Chapter 6 BAGGING A SNIPER

The village being within easy range of the German guns, its immunity from bombardment struck the officers of the battalion as rather strange. For a few days, it is true, the enemy might have been unaware that British troops were in occupation; but a German aeroplane, a dove-winged Taube, had been observed to fly over the place, and it could hardly be doubted that information of their presence had been carried to headquarters.

All that the soldiers knew of warfare for two or three weeks was the dull boom of distant guns, the passage of ambulances occasionally and of supply wagons frequently, and the passing of railway trains conveying new howitzers and field guns along the line a mile or two away.

The call to action came unexpectedly. One evening, just after supper, the men were ordered to parade in full marching kit. They overflowed from the little market square into the adjacent streets, and there they were inspected by the colonel, who passed up and down the ranks with an orderly carrying a lantern.

When the inspection was finished, the colonel posted himself on a tub in the middle of the square. It was a dark night, and the flickering light of the lantern illuminated only the lower part of the colonel's body, leaving his face in shade.

"Now, men," he said, "we are going to take a spell in the trenches. We have several miles to march; there must be no straggling, or you'll pitch into Jack Johnson holes in the road. No talking, no smoking. I know you'll give a good account of yourselves. We're a new battalion; we've got to make our name; and by George, we'll do it!"

The platoon commanders stifled an incipient cheer, and the battalion marched off into the night.

Along the dark straight road they tramped, between lines of tall poplars that raised their skeleton shapes against the sky. For a mile or two nothing impeded their progress; then the advance guard came upon a deep cavity extending half across the road, and two men were told off to warn the succeeding ranks of the danger. Presently they passed through a hamlet which had been shattered by the German artillery. The sides of the road were heaped with bricks and blackened rafters, behind which were the jagged walls of roofless cottages.

A little beyond this they were met by a staff officer, come to guide them to the trenches. Then they had to ease off to one side to allow the passage of the weary men they were relieving. At length they came to a small clump of woodland, and learnt that the trenches were on the further side of it. Section by section they passed into the shelter of the trees, stepping across trunks felled and split by shells, and slid noiselessly into the narrow zig-zag ditches where they were to eat and sleep and spend weary days and nights.

Kennedy and his platoon, among whom were Kenneth, Harry, Ginger, and their pals, found themselves in a narrow passage about 4 ft. 6 in. deep, with a loopholed parapet facing eastward, and here and there little cabins dug out in the banks, boarded, strewn with straw, warm and stuffy. In the darkness it was impossible to take complete stock of their surroundings, but learning that in a dug-out it was safe to strike a light, Kenneth lit a candle-end, and was amused to see that his predecessor in the little cabin to which he had come had chalked up "Ritz Hotel" on the boarding.

The men were too much excited to think of sleeping. They had learnt on the way up that the position they were to hold was rather a hot place. The Germans in their front, only a few hundred yards away, were very active and full of tricks. They watched the British trenches with lynx eyes, and so sure as the top of a cap showed above the parapet it became the mark for a dozen rifles. There were night snipers, too, somewhere in the neighbourhood, constantly dropping bullets on their invisible target. The men who had just left the trenches had been much worried by these snipers, whom they had failed to locate; but they had reason to believe that the pestilent marksmen were hidden somewhere behind the lines.

"You're safe enough so long as you keep your heads down," said the officer who directed Kennedy to his position. "Except for the snipers we have had little trouble lately; and I hope you'll have a good time."

Kennedy told off his men to keep watch in turn through the night. While off duty they sat in the dug-outs chatting quietly, listening for sounds from the enemy's trenches, wondering what was in store for them when daylight came. Fortunately the wet weather had ceased; the bottom of the trench was still sticky, but the March winds were rapidly drying the ground. The night was cold, but there was a brazier in each dug-out, and the men, crouching over these in their great-coats, contrived to keep warm and comfortable.

They watched eagerly for daylight. At the first peep of dawn some of the men were told off to the loopholes. About thirty yards in front there stretched a wire entanglement, with small cans dangling from it here and there. Two or three hundred yards beyond this they saw the similar entanglement of the Germans. For about a hundred yards of the line this wire was more remote, and the men learnt afterwards that a pond of that breadth filled a declivity in the ground. Here and there, all round the position at varying distances, stood isolated farmhouses, trees, and patches of woodland. All was peaceful; no sound of war broke the stillness of the fair March morning.

