Bretherton

by Morris, W. F. ;

  Von Carlenheim, green of face, dragged himself from his bunk and met Bretherton at the foot of the companion-way.

  “What is wrong, Colonel?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” replied Bretherton. “But I fancy we have hit something.”

  “Any danger?”

  Bretherton shrugged his shoulder. “She seems buoyant enough,” he grinned, as a sudden lift of the ship caused him to trot a pace or two backwards. “She won’t go to the bottom yet awhile anyway.”

  “I don’t care if she does,” groaned von Carlenheim. And he staggered back to his bunk.

  The skipper, in dripping sea-boots, clumped down the ladder. “We have bumped over something,” he said in answer to Bretherton’s raised eyebrows. “Submerged hulk most likely. Stripped the propeller, but no other damage apparently. Luckye scape, but bad enough.”

  For three hours the little ship rode helplessly upon the seas; and then a destroyer came up from the southward and answered her signals of distress. Bretherton and von Carlenheim had to remain out of sight during the colloquy that followed; and after what seemed to them an interminable time, during the latter part of which there was some shouting and much tramping of feet on the deck overhead, they felt the ship once more moving through the water.

  Presently the skipper came below and seated himself opposite von Carlenheim and Bretherton in the little saloon. “The little warship is taking us into Dunkirk, gentlemen,” he said.

  “Dunkirk!” echoed von Carlenheim in dismay.

  The skipper nodded. “Yes—a dangerous place for you, gentlemen; and for me too if they find you aboard.”

  There was silence for a few moments, and then Bretherton asked, “How long will your repairs take, skipper?”

  “Two or three days—if we are lucky,” answered the Dutchman.

  Von Carlenheim groaned. “We shall have to go back to those infernal cases, then, Colonel—whilst the officials are aboard, anyway. Your men will not blab, Skipper?”

  The skipper shrugged his shoulders. “There are talkative men in every crew,” he answered. “And people will be willing to pay them to speak.” He paused, and then continued, looking meaningly at his passengers: “Now if I could assure them, gentlemen, that it will be to their advantage to keep their mouths shut…”

  “I sec; it is again a question of finance, then!” put in Bretherton.

  Von Carlenheim groaned. “I suppose we shall have to pay up, Colonel—pay up for the privilege of spending a few more hours in those infernal coffins!”

  And so the second bargain was struck.

  The fugitives retired to their tiny prisons just before the ship entered the harbour of Dunkirk; and although they were to be released at nightfall or as soon as the port authorities had left the ship, it was thought prudent to provision the cases with a supply of tinned food and two stone jars of water.

  For the first few hours in his cramped hiding-place Bretherton took refuge in sleep, and he awoke cheerful in the expectation that he would shortly be released. He knew by the absence of movement that the ship was either in harbour or in dock; but no sound reached him and no ray of light. He sat for half an hour, as he judged it, listening in vain for sounds of the skipper’s coming, and then, feeling hungry, he opened a tin of corned beef and made a meal. He took a long drink of water, and between yearning for the pipe that was denied him and cursing the skipper, the darkness, and the war, dozed off again.

  He dozed off and on for long periods, days, it seemed to him. He ate his little store of food and drank from the stone jar; and as he moved his cramped limbs in the restricted space and longed for a ray of light, he cursed the vigilance of the harbour authorities that was evidently responsible for his long confinement. The darkness began to have terrors for him, and only by the exercise of his thoughts upon other matters could he avoid the direct contemplation of it. And then the fear grew gradually in the subconscious and was ever present, even while the brain was engrossed in other thoughts, like a spectre seen out of the corner of eyes that are fixed resolutely in another direction.

  On three or four occasions a series of violent tremors shook the case, and muffled detonations came to his ears in the darkness: bombs, he guessed. Dunkirk with its harbour and docks was a frequent target of the German squadron, he knew; and he prayed that if a bomb struck the Dordrecht it might blow him to pieces and not merely sink the ship, leaving him to drown like a kitten in a sack.

  The water-jar was empty, and he was suffering from thirst. Thirst began to absorb his thoughts to the exclusion even of the darkness, and he was tempted to shout aloud and thump the case with his heels. That would bring the officials down to him. He would be discovered. But that would mean release, release from his present sufferings and from that hateful task of espionage that lay before him. Oh for a deep, deep drink of water, for a ray of blessed sunlight, to be rid of this uniform and distasteful character of Colonel von Wahnheim. Death in the trenches among his own people had no terrors comparable to this trapped-rat existence.

