Chapter 5 THE BACK OF THE FRONT

The slow wet winter dragged itself out. The training went on, fair weather or foul. The 17th Rutland Light Infantry got their service boots in due time, but other details of their equipment were slow to arrive. Presently they received enough rifles and entrenching tools for half the battalion, and the ordinary drill and physical exercises, which Kennedy had privately confided to Amory "bored him stiff," was varied with musketry practice and digging trenches. There were long marches, semaphore practice, sham fights, night operations; day by day the men gained new knowledge of their trade.

More rifles came, this time with bayonets; bayonet exercise and practice in attack gave further variety to their work. At last, towards the end of February, the whole battalion was fully equipped, and the men grew excited at the prospect of going to the front.

It was a great moment when the colonel gave them a few hours' notice of entrainment. Lusty cheers broke from a thousand throats; the longed-for day had come at last. Crowds of townsfolk assembled at the station to see them off, but they were quiet, serious crowds, the women's faces tense with anxiety, the children unwontedly subdued. It was no picnic for which these sturdy Englishmen were setting out. Everybody was now aware of the greatness of the struggle, the bravery and tenacity of the enemy, the scientific skill and terrible thoroughness with which the Germans had prepared through many years for this attempt to seize the mastery of the world. Hearts were full as the men stepped blithely into the long train; how many of them would return, and of these, how many would be sound and strong?

Their immediate destination was known to none except the commanding officer. When, after a tiring journey, with much shunting and side-tracking, the men were finally detrained at a small station in the south of England, with no sign of sea or transports, there was a general feeling of surprise and disappointment. They were marched to a wide barren plain, peppered with tents and huts, and here, it became known by and by, they were to spend a month or more in further training.

Even Ginger for once became a grouser.

"I've had about enough of this," he growled. "What's the good of it all?"

"Discipline, Ginger," said Kenneth.

"Discipline! That's obedience, ain't it? Well, I ask you, don't we do as we're told like a lot of school kids? I'm sure I'm as meek as Moses. Never thought I could be so tame. I've quite lost my character, and if ever I get back to the works I'll have to go a regular buster, or else I'll be one of the downtrodden slaves of the capitalist."

"I don't think so badly of you," said Kenneth, with a smile. "But discipline is more than obedience. Between you and me, I think this extra training is as much for the officers' sake as ours. The British officer leads, you see. He knows we'll obey orders; he has to make sure that he gives the right orders. If he didn't there'd be an unholy mess: we should lose confidence in him, and the game would be up. We've got to work together like a football team, every man trusting every other; and that's what all this drilling and training is for."

"I daresay you're in the right," said Ginger. "I wasn't thinking of them young officers! They're a good lot, though, ain't they? I don't know what it is, but there's something about 'em--why, Mr. Kennedy now, he's ten years younger than me, and yet somehow or other he manages me like as if I was a baby. And no bounce about it either; I wouldn't stand bounce from any man, officer or not. But he don't bounce; he speaks as quiet as a district visitor; but somehow--well, you feel you've just got to do what he says, and you'd be a skunk if you didn't. I don't understand it, I tell you straight."

Kenneth did not speak the thought that arose in his mind, but he warmed to this testimonial from the British working-man to the British public-school boy.

There came a day, about the middle of March, when the battalion was once more entrained. This time the men took it more quietly: the first disappointment forbade them to set their hopes too high. It was dark when the train reached its destination; the lights on the platform were dim; but one of the men shouted, "A ship, boys!" as he got out of his compartment, and a thrill of excitement ran through the crowd.

They were in fact at the dock station at Southampton, and a big transport vessel lay alongside. Many of the men had never been on the sea before. Ginger looked a little careworn, and confessed to Kenneth that he felt certain he was going to be sick. The night was nearly gone when all the men were aboard. Some lay down in their overcoats; others remained on deck, irked by the impossibility of satisfying their curiosity about the vessel.

At daybreak the ship cast off and steamed slowly through the fairway of Southampton Water towards the open sea. It was a bright calm morning, and the men watched with fascinated eyes the ripples glistening in the sunlight, the various shipping, the shores receding behind them. And presently, when they had rounded the north-east corner of the Isle of Wight, and the course was headed southward across the Channel, they burst into cheers when they caught sight of the low lean shapes of destroyers on either side of them.

"What price submarines to-day!" cried one of the men.

"Ain't got an earthly," remarked another.

"Don't believe there are none," said a third. "Our men in blue have sunk 'em all long ago."

"How are you getting on, Ginger?" asked Kenneth.

Ginger was half lying on his back, gripping a stanchion, and looking straight ahead with nervous anticipation.

"Is it much farther?" he asked.

"Nothing to speak of. The Channel's as calm as a millpond."

"It may be, but the ship ain't. She's very lively. All of a shake, she is. Takes a lurch for'ard, then backs a bit, seemingly, then another lurch. It ain't what I'm used to. It worries the inside of me. I want to say 'Whoa, steady!' like I do to the donkeys at fair time. And it gives me the needle to see that there Stoneway sticking hisself out as if he was driving the bally ship. It don't seem fair, a big chap like him taking it so easy when he's got twice as much as me to lose."

