangar.
"By Jupiter!" yelled Dennis; "we're in luck to-night! The Zeppelin's
coming out!"
He forgot that his words were completely drowned, and he received a
sudden shock when the brilliant beam of a searchlight flashed up from
the ground, and, after a circling swoop, found them and held them in its
fierce eye. Every stay and rivet was as clearly visible to him as though
it had been noonday, and it was a trying moment.
As another light challenged them, and asked "Who are you?" he remembered
Laval's previous instructions, and showing his signal lamp, replied in
the Morse code, "Blumberger, returning from reconnaissance beyond
Muelhausen."
Blumberger was lying dead under the mackintosh in the cornfield near
Bar-le-Duc, and Dennis was wearing his outer garments; but the message
had been understood, and was followed by the command: "L30 coming out
now. Be careful until all is clear; then report, Blumberger!"
"Yes, we will be very careful!" muttered Claude Laval, who had read off
the message at the same time; and flying slowly at scarcely more than
five hundred feet above the ground he steered towards the hangar.
Out of the giant shed the great grey nose of the Zeppelin came gliding
into view, shining like some silver thing in the light of the electric
lamps, the army of men who guided its movements looking like so many
busy ants as the searchlights switched off the Aviatik and focused on
the airship, evidently for their own guidance.
Suddenly the Aviatik dipped, and Laval made a gesture with his helmeted
head. There was no Rolland releasing apparatus fitted to the machine,
and the Frenchman's ten bombs were ranged on either side of the
observer.
He knew the moment had come, and with a rapid movement Dennis flung them
over into space! As the sixth left his hand he felt the machine begin to
mount steeply as Laval opened the throttle and put the engines to their
fullest power, and the remaining four death-dealing missiles were
dropped out at random.
Peering down over the edge, three tremendous explosions reached their
ears, followed by another and another; and then everything was drowned
in the mightiest explosion of them all, as Zeppelin and hangar burst
into a sheet of flame.
Wider and wider it spread, and higher it rose, a great red and yellow
roar of lapping tongues, sometimes hidden by dense black smoke, only to
flare out brighter than before.
And still the raider climbed at a perilous angle, and at such a speed
that Dennis gave up all attempts to use his glasses.
As he clung with one hand to a gun bracket, looking giddily down,
something screamed past the aeroplane, missing the wings by only a few
feet, and a shrapnel shell burst overhead.
"I thought 'Archibald' would have something to say to us," muttered
Dennis, as Laval banked away to the right, still rising. "Hallo! Now
they've got us!" And three brilliant beams shot into the night sky, one
of them focusing the Aviatik and the two others instantly joining it, to
show the anti-aircraft gunners their target.
Laval dived--a breathless, daring swoop down--as two shells burst above
their heads; but, quick as he was, a shower of bullets rained through
one of the wings. Dennis could see the holes when the searchlights got
them again, and the side of the fuselage was pitted with dents.
Right and left, above and below, in front and behind them, the whole sky
was suddenly alive with shell bursts; and into the observer's brain came
the recollection that he had an interview with General Joffre at eight
o'clock that morning! He found himself actually smiling at the thought,
and wishing that he could speak to the man in front of him--the helmeted
man with rounded shoulders bent over his wheel, who pressed levers and
bent the control pillar this way and that, as he sent the biplane
zigzagging through the heavens with a suddenness that bumped Dennis
about, and threatened more than once to fling him out into eternity.
He did not feel the cold, although it was intense; and he had the
presence of mind to pass a strap round his waist and fasten himself in.
And then he crouched there, marvelling at their luck and the iron nerve
of his companion, who, so far, was responsible for their escape.
He knew that they were already a long way from the blazing airship which
they had destroyed, and a feeling of exultation took possession of the
lad. They were going to win through--they would do it yet; it was
written that they were to get free, and he closed his eyes, giddy with
the whirl of mingled emotions that filled him.
They had eluded the searchlights for a moment, but another screaming
shell overtook them, and as it burst he opened his eyes, and saw Claude
Laval sink forward and huddle up on top of his wheel.
"By Jingo, they've got him!" gasped Dennis, sickening with fear for the
first time; but recovering himself on the instant, he flung off the
strap and reached forward in an attempt to get to the wounded Frenchman
without any very distinct idea of what he could do if he succeeded.
But Laval, as though he had read his thoughts, straightened himself and
gave a jerk with his head, at the same time sending the machine
earthward in a nose dive at an appalling angle.
Dennis clung to the front of the circular cockpit which was the
observer's post, and again his eyes closed as the downward rush took his
breath away.
"Poor little mater!" And there was a world of agony in the boy's
thought, interrupted by finding himself precipitated backwards in a
heap, as the _nacelle_ lifted and the dive was checked.
Only for a moment, however, for down they shot again, the downward
course being a harrowing succession of switchback curves, which ended in
a curious silent glide on even keel, a terrific jolting and a dead stop.
"Are you there?" said an odd, far-away voice, as Dennis slowly gathered
himself up with a sigh of heartfelt relief.
"Yes, I'm here. You don't mean to say we're actually on the ground and
safe!" he cried hoarsely.
"Hush! Do not speak too loud!" groaned Laval. "We are as safe as we can
be on German soil, but I am afraid my right shoulder is broken; and
worse still, the engines stopped of their own accord before we made that
last dive."
Dennis, as soon as he had recovered from the species of partial
paralysis which had taken possession of his limbs, climbed forward to
his companion, who rested his head against his shoulder for a moment,
and groaned faintly through his clenched teeth.
"That was magnificent, Laval!" whispered Dennis. "Where is the flask of
cognac? Here, drink this!"
"Thanks, my dear friend," murmured the wounded Frenchman. "Do not worry
about me. It is a question of what is wrong with the Aviatik. There is
just one hope for us. Look at the petrol tank. Oh, you can use a light,
for, remember we are Germans now if anyone comes along."
Torch in hand, Dennis examined the petrol tank carefully, and his voice
shook with renewed hope.
"The tank is untouched," he reported. "But there is only an inch of
spirit left at the bottom of it. That's the trouble. There is something
like a house yonder among the trees. What do you say?"