They had their breakfast of cocoa and bread and jam. Towards noon two men from each section were told off to go back to a farm house behind the lines for the day's rations. They hurried along the trench in a crouching posture, struck into a communicating trench leading to the rear, and emerged on the outskirts of the wood. There was instantly the crack of a rifle. A sniper had begun his day's work. The men waited uneasily, clutching their rifles, wondering if any of their comrades had been hit. Kennedy posted his men a yard apart along the trench, ready to fire at the first sign of movement among the enemy. The zig-zag formation of the trench prevented any man from seeing more than the men of his own section, and there came upon them a feeling of loneliness and almost individual responsibility.

In about an hour's time Kenneth and his comrades were relieved to see their food-carriers returning with steaming pails. These contained a sort of hash mixed with beans and potatoes. The men poured this into their billies, warmed them at the braziers, and acknowledged that their dinner of Irish stew à la Fran?aise wasn't half bad. After that food was carried up only at night.

The day passed uneventfully. A rifle-shot was heard now and then; from a distant part of the line came the continual rumble of artillery-fire; once they caught sight of a British aeroplane far away to the north-east, with little patches of white smoke following it, hugging it. There was nothing to do except to keep a continual look-out.

But at dusk the reality of their danger was brought home to them. Cramped with the fatigue of maintaining a bending-posture one of the men got up to stretch himself. "Keep down!" shouted Kennedy, but it was too late. There was a slight whizz; the man fell headlong. Kenneth ran to him, as the crack of the rifle was heard. Nothing could be done. The bullet had pierced the man's brain.

When it was dark Kenneth and Ginger carried their dead comrade through the trenches to the wood, and buried him there among the trees. They returned in silence to their post.

"You'll write to his mother," said Ginger, as they got back. "She'll like to know as how poor Dick has been put away decent."

"Yes, I'll write," said Kenneth. "He felt no pain."

"War's a cursed thing," Ginger broke out. "What call have these Kaisers and people to murder young chaps like Dick, all for their own selfishness?--that's what it comes to. It didn't ought to be, and 'pon my soul, it beats me why us millions of working men don't put a stop to it. We're in it now; I'll do my bit; but seems to me the world would be all the better if they'd just string up a few of the emperors and such, them as thinks war's such a mighty fine thing."

Their first loss threw a cloud upon the spirits of the men. But it did not lessen their resolution. Direct knowledge, slight though it was at present, of the grim realities of war braced their courage. Already they had a comrade's death to avenge. To the more thoughtful of them the dead man represented a blow struck at their country, and they saw more clearly than before that it was their country's service that had called them here.

Their spell in the trenches was to last two days. They were days of inaction, discomfort, tedium. Apart from intermittent sniping the Germans made no movement. The Rutlands kept incessant watch on them, with no relaxation until the fall of night. Even then they were not at ease. Sniping was kept up fitfully through the night, and they learnt that even in the darkness there was peril is rising to stretch their cramped limbs. At dusk on the first day a man was slightly wounded. These sneaking tactics, as they considered them, on the part of an unseen enemy worried and irritated the men. Whenever a shot was heard, they tried to estimate its direction, but their guesses were so contradictory that no definite opinion could be arrived at. On one occasion Kenneth tried to calculate the distance of the marksman by noting the interval that elapsed between the whistling sound of the bullet and the subsequent report of the rifle; but neither his data nor his watch were sufficiently accurate to give him much satisfaction. The one thing that seemed certain was that the night sniping was done somewhere behind the lines.

When the battalion was relieved, and returned to billets for a couple of days' rest, officers and men talked of little but the sniping. They thought that nothing could be more demoralising, having as yet had no experience of heavy gun-fire. The officers discussed the possibility of getting hold of the snipers, and determined to take serious steps to that end on their next turn of duty at the trenches.

An opportunity seemed to offer itself on their second day back. There had been a good deal of sniping overnight, and in the morning Kenneth happened to notice what appeared to be a bullet-hole on the inner side of the parapet. He at once called Captain Adams' attention to it.

"That's proof positive," said the captain. "The sniper is behind us."

"It seems odd that he should fire on the mere chance of hitting somebody, for of course he can't take aim in the dark," said Kenneth.

