Part 27 (1/2)
Behind it, like the wake of a steamer, little dabs of white plastered the blue sky. English shrapnel bursting from other anti-aircraft guns.
Jim's gunner friend seemed to know most of them by name, as old pals whom he had watched for many a week on the same errand; and from him Jim gathered that the moment approached for the appearance of Panting Lizzie. Lizzie, apparently, was a fast armoured German biplane which came over his gun every fine evening about the same hour. For days and weeks had he fired at it, so far without any success, but he still had hopes. The gun was ready, c.o.c.ked wickedly upon its motor mounting, covered with branches and daubed with strange blotches of paint to make it less conspicuous. Round the motor itself the detachment consumed tea, a terrier sat up and begged, a goat of fearsome aspect looked pensive.
In front, in a chair, his eye glued to a telescope on a tripod, sat the look-out man.
It was just as Jim and his pal were getting down to a whisky and soda that Lizzie hove in sight. The terrier ceased to beg, the goat departed hurriedly, the officer spoke rapidly in a language incomprehensible to Jim, and the fun began. There are few things so trying to listen to as an Archie, owing to the rapidity with which it fires; the gun pumps up and down with a series of sharp cracks, every two or three shots being followed by more incomprehensible language from the officer. Adjustment after each shot is impossible owing to the fact that three or four sh.e.l.ls have left the gun and are on their way before the first one explodes. It was while Jim, with his fingers in his ears, was watching the sh.e.l.ls bursting round the aeroplane and marvelling that nothing seemed to happen, that he suddenly realised that the gun had stopped firing. Looking at the detachment, he saw them all gazing upwards. From high up, sounding strangely faint in the air, came the zipping of a Maxim.
”By Gad!” muttered the gunner officer; ”this is going to be some fight.”
Bearing down on Panting Lizzie came a British armoured 'plane, and from it the Maxim was spitting. And now there started a very pretty air duel.
I am no airman, to tell of spirals, and glides, and the multifarious twistings and turnings. At times the German's Maxim got going as well; at times both were silent, manoeuvring for position. The Archies were not firing--the machines were too close together. Once the German seemed to drop like a stone for a thousand feet or so. ”Got him!” shouted Jim--but the gunner shook his head.
”A common trick,” he answered. ”He found it getting a bit warm, and that upsets one's range. You'll find he'll be off now.”
Sure enough he was--with his nose for home he turned tail and fled. The gunner shouted an order, and they opened fire again, while the British 'plane pursued, its Maxim going continuously. Generally honour is satisfied without the shedding of blood; each, having consistently missed the other and resisted the temptations of flying low over his opponents' guns, returns home to dinner. But in this case--well, whether it was Archie or whether it was the Maxim is really immaterial. Suddenly a great sheet of flame seemed to leap from the German machine and a puff of black smoke: it staggered like a shot bird and then, without warning, it fell--a streak of light, like some giant shooting star rus.h.i.+ng to the earth. The Maxim stopped firing, and after circling round a couple of times the British machine buzzed contentedly back to bed. And in a field--somewhere behind our lines--there lay for many a day, deep embedded in a hole in the ground, the battered remnants of Panting Lizzie, with its great black cross stuck out of the earth for all to see. Somewhere in the debris, crushed and mangled beyond recognition, could have been found the remnants of two German airmen. Which might be called the black and white of the overworld.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 1: 92” Howitzer.]
CHAPTER VIII
ON THE STAFF
But now rumour was getting busy in earnest--things were in the air.
There were talks of a great offensive--and although there be rumour in England, though bucolic stationmasters have brushed the snow from the steppes of Russia out of railway carriages, I have no hesitation in saying that for quality and quant.i.ty the rumours that float round the army in France have de Rougemont beat to a frazzle. In this case expectations were fulfilled, and two or three days after the decease of Panting Lizzie, Jim and his battalion shook the dust of the Ypres district from their feet and moved away south.