"There is only one thing to be said, my dear Blumberger," replied Laval,
with a faint smile. "We must commandeer petrol without delay. I find my
arm is not broken after all, but I am bleeding like a pig. It is running
into my boot. Help me out, and we will see what the good people over
there can do for us."
"Have you any idea where we are?" queried Dennis, as he assisted his
wounded companion to the ground with some difficulty.
"Somewhere in the Black Forest," replied Laval. "And unfortunately not
much more than ten miles, scarcely that, from the Zeppelin shed. They
will search for us, never fear; they are searching now! Moreover, it
will be daylight directly, and it is necessary that we hurry ourselves
if you want to keep your appointment."
CHAPTER XII
In the Hands of the Enemy
Some distance away, and seemingly on slightly higher ground, a light was
shining, and a second light moved with a curious jerky motion and then
disappeared.
The raiders knew that their safety depended on playing a tremendous game
of bluff, and that before the news of their adventure spread.
Already a faint grey veil was creeping over the darkness, and at the end
of several minutes they found themselves approaching a beech wood which
clothed the base of a high hill, and saw that the stationary light came
from a curious castellated building at the edge of the wood, where a
rustic bridge spanned a swift stream. There was no one about, and the
iron-bound door was open.
"Somebody's hunting-lodge," muttered Laval. "They have gone up the hill
to see what the explosion meant. That was a lantern we saw moving among
the trees."
"Well, it's nothing venture nothing have," said Dennis; and they went in
noisily.
The walls of the hall were covered with boar spears and trophies of the
chase, but they had scarcely time to glance round them when an old woman
came forward out of the darkness with her hands raised.
"Gentlemen!" she cried; "can you tell us the cause of that terrible
noise that shook the castle a little while ago?"
"Yes, good wife; it was an awful explosion at the Zeppelin shed over
yonder," replied Dennis. "We had the misfortune to be flying over the
spot when it happened, and my observer was struck. I am the Lieutenant
Blumberger of whom you may have heard." And he imitated the overbearing
manner of a Prussian officer.
He had condescended to satisfy the woman's curiosity, but now he must be
obeyed.
"To whom does this house belong?"
"It is the hunting-schloss of Count Rudolf von Rudolfstein," said the
old woman. "But my master is away serving with the army, and there are
only my husband and myself here. Karl has gone up the hill. He said it
was an accident, and one can see the ground from there."
"I know the Count very well," said Dennis, looking round the
entrance-hall as though the place were his own. "Get me a basin of hot
water and some towels. And is it possible that you have any petrol
here?"
"There is plenty in the garage," said the old woman, "but I cannot get
it until Karl returns. But, _Himmel_, the gentleman will bleed to
death!" And she pointed to a great red pool gathering on the stone floor
as Laval leaned heavily against a table. "Come in here!" And, carrying a
lamp with her, she unlocked another door, and led the way into a
handsome room, lined with polished pine, with a huge stove at one end.
Laval, who was suffering agonies, sank with a groan into the first
chair, and with an exclamation of commiseration the caretaker's wife
hurried away in search of bandages.
"It is good so far," whispered Laval through his clenched teeth. "Leave
me to the mercies of this ancient dame; she will stop the bleeding if
she can do nothing else. But, for Heaven's sake, find that petrol!"
"That's all very well," said Dennis desperately, when a cough made him
turn, and he swung round to see a bent old man, with a long white
moustache and a lantern in his hand, standing in the doorway.
"Good! You are Karl," he said at once, repeating his explanation of
their presence. "Count von Rudolfstein is my friend, and if he were here
his house would be at our disposal. I must fill my tank without delay
and return yonder."
"It is terrible, Herr Officer. The whole ground seems to be burning!"
said the old man, completely disarmed by the cleverness of the lad's
impersonation. "How much petrol do you require?"
"Twenty gallons, if you have it. Let us lose no time. Here is your good
frau who will look after my observer."
"And to think, Herr Officer," said the old man. "One of the new
super-Zeppelins that was going to punish England for her treachery! Oh
that I was a young man again, and I had an Englishman within reach of
these arms! They are still strong enough to strangle him!"
Dennis let him ramble on, and followed him as he strode out of the hall
to a coach-house that had been converted into a garage.
A very handsome car stood over the inspection pit, and at one end of the
building was a great stack of petrol tins. Evidently the Count was a
wealthy man, and evidently too there was not that shortage of petrol in
Germany that some of the English papers had been exulting over of late.
"Wait a moment," said the old forester, as Dennis seized a couple of
tins in each hand. "We can sling more of them than that on this pole,
and carry it between us."
Dennis inwardly congratulated himself that the old forester had not only
no suspicions, but was also a man of resource; and the pair were soon
crossing the bridge on their way to the aeroplane, which was now
distinctly visible in the growing light.
"Ah!" chuckled the old man, pointing to the distinguished mark painted
in black on the Aviatik's side, "they gave my son the Iron Cross for
bravery at a place they call Verdun, but I am sorry he did not win it
for killing Englishmen."
"Well, you can tell me what he did do while you hand me the tins," said
Dennis, climbing up and unscrewing the cap of the tank, and the gurgle
of the liquid into the big receptacle was like music to his ears.
"I tell you what it is, my friend," he said, when he had emptied the
last tin; "we could do with a few more, and I also see there is
something here that requires my attention."
His quick eye had noticed that one of the stays which supported the
upper plane wanted tightening, and he opened a tool bag.
"I will bring them; I will not be long," said the old man, who was
delighted to have had a listener to the story of his son's exploits,
never thinking how little of it the herr lieutenant had really heard.
"There, that's secure," said Dennis to himself. "I wonder why that old
dodderer is so long? I must get back and see how poor Laval is getting
on, and then, heigh-ho for La Belle France!"
As he straightened his back the dull thud of galloping hoofs made him
turn round, and to his dismay he saw a couple of German officers
approaching across the sandy plain.
"By Jupiter! Talk about bluff now!" he thought. "Thank goodness they're
coming from the right direction!" And drawing himself stiffly up, he
saluted as they reined in below him.
