Action Front Part 1

Action Front.

by Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart).

FOREWORD

I make no apology for having followed in this book the same plan as in my other one, "Between the Lines," of taking extracts from the official despatches as "texts" and endeavoring to show something of what these brief messages cover, because so many of my own friends, and so many more unknown friends amongst the reviewers, expressed themselves so pleased with the plan that I feel its repet.i.tion is justified.

There were some who complained that my last book was in parts too grim and too terrible, and no doubt the same complaint may lie against this one. To that I can only reply that I have found it impossible to write with any truth of the Front without the writing being grim, and in writing my other book I felt it would be no bad thing if Home realized the grimness a little better.

But now there are so many at Home whose nearest and dearest are in the trenches, and who require no telling of the horrors of the war, that I have tried here to show there is a lighter side to war, to let them know that we have our relaxations, and even find occasion for jests, in the course of our business.

I believe, or at least hope, that in showing both sides of the picture I am doing what the Front would wish me to do. And I don't ask for any greater satisfaction than that.

BOYD CABLE.

_May_, 1916.

IN ENEMY HANDS

The last conscious thought in the mind of Private Jock Macalister as he reached the German trench was to get down into it; his next conscious thought to get out of it. Up there on the level there were uncomfortably many bullets, and even as he leaped on the low parapet one of these struck the top of his forehead, ran deflecting over the crown of his head, and away. He dropped limp as a pole-axed bullock, slid and rolled helplessly down into the trench.

When he came to his senses he found himself huddled in a corner against the traverse, his head smarting and a bruised elbow aching abominably.

He lifted his head and groaned, and as the mists cleared from his dazed eyes he found himself looking into a fat and very dirty face and the ring of a rifle muzzle about a foot from his head. The German said something which Macalister could not understand, but which he rightly interpreted as a command not to move. But he could hear no sound of Scottish voices or of the uproar of hand-to-hand fighting in the trench. When he saw the Germans duck down hastily and squeeze close up against the wall of the trench, while overhead a string of sh.e.l.ls crashed angrily and the shrapnel beat down in gusts across the trench, he diagnosed correctly that the a.s.sault had failed, and that the British gunners were again searching the German trench with shrapnel.

His German guard said something to the other men, and while one of them remained at the loophole and fired an occasional shot, the others drew close to their prisoner. The first thing they did was to search him, to turn each pocket outside-in, and when they had emptied these, carefully feel all over his body for any concealed article. Macalister bore it all with great philosophy, mildly satisfied that he had no money to lose and no personal property of any value.

Their search concluded, the Germans held a short consultation, then one of them slipped round the corner of the traverse, and, returning a moment later, pointed the direction to Macalister and signed to him to go.

The trench was boxed into small compartments by the traverses, and in the next section Macalister found three Germans waiting for him. One of them asked him something in German, and on Macalister shaking his head to show that he did not understand, he was signaled to approach, and a German ran deftly through his pockets, fingering his waist, and, searching for a money-belt, made a short exclamation of disgust, and signed to the prisoner to move on round the next traverse, at the same time shouting to the Germans there, and pa.s.sing Macalister on at the bayonet point. This performance was repeated exactly in all its details through the next half-dozen traverses, the only exception being that in one an excitable German, making violent motions with a bayonet as he appeared round the corner, insisted on his holding his hands over his head.

At about the sixth traverse a German spoke to him in fairly good, although strongly accented, English. He asked Macalister his rank and regiment, and Macalister, knowing that the name on his shoulder-straps would expose any attempt at deceit, gave these. Another man asked something in German, which apparently he requested the English speaker to translate.

"He say," interpreted the other, "Why you English war have made?"

Macalister stared at him. "I'm no English," he returned composedly.

"I'm a Scot."

"That the worse is," said the interpreter angrily. "Why have it your business of the Scot?"

Macalister knitted his brows over this. "You mean, I suppose, what business is it of ours! Well, it's just Scotland's a bit of Britain, so when Britain's at war, we are at war."