"He's got our range, of course, knows we've no rear parapet yet, and guesses that we move about more freely after dark. But we ought to be able to locate him now. Stick your bayonet carefully into the hole, Amory; we'll get a hint of the direction of the bullet's flight."

The bullet had penetrated some little distance into the earth. Kenneth probed the hole with his bayonet, and it seemed pretty certain that the shot had been fired from the left rear, and, judging by the angle of incidence, from a considerable distance, probably not less than a mile.

Captain Adams scanned the ground in that direction through his field glasses. About a mile to the left rear stood a small copse. Slanting a rifle towards it, and comparing the angle with that of the hole made by the bullet, the captain decided that the copse was too far to the right, and swept his glasses towards the left. The only other likely spot was the ruins of a farm, but that seemed too far to the left. Between farm and copse ran a low railway embankment, which appeared almost exactly to meet the conditions.

"The sniper is there or thereabouts," said the captain. "Are you game to do a little scouting to-night, Amory?"

"Anything you like, sir," Kenneth replied.

"Well, creep out to-night and see if you can make anything of it. It would be safer to go alone, perhaps, but on the other hand a little support may be useful, so you had better take another man--Murgatroyd, say: he's an active man, and not too tall. You must have your wits about you."

Ginger was delighted at the chance of doing something. The other men envied him, and Harry looked a trifle sulky.

"Cheer up, old man," said Kenneth. "Your turn will come some day."

At dusk Kenneth and Ginger, the former carrying a revolver supplied by the captain, the latter armed only with his bayonet, made their way through the communication trenches to the second line of entrenchments and thence to the road leading to the village. They waited until complete darkness had fallen before stepping openly on to the road. The Germans had the range of it, and knowing that it was used after dark by British troops moving to and from the trenches, they might start shelling at any moment.

"We'll leave the road as soon as possible," said Kenneth, as they set off, "and bear away to the left."

"The right, you mean," said Ginger.

"No, the left, and work our way round. We'll take a leaf out of the Germans' book; they prefer flank attacks to front. We've plenty of time."

It was very dark. They struck off to the left across fields, and picked their way as well as they could, stumbling now and then into holes and over broken relics of former engagements. They could only guess distance. Kenneth took the time by his luminous watch, and allowing for the detour, when they had walked for twenty minutes he bore to the right, crossed the deserted road, and peered through the darkness for the ruined farm and the railway embankment. No trains had run beyond the village for a considerable time, and it was known that the permanent way had been cut up by German shells.

Moving purely by guesswork they failed to find the farm, but after a time came suddenly upon the embankment, and halted.

"Right or left?" whispered Kenneth.

"The farm?" returned Ginger.

"Yes."

"Right, I should say."

At this moment a shell burst in the air some distance to their right, whether from a British or a German gun they could not tell. It lit up the country momentarily like a flash of lightning, and as the two men instinctively flung themselves down, they caught sight of the ruins some distance on their right hand. The illumination was over in a second, leaving the sky blacker than before.

They waited a little, wondering whether the shell was herald of a night attack. But the shot was not repeated. The country was silent.

"Just to let us know they ain't gone home yet," Ginger whispered.

"We'll make for the farm," said Kenneth in equally low tones. "The sniper hasn't begun work yet; I haven't heard any rifle shots about here. We'll separate when we get to the place, and approach it from opposite sides."

Very cautiously they groped their way across the open field towards the farm house, and when they caught sight of it, bent down under cover of a hedge, and crept on almost by inches. Then, leaving Ginger near the broken gate of the farmyard, Kenneth stole away to make a complete circuit of the place.

In ten minutes he returned.

"It's a mere shell," he whispered. "The roof is gone, except in one corner; there are heaps of rubble everywhere, rafters lying at all angles, and furniture smashed to splinters."

"Did you go inside?"

"No, but I think we might risk it. Look out you don't get a sprained ankle."

They crept through the yard, over the rubbish, and into what had been the house. Kenneth had an electric torch, but dared not use it. They halted frequently to peer and listen, then went on again, doing their utmost to avoid any disturbance of the broken masonry and woodwork. Before they had completed their examination of the premises, the crack of a rifle at no great distance away caused them to abandon the search and hurry into the open again.

