Fighting with French: A Tale of the New Army Page 5

  CHAPTER V

  THE BACK OF THE FRONT

  The slow wet winter dragged itself out. The training went on, fairweather or foul. The 17th Rutland Light Infantry got their service bootsin due time, but other details of their equipment were slow to arrive.Presently they received enough rifles and entrenching tools for half thebattalion, and the ordinary drill and physical exercises, which Kennedyhad privately confided to Amory "bored him stiff," was varied withmusketry practice and digging trenches. There were long marches,semaphore practice, sham fights, night operations; day by day the mengained new knowledge of their trade. More rifles came, this time withbayonets; bayonet exercise and practice in attack gave further varietyto their work. At last, towards the end of February, the whole battalionwas fully equipped, and the men grew excited at the prospect of going tothe front.

  It was a great moment when the colonel gave them a few hours' notice ofentrainment. Lusty cheers broke from a thousand throats; the longed-forday had come at last. Crowds of townsfolk assembled at the station tosee them off, but they were quiet, serious crowds, the women's facestense with anxiety, the children unwontedly subdued. It was no picnicfor which these sturdy Englishmen were setting out. Everybody was nowaware of the greatness of the struggle, the bravery and tenacity of theenemy, the scientific skill and terrible thoroughness with which theGermans had prepared through many years for this attempt to seize themastery of the world. Hearts were full as the men stepped blithely intothe long train; how many of them would return, and of these, how manywould be sound and strong?

  Their immediate destination was known to none except the commandingofficer. When, after a tiring journey, with much shunting andside-tracking, the men were finally detrained at a small station in thesouth of England, with no sign of sea or transports, there was a generalfeeling of surprise and disappointment. They were marched to a widebarren plain, peppered with tents and huts, and here, it became known byand by, they were to spend a month or more in further training.

  Even Ginger for once became a grouser.

  "I've had about enough of this," he growled. "What's the good of itall?"

  "Discipline, Ginger," said Kenneth.

  "Discipline! That's obedience, ain't it? Well, I ask you, don't we doas we're told like a lot of school kids? I'm sure I'm as meek as Moses.Never thought I could be so tame. I've quite lost my character, and ifever I get back to the works I'll have to go a regular buster, or elseI'll be one of the downtrodden slaves of the capitalist."

  "I don't think so badly of you," said Kenneth, with a smile. "Butdiscipline is more than obedience. Between you and me, I think thisextra training is as much for the officers' sake as ours. The Britishofficer leads, you see. He knows we'll obey orders; he has to make surethat he gives the right orders. If he didn't there'd be an unholy mess:we should lose confidence in him, and the game would be up. We've gotto work together like a football team, every man trusting every other;and that's what all this drilling and training is for."

  "I daresay you're in the right," said Ginger. "I wasn't thinking ofthem young officers! They're a good lot, though, ain't they? I don'tknow what it is, but there's something about 'em--why, Mr. Kennedy now,he's ten years younger than me, and yet somehow or other he manages melike as if I was a baby. And no bounce about it either; I wouldn'tstand bounce from any man, officer or not. But he don't bounce; hespeaks as quiet as a district visitor; but somehow--well, you feelyou've just _got_ to do what he says, and you'd be a skunk if youdidn't. I don't understand it, I tell you straight."

  Kenneth did not speak the thought that arose in his mind, but he warmedto this testimonial from the British working-man to the Britishpublic-school boy.

  There came a day, about the middle of March, when the battalion was oncemore entrained. This time the men took it more quietly: the firstdisappointment forbade them to set their hopes too high. It was darkwhen the train reached its destination; the lights on the platform weredim; but one of the men shouted, "A ship, boys!" as he got out of hiscompartment, and a thrill of excitement ran through the crowd.

  They were in fact at the dock station at Southampton, and a bigtransport vessel lay alongside. Many of the men had never been on thesea before. Ginger looked a little careworn, and confessed to Kenneththat he felt certain he was going to be sick. The night was nearly gonewhen all the men were aboard. Some lay down in their overcoats; othersremained on deck, irked by the impossibility of satisfying theircuriosity about the vessel.

