.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 39801
   :PG.Title: Fighting with French
   :PG.Released: 2013-06-01
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Herbert Strang
   :MARCREL.ill: Cyrus Cuneo
   :DC.Title: Fighting with French
              A Tale of the New Army
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1915
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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FIGHTING WITH FRENCH
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      :alt: Cover

      Cover

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   .. _`A FOUL BLOW`:

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      :alt: A FOUL BLOW (*See p*. 52.)

      A FOUL BLOW (*See p*. `52`_.)

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      FIGHTING
      WITH FRENCH

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      *A TALE OF THE NEW ARMY*

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      BY
      HERBERT STRANG

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      *WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR BY CYRUS CUNEO*

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      LONDON
      HENRY FROWDE
      HODDER AND STOUGHTON

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      *First published in* 1915

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   PREFACE

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In these days one would rather fight than
write; and those of us whom inexorable
Time has superannuated can but envy and
admire.

Seven years ago the father of two boys
at Rugby asked me to write a story on the
German peril, and the necessity of closing
our ranks against a possible invasion.  After
some hesitation I decided to decline the
suggestion, anxious not to insinuate in young
minds a suspicion of Germany which might
prove to be ill-founded.  Two years later,
when the subject was again pressed upon me,
I felt bound to attempt some little service
in the cause of national defence; but again I
avoided any direct implication of Germany,
imagining an invasion of Australia by an
aggressive China.  In two or three books I
had poked a little fun at German foibles, how
harmlessly and inoffensively may be known
by the fact that one of these books was
translated into German.  The course of
events, the horrors of the present war, show
how needless were my scruples.  Germany
has come out in her true colours, and the
mildest of pacifists feels a stirring of the
blood.

In *A Hero of Liége* I wove a little romance
upon the early events of the war, when we
were still under the shock of surprise and
information was scanty.  The present story
has been written under more favourable
conditions.  A good deal of it springs from
personal knowledge of the training of the
New Army.  The "Rutland Light Infantry"
exists, under another name, and one or two
of the characters may perhaps be recognised
by their friends.  But I should point out
that a story is not a history.  The history
of this great struggle must be sought
elsewhere.  The romancer is satisfied if he is
reasonably true to facts and probabilities,
and more than happy if his fictions, while
amusing an idle hour, have also anything
of stimulus and encouragement.

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HERBERT STRANG.

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   CONTENTS

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   CHAP.

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I  `A CHANCE MEETING`_
II  `SHARE AND SHARE ALIKE`_
III  `STONEWAY ENLISTS`_
IV  `THREE ROUNDS`_
V  `THE BACK OF THE FRONT`_
VI  `BAGGING A SNIPER`_
VII  `IN THE ENEMY'S LINES`_
VIII  `SKY HIGH`_
IX  `D.C.M.`_
X  `HOT WORK`_
XI  `THE DISAPPEARANCE OF GINGER`_
XII  `DOGGED`_
XIII  `THE FIGHT FOR THE VILLAGE`_
XIV  `THE HIKIOTOSHI`_
XV  `THE OBSERVATION POST`_
XVI  `EXCHANGE NO ROBBERY`_
XVII  `STRATEGY`_
XVIII  `USES OF A TRANSPORT LORRY`_
XIX  `SUSPICIONS`_
XX  `MONSIEUR OBERNAI'S ATTIC`_
XXI  `MARKED DOWN`_
XXII  `'RECOMMENDED'`_

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   LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

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   `A FOUL BLOW`_ . . . . . . *Frontispiece* (*see page* `52`_)

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   `"HANDS UP!"`_

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   `A LONG WAY BACK`_

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   `THE INTRUDER IN KHAKI`_

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.. _`A CHANCE MEETING`:

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   CHAPTER I


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   A CHANCE MEETING

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Mr. Kishimaru smiled, and rubbed his
long lean hands gently the one over the
other.

"Yes, Mr. Amory, you make great
progress," he said, in low smooth tones, and
with the careful enunciation of one speaking
a foreign tongue.  "You will be an artist.
Yes, I assure you: jujutsu is a fine art;
more than that, it is an application of pure
science.  I say that, and I know.  Compare
it with boxing, that which your grandfathers
called the noble art.  Rapidity of
movement, yes; quickness of eye and judgment,
yes; but delicacy of touch--ah! jujutsu
has it, boxing no.  There is nothing
brutal about jujutsu."

Kenneth Amory smiled back at the
enthusiastic little Japanese, and rubbed his
left shoulder.

"Nothing brutal, I agree," he said.  "But
it has been a dry summer, Mr. Kishimaru."

"A dry summer?" the Japanese repeated,
still smiling, but with an air of puzzlement.

"Yes; the turf's uncommonly hard, and I
came down a pretty good whack that last time."

"I am sorry.  You have not quite
recovered your strength yet, or you would not
have fallen so heavily.  But you do well;
it is good exercise, for body and mind too.
A little rest, and we will try another throw."

Kenneth Amory was seated on a bench on
the lawn where, in summer, Mr. Kishimaru
instructed his pupils in the fine art of
jujutsu.  He wore a loose white belted tunic
and shorts: head and legs were bare.
Mr. Kishimaru, a wiry little Japanese of
about thirty-five, similarly clad, walked up
and down, expounding the principles of his art.

A bell rang in the house.  The garden
door opened, and a tall young fellow of some
twenty years came with quick step on to the
lawn.

"Hullo, Kishimaru!" he cried.  "How
do?  Have you got a minute?"  He glanced
towards the figure on the bench, but did
not wait for an answer.  "Just back from
Canada--to enlist.  Got to smash the
Germans, you know.  But look here; just
spare a minute to show me the Koshinage,
will you?  I was in a lumber camp, you know,
out west; lumbering's hard work; no cricket
or anything else; had to do something;
taught 'em jujutsu, odd times, you know.
But the Koshinage--I fairly came to grief
over that: tried it on a big chap, and came
a regular cropper.  Made me look pretty
small; I'd been explaining that I'd throw
any fellow, no matter how big.  Somehow it
didn't come off: must have forgotten
something, I suppose.  I've only got a few
minutes; have to catch the 4.30 at
St. Pancras; just put me through it once or
twice, there's a good chap."

Mr. Kishimaru rubbed his hands all
through this impetuous address.  He was
always pleased to see an old pupil, and
Harry Randall, voluble, always in a hurry,
had been one of his best pupils a year or two
before.

"I am delighted to see you, Mr. Randall,"
he said.  "If you will change----"

"No time for that.  I'll strip to my shirt,
be ready in a winking."

He threw off coat and waistcoat, wrenched
off his collar, with some peril to the stud,
and knotting his braces about his waist,
stood ready.  Meanwhile Mr. Kishimaru
had stepped to the bench.

"The Koshinage is the exercise we have
been practising, Mr. Amory," he said.
"Perhaps you will be good enough to go through
it with Mr. Randall, an old pupil.  I will
watch, and criticise if necessary."

Amory sprang up.  In the newcomer he
had at once recognised a schoolfellow--Randy,
they used to call him; a fellow
everybody liked; impulsive, generous,
easy-going, always in scrapes, always ready to
argue with boys or masters.  They had
left school at the same time, and had not
seen each other since.

Mr. Kishimaru explained to Randall that
his pupil would practise the exercise with
him, and was about to introduce the two
formally.  But Randall anticipated him.

"Hullo, Amory!" he cried.  "It's you.
Didn't recognise you.  Come on; no time
to spare."

Without more ado they took up position
for the exercise, holding each other as
though they were going to waltz.  Then they
made one or two rapid steps, Mr. Kishimaru
skipping round them, intently watching
their movements.  With a sudden turning
on his toes and bending of the knees, Amory
dragged Randall from behind on to his right
hip.  A jerk of the left arm and the straightening
of the knees lifted Randall's feet from
the ground, and in another moment he
was hoisted over Amory's hip to his left
front and deposited on his back.

"Excellent!  Excellent!" cried Mr. Kishimaru.

"Just what I tried to do with big Heneky,
and came bash to the ground with him on
top of me," said Randall.  "But it's knack,
not strength.  I'm heavier than Amory.
Show me the trick."

Mr. Kishimaru placed them again in
position, showed Randall how to get advantage
in the preliminary grip, and left them.
In a few seconds Amory was thrown.

"You have it, Mr. Randall," said the
Japanese, rubbing his hands with pleasure.
"It is like a problem in chess: white to play
and mate in three moves.  It is inevitable,
given the position; it is mathematics,
mechanics, applied to the muscular human
frame..."

"That's all right, old chap," interrupted
Randall.  "Knack, I call it.  Once more,
Amory, then I must be off."

But at the third attempt he failed, and he
would not be satisfied until he had performed
the feat three times in succession.  Then,
looking at his watch, he found that he was
too late for his train.

"Can't be helped," he said.  "I'll go
down to-morrow.  Come along to my hotel,
Amory: haven't said how-de-do yet.  We'll
have some grub and a talk.  But you've got
to change.  Can't wait.  I'll do some
shopping and wire home to the governor; you'll
find me at the Arundel.  Dinner seven
sharp: don't be late."

"The same old Randy!" thought Amory,
smiling as he went into the house to change.

At seven o'clock he found Randall walking
restlessly up and down in front of the hotel.

"Here you are.  I've bagged a table.
It's jolly to see you again after--how long is
it?  Remember Shovel?  He's got a
commission in the Fusiliers.  Give me your hat.
Want a wash?  I landed yesterday; come
6000 miles, by Jove!"

And so, darting from one subject to
another, he led the way to the coffee-room.
Before the soup arrived he started again.

"Heard the news right away in the
backwoods.  Lot of Germans and Austrians in
the camp.  They began to crow.  I slipped
away; had to tramp ten days to the rail.
Gave a hint to the police, and hope all those
aliens are now in gaol.  Extraordinary
enthusiasm in Canada, old chap.  They wanted
me to join their contingent, but I'd already
applied for a commission at home.  People
here seem to take things very coolly.  It'll
be a bigger thing than they realise.  And
this rot in the papers about the Germans'
funk--running away, crying their eyes out!
Stupid nonsense, believe me.  Had a letter
in New York from my governor.  Jolly
exciting voyage, I can tell you.  All lights
out; wireless going constantly; alarm one
night: German cruiser fifty miles away.
We all crowded on deck.  By and by lookout
signalled a vessel.  We held our breath:
turned out to be a British cruiser.  Captain
gave our skipper instructions for the course.
We took ten days instead of five.  What'll
you drink?"

Amory having intimated his modest choice
Randall went on:

"Things'll have to wake up here.  My
governor's men are a lot of rotters.  Wrote
me that out of five hundred or so only about
a dozen had 'listed.  Disgraceful, I call it.
I'd sack 'em, but I know the governor
won't; he's against compulsion.  I'm going
down to-morrow to stir 'em up.  Haven't
come 6000 miles for nothing.  By the way,
what are you doing?  You were a sergeant
in the O.T.C.  Of course you'd get a
commission right away.  I shall never forget
your cheek.  Nearly died of laughing when
you went up to the O.C. and asked him to
make you a corporal.  'What for?' says
he.  'I've been a private long enough, sir,'
says you, as cool as you please.  But I say,
what are you doing?"

"I've been rather seedy," said Amory,
amused at his friend's chatter, but not yet
disposed to tell him that he had already seen
service in Belgium.

"But you're fit now, eh?  You'll apply?"

"Yes, I suppose I shall."

"Why, hang it all, man, why suppose?
They're awfully slow at the War Office.  I
applied at once; passed the doctor and all
that.  I shan't wait much longer.  There's
a Public School Corps forming; I shall join
that.  I daresay they'll give me a platoon.
I say, why not join too?  We're sure to
find a lot of our old fellows in it; we might
make up a company.  I hate waiting about.
What do you say?"

"I'll think it over."

"Oh, I say, man, what rot!  I tell you
I've come 6000 miles to join.  You used to
be keen enough."  A cloud of disappointment,
almost of affront, hovered upon his
face.  Then suddenly he flashed a look of
mingled horror and disgust at his friend.
"You don't tell me you're a professional
footballer?" he muttered.

"No, no," replied Amory with a laugh.
"Don't be alarmed, Randy; I shan't sit at
home and read the papers."

"That's all right, then.  But do make up
your mind, there's a good chap.  I tell you
what, what's your address?  I'll wire you
to-morrow when I've had a go at the
governor's men.  Twelve out of five hundred!--no
wonder the poor old governor is biffy.
It's a disgrace.  Well, I'll wire you; let you
know how I get on as a recruiting officer.
Then we'll meet somewhere.  Find out the
headquarters of the Public School Corps,
will you? and make up your mind to join
that with me.  It won't spoil your chance of
a commission--perhaps hurry it up.
Anyway, it will be jolly to be together....
Waiter, bring me some more of that soufflé.
You don't get things like that in the
backwoods, Amory."





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.. _`SHARE AND SHARE ALIKE`:

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   CHAPTER II


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   SHARE AND SHARE ALIKE

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Kenneth on his way home looked in at
the doctor's.  An attack of influenza after
his return from Belgium had pulled him
down, and he had put off joining the army
until assured of his complete recovery.  As
he put it to the doctor: "A crock would be
no use to K. of K."

"You'll do," said the doctor after
thoroughly overhauling him.  "All you want is
a little hardening up.  I'll give you a
prescription.  The open-air life of the army will
do you good.  And I wish you luck."

Thus fortified, as soon as he got home he
posted an application for a commission in
the Flying Corps.

Next day, soon after lunch, he received a
telegram from Randall.

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"No go.  Slackers.  Mules.  Governor mad.
Come and lend a hand."

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He handed the telegram to his mother.

"What does it mean?" she asked.
"Your friend must be rather a curious person."

"Oh, it's just Randy," said Kenneth, who
had told his mother of his meeting with
Randall on the previous day.  "At school
he always wanted to lug everybody with him.
I don't see what I can do.  I'll wire him."

He wrote on the reply-paid form:

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"Sorry.  Not my line."

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Within a couple of hours came a second telegram.

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"Rotter.  Writing."

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Next morning's post brought the letter.

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"You simply must come.  What do you mean,
not your line?  How do you know till you try?
Here I've come 6000 miles--but I told you that
before.  This is the situation.  The governor is
raving: never saw him so biffy.  He got a spouter
down from London, who lectured the men in the
dinner-hour, waved a flag and all that.  The men
only jeered.  Governor says I'll only make them
worse if I try; calls me a scatter-brain; I assure
you he's in a deuce of a wax.  Used to be as meek
as Moses; wouldn't hear of compulsion; he's turned
completely over, talks of sacking the men, closing
the works, conscription, and so on and so forth.
Something must be done.  You were always a cool
hand; come and let's talk things over, at any
rate: smooth the governor down; he won't listen
to a word from me, and in my opinion goes the
wrong way to work.  I told him I was inviting
you; best pal at school, cock of the House, going
to join with me: so on and so forth.  He'll be
glad to see you."

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"A very strange person," remarked
Mrs. Amory when she had read the letter.

"Perhaps I had better go," said Kenneth.
"Of course I can't do any good with the
men, but it will please Randy, and my being
on the spot may prevent him and his father
from coming to loggerheads.  They're both
peppery, evidently."

Accordingly, Kenneth travelled by the
10.30 from St. Pancras, and reached the
small midland town in time for lunch.  He
saw at once that Mr. Randall himself was
at any rate partly responsible for this
trouble.  A prosperous manufacturer, he was
inclined to be dictatorial and was certainly
no diplomatist.  Full of patriotic zeal
himself, deploring the fact that he was too old
for active service, a special constable, an
energetic member of the local home defence
corps, he had expected all his able-bodied
men to rush to the colours, promised to keep
their places for them, and to make up their
pay for the sake of their dependents.  The
paltry response filled him with fury.
Without taking the trouble to discover the cause
of the general reluctance he poured scorn
upon the skulkers, talked of the white
feather, tried to dragoon them into
volunteering, threatened to sack them or close
the works, with the result that the men
stiffened their backs and defied him.  Clearly
he did not know how to handle men in an
emergency like the present.

At lunch Kenneth tactfully listened to
his host's outpourings, without offering any
criticism or suggestion.

"Good man!" said Randall, when he and
Kenneth were alone.  "Let him blow off!
That's the way."

"What have you done?" asked Kenneth.

"Not much.  I wanted to make a speech
to the men, but the governor wouldn't let
me.  Now, am I a scatter-brain?  D'you
think that's fair?  Anyway, I'm his son!
But I spoke to old Griggs, our foreman;
asked him why the men won't enlist.  ''Cos
they're Englishmen,' says he.  'What's the
meaning of that?' says I.  'Won't be
druv,' says he.  'Rather be led by the nose,'
says he."

"What did he mean?"

"Well, it appears that the fellows take
their cue from two ringleaders.  One of
them's a man named Stoneway, only been
here about six months: I don't know him.
But I know the other chap--a carrot-headed
fellow named Murgatroyd; Yorkshire, I
suppose: the men call him Ginger.  He's
been with us years: came as a boy.  A rough
customer, I can tell you: a jolly good
workman, but a regular demon for mischief.
All the same, you can't help liking him.
He's a sportsman, too: good at boxing, a
first-class forward, just the fellow you'd
expect to be the first to go.  Griggs told
me he didn't expect to see him back after
his week's holiday in August: but he turned
up a day or two late, and backed up
Stoneway against the governor.  He'll be sacked
at the end of the week, sure as a gun."

"Those two are the men you must tackle,
then," said Kenneth.  "Bring them round,
and the rest will follow like sheep--or
donkeys, 'led by the nose,' as your Griggs
says."

"By the way, he told me the men are
having a meeting in the yard at tea-time to
discuss the governor's threats.  Shall we
slip down and hear what they have to say?"

"Our appearance might shut them up."

"Not if I know our men--free and
independent, don't care a rap for anyone: you
know the sort.  They'd take a huge delight
in letting us hear a few things about
ourselves--idle rich, bloated capitalists and
so on: which reminds me that I've got
about twopence halfpenny.  We'll hear them
spout, and tackle Stoneway and Ginger
quietly afterwards."

Shortly after four o'clock the two friends
strolled into the works yard.  Several
hundreds of hands were there assembled, from
engine boys and apprentices to grey seasoned
veterans.  The most of them had tea cans,
some were smoking.  At one end of the yard,
standing on a tub, a stoutly built man of
about thirty, with close cropped hair and
thick brown beard and moustache, was
haranguing the mob.

Randall was recognised by some of the
men, whose grins of greeting he
acknowledged with nods.  A whisper ran round:
"The young governor!"  It caught the
ears of the man on the tub, who broke
off his speech for a moment and glanced
sharply at the two tall figures on the
outskirts of the crowd.  Then he resumed
what was evidently a studied peroration.

"Is this a free country, or is it not, mates?"
he cried, with a sweeping arm.  "If a
man wants to fight, let him; I won't say
a word against it.  But when it comes to
forcing him, then I say he's a slave, and all
the talk about Britons never will be slaves
is blankety rot, and I say that when an
employer threatens to sack us or close the
works because we don't feel called on to turn
ourselves into gun-fodder, I say he's a
nigger-driver and a tyrant.  And what's it
for?  Are we invaded?  I'd defend my own
home with any man.  But what do we pay
the navy for?  That's their job.  What I say
is, let the French and the Russians do their
own fighting.  It's no business of ours."

"What about Belgium?" cried one of the boys.

"'What about Belgium?' says the nipper.
What has Belgium done for us?  Perhaps
the nipper will tell us.  Speak up....  Not
a word, and why?  Because Belgium has
done nothing for us.  Then I ask you in the
name of common sense why on earth we
should do anything for Belgium?  Belgium
has only herself to thank.  The Germans
have promised to leave Belgium as soon as
they have settled with the French, and even
if they don't----"

"Way there!" shouted Randall, elbowing
his way through the crowd.  Cries of "Way
for the young governor!" drowned the
speaker's voice.  "Time's up, Stoneway!"
sang out the boy who had questioned him.
Kenneth followed his friend, hoping that he
would be discreet.

Stoneway descended from the tub, Randall
mounted in his place.

"Look here, men," he cried, "I came to
listen, to get at your ideas, not to speak, but
I can't keep quiet when I hear such stuff.
We're free men: that's all right; but we're
men of our word.  An Englishman's word:
you know what people say about that.
We've given our word to Belgium: if we
break it we're mean skunks, we're disgraced
for ever.  Besides, every decent chap loathes
a bully, and Germany's just a great hulking
bully.  If you see a big chap hurting a little
'un, you want to knock him down.  My
father tells me that only about a dozen of
you have enlisted.  What's the reason of it?
You'd feel jolly well insulted if I called you
cowards.  Are all you hundreds going to
skulk at home while your mates do the
fighting for you?  What'll you feel like
in ten years' time?  You won't be able to
look 'em in the face.  Here I've come 6000
miles to do my bit; buck up and show what
you're made of."

Randall's words tumbled out in a boiling
flood.  There was some cheering, mingled
with cries of "Ginger!" which grew in
volume until the din was deafening.
Presently there edged his way through the
crowd a thin lank fellow with lean
clean-shaven cheeks, deeply furrowed, and a
touzled mop of reddish hair.  A red scarf
was knotted about his neck.  He slouched
forward, hands in pockets, murmured
"Afternoon, Mr. Harry," as he passed Randall,
mounted the tub, hitched up his breeches,
drew the back of his hand across his mouth,
and looked round, with a grin, upon his
shouting fellow-workmen.  The noise
subsided, and the crowd gazed expectantly up
into their favourite's face.

"We're all glad to see the young governor,
mates," he said, in the broad accents of a
north-countryman.  There was a volley of
cheers.  "But we don't hold with him--and
no offence.  I hold with Stoneway--every
word of it."  He thumped the air.
"Who made this war?  Not us: we wasn't
consulted.  No: it was the nobs done it.
Are we going to let 'em force us into
it?"  (Shouts of "No!")  "We won't be druv.
It's all very well for the officers: they get a
comfortable billet and good pay.  Tommy
gets the kicks and Percy gets the
ha'pence."  ("Go it, Ginger!")  "Now, Mr. Harry,
you've come 6000 miles--what for, sir? an
officer's job, I take my oath."

"That's true," said Randall.  "I've
applied.  But----"

"Hold on, sir.  There you are!  Just
what I thought.  Well, I ain't got no
personal objection to having a smack at the
Germans; never seen a German yet but
what I'd give him one on the boko, and if
Lord Kitchener'd make me a lootenant or
a capting in the Coldstream Guards, with a
sword and eppylets and ten bob a day--well,
I don't say I wouldn't consider it."  ("Bravo,
Ginger!")  "But as it is, to be a
private on one bob a day, and dock
threepence or more, they tell me, for the missus
and kids--I'm not having any."

When the cheers that hailed his assertion
had fallen away, Kenneth said quietly:

"You forget that thousands of men have
thrown up good jobs and sacrificed big
incomes to join the ranks."

"Not in these parts, governor.  Down here
they give their subscriptions to this, that,
and the other, and reduce their men's wages,
if they don't sack 'em.  And if it comes to
that, what have *you* done?"

A breathless silence settled upon the crowd.
All eyes were fixed on the young governor's
friend, awaiting his reply to this poser.
Kenneth had an inspiration.

"It doesn't matter what I've done," he
said, quietly, but in a tone that carried his
words to the corners of the yard.  "But I'll
tell you what I'll do, and if I know my friend
Mr. Randall, he'll do the same.  If you men
will enlist, we'll enlist with you, and share
and share alike."

The man was taken aback.  He looked
from Kenneth to Randall: his mates watched
him curiously.  "One for you, Ginger!"
cried the irrepressible boy.

"D'you mean that, sir?" asked the man.

"Certainly," said Kenneth.

"It's a firm offer, Ginger," added Randall.

"Privates--no kid?"

"A bob a day," said Kenneth.

For a half-minute or so Ginger had the air
of one who is caught out.  He looked round
among his mates, grinning awkwardly, avoiding
their eyes.  They were silent, watching
him.  All at once he burst into a guffaw, wiped
his mouth, and with frank good-humour cried:

"Well, hanged if you ain't good sports.
Come on, mates.  Who's for Kitchener's
army and a smack at the Germans?  I'm
number one."

The crowd was captured by the sporting
spirit.  Striking while the iron was hot,
Randall and Kenneth headed a procession
to the recruiting office.  Mr. Randall, called
to his window by the tramp of many feet
and the strains of "It's a long long way
to Tipperary," was amazed to see hundreds
of his young workmen marching with linked
arms behind the two young fellows.  He
rang for Griggs.

"What does this mean, Griggs?" he asked.

"Gone to enlist, sir.  We shall be very short-handed."





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.. _`STONEWAY ENLISTS`:

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   CHAPTER III


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   STONEWAY ENLISTS

.. vspace:: 2

Mr. Randall pulled a wry face when he
heard of Kenneth's impulsive action.  At
the dinner-table he spoke his mind.

"This won't do, you know.  You are
both certain to obtain commissions.  I don't
object to your serving as Tommies for a
week or two, for the sake of example, you
know; but I'm not going to allow you to
let yourself down permanently, Harry.  Your
friend, of course, can do as he pleases."

"I've promised, Father," said Harry.

"Promised what, may I ask?"

"To share and share alike with the men."

"Fiddlesticks!  It won't do.  Good
gracious, what are we coming to?  The
whole social order will be destroyed.  You'll
succeed me at the head of this business,
when you've settled down and are a trifle
less scatter-brained than you are now.  How
in the world do you expect to maintain the
proper relation between employer and
employed if you put yourself on a level with
the hands?  Look at it logically.  Take it
that I myself had been idiot enough to do
as you've done, and put myself in the
position to be ordered about by some factory
hand who happened to be a sergeant, or
some young whipper-snapper fresh from
school who happened to have got a
commission: what would become of my
authority, I should like to know?  How could
I maintain control over my workmen?  Do
look at it reasonably.  It's preposterous."

The idea of portly Mr. Randall as a Tommy
was almost too much for the boys' gravity.
But Harry answered meekly:

"Well, we've enlisted over a hundred
men, and there'll be more to-morrow.  That's
what you wanted, Dad, isn't it?  You won't
have to close down now."

"But I didn't want my son to consort
with a lot of roughs--socialists, too, to a
man, by gad!  You can't associate with
such fellows without getting coarsened, and
besides, as I said before, it's the principle
of the thing--the principle of social order,
caste, call it what you like.  Destroy caste,
and you ruin old England.  Come now, I'll
see the colonel, and he'll arrange to get you
gazetted to the regiment.  You'll then be
in a natural position of authority over my
men, and I'll be proud to think that my
works has furnished a contingent to the
New Army, with my own son as one of the
officers."

"You ought to have lived in the middle
ages, Dad," said Harry, admiringly.  "What
a jolly old feudal chief you'd have been!
But it can't be done.  Amory and I have
thrown in our lot with the men, and we'll
stick it: we can't go back on our word."

"I'll see that you have proper
under-clothing, my dear," said Mrs. Randall.
"I'm told that some of the poor men have
only one shirt."

"Shirts!" cried Mr. Randall.  "Oh, I'm
out of all patience with you.  Do as you
please, do as you please.  I wash my hands
of it.  Don't expect any sympathy from me
if you are disgusted, horrified, in a week."

As Harry had said, more than a hundred
of the men had already given in their names.
Next day a still larger number volunteered,
and when the medical tests had been applied,
it was found that the recruits from the
Randall works were enough to form a
company.  This accordingly was scheduled as
No. 3 Company in the 17th Service Battalion
of a regiment which, for reasons which will
appear in the course of this narrative, we
shall know as the Rutland Light Infantry.

Colonel Appleton, the officer commanding,
sent for Harry and Kenneth in the course
of the day.

"Look here, young fellows," he said,
"you're both O.T.C. men, aren't you?"

They confessed that they were.

"Well, I'm short of officers.  They've
sent me several boys without any experience
at all, who'll want a thundering lot of licking
into shape.  I'll put you both down, glad
to have somebody who knows something
about company drill."

"Thank you, sir," said Harry, "but we
only got the men to enlist by promising to
go in with them."

"That's all very well, but nobody can
object to promotion.  The men will think
it the most natural thing in the world for
you to officer them."

The boys, however, persisted in their refusal.

"Nonsense," said the colonel.  "I'll give
you twenty-four hours' leave to think it
over.  There'll be nothing doing for a day
or two.  It's chaos at present: no uniforms,
no boots, no earthly thing.  Come and see
me this time to-morrow, and tell me you've
changed your mind."

As they left, they saw Ginger and two or
three other men on the opposite side of the
street, evidently on the watch for them.
Ginger took his hands out of his pockets,
wiped his mouth, and came across the road.

"Beg pardon, sir," he said to Harry,
"but we only want to know where we are.
The question is, have we got to salute you,
or ain't we?"

"Of course not.  That's a silly question.
We're all Tommies together."

"There you are, now, what did I say?"
Ginger called to his mates.  "Unbelieving
Jews they are," he added, addressing Harry.
"Said it was all kid, and you'd come out
majors or lootenants or something.  I
knowed better."

"Make your minds easy on that score,
Ginger.  We've given our word."

"That's a bob lost to Stoneway."

"By the way, Stoneway hasn't enlisted,
of course."

"Not him!  He bet you'd get yourselves
turned into officers as soon as you'd raked
us in.  That's a day's pay extra for me."

"That fellow Stoneway is a bit of a
riddle," said Kenneth as they passed on.
"Judging by his speech the other day, he's
better educated than most--a Scot perhaps;
there's a sort of burr in his accent."

"I daresay," replied his friend.  "A
fellow who likes the sound of his own voice,
I fancy.  Cantankerous: always agin the
Government; you know the sort."

"Well, old chap, as we've got twenty-four
hours' leave I'll run up to town and
explain things to the mater, make a few
business arrangements and so on.  I'll be
back to lunch to-morrow."

"All right.  I suppose they'll put us in
billets for the present, so I'll arrange to have
you billeted on the governor.  He'll get seven
bob a day for the two of us; rather a rag, eh?"

Kenneth was early at the station on his
return journey next morning.  The platform
was crowded, a good sprinkling of men in
khaki mingling with the civilian passengers
always to be seen before the departure of a
north-going express.

Standing at the bookstall, deliberating
on a choice of something to read, Kenneth
heard behind him the accents of a voice
which he had heard so recently as to
recognise it at once, though the few words he
caught were French.  He glanced over his
shoulder and was not surprised to see Stoneway,
the orator of Mr. Randall's yard.  The
man was walking up the platform beside a
companion somewhat older than himself,
upon whose arm he rested his hand as he
spoke earnestly to him.

"A French Socialist, I suppose," thought
Kenneth.  "One of the anti-war people.
Well, war is horrible, and I don't know I
wouldn't agree with them if they had the
power to put a stop to it altogether.  But
they haven't, and that French fellow had
better realise that we've got to lick the
Germans first.  I was evidently right about
Stoneway: he's better educated than most
working men."

He bought a magazine, and thought no
more of the matter, seeing nothing further
of the two men.  As he stepped into a
first-class compartment he smiled at the
thought that it was probably the last time
for many a long day.  Henceforth he was
to be a "Tommy."

Harry met him at the station.

"Billets no go, old chap," was his greeting.
"We're quartered in an old factory--beastly
hole.  But I've told the colonel we're
going to stick it.  Come along.  They're
going to serve out uniforms this afternoon;
no fitting required!  You'll be rather
difficult: average chest but extra long arms.
I suppose we might buy our own, but we'd
better make shift with the rest.  And I say,
who do you think we've got for one of our
officers?"

"Who?"

"You remember that squirt, Dick Kennedy?"

"You don't say so!"

"That's just what I do say.  I was
loafing about the barracks when he came
up to me, fresh as paint in his new uniform.
'What O, Randall!' says he.  'You here,
too?  Ordered your kit, I suppose?'  'I
believe it's on order,' said I, and I saluted,
just for the fun of the thing.  'Oh, I say,
we don't do that to each other,' says he;
'we don't salute anyone under a major,
do we?'  'I don't want a dose of
clink--already,' said I.  'What on earth do you
mean?' says he.  Then I told him, and you
should have seen his face!  He wouldn't
believe me at first, and went as red as a
turkey-cock when I said I wouldn't mind
earning half-a-crown extra a week as his
servant."

"I always thought him a bit of an ass
at school," said Kenneth, "but a genial ass,
you know.  He wasn't in the O.T.C., and
I expect we shall have some sport with him."

They went on to the large disused factory
which had been turned into barracks for
the occasion.  The quartermaster was
superintending the allocation of uniforms, and
they were in due course fitted more or less
with khaki and boots.  As yet there were
no belts, bandoliers or rifles.

The basement of the factory consisted of
two large halls with bare brick walls and
concrete floors.  One of them, to be used
as a drill hall, was empty.  The other was
fitted up with wooden frames to serve as
sleeping bunks.  At one end was a
platform on which stood a piano, and one of
the recruits was laboriously thumping out
a rag-time.  Another was playing a different
tune on a penny whistle.  At one corner four
men were absorbed in halfpenny nap;
elsewhere groups were amusing themselves in
various ways.

Kenneth and his friend joined one of
these.  There was a little stiffness at first.
The workmen, ranging in years from nineteen
to thirty-five or so, were a little shy
and subdued in the company of the "young
governor."  But the ice was broken when
Ginger came up, his square mouth broadened
in a grin.  He was about to touch his cap
to Harry, but altered his mind when he
remembered the situation, and wiped his
lips instead.

"Bet you don't never guess," he said.

"What's up, Ginger?" asked his mates in chorus.

"Why, Stoneway--he's been and gone
and done it."

"What's he been and gone and done?
Not done himself in?"

"Course not!  Think he's broke his heart
'cause of losing us, then?  No fear!  He's
'listed, that's what he's done."

"Garn!"

"True as I'm standing here.  He's 'listed
right enough.  He's got a chest on him
too; forty inches, doctor said.  He's been
and got shaved; he'll be along here
presently.  His beard, that is.  We can let
our moustaches grow now, if we like."  He
rubbed his upper lip.  "Hair-brush, that's
what it is.  Bet a penny it's as good as
Stoneway's under six weeks."

"But what's he 'listed for, after all his
jaw?" asked one of the men.

"Converted, that's what he is," Ginger
replied.  "Seen the error of his ways, or
else he's so sweet on me he couldn't bear
the parting.  'You made me love you, I
didn't want to do it,'" he hummed.  "This
here khaki looks all right, mates, don't it?
Matches my hair.  Here, old cockalorum,"
he shouted to the man at the piano, "we've
had enough of that there funeral march.
Play more cheerful, or we'll all be swimming
in our tears."

Ginger's high spirits were infectious, and
the group of which Kenneth and Harry
formed a part chatted and laughed away
the afternoon.

Just before ten o'clock they were arranging
their simple beds on the frames when a
chorus of yells, cat-calls, whistles, and other
discordant noises caused them to look around
the hall.  Stoneway had just made his
appearance.  It was a different Stoneway.
The brown beard was gone, the long and
flourishing moustache had been clipped to
bristly stiffness, revealing heavy lips and
a full round chin.  The man bore his
uproarious greeting with a defiant glare, and
only looked annoyed when Ginger shouted:

"Smart, ain't he?  Doesn't look so much
like a blinky German, does he?"

The bugle sounded the Last Post, the
electric light was switched off, and the five
hundred men of the 17th Rutland Light
Infantry clambered into their bunks and
sought repose.





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.. _`THREE ROUNDS`:

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   CHAPTER IV


.. class:: center medium

   THREE ROUNDS

.. vspace:: 2

At six o'clock next morning sergeant-majors
and corporals went round the hall
stirring up the sleepers.  There were groans
and grumbles, but the men turned out, and
there was a general dash for the washing
basins--one among twenty men--and a free
fight for the razors.  Our two friends had
brought their own safeties and pocket mirrors,
and when they had finished operating upon
their downy cheeks there was a competition
among their new messmates for the loan of
those indispensable articles.

"Your bristles will ruin a blade in no
time, Ginger," said Harry, as he handed over
the razor, somewhat ruefully.

"Perseverance, that's all you want," replied
Ginger, through the lather.  "Yours 'll
be as hard as mine in time."

At half-past six each man seized a mug
and rushed off to the cook-house across the
yard for cocoa.  They sat about the hall,
swilling the morning beverage, grumbling
at the blankets, asking one another who'd
be a soldier; then they rubbed up their
boots and made their beds, and were ready
for the seven o'clock parade.

Dressed only in their shirts and slacks
they formed up in the drill-hall.  There was
a good deal of disorder, and the N.C.O.'s,
in early-morning temper, roared above the
din.  It happened that Dick Kennedy was
orderly officer for the week.  When the men
were at last ranged in ranks, dressed, and
numbered by the sergeants, he posted
himself in front and, with a nervous twitching
of the lips, said gently--

"Battalion, 'shun!"

"Louder, louder!" whispered a fellow-officer
who had come up behind him.  "This
isn't a mothers' meeting."

The second lieutenant tried again.

"Battalion, 'shun!  Advance in fours from
the right.  Form fours!"

Some of the men knew what to do, but
many of the new recruits looked about them
blankly.

"You don't know the movements?" said
the lieutenant.  "Well, when I say 'form
fours,' even numbers take one pace to the
left with the left foot and one pace to the
right with the right.  Now, form fours!"

The result was disorder--jostling in the
ranks, cries of "Who're you a-shoving of!"

"Sorry!  My mistake!" said Kennedy,
with a smile.  "We'll try again.  I should
have said, 'one pace to the rear with the
left foot.'  Now then, form fours!"

His cheerfulness won the men's sympathy,
and the order being now correctly
carried out, one or two of them cheered.

"Silence in the ranks!" roared Kennedy.
"Right!  Quick march!" and the battalion
marched off.

The day's work began with a run for
three-quarters of an hour, to the bank of
a river some two miles away.  A "run" so
called, for it consisted of slow and quick
march and doubling in turn.  At eight
o'clock they were back in the hall for
breakfast: tea, bread and bacon, sausage or cheese.
The provisions were good, the men had
healthy appetites, and at 9.15, when the
battalion orders of the day were read, they
were contented and cheerful.

Marching out to the parade ground, a
field in the neighbourhood, they spent an
hour in physical drill under experienced
N.C.O. instructors, and then a couple of
hours in company drill.  Dismissed at 12.15,
they met again for dinner at 1, a plentiful
meal of meat pie and vegetables.  Then
came a route march and extended order
drill, tea at 4.30, with jam and tinned fruits,
and at 5.30 company lectures.

