No Man's Land Part 15

Thus it ended, the play of which John Brinton's disappearance formed the prologue. But before the curtain rang down on the epilogue the German told them one or two little things: that John Brinton was alive and well; that the existence of Ginger Stretton, to whom he had alluded so glibly, had only become known to him from a letter in Brinton's coat; that the peculiarities of pimple-faced Charlie had been forced on him by his guide before they met the Sapper.

"In fact," as the Adjutant remarked, "the fellow was almost too good a sportsman to----" But that's the epilogue.

A file of men; a watery sun just starting its day's work; a raw, chilly morning. In front--a man: a man with a white disc of paper pinned over the heart.

A word of command; a pus.h.i.+ng forward of safety catches; a volley; a finish.

V

MY LADY OF THE JASMINE

The Kid staggered wearily along the road through the blinding rain.

Dodging between the endless streams of traffic, which moved slowly in both directions, now stopping for ten minutes, now jolting forward again for a couple of hundred yards, he walked on towards where he thought his battalion was. The last Staff officer he had seen had told him that, as far as he knew, they had pulled out to rest in some dug-outs about four miles farther on--dug-outs which had only recently been taken from the Germans. To start with he had got on to a lorry, but when darkness fell, and the total progression had been one mile, he decided to walk and save time. Occasionally the lights of a car shone in his face, as its infuriated occupant broke every rule of the Somme roads by double banking; that is, trying to pa.s.s the vehicles in front.

But at last the traffic wore thinner as the road approached the front line, and an hour and a half after he had left the lorry, it stopped altogether, save for pack-mules and squelching men. The rain still sogged down, and--ye G.o.ds! the Kid was tired. Away into the night there stretched a path of slippery duck-boards, threading its way between sh.e.l.l holes half filled with water. Men loomed up out of the darkness and went past him, slipping and sliding, cursing below their breath. A shower of sparks shot up into the air from a dug-out on his right, and a great lobbing flare away in the distance lit up the scene for a second or two with a ghostly radiance. It showed the Kid the only other near occupant of the reclaimed territory at the moment: a mule, whose four hoofs stuck stiffly out of a sh.e.l.l hole--pointing at him, motionless. With a shudder he moved on along the duck-walk.

After all he was but a kid, and he was almighty tired.

For three days he seemed to have been on the run without closing his eyes. First the battalion had gone over the top; then they had worked like slaves consolidating what they'd won; afterwards he had been sent for because of his knowledge of French and German to go back to Divisional Head-quarters; and then he had come back to find the battalion had moved. And any who may have tried walking five or six miles by night in heavy rain to an unknown destination along some of the roads east of Albert, will bear out that it is a wearisome performance. When to these facts is added the further information that the age of the boy was only eighteen, it will be conceded that the breaking-point was not far off.

Now I have emphasised the physical condition of the Kid, as he was known to all and sundry, because I think it may have a bearing on the story I am going to relate. I am no expert in "ologies" and other things dealing with so-called spiritualistic revelations. I might even say, in fact, that I am profoundly sceptical of them all, though to say so may reveal my abysmal ignorance. So be it; my thumbs are crossed.

This is not a controversial treatise on spiritualism, and all that appertains thereto. One thing, however, I will say--in my ignorance, of course. Until some of the great thinkers of the world have beaten down the jungle of facts beyond our ken, and made a track--be it never so narrow--free from knaves and charlatans, it is ill-advised for Mrs.

Smith or Lady de Smythe to believe that Signer Macaroni--_ne_ Jones--will reveal to them the secrets of the infinite for two pounds.

He may; on the other hand, he may not. That the secrets are there, who but a fool can doubt; it is only Signer Macaroni's power of disinterested revelation that causes my unworthy scepticism.

And so let us come back to the Kid, and the strange thing that happened in a recently captured German dug-out on the night of which I have been writing. It was just as he had decided--rain or no rain--to lie down and sleep in the mud and filth--anywhere, anything, as long as he could sleep--that suddenly out of the darkness ahead he heard the Adjutant's voice, and knew that he had found the battalion. With almost a sob of thankfulness at the unexpected finish to his worries, he hailed him.

