With Haig on the Somme Part 44

"Yes, you brute, we've bagged the pair of you," said Dennis, with a grim laugh; "it's been Von Dussel versus Dashwood for a long time, but the Dashwoods have 'won out' in the end."

"I do not understand," faltered Von Dussel in a choking voice, and then instantly recovering his true Prussian bl.u.s.ter: "I demand the right treatment accorded to every officer who has the misfortune to be taken prisoner. I have high connections in my country, and I am willing to give you my parole."

"Parole for a cowardly murderer!" interrupted Dennis hotly. "You are talking through the back of your neck, and you know it. Besides, apart from all that, there is only one end for spies."

Then all the bl.u.s.ter went out of the cur, and he shivered like a man with ague as they took him away under escort into a safe place.

In the rear of that formidable trench, which they had taken with such gallantry, the Reedshires buried their dead. There were not many of them, considering the fury of the fight, but the little row of white wood crosses told of good comrades gone for ever, and had a grim significance all its own.

Harry Hawke stood in the rain, leaning on his rifle before one of the crosses, reading the simple inscription which the armourer-sergeant had painted for him on the rough wood: "Jim Tiddler, 2/12th R.R.R., aged 21.

He was a good pal."

"Yus, he was a good pal," muttered Hawke, "one of the best, and so was Mr. Wetherby. I'm glad old Tiddler's planted alongside 'im."

His wicked little eye ranged away to another chalk mound which had no name upon it. It stood apart from the rest, and was close to that angle of the German salient where Dennis had crouched on the night that all the survivors would remember as long as they remembered anything. An ugly red smear on the sandbags at the head of the mound had not been washed away by the rain.

Two spies had been buried there, after a court martial held in a dug-out, and one of them had been a woman, who had tried to brazen it out in spite of the overwhelming evidence produced against them.

Threats, tears, piteous appeals for mercy, Ottilie's big black eyes, all had proved in vain.

Then she had swallowed poison, but the tabloid she tried to pa.s.s to her husband was intercepted, and the volley of ball cartridge that dealt stern justice in the grey light of a wet afternoon had rid our lines of a deadly and insidious peril that had cost us many lives.

"Shooting was too good for 'im, the dirty dog," said Private Hawke, as he lit a woodbine and turned away.

And that was the requiem of the Von Dussels!

The weather brightened and the Great Push still rolled on. Day by day the sh.e.l.l dumps grew to incredible size, and the British guns never ceased their remorseless preparations. Names. .h.i.therto unknown to British readers became household words to those at home, who, reading between the lines, knew that at last our great and glorious armies were on the high road to victory.

It was not to be yet, but it was coming, slowly but surely, and Mrs.

Dashwood, in the old home with the green lawn sloping to the water's edge, wished a thousand times that she had been born a man that she might have taken her share in the great achievement.

A month pa.s.sed, and to the house in Regent's Park came a letter, written on a folding-table by the light of a candle stuck in a bottle, and in the writer's ears as he scrawled the lines was the tramp of the relief filing past his dug-out door.

"Darling little Mater," wrote Dennis, "I'm going to give you a surprise, unless the _Gazette's_ out already. You've heard me speak of Private Hawke of ours, the crack shot of my company, well, he and I have got three days' leave for a special reason.

The King is going to present Hawke with the V.C., which he has deserved over and over again, at Buckingham Palace next Thursday. Incidentally I might mention that I am also to receive it on the same day. Also the Military Cross, likewise the D.S.O. It makes me positively blush as I sit here, and I really believe I'm the most fortunate beggar in the whole of our crush, if not in the Army.

"Don't make any mistake, dear, it has been sheer luck on my part. I've just happened to be there at the right moment. Some beggars who have done far more than I have have got nothing--but there it is.

"By the way, the French have been awfully decent to me.

Somehow, Joffre got to know about a little sc.r.a.p I had when the French attacked a German trench, and I helped to carry out the commandant, who was badly wounded. They have given me their Military Medal for that, and for inducing a German company to surrender I've got the Croix de Guerre, their newest decoration, you know; and I'll be hanged, but on top of it all the Cross of the Legion of Honour has come along for a little air raid into the Black Forest with a charming _pilote-aviateur_ named Laval. It was really only a sort of joy ride, but I managed to bring Laval back after he was. .h.i.t. Thank goodness, they tell me he's almost well again, and I must say I like the French awfully.

"I never told you anything about that business, because I was afraid you might think I was risking my neck unnecessarily, but you know, dear, one's got to do it on a job like this. And oh, I say, what a pig I am, ga.s.sing about myself before I tell you that dear old Bob is coming over with us to receive the M.C.

It's an awfully pretty thing with silver-and-blue ribbon--and--though mind you, mater, this is not to be put about yet in case it doesn't come off--but there's a strong rumour round here that the Governor's to have a division! Haig was awfully delighted at the way he handled that business about a month ago--I mean when we downed your old friend Van Drissel.

Hope you are not running any more refugees, eh, what? Now be at the station to meet us, and if you like to kiss Hawke, you may.

He's saved my life more than once."

Mrs. Dashwood closed her eyes, and her lips moved in silent prayer. She was thanking Heaven that her husband and sons were "making good" in the hour of her country's triumph!