With Haig on the Somme Part 29

"Where are Bob and Dennis, Littlewood?" repeated the Brigadier.

"Here we are, sir!" said a laughing voice out of the darkness. "We're both a bit bent, but we're safe and sound for all that"; and Captain Littlewood echoed the Brigadier's hearty "Thank G.o.d!" as Hawke and Tiddler dumped their burden down before them.

Hands met, and the lieutenant, who had taken over the command of the survivors of A Company, and who had come up at the moment, felt the muscles of his throat tighten, and became very duty-struck to cover his emotions.

"Is that you, Hawke?" he said sharply. "Do you mean to say you disobeyed my orders and left the trench?"

"Captain Dashwood--sir!" said Harry Hawke, with a ring of ill-used innocence in his husky voice, "didn't we pick you up at the other end of this trench when you tumbled over the sandbags? And didn't you say you was all right, sir, but we would carry you?"

"Perfectly true, Hawke, that's a fact," said Captain Bob, the light strong upon him now; and no one saw the grip that fell on Harry Hawke's wrist, a grip that cemented the friendship between officer and man for ever and a day.

"Very well," said the lieutenant. "Get back to your company now--or all that's left of it"; and as the two rascals hurried away he looked from Bob to Dennis, and said, with a laugh of immense relief in the words of Galileo of old, "All right, you beggars, 'but it moves for all that!'"

CHAPTER XXII

The Row in the Restaurant

"Stand down, Reedshires! File off by your right!" And the shattered remnant of that fine battalion groped its way along a broken communication trench to the rear, as a fresh battalion from the reserves took over the trench they had won at such terrible cost.

They carried Bob Dashwood with them, and Dennis stumbled along like one in a dream; back past the sh.e.l.l-torn wood, through the village, or rather, the village heaps, and so to the rear, where they were to go into billets until the drafts should bring them up to fighting strength again.

It was a toilsome march, and the little band seemed strangely insignificant as it pa.s.sed other eager battalions hurrying up into the firing line, all eleven hundred strong, some even more.

One of these came swinging by, singing a l.u.s.ty chorus: "We're here--because we're here--because we're here--because we're here!" etc., and a voice called out, "What cheer, mateys--who are you?"

"The Royal Reedshires!" was the proud reply. "What's your crowd?"

"Dirty d.i.c.k's!"

"Then good luck to you"; and Harry Hawke, remembering a certain famous hostelry in his native land of Sh.o.r.editch, felt a fierce thirst come over him.

"I'd give somethink to be in Dirty d.i.c.k's just na'--wouldn't you, c.o.c.kie?" he murmured hoa.r.s.ely to his left-hand file.

"Not 'arf, I wouldn't," responded Tiddler with a great gulp.

Before long they left our own batteries behind them, and the roar of the firing, which never ceased, grew m.u.f.fled in the distance.

They turned aside after a while, for the road was wanted for the motor ambulances carrying their loads of maimed and mangled men from the advanced dressing-stations to the Divisional Field Hospital, and meeting them were the big lorries rushing up food, their headlights shining brightly in long perspective until the approach of dawn extinguished them.

Then, when the grey light stole over the gently undulating country, officers and men looked at each other and at the battalion, and the tired faces were wan and sunken with something that was not mere physical fatigue.

The C.O., with his keen smile, and well-waxed little grey moustache, was no longer in his accustomed place; "n.o.bby" Clark, who sang such good songs at their improvised smokers, would never sing to them any more. As for A Company, reduced to little more than a platoon and a half, it straggled along like a sort of ragged advance guard, savage and sleepy--oh, so sleepy, and covered with dust from head to heel, which did not hide the ugly red splotches and smears that told of fierce grips and the "haymaker's lift."

But at last they reached the little village, which was the end of the journey, and broke off and crowded into a big barn that they had once occupied before; and Dennis, who had tottered along without seeing anything through his staring eyes for the last mile and more, tripped and fell on his face, and lay so still that no one worried about him.

Very few of them worried about anything, as a matter of fact; even the ration parties provoked no enthusiasm. All they wanted was to sleep, and on many of the war-grimed faces was a smile of satisfied content. They had helped to lift the curtain of the Great Push, and it had been completely successful.

