Action Front Part 7

A NIGHT PATROL

"_During the night, only patrol and reconnoitering engagements of small consequence are reported."_--EXTRACT FROM DESPATCH.

"Straff the Germans and all their works, particularly their mine works!" said Lieutenant Ainsley disgustedly.

"Seeing that's exactly what you're told off to do," said the other occupant of the dug-out, "why grouse about it?"

Lieutenant Ainsley laughed. "That's true enough," he admitted; "although I fancy going out on patrol in this weather and on this part of the line would be enough to make Mark Tapley himself grouse.

However, it's all in the course of a lifetime, I suppose."

He completed the fastening of his mackintosh, felt that the revolver on his belt moved freely from its holster, and that the wire nippers were in place, pulled his soft cap well down on his head, grunted a "Good-night," and dropped on his hands and knees to crawl out of the dug-out.

He made his way along the forward firing trench to where his little patrol party awaited his coming, and having seen that they were properly equipped and fully laden with bombs, and securing a number of these for his own use, he issued careful instructions to the men to crawl over the parapet one at a time, being cautious to do so only in the intervals of darkness between the flaring lights.

He was a little ahead of the appointed time; and because the trench generally had been warned not to fire at anyone moving out in front at a certain hour, it was necessary to wait until then exactly. He told the men to wait, and spent the interval in smoking a cigarette. As he lit it the thought came to him that perhaps it was the last cigarette he would ever smoke. He tried to dismiss the thought, but it persisted uncomfortably. He argued with himself and told himself that he mustn't get jumpy, that the surest way to get shot was to be nervous about being shot, that the job was bad enough but was only made worse by worrying about it. As a relief and distraction to his own thoughts, he listened to catch the low remarks that were pa.s.sing between the men of his party.

"When I get home after this job's done," one of them was saying, "I'm going to look for a billet as stoker in the gas works, or sign on in one o' them factories that roll red-hot steel plates and you 'ave to wear an asbestos sack to keep yourself from firing. After this I want something as hot and as dry as I can find it."

"I think," said another, "my job's going to be barman in a nice snug little public with a fire in the bar parlor and red blinds on the window."

"Why don't you pick a job that'll be easy to get?" said the third, with deep sarcasm--"say Prime Minister, or King of England. You've about as much chance of getting them as the other."

Lieutenant Ainsley grinned to himself in the darkness. At least, he thought, these men have no doubts about their coming back in safety from this patrol; but then of course it was easier for them because they did not know the full detail of the risk they ran. But it was no use thinking of that again, he told himself.

He took his place in readiness, waited until one flare had burned out and there was no immediate sign of another being thrown up, slipped over the parapet and dropped flat in the mud on the other side. One by one the men crawled over and dropped beside him, and then slowly and cautiously, with the officer leading, they began to wend their way out under their own entanglements.

There may be some who will wonder that an officer should feel such qualms as Ainsley had over the simple job of a night patrol over the open ground in front of the German trench; but, then, there are patrols and patrols, or as the inattentive recruit at the gunnery cla.s.s said when he was asked to describe the varieties of sh.e.l.ls he had been told of: "There are some sorts of one kind, and some of another."

There are plenty of parts on the Western Front where affairs at intervals settled down into such a peaceful state that there was nothing more than a fair sporting risk attaching to the performance of a patrol which leaves the shelter of our own lines at night to crawl out amongst the barbed wire entanglements in the darkness. There have been times when you might listen at night by the hour together and hardly hear a rifle-shot, and when the burst of artillery fire was a thing to be commented on. But at other times, and in some parts of the line especially, business was run on very different lines. Then every man in the forward firing-trench had a certain number of rounds to fire each night, even although he had no definite target to fire at.

Magnesium flares and pistol lights were kept going almost without ceasing, while the artillery made a regular practice of loosing off a stated number of rounds per night. The Germans worked on fairly similar lines, and as a result it can easily be imagined that any patrol or reconnoitering work between the lines was apt to be exceedingly unhealthy. Actually there were parts on the line where no feet had pressed the ground of No Man's Land for weeks on end, unless in open attack or counter-attack, and of these feet there were a good many that never returned to the trench, and a good many others that did return only to walk straight to the nearest aid-post and hospital.