They were both of high rank--one of them a colonel; and it was the
colonel who spoke first as he and his companion flung themselves from
their horses.
"You heard it?" he cried in a voice that thrilled with excitement.
"Everyone within twenty miles must have heard it, Herr Colonel," said
Dennis solemnly.
"Do you know the extent of the damage?" was the next question.
"I do not. I had a little trouble with my engines, and was just on the
point of going there to see what had happened."
It was perhaps the worst thing he could have said, for the two officers
immediately climbed up and squeezed themselves into the observer's
cockpit.
"Quick! You will carry us there. It is a command!" said the colonel. And
Dennis's eyes roved in vain round the pilot's seat for any sign of a
weapon.
He bent down under pretence of examining the shaft of the steering-wheel
to collect his thoughts and compose his features, and then a thought
came to him.
Had they been on the ground he would have pleaded that his engines were
still wrong, but it was too late now.
"I will take you willingly, Herr Colonel," he said. And, sitting down,
he passed the two ends of the securing strap round his waist, and drew
the buckle tight.
"You are a long time, young man," said the colonel's companion.
"We are off now," replied Dennis, starting the engines to avoid any
awkward questioning, and breathing a silent prayer that they were all
right.
He thought of Laval, too, and wondered what he would think when he heard
the whir; and it was as well that he did not know what was happening to
his French friend, or possibly he would have failed to keep his nerve
for the task he had set himself!
The horses shied, and bolted across the plain, but no one thought of
them as the Aviatik ran uneasily forward over the soft ground and rose
like a bird.
For a few minutes they mounted skyward, climbing slowly, and the stout
General tried to make his companion understand by much gesticulation
that the blockhead was taking the wrong direction.
But the "blockhead" knew what he was about, and after a half circle to
test the working of the engines, he opened the throttle and shot her
upwards at a terrific speed.
Well might his two passengers cling desperately to the gun brackets and
to each other, but their shriek of terror was drowned as the machine
gained an altitude of fifteen hundred feet and deliberately _looped the
loop_!
For a moment Dennis braced himself and clutched the wheel like a vice,
but the strap held, the circle was completed, and the Aviatik, righting
herself, skimmed over the pine-topped hill behind the hunting lodge, and
planed majestically down towards the starting-point.
Dennis's face was as white as a sheet of paper as he turned and glanced
back over his shoulder. He was alone!
"I hope it was playing the game," he muttered, as he brought the machine
to a stand. "At any rate, it was the only game I could play under the
circumstances."
He jumped down and ran towards the lodge, feeling shaken and trembly,
wondering what he would find. It struck him as odd that the garrulous
old forester had not returned. Was Laval dead or dying?
As he crossed the stream and mounted the slope he stopped, for the old
man's voice was bellowing furiously, and the old woman screamed in
concert.
"What on earth is going on?" thought the lad, and seeing that the
shutters of the ground-floor room in which he had left his friend had
been opened, and it being very nearly broad daylight, instead of
entering the hall he sprang to the window and looked in.
Claude Laval, terribly weak from loss of blood, but with an odd, defiant
smile on his face, was sitting upright in the carved chair, the sleeve
of his wounded arm slit from shoulder to wrist, revealing the drenched
blue-grey of his own French uniform beneath it. In front of him, his
white moustache bristling with fury, and murder in every line of his
wolf-like face, the old forester lifted a hatchet in both hands, while
his wife, no longer the trembling servile old peasant of half an hour
before, was tightening the knots of the rope she had thrown round
Laval's body, binding him tightly to the chair!
* * * * *
In the little village three leagues from Bar-le-Duc a powerful car drew
up in a cloud of dust in front of the restaurant where our friends had
dined the night before, and General Joffre stepped from it on to the
pavement.
"Ah, what? You do not know where he is? No one has seen him--the young
English lieutenant who was to meet me here?" said the General, knitting
his white eyebrows. "That is strange; but never mind"--and he drew out
his watch--"it still wants four minutes to eight."
Leaning his elbow on the side of the automobile with one foot planted
on the step, the great Frenchman waited, talking meanwhile with a
Divisional General who had something to report.
"Yes, yes," said the Generalissimo, and then he looked at his watch
again. The minute hand pointed to the hour, but Sir Douglas Haig's
messenger had not come!
CHAPTER XIII
A Mad Gamble for Liberty
When Dennis Dashwood saw that terrible tableau through the window of Von
Rudolfstein's hunting-lodge, his first thought was that he had arrived
too late to save his friend; and, drawing his revolver from beneath
Blumberger's flying coat, he raced for the front entrance.
"Scoundrel and pig! I will split your skull even as I ground that cross
of yours beneath my heel!" Dennis heard the old man bellow. "I will be
bound you know more about the destruction of that fine Zeppelin than you
will admit. Come, have you not finished yet, thou clumsy old fool?"
"Clumsy old fool, indeed!" screamed the woman. "Who was it discovered
that he was a Frenchman, I'd like to know? You will be taking the whole
credit to yourself, worthless one!"
"No, I want some of the credit myself," said a stern young voice from
the doorway. "Shame on you both to treat a wounded man thus!" And he
fired at one of the huge hands that held the woodcutter's axe.
The formidable weapon fell with a clang on to the floor, and the
forester gave a howl like a wounded beast.
"Quick, Gretchen, ring the alarm bell! They will hear it at the
village!"
The old woman, who had sent up a piercing shriek, ran towards another
door; but Dennis was too quick for her, and, putting out his foot, she
pitched headlong on to the stone floor and lay quite still.
"Move your own length," he cried to the husband, laying his revolver by
the side of the basin of hot water, "and I will shoot you like a dog!
Courage, Laval! All is ready, and I'll have you out of this in a brace
of shakes."
"_Ma foi!_ you must forgive me, my dear friend," said the wounded
officer. "When I heard the machine rise, I thought for a moment that you
had deemed it wiser to save yourself."
"I'll tell you all about that afterwards," said Dennis grimly. "I'm
going to save you now." And, cutting the cord, he threw the knife into
the basin and proceeded to make a slip-knot. "We must make this old
ruffian secure first."
