Jim Brent

by Sapper

  In addition to the infantry, other people thrust themselves forward in a manner which requires firmness and tact to deal with: gunners require OP’s or observation posts; other gunners require trench mortar emplacements; dangerous men with machine-guns sit up and take notice, and demand concrete and other abominations; while last, but not least, the medical profession demand secret and secure places in which to practise their nefarious trade. Finally, the Ordnance Department is with one always. It was that branch of the great Machine which caused the frown on the face of the sapper captain, hitherto alluded to as the OC, while next door the batman cleared the breakfast table.

  “We’re six bicycles short, you say, Quarter-master-Sergeant?” he exclaimed irritably, gazing at some papers in front of him, while he filled his pipe.

  “Yes, sir; and two more with wheels buckled, and three that free-wheel both ways?”

  “What d’you mean – free-wheel both ways?”

  “The pedals rotate, sir, with great speed, but the bicycle remains motionless.” When a man habitually calls an armchair, A chair, arm – officers, for the use of, one – his conversation is apt to become stilted.

  “How were the wheels buckled?” demanded the captain when he had digested this great thought.

  “Two of the officers, sir – playing what I believe they called bicycle polo with a brick and two pick-helves – had – er – a slight mishap.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “Er – after dinner, sir, one night.” The NCO looked tactfully out of the window.

  The officer did not pursue the topic. “Well, what about these six that have been lost?”

  “Completely destroyed by shell fire,” said the CQMS firmly. “I have prepared a statement of what happened for your perusal and signature.” He handed the officer a written paper and respectfully withdrew a few paces to avoid any semblance of coercion.

  “‘The six bicycles were placed on the morning of the 10th ult. against the entrance to the RE Dump at A21, C2.4. It would appear that during the absence of the riders a hostile shell of large calibre fell on the six said bicycles, completely demolishing them, for when the riders returned after the day’s work merely a few fragments remained scattered round the shell crater.’”

  The captain read it over slowly, and then, in tones of awe, a murmured “Wonderful” wafted through the office.

  “I beg your pardon, sir?” The NCO was again at his side.

  “I said wonderful, Quartermaster-Sergeant – quite wonderful. Do you think they’ll swallow it?”

  “It has been done before, sir.” The tone was non-committal. “And one of the six was undoubtedly badly punctured by a stray rifle bullet before we lost it – er – that is, before it was finally destroyed by shell fire.”

  “Right.” With the air of a man who communes with great destinies, the captain signed his name. “Anything more?”

  “Nothing at present, sir. The question of the consumption of Candles, Tallow-dip, Pounds Twenty-four, stolen from our yard by the 940th Tunnelling Company, has come back again with remarks from the Chief Ordnance Officer at the Base – but it will wait until you come back from the trenches.”

  “I’m glad of that,” remarked the captain, rising. “I’m not feeling very strong this morning, and candles, tallow-dip – especially lbs. twenty-four of them – would cause a relapse. Orderly” – he strolled to the door – “my bicycle, please.”

  A few minutes later he was riding slowly down the road towards the place where there was ‘a war on’. A cool mist hung over the fields on each side of him, and in the early morning stray cobwebs glistening with moisture brushed lightly across his face.

  “B’jour, monsieur.” A woman standing in the door of a roadside estaminet greeted him as he passed – a woman undisturbed by the guns that at times roared close by; a woman whose house was one concentrated draught, which whistled through what had once been walls and now were holes held together by odd bricks.

  He returned the greeting and rode on, while once again the comparison – never far absent from those who live ‘within range’ – came into his mind: the comparison between England and France – between the country which has only learned of war through its soldiers, and the country whose women and children have learned of it first hand, even unto death. All was absolutely silent – the peace and glory of a summer’s morning hung over everything, while the smell of the wet clover came faintly to his nostrils. A military policeman at the corner saluted smartly, while a small boy in a little cart drawn by three straining dogs raced him blithely up the village street. At the end of the battered houses still occupied by their owners, and the temporary abode of half a battalion of infantry resting from a spell in the trenches, progression by bicycle became a little harder. Great branches lay across the road, and pits torn out of the pavé by bursting shells made steering a trifle intricate; while occasionally one of the many signal wires which had slipped during the night, and was hanging low above his head, scraped the top of his steel helmet.

  Once more the familiar “B’jour, monsieur” – this time from an old dame who sat day in day out in a corner under a wall selling chocolate. Just above her head, so that by raising her arm she could have touched it, the nose of a ‘dud’ German shell poked out from the brickwork.

  Ruin, desolation – and shrouding it all the cool damp mist of seven o’clock in July.

  “The very man!” A voice hailed him from behind, and a gunner subaltern materialised. “Are you going up the line?”

  “I am – at once.” The sapper placed his bicycle against a heap of sandbags. “What does my dear one desire?”

  “The accursed Hun placed two large obuses into the Ritz yesterday afternoon. What do you propose to do about it?” They were strolling slowly through the sopping grass.

