War and the Weird Part 12

"As it happened the old man thought a mighty lot of it--such a lot, in fact, that by one o'clock that day he started to imagine the inspiration had come from his own fertile brain. He liked to think that it was his, and, Lord bless 'im, I don't grudge him the glory.

"After laying our heads together, the Colonel went back to the artillery lines and spent three hours talking to the Battery Major, and I looted a dozen three-pounder rockets of var-i-ous colours out of the stores. In the afternoon the Colonel called all his officers together, and kept the blighted motorcycle dispatch riders busy buzzing up and down the line with messages, till late in the evening.

"'I have called you gentlemen together,' he says to his officer, 'in order to ask you to corporate with me. I shall fire some rockets from the slag heap to-night about ten o'clock. On the first of these signals the Germans will open a very heavy cannonade on our trenches. I'll trouble you to have your men all in the dug-outs, and under cover at a quarter to ten!'

"That night, soon after the Colonel, Tommy and I started off for the slag heap in the dark, taking with us a bundle of rockets. My idea was at last going to be tested--what do you think it was, Sir?"

I discreetly pretended my utter inability to guess.

"Why, nothing more or less than to hoist these German blokes with their own petard, so to speak. We were going to fool them by giving them signals in their own code. Well, after stumbling and groping about for half an hour," McNab continued, "we arrived at the spot near where we had overlooked the spy.

"'I think this is the ledge from which I fell,' Tommy whispered as we crawled on. The next instant the Colonel disappeared, and the little procession came to an abrupt standstill. A cras.h.i.+ng noise was heard as the old man with a quarter of a ton of slag went tobogganing down the stone-shod slope.

"'This _is_ the spot,' Tommy said tersely. And up to us came hoa.r.s.e whispered curses as our ole man tongue-lashed us for a full minute in gross and detail.

"'Lie quite still, Colonel,' I whispered, 'the Hun swine-dogs may send up a flare if they hear us.'

"But no flare flared, and no sniper sniped.

"'This game gives me the blooming creeps,' old Tommy muttered shudderingly, thinking of Huns and guns three miles deep all round.

After that the Colonel struggled clear of the 'alf ton of slag atop o'

him. Tommy and I wandered a little more until we got down to the old man. Here we halted. 'Here's the place where we left the dead spy,' said Tommy, his eyes peering into the darkness of the V-shaped cutting. 'I can still see Fritz lying in the corner. We had better get right over _this_ side. Come on!'

"'I see,' said the Colonel. 'This is the key of the position. It overlooks the German trenches and when the spy was using his flash lamp he could not be observed by the men in our lines.'

"'Good thing we short-circuited his little game,' reflected Tommy hugging an arm full of rockets.

"'Ah!' says he, fingering the electric torch. 'How this game of war makes one think. My 'orizon has indeed broadened. Just to think that a few flashes from this little chap will mean more than all those glittering stars above to the German fellows in the trenches over there.

It's simply ridiculous to waste our little concert on a few Huns in the trenches to-night. We must socialise the whole blooming show. We must get the head up of all the Huns for miles around. Let us consult the code book,' he said, and then opening it he read out some of the rocket codes. They all seemed simple enough. But he had some difficulty in finding the one he wanted, having first of all of course to translate them into English; but presently he seized upon the one he wanted, he repeated it over with delight:

"'_Two green rockets in rapid succession mean: "Enemy making active preparations for offensive movement" and when followed after a suitable interval by a single red rocket, mean: "Enemy will attack without delay."_'

"'Touch off two green rockets, McNab, if you please,' said the Colonel with a tremor in his voice.

"I touched off two three-pounders which rose several thousand yards, and burst into bunches of gorgeous stars. A faint clattering noise came to us from the Hun trenches, and we all hugged the earth fairly closely as a rapid fusillade broke out from all quarters. Rifles cracked all around us to the extent of thousands, and with that a most impressive humming noise, which I had never had the pleasure of hearing before, because being a soldier I had always formed a part of it--the noise of whole armies turning out to meet an attack.

"'Colonel,' I says, 'it may have escaped you that the angry and 'ighly intelligent Boche on our front will soon be sending up _their_ rockets to confuse our own men. Might I recommend a red rocket before they open their part of the ball, and bend the lights! That will spell to 'em: Enemy will attack without delay, and it will also expedite their artillery just a leetle.'

"The Colonel laid his hand on my shoulder.

"'McNab,' says he, 'there's worse blokes than you sitting on thrones.

They shall 'ave that red rocket. None the less,' he remarked, 'the situation is undeniably getting a bit feverish. Trot out Red Rufus!'

"I rightly took the command to read:

"'Send up a red rocket.' Rufus soared up into the sky and burst into a red glare that simply shouted: 'Here they come after you' to the Huns.

"'Oh-h-h-h-h!' exclaimed old Tommy as the twirly-whirly red stars fell through the sky.

"'Silence!' said the old man. 'This is the sanguinary British Expeditionary Force, not a (decorated) Brock's Benefit at the Crystal Palace. What in Hong-Kong are you jumping about like a richly decorated organ-grinder's monkey for?'

