Action Front Part 5

He and the other officer conferred hastily. Rawbon caught a few words about "counterattack" and "quicker the better" and "all the men I can find," and then the other officer moved hurriedly down the trench and men came jostling and crowding to the end of the Handle, just clear of the corner where it turned into the Pan. A few sandbags were pulled down off the parapet and heaped across the end of the trench, the machine-gun was run close up to them and a couple of men posted, one to watch with a periscope, and the other to keep Verey pistol lights flaring into the Frying Pan.

Two minutes later the other officer returned, spoke hastily to Courtenay, and then calling to the men to follow, jumped the low barricade and ran splashing out into the open hollow with the men streaming after him. A burst of rifle fire and the shattering crash of bombs met them, and continued fiercely for a few minutes after the last of the counter-attacking party had swarmed out. But the attack broke down, never reached the barricade beyond the Pan, was, in fact, cut down almost as fast as it emerged into the open. A handful of men came limping and floundering back, and Courtenay, waiting by the machine-gun in case of another German rush, caught sight of the face of the last man in.

"Rawbon!" he said sharply. "Good Lord, man! I'd forgotten--What took you out there?"

"Say, Loo-tenant," said Rawbon, panting hard. "There's no crossin' that mud puddle Fry-Pan. They're holding the barricade 'cross there; got loopholes an' shootin' through 'em. Can't we climb out an' over the open an' on top of 'em?"

"No good," said Courtenay. "They're sweeping it with maxims. Listen!"

Up to then Rawbon had heeded nothing above the level of the trench and the hollow but now he could hear the steady roar of rifle and maxim fire, and the constant whistle of bullets streaming overhead.

"I must rally another crowd and try'n' rush it," said Courtenay. "Stand ready with that maxim there. I won't be long."

"I've got a box of bombs here, sir," said a man behind him.

Courtenay turned sharply. "Good," he said. "But no--it's too far to throw them."

"I think I could just about fetch it, sir," said the man.

"All right," said Courtenay. "Try it while I get some men together."

"Here y' are, chum," said the man, "you light 'em an' I'll chuck 'em.

This way for the milky coco-nuts!"

Rawbon watched curiously. The bomb was round shaped and rather larger than a cricket ball. A black tube affair an inch or two long projected from it and emitted, when lit, a jet of hissing, spitting sparks. The bomb-thrower seized the missile quickly, stepped clear of the sheltering corner of the trench, threw the bomb, and jumped back under cover. A couple of bullets slapped into the wall of the trench, and next moment the bomb burst.

"Just short," said the thrower, who had peeped out at sound of the report. "Let's 'ave another go."

This time a shower of bullets greeted him as he stepped out, but he hurled his bomb and stepped back in safety. A third he threw, but this time a bullet caught him and he reeled back with blood staining the shoulder of his tunic.

"You'll 'ave to excuse me," he remarked gravely to the man with the match. "Can't stay now. I 'ave an urgent appointment in _Blighty_.[Footnote: England. A soldier's corruption of the Hindustani word "Belati."] But I'll drink your 'ealth when I gets to Lunnon."

Rawbon had watched the throwing impatiently. "Look here," he said suddenly. "Just lemme have a whale at this pitching. I'll show 'em some curves that'll dazzle 'em."

The wounded man peered at him and then at his cap badge. "Now 'oo the blank is this?" he demanded. "Blimey, Joe, if 'ere ain't a blooming Universal Plum-an'-Apple Provider. 'Ere, 'oo stole the strawberry jam?"

"You let me in on this ball game," said Rawbon. "Light 'em and pa.s.s 'em quick, and see me put the Indian sign on that bunch."

A minute later Courtenay came back and stared in amazement at the scene. Two men were lighting and pa.s.sing up bombs to the sergeant, who, standing clear out in the opening, grabbed and hurled the b.a.l.l.s with an extraordinary prancing and dancing and arm-swinging series of contortions, while the crowded trench laughed and applauded.

"Some pitchin', Loo-tenant," he panted beamingly, stepping back into shelter. "Hark at 'em. And every darn one right over the plate. Say, step out here an' watch this next lot."

"No time now," said Courtenay hurriedly.

"They're strengthening their defense every minute. Are you all ready there, lads?"

"I don't know who this man is, sir," said a sergeant quickly. "But he's doing great work. Every bomb has gone in behind the parado there. He might try a few more to shake them before we advance."

"Behind the parakeet," snorted Rawbon. "I should smile. You watch! I'll put some through the darn loopholes for you. Didn't know I was pitcher to the Purple Socks, the year we whipped the League, did you? Gimme thirty seconds, Loo-tenant, and I'll put thirty o' these b.a.l.l.s right where they live."

As he spoke he picked up two of the bombs from a fresh box and held them to the lighter. As he plunged out a shower of bullets spattered the trench wall about him, but without heeding these he began to throw.

As the roar of the bursting bombs began, the bullets slowed down and ceased. "Keep the lights blazing," Rawbon paused to shout to the man with the pistol flares. "You slide out for the home base, Loo-tenant, and I'll keep 'em too busy to shoot their nasty little guns." He commenced to hurl the bombs again. Courtenay stepped out and watched a moment. Bomb after bomb whizzed true and hard across the hollow, just skimmed the breastwork, struck on the trench wall that showed beyond and a foot above it, and fell behind the barricade. Billowing smoke-clouds and gusts of flame leaped and flashed above the parapet.

