Servants Of The Guns Part 12

He relapsed into silence, staring into the fire. Perhaps he, too, regretted for the moment that he was a General, and wished that, instead of thirteen batteries, he commanded only one.

Meanwhile the subject of their discussion had succeeded in finding the headquarters' baggage wagon. Ignoring the protests of infuriated transport officers who were endeavouring to direct more than two hundred vehicles to their destinations, he had lured it out of the chaos and guided it to its appointed place. As the wagon came to a standstill outside the barn the tarpaulin was raised at the back and the vast proportions of the gunner who combined the duties of servant to Tony and cook to the mess slowly emerged.

From his right hand dangled a shapeless, flabby ma.s.s.

"What the devil have you got there, Tebbut?" demanded Tony.

"Ducks, sir," was the unexpected reply. "We was 'alted near a farm-'ouse to-day, so I took the chanst to buy some milk and b.u.t.ter. While the chap was away fetchin' the stuff, I pinched these 'ere ducks. Fat they are, too!"

He spoke in the matter-of-fact tones of one to whom the theft of a pair of ducks, and the feat of plucking them within the narrow confines of a packed G.S. wagon, was no uncommon experience.

"Well, look sharp and cook 'em. We're hungry," said Tony.

He stayed until he saw that the dinner was well under way, and then floundered off through the mud to see his horses. Of these he was allowed by regulations three, but one, hastily purchased during the mobilisation period by an almost distracted remount officer, had already succ.u.mbed to the effects of overwork and underfeeding. There remained the charger which he had had with his battery in peace time, and which he now used for all ordinary work--and Dignity.

The latter was well named. He was a big brown horse, very nearly thoroughbred--a perfect hunter and a perfect gentleman. Tony had bought him as a four-year-old at a price that was really far beyond his means, and had trained him himself. He used openly to boast that Dignity had taken to jumping as a duck takes to water, and that he had never been known to turn from a fence. In the course of four seasons, the fastest burst, the heaviest ground, the longest hunt had never been too much for him. Always he would gallop calmly on, apparently invincible. His owner almost wors.h.i.+pped him.

Horse rugs are not part of the field service equipment of an officer.

But to the discerning (and unscrupulous) few there is a way round almost every regulation. Dignity had three rugs, and his legs were swathed in warm flannel bandages. As he stood there on the leeward side of a fence busily searching the bottom of his nosebag for the last few oats of his meagre ration, he was probably the most comfortable animal of all the thousands in the camp.

Tony spent some time examining his own and the General's horses, and giving out the orders for the morning to the grooms. By the time he got back to the barn it was past ten, and Tebbut was just solemnly announcing "dinner" as being served.

"The Maud" eyed the dish of steaming ducks with evident approval, but avoided asking questions. Loot had been very strictly forbidden.

"We ought by rights to have apple sauce with these," he said, drawing his saddle close up to the deal low table and giving vent to a sigh of expectancy.

"Hi've got some 'ere, sir," responded the resourceful Tebbut. "There was a horchard near the road to-day."

He produced, as he spoke, a battered tin which, from the inscription on its label, had once contained "selected peaches." It was now more than half full of a concoction which bore a pa.s.sable resemblance to apple sauce.

For half an hour conversation languished. They had eaten nothing but a sandwich since early morning, and the demands of appet.i.te were more exacting than their interest in the programme for the morrow.

But as soon as Tebbut, always a stickler for the usages of polite society, had brushed away the crumbs with a dirty dish-cloth and handed round pint mugs containing coffee, Hartley unrolled a map, and, under instructions from the General, began to prepare the orders.

As a result of a reconnaissance in force that day the enemy's advanced troops had been driven in, and the extent of his real position more or less accurately defined. The decisive attack, of which the ----th Division was to form a part, was to be directed against the left. Barring the way on this flank, however, was a hill marked on the map as Point 548, which was situate about two miles in front of the main hostile position. The enemy had not yet been dislodged from this salient, but a brigade of infantry had been detailed to a.s.sault it that night. In the event of success a battery was to be sent forward to occupy it at dawn, after which the main attack would begin. General Maudeslay had been ordered to provide this battery.

"Don't put anything in orders about it, though, Hartley," he said. "It will have to be one from the ----th Brigade, which has suffered least so far. I'll send separate confidential instructions to the Colonel. Get an orderly, will you, Tony?"

"I'll take the message myself, sir, if I may," suggested the A.D.C.

"It's my own brigade, and I'd like to look them up."

"All right; only don't forget to come back," said the General, smiling.

Tony pocketed the envelope and peered out into the night. The rain had ceased and the sky was clear. Far away to right and left the bivouac fires glimmered like reflections of the starry heavens. The troops, worn out with the hards.h.i.+ps of the day, had fallen asleep and the camp was silent. Only the occasional whinny of a horse, the challenge of a sentry, or the distant rumbling of benighted transport broke the stillness.