  At daybreak the ship cast off and steamed slowly through the fairway ofSouthampton Water towards the open sea. It was a bright calm morning,and the men watched with fascinated eyes the ripples glistening in thesunlight, the various shipping, the shores receding behind them. Andpresently, when they had rounded the north-east corner of the Isle ofWight, and the course was headed southward across the Channel, theyburst into cheers when they caught sight of the low lean shapes ofdestroyers on either side of them.

  "What price submarines to-day!" cried one of the men.

  "Ain't got an earthly," remarked another.

  "Don't believe there are none," said a third. "Our men in blue havesunk 'em all long ago."

  "How are you getting on, Ginger?" asked Kenneth.

  Ginger was half lying on his back, gripping a stanchion, and lookingstraight ahead with nervous anticipation.

  "Is it much farther?" he asked.

  "Nothing to speak of. The Channel's as calm as a millpond."

  "It may be, but the ship ain't. She's very lively. All of a shake, sheis. Takes a lurch for'ard, then backs a bit, seemingly, then anotherlurch. It ain't what I'm used to. It worries the inside of me. I wantto say 'Whoa, steady!' like I do to the donkeys at fair time. And itgives me the needle to see that there Stoneway sticking hisself out asif he was driving the bally ship. It don't seem fair, a big chap likehim taking it so easy when he's got twice as much as me to lose."

  "Well, you won't lose much if you keep still," said Harry, laughing atthe man's woe-begone face. "It's quite certain you couldn't have acalmer crossing."

  Ginger's alarms were needless. When the cliffs of France hove in sighthe got up and leant over the rail, eagerly watching the advancingcoast-line.

  "That's France, is it?" he remarked. "I don't see much difference. Ican't understand why the folks over there don't speak English, when theylive so close. I reckon we'll learn 'em afore we get back."

  The red and blue roofs of Boulogne became distinct. Presently thevessel rounded the breakwater and manoeuvred herself alongside the quay.There was scarcely anything to show that the men had actually arrived inFrance. Khaki predominated on the quay; an English voice hailed theskipper through a megaphone; a blue-grey motor omnibus with the windowsboarded up and the words "Kaiser's coffin" chalked on the sides stood onthe road.

  No time was lost in disembarkation. The men were marched across therailway lines to a train in waiting. Ginger, with Kenneth, Harry, andhalf a dozen more, got into a compartment labelled "Defense de fumer,"and started lighting up at once.

  "We'll defend it all right," said Ginger, "but the rest is spelt wrong."

  "It means you mustn't smoke," said Kenneth.

  "Well, that's a good 'un! What do they take us for? Any gentlemanobject?"

  "No!" yelled in chorus.

  "I didn't half think so."

  The train rumbled away eastward, and the men scanned the bare countryfrom the windows, remarking on its dreary character, scarcely relievedby the pollard willows that raised their naked boughs against the greysky. By and by they got out at a small station, and marched along astraight road between rows of trees to a country village. They kept tothe right side; the other was busy with empty supply wagons, lorries offamiliar appearance, now and then a mud-caked motor car.

  Some officers had gone on ahead to arrange billets. Arriving at thevillage, the majority of the men were accommodated in the barn andoutbuildings of a large fa
rm, a few in separate cottages. Kenneth, withHarry and Ginger and other men of their platoon found themselvesallotted to a labourer's cottage, where shake-downs of clean straw hadbeen laid on the floors of a couple of rooms. A road divided theirbillet from the garden of a good-sized house, in which quarters had beenfound for two or three of the officers.

  Apart from the traffic on the road there was as yet no sign of war. Nosound of guns broke the stillness of the spring afternoon. But it hadbecome known that the firing line was only a few miles ahead, and themen were all agog with expectation of an early call to the trenches.

