He stumbled a little, then picked up the step again, and the man next to him turned and addressed him in the island patois, obviously asking a question. Causton played dumb -- quite literally; he made some complicated gestures with his fingers, hoping to God that the soldier would not know he was faking. The man let out a shrill cackle of laughter and poked the soldier in front in the small of the back. He evidently thought it a good joke that they should have a dumb soldier in their midst and curious eyes were turned on Causton. He hoped the sweat was not making the boot-polish run.
Not far ahead he could hear the sound of small-arms firing -- the tac-a-tac of machine-guns and the more unco-ordinated and sporadic rattle of rifles -- much closer than he had expected. Favel had pushed the firing line far into the suburbs of St. Pierre and, from the sound of it, was expending ammunition at a fantastic rate. Causton winced as a shell burst a hundred yards to the right, ruining a shack, and there came a perceptible and hesitant slowing down of the column of men.
The sergeant screamed, the officer cursed, the column speeded up again. Presently they turned off into a side street and the column halted. Causton looked with interest at the army trucks which were parked nose to tail along the street, noting that most of them were empty. He also saw that men were siphoning petrol from the tanks of some of the trucks and refilling the tanks of others.
The officer stepped forward and harangued them again. At what was apparently a question several of the men in the ranks lifted rifles and waved them, so Causton did the same. At a curt command from the officer, those men broke ranks and lined up on the other side of the street, Causton with them. The officer was evidently sorting out the armed men from those who had thrown away their rifles.
A sergeant passed along the thin line of armed men. To every man he put a question and doled out ammunition from a box carried by two men who followed along behind. When he came to Causton and snapped out his question Causton merely snapped open the breech of his rifle to show that the magazine was empty. The sergeant thrust two clips of ammunition into his hands and passed on.
Causton looked across at the trucks. Rifles were being unloaded from one of them and issued to the unarmed men. There were not nearly enough to go round. He tossed the two clips of ammunition in his hand thoughtfully and looked at one lorry as it pulled away, replenished with petrol at the sacrifice of the others. Serrurier was running short of petrol, guns and ammunition, or, more probably, he had plenty but in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was very likely that his supply corps was in a hell of a mess, disrupted by Pavel's unexpectedly successful thrust.
He loaded the rifle and put the other clip in his pocket. Serrurier's logistic difficulties were likely to be the death of a good foreign correspondent; this was definitely not a good place to be. Despite his aversion to guns, he thought it would be as well to be prepared. He looked about and weighed his chances of getting away and decided dismally that they were nil. But who knew what a change in the fortunes of war would bring?
More orders were barked and the men tramped off again, this time at right angles to their original march from the centre of the town, and Causton judged that they were moving parallel to the firing line. They entered one of the poorest areas of St. Pierre, a shanty town of huts built from kerosene cans beaten flat and corrugated iron. There were no civilians visible ; either they were cowering in the ramshackle dwellings or they had hurriedly departed.
The line of march changed again towards the noise of battle and they emerged on to an open place, an incursive tongue of the countryside licking into the suburbs. Here they were halted and spread out into a long line, and Causton judged that this was where they would make their stand. The men started to dig in, using no tools but their bayonets, and Causton, with alacrity, followed suit.
He found that a malodorous spot had been picked for him to die in. This open ground, so near to the shanty town, was a rubbish dump in which the unhygienic citizens deposited anything for which they had no further use. Incautiously he stabbed a borrowed bayonet into the bloated corpse of a dead dog which lay half-buried under a pile of ashes -- the gases burst from it with a soft sigh and a terrible stench and Causton gagged. He moved away slightly and attacked the ground again, this time with better results, and found that digging in a rubbish dump did have advantages -- it was very easy to excavate a man-sized hole.
Having got dug-in, he looked around, first to the rear in search of an avenue of escape. Directly behind him was the sergeant, tough-looking and implacable, the muzzle of whose rifle poked forward, perhaps intentionally, right at Causton. Behind the sergeant and just in front of the first line of shacks were the captain's bully-boys spread in a thin line, their submachine-guns ready to cut down any man who attempted to run ; and behind the troopers was the captain himself, leading from the rear and sheltering in the lee of a shack. Beside the shack the jeep stood with idling engine and Causton judged that the captain was ready to take off if the line broke. No joy there.
He turned his attention to the front. The strip of open ground stretched as far as he could see on either side, and was about a quarter of a mile across -- maybe four hundred yards. On the other side were the better constructed houses of the more prosperous citizens of St. Pierre whose exclusiveness was accentuated and protected from the shanties by this strip of no-man's-land. A battle seemed to be going on across there;
shells and mortar bombs were exploding with frightful regularity, tossing pieces of desirable residence about with abandon; the fusillade of small-arms fire was continuous, and once a badly aimed projectile landed only fifty yards to Causton's front and he drew in his head and felt the patter of earth fragments all about him.
He judged that this was the front line and that the Government forces were losing. Why else would the army have whipped together a hasty second line of ill-equipped deserters? Still, the position was not badly chosen; if the front line broke then Pavel's men would have to advance across four hundred yards of open ground. But then he thought of the meagre two clips of ammunition with Which he had been issued -- perhaps Pavel's men would not find it too difficult, after all. It depended on whether the Government troops over there could retreat in good order.