"It'll be rummy to hear Kennedy lecture,"
said Harry, sitting beside Kenneth
on the form.  "I wonder what he'll spout about."

"Poor chap!" said Kenneth.  "I'm beginning
to think the Tommies haven't the
worst of it.  Keep a straight face whatever
he says."

Somewhat to his surprise, when Kennedy
appeared the men were at once silent.  The
habit of discipline was strong in those who
had already served in the Regulars or the
Territorials; the recruits were interested in
the novel circumstances, and subdued by the
indefinable influence of constituted authority.

"Now, men," began Kennedy, unfolding
his notes and studiously avoiding the eyes
of his old school-fellows, "I'm going to say
a few words to you on Feet."

"My poor tootsies!" murmured one of the men.

"We have all got feet," Kennedy went
on, "but do we all know how to use them?"

"Give us a ball and we'll show you,
sir," cried a voice.

"Well, I hope we'll have some footer by
and by, but that's not the present question.
We have just done a ten-mile walk.  Two
or three of you fell out, two or three were
limping before we got back.  Why was that?"

"'Cos we ain't used to it, sir," said one
of the unlucky ones.

"Ate too much pie and 'taters, sir," cried
another.

"Got a corn inside o' my toe," said a third.

"Well, we'll leave out greediness for the
present: that's a moral defect which
perhaps one of the senior officers will deal with.
We'll confine our attention to the proper
care of the feet."

And he went on to give some simple and
practical advice as to bathing, greasing,
methods of hardening, until six o'clock
struck, and the men were dismissed until
first post at 9.30.

"Call that a lecture!" scoffed Stoneway,
when the officer had gone.  "Does he take
us for an infant school?  Giving us pap like
that!"

"You shut your face!" said Ginger.
"The young feller spoke downright good
common sense, much better 'n you'd expect
from a chap as went to one of them there
public schools.  He said a thing or two I
didn't know, nor you either, Stoneway.
'Course he didn't go to the root of it; dursn't
cry stinking fish.  What's the root?  Why,
boots.  These 'ere things they've gi'en us,
they're no good.  They're made to raise
blisters, they are, and they'll just mash
when we get the rain."

"They're only temporary, I believe," said
Kenneth, "till the factories can turn out
army boots in sufficient quantities."

"That's the English Government all over,"
said Stoneway, with a sneer.  "Nothing
ready: no boots, no rifles----"

"Oh, stow it!" cried Ginger.  "What
did you 'list for if you're going to grouse
all the time?  The worst of it is, you can't
resign: we shall have to put up with you,
I s'pose, unless you mutiny, or strike your
superior officer, or do something else to get
dismissed the army.  Come on, boys; let's
go and see the pictures.  We'll be back in
time to draw some soup from the cook-house,
8.30 to 9."

That is a fair sample of the day's work
during the next two or three months.  It
was monotonous, but, during the dry
autumn, healthy.  When the rainy weather
set in, hardship began to be felt.  The
men often got drenched to the skin; their
temporary boots, as Ginger had foretold,
became pulp.  The factory was bleak and
draughty, in spite of its gas stoves.  There
was a certain amount of sickness, and an
increase in the number of offenders to be
dealt with every morning by the colonel.
But the men were well fed, and cheered by
presents of tobacco and cigarettes from
kindly townsfolk; and many wet, dull
evenings were enlivened by concerts and
entertainments got up by friends of the officers.

Kenneth and Harry steadfastly declined
offers of promotion as N.C.O.'s, but owing
to their knowledge of drill they were made
right and left guides of their platoon.  They
bought a football, and got up inter-company
matches in which No. 3 Company distinguished
itself.  Indeed, both in work and
play No. 3 Company became the crack
company of the battalion.  The captain,
an old army man who had been retired some
years and was some little time picking up
the details of the new drill, was a good
sportsman and a hard worker, and by the
end of January the company was thoroughly
efficient and knit together by that esprit
de corps which is the soul of fighting men.

Then came vaccination and inoculation.
Stoneway was the ringleader of a little
group that declined the doctor's attentions,
to the disgust of Ginger and the majority.

"You're a traitor, that's what you are,"
said Ginger to Stoneway when the latter
flatly declined to be poisoned, as he put it.
"You'll go and catch some rotten disease
or other and give it to us."

"This is a free country," retorted
Stoneway.  "And as to you, you're a turncoat.
Weren't you always spouting against the
war?  Didn't I back you up?  Who caved
in as meek as a lamb?"

"Well, you followed along with the other
sheep, didn't you?  What you joined for
goodness only knows.  You're always
grousing about something or other.  Bacon's too
fat, then it's too lean; cheese is dry, then
it's damp; you pick out little bits of lead
out of the pear gravy, and spread 'em round
your plate and put on a face like a holy
martyr.  You sit at lecture with a snigger
on your ugly mug; the pianner's out of
tune; nobody can sing for nuts; *you* take
jolly good care you don't do nothing to
amuse the company.  Nothing's right; you
always know better 'n anyone else; lummy,
I believe you think you ought to be capting,
if not commander-in-chief.  What did you
join for, that's what I want to know.  I tell
you straight, we've had enough of your
grousing.  Why don't you take your grumbles
to the officers?  'Any complaints?' says
they when they come round inspecting;
why don't you speak up like a man?  No
fear; you ain't got a word to say.  All
you can do is to growl when they ain't
by, and try to make yourself big before
all the dirty swipes of the regiment.  Why,
look at the other night, when they gave the
alarm, and we was all confined to barricks:
what did you do then?  When all those nice
young ladies came with their fiddles and
things and sang and played to us proper,
gave us fags all round, too, you must get
up in a corner with your dirty lot and make
such a deuce of a row we couldn't hear a
word of 'Dolly Grey'--my favourite song,
too!  If I'd been colonel I'd have given
you a good dose of clink straight away, and
so now you know it."

Ginger had fairly let himself go, and the
applause that followed his speech showed
that he voiced the opinion of the majority.
Stoneway made no reply, but gradually
edged away.

This was the culmination of an
estrangement which had been developing between
the two men ever since the company was
formed.  Whatever had brought them
together previously, their enlistment had
sundered them completely.  Ginger, whose
backing Stoneway had been wont to count
on in any attack on authority, was now
the most orderly as well as the cheeriest
man in the company.  He passed off with a
jest every hardship of that trying winter.
"Think of those poor chaps in the trenches,"
he would say, if someone complained of the
cold or a wetting.  Stoneway clearly resented
his change of spirit, though it was a puzzle
to the better disposed among the men why
he could have expected a display of
insubordination from these enthusiastic recruits
in the New Army.

It must be admitted that Ginger took no
pains to conciliate his old companion.  He
did not launch out again into invective, but
assumed the still more irritating airs of a
humorous observer.  From time to time he
let fall a jesting word that had a sting, and
took a delight in chaffing Stoneway in the
presence of other men.  And since Stoneway
himself turned out to be no match for
Ginger in these little bouts of wordy war,
and Ginger always managed to keep his
temper, Stoneway became more and more
furious, and fell to meditating reprisals.

One Saturday afternoon, after a more
than usually smart exchange of banter on
the one hand and abuse on the other, Ginger
was sent by the quartermaster to a farm
some two miles away to fetch the balance
of a quantity of butter which had not been
completely delivered.

"Just my luck!" said Ginger, in the
hearing of a group that included Kenneth
and Harry.  "It won't break my back, but
I'd rather carry it two yards than two miles.
However!"

"I'm off duty presently," said Kenneth,
"and I'll come part of the way to meet you
and lend you a hand."

"You're a white man," said Ginger.
"Well, so long."

Some little while afterwards Kenneth and
Harry started together by a footpath across
fields to the farmhouse.  They had not gone
far when they caught sight of a figure in
khaki about half a mile ahead, going in the
same direction as themselves.  It was soon
lost to sight behind a hedge.

The path led over a hill that descended
steeply on the farther side.  On reaching
the top they saw two men in khaki at
the foot of the slope below them.  One
of them was Ginger, who had dropped his
wicker basket on the grass and stood with
arms akimbo facing the other man, now
recognisable by his burly frame as Stoneway.
Ginger, slim and wiry, looked insignificant by
comparison.

Just as Kenneth and Harry caught sight
of the men, Stoneway lifted his fist and with
a sudden swift blow that took Ginger
unawares sent him head over heels.  Ginger
was up in an instant, and after skipping about
on his short legs for a few moments, made a
rush at his opponent.  Stoneway staggered,
but recovered himself immediately, clinched,
and profiting by his superior height and
weight threw Ginger heavily, and not being
able to disengage himself, fell with him.
The two men heaved and twisted in a fierce
struggle on the ground.  Then Stoneway
dragged himself away, rose, and Kenneth,
now running down the hill, saw him
deliberately kick the prostrate body of his
apparently senseless comrade.

.. _`52`:

"You cad!" shouted Kenneth, with
Harry hard on his heels; "what do you mean
by that foul play?"

Stoneway, too much preoccupied to be
aware of the approach of observers, growled
something under his breath, and was making
off sullenly.

"No you don't!" cried Kenneth, seizing
him.  "Just have a look at Ginger," he
added to Harry.

Ginger, pale and shaken, sat up and smiled
feebly.

"Time?" he said.  "I'll have another round."

"Not a bit of it," said Harry.  "He
kicked you on the ground.  Didn't you know?
It was foul play.  What was it all about?"

"I didn't kick him," muttered Stoneway.

"That's a lie.  I saw you do it," said
Kenneth.  "What's the row, Ginger?"

"Well, what you may call a bit of a
shindy," Ginger replied.  "Just between
ourselves, like.  I'm ready for another go."

"No.  Come, out with it, man."

"Well, I was traipsing along with that
there basket on my head when up he comes
and starts rounding on me for chipping him.
'I'm not having any truck with grousers,'
says I.  Then we had a few words, and he got
me one afore I was ready, that I own.  But
I can't hardly believe he kicked me when I
was down, and a bit dazed like."

"He did.  You take a rest and recover:
we'll settle with him."

"What are you talking about?" Stoneway
blustered.

"Giving you a hiding.  Off with your coat,"
said Kenneth.  "You'll see fair play, Harry."

"I say, this is my job," said Harry.
"You've been on the sick list."

"I'm all right."

"No, really."

"Well, don't let's waste time.  I'll toss
you for it."

And while Stoneway looked on in amazement,
Kenneth spun a coin, won, stripped
off his tunic and rolled up his shirt sleeves.

"Two to one against the big 'un," cried
Ginger, with a grin of delight.

Seeing there was no help for it, Stoneway
slowly took off his tunic.

"And mind you fight fair," Harry warned
him, "or I promise you I'll take a hand
myself."

The two men faced each other.  They
presented a striking contrast.  Stoneway
was slightly the taller and much the heavier;
his big chest bulged under his shirt, and
his biceps were thick.  But Harry, scanning
him keenly, noting his fleshiness, decided
that his muscles were rather flabby than
hard; and observing Kenneth's slighter
but well-knit frame, and remembering his
promise as a boxer at school, felt pretty
confident of the result.

After the first few exchanges he was more
doubtful.  Stoneway had a longer reach,
and was clearly accustomed to the use of his
fists.  At the start he forced the fighting,
trying to get a knock-out blow, and Kenneth
needed all his skill to meet his bull-like rushes
and sledge-hammer strokes.  He managed
to land one punishing body-blow that would
have shaken up a smaller man, but Stoneway
recovered himself quickly, and the first round
ended with little damage on either side
except that Stoneway found himself
somewhat winded.

The combatants had now taken each
other's measure.  In the second round
Kenneth in his turn adopted forcing tactics,
bewildering his opponent by the whirlwind
rapidity of his attack and his elusiveness
in defence.  Stoneway began to realise that
he had met more than his match.  He
breathed heavily; his fat cheeks took on a
yellowish tinge; and the end of the round
found him with a bigger nose and a bump
over his right eye, and greatly distressed in
wind.

"Next round finishes him," whispered
Harry, as he wiped Kenneth's face.

The third round was in fact conclusive.
Stoneway made a desperate rush, stopped
by a neat upper cut, and before he could
recover he was hurled to the ground by a
blow above the heart that might have
finished a professional pugilist.

"Now you'll apologise to Ginger," said
Kenneth, as Stoneway slowly picked himself up.

But Stoneway scowled out of his damaged
brows, put on his tunic in silence, and walked
away without uttering a word.

It was much to Ginger's credit that not
a man in the battalion ever discovered how
Stoneway had come by his bruises.  There
was an end alike to his grumbling and to
Ginger's rough banter.  But there was an
end, too, to all show of friendliness between
them.  They never spoke to each other,
and Stoneway was always careful to keep
out of Kenneth's way.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE BACK OF THE FRONT`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER V


.. class:: center medium

   THE BACK OF THE FRONT

.. vspace:: 2

The slow wet winter dragged itself out.
The training went on, fair weather or foul.
The 17th Rutland Light Infantry got their
service boots in due time, but other details
of their equipment were slow to arrive.
Presently they received enough rifles and
entrenching tools for half the battalion, and
the ordinary drill and physical exercises,
which Kennedy had privately confided to
Amory "bored him stiff," was varied with
musketry practice and digging trenches.
There were long marches, semaphore
practice, sham fights, night operations; day by
day the men gained new knowledge of their
trade.  More rifles came, this time with
bayonets; bayonet exercise and practice
in attack gave further variety to their work.
At last, towards the end of February, the
whole battalion was fully equipped, and the
men grew excited at the prospect of going
to the front.

It was a great moment when the colonel
gave them a few hours' notice of entrainment.
Lusty cheers broke from a thousand
throats; the longed-for day had come at
last.  Crowds of townsfolk assembled at the
station to see them off, but they were quiet,
serious crowds, the women's faces tense with
anxiety, the children unwontedly subdued.
It was no picnic for which these sturdy
Englishmen were setting out.  Everybody
was now aware of the greatness of the
struggle, the bravery and tenacity of the
enemy, the scientific skill and terrible
thoroughness with which the Germans had
prepared through many years for this
attempt to seize the mastery of the world.
Hearts were full as the men stepped blithely
into the long train; how many of them would
return, and of these, how many would be
sound and strong?

Their immediate destination was known
to none except the commanding officer.
When, after a tiring journey, with much
shunting and side-tracking, the men were
finally detrained at a small station in the
south of England, with no sign of sea or
transports, there was a general feeling of
surprise and disappointment.  They were
marched to a wide barren plain, peppered
with tents and huts, and here, it became
known by and by, they were to spend a
month or more in further training.

Even Ginger for once became a grouser.

"I've had about enough of this," he
growled.  "What's the good of it all?"

"Discipline, Ginger," said Kenneth.

"Discipline!  That's obedience, ain't it?
Well, I ask you, don't we do as we're told
like a lot of school kids?  I'm sure I'm as
meek as Moses.  Never thought I could be
so tame.  I've quite lost my character, and
if ever I get back to the works I'll have to
go a regular buster, or else I'll be one of the
downtrodden slaves of the capitalist."

"I don't think so badly of you," said
Kenneth, with a smile.  "But discipline is
more than obedience.  Between you and
me, I think this extra training is as much
for the officers' sake as ours.  The British
officer leads, you see.  He knows we'll obey
orders; he has to make sure that he gives
the right orders.  If he didn't there'd be an
unholy mess: we should lose confidence in
him, and the game would be up.  We've
got to work together like a football team,
every man trusting every other; and that's
what all this drilling and training is for."

"I daresay you're in the right," said
Ginger.  "I wasn't thinking of them young
officers!  They're a good lot, though, ain't
they?  I don't know what it is, but there's
something about 'em--why, Mr. Kennedy
now, he's ten years younger than me, and
yet somehow or other he manages me like
as if I was a baby.  And no bounce about it
either; I wouldn't stand bounce from any
man, officer or not.  But he don't bounce;
he speaks as quiet as a district visitor; but
somehow--well, you feel you've just *got*
to do what he says, and you'd be a skunk
if you didn't.  I don't understand it, I tell
you straight."

Kenneth did not speak the thought that
arose in his mind, but he warmed to this
testimonial from the British working-man
to the British public-school boy.

There came a day, about the middle of
March, when the battalion was once more
entrained.  This time the men took it more
quietly: the first disappointment forbade
them to set their hopes too high.  It was
dark when the train reached its destination;
the lights on the platform were dim; but
one of the men shouted, "A ship, boys!"
as he got out of his compartment, and a
thrill of excitement ran through the crowd.

They were in fact at the dock station at
Southampton, and a big transport vessel
lay alongside.  Many of the men had never
been on the sea before.  Ginger looked a
little careworn, and confessed to Kenneth
that he felt certain he was going to be sick.
The night was nearly gone when all the men
were aboard.  Some lay down in their
overcoats; others remained on deck, irked by
the impossibility of satisfying their curiosity
about the vessel.

At daybreak the ship cast off and steamed
slowly through the fairway of Southampton
Water towards the open sea.  It was a bright
calm morning, and the men watched with
fascinated eyes the ripples glistening in the
sunlight, the various shipping, the shores
receding behind them.  And presently, when
they had rounded the north-east corner of
the Isle of Wight, and the course was
headed southward across the Channel, they
burst into cheers when they caught sight of
the low lean shapes of destroyers on either
side of them.

"What price submarines to-day!" cried
one of the men.

"Ain't got an earthly," remarked another.

"Don't believe there are none," said a
third.  "Our men in blue have sunk 'em
all long ago."

"How are you getting on, Ginger?" asked Kenneth.

Ginger was half lying on his back, gripping
a stanchion, and looking straight ahead with
nervous anticipation.

"Is it much farther?" he asked.

"Nothing to speak of.  The Channel's
as calm as a millpond."

"It may be, but the ship ain't.  She's
very lively.  All of a shake, she is.  Takes
a lurch for'ard, then backs a bit, seemingly,
then another lurch.  It ain't what I'm used
to.  It worries the inside of me.  I want to
say 'Whoa, steady!' like I do to the
donkeys at fair time.  And it gives me the
needle to see that there Stoneway sticking
hisself out as if he was driving the bally
ship.  It don't seem fair, a big chap like
him taking it so easy when he's got twice
as much as me to lose."

"Well, you won't lose much if you keep
still," said Harry, laughing at the man's
woe-begone face.  "It's quite certain you
couldn't have a calmer crossing."

Ginger's alarms were needless.  When the
cliffs of France hove in sight he got up and
leant over the rail, eagerly watching the
advancing coast-line.

"That's France, is it?" he remarked.
"I don't see much difference.  I can't
understand why the folks over there don't
speak English, when they live so close.  I
reckon we'll learn 'em afore we get back."

The red and blue roofs of Boulogne became
distinct.  Presently the vessel rounded the
breakwater and manoeuvred herself alongside
the quay.  There was scarcely anything
to show that the men had actually arrived
in France.  Khaki predominated on the
quay; an English voice hailed the skipper
through a megaphone; a blue-grey motor
omnibus with the windows boarded up and
the words "Kaiser's coffin" chalked on the
sides stood on the road.

No time was lost in disembarkation.  The
men were marched across the railway lines
to a train in waiting.  Ginger, with Kenneth,
Harry, and half a dozen more, got into a
compartment labelled "Défense de fumer,"
and started lighting up at once.

"We'll defend it all right," said Ginger,
"but the rest is spelt wrong."

"It means you mustn't smoke," said Kenneth.

"Well, that's a good 'un!  What do they
take us for?  Any gentleman object?"

"No!" yelled in chorus.

"I didn't half think so."

The train rumbled away eastward, and
the men scanned the bare country from the
windows, remarking on its dreary character,
scarcely relieved by the pollard willows that
raised their naked boughs against the grey
sky.  By and by they got out at a small
station, and marched along a straight road
between rows of trees to a country village.
They kept to the right side; the other was
busy with empty supply wagons, lorries of
familiar appearance, now and then a
mud-caked motor car.

Some officers had gone on ahead to arrange
billets.  Arriving at the village, the majority
of the men were accommodated in the barn
and outbuildings of a large farm, a few in
separate cottages.  Kenneth, with Harry
and Ginger and other men of their platoon
found themselves allotted to a labourer's
cottage, where shake-downs of clean straw
had been laid on the floors of a couple of
rooms.  A road divided their billet from the
garden of a good-sized house, in which
quarters had been found for two or three of
the officers.

Apart from the traffic on the road there was
as yet no sign of war.  No sound of guns
broke the stillness of the spring afternoon.
But it had become known that the firing line
was only a few miles ahead, and the men were
all agog with expectation of an early call to
the trenches.

It soon appeared, however, that they were
not yet to enter upon the real work of war.
Rumour had it that Sir John French was
waiting for further reinforcements before
pursuing the forward movement recently
started at Neuve Chapelle.  Day after day
passed in exercising, marching, practising
operations in the field.  Word came of other
regiments pouring across the Channel and
occupying other villages and towns behind
the firing line.  All day long they heard the
distant bark of guns, and saw too frequently
the swift passage of motor ambulances
conveying their sad burdens to the coast.
When off duty they strolled about the
village, making friends of the hospitable
villagers, romping with the children, playing
football, cheerful, light-hearted, scarcely
alive to the actualities of the desperate work
in which they were so eager to engage.

One day a trifling incident occupied
Kenneth's attention for a moment.  He
happened to have gone into a little shop to
buy cakes for the children of the good people
upon whom he was billeted.  Several of the
men were there making purchases, and one
of them was vainly trying to explain his
wants to the shopkeeper.  Stoneway was
standing by.  Kenneth translated for his
baffled comrade; then, suddenly remembering
what he had overheard on the platform
at St. Pancras station, he said to him:

"Why didn't you ask Stoneway to help
you?  He speaks French."

Stoneway looked astonished and startled,
but said at once:

"Me!  I know a word or two, but you
can't call it speaking French.  I couldn't
do it."

Kenneth said no more, though his recollection
of the energetic conversation at the
station was very clear, and he wondered why
the man had denied his accomplishment.

There was only one opinion of the kindness
and hospitality of the villagers, and the
men were particularly enthusiastic about the
owner of the house across the road.  Far
from limiting himself to the sumptuous
entertainment of the officers billeted on
him, he went out of his way to lavish
attentions on the soldiers, making them
presents of cigarettes, and treating them to
the wine of the country.  The village had
not suffered from the ravages of war, though
the Germans had occupied it for a few days
during their rush towards Calais; but it
harboured many refugees from towns and
villages farther eastward, and these were
supported by the benevolent owner of the
large house, who maintained a sort of soup
kitchen where the homeless people could
obtain free rations.

One evening, when Kenneth and his comrades
were at supper in their host's capacious
kitchen, the talk turned on Monsieur Obernai,
"the mounseer over the way," as Ginger
called him, "one of the best."  Jean
Bonnard, the cottager, and his wife took their
meals with their guests, and chatted freely
to Kenneth and Harry, the only men who
knew enough French to understand them.
Kenneth repeated in French what Ginger had said.

"Ah yes, monsieur," said Bonnard.
"Monsieur Obernai is a good man.  You see,
he is from Alsace, and has reason to hate the
Germans."

"All the same, I don't like him," said his
wife, pressing her lips together.

"That is a point on which we don't agree,"
said Bonnard, with a smile.  "Just like a
woman!  She doesn't like him, but she can't
say why."

"You hear him!" said madame.  "Just
like a woman!  As if a woman was not
always right!"

"But you have a reason, madame?" said Harry.

"Bah!  I leave reasons to men; I have
my feelings."

Bonnard shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, mon amie," he said, "I can put
my reasons into words, see you.  Monsieur
Obernai came here from Alsace five or six
years ago.  He could not stand the Germans,
so he sold his property and came and settled
here, and he has been a good friend to the
village, that you cannot deny.  A very
quiet man, too; he lives all alone with an
old housekeeper and a couple of servants, and
makes himself very pleasant.  When our
two boys went off to the war, didn't he give
them warm vests and stuff their haversacks
with cigarettes?"

"Yes, he was good to our poor boys,"
admitted the good woman grudgingly, "but
I don't like him all the same.  I don't like
his voice; it makes me shrivel."

"A man speaks with the voice God gave
him," said her husband.  "As for me, I
look at what a man does, and don't trouble
myself about his voice.  And after all, it is
not a bad voice."

"Smooth as butter," rejoined the woman.
"But there, we shall never agree, mon ami.
Get on with your soup."

After supper, some of the men settled
down to write home.  The postal regulations
annoyed Ginger.

"I'm a poor hand at writing," he said,
"and I don't see why I shouldn't send my
love to my wife and kids on one of these here
postcards.  It ain't enough for a letter; yet
if I put it on the postcard they'd destroy it,
they say.  What for, I'd like to know?"

"It does seem hard lines," said Kenneth,
"but I suppose it's to ease the censors' work.
They've an enormous number of cards to
look over, and they'd never get done if they
had to read a lot of stuff."

"'Love' 's a little word; that wouldn't
hurt 'em.  Still, rules is rules, no doubt."

He proceeded to cross out several sentences
on the official postcard provided, leaving only
"I am quite well" and adding his signature
and the date.

Presently the post corporal came to collect
the letters and cards.

"Captain wants you, Murgatroyd," he said.

"Going to give you your stripe at last,
Ginger," said Harry.

"I shouldn't wonder," said Ginger, grinning
as he went out.

When he returned, twenty minutes later,
the expression on his face checked the
congratulations that rose to his comrades' lips.
His features were grimly set, and he went
to his place by the fire without uttering a
word.

"No luck, Ginger?" said one of the men
indiscreetly.

"Shut up!" growled Ginger, lighting his pipe.

Nothing would induce him to explain why
he had been sent for, or the reason of his
annoyance.  He was one of the best-behaved
men in the company, and it seemed unlikely
that he had got into trouble without the
knowledge of the others.  Wisely, they did
not press him with questions, expecting that
he would tell them all in good time.

Ginger's interview with Captain Adams
had been a surprising one.

"You know the post regulations, Murgatroyd?"
said the captain.

"Yes, sir."

"Well, look at this postcard.  Is that
your signature?"

"D. Murgatroyd; that's me, sir," said
Ginger, after a glance at the pencilled name.

"What do you mean by writing the name
of the place in invisible ink?"

"Never did such a thing, sir.  Don't
know anything about invisible ink."

"Well, how do you explain it, then?  This
card had the name written in invisible ink.
It was discovered by the Post Office in
London, and they've returned it for
inquiries.  What have you to say?"

"What I said before, sir: I didn't do it."

"You write to Henry Smith, 563 Pentonville
Road?"

"Never heard of him, sir."

"What's the game, then?  Go and fetch
the post corporal," he said to his servant.

The man came in with a bundle of recently
collected cards in his hand.

"Look at this," said the captain, showing
him the card in question.  "Did you get
that from Murgatroyd?"

"I couldn't say, sir; I get such a lot."

"But you know his signature?"

"I can't say I do, sir; but he has just
written a card; perhaps you would like to
have a look at it."

He searched his bundle, found the card
and handed it to the captain, who compared
the two signatures.

"This is very odd," he said.  "They are
very much alike, but there's a slight
difference in the shape of the y.  It looks as
though some one were imitating your fist,
Murgatroyd."

"Yes, sir," said Ginger, stiffly.  "I'd
like to punch his head, sir," he added, as
the baseness of the trick struck him.

"Well, we must find out who it is.  Keep
this to yourselves, men; he may try it
again and give us a chance to catch him.
Not a word to anyone, mind."

Ginger saluted and returned to his billet,
his indignation growing at every step.

The incident was discussed at the officers'
mess that night.

"Murgatroyd is straight enough," said
Kennedy.  "He's one of the best men in my
platoon.  It's rather a mean trick."

"And a senseless one," said the captain.
"I'm inclined to think one of the men must
owe him a grudge, and want to get him into
trouble."

"What about the addressee?" asked
another officer.  "Who is Henry Smith,
of 563 Pentonville Road?"

"The London people will keep him under
observation, no doubt," said the captain.
"I told the post corporal to examine every
batch carefully, and see if there are any
more addressed to the same person."

Three days passed.  No letters or cards
addressed to Henry Smith were discovered.
On the third day a telegram from London
was delivered to the colonel.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: small

"Henry Smith gone, leaving no address.  Report
result of enquiry."

.. vspace:: 1

After consulting Captain Adams the
colonel telegraphed in reply that
Murgatroyd's signature appeared to have been
forged, probably with the intention of getting
him into trouble, and that he was keeping a
careful watch on the correspondence.  Ginger
meanwhile had recovered his spirits.  He had
been made a lance-corporal, and sewed the
stripe on his sleeve with ingenuous
satisfaction.  At the back of his mind was a
suspicion that Stoneway might have sought a
mean revenge for his thrashing by this use
of invisible ink; but since the scheme had
failed, he resolved not to trouble his head
about it.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`BAGGING A SNIPER`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER VI


.. class:: center medium

   BAGGING A SNIPER

.. vspace:: 2

The village being within easy range of
the German guns, its immunity from
bombardment struck the officers of the battalion
as rather strange.  For a few days, it is
true, the enemy might have been unaware
that British troops were in occupation; but
a German aeroplane, a dove-winged Taube,
had been observed to fly over the place, and
it could hardly be doubted that information
of their presence had been carried to
headquarters.  All that the soldiers knew of
warfare for two or three weeks was the dull
boom of distant guns, the passage of
ambulances occasionally and of supply wagons
frequently, and the passing of railway trains
conveying new howitzers and field guns along
the line a mile or two away.

The call to action came unexpectedly.
One evening, just after supper, the men
were ordered to parade in full marching
kit.  They overflowed from the little market
square into the adjacent streets, and there
they were inspected by the colonel, who
passed up and down the ranks with an
orderly carrying a lantern.

When the inspection was finished, the
colonel posted himself on a tub in the
middle of the square.  It was a dark night,
and the flickering light of the lantern
illuminated only the lower part of the
colonel's body, leaving his face in shade.

"Now, men," he said, "we are going to
take a spell in the trenches.  We have
several miles to march; there must be no
straggling, or you'll pitch into Jack Johnson
holes in the road.  No talking, no smoking.
I know you'll give a good account of
yourselves.  We're a new battalion; we've got
to make our name; and by George, we'll do it!"

The platoon commanders stifled an
incipient cheer, and the battalion marched off
into the night.

Along the dark straight road they tramped,
between lines of tall poplars that raised
their skeleton shapes against the sky.  For
a mile or two nothing impeded their
progress; then the advance guard came upon
a deep cavity extending half across the road,
and two men were told off to warn the
succeeding ranks of the danger.  Presently
they passed through a hamlet which had
been shattered by the German artillery.
The sides of the road were heaped with
bricks and blackened rafters, behind which
were the jagged walls of roofless cottages.

A little beyond this they were met by a
staff officer, come to guide them to the
trenches.  Then they had to ease off to one
side to allow the passage of the weary men
they were relieving.  At length they came
to a small clump of woodland, and learnt
that the trenches were on the further side
of it.  Section by section they passed into
the shelter of the trees, stepping across
trunks felled and split by shells, and slid
noiselessly into the narrow zig-zag ditches
where they were to eat and sleep and spend
weary days and nights.

Kennedy and his platoon, among whom
were Kenneth, Harry, Ginger, and their pals,
found themselves in a narrow passage about
4 ft. 6 in. deep, with a loopholed parapet
facing eastward, and here and there little
cabins dug out in the banks, boarded, strewn
with straw, warm and stuffy.  In the
darkness it was impossible to take complete
stock of their surroundings, but learning
that in a dug-out it was safe to strike a light,
Kenneth lit a candle-end, and was amused
to see that his predecessor in the little cabin
to which he had come had chalked up
"Ritz Hotel" on the boarding.

The men were too much excited to think
of sleeping.  They had learnt on the way
up that the position they were to hold was
rather a hot place.  The Germans in their
front, only a few hundred yards away, were
very active and full of tricks.  They watched
the British trenches with lynx eyes, and so
sure as the top of a cap showed above the
parapet it became the mark for a dozen rifles.
There were night snipers, too, somewhere
in the neighbourhood, constantly dropping
bullets on their invisible target.  The men
who had just left the trenches had been
much worried by these snipers, whom they
had failed to locate; but they had reason
to believe that the pestilent marksmen were
hidden somewhere behind the lines.

"You're safe enough so long as you keep
your heads down," said the officer who
directed Kennedy to his position.  "Except
for the snipers we have had little trouble
lately; and I hope you'll have a good time."

Kennedy told off his men to keep watch
in turn through the night.  While off duty
they sat in the dug-outs chatting quietly,
listening for sounds from the enemy's
trenches, wondering what was in store for
them when daylight came.  Fortunately the
wet weather had ceased; the bottom of the
trench was still sticky, but the March winds
were rapidly drying the ground.  The night
was cold, but there was a brazier in each
dug-out, and the men, crouching over these
in their great-coats, contrived to keep warm
and comfortable.

They watched eagerly for daylight.  At
the first peep of dawn some of the men were
told off to the loopholes.  About thirty yards
in front there stretched a wire entanglement,
with small cans dangling from it here and
there.  Two or three hundred yards beyond
this they saw the similar entanglement of
the Germans.  For about a hundred yards
of the line this wire was more remote, and
the men learnt afterwards that a pond of
that breadth filled a declivity in the ground.
Here and there, all round the position at
varying distances, stood isolated farmhouses,
trees, and patches of woodland.  All was
peaceful; no sound of war broke the stillness
of the fair March morning.

They had their breakfast of cocoa and
bread and jam.  Towards noon two men
from each section were told off to go back
to a farm house behind the lines for the
day's rations.  They hurried along the trench
in a crouching posture, struck into a
communicating trench leading to the rear, and
emerged on the outskirts of the wood.
There was instantly the crack of a rifle.  A
sniper had begun his day's work.  The men
waited uneasily, clutching their rifles,
wondering if any of their comrades had been
hit.  Kennedy posted his men a yard apart
along the trench, ready to fire at the first
sign of movement among the enemy.  The
zig-zag formation of the trench prevented
any man from seeing more than the men of
his own section, and there came upon them a
feeling of loneliness and almost individual
responsibility.

In about an hour's time Kenneth and his
comrades were relieved to see their
food-carriers returning with steaming pails.
These contained a sort of hash mixed with
beans and potatoes.  The men poured this
into their billies, warmed them at the
braziers, and acknowledged that their dinner
of Irish stew à la Française wasn't half bad.
After that food was carried up only at night.

The day passed uneventfully.  A
rifle-shot was heard now and then; from a
distant part of the line came the continual
rumble of artillery-fire; once they caught
sight of a British aeroplane far away to the
north-east, with little patches of white smoke
following it, hugging it.  There was nothing
to do except to keep a continual look-out.

But at dusk the reality of their danger was
brought home to them.  Cramped with the
fatigue of maintaining a bending-posture
one of the men got up to stretch himself.
"Keep down!" shouted Kennedy, but it
was too late.  There was a slight whizz; the
man fell headlong.  Kenneth ran to him,
as the crack of the rifle was heard.  Nothing
could be done.  The bullet had pierced the
man's brain.

When it was dark Kenneth and Ginger
carried their dead comrade through the
trenches to the wood, and buried him there
among the trees.  They returned in silence
to their post.

"You'll write to his mother," said Ginger,
as they got back.  "She'll like to know as
how poor Dick has been put away decent."

"Yes, I'll write," said Kenneth.  "He
felt no pain."

"War's a cursed thing," Ginger broke
out.  "What call have these Kaisers and
people to murder young chaps like Dick,
all for their own selfishness?--that's what
it comes to.  It didn't ought to be, and 'pon
my soul, it beats me why us millions of
working men don't put a stop to it.  We're
in it now; I'll do my bit; but seems to me
the world would be all the better if they'd
just string up a few of the emperors and
such, them as thinks war's such a mighty
fine thing."

Their first loss threw a cloud upon the
spirits of the men.  But it did not lessen
their resolution.  Direct knowledge, slight
though it was at present, of the grim realities
of war braced their courage.  Already they
had a comrade's death to avenge.  To the
more thoughtful of them the dead man
represented a blow struck at their country,
and they saw more clearly than before that
it was their country's service that had called
them here.

Their spell in the trenches was to last
two days.  They were days of inaction,
discomfort, tedium.  Apart from
intermittent sniping the Germans made no
movement.  The Rutlands kept incessant watch
on them, with no relaxation until the fall
of night.  Even then they were not at ease.
Sniping was kept up fitfully through the
night, and they learnt that even in the
darkness there was peril is rising to stretch
their cramped limbs.  At dusk on the first
day a man was slightly wounded.  These
sneaking tactics, as they considered them,
on the part of an unseen enemy worried and
irritated the men.  Whenever a shot was
heard, they tried to estimate its direction,
but their guesses were so contradictory that
no definite opinion could be arrived at.  On
one occasion Kenneth tried to calculate the
distance of the marksman by noting the
interval that elapsed between the whistling
sound of the bullet and the subsequent
report of the rifle; but neither his data nor
his watch were sufficiently accurate to give
him much satisfaction.  The one thing that
seemed certain was that the night sniping
was done somewhere behind the lines.

When the battalion was relieved, and
returned to billets for a couple of days' rest,
officers and men talked of little but the
sniping.  They thought that nothing could
be more demoralising, having as yet had no
experience of heavy gun-fire.  The officers
discussed the possibility of getting hold of
the snipers, and determined to take serious
steps to that end on their next turn of duty
at the trenches.

An opportunity seemed to offer itself on
their second day back.  There had been a
good deal of sniping overnight, and in the
morning Kenneth happened to notice what
appeared to be a bullet-hole on the inner side
of the parapet.  He at once called Captain
Adams' attention to it.

"That's proof positive," said the captain.
"The sniper is behind us."

"It seems odd that he should fire on the
mere chance of hitting somebody, for of
course he can't take aim in the dark," said
Kenneth.

"He's got our range, of course, knows
we've no rear parapet yet, and guesses that
we move about more freely after dark.  But
we ought to be able to locate him now.
Stick your bayonet carefully into the hole,
Amory; we'll get a hint of the direction of
the bullet's flight."

The bullet had penetrated some little
distance into the earth.  Kenneth probed
the hole with his bayonet, and it seemed
pretty certain that the shot had been fired
from the left rear, and, judging by the angle
of incidence, from a considerable distance,
probably not less than a mile.

Captain Adams scanned the ground in
that direction through his field glasses.
About a mile to the left rear stood a small
copse.  Slanting a rifle towards it, and
comparing the angle with that of the hole
made by the bullet, the captain decided
that the copse was too far to the right, and
swept his glasses towards the left.  The
only other likely spot was the ruins of a farm,
but that seemed too far to the left.  Between
farm and copse ran a low railway
embankment, which appeared almost exactly to
meet the conditions.