Outside, they waited for a repetition of the shot to give them a clue. It was some time before it came. At length there was a dull rumble of distant artillery, and in the midst of it a sound like a muffled rifle-shot from the direction of the railway.

"He's a clever chap," whispered Kenneth. "I hadn't noticed it before, but I think he waits for the sound of firing elsewhere before he fires himself--a precaution against being spotted. Let us wait for the next."

Presently there was the rattle of musketry from the trenches far to the left. Before it had died away, a single rifle cracked much nearer at hand.

"From the railway, sure enough," said Ginger. "We'll cop him."

They hurried across the field to the embankment, crawled up it, and when their eyes reached the level of the track, they peered up and down the line. They could see only a few yards, so dark was the night. There was no glint even from the rails, which were rusty from disuse. After listening a while, they crept up on to the track, and waited for another shot to guide them.

It was long in coming. To move before knowing the direction would be useless and might be dangerous, so, curbing their impatience, they lay on the slope of the embankment.

At last they heard the whirr of an aeroplane. Having learnt to expect a shot from the sniper when it was masked by some other sound, they sprang up. The humming drew nearer; then came the single sharp rifle crack.

"Behind us!" whispered Kenneth.

With great caution the two men moved along the track, stepping over sleepers and rails torn up, and skirting deep holes made by shells. Every now and again they stopped to listen. Presently they were brought to a sudden halt by the sound of a rifle-shot apparently almost beneath them. Dropping to the ground, they peeped over the embankment. At this spot there had been a landslip, evidently caused by a heavy shell. At the foot of the embankment lay a pool of water, extending for some twenty yards. Except for these nothing was to be seen.

They felt rather uncomfortable. On this bare embankment, rising from an equally bare plain, there seemed to be no cover of any kind. Yet it was certain that a sniper was within a few yards of them, perhaps within a few feet. They lay perfectly still, watching, waiting for another shot. It did not come. Kenneth began to wonder whether the sniper had seen or heard them, and stolen away. Or perhaps he was stalking them. At this thought Kenneth gripped his revolver.

What was to be done? To prowl about in the darkness on the chance of discovering the marksman would be mere foolhardiness. He hoped on for another shot, not daring even to whisper to Ginger. The minutes lengthened into hours; the two men were cramped with cold; but as if by mutual consent they lay where they were. Neither was willing to go back and report failure. Now and again they caught slight sounds which they were unable to identify or locate. They nibbled some biscuits they had brought with them, determined at least to await the dawn. Conscious of discomfort, they had no sense of fatigue or sleepiness. And when at length the darkness began to yield, they fancied they saw shadowy enemies on the misty plain.

When it was light enough to see clearly, they looked to right and left, to the front and the rear, and discovered no sign of life within a mile of them. The air began to fill with the roll of artillery and the rattle of rifle-shots. Here and there in the distance they saw columns of black smoke. Two aeroplanes passed overhead towards the German lines, and shrapnel shells strewed white puffs around and below them. But on the embankment all was quiet.

"He must have got away in the darkness," Kenneth ventured to whisper at last.

"Can't make it out," murmured Ginger in return.

How the sniper could have escaped unseen was a mystery. Daylight revealed the bareness of the plain. Only a few low hedges divided the fields. One such, bordered by a narrow ditch, ran northward from the railway within a few yards of them. But this could be of no use to a sniper, for it was on the wrong side of the embankment, towards the north.

After a murmured consultation they rose to examine the embankment more closely, in the hope of finding tracks of the sniper. As they did so, a number of bullets whistled around them; their figures had been seen on the skyline by the Germans. Dropping instantly to the ground, they crawled along, skirting the hole made by the shell, and taking care not to slide down in the loose earth that had been displaced. They covered thus a hundred yards or so in each direction, up and down the line, without discovering anything.

"We must give it up," said Kenneth at last. "I don't like to, but I see nothing else for it."

"Our chaps are in billets to-day," said Ginger. "I'm game to stay till to-night if you are."

"All right. We've got our emergency rations. We may as well lie up in the farm, and take turns to sleep."

They crawled across the track to the British side of the embankment, slid down the slope, and being now safe from German shots began to walk erect along the bottom, following a slight curve in the direction of the farm. The less of open field they had to cross, the better.

