CHAPTER I

“Hey! What’s that? D’ye hear something crawling along the ground to the right there?”

Gunn got to his feet and looked over the parapet. He peered into the darkness. Then he turned his head to one side and listened. There was no sound but the droning of the rain, falling on the sodden, naked earth of the battle-front.

“I can hear nothing,” he said. “Probably it was a rat you heard.”

He yawned and added:

“God! Is this rain never going to stop? There’s eight inches of water at the bottom of this post already.

Oh! Oh! Oh! This is a lovely war.

If I ever have a son I’ll bring him up in petticoats.”

He had been dozing on the fire-step, when Lamont, the sentry, kicked him. Now, as he awoke fully, he began to shudder with cold. He rubbed his eyes and cursed. Then he noticed that Lamont, who leaned over the parapet beside him, was trembling violently.

“What’s the matter, towny?” he said tenderly. “Cold?”

Lamont did not answer. He trembled still more violently. Instinctively, he moved his body closer to Gunn. Gunn put his arm around the youth’s shoulder and shook him.

“Hey!” he said gruffly. “Come on, Louis. What’s the matter? Got the wind up? Cripes! I can’t see my hand.”

He held out his hand in front of his face and peered at it.

“I’m all right,” whispered Lamont in a trembling voice. “It’s only that bloke crawling about... out there... that...”

“Oh! To hell with him!” said Gunn, taking away the hand that lay on Lamont’s shoulder and inserting it in his left armpit, beneath his great-coat, in order to scratch himself. “There’s nobody out there. It’s only a rat. You sit down and have a draw at a fag. I’ll stand here. Come on. Get out of it. God bless the man who invented fags anyway. Oh! Christ! I’m sleepy. If my mother saw me now she’d take to drink. Phew! I must have water on the brain. I’m soaked to the marrow. Step down, lad, and light up. I’ll have a draw after you.”

Lamont got down hurriedly, crouched against the base of the parapet, took off his steel helmet and rummaged within the band until he found a packet of Woodbines. He took one from the packet and hurriedly put on his hat. Rain had begun to fall on his shorn skull, making it feel terribly cold.

“Poor little bastard!” muttered Gunn, now scratching himself with both hands. “It’s tough on a youngster. Christ! What a life!”

He shook his fist at No Man’s Land and growled:

“Come on, you devil! Do your best. You won’t do me in.”

They were in the outpost occupied by the bombing section of No. 2 Platoon. They had been in the line for forty-eight hours and it had rained ceaselessly all that time. There was no dug-out, except an elephant frame which covered the Corporal’s corner. Eight of them had to sleep in the water that covered the bottom of the hole. It was impossible to drum up. Everybody was exhausted and demoralised; especially young Lamont, who was unused to the trenches and was only a youth of nineteen.

“Say, Bill,” whispered Lamont from the bottom of the hole. “I can’t light this fag. My hands are numb.”

Gunn stepped down.

“Give it to me,” he said.

Sheltering his head under Lamont’s oil-sheet, he took the cigarette and the box of matches.

“Cigarette is wet now,” he said. “So are the matches. Blast it!”

It took him a long time to light the cigarette. He puffed at it three times and then stood up.

“Here,” he said, “have a draw. Do ye good. Blast this rain!”

He leaned over the parapet and began again to scratch himself.

“Say, Louis,” he whispered, “are they biting you?”

“No,” said Lamont, smoking eagerly. “At least, I don’t notice.”

“You’d notice if they were,” said Gunn. “Always worse when you wake up. That bloody creosote I put on my shirt only made them worse. Hello! That’s not a rat.”

He heard a sound in front; obviously a man crawling about in the mud, dragging his body along the ground, or hauling something heavy. Lamont also heard the sound and jumped to his feet.

“There it is again,” he whispered excitedly. “Do you hear it?”

“Sit down,” said Gunn. “I hear it all right. It’s probably that sniper we were talking to yesterday evening. He’s all right.”

“I don’t think so,” said Lamont nervously. “They might be creeping up on us to capture us by surprise.”

“Well! What about it if they capture us?” said Gunn. “We couldn’t be worse off as prisoners.”

“But they might kill us.”

“Oh! Shut up, for God’s sake!”

“The Corporal said this post was in a dangerous position, stuck out in front of the line.”