A demand for an interpretation of this delayed the proceedings a little, and then the English speaker returned to the attack.

"For why haf Britain this war made!" he demanded.

"We didna' make it," returned Macalister. "Germany began it." Excited comment on the translation.

"If you'll just listen to me a minute," said Macalister deliberately, "I can prove I am right. Sir Edward Grey----" Bursts of exclamation greeted the name, and Macalister grinned slightly.

"You'll no be likin' him," he said. "An' I can weel understan' it."

The questioner went off on a different line. "Haf your soldiers know,"

he asked, "that the German fleet every day a town of England bombard?"

Macalister stared at him. "Havers!" he said abruptly.

The German went on to impart a great deal of astonis.h.i.+ng information--of the German advance on Petrograd, the invasion of Egypt, the extermination of the Balkan Expedition, the complete blockade of England, the decimation of the British fleet by submarines.

After some vain attempts to argue the matter and disprove the statements, Macalister resigned himself to contemptuous silence, only rousing when the German spoke of England and English, to correct him to Britain and British.

When at last their interest flagged, the Germans ordered him to move on. Macalister asked where he was going and what was to be done with him, and received the scant comfort that he was being sent along to an officer who would send him back as a prisoner, if he did not have him killed--as German prisoners were killed by the English.

"British, you mean," Macalister corrected again. "And, besides that, it's a lie."

He was told to go on; but as he moved be saw a foot-long piece of barbed wire lying in the trench bottom. He asked gravely whether he would be allowed to take it, and, receiving a somewhat puzzled and grudging a.s.sent, picked it up, carefully rolled it in a small coil, and placed it in a side jacket pocket. He derived immense gratification and enjoyment at the ensuing searches he had to undergo, and the explosive German that followed the diving of a hand into the barbed-wire pocket.

He arrived at last at an officer and at a point where a communication trench entered the firing trench. The officer in very mangled English was attempting to extract some information, when he was interrupted by the arrival from the communication trench of a small party led by an officer, a person evidently of some importance, since the other officer sprang to attention, clicked his heels, saluted stiffly, and spoke in a tone of respectful humility. The new arrival was a young man in a surprisingly clean and beautifully fitting uniform, and wearing a helmet instead of the cloth cap commonly worn in the trenches. His face was not a particularly pleasant one, the eyes close set, hard, and cruel, the jaw thin and sharp, the mouth thin-lipped and shrewish. He spoke to Macalister in the most perfect English.

"Well, swine-hound," he said, "have you any reason to give why I should not shoot you?" Macalister made no reply. He disliked exceedingly the look of the new-comer, and had no wish to give an excuse for the punishment he suspected would result from the officer's displeasure.

But his silence did not save him.

"Sulky, eh, my swine-hound!" said the officer. "But I think we can improve those manners."

He gave an order in German, and a couple of men stepped forward and placed their bayonets with the points touching Macalister's chest.

"If you do not answer next time I speak," he said smoothly, "I will give one word that will pin you to the trench wall and leave you there.

Do you understand!" he snapped suddenly and savagely. "You English dog."

"I understand," said Macalister. "But I'm no English. I'm a Scot"

The cras.h.i.+ng of a sh.e.l.l and the whistling of the bullets overhead moved the officer, as it had the others, to a more sheltered place. He seated himself upon an ammunition-box, and pointed to the wall of the trench opposite him.

"You," he said to Macalister, "will stand there, where you can get the benefit of any bullets that come over. I suppose you would just as soon be killed by an English bullet as by a German one."

Macalister moved to the place indicated.

"I'm no anxious," he said calmly, "to be killed by either a _British_ or a German bullet."

"Say 'sir' when you speak to me," roared the officer. "Say 'sir.'"

Macalister looked at him and said "Sir"--no more and no less.

"Have you no discipline in your English army?" he demanded, and Macalister's lips silently formed the words "British Army." "Are you not taught to say 'sir' to an officer?"

"Yes--sir; we say 'sir' to any officer and any gentleman."