The neutral ground at this period of Ainsley's patrol was a sea of mud, broken by heaped earth and yawning sh.e.l.l-craters; strung about with barbed wire entanglements, littered with equipments and with packs which had been cut from or slipped from the shoulders of the wounded; dotted more or less thickly with the bodies of British or German who had fallen there and could not be reached alive by any stretcher-bearer parties. Unpleasant as was the coming in contact with these bodies, Ainsley knew that their being there was of considerable service to him.

He and his men crawled in a scattered line, and whenever the upward trail of sparks showed that a flare was about to burst into light, the whole party dropped and lay still until the light had burned itself out. Any Germans looking out could only see their huddled forms lying as still as the thickly scattered dead; could not know but what the party was of their number.

It was necessary to move with the most extreme caution, because the slightest motion might eaten the attention of a look-out, and would certainly draw the fire of a score of rifles and probably of a machine-gun. The first part of the journey was the worst, because they had to cover a perfectly open piece of ground on their way to the slight depression which Ainsley knew ran curling across the neutral ground. Wide and shallow at the end nearest the British trench, this depression narrowed and deepened as it ran slantingly towards the German; halfway across, it turned abruptly and continued towards the German side on another slant, and at a point about halfway between the elbow and the German trench, came very close to an exploded mine-crater, which was the objective of this night's patrol.

It was supposed, or at least suspected, that the mine-crater was being made the starting-point of a tunnel to run under the British trench, and Ainsley had been told off to find out if possible whether this suspicion was correct, and if so to do what damage he could to the mine entrance and the miners by bombing.

When his party reached the shallow depression, they moved cautiously along it, and to Ainsley's relief reached the elbow in safety. Here they were a good deal more protected from the German fire than they could be at any point, because from here the depression was fully a couple of feet deep and had its highest bank next the German trench.

Ainsley led his men at a fairly rapid crawl along the ditch, until he had pa.s.sed the point nearest to the mine-crater. Here he halted his men, and with infinite caution crawled out to reconnoiter. The men, who had been carefully instructed in the part they were to play, waited huddling in silence under the bank for his return, or for the fusillade of fire that would tell he was discovered. Immediately in front of the crater was a patch of open ground without a single body lying in it; and Ainsley knew that if he were seen lying there where no body had been a minute before, the German who saw him would unhesitatingly place a bullet in him. A bank of earth several feet high had been thrown up by the mine explosion in a ring round the crater, and although this covered him from the observation of the trench immediately behind the mine, he knew that he could be seen from very little distance out on the flank, and decided to abandon his crawling progress for once and risk a quick dash across the open. For long he waited what seemed a favorable moment, watched carefully in an endeavor to locate the nearer positions in the German trench from which lights were being thrown up, and to time the periods between them.

At last three lights were thrown and burned almost simultaneously within the area over which he calculated the illumination would expose him. The instant the last flicker of the third light died out, he leaped to his feet, and made a rush. The lights had shown him a scanty few rows of barbed wire between him and the crater; he had reckoned roughly the number of steps to it and counted as he ran, then more cautiously pushed on, feeling for the wire, found it, threw himself down, and began to wriggle desperately underneath. When he thought he was through the last, he rose; but he had miscalculated, and the first step brought his thighs in scratching contact with another wire. His heart was in his mouth, for some seconds had pa.s.sed since the last light had died and he knew that another one must flare up at any instant. Sweeping his arm downward and forward, he could feel no wire higher than the one-which had p.r.i.c.ked his legs. There was no time now to fiddle about avoiding tears and scratches. He swung over the wire, first one leg, then another, felt his mackintosh catch, dragged it free with a screech of ripping cloth that brought his heart to his mouth, turned and rushed again for the crater. As he ran, first one light, then another, soared upwards and broke out into b.a.l.l.s of vivid white light that showed the crater within a dozen steps. It was no time for caution, and everything depended on the blind luck of whether a German lookout had his eyes on that spot at that moment. Without hesitation, he continued his rush to the foot of the mound on the crater's edge, hurled himself down on it and lay panting and straining his ears for the sounds of shots and whistling bullets that would tell him he was discovered. But the lights flared and burned out, leaped afresh and died out again, and there was no sign that he had been seen. For the moment he felt reasonably secure. The earth on the crater's rim was broken and irregular, the surface an eye-deceiving patchwork of broken light and black heavy shadow under the glare of the flying lights. The mackintosh he wore was caked and plastered with mud, and blended well with the background on which he lay. He took care to keep his arms in, to sink his head well into his rounded shoulders, to curl his feet and legs up under the skirt of his mackintosh, knowing well from his own experience that where the outline of a body is vague and easily escapes notice, a head or an arm, or especially and particularly a booted foot and leg, will stand out glaringly distinct. As he lay, he placed his ear to the muddy ground, but could hear no sound of mining operations beneath him. Foot by foot he hitched himself upward to the rim of the crater's edge, and again lay and listened for thrilling long-drawn minute after minute.

