Action Front Part 8

"Do not move!" said Ainsley, wondering to himself if the man understood English, and fumbling in vain in his mind for the German phrase that would express his meaning.

"Kamarade--eh?" grunted the German, with a note of interrogation that left no doubt as to his meaning.

"Nein, nein!" answered Ainsley. "You kamarade--sie kamarade."

The other, in somewhat voluble gutturals, insisted that Ainsley must "kamarade," otherwise surrender. He spoke too fast for Ainsley's very limited knowledge of German to follow, but at least, to Ainsley's relief, there was for the moment no motion towards hostilities on either side. The Germans recognized, no doubt as he did, that the first sign of a shot, the first wink of a rifle flash out there in the open, would bring upon them a blaze of light and a storm of rifle and maxim bullets. Even although his party had slightly the advantage of position in the scanty cover of the ditch, he was not at all inclined to bring about another burst of firing, particularly as he was not sure that some excitable individuals in his own trench would not forget about his party being in the open and hail indiscriminate bullets in the direction of a rifle flash, or even the sound of indiscreetly loud talking.

Painfully, in very broken German, and a word or two at a time, he tried to make his enemy understand that it was his, the German party, that must surrender, pointing out as an argument that they were nearer to the British than to the German lines. The German, however, discounted this argument by stating that he had one more man in his party than Ainsley had, and must therefore claim the privilege of being captor.

The voice of his own sergeant close behind him spoke in a hoa.r.s.e undertone: "Shall I blow a blinkin' 'ole in 'im, sir? I could do 'im in acrost your shoulder, as easy as kiss my 'and."

"No, no!" said Ainsley hurriedly; "a shot here would raise the mischief."

At the same time he heard some of the other Germans speak to the man in front of him and discovered that they were addressing him as "Sergeant."

"Sie ein sergeant?" he questioned, and on the German admitting that he was a sergeant, Ainsley, with more fumbling after German words and phrases, explained that he was an officer, and that therefore his, an officer's patrol, took precedence over that of a mere sergeant. He had a good deal of difficulty in making this clear to the German--either because the sergeant was particularly thick-witted or possibly because Ainsley's German was particularly bad. Ainsley inclined to put it down to the German's stupidity, and he began to grow exceedingly wroth over the business. Naturally it never occurred to him that he should surrender to the German, but it annoyed him exceedingly that the German should have any similar feelings about surrendering to him. Once more he bent his persuasive powers and indifferent German to the task of over-persuading the sergeant, and in return had to wait and slowly unravel some meaning from the odd words he could catch here and there in the sergeant's endeavor to over-persuade him.

He began to think at last that there was no way out of it but that suggested by his own sergeant--namely, to "blow a blinkin' 'ole in 'im," and his sergeant spoke again with the rattle of his chattering teeth playing a castanet accompaniment to his words.

"If you don't mind, sir, we'd all like to fight it out and make a run for it. We're all about froze stiff."

"I'm just about fed up with this fool, too," said Ainsley disgustedly.

"Look here, all of you! Watch me when the next light goes up. If you see me grab my pistol, pick your man and shoot."

The voice of the German sergeant broke in:--

"Nein, nein!" and then in English: "You no shoot! You shoot, and uns shoot alzo!"

Ainsley listened to the stammering English in an amazement that gave way to overwhelming anger. "Here," he said angrily, "can you speak English?"

"Ein leetle, just ein leetle," replied the German.

But at that and at the memory of the long minutes spent there lying in the mud with chilled and frozen limbs trying to talk in German, at the time wasted, at his own stumbling German and the probable amus.e.m.e.nt his grammatical mistakes had given the others--the last, the Englishman's dislike to being laughed at, being perhaps the strongest factor--Ainsley's anger overcame him.

"You miserable blighter!" he said wrathfully. "You have the blazing cheek to keep me lying here in this filthy muck, mumbling and bungling over your beastly German, and then calmly tell me that you understand English all the time.

"Why couldn't you _say_ you spoke English? What! D'you think I've nothing better to do than lie out here in a puddle of mud listening to you jabbering your beastly lingo? Silly a.s.s! You saw that I didn't know German properly, to begin with--why couldn't you say you spoke English?"

But in his anger he had raised his voice a good deal above the safety limit, and the quick crackle of rifle fire and the soaring lights told that his voice had been heard, that the party or parties were discovered or suspected.

