Part 16 (1/2)

Once, when they had just finished their midday meal, the usual order ”to stand to arms” came through, and they were hurried along the road that ran parallel to the river, towards Soissons. The march was longer than usual, and they were just beginning to entertain hopes that the deadlock had been broken and that they were once more on the advance, when an abrupt halt was called, and they were ordered to throw themselves hastily behind the bank along the roadside.

They could see nothing, neither friend nor foe. The only sound of firing was miles and miles down the line, in the direction of Poussey. The Subaltern's Platoon happened to be the second in the leading Company.

Already there was movement in front, and, crawling forward to the end of the line, he climbed up the bank to take stock of the position. To the north was a little copse, the intervening ground a vegetable field.

Further off, to the east, there was a big hill, crowned with a dense-looking forest which, as far as he could see, was deserted.

The Colonel, who was not to be deceived by a new appearance of quietude, had somehow made his way to the little copse, and was examining the hill with his gla.s.ses. The Adjutant, who had followed him, presently rose to his feet.

”Bring ... your ... men ... over ... carefully ... in ... extended ...

order!”

The words floated across on the wind.

Feeling that he would like to see his men all safely across before he left any of them, the Subaltern motioned to the Sergeant to lead them, and they set off in a long, dotted and irregular line towards the thicket.

”Hurry ... them ... up. Hurry!” shouted the Adjutant.

And just as the last man had left the bank, and he had started himself, he realised what the Adjutant meant.

”Phwhizz ... phwizz ... phwizz.”

Like malignant wasps the bullets hummed past him. There was a regularity in the discharge and a similarity in the aim that left him no chance to doubt that a machine-gun had been turned on them.

”I was a bit of a fool not to have gone first,” he said to himself.

But the bullets hummed harmlessly by his head and shoulders, and the thought that struck him most forcibly, as he plunged through the cabbages, was the impossibility of realising the consequences if any one of them had been a few inches nearer his head. It momentarily occurred to him to lie down and crawl through the cabbages, trusting to luck that the machine-gun would lose him; but, of course, the only thing was to run for it, and so he ploughed along. Whether the journey occupied more than a minute or not he is unable to say, but it seemed an incredible lapse of time before he reached the copse--and safety.

”We shall have some artillery turned on to us in a minute,” said the Colonel; ”we had better get on with the operation.”

They debouched from the copse in open order, and advanced in the usual lines of platoons, to attack the hill.

The Subaltern loosened his sword in his scabbard, so that when the time came he could draw it more easily. He had already picked up a rifle from some unfortunate.

There seemed to be a certainty of a hand-to-hand fight. He did not feel at all eager to kill; on the other hand, he scarcely felt afraid. He just felt as if he grudged the pa.s.sing of the yards under his feet which separated him from the edge of the wood. The idea of being ”stuck”

himself never occurred to him.

The bullets flew about rather thickly for the first few minutes, but no harm was done, and then the enemy's resistance seemed to die down. There was complete silence for several minutes as our men plodded steadily on.

Then, away on the right, the Colonel's whistle sounded, and a halt was called.

The enemy had taken fright and had retired, machine-guns and all, before their advance.

This little affair, although too small to figure in the communiques at home, was a great personal triumph for the Colonel. The enemy, having broken through the line and pushed his way almost to the banks of the river, had been driven back and the line straightened out, without, as far as the Subaltern could see, any loss whatever.

They were not allowed to follow up this easy success, and consequently the enemy was still left in possession of a small salient. The Subaltern's own Company was then sent to prolong the right of the Battalion, and to get in touch with the ”people” on the right.

This was eventually done; the ”people” proving to be a regiment of cavalry, employed as infantry.

In this particular part of the line the situation was, to say the least of it, a little muddled. The cavalry did not seem to be altogether at home in their new role. Their trenches seemed too small and detached.