by None
He had hardly spoken before a new torment wrung him. The whole landscape suddenly gave a quick shiver. The single poplar, down the stream, just perceptibly shuddered and rustled, and then was dead still again. A bed of rushes, nearer us, swayed for an instant, and stood taut again. Absurd, you will say. And, of course, it was only a faint breath of wind, the only stir in the air all that day. But you were not there. So you cannot feel how the cursed place had tried to shake itself free of its curse, and had failed and fallen rigid again, dreeing its weird, and poor Billy with it. His hold on his tongue was what he lost now. He began to wail under his breath, ‘Christ, pity me! Oh, suffering Christ, pity me!’ He was still staring hard to his front, but I had got a hand ready to grab at his belt when, from somewhere out in the mist before us, there came, short and crisp, the crack of a dead branch heavily trodden upon.
Billy was better that instant. Better an audible enemy, one with a body, one that could trample on twigs, than that vague infestation of life with impalpable sinisterness. Billy turned with a grin – ghastly enough, but a grin.
‘Hold your fire,’ I said in his ear, ‘till I order.’ I made certain dispositions of bombs on a little shelf. Then we waited, listening, second by second. I think both our ears must have flicked like a mule’s. But the marvel came in at the eye. We both saw the vision at just the same instant. It was some fifty yards from us, straight to our front. It sat on the top of the mist as though mist were ice and would bear. It was a dog, of the very same breed as the Hellhound, sitting upright like one of the beasts that support coats-of-arms; all proper, too, as the heralds would say, with the black and tan hues as in life. The image gazed at us fixedly. How long? Say, twenty seconds. Then it about-turned without any visible use of its limbs, and receded some ten or twelve yards, still sitting up and now rhythmically rising and falling as though the mist it rode upon were undulating. Then it clean vanished. I thought it sank, as if the mist had ceased to bear. Billy thought the beast just melted into the air radially, all round, as rings made of smoke do.
You know the crazy coolness, a sort of false presence of mind, that will come in and fool you a little bit further at these moments of staggering dislocation of cause and effect. One of these waves of mad rationalism broke on me now. I turned quickly round to detect the cinema lantern behind us which must have projected the dog’s moving figure upon the white sheet of mist. None there, of course. Only the terrified city, still there, aghast, with held breath.
Then all my anchors gave together. I was adrift; there was nothing left certain. I thought, ‘What if all we are sure of be just a mistake, and our sureness about it conceit, and we no better than puppies ourselves to wonder that dogs should be taking their ease in mid-air and an empty orchard be shrieking?’ While I was drifting, I happened to notice the sleepy old grumble of guns from the rest of the front, and I envied those places. Sane, normal places; happy all who were there; only their earthworks were crumbling, not the last few certainties that we men think we have got hold of.
All this, of course, had to go on in my own mind behind a shut face. For Billy was one of the nerve specialists; he might get a VC, or be shot in a walled yard at dawn, according to how he was handled. So I was pulling my wits together a little, to dish out some patter fit for his case – you know: the ‘bright, breezy, brotherly’ bilge – when the next marvel came. A sound this time – a voice, too; no shriek, not even loud, but tranquil, articulate, slow, and so distant that only the deathly stillness which gave high relief to every bubble that burst with a plop, out in the marsh, could bring the words to us at all. ‘Has annywan here lost a dog? Annywan lost a good dog? Hoond? Goot Hoond? Annywan lost a goot Hoond?’
You never can tell how things will take you. I swear I was right out of that hellish place for a minute or more, alive and free and back at home among the lost delights of Epsom Downs, between the races; the dear old smelly crowd all over the course, and the merchant who carries a tray crying, ‘Oo’ll ’ave a good cigar, gents? Twopence! ’Oo wants a good cigar? Twopence! ’Oo says a good smoke?’ And the sun shining good on all the bookies and crooks by the rails, the just and the unjust, all jolly and natural. Better than Lear’s blasted heath and your mind running down!