“You’ll drive me mad,” said Gunn. “Can’t you learn how to soldier? As long as that sniping post is there within one hundred yards of us, they can’t shell us. See? Anyway... They’re just as fed up as we are. It is only somebody coming to relieve that sniper. There you are. Listen. Hear them whispering?”

They listened. Above the droning of the rain, they heard voices muttering in the darkness. The voices did not seem human to them, as the words, uttered in a strange language, had no meaning in their ears. They appeared to be sounds uttered by animals.

“Hear them?” said Gunn. “Funny, isn’t it, hearing these two blokes muttering out there in their queer lingo. A Mills’ bomb’d give those blokes a queer fright now, I bet. Still, he wasn’t a bad little fellow, that sniper we were talking to yesterday evening. The bloody big lump of chocolate he gave us for two Woodbines. Old Reilly made him eat a bit before we swopped. It might be poisoned, he said. ‘You no fire, I no fire,’ said the bloody little Jerry. Funny little bloke with a ginger moustache. I’ve seen lots of Jerries in the States before the war. Great bloody beer sharks. Good-natured blokes. They’re just driven to it, same as we are. Still, I’d like to drop a bomb on top of those two out there.”

Lamont shuddered. They listened in silence again to the muttering.

“Shouldn’t we call the Corporal all the same?” said Lamont. “It might be... they might be... it might be an attack.”

“He’ll give you hell if you wake him,” said Gunn. “Hear him snore?”

The two enemy soldiers stopped chattering and began to move away.

“What did I tell you?” said Gunn. “See? They’re moving off.”

They listened to the queer, brutal sound of two human bodies dragging themselves over the sodden mud in the darkness.

“It’s funny,” said Lamont, “those two blokes are soldiers same as we are, with people at home. And they’re wet and lousy and hungry and fed-up same as we are too. But we think... I mean to say that whenever I think of Fritz I see him only as some cruel giant that’s.... No! But just as an enemy. What’s an enemy, I wonder? It’s something....”

“Jesus!” said Gunn. “You’re only a kid. You have funny notions. You go and have a sleep. I’ll stand here for you.”

“I can’t sleep,” said Lamont. “I’d rather stand here and talk to you, if you don’t mind.”

Gunn cursed and said:

“You put the wind up me. Strike me bloody stiff but you do. You can’t stand this racket and you shouldn’t be here.”

“Here,” said Lamont, “have the rest of this fag.”

Gunn took the cigarette. He lowered his head as he drew at it, lest the glow might be seen.

“It’s queer,” said Lamont, “how a fellow never gets anything wrong with him in the trenches. I’ve been soaked to the skin for two days and I’ve slept in water. Still... I haven’t got a cold. At home, if I got wet like this I’d catch pneumonia. I wish I could get pneumonia. I’d get as far as the base anyway.”

“Shut up, for God’s sake!” muttered Gunn, drawing eagerly at the butt of his cigarette. “No use talking like that. Probably be dead before you got to the dressing station. Put that idea out of your head. You’ve got to stick it, mate.”

He threw down the butt of his cigarette. It sizzled in the water.

“You’ve been wounded twice, haven’t you, Bill?” said Lamont.

“Yes.”

“What’s it like?”

“How do you mean? Hospital?”

“No. What’s it like getting hit? Does it hurt much?”

“How do I know? I don’t remember. It hurt like hell at the dressing station. Quit talking about it. You’d drive anybody into a funk. You’re like a woman. Can’t you sit down and have a sleep?”

“No. I don’t want to sleep.”

Gunn spat, cursed, rummaged in his clothes under his gas mask, grunted, pulled out his hand and cracked a louse against the butt of his rifle.

“I’m crawling with them,” he said, shuddering. “It’s in the blood. The longer you’re out here the worse you get.”

“Is there no way of getting out of here?” said Lamont.

“There’s only two ways,” said Gunn angrily. “You either go West or get a blighty. Now quit it or I’ll give you a crack on the jaw. You’ll drive me mad. I’ve got enough of a job looking after myself without looking after you. You’re always nagging like a woman. Blimme! Can’t you be cheerful sometimes?”

Lamont sat down on the fire-step. He got up almost at once, clutched Gunn’s arm and whispered excitedly:

“Say, Bill, I can’t stick this any longer. I’ll go mad. Can’t you get me out of it?”

Gunn gripped the lad with both hands and shook him.

“What are you driving at?” he said. “Eh?”

“You could do me a good turn if you wanted to,” whispered Lamont.

“How d’ye mean? I can’t get myself out of it.”