"Look out!" exclaimed Laval. And Dennis raised his eyes just in time,
for the cunning German had made a spring for the table, and already his
unwounded hand had clutched the knife-handle. It was a huge thing, such
as a butcher might use, and sharp as a razor.
"You _will_ have it, will you?" said Dennis grimly, and he shot the man
through the heart. "It has saved me the trouble of binding him, and that
makes the third Boche I have accounted for this morning. By Jove, old
chap! you've got it pretty badly. Whatever happens, I must stop that
bleeding."
The knife with which the woman had cut the sleeve of the leather jacket
had revealed a terrible jagged wound in the Frenchman's shoulder, from
which the blood welled through his fingers as he grasped it; but Dennis,
tearing some linen that the woman had brought into strips, improvised a
couple of tourniquets, utilising the spindles of a chair which he
smashed to pieces for the purpose, and to his intense satisfaction he
found the haemorrhage considerably reduced.
"Now, do you think you can walk?" he said anxiously. And Laval got up,
reeling from the enormous quantity of blood he had lost.
"Half a mo!" said Dennis quickly. "This noose I had meant for Karl there
will make a first-rate sling for that arm of yours. Another pull at the
flask--that's good--and now we absolutely _must_ make a move."
"One moment!" exclaimed Laval, pointing across the room. "There is a
French flag yonder. Will you do me the goodness to tear it from the wall
and bring it with you? I cannot leave that trophy in the hands of these
hogs. Besides, it may be useful to us later on."
Dennis ran across the room and lifted the silk tricolour from the hooks
on which it hung, reading as he did so an inscription in faded gold
letters on the shot-riven folds.
Von Rudolfstein's father had captured that colour in the war of 1870 at
the head of his Cuirassiers, and it had hung there ever since.
"Look at all that remains of my beloved decoration!" murmured Laval,
pointing to the floor.
"They shall give you another for last night's work," said Dennis.
Leaning on the boy's strong arm, the _pilote aviateur_ set out gamely,
crossed the entrance hall, and had almost gained the rustic bridge when
the clanging notes of a deep-tongued bell broke out behind them.
"The old vixen has soon come to her senses. Let us hope the village is
not too near, for it will take us ten minutes at this rate," said Laval,
squeezing the arm that supported him as his companion looked back.
He had heard it at the same moment--a hoarse shout from many voices and
the trample of hoofs at the hunting-lodge.
"By Jingo! Cavalry!" said the lad.
"You must leave me and run for it. Good luck, old fellow!" exclaimed
Claude Laval. But Dennis gave an odd smile and stooped down.
"Put your arm round my neck!" he cried. "I'm not going without you, so
argument is useless and will only waste time. It will give you a bit of
a twisting, I know. Now, stick tight!" And he started to run with the
wounded man on his shoulders.
Several times he nearly stumbled, for the ground was sandy, but he had
accomplished two-thirds of the distance when the alarm bell stopped, and
there was a chorus of savage shouts from the house they had left.
"Hold on like grim death!" panted Dennis. "We'll do it yet!" And
bracing himself for the last few yards, he doubled the pace and reached
the shadow of the aeroplane as the leading files of a troop of Uhlans
thundered across the bridge.
A stifled cry broke from Laval's lips, though he tried hard to repress
it, as Dennis dragged him up by main force and tumbled him into the
observer's cockpit.
"I know I've given the poor chap beans," he muttered to himself, as he
handed him the captured tricolour. And, jumping down into the pilot's
seat, he started the engines going for the second time that morning.
The officer at the head of the yelling horsemen was not thirty lengths
away when the Aviatik began to move; and, roaring out an order to his
men to draw their carbines, he emptied his own revolver at random.
Afterwards, when Dennis came to think calmly of that moment, he grew
cold and shivered; but at the time itself his heart had given a mighty
throb as the rubber-tyred wheels of the chassis left the ground, and
they started on their long flight for home.
He knew perfectly well, as several bullets pierced the lifting planes
and one starred on the stay he had tightened, that their troubles had by
no means ceased when they left the Uhlans behind them. By that time keen
eyes would be watching, not only the earth, but the sky, and he had only
his wits to guide him.
There was the sun just rising to show him which was the east, and
already far down below he saw the ribbon of the Rhine which they must
cross; but sluing round to look back, he saw the thing he feared--an
escadrille of German aircraft rising from the plain over which the smoke
from the Zeppelin hangar still hung.
Already the enemy airmen were in pursuit!
Claude Laval had turned towards him at the same moment, and their eyes
met. He had seen it too, but the blanched face of the wounded man shone
with hope and confidence. His mouth opened, though the words were lost,
but he made a gesture with his sound arm, and Dennis understood.
They were heavy clouds to which Laval had pointed, and Dennis steered
straight for them, devouring the chart with his eyes.
Far down below and ahead of them in the extreme distance was the blue
line of the Vosges, and he thought he could distinguish the Ballon
d'Alsace, but of that he was not sure. His pursuers would naturally
imagine that he would make for the nearest point of the French frontier,
but that was not in his mind. If he had to deal with the fast-rising
Fokkers, his only chance he knew was to gain the cloud-bank and keep
within its protecting folds.
To fight with a wounded observer was out of the question, and already he
had decided to steer north-west rather than due west, which would bring
him, roughly, somewhere between Epinal and Nancy--always provided that
he was not overtaken.
There were a thousand risks to run, not only from the enemy fleet, but
from the French guns when he should come in sight of them; but as they
soared into the chill blanket of vapour his spirits rose, and for a
moment he shut off the engines to listen.
The whir and throb of their pursuers already seemed to come from every
point of the compass--from below, from either side and, what was more
alarming, from above; but banking sharply to the right he thrashed his
course at topmost speed, praying that the cloud-bank might not cease.
The baragraph showed him that he was already eight thousand feet above
the earth, and, straightening out the machine, he wiped the mist from
his goggles with the back of his glove and kept on.
All at once the Aviatik shot out of the cloud with a clear stretch of
sky in front of them, and, looking back and upwards, he saw the wicked
nose of a Fokker emerge into view on their right beam a couple of
hundred yards away and well above them.
Already their own machine was approaching another cloud-bank, but the
Fokker had seen them, and plunged downward in their direction.
