Men, Women and Guns Part 25

An itinerant fishmonger and a worthy stockbroker are inculcated with wonderful ideals in order to fit them for sallying forth at night and killing complete strangers. And they revel in it....

The highest form of emotionalism on one hand: a hole in the ground full of bluebottles and smells on the other....

War ... war in the twentieth century.

But there is nothing incompatible in it: it is only strange when a.n.a.lysed in cold blood. And Jim Denver, as I have said, was sane again: while Vane, the stockbroker, was still mad.

In fact, it is quite possible that the peculiar significance of the interruption in his story never struck him: that he never noticed the Contrast.

And what is going to be the result of it all on the Vanes of England?

"Once the office filled my life." No man can go to the land of Topsy Turvy and come back the same--for good or ill it will change him. Though the madness leave him and sanity return, it will not be the same sanity. Will he ever be content to settle down again after--the lawyer, the stockbroker, the small clerk? Back to the old dull routine, the same old train in the morning, the same deadly office, the same old home each evening. It hardly applies to the Jim Denvers--the men of money: but what of the others?

Will the scales have dropped from the eyes of the men who have really been through it? Shall we ever get back to the same old way? Heaven knows--but let us hope not. Anyway, it is all mere idle conjecture--and a digression to boot.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 1: For the benefit of the uninitiated, let me explain that the process of registering consists of finding the exact range to a certain object from a particular gun or battery. To find this range it is necessary to obtain what is known as a bracket: _i.e._ one burst beyond the object, and one burst short. The range is then known to lie between these two: and by a little adjustment the exact distance can be found.]

CHAPTER VI

BLACK, WHITE, AND--GREY

Four weeks after his board Jim Denver once again found himself in France.

Having reported his arrival, he sat down to await orders. Boulogne is not a wildly exhilarating place; though there is always the hotel where one may consume c.o.c.ktails and potato chips, and hear strange truths about the war from people of great knowledge and understanding.

Moreover--though this is by the way--in Boulogne you get the first sniff of that atmosphere which England lacks; that subtle, indefinable something which war _in_ a country produces in the spirit of its people....

Gone is the stout lady of doubtful charm engaged in mastering the fox-trot, what time a band wails dismally in an alcove; gone is the wild-eyed flapper who b.u.mps madly up and down the roads on the carrier of a motor-cycle. It has an atmosphere of its own this fair land of France to-day. It is laughing through its tears, and the laughter has an ugly sound--for the Huns. They will hear that laughter soon, and the sound will give them to think fearfully.

But at the moment when Jim landed it was all very boring. The R.T.O. at Boulogne was bored; the A.S.C. officers at railhead were bored; the quartermaster guarding the regimental penates in a field west of Ypres was bored.

"Cheer up, old son," Jim remarked, slapping the last-named worthy heavily on the back. "You look peevish."

"Confound you," he gasped, when he'd recovered from choking. "This is my last bottle of whisky."

"Where's the battalion?" laughed Denver.

"Where d'you think? In a Turkish bath surrounded by beauteous houris?"

the quartermaster snorted. "Still in the same d.a.m.n mud-hole near Hooge."

"Good! I'll trot along up shortly. You know, I'm beginning to be glad I came back. I didn't want to particularly, at first: I was enjoying myself at home--but I felt I ought to, and now--'pon my soul---- How are you, Jones?"

A pa.s.sing sergeant stopped and saluted. "Grand, sir. How's yourself? The boys will be glad you've come back."

Denver stood chatting with him for a few moments and then rejoined the pessimistic quartermaster.

"Don't rhapsodise," begged that worthy--"don't rhapsodise; eat your lunch. If you tell me it will be good to see your men again, I shall a.s.sault you with the remnants of the tinned lobster. I know it will be good--no less than fifteen officers have told me so in the last six weeks. But I don't care--it leaves me quite, quite cold. If you're in France, you pine for England; when you're in England, you pine for France; and I sit in this d.a.m.n field and get giddy."

Which might be described as to-day's great thought.

Thus did Jim Denver come back to his regiment. Once again the life of the moles claimed him--the life of the underworld: that strange existence of which so much has been written, and so little has been really grasped by those who have not been there. A life of incredible dreariness--yet possessing a certain "grip" of its own. A life of peculiar contrasts--where the suddenness--the abruptness of things strikes a man forcibly: the extraordinary contrasts of black and white.

Sometimes they stand out stark and menacing, gleaming and brilliant; more often do they merge into grey. But always are they there....

As I said before, my object is not to give a diary of my hero's life. I am not concerned with his daily vegetation in his particular hole, with Hooge on his right front and a battered farm close to. Sleep, eat, read, look through a periscope and then repeat the performance. Occasionally an aerial torpedo, frequently bombs, at all times pessimistic sappers desiring working parties. But it was very much the "grey" of trench life during the three days that Jim sat in the front line by the wood that is called "Railway."