They had taken only a few steps along the base of the embankment when Ginger, a little in advance of Kenneth, stopped suddenly, and stooped. Then he turned his head quickly, putting his finger to his lips. Kenneth hurried up. Ginger pointed to a slight track in the grass, leading round the low hedge before mentioned. Without hesitation they began to follow it up, moving with infinite precaution, and bending under cover of the hedge.

Running straight for some distance, the track at last made a sharp bend to the right, then skirting another hedge parallel with the embankment. The two men were on the point of turning with it when Kenneth, in the rear, happening to look behind him over the hedge, caught sight of a man about half a mile away, coming apparently from the direction of the village where the Rutlands were billeted. Ginger came back at a low call from his companion, and they stood together at the hedge, watching the stranger, careful to keep out of sight themselves.

The man drew nearer. He was old and shabbily dressed. A small basket was slung on his back. Every now and again he looked behind as if fearful of being followed. They watched him eagerly, surprised, full of curiosity and suspicion. His path ran along the hedge parallel with the railway, and he was screened by it from the British lines.

He came on until he had almost reached the hedge behind which the two Englishmen were posted. At this point there was a wide gap in the hedge that covered him, and he turned off sharply at right angles towards the railway. Kenneth instantly guessed that he had done this to avoid observation through the gap, that he would pass round the end of the hedge near the embankment, and follow the track by which Ginger and he had recently come.

As the man turned, Ginger caught Kenneth by the sleeve. His eyes were bright with excitement. He seemed about to speak, but Kenneth hastily clapped a hand over his mouth. Watching the man until he was on the point of turning the corner, Kenneth drew Ginger through a small gap in the hedge parallel with the railway, and they waited there until the stranger came up to it on the track they had just left, and began to walk towards another hedge at right angles to it, which led back to the embankment almost at the spot where they had watched through the night.

They followed him quietly. He was on the inner side of the hedge, they on the outer. They saw that he was wading along the ditch towards the railway. At the end of the hedge they stooped and peeped through a gap, to see what was going on within a few feet of them. They heard a low whistle, and were just in time to catch sight of the man disappearing into a culvert that carried the ditch under the embankment.

Allowing him time to get through, they crawled through the hedge, up the embankment, over the line, and approaching the culvert from above, established themselves on top of the brickwork at the entrance. They heard voices from below, within the culvert. Kenneth held his revolver ready, Ginger gripped his bayonet. And there they waited for one or other of the men inside to come out.

They had not long to wait. The mumble of voices came nearer. Kenneth listened intently, but could not distinguish the words until, just beneath him, he heard "Auf Wiedersehen!" Immediately afterwards the man they had followed waded out through the shallow water at the bottom of the culvert, bending almost double to avoid the arch. His basket was gone. Just as he was about to straighten himself, Kenneth called sternly, "Hands up!" The man swung round, saw a revolver pointed at his head, and instantly threw up his hands, at the same time glancing right and left as if seeking some way of escape.

"HANDS UP!"

What were they to do with him? Within a few feet of them, in the culvert, was the sniper, a man of courage and daring, or he would not have elected or been chosen for this particular means of serving his country. Luckily Kenneth was a man of quick decision.

"Collar that fellow while I keep an eye below," he said. "Take care you don't show against the opening."

Ginger sprang down the embankment, and approached the captive, whom Kenneth covered with his revolver, at the same time keeping an eye on the arch below. In a few seconds Ginger had made the man pull off his coat and waistcoat, and unfasten his braces, and with these he tied him hand and foot.

"You'll be safe there for a bit," he said, laying the man at the foot of the embankment. Then he rejoined his companion.

Meanwhile Kenneth had been considering how to get the sniper out. There had been no sound from the culvert, but the German must be well aware of what had happened. That he had not attempted to escape by the other end was probably explained by his ignorance of the number of men he had to do with. Armed with his rifle, he might have thought himself pretty safe in the narrow culvert, where he could take heavy toll of any assailants who should attempt a direct attack.

"We'll have to smoke him out," whispered Kenneth, as Ginger joined him. "There's some straw in the farmhouse; cut back quickly and bring as much as you can carry."

In ten minutes Ginger returned with two large bundles which he had himself trussed. He kindled one of the trusses, and placed it at the rear end of the culvert, the quarter from which a slight breeze was blowing. Kenneth meanwhile kept watch above the brick arch at the other end.