"The sniper is there or thereabouts,"
said the captain.  "Are you game to do a
little scouting to-night, Amory?"

"Anything you like, sir," Kenneth replied.

"Well, creep out to-night and see if you
can make anything of it.  It would be safer
to go alone, perhaps, but on the other hand
a little support may be useful, so you had
better take another man--Murgatroyd, say:
he's an active man, and not too tall.  You
must have your wits about you."

Ginger was delighted at the chance of
doing something.  The other men envied
him, and Harry looked a trifle sulky.

"Cheer up, old man," said Kenneth.
"Your turn will come some day."

At dusk Kenneth and Ginger, the former
carrying a revolver supplied by the captain,
the latter armed only with his bayonet,
made their way through the communication
trenches to the second line of entrenchments
and thence to the road leading to the village.
They waited until complete darkness had
fallen before stepping openly on to the road.
The Germans had the range of it, and
knowing that it was used after dark by British
troops moving to and from the trenches,
they might start shelling at any moment.

"We'll leave the road as soon as possible,"
said Kenneth, as they set off, "and bear
away to the left."

"The right, you mean," said Ginger.

"No, the left, and work our way round.
We'll take a leaf out of the Germans' book;
they prefer flank attacks to front.  We've
plenty of time."

It was very dark.  They struck off to
the left across fields, and picked their way
as well as they could, stumbling now and
then into holes and over broken relics of
former engagements.  They could only guess
distance.  Kenneth took the time by his
luminous watch, and allowing for the detour,
when they had walked for twenty minutes
he bore to the right, crossed the deserted
road, and peered through the darkness for
the ruined farm and the railway embankment.
No trains had run beyond the village
for a considerable time, and it was known
that the permanent way had been cut up by
German shells.

Moving purely by guesswork they failed
to find the farm, but after a time came
suddenly upon the embankment, and halted.

"Right or left?" whispered Kenneth.

"The farm?" returned Ginger.

"Yes."

"Right, I should say."

At this moment a shell burst in the air
some distance to their right, whether from
a British or a German gun they could not
tell.  It lit up the country momentarily like
a flash of lightning, and as the two men
instinctively flung themselves down, they
caught sight of the ruins some distance on
their right hand.  The illumination was
over in a second, leaving the sky blacker
than before.

They waited a little, wondering whether
the shell was herald of a night attack.  But
the shot was not repeated.  The country
was silent.

"Just to let us know they ain't gone home
yet," Ginger whispered.

"We'll make for the farm," said Kenneth
in equally low tones.  "The sniper hasn't
begun work yet; I haven't heard any rifle
shots about here.  We'll separate when we
get to the place, and approach it from
opposite sides."

Very cautiously they groped their way
across the open field towards the farm house,
and when they caught sight of it, bent down
under cover of a hedge, and crept on almost
by inches.  Then, leaving Ginger near the
broken gate of the farmyard, Kenneth stole
away to make a complete circuit of the place.

In ten minutes he returned.

"It's a mere shell," he whispered.  "The
roof is gone, except in one corner; there are
heaps of rubble everywhere, rafters lying
at all angles, and furniture smashed to
splinters."

"Did you go inside?"

"No, but I think we might risk it.  Look
out you don't get a sprained ankle."

They crept through the yard, over the
rubbish, and into what had been the house.
Kenneth had an electric torch, but dared
not use it.  They halted frequently to peer
and listen, then went on again, doing their
utmost to avoid any disturbance of the
broken masonry and woodwork.  Before
they had completed their examination of
the premises, the crack of a rifle at no great
distance away caused them to abandon the
search and hurry into the open again.

Outside, they waited for a repetition of
the shot to give them a clue.  It was some
time before it came.  At length there was
a dull rumble of distant artillery, and in the
midst of it a sound like a muffled rifle-shot
from the direction of the railway.

"He's a clever chap," whispered Kenneth.
"I hadn't noticed it before, but I think he
waits for the sound of firing elsewhere before
he fires himself--a precaution against being
spotted.  Let us wait for the next."

Presently there was the rattle of musketry
from the trenches far to the left.  Before it
had died away, a single rifle cracked much
nearer at hand.

"From the railway, sure enough," said
Ginger.  "We'll cop him."

They hurried across the field to the
embankment, crawled up it, and when their
eyes reached the level of the track, they
peered up and down the line.  They could
see only a few yards, so dark was the night.
There was no glint even from the rails,
which were rusty from disuse.  After
listening a while, they crept up on to the track,
and waited for another shot to guide them.

It was long in coming.  To move before
knowing the direction would be useless and
might be dangerous, so, curbing their
impatience, they lay on the slope of the
embankment.

At last they heard the whirr of an
aeroplane.  Having learnt to expect a shot from
the sniper when it was masked by some
other sound, they sprang up.  The humming
drew nearer; then came the single sharp
rifle crack.

"Behind us!" whispered Kenneth.

With great caution the two men moved
along the track, stepping over sleepers and
rails torn up, and skirting deep holes made by
shells.  Every now and again they stopped
to listen.  Presently they were brought to
a sudden halt by the sound of a rifle-shot
apparently almost beneath them.  Dropping
to the ground, they peeped over the
embankment.  At this spot there had been a
landslip, evidently caused by a heavy shell.
At the foot of the embankment lay a pool
of water, extending for some twenty yards.
Except for these nothing was to be seen.

They felt rather uncomfortable.  On this
bare embankment, rising from an equally
bare plain, there seemed to be no cover of
any kind.  Yet it was certain that a sniper
was within a few yards of them, perhaps
within a few feet.  They lay perfectly
still, watching, waiting for another shot.  It
did not come.  Kenneth began to wonder
whether the sniper had seen or heard them,
and stolen away.  Or perhaps he was stalking
them.  At this thought Kenneth gripped
his revolver.

What was to be done?  To prowl about
in the darkness on the chance of discovering
the marksman would be mere foolhardiness.
He hoped on for another shot, not daring
even to whisper to Ginger.  The minutes
lengthened into hours; the two men were
cramped with cold; but as if by mutual
consent they lay where they were.  Neither
was willing to go back and report failure.
Now and again they caught slight sounds
which they were unable to identify or locate.
They nibbled some biscuits they had brought
with them, determined at least to await the
dawn.  Conscious of discomfort, they had
no sense of fatigue or sleepiness.  And when
at length the darkness began to yield, they
fancied they saw shadowy enemies on the
misty plain.

When it was light enough to see clearly,
they looked to right and left, to the front
and the rear, and discovered no sign of life
within a mile of them.  The air began to
fill with the roll of artillery and the rattle of
rifle-shots.  Here and there in the distance
they saw columns of black smoke.  Two
aeroplanes passed overhead towards the
German lines, and shrapnel shells strewed
white puffs around and below them.  But
on the embankment all was quiet.

"He must have got away in the darkness,"
Kenneth ventured to whisper at last.

"Can't make it out," murmured Ginger
in return.

How the sniper could have escaped unseen
was a mystery.  Daylight revealed the
bareness of the plain.  Only a few low hedges
divided the fields.  One such, bordered by
a narrow ditch, ran northward from the
railway within a few yards of them.  But
this could be of no use to a sniper, for it
was on the wrong side of the embankment,
towards the north.

After a murmured consultation they rose
to examine the embankment more closely,
in the hope of finding tracks of the sniper.
As they did so, a number of bullets whistled
around them; their figures had been seen
on the skyline by the Germans.  Dropping
instantly to the ground, they crawled along,
skirting the hole made by the shell, and
taking care not to slide down in the loose
earth that had been displaced.  They covered
thus a hundred yards or so in each direction,
up and down the line, without discovering
anything.

"We must give it up," said Kenneth at
last.  "I don't like to, but I see nothing else
for it."

"Our chaps are in billets to-day," said
Ginger.  "I'm game to stay till to-night if
you are."

"All right.  We've got our emergency
rations.  We may as well lie up in the farm,
and take turns to sleep."

They crawled across the track to the
British side of the embankment, slid down
the slope, and being now safe from German
shots began to walk erect along the bottom,
following a slight curve in the direction of
the farm.  The less of open field they had to
cross, the better.

They had taken only a few steps along
the base of the embankment when Ginger,
a little in advance of Kenneth, stopped
suddenly, and stooped.  Then he turned his
head quickly, putting his finger to his lips.
Kenneth hurried up.  Ginger pointed to a
slight track in the grass, leading round the
low hedge before mentioned.  Without
hesitation they began to follow it up, moving
with infinite precaution, and bending under
cover of the hedge.

Running straight for some distance, the
track at last made a sharp bend to the right,
then skirting another hedge parallel with the
embankment.  The two men were on the
point of turning with it when Kenneth, in
the rear, happening to look behind him over
the hedge, caught sight of a man about half
a mile away, coming apparently from the
direction of the village where the Rutlands
were billeted.  Ginger came back at a low
call from his companion, and they stood
together at the hedge, watching the stranger,
careful to keep out of sight themselves.

The man drew nearer.  He was old and
shabbily dressed.  A small basket was slung
on his back.  Every now and again he
looked behind as if fearful of being followed.
They watched him eagerly, surprised, full
of curiosity and suspicion.  His path ran
along the hedge parallel with the railway,
and he was screened by it from the British
lines.

He came on until he had almost reached
the hedge behind which the two Englishmen
were posted.  At this point there was a
wide gap in the hedge that covered him,
and he turned off sharply at right angles
towards the railway.  Kenneth instantly
guessed that he had done this to avoid
observation through the gap, that he would
pass round the end of the hedge near the
embankment, and follow the track by which
Ginger and he had recently come.

As the man turned, Ginger caught Kenneth
by the sleeve.  His eyes were bright with
excitement.  He seemed about to speak,
but Kenneth hastily clapped a hand over
his mouth.  Watching the man until he was
on the point of turning the corner, Kenneth
drew Ginger through a small gap in the hedge
parallel with the railway, and they waited
there until the stranger came up to it on the
track they had just left, and began to walk
towards another hedge at right angles to it,
which led back to the embankment almost
at the spot where they had watched through
the night.

They followed him quietly.  He was on
the inner side of the hedge, they on the outer.
They saw that he was wading along the
ditch towards the railway.  At the end of
the hedge they stooped and peeped through
a gap, to see what was going on within a
few feet of them.  They heard a low whistle,
and were just in time to catch sight of the
man disappearing into a culvert that carried
the ditch under the embankment.

Allowing him time to get through, they
crawled through the hedge, up the
embankment, over the line, and approaching the
culvert from above, established themselves
on top of the brickwork at the entrance.
They heard voices from below, within the
culvert.  Kenneth held his revolver ready,
Ginger gripped his bayonet.  And there
they waited for one or other of the men
inside to come out.

They had not long to wait.  The mumble
of voices came nearer.  Kenneth listened
intently, but could not distinguish the words
until, just beneath him, he heard "Auf
Wiedersehen!"  Immediately afterwards the
man they had followed waded out through
the shallow water at the bottom of the
culvert, bending almost double to avoid the
arch.  His basket was gone.  Just as he
was about to straighten himself, Kenneth
called sternly, "Hands up!"  The man
swung round, saw a revolver pointed at his
head, and instantly threw up his hands, at
the same time glancing right and left as if
seeking some way of escape.

.. _`"HANDS UP!"`:

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   :align: center
   :alt: "HANDS UP!"

   "HANDS UP!"

What were they to do with him?  Within
a few feet of them, in the culvert, was the
sniper, a man of courage and daring, or he
would not have elected or been chosen for
this particular means of serving his country.
Luckily Kenneth was a man of quick decision.

"Collar that fellow while I keep an eye
below," he said.  "Take care you don't
show against the opening."

Ginger sprang down the embankment,
and approached the captive, whom Kenneth
covered with his revolver, at the same time
keeping an eye on the arch below.  In a few
seconds Ginger had made the man pull off
his coat and waistcoat, and unfasten his
braces, and with these he tied him hand and
foot.

"You'll be safe there for a bit," he said,
laying the man at the foot of the
embankment.  Then he rejoined his companion.

Meanwhile Kenneth had been considering
how to get the sniper out.  There had been
no sound from the culvert, but the German
must be well aware of what had happened.
That he had not attempted to escape by the
other end was probably explained by his
ignorance of the number of men he had to
do with.  Armed with his rifle, he might
have thought himself pretty safe in the
narrow culvert, where he could take heavy
toll of any assailants who should attempt a
direct attack.

"We'll have to smoke him out," whispered
Kenneth, as Ginger joined him.  "There's
some straw in the farmhouse; cut back
quickly and bring as much as you can carry."

In ten minutes Ginger returned with two
large bundles which he had himself trussed.
He kindled one of the trusses, and placed it
at the rear end of the culvert, the quarter
from which a slight breeze was blowing.
Kenneth meanwhile kept watch above the
brick arch at the other end.

The straw was somewhat damp, and made
as much smoke as they could have wished.
Carried by the breeze through the culvert,
it floated out beneath Kenneth, tickling
his throat and causing his eyes to smart.
Every moment he expected the sniper to
make a rush from his unendurable position.
When a minute or two had passed without
any sign of the man he was surprised: was
insensibility to smoke one of the German
superiorities?

"Any more straw, Ginger?" he asked.

"Another bundle," Ginger replied, and
returned to the farther end to light it.

He had only just disappeared over the
edge of the embankment when Kenneth,
who had been straining his ears for sounds of
movements below, heard a slight
displacement of ballast on the line above him.
Glancing up, he found himself looking straight
at the barrel of a rifle, behind which was a
head surmounted by a German helmet.

For half a second he was paralysed with
astonishment.  Then a click galvanised him
into activity.  Realising that the rifle had
missed fire, forgetting--like an idiot, as he
afterwards confessed--that he had a revolver,
he made a spring and with his left hand seized
the muzzle a few feet above him.  The
German held fast; there was a momentary
tug of war; then the German lost his footing
on the slippery earth, fell suddenly to a
sitting posture, and slid down the
embankment helplessly, driving Kenneth under
him into the shallow pool of water at the foot.

Kenneth was a thought quicker than the
German in recovering his wits.  Wriggling
sideways, he flung his arm over the man,
spluttering out a mouthful of muddy water,
and grappled him.  For a few seconds they
heaved and writhed like grampuses.  Then
Ginger, drawn by the splash, came running
across the line, saw the struggling figures,
sprang down the embankment, and dashed
his fist in the German's face.  In another
moment he had dragged the man out of the
water and a foot or two up the embankment,
and held him down until Kenneth had shaken
himself and come to his side.

"This beats cockfighting," he said.
"Where did the beggar come from?"

"Don't know," said Kenneth.  "We'll
see presently.  I'm nearly choked with mud.
We'll have to use his braces too."

When they had tied the man securely,
they got up to investigate.  What they
discovered was a proof of the ingenuity
which the Germans exhibit in all their
undertakings.  The landslide, a little to the
right of the culvert, formed a sort of boss on
the embankment.  At the farther extremity
of this, out of sight from the spot where
Kenneth had stood, the German had forced
his way up from a small chamber excavated
in the base of the embankment, where he
had a folding chair, a rug, a tin plate and
mug, a supply of ammunition, and the
basket which the visitor had carried.  It
was full of food.  There were two or three
inconspicuous openings for the admission
of air, and, towards the British trenches, a
small tube, and an arrangement by which
the rifle could be clamped.  Evidently the
sniper took his sights in the daytime, and
set the rifle in such a position in the tube
that he could fire directly on the trenches
with the certainty of having the correct aim.

"Up to snuff, ain't they, not half," said
Ginger, with unwilling admiration.  "But
how did you come to be wallowing in that
there puddle?"

Kenneth explained.

"My word! a lucky missfire," said Ginger.

"Lucky indeed!" replied Kenneth.
"And we can't discover the cause of it;
the rifle's in the mud."

"Never mind about the cause of it.
We've bagged our first prisoners; that's
one to us and the Rutlands."

But Kenneth was never satisfied to leave
a problem unsolved.  Thinking over the
matter constantly during the next few days,
unwilling to ascribe to luck something that
must have a sufficient cause, he came to
the conclusion that the breech of the rifle
had become clogged with earth as the sniper
forced his way up through the landslide.

They marched their prisoners back to
headquarters in the village, keeping the
embankment between them and the enemy
as long as possible.

"I've often seen this old rascal about
the village," said Ginger, referring to the
civilian.  "He's a spy, that's what he is.
They'll shoot him, won't they?"

"The colonel will hold an enquiry, no
doubt.  By George!  I shall be glad to get
back and dry my things and have a good feed."

They received an enthusiastic welcome
from their comrades, and Colonel Appleton
commended them for their successful work.
The sniper was sent to the rear as a prisoner
of war.  An investigation was held.  It
came out that the civilian who supplied him
with food was a supposed refugee, and one
of the pensioners of Monsieur Obernai.  That
gentleman was summoned to the court of
inquiry, and was overcome with horror on
learning that one of the men whom he had
assisted was a spy.

"It is heart-breaking," he said.  "It is
enough to make one hard.  Besides, it might
throw suspicion on me.  Still, it would not
be just to abandon my humble efforts to
alleviate distress because one man has
deceived me.  But in future I shall make
the most careful inquiries before I assist a
stranger."

The spy was shot, and thereafter there
was no more trouble from night snipers at
that part of the lines.





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.. _`IN THE ENEMY'S LINES`:

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   CHAPTER VII


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   IN THE ENEMY'S LINES

.. vspace:: 2

It was during their next spell in the
trenches that the Rutlands had their first
taste of artillery fire.  They were not
systematically bombarded: there was no
indication of infantry attack; but at irregular
intervals shells from field guns burst over
or behind the trenches, doing very little
damage, but making the men nervous and
irritable.  When the ominous tearing sound
was heard as a shell flew through the air,
the men winced and cowered, and at the
explosion they looked fearfully around,
sometimes through a shower of earth, wondering
to find themselves still alive.

"You'll get used to it by and by," said
Captain Adams to the men of his company.
"The bark is worse than the bite at present.
It's really very kind of the Bosches to let
you get accustomed to them gradually."

After a day or two the bombardment
became heavier and more persistent.  Two
or three batteries were located, either by
officers in observation posts or by British
airmen, and the British gunners replied to
them, not without success.  But presently
the trenches were shelled at night by heavier
guns which it seemed impossible to place.
The position of the guns appeared to vary.
Sometimes the reports came from the
south-east, sometimes from the east, sometimes
from the north-east; and in general they
were louder than those of the guns which
had been definitely located, though this fact,
in the opinion of some of the men, was due
to the stillness of the night air.  They began
to suspect that the Germans were bringing
up more guns to various parts of their line,
with the idea of discouraging any attempt
to break through at this point.

All this made the Rutlands eager to come
to grips with the enemy, and the prolonged
inaction tried them sorely.  To amuse them
during the long weary evenings in the
trenches the colonel sent for a number of
mouth organs, and some of the officers read
to them in the dug-outs by candle light.
One evening the men of Kennedy's platoon
pricked up their ears when they heard the
plaintive notes of a flute from a short distance
on their left.

"Who's playing?" they asked.

Word was passed along the trench that
it was Stoneway, who had bought a flute in
the village.

"There's a chap for you!" said Ginger.
"All the months we were training the
beggar never did a thing, playing or singing.
Seems to me he can play, too.  But he didn't
ought to play 'Home, sweet Home.'  Gives
you a lump in your throat.  Pass the word
along for 'Dolly Grey,' will you, mates?"

Stoneway's unsuspected musical accomplishments
raised him in the estimation of
his comrades.  Every night there were calls
for him.  He knew a great number of their
favourite tunes, and was always ready to
play them.  He would usually begin by
running up and down the scale, and practising
tuneless exercises; and sometimes, when
these preliminary flourishes were rather
prolonged, the men called to him to "cut it"
and come to the real thing.

As time went on, the shelling became more
frequent.  It soon became clear that the
Germans were working from definite
knowledge of what was going on behind the
British lines.  The bombardment often took
place when parties were relieving one another
in the trenches, though this was always done
in darkness.  And one day, when the general
commanding the division came to the village
to inspect the battalion, a particularly brisk
shelling caused a stampede of the people,
who had come to regard themselves as safe.
Several cottages were damaged, several
civilians as well as soldiers were killed or
wounded, and a heavy shell excavated a
deep hole in the garden of Monsieur Obernai's
house.

One morning the trenches were subjected
for the first time to the fire of a heavy
howitzer.  A peculiar low drone, rapidly
increasing in loudness, was heard.

"'Ware Jack Johnson!" cried Captain
Adams, and the men crouched in the
trenches, holding their breath.

The first shell fell some distance behind
the lines.  They heard a terrific crash, and
saw a column of thick smoke.  The second
shell, about a minute after the first, fell far
too short, plunging into the ground just in
front of the German trenches, and bespattering
them with earth.  The third exploded in
the pond between the lines, and sent a wave
into the German trench at the side.  During
the next half hour the ground in front of the
pond between the opposing forces was pitted
with holes made by the heavy shells.

"There's something wrong with the
range-finding or the charges," remarked Harry.

"Lucky for us," said Kenneth, brushing
from his coat some dust cast up by one of
the shells.  "The smell is bad enough."

After half an hour the shelling ceased, and
the men wondered what purpose the Germans
could have had in such an apparently
motiveless bombardment.  Captain Adams
suspected that something was going on in the
German lines, and remembering the success
of Kenneth and Ginger in discovering the
sniper, he decided to send them out that
night as a listening patrol.  Harry begged to
be allowed to go with them.

"Very well," said the captain.  "If
you're successful we'll try a whole section
another time.  It's a ticklish job, you
understand.  You'll crawl over to the German
trenches, and listen.  You know German,
Amory, I believe.  You'll do the listening,
then; you others keep on the watch.  Don't
lose your way.  I'll take care that the men
here don't fire on you as you come back;
but if you stray too far to right or left you
may find yourselves in hot water."

"You've no special instructions, sir?"
asked Kenneth.

"No: you must work out the details
yourselves.  You're not puppets on the end
of a string."

"Nor yet monkeys on a stick," Ginger
murmured when the captain had gone.
"What did Capting mean by that?"

"He meant that we're not machine made,
as the Germans are, by all accounts," replied
Harry.  "I say, I'm jolly glad he let me
go too: I'm getting quite fat with doing
nothing."

They talked over their plans together.
Obviously the safest direction in which to
approach the enemy was towards the large
pond.  This was an irregular oval in shape,
and the Germans had not closely followed
its curve in cutting their trenches, for, if they
had done so, it would have exposed them
to enfilading fire from the British.  They
had carried their advanced trench close up
to the border of the pond on each side, then
run communicating trenches at right angles
from front to rear, and there dug a straight
trench along the breadth of the pond, about
a hundred yards in the rear of their first
alignment.  The wire entanglements in front
of the pond, facing the British, were not so
elaborate as on the rest of their line, from
which the inference was that the water was
too deep to be waded.

Just before midnight the three men crept
stealthily out of their trench, armed only
with their bayonets, crawled under the
barbed wire, and wriggled forward towards
the pond.  It was slow and tiring work, for
the ground was much cut up by shell fire,
and littered with fragments of shells, empty
tins, and other rubbish.  There was a certain
advantage in the unevenness, in that it gave
cover; but it also contained an element of
danger, because there was a risk of their
displacing something as they proceeded, and
they knew that the slightest noise would
provoke a fusillade from the enemy.

The moon was not up, but the sky was
spangled with stars, by whose feeble light
they were able to distinguish objects on the
ground within ten or a dozen paces.  They
heard the Germans talking and laughing in
their trenches, and here and there a slight
radiance marked the places where they had
candles or lamps.  Foot by foot they crawled
on, Kenneth leading the way towards the
angle of the trenches on the left.

At last he came to a stop within a few feet
of the parapet.  The three men lay flat on
the ground.  For some moments Kenneth
was not able to distinguish anything from the
general murmur, but presently he realised
that one man was reading aloud to the rest
from a German newspaper.  "The blockade
of England.  Great German success in the
North Sea.  An English merchantman of
245 tons laden with bricks was torpedoed in
the North Sea yesterday, and seriously
damaged.  The starvation of England
proceeds satisfactorily."

"What, do the English eat bricks?" asked
one simple soul.

There was a laugh.

"They have good teeth!  Look at this
picture," said another.

"If the English bricks are harder than our
war bread I pity them," said a third.  "We
needn't cry 'God punish England' any more."

"Is there any news of sinking a grain
ship?" asked a voice.

"No," replied the reader.  "Grain comes
in big vessels; I expect the Americans won't
let their ships sail.  We shall have America
on our side soon."

"Anything to shorten the war," said a man.
"I'm tired of it.  I want to get home to
Anna and the children.  The General said
it would be all over by Christmas."

"So it will, by next Christmas.  I want
to get back to the Savoy: I made £10 there
the Christmas before last."

"You won't make it again.  The English
won't have any money after this."

Signing to the others to remain where
they were, Kenneth crept still farther
forward until he came below the parapet.
From the direction of the voices he guessed
that the trench was unoccupied at the
angle; the men who should be there were
gathered around the man who had the paper.
Cautiously raising himself, he peeped first
through a loophole, then over the crown of the
parapet.  Here he was able to look along
both the main trench and the communicating
trench at right angles to it.  In the former,
about a dozen yards away, he saw a group of
men at the entrance of a dug-out, from which
a glow shone forth.  It was here, evidently,
that the man was reading.  He discovered
the reason why, apart from the attraction
of the newspaper, this part of the trench was
empty.  The stars were reflected in water
that lay along the bottom.  There was
evidently a considerable leakage from the
pond.  On the right hand the communication
trench was quite dark.  Apparently it
was not manned at all.

Kenneth dropped down again, and
remained for a short time listening.  The
conversation had changed: instead of
discussing the war, the Germans were talking of
domestic matters; the ex-waiter of the Savoy
Hotel described his little house and garden
at Peckham, and told how he had happened
to meet in London a girl from his own
village in Wurtemburg, who was now his wife.
Luckily he had saved enough money to keep
her and his children for a year or two.

Finding that he was not likely to gain
any important information, Kenneth crawled
back to his companions, and they made their
wriggling way to their trench without being
discovered.  Captain Adams was a little
disappointed at the meagre result of their
reconnaissance.  The only valuable piece
of news was that the communication trench
was empty and the angle flooded.

Shortly after their return the mysterious
gun again opened fire.  Several men were
wounded by splinters of shells, one so
seriously that, in spite of the risk, he had to
be carried at once to the rear.

Next day Kenneth said to Harry:

"Look here, last night's business has
whetted my appetite.  Why shouldn't we
get behind the German lines and see if we
can locate that gun?  Every day we lose
a man or two without being able to retaliate,
and it's quite time to put a stop to it."

"Will the captain let us?"

"Adams wouldn't object, I think; but
I'm afraid we should have to get the colonel's
leave for this.  I'll take the first opportunity
of speaking to the captain.  It would be a
pity not to make some use of the little
information we were able to pick up."

Captain Adams, when the proposal was
put to him, at once said, as Kenneth had
expected, that he must ask the colonel's
permission.

"It's a good deal more dangerous than
last night's affair, you see.  You'll be shot
out of hand if you're caught."

"But it's worth trying, sir, if we can find
that gun.  Apart from our losses, it's making
the men jumpy."

"That's all very well, but I don't want to
lose two useful men.  Still, I'll see what the
colonel says."

Later in the day he sent for them.

"I've seen the colonel," he said.  "He
was at first dead against it, but I did my best
for you.  He agrees, provided you come back
at once if you find things too unhealthy:
that is to say, you are not to go on if you come
up against any considerable body of the
enemy.  And keep the matter to yourselves.
You'll be supposed to be going out again as
a listening patrol.  I shall tell only
Mr. Kennedy and your sergeant.  No one else
is to know what has become of you, and they
will be on the look-out for your return."

He gave them a large-scale map of the
district behind the German lines, and
recommended them to study it carefully during
the day.  The railway seemed likely to be
their best landmark.  It ran almost due
north-east.  About four miles away it passed
over a canal running north and south.  With
these two fixed lines and a pocket luminous
compass they should not wander far afield
in ignorance of their general position.  Much
nearer to the British trenches, and almost
directly in their front, was a ruined church,
the spire of which, used by the Germans as
an observation post, had been shot away
some time before the Rutlands arrived at the
front.

Their diligence in conning the map aroused
the curiosity of their comrades, but they
laughed off enquiries, and gave the map back
to the captain.

They decided to start, carrying revolvers,
soon after dark, at the time when the Germans
might be supposed to be taking their evening
meal.  With some difficulty they managed
to slip away unnoticed by the other men.
Moving with even more caution than on the
previous night, they crawled over the ground
until they reached the angle of the trenches
abutting on the pond.  It was quite dark;
the moon, in its third quarter, was, as they
had learnt from the almanac, not due to rise
for some hours.

Peering down into the firing trench, they
neither saw nor heard any sign of occupants
in the space immediately below them; but
they heard voices from a traverse a few yards
away.  Then Harry caught sight of three or
four men coming down the communication
trench, and from their gait concluded that
they were bringing food.  The two dropped
down below the parapet and lay motionless:
it was clear that they had started a little
too early.

They waited until they heard the men pass
back along the communication trench; then,
after a short interval, rose to carry out the
plan previously agreed upon for descending
into the trench.  The principal danger was
a fall of loose earth from the parapet or a
splash in the water at the bottom.  Kenneth
cautiously clambered up the earthwork, lay
flat on top of the parapet, then backed until
his legs hung over inside.  To avoid slipping
he held Harry's hands, and so lowered
himself until he stood on the banquette, which
was an inch or two under water.  Pressing
himself close against the earthen wall, he
steadied Harry in his descent: both stood
in the trench.  They were panting with
excitement.

From their left came the sounds of
conversation; the speakers were invisible.
They were just about to start down the
communication trench when they heard
footsteps approaching from the farther end.
Flattening themselves into the angle they
waited breathlessly.  The corner was so
dark that they hoped to escape detection;
but their hearts leapt to their mouths when
they saw the flash of an electric torch some
distance away in the communication trench.
Escape was impossible.  If the light was
shown as the men approached the corner
discovery was certain.

"Don't waste the light," Kenneth heard
one of the men say.  "We are running short
of batteries.  You can see the turn by
looking up.  Watch the stars."

The light was switched off.  Holding their
breath the Englishmen waited.  Two
Germans drew nearer, splashed through the
water, and turned into the firing trench.
As soon as they had disappeared, Kenneth
and Harry started to go down the communication
trench, stepping very slowly through
the water, and halting every now and again
to listen.  Presently they were startled by
hearing voices behind them.  The Germans
apparently were returning.  To retreat now
was impossible.  Whatever danger might lie
ahead, they must go on.

By this time they had quitted the water.
Seemingly they had passed beyond the pond.
But the bottom of the trench was sticky with
mud; walking was difficult.  And the men
behind were gaining on them.  Suddenly
they came to a trench at right angles--no
doubt the trench at the rear of the pond.
Scarcely daring to look along it, they went
straight on.

"Anything doing?" asked a voice close by.

"All's quiet," replied Kenneth in German.

Another hundred yards brought them to a
third trench.  It appeared to be unoccupied.
After listening intently for a few moments
they decided to trust their luck down this
trench rather than continue along the
communication trench, in which they could still
hear the footsteps and voices of the men
following them.  Others might be coming
towards them.  Striking to the left, they
went along the trench for a few yards;
then, coming upon another communication
trench at right angles, they stopped
to consult in murmurs.  They decided that
the trenches were more dangerous than
the open ground.  Retracing their steps for
some little distance, they waited a moment
or two.  All was silent.  Cautiously they
clambered up and lay, breathing hard, upon
the grass.

A little ahead of them was the ruined
church standing black and gaunt in the
starlight.

"We go past that," whispered Kenneth,
"then strike off to the north-east.  We'll try
that direction first, at any rate.  Most of the
shots appear to come from there."

"About how far away?"

"Two or three miles, I think."

"I say----"

"Well?"

"Oh nothing!--only I feel sort of empty inside."





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.. _`SKY HIGH`:

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   CHAPTER VIII


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   SKY HIGH

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Harry's feeling of emptiness simply
meant that he was only now beginning to
realise the difficulty of the task undertaken
so lightheartedly by himself and his friend.
They had come only about a fourth of the
distance they expected to cover, and it was
the easiest portion, for after all there was
much less chance of meeting enemies in the
quiet communication trenches than behind
the lines, where movement was unconstrained,
and a German might lurk behind every tree.

They lay for a few minutes, peering into
the darkness, listening, thinking out their
course.  Somewhere to the left they heard
the rumble of carts, the clatter of motor
cars, the voices of men.  Similar sounds,
but fainter, came from the right.  On either
hand there was a road to avoid.  No doubt
there was a path running from the church to
one or other of these roads.  Their best plan
seemed to be to creep along by the churchyard
wall and strike across the fields, taking
what cover the hedges, ditches, and isolated
trees afforded.  There was no definite clue to
their direction.  The gun they had come to
seek had not yet begun its nightly work.

Assuring themselves that there were no
sounds in their immediate neighbourhood,
they got up and stole towards the tree-lined
wall of the churchyard.  The wall was
broken in many places; trees had been
split and felled and tombstones shattered
by gunfire.  They moved very cautiously
along the wall towards the open fields.
Suddenly they both halted and crouched.
High up in the ruined tower a light had
flashed for a moment.  From the same place
came faint sounds which they soon
recognised as the murmur of voices.  The light
again shone forth, and again disappeared.
It came and went at intervals, now long,
now short, and in a few minutes they
realised that the men in the tower were
signalling.

The light showed in the direction of the
trenches.  They had never noticed it in
their night watches there; presumably the
signallers were at work for the first time, or
perhaps the direct rays were masked, and
the light was visible only at a higher
elevation.  Beyond doubt the signallers were
Germans; no British soldiers, or natives in
collusion with them, would have chosen a
spot within the German lines, and so near
the trenches--a spot where the glow of the
lamp could be so clearly distinguished.

But it was puzzling.  Why should the
Germans signal towards their own trenches?
Was it possible that they were communicating
with somebody behind the British lines?

The two Englishmen crouched below the wall.

"Shall we take a look-in at the tower?"
asked Harry in a whisper.

"It's not our present job," returned
Kenneth.  "We're out to find the gun.
Perhaps afterwards--at any rate we'll report
it.  The men up there have got a good view
over the fields; we shall be lucky to get
away without being discovered."

Bent double, they hurried along the wall,
and when it came to an end, crept on under
cover of a hedge across a field.  Descending
into a shallow hollow, they sprang across a
brook, and made for a small clump of trees
on rising ground in front of them.  The
ground was rough and stubbly; walking
was difficult and fatiguing.  They passed
through the skirt of the wood, crossed more
fields, taking to the ditches where the ground
rose, and quickening their pace through the
depressions.  Kenneth frequently consulted
his compass and watch, the dials of which
were faintly luminous.

At length he announced that they must
have come about three miles from the trenches.

"It's no good going farther at present,"
he said.  "All we can do is to wait until we
hear the discharge of the gun, perhaps see
its flash.  And it will be just our luck if
they don't fire it to-night."

"How long shall we wait?"

"That's the problem!  If we wait too
long we shan't get back to-night, and that
means hiding up all to-morrow.  We can't
possibly return in daylight.  But it's no
good talking.  Let's make ourselves as
comfortable as we can in the shade of this
hedge.  And for goodness' sake don't let
me fall asleep."

"Not much chance of that if you feel like
me.  I couldn't sleep a wink, though I'm
tired enough."

They sat down, took some chocolate from
their tins, and prepared for their vigil.  All
was silent around them.  There were no
longer sounds of traffic; the roads had
apparently diverged.  The whole countryside
lay peaceful under the silent stars.

Time went on.  The air was cold.  Now
and then they got up and tramped to and
fro to stir their chilled blood.  Ten o'clock:
eleven: no sound.  Kenneth looked at his
watch at ever shorter intervals.  He was
becoming restless.  Had they adventured
on a vain quest?  The moon crept above
the horizon, dimly illuminating the
landscape, showing here a dark rounded mass
that must be a wooded hill, there the white
walls of a solitary farmhouse.

"There's no getting back to-night,"
thought Kenneth, as the light increased.

It was just past midnight.  They were
sitting side by side, silent, disappointed,
depressed.

"Hark!" said Harry suddenly.

There was a low continuous rumble in the
distance.  It grew louder.  They rose to
their feet, and looked across the fields
eastward.  The ground stretched away in
undulations, alternate dark and light bands
in the moonshine.  They could see nothing
to explain the sound.  It came from their
right, increasing in volume as it approached,
then diminishing as it passed away to the
left, finally ceasing.

"Sounded like a railway truck," said Harry.

"There's no line there," replied Kenneth.
"The only line shown on the map is the one
running through the village almost due east;
it turns to the north-east after cutting the
German lines.  It must be a good three
or four miles from here.  That sound went
right across our front, from south to north,
and couldn't have been more than half a
mile away."

"Well, it's stopped now.  We needn't
bother about it.  Quite certainly it wasn't
made by the guns, and that's the only
riddle we're called on to solve.  I'm fed up
with this, Ken."

"So am I.  The idea of a whole day here
is sickening.  Still, it can't be helped."

They sat down again, each thinking his
own thoughts.

Suddenly there was a momentary flash,
instantly followed by a terrific roar.

"The gun!" exclaimed Kenneth, springing up.

"And jolly close, too," said Harry,
looking across the fields.  "Which side of us?"

"I don't know.  We must wait for the
next.  This is getting exciting."

Within a minute or two they saw the
flash again, lighting up the sky behind a
low ridge on their left front.  The noise of
the discharge reverberated and died away.

"Come on!" whispered Kenneth.

They crept along the hedge in the direction
of the ridge.  A third report rent the air;
then, after a minute's silence, they were
surprised to hear a renewed rumbling, which
passed across their front nearer than they
had heard it before, and receded towards
the south.

"'Pon my word, it seems to have some
connection with the gun after all,"
murmured Kenneth.

They went on, as fast as they could with
caution.  Crawling up the ridge, they peered
over.  Nothing was to be seen in either
direction.  They crawled down the other
slope, and came to what appeared to be a
sunken grass road.  It was shadowed by
the ridge.  Looking to right and left, and
discovering nothing, they got up and began
to walk across the road.  Suddenly Harry
stumbled, and uttered a low exclamation.

"A whack on the toe," he murmured.