Suddenly his heart jumped and his flesh went cold. Unmistakingly he heard the scuffle and swish of footsteps on the wet ground, the murmur of voices apparently within a yard or two of his head. There were men in the mine-crater, and, from the sound of their movements, they were creeping out on a patrol similar to his own, perhaps, and, as near as he could judge, on a line that would bring them directly on top of him.

The scuffing pa.s.sed slowly in front of him and for a few yards along the inside of the crater. The sound of the murmuring voices pa.s.sed suddenly from confused dullness to a sharp clearer-edged speech, telling Ainsley, as plainly as if he could see, that the speaker had risen from behind the sound-deadening ridge of earth and was looking clear over its top, Ainsley lay as still as one of the clods of earth about him, lay scarcely daring to breathe, and with his skin pringling.

There was a pause that may have been seconds, but that felt like hours.

He did not dare move his head to look; he could only wait in an agony of apprehension with his flesh shrinking from the blow of a bullet that he knew would be the first announcement of his discovery. But the stillness was unbroken, and presently, to his infinite relief, he heard again the guttural voices and the sliding footsteps pa.s.s back across his front, and gradually diminish. But he would not let his impatience risk the success of his enterprise; he lay without moving a muscle for many long and nervous minutes. At last he began to hitch himself slowly, an inch at a time, along the edge of the crater away from the point to which the German lookout had moved. He halted and lay still again when his ear caught a fresh murmur of guttural voices, the trampling of many footsteps, and once or twice the low but clear clink of an iron tool in the crater beneath him.

It seemed fairly certain that the Germans were occupying the crater, were either making it the starting-point of a mine tunnel, or were fortifying it as a defensive point. But it was not enough to surmise these things; he must make sure, and, if possible, bomb the working party or the entrance to the mine tunnel. He continued to work his way along the rim of the crater's edge. Arrived at a position where he expected to be able to see the likeliest point of the crater for a mine working to commence, he took the final and greatest chance. Moving only in the intervals of darkness between the lights, he dragged the mackintosh up on his shoulders until the edge of its deep collar came above the top of his head, opened the throat and spread it wide to disguise any outline of his head and neck, found a suitable hollow on the edge of the ridge, and boldly thrust his head over to look downwards into the hole.

When the next light flared, he found that he could see the opposite wall and perhaps a third of the bottom of the hole, with the head and shoulders of two or three men moving about it. When the light died, he hitched forward and again lay still. This time the light showed him what he had come to seek: the black opening of a tunnel mouth in the wall of the crater nearest the British line, a dozen men busily engaged dragging sacks-full of earth from the opening, and emptying them outside the shaft. He waited while several lights burned, marking as carefully as possible the outline of the ridge immediately above the mine shaft, endeavoring to pick a mark that would locate its position from above it. It had begun to rain in a thin drizzling mist, and although this obscured the outline of the crater to some extent, its edge stood out well against the glow of such lights as were thrown up from the British side.

