S.O.S. Stand to! Part 8

Hee-Haw!" keeping time with the flapping of its long lugs.

When I got to Poperinghe Square the mule and myself were all in; save for the ride on the Parson's charger to the wagon lines, I had not been riding for the s.p.a.ce of a month, and my legs were so chafed I was compelled to walk like an aged rheumatic for three or four days; but I had company,--the other fellows were similarly affected.

We made our way to the bath in a rush, as every man wanted to be in first. The bath contained 200 men at a time, and 200 tubs; there was no pool in which to bathe; every man had to do his swimming and slopping and washing in a tub; and the sight of the women and girl attendants was a welcome one, as it had been a couple of months before anything feminine had come within the range of our vision. We had to take our turn in going through the routine of the bath.

When I was next, the woman attendant handed me a shirt; a little further along I got a pair of socks, then drawers. Thus equipped, I entered the bathroom; there were about 100 men in there, splashing each other like mad in their wild joy. In stepping along the water-soaked boards, I happened to slip and fall in the wet, and my dry garments were soaked with the water slopped on the boards, a.s.sisted by the splashing showers the men were throwing around.

It so happened that one of the fellows had been particularly well splashed by a chum and he was watching for a chance to get even; he determined to wait until his chum had put on his clothes, so that he could execute his vengeance with all the more fullness of perfection.

The avenger stood just inside an alley leading to the dressing room, with a pail of water in hand for his intended victim; the water had been scooped out of a tub that had just been used, and it was as dirty as water could be.

As I came even with the alley opening, thinking I was the victim, he let me have it full in the face. I was blinded for a moment with the greasy, soapy, dirty water, and, when my eyes were sufficiently open, it was impossible for me to learn who it was. However, like all things of that kind, I took it in good part and hastened to undress. I filled my tub with pails of water from the tap and started my bath. Oh, how refreshing it was! I don't think I ever appreciated the luxury of a bath until that moment. When through with my ablution it was necessary, before I could dress, to grease my body with a vermin-killer that is supplied the men.

This done, I commenced dressing, and had donned my underwear and pants when,--Kr-kr-kr-p! Kr-kr-kr-p!--and a sh.e.l.l landed right in the middle of the bathroom, and the bunch of merry-hearted fellows was transformed into a panic-stricken crowd, leaping and jumping out of the tubs in every direction in a pell-mell rush, helter-skelter, of men, some half dressed, others absolutely naked, intermingled with the women attendants, in the scramble for safety. Civilians, coming from their houses in a mad rush, added to the confusion.

When the smoke of the explosion cleared, thirty of the bathers lay dead in, on and around the tubs, and forty were wounded, all more or less badly. Inside of three minutes, more sh.e.l.ls were planted, some of them landing plumb in the square, and, to my intense sorrow, I learned later that Fox, my little chum, there had paid the supreme price. These sh.e.l.ls were totally unexpected, coming from the Hooge district, 11 miles distant.

Everybody sought shelter in the cellars, or any other hole they could crawl into, until night. I searched out my mule, and was thankful to find it where I had left it, tied to a tree, gave it a feed of oats, waited until it munched, unperturbed by the crashing explosions breaking in the immediate neighborhood, and utterly oblivious of the fact that I was counting the seconds until it had finished.

Under cover of the night, I returned to the wagon lines, and in much better time than coming down, for which I had to thank the feed of oats.

The bath gave me a new hold on life; I felt ten years younger and several pounds lighter.

I learned next day that the station master at Poperinghe had been arrested, tried as a spy and shot. It transpired that he had a wire running from the station depot straight to the German lines, together with some other signaling apparatus, and there was no doubt in the minds of the trial board that it was due to this man's espionage that the bathers lost their lives while in the tubs.

The spy system had so thoroughly impregnated every hole and corner of the district around Ypres that it became the sorest thorn in the sides of the Command, but we finally managed to root it out hip and thigh, and that sector is now as immune from their activities as any other sector in the front lines.

Going up to take my position with the gun next day I met a bomber of the 21st Canadian Infantry, carrying a bag of his wares--hand grenades. We walked together for some distance, and just as I was on the point of leaving him to turn off over to my battery I was appalled by one of the most horrifying sights I have seen at the front. One of the pins of a grenade worked loose in the bag and exploded, blowing his right hand and leg completely off. I have seen scores of happenings, each of which in its entirety was a thousand times more terrible, but there was something about the suddenness, the total unexpectedness, and the fearful spurting of his life's blood, that filled me more full of horror than anything before or since.

