With Haig on the Somme Part 31

"Turn out, you beggars!" he yelped. "Tiddler, look at this! 'Ere's our bloomin' draft at larst. Give 'em a cheer, boys! Now we shan't be long!"

From the barn and the adjacent cottages the Reeds.h.i.+res poured and lined up at the roadside.

"Never mind the weather, Now then, all together: Hallo! Hallo! Here we are again!"

sang the draft, to the accompaniment of the mouth organs, the battalion joining in with a l.u.s.ty roar of welcome.

"Lumme, Tiddler! They're a bloomin' fine lot!" was Harry Hawke's approving comment. "And if there ain't our little 'ero with two blinkin'

stars on 'is blinkin' sleeve! Are we down'earted?"

And eleven hundred and fifty throats gave a thunderous "NO!" as the draft halted.

Within twenty-four hours of the arrival of the draft the battalion fell in with packs and rifles. The little pillar-box at the end of the barn, with the time of the next collection scored in chalk on the wall, had been filled to overflowing with field post cards for home, and the Reeds.h.i.+res left their billets to join the brigade again.

It was all new to young Wetherby, and Dennis seemed quite a seasoned veteran as he pointed out things to his old school chum while they drew nearer and nearer to the thunder of the guns.

Contalmaison had already been taken with great slaughter before they reached the firing-line, and the shadows were lengthening as they came to a captured trench and prepared to make themselves snug for the night.

Dennis and Wetherby were taking possession of a half-demolished dug-out when Bob made his appearance.

"If you fellows have got any coffee to spare, I'll have some with you,"

said the major. "And I recommend you to turn in all standing, for we're expecting a big counter-attack from the direction of that wood on our front. How have you stood the march up, Wetherby? Feel a bit knocked?"

"Nothing to speak of," laughed the new subaltern of A Company. "I'm not too tired to enjoy the fun when it starts."

"Well, if our informations are correct, you'll see plenty of 'fun,' as you call it, before sunrise. I've just had a chow with the Governor, and he's as pleased as Punch that we're up in time, for I think it's going to be pretty serious. Our airmen have brought news of exceedingly heavy enemy reinforcements, and the German guns are holding their fire on this sector, which all points to something."

"How's the wind?" said Dennis, over the rim of his enamelled mug.

"Dead right for Brother Boche," replied Bob, with a smile.

"I don't quite understand," ventured young Wetherby, who, in spite of the tan of arduous training that browned his clean-shaven, boyish face, was not ashamed to ask questions.

Like Dennis himself, he was not one of those pert modern boys who think they know everything.

"What has the wind got to do with it?" said young Wetherby.

"Gas, old chap, gas!" replied the two brothers. "The moment you hear the alarm, ram on your gas helmet and see the tube is working."

"And by the living Jingo!" cried the major, "there it goes!" And he shot out of the dug-out into the trench as a man on the look out beat furiously upon an empty sh.e.l.l-case dangling there for the purpose.

"Pull it right down!" shouted Dennis, giving young Wetherby a helping hand with his helmet. "Now you're fixed. Wish there was a mirror handy; you've no idea how well you look in it, old man."

Despite the seriousness of the moment Wetherby roared with laughter inside the stifling, smelly cowl that made them both seem like familiars of the Spanish Inquisition.

And then, revolvers in hand, they took their places in the trench and waited.

"Are you certain it's gas?" said Dennis to Tiddler, who had sounded the alarm in their front, for beyond the parapet there was a strange stillness, and the night was as black as your hat.

"Yes, sir; I see it right enough, just as their last flare died down. I saw it at Hill 60, and I've 'ad some. It'll be 'ere in a tick."

But the enemy was impatient that night, and on a sudden a group of star-sh.e.l.ls burst overhead, lighting everything up brilliantly, and revealing a long line of grey figures advancing stealthily.

"How do we go now?" inquired Wetherby, as another bunch of star-sh.e.l.ls went up. "Do we wait until they're on top of us?"

"That depends on Bob's judgment," replied Dennis, making himself heard with some difficulty through the flannel folds of his mask; and while he was speaking there came the shrill signal for "ten rounds rapid."

As the Lee-Enfields crashed out our machine-guns began to hammer, and the boy fresh out from England felt a fierce thrill of exultation seize him, for this was the real thing at last--the thing he had been longing for so eagerly!

The long grey line seemed to s.h.i.+ver in front of the machine-guns, and great swathes of the enemy went down. But our trench was on a ridge, and the rear ranks filling up the gaps with a precision that astonished young Wetherby, the German line began to mount the slope, breaking into the double.

Dennis suddenly gripped his arm.

"Yes, what is it?" cried the boy, as the "Cease fire" blew and was immediately followed by another signal.

"Reeds.h.i.+res, get over!" shouted Dennis. "That's what it is. Good old Bob! He's a beggar for the cold steel. Come on, Wetherby! There's a fine bit of free wheel for us--all down hill and a walk over at the bottom.

Charge, boys, charge!"

Looking like demons suddenly gone mad, the battalion let go a m.u.f.fled yell, and tore down the slope to meet those other demons, still more hideous in the steel-faced masks they wore as a protection against their own gas; and at the end of a dozen strides brown and grey mingled with a terrific shock.

"Jove, what a ripping scrum!" laughed Wetherby, as he and Dennis plunged into the struggling ma.s.s of men; and when his revolver was empty he wrenched a Mauser and bayonet from one of the enemy and used them.

The Reeds.h.i.+res were fresh, and made up for that lost time in billets, yielding not an inch, but forcing the Germans farther and farther down the slope, until they broke and ran.

They were artful enough to avoid the sh.e.l.l holes, where the gas lay thick; but they had little time to pick and choose their way, for the relentless Reeds.h.i.+res clung to their heels so closely that our machine-guns had to cease fire.

Here and there, where the fugitive mob was tightly wedged in some narrow gap between a couple of yawning craters, the rearmost of them would turn at bay, and at just such a place, scarcely wide enough for two men to pa.s.s abreast, young Wetherby overtook a hefty little private tackling a huge German, who towered head and shoulders above him.

It was impossible to get by until that single combat should be ended; but as Wetherby paused the big German made a circling swipe with his rifle, and his bayonet tore a great gash in the Reeds.h.i.+re's gas helmet.

The little man in jumping back lost his balance, and rolled head over heels into one of the craters, his adversary resuming his flight at the sight of young Wetherby, who dropped him with a bullet in the back.

The splendid pluck with which the little man had tackled the giant had appealed to Wetherby's sporting instincts, and realising the hideous death that lurked in the bottom of the sh.e.l.l hole, he sprang down to his a.s.sistance, and found Tiddler--for it was he--grasping the torn mask with both hands, while he vainly struggled to scramble out.

But the earth crumbled under his feet, and, already exhausted, the doomed man sank on his knees, and looked wildly round for help.

He should by rights have had a spare helmet in his haversack, but the careless fellow had lost it when they were in billets.

"Go back!" he gasped with a wave of his arm; but the officer boy was no fool, and, opening his wallet, he forced his own spare mask over Tiddler's head and dragged him to his feet again.

A German lay writhing in fearful convulsions beside them, and young Wetherby pointed to that terrible object lesson.

"Come on!" he shouted. "Never mind your gun." And, seizing him by the arm, the pair struggled panting together up the precipitous side of the hole.

"It's all right up here--the gas has pa.s.sed over!" shouted Tiddler's rescuer. And away he bolted, leaving the grateful man to recover his breath and pick up a spare rifle.