Part 26 (1/2)
”Have some more rum, sir?” remarked Jim soothingly.
”But I could have stood all that--they were trifles.” The Major was getting warmed up to it. ”This is what finished me.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. ”Read that, my boy--read that and ponder.”
Jim took the paper and glanced at it.
”I carry that as my talisman. In the event of my death I've given orders for it to be sent to the author.”
”But what's it all about?” asked Denver.
”'At the risk of repeating myself, I wish again to a.s.severate what I drew especial attention to last week, and the week before, and the one before that; as a firm grasp of this essential fact is imperative to an undistorted view of the situation. Whatever minor facts may now or again crop up in this t.i.tanic conflict, we must not shut our eyes to the rules of war. They are unchangeable, immutable; the rules of Caesar were the rules of Napoleon, and are in fact the rules that I myself have consistently laid down in these columns. They cannot change: this war will be decided by them as surely as night follows day; and those ignorant persons who are permitted to express their opinions elsewhere would do well to remember that simple fact.'”
”What the devil is this essential fact?”
”Would you like to know? I got to it after two columns like that.”
”What was it?” laughed Jim.
”'An obstacle in an army's path is that which obstructs the path of the army in question.'”
”After that--more rum.” Jim solemnly decanted the liquid. ”You deserve it. You....”
”Stand to.” A shout from the trench outside--repeated all along until it died away in the distance. The Major gulped his rum and dived for the door--while Jim groped for his cap. Suddenly out of the still night there came a burst of firing, sudden and furious. The firing was taken up all along the line, and then the guns started and a rain of shrapnel came down behind the British lines.
Away--a bit in front on the other side of the road to Jim's trench there were woods--woods of unenviable reputation. Hence the name of ”Sanctuary.” In the middle of them, on the road, lay the ruined chateau and village of Hooge--also of unenviable reputation.
And towards these woods the eyes of all were turned.
”What the devil is it?” shouted the man beside Jim. ”Look at them lights in the trees.”
The devil it was. Dancing through the darkness of the trees were flames and flickering lights, like will-o'-the-wisps playing over an Irish bog.
And men, looking at one another, muttered sullenly. They remembered the gas; what new devilry was this?
Up in the woods things were moving. Hardly had the relieving regiments taken over their trenches, when from the ground in front there seemed to leap a wall of flame. It rushed towards them and, falling into the trenches and on to the men's clothes, burnt furiously like brandy round a plum pudding. The woods were full of hurrying figures das.h.i.+ng blindly about, cursing and raving. For a s.p.a.ce pandemonium reigned. The Germans came on, and it looked as if there might be trouble. The regiments who had just been relieved came back, and after a while things straightened out a little. But our front trenches in those woods, when morning broke, were not where they had been the previous night....
Liquid fire--yet one more invention of ”Kultur”; gas; the moat at Ypres poisoned with a.r.s.enic; crucifixion; burning death squirted from the black night--suddenly, without warning: truly a great array of Kultured triumphs.... And with it all--failure. To fight as a sportsman fights and lose has many compensations; to fight as the German fights and lose must be to taste of the dregs of h.e.l.l.
But that is how they _do_ fight, whatever interesting surmises one may make of their motives and feelings. And that is how it goes on over the water--the funny mixture of the commonplace of everyday with the great crude, cruel realities of life and death.
But as I said, for the next few weeks the grey screen cloaked those crude realities as far as Jim was concerned. Rumour for once had proved true; the division was pulled out, and his battalion found itself near Poperinghe.
”Months of boredom punctuated by moments of intense fright” is a definition of war which undoubtedly Noah would have regarded as a chestnut. And I should think it doubtful if there has ever been a war in which this definition was more correct.
Jim route marched: he trained bombers: he dined in Poperinghe and went to the Follies. Also, he allowed other men to talk to him of their plans for leave: than which no more beautiful form of unselfishness is laid down anywhere in the Law or the Prophets.
On the whole the time did not drag. There is much of interest for those who have eyes to see in that country which fringes the c.o.c.k Pit of Europe. Hacking round quietly most afternoons on a horse borrowed from someone, the spirit of the land got into him, that blood-soaked, quiet, uncomplaining country, whose soul rises unconquerable from the battered ruins.
Horses exercising, lorries cras.h.i.+ng and lurching over the pave roads.