It was now well after midnight, and the firing on both sides had slackened considerably, although there was still an irregular rattle of rifle fire, the distant boom of a gun and the scream of its sh.e.l.l pa.s.sing overhead. A good deal emboldened by his freedom from discovery and by the misty rain, Ainsley slid backwards, moved round the crater, crept back to the barbed wire and under it, ran across the opening on the other side and dropped into the hole where he had left his men. He found them waiting patiently, stretched full length in the wet discomfort of the soaking ground, but enduring it philosophically and concerned, apparently, only for his welfare.

His sergeant puffed a huge sigh of relief at his return. "I was just about beginning to think you had 'gone west,' sir," he said, "and wondering whether I oughtn't to come and 'ave a look for you."

Ainsley explained what had happened and what he had seen. "I'm going back, and I want you all to come with me," he said. "I'm going to shove every bomb we've got down that mine shaft. If we meet with any luck, we should wreck it up pretty well."

"I suppose, sir," said the sergeant, "if we can plant a bomb or two in the right spot, it will bottle up any Germans working inside?"

"Sure to!" said Ainsley. "It will cave in the entrance completely; and then as soon as we get back, we'll give the gunners the tip, and leave them to keep on lobbing some sh.e.l.ls in and breaking up any attempt to reopen the shaft and dig out the mining party."

"Billy!" said one of the men, in an audible aside, "don't you wish you was a merry little German down that blinkin' tunnel, to-night!"

"Imphim," answered Billy, "I don't think!"

Ainsley explained his plan of campaign, saw that everything was in readiness, and led his party out. The misty rain was still falling, and, counting on this to hide them sufficiently from observation if they lay still while any lights were burning, they crawled rapidly across the open, wriggled underneath the wires, cut one or two of them--especially any which were low enough to interfere with free movement under them--and crawled along to the crater.

Ainsley left the party sprawling flat at the foot of the rim, while he crept up to locate the position over the mine shaft. Each man had brought about a dozen small bombs and one large one packed with high explosive. Before leaving the ditch, on Ainsley's directions, each man tied his own lot in one bundle, bringing the ends of the fuses together and tying them securely with their ends as nearly as possible level, so that they could be lit at the same time. Each man had with him one of those tinder pipe-lighters which are ignited by the sparks of a little twirled wheel. When Ainsley had placed the men on the edge of the crater, he gave the word, and each man lit his tinder, holding it so as to be sheltered from sight from the German trench, behind the flap of his mackintosh. Then each took a separate piece of fuse about a foot long, and, at a whispered word from Ainsley, pressed the end into the glowing tinder. Almost at the same instant the four fuses began to burn, throwing out a fizzing jet of sparks. Each man knew that, shelter them as they would from observation, the sparks were almost certain to betray them; but although some rifles began at once to crack spasmodically and the bullets to whistle overhead, each man went on with the allotted program steadily, without haste and without fl.u.s.ter, devoting all their attention to the proper igniting of the bomb-fuses, and leaving what might follow to take care of itself. As his length of fuse caught, each man said "Ready" in a low tone; Ainsley immediately said "Light!" and each instantly directed the jet of sparks as from a tiny hose into the tied bundle of the bomb-fuses' ends. The instant each man saw his own bundle well ignited, he reported "Lit!" and thrust the fuse ends well into the soft mud. Being so waterproofed as to burn if necessary completely under water, this made no difference to the fuses, except that it smothered the sparks and showed only a curling smoke-wreath. But the first sparks had evidently been seen, for the bomb party heard shoutings and a rapidly increasing fire from the German lines. A light flamed upward near the mine-crater. Ainsley said, "Now!--, and take good aim." The men scrambled to their knees and, leaning well over until they could see the black entrance of the mine shaft, tossed their bundles of bombs as nearly as they could into and around it. In the pit below, Ainsley had a momentary glimpse of half a dozen faces, gleaming white in the strong light, upturned, and staring at him; from somewhere down there a pistol snapped twice, and the bullets hissed past over their heads. The party ducked back below the ridge of earth, and as a rattle of rifle fire commenced to break out along the whole length of the German line, they lit from their tinder the fuses of a couple of bombs specially reserved for the purpose, and tossed them as nearly as they could into the German trench, a score of paces away. Their fuses being cut much shorter than the others, the bombs exploded almost instantly, and Ainsley and his party leapt down to the level ground and raced across to the wire.

