Part 39 (1/2)

”Ah, what V.C.!” he said sourly. ”Sure, his owld father wouldn't make a fuss of him. 'Why didn't he do more?' says he. 'I often laid out twenty men myself with a stick, and I coming from Macroom Fair. It is a bad trial of Mick that he could kill only eight, and he having a rifle and bayonet!' he says. c.o.c.k him up with a V.C.!” After which Jim ceased to be consoling and began to exercise his worst leg--knowing well that the sight of his torments would speedily melt Denny's heart and make him forget the sorrows of Ireland.

The guards did not trouble them much; they kept a strict watch, which was not difficult, as all the prisoners were partially disabled; and then considered their duty discharged by bringing twice a day the invariable meal of soup and bread. No one liked to speculate on what had gone to the making of the soup; it was a pale, greasy liquid, with strange lumps in it, and tasted as dish-water may be supposed to taste. Jim learned to eat the sour bread by soaking it in the soup.

He had no inclination to eat, but he forced himself to swallow the disgusting meals, so that he might keep up his strength, just as he worked his stiff limbs and rubbed them most of the day. For there was but one idea in Jim Linton's mind--escape.

Gradually he became able to sit up, and then to move a little, hobbling painfully on a stick which had been part of a broken pew, and endeavouring to take part in looking after the helpless prisoners, and in keeping the church clean, since the guards laughed at the idea of helping at either. Jim had seen something of the treatment given to wounded German soldiers in England, and he writhed to think of them, tended as though they were our own sick, while British prisoners lay and starved in filthy holes. But the little _cure_ rebuked him.

”But what would you, my son? They are _canaille_--without breeding, without decency, without hearts. Are we to put ourselves on that level?”

”I suppose not--but it's a big difference, Father,” Jim muttered.

”The bigger the difference, the more honour on our side,” said the little priest. ”And things pa.s.s. Long after you and I and all these poor lads are forgotten it will be remembered that we came out of this war with our heads up. But they----!” Suddenly fierce scorn filled his quiet eyes. ”They will be the outcasts of the world!”

Wherefore Jim worked on, and tried to take comfort by the _cure's_ philosophy; although there were many times when he found it hard to digest. It was all very well to be cheerful about the verdict of the future, but difficult to forget the insistent present, with the heel of the Hun on his neck. It was sometimes easier to be philosophic by dreaming of days when the positions should be reversed.

He was able to walk a little when the order came to move. The guards became suddenly busy; officers whom the prisoners had not seen before came in and out, and one evening the helpless were put roughly into farm carts and taken to the station, while those able to move by themselves were marched after them--marched quickly, with bayonet points ready behind them to prod stragglers. It was nearly dark when they were thrust roughly into closed trucks, looking back for the last time on the little _cure_, who had marched beside them, with an arm for two sick men, and now stood on the platform, looking wistfully at them. He put up his hand solemnly.

”G.o.d keep you, my sons!”

A German soldier elbowed him roughly aside. The doors of the trucks were clashed together, leaving them in darkness; and presently, with straining and rattling and clanging, the train moved out of the station.

”Next stop, Germany!” said Denny Callaghan from the corner where he had been put down. ”And not a ticket between the lot of us!”

CHAPTER XVI

THROUGH THE DARKNESS

”I think that's the last load,” Jim Linton said.

He had wriggled backwards out of a black hole in the side of a black cupboard; and now sat back on his heels, gasping. His only article of attire was a pair of short trousers. From his hair to his heels he was caked with dirt.

”Well, praise the pigs for that,” said a voice from the blackness of the cupboard.

Some one switched on a tiny electric light. Then it could be seen, dimly, that the cupboard was just large enough to hold four men, crouching so closely that they almost touched each other. All were dressed--or undressed--as Jim was; all were equally dirty. Their blackened faces were set and grim. And whether they spoke, or moved, or merely sat still, they were listening--listening.

All four were British officers. Marsh and Fullerton were subalterns belonging to a cavalry regiment. Desmond was a captain--a Dublin Fusilier; and Jim Linton completed the quartette; and they sat in a hole in the ground under the floor of an officers' barrack in a Westphalian prison-camp. The yawning opening in front of them represented five months' ceaseless work, night after night. It was the mouth of a tunnel.

”I dreamed to-day that we crawled in,” Marsh said, in a whisper--they had all learned to hear the faintest murmur of speech. ”And we crawled, and crawled, and crawled: for years, it seemed. And then we saw daylight ahead, and we crawled out--in Piccadilly Circus!”

”That was 'some' tunnel, even in a dream,” Desmond said.

”I feel as if it were 'some' tunnel now,” remarked Jim--still breathing heavily.

”Yes--you've had a long spell, Linton. We were just beginning to think something was wrong.”

”I thought I might as well finish--and then another bit of roof fell in, and I had to fix it,” Jim answered. ”Well, it won't be gardening that I'll go in for when I get back to Australia; I've dug enough here to last me my life!”

”Hear, hear!” said some one. ”And what now?”

”Bed, I think,” Desmond said. ”And to-morrow night--the last crawl down that beastly rabbit-run, if we've luck. Only this time we won't crawl back.”