Part 5 (1/2)

CHAPTER IV

His First Time Under Fire

Over the edge leapt Hawke and his companion, and Hawke shortened his bayonet as he saw his idol's brother clutching the Saxon in tight embrace.

”Stand clear, sir!” he shouted, but the German's hands went up above his head, and in a quavering voice he cried, ”Kamerad! Mercy, officer! I am married with two little ones, and this hateful war is not my fault!”

Harry Hawke's bayonet was only half its length from the man's ribs when Dennis put it aside.

”Strewth, Tiddler! I can't see no difference myself between one Boche and another,” grumbled Hawke. ”It's one more prisoner to feed, and Lloyd George talks about economy.”

”I will tell you,” said the Saxon, crouching down as half a dozen sh.e.l.ls in quick succession hummed overhead. ”We were sent out to reconnoitre your trench. You pa.s.sed us just now, and we hid ourselves here. There is going to be an attack in a few minutes, only you gave the alarm a little sooner.”

”Do you hear that, Dan?” said Dennis. ”We must let them know somehow.”

”Hum! If we'd nine lives apiece like a cat there might be some sense in risking eight of them,” said the Australian corporal. ”But it's no good stirring out of this hole just yet. Look at that!”

A perfect hurricane of sh.e.l.ls was going over now, and the air was filled with a succession of explosions.

”They're firing shrapnel!” shouted Tiddler in Dennis's ear. ”You can tell by the white burst and the sound of the flying b.a.l.l.s, but we're safe enough in here for the present.”

He dropped into a sitting position as he spoke, and instantly sprang up again with a yell.

”Are you hit?” said Dennis, feeling himself turn pale.

”No, I ain't hit, sir, but I'm 'urt. You don't do your jobs 'arf properly, 'Arry!” And he exhibited the piece of barbed wire on which, forgetting all about it, Tiddler had sat down heavily.

Hawke's uproarious laughter as he disengaged the offending thing sounded oddly to Dennis in the midst of that fearful din that shook the ground and brought the chalk rattling down into the hollow, but it was the first time he had been under fire, and he was yet to learn the absolute disregard of danger which the best and worst alike learn in the trenches.

”What's the strength of the attack?” said Dan Dunn to their prisoner, while the two privates went through the pockets of the men he had shot.

”Three battalions of us, and we were told the Brandenburgers were to be brought up in reserve,” replied the Saxon. ”Look! they are beginning now. That is a smoke sh.e.l.l that has just burst to cover our advance, and the other guns have ceased.”

A dense white cloud rolled along the ground in front of the crump-hole, and Hawke and Tiddler instantly faced round, gripping their rifles as they looked up the jagged slope behind them.

”Don't say no this time, sir,” said the c.o.c.kney private, ”or there'll be a rare shermozzle darn 'ere if some of the blighters come on top of us in the dark.”

”You can do as you like, Hawke,” replied Dennis abstractedly. ”But, I say, Dan, I can't stick this any longer. I wonder if our chaps would hear us if we shouted together?”

”Don't shout!” said the Saxon, pulling his sleeve. ”See, they are going past now.”

Looking up, Dennis made out a bunch of men against the smoke cloud pa.s.sing on either side of their hole, and his impulse was to scramble up out of it and empty his revolver into their midst.

”What's the northernmost limit of the attack just here?” he said to the Saxon, speaking in such excellent German that the man was obviously surprised.

”Ten yards this side of the machine-gun, Herr Officer, and they will keep well within it,” he added. ”They are Prussians on that gun, and they don't care who they kill as long as they hit somebody.”

”Look here, Dan, you can stay where you are if you like,” said Dennis.