The instant the cloud swallowed them up Dennis concentrated all his
efforts on the foot-bar which controlled the vertical rudder, and,
grasping the wheel at the same time, swung sharply to the left, leaving
their pursuer to dive down five hundred feet into space before he
discovered that he had missed his mark.
Neither of them knew that the nose of the Fokker had been within twelve
inches of the Aviatik's tail-planes; and but for the fact that the
German suspended his fire at the moment of diving, it would have been
all over with the raiders.
Dennis reverted to his old tactics when he found that they had escaped,
and turning to the right again, with an anxious eye on the compass, saw
no more of the enemy for nearly a quarter of an hour, until, emerging
into a burst of bright sunshine and looking down, he found himself
immediately over a fierce engagement on the eastern crest of the Vosges
mountains. Shells were bursting below them, and though he did not know
it, they were passing above the Col de la Schlucht, from which the
French guns were bombarding Munster. He could see the enormous puffs of
smoke--white, black, and some of them tinged with yellow--but what was
of greater moment to them both was the presence of the enemy machines a
few miles to the southward.
They, too, were just leaving the cloud-bank, which ended there, misled
by the idea that their prey would make a bee-line for safety; but they
saw the Aviatik at the same moment that Dennis saw them, and circled
round to cut him off from home.
Dennis realised that he was now above French soil. His engines were
working magnificently, and dropping to an altitude of two thousand
metres, which gave him a clear view of towns and buildings, he consulted
his chart, identified Nancy far away on his right front, and trusted all
to Providence.
He had judged wisely, as it proved, and knew that he was out-distancing
the enemy aircraft tearing in hot pursuit--all but one persistent Fokker
that evidently meant business. He even found time to glance backward at
his companion, who, with the folds of the French flag wrapped round his
shattered shoulder to dull the force of the keen air, sat huddled up in
his cockpit, apparently insensible.
Once a shell came up from the ground, and burst between pursuer and
pursued, and a gleam of fierce hope shot through the lad's heart as he
saw the French "75" making good practice against the vicious little
gadfly.
Higher and higher mounted the Fokker to get out of range, and still
Dennis kept on, remembering his appointment with the French
Generalissimo, and glancing alternately from the chart to the little
clock beside the aneroid barometer, whose registration was useless at
that height.
"Twenty-five minutes! Great Scott! can I do it?" he muttered, clutching
the control wheel with his frozen fingers.
* * * * *
"Well, messieurs, it is a pity, and I am afraid something must have
happened to that young officer," said General Joffre, consulting his
watch for the last time. "I must find another messenger to carry my
reply to the Commander-in-Chief of our Allies."
And then he stopped as a murmured exclamation broke from the group of
officers, and everyone looked up to the grey sky across which some
rainclouds were drifting.
"It is an aerial combat, mon General," said one of them. "_Ma foi!_ I
should not care to travel at that speed, let alone fight with nothing
under one's feet!"
Two dots scarcely larger than flies on a window-pane had suddenly
detached themselves from the rain clouds, and were manoeuvring
curiously in the direction of the village. Larger and larger they grew,
the smaller dot obviously trying to gain the advantage of height, and
mingling with the throb of the engines they could now hear the rattle of
a machine-gun.
"What is the meaning of this?" said the Generalissimo, fixing them with
his glass. "These machines are German. I can see the Iron Cross painted
upon them both. Send word to the battery yonder to make ready. It is a
raid, and they are adopting those manoeuvres to deceive us."
By the wall of the restaurant the young French chauffeur, Martique, who
had driven Dennis to that place, waited with a smile dancing in his
eyes, hoping against hope that the thing of which he alone knew was the
thing that was taking place up yonder!
He started when he heard the Generalissimo's order, for even yet he
could not be sure, but the dots had now grown so large that it was
possible to tell the make of the two machines, and somebody said: "The
first one is an Aviatik; the other is a Fokker."
If the seeming chase were a piece of German stage management it was
certainly being carried out with marvellous realism, for now Martique
could distinctly see the puffs of the machine-gun, and that the bullets
were ripping through the lifting planes of the Aviatik.
"Mon General!" he cried suddenly, "for the love of heaven order our
battery not to fire! Look! The observer in that machine is waving a
French flag. He has dropped it now, and he slues his gun into
position--but with one arm only! He is wounded!"
"Do you know what you are talking about, young man?" said the
Generalissimo sternly.
"Forgive me, mon General!" faltered Martique. "It was a little secret.
Oh, look! The Fokker has got the top place, and is about to ram poor
Laval and his English companion!"
Everyone held his breath, for indeed it was as Martique had cried. The
Aviatik was volplaning down in a wide spiral now, and above it the
relentless pursuer poised like a hawk. He was judging the circumference
of those spiral curves, and even the Generalissimo himself tightened his
lips under the huge white moustache.
Over the side of the fuselage there was no mistaking the glorious red,
white and blue that fluttered wildly in the descent, and then the
Aviatik's swivel-gun spoke three times. A German always speaks French
badly, but that German gun rang out with a true accent that time, and
the Fokker gave a strange quiver, burst into a sheet of flame, and
dropped like a stone to death and destruction six thousand feet below!
The engines of the Aviatik ceased; the _nacelle_, pointing earthwards,
curved suddenly up again, and floating for some distance like a tired
bird, the machine dropped out of sight on the other side of the tall
poplars.
There was an instant stampede to the spot, the Generalissimo himself
following, unable to curb his curiosity; but as he reached the bank at
the edge of the cornfield a running figure in leather jacket and flying
helmet checked his pace and, throwing up his goggles, saluted smartly.
"Mon General, I hope you will accept my apology," said Dennis Dashwood.
"I am five minutes behind my time, but I am here, and I have a good deal
to tell you!"
CHAPTER XIV
The Sing-Song in the Dug-out
Three surgeons, hastily summoned to the spot, knelt with their
instruments beside Claude Laval, not twenty yards from the bodies of the
two German airmen whom he had brought down the afternoon before, and in
the circle that surrounded them stood the Generalissimo, holding the old
French colour which would never ornament the walls of that distant
hunting-lodge again.