"By George!" whispered Kenneth behind
him.  He had stooped to look at the
obstruction.

Harry turned.  The obstacle was a rail.
There was no glint from it; apparently it
was rusty.  But it was sticky to the touch.
Kenneth held his fingers to his nose.  They
smelt of tar.

Beside the rail there was a layer of loose
grass, twigs, rubbish of all sorts, and beyond
this, five feet away, a parallel rail.

"We have come on a single-track railway,"
said Kenneth.  "It's not marked on the
map; must have been recently laid.  Let
us go on a little, and examine it."

In a few minutes their discovery was
confirmed.  The seeming grass road was a
roughly laid track.  But the rails had been
painted over with tar, and the sleepers and
permanent way were hidden under low heaps
of litter.

"They're clever beasts," said Kenneth.
"D'you see the trick?  No airman would
ever guess this to be a railway.  The rails
are quite dark."

"But what's it for?"

At this moment came the report of the
gun, some distance to the south.

"That's what we are going to find out,"
said Kenneth.

They made their way stealthily along the
track between the rails in the direction of
the sound.  Presently, at a gentle curve,
they came to a white post with a small
square platform in front of it, abutting on
the railway.  Wondering what it was for,
they went on, and in a few moments heard
the rumble of an approaching train.  They
scrambled up the ridge on their right, threw
themselves flat on the ground and watched.

In a few minutes an engine and two
trucks glided into view, making
extraordinarily little noise.  They passed slowly
below the watchers.  There was no smoke
from the engine; perhaps it was electric.
The first truck carried a heavy gun; the
other, containing men, was like an ordinary
railway wagon, but apparently better sprung,
for it moved with only the low rumble which
the watchers had already heard.  The effect
of the train gliding past, dark, almost
without sound, was mysteriously strange.

When the train had passed, they hastened
after it, walking just below the crest of the
ridge.  They had scarcely started when
they heard a low screeching of brakes.
Stealing on a few steps, and peering over,
they saw that the train had stopped opposite
the small platform.  The men had got out
of their truck, and were moving noiselessly
but quickly about the truck containing the
gun.  Orders were given in a low voice.
There was a slight grating of machinery
and creaking of timber.  The recoil cradle
of the gun, which still remained on the
truck, was being placed on the platform;
the gun itself was being loaded.  Its muzzle
pointed over the railway line towards the
trenches.

Stuffing up their ears, Kenneth and Harry
waited.  The gun was fired.  They heard
the heavy projectile whizz over their heads.
Three times the gun spoke; then it was
swung round on the truck, and the train
moved on to the north-east.

Dazed and deafened by the tremendous
noise, the watchers followed it along the
line.  Here was a discovery indeed.  It was
no wonder that the gun had never been
located.  But what they had already learnt
made them eager to learn more.  Where
was the gun kept when not in use?  Where
was the headquarters of the men?  If they
could find out this, they would have
information of real value to carry back with
them.

They went cautiously along the line, on
the look-out for sentries.  But the line was
not guarded.  Its existence was probably
known only to the German staff, and it was
evidently used only for the gun train.

About half a mile beyond the platform,
the train came to rest at another.  Again
the gun was fired: then the train rumbled
back.  The two men hid until it had passed,
then continued along the line in the opposite
direction.  During its absence they would
seize the opportunity to survey this part of
the line.

Some ten minutes after the train had
passed they caught sight of low buildings
ahead on the east side of the track, and a
dim light.  In case there might be Germans
on the spot, they left the rails, walked
across a field under cover of the hedge, and
approached the buildings from the east.
These, they found, were three low wooden
sheds, near the opening of a large quarry,
which Kenneth remembered having seen
marked on the map.  The sheds were in ill
repair: there were many chinks and gaps
in their boarded walls.  Apparently the
quarry and its appurtenances had been for
some time disused.  The light which they
had seen from the railway line proceeded
from one of the sheds, from the interior
of which they now heard guttural voices.
Peeping through a chink in its wall, they saw
four Germans smoking, drinking, and playing
cards by the light of oil lamps.  There were
narrow beds ranged along the opposite wall,
some of which were occupied.  Helmets and
tunics hung from pegs.  In one corner rifles
were piled.  In another stood a cooking
stove, its iron chimney passing out through
the roof.  It was evident that the shed was
continuously occupied.  At the end nearest
the line the door was open, and a sentry
paced to and fro.

While the Englishmen were taking stock
of all this, they heard the drone of an
aeroplane approaching.  The four men at the
table sprang up, turned down the lamps,
seized their rifles and ran to the door.
Kenneth stole a few yards along the wall
until he came within earshot of them.  He
was on the shaded side of the shed; there
was nothing but miscellaneous litter on the
ground, so that it seemed unlikely that the
Germans would come in this direction.

"Is it one of ours?" asked one of the men,
as the drone grew louder.

"I can't see," replied another.  "It
sounds like an English machine."

"Well, they won't spot us.  They haven't
done it by daylight, so they won't now."

"They're flying rather low.  We could
easily hit them."

"But that would be to give ourselves
away.  They have gone past.  It's all right."

The aeroplane disappeared.  But the men
had no sooner re-entered the shed than its
drone was heard again.  They hastened out.

"It's coming round in a circle," said a
voice.  "The cursed Englishmen seem suspicious."

"They're hunting for the gun, of course.
But it has been quiet lately.  The captain
heard the sound in time.  And there's
nothing bright about the gun.  The English
are dished."

"They're no good, the stupid English.
They've no chance against German brains."

The aeroplane finally vanished, and the
men returned to their cards, turning up the
lamps again.  Some ten minutes later the
report of the gun was heard.  It was fired
at intervals for an hour, at varying distances;
then the low rumble of the train approached.
The watchers heard the door of the second
shed creak.  In a few minutes the train
glided up, and entered the shed, into which,
it being the middle one of the three, the
Englishmen could not see from their present
position.  After a while the door was closed,
and the gun crew joined their comrades.
They were not accompanied by their officer,
who had no doubt gone to more select and
comfortable quarters elsewhere.  After
exchanging a few words with the cardplayers,
the newcomers threw off their clothes and
got into bed.

"I should like to have a look into the
other sheds," whispered Harry.  "But the
moon lights up the other side; and the----"

"Don't talk here," said Kenneth.  "Come
round to the back."

Taking care not to displace loose stones,
they crept along the wall and some distance
into the quarry.

"They can't hear us here," said Kenneth,
still, however, speaking in whispers.  "I
think we've found out enough.  The place
is marked on the map.  Our gunners can
shell it by map measurement."

"Yes, but let's have a look at the other
sheds before we go.  It won't be safe to go
into the moonlight, perhaps; but couldn't
we take a peep from the rear?"

"The sheds are built right against the
quarry wall.  But we'll go and see."

They stole across the litter until they
came to the back of the sheds.  There they
found that there was some chance of
achieving their purpose.  The wall of the quarry
was very uneven, just as it had been hewn
out.  Consequently the back walls of the
sheds did not fit flush against it; there was
a space of varying width, but at its narrowest
part wide enough to admit a man.  Into
this they crept.

They discovered that this end of the sheds
was in worse repair than the side they had
already seen.  Protected from the weather
by the wall of the quarry, the timber had
not been renewed.  There were many gaps,
and when they touched the wood, its crumbling
gave signs of dry rot.  But the interiors
of the second and third sheds were quite
dark: it was impossible to distinguish
anything within.

Harry broke off several fragments of the
dry wood without making any sound.

"We can get in," he whispered.

Kenneth hesitated.  They had learnt
enough for their purpose; it would be a
pity to risk the failure of the whole
enterprise.  But youth is adventurous and
confident.  The voices of the men in the first
shed would smother any slight sounds they
might make; the sentry was at least a
hundred and fifty feet away.

"All right," he murmured.

With their clasp knives they cautiously
attacked the boards in the wall of the third
shed, stopping every now and again to
listen.  After a while they were able to
remove two of the boards, leaving an opening
large enough to admit them.  Very carefully
they climbed in.  Dark as the interior
had appeared from the outside, they found
when they were inside that there was just
light enough, filtering through cracks in the
wall, to reveal the contents of the shed.
The whole interior, except for narrow
gangways, was packed with shells and cases of
high explosives.  Near the door there were
shells for field guns and howitzers, and a
certain quantity of small arms ammunition.
It was clear that the shed was an ammunition
depot.

Creeping carefully back, they replaced the
boards, and went to the middle shed, which
they managed to enter in the same way,
after the exercise of greater patience, owing
to the more constricted space between the
shed and the wall of the quarry.  Here they
found the gun train, and a number of petrol
tins: evidently the engine was petrol driven.
While Kenneth examined the engine as well
as he could in the still dimmer light, wishing
he dared to use his electric torch, Harry
stole to the front of the shed, and watched
the sentry through a crack in the badly
fitting folding doors.  Kenneth followed him.

"Let me know when the sentry's back is
turned," he whispered.  "I'll use my torch then."

Harry gave the sign by a scarcely audible
hiss.  Kenneth made the best use of the
few seconds afforded him at intervals.  His
experience of motor engines had taught him
exactly what to look for.  And he was
prompted, not by mere curiosity, but by a
sudden idea which had occurred to him,
but which he had not yet mentioned to his
companion.  The engine was still warm.
He knew that it ran very smoothly; it was
provided with a very efficient silencer, or
he would not have mistaken it for an electric
engine.  With their customary thoroughness,
the Germans had ensured that the
movements of their gun train should lack
nothing in secrecy.

The mechanism was simple, similar to
that of an ordinary touring car, except that
there were only two speeds and reverse.

"Well," he thought, "why not run off
with the train, gun and all?"

The train had backed into the shed
trucks first.  They were still coupled to
the engine.  The load was very heavy;
the question was whether he could get up
speed in time to escape.  Some of the
Germans were awake: the sentry was at
the door; the feat seemed impossible, and
Kenneth dismissed the idea, feeling glad
that he had not suggested it to Harry.  But
before leaving the engine he looked into
the tank, and saw that it was half full of petrol.

A hiss called him to the door.  The
sentry was being changed.  The new man
was grumbling at having had to leave his
bed.  The voices in the further shed had ceased.

"All gone to bed?" asked the sentry
who was being relieved.

"Yes," replied the other, yawning.

"Schneider won five marks of me this
afternoon.  He said he'd give me my
revenge.  Well, I'll beat him to-morrow."

He went into the shed: there was a
rustling for a few moments: then all was
silent, except for the heavy tramp of the
sentry as he paced slowly up and down.

The two Englishmen went back to the
quarry wall, and were replacing the boards.

"I say!" whispered Harry.

"What is it?"

"It's mad, perhaps; but I wondered if
we couldn't run off with the train."

"Absurd!" replied Kenneth.

"But----"

"Hush! we'll talk presently."

They returned to their former position
across the quarry.

"I daresay you are right," said Harry,
"but I wish we could collar that gun."

"It's impossible," said Kenneth, arguing
against his own inclination.  "We couldn't
open the door without being seen."

"But it's so ramshackle that it would
burst at a touch."

"Then we'd make a row starting the
engine, and before we had any speed on
they'd be at us."

"I don't know.  They've got to wake
up, and dress----"

"Why waste time dressing?"

"Well, is a German a soldier without his
uniform?  Anyhow, they would be too sleepy
for a few seconds to understand what was
going on.  It might just give us time to
get off."

"I don't mind telling you that the idea
occurred to me, but I gave it up."

"Oh, do let us try it.  It's a sporting
chance.  They feel perfectly secure; that's
so much in our favour.  They'll be struck
all of a heap, and you know what confusion
there is when fellows are taken by surprise."

"You've the tongue of the old Serpent,
Harry.  With a little luck--ah! while we're
about it, oughtn't we to blow up the ammunition?"

"That means blowing up the men too."

"Well?  We can't take 'em prisoners.
And when you remember that every shell
in the shed may kill or maim a lot more
Englishmen or Frenchmen than there are
Germans in the shed, you'll see that it's
our duty.  War's war, more's the pity.
There are some fuses near the door."

"Come on, then."

They stole back.  Kenneth crept into the
ammunition shed, and started a time fuse
while Harry removed the boards from the
wall of the engine shed.  Just as Kenneth,
returning, had almost reached the opening,
in his haste he displaced a shell that was
standing insecurely.  It toppled over with
a heavy thud.  He sprang through the gap.

"Touch and go now!" he panted.  "We
haven't a second to lose."

There was no time to replace the boards.
They slipped into the engine shed, hearing
the sentry call to his comrades and run
towards the ammunition shed.  In a few
moments he would discover the gap in the
wall, and the Germans would be scouring
the place.

The Englishmen ran to the engine.

"Jump in!" gasped Kenneth.

He stooped down to find the starting
handle, in the agitation of the moment
forgetting that, when examining the engine, he
had noticed the push that indicated a
self-starter.  There was no crank, but only the
shaft on which it should fit.  For the
moment his brain ceased to work; he was
conscious only of the noise of shouts and
hurrying footsteps dinning in his ears.  Then
recollection came in a flash.  He raised
himself, sprang into the cab of the engine,
and simultaneously released the brake and
pressed the button of the starting
mechanism.  Beneath his feet there was a welcome
whirr; he threw the engine into gear, and
the heavy machine, with the heavier trucks
behind, lurched forward.

The folding door was only eight or nine
feet away--little enough space to allow for
momentum.  It was neck or nothing.  At
the first movement Kenneth threw out the
clutch, racing the engine; then he let it in,
and the train jerked itself forward in a way
that alarmed him for the couplings.  The
manoeuvre succeeded.  The engine crashed
into the crazy door; it was shattered and
partly wrenched off the hinges; and the train
glided out, rounded the curve, and ran with
increasing speed into the straight towards
the south.

All this had occupied only a few moments.
Meanwhile, what of the Germans?  At the
thud of the falling shell the sentry was at the
farther end of his beat.  He hastened
towards the ammunition shed, calling to his
comrades as he passed their door.  Some
sprang up, others only turned in their beds.
The former, as Harry had foretold, began
to throw on their uniforms.  There was no
sound from outside to alarm them.  But a
second cry from the sentry caused them to
seize their rifles and rush out as they were.
They followed him into the ammunition shed,
where he showed them, by the light of an
electric torch, the hole in the wall.  They
poked their heads through, and seeing
nothing, were beginning to ask each other
what they had better do when they heard
through the shed wall the whirr of the starting
engine.  Shouting, they hurried back,
overturning shells and bruising their toes, heard
the crash of the door, and reached the
entrance in time to see the train lumbering
round the curve to their left.

One or two rifle shots rang out.  Kenneth
and Harry heard for a minute or two, above
the purring of the engine, shouts as if the
Germans were pursuing them on foot.  And
then there was a terrific roar; the sky was
lit up by a flash that blinded the pale moon,
and fragments of metal fell in a thick shower
upon the train, inflicting sharp blows upon
the Englishmen, of which their hands and
faces bore signs for several days.

"What double asses we were!" gasped
Kenneth.  "The row will bring the Bosches
swarming about us."

"They'll make for the sheds.  By George! what
a blaze!  Lucky we're running in a
hollow.  Where does the line lead to?"

"Don't know.  Be ready to jump.  We're
going nearly thirty miles an hour now; I'll
slow down in a minute or two.  We must
get away from the line and hide up."

In a few minutes he slackened speed to
about five miles.

"Drop off!" he said.

Harry leapt out.  Kenneth opened the
throttle to the utmost, put the engine into
top, and jumped clear as it gathered way.
By the time he had picked himself up the
train had disappeared.  Clambering up the
western bank, the two men, bending low,
raced as fast as they could towards a small
clump of trees that stood up dark in the
moonlight.  They were but halfway across
the field when there was a tremendous crash
somewhere to their left rear, a sound of
tearing and rending, then silence.

"It's run off the line or something,"
Kenneth panted.  "Hope the old gun is
smashed."

It was weeks before they knew what had
happened.  Then, passing over the ground
in the course of a general advance of the
British forces, they saw the debris of the
train, engine, gun, and trucks, lying amid
shattered masonry in and beside a shallow
brook.  The engine had failed to take a
sharp curve and dashed into and through
the parapet of the bridge.





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.. _`D.C.M.`:

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   CHAPTER IX


.. class:: center medium

   D.C.M.

.. vspace:: 2

The two men had almost reached the
clump of trees when they heard the thud
of horses' hoofs approaching them from the
front.  They instantly dropped flat into one
of the furrows of the stubble field.  Two
horsemen galloped round the corner of the
clump, and rode down towards the railway,
passing within twenty yards of the fugitives.

Waiting breathlessly until the horsemen
had gone out of hearing, the two got up, and,
still bending low, hurried over the few yards
between them and the clump and plunged
among the trees.

"We shall have to get back to-night,
by hook or crook," whispered Kenneth.
"They'll track us down as soon as it is
light....  Listen!"

From beyond the clump came the steady
tramp of a considerable body of men.  Was
it possible that the Germans were on their
track already?  For a few moments they
were unable to decide in what direction the
men were going.  The sounds became
gradually fainter, receding towards the railway.
Apparently a detachment had been
dispatched towards the scene of the conflagration.

They stole towards the western side of
the clump, and, standing within the shadow
of the trees, looked out across the country.
The moon was still up, obscured at moments
by drifting clouds.  Far ahead, a little to
their left, they could just distinguish the
tower of the ruined church.  Still farther
to the left the moonbeams revealed the roofs
of the small village which the church served,
and in which, no doubt, German soldiers
were billeted.  Lying on the eastern slope
of a low hill, it was invisible from the British
lines, but Kenneth remembered having seen
its position marked on the map.

"It's past two o'clock," said Kenneth,
glancing at his watch.  "The moon won't go
down for hours, and it will be light by six.
We simply must get back before sunrise.  All
we can do is to creep along the shady side
of the hedges and take our chance."

After a good look round, they left the
trees and hurried to the shelter of the nearest
hedge.  Being now on lower ground, they
could no longer see the church: but they
judged their general direction by the
compass, and made their best speed.  Once they
found themselves in a field completely
surrounded by a hedge.  Forcing their way
through at the cost of many scratches, they
fell some five feet into a ditch that the hedge
concealed, and sank over their ankles in
slimy mud.  They scrambled up the other
side, the brambles tearing their skin and
clothes, and tramped on again.

It was nearly an hour before they came
once more in sight of the church, farther to
the left than they had expected.  Their best
course seemed to be to try to find the
communication trench by which they had come.
Keeping always on the shady side of the
hedges, they paused only to glance towards
the tower, to see if the light was still
showing, then turned their backs on it and
hurried on.

They came to a stretch of open ground
on which there was no cover of any kind, and
knew that they were now near the trenches.
The most nerve-racking portion of their
journey was before them.  They dared not
go erect, in the moonlight.  If they should
stumble unawares upon an occupied trench
it was all up with them.  Throwing
themselves on the ground, they crawled forward
by painful inches, stopping every few seconds
to listen.  Once the scurry of some wild
creature across their front tightened their
hearts and sent a cold thrill along their
spines.  Presently they heard the murmur
of voices on their right, and instantly edged
to the left, only to be brought to a check
after a few minutes by voices in that
direction also.  Had the rearmost trenches been
manned during their absence?

Aching in every limb, they crawled still
more slowly over the ground.  At last they
encountered a ridge of broken earth, and
stopped, holding their breath.  There was
no sound near them; faint murmurs came
from a distance.  Harry cautiously raised
his head, crept forward a few inches, and
whispered--

"A trench!"

They peered over.  The trench was empty.
Sliding into it, they ran along to the left,
and presently struck a trench at right
angles.  This too was empty.  They halted
at the corner to listen, then hurried along
until they had almost reached the second
trench.  A man, by his figure an officer,
turned from it into the communication
trench, and walked rapidly towards the
firing line.  They pressed themselves against
the wall.

"Making his rounds," whispered Kenneth.
"Our best chance is to follow him."

"We've come right," said Harry.
"There's the water."

A bank of cloud veiled the moon.  They
hoped it would not pass for the few minutes
during which darkness would be so precious
a boon.  They heard the officer splashing
through the water at the further end of the
trench, and crept after him as rapidly as
they dared.  He turned into the firing
trench.  Voices were heard.  There was
great risk in crossing the trench, and it
occurred to Harry that it would be less
dangerous to clamber over the embankment
on their left and wade through a few yards
of the pond, which could not be very deep
thereabout.  If the moon remained in cloud,
they would not be seen from the trench
behind the pond.  Accordingly, two or three
yards from the angle of the trenches, they
swarmed up the bank, and began to let
themselves down on the other side, clinging
to the earth so that they should not drop
heavily.

Then fortune deserted them.  The earth
crumbled in Kenneth's grasp, and he fell
into the water with a great splash.  Harry
at once flung himself face downwards, and
the two crawled through several inches of
water towards the dry land.  The light was
increasing as the thinner end of the cloud
moved slowly across the moon.  Crushing
their inclination to jump to their feet and
sprint over the ground towards their trench,
they scampered along on all fours.  And
then the unveiled moon flooded the scene
with light.

Shouts came from behind them.  Shots
rang out, and pattered around them.  A
bullet carried off the heel of Harry's boot.
Still they wriggled on.  They were conscious
of sounds in front.  The trench was alive.
A hand grenade fell just behind them,
bespattering them with earth.  Yard by
yard they dragged themselves over the
ground; here was the wire entanglement.
As they drew themselves under it, a bullet
struck one of the tin cans suspended from
the top.  There were only a few yards now.
From right and left a hail of bullets flew
from the British trench.  They reached the
parapet.

.. _`A LONG WAY BACK`:

.. figure:: images/img-146.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: A LONG WAY BACK

   A LONG WAY BACK

"Steady!" whispered Kennedy.  "Keep
flat for a moment."

But the caution was vain.  After coming
a hundred yards under fire they thought of
nothing but the safety of the trench.  They
crawled on, over into friendly arms.  Bullets
sang around them.

"Pipped!" exclaimed Kenneth, as something
stung his shoulder.

But next moment they were safe, dropping
exhausted on to the banquette.  And then
the air was rent by a storm of cheers hurled
defiantly at the Germans.

"Good men!" said Kennedy, as he helped
Kenneth to pull off his coat.  "You're a
lucky fellow, by George!  It's little more
than a graze.  I didn't expect to see you
back.  Ah! here's the captain."

Captain Adams came up.

"Amory hurt?  A mere scratch, I see.
It was a tight moment.  You seemed an
age crawling up.  But come now, have you
anything to report?"

"Ammunition depot blown up, sir."

"That was the row we heard, then," the
captain interrupted.  "We thought it must
have been an accident, as no firing was
going on at the time."

"And to the best of our knowledge and
belief, the gun is done for."

"You don't say so!  Talk, man; a round
unvarnished tale deliver.  Oh, but this is
good!"

The captain was evidently excited.
Kenneth and Harry between them related the
whole sequence of their adventures, to an
audience of the captain, two lieutenants,
and as many men of the platoon as could
come within earshot.  When the story was
finished, another roar of cheers burst forth,
which was taken up along the trench far
on both sides, though the most of the
shouting men could not have known as yet
what they were cheering for.

"A dashed fine piece of work," said the
captain, warmly.  "It's a feather in the cap
of No. 3 Company, and certain promotion
for you two men.  You'll have to see the
colonel to-morrow, when we get back to
billets.  Go into the Savoy and sleep; you
deserve a day's rest, and you shall have it."

When they reappeared among their comrades
next day a broad grin welcomed them.

"You do look uncommon pretty," said
Ginger.  "I never see anyone like you
except once, and that was when a chap I knew
got drunk at the fair, had a fight with
another chap, tumbled into a blackberry
bush on the way home, and was found by
a copper in the ditch after it had been raining
all night.  Your best gals would fair scream
at the sight of you.  'Oh George, dear,
where did you get them scratches?  You've
been a-fighting, you horrid creature, you!'  'No,
Sally, I've had a little bit of misfortune.'  'Rats!
You won't get over me.
I'd be ashamed to be seen along of you,
with a face like that.  I'll walk out with
Bill next Sunday, so there!'  And off she
goes, and on Monday morning you get hold
of Bill and spoil his beauty for him, and
then there's a pair of you."

Everybody laughed, and the two dirty
and disfigured objects concerned understood
that that was Ginger's way of paying a
compliment.

On returning to the village at the close of
the day, they had only just washed and got
rid of some of the mud from their clothes
when the colonel sent for them.  They had
to repeat their story.

"I don't happen to have any Iron Crosses,"
said the colonel, "but I'm going to
recommend you for commissions.  Officers are
badly wanted still, and you've got over that
nonsense of a few months back?"

"Not at all, sir," said Kenneth.  "We're
bound by our promise."

"Ridiculous!  I don't mean that you
are ridiculous to keep your word, but to
give such a promise was a piece of
confounded stupidity.  Why, goodness alive! after
what you've done the men would follow
you anywhere."

"It's very good of you, sir," Kenneth
replied, "but really we must stick to what
we said."

"Not that I want to lose you from my
regiment.  Well, I shall have to get Captain
Adams to give you your stripes.  You won't
object to that?"

"I'm afraid we must, sir.  You see, anything
that gave us a lift over the other men
would be a breach of the understanding."

"Well, you're a couple of young jackasses.
I hope I'm a man of my word, but----  Oh
well, have it your own way!  Virtue
shall be its own reward.  You've relieved
the whole battalion of a great worry and
danger, and I'm uncommonly obliged to you."

It was not until some weeks later that
the two friends learnt that their names
had appeared in the *Gazette* among a list
of men recommended for the distinguished
conduct medal.  Their refusal of promotion
had become known to their comrades, and
it was observed that Ginger and some of
his friends often had their heads together,
and appeared to be conducting delicate
negotiations with the men of the other
platoons.





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.. _`HOT WORK`:

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   CHAPTER X


.. class:: center medium

   HOT WORK

.. vspace:: 2

Kenneth had not omitted to report the
signalling from the church tower.  The light
had not been seen from the trenches of his
own battalion, and it was guessed that the
receiver of the messages was at some other
point behind the long British front.  But
on the first night of their return to billets
it occurred to Harry that the light might
possibly be visible from some post of equal
height with the tower in which it shone,
and he suggested to Kenneth that they
should go up into the belfry of the church
in their village.  In order to give no excuse
for a German bombardment the colonel had
refrained from making use of this as an
observation post, which some of his officers
regarded as an excess of scrupulousness.  It
would be necessary to get permission now
before Harry's suggestion could be acted upon.

Harry put the question to Captain Adams.
He saw the colonel, who in view of the fact
that the Germans were certainly using a
church tower a few miles away gave his
consent.  Finding, therefore, the sacristan,
Harry and Kenneth got him to take them
up the belfry at about the same hour as
they had seen the Germans' lamp.

Furnished with Captain Adams' field-glasses,
they scanned the country in turns.
For a long time they had no reward, and
they were indeed on the point of quitting
the spot when Kenneth caught sight of a
twinkle far away to the south-east.  It
vanished and reappeared at irregular
intervals, just as the light from the tower
had done.

"We are not getting the full rays here,"
said Kenneth, after Harry had taken a
look.  "But it is clear that they are signalling
to someone in this direction, more or less."

"Let us go half way down the tower, and
see if the light is visible there," suggested
Harry.

But they found that only at the foot of
the belfry itself could they catch sight of
the twinkling light.

"It's very cleverly arranged," Harry
remarked.  "They are not signalling to this
village, that's clear.  There's certainly no
observer but ourselves here, and no other
place is high enough to catch the rays."

"Except Obernai's house," said Kenneth,
looking round over the village.  Most of the
roofs were considerably lower than the spot
on which they stood.  Only the attics of the
Alsatian philanthropist's house rose above
that level.  That large building in its
extensive grounds was about sixty yards to
their left.  There was a light in one of the
lower rooms, where Captain Adams and
several other officers were billeted: the rest
was dark.

"It's not very likely, after that spy
business, that any of Obernai's servants is
in German pay," Kenneth continued.  "Still
I'll tell the captain what we have seen."

He made his report to Captain Adams
next morning.  Later in the day the captain
said to him:

"There's nothing in that matter, Amory.
I asked Monsieur Obernai whether his
servants were trustworthy, and he assured me
that he had had them for years, and could
answer for them all.  I didn't tell him why
I had made the enquiry; it's best to keep
these things as quiet as possible; we don't
want to make people uneasy.  I've no doubt
the signals are directed to some place
farther away on our left, and the colonel
is sending word along the front, asking them
to keep a look-out."

Nothing more was heard of the signalling
for a long time.

When they returned to the trenches, their
position was somewhat altered.  The
Rutlands were moved a little to the right, and
Kennedy's platoon occupied a portion of
the trench which had formerly been held
by another platoon.

Kenneth was making himself comfortable
in a dug-out with Harry and Ginger when
he picked up, among the various articles
left by its former occupants, a piece of ruled
music paper dotted with notes.

"A relic of your friend Stoneway, Ginger,"
he said with a laugh.  "He's the only
musician in the company."

"Is he, by George!" cried Harry.  "You
forget I was in the school choir, old chap."

"So you were!  I remember how the
mothers used to admire your pretty little
cherub face when you let off your songs on
the platform.  'Isn't he sweet, mother?'
I heard a girl say once.  You remember
how we rotted you."

"Yes, confound it!  I was jolly glad
when my voice broke, and I got out of all
that.  I haven't sung a note since; if I
try, my voice is like a nutmeg grater."

"You've lost your cherubic mug too, old
man.  But look here; whistle over this tune;
let's hear what it is."

Harry took the paper, scanned it for a
moment or two, then said:

"It's no tune at all.  The notes go up
and down all anyhow."

He whistled a few notes.

"Oh, for any sake stop it!" implored
Ginger.  "It's Stoneway's exercises, by the
sound of it.  Call that music!  It's enough
to make a cat ill."

"I'll give it back to Stoneway next time
I see him," said Harry.

"Tear it up," said Ginger.  "If he hasn't
got it, perhaps he can't----"

A shout interrupted him.

"Stand to!  Here they come!"

They seized their rifles and rushed out
into the trench, Harry stuffing the paper
into his pocket.  The men were posting
themselves a yard apart on the banquette,
looking excitedly through the loopholes.
Across the open ground in front the Germans
were advancing in a serried mass.  It was
a surprise attack, not heralded, in the
customary way, by a bombardment.  The
testing moment had come for the Rutlands
at last.

They stood at their posts, tense, quiet
with excitement.  Ginger's features twitched;
Harry's lips were parted.  With their fingers
at the triggers they awaited breathlessly the
order to fire.  On came the dense grey lines.
The Germans did not fire; with fixed bayonets
they swarmed forward rapidly.  They came
to the wire entanglement; with clock-work
precision every man in the first rank plied
his nippers, and then, in the trench, Kennedy
cried in a hoarse whisper:

"Three rounds, rapid!"

All along the line sounded the crackle of
rifles.  On the right a machine-gun rattled;
on the left another.  Three times the rifles
spoke.  Men were shouting, they knew not
what.  Other sounds mingled with the din:
yells, groans, guttural orders from the
German officers; and at the wire entanglement
lay a long swathe of fallen men.

But behind them another multitude was
dashing on.  They leapt over their stricken
comrades, only to drop in their turn before
the withering volley from their unseen enemy
in the trench.  Through the gaps poured an
unending torrent; the grey-clad men were
drawing nearer to the trench.  The rifle-fire
was now continuous, but it was of no avail
to repel this close-packed horde.  There was
no longer question of taking cover.  The
Rutlands leapt up to meet the charge.  They
fired as fast as they could, until their rifles
were hot.  In spite of their losses the
Germans pressed on until sheer weight of
numbers carried them to the edge of the trench.

It is not for us to describe the scene of
carnage there--the hideous work of the
bayonets, the cries of the wounded, the
hoarse shouts of defenders and assailants.
The Germans fell back.  Kennedy's clear
voice shouted the order for volley-firing.
And now came a fierce reply from the
German ranks.  Then they fell on their knees
and crawled forward again.  Again they
were driven back.  They began to retreat.
And then Kennedy leapt on the parapet
and gave the command to charge.  The men
responded with alacrity.  Up they
scrambled, over the fallen men, and dashed
forward with exultant shouts.  There was a
whizz and boom overhead.  The British
artillery behind was coming into play.  From
the front came deafening crashes; columns
of earth and smoke rose into the air.  The
Rutlands lay on the ground until the guns
had ceased fire; then dashed on.  They
plunged into the reek about the German
trench; they sprang over the parapet and
drove the Germans out; and a storm of
cheers acclaimed their victory.

They were preparing to hold the ground
they had won when word was brought that
strong reinforcements were hurrying up to
the Germans from the east.  They had no
reserve strong enough to hold the new line
in face of a superior force.  The colonel
ordered them to evacuate the trench, after
doing as much damage as was possible in
the short time available.

The men set to work with their own
trenching tools and with those abandoned
by the Germans to hack down the walls of
the trench.  Kenneth caught up a pick,
and remembering the pond at the right of
the communicating trench, he began to cut
a hole through the three or four feet of
intervening earth.  Ginger joined him.  In
a few minutes the water burst through in
spate, flooding the trenches, and driving the
Englishmen out pell-mell.

Laughing, singing, throwing jokes one to
another, they returned to their own trenches.
They picked up swords, rifles, helmets, and
other articles of equipment that were
scattered over the ground, threaded their way
among the fallen men, stopping here and
there to assist wounded comrades.
Meanwhile the British artillery was pounding
the German lines to discourage a renewed
attack, and the Red Cross men moved
swiftly and silently over the field.

Kenneth had not seen Harry for some
time, and was anxious about him.  But the
friends met at the edge of their trench.
Each ran his eyes rapidly over the other;
their set faces cleared when they recognised
that neither was hurt.

Settled down once more in their dug-out,
the three men talked over their experiences.

"I felt my blood run cold," said Harry,
"but I hadn't time to be afraid.  I feel
worse now.  Look at my hand shaking."

Ginger, very pale, was mechanically cleaning
his rifle.  He flung it down with a curse.

"What have they done to me?" he cried.
"What have they done to me?  I killed an
officer, a nice young chap as might have been
your brother.  What for?  What about his
mother?  And all those poor chaps yonder:
why can't them as make wars let us alone?
Men ain't made to kill each other.  What's
the good of it all?  When the war's over,
millions dead, millions crippled, millions
miserable.  It didn't ought to be."

"We're serving our country, Ginger," said
Kenneth.  "It's not a question of just the
present moment.  We've got to think of the
future.  What would life be worth to our
people at home if the Germans had their
way?  You can get nothing good without
paying the price, and it will be good if we
can teach the Germans and the world that
force isn't everything, that people have a
right to live their own lives without being
bullied.  For every man that dies, whether
English or German, perhaps thousands may
have a better time in days to come.  That's
worth fighting for, and dying for, if need
be.  We've all got our little part to play.
It's not a thing you can argue about: you
feel it.  Look at what Sir Edward Grey
said: he'd rather cut the old country
altogether than be obliged to give up our
good English ways and to put up with
German tyranny.  Don't you feel like that
too?  Well, that's why we are fighting;
we're fighting to call our souls our own, and,
please God, we'll win."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE DISAPPEARANCE OF GINGER`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XI


.. class:: center medium

   THE DISAPPEARANCE OF GINGER

.. vspace:: 2

It was when the battalion next returned
to billets that the meaning of Ginger's
confabulations with the men of other platoons
came out.

One evening after supper Kenneth and
Harry were smoking in the Bonnards'
kitchen.  They were alone.  Ginger and the
other members of their billet had left them
some little while before, and the men's faces
had worn the sly, conscious look of those
who are meditating a secret design.

"If I didn't know Ginger, I should think
they were up to some mischief," Harry had said.

Presently the door opened, and Ginger
reappeared, at the head of eight or ten men
from other platoons of No. 3 Company.
They all looked a little sheepish and
uncomfortable as they filed into the room.  Some
hung back and were pushed forward by their
mates.  Ginger moved to the rear, and was
instantly seized by several hands and
expostulated with in fierce whispers.

"Keep your wool on; I'm only going to
shut the door," said Ginger.

"What's in the wind, you fellows?" said
Kenneth.  "Why are you hanging about
the door?  Come round the fire and light up:
we'll have a smoking concert or something."

There were mutterings among the group.
Some words reached the ears of the two men
at the fire-place.

"It's your job: you're a sergeant."

"No fear; you don't catch me..."

"Ginger's the man..."

"Spouts like a M.P...."

At last Ginger was pushed through to the
front.  He grinned, half turned to protest,
was swung round again; then he drew his
hand across his mouth.

"Mr. Harry, and Mr. Amory," he began.

"Oh, come now, no misters here," Harry
broke in.

"Not in the ordinary way, of course," said
Ginger, "but this ain't an ordinary occasion.
The fact is, we're a deputation, that's what
we are; a deputation from No. 3 Company,
and the other chaps have made me foreman
of the jury.  Not as I want to push myself;
not me.  I consider it's a job for a
three-stripe man; but Sergeant Colpus here is a
very bashful and retiring man, though you'd
never think it to look at him."

"Dry up!" growled the sergeant, turning
fiery red as the other men sniggered.

"Well, you *would* put it on to me," Ginger
went on, "and I must do it my own way,
always respecting my superior officer, of
course.  Being foreman of the jury, I speak
for 'em all, got to give the verdict, as you
may say.  The fact of it is, we men of No. 3
Company, what you may call the Randall
Company, ain't easy in our minds at the idea
of being dogs in the manger like.  We know
as the colonel wants to make you officers,
and we think it ain't fair to you or the army
to keep you in the ranks 'cause of us.  A
promise is all right, and we take it very kind
that you've stuck to your guns, in a manner of
putting it, all these months.  Speaking for
myself, I didn't expect nothing else.  But
we think it 'ud be a dirty shame if we held
you to your promise now, specially when
every man of us knows you ought to be
officers, and there's not a man of us but
would be proud to follow your lead
anywhere.  And so we've come to say that the
promise is off, and we don't stand in the way
of your getting your rights."

There was a chorus of approval as Ginger
wiped his mouth again and stepped back
among his comrades.

"It's very good of you, Ginger," said
Harry, "but I'm sure neither Amory nor
myself want to leave the ranks."

"Not at all," said Kenneth: "thanks all
the same."