  It soon appeared, however, that they were not yet to enter upon the realwork of war. Rumour had it that Sir John French was waiting for furtherreinforcements before pursuing the forward movement recently started atNeuve Chapelle. Day after day passed in exercising, marching,practising operations in the field. Word came of other regimentspouring across the Channel and occupying other villages and towns behindthe firing line. All day long they heard the distant bark of guns, andsaw too frequently the swift passage of motor ambulances conveying theirsad burdens to the coast. When off duty they strolled about the village,making friends of the hospitable villagers, romping with the children,playing football, cheerful, light-hearted, scarcely alive to theactualities of the desperate work in which they were so eager to engage.

  One day a trifling incident occupied Kenneth's attention for a moment.He happened to have gone into a little shop to buy cakes for thechildren of the good people upon whom he was billeted. Several of themen were there making purchases, and one of them was vainly trying toexplain his wants to the shopkeeper. Stoneway was standing by. Kennethtranslated for his baffled comrade; then, suddenly remembering what hehad overheard on the platform at St. Pancras station, he said to him:

  "Why didn't you ask Stoneway to help you? He speaks French."

  Stoneway looked astonished and startled, but said at once:

  "Me! I know a word or two, but you can't call it speaking French. Icouldn't do it."

  Kenneth said no more, though his recollection of the energeticconversation at the station was very clear, and he wondered why the manhad denied his accomplishment.

  There was only one opinion of the kindness and hospitality of thevillagers, and the men were particularly enthusiastic about the owner ofthe house across the road. Far from limiting himself to the sumptuousentertainment of the officers billeted on him, he went out of his way tolavish attentions on the soldiers, making them presents of cigarettes,and treating them to the wine of the country. The village had notsuffered from the ravages of war, though the Germans had occupied it fora few days during their rush towards Calais; but it harboured manyrefugees from towns and villages farther eastward, and these weresupported by the benevolent owner of the large house, who maintained asort of soup kitchen where the homeless people could obtain freerations.

  One evening, when Kenneth and his comrades were at supper in theirhost's capacious kitchen, the talk turned on Monsieur Obernai, "themounseer over the way," as Ginger called him, "one of the best." JeanBonnard, the cottager, and his wife took their meals with their guests,and chatted freely to Kenneth and Harry, the only men who knew enoughFrench to understand them. Kenneth repeated in French what Ginger hadsaid.

  "Ah yes, monsieur," said Bonnard. "Monsieur Obernai is a good man. Yousee, he is from Alsace, and has reason to hate the Germans."

  "All the same, I don't like him," said his wife, pressing her lipstogether.

  "That is a point on which we don't agree," said Bonnard, with a smile."Just like a woman! She doesn't like him, but she can't say why."

  "You hear him!" said madame. "Just like a woman! As if a woman was notalways right!"

  "But you have a reason, madame?" said Harry.

  "Bah! I leave reasons to men; I have my feelings."

  Bonnard shrugged his shoulders.

  "Well, mon amie," he said, "I can put my reasons into words, see you.Monsieur Obernai came here from Alsace five or six years ago. He couldnot stand the Germans, so he sold his property and came and settledhere, and he has been a good friend to the village, that you cannotdeny. A very quiet man, too; he lives all alone with an old housekeeperand a couple of servants, and makes himself very pleasant. When our twoboys went off to the war, didn't he give them warm vests and stuff theirhaversacks with cigarettes?"

  "Yes, he was good to our poor boys," admitted the good woman grudgingly,"but I don't like him all the same. I don't like his voice; it makes meshrivel."

  "A man speaks with the voice God gave him," said her husband. "As forme, I look at what a man does, and don't trouble myself about his voice.And after all, it is not a bad voice."

  "Smooth as butter," rejoined the woman. "But there, we shall neveragree, mon ami. Get on with your soup."

  After supper, some of the men settled down to write home. The postalregulations annoyed Ginger.

  "I'm a poor hand at writing," he said, "and I don't see why I shouldn'tsend my love to my wife and kids on one of these here postcards. Itain't enough for a letter; yet if I put it on the postcard they'ddestroy it, they say. What for, I'd like to know?"

  "It does seem hard lines," said Kenneth, "but I suppose it's to ease thecensors' work. They've an enormous number of cards to look over, andthey'd never get done if they had to read a lot of stuff."

