And We Go On (34 page)

“But why?” I asked. There seemed to be an endless supply on the shelves and in piled cases at the rear.

“Because we never know how much the officers will want,” he said irritably.

I got “one of each” and went outside. Tommy was waiting for me and I told him my luck. He went wild, would have charged the counter. “Officers!” he raved. “The ratters feed on the best in the land, double what we get, and all prepared for them, and rum to go with it, and not doing one quarter the work we do. Bah – batmen to wait on them, keeping that many less to do the work in the trenches, meaning we've got to take that many more chances, do more hours on duty. And now we've got money we can't
buy anything because the dears might want a little extra to entertain guests or French Janes. Officers only – I'll …”

It was difficult to quiet him. Tommy was getting worn and tired. It seemed years since we had come to France and he had seen so many of our lads maimed and broken or left on the fields and in trenches. As I got him to go away without trying to do damage we saw a batman come from the rear of the building. He was carrying a case of tinned cherries. I knew him and at once stopped him and asked questions. He grinned at us and seemed glad to show just how clever he and his kind were. “Sure, I can get all I want,” he said. “This lot's for a feed a bunch of us are having. We just get an order signed, tell our officer we need the stuff, then go and get it. We'll use half the lot ourselves.”

I looked at the blank chits he carried, and when we went back we got paper and made up a few. Then we watched the canteen until the clerk was relieved by another and went to him with an order for a case of tinned fruit. We got it without a question being asked, and went again for biscuits and chocolate, even getting a box of Marguerite cigars, a kind that were “Old Bill's” favorites. Back at the barracks that night we had a glorious time, and then I was told to go and look at battalion orders. They stated that I had been made a lance-corporal. Davies had never asked me what I wished regarding the matter, had simply put the promotion through. Three times I had refused it, and I intended to do so again, but Tommy argued that if I did not take the “dog's leg” some of the new men might get it, and make things rotten for the few of the old gang that remained.

The bombing planes were busy and the Hun also shelled the city. We went to the station and looked about it. The next day we were moved just outside to a cemetery area. Sambro and I had a bed together in a grassy hollow, not bothering to dig in and make a shelter, and in the night several big shells fell very close to us. We did not leave our place, however, and in the morning saw several graves that had been torn wide, leaving shattered caskets and skeletons in the glare of the morning sun. Near us was a man with a long black beard and with some decoration on his black frock coat. He looked as if he had not been buried more than a week and was in a sitting-up position, thrown that way by a shell explosion.

Again we moved up front, a long hike, Sambro and Tommy and I together, chatting about those we had left behind; Tulloch with his blighty talk; Sykes with his books; poor Corporal Hughes, killed in a cellar accidentally,
after all he had survived; and then were silent as we wondered who were the next to go, what we would face next time. War seemed a different thing now, no six days in and six days out of the trenches, no six-hour shifts on posts, but “over the top” work, charging Hun machine guns, killing around trench bays with bomb and bayonet, and we had got so accustomed to German prisoners and wounded that they no longer seemed something alien and apart. I had seen Sambro and a dark-haired Heinie sitting together on a trench bank, smoking, had seen Tommy give the last water in his bottle to a wounded man in gray. And I was conscious of a change in myself. I felt old, indescribably weary at times, dull, listless; indifferent to anything but thoughts of Steve.

Cave returned to the battalion. I seldom visited headquarters, but I knew he had been away a long time and now he wore a Sam Browne and was an officer. He greeted me as kindly as ever. I saw Naufts. Sedgewick was with him but he did not recognize me. Seeing him made me think of Jimmy and I looked him up. He was taciturn, gloomy, smoking by himself; did not care what the battalion did or where they went.

We went into the cellar of a Chateau and from there did several carrying parties. I was sent on patrols and worked along ground where the only line I was sure of was our own posts. There were no trenches fenced with wire to guide one, and sunken roads gave cover to both friend and foe. We were in good quarters and the building over us had not been damaged to any extent. Back a distance there was a pond and the wreckage of a German training school. Beyond it lay a one-street village, badly battered by shell fire. Tommy and I decided to visit it.

