Chapter 7 IN THE ENEMY'S LINES

It was during their next spell in the trenches that the Rutlands had their first taste of artillery fire. They were not systematically bombarded: there was no indication of infantry attack; but at irregular intervals shells from field guns burst over or behind the trenches, doing very little damage, but making the men nervous and irritable. When the ominous tearing sound was heard as a shell flew through the air, the men winced and cowered, and at the explosion they looked fearfully around, sometimes through a shower of earth, wondering to find themselves still alive.

"You'll get used to it by and by," said Captain Adams to the men of his company. "The bark is worse than the bite at present. It's really very kind of the Bosches to let you get accustomed to them gradually."

After a day or two the bombardment became heavier and more persistent. Two or three batteries were located, either by officers in observation posts or by British airmen, and the British gunners replied to them, not without success. But presently the trenches were shelled at night by heavier guns which it seemed impossible to place. The position of the guns appeared to vary. Sometimes the reports came from the south-east, sometimes from the east, sometimes from the north-east; and in general they were louder than those of the guns which had been definitely located, though this fact, in the opinion of some of the men, was due to the stillness of the night air. They began to suspect that the Germans were bringing up more guns to various parts of their line, with the idea of discouraging any attempt to break through at this point.

All this made the Rutlands eager to come to grips with the enemy, and the prolonged inaction tried them sorely. To amuse them during the long weary evenings in the trenches the colonel sent for a number of mouth organs, and some of the officers read to them in the dug-outs by candle light. One evening the men of Kennedy's platoon pricked up their ears when they heard the plaintive notes of a flute from a short distance on their left.

"Who's playing?" they asked.

Word was passed along the trench that it was Stoneway, who had bought a flute in the village.

"There's a chap for you!" said Ginger. "All the months we were training the beggar never did a thing, playing or singing. Seems to me he can play, too. But he didn't ought to play 'Home, sweet Home.' Gives you a lump in your throat. Pass the word along for 'Dolly Grey,' will you, mates?"

Stoneway's unsuspected musical accomplishments raised him in the estimation of his comrades. Every night there were calls for him. He knew a great number of their favourite tunes, and was always ready to play them. He would usually begin by running up and down the scale, and practising tuneless exercises; and sometimes, when these preliminary flourishes were rather prolonged, the men called to him to "cut it" and come to the real thing.

As time went on, the shelling became more frequent. It soon became clear that the Germans were working from definite knowledge of what was going on behind the British lines. The bombardment often took place when parties were relieving one another in the trenches, though this was always done in darkness. And one day, when the general commanding the division came to the village to inspect the battalion, a particularly brisk shelling caused a stampede of the people, who had come to regard themselves as safe. Several cottages were damaged, several civilians as well as soldiers were killed or wounded, and a heavy shell excavated a deep hole in the garden of Monsieur Obernai's house.

One morning the trenches were subjected for the first time to the fire of a heavy howitzer. A peculiar low drone, rapidly increasing in loudness, was heard.

"'Ware Jack Johnson!" cried Captain Adams, and the men crouched in the trenches, holding their breath.

The first shell fell some distance behind the lines. They heard a terrific crash, and saw a column of thick smoke. The second shell, about a minute after the first, fell far too short, plunging into the ground just in front of the German trenches, and bespattering them with earth. The third exploded in the pond between the lines, and sent a wave into the German trench at the side. During the next half hour the ground in front of the pond between the opposing forces was pitted with holes made by the heavy shells.

"There's something wrong with the range-finding or the charges," remarked Harry.

"Lucky for us," said Kenneth, brushing from his coat some dust cast up by one of the shells. "The smell is bad enough."

After half an hour the shelling ceased, and the men wondered what purpose the Germans could have had in such an apparently motiveless bombardment. Captain Adams suspected that something was going on in the German lines, and remembering the success of Kenneth and Ginger in discovering the sniper, he decided to send them out that night as a listening patrol. Harry begged to be allowed to go with them.

"Very well," said the captain. "If you're successful we'll try a whole section another time. It's a ticklish job, you understand. You'll crawl over to the German trenches, and listen. You know German, Amory, I believe. You'll do the listening, then; you others keep on the watch. Don't lose your way. I'll take care that the men here don't fire on you as you come back; but if you stray too far to right or left you may find yourselves in hot water."

"You've no special instructions, sir?" asked Kenneth.

"No: you must work out the details yourselves. You're not puppets on the end of a string."

"Nor yet monkeys on a stick," Ginger murmured when the captain had gone. "What did Capting mean by that?"

"He meant that we're not machine made, as the Germans are, by all accounts," replied Harry. "I say, I'm jolly glad he let me go too: I'm getting quite fat with doing nothing."