Courtenay saw the chance and took it. He plunged out into the lake of mud and plowed through it towards the barricade, the men swarming behind him, and the sergeant's bombs hurtling with trailing streams of sparks over their heads.

"Come on, son," said the sergeant. "You carry that box and gimme the slow match. I pitch better with a little run."

Courtenay reached the barricade and led his men over and round it without a casualty. The s.p.a.ce behind the barricade was deserted--deserted, that is, except by the dead, and by some unutterable things that would have been better dead.

The lost portion of trench was recaptured, and more, the defense, demoralized by that tornado of explosions, was pushed a good fifty yards further back before the counter-attack was stayed.

At daybreak next morning Courtenay and the sergeant stood together on the road leading to the communication trench. Both were crusted to the shoulders in thick mud; Rawbon's cap was gone, and his hair hung plastered in a wet mop over his ears and forehead, and Courtenay showed a red-stained bandage under his cap.

"Rawbon," he said, "I feel rotten over this business. Here you've done some real good work--I don't believe we'd ever have got across without your bombing--and you won't let me say a word about it. I'm dashed if I like it. Dash it, you ought to get a V.C., or a D.C.M. at least, for it."

"Now lookahere, Loo-tenant," said Rawbon soothingly. "There's no need for you to feel peaked--not any. It was darn good of you to let me in on these sacred no-admittance-'cept-on-business trenches, and I'm plumb glad I landed in the mix-up. It would probably raise trouble for you if your boss knew you'd slipped me in; and it sure would raise everlasting trouble for me at home if my name was flourishin' in the papers gettin'

an A.B.C. or D.A.M.N. or whatever the fixin' is. And I'd sooner have this"--slapping the German helmet that dangled at his belt--"than your whole darn alphabet o' initials. Don't forget what I told you about the dad an' those Schwartzeheimer friends o' his, the cousins o' which same friends I've been blowin' off the earth with bomb base-b.a.l.l.s. Let it go at that, and never forget it, friend--I'm a Benevolent Neutral."

"I won't forget it," said Courtenay, laughing and shaking hands. He watched the sergeant as he bestrode the motor-cycle, pushed off, and swung off warily down the wet road into the morning mist.

"What was it that despatch said a while back!" he mused. "Something about 'There are few who appreciate or even understand the value of the varied work of the Army Service Corps.' Well, this lot was a bit more varied than usual, and I fancy it might astonish even the fellow who wrote that line."

DRILL

"_Yesterday one of the enemy's heavy guns was put out of action by our artillery._"--EXTRACT FROM DESPATCH.

"Stand fast!" the instructor bellowed, and while the detachment stiffened to immobility he went on, without stopping to draw breath, bellowing other and less printable remarks. After he had finished these he ordered "Detachment rear!" and taking more time and adding even more point to his remarks, he repeated some of them and added others, addressing abruptly and virulently the "Number" whose bungling had aroused his wrath.

"You've learnt your gun drill," he said, "learned it like a sulphur-crested c.o.c.katoo learns to gabble 'Pretty Polly scratch a poll'; why in the name of Moses you can't make your hands do what your tongue says 'as me beat. You, Donovan, that's Number Three, let me hear you repeat the drill for Action Front."

Donovan, standing strictly to attention, and with his eyes fixed straight to his front, drew a deep breath and rattled off:

"At the order or signal from the battery leader or section commander, 'Halt action front!' One orders 'Halt action front!'--At the order from One, the detachment dismounts, Three unkeys, and with Two lifts the trail; when the trail is clear of the hook, Three orders 'Limber drive on.'"

The instructor interrupted explosively.

"You see," he growled, "you know it. Three orders 'Limber drive on.'

You're Three! but did you order limber drive on, or limber drive off, or drive anywhere at all? Did you expect drivers that would be sitting up there on their horses, with their backs turned to you, to have eyes in the backs of their heads to see when you had the trail lifted, or did you be expectin' them to thought-read that you wanted them to drive on!"

Three, goaded at last to a sufficiency of daring, ventured to mutter something about "was going to order it."

The instructor caught up the phrase and flayed him again with it. "'Was going to,'" he repeated, "'was going to order it.' Perhaps some day, when a bullet comes along and drills a hole in your thick head, you will want to tell it you 'was going to' get out of the way. You maybe expect the detachment to halt and stand easy, and light a cigarette, and have a chat while you wait to make up your mind what you're going to say, and when you're going to say it! And if ever you get past recruit drill in the barracks square, my lad, and smell powder burnt in action, you'll learn that there's no such thing as 'going to' in your gun drill. If you're slow at it, if you fumble your fingers, and tie knots in your tongue, and stop to think about your 'going to,' you'll find maybe that 'going to' has gone before you make up your mind, and the only thing 'going to' will be you and your detachment; and its Kingdom Come you'll be 'going to' at that. And now we'll try it again, and if I find any more 'going to' about it this time it's an hour's extra drill a day you'll be 'going to' for the next week."

He kept the detachment grilling and grinding for another hour before he let them go, and at the end of it he spent another five minutes pointing out the manifold faults and failings of each individual in the detachment, reminding them that they belonged to the Royal Regiment of Artillery that is "The right of the line, the terror of the world, and the pride of the British Army," and that any man who wasn't a shining credit to the Royal Regiment was no less than a black disgrace to it.