"He will recover," said one of the doctors, getting up from his knee.
"But he will want the most careful attention. The whole thing is
marvellous. There is not one man in a thousand that could have lived
through such an adventure!"
The _pilote aviateur_ opened his eyes, for he had heard the surgeon's
words.
"Mon General," he said, but so faintly that the Commander of the French
Armies had to stoop over him, "I should not have lived if it had not
been for my companion. He is brave, that boy--oh, braver than I can make
you understand. But, mon General," and a wistful look came into the
deep-sunk eyes, "they have taken my Cross of the Legion and destroyed
it!"
"You were a chevalier of the Order, mon lieutenant, if I remember," said
the Generalissimo. "The Republic does not forget her sons when they
behave as you have behaved. You shall have another Cross, and this time
it will be the Cross of an Officer of the Legion of Honour. And listen!
The English lieutenant shall have one too, if the word of Cesar Joffre
carries any weight in France. Messieurs, let us salute these two brave
men who have both deserved so well of the Republic!" And, lifting his
kepi, the gallant Frenchman kissed Dennis on both cheeks amid a burst of
generous applause that came from the hearts of all of them.
"_Cher ami_," whispered Claude Laval, "if you see my brother, you will
tell him of our little escapade, hein?"
Dennis pressed Laval's left hand in both his own as he left him with a
happy smile on his face; and with a last look at the Aviatik, followed
General Joffre to his automobile.
"Adieu, lieutenant!" said the great soldier, with a lingering grip after
an interview that lasted half an hour, "I have no other message for your
General. He will find it all written in that envelope, which you will
give him."
"Now, Martique," said Dennis, settling himself beside him in the motor,
"I am in your hands." And almost before the car had started, Second
Lieutenant Dennis Dashwood, of the 2/12 Battalion, Royal Reedshire
Regiment, was sound asleep!
* * * * *
"Oh, hang it, Martique! What did you wake me for? I haven't been asleep
five minutes," grumbled Dennis. And then he sat bolt upright as he
recognised the handsome face of the man who had shaken him by the
shoulder, and saw the amused smile in his eyes.
"It is a good car, I admit," said Sir Douglas Haig. "But I hardly think
it has done the mileage between this place and Bar-le-Duc in so short a
time as that, and your chauffeur tells me that you have snored all the
way."
Dennis gasped, to find himself once more in front of the headquarters of
the General Commanding in Chief, and turned scarlet.
"I took the liberty of abstracting General Joffre's reply from your
pocket without disturbing you," continued Sir Douglas. "And I have had
the story of your extraordinary exploit from Martique here. Take my
advice, Dashwood, and be chary in future about embarking on such
adventures; they hardly come within the scope of your day's duty."
And then, seeing the shamefaced look that came over the lad, he added
quickly: "Do not read any censure into my words; they were only intended
to convey a little fatherly advice. And now the question arises, what is
to be done with you? You have shown a most remarkable aptitude, and
General Joffre has given such an account of your nerve that I am in two
minds whether or not to transfer you to my personal staff--or would you
prefer a spell of duty with your regiment?"
"Do you mean for the Great Push?" said Dennis, in an eager voice.
"Confound your great push!" said the General, with a faint flash of
sternness in his expressive eyes. "There's too much talk knocking around
about our future movements."
For the life of him Dennis could not help smiling all over his face.
"Well, I see where your heart lies," said the G.O.C. in Chief; "and
Martique, who is going your way, shall give you a lift. I wish you the
best of good luck, Mr. Dashwood, and I am very much obliged to you for
the way you have carried out your mission."
"By Jove!" whispered Dennis, as the car started for the firing-line. "He
did not deny it. There _is_ to be a push, and I'm going to be in it!"
* * * * *
The guns still thundered, and the shells had never ceased to rend and
pulverise the enemy position day and night. Otherwise, everything was
quiet on our front. The raids had ceased, and the wind was unfavourable
to any German gas attack.
"Come on, Dennis," said his brother; "there's nothing doing, and I'm fed
up. Let's drop in to that sing-song for an hour. They've got an awfully
good chap I'm told, who plays the piano like a blooming Paderewski."
"I'm with you," said Dennis. And they made their way into the
subterranean dug-out which had so nearly proved his tomb on the night we
had carried the front-line trench.
It seemed odd to plunge suddenly into an atmosphere of merriment within
a few yards of the men posted at the periscopes along the sandbagged
parapet. The electric lights were burning, and a blue haze of tobacco
smoke obscured the air from a semicircle of listeners, sitting on
packing-cases and forms round the piano on the platform, and the chorus
of "Gilbert the Filbert," sung with a will, greeted them as they
descended the stairs.
All sorts and conditions of men were gathered there--officers and
privates in mutual good fellowship. The Second-in-Command of the
Reedshires had just given them a ballad, and sung it jolly well too; and
the armourer sergeant and one of their own lieutenants were fooling
about as they waited to appear in a comic turn.
The lieutenant was dressed as a French peasant girl, and really looked
quite pretty; and the armourer sergeant was supposed to resemble George
Robey!
"Oh, there's the chap I was speaking to you about," said Captain Bob,
pointing to a wounded Highlander, whose head was enveloped in a bandage.
"He's a regular genius on the keyboard; that is why there are such a lot
of chaps here to-night. He only blew in a couple of days ago from the
brigade on our right when he heard we were lucky enough to have a
piano."
They made room for the two new-comers; and as the closing lines of the
chorus died away, there were great cries of "Jock, Jock! We want Jock!"
from the audience.
The Highland private's face expanded into a sheepish grin, and as he
stepped up on to the platform you could have heard the proverbial pin
drop. Not a sound but that dull burst and boom that they had all got
used to and scarcely heard now, and then the keys of the piano broke in
upon the tense hush, touched by a master hand.
"Isn't that fine!" whispered the Second-in-Command, who was sitting next
to Dennis. "When this beastly war has finished that man would fill
Queen's Hall to the roof. And to think he's just one of Kitchener's
privates, and the first pip-squeak that comes his way may still that
marvellous gift for ever!"
Dennis nodded, for the improvised melody which had just ceased had
touched him, as it had touched every man in the room.