"But it ain't right," said Ginger, coming
forward again.  "We've learnt a thing or two
since we started being soldiers, and we've
lost a lot of the bally nonsense that used to
fill our heads, about all men being equal and
such like.  Mind you, I'm a Socialist, as
strong as ever I was.  I say now, as I've said
afore, that there's no call for a man to stick
himself up and think himself mighty superior
'cos he's got a quid for every penny I've got.
And I don't say but what, if we'd had your
eddication and chances and all that, we
wouldn't be as good as you.  But that ain't
the point.  We've got to look at things as
they are, and be honest about it, and what
I say is that you've had the training that
makes officers and we haven't; and besides,
you were born one way and we were born
another, and it's no good trying to make out
that chalk's as good as cheese.  And there's
another thing.  When we've got a tough job
afore us like licking the Germans we're
bound to consider what's best for the
company and the regiment, and if a man is cut
out for an officer it's simply silly to keep
him a private: he ain't in his right place,
doing his right job.  So we think it's only
right for us and the army that you should
do what the colonel wants, and that's the
size of it."

"Is that what you all think?" asked Kenneth.

"Well, I can't say that; all but one or
two, and they're a disgrace to the company.
There's----"

"I don't want to know who they are,"
said Kenneth, interrupting.  "We're both
immensely obliged to you for your good-will,
but we enlisted on certain terms, and I feel
for my part that we can't break our contract
without the unanimous consent of the company."

"I agree," said Harry.  "The men
enlisted on the faith of our promise, and it
wouldn't be fair to break it without the
consent of all.  So we'll drop it, Ginger, and
go on as before."

"It's for you to say, sir," said Ginger.
"There!  'Sir,' says I.  A slip of the tongue,
mates; you can't get out of bad habits all
of a sudden.  Well, I'll say for No. 3
Company that we'd be sorry to lose such good
pals, and as there's no chance that St----
that the pigheaded members of the jury will
come round to the opinion of the sensible
ones, we may reckon it as certain that the
defendants will be condemned to serve as
Tommies for three years or the duration of
the war."

"And now we'll discharge the jury," said
Kenneth, "and have a sing-song until
'lights out.'  Come on, Ginger; start off
with 'Dolly Grey.'"

Next afternoon Kenneth was summoned
to the captain.

"I've a little job for you, Amory.  You
know how to drive a motor; do you know
anything about the mechanism?"

"Not much; but Ginger--that is, Murgatroyd,
sir--is a bit of a mechanic.  Of
course I'll have a shot at whatever is required."

"Add Randall, and we have the Three
Musketeers complete.  You didn't know
that's our name for you, I suppose?  Well,
it's this.  A motor cyclist came in just now
with a despatch for the colonel, and reported
that on the way he had passed a man who'd
had an accident of some sort with a motor
lorry, and wanted help.  Just go and see
what you can do, the three of you.  I don't
know whether the load is for us; if it is,
so much the better.  Take my map; the
breakdown is thereabouts"--he pointed to
a spot some three miles away--"and be as
quick as you can."

The three men set out, Ginger carrying a
bag of tools he had borrowed from the
village smith.  The place where the accident
had happened was apparently on a by-road
about halfway between the village and the
headquarters of the next regiment on the
left of the Rutlands.  They followed
footpaths across the fields, some of which had
been sown by the inhabitants.  The air was
very misty, and but for the map they could
hardly have found their way.  But presently
they caught sight of a man in khaki sitting
on the grass at the corner of the main road
and by-road.  The man bore the badge of
the Army Service Corps on his sleeve.

"What's wrong?" asked Kenneth, going
up to him.

"Are you the Wessex?" said the man.

"No, the Rutlands.  You've had a spill
by the look of you."

"You're right," said the driver with an
oath.  "And I owe that there parson one.
It's his fault.  Did that cyclist send you along?"

"No, but the capting did," said Ginger.
"Where's your lorry?  We'll have a go at it."

"Well, if you two chaps 'll be a pair of
crutches I'll take you to it.  I'm bruised all
over, and my ankle's got a twist so that I
can't hardly walk.  It's about a mile away."

Supported by Kenneth on one side and
Harry on the other, the man led them slowly
along the by-road.

"I only came out a week ago, a Carter
Paterson man I am," he said.  "I was
driving up a load of grub for the Wessexes,
and somehow took the wrong turning away
back there.  I'd drive over London blindfold,
but I'm new to this job, see.  It came
over misty, and I got a sort of notion I was
on the wrong road, and there was nobody
about to ask the way of, even supposing
I could have made 'em understand me.
However, at last I happened to catch sight
of a fat parson in a long cloak just ahead of
me.  I pulled up, and pointed to the name
of the village on my map, for twist my tongue
to it I couldn't.  'All right, my man,' says
he, speaking English like a countryman.
'You take the first turning on the right':
that's this road we're on now.  That seemed
about the right direction.  'Good road?'
says I: 'not too soft for a heavy load?'  'Capital
road,' says he.  'Go as fast as you
like, straight through to the road you've left.'

"Well, it seemed all right.  Wasn't a bad
road for a bit, and I put on speed to make up
for lost time.  Then, just as I was going
through an avenue of trees, and what with
the mist and the shade couldn't see more
than a few yards ahead, the road took a sharp
dip, and I throttled down and screwed on
the brakes; but the road made a sudden
bend, and before I knew where I was, I was
chucked in the ditch by the roadside.  I was
dazed for a bit, and when I come to, there
was the lorry in the field.  I crawled to it;
it was stuck fast, and even it if hadn't been
I couldn't have driven it in the mashed state
I was in.  A pretty fix to be in, in a strange
country, with no garage handy.  I didn't
know what to do.  When I'd recovered a bit,
I crawled back to see if I could find that
parson.  It was all his fault, not warning
me, and he ought to get me out of the mess.
But I couldn't find him, so all I could do was
to crawl to the main road, on the chance of
seeing some of our chaps.  It was hours
before any one came along; just my luck;
another time the road would very likely
have been crowded.  But presently that
cyclist came up at forty miles an hour.  He
would have gone past if I hadn't bellowed like
a bull.  He wouldn't get off his machine to
take a look at the lorry, but he said he'd
send help if he could.  And all I want is to
get hold of that parson; I'd know him again
in a minute by his size and the wart on his
nose.  Why, a German couldn't have served
me a dirtier trick; and he said he knew
the road....  There's the lorry; I doubt
whether you'll get it up; and the Wessexes
howling for their grub, I expect."

The lorry was tilted over to one side, with
the near front wheel embedded nearly up
to the axle in the soft earth of the field.

"Got a jack?" asked Ginger.

"You'll find it under the seat."

Ginger fetched it, and with his companions
tried to jack the wheel up; but the
tool sank into the earth.

"Let's unload and then see," suggested Kenneth.

It took them half an hour to unload the
car, working so hard that they were all
bathed in perspiration.  Again they plied
the jack, but in vain.

"The only chance is to get something
solid to put under it," said Ginger.  "There's
nothing handy hereabouts.  Any houses
about here?" he asked the driver.

"Hanged if I know.  It was too misty
to see when I came along.  The parson
lives somewhere, I suppose."

"I'll run up the hill and take a look
round," said Harry.

"Take your rifle, man," Kenneth called,
as Harry was starting without it.

"All right; but we're miles away from
the German front.  You might have a look
at the engine while I'm gone."

All this time there had been sounds of
firing in the distance eastward, with reports
of British guns at intervals nearer at hand.
But they were now so familiar with such
sounds that they scarcely heeded them.
Guns and gunners were alike out of sight.
There were few signs of war immediately
around them; but for the absence of human
activity on the fields the country might
have been at peace.

Harry went up the hill and for some
distance along the road before he discovered
anything that promised assistance.  A
slight breeze was dispersing the mist; but
the sun was already far down in the western
sky; in an hour or two it would be dark.
At length, on his right he noticed a rough
cart track leading to a small farm building
half hidden in a hollow about half a mile
away.  He hurried towards it across the
fields, soon regretting that he had not gone
by the beaten track, for the soil was soft
and heavy.

Approaching the building at an angle, he
saw a man pottering about in the yard.
While he was still at some distance the man
happened to glance towards him, then went
into the house.  Harry quickened his pace,
and entering the yard, was met at the house
door by a burly individual who gave a
somewhat surly response to his salutation.
In his best French Harry explained the
circumstances, and asked for the loan of a
stout board.

"You'll find one in the shed yonder,"
said the man.  "You'll bring it back?"

"Oh yes," Harry replied, thinking that
the farmer might at least have offered to
help.  "By the way, could you lend us a
horse to pull the lorry on to the roadway
when we get it up?"

"I haven't got one; all my horses are
requisitioned."

"That's hard luck.  I hope we'll soon
clear the country, and there'll be better
times.  Many thanks: I'll return the board
presently."

Reflecting on the hardships war inflicted
on honest country people, Harry trudged
back with the plank, this time taking the
cart track.

"Good man!" said Kenneth.  "Where
did you get it?"

"At a small farm.  The farmer's rather
a bear, but I suppose the war has pretty
well ruined him.  Now, Ginger, let's see
what we can do."

Placing the plank by the embedded wheel,
they set the jack on it and screwed up the
axle until they finally succeeded in releasing
the wheel.

"The lorry isn't damaged, luckily," said
Kenneth.  "We'll get the wheel on to
the plank, then I'll start the engine and
we'll back on to the road.  You fellows shove."

In a few more minutes the lorry stood on
the road, facing towards its original destination.

"Now for loading up," said Harry.  "This
is back-aching work; I shouldn't care to be
a docker."

The three men started to carry the boxes
and baskets from the field to the lorry, the
driver sitting on the grass by the roadside.
They were about halfway through the work
when they heard the hum of an aeroplane.
Like the reports of artillery it was so common
a sound that they paid little attention to it.
But Kenneth, glancing up as the sound grew
louder, exclaimed:

"It's a Taube, about 5000 feet up.  I
fancy.  There'll be a pretty chase presently.
By Jove! it's dropping.  Something must
have gone wrong with the engine.  I'll try
a pot shot at it if you fellows will go on
loading."

Seizing his rifle, he stood watching the
aeroplane as it circled above them, gradually
coming lower.

"Look out!" he cried suddenly.

Almost as soon as he had spoken there
was a terrific crash on the road about thirty
yards away, and a shower of earth and
stones bespattered the lorry and the men.
Kenneth fired as the Taube made another
sweep round, still lower.

"Here's another!" he called.  "Down with you."

They all threw themselves flat on their
faces.  The second bomb exploded farther
away than the first, doing no damage.
They sprang to their feet, and all three
fired at the aeroplane, which was now making
a vol plané, and would come to earth
apparently about half a mile away.

"We'll nab them," cried Ginger.  "Come on."

They ran up the hill.  The aeroplane was
descending on the far side of the farm, near
a clump of trees.  They rushed across the
fields, and were just in time to see a man
leap from the aeroplane and dive into the
copse.  The farmer joined them as they ran
past.  They came to the aeroplane.  The
pilot was *in extremis*.  After the shot had
struck him he had managed to control the
machine until it reached earth; he would
never fly again.

"We must catch the other fellow," said Kenneth.

All three ran into the copse, the farmer
following them.  Separating, they scoured
the plantation in all directions without
finding the fugitive.  After about half an
hour Kenneth called the others together.

"He seems to have got away," he said.
"We must give it up.  It'll soon be dark,
and we've got to get the lorry home.  Ginger,
will you mount guard over the aeroplane?
Our fellows are sure to have seen it, and will
no doubt be coming up shortly.  We'll
motor back if we can borrow a car."

"Right you are," said Ginger.  "I'll wait
for you, in any case."

The others left him, returned to the lorry,
and lifting the driver on to it, drove off
rapidly towards its destination.  There they
told their story, and the colonel at once sent
off a motor omnibus with a number of men
to secure the aeroplane.  When they
approached the spot where they had left it
the machine was gone.

"Somebody must have fetched it already,"
said Kenneth.  "It's a pity you fellows are
too late."

They drew up at the rear of the farm.
Kenneth and Harry sprang out, surprised
that Ginger was not awaiting them.

"He's inside, perhaps," said Harry.  "He
makes friends of most people; perhaps he
has got over the farmer's surliness."

They went through the yard to the house
door.  The farmer met them on the threshold.

"Ah, messieurs," he said, "this is lamentable."

"What do you mean?" asked Harry.

"Your comrade, messieurs, he is gone.  I
fear he is a prisoner.  He made signs that
he was thirsty, and I left him there at the
aeroplane while I returned here to fetch him
some little refreshment.  Ma foi!  I was just
uncorking the bottle when I heard a whirr.
I rushed out with the bottle in one hand and
the corkscrew in the other, and voila! there
was the aeroplane already in the air."

"But how?--what..."

"I do not know," said the farmer, with a
shrug.  "I only guess.  The man who ran
away must have hidden until your backs
were turned, then come back and overpowered
your comrade and flown away with him."

"That's very rummy," said Kenneth to
Harry.  "Ginger isn't a man to be caught
napping easily.  What do you make of it,
sir?" he asked the lieutenant in charge of
the omnibus party, who had followed them.

Kenneth repeated the farmer's story.

"Very curious," said the officer quietly.
"The man wasn't himself a flier, I suppose?"

"No."

"Well, I think we'll run your farmer back
to headquarters.  It looks rather fishy:
there are spies all over the place.  You speak
French?  I don't, more's the pity.  Just
tell this fellow he's to come with me."

The farmer protested volubly, but the
officer was inexorable.  The omnibus party
returned with their prisoner, and Kenneth
and Harry tramped back in the twilight to
their village.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`DOGGED`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XII


.. class:: center medium

   DOGGED

.. vspace:: 2

There was great indignation among the
men of No. 3 Company when Ginger's capture
was reported.  Latterly the German airmen
had rarely appeared behind the British
lines; their experiences had usually been
unfortunate.  "Like their cheek!"
grumbled one of the men.  "And to carry off
Ginger, too, after a lucky shot had brought
'em down.  That farmer chap must have
been a spy, and I hope they'll give him what
he deserves over yonder."

The loss of the most popular man in the
battalion was a blow to the Rutlands.  And
to be a prisoner they counted the worst of
luck.  Death they were ready for; to be
wounded was all in the day's work; there
was not a man of them but preferred death
or wounds to captivity, to be the mock and
sport of a misguided populace, and the
victim of brutal and barbarous guards.

"And we can't do nothing," growled a
sergeant.  "Lor bless you, when I think of
the stories I read as a nipper in the boys'
papers, daring rescues, hairbreadth escapes
and all that--what a peck of rubbish I used
to swallow!  And believe it all too, mind you.
It all looked so easy.  There was the prison,
and the jailer's pretty daughter, perhaps a
file to cut away the bars, or a knife to dig
a tunnel underground, or a note carried to
a wonderful clever pal outside, or the prisoner
dressing up in the gal's clothes: gummy, how
excited I used to get.  Them chaps that
write the blood-curdlers don't know nothing
about the real thing, that's certain."

Kenneth laughed.

"The real thing tops anything ever
invented, after all," he said.  "You've heard
of how Latude escaped from the Bastille;
and how Lord Nithsdale escaped from the
Tower; and how an English prisoner--I
forget his name--a hundred years ago made
a most wonderful escape from the French
fortress of St. Malo; and only the other day, a
German prisoner in Dorchester had himself
screwed into a box and nearly got away."

"Nearly ain't quite, though.  But I never
heard of those other Johnnies; you might
tell us about them--if they're true, that is;
I don't want no fairy tales."

And Kenneth beguiled an evening or two
by relating all the historical escapes he could
remember.

Ginger's case, they agreed, was hopeless.
The papers, it was true, had recorded the
escape of Major Vandeleur from Crefeld,
without giving any of the particulars which
the men were hungry for.  That a British
lance-corporal could ever escape from a
German concentration camp was beyond the
bounds of possibility, and they had to resign
themselves to the hope of one day, when the
war was over, seeing Ginger again, perhaps
half-starved, ill, wretched, a speaking
monument of German "culture."

The Rutlands were sent into the trenches
again, where they again endured the tedium
of watchful inactivity.

One evening, Captain Adams sent Kenneth
to the village with a message.  The
telephone between the village and the trenches
had suddenly failed.  Kenneth found the
place busier than he had ever known it.  A
new regiment had arrived.  Officers of all
ranks were present; despatch riders were
coming in.  He was asked to wait for a
return message to the firing line.  While
waiting he became aware of a considerable
movement some distance in the rear of the
British lines.  There were sounds of heavy
vehicles in motion in several directions.
Something was clearly in the air.

It was about three hours before he was
sent for and received a written message from
a staff-officer.

"What's your name?" he was asked.

"Amory, sir."

"Oh!  You had a hand in destroying that
German gun the other day?"

"Yes, sir," replied Kenneth, rather taken
aback to find that his name had become
known.

"A capital bit of work!  Get on with this
despatch as quickly as you can.  It's
important.  And if you have heard anything
out there"--he pointed to the rear--"you
needn't say anything about it.  There are
spies everywhere.  The telephone wire has
been repaired, by the way; it was cut near
the village; but we've a reason for not
using it just at present.  Tell Colonel
Appleton that, will you?"

The night was very dark, but by this time
Kenneth knew every inch of the road to the
trenches.  There was desultory firing, both
artillery and rifle, for a considerable distance
along the lines ahead.  As he left the village
the sounds from the rear grew fainter,
drowned by the firing and by a moderate
wind blowing from the direction of the
enemy's lines.

The road was quite deserted.  All coming
and going between the trenches and the
billets had ceased for the night.  But when
he had walked for about a quarter of a mile
he was conscious of that strange, often
unaccountable feeling that sometimes steals
upon a solitary pedestrian on a lonely road
at night--the feeling that he was not alone.
He had heard neither footfall nor whisper;
the wind sighed through the still almost
bare branches of the trees.  His feeling, he
thought, was probably due to mere nervousness
caused by the knowledge that he was
carrying an important despatch.  But it
became so strong that he sat down by the
roadside and slipped off his boots, slinging
them round his neck, and walked on heedfully
in his stockings, keeping a look-out for
holes in the road, and stretching his ears for
the slightest unusual sound.

In a moment or two he came to the end
of the avenue of poplars; those which had
formerly lined the rest of the road had been
felled, partly to provide wood for the
trenches, partly for the sake of the gunners.
On the left, a few yards from the road, was
a small plantation.  It had been sadly
damaged by German shells, but many trees
still remained.  Just as he came opposite
to the plantation his ears caught a sound
which, though indistinguishable in the wind,
was different from the rustling of branches
or foliage.  It appeared to come from behind
him.  He slipped from the road towards the
clump of trees; then, as it suddenly occurred
to him that some other person might be
making for the same place, he reached for
a branch just above his head, and swung
himself up with the "upstart" of the
gymnasium.  It was a frail support, but
he sat astride the branch near the trunk,
and there, among the burgeoning twigs,
he waited.

His senses had not deceived him.  Three
vague shapes moved out of the blackness,
and passed almost beneath him.  His ears
scarcely caught the sound of their
movements; yet sound there was, a dull muffled
tread as though their feet were blanketed.
Who were these nocturnal prowlers?  What
were they about?  Kenneth wished there
were no despatch buttoned up in his pocket,
so that he were free to follow these stealthy
figures.  He had not been able to determine
whether they wore uniforms.  If they were
villagers, they had no right to be hereabouts
at night.

Peering through the foliage, he was just
able to discern that the three men had
halted at the edge of the plantation.  For
a moment or two there was complete silence.
He guessed they had stopped to listen.
Then they spoke in whispers.  A few words
were carried on the wind to Kenneth's
attentive ears: "Soeben gehört ... ganz
nahe ... ja."

"They're after me!" thought Kenneth.
He had no doubt that it was he whom they
had referred to as "just heard ... quite
near."  Spies were everywhere, as the
staff-officer had said.  These men must have
learnt in the village that he was carrying a
despatch.  He wished that he could stalk
the stalkers, but he dared do nothing that
would endanger his errand.  One man he
might have tackled; with three the odds
were too heavy against him.  And while he
was still debating the matter with himself
the three dark shapes had disappeared as
silently as they had come.

He waited a minute or two.  They had
apparently gone along the road which he
himself was to follow.  They might suspect
that they had outstripped him, and ambush
him before he reached the trenches.  He
must dodge them by making a detour.
Dropping lightly to the ground he skirted
the northern side of the plantation and
struck across the ploughed land at what
seemed a safe distance from the road.  The
soil was sticky; his progress was slow; and
he stopped every now and again to listen.
For some time he heard nothing but the
wind and the crack of distant rifles or the
boom of guns.  Presently, as he drew nearer
to the trenches, there fell faintly on his
ear the customary sounds of conversation,
laughter, singing.  At one moment he
believed he heard the tootle of Stoneway's
flute.  As these sounds increased in loudness,
he despaired of recognising the stealthy
movements of the spies.  He unslung his
rifle, resolving, if he caught sight of them,
to fire.  The shot, even if it failed to dispose
of any of them, would probably bring men
from the trenches in sufficient numbers to
deal with them.

He had to guess his course across the fields,
pushing here through a hedge, there descending
into a slimy ditch and crawling up the
further side.  At last he caught sight of a
landmark: a ruined shed which stood about
two hundred yards in rear of the trenches.
To reach the trench in which Colonel Appleton
had his quarters he must strike across
to the right, and pass between the shed and
the road.

There was no sign of the three spies.  The
fields were quite bare; the shed was the only
thing that afforded cover.  Instinctively he
gave it a wide berth, and was leaving it some
paces on his left when he heard a sudden
guttural exclamation, and two figures rushed
from the shed towards him.  There was no
time to fire.  Uttering a shout he thrust his
bayonet towards the assailants.  The stock
of his rifle was seized from behind.  And
now, at this critical moment, the years of
training on the football field, in the
gymnasium, on Mr. Kishimaru's practice lawn,
bore fruit in instantaneous decision and
rapid action.  Releasing his rifle suddenly,
the man behind him fell backward to the
ground.  At the same moment Kenneth
stooped, tackled the nearest of the other men,
and brought him down.  The second man
toppled over them.  Freeing himself
instantly, Kenneth sprang up and sprinted
towards the road, hearing in a moment the
thud of heavy footsteps behind him.

But there were sounds also in front.  His
shout had been heard in the trenches, and
some of the Rutlands were running to meet
him.  A word from him sent them at a rush
towards the shed.  Leaving them to hunt
for the spies, he hurried on and delivered his
despatch to the colonel, to whom he related
his adventure.

It was some time before the men returned.

"They got away," said one of them.  "It
was no good hunting any longer in the dark.
But we've brought these."

He handed over Kenneth's rifle and a cap
bearing the badge of a Territorial regiment.
It was clear that the spies had disguised
themselves in British uniforms.  The colonel
telephoned particulars to the village, asking
that a thorough search should be made; but
other matters were then engaging attention.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE FIGHT FOR THE VILLAGE`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XIII


.. class:: center medium

   THE FIGHT FOR THE VILLAGE

.. vspace:: 2

In the darkest hours before the dawn
the trenches were buzzing with excitement.
Word had been passed along that next
morning the Rutlands were to attack.  The long,
trying period of inaction was over.  Sir
John French had ordered the capture of the
village within the German lines.  The hill
on which it stood commanded a wide stretch
of open country, and its possession was an
essential preliminary to the general advance
which would take place when the weather
improved and the reserves of ammunition
were completed.

During these last hours of the night
sleepy men trudged along the road and across
the sodden fields towards the firing line.
Fresh troops, some of whom had never been
under continuous fire, crowded into the
trenches.  Some of the men tried to prepare
breakfast in the constricted space; the most
of them were too much excited to feel any
inclination to eat.  The bustle which
Kenneth had noticed in the village was explained.
Batteries of heavy artillery had been brought
up and placed all along the rear of the British
lines.  The men listened eagerly for the
boom that would announce the great doings
of the day, and they gazed up into the inky
sky, longing for the dawn.

Sitting, sprawling, packed tight in the
trenches, they waited.  Would morning never
come?  The darkness thinned; the blackness
gradually was transformed into ashen
grey, streaked here and there with silvery
light.  A gun boomed miles in the rear.
The men stifled a cheer.  Rifle fire burst
from the German trenches.  Bullets pinged
across the breastworks, and some of the
newcomers involuntarily ducked.  Captain
Adams passed along the simple orders of the
day.  "The battalion will advance in line
of platoons at 7 o'clock."  Another hour to wait!

The men took off their equipment and
stowed their coats in their packs.  Some
munched sticks of chocolate, others lighted
cigarettes but forgot to smoke them.  Boom,
boom!  The British guns were in full play.
The German guns were answering.  Shells
screamed across the trenches in both
directions.  The din increased moment by
moment.  The air quivered with the thunderous
crashes, and sang with the perpetual
*phwit, phwit* of bullets.  Not a man dared to
lift his head.  Clouds of earth rose into the
air before and behind, showering pellets upon
the waiting soldiers.

Boom and roar and crash!  Presently
the stream of shells from the Germans
diminished.  It almost ceased.

"Platoons, get ready!"

"Fix bayonets!"

The men began to swarm up the parapet.
There was no enemy to be seen.  The wire
stretched across their front had been battered
down in many places.

All at once there was a great stillness.  The
artillery had finished its work.

"Now, men!" shouted Kennedy, commander
of the leading platoon.

With a cheer the men rushed forward,
Kenneth on the right, Harry on the left.
On either side other regiments had already
deployed and were advancing.  They came
to the first of the German trenches--empty,
except for prone and huddled forms in grey,
and a litter of rifles, helmets, water-bottles,
mess-tins, equipment of all kinds.  Kenneth
sprang into the communication trench beside
the pond, and splashed through the water at
the bottom, the rest of the platoon after him.
Where were the Germans?

They came to the second line of trenches,
floundered through what seemed an endless
series of mysterious zigzag passages, waded
through two or three feet of greenish water,
scrambled up the embankment beyond, and
raced across the open field, as fast as men
could race with packs on their backs, full
haversacks, and rifle and bayonet, over
ground pitted with holes, heaped with earth
and stones, scattered with the bodies of men,
strands of barbed wire, fragments of shells
and all the dreadful apparatus of warfare.
Still there were no Germans to be seen, but
bullets spat and sang among the advancing
men; here a man fell with a groan, there
one tumbled upon his face without even a
murmur, scarcely noticed by his comrades
pressing on and on with shouts and cheers.

Kennedy's platoon reached the ruined
church which Kenneth and Harry had passed
on their memorable night expedition.  With
shaking limbs and panting lungs they flung
themselves down behind the wall of the
churchyard for a brief rest.  The next rush
towards the village would be across two
hundred and fifty yards of open ground,
bare of cover until they came to the gardens
at the back of the cottages.

The modern battle makes greater demands
on individual effort and resource than the
old-time battles on less extensive fields, where
all the operations were conducted under the
eye of the commander-in-chief.  Kennedy's
men knew nothing of what was going on on
their left and right.  They heard the insistent
crackle of rifles, the rapid clack-clack
of machine guns, the whistling of shrapnel.
They saw the white and yellow puffs, with
now and then a burst of inky blackness, in
the sky.  Boom and crash, rattle and crack;
pale flashes of fire; the ground trembling as
with an earthquake; all the work of deadly
destructive machines, operated by some
unseen agency.  And in a momentary lull
there came raining down from somewhere in
the blue the liquid notes of a lark's song.

"Now, men," cried Kennedy, "the last
rush.  No good stopping or lying down.  On
to the village.  Stick it, Rutlands!"

The men sprang through the gaps in the
wall, rushed across the churchyard and into
the open fields.  From the houses a little
above them on the hillside broke a withering
fire.  They pressed on doggedly, stumbling
in holes and shell pits, scrambling up and
moving on again, bullets spattering and
whistling among them, their ears deafened
by the merciless scream and boom.  On,
ever on, the gaps in their extended order
widening as the fatal missiles found their
mark.  There was no faltering.  A mist
seemed to hide the houses from view, but
they were drawing nearer moment by
moment.  Suddenly there was a tremendous
detonation in their front; a vast column of
smoke, earth and brick dust rose in the air,
and where cottages had been there were now
only heaps of ruins.  "I hope our own
gunners won't shell us," thought Kenneth
on the extreme right, as he dashed towards
the side street in which the explosion had
taken place.

And now at last the enemy were seen,
some on the ground, some fleeing helter
skelter from the ravaged spot.  The Rutlands
yelled.  From the further end of the village
came answering British cheers.  Working
round the shoulder of the hill another company
had forced the defences, and the village was won.

With scarcely a moment's delay the men
set to work to prepare for the inevitable
counter-attack.  Lieutenant Kennedy was
not to be seen.  Sergeant Colpus took
command of his platoon, diminished by nearly
a half.  Kenneth and Harry, bearing no
marks of the fight except dirt, had time for
only a word of mutual congratulation before
they rushed off to place machine guns at
the salient angles of the village.  Others
threw up new entrenchments and barricades,
utilising the debris of houses and furniture.
And meanwhile, on the shell-scarred field
behind, the ambulances and Red Cross men
were busy.

The village consisted of one principal
street, with a few streets springing from it
on either side; crooked and irregular, following
the contour of the hill.  For a couple of
hours the men toiled to strengthen the
position they had carried; then warning of
the impending attack was given by a shell
from a German battery miles away to the
east.  It burst some fifty yards in front of
the village.  A minute or two later four shells
plunged among the houses almost at the
same instant.  The warning had given the
Rutlands just time enough to evacuate the
houses and take what shelter was possible.
An aeroplane soared high over the position
towards the German lines.  Shrapnel burst
around it, but it sailed on unperturbed for
several minutes, then swept round and
returned.  No visible signal had been observed,
but almost immediately shells began to
scream over the village: the British artillery
had been given the range and had opened
fire.  For half an hour the German bombardment
continued, gradually slackening as gun
after gun was put out of action by the British
shells from far away.  Finally the German
batteries were silenced, but the enemy had
not relinquished his design of a counter-attack.
In the distance, over a wide front,
column after column of grey-clad infantry
was seen advancing in the dense formation
that had cost countless lives in the early
months of the war, but which had succeeded
many times in crushing the defence, even
though temporarily, by sheer weight of numbers.

The Rutlands manned the houses, the
ruins, the garden fences, the breastworks
hastily thrown up.  Other battalions
occupied the German reserve trenches running
close beside the church in the rear.  The
advancing Germans were met with rapid fire
from rifles and machine guns.  Great gaps
were cut in their ranks, but they were
instantly filled up.  Time after time they
were brought to a halt and showed signs of
wavering; but in a few minutes their lines
were steadied and they came on again with
indomitable courage.  It was soon apparent
that the German commander was hurling
immense masses forward with the intention
of recapturing the village at all costs.  As
they approached they spread out to right
and left, attacking the village on three sides.
The Rutlands and the one company from
another regiment which held it could look
for no support, for the men in the trenches
also were hard beset and unable to leave
their positions because of the enfilading
fire of the numerous German machine guns.

Kenneth and Harry, with the other survivors
of their platoon, occupied two or three
small houses on the southern slope of the
hill.  A dozen men held a detached cottage
some forty yards beyond.  It was on this
cottage that the huge German wave first
broke.  Two or three times it was swept
back; then Captain Adams, recognising the
hopelessness of attempting to retain this
isolated outpost, ran into one of the nearest
houses and called for a volunteer to carry
the order for its evacuation.  Harry sprang
forward among the group that instantly
responded.

"Good, Randall!" said the captain.
"Bring them back at once.  Look out for cover."

Harry left the house, ran along for a few
yards sheltered by a brick wall, then with
lowered head sprinted along the open road
towards the cottage.  He entered it from the
back.  Of the dozen men who held it, only
four or five were now in action.  Two were
dead; the rest, among whom was Stoneway,
were wounded.  On receiving the captain's
order, the men who were unhurt carried out
those of their comrades who were incapable
of movement, and began to withdraw.  The
moment they left their loopholes the Germans
they had held at bay swarmed up the slope.
Laden as they were, they could hardly
escape without assistance.

"Come on, boys!" shouted Kenneth.

Followed by several of his companions he
dashed out of the house.  At the wall they
stopped to fire one volley, then with a ringing
cheer charged with the bayonet.  At the
sight of cold steel the Germans recoiled, and
their pause, short as it was, gave Harry time
to bring the retiring men under cover of the
wall.  Then the Germans came on again
in such numbers that Kenneth and his
party had to fall back, firing as they went,
and rejoin the men in the house.

For ten minutes more they held their
position, hurling the grey mass back by the
rapidity of their fire.  Their rifles were hot
to the touch.  Still the Germans pressed
forward, some of them flinging hand grenades,
which set fire to the houses.  To remain
longer was to court certain destruction.
Dashing out at the back, the men rushed
from garden to garden towards the main
street, only to find that the enemy had
already forced their way into that, and were
pressing hard upon the remnants of two
platoons that were falling back, disputing
every yard.

Kenneth glanced round among the men
who had accompanied him from the houses.
Neither Sergeant Colpus nor any other
non-commissioned officer was with them.

"We'll give them a charge, boys," he cried.

Several files of Germans had already passed
the end of the lane that ran along the rear
of the gardens into the main street.
Forming his little party in fours, Kenneth led
them along the lane.  They swept upon the
flank of the enemy, their sudden onset
cutting the column in two.  The eastern
portion recoiled: the western, caught
between these new assailants and the Rutlands
stubbornly retreating up the street, were cut
to pieces.

"Well done!" cried Captain Adams,
rushing up at the head of the men upon
whom the pressure had been relieved,
"Dash down those walls there."

He pointed to a house that was already
tottering through the effects of the
bombardment.  Taking advantage of the enemy's
confusion, the Rutlands completed the
demolition of the walls, hurling bricks, plaster,
rafters, furniture across the street, and
hastily raising a barricade.  When the
Germans returned to the charge, they found
themselves faced by a formidable breastwork,
from behind which the Rutlands met
their rush with rifles and machine guns.
They were thrown back again and again,
and during every interval the defenders
ripped up the pave and worked energetically
at sinking a trench across the whole breadth
of the street.

"They are checked for the moment," said
the captain.  "But they'll bring up field
guns, and splinter the barricade.  We'll
hold the houses on each side.  I've already
sent word to the colonel; if we can manage
to hold our ground for the rest of the day we
shall get support to-morrow."

It was clear that the attack had been
checked all along the line.  The Germans
immediately in front of the village established
themselves at the foot of the hill facing the
street, no doubt with the intention of
renewing the attack after another bombardment.
During the day the Rutlands were
not further molested.  Early next morning
the village was heavily shelled by the German
batteries, but British artillery had been
moved up in anticipation of this onslaught,
and after a hot duel that lasted for nearly an
hour the Germans were again silenced.  Their
infantry was observed to be entrenching
themselves in the fields half a mile away,
and a certain amount of spasmodic rifle fire
and sniping went on between the two forces.

The Rutlands were worn out with fatigue
and hunger.  It had been impossible to
bring up supplies, and they had only their
emergency rations and what food they could
find in the village.  But in the evening two
fresh battalions came up to relieve them,
and they were ordered back to their original
billets.  There the brigadier himself
complimented them on their success, and promised
them a well-earned rest.

When the roll was called, it was found
that the success had been won at a heavy
cost.  Half the officers and thirty per
cent. of the men were killed or wounded.  Colonel
Appleton was slightly injured by a splinter,
Lieutenant Kennedy had narrowly escaped
death: a bullet had shattered the wire-nippers
in his breast pocket, causing lacerations
of the flesh.  Stoneway's wound turned
out to be very slight; and some of the men
who had been with him in the cottage were
rather aggrieved that he had withdrawn
from the firing line though not incapacitated.
Captain Adams, Kenneth and Harry were
among those who had come through unscathed.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE HIKIOTOSHI`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XIV


.. class:: center medium

   THE HIKIOTOSHI

.. vspace:: 2

The village appeared to be full of wounded.
Some were being attended to by doctors on
the spot, others were sent to the rear in
motor ambulances as fast as these could be
brought up.  The Rutlands learnt that their
attack on the village had been only one
incident in operations that had extended
for several miles along the front, and which
had resulted in a certain gain of ground.
The German trenches had been stormed, and
the enemy thrown back for a considerable
distance.

During the morning a motor despatch
rider came in with a message from the
general of division.  An immediate answer
was required, which Colonel Appleton at
once proceeded to write, while Captain
Adams questioned the cyclist on what he
had seen in the course of his ride.  The
divisional headquarters was at a village some
fifteen miles to the north-east as the crow
flies, but the route taken by the cyclist,
well behind the British lines, was almost
twice that distance.  He had been instructed
to return the same way.  It occurred to
Captain Adams, however, that much time
would be saved if a more direct route were
followed, and he suggested that the colonel
should take advantage of the change in
position resulting from the forward
movement and the confusion in the German lines,
to send his message along a road that ran
from the captured village in the rear of
what had been the enemy's trenches.

"That's all very well," said the colonel,
"but in the first place this man is ordered
to go back the same way, and in the next
we have no other cycles or cyclists."

"We have a couple of cycles," said the
captain.  "Don't you remember, sir, we
sent a requisition to the base for a couple
of new machine guns and by some blunder
or other they sent us two motor cycles
instead?"

"And we still have them?"

"Oh yes!  We shall have to keep them
until someone discovers that they are missing
and ultimately finds out their whereabouts.
And I've no doubt we've several men who
can ride."

"There's a further consideration.  The
road you mention is now between our firing
line and the enemy's.  It will be decidedly
unhealthy."

"A little risky, no doubt; but by all
accounts the Germans have been thrown
back some distance, and they'll be too busy
consolidating their new position to be very
dangerous to-day.  I daresay there'll be
snipers here and there, but they're not very
successful at running targets.  I'd suggest
that you triplicate your despatch: send one
copy by this man the long way, and two
at short intervals by the direct road.  You'd
make sure of it thus."

"Well, I'll 'phone to the front and discover
how the land lies.  In the meantime see if
you can find riders.  If it appears reasonably
safe I'll adopt your suggestion: it will save
half an hour or more."

The captain at once hurried to the Bonnards'
cottage.  "Amory's a likely man," he thought.

The upshot was that when the official
despatch rider was returning to
headquarters by the long way round, Kenneth
and Harry were speeding along the road
north-eastward.  Harry was the first to
start; Kenneth followed at a minute's
interval, just keeping his friend in sight.
Their orders were to let nothing interfere
with or delay the delivery of the despatch.
If any accident happened, if either of them
was hit by a sniper's bullet, there must be
no question of helping the other.