Nothing happened for a long time and Causton, lying there in the hot sun, actually began to feel sleepy. He had been informed by soldiers that war is a period during which long stretches of boredom are punctuated by brief moments of fright, and he was quite prepared to believe this, although he had not encountered it in his own experience. But then, his own job had mainly consisted of flitting from one hot spot to another, the intervals being filled in by a judicious sampling of the flesh-pots of a dozen assorted countries. He definitely found this small sample of soldiering very dreary.
Occasionally he turned to see if his chance of escape had improved, but there was never any change. The sergeant stared at him, stony-faced, and the rearguard troopers were always in position. The captain alternated between smoking cigarettes with quick puffs and gazing across at the front line through field glasses. Once, in order to ingratiate himself with the sergeant and in hope of future favours, Causton tossed him a cigarette. The sergeant stretched out an arm, looked at the cigarette in puzzlement, then smiled and lit it. Causton smiled back, then turned again to his front, hoping that a small bond of friendship had been joined.
Presently the uproar in the front line rose to a crescendo and Causton caught the first sight of human movement -- a few distant figures flitting furtively on the nearside of the distant houses. He strained his eyes and wished he had the captain's binoculars. From behind him he heard the captain's voice issuing sharp orders and the nearer brazen scream of the sergeant, but he took no notice because he had just identified the distant figures as Government troops and they were running as hard as they could -- the front line had broken.
The man nearest to him pushed his rifle forward and cocked it, and Causton heard a series of metallic clicks run down the line, but he did not take his eyes from t
he scene before him. The nearest blue-clad figure was half-way across -- about two hundred yards away -- when he suddenly threw up his hands and pitched helplessly forward as though he had stumbled over something. He collapsed into a crumpled heap, heaved convulsively and then lay still.
The field was now filled with running men, retreating in no form of order. Some ran with experience born of battle in short, scuttling zig-zags, constantly changing direction in order to throw the marksmen behind off their aim; these were the more intelligent. The stupid ones, or those crazed with fear, ran straight across, and it was these who were picked off by the rattling machine-guns and the cracking rifles.
Causton was abruptly astonished to find himself under fire. There was a constant twittering in the air about him which, at first, he could not identify. But when the dog in the periphery of his vision suddenly jerked its hind leg as though chasing rabbits in its sleep and the dry ground ten yards ahead of him fountained into a row of spurts of dust, he drew himself into his fox-hole like a tortoise drawing into its shell. However, his journalist's curiosity got the better of him, and he raised his head once more to see what was going on.
Mortar shells were beginning to drop into the field, raising huge dust plumes which drifted slowly with the wind. The first of the retreating men was quite near and Causton could see his wide-open mouth and staring eyes and could hear the hard thud of his boots on the dry earth. He was not ten yards away when he fell, a flailing tangle of arms and legs, and as he lurched into stillness Causton saw the gaping hole in the back of his head.
The soldier behind him swerved and came on, legs working like pistons. He jumped clear over Causton and disappeared behind in a panic of terror. Then there was another -- and another -- and still more -- all bolting in panic through the second line of defence. The sergeant's voice rose in a scream as the men in the foxholes nervously twitched as though to run, and there was a near-by shot. We get killed if we run and killed if we don't -- later on, thought Causton. Better not to run -- yet.
For over half an hour the demoralized survivors of the front line passed through and soon Causton heard scattered shots coming from the rear. The survivors were being whipped back into shape. He stared across the field, expecting to see the assault of Pavel's army, but nothing happened except that the mortar fire lifted briefly and then plunged down again, this time directly on their position. In that small moment of time, when the smoke of battle was drifting away, Causton saw dozens of bodies scattered over the field and heard a few distant cries and wails.
Then he had no time even to think of anything else as the shells began to rain down in an iron hail. He crouched in his foxhole and dug his fingers into the nauseous detritus as the ground shook and heaved underneath him. It seemed to go on for an eternity although, on later recollection, he supposed it to have lasted for not more than fifteen minutes. But at the time he thought it would never end. Jesus, God! he prayed; let me get out of here.
The barrage lifted as suddenly as it had started. Causton was stunned and lay for a while in the foxhole before he was able to raise his head. When he did so, he expected to see the first wave of Pavel's assault upon them and strained to peer through the slowly dispersing dust and smoke. But there was still nothing -- merely the field empty but for the crumpled bodies.
Slowly he turned his head. The tin shacks immediately behind the position had been destroyed, some of them totally, and the ground was pitted with craters. The captain's jeep, its rear wheels blown off, was burning furiously, and of the captain himself there was no sign. Near-by lay the torso of a man -- no head, arms or legs -- and Causton wondered drearily if it was the sergeant. He stretched his legs painfully and thought that if he was going to run for it, then this was the time to do it.
From the next foxhole a man emerged, his face grey with dust and fear. His eyes were glazed and blank as he levered himself up and began to stagger away. The sergeant appeared from beneath the level of the ground and shouted at him, but the man took no notice, so the sergeant lifted his rifle and fired and the man collapsed grotesquely.