By now the whole line had caught the alarm; the rifle fire had swelled to a crackling roar, the bullets were whistling and storming across the open. In desperate haste they threw themselves down and wriggled under the wire, and as they did so they felt the earth beneath them jar and quiver, heard a double and triple roar from behind them, saw the wet ground in front of them and the wires overhead glow for an instant with rosy light as the fire of the explosion flamed upwards from the crater.

At the crashing blast of the discharge, the rifle fire was hushed for a moment; Ainsley saw the chance and shouted to his men, and, as they scrambled clear of the wire, they jumped to their feet, rushed back over the flat, and dropped panting in the shelter of the ditch. The rifle fire opened again more heavily than ever, and the bullets were hailing and splashing and thudding into the wet earth around them, but the bank protected them well, and they took the fullest advantage of its cover. Because the depression they were in shallowed and afforded less cover as it ran towards the British lines, it was safer for the party to stay where they were until the fire slackened enough to give them a fair sporting chance of crawling back in safety.

They lay there for fully two hours before Ainsley considered it safe enough to move. They were, of course, long since wet through, and by now were chilled and numbed to the bone. Two of the men had been wounded, but only very slightly in clean flesh wounds: one through the arm and one in the flesh over the upper ribs. Ainsley himself bandaged both men as well as he could in the darkness and the cramped position necessary to keep below the level of the flying ballets, and both men, when he had finished, a.s.sured him that they were quite comfortable and entirely free from pain. Ainsley doubted this, and because of it was the more impatient to get back to their own lines; but he restrained his impatience, lest it should result in any of his party suffering another and more serious wound. At last the rifle fire had died down to about the normal night rate, had indeed dropped at the finish so rapidly in the s.p.a.ce of two or three minutes that Ainsley concluded fresh orders for the slower rate must have been pa.s.sed along the German lines. He gave the word, and they began to creep slowly back, moving again only when no lights were burning.

There were some gaspings and groanings as the men commenced to move their stiffened limbs.

"I never knew," gasped one, "as I'd so many joints in my backbone, and that each one of them could hold so many aches."

"Same like!" said another. "If you'll listen, you can hear my knees and hips creaking like the rusty hinges of an old barn-door."

Although the men spoke in low tones, Ainsley whispered a stern command for silence.

"We're not so far away," he said, "but that a voice might carry; and you can bet they're jumpy enough for the rest of the night to shoot at the shadow of a whisper. Now come along, and keep low, and drop the instant a light flares."

They crawled back a score or so of yards that brought them to the elbow-turn of the depression. The bank of the turn was practically the last cover they could count upon, because here the ditch shallowed and widened and was, in addition, more or less open to enfilading fire from the German side.

Ainsley halted the men and whispered to them that as soon as they cleared the ditch they were to crawl out into open order, starting as soon as darkness fell after the next light. Next moment they commenced to move, and as they did so Ainsley fancied he heard a stealthy rustling in the gra.s.s immediately in front of him. It occurred to him that their long delay might have led to the sending out of a search party, and he was on the point of whispering an order back to the men to halt, while he investigated, when a couple of pistol lights flared upwards, lighting the ground immediately about them. To his surprise--surprise was his only feeling for the moment--he found himself staring into a bearded face not six feet from his own, and above the face was the little round flat cap that marked the man a German.

Both he and the German saw each other at the same instant; but because the same imminent peril was over each, each instinctively dropped flat to the wet ground. Ainsley had just time to glimpse the movement of other three or four gray-coated figures as they also fell flat. Next instant, he heard his sergeant's voice, hurried and sharp with warning, but still low toned.

"Look out, sir! There's a big Boche just in front of you."

Ainsley "sh-sh-shed" him to silence, and at the same time was a little amused and a great deal relieved to hear the German in front of him similarly hush down the few low exclamations of his party. The flare was still burning, and Ainsley, twisting his head, was able to look across the muddy gra.s.s at the German eyes staring anxiously into his own.