But there is no time for sentiment in the trenches; it is out of place
there, and after a roar of "Bravo!" and a great clapping of hands had
succeeded a momentary pause, voices cried clamorously: "Give us that
thing you sang last night, Jock--that song with the whistling chorus!"
"Now you'll hear the reverse of the medal, and upon my soul, it's
equally good!" explained the Second-in-Command. "He's like poor old
Barclay Gammon and Corney Grain and half a dozen of those musical-sketch
men rolled into one. It's his own composition too."
There was a great chord on the piano, the performer laid his cigarette
on the music rest, and made an amazing face by way of introduction.
"Gentlemen, I call this song 'All Boche'--because it is," he remarked.
And then he sang a string of purely topical verses, brilliantly clever
in their allusions to the everyday events in which they all bore their
part, and he did not spare the failings of various officers and
N.C.O.'s, who were supposed to be imaginary, but whom everybody
recognised; and when he had done he resumed his seat quietly on the edge
of the platform as though it had been nothing, and Dennis went over to
him.
"I say, you know, that's the best thing I've heard for years," said the
lad enthusiastically. "Would it be possible to have a copy of the words,
or is it asking too much?"
"I'll write them down with pleasure, sir," said the wounded Highlander;
"but I've got no paper."
Dennis whipped out his pocket-book and tore out some leaves, withdrawing
to his packing-case to leave the obliging soldier undisturbed.
But man proposes--you know the old proverb, and before Dennis could seat
himself, the voice of the Company Sergeant-Major rang out from the head
of the staircase: "Fall in, everybody, and as sharp as you like!"
There was an instant stampede up and out into the thunder of the guns;
and as men scurried along the trench the wounded Highlander handed one
of the folded leaves to a sergeant of Dennis's platoon.
"Give that to your Second Lieutenant," he said, "and guid necht." And
the sergeant, spying Dennis in front of him, delivered his message.
"By Jingo, he's written them quickly! I hope they're all here," said the
boy, diving into his new dug-out in search of his trench helmet. And
opening the paper in the candlelight, he read to his utter astonishment
and rage:
"If you want the words of my song you must come and fetch them,
little beastly Dashwood! What a lot of fools you English are!
And so your Great Push will begin at 7.30 in the morning. Very
well, we shall be ready for you!"
CHAPTER XV
"Reedshires!--Get Over!"
Dennis sprang from his dug-out into the trench, and the first person he
encountered was Harry Hawke.
"Where's that wounded Highlander?" he cried, so fiercely that Hawke
stared at him open-mouthed.
"If you mean the singing bloke, sir--last I seed of 'im he was doin' a
bunk for his own battalion," replied the Cockney private. And Dennis
Dashwood's teeth closed with a snap, realising the utter futility of any
search for von Drissel just then.
"If you clap eyes on that man again, Hawke!" he exclaimed, "shoot him on
sight. He is a German spy!" And, leaving the astonished private to make
what he might of the information, he passed along the trench to find his
brother.
He came across him in whispered conversation with the Reedshires'
colonel in one of the trench bays on the right, and before he could
speak Captain Bob took him by the arm.
"It has come at last, old chap," he said, with the mysterious air of one
imparting an item of precious information.
"Yes," said Dennis grimly, "I know; we make the great attack at
half-past seven, and the Germans know it too. Look at this!"
Captain Bob and the C.O. read von Drissel's words by the light of a
star-shell, and the trio exchanged glances.
"Well, it can't be helped," said the C.O. "And I don't think the
information will do the enemy much good. Do you notice how dull the
sound of our guns is? It strikes one as odd."
It had not occurred to them before, but they realised it now as they
stood there in the trench bay, and others remarked the fact and wrote of
it afterwards. A hurricane of shells of every calibre, from the
whiz-bang of the field-guns to the enormous projectile of "Mother,"
passed continuously overhead in the darkness, to burst in the enemy
trenches, and yet the sound was less loud than many a purely local
bombardment had been.
It was a trying wait, and the dawn came with provoking slowness, a grey
mist veiling the ground until the sun gained power and the sky showed
pale-blue flecked with fleecy clouds. Men blew on their fingers, for the
morning was cold.
"It ain't 'arf parky," growled Harry Hawke.
"It'll be 'ot enough in a bit," said his pal, Tiddler. "What price Old
Street, 'Arry?"
"Chuck it!" replied the marksman of No. 2 Platoon. "No good thinking of
love and sentiment now." But for all that, perhaps, a fleeting vision of
his Lil passed through his untutored brain, and made him a shade paler
about the gills.
Tiddler noticed it and smiled to himself, knowing what it meant, for
when Hawke looked white it was time for his enemy to look out, and the
moment was rapidly approaching.
The trench was packed with men, all waiting. Those of the reserves who
were not yet in their places were pouring steadily up, and immediately
behind the front line Staff cars and motor cycles dashed backwards and
forwards; and overhead, where, oddly enough, the larks were trilling, an
English aeroplane was flying just above the scream of the shells.
Dennis saw it, and wondered how Claude Laval was faring; and as he
looked at his wrist-watch he saw that it was nearly six o'clock.
At that moment the most terrific bombardment the war had witnessed burst
with devastating fury upon the German lines. Nothing had been heard like
it, and men smiled grimly, knowing that their turn would come soon.
The C.O. left the bay, and walked along the front of his beloved
battalion from one end of it to the other; a quiet, keen-eyed English
officer, brave as a lion they all knew, but showing no trace of the
slightest excitement as his eye scanned the faces of the waiting men.
He had been appointed to the command when the Dashwoods' father was
given the brigade, and he realised that the brigadier expected great
things of his old battalion.
"I never saw a fitter lot," was his gratified comment as he returned to
the two brothers. "Heaven help the enemy yonder if our artillery has
only cleared the wire."
"It's sincerely to be hoped they have, sir," said Captain Bob dryly.
"There was a dickens of a lot of it. But we shall get through without a
doubt. Not long to wait now, for there go the trench mortars."
Mingling with the continuous roar of our guns came a still louder and
very insistent sound, to which they listened in silence, every officer
of the battalion with his eye on his watch.