Causton sank back as a tirade of mashed French broke from the sergeant's foxhole. He had to admire the man -- this was a tough, professional soldier who would brook no nonsense about desertion in the face of the enemy -- but he was confoundedly inconvenient.
He looked about at the heads which were lifted, did a rough count and was surprised at the number of men who had survived the bombardment. He had read that troops well dug in could survive an enormous amount of punishment in the way of shelling -- it had been the thing that had kept the First World War going -- but experiencing the fact personally was quite a different thing. He looked across the field but could detect no movement that would presage an assault. Even the small-arms fire had ceased.
He turned to see the sergeant clamber out of his hole and walk boldly along the line to check on the men. Still not a shot came from across the field and Causton began to wonder what had happened. He looked uneasily at the steely blue sky as though expecting another storm of metal, and scratched his cheek reflectively as he watched the sergeant.
Suddenly the small-arms fire started up again. A machine-gun opened up shockingly closely and from an unexpected direction. A hail of bullets swept across the position and the sergeant spun like a top, punched by bullets, to fall sprawling and disappear into a foxhole. Causton ducked his head and listened to the heavy fire coming from the left and to the rear.
The position had been outflanked.
He heard the yells and the running steps as the rest of the men broke and ran, but he stayed put. He had a hunch they were running into trouble, and anyway he was fed up with being a part of Serrurier's army; the further that unit and he were separated, the better he would feel. So he lay in the foxhole and played dead.
The machine-gun fire stopped abruptly, but he lay there for fifteen minutes more before even poking his nose above die level of the ground. When he did so, the first thing he saw was a long line of men emerging from the houses on the other side of the field -- Pavel's men were coming over to mop up. Hastily he wormed his way out of the foxhole and crawled on his belly back towards the shacks, expecting to feel the thud of bullets at any moment. But there was plenty of cover since the ground had been churned up by the mortar fire and he found he could crawl from shell-hole to shell-hole with the minimum of exposure.
Finally he got to the cover of the shacks and looked back. Pavel's men were nearly across the field and he had the notion they would shoot anything that moved and he had better find somewhere safer. He listened to the racket coming from the left flank -- someone was putting up a fight there, but that would collapse as soon as these oncoming troops hit them. He began to move to the right, dodging from the cover of one shack to another, and always trying to move back.
As he went he ripped off the tunic he was wearing and rubbed at his face. Perhaps the sight of a white skin would cause hesitation of the trigger-finger -- at least it was worth trying. He saw no sign of the Government army and all the indications were that Pavel was on the verge of punching a hole right through the middle -- there did not seem much to stop him.
Presently he had an idea and tried the door of one of the shacks. It had occurred to him that there was no point in running away; after all, he did not want to catch up with Serrurier's forces, did he? It would be much better to hide and then emerge in the middle of Pavel's army.
The door was not barred, so he pushed it open with a creak and went inside. The shack was deserted; it consisted merely of two rooms and needed a minimum of inspection to show there was no one there. He looked about and saw a washbasin on a rickety stand below a fly-blown and peeling mirror, which was flanked on one side by a highly coloured oleograph of the Madonna and on the other by the standard official portrait of Serrurier.
Hastily he pulled down the idealized photograph of Serrurier and kicked it under the bed. If anyone interrupted him, he did not want them getting any wrong ideas. Then he poured tepid wa
ter into the basin and began to wash his face, keeping a sharp ear cocked for anything going on outside. At the end of five minutes he realized in despair that he was still a light-complexioned Negro; the boot-polish was waterproof and would not come off, no matter how hard he rubbed. Many of the inhabitants of San Fernandez were even lighter complexioned and also had European features.
He was struck by an idea and unbuttoned the front of his shirt to look at his chest. Two days earlier he had been somewhat embarrassed at his pallidity, but now he thanked God that he had not felt the urge to sunbathe. As he stripped off his shirt he prepared for a long wait.
What brought him out was the sound of an engine. He thought that anyone driving a vehicle around there would be civilized enough not to shoot him on sight, so he came out of the cupboard and into the front room and looked through the window. The Land-Rover that was passing was driven by a white man.
"Hey -- you!" he shouted, and dashed to the door. "You there -- arretez!"
The man driving the Land-Rover looked back and the vehicle bumped to a halt. Causton ran up and the man looked at him curiously. "Who the devil are you?" he asked.
"Thank God!" said Causton. "You speak English -- you are English. My name's Causton -- I suppose you could call me a war correspondent."
The man looked at him unbelievingly. "You got off the mark pretty quickly, didn't you? The war only started yesterday afternoon. You don't look much like a war correspondent -- you look more like a nigger minstrel who got on the wrong side of his audience."
"I'm genuine enough," assured Causton.
The man hefted a sub-machine-gun which was on the seat next to him. "I think Favel had better have a look at you," he said. "Get in."
"Just the man I want to see," said Causton, climbing into the Land-Rover and keeping a careful eye on the sub-machine-gun. "You a friend of his?"
"I suppose you could say so," said the man. "My name is Manning."
Bagley, Desmond - Wyatts Hurricane Page 13