It was then that our hero raised his third star. Shades of Wellington! A captain in a year. But I make no comment. A sense of humour, invaluable at all times, is indispensable in this war, if one wishes to preserve an unimpaired digestion.
But another thing happened to him, too, about this time, for, owing to the sudden sickness of a member of his General's Staff, he found himself attached temporarily for duty. No longer did he flat foot it, but in a large and commodious motor-car he viewed life from a different standpoint. And, solely owing to this temporary appointment, he was able to see the launching of the attack near Loos at the end of September. He saw the wall of gas and smoke roll slowly forward towards the German trenches over the wide s.p.a.ce that separated the trenches in that part of the line. Great belching explosions seemed to shatter the vapour periodically, as German sh.e.l.ls exploded in it, causing it to rise in swirling eddies, as from some monstrous cauldron, only to sink sullenly back and roll on. And behind it came the a.s.saulting battalions, lines of black pigmies charging forward.
And later he heard of the Scotsmen who chased the flying Huns like terriers after rats, grunting, cursing, swearing, down the gentle slope past Loos and up the other side; on to Hill 70, where they swayed backwards and forwards over the top, while some with the l.u.s.t of killing on them fought their way into the town beyond--and did not return. He heard of the battery that blazed over open sights at the Germans during the morning, till, running out of ammunition, the guns ceased fire, a mark to every German rifle. The battery remained there during the day, for there was not cover for a terrier, let alone a team of horses, and between the guns were many strange tableaux as Death claimed his toll.
They got them away that night, but not before the gunners had taken back the breech-blocks--in case; for it was touch and go.
But this attack has already been described too often, and so I will say no more. I would rather write of those things which happened to Jim Denver himself, before he left the Land of Topsy Turvy for the second time. Only I venture to think that when the full story comes to be written--if ever--of that last week in September, or the surging forward past Loos and the Lone Tree to Hulluch and the top of 70, of the cavalry who waited for the chance that never came, and the German machine-guns hidden in the slag-heaps, the reading will be interesting. What happened would fill a book; what might have happened--a library.
It was a couple of days afterwards that he saw his first big batch of German prisoners. Five or six miles behind the firing-line in a great gra.s.s field, fenced in on all sides by barbed wire, was a batch of some seven hundred--almost all of them Prussians and Jagers. Munching food contentedly, they sat in rows on the ground; their dirty grey uniforms coated with dust and mud--unwashed, unshaven, and--well, if you are contemplating German prisoners, get ”up wind.” All around the field Tommies stood and gazed, now and again offering them cigarettes. A few prisoners who could speak English got up and talked.
It struck Jim Denver then that he viewed these men with no antipathy; he merely gazed at them curiously as one gazes at animals in a ”Zoo.” And as we English are ever p.r.o.ne to such views, and as the Hymn of Hate and like effusions are regarded, and rightly so, as occasions for mirth, it was perhaps as well for Jim to realise the other point of view. There are two sides to every question, and the Germans believe in their hate just as we believe in our laughter. But when it is over, it will be unfortunate if we forget the hate too quickly.
”What a nation we are!” said a voice beside Jim. He turned round and found a doctor watching the scene with a peculiar look in his eyes.
”Suppose it had been the other way round! Suppose those were our men while the Germans were the captors! Do you think the scene would be like this?” His face twisted into a bitter smile. ”There would have been armed soldiers walking up and down the ranks, kicking men in the stomach, hitting them on the head with rifle b.u.t.ts, tearing bandages off wounds--just for the fun of the thing. Sharing food!”--he laughed contemptuously--”why, they'd have been starving. Giving 'em cigarettes!--why, they'd have taken away what they had already.”
He turned and looked up the road. Walking down it were thirty or so German officers. From the b.u.t.ton in the centre of their jackets hung in nearly every case the ribbon of the Iron Cross. Laughing, talking--one or two sneering--they came along and halted by the gate into the field.