"Well, you won't lose much if you keep still," said Harry, laughing at the man's woe-begone face. "It's quite certain you couldn't have a calmer crossing."

Ginger's alarms were needless. When the cliffs of France hove in sight he got up and leant over the rail, eagerly watching the advancing coast-line.

"That's France, is it?" he remarked. "I don't see much difference. I can't understand why the folks over there don't speak English, when they live so close. I reckon we'll learn 'em afore we get back."

The red and blue roofs of Boulogne became distinct. Presently the vessel rounded the breakwater and manoeuvred herself alongside the quay. There was scarcely anything to show that the men had actually arrived in France. Khaki predominated on the quay; an English voice hailed the skipper through a megaphone; a blue-grey motor omnibus with the windows boarded up and the words "Kaiser's coffin" chalked on the sides stood on the road.

No time was lost in disembarkation. The men were marched across the railway lines to a train in waiting. Ginger, with Kenneth, Harry, and half a dozen more, got into a compartment labelled "Défense de fumer," and started lighting up at once.

"We'll defend it all right," said Ginger, "but the rest is spelt wrong."

"It means you mustn't smoke," said Kenneth.

"Well, that's a good 'un! What do they take us for? Any gentleman object?"

"No!" yelled in chorus.

"I didn't half think so."

The train rumbled away eastward, and the men scanned the bare country from the windows, remarking on its dreary character, scarcely relieved by the pollard willows that raised their naked boughs against the grey sky. By and by they got out at a small station, and marched along a straight road between rows of trees to a country village. They kept to the right side; the other was busy with empty supply wagons, lorries of familiar appearance, now and then a mud-caked motor car.

Some officers had gone on ahead to arrange billets. Arriving at the village, the majority of the men were accommodated in the barn and outbuildings of a large farm, a few in separate cottages. Kenneth, with Harry and Ginger and other men of their platoon found themselves allotted to a labourer's cottage, where shake-downs of clean straw had been laid on the floors of a couple of rooms. A road divided their billet from the garden of a good-sized house, in which quarters had been found for two or three of the officers.

Apart from the traffic on the road there was as yet no sign of war. No sound of guns broke the stillness of the spring afternoon. But it had become known that the firing line was only a few miles ahead, and the men were all agog with expectation of an early call to the trenches.

It soon appeared, however, that they were not yet to enter upon the real work of war. Rumour had it that Sir John French was waiting for further reinforcements before pursuing the forward movement recently started at Neuve Chapelle. Day after day passed in exercising, marching, practising operations in the field. Word came of other regiments pouring across the Channel and occupying other villages and towns behind the firing line. All day long they heard the distant bark of guns, and saw too frequently the swift passage of motor ambulances conveying their sad burdens to the coast. When off duty they strolled about the village, making friends of the hospitable villagers, romping with the children, playing football, cheerful, light-hearted, scarcely alive to the actualities of the desperate work in which they were so eager to engage.

One day a trifling incident occupied Kenneth's attention for a moment. He happened to have gone into a little shop to buy cakes for the children of the good people upon whom he was billeted. Several of the men were there making purchases, and one of them was vainly trying to explain his wants to the shopkeeper. Stoneway was standing by. Kenneth translated for his baffled comrade; then, suddenly remembering what he had overheard on the platform at St. Pancras station, he said to him:

"Why didn't you ask Stoneway to help you? He speaks French."

Stoneway looked astonished and startled, but said at once:

"Me! I know a word or two, but you can't call it speaking French. I couldn't do it."

Kenneth said no more, though his recollection of the energetic conversation at the station was very clear, and he wondered why the man had denied his accomplishment.

There was only one opinion of the kindness and hospitality of the villagers, and the men were particularly enthusiastic about the owner of the house across the road. Far from limiting himself to the sumptuous entertainment of the officers billeted on him, he went out of his way to lavish attentions on the soldiers, making them presents of cigarettes, and treating them to the wine of the country. The village had not suffered from the ravages of war, though the Germans had occupied it for a few days during their rush towards Calais; but it harboured many refugees from towns and villages farther eastward, and these were supported by the benevolent owner of the large house, who maintained a sort of soup kitchen where the homeless people could obtain free rations.

One evening, when Kenneth and his comrades were at supper in their host's capacious kitchen, the talk turned on Monsieur Obernai, "the mounseer over the way," as Ginger called him, "one of the best." Jean Bonnard, the cottager, and his wife took their meals with their guests, and chatted freely to Kenneth and Harry, the only men who knew enough French to understand them. Kenneth repeated in French what Ginger had said.

"Ah yes, monsieur," said Bonnard. "Monsieur Obernai is a good man. You see, he is from Alsace, and has reason to hate the Germans."

"All the same, I don't like him," said his wife, pressing her lips together.

"That is a point on which we don't agree," said Bonnard, with a smile. "Just like a woman! She doesn't like him, but she can't say why."

"You hear him!" said madame. "Just like a woman! As if a woman was not always right!"

"But you have a reason, madame?" said Harry.

"Bah! I leave reasons to men; I have my feelings."