They talked over their plans together. Obviously the safest direction in which to approach the enemy was towards the large pond. This was an irregular oval in shape, and the Germans had not closely followed its curve in cutting their trenches, for, if they had done so, it would have exposed them to enfilading fire from the British. They had carried their advanced trench close up to the border of the pond on each side, then run communicating trenches at right angles from front to rear, and there dug a straight trench along the breadth of the pond, about a hundred yards in the rear of their first alignment. The wire entanglements in front of the pond, facing the British, were not so elaborate as on the rest of their line, from which the inference was that the water was too deep to be waded.

Just before midnight the three men crept stealthily out of their trench, armed only with their bayonets, crawled under the barbed wire, and wriggled forward towards the pond. It was slow and tiring work, for the ground was much cut up by shell fire, and littered with fragments of shells, empty tins, and other rubbish. There was a certain advantage in the unevenness, in that it gave cover; but it also contained an element of danger, because there was a risk of their displacing something as they proceeded, and they knew that the slightest noise would provoke a fusillade from the enemy.

The moon was not up, but the sky was spangled with stars, by whose feeble light they were able to distinguish objects on the ground within ten or a dozen paces. They heard the Germans talking and laughing in their trenches, and here and there a slight radiance marked the places where they had candles or lamps. Foot by foot they crawled on, Kenneth leading the way towards the angle of the trenches on the left.

At last he came to a stop within a few feet of the parapet. The three men lay flat on the ground. For some moments Kenneth was not able to distinguish anything from the general murmur, but presently he realised that one man was reading aloud to the rest from a German newspaper. "The blockade of England. Great German success in the North Sea. An English merchantman of 245 tons laden with bricks was torpedoed in the North Sea yesterday, and seriously damaged. The starvation of England proceeds satisfactorily."

"What, do the English eat bricks?" asked one simple soul.

There was a laugh.

"They have good teeth! Look at this picture," said another.

"If the English bricks are harder than our war bread I pity them," said a third. "We needn't cry 'God punish England' any more."

"Is there any news of sinking a grain ship?" asked a voice.

"No," replied the reader. "Grain comes in big vessels; I expect the Americans won't let their ships sail. We shall have America on our side soon."

"Anything to shorten the war," said a man. "I'm tired of it. I want to get home to Anna and the children. The General said it would be all over by Christmas."

"So it will, by next Christmas. I want to get back to the Savoy: I made ￡10 there the Christmas before last."

"You won't make it again. The English won't have any money after this."

Signing to the others to remain where they were, Kenneth crept still farther forward until he came below the parapet. From the direction of the voices he guessed that the trench was unoccupied at the angle; the men who should be there were gathered around the man who had the paper. Cautiously raising himself, he peeped first through a loophole, then over the crown of the parapet. Here he was able to look along both the main trench and the communicating trench at right angles to it. In the former, about a dozen yards away, he saw a group of men at the entrance of a dug-out, from which a glow shone forth. It was here, evidently, that the man was reading. He discovered the reason why, apart from the attraction of the newspaper, this part of the trench was empty. The stars were reflected in water that lay along the bottom. There was evidently a considerable leakage from the pond. On the right hand the communication trench was quite dark. Apparently it was not manned at all.

Kenneth dropped down again, and remained for a short time listening. The conversation had changed: instead of discussing the war, the Germans were talking of domestic matters; the ex-waiter of the Savoy Hotel described his little house and garden at Peckham, and told how he had happened to meet in London a girl from his own village in Wurtemburg, who was now his wife. Luckily he had saved enough money to keep her and his children for a year or two.

Finding that he was not likely to gain any important information, Kenneth crawled back to his companions, and they made their wriggling way to their trench without being discovered. Captain Adams was a little disappointed at the meagre result of their reconnaissance. The only valuable piece of news was that the communication trench was empty and the angle flooded.

Shortly after their return the mysterious gun again opened fire. Several men were wounded by splinters of shells, one so seriously that, in spite of the risk, he had to be carried at once to the rear.

Next day Kenneth said to Harry:

"Look here, last night's business has whetted my appetite. Why shouldn't we get behind the German lines and see if we can locate that gun? Every day we lose a man or two without being able to retaliate, and it's quite time to put a stop to it."

"Will the captain let us?"

"Adams wouldn't object, I think; but I'm afraid we should have to get the colonel's leave for this. I'll take the first opportunity of speaking to the captain. It would be a pity not to make some use of the little information we were able to pick up."

Captain Adams, when the proposal was put to him, at once said, as Kenneth had expected, that he must ask the colonel's permission.

"It's a good deal more dangerous than last night's affair, you see. You'll be shot out of hand if you're caught."