One episode is perhaps worthy of note. It was just one of those harmless little jests which give one an appet.i.te for a hunk of bully washed down by a gla.s.s of tepid whisky and water. Now be it known to those who do not dabble in explosives, there are in the army two types of fuze which are used for firing charges. Each type is flexible, and about the thickness of a stout and well-nourished worm. Each, moreover, consists of an inner core which burns, protected by an outer covering--the idea being that on lighting one end a flame should pa.s.s along the burning inner core and explode in due course whatever is at the other end.

There, however, their similarity ends; and their difference becomes so marked that the kindly powers that be have taken great precautions against the two being confused.

The first of these fuzes is called Safety--and the outer covering is black. In this type the inner core burns quite slowly at the rate of two or three feet to the minute. This is the fuze which is used in the preparation of the jam-tin bomb: an instrument of destruction which has caused much amus.e.m.e.nt to the frivolous. A jam tin is taken and is filled with gun cotton, nails, and sc.r.a.ps of iron. Into the gun cotton is inserted a detonator; and into the detonator is inserted two inches of safety-fuze. The end of the safety-fuze is then lit, and the jam tin is presented to the Hun. It will readily be seen by those who are profound mathematicians, that if three feet of safety-fuze burn in a minute, two inches will burn in about three seconds--and three seconds is just long enough for the presentation ceremony. This in fact is the princ.i.p.al of all bombs both great and small.

The second of these fuzes is called Instantaneous--and the outer covering is orange. In this type the inner core burns quite quickly, at the rate of some thirty yards to the second, or eighteen hundred times as fast as the first. Should, therefore, an unwary person place two inches of this second fuze in his jam tin by mistake, and light it, it will take exactly one-600th of a second before he gets to the motto.

Which is "movement with a meaning quite its own."

To Jim then came an idea. Why not with care and great cunning remove from the inner core of Instantaneous fuze its vulgar orange covering, and subst.i.tute instead a garb of sober black--and thus disguised present several bombs of great potency _unlighted_ to the Hun.

The afternoon before they left for the reserve trenches he staged his comedy in one act and an epilogue. A shower of bombs was propelled in the direction of the opposing cave-dwellers to the accompaniment of loud cries, cat calls, and other strange noises. The true artist never exaggerates, and quite half the bombs had genuine safety-fuze in them and were lit before being thrown. The remainder were not lit, it is perhaps superfluous to add.

The lazy peace of the afternoon was rudely shattered for the Huns. Quite a number of genuine bombs had exploded dangerously near their trench--while some had even taken effect in the trench. Then they perceived several unlit ones lying about--evidently propelled by nervous men who had got rid of them before lighting them properly. And there was much laughter in that German trench as they decided to give the epilogue by lighting them and throwing them back. Shortly after a series of explosions, followed by howls and groans, announced the carrying out of that decision. And once again the Hymn of Hate came faintly through the drowsy stillness....

Those are the little things which occasionally paint the grey with a dab of white; the prowls at night--the joys of the sniper who has just bagged a winner and won the bag of nuts--all help to keep the spirits up when the pattern of earth in your particular hole causes a rush of blood to the head.

Incidentally this little comedy was destined to be Jim Denver's last experience of the Hun at close quarters for many weeks to come. The grey settled down like a pall, to lift in the fulness of time, to _the_ black and white day of his life. But for the present--peace. And yet only peace as far as he was concerned personally. That very night, close to him so that he saw it all, some other battalions had a chequered hour or so--which is all in the luck of the game. To-day it's the man over the road--to-morrow it's you....

They occurred about 2 a.m.--the worries of the men over the road. Denver had moved to his other hole, courteously known as the reserve trenches, and there seated in his dug-out he discussed prospects generally with the Major. There were rumours that the division was moving from Ypres, and not returning there--a thought which would kindle hope in the most pessimistic.

"Don't you believe it," answered the Major gloomily. "Those rumours are an absolute frost."

"Cheer up! cully, we'll soon be dead." Denver laughed. "Have some rum."

He poured some out into a mug and pa.s.sed the water. "Quiet to-night--isn't it? I was reading to-day that the Italians----"

"You aren't going to quote any war expert at me, are you?"

"Well--er--I was: why not?"

"Because I have a blood-feud with war experts. I loathe and detest the breed. Before I came out here their reiterated statement made monthly that we should be on the Rhine by Tuesday fortnight was a real comfort.

We always got to Tuesday fortnight--but we've never actually paddled in the bally river."

"To err is human; to get paid for it is divine," murmured Jim.

"Bah!" the Major filled his pipe aggressively. "What about the steam-roller, what about the Germans being reduced to incurable epileptics in the third line trenches--what about that drivelling a.s.s who said the possession of heavy guns was a disadvantage to an army owing to their immobility?"