You could see the relief settle on Mynns like oil going on to a burn on your hand. Have you seen an easy death in bed? – the yielding sigh of peace and the sinking inwards, the weary job over? It was like that. He breathed, ‘That Irish swine!’ in a voice that made it a blessing. I felt the same, but more uneasily. One of my best was out there in the wide world, having God knew what truck with the enemy. Any Brass Hat that came loafing round might think, in his blinded soul, that Toomey was fraternizing; whereas Toomey was dead or prisoner by now, or as good, unless delivered by some miracle of gumption surpassing all his previous practices against the brute creation. We could do nothing, could not even guess where he was in the fog. It had risen right up to the boughs; the whole Seam was packed with it, tight. No one but he who had put his head into the mouth of the tiger could pull it out now.
We listened on, with pricked ears. Voices we certainly heard; yes, more than one; but not a word clear. And voices were not what I harked for – it was for the shot that would be the finish of Toomey. I remembered during the next twenty minutes quite a lot of good points about Toomey. I found that I had never had a sulky word from him, for one. At the end of the twenty minutes the voices finally stopped. But no shot came. A prisoner, then?
The next ten minutes were bad. Towards the end of the two hours for which they lasted I could have fancied the spook symptoms were starting again. For out of the mist before us there came something that was not seen, or heard, or felt; no one sense could fasten upon it; only a mystic consciousness came of some approaching displacement of the fog. The blind, I believe, feel the same when they come near a lamp-post. Slowly this undefined source of impressions drew near, from out the uncharted spaces beyond, to the frontiers of hearing and sight, slipped across them and took form, at first as the queerest tangle of two sets of limbs, and then as Toomey, bearing on one shoulder a large corpse, already stiff, clothed in field-grey.
‘May I come in, Sergeant?’ said Toomey, ‘an’ bring me sheaves wid me?’ The pride of ’cuteness shone from his eyes like a lamp through the fog; his voice had the urbanely affected humility of the consciously great.
‘You may,’ said I, ‘if you’ve given nothing away.’
‘I have not,’ said he. ‘I’m an importer entirely. Me exports are nil.’ He rounded the flank of the breastwork and laid the body tenderly down, as a collector would handle a Strad. ‘There wasn’t the means of an identification about me. Me shoulder titles, me badge, me pay-book, me small-book, me disc, an’ me howl correspondence – I left all beyant in the cellar. They’d not have got value that tuk me.’ Toomey’s face was all one wink. To value himself on his courage would never enter his head. It was the sense of the giant intellect within that filled him with triumph.
I inspected the bulging eyes of the dead. ‘Did you strangle him sitting?’ I asked.
‘Not at all. Amn’t I just after tradin’ the dog for him?’ Then, in the proper whisper, Toomey made his report:
‘Ye’ll remember the whillabalooin’ there was at meself in the cellar. Leppin’ they were, at the loss of the tea. The end of it was that “I’m goin’ out now,” said I, “to speak to a man,” said I, “about a dog,” an’ I quitted the place, an’ the dog with me, knockin’ his nose against every lift of me heel. I’d a grand thought in me head, to make them whisht thinkin’ bad of me. Very near where the lad Schofiel’ is, I set out for Germ’ny, stoopin’ low to get all the use of the fog. Did you notus me, Sergeant?’
‘Breaking the firewood?’ I said.
‘Aye, I med sure that ye would. So I signalled.’
Now I perceived. Toomey went on. ‘I knew, when I held up the dog on the palm of me hand, ye’d see where I was, an’ where goin’. Then I wint on, deep into th’ East. Their wire is
nothin’ at all; it’s the very spit of our own. I halted among ut, and gev out a notus, in English an’ German, keepin’ well down in the fog to rejuce me losses. They didn’t fire – ye’ll have heard that. They sint for the man with the English. An’, be the will o’ God, he was the same man that belonged to the dog.’
‘“Hans,” says I, courcheous but firm, “the dog is well off where he is. Will you come to him quietly?”
‘I can’t jus’ give ye his words, but the sinse of them only. “What are ye doin’ at all,” he says, “askin’ a man to desert?”
‘There was serious trouble in that fellow’s voice. It med me ashamed. But I wint on, an’ only put double strength in me temptin’s. “Me colonel,” I told him, “is offerin’five pounds for a prisoner. Come back with me now and ye’ll have fifty francs for yourself when I get the reward. Think over ut well. Fifty francs down. There’s a grand lot of spendin’ in that. An’ ye’ll be wi’ the dog.” As I offered him each injucement, I lifted th’ an’mal clear of the fog for two seconds or three, to keep the man famished wid longin’. You have to be crool in a war. Each time that I lowered the dog I lep’ two paces north, under the fog, to be-divvil their aim if they fired.
