Part 29 (1/2)
”Where are Bob and Dennis, Littlewood?” repeated the Brigadier.
”Here we are, sir!” said a laughing voice out of the darkness. ”We're both a bit bent, but we're safe and sound for all that”; and Captain Littlewood echoed the Brigadier's hearty ”Thank G.o.d!” as Hawke and Tiddler dumped their burden down before them.
Hands met, and the lieutenant, who had taken over the command of the survivors of A Company, and who had come up at the moment, felt the muscles of his throat tighten, and became very duty-struck to cover his emotions.
”Is that you, Hawke?” he said sharply. ”Do you mean to say you disobeyed my orders and left the trench?”
”Captain Dashwood--sir!” said Harry Hawke, with a ring of ill-used innocence in his husky voice, ”didn't we pick you up at the other end of this trench when you tumbled over the sandbags? And didn't you say you was all right, sir, but we would carry you?”
”Perfectly true, Hawke, that's a fact,” said Captain Bob, the light strong upon him now; and no one saw the grip that fell on Harry Hawke's wrist, a grip that cemented the friends.h.i.+p between officer and man for ever and a day.
”Very well,” said the lieutenant. ”Get back to your company now--or all that's left of it”; and as the two rascals hurried away he looked from Bob to Dennis, and said, with a laugh of immense relief in the words of Galileo of old, ”All right, you beggars, 'but it moves for all that!'”
CHAPTER XXII
The Row in the Restaurant
”Stand down, Reeds.h.i.+res! File off by your right!” And the shattered remnant of that fine battalion groped its way along a broken communication trench to the rear, as a fresh battalion from the reserves took over the trench they had won at such terrible cost.
They carried Bob Dashwood with them, and Dennis stumbled along like one in a dream; back past the sh.e.l.l-torn wood, through the village, or rather, the village heaps, and so to the rear, where they were to go into billets until the drafts should bring them up to fighting strength again.
It was a toilsome march, and the little band seemed strangely insignificant as it pa.s.sed other eager battalions hurrying up into the firing line, all eleven hundred strong, some even more.
One of these came swinging by, singing a l.u.s.ty chorus: ”We're here--because we're here--because we're here--because we're here!” etc., and a voice called out, ”What cheer, mateys--who are you?”
”The Royal Reeds.h.i.+res!” was the proud reply. ”What's your crowd?”
”Dirty d.i.c.k's!”
”Then good luck to you”; and Harry Hawke, remembering a certain famous hostelry in his native land of Sh.o.r.editch, felt a fierce thirst come over him.
”I'd give somethink to be in Dirty d.i.c.k's just na'--wouldn't you, c.o.c.kie?” he murmured hoa.r.s.ely to his left-hand file.
”Not 'arf, I wouldn't,” responded Tiddler with a great gulp.
Before long they left our own batteries behind them, and the roar of the firing, which never ceased, grew m.u.f.fled in the distance.
They turned aside after a while, for the road was wanted for the motor ambulances carrying their loads of maimed and mangled men from the advanced dressing-stations to the Divisional Field Hospital, and meeting them were the big lorries rus.h.i.+ng up food, their headlights s.h.i.+ning brightly in long perspective until the approach of dawn extinguished them.
Then, when the grey light stole over the gently undulating country, officers and men looked at each other and at the battalion, and the tired faces were wan and sunken with something that was not mere physical fatigue.
The C.O., with his keen smile, and well-waxed little grey moustache, was no longer in his accustomed place; ”n.o.bby” Clark, who sang such good songs at their improvised smokers, would never sing to them any more. As for A Company, reduced to little more than a platoon and a half, it straggled along like a sort of ragged advance guard, savage and sleepy--oh, so sleepy, and covered with dust from head to heel, which did not hide the ugly red splotches and smears that told of fierce grips and the ”haymaker's lift.”
But at last they reached the little village, which was the end of the journey, and broke off and crowded into a big barn that they had once occupied before; and Dennis, who had tottered along without seeing anything through his staring eyes for the last mile and more, tripped and fell on his face, and lay so still that no one worried about him.
Very few of them worried about anything, as a matter of fact; even the ration parties provoked no enthusiasm. All they wanted was to sleep, and on many of the war-grimed faces was a smile of satisfied content. They had helped to lift the curtain of the Great Push, and it had been completely successful.
When Dennis opened his eyes, or rather, when he was conscious of opening them, he found Bob standing beside him with a colonel of the R.A.M.C.