The rest followed so quickly, the action was so rapid and unpremeditated, that Ainsley never quite remembered its sequence. He has a confused memory of seeing the wet ground illumined by many lights, of drumming rifle fire and hissing bullets, and then, immediately after, the rush and crash of a couple of German "Fizz-Bang"

sh.e.l.ls. Probably it was the wet _plop_ of some of the backward-flung bullets about him, possibly it was the movement of the German sergeant that wiped out the instinctive desire to flatten himself close to ground that drove him to instant action. The sergeant half lurched to his knees, thrusting forward the muzzle of his rifle. Ainsley clutched at the revolver in his holster, but before he could free it another sh.e.l.l crashed, the German jerked forward as if struck by a battering-ram between the shoulders, lay with white fingers clawing and clutching at the muddy gra.s.s. A momentary darkness fell, and Ainsley just had a glimpse of a knot of struggling figures, of the knot's falling apart with a clash of steel, of a rifle spouting a long tongue of flame ... and then a group of lights blazed again and disclosed the figures of his own three men crouching and glancing about them.

Of all these happenings Ainsley retains only a very jumbled recollection, but he remembers very distinctly his savage satisfaction at seeing "that fool sergeant" downed and the unappeased anger he still felt with him. He carried that anger back to his own trench; it still burned hot in him as they floundered and wallowed for interminable seconds over the greasy mud with the bullets slapping and smacking about them, as they wrenched and struggled over their own wire--where Ainsley, as it happened, had to wait to help his sergeant, who for all the advantage of their initiative in the attack and in the Germans being barely risen to meet it, had been caught by a bayonet-thrust in the thigh--the scramble across the parapet and hurried roll over into the waterlogged trench.

He arrived there wet to the skin and chilled to the bone, with his shoulder stinging abominably from the ragged tear of a ricochet bullet that had caught him in the last second on the parapet, and, above all, still filled with a consuming anger against the German sergeant. Five minutes later, in the Battalion H.Q. dugout, in making his report to the O.C. while the Medical dressed his arm, he only gave the barest and briefest account of his successful patrol and bombing work, but descanted at full length and with lurid wrath on the incident of the German patrol.

"When I think of that ignorant beast of a sergeant keeping me out there," he concluded disgustedly, "mumbling and spluttering over his confounded 'yaw, yaw' and 'nein, nein,' trying to sc.r.a.pe up odd German words--which I probably got all wrong--to make him understand, and him all the time quite well able to speak good enough English--that's what beats me--why couldn't he _say_ he spoke English?"

"Well, anyhow," said the O.C. consolingly, "from what you tell me, he's dead now."

"I hope so," said Ainsley viciously, "and serve him jolly well right.

But just think of the trouble it might have saved if he'd only said at first that he spoke English!" He sputtered wrathfully again: "Silly a.s.s! Why couldn't he just _say_ so?"

AS OTHERS SEE

_"It may now be divulged that, some time ago, the British lines were extended for a considerable distance to the South."_--EXTRACT FROM OFFICIAL DISPATCH.

The first notice that the men of the Tower Bridge Foot had that they were to move outside the territory they had learned so well in many weary marches and wanderings in networks and mazes of trenches, was when they crossed a road which had for long marked the boundary line between the grounds occupied by the British and French forces.

"Do you suppose the O.C. is drunk, or that the guide has lost his way?"

said Private Robinson. "Somebody ought to tell him we're off our beat and that trespa.s.sers will be prosecuted. Not but what he don't know that, seeing he prosecuted me cruel six months ago for roving off into the French lines--said if I did it again I might be took for a spy and shot. Anyhow, I'd be took for being where I was out o' bounds and get a dose of Field Punishment. Wonder where we're bound for?"

"Don't see as it matters much," said his next file. "I suppose one wet field's as good as another to sleep in, so why worry?"