"Well, good luck, old chap!" said Bob suddenly, gripping Dennis by the
hand. And the two brothers looked at each other with the same thought
behind the quiet confidence of their smile.
It might be the last time they would ever meet on earth, but they faced
the possibility without fear, and already a dense cloud of smoke,
released along our whole front, was shrouding the waiting line.
"Seven-thirty to the tick," said the C.O. "Reedshires--Get over!" And in
an instant the battalion was swarming out of its trench, and advancing
over the two hundred yards of broken ground which separated the brigade
from the enemy, with sloped arms.
It was terrible going, for the whole earth was honeycombed by craters
large and small; but out of the smoke-cloud rose a ringing cheer, which
was still floating on the air when the vicious tac-tac of machine-guns
from the German lines told that even high explosives had their
limitations, and that some at least of the enemy gun-emplacements
remained undestroyed.
"Double!" cried the C.O., seeing that a kilted battalion on his left was
racing forward as the best means of escaping the continuous stream of
bullets.
"Charge, boys, charge!" yelled Dennis, taking up the cry; and that
brown avalanche of eager, helmeted men poured on clear of the smoke into
the bright sunshine, which glinted on their fixed bayonets.
In spite of the carefully prepared staff maps and plans which they had
all studied closely, Dennis looked in vain for any sign of a definite
objective. There was no sandbagged parapet, nothing but a confused mass
of holes and heaps scattered broadcast over the landscape--the result of
the terrific spade-work of the guns--which had to be crossed before the
village was reached. The village, too, of which he caught a glimpse, was
only a pulverised mass of debris, with here and there the angle of a
shattered house or the ribs of a roof to mark what had once been human
habitations.
But he knew that the strength of the enemy's position lay in the
wonderful subterranean works, the deep dug-outs, the covered-in
communicating trenches, and for these he and his men rushed with great
determination.
Suddenly, from the other side of a chalk heap, a row of heads appeared,
wearing flat blue forage caps with white bands round them, and a shout
of rapture rose from No. 2 Platoon as they saw at last something to go
for.
Between them and the row of heads yawned a huge shell crater, and as the
platoon divided automatically to avoid the obstacle, a heavy volley
across the crater caught them, and several of the running men pitched
forward and lay where they fell.
Perhaps they had orders to retire, perhaps it was our yell that scared
them; but the heads disappeared; and when our men reached the spot where
they had been the Germans had vanished. One stout fellow, dropping into
a hole thirty yards away, was the only indication of what had become of
them; but it was sufficient, and with a "Come on, boys!" Dennis sprinted
for the spot.
He had armed himself with a rifle and bayonet for the advance; but,
changing it to his left hand, he opened the bag of bombs he had also
brought and, drawing the pin, flung one of them into the hole, a square
opening, evidently the entrance to a covered communication trench.
"Wait a moment!" he shouted, shouldering back the next man up, who in
his excitement was about to plunge in; and then he heard the bomb burst
below, and a shower of earth and fragments of clothing bespattered the
pair of them, a piece of the bomb making an ugly gash on the man's
cheek.
Then Dennis sprang down, regardless of the fumes. At the bottom of the
steps he was conscious of treading on something soft, but did not stay
to examine it, for a ray of light filtering in from a fissure in the
roof showed him dark forms scurrying away in the distance along the
boarded passage.
The hand-grenade had got a move on the enemy, and, followed by a dozen
men of the platoon, he led the way, gripping his rifle, and loosing a
couple of rounds from the hip as he ran.
One of the bullets evidently found its mark, for a man lay writhing on
the ground where another passage turned off at right angles. The man
tried to seize his legs, but instantly let go his hold with a hoarse cry
as Tiddler's bayonet settled all disputes, and Dennis darted round the
angle.
The passage ended in a strange place; a large dug-out which had been
partially unroofed by one of our shells earlier in the morning, and knee
deep amid the loose earth which had poured in, half filling it, twenty
Germans turned at bay, under the command of a very tall officer.
There were only eight men with Dennis, for the other four were still
groping their way somewhere behind in the darkness of the passage, and
the young lieutenant realised in a flash of time that he was seriously
outnumbered and must act promptly.
A big sergeant jumped at him with a shout, but before the lunging
bayonet had crossed his own, Dennis fired and shot the man dead.
"Put your hands up and surrender!" he said sternly in German to the
rest; and the first to obey was the tall officer, who came scrambling
over the loose earth with both arms outstretched.
"We are your prisoners, sir," he said, holding his revolver as though he
were presenting the butt to Dennis. And the men of the British platoon
lowered their bayonets with disappointment in their faces.
It meant some of their number escorting the prisoners to the rear, they
knew, and that was not the hope they had had in their hearts.
But their disappointment was short-lived, for, as the tall officer came
within a stride of the young lieutenant, he suddenly shouted: "Now you
have them, men! Down with these infernal English!" And, reversing his
own weapon, he fired three shots at Dennis Dashwood in rapid succession.
The treachery was so unexpected that Dennis could do no more than duck
his head, and even then the third bullet buckled the brim of his trench
helmet; but as the barrel of the German's revolver clicked harmlessly
round, showing that it was empty, Dennis lunged upward.
"Sorry, sir!" said a voice at his elbow. "He was your bird." And a man
of the platoon, who had been a gamekeeper before he joined up, withdrew
his own bayonet, which had buried itself simultaneously in the cowardly
brute's ribs.
But there was no time for thanks, for the enemy had responded to the
treacherous command, and a terrific hand-to-hand fight ensued in the
half-demolished dug-out.
When the magazines had been emptied, butt and bayonet came into play at
close quarters, and men clutched each other in a death struggle, and
rolled over and over, howling like wolves.
Once, indeed, Dennis found himself driven backwards into the mouth of
the passage by two beefy fellows attacking him at the same time, and it
was only by dropping his rifle and using his revolver that he saved
himself from certain death.
As it was, although the Reedshires had taken heavy toll and reduced the
odds considerably, three of the platoon were down, and a fourth reeled,
badly wounded, against the side of the dug-out.
The four who should have provided a welcome reinforcement
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