“Give me a blighty one.”

“What?”

“Lots have done it, haven’t they?”

“That’s enough now,” whispered Gunn, in a voice that was both angry and panic-stricken. “Pull yourself together. You’re a fine mucking-in chum to have. By God!”

Lamont dropped his face on his arms, against the muddy sandbags of the parapet. Gunn took him roughly in his arms and muttered:

“Listen. I know what’s the matter with you. I’m going to give you a good punch in the jaw if you’re not careful. You’re just nagging like a woman. Chuck it.”

“Let me alone,” said Lamont, in a broken whisper. “Only for mother, I’d do myself in. They’d tell her.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” said Gunn. “I’ll see to that. I’ve no mother, but at your age I could stick this on my own legs, without no mother. Aye! And a double ration of it, boy. Damn this rain! That’s the cause of it. Rain. Mud. Lice. Curse it!”

He looked up at the sky and clenched his fist, as if threatening heaven.

He was a huge fellow, so burly that he looked stocky, although he was well over six feet in height. He looked a typical fighter, with a thick neck, square jaws and a body like a full sack. His right ear was battered. There was a scar on his left cheek. He was thirty-two years old and he had laboured for wages since his boyhood, but his body had not become demoralised by enslaved toil. Nature had taken great pains with this seemingly crude and large individual, endowing him with muscles and sinews that refused to be stiffened by monotonous labour, and with a spirit that hardship could not conquer. He had a simple soul, which shone through his great, blue eyes; giving the lie to the cruel strength of his neck, his jaws, his heavy-lipped mouth, his massive shoulders, chest and thighs.

He was like a mastiff, that most ferocious-looking and most gentle of all animals; who, however, when roused or made vicious by brutal treatment, becomes as ferocious as he looks.

He looked down at Lamont and said, “You’ll drive me daft. I’m blowed if I know why I muck in with you. Strike me stiff, if I do. You’re like a woman.”

Then he shuddered and looked into the darkness.

“You’ve been out here now,” he said, “for three months. You should be getting used to it by now. But you’re not.”

“I can’t help it,” whispered the youth, “I’m all in.”

Gunn shuddered again and struck himself a violent blow on the chest. Then he cursed and said with extraordinary anger:

“Now listen to me. I’ve been out here over two years on this lousy front and I’m as fed up with it as you are. I don’t give a curse who wins this rotten war and I’d like to run my bayonet through the fellahs that started it. We’re just fighting for a gang of robbers, as ’79 Duncan said. I’ve got my eyes open now, although I hadn’t when I enlisted. I came thousands of bloody miles to enlist. Jumped freight all the way from Seattle, Washington, to New York, and then to Liverpool as a trimmer on a liner. See? I walked into it. But if I ever get desperate, same as you are, I’m not going to try and get out of it by wounding myself or running across No Man’s Land to bloomin’ Fritz with my hands up.”

He spat and added:

“That’s a coward’s way out of it. I promised to soldier and soldier I will, though I hate their guts, from the lousiest Lance-Jack to the Skipper.”

He spat again, cursed, looked at Lamont and said almost nervously:

“Jesus! You put the wind up me. I was married once to a woman, way up in Nova Scotia, when I was working on a weekly boat. She was just like you. She had me worn to a ghost. I left her, by Jesus, one night, after giving her a bloody good hiding. I went out west and never saw her again.”

He peered down into the post, towards the corner where Corporal Williams lay asleep under an elephant frame. The Corporal was just a dun blur, from which sounds of snoring came. The dim forms of his comrades lay tossing in their sleep at the bottom of the hole, some of them with their feet in muddy water. Gunn tipped Lamont and whispered, jerking his head towards the Corporal:

“If he heard what you said, d’ye know what you’d get? Eh?”

Lamont shuddered, wiped his face with his sleeve and said:

“I don’t care. They can put me up before the firing squad whenever they like. I’m fed up.”

Gunn ground his teeth.

“Then what the hell did you enlist in this mob for?” he said. “This is the worst regiment in the whole army. Ye knew that. It’s the best regiment, too! For I’ve seen our fellahs, by God, go through worse than hell. They’re gathered from all corners of the earth, the toughest of the tough. You should have joined the Army Medical Corps.”

“I wish I had no mother,” whimpered Lamont.

“I can’t stand this,” growled Gunn to himself. “As sure as hell I’m going to get into trouble over this kid.”

