NO MAN'S LAND (A WW1 Saga). H. C. McNeile / Sapper

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СКАЧАТЬ for that there rum jar, sir," answered the sergeant. "We thought we was napoo[1] when we 'eard that little bundle of fun a-coming."

      "Have you seen it, Jacko?"

      "Yes, it rolled into the sap, and I've had it put into the fire-trench. I'm taking it back to blow it up. I think it's a percussion fuse, but it seems fairly safe. I've sent for a stretcher to carry it on."

      "Let's go and have a look at it."

      The two officers walked down the sap and back into the trench, and started to investigate with a professional eye the object lying on the fire-step. Apparently of steel, and painted a dull grey, it looked harmless enough—but all those little love offerings of the Hun are treated with respect. About the size of an ordinary rum jar, with a fuse of sorts in place of a neck, it was at the time an unknown brand of abomination, to them at any rate.

      "It differs only in appearance, I fear," remarked the Captain, after inspecting it gingerly, "from other presents they give us. Its object is undoubtedly nefarious. Where do you propose to blow it up?"

      "In that little quarry near the Ritz. Will that do all right?"

      "Most excellently." With a smile he looked at his watch. "Just set your watch by mine, Jacko—and poop it off at 10.5 ak emma. Do you take me?"

      The other looked puzzled for a moment; then his face cleared.

      "I'd forgotten for the moment that Centre Battalion Head-quarters was not far from the quarry," he grinned. "Sir—I take you."

      "My dear boy, the day is hot, and the Pumpkin is fat, and the flies are glutinous. He doesn't want to see the trenches any more than I do—and one's mission in life is to anticipate the wishes of the great."

      It was just as he finished speaking that from up the line in the direction of the Haymarket there came four dull, vicious cracks in succession, and some clouds of black smoke drifted slowly over his head.

      "Just about No. 7 T.M. emplacement," he muttered to himself. "I hope to heavens . . ."

      "Put it on the stretcher carefully, boys." His subaltern was speaking to the two men who had arrived with a stretcher. "Have you got the slab of gun-cotton?"

      "Corporal 'Amick 'as gone to get it at the store, sir. He's a-going to meet us at the quarry."

      "Right-ho! Walk march."

      The cavalcade departed, and the Captain resumed his morning walk, while his thoughts wandered to the beer which is cold and light yellow. For many weary months had he taken a similar constitutional daily; not always in the same place, true; but variety is hard to find in the actual trenches themselves. It is the country behind that makes the difference.

      Time was when communication trenches existed only in the fertile brain of those who were never called upon to use them; but that time has passed long since. Time was when the thin, tired breaking line of men who fought the Prussian Guard at Ypres in 1914—and beat them—had hard work to find the fire-trenches, let alone the communication ones; when a daily supervision was a nerve-shattering nightly crawl, and dug-outs were shell-holes covered with a leaking mackintosh. It was then that men stood for three weeks on end in an icy composition of water and slime, and if by chance they did get a relief for a night, merely clambered out over the back, and squelched wearily over the open ground with bullets pinging past them from the Germans a few score yards away.

      But now there are trenches in canal banks where dead things drift slowly by, and trenches in railway embankments where the rails are red with rust and the sleepers green with rot; there are trenches in the chalk, good and deep, which stand well, and trenches in the slush and slime which never stand at all; there are trenches where the smell of the long grass comes sweetly on the west wind, and trenches where the stench of death comes nauseous on the east. And one and all are they damnable, for ever accursed . . .

      But the country behind—ah! there's where the difference comes. You may have the dead flat of pastoral Flanders, the little woods, the plough, the dykes of Ypres and Boesinghe; you may have the slag-heaps and smoking chimneys of La Bassée and Loos; you may have the gently undulating country of Albert and the Somme. Each bears the marks of the German beast—and, like their inhabitants, they show those marks differently. Ypres and the North, apathetic, seemingly lifeless; the mining districts, grim and dour; the rolling plains still, in spite of all, cheerful and smiling. But underlying them all—deep implacable determination, a grand national hatred of the Power who has done this thing. . . .

      He turned out of the Old Kent Road into a siding which harboured the dug-outs of the Centre Battalion.

      "Is the General here yet, Murdock?" A tall sergeant of the regiment—an old friend of his—flattened himself against the side of the trench to let him pass.

      "Yes, sir." The sergeant's face was expressionless, though his eyes twinkled. "I think, sir, as 'ow the General is feeling the 'eat. 'E seems worried. 'E's been trying to telephone."

      The Sapper, with a suppressed chuckle, went down some steps into a spacious dug-out. The darkness made him temporarily blind, so he saluted and stood still just inside the doorway.

      "Damn you, don't blow at me! What's that fool blowin' down the thing for? I have pressed a button—confound you!—and rung the bell twice. No—I didn't ring off; somebody blew at me, and the machine fell on the floor."

      "The General is trying to get through to his château." A voice full of unholy joy whispered in the Sapper's ear, and that worthy, whose eyes had got accustomed to the gloom, recognised the Adjutant.

      "I gathered that something of the sort was occurring," he whispered back.

      But the General was at it again. "Who are you—the R.T.O.? Well, ring off. Exchange. Exchange. It is the Divisional General speaking. I want my head-quarters. I say, I want my—oh, don't twitter, and the bally thing's singin' now! First it blows and then it sings. Good God! what's that?"

      A deafening explosion shook the dug-out, and a shower of earth and stones rained down in the trench outside.

      "They're very active this morning, sir," said the Sapper, stepping forward. "Lot of rum jars and things coming over."

      "Are you the Sapper officer? Good morning. I wish you'd get this accursed instrument to work."

      "There may be a line broken," he remarked tactfully.

      "Well—I shall have to go back; I can't hear a word. The thing does nothin' but squeak. Now it's purring like a cat. I hate cats. Most annoyin'. I wanted to come round the front line this morning."

      "In very good condition, sir; I've just been all round it. Mighty hot up there, General—and swarms of flies."

      "And they're puttin' over some stuff, you say?"

      "Yes, sir—quite a lot."

      "Hum! Well, of course, I fully intended to come round—but, dash it all, I must get back. Can't hear a word the fellow says. Does nothing but play tunes." The Pumpkin rose and stalked to the door. "Well, I'll come round another morning, my boy. I wonder, by Jove! if that last one was meant for this head-quarters? Devilish near, you know." He walked up the stairs, followed by his staff officer. "Good mornin'—mind you see about that telephone. Cursed thing blows."

      "Dear old Pumpkin," murmured the Adjutant as his steps died away. "He's a topper. His figure's against СКАЧАТЬ