Part 14 (1/2)
At the head of the column march Captains Mackintosh and Shand, the respective commanders of C and D Companies. Occasionally Mackintosh, the senior, interpolates a remark of a casual or professional nature.
To all these his colleague replies in a low and reproachful whisper.
The pair represent two schools of military thought--a fact of which their respective subalterns are well aware,--and act accordingly.
”In preparing troops for active service, you must make the conditions as _real_ as possible from the very outset,” postulates Shand.
”Perform all your exercises just as you would in war. When you dig trenches, let every man work with his weather-eye open and his rifle handy, in case of sudden attack. If you go out on night operations don't advertise your position by stopping to give your men a recitation. No talking--no smoking--no unnecessary delay or exposure!
Just go straight to your point of deployment, and do what you came out to do.”
To this Mackintosh replies,--
”That's all right for trained troops. But ours aren't half-trained yet; all our work just now is purely educational. It's no use expecting a gang of rivet-heaters from Clydebank to form an elaborate outpost line, just because you whispered a few sweet nothings in the dark to your leading section of fours! You simply _must_ explain every step you take, at present.”
But Shand shakes his head.
”It's not soldierly,” he sighs.
Hence the present one-sided--or apparently one-sided--dialogue. To the men marching immediately behind, it sounds like something between a soliloquy and a chat over the telephone.
Presently Captain Mackintosh announces,--
”We might send the scouts ahead now I think.”
Shand gives an inaudible a.s.sent. The column is halted, and the scouts called up. A brief command, and they disappear into the darkness, at the double. C and D Companies give them five minutes start, and move on. The road at this point runs past a low mossy wall, surmounted by a venerable yew hedge, clipped at intervals into the semblance of some heraldic monster. Beyond the hedge, in the middle distance, looms a square and stately Georgian mansion, whose lights twinkle hospitably.
”I think, Shand,” suggests Mackintosh with more formality, now that he is approaching the scene of action, ”that we might attack at two different points, each of us with his own company. What is your opinion?”
The officer addressed makes no immediate reply. His gaze is fixed upon the yew hedge, as if searching for gun positions or vulnerable points.
Presently, however, he turns away, and coming close to Captain Mackintosh, puts his lips to his left ear. Mackintosh prepares his intellect for the reception of a pearl of strategy.
But Captain Shand merely announces, in his regulation whisper,--
”Dam pretty girl lives in that house, old man!”
II
Private Peter Duns.h.i.+e, scout, groping painfully and profanely through a close-growing wood, paused to unwind a clinging tendril from his bare knees. As he bent down, his face came into sudden contact with a cold, wet, p.r.i.c.kly bramble-bush, which promptly drew a loving but excoriating finger across his right cheek.
He started back, with a m.u.f.fled exclamation. Instantly there arose at his very feet the sound as of a motor-engine being wound up, and a fl.u.s.tered and protesting c.o.c.k-pheasant hoisted itself tumultuously clear of the undergrowth and sailed away, shrieking, over the trees.
Finally, a hare, which had sat cowering in the bracken, hare-like, when it might have loped away, selected this, the one moment when it ought to have sat still, to bolt frantically between Peter's bandy legs and speed away down a long moon-dappled avenue.
Private Duns.h.i.+e, a prey to nervous shock, said what naturally rose to his lips. To be frank, he said it several times. He had spent the greater part of his life selling evening papers in the streets of Glasgow: and the profession of journalism, though it breeds many virtues in its votaries, is entirely useless as a preparation for conditions either of silence or solitude. Private Duns.h.i.+e had no experience of either of these things, and consequently feared them both. He was acutely afraid. What he understood and appreciated was Argyle Street on a Sat.u.r.day night. That was life! That was light! That was civilisation! As for creeping about in this uncanny wood, filled with noxious animals and adhesive vegetation--well, Duns.h.i.+e was heartily sorry that he had ever volunteered for service as a scout. He had only done so, of course, because the post seemed to offer certain relaxations from the austerity of company routine--a little more freedom of movement, a little less trench-digging, and a minimum of supervision. He would have been thankful for a supervisor now!
That evening, when the scouts doubled ahead, Lieutenant Simson had halted them upon the skirts of a dark, dreich plantation, and said--
”A and B Companies represent the enemy. They are beyond that crest, finis.h.i.+ng the trenches which were begun the 'other day. They intend to hold these against our attack. Our only chance is to take them by surprise. As they will probably have thrown out a line of outposts, you scouts will now scatter and endeavour to get through that line, or at least obtain exact knowledge of its composition. My belief is that the enemy will content themselves with placing a piquet on each of the two roads which run through their position; but it is possible that they will also post sentry-groups in the wood which lies between.
However, that is what you have to find out. Don't go and get captured.
Move!”