Tony's way led through the lines of the various batteries. The horses stood in rows, tied by their heads to long ropes stretched between the ammunition wagons. Fetlock-deep in liquid mud, without rugs, wet and underfed, they hung their heads dejectedly--a silent protest against the tyranny of war.

"Poor old hairies!" thought Tony, as he pa.s.sed them, his mind picturing the spotless troop-stables and the s.h.i.+ning coats that he had known so well in barracks, not a month ago.

He found the officers of his brigade a.s.sembled beneath a tarpaulin.

Their baggage had been hours late, and though it was nearly eleven o'clock the evening meal was still in progress. He handed his message to the Adjutant and sat down to exchange greetings with his brother subalterns.

"Oh! there's bully beef for the batteries, but we've salmon all right on the staff," he sang softly, after sniffing suspiciously at the unpleasant-looking mess on his neighbour's plate, which was, in fact, ration tinned beef boiled hurriedly in a camp kettle. The song, of which the words were his own, fitted neatly to a popular tune of the moment.

It treated of the difference in comfort of life on the staff and that in the batteries, and gave a verdict distinctly in favour of the former. He had sung it with immense success about 3 a.m. on his last night at home with his own brigade.

"Now, Tony," said some one, "you're on the staff. What's going to happen to-morrow?"

"A big show--will last two or three days, they say. But," he added, grinning, "you poor devils stuck away behind a hill won't see much of it. I suppose I shall be sent on my usual message--to tell you that you're doing no dam' good, and only wasting ammunition!"

But though he chaffed and joked his heart was heavy as he walked back an hour later. Somewhere out there in the mud was his own battery, which he wors.h.i.+pped as a G.o.d. And he was condemned to live away from it, to be absent when it dashed into action, when the breech-blocks rattled and the sh.e.l.ls shrieked across the valleys.

He found the others still poring over the map. From the wallet on his saddle Tony pulled out a large travelling flask.

"I think that this is the time for the issue of my special emergency ration," he announced.

"What is it, Tony?" asked "the Maud."

"Best old liqueur brandy from our mess in England," he replied, pouring some into each of the four mugs.

Then he held up his own and added--

"Here's to the guns: may they be well served to-morrow."

Over the enamelled rim the General's eyes met Tony's for a moment, and he smiled; for he understood the sentiment.

Tony crawled beneath his blankets, and fell into a deep sleep, from which he roused himself with difficulty a few hours later as the first grey streaks of dawn were appearing in the sky.

II

The press of work at the headquarters of a division during operations comes in periods of intense activity, during which every member of the staff, from the General downwards, feels that he is being asked to do the work of three men in an impossibly short s.p.a.ce of time. One of these periods, that in which the orders for the initial stages of the attack had been distributed, had just pa.s.sed, and a comparative calm had succeeded. Even the operator of the "buzzer" instrument, ensconced in a little triangular tent just large enough to hold one man in a p.r.o.ne position, had found time to smoke.

Divisional headquarters had been established at a point where five roads met, just below the crest of a low hill. A few yards away the horses clinked their bits and grazed. Occasionally the distant boom of a gun made them p.r.i.c.k their ears and stare reflectively in the direction of the sound. The sun, with every promise of a fine day, was slowly dispelling the mist from the valley and woodlands below.

It was early: the battle had scarcely yet begun.

A huge map had been spread out on a triangular patch of gra.s.s at the road junction, its corners held down with stones. Staff officers lay around it talking eagerly. Above, on the top of the hill, General Maudeslay leant against a bank and gazed into the mist. The night attack, he knew, had been successful, and he was anxiously awaiting the appearance of the battery on Point 548.

Tony was stretched at full length on the gra.s.s below him. He was warm, he was dry, and he was not hungry--a rare combination on service.

"This would be a grand cub-hunting morning, General," he said.

Ordinarily "the Maud" would have responded with enthusiasm, for hounds and hunting were the pa.s.sion of his life. But now his thoughts were occupied with other matters, and he made no reply.

Then suddenly, as though at the rising of a curtain at a play, things began to happen. The telephone operator lifted his head with a start as his instrument began to give out its nervous, jerky, zt--zzz--zt. There was a clatter of hoofs along the road, and the sliding sc.r.a.pe of a horse pulled up sharply as an orderly appeared and handed in a message. Rifle fire, up till then desultory and unnoticed, began to increase in volume.

The mist had gone.

"The Maud," motionless against the bank, kept his gla.s.ses to his eyes for some minutes before lowering them, with a gesture of annoyance and exclaimed--