We made our way over in the mist of a showery morning and reached the place without difficulty. We had no blankets and had slept cold for a few nights, as it was September and a chill was in the air. The first few houses were so wrecked that there was nothing to get. The Huns had entered with axes and smashed every stick of furniture, even to the pictures on the walls, had driven their tools into the walls, crashed doors from hinges, broken all the windows. It was simply a scene of wanton, hellish destruction.

The priest's house was not so badly wrecked, and an inner chamber was almost intact. We stripped the bed of fine sheets and pillows and a beautiful eiderdown puff. I went into the cellar and found nothing, but as I turned to come up noticed a cupboard stood in one corner. It did not
seem to belong to the cellar and we examined it thoroughly but it was empty. Then Tommy tugged it away from the wall to look behind – and there was a square opening in the masonry!

We lighted a candle and peered in. It was a small circular place, with shelves ringed around it, and on the shelves were hundreds of bottles. We took them to the light and discovered that they were the finest wines that France produced, and some of them were quite aged. We gathered a dozen of them into our sheets and stole from the place. Not half an hour later the Hun dropped shells all along the street we had travelled.

Back in the cellar we slept warmly and comfortable but our bottled treat was misused. Several of the boys got so jovial over the wine that we had to take the rest from them, and the sergeant-major was a perplexed man. He could not figure the source of supply.

CHAPTER X

The Student

The last night I was on patrol we had an exchange of shots with the Germans who were some distance from us in the dark. There was considerable shelling and gas was used, several of our men getting caught before they suspected it. Before morning we had fifteen cases lying around the building, being cared for by a medical officer.

When we moved back I was again used as a guide and we had to move sharply as the Hun dropped a few salvos near the chateau grounds. After a long, hard march we reached a huge cave near Vis en Artois and went down steps in the dark. Away down in the bowels of the earth we saw the big passages and chambers, seemingly endless. It was a damp and depressing place but we slept soundly. I was wakened by a runner and told that I was to go with a working party to
repair roads
– and go at once.

It was not seven o'clock in the morning and we had not reached the cave until just before midnight. A working party! I got up, and as I pulled on my boots was somewhat startled to see a place in the chalk where an explosive had been placed. It was not connected by wiring. The men were all grousing and swearing. There had been no hot tea for them and they were hungry. We saw engineers about, looking at the many places where explosives had been placed, and they told us that a lighting plant was in seemingly perfect order. One man had been on the point of starting it when it was discovered that a single revolution of the engine would detonate explosives that would wreck the cave. Besides that trap they found that one of the rail ropes down the stairway was connected with a mine that would blow up the passage. Had any man grasped the rope as we went down we would have been blown to atoms.

We got outside in the chilly air. No one was about and the cooks were not in sight. We were paraded by a very neat and trim officer, just over from Blighty, and marched away to a road near the village. There we found picks and shovels left by a party of engineers and were told to fill in holes and fix up the road. It was not in a bad condition, had not been wrecked and there was no traffic on it at all. To make matters worse, we saw a labour battalion encamped a short distance from us and as we went to work their reveille was blown. They tumbled out of their tents and went to their cook wagon where they were served a breakfast we had not known in a month, plenty of bacon, and porridge and big slices of bread with jam and cheese.

Tommy hurled his pick to the bank. “Arrest me or anything you like,” he snorted. “There's a labour mob just turning out now, after quitting at five yesterday. We've marched half the night in a rain, are still wet and cold, have had no hot tea or breakfast-and look at them blighters. We're worse than dogs. Anybody in the army is used better than the men who do the fighting. I'll not do another stroke this morning.”