‘“Ach, to hell wi’ your francs an’ your pounds,” says he in his ag’ny. “Give me the dog or I’ll shoot. I see where you are.”
‘“I’m not there at all,” says I, “an’ the dog’s in front of me bosom.”
‘Ye’ll understan’, Sergeant,’ Toomey said to me gravely, ‘that last was a ruse. I’d not do the like o’ that to a dog, anny more than yourself.
‘The poor divvil schewed in his juice for a while, very quiet. Then he out with an offer. “Will ye take sivinty francs for the dog? It’s the whole of me property. An’ it only comes short be five francs of th’ entire net profuts ye’d make on the fiver, an’ I comin’ with you.”
‘“I will not,” says I, faint and low. It was tormint refusin’ the cash.
‘“Won’t annythin’ do ye,” says he in despair, “but a live wan?”
‘“Depinds,” says I pensively, playin’ me fish. I held up the dog for a second again, to keep his sowl workin’.
‘He plunged, at the sight of the creature. “Couldn’t ye do with a body?” he says very low.
‘“Depinds,” says I, marvellin’ was ut a human sacrifice he was for makin’, the like of the Druids, to get back the dog.
‘“Not fourteen hours back,” says he, “he died on us.”
‘“Was he wan of yourselves?” says I. “A nice fool I’d look if I came shankin’ back from the fair wid a bit of the wrong unit.”
‘“He was,” says he, “an’ the best of us all.” An’ then he went on, wid me puttin’ in just a word now and then, or a glimpse of the dog, to keep him desirous and gabbin’. There’s no use in cheapenin’ your wares. He let on how this fellow he spoke of had never joyed since they came to that place, an’ gone mad at the finish wi’ not gettin’ his sleep without he’d be seein’ Them Wans in a dream and hearin’ the Banshies; the way he bruk out at three in the morning that day, apt to cut anny in two that would offer to hold him. “Here’s out of it all,” he appeared to have said; “I’ve lived through iv’ry room in hell, how long, O Lord, how long, but it’s glory an’ victory now,” an’ off an’ away wid him West, through The Garden. “Ye’ll not have seen him at all?” says me friend. We hadn’t notussed, I told him. “We were right then,” says he; “he’ll have died on the way. For he let a scream in the night that a man couldn’t give an’ live after. If he’d fetched up at your end,” says he, “you’d have known, for he was as brave as a lion.”
‘“A livin’ dog’s better,” says I, “than anny dead lion. It’s a Jew’s bargain you’re makin’. Where’s the deceased?”
‘“Pass me the dog,” says he, “an’ I’ll give you his route out from here to where he’ll have dropped. It’s his point of deparchure I stand at.”
‘“I’ll come to ye there,” says I, “an’ ye’ll give me his bearin’s, an’ when I’ve set eyes on me man I’ll come back an’ hand ye the dog, an’ not sooner.”
‘He was spaichless a moment. “Come now,” says I, from me lair in the fog, “wan of the two of us has to be trustful. I’ll not let ye down.”
‘“Ye’ll swear to come back?” says he in great anguish.
‘I said, “Tubbe sure.”
‘“Come on with ye, then,” he answered.
‘I went stoopin’ along to within six feet of his voice, the way ye’d swim under water, an’ then I came to the surface. The clayey-white face that he had, an’ the top of his body showed over a breastwork the moral of ours. An’, be cripes, it was all right. The red figures were plain on his shoulder-strap – wan-eighty-six. Another breastwork the fellow to his was not thirty yards south. There was jus’ the light left me to see that the sentry there was wan-eighty-six too. I’d inspicted the goods in bulk now, an’ only had to see to me sample an’ off home with it.’
