With Haig on the Somme Part 3

But I'll tell you what happened last night, sir; them there lights showed again up yonder."

"That is precisely what I have been sent down to investigate," said his interrogator.

"We are all certain there's something going on," said the sentry, "though they ain't been seen for ten days now."

They stood side by side looking inland, and the staff officer, with his hands behind the back of his drab mackintosh, pressed the b.u.t.ton of a tiny electric torch rapidly three times.

The sentry was only a boy, and he talked volubly, not heeding the melancholy call of a sea-bird from the water.

"Ah, well, I think we shall have them to-night," said the staff officer.

"I see you have still got the old Mark II.?"

"Yes, sir," smiled the unsuspecting lad. "They took the others away from us when we came down on this job."

"Let me look at it," said the staff captain, holding out his hand, and the moment his fingers closed round the rifle the boy dropped senseless on to the stones, felled by a smashing blow from the heavy b.u.t.t.

"You'll do!" said his a.s.sailant, and, laying the rifle down and gathering up the skirts of his mackintosh, he walked deliberately into the sea!

A collapsible boat, rowed by two men in German naval uniforms, was rising and falling on the top of the tide, and in another moment the men were pulling out into the rain blur with their mysterious pa.s.senger.

No one spoke, until the nose of the boat met the dark grey hull of the submarine waiting less than a quarter of a mile out, and as the beam of a searchlight suddenly flashed through the mist, the top of the periscope sank noiselessly beneath the waves, and Captain Von Dussel, alias Van Drissel, sank with it.

"Good luck again, Kamerad?" inquired the commander as they stood in the conning-tower.

"The best of good luck this time, Heffer," laughed the spy. "How soon can you put me ash.o.r.e on the other side?"

"As soon as I have accomplished a little scheme of my own," replied the commander of the U50, with a strange glitter in his eyes. "The boat is coming out of Folkestone now."

"That is not my affair," said Von Dussel.

"No, it is mine," replied the commander haughtily. "In less than an hour I shall send her to the bottom."

"You will do no such thing," said the spy in a low piercing voice, producing a Browning pistol and clapping it to his head. "In an hour I must be in France. The news I carry is worth the loss of forty Channel steamers. Hesitate another moment, and I will shoot you like a dog!"

CHAPTER III

"At Ten o'Clock Sharp!"

"Hawke!"

"Sir!" And the marksman of A Company jumped across the floor of the trench to the door of the dug-out with surprising alacrity, as the merry laughing face of Dennis Dashwood showed in the square hole in the wall of the parados.

From the moment Bob Dashwood had made Dennis known to Harry Hawke as "my brother," that worthy had attached himself to the new arrival with the same devotion he showed to the captain, and the more he saw of Dennis the more devoted he became.

"Hawke," said the subaltern, "I'm going over to-night, and I want three old hands to go with me. The Divisional C.O. wishes the enemy wire examined, and I've put in for the job. You can come if you fancy it.

What do you say?"

"I says yus!" cried Harry Hawke, with a widening of the grin that puckered his dirty, mahogany-coloured face. "Better let me pick you out two more, sir, what knows the game."

"Right-o!" a.s.sented Dennis. "Of course, it all depends on whether their guns start strafing our trench at dusk. If not, and everything is fairly quiet, we'll move out at ten sharp," and he consulted his wristlet watch--Mrs. Dashwood's last present.

"What's this conspiracy? Can't I be in it too?" said a strange voice that made Harry Hawke jump round, ready to salute, but his hand dropped to his side again, for it was only an Australian corporal, who had come along the trench behind him unnoticed.

"Why, Dan, old fellow! Where on earth have you sprung from?" cried Dennis, emerging from his burrow and seizing the outstretched hand as though he never meant to let it go again.

"It isn't a long story, Dennis," laughed the corporal, who was a broad-shouldered young fellow a year or two the boy's senior. "They've just moved our crowd in behind the brigade on your right, and the first person I set eyes on was Uncle Arthur, who happens to know our old man.

So, as we are in the reserve trenches and nothing doing, I asked leave to come over here to see you, and got it too. Uncle told me you had only just arrived. How long have you been here?"

"Forty-eight hours," said Dennis. "Come and see my quarters."

His cousin ducked his head and followed him down the three steps that led into the dug-out.

"'Will you walk into my parlour, said the spider to the fly,'" murmured Dan Dunn.

"Quite so," laughed Dennis. "But we haven't room for even a spider's web, though the rats are an infernal nuisance."

"There are worse things in this world than rats," said his cousin, looking round at the little square cave excavated months before by the Germans in the chalky soil, and seating himself on one of the two cots.

"Who's your room-mate?"

"My brother Bob. He's our platoon commander, you know. He'll be in presently for tea. But, I say, isn't this just ripping?"

"It's certainly better than Gallipoli," said Dunn with a quiet, retrospective smile. "Gad, Dennis, that was an awful hash up!" And he blew a cloud of tobacco smoke to circle upwards among the shelves and lockers, where all sorts of things were stowed away.

"Beg pardon, sir," said Private Hawke, thrusting his head in at the door. "You didn't answer this gentleman's question. Does he want to come with us to-night?"

"Oh, yes--did you mean that, Dan? It's like this," explained Dennis.

"The Boches have been putting up some fresh wire over yonder, and they want to know at D.H.Q. whether it's permanent or temporary. I rather fancy there's a bit of a raid on the cards, and I'm going out to reconnoitre."

"Do I mean it!" laughed his cousin. "As long as I report myself at sun-up it's all right."

"Very well, Hawke, my cousin will go with us."

"Then we'll only want one other man, sir, and I'll warn Tiddler. He can smell Germans in the dark."

"That doesn't take much doing," smiled Dennis. "They're a filthy crowd, anyhow. Ten o'clock sharp! And ask Smithers if that kettle's boiling."

Harry Hawke had scarcely removed his drab figure from the doorway when Captain Dashwood blotted out the light and dived in upon them with a dexterity born of much practice.

His greeting with the Australian cousin was warm enough, but they both saw something unusual in his face as Dan squeezed up on the cot and made room for him.

"Read this, Dennis," he said. "The mater's just sent it over," and he tossed Ottilie's farewell letter across the dug-out.

"The pigs!" cried Dennis hotly. "I can't say it doesn't surprise me, because it does; but, you know, I never tumbled either to the man or to his sister. What does the governor say?"

"He's very sick," replied Bob. "Especially as he gave the whole show away in his letter. Luckily the mater took it from the postman herself, and she doesn't think they can possibly have seen it. But there it is--one never knows. It is the beastly ingrat.i.tude that gets over me.