"But it's worth trying, sir, if we can find that gun. Apart from our losses, it's making the men jumpy."

"That's all very well, but I don't want to lose two useful men. Still, I'll see what the colonel says."

Later in the day he sent for them.

"I've seen the colonel," he said. "He was at first dead against it, but I did my best for you. He agrees, provided you come back at once if you find things too unhealthy: that is to say, you are not to go on if you come up against any considerable body of the enemy. And keep the matter to yourselves. You'll be supposed to be going out again as a listening patrol. I shall tell only Mr. Kennedy and your sergeant. No one else is to know what has become of you, and they will be on the look-out for your return."

He gave them a large-scale map of the district behind the German lines, and recommended them to study it carefully during the day. The railway seemed likely to be their best landmark. It ran almost due north-east. About four miles away it passed over a canal running north and south. With these two fixed lines and a pocket luminous compass they should not wander far afield in ignorance of their general position. Much nearer to the British trenches, and almost directly in their front, was a ruined church, the spire of which, used by the Germans as an observation post, had been shot away some time before the Rutlands arrived at the front.

Their diligence in conning the map aroused the curiosity of their comrades, but they laughed off enquiries, and gave the map back to the captain.

They decided to start, carrying revolvers, soon after dark, at the time when the Germans might be supposed to be taking their evening meal. With some difficulty they managed to slip away unnoticed by the other men. Moving with even more caution than on the previous night, they crawled over the ground until they reached the angle of the trenches abutting on the pond. It was quite dark; the moon, in its third quarter, was, as they had learnt from the almanac, not due to rise for some hours.

Peering down into the firing trench, they neither saw nor heard any sign of occupants in the space immediately below them; but they heard voices from a traverse a few yards away. Then Harry caught sight of three or four men coming down the communication trench, and from their gait concluded that they were bringing food. The two dropped down below the parapet and lay motionless: it was clear that they had started a little too early.

They waited until they heard the men pass back along the communication trench; then, after a short interval, rose to carry out the plan previously agreed upon for descending into the trench. The principal danger was a fall of loose earth from the parapet or a splash in the water at the bottom. Kenneth cautiously clambered up the earthwork, lay flat on top of the parapet, then backed until his legs hung over inside. To avoid slipping he held Harry's hands, and so lowered himself until he stood on the banquette, which was an inch or two under water. Pressing himself close against the earthen wall, he steadied Harry in his descent: both stood in the trench. They were panting with excitement.

From their left came the sounds of conversation; the speakers were invisible. They were just about to start down the communication trench when they heard footsteps approaching from the farther end. Flattening themselves into the angle they waited breathlessly. The corner was so dark that they hoped to escape detection; but their hearts leapt to their mouths when they saw the flash of an electric torch some distance away in the communication trench. Escape was impossible. If the light was shown as the men approached the corner discovery was certain.

"Don't waste the light," Kenneth heard one of the men say. "We are running short of batteries. You can see the turn by looking up. Watch the stars."

The light was switched off. Holding their breath the Englishmen waited. Two Germans drew nearer, splashed through the water, and turned into the firing trench. As soon as they had disappeared, Kenneth and Harry started to go down the communication trench, stepping very slowly through the water, and halting every now and again to listen. Presently they were startled by hearing voices behind them. The Germans apparently were returning. To retreat now was impossible. Whatever danger might lie ahead, they must go on.

By this time they had quitted the water. Seemingly they had passed beyond the pond. But the bottom of the trench was sticky with mud; walking was difficult. And the men behind were gaining on them. Suddenly they came to a trench at right angles--no doubt the trench at the rear of the pond. Scarcely daring to look along it, they went straight on.

"Anything doing?" asked a voice close by.

"All's quiet," replied Kenneth in German.

Another hundred yards brought them to a third trench. It appeared to be unoccupied. After listening intently for a few moments they decided to trust their luck down this trench rather than continue along the communication trench, in which they could still hear the footsteps and voices of the men following them. Others might be coming towards them. Striking to the left, they went along the trench for a few yards; then, coming upon another communication trench at right angles, they stopped to consult in murmurs. They decided that the trenches were more dangerous than the open ground. Retracing their steps for some little distance, they waited a moment or two. All was silent. Cautiously they clambered up and lay, breathing hard, upon the grass.

A little ahead of them was the ruined church standing black and gaunt in the starlight.

"We go past that," whispered Kenneth, "then strike off to the north-east. We'll try that direction first, at any rate. Most of the shots appear to come from there."

"About how far away?"

"Two or three miles, I think."

"I say----"

"Well?"

"Oh nothing!--only I feel sort of empty inside."