When Dennis opened his eyes, or rather, when he was conscious of opening them, he found Bob standing beside him with a colonel of the R.A.M.C.

"They're not hurrying themselves over that dinner," said Dennis. "I'm just as hungry as a hollow dog."

"He'll do," said the army doctor. "But for all that, a run home won't hurt him."

"A run where, sir?" exclaimed Dennis, sitting bolt upright. "The thing's only just beginning."

"For all that, my dear lad, you came very near making an end of it. Do you know you've had a slight concussion and lay unconscious for two days? But you're all right now, and you're going back to town for a week with your brother. The Push will be going on when you return, and you will be able to take up the thread where you left it."

The Colonel nodded with a friendly smile and went away, adding over his shoulder, "I'll make out the papers at once, and you can both of you get away by the next train that leaves railhead."

The next few hours were a dream to Dennis Dashwood, and when he had put on a fresh uniform, which his man had mysteriously procured, and had satisfied his terrific craving for food, Bob told him that our advance was steadily pushing forward, and the weight of our superior artillery was making itself irresistibly felt.

"Fact is, old man," said the Captain, "if you hadn't had an uncommonly thick head you'd have gone under, and the P.M.O.'s quite right. A week at home is absolutely necessary to set you up. My leg will be better at the end of that time, and we shall both come back with the draft as fit as fiddles."

Dennis groaned, but he felt the truth of what his brother said, and, whisked down to the port of embarkation, they crossed the Channel with an escort of T.B.D.'s, and both experienced that glorious thrill which strikes every Englishman worthy of the name when the white cliffs of the Old Country grow nearer and nearer.

Some day someone will write the epic of the Straits of Dover, and it will be worth the reading.

The moment they had set foot on sh.o.r.e they were consumed by a terrific impatience to reach their journey's end. But at last the hospital train slowed up at Charing Cross, and their taxi pa.s.sed between the double crowd which every day waited to see the arrival of the wounded.

"Can you believe it, old chap?" said Bob, as they whirled through the heavy summer foliage of Regent's Park and came to a halt.

"I've pa.s.sed beyond that stage when anything surprises me, Den," laughed his brother. "I believe if I woke up some morning and found myself on the top of St. Paul's I should simply look upon it as an observation post, and proceed accordingly."

He broke off as the gla.s.s doors opened and a well-known figure came out on to the steps, and the next moment Mrs. Dashwood was in the arms of her two soldier sons.

Their arrival had been witnessed from the window of the schoolroom, and the new governess was powerless to repress the joyful yell or to check the stampede as her young charges tore down the stairs.

"I've got something for you in my haversack, Billy," laughed Dennis, producing a German helmet minus the spike; and what with b.u.t.tons and bits of sh.e.l.ls, when the small fry retired to resume their study of French irregular verbs it is to be feared the verbs were even more irregular than usual.

The talk of the elders naturally turned on the Von Dussels, and Mrs.

Dashwood listened with bated breath to the account of their various meetings with the German spy.

"I suppose you've seen nothing more of Madame Ottilie of the big eyes?"

laughed Bob.

"I am certain that I pa.s.sed her at the Piccadilly Tube station two days ago," said Mrs. Dashwood. "But she has dyed her hair red. I am convinced it was the woman, and she knew that I recognised her. Oh, it is a shame that these people are allowed to remain in our midst with their wonderful system of transmitting intelligence."

"Well, I don't think their intelligence is likely to help them now,"

said Dennis. "We've got the beggars set. We've proved that, man to man, our fellows are miles better than the enemy, and it's only a matter of time. Whatever we take now, we retain--no falling back as in the old days. And, by Jove, mater, you should just hear our artillery!"

"I hear it every day, sleeping and waking," said his mother, putting her hands to her ears. "And oh, how I wish your dear father had been with you! He hasn't had a day's leave since the war started."

"And I'm afraid he isn't likely to put in for one," said Bob. "The Governor's great idea is to stick to his job. He's made our brigade one of the finest in the Army, and they just worship him out there."