"Hullo! is that you, Kid?" The Adjutant loomed out of the darkness.

"We thought you were lost for good. Are you cooked?"

"I'm just about done in," answered the boy. "Where is B Company?"

"I'll show you. It's the h.e.l.l of a place to find even by day; but you've got 'some' dug-out. Beer, and tables, and beds; in fact, it's the first dug-out I've seen that in any way resembles the descriptions one reads in the papers."

"Well, as long as I can get to sleep, old man, I don't care a d.a.m.n if it's the Ritz or a pigsty." The Kid plucked his foot from a mud-hole, and squelched on behind the Adjutant.

Now much has been written about German dug-outs--their size, their comfort, the revolving book-cases, the four-poster beds. Special mention has frequently been made of cellars full of rare old vintages, and of concreted b.u.t.tery hatches; of lifts to take stout officers to the ground, and of portable derricks to sling even stouter ones into their scented valises. In fact, such stress has been laid upon these things by people of great knowledge, that I understand an opinion is prevalent amongst some earnest thinkers at home that when a high German officer wishes to surrender he first sends up two dozen of light beer on the lift to placate his capturers, rapidly following himself with a corkscrew. This may or may not be so; personally, I have had no such gratifying experience. But then, personally, I have generally been hard put to it to recognise the dug-outs of reality from the dug-outs of the daily papers. Most of them are much the same as any ordinary, vulgar English dug-out; many are worse; but one or two undoubtedly are very good. In places where the nature of the ground has lent itself to deep work, and the lines have been stagnant for many moons, the Huns have carried out excellent work for the suitable housing of their officers. And it was down the entrance of one of these few and far between abodes that the Kid ultimately staggered, with the blessed feeling in his mind of rest at last. Round a table in the centre sat the other officers of B Company, discussing the remains of a very excellent German repast. As he came in they all looked up.

"The lost sheep," sang out the Captain cheerfully. "Come on, my kidlet, draw up, and put your nose inside some beer."

"Not a bad place, is it?" chimed in the Doctor, puffing at a large and fat cigar of Hun extraction. "Excellent cellar of rare old ale, cigars of great potency--real genuine Flor de Boche--a picture gallery of--er--a pleasing description, and a bed. What more can man desire?"

"Private MacPherson does not approve, I fear me, of the pictures,"

chuckled the senior subaltern. "I heard him muttering dark things about 'painted Jezebels,' and 'yon scarlet women of Babylon.'"

"It must be very dreadful for all concerned to go through life with a mind like MacPherson's." The Doctor was examining his cigar doubtfully. "There is an obstruction in this. It's either going to explode with great force in a minute, or else I'm coming to the motto.

Hi! you blighter----" he jumped up hurriedly to avoid the stream of beer that shot across the table from the Kid's overturned gla.s.s.

"Idiot child." The Company Commander roused himself from his gentle doze to contemplate the delinquent. Then he smiled. "Man, he's asleep; the boy's beat to a frazzle."

"Aye, you're right. Tim, come off that bed; the Kid is fair cooked.

Wake up, infant." The Doctor shook him by the shoulder. "Wake up.

Take off your boots, and then get down to it on the bed."

The Kid sat up blinking. "I'm very sorry," he said after a moment.

"Did I upset the beer?"

"You did--all over me," laughed the Doctor. "Get your boots off and turn in."

"I'm so cursed sleepy." The Kid was removing his sodden puttees.

"I've walked, and walked, and I'm just about----" He straightened himself in his chair, and as he did so the words died away on his lips.

With a peculiar fixed look he stared past the Doctor into the corner of the dug-out. "My G.o.d!" he whispered at last, "what are you doing here?"

A sudden silence settled on the mess, and instinctively everybody, including the Doctor, glanced towards the corner. Then the Doctor turned once more to the boy, and his glance was the glance of his profession.

"What's the matter, Kid?" His tone was abrupt, even to curtness. "Did you think you saw something?"

"I thought--I thought----" The boy pa.s.sed his hand over his forehead.

"I'm sorry--I must have been dreaming. It's gone now. I suppose I'm tired." But his eyes still searched the dug-out fearfully.