Bonnard shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, mon amie," he said, "I can put my reasons into words, see you. Monsieur Obernai came here from Alsace five or six years ago. He could not stand the Germans, so he sold his property and came and settled here, and he has been a good friend to the village, that you cannot deny. A very quiet man, too; he lives all alone with an old housekeeper and a couple of servants, and makes himself very pleasant. When our two boys went off to the war, didn't he give them warm vests and stuff their haversacks with cigarettes?"

"Yes, he was good to our poor boys," admitted the good woman grudgingly, "but I don't like him all the same. I don't like his voice; it makes me shrivel."

"A man speaks with the voice God gave him," said her husband. "As for me, I look at what a man does, and don't trouble myself about his voice. And after all, it is not a bad voice."

"Smooth as butter," rejoined the woman. "But there, we shall never agree, mon ami. Get on with your soup."

After supper, some of the men settled down to write home. The postal regulations annoyed Ginger.

"I'm a poor hand at writing," he said, "and I don't see why I shouldn't send my love to my wife and kids on one of these here postcards. It ain't enough for a letter; yet if I put it on the postcard they'd destroy it, they say. What for, I'd like to know?"

"It does seem hard lines," said Kenneth, "but I suppose it's to ease the censors' work. They've an enormous number of cards to look over, and they'd never get done if they had to read a lot of stuff."

"'Love' 's a little word; that wouldn't hurt 'em. Still, rules is rules, no doubt."

He proceeded to cross out several sentences on the official postcard provided, leaving only "I am quite well" and adding his signature and the date.

Presently the post corporal came to collect the letters and cards.

"Captain wants you, Murgatroyd," he said.

"Going to give you your stripe at last, Ginger," said Harry.

"I shouldn't wonder," said Ginger, grinning as he went out.

When he returned, twenty minutes later, the expression on his face checked the congratulations that rose to his comrades' lips. His features were grimly set, and he went to his place by the fire without uttering a word.

"No luck, Ginger?" said one of the men indiscreetly.

"Shut up!" growled Ginger, lighting his pipe.

Nothing would induce him to explain why he had been sent for, or the reason of his annoyance. He was one of the best-behaved men in the company, and it seemed unlikely that he had got into trouble without the knowledge of the others. Wisely, they did not press him with questions, expecting that he would tell them all in good time.

Ginger's interview with Captain Adams had been a surprising one.

"You know the post regulations, Murgatroyd?" said the captain.

"Yes, sir."

"Well, look at this postcard. Is that your signature?"

"D. Murgatroyd; that's me, sir," said Ginger, after a glance at the pencilled name.

"What do you mean by writing the name of the place in invisible ink?"

"Never did such a thing, sir. Don't know anything about invisible ink."

"Well, how do you explain it, then? This card had the name written in invisible ink. It was discovered by the Post Office in London, and they've returned it for inquiries. What have you to say?"

"What I said before, sir: I didn't do it."

"You write to Henry Smith, 563 Pentonville Road?"

"Never heard of him, sir."

"What's the game, then? Go and fetch the post corporal," he said to his servant.

The man came in with a bundle of recently collected cards in his hand.

"Look at this," said the captain, showing him the card in question. "Did you get that from Murgatroyd?"

"I couldn't say, sir; I get such a lot."

"But you know his signature?"

"I can't say I do, sir; but he has just written a card; perhaps you would like to have a look at it."

He searched his bundle, found the card and handed it to the captain, who compared the two signatures.

"This is very odd," he said. "They are very much alike, but there's a slight difference in the shape of the y. It looks as though some one were imitating your fist, Murgatroyd."

"Yes, sir," said Ginger, stiffly. "I'd like to punch his head, sir," he added, as the baseness of the trick struck him.

"Well, we must find out who it is. Keep this to yourselves, men; he may try it again and give us a chance to catch him. Not a word to anyone, mind."

Ginger saluted and returned to his billet, his indignation growing at every step.

The incident was discussed at the officers' mess that night.

"Murgatroyd is straight enough," said Kennedy. "He's one of the best men in my platoon. It's rather a mean trick."

"And a senseless one," said the captain. "I'm inclined to think one of the men must owe him a grudge, and want to get him into trouble."

"What about the addressee?" asked another officer. "Who is Henry Smith, of 563 Pentonville Road?"

"The London people will keep him under observation, no doubt," said the captain. "I told the post corporal to examine every batch carefully, and see if there are any more addressed to the same person."

Three days passed. No letters or cards addressed to Henry Smith were discovered. On the third day a telegram from London was delivered to the colonel.

"Henry Smith gone, leaving no address. Report result of enquiry."

After consulting Captain Adams the colonel telegraphed in reply that Murgatroyd's signature appeared to have been forged, probably with the intention of getting him into trouble, and that he was keeping a careful watch on the correspondence. Ginger meanwhile had recovered his spirits. He had been made a lance-corporal, and sewed the stripe on his sleeve with ingenuous satisfaction. At the back of his mind was a suspicion that Stoneway might have sought a mean revenge for his thrashing by this use of invisible ink; but since the scheme had failed, he resolved not to trouble his head about it.