A little farther on, the battalion met a French Infantry Regiment on the march. The French regiment's road discipline was rather more lax than the British, and many tolerantly amused criticisms were pa.s.sed on the loose formation, the lack of keeping step, and the straggling lines of the French. The criticisms, curiously enough, came in a great many cases from the very men in the Towers' ranks who had often "groused"

most at the silliness of themselves being kept up to the mark in these matters. The marching Frenchmen were singing--but singing in a fashion quite novel to the British. Throughout their column there were anything up to a dozen songs in progress, some as choruses and some as solos, and the effect was certainly rather weird. The Tower Bridge officers, knowing their own men's fondness for swinging march songs, expected, and, to tell truth, half hoped that they would give a display of their harmonious powers. They did, but hardly in the expected fashion. One man demanded in a growling ba.s.s that the "Home Fires be kept Burning,"

while another bade farewell to Leicester Square in a high falsetto. The giggling Towers caught the idea instantly, and a confused medley of hymns, music-hall ditties, and patriotic songs in every key, from the deepest bellowing ba.s.s to the shrillest wailing treble, arose from the Towers' ranks, mixed with whistles and cat-calls and Corporal Flannigan's famous imitation of "Life on a Farm." The joke lasted the Towers for the rest of that march, and as sure as any Frenchman met or overtook them on the road he was treated to a vocal entertainment that must have left him forever convinced of the rumored potency of British rum.

By now word had pa.s.sed round the Towers that they were to take over a portion of the trenches. .h.i.therto occupied by the French. Many were the doubts, and many were the arguments, as to whether this would or would not be to the personal advantage and comfort of themselves; but at least it made a change of scene and surroundings from those they had learned for months past, and since such a change is as the breath of life to the British soldier, they were on the whole highly pleased with it.

The morning was well advanced when they were met by guides and interpreters from the French regiment which they were relieving, and commenced to move into the new trenches. Although at first there were some who were inclined to criticize, and reluctant to believe that a Frenchman, or any other foreigner, could do or make anything better than an Englishman, the Towers had to admit, even before they reached the forward firing trench, that the work of making communication trenches had been done in a manner beyond British praise. The trenches were narrow and very deep, neatly paved throughout their length with brick, s.p.a.ced at regular intervals with sunk traps for draining off rain-water, and with bays and niches cut deep in the side to permit the pa.s.sing of any one meeting a line of pack-burdened men in the shoulder-wide alley-way.

When they reached the forward firing trench, their admiration became unbounded; they were as full of eager curiosity as children on a school picnic. They fraternized instantly and warmly with the outgoing Frenchmen, and the Frenchmen for their part were equally eager to express friendship, to show the English the dugouts, the handy little contrivances for comfort and safety, to bequeath to their successors all sorts of stoves and pots and cooking utensils, and generally to give an impression, which was put into words by Private Robinson: "Strike me if this ain't the most cordiawl bloomin' ongtongt I've ever met!"

The Towers had never realized, or regretted, their lack of the French as deeply as they came to do now. Hitherto dealings in the language had been entirely with the women in the villages and billets of the reserve lines, where there was plenty of time to find means of expressing the two things that for the most part were all they had to express--their wants and their thanks. And because by now they had no slightest difficulty in making these billet inhabitants understand what they required--a fire for cooking, stretching s.p.a.ce on a floor, the location of the nearest estaminets, whether eggs, b.u.t.ter, and bread were obtainable, and how much was the price--they had fondly imagined in their hearts, and boasted loudly in their home letters, that they were quite satisfactorily conversant with the French language. Now they were to discover that their knowledge was not quite so extensive as they had imagined, although it never occurred to them that the French women in the billets were learning English a great deal more rapidly and efficiently than they were learning French, that it was not altogether their mastery of the language which instantly produced soap and water, for instance, when they made motions of washing their hands and said slowly and loudly: "Soap--you compree, soap and l'eau; you savvy--l'eau, wa-ter." But now, when it came to the technicalities of their professional business, they found their command of the language completely inadequate. There were many of them who could ask, "What is the time?" but that helped them little to discover at what time the Germans made a practice of sh.e.l.ling the trenches; they could have asked with ease, "Have you any eggs?" but they could not twist this into a sentence to ask whether there were any egg-selling farms in the vicinity; could have asked "how much" was the bread, but not how many yards it was to the German trench.

A few Frenchmen, who spoke more or less English, found themselves in enormous French and English demand, while Private 'Enery Irving, who had hitherto borne some reputation as a French speaker--a reputation, it may be mentioned, largely due to his artful knack of helping out spoken words by imitation and explanatory acting--found his bubble reputation suddenly and disastrously p.r.i.c.ked. He made some attempt to clutch at its remains by listening to the remarks addressed to him by a Frenchman, with a most potently intelligent and understanding expression, by e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. "Nong, nong!" and a profoundly understanding "Ah, wee!" at intervals in the one-sided conversation. He tried this method when called upon by a puzzled private to interpret the torrential speech of a Frenchman, who wished to know whether the Towers had any jam to spare, or whether they would exchange a rum ration for some French wine. 'Enery interjected a few "Ah, wee's!" and then at the finish explained to the private.