The straw was somewhat damp, and made as much smoke as they could have wished. Carried by the breeze through the culvert, it floated out beneath Kenneth, tickling his throat and causing his eyes to smart. Every moment he expected the sniper to make a rush from his unendurable position. When a minute or two had passed without any sign of the man he was surprised: was insensibility to smoke one of the German superiorities?

"Any more straw, Ginger?" he asked.

"Another bundle," Ginger replied, and returned to the farther end to light it.

He had only just disappeared over the edge of the embankment when Kenneth, who had been straining his ears for sounds of movements below, heard a slight displacement of ballast on the line above him. Glancing up, he found himself looking straight at the barrel of a rifle, behind which was a head surmounted by a German helmet.

For half a second he was paralysed with astonishment. Then a click galvanised him into activity. Realising that the rifle had missed fire, forgetting--like an idiot, as he afterwards confessed--that he had a revolver, he made a spring and with his left hand seized the muzzle a few feet above him. The German held fast; there was a momentary tug of war; then the German lost his footing on the slippery earth, fell suddenly to a sitting posture, and slid down the embankment helplessly, driving Kenneth under him into the shallow pool of water at the foot.

Kenneth was a thought quicker than the German in recovering his wits. Wriggling sideways, he flung his arm over the man, spluttering out a mouthful of muddy water, and grappled him. For a few seconds they heaved and writhed like grampuses. Then Ginger, drawn by the splash, came running across the line, saw the struggling figures, sprang down the embankment, and dashed his fist in the German's face. In another moment he had dragged the man out of the water and a foot or two up the embankment, and held him down until Kenneth had shaken himself and come to his side.

"This beats cockfighting," he said. "Where did the beggar come from?"

"Don't know," said Kenneth. "We'll see presently. I'm nearly choked with mud. We'll have to use his braces too."

When they had tied the man securely, they got up to investigate. What they discovered was a proof of the ingenuity which the Germans exhibit in all their undertakings. The landslide, a little to the right of the culvert, formed a sort of boss on the embankment. At the farther extremity of this, out of sight from the spot where Kenneth had stood, the German had forced his way up from a small chamber excavated in the base of the embankment, where he had a folding chair, a rug, a tin plate and mug, a supply of ammunition, and the basket which the visitor had carried. It was full of food. There were two or three inconspicuous openings for the admission of air, and, towards the British trenches, a small tube, and an arrangement by which the rifle could be clamped. Evidently the sniper took his sights in the daytime, and set the rifle in such a position in the tube that he could fire directly on the trenches with the certainty of having the correct aim.

"Up to snuff, ain't they, not half," said Ginger, with unwilling admiration. "But how did you come to be wallowing in that there puddle?"

Kenneth explained.

"My word! a lucky missfire," said Ginger.

"Lucky indeed!" replied Kenneth. "And we can't discover the cause of it; the rifle's in the mud."

"Never mind about the cause of it. We've bagged our first prisoners; that's one to us and the Rutlands."

But Kenneth was never satisfied to leave a problem unsolved. Thinking over the matter constantly during the next few days, unwilling to ascribe to luck something that must have a sufficient cause, he came to the conclusion that the breech of the rifle had become clogged with earth as the sniper forced his way up through the landslide.

They marched their prisoners back to headquarters in the village, keeping the embankment between them and the enemy as long as possible.

"I've often seen this old rascal about the village," said Ginger, referring to the civilian. "He's a spy, that's what he is. They'll shoot him, won't they?"

"The colonel will hold an enquiry, no doubt. By George! I shall be glad to get back and dry my things and have a good feed."

They received an enthusiastic welcome from their comrades, and Colonel Appleton commended them for their successful work. The sniper was sent to the rear as a prisoner of war. An investigation was held. It came out that the civilian who supplied him with food was a supposed refugee, and one of the pensioners of Monsieur Obernai. That gentleman was summoned to the court of inquiry, and was overcome with horror on learning that one of the men whom he had assisted was a spy.

"It is heart-breaking," he said. "It is enough to make one hard. Besides, it might throw suspicion on me. Still, it would not be just to abandon my humble efforts to alleviate distress because one man has deceived me. But in future I shall make the most careful inquiries before I assist a stranger."

The spy was shot, and thereafter there was no more trouble from night snipers at that part of the lines.