Before starting they had attentively
studied a large-scale map of the district.
The colonel's information had shown the
impossibility of attempting to reach
headquarters without leaving the direct road.
This lay, for about half the distance,
between the new fronts of the opposing forces,
but it then crossed the new position which
the Germans were believed to be entrenching,
and ran for several miles behind it.  There
was, however, a by-road forking to the left
just before the halfway point was reached,
and this opened into a bridle track leading in
the right direction.  By making this slight
detour they would lose a mile or two, but
they might hope to incur no more danger
than they were bound to risk in the early
part of the journey.

"Barring accidents, we shall save a good
deal more time than the colonel thinks," said
Kenneth, as he folded the map.  "The way
the other fellow has gone is sure to be
congested with traffic: this will be clear."

"I hope so," replied Harry, "but don't
forget there's been an action.  The road is
probably half pits.  Well, I go first then;
if I come a cropper, take warning and scoot."

At the outset the road was not so bad as
he had expected, and he was able to run the
machine at a pace of nearly forty miles an
hour without much risk.  There were few
marks of gun fire, no doubt because the road
followed the bottom of an indentation over
which the shells had passed.  But after a
time it rose, and the ground fell away on
each side, and Harry was warned of the
necessity of reducing speed by a sudden jolt
that made him bite his tongue.  From that
moment he had to watch every yard of the
road.  Sometimes on the left, sometimes in
the centre, sometimes on the right, yawned
a shell pit deep enough to bury a wagon.
Presently he had to pick his way through a
litter of broken rifles, helmets, haversacks,
all sorts of articles of equipment, evidently
dropped or thrown aside by the Germans in
their disordered flight the day before.  Time
was so important that, even now, he rode
at a speed that would have seemed lunacy
to a motorist with a proper respect for
springs and bearings, avoiding only dangerous
holes, and riding over most of the obstacles.
His progress was a succession of jolts and
jerks that threatened to dislocate the machine,
and he afterwards wondered that it had not
broken down under the strain.

He came into the by-road.  This, being at
a lower level than the road he had left,
had not suffered so much from shells; on
the other hand, it was scored with ruts
and soft with mud, into which the wheels
now and then sank several inches.  He was
beset now by a constant fear of skidding,
and annoyed by splashes of mud on his face.

"It might be worse," he thought.  "Lucky
they are not bullets."

So far, it was clear, he had not been seen
by the snipers whom Captain Adams had
mentioned as the greatest risk of the journey.
The ground on either side rolled away in
gentle undulations.  There was neither house
nor living creature in sight.  Guns were
booming in the far distance, but though he
knew that there were thousands of invisible
soldiers on each side of him, nothing on the
face of the country indicated a state of war.

Topping a rise, he came to a ruined hamlet
in which not a single cottage was whole.
Beyond this branched the bridle track that
led to his destination.  It was a lane no
more than four feet wide, between hedges,
and thick with slimy mud.  It wound and
twisted in an erratic and seemingly purposeless
manner, and but for the evidence of the
map he had conned Harry would have had
no confidence in its general direction.

Suddenly he heard the characteristic
scream of a shell not far ahead.  Immediately
afterwards the deep boom of a heavy
gun came from his right.  The German
gunners had started work.  In a few seconds
there was rolling thunder on each side of
him; it was evident that a violent artillery
duel was in progress.  The hedges prevented
him from seeing anything; but reflecting
that the gunners were aiming at each other's
positions he was not disturbed about his
own safety.

He had just turned an awkward corner,
narrowly avoiding a sideslip, and was
congratulating himself on a few yards of straight
track and a widening that gave hope of
reaching an open road, when, amid the sound
of guns, he caught another sound, which at
first he mistook for the whirr of an
aeroplane.  In a moment, however, he recognised
his error.  It was the purring of a motor
bicycle, and in front, approaching him.
Almost as soon as he knew this, the machine
came in sight at the far corner, perhaps a
hundred yards away, running at no great
speed.  At the first glance he saw that the
rider was a German; at the second that the
German was not unprepared to meet him.
He realised afterwards that, the wind being
with him, the noise of his own swiftly running
engine must have been heard first.

Each had only a few moments to decide
what to do.  The German, the instant he
recognised the approaching rider as a British
soldier, screwed on his brakes, turned the
bicycle across the lane, sprang off and drew
a revolver, no doubt expecting that the
Englishman would swerve at the obstacle,
be forced into the hedge, and present an
easy target.  His reasoning, if such it was,
would have been sound enough had it not
proceeded from a faulty estimate of the
English mind--an error into which the
Germans have been betrayed many times since
the Kaiser made his initial blunder in the
same kind.  The German is a master of the
obvious, and imagines that what he would
do is the best thing to be done, and that an
Englishman will do it badly.

Harry, however, was not committed by
training or habit to either of the obvious
courses: to allow himself to be forced into
the hedge, or to stop dead and fight the
German on foot.  It seemed to him, in those
few seconds that he had for deciding, better
to clear the way for Kenneth, who, no
doubt, was not far behind.  A spill would
at any rate not hurt his feelings, as it might
a German's.  Accordingly, instead of applying
the brakes, he opened the throttle, and
bracing himself for the shock, drove his
machine at ever-increasing speed straight
for the enemy.

This, of course, from the German point
of view, was English madness.  Still, it was
unexpected, and when the German fired, at
the distance of twenty paces, his aim was
flurried by his natural surprise, and by the
sudden realisation that his machine would
certainly be smashed.  Dropping his
revolver, and shouting something that was
far from complimentary, he tried to pull his
bicycle clear; but his action was not only
too late; like so many well-meant efforts
to prevent mischief, it furthered it.  His
movement of a few inches caused Harry's
bicycle to strike the hub of the driving
wheel instead of the middle of the machine,
for which he was steering.  Harry was flung
over the handle-bars into the hedge, a few
feet in advance of the bicycles, which lay
mangled together, and not quite so far from
the German, who had very luckily escaped
being crushed beneath them.

The two men staggered to their feet
almost at the same moment, bruised and
shaken, but equally unconscious of their
hurts.  The German, with his cultivated
instinct, fumbled for his revolver,
remembered it was on the ground out of reach,
and was drawing his sword-bayonet when
Harry, in the British way, flung himself
upon him.  And when Kenneth, half a
minute later, drawn up at speed by the
sound of the crash, came upon the scene,
he beheld with mingled amazement and
concern two military figures, begrimed with
mud, struggling on the ground.  The figure
in grey was undermost.

"Go on!" shouted Harry.  "I've got
the Hikiotoshi on him."

Kenneth had slowed down, but remembering
the captain's injunction, and seeing
that his friend was well able to take care of
himself, he opened out and in a few seconds
was pushing along at as high a speed as the
greasy lane permitted.  He could not help
smiling at the recollection of his own
bewilderment and naïve indignation when, in
one of his early lessons in jujutsu from
Mr. Kishimaru, he had found both legs
suddenly swept from under him, and heard
the Japanese, beaming down upon him,
gently remark:

"That, my dear sir, is the Hikiotoshi."

Kenneth's experiences along the road had
been identical with Harry's.  But a few
seconds after he had left the scene of the
collision he had reason to wonder, for the
first time, whether he would ever reach his
destination.  The bridle track opened into
a road that intersected a stretch of plain.
It had suffered hardly at all from shells;
being on a higher level than the bridle
track it was fairly dry and gave a better
surface for riding; but it was fully exposed
on either hand, without protection of hedge
or dyke; and anyone passing along it must
be in full view for a considerable distance
left and right.  And Kenneth found that
he had run into the very centre of the
artillery duel the sounds of which he had
heard for some minutes.  Shells whizzed
over his head in both directions.  Bang to
the left of him, boom to the right of him,
and above him shriek and moan in various
tones.  And in the midst of the broken
sounds came the continuous hum of an
aeroplane somewhere in the neighbourhood.

Neither the German nor the British
batteries were visible.  Kenneth indeed did
not look round for their flashes or the
smoke from the bursting shells.  Bending
forward over the handle-bars he raced on,
congratulating himself that, his course being
probably midway between the distant
batteries, the gunners on each side were too
intent on searching the hostile position to
concern themselves about a solitary cyclist
careering across their front at a shorter
range.  But he knew that between him and
the guns infantry were watching in their
trenches, perhaps awaiting the order to
advance, and at any moment he might find
himself caught between two fires.

He was not long left in doubt whether
he had been seen.  From the right a bullet
sang across the road.  It was a single shot,
from the rifle of some sniper concealed
somewhere in advance of the German lines.  At
a speed of fifty miles an hour he must be a
difficult target even for the most expert of
marksmen, and he hoped that speed would
save him.  Another shot whistled by his
ear; that was a narrow escape, he thought;
but there had been no volley from the
German trenches: apparently he had not
been seen except by the sniper, and it was
only a stream of shot from rifles or machine
guns that he had to fear.

Presently, however, he was startled by a
loud explosion near at hand on his left;
glancing round, he saw a column of earth
and smoke rise from the ground.  "That's
a shell from a field-gun," he thought.  "The
Germans have spotted me, and are trying
their hand."  Another shell burst on his
right, close enough to bespatter him with
earth.  A few seconds afterwards there was
a shattering explosion on the same side, of
such force that the concussion of the air
alone was sufficient to hurl his machine
sideways.  Uncontrollably it mounted a low
bank on the left, jumped a ditch, tore a
furrow through the heavy soil, then stopped
slowly and turned over.

Kenneth picked himself up, covered with
dirt but unharmed.  He looked at the fallen
machine.  Both wheels were buckled; from
one the tyre had been ripped off; the bicycle
was damaged beyond repair.  A shell bursting
within a hundred yards sent him scrambling
into a ditch, where he rested for a few moments
to collect himself.  The German gunners were
apparently satisfied; the firing ceased.

"Scuppered, and with only a few miles
to go," he thought.  "Both of us!  The
long way will prove to be the shortest after
all."

After a little consideration he came to
the conclusion that there was still a chance
of arriving first at headquarters by making
his way along the ditch parallel with the
road.  In any case he must attempt it, for
the third rider might have met with an
accident: his clear duty was to go on and
deliver the despatch.  He was farther from
his destination than he supposed, and it
would probably have taken him an hour to
reach it on foot.  But he set off along the
bottom of the ditch, sinking sometimes over
his ankles in slime and water.

Some twenty minutes afterwards he was
surprised to hear another series of explosions
on the road behind him.  A little later the
wind carried towards him the purr of a
motor bicycle.  It was rapidly approaching;
the crash of bursting shells came nearer and
nearer.  Was the rider a friend or an
enemy?  It could not be either Harry or
the German he had met, for he had seen at
a glance as he passed by that their machines
were crippled.  He was bound to be
discovered; the ditch, while deep enough to
conceal him from the gunners in the distance,
would not hide him from anyone passing
along the road, even if he lay flat in the
filthy ooze.  He drew the revolver which
Captain Adams had lent him, resolving to
get his shot in first.

Only a few seconds elapsed between his
hearing the sound and the appearance of
the bicycle round a curve in the road
behind.  The rider was in khaki; he was flat
over the handle-bars; the machine seemed
to leap along the road.  It flashed by, and
Kenneth, crouching over the ditch, was
amazed to see that the rider was Harry.
Whether his friend had recognised him he
could not tell.  Quite oblivious of the shells
that were still bursting on and near the
road, he watched the bicycle's breakneck
career until it passed under a bank that
protected it from the German guns, turned
a corner, and disappeared.  Next moment
there was a crash behind him; he was
conscious for the fraction of a second of sharp
blows on every part of his body; then he
knew no more.





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.. _`THE OBSERVATION POST`:

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   CHAPTER XV


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   THE OBSERVATION POST

.. vspace:: 2

Harry reached the divisional headquarters
without further mishap, and delivered his
despatch.  The rider who had come by the
long way had not arrived.  It was more
than half an hour later when he at last rode
in, and explained that he had been delayed
at several points by congestion of traffic.

Meanwhile Harry had obtained leave to
ride back and bring in his companion, whom
he expected to meet within a mile or two.
Evening was coming on; heavy clouds were
heaping themselves in the western sky,
hastening the dark.  Harry had only the
vaguest idea of the locality of the spot where
he had caught a momentary glimpse of
Kenneth, and after riding for some distance,
untroubled by attentions from the German
gunners, without meeting him, he began to
feel uneasy.  The sight of the abandoned
motor bicycle increased his misgiving.
Turning at the bridle path he rode back
very slowly, closely scanning both sides of
the road.  At length he descried, in the
failing light, a body lying half in, half out
of the ditch.  He jumped off his machine
and hastened to the prostrate form, dreading
to find that his friend was killed.  But a
moment's examination sufficed to reassure
him.  The heart was still beating.  A few
drops from his flask revived Kenneth, who
sat up, a deplorable object, caked with mud
from head to foot.

"How do you feel, old man?" asked
Harry anxiously.

"Ugh!" grunted Kenneth.  "Is my
collar-bone broken?"

"Not a bit of it, or you couldn't move
your neck like that.  Can you get up?"

"Give me a hand."

He rose slowly to his feet.

"Is my skull cracked?" he asked.
"Where's my cap?"

Harry picked it up, and put it on his
head after feeling all over the skull.

"Just pinch me up and down the legs,
will you?" said Kenneth.

"I don't think there's anything wrong,"
said Harry after pressing all the joints and
muscles.

"Then I've cost the Germans a good few
pounds for nothing.  I'm horribly dizzy;
feel as if a whole rugger team had been over
me.  You got through to headquarters?"

"Yes.  But look here, I'll tell you about
it presently.  D'you think you could stick
on the carrier?  The sooner we get out of
this the better."

"Let me walk a little first.  I'm rather
top-heavy at present.  You got there first?"

"Yes."

"Good man!  'Fraid we'd both muff
it....  Is my face as dirty as my hands?"

"My dear child, your face is all right.
If you talk like that I shall be certain you
are cracked."

"All right, old man; only I was thinking
of your face, you know.  I don't mind so
long as we are both pretty much alike."

"Well now, hop on, and I'll go fairly
slowly.  If you feel inclined to tumble off,
sing out and I'll catch you before you fall."

Kenneth, however, managed to maintain
his seat on the carrier, and the two rode into
headquarters just before absolute dark.  They
were given a billet for the night, and told to
return to their regiment as best they could
next day.  Luckily able to get a bath, they
were then provided with supper, and Harry
had an opportunity of telling at his ease
how he had managed to save the situation.

"You see, after I had put him down with
the Hikiotoshi----"

"I nearly rolled off with laughing when
you sang that out," Kenneth interrupted.
"How delighted old Kishimaru would be!
I must write and tell him about it.  Go on."

"Well, I had to lay him out, which wasn't
very difficult, and for safety's sake I tied
him up in his own straps.  Then I had a
look at my machine.  The front wheel was
hopelessly buckled.  What about the
German's, I thought.  I found that the engine
was mere scrap iron; it had got the full
force of the collision.  But the back wheel
wasn't hurt a bit.  By good luck it was
exactly the same size as mine, and as the
tool bag was there all complete, I set about
exchanging the wheels--and also more or less
pleasant remarks with the German, who
showed a wonderful command of English
bargee idiom when he recovered his senses.
I had pulled my old Rover to pieces so often
at home that I had no trouble, though it
took me a long time.  When I had finished,
I wondered whether I could bring in the
German as a prisoner, but I couldn't very
well fix him on the carrier without help.
And besides, the front forks had been so
strained and twisted that I was afraid the
whole concern might come to grief.  So I
went over and bade him a polite good-bye,
eased his lashings so that he could wriggle
free with a little exertion, and then set off
at full speed.  By the way, I had taken the
liberty of examining his pockets, left him a
photograph and a few trifles, and took a
letter and a despatch which I handed to the
general.  On the whole I think we've done
a good day's work."

"I rather think we have.  Pity you
didn't leave the German tied up: we might
have got him to-morrow on our way back."

"No thank you!  Once running the
gauntlet of German shells is enough for me.
We'll go back the long way.  And as we
shall have only the one machine between us
I'll take it to the repairing shop and have it
looked over.  There's not much wrong with
it, and we'll take turn and turn about on
the carrier."

They set off in a fine spring dawn, taking
their midday meal with them.  It was slow
going on this outer circle.  The road, lying
well behind the British lines, was
encumbered with military traffic.  The pave was
for long stretches occupied by motor
omnibuses and lorries, carrying men, provisions,
and ammunition.  Here was a lorry loaded
with bacon, there one packed with loaves
of bread from the baking ovens, there
another heaped with parcels sent out from
home, another with new uniforms, boots
and equipment.  Time after time the cyclists
had to hop off, leave the pave for the
muddy unpaved border of the road, and
stand ankle deep in mud until the heavy
vehicles had passed, exchanging pleasantries
with the cheerful drivers.

"I say, this is a nuisance," said Harry, at
one of these stoppages.  "If I'm not
mistaken, the map showed a cross-road about
halfway, leading into the road we travelled
yesterday.  It comes out by that hamlet we
passed.  I vote we take that and chance it.
There's no firing at present, and the road is
less exposed at that end.  Of course there's
no hurry, but this constant hopping off and
on is too monotonous for anything."

"We'll have a look at the cross-road when
we come to it.  It may be too bad for riding."

On reaching the cross-road, they found
that there was no traffic on it, though there
were marks of the recent passage of heavy
vehicles.  It looked fairly easy, so they
struck into it, and bowled along for a mile
or two without interruption.  In spite of
bruises due to their spills on the previous
day they felt very fit, and the rapid
movement through the fresh morning air had its
usual exhilarating effect.

"This is better than the trenches--heaps
better than hanging about in billets," said
Kenneth.  "I'd rather like despatch riding."

"So would I," replied Harry.  "But I
don't regret anything.  All I'm sorry for is
that poor old Ginger is collared.  I'm afraid
he's having a rotten time of it."

The road was winding and hilly, running
through country for the most part bare,
but dotted with clumps of woodland.  Presently
they passed a train of artillery transport.
Shortly afterwards they came in sight
of a low hill from the further side of which
they expected to see the ruined hamlet.
As they rode up the hill they suddenly
noticed, just below the crown on their left,
a battery of British field-guns getting into
position.  The gunners were masking it from
aerial observation by means of branches of
trees and shrubs on which the foliage was
well advanced.  Then a bend of the road
brought them in sight of a battalion of
infantry, evidently in support of the guns.

"Halt there!" cried a man, coming towards them.

They slipped off, left the bicycle by the
side of the road, and accompanied the man
to the colonel.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

Kenneth mentioned the name of their village.

"You can't go this way," said the colonel.
"The enemy isn't far on the other side of the
road this leads to, and I don't want anything
to attract his attention to this quarter.  Ride
back, and go along the main road."

"We can't get along very well for the
traffic, sir," said Kenneth.  "We rode the
other way yesterday, and know it quite
well.  It's much shorter, and a good deal
of it is in a hollow, so that we are not very
likely to be seen.  Besides, sir, we might
possibly do a little scouting on the way."

"You're not in a signal company?"

"Not officially, sir, though we carried an
emergency despatch yesterday."

"Well, I'll let you through on condition
that you come back at once if you see
anything worth reporting.  You're a public
school man, aren't you?"

"Yes, sir.  Haileybury."

"O.T.C.?"

"Yes, sir."

"Couldn't wait for a commission, I
suppose?  Well, remember your work on field
days.  I can trust you to use your intelligence."

"Thank you, sir."

"By the way, I must tell you that a
field telephone has gone ahead.  Look alive;
the gunners are in a hurry."

They remounted and rode on, passing a
screen of scouts lying over a wide front
below the crest of the hill.  As they were
nearing the foot of the farther slope they
saw the telephone wagon coming towards
them.  On meeting it they stopped and asked
the driver what was going on.

"Nothing yet.  We've laid the wire to a
cottage you'll see in the distance when you
get beyond those trees.  There's a
lieutenant and four men in charge.  You'd
better hurry up."

"What, are there any Germans in sight?"
asked Harry.

"No; but there's been a bit of sniping.
I don't think they could have seen us going
into the cottage, but they must have caught
sight of us on the road.  I heard the smack
of a bullet on the back of the wagon, and was
thankful when I got under the trees."

They went on.  Beyond the trees the
road ran straight up a long gradual incline.
To the left, on the crest, stood a small
cottage, enclosed, with its garden, within a
brick wall.  They had ridden only a few
yards up the ascent when they heard the
crackle of rifle fire ahead.

"The Germans must have seen or guessed
that the men went to the cottage," said
Kenneth.  "We had better leave the machine
and go up across the field.  The cottage
and garden wall will give us cover.  It will
be just as well to learn what's going on."

They left the road and ran up the grassy
hill towards the cottage.  On nearing the
crest they became aware that the firing
they had heard was being directed from the
front of the cottage.  There was no answering
fire, but it was clear that the little party
in the cottage was expecting an attack.
Being an observation party, to whose success
secrecy was essential, it was equally clear
that they would not have fired except from
urgent necessity.

"Ride back and tell the colonel," said
Kenneth.  "I'll go on and lend a hand."

At another moment it would have been
Harry's way to dispute his friend's right to
the dangerous part, and to settle the matter
by the spin of a coin.  It might have
occurred to him, too, that the call for
support would reach the colonel by telephone
more quickly than he could convey it on
the bicycle.  But guessing that the position
was critical, he turned his back at once,
ran down the hill, mounted the machine,
and rode back at his utmost speed.  Kenneth
meanwhile had vaulted the garden wall, and
dashed into the cottage through the open
door at the back.

During the next ten or fifteen minutes
events crowded one upon another more
rapidly than can be related, and we must
pause for a little to make the position clear.
The cottage stood on a spur projecting
slightly eastward from the general line of
the ridge.  Below it the ground sloped
gently down to the road which Kenneth
and Harry had travelled on the previous
day.  Beyond that the country undulated
for several miles.  About a mile away was
a young plantation.  The road ran right
and left, with considerable windings, and a
mile and a half away, on the right, was the
ruined hamlet through which the motor
riders had passed.  A little below the cottage
a stone wall of no great height stretched
across the ground, ultimately meeting the
road.  On the eastern side of it--that is, in
the direction of the German lines--was a
ditch, shallow and empty.  During the night
a full regiment of Germans, reorganised after
their recent repulse, had occupied the wood
and the hamlet, the advance guard of a
large body whose purpose was to carry their
line forward just as the British on their side
were doing.  The British engineer party had
not completed the installation of the
telephone in the cottage when the lieutenant
saw the Germans debouching from the wood
towards the hamlet, and considerable
movement in the hamlet itself.  Ordering his men
to cut loopholes in the wall of the front
room on the upper storey, and to fire if the
enemy appeared to be advancing on the
cottage, he worked at the telephone, and
had almost finished when the German scouts
were seen creeping up the hill about half a
mile away.  Below them was a company in
extended order; below them again a second
company in support.  They were coming
straight towards the cottage, and the men,
in obedience to their officer's orders, had fired.

Kenneth dashed into the cottage.  The
lower floor was empty.  He rushed up the
stairs into the only room above.  Four men
were posted at the loopholes; the lieutenant
was screwing on the receiver of the telephone.
He looked up as Kenneth entered.

"Are they coming on already?" he asked.

"No; but a pal of mine has ridden back
to tell the colonel."

"That's good.  It will be a minute or
two before this wretched thing is in working
order."

Just then there was a burst of rifle fire
from the enemy.  The windows were
shattered.  One of the men dropped his rifle
and shouted.

"Get out and back to our lines," called
the officer, seeing that he was *hors de combat*.
"Take his rifle, will you?" he added to
Kenneth.  "For goodness' sake don't go
near the window."

Kenneth picked up the rifle and hurried
to a loophole.  From the volume of the
enemy's fire it was clear that the assailants
were a very numerous body, and it struck
him as madness for five men to attempt to
hold the place.  He ventured to say so.

"Done at last!" said the lieutenant.
"What was that you said? ... All right"
(he spoke through the telephone).  "Infantry
advancing.  No sign of battery....
Hold it!  Of course we must.  If they get
here they can see our battery from the
roof.  Besides, if we can hold them off until
the battalion comes up we couldn't have a
better defensive position than the wall and
ditch in front....  Gad! that's bad."

A shell had burst on the slope between
the cottage and the road, clear of the
infantry advancing farther to the right.

"Take my glasses," continued the
lieutenant, "go well to the left, and see if you
can spot the direction when the next shell
comes."  In low distinct tones he spoke
into the bell of the receiver: "Enemy firing
line about 700 yards below crest, range say 5200."

Another shell burst about a hundred
yards to the left of the cottage.

"See the flash?" asked the officer, with
the receiver at his ear.

"No."

"They're firing at long range....  Yes:
all right....  They've had to change their
position--our battery, I mean.  Want
another five minutes."  He looked at his wrist
watch.  "By that time the Germans will be
upon us, even if a lucky shot from one of
their big guns don't tumble the place about
our ears.  However!"

Kenneth admired the young officer's
coolness as, laying down the receiver, he took
up a rifle and posted himself at a loophole.
The Germans had stopped firing: bending
low they were creeping up yard by yard
towards the wall.

"Are you a good shot?" asked the officer.

"Fair," replied Kenneth.

"Then pick off the men on the flank.  If
they get across that dyke they'll work round
to our rear and have cover until they are
close upon us."

Kenneth, sighting for 500 yards, took aim
at the man highest up on the enemy's
extreme left flank.  The man dropped.  Then
he fired at the next man, and missed.  A
second shot found its mark.  Meanwhile
the officer and his three men methodically
fired, each through his own loophole.  And
for four crowded minutes they poured their
bullets into the line of scouts, which thinned
away until not one was visible on the hillside.

But the company behind was pushing
steadily on, and now opened fire.  A hail
of bullets struck the walls of the cottage
and whistled through the broken windows.
The officer, creeping across the floor to the
telephone receiver, was smothered with
splinters of wood.  One of the men uttered
an oath and drew his hand across his cheek.

"A free shave, Tom," said the next man
with a grin.  "Whiskers won't grow there
no more."

Meanwhile, every twenty or thirty seconds
a shell burst in the neighbourhood of the
cottage, every time nearer.  The noise was
terrific.

"Long time getting the range," said the
lieutenant, holding the receiver to his ear.
"Our boys are just going to start....
Yes; still coming on; range 5000: 400 less
will smash *me*, so be careful." ...

Almost immediately afterwards a British
shell burst in front of the cottage.

"Where did it fall?" asked the officer.

"Behind their supports, sir," replied one
of the men.

"Make it 4800," said the lieutenant
through the telephone.

The words had scarcely left his lips when
there was a terrific crash.  For a few seconds
Kenneth was so dazed as almost to be
unconscious.  When he regained his wits
he found himself lying in darkness on the
floor.  An acrid smell teased his nostrils.
Wondering where he was, and why he was
alive, he tried to rise, and knocking his
head, discovered that he was under a bed.
He crawled out, over a heap of rubbish,
and wriggled to a gap in the back wall, and
into the garden.  And there, emerging from
the framework of what had been a window,
was the lieutenant, his face streaming with
blood.  But he still held the telephone
receiver, which, by one of the freaks of such
explosions, had remained undamaged.

"Cottage bashed to bits," he reported
coolly through the telephone....  "No
answer.  The line's broken somewhere.
Wonder whether it was a German shell or
one of ours.  Hunt about for a rifle.  By
their howls they're coming on.  We'll creep
round into the ditch.  I've got my revolver:
come after me if you can find a rifle."

But Kenneth was diverted from his search
for a rifle by groans from beneath a heap
of debris.  Removing it as quickly as
possible, he released one of the privates, whose
face was cut and bruised and his arm broken.
He was wondering whether to look for the
other men or for a rifle when he saw a
khaki figure running along by the garden
wall towards the ditch.  Another followed,
then another, then groups, all hastening
quietly in the direction of the firing.  The
battalion had come up at last.  Kenneth
continued his search for the men.  One was
dead; the third badly wounded.

Meanwhile the British soldiers, puffing
hard with the run up the hill, were filing into
the ditch, opening fire on the Germans the
moment they arrived.  The enemy's artillery
was silent, no doubt for fear of hitting their
own men.  But British shells were falling
almost incessantly on the German columns
down the hill.  Still the enemy advanced,
losing more and more heavily as the ditch
filled up.  And presently, unable to endure
the terrible fire from the British vantage
position above them, they recoiled and were
soon in full retreat, with still heavier losses,
for by the time they reached the road the
whole of the British battalion was extended
along the firing line.

The British at once set to work to deepen
the ditch for a regular trench.  Before long
the German artillery again began to play,
the fire becoming more and more accurate
as the gunners found the range.  The Red
Cross men were kept busy in tending the
wounded under cover of the ruined cottage.
In a short time the British position on the
ridge was consolidated, and preparations were
made for a line of trenches, somewhat farther
back and less exposed, which would become
the permanent trenches if the Germans were
in sufficient force to return to the attack.

By force of circumstances Kenneth had
taken no part in the fight after the collapse
of the cottage.  But the engineer lieutenant,
who had retired from the firing line as soon
as the ditch was manned, and imperturbably
rummaged among the ruins for the broken
wire, thanked him for his help.

Kenneth wondered why Harry had not
returned.  As soon as he had an opportunity
he enquired about him, and learnt that the
colonel had sent him to the village with a
message.  The road by which Kenneth had
intended to return being closed, he could
only regain his billet by tramping back
until he reached the main road.  But Harry
on the bicycle met him halfway, and they
reached their quarters in time for dinner.
And there they learnt that a portion of the
village which they had captured two days
before had been won back by the Germans.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`EXCHANGE NO ROBBERY`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XVI


.. class:: center medium

   EXCHANGE NO ROBBERY

.. vspace:: 2

In a small room in one of the houses at
the foot of the hill village, bending over a
table spread with papers, sat Lieutenant
Axel von Schwank, an officer of a crack
Prussian regiment, and a scion of an ancient
and exalted family.

He had had an excellent dinner, without
sparing the wine: what need was there to
do so when so many cases had been
obtained gratis in Champagne?  He would
have liked to remain with his brother
officers, convivially employed in the room
on the other side of the passage; but his
colonel had given him some work to do.
That was the penalty of being a musician.

For Lieutenant Axel von Schwank was
accomplished in music.  His rendering of
the Waldstein sonata was wonderful for
an amateur and a Prussian; he sang "The
Two Grenadiers" with *éclat*, as his friends
used to say before the authorities ordered
the French language to be abolished; and
he was renowned for his ability to read the
most difficult score at sight.  With all that
he was full of martial spirit: his cheeks were
seamed with no fewer than three scars,
proud memorials of his student days.

But it was for his musical skill that the
colonel had selected him for the piece of
work on which he was now engaged.  It
was very elementary work for a man who
could play the Waldstein sonata and read
a score by Strauss; any school girl could
have done it; but even the greatest
philosopher has at times to perform the simple
operation of washing his face, and the
lieutenant need not have felt that he was
demeaning himself by a task so much below
his powers.  For what Lieutenant Axel von
Schwank was doing was simply to transcribe
into musical notation, on a sheet of ruled
music paper, the two lines of German with
which the colonel had supplied him.

Surely that is difficult, you say?  He has
only seven letters, A to G, to employ,
representing the seven notes of the scale, and the
German alphabet has twenty-six.  What
about the v's, and w's, and z's in which the
German language is so much superior to the
French?  But in the first place, remember
that the German musician calls H the note
which the less accomplished Englishman
calls B, and in the second place that the
range of most instruments, including the
German flute, extends beyond a single octave.

So that if the lieutenant writes this 

.. figure:: images/img-241a.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: [musical note]

   [musical note]

for A, there is nothing to prevent him
writing 

.. figure:: images/img-241b.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: [musical note]

   [musical note]

for I, and by means of the
sharps and flats he can even arrive at Z,
without exceeding the compass of that
dulcet instrument.

He was busy with his transcription when
he heard a scuffling of feet and the clank of
swords in the opposite room.  His fellow
officers were hurrying to the street door.
The colonel put his head in.

"We are called to the trenches," he said.
"Go on with that, and follow us when you
have done."

The lieutenant had sprung up, turned
round and saluted.  When his superior was
gone, he sat down and set to work again.
After all, he probably reflected, music has
charms: it would preserve him for a few
minutes more from the bullets of those
hateful pigs the English.

The house was in silence.

A little while after the officers had
departed, a strange, unshaven, unkempt face
peered round the edge of the door, which
the colonel had left open.  It was a lined
and somewhat careworn face; the eyes were
bright and wild; the hair, very rough and
tangled, was red.  The face moved slowly
forward; inch by inch a dirty, tattered
khaki uniform showed itself; and the rays
of the lamp on the table glinted on the blade
of a long carving knife, held in the man's
right hand.  He wore no boots, and his
stockings made no sound as he tiptoed
across the room.

.. _`THE INTRUDER IN KHAKI`:

.. figure:: images/img-242.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: THE INTRUDER IN KHAKI

   THE INTRUDER IN KHAKI

Lieutenant Axel, bending over the table
with his back to the door, was absorbed in
his occupation.  But just as the intruder
reached his chair he seemed to become
aware that he was not alone.  He turned
suddenly, his right hand holding the fountain
pen, his left, by some instinct, crushing the
papers into his pocket, and found a
determined face glaring at him, and a carving
knife pointed at his breast.  Before he
could collect himself a sinewy hand clutched
him by the throat, and a voice said in a
hoarse whisper:

"Make a sound and you're a dead 'un."

Whether a knowledge of English was one
of Lieutenant Axel's accomplishments or
not, there was no mistaking the hand, the
knife, the purport of the words.  He turned
pale; his eyes searched the room for a
chance of escape; he was discreetly silent;
and at a significant movement of the
offensive blade he raised his hands above his
head.  A drop of ink fell on his nose.

The captor, in whose expression there was
eagerness, anxiety, an air of listening, loosed
his grip on the officer's throat.

"Take off your uniform and 'coutrements,"
he said, with a jerk of the knife.

Lieutenant Axel hesitated for a moment
only.  The Englishman's face was not
pleasant.  Hurriedly he stripped off tunic,
trousers, belt and boots.

"That'll do," said Ginger, in whose eyes
the look which the German had mistaken
for fury really indicated that he was at his
wits' end to know how to effect the change
of clothes without putting down the knife
and giving his captive an opportunity to
dash for the door.

An idea flashed upon him.  Still pointing
the knife at the officer, he took up the lamp
with his left hand, placed it on the chimney
piece close by, and stripped the cloth from
the table.

"Put it over your head," he whispered fiercely.

Again a movement of the knife abridged
the lieutenant's hesitation.  The shrouding
table-cloth eclipsed the concentrated fury
of his eyes.  Ginger wasted not a second.
He shoved the officer into a corner of the
room, pulled a sofa across to bar him in,
cut a bell-pull with the knife, and drawing
the cord over his head, began to tighten it.
The German began to struggle; for the
first time he spoke.

"You shtrangle me!" came the muffled words.

"Shut up!" growled Ginger, with a premonitory
dig of the knife.  "I won't graze
your skin if you don't make a fuss.  But----"

Lieutenant Axel may have wondered:
this hateful pig was certainly not expert in
frightfulness; he was very soft, like all the
English.  But the struggles ceased; the
officer was quiet while Ginger knotted the
cord about his neck.  And he stood there
in the corner, a statue in table-cloth and
pants, as Ginger, with a quickness learnt on
raw mornings in the barracks at home,
endued himself with the well-tailored
habiliments of a Prussian officer.  The boots were
a trifle large for him.

He listened.  All was quiet.  He threw
a dubious look at the rigid officer.

"Not safe," he muttered.

Hastening to the German, he loosed the
cord, pulled off the table-cloth, and looking
into the hot face said:

"You've got to be tied up.  Make a row
and you know what.  Join your hands
behind you."

While Ginger was tying his hands, and
his feet to a leg of the sofa, Lieutenant Axel
von Schwank cursed him in undertones in
both English and German.  Ginger made no
reply.  But as soon as this part of his work
was finished, he caught up some papers
from the mantelpiece--they were copies of
the Hymn of Hate--twisted them together,
and with a sudden movement thrust them
into the German's mouth.

"There!  Bite them," he muttered.
"Such shocking language!"

He once more threw the table-cloth over
the helpless man's head, put the pickel-haube
on his own, and quietly left the room.
Passing the open door opposite he hesitated
for the fraction of a second, then went in,
gulped a glass of wine, caught up the frame
of a chicken from the table, and digging his
teeth into it ravenously, hurried back, along
the passage, down a dark flight of steps, and
out through the back door into the garden.
He drew quick breaths as he leant against
the wall, gnawing the carcase.  From
somewhere on his right came low sounds he had
learnt to recognise as signs of Germans in
their trenches.  On the left there was silence.
In the distance guns boomed.  After a few
minutes he threw the chicken bones upon
a neglected garden plot, sighed, drew his
hand across his lips, and murmured:

"Blowed if I know!"

The village was a mile or more from his old
trench; he knew that.  It was, he supposed,
wholly in possession of the Germans.  He
would have to go through it up the hill, or
round it, and pass the enemy's trenches
before he could reach his regiment.  And at
any moment the German officer might be
discovered!

"I must skip," he said to himself.

The assuagement of his terrible hunger
had seemed a necessity beyond all others.
Now he realised his peril.  Choosing the
direction that was silent, he stole from
garden to garden, scaling the fences, and
presently found himself in a lane.  It was
uphill to the right: that was his way.  The
lane ended in a street.  There he turned to
the left, but had taken only a few steps
when the tread of feet and the sound of
guttural voices coming towards him sent
him back hastily in the opposite direction.
To his dismay, in a few seconds he heard
other men approaching.  There was no
escape.  On one side he was blocked by a
high wall, on the other a house dimly
lighted.  The night was dark; he wore a
German uniform; unless accosted by a real
officer he might pass safely.  With shrinking
heart but an assured gait he walked boldly
on, close to the wall.

Dark though it was, the soldiers returning
from the trenches recognised the officer's
uniform and went by stiffly at the salute.
Ginger was bringing his hand up smartly when
he remembered that he was an officer, eased
the movement, and dropped his hand again,
quaking lest some terrible blunder in the mode
of his return salute should have betrayed
him.  But in the darkness it passed muster.
No doubt the men were tired.  They went
on.  Ginger, perspiring and limp, leant
against the wall for a moment or two.

"Oh crumbs!" he murmured as he braced
himself and set off again.

A few steps brought him to a lane that
broke the line of houses on his left.  It was
quiet.  He turned into it.  The ground
rose somewhat steeply.

"Must be going right," he thought.

Soon the houses were left behind.  The
lane became a track across even ground,
with a few trees at the borders.  Suddenly
the silence was broken by the sharp crackle
of rifle fire from the upper part of the hill.
Ginger threw himself down and crouched
behind a stout trunk.  There was no reply
from the German trenches, which must be
somewhere below him, he thought.  He
waited patiently until the firing died away,
then rose and crept forward.