"What did you think you saw?" asked the Doctor shortly.

"I thought I saw----" Once again he stopped; then he laughed a little shakily. "Oh! it doesn't matter what I thought I saw. d.a.m.n it! I'm tired; let me turn in."

The Doctor's eye met the Company Commander's over the table, and he shrugged his shoulders slightly. "Dead beat." His lips framed the words, and he returned to the contemplation of his cigar, which was not doing all that a well-trained cigar should.

The Kid stood up and glanced round the mess at his brother officers a little shamefacedly; only to find them engrossed--a trifle ostentatiously--in their own business. "I'm sorry, you fellows," he blurted out suddenly. "Forgive me being such a fool; I suppose I'm a bit tired."

The Doctor took him firmly by the arm, and led him towards the bed.

"Look here, old soul," he remarked, "if you wish to avoid the wrath of my displeasure, you will cease talking and go to bed. Every one knows what it is to be weary; and there's only one cure--sleep."

The Kid laughed and threw himself on the bed. "Jove!" he muttered sleepily; "then it's a pleasant medicine, Doctor dear." He pulled a blanket over his shoulders; his head touched the pillow; his eyes closed; and before the Doctor had resumed his seat the Kid was asleep.

It seemed only a minute afterwards that he was awake again, staring into the dim-lit dug-out with every sense alert. He was conscious first of a faint elusive scent--a scent which was new to him. His mind wandered to the scents he knew--Chaminade, Mysterieuse, Trefle Incarnat--but this was different. Delicate, sensuous, with the slightest suggestion of jasmine about it, it seemed to permeate every part of him. Vaguely expectant, he waited for something that he knew must happen. What it would be, he had no idea; he felt like a man waiting for the curtain to rise on a first night, when the music of the overture is dying away to a finish. He experienced no fear: merely an overwhelming curiosity to witness the drama, and to confirm his certainty about the owner of the scent. In his mind there was no doubt as to who she was. It was the girl he had seen in the corner as he was taking off his puttees: the girl who had looked at him with eyes that held the sadness of the world and its despair in them; the girl who had vanished so quickly. Her disappearance did not strike him as peculiar; she would explain when she came. And so the Kid waited for the drop-scene to lift.

It struck him as he glanced round the dug-out that the furniture had been moved. The table seemed nearer the wall; the chairs were differently arranged. Instead of the remnants of a finished meal, papers arranged in neat piles met his eye. The place looked more like an office than a mess. Suddenly he stiffened into attention; steps were coming down the entrance to the dug-out. A man came in, and with a gasp the Kid recognised a German soldier. He strove to shout--to warn his brother officers who he knew were peacefully sleeping in valises on the floor; but no sound came. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth; he could only watch, rigid and motionless.

The German moved to the hanging lamp, and turned it up till a bright light flooded the dug-out.

"Now," the Kid's brain was racing, "he must see them. My G.o.d! they must have got back during the night."

But no. The German servant moved towards the cupboard which contained the food, brus.h.i.+ng so close to the bed that the Kid could have touched him with ease as he pa.s.sed. Very cautiously he raised his head as he saw the man, his back turned, fumbling on the shelves, and looked round the room. Then with the icy hand of terror clutching at his heart he lay back again. The room was empty; his brother officers had gone--murdered probably--and with him it could only be a question of moments before he too was discovered.

For an instant he had a wild idea of hurling himself upon the German: of taking him unawares--of trying to escape. Then the soldier turned: the opportunity had pa.s.sed, and once again the silent spectator on the bed lay rigid. The servant, stolid and unemotional, moved heavily about the dug-out, laying the table for a meal. Once it seemed to the Kid that he looked straight at him; he could have sworn that he must have been seen; and yet--apparently not. The man gave no sign, and it occurred to the Kid that perhaps he was lying in the shadow.

Stealthily he wormed himself even nearer the wall: impelled by the instinct of self-preservation that would put off to the last possible moment the inevitable discovery. And hardly had he edged himself in against the wall, when with a sinking heart he heard voices outside: voices which spoke in German. With only the servant to tackle, somehow he had not felt so hopeless; now he knew the end had come.