Part 20 (1/2)

”It ain't 'arf parky,” growled Harry Hawke.

”It'll be 'ot enough in a bit,” said his pal, Tiddler. ”What price Old Street, 'Arry?”

”Chuck it!” replied the marksman of No. 2 Platoon. ”No good thinking of love and sentiment now.” But for all that, perhaps, a fleeting vision of his Lil pa.s.sed through his untutored brain, and made him a shade paler about the gills.

Tiddler noticed it and smiled to himself, knowing what it meant, for when Hawke looked white it was time for his enemy to look out, and the moment was rapidly approaching.

The trench was packed with men, all waiting. Those of the reserves who were not yet in their places were pouring steadily up, and immediately behind the front line Staff cars and motor cycles dashed backwards and forwards; and overhead, where, oddly enough, the larks were trilling, an English aeroplane was flying just above the scream of the sh.e.l.ls.

Dennis saw it, and wondered how Claude Laval was faring; and as he looked at his wrist-watch he saw that it was nearly six o'clock.

At that moment the most terrific bombardment the war had witnessed burst with devastating fury upon the German lines. Nothing had been heard like it, and men smiled grimly, knowing that their turn would come soon.

The C.O. left the bay, and walked along the front of his beloved battalion from one end of it to the other; a quiet, keen-eyed English officer, brave as a lion they all knew, but showing no trace of the slightest excitement as his eye scanned the faces of the waiting men.

He had been appointed to the command when the Dashwoods' father was given the brigade, and he realised that the brigadier expected great things of his old battalion.

”I never saw a fitter lot,” was his gratified comment as he returned to the two brothers. ”Heaven help the enemy yonder if our artillery has only cleared the wire.”

”It's sincerely to be hoped they have, sir,” said Captain Bob dryly.

”There was a d.i.c.kens of a lot of it. But we shall get through without a doubt. Not long to wait now, for there go the trench mortars.”

Mingling with the continuous roar of our guns came a still louder and very insistent sound, to which they listened in silence, every officer of the battalion with his eye on his watch.

”Well, good luck, old chap!” said Bob suddenly, gripping Dennis by the hand. And the two brothers looked at each other with the same thought behind the quiet confidence of their smile.

It might be the last time they would ever meet on earth, but they faced the possibility without fear, and already a dense cloud of smoke, released along our whole front, was shrouding the waiting line.

”Seven-thirty to the tick,” said the C.O. ”Reeds.h.i.+res--Get over!” And in an instant the battalion was swarming out of its trench, and advancing over the two hundred yards of broken ground which separated the brigade from the enemy, with sloped arms.

It was terrible going, for the whole earth was honeycombed by craters large and small; but out of the smoke-cloud rose a ringing cheer, which was still floating on the air when the vicious tac-tac of machine-guns from the German lines told that even high explosives had their limitations, and that some at least of the enemy gun-emplacements remained undestroyed.

”Double!” cried the C.O., seeing that a kilted battalion on his left was racing forward as the best means of escaping the continuous stream of bullets.

”Charge, boys, charge!” yelled Dennis, taking up the cry; and that brown avalanche of eager, helmeted men poured on clear of the smoke into the bright suns.h.i.+ne, which glinted on their fixed bayonets.

In spite of the carefully prepared staff maps and plans which they had all studied closely, Dennis looked in vain for any sign of a definite objective. There was no sandbagged parapet, nothing but a confused ma.s.s of holes and heaps scattered broadcast over the landscape--the result of the terrific spade-work of the guns--which had to be crossed before the village was reached. The village, too, of which he caught a glimpse, was only a pulverised ma.s.s of debris, with here and there the angle of a shattered house or the ribs of a roof to mark what had once been human habitations.

But he knew that the strength of the enemy's position lay in the wonderful subterranean works, the deep dug-outs, the covered-in communicating trenches, and for these he and his men rushed with great determination.

Suddenly, from the other side of a chalk heap, a row of heads appeared, wearing flat blue forage caps with white bands round them, and a shout of rapture rose from No. 2 Platoon as they saw at last something to go for.

Between them and the row of heads yawned a huge sh.e.l.l crater, and as the platoon divided automatically to avoid the obstacle, a heavy volley across the crater caught them, and several of the running men pitched forward and lay where they fell.

Perhaps they had orders to retire, perhaps it was our yell that scared them; but the heads disappeared; and when our men reached the spot where they had been the Germans had vanished. One stout fellow, dropping into a hole thirty yards away, was the only indication of what had become of them; but it was sufficient, and with a ”Come on, boys!” Dennis sprinted for the spot.

He had armed himself with a rifle and bayonet for the advance; but, changing it to his left hand, he opened the bag of bombs he had also brought and, drawing the pin, flung one of them into the hole, a square opening, evidently the entrance to a covered communication trench.

”Wait a moment!” he shouted, shouldering back the next man up, who in his excitement was about to plunge in; and then he heard the bomb burst below, and a shower of earth and fragments of clothing bespattered the pair of them, a piece of the bomb making an ugly gash on the man's cheek.