In this conflagration that is shaking the world, death stalks on every hand in a hundred different forms, entirely apart from the destruction that the enemy can bestow. I was standing but three feet behind him. As quick as I could I gave him first aid and yelled for a stretcher, but there was nothing that could be done; he lived until sundown.

CHAPTER IX

HAMBONE DAVIS

One evening we were sitting outside of our bivouac watching some German balloons being downed by one of our airplanes; our flier had good luck that evening, accounting for three of the floating sausages; and as we were awaiting the finish of the last sausage, and speculating on how long it would take our air bird to get it, or whether he would get it at all, the gambling spirit ran rife, and fast and furiously the bets were placed.

Open-mouthed and eager we watched and, while watching, a strange-looking figure of a soldier ambled, or shuffled, up the path toward our place.

He was a man about 45, though looking more like 55, quite grizzled, furrowed face, and a stubby mustache, thickly stained with tobacco juice, decorated his upper lip. He was chewing tobacco as if his life depended on the quant.i.ty of juice he could extract from each mouthful, and dried tricklings of the liquid ornamented his chin. As he came toward us his face was turned upward, taking in the scrimmage in the sky. "What's them b.l.o.o.d.y things?" he asked, indicating the air sausages.

He had evidently just come up the line fresh from England. I told him and he jerked out an indelible pencil and made a note, sucking the lead of the pencil two or three times before he finished, and this habit, continuous with him, kept his lip constantly stained with the indelible lead.

Just then a mighty roar of delight went up from the entire crowd, as our bird gobbled the last remaining sausage, but our indelible friend paid no attention to the uproar,--he simply took out his little book and made another note.

The "Fall-in!" whistle was blown and we were a bit surprised as well as amazed to see our strange friend fall in in front, still chewing vigorously; he evidently didn't know or didn't care a d.a.m.n whether it was against the rules to chew tobacco when parading. The Sergeant-Major eyed him curiously and then stepping to his side whispered something; we knew he was explaining to him that he was infringing orders, but a non-commissioned officer is not permitted to bawl out another non-com in the presence of the men. Hastily bestowing the quid in his hand he stood to attention. Roll call finished and we retired to our bunks.

Early next morning when we emerged from our quarters the first person we saw was the odd-appearing individual that had joined up with us the night before, with his inevitable note book in his hand. He was still busily sucking his indelible pencil in the corner of his mouth, and, in the light of the morning sun, there was nothing about his mug that was any more prepossessing than appeared in the twilight of the previous night. He also had on the sleeve of his coat a crown, indicating that he was to be our acting Sergeant-Major in the absence of the regular officer, and when not so acting, he was to be the First Sergeant of the section.

The official activity of our new friend commenced to be evidenced in a number of ways; he lost no time in making us understand that he was First Sergeant. "Sergeant Grant, detail two men for the cookhouse!" Then to the gunners, "Here, you, clean up your wagons and take off all that mud; it's filthy"; this was absolutely unnecessary and the fellows swore vehemently under their breath; to the drivers,--"Clean up that 'ere 'arness and get that mud hoff it"; he also compelled us to burnish the steel and made the gunners scrub the paint off the bra.s.s and sandpaper it up. This necessitated the men going to a shop and purchasing the sandpaper themselves, as disobedience of the order meant a sojourn in the clink and the excuse that he had no sandpaper would not go.

By the time old Sol had reached the meridian, the First Sergeant had succeeded in getting himself thoroughly hated, and many and earnest and unique were the resolutions to "get even." This feeling was intensified by his order to gather up some scantlings of hard wood and bring them to his quarters; he was a sort of a one-horse carpenter by trade and had started manufacturing for his own especial use and benefit a wooden structure large enough to house himself.