I walked away and left him and at the end of the party found the officer industriously showing a man how to fill a six-inch hole. Then I looked over the bank and saw a “Y” marquee. I went back to Tommy and his crowd and told them to go and get some tea or cocoa and biscuits or anything they wished, and gave them a sheaf of francs. They went instantly. I walked back the other way and saw the officer hurry by in search of the missing ones. He had not spoken to me except to snap some order. I told the crowd he had made work where the rest had gone and they soon vanished. I looked around and saw the officer
running
in circles, and followed the men to the big tent.

It was well-stocked and soon we were seated around enjoying ourselves. We had a clear twenty minutes before the Sam Browne found us. He was raging and ordered us all outside “instantly.” We wandered out and he led us back to the road. He was dancing and fuming. Over the way the labour battalion was enjoying its breakfast with a leisure we had seldom witnessed. “Corporal,” he barked at me. “We'll get into serious trouble if we don't get on with this work.”

“I think, sir,” I returned, “that you're more likely to get into trouble if you try to do it.”

The men had filed to their picks and shovels, but a filling of hot tea and
biscuits and tinned fruit and sardines did not help them be lively. They were sleepy, too sleepy to move. One by one they sank on the grassy road bank and relaxed into slumber. The officer roused them, yelled at them, but more were sleeping than at work. He ran to me and ordered me to take their names. He was going to crime the entire party. Tommy was especially defiant and had told him to go “chase his tail.”

I looked the officer in the eye and told him in very plain and straight-forward language just what was what. “Somebody in charge has slipped a cog,” I said. “These men should not be roused to-day except for meals like those labour men are getting, and they, not us, should be booted out here at seven to get to work. I'm with the men, whatever they do.”

He gasped and reached for a note book. His fingers trembled. “You realize, of course,” he sputtered, “that this means court martial.”

“I don't care what it means,” I snapped.

“Give me your name and number,” he shouted.

Then he went to the cave, leaving us to straggle where we liked. We found good places in the driest spots, well away from the road where we had thrown down our tools, and there slept all the day until nearly dusk.

When I returned to the cave I was at once ordered to go to the captain. The officer was there and I heard horrible charges of disobedience, insulting an officer, neglect of duty, a dozen of them. When it was finished the captain allowed the others to go, then he talked kindly, explaining that he regretted the way the boys had been used, and asked that we overlook it and soldier as “D” company always did. There was not another mention of my crimes. The next day the new officer was transferred to another company.

Cherisy was near us and a splendid canteen was there. I heard the 85th were in the area and were patronizing it, and looked for my brother, intending to give him the pearl-handled Luger. I did not see him, but met men of his company who told me that Stanley had been killed in the fighting at Drury and that he was buried at Cherisy. I was stunned by such news. As I walked back to the cave I saw a German airman come darting from the clouds and open fire on one of our sausage balloons. It exploded in a great burst of fire and smoke that hid his plane, enveloped it, but he emerged apparently not damaged, and flew away. When I reached the place where the debris had fallen I saw men there who arranged the balloon as a trap. The men in the basket were dummies and special explosive had been used but failed to hurt the Hun. Lieutenant Cave asked that I go
with some men from the companies to practice shooting on a short range. I went and amused myself by doing some good work. He got very interested and talked in a kind manner, asking me how I had fared in the company. I did not tell him of any of my experiences.

A small crowd was at the entrance to our cavern when I reached it and they were carrying away someone on a stretcher. It was the body of the sour cook. He had been friendly with me during all the summer, but kept his usual manner toward the newcomers to the company. Very reserved, making no close friends, reading little, apparently brooding, a sullen person, I wondered what history lay behind his attitude. I felt certain that something in his life had made him bitter and wished that I had got to know him. He had been killed by the only shell that came near our quarters; even his death seemed an irony of fate.

We moved back to Dainville and I had opportunity to go to the trenches we had occupied on the sunken road and see the place where I had fallen on the wire and cut my eyelid. It was strange that I was not captured that night. One Hun post had been within thirty feet of where I tumbled, and must surely have been occupied. Tommy and I went out to Long Alley and saw where Waterbottle and his crew had killed the German sentries.