Lamont had joined the battalion three months previously at a rest camp. When they saw him, the tough soldiers greeted him with jeering laughter. He was a beautiful boy, with pink cheeks, dazzling white teeth like a girl and big blue eyes. He did not swear or drink and it was obvious at once that he had never been used to any hardship. Almost as soon as he arrived he began to receive parcels of food and cigarettes with every post. It became known that his people were well-to-do and that he had a mother who doted on him and that he was an only child.

Gunn took him under his protection and cared for him like a father or a big brother. At first it made Gunn very happy. There had been no gentle influence like this in his rough and nomad life. He almost shed tears when he got a letter from Lamont’s mother thanking him for being kind to her boy. “God will bless you for it. He is the light of my eyes. My heart would break if anything happened to my darling boy.” Gunn had also reached the age when a virile man, who has no children, begins to look upon youth with longing; when the fear of death and old age begins to conquer the arrogant confidence of youth.

But after a while he became aware that the boy was sapping his strength. The boy lived on his nerves. Not only did he have to do the boy’s work, but he had to comfort him, to lend him courage.

And now the boy’s cowardice was sapping his sense of discipline; that extraordinary religion of the soldier which is proof against the greatest tortures; something that is brutally beautiful.

“Listen,” he said, “that’s the worst act of cowardice a soldier can commit. And what’s more, you can’t get away with it. If a man could do that without feeling ashamed of himself, d’ye think there’d be a man left on this front? But, ye see, them blokes back there are too cute.” He nodded his head to the rear. “You can’t beat them.” He touched his forehead. “Up there they’ve got it. Brains! We’re mugs. Look at it that way. Supposing it wasn’t a cowardly thing to give yourself a blighty one? Let’s say you do it and get back the line. What happens? They’ll cop you. Sure as hell. They’ve got blokes hired specially for copping self-inflicted wounds. They’ve got smart at it now. At first, you could get into hospital by eating a bar of soap. Now, if you try on any silly stunt, they put you in dock till you get better and then you’re for it. I know. I’ve been out here nearly two years and I’ve seen many a man, good men too, chancing their arms. Thirty-Nine Townshend tried to wound himself in the head when we were in the straw trenches. The blighter blew his brains out by mistake. Eighty-Four Flynn broke his leg with an entrenching tool at Neuve Chapelle. They copped him. Ginger Moriarty was caught by an officer trying to wound himself in the thigh with his rifle. He got what was coming to him all right. Christ! They’ve got an hospital away back there for self-inflicted wounds. There’s nothing to it.”

He dug his fist into Lamont’s back and said:

“Savvy?”

“I’ll get out of it somehow,” said Lamont with strange coolness.

Gunn peered at him in the darkness, almost with terror. A stupid fellow, the youth’s curious feminine cunning unnerved him, and made him also feel the temptation to do something shameful and desperate. The youth’s obstinate determination to save himself from the horrible life of the trenches roused in Gunn a dangerous desire for freedom. This desire was dangerous for Gunn because he was a brave soldier, who knew there was no means of escape, other than death or disablement inflicted by the enemy.

Terrified by the temptation inspired by the boy’s words and manner, he instinctively glanced again towards the corner where the Corporal snored.

“Quit that!” he whispered savagely, turning back to Lamont. “What are ye driving at now? Desertion? ’Fifty-Seven Flood tried that at Armentières. What happened to him? Caught on the wires and riddled with bullets. Disgraced his bloody company. Jerry’d make ye sorry ye came if ye got there. He doesn’t want his own men trying that on, so he’d make an example of ye.”

“I’ll get out of it somehow,” said Lamont coldly.

“God Almighty!” muttered Gunn.

They became silent, standing side by side, looking out into the darkness over the parapet. With their steel hats and their oil-sheets, which they wore, laced about their throats, over their great coats, they looked like ghouls in the gloom, buried to their waists in a hole; while all round them the earth lay naked, turned into mud, holed, covered with the horrid débris of war, emitting a stench of rotting, unburied corpses.

From the pitch-dark sky the rain fell, unceasing and monotonous, like the droning of brine water falling on a floor of black rocks from the roof of a subterranean cave where moaning seals are hidden and flap about upon their ledges; sounds from a dead world; the mysterious gloom of the primeval earth, where no life had yet arisen; no sap of growing things; nothing but worms and rats feeding on death.

Clods of dislodged mud slipped from the sides of holes, flopped into blood-stained pools, sank and turned into slime.

The silence was horrid.

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