The idiosyncrasies of our newfound friend manifested themselves variously, the first and chief characteristic by which he came to acquire the _sobriquet_ of "Hambone Davis," was his habit of heading for the cookhouse each morning before the men were dismissed from the horse lines--which was necessary before we could appease our always ravenous appet.i.tes--so that he could garner for himself an edible that was longed for and looked for by every man who could get it, i.e., the ham bone, because there were always more or less pickings on it and he was a lucky fellow indeed who was successful in capturing the prize. But, in his official capacity, Davis was able to get out and get over there ahead of us every morning and during his entire stay in our crowd, he was the only man who each morning got the ham bone. Hence his cognomen.

Long, earnest and secret conferences were had as to the way we had best settle our grievances. Among the conspirators were Dynamite Pete, so-called because of his habit of taking sh.e.l.ls, fuses and bombs apart and examining and prying into their contents. One time his curiosity came nearly getting him a quick pa.s.sage West. He was examining a bomb and, taking out the pin, was holding it in his hand, looking at it for a brief instant. Providentially an officer was standing beside him who saw his mad act and, grabbing the bomb from his hand, flung it into the field--and just in time! It exploded before it had well gotten on its way.

Pete's answers to the officer, while respectful, were tantalizing to a degree:

"What did you do that for?"

"What are they here for?"

"Why did you take the pin out?"

"Because it is made to come out."

"Did you want to kill yourself?"

"If I did it would have been my own funeral."

"How about the others?"

"They had no business here."

"Think it over in the clink--ten days."

I could think of nothing else but the fellow who was pa.s.sing a private residence one day with a pitchfork on his shoulder, and a big dog came rushing out at him, and he jammed the dog through with his pitchfork, killing him. The owner came out in a great rage.

"What did you do that for?"

"What did your dog run at me for?"

"Why didn't you hit him with the other end?"

"Why didn't he come at me with his other end?"

Gunboat Stevens was another of the plotters; his suggestions were so unique and uncommon that each of them sent us into an uncontrollable roar of laughter. Unfortunately, as we thought, they were usually as impracticable as they were strange. This member of our gang derived his alias from his warm adherence to the navy as against the army. Never was there an argument started about the navy that it did not have a burning advocate in Stevens; he would even go to the length of challenging any man in the crowd to fight him then and there who had the temerity to claim that the Empire had as good a defender in the military as in the naval arm of the government.

We also had a Jesse James; his surname was really James and it was easy fitting on the handle.

The conference finally resolved itself into a determination to burn his new-made bivouac, but I dissuaded them and convinced them that it would be much better for them to lug it over to the incinerator and throw it into the pit. To complete the plot and give it an artistic finish, it was necessary to have a ham bone, and Gunboat volunteered to get it.

"I'm on picket tonight," he said, "and I'll go to the cookhouse when the cook is asleep and fix it." He did so; when the cook was dreaming of everything but the front line, Gunboat quietly slipped in, unearthed the ham that was in readiness for our breakfast, and with his knife he quickly extracted the bone, taking care of the pickings with his teeth while finishing his sentry go.

The next night everything was in readiness and when the opportune moment arrived, with Hambone leaving with ammunition for the guns, I pa.s.sed the word. When he was well on his way we hurried over to his shack, rooted it out and carried it bodily over to the incinerator, setting it completely over the hole. Now for the artistic touch. We took the ham bone, fastened it with wire to the end of a stick that we nailed across the top of the shack, with the end protruding well out to the side, and on the end of the ham bone we hung a placard, so that all could see, reading, "Here lies the remains of Hambone Davis. Gone but not forgotten." Then we scampered over to one side and with the glee of mischievous schoolboys watched developments. Nearly every pa.s.sing soldier, noticing the odd sight, strolled over and read the sign, going off snickering.

The following evening Hambone arrived back from the guns; he had with him some of the conspirators carrying wood that he wanted; it was the first time they experienced real pleasure in that work because they foresaw the denouement in store.

When they reached the spot where his home had been, Hambone looked around in a dazed sort of fashion, almost swallowing a mouthful of tobacco juice as he blurted out, "Where the b.l.o.o.d.y 'ell is my 'ouse?

What b.l.o.o.d.y well nonsense is this? Hi'll make someone pay for this!" The rest of us were loitering in the immediate vicinity, listening with sheer chucklings to his burning vows, and it was all we could do to stifle our laughter. Then Hambone ran around like a looney, looking here and there for his house, and when he found it and saw the bone and read the placard, his feelings were so intense that he actually spat out his mouthful of tobacco, juice and all.