Part 15 (1/2)

”Where's your prisoner?” asked an Intelligence officer waiting to receive a German sent down from the trenches under escort of an honest corporal.

”I lost him on the way, sir,” said the corporal.

”Lost him?”

The corporal was embarra.s.sed.

”Very sorry, sir. My feelings overcame me, sir. It was like this, sir. The man started talking on the way down. Said he was thinking of his poor wife. I'd been thinking of mine, and I felt sorry for him. Then he mentioned as how he had two kiddies at home. I 'ave two kiddies at 'ome, sir, and I couldn't 'elp feeling sorry for him. Then he said as how his old mother had died awhile ago and he'd never see her again. When he started cryin' I was so sorry for him I couldn't stand it any longer, sir. So I killed the poor blighter.”

Our men in the trenches, and out of them, up to the waist in water sometimes, lying in slimy dugouts, lice-eaten, rat-haunted, on the edge of mine-craters, under hara.s.sing fire, with just the fluke of luck between life and death, seized upon any kind of joke as an excuse for laughter, and many a time in ruins and in trenches and in dugouts I have heard great laughter. It was the protective armor of men's souls. They knew that if they did not laugh their courage would go and nothing would stand between them and fear.

”You know, sir,” said a sergeant-major, one day, when I walked with him down a communication trench so waterlogged that my top-boots were full of slime, ”it doesn't do to take this war seriously.”

And, as though in answer to him, a soldier without breeches and with his s.h.i.+rt tied between his legs looked at me and remarked, in a philosophical way, with just a glint of comedy in his eyes:

”That there Grand Fleet of ours don't seem to be very active, sir. It's a pity it don't come down these blinkin' trenches and do a bit of work!”

”Having a clean-up, my man?” said a brigadier to a soldier trying to wash in a basin about the size of a kitchen mug.

”Yes, sir,” said the man, ”and I wish I was a blasted canary.”

One of the most remarkable battles on the front was fought by a battalion of Worcesters for the benefit of two English members of Parliament. It was not a very big battle, but most dramatic while it lasted. The colonel (who had a sense of humor) arranged it after a telephone message to his dugout telling him that two politicians were about to visit his battalion in the line, and asking him to show them something interesting.

”Interesting?” said the colonel. ”Do they think this war is a peep-show for politicians? Do they want me to arrange a ma.s.sacre to make a London holiday?” Then his voice changed and he laughed. ”Show them something interesting? Oh, all right; I dare say I can do that.”

He did. When the two M. P.'s arrived, apparently at the front-line trenches, they were informed by the colonel that, much to his regret, for their sake, the enemy was just attacking, and that his men were defending their position desperately.

”We hope for the best,” he said, ”and I think there is just a chance that you will escape with your lives if you stay here quite quietly.”

”Great G.o.d!” said one of the M. P.'s, and the other was silent, but pale.

Certainly there was all the noise of a big attack. The Worcesters were standing-to on the fire-step, firing rifle-grenades and throwing bombs with terrific energy. Every now and then a man fell, and the stretcher-bearers pounced on him, tied him up in bandages, and carried him away to the field dressing-station, whistling as they went, ”We won't go home till morning,” in a most heroic way... The battle lasted twenty minutes, at the end of which time the colonel announced to his visitors:

”The attack is repulsed, and you, gentlemen, have nothing more to fear.”

One of the M. P.'s was thrilled with excitement. ”The valor of your men was marvelous,” he said. ”What impressed me most was the cheerfulness of the wounded. They were actually grinning as they came down on the stretchers.”

The colonel grinned, too. In fact, he stifled a fit of coughing. ”Funny devils!” he said. ”They are so glad to be going home.”

The members of Parliament went away enormously impressed, but they had not enjoyed themselves nearly as well as the Worcesters, who had fought a sham battle-not in the front-line trenches, but in the support trenches two miles back! They laughed for a week afterward.

XVII

On the hill at Wizerne, not far from the stately old town of St.-Omer (visited from time to time by monstrous nightbirds who dropped high-explosive eggs), was a large convent. There were no nuns there, but generally some hundreds of young officers and men from many different battalions, attending a machine-gun course under the direction of General Baker-Carr, who was the master machine-gunner of the British army (at a time when we were very weak in those weapons compared with the enemy's strength) and a cheery, vital man.