His heart sank into his boots when he
came unawares upon a trench and heard
the murmur of guttural voices.  Before he
had time to retreat, a sentinel addressed
him in German.

"Sssh!" Ginger hissed, sliding into the
trench a few feet from the dark figure.
Further down the trench there were dim
lights.  It was neck or nothing now.
Stepping on to the banquette he began to clamber
up to the parapet.  The sentry, no doubt
believing that the officer was engaged on
some special scouting duty, came towards
him, whispering, "Erlauben Sie, Herr
Leutnant," and gave him a leg-up.

Ginger scrambled over, fell on hands and
knees, and crawled over the ground.  How
far ahead were the British trenches he knew
not; the night was too dark for him to be
seen, but at the least noise he would
certainly be taken for a German and become
the invisible target for a dozen rifles.

While he was slowly wriggling forward he
heard a commotion far in his rear--shouts,
the sound of many men on the move.
Probably the muffled lieutenant had been
discovered; the men in the trenches would be
advised of the outrage, and the no man's
land between the hostile forces might be
swept by a fusillade.  Crushing himself flat
he dragged himself on.

Now there were sounds in front of him.
He stopped, panting, listening.  Yes, they
were British voices; were they those of his
own comrades?  What should he do?  If
he called, he might be riddled with shot.
So many Germans could speak English.
The Rutlands would know his voice, but
what if the men in the trenches were not the
Rutlands?

For a few moments he lay inert with
hopelessness.  Then an idea occurred to
him.  On again, inch by inch, feeling out
for barbed wire.  There was none; the
position must have been hurriedly occupied.
The voices were more distinct; his straining
cars caught individual words.

"English, I surrender!" he called in a low tone.

The voices were hushed.

"Who goes there?" said a voice.

"Murgatroyd, of the Rutlands," he replied.

"Keep still."

There was a momentary flash of light.

"Don't fire!" called Ginger, instantly
realising that his uniform must have been
seen.  "I surrender."

"Hands up and come on."

Ginger was just rising when bullets sang
over his head from behind.  He dropped
down again; his last chance was gone; they
would believe he was tricking them.  But
he heard an officer give an order.  There was
no answering fire from the trench in front,
no repetition of the volley from the rear.
He crawled on, dimly seeing the parapet a
few yards away.

"I surrender," he repeated, and crawled
on, over the sandbags, was seized by rough
hands, hauled headlong into the trench, and
held firmly by the neck.

"Got him, sir," said a voice.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`STRATEGY`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER XVII


.. class:: center medium

   STRATEGY

.. vspace:: 2

"Don't throttle me," Ginger murmured,
scarcely able to speak from physical
exhaustion and the reaction from mental
strain.  "Are you the Rutlands?"

"No, we ain't.  Got a special fancy for
the Rutlands, 'eemingly."

"I'm Murgatroyd, No. 939, 17th battalion,
3rd company, 1st platoon," said Ginger feebly.

"Oh, we know all about that.  You
German blighters all speak English, but you
don't come it over us."

"Silence, Barnet; bring him along,"
said the officer.

"Yes, sir.  Says he's a Rutland, sir."

Ginger was taken along the dark trench
to a dug-out lit by a candle-lamp.  The
lieutenant looked at him.  The uniform was
German, from helmet to boots: the Iron
Cross was on his breast; but the dirty,
lined, unshaven face was not that of a
German officer.

"Who do you say you are?" said the
lieutenant, puzzled.

"Murgatroyd, lance-corporal in the 17th
Rutlands, sir: called Ginger, sir: look at
my hair."

He removed the helmet.  The lieutenant
laughed.

"The name suits you," he said.  "But
what have you been up to?"

"Taking French leave and German toggery,
sir," said Ginger.  "Beg pardon; could
you give me a drink?  My mouth's that
parched.  I'm all of a shake."

Refreshed by a cup of tea, Ginger told his
story.

"A regular romance," said the lieutenant.
"You're as plucky as you are lucky.  By
George!  I should like to have seen the
German taking off his uniform.  He must
have been very mad."

"He had a very swanky shirt, sir, but
I couldn't stop to take that.  Can I get back
to my billet, sir?"

"Certainly.  I'll send a man with you
out of the trenches.  You go round by the
church, you know."

"I'll find my way, sir, never fear.  If
you'd give me a cigarette or two...."

"But you'll never get through in that
uniform.  I can't give you a change.  Stay,
I'll write you a note; don't wear the helmet."

"No, sir: I'll send it home to the kids,
along with the Iron Cross."

"You've deserved that, at any rate.
Well, good luck to you.  I wish you were
one of my men."

"Thank you, sir."

.. vspace:: 2

Somewhere about midnight, Ginger, after
certain amusing adventures with the sentries,
knocked at the door of Bonnard's cottage.
There was some delay: then Bonnard opened
the door, lifting a lighted candle.

"Bong swar, m'sew," said Ginger.  "What O!"

"Ma foi!" ejaculated the Frenchman,
throwing up his hands.  "C'est Monsieur
Ginjaire!"

"Ah, wee, wee!  Large as life!  Give me
some grub, m'sew: la soupe; more so;
anything; haven't had a good feed since I
saw your jolly face last."

"Oll raight!  Mais c'est merveilleux,
épatant!  Entrez donc, m'sieur Ginjaire;
'ow d'you do!  Shake 'and!"

"Got the Iron Cross, m'sew," said Ginger
with a grin, flicking the decoration with his
finger-nail.

"Par exemple!" cried Bonnard.  "Ah! vous
avez fait un prisonnier; vous avez pris
un officier prussien, n'est-ce pas?  Bravo!
'ip, 'ip, 'ooray!"

There were growls through the closed
door of the bedroom adjoining.

"Messieurs, messieurs," shouted the
Frenchman excitedly, "c'est que m'sieur
Ginjaire est revenu, avec la croix de fer.
Eveillez-vous, messieurs, pour le voir."

"Shut up; taisez-vous!" called Harry,
sleepily.

"Let 'em wait till morning," said Ginger.
"Give me some grub.  Don't want nothing
else in all this wide world.  I've got a fang,
as you call it.  J'ai fang, comprenny?"

"Ah oui!  Vous allez manger tout votre
soûl."

"Cheese'll do for me ... What O!"

The door had opened, and Harry appeared,
blinking.

"What's all this? ... Great Scot!  Where
on earth ... I say, Ken, it's Ginger!"

"Shut up and go to sleep."

"It's Ginger, I tell you.  Wake up, man.
In a German uniform!"

"Ginger, did you say?" cried Kenneth,
joining him.  "Well, I'm jiggered!"

Ginger, a spoon in one hand, a hunk of
bread in the other, grinned as they rushed
to him, clapped him on the back, shook each
an arm.

"Don't choke me, mates," he spluttered.
"Let me finish this soup, and I'll tell you a
story as beats cock-fighting."

"Tuck in.  They starved you, I suppose--the
brutes!" said Harry.  "Let's get our
coats, Ken: it's chilly.  Bonnard will make
up the fire."

Presently, sitting around the fire, they
listened to Ginger's story.

"I was sitting on the wing of that aeroplane,
thinking of the missus and kids, when
all of a sudden I was knocked head over tip
from behind.  When I came to myself, there
was I strapped in the aeroplane, going
through the sky like an express train.  We
came down in the village over yonder, and
they lugged me to a colonel, and he asked
me a heap of questions, and of course I
wouldn't answer, and then they hauled me
to a room, took away my belt and bay'net
and boots, and locked me in.  Here's the
end of my milingtary career, thinks I, and
only a lance-corporal!

"They gave me some black bread, like
gingerbread without the ginger, and some
slops they called coffee; I called it
dishwater.  I wondered how long I'd last on
fare like that.  But just before morning I
was woke by a touch on my face, thought it
was a mouse, slapped my hand up, and heard
a little voice say 'Oh!'  If I could only
speak French like you!  It was the woman
of the house.  She let me out and took me
down to the cellar, and said something which
I took to mean she'd give me the tip when
to get away, but it might have been
something else for all I know.  Anyway, she
didn't come back."

"A very unsafe place, I should think,
with Germans," said Kenneth.

"There you're wrong.  For why?  'Cos
there was no wine there.  The cellar was
empty.  Hadn't been used for an age, I
should think.  It was almost pitch dark;
just a little air through some holes at the
top of the wall.  Well, there I was.  The
woman had given me some pang and fromarge,
and a so of o--rummy lingo the French,
ain't it?--and for I don't know how long I
waited, thinking she'd come back and tell
me the coast was clear.  But she didn't,
and knowing the Germans were all over the
village I didn't dare to stir of my own
accord.  Besides, when you're expecting
something, you don't trouble for a time.  I
was so sure the woman would come when she
could.

"Down there in the dark, of course, I'd
no notion of how time was going.  I heard
guns booming every now and again, and
sounds in the house above, and being pretty
easy in my mind, as I say, I dropped off to
sleep.  When I woke I finished off my grub,
waiting as patient as a monument for the
word to clear.  Whether it was night or day
I couldn't tell: there seemed to be someone
moving about the house all the time.  At
last I got hungry and mortal sick of being
alone in the dark, and began to wonder what
I'd do if she didn't come back.  Thought
I'd try and have a look round.  I felt my
way to the door, and came to the bottom of
the staircase.  It was light up above, and
I heard the Germans talking overhead, and
didn't dare go up.  I decided to wait till
night and try again.  I went to that
staircase a dozen times, I should think, before
night; the day seemed extra long; and even
when night came I was dished, for a lamp
was burning, and there were more voices
than ever, and I heard someone playing a
flute.  I guessed they'd sacked the woman for
letting me go, and smiled to myself at their
hunting like mad for me all over the place.

"But it was no smiling matter there, I
can tell you.  I didn't sleep a wink that
night, but kept on going to the staircase on
the chance they were napping above.  Not
they!  And I was getting hungrier and
hungrier, and thirsty!--I never knew before
what thirst was.  I felt seedy, and a banging
in my head, and couldn't keep still, going
round and round that cellar till I was nearly mad."

"Why didn't you break out when we
stormed the village?" asked Kenneth.

"How was I to know about that?"

"There must have been a terrific row,"
said Harry.  "Close by, too."

"If I'd known I'd have been out like a
shot, you bet.  But I guess how it was.  I
must have got fair worn out with traipsing
round and round, and fallen asleep at last,
and when you go to sleep like that, nothing
on earth 'ud wake you.  'Specially being
used to the sound of guns in the trenches.
Anyway, when I woke up, I was so mad for
food that I said to myself I'd get out
somehow and chance it.  I went to the staircase;
there was a light above, so I knew it was
night, and I began to crawl up.  But there
was a footstep on the passage, and down I
went again, but not into the cellar; that
gave me the horrors.  I sat in the dark at
the foot of the staircase, in the hope there'd
be quiet above in time.

"Well, I waited hours, it seemed.  I heard
laughing and talking, and knives and forks
going, and that made me mad.  I was just
going to make a dash for it when I heard
the Germans going along to the door.  I
didn't hardly dare to hope they'd all clear
out, but I waited a bit, and all was quite
still, and I crawled up on hands and knees
so the stairs shouldn't creak.  What I was
afraid was that the servants were in the
kitchen, but there wasn't a sound; and I
crept along the passage.

"There was two doors, one on each side,
open.  On the right was the room where
the officers had been dining.  The sight of
that table was too much for me, famished as
I was.  I must eat if I died for it.  I was
just a-going to begin when a little sound
almost made me jump out of my skin.  I
snatched up a carving knife and whipped
round, and there, across the passage, in the
room opposite, was an officer writing at a
table, with his back to me.  Quick as
lightning I thought if I could only get into
his uniform I'd have a chance of getting
through their lines in the dark.  I listened:
the house was quiet as a graveyard: and
with the carving knife in my hand I stole
across the passage."

He described his brief operations with the
German lieutenant and his subsequent proceedings.

"And all I want now," he concluded, "is
a photo of that Frenchwoman to send to the
missus, and I hope she've come to no harm."

"You're a trump, Ginger," cried Harry,
clapping him on the back.  "You've
certainly won that Iron Cross."

"It'll do for the kids to play with,"
remarked Ginger.  "Myself, I wouldn't wear
the thing the Kaiser gives away by the ton.
Ah!  I said I only wanted one thing, but
there's another."

"What's that?"

"Why, to find that farmer that helped
the German chap to strap me to the
aeroplane.  And he pretended to help us
hunt for him.  He's a spy, that's what he is."

"He was taken into our lines.  I don't
know what became of him," said Kenneth.
"You must tell the captain to-morrow all
about it, and he'll make enquiries.  You must
be fagged; get to bed.  Our men will be
jolly glad to have you back again."

Ginger's feat made him the hero of the
battalion.  The colonel promoted him full
corporal, and sent a messenger at once to
the Wessex regiment to enquire what had
become of the farmer.  The reply was that
the French authorities had nothing against
the man, who had lived in the neighbourhood
for years, and he had been allowed to return
to his farm.  Colonel Appleton at once
resolved to arrest him.

"We had better do everything in order,"
he said, to Captain Adams.  "We're in
France, and the authorities might feel hurt
if we dispensed with them.  I'll get the
police commissaire of the district to take the
matter up as there are no French military
officers within thirty miles: it will save
time.  Tell the Three Musketeers to be ready
to go with him to identify the man."

Later in the day the summons came.
The three men found Captain Adams in the
company of a stout little spectacled
functionary, resplendent in a tri-colour sash,
and two red-trousered gendarmes.  The
police commissary not being on the spot,
the maire of the neighbouring town had
undertaken the task.  He had been a
sergeant in the army of 1870, and was full of
zeal.  A motor-car was in waiting.  Into this
the party crowded.  Ginger, clad in a new
uniform with the double stripe on his sleeve,
fraternised with the gendarmes at once,
and conversed with them on the back seat
in a wonderful jargon.  Kenneth and Harry,
as more accomplished in French, sat with
the maire in front.

He was a fussy little man, proud of his
antiquated military experience.  Inclined
to dilate on the details of his service under
Mac Mahon, he was adroitly led by Kenneth
to the business in hand.  Then he was full
of tactics and strategy.

"We must proceed by surprise, messieurs,"
he said.  "That is a sound principle.  I
know the place well.  We will stop at some
distance from the farm house, and advance
through the wood in skirmishing order,
myself in the centre, the gendarmes
supporting me, and you English gentlemen on
the flanks.  Thus we will converge upon
the rear of the farm house, taking care to
arrive simultaneously, and carry the place
by a coup de main."

It occurred to Kenneth that there were
defects in this plan, and that their object
was to arrest a spy, not to carry a fortress.
But he deemed it best to say nothing.  The
maire evidently liked the sound of his own
voice, and was bursting with elation at
having the conduct, after forty years, of
what he regarded as a military operation.

"By this means," he went on, "we shall
cut off the enemy from his line of retreat,
which would afford him good cover if he
could reach it.  That I take to be sound
tactics, messieurs."

About a mile from the farm house, on a
hillside above the wood behind it, they
came upon a shepherd tending two or three
sheep.  He looked up as the car ran up the
hill, called out, "Bon soir, monsieur le
maire!" and watched the car as it
descended on the other side.  It stopped at
the foot, the six men got out, and set off
across the field towards the wood.  The
shepherd, a big man with a wart on his nose,
instantly took to his heels, and running
downhill on the near slope, out of sight of
the maire's party, made at full speed for
the wood, about a quarter of a mile from
the spot where the maire would enter it.

Meanwhile the maire had halted, and was
impressively declaring his final instructions.

"You will advance cautiously through
the wood, with the silence of foxes.  Take
cover, but preserve a good line: that is a
sound principle.  When you hear my whistle,
advance at the double, converging on the
centre--that is myself.  It is well understood?"

Kenneth explained all this to Ginger, who
rubbed his mouth and said:

"He don't happen to be General Joffre,
I suppose!  I reckon we three 'ud do better
without him."

"We're under orders," replied Kenneth.
"We must look out for our chance.  Of
course he ought to have sent some of us to
the other side."

"He ought to have stayed at home to
mind the baby," growled Ginger.  "However!"

They extended, crept through the wood,
and at the given signal dashed out upon the
farm house.  The maire was left far behind.
The doors were open, back and front.
Ginger was first in at the front, Harry at
the back.  The house was deserted.  In the
kitchen the table was laid for a meal; there
was hot coffee in a pot: one of the cups was
half full.  The occupants had evidently left
in haste: the surprise had failed.

The Englishmen rushed out, and Ginger
collided with the maire, who was puffing and
blowing, partly from haste, partly from fury
at having been outstripped.

"My fault, m'sew," said Ginger, picking
him up.  "They've bunked."

Kenneth translated, soothingly.

"They must have escaped by the front
while we approached from the rear," he said.

"My plan was sound.  It would have
succeeded if they had waited," said the
maire.  "And we gave them no warning:
it is incomprehensible."

Meanwhile Harry, Ginger, and the
gendarmes were scanning the neighbourhood,
hastening to various points of vantage.
Suddenly Ginger gave a shout.  Far to the
right, along the road by which the motor
lorry had been driven, three cyclists were
pedalling at full speed away from the farm.
The rearmost was a big man, like the
shepherd whom the party had passed on the hill.
As soon as Harry saw them, he squared his
elbows and ran towards the motor-car,
nearly a mile away, shouting to Ginger to
inform the others.  By the time he drove
back in the car, the maire had decided on
pursuit, and was making calculations of
speed.  In a few moments the car was
flashing along the road.  But the cyclists
had had eight or nine minutes' start.  There
was no sign of them.  They had evidently
quitted the road and made off by one or
other of the by-paths on each side, along
which, even had their tracks been discovered,
the car could not follow them.

"We're done, all through him!" growled
Ginger, in high indignation, with a jerk of
his head towards the maire.

That little man was explaining to Kenneth
that the soundest principles sometimes fail
in practice through unforeseen contingencies.

"But they will not dare to return to the
farm house," he said, "so that we have
accomplished something."

They returned to the village.  Kenneth
gave the colonel a faithful report of the
expedition.  Colonel Appleton let out a hot
word or two.

"Next time we have an arrest to make
we'll do it first and consult the police
afterwards," he said.





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.. _`USES OF A TRANSPORT LORRY`:

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   CHAPTER XVIII


.. class:: center medium

   USES OF A TRANSPORT LORRY

.. vspace:: 2

The Rutlands had a somewhat longer
spell in billets than usual.  They were
awaiting a draft from the base to make good
their losses.  The officers and kind friends
at home had provided books and games as
a relief from the constant mental strain to
which modern warfare subjects a man, and
with these and impromptu smoking concerts
they beguiled the tedium of inaction.

Monsieur Obernai was very active in
effort on their behalf.  Speaking English
with only a trace of foreign accent, he went
freely about among the men, conversing
with them about their experiences, retailing
reminiscences of Alsace, making liberal
presents of cigarettes.  He was very affable
with the officers billeted in his house, and
sometimes joined them in their mess-room.
On one of these occasions he remarked with
a smile that but for the incessant booming
of the guns he would hardly have known
that war was going on, so little did they talk
about it.

"Anything but that, monsieur," replied
Captain Adams.  "'Deeds, not words,' is
our motto.  The whole thing is so frightful
that we try to forget all about it at off times."

"It is so different in our army," said
Monsieur Obernai.  "Our officers are not
capable of such detachment."

"'A still tongue makes a wise head,'
monsieur," said the captain.

Monsieur Obernai looked puzzled, but
smiled amiably.  He had a pleasant smile.

One day the battalion was suddenly
paraded.  A few minutes afterwards a motor
car drove up, and the men recognised with
a thrill that the commander-in-chief had
come to inspect them.  Sir John French
passed up and down the lines, addressing a
man here and there, then made a little speech
to the battalion as a whole, complimenting
them on the work they had done and promising
them stiff work in the future and ultimate
victory.  After visiting a few slightly injured
men who remained in the village, the
field-marshal drove away amid ringing cheers.

The battalion had only just been dismissed
when the whirr of an aeroplane was
heard, and a few seconds later a Taube flew
over the place.

"Look out!" cried somebody.

Some of the men scuttled for cover, others
looked up nonchalantly into the sky.  The
aeroplane was out of range.  Suddenly there
was a terrific explosion.  A column of earth
and smoke shot up from a field a few hundred
yards west of the village.  The Taube was
seen flying back, chased by a couple of
English aeroplanes.

"It almost looks as if they knew the chief
was to be here," remarked Colonel Appleton,
watching the chase among his officers.

"And we only knew it ourselves twenty
minutes before he arrived," said Captain Adams.

"Well, I knew it last night, but I kept it
to myself.  Got word by telephone.  They
may have tapped the wire.  The spies aren't
all scotched yet, Adams."

"The deuce!" exclaimed the captain.
"I'd like to catch some of them."

"The Germans have very little for their
money, though.  Look! our fellows have
brought the Taube down."

Behind the German lines the aeroplane
was whirling in precipitous descent from an
immense height.

"Two more good men lost!" said the
colonel.  "And the spies will go on spying."

Next night the Rutlands were ordered
back to the hill village.  The enemy was to
be turned out at all costs.  Regiments were
coming up in support, and as soon as a
sufficient reserve was collected the attack
was to be driven home.  The men were
fired with grim resolution.  News had just
come in of the employment of poisonous gas
at Ypres, miles away to the north, and as they
cleaned their bayonets they vowed to avenge
their fallen comrades from Canada.

The upper part of the hill had been held
against repeated assaults by the Germans.
The opposing lines crossed the main street,
about ninety yards apart.  Between them
the houses had been demolished by one side
or the other.  The houses above the British
trenches, and those below the German, were
occupied by snipers.  The British snipers
had an advantage in being above the enemy;
on the other hand they were more exposed
to artillery fire, and their positions had been
a good deal knocked about.  To protect
themselves from the fire of these snipers the
Germans had made the parapets of their
trenches unusually high.  This handicapped
them to some extent in replying to rifle fire;
but they had compensated themselves by
installing a large number of machine guns,
which were certain to take a heavy toll of
the attackers when they charged down the hill.

Soon after the Rutlands reached their
position at the top of the hill, in the dusk,
a lorry came up from the rear with supplies
for the next day.  Owing to the rearward
slope the vehicle could be brought to within
a few yards of the trenches without being
seen by the enemy, and since horses were
employed as less noisy than a motor engine,
supplies had been regularly brought up in
this way without the knowledge of the Germans.

Kenneth and Ginger, with other men,
were unloading the lorry when a second lorry
appeared near the foot of the hill on the
British side.  It was heavily laden, and the
slope proved to be too much for the two
horses drawing it.

"Old cab horses, they are," said the
driver of the lorry that was being unloaded.
"Not fit for this job.  I'll have to go down
and lend a hand."

Placing a brick under one of the wheels,
he unharnessed his horses and led them
down the hill.  Kenneth and Ginger were
carrying a box between them to the
communication trench running downwards from
the crest when a shell came whizzing over from
the German side and exploded near the lorry
they had just left, bespattering them with
earth, felling one or two of their comrades,
and sending the rest scampering into the
trench.  The shock of the explosion caused
Kenneth to drop his end of the box: both
he and Ginger were dazed for a few seconds.
When they looked round, they were aghast
to see the lorry moving backward down the
hill.  Only half its load had been removed,
and though its motion was at present slow,
it would gather speed and, unless it could
be checked, would crash into the second
lorry to which the driver was now yoking
his horses.  For a moment they were
paralysed by realisation of the frightful danger.
Men, horses, stores would all be hurled and
crushed in hideous wreck.  The heavy
vehicle was already rolling on more quickly
when with mutual decision they left the
box and sprinted after it.  The case was
desperate.  Neither of them had any idea
how the catastrophe could be averted.  It
would scarcely be possible to loose the skid
and throw it into position while the lorry
was running, faster every moment.

More fleet of foot than Ginger, Kenneth
rushed ahead, overtook the lorry, and, a
thought striking him, seized the pole, and
exerting all the force of which he was
capable while running at speed, twisted it
to the left.  The lorry swerved, appeared to
hesitate, then ran into a shallow ditch at
the side of the road and turned over.  The
pole, striking against a tree, snapped off,
flinging Kenneth to the ground.

"Whew!" gasped Ginger, running down.
"That was a near thing."

"Twenty yards," said Kenneth, rising
and rubbing his elbow.

"George! that was a near 'un!" panted
the driver, who had hastened up.  His face
was very pale.  "I owe you one, mate.
Nothing else would have saved us.  Hope
you ain't hurt."

"Nothing to speak of.  The lorry has
come off the worst."

"George! you're right!  It's what you
may call snookered.  Done for, that's what
it is.  We'll have to shove it out of the way
before I can bring my horses up, and leave
it.  What you say, Bill?"

"Can't do nothing with it," said the
driver of the second lorry.

"Take my tip, and put the skid on when
you get yourn up, mate.  George! it give
me a fright and no mistake."

They drove the second lorry to the summit,
leaving Kenneth and Ginger to carry up the
spilled load.

"The lorry isn't so badly damaged as he
thinks," said Kenneth.  "The brake is bent,
and a good deal of wood is chipped off, but
the thing will run all right."

He so informed the driver when he met him.

"All the same, you don't catch me driving
it back to-night," said the man.  "It's
nearly dark, the road's bad enough when
you're too complay, as the Frenchies say.
I'll leave it to the morning at any rate."

It was dark when Kenneth and Ginger
had finished their task.  They took their
places with their platoon in the firing
trench.

"Think they'll have any gas for us
to-morrow?" said Ginger.

"It's not very likely," said Kenneth.
"The gas the Germans have been using lies
low; it would be more useful to us."

"Well, why shouldn't we use it too?
What's the odds whether you're killed with
gas or shrapnel?  Gas don't hurt, I expect,
and it's a deal cleaner."

"Upon my word I don't know," Kenneth
replied.  "There's no logic in it.  But
somehow it goes against the grain.  You poison
dogs with gas, not men."

"Besides, it's taking an unfair advantage,"
said Harry.  "It depends on the wind--and
there's no crossing over at half-time."

The notes of a flute came along the trench
from the left.

"Stoneway's at it again," said Ginger.

"The fellow can play," remarked Harry.
"Good stuff, too.  He doesn't confine
himself to the trumpery tunes of the musical
comedies.  That's a bit of Mozart."

"I've heard that tune somewhere," said
Ginger reflectively.  "I haven't got much
of an ear for music, but I know them
twiddles.  Why, hang me, I heard 'em when
I was in that cellar.  Somebody was playing
'em upstairs."

"It's a concerto every flautist knows,"
said Harry.  "The Germans certainly lick
us in music."

"A pity they're not satisfied with that,"
said Kenneth.

They listened in silence till the conclusion
of the piece, and joined in the general
applause.  After a short interval the
performer began again, now, however, playing
detached notes that had neither time nor tune.

"Those exercises, again!" said Ginger.
"That's the worst of music.  My little
Sally is learning the pianner, and she makes
me mad sometimes with what she calls the
five-finger exercises.  'For mercy's sake
play us a tune,' says I.  'I've got to practise
this, Dad,' says she.  'What's the good of
it?' says I.  'Teacher says it's to get my
fingers in order,' says she.  Anybody'd think
her fingers weren't the same as other people's;
they're all right; a very pretty hand she's
got....  He's stopped, thank goodness!
Pass up the word for 'Dolly Grey,' mates."

Silence presently reigned.  The men
reclined, dozing.

"I say, Harry," said Kenneth.

"What is it?" replied Harry sleepily.

"I've been thinking.  We might make
good use of that lorry."

"How?"

"Let it loose on the Germans."

"Send it down-hill, you mean?"

"Yes."

"What's the good?  They'd hear it
coming and clear out of the way.  It might
break their wire and a bit of the parapet--hardly
enough damage to be worth the fag."

Kenneth was silent for a little.  Then he
roused Harry again.  There ensued a long
conversation between them, at the conclusion
of which Kenneth crept along the trench
to find Captain Adams.  It was some time
before he returned.

"The colonel agrees," he said in some
excitement.  "There's no time to lose.  We've
got to attack at four o'clock.  Wake up,
Ginger."

Ginger having been informed of what was
intended, he and Kenneth stole from the
trench, up the communication trench, and
set off at a trot towards their billets.  Two
hours later they returned in a motor car,
which halted at the eastern foot of the hill.
They carried up a large rectangular object,
and at a second journey a number of bolts
and a heavy hammer.  Soon the men in the
trenches heard the clank of hammering, and
Harry suggested that the lorry was being
repaired.

His comrades were in fact at work on the
lorry.  The object which they had brought
up consisted of several sheets of corrugated
zinc which Ginger, a skilled mechanic, had
bolted together in the village.  This he was
now fixing upright over the rear axle of the
lorry, so that it overlapped the body of the
vehicle on each side.  With the assistance
of Kenneth and the driver of the car he was
turning the lorry into an armoured car, of
unusual form, it is true, but likely, they
thought, to serve its purpose.  When the
zinc was in position, they filled up the
space between the sheets with sand, and so
completed a bullet-proof screen about nine
feet wide.  Then, going into one of the
half-ruined houses, they brought out a number
of planks and carried them to the centre of
the firing trench.  There, over a space of
about ten feet, the parapet was quickly
demolished, and the planks were laid across
side by side, forming a bridge.  The men of
the platoon had meanwhile been taken into
their confidence, and when Captain Adams
called for volunteers to cut the wire
immediately in front, several men crawled out and
did the work without being detected.

These preparations having been completed,
half a dozen men quickly pushed the lorry
over the crest of the hill to within a few
yards of the trench.  Favoured by pitch
darkness, and moving with the utmost
quietness, they had everything in readiness by
three o'clock, without the knowledge of the
Germans, and even of the more distant
platoons of their own battalion.

The orders of the day were already known
along the British line.  They were to attack
just before dawn.  The hill was to be
cleared of Germans.  It was a task for
rifles, bayonets, and hand grenades.  They
could expect no help from artillery, so narrow
was the space dividing the lines.

At the appointed moment, twenty men of
the 1st platoon formed up in file behind the
lorry, each carrying a hand grenade in
addition to his rifle.  The word was given.
They pushed the lorry off; on each side the
other men scrambled out of the trenches;
some crawled forward and cut the wire on
either side.  Then, without uttering a sound,
they charged down the hill.

The lorry rumbled slowly over the plank
bridge, on to the road, and gathered way as
it bumped and jolted down towards the
German trenches, the twenty men running
behind it.  When it had covered a dozen
yards it was greeted with rapid rifle fire
from the German sentries.  There were
shouts from below, but before the enemy
realised the manoeuvre, a shower of hand
grenades fell among them, the lorry crashed
through the wire entanglement, broke through
the parapet, and turned a somersault over
the trench.

Then a yell burst from the throats of the
Rutlands, and the air was rent by the
crackle of rifles all along the line except at
the spot where the lorry had fallen.  There
Kenneth and his companions sprang into
the trench, and pushing along to right and
left, cleared it with the bayonet, the
panic-stricken Germans fleeing before them or
flinging up their hands in token of surrender.
Confusion spread along the whole line.  The
British arrangements had been thoroughly
made.  While the Rutlands charged down
the main street, other regiments were
sweeping through the streets and alleys on either
side, raking them with fire from machine
guns, flinging bombs into the occupied
houses, chasing the Germans at the point of
the bayonet.  Here and there were furious
hand to hand encounters; at one point a
mass of the enemy's reserves surged forward
and gained ground, only to be borne back
in turn by the irresistible dash of British
supports.  In half an hour the streets were
cleared, and while some of the British
blocked up the captured trenches against
counter-attack, others rushed the houses to
which the enemy still clung, and stormed
them one after another.

All this had happened in the grey chill
dawn.  By the time the sun's rim appeared
over the distant horizon the position was
completely won, at comparatively slight
cost.  More than two hundred prisoners
remained in British hands, and among them
Ginger, who had escaped with a few bruises,
recognised the lieutenant to whom he had
been indebted for a uniform.

When the roll was called, it was found
that of the twenty men who had followed the
lorry only one had been wounded.

"A capital idea of yours, Amory," said
Captain Adams.  "It's a pity we can't
always be going down-hill behind screens.
There's a fortune awaiting the man who
invents a bullet-proof protection for infantry
in the field."

"Wouldn't that result in stale-mate, sir?"

"Well, if it put an end to warfare by
machinery it would give us a chance for our
fists!  Men will fight, I suppose, to the
crack of doom.  It would be much healthier
if we could fight out our quarrels without
killing one another."





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.. _`SUSPICIONS`:

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   CHAPTER XIX


.. class:: center medium

   SUSPICIONS

.. vspace:: 2

Next day fresh regiments were moved up,
and the Rutlands, who had twice borne the
brunt of the struggle for the hill, were sent
into reserve and promised a long rest.  They
went back to their old quarters, now a good
deal farther behind the firing line.

One night, when Kenneth was returning
alone to his billet, he heard the thin squeak
of a bat, and glanced up, though it was so
dark that he could scarcely expect to see
the animal.  To his surprise, he caught a
momentary glimpse of it as it flew across
the lane.  It was as though a moonbeam
had flashed upon the wings for the fraction
of a second.  But the moon was not up.
The sky was clouded; only one or two stars
were visible; and the rays of a star were
too feeble to light up the flittering wings.

Kenneth was puzzled.  He stood still,
looking up, waiting for the bat to reappear.
It was circling somewhere above him; he
could still hear it faintly squeaking; but it
did not again come within view, and after a
while the sound ceased.

"Extraordinary!" thought Kenneth.

He was about to move on when he heard
the grating of a key in a lock, so slight that
it might have passed unnoticed had he not
been listening intently for the bat.  In this
quiet lane, with trees on one side and a
garden wall on the other, the sound
challenged curiosity.  The villagers were
forbidden to leave their cottages after dark;
Kenneth himself had only chosen this route
as a short cut to his billet; he could not help
suspecting that one of the inhabitants was
breaking rules and entering his house by a
back way to avoid detection.

It was no part of his duty to play the
policeman, and he would have gone on his
way if he had not at this moment heard
a light, hasty footfall, as of one walking
quickly but cautiously.  Instinctively he
remained still, keeping close to a tree trunk.
A man passed him, moving very quietly,
almost touching him.  He appeared to be
in uniform.  A second later he heard the
key again.  Then all was silent.

He was now interested, suspicious.  The
man was going in the direction from which
he had come.  Who was he?  What was he
doing at this late hour?  For a moment he
thought of following him; but he was averse
to getting a man into trouble for what was
perhaps a harmless escapade, and he decided
to proceed.

A few steps brought him to a door in the
wall.  The man must have been silently let
out, and must have left without a word, the
door being then as quietly closed and locked
behind him.  The wall, as Kenneth knew,
bounded the gardens of two or three of the
larger houses.  It might perhaps be worth
while to find out from which house this
nocturnal visitor had departed so stealthily.
It was too dark to see; Last Post would be
sounded in a few minutes; all that he could
do was to put a mark upon the door which he
could identify next day.  He scratched a
cross with his pocket-knife on the right side
of the door, on a level with the keyhole,
which was on the left, and went on, treading
lightly by instinct.

So soon as he could get off next day, he
returned to the lane.  The door he had
scratched was one of three.  Two were
close together.  The wall was too high for
him to look over; he could only discover
the house to which his door belonged by
going to the end of the lane, and round to
the front of the houses.  The gardens were
large; it meant a walk of some considerable
distance.  His most certain course was to
number his paces along the lane, and take
an equal number along the street which the
houses faced.  He went along with even
stride, and in the lane counted 239 steps.
In the street the 237th pace brought him to
the front gate of Monsieur Obernai.  This
must be the house.  His paces had probably
differed a little, or the street and the lane
were not quite parallel.

"It's all right," he thought.  "The man
was one of the officers' servants, perhaps,
sent out on some late errand."

But as he went away, this explanation
did not appear quite convincing.  A servant
sent on an errand by one of the officers
quartered in Monsieur Obernai's house would
not have been let out stealthily, and locked
out.  Furtiveness implied an uneasy
conscience.  Upon this thought came a sudden
recollection of Madame Bonnard's dislike of
the Alsatian.  He had seldom himself come
into contact with the village philanthropist;
it seemed to him now that he had even
avoided him.  "It never struck me before,"
he thought, "but I haven't felt the least
inclination to meet him.  Yet some of the
men are quite keen on him."

On the previous night he had not
mentioned the incident to his comrades.  It was
not in Kenneth's nature to be expansive.
He had told them about the sudden
appearance and disappearance of the bat, which,
however, they, not having seen it, had not
regarded as extraordinary.  But now, a
little uneasy, he decided to tell them
everything.  He felt the need of talking it over.

"Capting wants you," said Ginger, meeting
him at the door of Bonnard's cottage.

"What's it about?" he asked.

"That uniform I borrowed; they found
some papers in the pockets, in German,
seemingly, and Capting wants you to read 'em."

Kenneth went back to Monsieur Obernai's
house, was admitted, and found Captain
Adams with other officers in the mess-room.

"Ah, Amory, we want you," said the
captain.  "You know German.  What do
you make of that?"

He handed him a scrap of paper, straightened
out after having been crumpled, on
which were written two lines in German.

"Tell our friend it is now due east,"
Kenneth translated.

"That's what I told you, Adams," said
one of the lieutenants.  "There's nothing
in it."

"Well, look at these, Amory."

He handed to him the contents of
Lieutenant Axel von Schwank's pocket-book.
Kenneth looked them over: a copy of the
Hymn of Hate, a cutting from the *Cologne
Gazette* announcing the blowing up of
Woolwich Arsenal, some letters from members of
the Schwank family, one or two memoranda
of no importance.  He translated them aloud
one by one.

"Nothing of any value to us," said the
captain.  "I think we might give the letters
back to the prisoner.  His people idolise
him, evidently.  Well, the only thing left
is this."  He took up a crumpled piece of
music paper.  "Schwank seems to write
music in his spare time--a setting of the
Hymn of Hate perhaps.  Our find is no
use.  Very good, Amory, that's all."

But Kenneth, rendered suspicious of everything
by his recent discoveries, remembered
that he had found a similar piece of music
paper in the trench some weeks before.

"Before you tear that up, sir," he said,
"I think I'd let Randall have a look at it.
We found a paper like it in our trench."

"You think there may be something in it?"

"I'm rather suspicious, sir, but I'd rather
say no more until Randall has seen it."