"The Huns grasped the meaning of their dead spy's signal as soon as it showed in the heavens, so to speak. We lay belly-flat and held our breaths for a moment or so in silence, but we were about the only silent things for a hundred miles. Flares went up by the thousand and searchlights cut up the sky in every direction. All kinds of mysterious guns got into action and all the batteries for a hundred miles must have let drive as well. From then on, for at least two hours, the sh.e.l.ls poured excruciating-wise into our deserted trenches without cessation,--shrapnel, high explosive, six inch, twelve inch--thousands of pounds the Huns wasted that night.

"I wish you could have seen Tommy bowing to right and left of the German trenches acknowledging the applause which the Huns would have given him if they'd known the facts. On the other hand, as the Colonel observed, they might 'ave killed him.

"'They'll have to pull up their socks at Krupp's to replace the sh.e.l.ls they have blazed away in this little pantomime,' said Tommy pressing his hands to his sides. 'Star programme--heap big star programme! Phew! Oh, I wish I could stop laughing, I ain't 'ad such a laugh for years!'

"'And in this little code book here,' said the old man, a hand on each of our shoulders, 'there are hundreds of little love messages we can be getting ready to surprise 'em with. Presently we'll begin to send 'em instructions to concentrate their fire on empty houses--tell 'em they are chock-full of British troops. Then they'll fairly let loose the bow-yows of war. Damme, how their gunners will gun! Oblige me by thinking of four hundred guns, pumping val-u-able sh.e.l.ls into an empty house.'

"The exquisite humour of it brought us down screaming with laughter in a tangle on the slag-heap. A searchlight broke out from the back of the Hun trenches and began searching our lines.

"'They're looking for our attacking party, or the Angels of Mons,'

panted the old man, his knees in a sh.e.l.l hole and his face in the gra.s.s.

'Well, let's get our things packed and hurry back. I think they have sent back for a fresh supply of sh.e.l.ls. The sooner we get out of it the better. Sufficient unto the day--or night, perhaps one should say.'

"Well, it's dry work talking," said McNab, wistfully surveying the interior of his empty mug.

I took measures--pint measures--to allay his thirst.

"Let me see now," he said; "let me see."

"And did you do any signalling with the flash lamp the next night?" I timidly hinted, "I believe you mentioned that it was your intention."

"Yes, we did have some fun, I can tell you, and 'twas better still next night. Once more we returned, to the slag-heap, then," McNab swept on, "we started to flash a few messages over to the German lines. They soon picked up our signals and after a brief interrogation they replied. Then they started to ask questions. 'At which part of the British line would it be wise to launch an attack?' they flashed.

"And our old man flashed back a trench that was fairly bristly with machine guns. Then they asked other questions, but we did not reply. We laid low and said nothing, for you can take it from me, mister, that a real spy is a man of few words, and playing with a flashlight in enemy lines is not exactly a healthy game.

"Had we have signalled too freely the Huns would have soon become suspicious, for, mark you, the flares that we had popped off at 'em the night before had left 'em with an uncomfortable feeling that their spy was taking quite unreasonable risks. It is of course most unusual for a spy to make use of rocket signals. Do I make myself comprehensible?"

"Perfectly. Did the Huns attack?" I asked.

McNab nodded. "They attacked us three days afterwards at five o'clock in the morning. It was like a nightmare. The Germans came on, evidently thinking they were on a soft job, and you can realize what a wonderful target they made for the gunners who had been waiting for 'em. Such a target that gunners dream about but never see. We had some eighteen-and-a-'arf-pounders not five hundred yards away, and they let go right into the thick of 'em. And each case shot with its four hundred bullets swept and tore their ranks. With a mighty gasp and something like a groan the Huns staggered, recovered, and with wild yells came charging on to a hundred machine guns. And all the time the sh.e.l.ls came over at them and tore wide swathes in their closely-packed ranks. Then our boys got into 'em and swept the remaining Huns into eternity!"

"Unless this story had come from such a highly-reliable fountain-head, McNab," I murmured, after a moment or so, "I would never have believed that the whole thing was not a fabrication."

McNab removed his pot of beer on one side, and leaned across the table.

I moved my chair back quickly, just missing another vigorous stab from his huge index-finger.

"The history of this war," he observed impressively, "will be interwoven with extraordinary things like this 'ere tale I have been telling you.

And you may lay to it, mister, that the most extraordinary things of all will never see the light of day in the printed page."

"I can _quite_ understand that," I said pointedly; "for, although a student of military history of this war myself, I cannot recall a single reference to any of the remarkable events which occurred in the trenches during the eight months you were with your regiment over there!"

McNab regarded me for a full minute with rapidly-rising choler. Then he s.h.i.+fted his stare from me to an old gentleman who was warming his toes at the fire.

"The yarn I have told you is as true as the drill book, though you need not believe it if you have conscientious objections. I have been recounting real slices of history. Leastways, when I say history I may be wrong, because they will never appear in history. But they _'appened_, Mister--'appened as surely as I am sitting here with an empty pot in front o' me. An'--an'----" McNab stammered in his excitement--"if any bloke says they didn't, be jabers, I'll--I'll drink his beer!"

But neither the old gentleman nor any member of the company wished to disagree with him, and he rose up from the chair with a mug to order his final half-pint. He returned (a trifle unsteadily, perhaps) with his beer and a particularly vile cigar in his mouth. Whether it was the effect of the heat or the--er--beer I cannot say, but he blundered over my legs, causing me a sharp twinge of pain.