  “Nothing – if I can possibly avoid it,” answered the sapper firmly. “You select for an OP the most prominent house in the locality – put a signaller on the top of it with a large flag – wait till midday, when the sun is at its brightest, and then send a message back that the bully beef is bad. You–”

  “Laddie,” interrupted the gunner, “desist. All that you say is true and more – but we must stick to the Ritz, if we can. It commands a soul-inspiring view of the trenches behind that new crater in a way we can’t get from anywhere else. What I want you to do is to cover the cellar with boards. Yesterday the second shell knocked two men insensible, and they fell backwards into it. As they nearly drowned, it will be obvious, even to your intelligence, that it contains – amongst other things – water. Moreover, the water is deep, and stinketh. If, therefore, my brainy confrère, you will authorise me to draw planks twelve, I myself will cover yon hole with my own fair hands. The cadaverous gentleman at your store, whose face has been passed over by some heavy body, proved both unsympathetic and suspicious this morning when I asked him for them. Wherefore, if you will sign–” He held out a book to the sapper.

  “‘Please issue bearer with twelve planks 9 inch by 2 inch; length, 6 feet.’” The sapper glanced at the page and signed. “There you are, James. Tell him to get them cut for you.”

  “I was going to, dearie. How marvellously your brain grasps the importance of these trifling details! Are you passing the Ritz by any chance? If so, tell my warriors to come down to the store.”

  “Aren’t you coming up?”

  “No – it’s too light. I have to be careful who I’m seen with.” He turned back and was quickly lost in the white mist – though for some time afterwards the faint strains of musical items selected from ‘The Bing Boys’ followed the sapper as he walked on.

  Occasional voices came mysteriously from apparently nowhere, as a party of men went up one of the deep communication trenches close by him – a trench invisible in summer until you actually stood over it, for the long rank grass hid everything: grass splashed with the red of great masses of poppies, and the white of the daisies, with odd little patches of blue cornflowers and borage, and buttercu
ps glinting yellow. Just rank luxuriant vegetation, run wild – untouched for more than a year.

  Suddenly out of the mist there loomed the Ritz – the name of the broken-down, shell-battered house which served his late companion as an OP. The sapper gave the message as requested, and stepped down three stairs into the communication trench which passed close under one of the crumbling walls. There was no necessity, as far as safety was concerned, to get into the trench for several hundred yards – the mist effectually prevented any chance of being seen from the German lines half a mile farther on.

  But he was mindful to see the condition of the trench – whether the sides were crumbling, and whether the floor was suitably provided with trench boards and bricks. Twisting, winding with the poppies and the weeds meeting over his head, and the water brushing off them against his face and coat, he walked slowly on. Seven feet deep, perhaps three feet wide, it might have been a sunken Devonshire lane in model, and a faint tinge in the soil helped the illusion.

  Stale as it all was, unprofitable and a weariness to the flesh as it had all become, the strangeness of it still struck him at times. He wondered lazily what the people he knew at home would think if they were following him at that moment on a tour of inspection. Especially his Uncle John. Uncle John was something in the City, and looked it. He lived near Ascot, and nightly slept with a gas mask beside his bed. He could imagine Uncle John trembling audibly in that quiet model lane, and assuring his faithful wife of his ability to protect her. He laughed at the picture in his mind, and then with a slight frown stopped.

  The trench bent sharply to the right, and almost subconsciously he noticed a hole framed in thick wood, half filled in, in the wall in front of him. The top had broken. He bent and peered through it. It went right through the wall in front, and beyond, the same deep communication trench could be seen stretching away. Just a loophole placed in a traverse through which a rifle could be fired along a straight thirty yards of trench, if the Germans ever got in. But to fire a rifle to any purpose the loophole must not be broken, and so the sapper made a note before resuming his stroll.

  Rounding a bend, a big white board at a crossroads confronted him. It advertised two or three salient facts written in large black letters. It appeared that by turning to the right one would ultimately reach Leicester Square and an aid post, to say nothing of the Charing Cross Road, which was a down trench. By turning to the left, on the contrary, one would reach Regent Street and a pump. It also stated that the name of our wanderer’s present route was the Haymarket, and further affirmed that it was an up trench. For it will be plain to all that, where a trench is but three feet wide, it is essential not to have men going both ways in it – and further, it will also be plain why the aid posts occur in the down ones.

  A further interesting and momentous piece of information was imparted from another board, to the effect that the name of the trench by which one could reach the pump on one hand and the aid post on the other was Piccadilly, and that it constituted the reserve line of the position.

  In other words, it was not merely a communication trench, but was recessed and traversed like a fire trench. In very fact, it was a fire trench – the third of the system. In front was the support line, known as Pall Mall, and in front of that, again, the firing-line, whither later the sapper proposed to wend his way. He wanted to gaze on ‘the rum jar reputed to be filled with explosive’. But in the meantime there was the question of the pump – the ever-present question which is associated with all pumps. To work, or not to work, and the answer is generally in the negative.

  He turned to the left down Piccadilly, wondering what particular ailment had attacked this specimen of the breed and had caused the adjutant of the battalion to write winged words anent it. The aspect of the trench had changed; no longer did the red, white and blue of the tangled wild flowers meet over his head, but grey and drab the sandbag walls rose on each side of him. Occasionally the mouth of a dugout yawned in the front of the trench, a dark passage cased in with timber, sloping steeply down to the cave below. Voices, and sometimes snores, came drowsily up from the bottom, where odd bunches of the South Loamshires for a space existed beautifully.