The captain sent a man to find Harry.
When he arrived, Kenneth asked him whether
he still had the piece of music paper he had
found.  After rummaging in his pocket Harry
drew the paper out.  The two pieces were
laid side by side.

"Well?" said the captain, when Harry
had examined them for a few moments.
The other officers crowded round in an
interested group.

"They are not alike except in one
particular," said Harry: "that neither is a
recognisable tune."

He whistled the notes.

"Very ugly, certainly," said the captain.
"Any further suggestion, Amory?"

"What do you call that note in music?"
Kenneth asked Harry, pointing to the first
note on Stoneway's paper.

"B flat," said Harry.

"And the next?"

"E, then D, then E again; the next is
A sharp above the stave."

"What are you driving at, Amory?"
asked the captain.

"I was wondering if I could make a word
out of it, but *bedea* doesn't begin any word
either in English or German that I know of.
Try the other paper."

"F sharp, A, G, E," said Harry.

"It's the sharps and flats that bother
me," said Kenneth.  "Do they ever call
them anything else?"

"No ... Wait a bit.  The Germans call
B flat B, and B natural H.  I remember
toiling away at a fugue on the name BACH
years ago.  I say, give me a minute.  I've
got a notion."

He sat down at the table, took out
pencil and began to write the names of the
notes on the lines and spaces, beginning
with A on the second leger line below the
stave.  Having written H on the third line,
instead of writing A on the second space he
wrote I, and on the third space J.  Then he
paused, looking reflectively at the notes
originally written.  Except in the case of
B flat, all the accidentals were sharps.

"We'll try this," he said.

On the third space he wrote C sharp, and
called it K, and so proceeding, completed
the alphabet by writing two notes, the second
sharpened, on each line and space.  Z fell
on the third space above the stave.

"Now try again," he said to Kenneth.

Kenneth took up von Schwank's paper,
and read off the names of the notes in this
new notation.  The first four letters were
*Sage*.

"That's good German," he said.

"Go on," said the captain.  "This is
very interesting."

Kenneth wrote down the letters as he
read them.

"By George!" he cried.  "In English
it reads: 'Tell our friend it is now due
east.'"

"What's due east?" Captain Adams
exclaimed.  "Try the other paper."

"The first word is *bedeutend*, 'considerable,'"
said Kenneth, writing.  "The
English of it all is, 'Considerable movement
in the rear.'"

The officers glanced at one another.

"We've had a spy among us, then," said
the captain quietly.  "Where did you get
this, Randall?"

Harry explained, without however naming
the man whom, in common with Kenneth,
he now suspected.  But his reticence was
unnecessary.

"It's that fellow Stoneway, without a
doubt," said one of the lieutenants.  "He
makes the most weird sounds on his flute.
You'll arrest him, Adams?"

"Wait a little.  There's a deep-laid
scheme here.  There's more than one man
involved.  Who is 'our friend'?"

"I must tell you what I saw last night,
sir," said Kenneth.

He described the stealthy exit from the
gate in the lane, and the discovery that it
led from Monsieur Obernai's garden--behind
the house in which they were then assembled.
Captain Adams whistled under his breath.

"Rather serious for our polite Alsatian
host," he said.  "We must get to the
bottom of this.  It won't do to act too
hastily.  We must catch the fellow at it."

"But hang it all, we can't stop here under
the roof of a spy," said a lieutenant.

"If I may suggest, sir," said Kenneth,
"do nothing yet.  Nobody knows about
this except ourselves.  If you leave the
house or show any sign of suspicion, those
who are involved will smell a rat, and we
shall perhaps fail to learn all there is to be
learnt.  Wouldn't it be better if you go on as
usual, and let Randall and me, and perhaps
Murgatroyd, keep a watch on the lane?"

"But Obernai won't appear in the lane,"
said the captain.

"Very likely not, sir.  I believe his work
is done in the house.  You remember the
lamp signalling we saw in the church tower."

"That's in our hands now."

"Yes, and the light now comes from due east."

"You think that's it?  Have you seen a light?"

"No, sir; but last night I caught a
sudden glimpse of a bat flying above my
head in the lane; it was for only the tenth
of a second, just as if the bat had crossed a
pencil of light.  But I was puzzled, because
there was no light visible.  I can't help
thinking that it has some connection with
this discovery, and if you'll give us leave
to keep a look-out at night, we may make
sure of it and give you positive grounds for
taking action."

"What about Stoneway?  Hadn't we
better keep him under observation?"

"Leave him to us, sir.  I'd give him
plenty of rope."

"And keep enough to hang him afterwards,"
said the lieutenant of his platoon.

"Very well, Amory," said the captain.
"You'll of course say nothing to any one
else.  We'll do our best to keep up
appearances before Obernai, though upon my word
it will tax our histrionic powers.  If you
make any discovery, don't come to the
house; report to me elsewhere."

"If we can collar the men, sir?"

"Oh, in that case do so, and put them
under lock and key.  But don't attempt too
much: it's of great importance to get hold
of the whole gang, for I imagine that we've
been unawares in a wasps' nest all this time.
We must scotch them all."

"One thing, sir, before we go: will you
tell us the arrangement of the house?"

"So far as I know it.  Our billets are all
in the front.  Obernai and his servants live
at the back.  On this floor there's a long
passage between us.  Upstairs there's no
communication between back and front:
the doors are blocked up, to secure our
privacy, Obernai said."

"There's a back staircase, then?"

"No doubt."

"How many servants are there, sir?"

"Two men, whom Obernai brought with
him from Alsace, he says.  I've caught a
glimpse of an old woman, too, but she rarely
leaves the back premises."

With this information Kenneth and Harry
left the house, and returned to their billet to
consult Ginger.





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.. _`MONSIEUR OBERNAI's ATTIC`:

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   CHAPTER XX


.. class:: center medium

   MONSIEUR OBERNAI's ATTIC

.. vspace:: 2

"I can't hardly believe it," said Ginger,
when Kenneth recounted the facts and his
inferences.  "Never thought Stoneway had
the pluck."

"A man without pluck is no good as a
spy," Harry remarked.

"True.  He must have had an awful
time of it, always wondering if he'd be
found out, or copped by a German bullet."

"What strikes me most forcibly is the
thoroughness of the German organisation,"
said Kenneth.  "You'll always find
individuals ready to take their lives in their
hands, for patriotism or pay; but you
won't always find things so perfectly
organised.  If we're right, Stoneway must have
been employed first as an anti-recruiting
agent, with orders to enlist and act as spy
within our ranks if that seemed feasible."

"I see through that post-card business
now," said Ginger.  "He gave our address
to some pal in London so that the Germans
should know where he was, and make use of
him.  And then to put it on to me!--a dirty
trick.  But what can you expect when the
Kaiser lets his men do dirty tricks and
gives 'em Iron Crosses for it?  Whatever
he is, Bill is no gentleman."

"Stoneway is a German, I suppose?"
said Harry.

"Steinweg--not an uncommon German
name," replied Kenneth.  "But now, how
are we going to set about our job?"

"What was that you said about a bat?"
said Harry.  "I didn't pay much heed."

Kenneth again described the curious
phenomenon, adding:

"That's why I want to do something
more than watch the lane.  If the man I
saw was Stoneway, we might catch him
again, but give time for Obernai to clear
away anything suspicious.  It seems to me
that what we have to do is to get into the
house, and have a look at the back premises."

"That means we should have to get in at
the back secretly?"

"Yes; if we went to the front openly we
shouldn't get farther than the lobby."

"Suppose it turns out that we are quite
wrong, wouldn't it be rather a serious matter
to break into a French house?  Obernai is
popular: it might not be easy to persuade
the French authorities that we were not
burglars."

"Let's chance that," said Ginger.  "For
any sake don't let the police know beforehand,
or the whole thing will be messed up like
it was with that maire.  Besides, if it comes
to that, we've got the capting behind us."

"I quite agree," said Kenneth.  "We'll
risk it.  Well now, judging by the length
of the side garden wall, the house is about
sixty yards from the lane.  With these
mysterious comings and goings the back
gate will very likely be watched; at any
rate there'll be somebody about to let
visitors in and out.  I vote we get into the
next garden, and clamber over the wall into
Obernai's.  We shall have to wait until the
people in the next house are asleep--say
eleven o'clock to-night."

About half-past ten, when the village was
dark and silent, the three men left their
billet and, to avoid detection, took a
round-about route to the lane.  The air was rather
chill, and a light mist hung low over the
ground.  Each of the three carried a revolver,
and they had agreed not to speak except in
case of necessity, and then only in whispers.

Creeping along softly under cover of the
trees that lined one side of the lane, they
passed Obernai's door, and halted opposite
the door of the next house, a few yards
beyond.  Here they waited, listening.  All
was silent.  Then Kenneth tiptoed across
the lane and quietly tried the door of
Obernai's garden.  It was bolted.  The next
door opened to his touch.  Joined by his
companions, he entered and found himself
in a garden much overgrown with weeds.
They stole along by the side wall, and
halted under it about fifty feet from the house.

"Give me a leg-up," Kenneth whispered.

In a few seconds he was down again.  The
top of the wall was spiked with glass.
Stripping off his overcoat, he mounted again,
laid the coat over the glass, and dropped
lightly to the ground, after listening awhile
to make sure that nobody was about.  The
others followed him in turn.

The back of the house was quite dark.
There was no sound within or without.
Through the mist they could just distinguish
the path leading to the back door.  Kenneth
crossed the grass to it, stole along, and
cautiously turned the door handle.  The
door resisted his slight pressure: it was
locked or bolted.  He looked up the wall.
The windows were out of reach.  It seemed
that the house could only be entered forcibly.

He was returning to consult his
companions when he suddenly heard behind
him a sound like the ringing of a muffled
electric bell inside the house.  Hurrying on,
he crouched with the other two at the foot
of the wall and waited.  In a few moments
they heard a bolt drawn.  They could see
nothing, but apparently the door was being
opened.  Then from the doorway came a
low whisper: "Geben Sie Acht," followed,
as by an instantaneous after-thought, by
the French words, "Prenez garde."  There
was no reply, but a slight rustle approached,
and the three watchers, peering over the
bushes, saw a woman passing in almost
absolute silence down the path to the back wall.

Had she left the door open?  Kenneth
was thinking of stealing up to it to find out
when it occurred to him that the woman had
perhaps gone to let in a visitor.  It would
be well to wait a little.  Very soon he was
justified.  The figure of the woman, scarcely
distinguishable in the gloom, reappeared.
At her heels was a man.  They passed along
the path within twenty feet of the lurking
watchers; neither spoke a word.  Presently
came the sound of a bolt gently shot, then
all was silent again.

It was pretty clear that the bell had been
rung from an electric push in the garden
door.  Kenneth had seen none; it was
probably concealed.

"Shall I find it, and get the door opened?"
he whispered to his companions.

"That would give the whole show away,"
said Harry.  "We don't want to raise an alarm."

"Then I don't see that we can do anything.
The only thing is to tell the captain
to-morrow, and he'll arrest the lot."

"Why not?" said Ginger.  "If they're
innocent, they won't mind--not much."

"But we shan't catch them at it.  You
may be sure there's nothing suspicious to
be found in the daytime.  We've got very
artful men to deal with."

They were still discussing their course of
action when they heard the bolt drawn
again.  Next moment there was a perpendicular
streak of dim light, which widened
rapidly.  The door was open; the room or
lobby behind was now lit by a small oil
lamp, turned very low.  Through the illuminated
rectangle of the doorway came a man
and a woman.  The man was in a British
uniform.  They stepped down to the path.

"Stoneway!" whispered Ginger.

Pressing themselves almost flat on the
ground they watched the two figures walking
down the path, the end of which, towards the
garden wall, was scarcely reached by the
feeble rays from the doorway.

"Now!" murmured Kenneth.

Bending double, they hastened across the
grass, and slipped in through the doorway.
They were in a lobby.  At the further end
of it was a closed door.  There were doors
on both sides, one of them slightly open.  In
the corner on the right was the staircase
leading to the upper floor, and on the
square-topped newel-post stood the small oil lamp.

Taking in all this at a glance, Kenneth
peered through the open door on the left.
The room was dark and untenanted.  He
beckoned to his companions.  They followed
him into the room.  In less than a minute
the woman returned from the garden, closed
and bolted the door, and was moving along
the lobby when the stairs creaked slightly,
and an old man came tottering down.

"Bier, noch Bier," he said in low tones to
the woman.

The woman muttered something, took the
lamp from its place, and accompanied by the
old man went into one of the rooms off
the lobby on the opposite side from the three
watchers.  They were heard clumping down
wooden steps, no doubt leading to the cellars.

"Now's our chance," Kenneth whispered.

The three stole out of the room into the
dark lobby, and crept on hands and knees
up the staircase.  The landing above was
equally dark, except in the far corner on the
right, where light came through a door
slightly ajar.  The three men tiptoed to it.
Kenneth peeped in.  The room was apparently
Obernai's bedroom.  No one was in it;
the bed had not been disturbed.  A candle
was burning on the dressing-table.  Pieces
of heavy French furniture afforded means of
concealment.

"You stay here," whispered Kenneth.
"I'll go on."

He slipped off his boots, blew out the
candle, and crept out.  There was no sound
from below.  On the opposite side of the
landing was a narrow staircase, leading, he
presumed, to the attics.  Up this he groped
his way.  At the top there was a passage,
at the end of which, on the right, was a
streak of light on the floor.  Feeling his
way along, he felt two other doors, the
handles of which he turned in succession,
hoping to slip into a dark room as he had
done below.  Both doors were locked.  At
this moment, hearing the footsteps of the old
man coming slowly up the bottom flight of
stairs, he slipped back to the dark end of the
passage and stood watching there.

The old man mounted the upper flight.
A can clinked against the post as he turned
to the right towards the door beneath which
the light shone.  He tapped on the door;
it was opened; the man passed in.  Kenneth
heard a guttural voice say: "Zwei Batterien
heute morgen----"  The remainder of the
sentence was cut off by the closing of the
door.  In a few moments it opened again;
the old man came out, closed it behind him,
and sat down on a stool at the end of the
passage, either as sentry, or to be at hand if
more beer was required.

Kenneth scarcely dared to breathe.  What
was going on in that room?  What could he
do?  After several uncomfortable minutes
the door suddenly opened--too wide for his
comfort--and a voice said:

"Frisch auf!  Die Lampe ist beinahe erlöscht."

The door was shut.  The old man rose
wearily and hobbled downstairs, no doubt
to fetch oil or whatever was used for the lamp.

Kenneth felt that the time had come for
action.  The mention of the lamp left no
doubt in his mind of the work on which the
occupants of the room were engaged.  Waiting
until the old man had reached the foot
of the lower staircase, he stole down to the
room where he had left his companions and
told them in a few whispered words what he
had discovered.  They removed their boots
and stood behind the door, prepared to
follow the man when he came up again.

In a few minutes he returned.  They
waited until he had ascended the upper
staircase, then followed him noiselessly, saw
him enter the room, and crept along to the
door, drawing their revolvers.  From within
the room came the smell of acetylene gas.
Standing back against the wall, they waited
for the reopening of the door.  As soon as
the old man reappeared, they started forward,
pointing their revolvers at him, pushed
him before them and entered the room.

There was an exclamation, a moment of
confusion.

"Hands up, or I fire!" cried Kenneth in German.

There were four men in the room, three
seated at a table drinking beer, the fourth
occupied with a steel lever operating a disc
that worked from side to side in front of a
bright bull's-eye lamp.  Kenneth's warning
had checked a movement on the part of two
of the seated men towards their coat pockets.
The man at the lamp, who had faced round
at the sudden intrusion, was quicker than
his companions, and drew his revolver at
the moment of turning.  But as he was
raising his hand Harry fired.  His revolver
fell to the floor with a crash, and with a curse
he clasped his broken wrist with the other hand.

The three others had fallen back into their
chairs.  A stream of beer from an overturned
mug trickled from the table to the
floor, for one tense moment the only sound
in the room.  The men's faces were pale
and contorted with fear.  They sat, limp,
with no spirit for resistance, recognizing
that the game was up.

Kenneth and Harry glowed with a quiet
satisfaction.  Ginger was more demonstrative.

"Blest if I haven't got him at last!" he
exclaimed, smiling triumphantly at one of
the prisoners.  "It's the chap that downed
me when I was sitting on that aeroplane."

"Monsieur Obernai is unfortunate in his
friends," said Kenneth.

Obernai glared at him; it was not the
expression of a bland philanthropist.  One
of his companions, a big man with a wart on
his nose, did not wear the look of pious
resignation that might have been expected
from a man dressed in a cure's soutane.  The
features of the fourth man seemed familiar
to Kenneth, though at the moment he could
not recall the time or place of his seeing him
before.

"We'll just hand these men over to the
captain," said Kenneth.  "Then we'll deal
with Stoneway."

After ordering the men to empty their
pockets, they marched them downstairs,
and through the door connecting the back
part of the house with the officers' billets.
Captain Adams, like the others, had gone
to bed.  He came to the door of his room
in his pyjamas.

"We've caught Obernai and three others
signalling with a lamp, sir," said Kenneth.

"You don't say so!  What have you
done with them?"

"They are below, sir."

"Take them off to the provost-marshal:
I don't want to see them."

"Stoneway is in it, sir, I am sorry to say."

"Arrest him, as quickly as you can.
Then come back and tell me all about it."

The spies were marched off to prison.
Then Ginger with a corporal's guard went
to the cottage where Stoneway was billeted.
Stoneway was not there.  Enquiry and search
were alike fruitless.  It was not until an
hour later that Ginger hit on a possible
explanation of his absence.

"By jinks!" he exclaimed, with a gesture
of vexation.  "I forgot the old woman."

He hastened back to Obernai's house.
The old woman had disappeared.

On returning to the house some time
before, Kenneth and Harry found the officers,
all in their night attire, examining the
signalling apparatus in the upper room.

"They are all safely locked up, sir,"
Kenneth reported.

"That's well.  How did you catch them?"

Kenneth gave an account of the night's work.

"You did very well, Amory," said the
captain.  "The battalion is lucky in
having the Three Musketeers.  And the whole
brigade is indebted to you.  This is a
fiendishly ingenious arrangement."

He explained the working of the apparatus.
The acetylene lamp faced one end of a long
tube, which pierced the outer wall of the
house.  By means of a delicate mechanism
the position of the tube could be altered by
millimetres.  The length of the tube
prevented the rays from converging like the
rays of a searchlight, so that the light,
directed eastward, was not likely to be seen
except by a person at an equal height.

"I have no doubt at all," said the captain,
"that some miles away in the German lines
there is an operator with a similar lamp, at
the same height and in the same straight
line with this.  We have kept a look-out
but seen nothing; no doubt the cessation
of the flashing gave them warning.  To
them the light would appear like a star on
the horizon, and the alternate exposure and
dousing of it by means of the disc made the
signals.  No wonder we've got it unexpectedly
hot sometimes."

Here Ginger came in.

"Stoneway's got away, sir," he reported.
"I guess the old woman gave him the tip."

"Poor wretch!  He can't get far.  I'll
circulate the news at once and he'll be
hunted down.  Now get to your billets,
men; I shall want your evidence in the
morning."

As they were returning through the silent
streets, talking over the exciting incidents of
the night, Kenneth suddenly exclaimed:

"By George!  I remember now.  That
fellow was the man I saw talking French to
Stoneway at St. Pancras station."





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   CHAPTER XXI


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   MARKED DOWN

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About four o'clock on the following
afternoon, an old French peasant was walking
along a road some fifteen miles to the west
of the village in and around which the
Rutlands were billeted.  His lean form was
bent, wisps of white hair straggled from
beneath his broad soft hat, his legs dragged
themselves along.  There was no one else
upon the road, which was remote from the
main highways that had been for nine
months streams of traffic; but the old man
glanced continually right and left, before
and behind, as if searching for something
with his shrewd bright eyes.

He came to a wood abutting on the road,
and, after another look round, disappeared
among the trees.  A few minutes later he
halted, then took a few slow careful steps
forward, and stopped again, looking down
with a curious eagerness.  There, stretched
on the fresh springing grass of a glade
spangled with bright spots of sunlight, lay
a man asleep.  He was clad in the uniform
of a British soldier, without a belt.  His
cap had fallen off, his arms were thrown out,
his face was half turned to the ground.
Perhaps the Frenchman noticed that the
regimental badge was missing from his cap,
the regimental letters from his shoulders.

After standing for a few moments
contemplating the prostrate form, he bent
down and touched the man's shoulder.
The soldier started up instantly; the
expression of his eyes might have betokened
anxiety or fear; but it changed when he
saw that his disturber was just a simple
old Frenchman, with mildness written all
over his brown ruddy face, withered like an
apple long laid by.

"Bon soir, monsieur," said the Frenchman.
"It is a hot sun, to be sure, but
monsieur l'Anglais will catch a chill if he
remains here asleep."

"Ah yes, I must be going," said the
soldier, in French surprisingly good for an
English private.  "I have lost my
regiment.  I fell lame and dropped behind.
Can you get me anything to eat?"

"Why yes, if you will be content with
simple fare.  These are hard times,
monsieur.  But who would not suffer for France?
Come to my cottage hard by; I can at least
give you a crust and a mouthful of wine.
We French and you English are comrades,
to be sure."

"Is your cottage far?"

"A few steps only; it is quite by itself.
You would get better food in the village,
but that is two miles away."

"I'll get a good meal when I rejoin my
regiment.  All I want now is a little to help
me on my way."

"Yes, yes, I understand.  Come then; it
is only a few steps."

He set off through the wood, the soldier
limping by his side, crossed the road, and
came within a few minutes to a little timber
cabin.  There the soldier, sitting on a low
stool, ate ravenously the bread and strong
cheese given him, and drank deep draughts
of the thin red wine.  The old man watched
him benignantly, thinking perhaps that he
ate as though seeing no near prospect of a
full meal.

"You haven't seen my regiment, I
suppose?" said the soldier.

"How can I tell?" replied the Frenchman,
lifting his hands.  "I have seen many
regiments; whether yours was among them
I do not know."

The soldier noticed a glance towards his
shoulders.

"I gave my badges away to the French
girls," he said lightly.  "They clamoured
for souvenirs....  There's no chance of my
running into the Germans?"

"God forbid!" said the old man.  "They
are a little nearer, it is said; they are using
poisonous gas against our brave men.  But
we do not lose heart.  They will never beat
us, never.  When I look at the mists on
yonder hills every evening----"

"Mists, are there?"

"Why yes: they creep over the hills at
sunset; one can hardly see a dozen metres
ahead.  They say the Germans crept up a
night or two ago in the mist, and took an
English trench."

"Ah! well now, my regiment was marching
to Violaines; you can put me in the
way?  I must find them before night."

"To be sure."

He went with him to the door, and pointed
out the direction.  The soldier offered to
pay for his food, but the old man, with many
gestures, refused to accept a sou.  He bade
his guest good-bye, returned to his cabin and
shut the door.  In his eyes was a look of
satisfaction mingled with a strange eagerness.
He hurried to the little window facing
the road, and looked out from behind the
curtain.  The soldier was limping along in
the direction his host had indicated.  But
presently he stopped and threw a furtive
glance backward towards the cabin, another
up and down the road, then walked on
again.  His lameness had been suddenly
cured; his gait was even and agile.  And
instead of continuing in the way shown him,
he turned off abruptly and re-entered the
wood.  Beyond it lay those hills which
night clothed with mist.

The old man waited a little, then issued
from his cabin, trotted to the road, and, he
also, re-entered the wood.  In a few minutes
he was back again, and set off at the best
speed of his aged legs for the village two
miles away.  Arriving there, he went straight
to the mairie, and peered through the wire
frame on the door, within which a notice in
large handwriting was posted.  It was headed
in big letters,

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   SOLDAT ANGLAIS,

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and beneath was a methodical description,
in numbered sentences, of the deserter for
whose discovery a reward was offered.  The
old man ticked off the details one by one;
then, his bright little eyes gleaming, he
knocked at the door.

It was a small and unimportant village.
The maire was of scarcely higher social
standing than his visitor.  He had no
gendarmes at his disposal: all the able-bodied
men were in the ranks.

"He is a big man, Jacquou?" he said.

"He!  Big, brawny, a regular beef-eater."

"Then we will telegraph.  The English
must arrest him.  For us it would be dangerous.
But what if they delay, and he escapes?
There would go that fine reward, Jacquou,
like the maid's chickens."

"Ah!  Trust me for that, monsieur le
maire, trust me for that," said the old man
as he hobbled away.

Something less than two hours later the
soldier emerged from his hiding-place in the
wood, at a point at some little distance from
the road.  He came out slowly, nervously,
glancing around and behind him.  There
was in his eyes that look of anxiety and
fear which had appeared in them at the
moment of his being roused by the old man.
It was like the look of a hunted animal.
He gazed towards the hills.  Their ridges
were sharp and clear against the sky.  He
looked up, and behind.  Shafts of sunlight
were still piercing the foliage.  He glanced
at the watch on his wrist, appeared to make
a mental comparison between the time
indicated and the position of the sun, made
restless movements, then went a few steps
back among the trees.  From his pocket
he took a map, and spreading it on a trunk,
in a sunbeam, he studied it anxiously.

Just as he was folding it up, he heard a
low throbbing hum far away to the south.
Hurriedly replacing the map in his pocket,
he went to the edge of the wood, and peered
into the southern sky.  The sound was
faint; no speck dotted the cloudless blue.
But the hum was drawing nearer.  He
dropped his eyes, and scanned as much of
the road as he could see.  Nothing was in
sight.  His mouth worked; a furrow
between his eyes deepened; he rubbed his
hand across his brow, and shuddered to
see how damp it was.  Again he looked
along the road.  That humming made him
impatient: was it really growing louder, or
were his nerves redoubling the sound in his ears?

At length, with the suddenness of one
tired of waiting, he turned his back on the
sound, and plunged into the depths of the
wood northward.  He had gone but a
hundred yards when he stopped with a
start, chilled to the marrow.  Somebody
was there, close by.  He stared; his breath
came and went in pants; but after a moment
he went on with a smothered laugh that was
like a groan.  It was only a peasant boy
whittling a stick.  The boy looked up as he
passed, idly, vacantly.  The solitary British
soldier apparently did not interest him.  He
dropped his eyes again, fell again to his
whittling, and softly hummed the air of
"Au clair de la lune."

The soldier went on among the trees.  He
was not startled when he caught sight of
another boy collecting twigs blown down
by the gales of early spring.  He had even
so far recovered as to throw a pleasant
"Bon soir!" to the boy as he passed.  The
boy looked up; he gave no response, not so
much as a smile.  Were the boys hereabouts
deaf, or silly, or what?  The man looked
back; the boy, on one knee, an arm stretched
out as with arrested movement, was watching him.

On again.  Insensibly his pace was quickening.
At the sight of a third boy away to
his left, apparently doing nothing, he felt
unreasonably angry.  Was the wood full of
boys?  Why had he not seen them before?
Why were they so quiet?  Himmel!  Was
he being watched?  He would soon stop
that.  He turned about, glowering, to scare
away these disturbers of his peace of mind.
They had vanished.  Relieved, almost amused
at his nervousness, he strode on, glancing up
at the waning sunlight through the trees to
make sure of his direction.

Suddenly, a little ahead on his right, he saw
the flicker of a boy's white blouse amid the
undergrowth.  With a muttered execration
he slanted towards it, but was checked by
a slight rustle on his left.  Swinging round,
he caught a glimpse of a small figure flitting
among the trees.  He stopped.  His limbs
were shaking; streams of perspiration
trickled down his face.  Now at last he
knew the meaning of these stealthy
movements, this sinister silence.  The boys had
been set to dog him.  The certainty
appeared to paralyse him.  He stood swaying
on his feet, glancing around for a means of
escape from the toils that he felt closing
about him.  Mechanically he raised his
hand and dashed from his face the rolling beads.

The spell was broken by the sound of a
motor cycle and shouts behind.  As though
galvanised, he made a sudden break at full
speed ahead, in a line between the two boys
he had last seen.  Looking neither to right
nor to left he pounded on until he was
breathless.  Then he paused to listen.  Had
he shaken off the trackers?  The whirr had
ceased, the shouts were fainter; he was
beginning to think that he had gained a few
minutes when a small figure scurried through
the undergrowth in front of him.  He started
again, bearing to the left.  A glint of white
amid the green intensified his terror.  He
lost command of himself.  No longer did
he take the dying sunlight as his guide.
Blindly, desperately he struggled on, every
moment changing his course.  The sounds
had ceased; there was not even a rustle to
warn him.

Presently he stopped, aghast.  Before him
was the patch of grass which his weight had
flattened.  He had been moving in a circle.
Then a gleam of hope lit the darkness of his
despair.  He was now near the road;
perhaps his pursuers had penetrated far into
the wood.  He pushed on, staggering, came
to a sunken track, and, supporting himself
against a tree trunk, looked fearfully around.
There, to the left, at the side of the track,
were two motor bicycles.  The old Frenchman
was keeping guard.  No one else was
in sight.  Gathering his strength, he rushed
headlong towards his last hope.

The old man heard his footsteps, looked
up, and raised his feeble voice in a quavering
shout.  There was no time for a second.
The soldier hurled himself upon the aged
peasant, felled him with one blow, sprang
to one of the bicycles, started the engine, ran
the machine a few yards and leapt into the
saddle.  With every jolt as the bicycle
gained speed on the rough track his heart
grew more elate.  Whither the track led he
neither knew nor cared; his whole soul was
in the present.

Right and left of him were the trees.  He
had ridden perhaps thirty yards when, from
the right, a khaki-clad figure dashed into the
track just ahead.  The fugitive increased his
speed and rode straight on.  If the man
stood in his way, so much the worse for him.
Then, in a moment, Atropos cut the thread.
As the bicycle was whizzing by, the man
flung himself bodily upon it.  There was a
crash, a thud, then silence.

A few minutes later, Kenneth and Harry
came hurrying to the scene.

"Is he killed?" asked the latter, as
Kenneth stooped over the body lying on the
machine.

"No, he's alive," replied Kenneth, after
thrusting his hand into the man's tunic.

He unscrewed the stopper of his flask, and
poured weak spirit into the unconscious
man's mouth.  Not until Ginger had
recovered consciousness did they turn their
attention to the other man, whose case,
indeed, they had recognised at the first
glance as hopeless.  When he was hurled
from the machine, his head had struck a
tree trunk on the opposite side of the track.
Stoneway was dead.

Yet he had survived his partners.  Perhaps
half-an-hour before, Obernai and the rest of
the gang, after a drumhead court-martial,
had paid the last penalty.  Spying, at the
best, is ignoble work; and when it is
accompanied, as in Obernai's case, with the
treacherous abuse of hospitality and the
betrayal of trusting folk, the spy's doom
awakens no sympathy.





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.. _`'RECOMMENDED'`:

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   CHAPTER XXII


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   "RECOMMENDED"

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"A fig for reasons!" exclaimed Madame
Bonnard.  "We women can do without
them.  Monsieur Amory will bear me witness;
I said that wretch Obernai was a villain."

"Pardon, mon amie," said her good man,
mildly: "you said you did not like his voice."

"Well, was not that enough?  I did not
like his voice: therefore he was a villain.
It is plain."

"The Kaiser is said to have a very
pleasant voice," remarked Kenneth, slily.

He was sitting in the Bonnards' kitchen,
awaiting the return of his comrades for supper.

"I should like to ask his wife what she
thinks of it," said Madame Bonnard.  "Poor
woman! what a terrible thing it will be
for her when she goes with him into banishment,
and she has to listen to him all day long!"

"Think you they will banish him, monsieur?"
asked Bonnard.

"Who can tell?" Kenneth replied.  "We
have got to catch him first."

"Ah!" sighed Madame.  "It is terrible.
The end is so far off.  Every day I dread to
hear bad news of my poor boys.  And to
think that there are millions of poor women
whose hearts are bleeding through that
wicked man!  What punishment is great
enough for him?  I should like to think
of him worn and hungry, roaming the world
like the Wandering Jew, with no rest for
his feet, always seeing with his mind's eye
the burning cottages, the maimed children,
the weeping mothers, the poor lads he has
massacred."

"Is it fair to put it all down to the
Kaiser?" said Kenneth.

"Yes, it is fair," cried the good woman,
vehemently.  "Poor people copy their
betters.  His soldiers do what they know
will please him.  Has he said one word of
blame for all the dreadful things they have
done?  Like master, like man."

"I say, old man, here's the post," shouted
Harry, bursting in at the door.  "Two letters
and a thumping parcel for you; nothing but
a newspaper for me....  Good heavens!"

"What is it?"

"The curs have sunk the Lusitania....
Oh! this is too awful.  That gas they are
using--the poor fellows die in agony.  It is
sheer murder."

Kenneth read the paragraphs Harry indicated.
The Bonnards had left the room.

"We must just stick it," said Kenneth,
handing the paper back.  "Nothing but a
thorough thrashing will bring them to their
senses.  And there are silly stay-at-home
people who talk of not humiliating them!
The Germans are doing their best to show
that the world would gain if the whole race
were wiped out."

"Are there no decent people among them at all?"

"Of course there are, and they'll be
horrified when they learn the truth.  There's
my partner, Finkelstein, as good-hearted a
man as ever breathed.  He'd never believe
the brutes capable of the crimes they are
committing.  But the people are being fed
with lies.  I can't but think a lot of them
will sicken with disgust by and by."

"I only wish we could hurry it up....
Hullo, here's Ginger!  I didn't expect to
see you, old man."

"I'm going home, boys!" cried Ginger,
with a smiling face.  His arm was in a
sling.  "Doctor says I'll be no good for
three months.  Shoulder dislocated!  My
word! he did give me beans when he
jerked it into place.  But I'm going home,
home!  Fancy how the missus and kids
will jump!  Not but what I'm sorry to
leave you."

"I don't grudge you a rest, old chap,"
said Harry, "but we shall want you back
again.  Listen to this."

He read parts of the newspaper paragraphs.
Ginger swore.

"I tell you what," he cried.  "I'm not
going home to do nothing.  I'm going
recruiting.  That's what I am.  I've spouted
a lot of rot in my time; they'll hear some
hard sense now.  By George! and if I don't
have at least a score of recruities to my
name, call me a Dutchman.  But I've got
some news for you--better than those horrible
things in the paper."

"What's that?" asked Kenneth.

"Well, you see, Colonel sent for me, and
we had a talk, man to man; Colonel's a
white man, that's what he is.  As a matter
of fact, I've done a bit of spouting this
evening.  But the chaps didn't want much
talking to; they're all right.  Verdict
unanimous this time.  To cut it short, that
promise of yours is off.  The chaps say
they're quite satisfied with their job.  Not
one of 'em wants to go back to the works
until they've seen the Kaiser get his deserts.
And Colonel is writing home to say he wants
commissions for you in the Rutlands."

"You mean it, Ginger?"

"That's just what I do mean.  When I
come back, you'll be officers.  There's just
one thing.  If I should happen at first to
forget to salute----"

"Oh, rot, man!" cried Harry.  "You're
a good sort."

"You'll thank them all for us?" said
Kenneth.  "I'm afraid we shan't be allowed
to stay with the Rutlands, though.  Army
rules are against it.  But we'll see.  Now,
come and have some supper.  Bonnard
will give us something to celebrate the
occasion."

"Can't," said Ginger.  "I'm under orders
to start in half an hour.  Going back with
a batch of crocks.  It's good-bye.  But I
hope I'll see you again."

He shook hands with them warmly.  They
were all moved.  Each felt that in the
chances of war they might never meet again.
But, in the British way, they hid their
feelings.  Only as Ginger went out he turned
in the doorway and said:

"Mind you keep your heads down in the trenches."

Kenneth and Harry were silent for a while
as they ate their supper.

"Well, old boy?" said Harry presently.

"Yes.  It's good, isn't it?"

"The governor will be happy....  I say, Ken!"

"Well!"

"I can't make you out.  You remember
when I met you at Kishimaru's.  Well, you
seemed jolly casual--not a bit keen.  Yet
it was you who set the ball rolling at the
works, and you've been keen enough since."

"Oh well!" was Kenneth's indefinite response.

"Really, I couldn't help thinking you
were hanging back.  It was because you'd
been seedy, I suppose."

"Perhaps."

"What was wrong with you?  German measles?"

"Not so unpatriotic, my son.  A trifle
run down, that's all."

"Wanted a holiday, I suppose.  The war
scrapped holidays for most people."

"I daresay."

"Hang it all!  What's the mystery?
What do you mean by 'daresay' and
'perhaps' and so on and so forth?  What had
you been doing?"

"You're a persistent wretch, Randy.
Well, I don't mind telling you now.  I was
in Cologne when war was declared, and I
had a pretty strenuous time for a fortnight."

And he proceeded to outline the adventures
which the present writer has related elsewhere.

"Well I'm jiggered!" exclaimed Harry.
"Why on earth didn't you tell me?"

"Well, you see, you as good as told me
I was slacking."

"What's that to do with it?  All the
more reason to open up."

"Give me a cigarette, old chap; it's all
right now."

A bugle called them to their feet.  They
flung on their equipment and hurried out.
The battalion was assembling in the market place.

"The trenches again?" asked Kenneth
of a sergeant.

"No.  We're ordered north."

"Advancing at last?"

"Let's hope so.  Fall in!"

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THE END

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PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
BRUNSWICK ST., STAMFORD ST., S.E.,
AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

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.. class:: center large

   HERBERT STRANG'S WAR STORIES

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent

A HERO OF LIÉGE: A STORY OF THE GREAT WAR.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent

SULTAN JIM: A STORY OF GERMAN AGGRESSION.

.. vspace:: 1

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THE AIR SCOUT: A STORY OF HOME DEFENCE.

.. vspace:: 1

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THE AIR PATROL: A STORY OF THE NORTH-WEST FRONTIER.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent

ROB THE RANGER: A STORY OF THE GREAT
FIGHT FOR CANADA.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent

ONE OF CLIVE'S HEROES: A STORY OF
THE GREAT FIGHT FOR INDIA.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent

BARCLAY OF THE GUIDES: A STORY OF
THE INDIAN MUTINY.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent

THE ADVENTURES OF HARRY ROCHESTER:
A STORY OF MARLBOROUGH'S CAMPAIGNS.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent

BOYS OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE: A STORY
OF THE PENINSULAR WAR.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent

KOBO: A STORY OF THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent

BROWN OF MOUKDEN: A STORY OF THE
RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR.

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.. pgfooter::