Toomey looked benedictively down on the long stiff frame with its Iron Cross ribbon and red worsted ‘186’. ‘An ould storm-throoper!’ Toomey commendingly said. ‘His friend gev me the line to him. Then he got anxious. “Ye’ll bury him fair?” he said. “Is he a Prod’stant?” says I, “or a Cath’lic?” “A good Cath’lic,” says he; “we’re Bavarians here.” “Good,” says I, “I’ll speak to Father Moloney meself.” “An’ ye’ll come back,” says he, “wi’ the dog?” ‘”I will not,” says I, “I shall hand him ye now. Ye’re a straight man not to ha’ shot me before. Besides, ye’re a Cath’lic.” So I passed him the an’mal and off on me journey. Not the least trouble at all, findin’ the body. The birds were all pointin’ to ut. They hated ut. Faith, but that fellow had seen the quare things!’ Toomey looked down again at the monstrously staring eyes of his capture, bursting with agonies more fantastic, I thought, than any that stare from the bayoneted dead in a trench.
‘The man wi’ the dog,’ Toomey said, ‘may go the same road. His teeth are all knockin’ together. A match for your own, Billy.’ In trenches you did not pretend not to know all about one another, the best and the worst. In that screenless life friendship frankly condoled with weak nerves or an ugly face or black temper.
‘Sergeant,’ said Toomey, ‘ye’ll help me indent for the fiver? A smart drop of drink it’ll be for the whole of the boys.’
I nodded. ‘Bring him along,’ I said, ‘now.’
‘Well, God ha’ mercy on his sowl,’ said Toomey, hoisting the load on to his back.
‘And of all Christian souls, I pray God.’ I did not say it. Only Ophelia’s echo, crossing my mind. How long would Mynns last? Till I could wangle his transfer to the divisional laundry or gaff?
I brought Toomey along to claim the fruit of his guile. We had to pass Schofield. He looked more at ease in his mind than before. I asked the routine question. ‘All correct, Sergeant,’ he answered. ‘Deucks is coom dahn. Birds is all stretchin’ dahn to it, proper.’
Its own mephitic mock-peace was re-filling The Garden. But no one can paint a miasma. Anyhow, I am not trying to. This is a trade report only.
RICHARD ALDINGTON
VICTORY
A motor despatch-rider, with a broad blue and white band on his khaki arm, chugged and bumped along the pavé road. He slowed down as he came to two infantry officers, arguing over maps, and straddled his legs out like a hobby-horse rider as he handed over a slip of folded paper.
‘From Division, sir. Urgent.’
Captain Baron, commanding C Company,1 shoved his transparent map case under his arm and irritatedly thrust back his tin hat, which was new and chafed his head. He was a plump, stuggy little man in gold-rimmed glasses, in peace time the head of the clerical department of a large London commercial firm, and enormously devoted to ‘bumph,’ i.e. all the vast paper apparatus of war. His conscientiousness in answering paper questions drew down on him and his cursing subalterns unending streams of chits and reports. He spent hours a day i
n useless writing. This made him so tired that he was always dropping off to sleep, like the Dormouse in Alice.2 Under the stress of perpetual insomnia and conscientiousness this mildest of men had become frightfully irritable. He liked a well-planned unalterable routine, and his conscientiousness was always flabbergasted by any scrimshanking in his subordinates. He petulantly disapproved of the open warfare which had suddenly come after years of trench routine: unexpected things kept happening and decisions had to be made at once without any guiding precedent – which was most incorrect. Consequently, much of the practical work of the company was performed by his second-in-command, a tall young man, who submitted to his superior’s fantasies with bored resignation – an attitude he adopted to the whole war.
‘Tch, tch, tch! Now what are we to make of this, Ellerton? Another of these wretched counter-orders!’
Ellerton glanced at the despatch. It was marked ‘Urgent’, and contained a peremptory order to all units not to cross the Mons–Maubeuge road. Baron mechanically pushed up his ill-fitting helmet again, and continued irritatedly:
‘What do they want us to do? First we get urgent orders to push on at all costs and establish contact with the Boche – the Colonel strafed me not fifteen minutes ago because I hadn’t made good that bally3 road. I sent Hogbin with a chit to Warburton, telling him to take his platoon and establish posts three hundred yards beyond the road. And now comes this order from Division! What the devil do they mean?’
Ellerton looked slowly round him and took a deep breath. The dull misty twilight of a greyish November afternoon was deepening about them. The worn pavê road, still littered with dêbris from the retreating German armies, ran with dreary straightness through bare blank fields. A few hundred yards in front were the meagre leafless trees of the main road from Maubeuge to Mons. To their left was a dirty little hamlet, intact except for the smoke-blackened ruins of the church, burned in 1914.