Part 17 (1/2)

But I had no anxiety to form part of an experiment to prove the truth or the falsity of that suggestion! I was glad to know that the chances of a sh.e.l.l's coming along were pretty slim.

Conditions were primitive at that mess. The refinements of life were lacking, to be sure--but who cared? Certainly the hungry members of the Reverend Harry Lauder, M.P., Tour did not! We ate from a rough deal table, sitting on rude benches that had a decidedly home-made look. But--we had music with our meals, just like the folks in London at the Savoy or in New York at Sherry's! It was the incessant thunder of the guns that served as the musical accompaniment of our lunch, and I was already growing to love that music. I could begin, now, to distinguish degrees of sound and modulations of all sorts in the mighty diapason of the cannon. It was as if a conductor were leading an orchestra, and as if it responded instantly to every suggestion of his baton.

There was not much variety to the food, but there was plenty of it, and it was good. There was bully beef, of course; that is the real staff of life for the British army. And there were potatoes, in plentiful supply, and bread and b.u.t.ter, and tea--there is always tea where Tommy or his officers are about! There was a lack of table ware; a dainty soul might not have liked the thought of spreading his b.u.t.ter on his bread with his thumb, as we had to do. But I was too hungry to be fastidious, myself.

Because the mess had guests there was a special dish in our honor.

One of the men had gone over--at considerable risk of his life, as I learned later--to the heap of stones and dust that had once been the village of Givenchy. There he had found a lot of gooseberries. The French call them grossets, as we in Scotland do, too--although the p.r.o.nunciation of the word is different in the two languages, of course. There had been gardens around the houses of Givenchy once, before the place had been made into a desert of rubble and brickdust.

And, somehow, life had survived in those bruised and battered gardens, and the delicious mess of gooseberries that we had for dessert stood as proof thereof.

The meal was seasoned by good talk. I love to hear the young British officers talk. It is a liberal education. They have grown so wise, those boys! Those of them who come back when the war is over will have the world at their feet, indeed. Nothing will be able to stop them or to check them in their rise. They have learned every great lesson that a man must learn if he is to succeed in the affairs of life. Self control is theirs, and an infinite patience, and a dogged determination that refuses to admit that there are any things that a man cannot do if he only makes up his mind that he must and will do them. For the British army has accomplished the impossible, time after time; it has done things that men knew could not be done.

And so we sat and talked, as we smoked, after the meal, until the major rose, at last, and invited me to walk around the battery again with him. I could ask questions now, having seen the men at work, and he explained many things I wanted to know--and which Fritz would like to know, too, to this day! But above all I was fascinated by the work of the gunners. I kept trying, in my mind's eye, to follow the course of the sh.e.l.ls that were dispatched so calmly upon their errands of destruction. My imagination played with the thought of what they were doing at the other end of their swift voyage through the air. I pictured the havoc that must be wrought when one made a clean hit.

And, suddenly, I was swept by that same almost irresistible desire to be fighting myself that had come over me when I had seen the other battery. If I could only play my part! If I could fire even a single shot--if I, with my own hands, could do that much against those who had killed my boy! And then, incredulously, I heard the words in my ear. It was the major.

”Would you like to try a shot, Harry?” he asked me.

Would I? I stared at him. I couldn't believe my ears. It was as if he had read my thoughts. I gasped out some sort of an affirmative. My blood was boiling at the very thought, and the sweat started from my pores.

”All right--nothing easier!” said the major, smiling. ”I had an idea you were wanting to take a hand, Harry.”

He led me toward one of the guns, where the sweating crew was especially active, as it seemed to me. They grinned at me as they saw me coming.

”Here's old Harry Lauder come to take a crack at them himself,” I heard one man say to another.

”Good for him! The more the merrier!” answered his mate. He was an American--would ye no know it from his speech?

I was trembling with eagerness. I wondered if my shot would tell. I tried to visualize its consequences. It might strike some vital spot.

It might kill some man whose life was of the utmost value to the enemy. It might--it might do anything! And I knew that my shot would be watched; Normabell, sitting up there on the Pimple in his little observatory, would watch it, as he did all of that battery's shots.

Would be make a report?

Everything was made ready. The gun recoiled from the previous shot; swiftly it was swabbed out. A new sh.e.l.l was handed up; I looked it over tenderly. That was my sh.e.l.l! I watched the men as they placed it and saw it disappear with a jerk. Then came the swift sighting of the gun, the almost inperceptible corrections of elevation and position.

They showed me my place. After all, it was the simplest of matters to fire even the biggest of guns. I had but to pull a lever. All morning I had been watching men do that. I knew it was but a perfunctory act.

But I could not feel that! I was thrilled and excited as I had never been in all my life before.

”All ready! Fire!”

The order rang in my ears. And I pulled the lever, as hard as I could. The great gun sprang into life as I moved the lever. I heard the roar of the explosion, and it seemed to me that it was a louder bark than any gun I had heard had given! It was not, of course, and so, down in my heart, I knew. There was no shade of variation between that shot and all the others that had been fired. But it pleased me to think so--it pleases me, sometimes, to think so even now. Just as it pleases me to think that that long snouted engine of war propelled that sh.e.l.l, under my guiding hand, with unwonted accuracy and effectiveness! Perhaps I was childish, to feel as I did; indeed, I have no doubt that that was so. But I dinna care!

There was no report by telephone from Normabell about that particular shot; I hung about a while, by the telephone listeners, hoping one would come. And it disappointed me that no attention was paid to that shot.

”Probably simply means it went home,” said G.o.dfrey. ”A shot that acts just as it should doesn't get reported.”

But I was disappointed, just the same. And yet the sensation is one I shall never forget, and I shall never cease to be glad that the major gave me my chance. The most thrilling moment was that of the recoil of the great gun. I felt exactly as one does when one dives into deep water from a considerable height.

”Good work, Harry!” said the major, warmly, when I had stepped down.

”I'll wager you wiped out a bit of the German trenches with that shot! I think I'll draft you and keep you here as a gunner!”

And the officers and men all spoke in the same way, smiling as they did so. But I hae me doots! I'd like to think I did real damage with my one shot, but I'm afraid my sh.e.l.l was just one of those that turned up a bit of dirt and made one of those small brown eruptions I had seen rising on all sides along the German lines as I had sat and smoked my pipe with Normabell earlier in the day.