  “Hullo, old man – how’s life?” He rounded a traverse to find an officer of the battalion lathering his chin for his morning shave. A cracked mirror was scotched up between two sandbags, and a small indiarubber basin leaked stealthily on the firing step.

  “So-so! That bally pump of yours won’t work again, or so the cook says. Jenkins, pass the word along for Smithson. He is the cook, and will tell you the whole sordid story.”

  “Quiet night?” The sapper sat down and refilled his pipe.

  “Fairly. They caught one of our fellows in the entrance to his dugout up in the front line with an aerial dart about seven o’clock. Landed just at the entrance. Blew the top of his head off. Good boy, too – just been given his stripe. Oh, Smithson! – tell the engineer officer about that pump. Confound! – I’ve shaved a mosquito bite!”

  The cook – a veteran of many years – looked at the placidly smoking sapper and cleared his throat. On any subject he was an artist; on pumps and the deficiencies of Ally Sloper’s Cavalry – as the ASC is vulgarly known – he was a genius.

  “Well, sir, it’s like this ’ere. That there pump is a funny kind o’ pump. Sometimes it gives you water and sometimes it don’t.”

  “You surprise me,” murmured the sapper.

  “Now, if I might be so bold, sir, I would suggest that another well be sunk, sir – starting fresh, like from the beginning. Then I could keep my heye on it, and see that no one wasn’t a-monkeying with it. As it is, wot with the stuff we’re a-getting and the shortage of tea and the distance I ’ave to go for water, and–”

  “Well, what do you expect?” A bitter voice from round the traverse rudely interrupted the discourse. “We make pumps to pump water – not dead rats. Wasting my time, that’s what it is. Where ’ave I put it? In that there perisher Smithson’s dugout, and ’e can ’ave it for his dinner.” The plumber previously sent up on receipt of the adjutant’s note came round the corner and, seeing his officer, stopped and saluted.

  “That there pump’s all right, sir. There was a dead rat in it. They will leave the cover off the well.” He perceived the horrified Smithson, and fixed him with the frozen eye.

  “Right. Then you can rejoin your section.” The sapper rose, the plumber departed, the cook faded away, and for a space there was silence.

  “Damn that fellow Smithson – he’s the limit.” The infantry officer laughed. “I’ll rend him for this.”

  “Sometimes it gives you water, and sometimes it don’t,” remarked the sapper pensively. “Last time it was a sock. Bye-bye. I hope he’ll enjoy his dinner.”

  He followed the plumber back along Piccadilly, composing in his mind a suitable answer to the message of despair from the adjutant.

  ‘With ref. to your min. of yesterday I would suggest that a larger flow of somewhat purer water would be available if the practice of inserting deceased rodents in the delivery pipe was discontinued forthwith. I am fully alive to the fact that what the eye does not see the heart does not grieve about, and I realise that, viewed from that standpoint only, the grave of the little animal in question could not well be improved on. I also realise that it adds that flavour to the tea which is so sought after by the true connoisseur. But, desiring to view the matter from the clearer vantage point of an unbiased onlooker I venture to suggest–’

  His meditations were interrupted by a procession of gunners each carrying on his shoulder an unpleasant-looking object which resembled a gigantic dumb-bell with only one blob on the end – a huge spherical cannon-ball on a steel stalk. They were coming from Leicester Square, and he met them just as they turned up the Haymarket. Waiting until they had all gone by, he followed on in the rear of the party, which suddenly turned sharp to the left and disappeared into the bowels of the earth.

  “No. 7,” murmured the sapper to him
self. “I wonder if the officer is new?” He turned to a bombardier standing at the entrance to the passage. “Is your officer here?”

  “He’s down below, sir.” The man drew to one side, and the sapper passed up a narrow deep trench and went ‘down below’ to the trench mortar emplacement, a cave hewn out of the ground much on the principle of an ordinary dugout. But there were certain great differences; for half the roof had been removed, and through the hole thus formed streamed in the early morning sun. A screen of rabbit wire covered with bits of grass, lying horizontally over the open hole when the gun was not firing, helped to conceal it from the prying eyes of Hun aeroplanes. Let into the ground and mounted and clamped to a stand was the mortar itself – while beside it sat a very young gunner officer, much in the attitude of a mother beside her first-born. He was obviously new to the game, and the sapper surveyed him with indulgent eye.

  “Good morning.” The gunner looked up quickly. “I’m the sapper officer on this bit of line. You’ve just come in, haven’t you.”

  “Yes, early this morning. Everything seems very quiet here.”

  “From four till eight or nine it’s always peaceful. But I don’t know that you’ll find this spot very quiet once you start pooping off. This particular emplacement was spotted some two months ago by the wily Hun, and he got some direct hits on it with small stuff. Since then it hasn’t been used. There are lots of others, you know.”

  “I was ordered to come to this one,” answered the boy doubtfully.