"He speaks a bit fast," he said, "but he's trying to tell me something about him coming from a place called Conserve, and that we can have his 'room' here--meaning, I suppose, his dug-out." He turned to the Frenchman, spread out his hands, shrugged his shoulders, and gesticulated after the most approved fashion of the stage Frenchman, bowed deeply, and said, _"Merci, Monsieur,"_ many times. The Frenchman naturally looked a good deal puzzled, but bowed politely in reply and repeated his question at length. This producing no effect except further stage shrugs, he seized upon one of the interpreters who was pa.s.sing and explained rapidly. "He asks," said the interpreter, turning to 'Enery and the other men, "whether you have any _conserve et rhum_--jam and rum--you wish to exchange for his wine." After that 'Enery Irving collapsed in the public estimation as a French speaker.

When the Towers were properly installed, and the French regiment commenced to move out, a Tower Bridge officer came along and told his men that they were to be careful to keep out of sight, as the orders were to deceive the Germans opposite and to keep them ignorant as long as possible of the British-French exchange. Private Robinson promptly improved upon this idea. He found a discarded French kepi, put it on his head, and looked over the parapet. He only stayed up for a second or two and ducked again, just as a bullet whizzed over the parapet. He repeated the performance at intervals from different parts of the trench, but finding that his challenge drew quicker and quicker replies was obliged at last to lift the cap no more than into sight on the point of a bayonet. He was rather pleased with the applause of his fellows and the half-dozen prompt bullets which each appearance of the cap at last drew, until one bullet, piercing the cap and striking the point of the bayonet, jarred his fingers unpleasantly and deflected the bullet dangerously and noisily close to his ear. Some of the Frenchmen who were filing out had paused to watch this performance, laughing and bravo-ing at its finish. Robinson bowed with a magnificent flourish, then replaced the kepi on the point of the bayonet, raised the kepi, and made the bayonet bow to the audience. A French officer came bustling along the trench urging his men to move on. He stood there to keep the file pa.s.sing along without check, and Robinson turned presently to some of the others and asked if they knew what was the meaning of this "Mays ongfong" that the officer kept repeating to his men. "Ongfong," said 'Enery Irving briskly, seizing the opportunity to reestablish himself as a French speaker, "means 'children'; spelled e-n-f-a-n-t-s, p.r.o.nounced _ongfong_."

"Children!" said Robinson. "Infants, eh? 'ealthy lookin' lot o'

infants. There's one now--that six-foot chap with the Father Christmas whiskers; 'ow's that for a' infant?"

As the Frenchmen filed out some of them smiled and nodded and called cheery good-bys to our men, and 'Enery Irving turned to a man beside him. "This," he said, "is about where some appropriate music should come in the book. Exit to triumphant strains of martial music Buck up, Snapper! Can't you mouth-organ 'em the Mar-shall-aise?"

Snapper promptly produced his instrument and mouth-organed the opening bars, and the Towers joined in and sang the tune with vociferous "la-la-las." When they had finished, two or three of the Frenchmen, after a quick word together struck up "G.o.d Save the King." Instantly the others commenced to pick it up, but before they had sung three words 'Enery Irving, in tones of horror, demanded "The Mar-shall-aise again; quick, you idiot!" from Snapper, and himself swung off into a falsetto rendering of "Three Blind Mice." In a moment the Towers had in full swing their medley caricature of the French march singing, under which "G.o.d Save the King" was very completely drowned.

"What the devil d'you mean? Are you all mad?" demanded a wrathful subaltern, plunging round the traverse to where Snapper mouth-organed the "Ma.r.s.eillaise," 'Enery Irving l.u.s.tily intoned his anthem of the Blind Mice, and Corporal Flannigan pa.s.sed from the deep lowing of a cow to the clarion calls of the farmyard rooster.

"Beg pardon, sir," said 'Enery Irving with lofty dignity, "but if I 'adn't started this row the 'ole trenchful o' Frenchies would 'ave been 'owling our 'Gawd Save.' I saw that 'ud be a clean give-away, an' the order bein' to act so as to deceive----"

"Quite right," said the officer, "and a smart idea of yours to block it. But who was the crazy a.s.s who started it by singing the 'Ma.r.s.eillaise'?" On this point, however, 'Enery was discreetly silent.