  "'Love' 's a little word; that wouldn't hurt 'em. Still, rules isrules, no doubt."

  He proceeded to cross out several sentences on the official postcardprovided, leaving only "I am quite well" and adding his signature andthe date.

  Presently the post corporal came to collect the letters and cards.

  "Captain wants you, Murgatroyd," he said.

  "Going to give you your stripe at last, Ginger," said Harry.

  "I shouldn't wonder," said Ginger, grinning as he went out.

  When he returned, twenty minutes later, the expression on his facechecked the congratulations that rose to his comrades' lips. Hisfeatures were grimly set, and he went to his place by the fire withoututtering a word.

  "No luck, Ginger?" said one of the men indiscreetly.

  "Shut up!" growled Ginger, lighting his pipe.

  Nothing would induce him to explain why he had been sent for, or thereason of his annoyance. He was one of the best-behaved men in thecompany, and it seemed unlikely that he had got into trouble without theknowledge of the others. Wisely, they did not press him with questions,expecting that he would tell them all in good time.

  Ginger's interview with Captain Adams had been a surprising one.

  "You know the post regulations, Murgatroyd?" said the captain.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Well, look at this postcard. Is that your signature?"

  "D. Murgatroyd; that's me, sir," said Ginger, after a glance at thepencilled name.

  "What do you mean by writing the name of the place in invisible ink?"

  "Never did such a thing, sir. Don't know anything about invisible ink."

  "Well, how do you explain it, then? This card had the name written ininvisible ink. It was discovered by the Post Office in London, andthey've returned it for inquiries. What have you to say?"

  "What I said before, sir: I didn't do it."

  "You write to Henry Smith, 563 Pentonville Road?"

  "Never heard of him, sir."

  "What's the game, then? Go and fetch the post corporal," he said to hisservant.

  The man came in with a bundle of recently collected cards in his hand.

  "Look at this," said the captain, showing him the card in question."Did you get that from Murgatroyd?"

  "I couldn't say, sir; I get such a lot."

  "But you know his signature?"

  "I can't say I do, sir; but he has just written a card; perhaps youwould like to have a look at it."

  He searched his bundle, found the card and handed it to the captain, whocompared the two signatures.

  "This is very odd," he said. "They are very much alike, bu
t there's aslight difference in the shape of the y. It looks as though some onewere imitating your fist, Murgatroyd."

  "Yes, sir," said Ginger, stiffly. "I'd like to punch his head, sir," headded, as the baseness of the trick struck him.

  "Well, we must find out who it is. Keep this to yourselves, men; he maytry it again and give us a chance to catch him. Not a word to anyone,mind."

  Ginger saluted and returned to his billet, his indignation growing atevery step.

  The incident was discussed at the officers' mess that night.

  "Murgatroyd is straight enough," said Kennedy. "He's one of the bestmen in my platoon. It's rather a mean trick."

  "And a senseless one," said the captain. "I'm inclined to think one ofthe men must owe him a grudge, and want to get him into trouble."

  "What about the addressee?" asked another officer. "Who is Henry Smith,of 563 Pentonville Road?"

  "The London people will keep him under observation, no doubt," said thecaptain. "I told the post corporal to examine every batch carefully, andsee if there are any more addressed to the same person."

  Three days passed. No letters or cards addressed to Henry Smith werediscovered. On the third day a telegram from London was delivered to thecolonel.

  "Henry Smith gone, leaving no address. Report result of enquiry."

  After consulting Captain Adams the colonel telegraphed in reply thatMurgatroyd's signature appeared to have been forged, probably with theintention of getting him into trouble, and that he was keeping a carefulwatch on the correspondence. Ginger meanwhile had recovered hisspirits. He had been made a lance-corporal, and sewed the stripe on hissleeve with ingenuous satisfaction. At the back of his mind was asuspicion that Stoneway might have sought a mean revenge for histhrashing by this use of invisible ink; but since the scheme had failed,he resolved not to trouble his head about it.