  Time passed. He thirsted and dosed and woke and thirsted. He lost control of himself and shouted and hammered the sides of the case with his boots. He thumped the wood with his fists, tore at it with his nails. But no relief came. He was abandoned, forgotten, left to die.

  The frenzy passed and was succeeded by a calmer mood. He knew that he must keep a hold upon himself or his brain would give under the strain. He dozed and woke again. Lights danced before his eyes and mocked him; voices rang in his ears; but there was no sound, no ray of light, only the darkness and silence of a tomb.

  Then the frenzy came again. He shouted and hammered upon the walls of his prison with his fists. He must get out. He would be von Wahnheim no longer. Never again would he put on a German uniform; never again speak the German language. Was he to die like this in the darkness? Yet he must keep calm. His scalp tingled violently. His head was burning hot. It seemed that maggots were crawling in his brain. His will was slipping from him down, down into a bottomless pit.

  IV

  The S.S. Dordrecht was already a week overdue when she left Dunkirk. In that port, given over almost exclusively to naval and military needs, delay in work on a neutral ship was inevitable; and the crew of neutrals as such had been suspect and subject to strict surveillance. But at last the repairs were completed. The ship was at sea, and the grassy dunes of the low Flanders coast lay astern.

  Von Carlenheim was the first of the fugitives to be released. He was lifted from the case with his eyes tightly shut, calling hoarsely for water. Von Wahnheim followed, and was carried on deck, where he drank with fierce restraint from the pannikin that was held to his lips. He kept his eyes tightly closed against the blinding glare and his arms stretched out in front of him, whilst his body shook with ague. Von Carlenheim recovered slowly; physically he was the worse of the two. He was placed in a bunk where the subdued light enabled him to open his eyes. Von Wahnheim sat at the table and ate a meal; and though still a little shaky on his feet, seemed little the worse for his experience. But when his eyes had first grown accustomed to the world of light, he had expressed surprise at his surroundings. He had recognized neither the skipper, von Carlenheim, nor the ship, and when the skipper offered a brief explanation, had knitted his brows and gone on eating without a word.

  Later, when the skipper had gone on deck, he said to von Carlenheim: “I have no idea what that fellow was talking about. Von Carlenheim is your name, is it not? Major von Carlenheim? Tell me, Major, how I came to be here. Begin from the moment that you first met me.”

  Von Carlenheim, sitting up in his bunk, did as he was requested. Colonel von Wahnheim listened attentively and made no comment till the end. Then he rubbed his chin thoughtfully and said: “So we have escaped from England, have we! I remember nothing about it. I have had these blank patches before. The last thing I remember was jumping into a British trench near Arras. When I came round in that infernal box, it was so dark and silent that I thought”—he laughed mirthle
ssly—“I thought they had buried me for dead.” He rubbed his stubbly chin again and rose from the chair. “Well, when do we reach Rotterdam, Major? It is Rotterdam, isn’t it?”

  CHAPTER XXI

  I

  That man of iron, Colonel von Wahnheim, twice captured by the enemy and twice escaped out of their hands and now newly appointed Chief-of-Staff of a division of storm troops, found that affairs on the Western Front had moved apace during his enforced absence. The collapse of Russia had set free the troops in the east, and with those transported back across the Rhine, the armies of His Imperial Majesty in the west outnumbered those of Britain, France, and Belgium by some thirty divisions. The low moral of the people at home in Germany, the eagerness of the troops in the west to be up and doing, and the expected advent of American reinforcements to the enemy were reasons that called for an offensive.

  And preparations were already far advanced. Troops were training in bayonet fighting, in machine-gun co-operation, and in the special tactics to be employed. Officers were attending courses; and the Flying Corps were training not only for co-operation with infantry and artillery but as an independent offensive arm to perform definite tactical missions. Dumps and dummy works were being constructed from end to end of the five hundred miles of front to deceive the enemy as to the actual point of impact. General Headquarters had moved up from Kreusnach to Spa in Belgium.

  From Cambrai to La Fère was the sector chosen for the attack, and behind that forty-four miles of front was effected such a concentration of munitions, men, and guns as the world had never seen in all its warlike history: forty-three divisions of specially trained shock troops, some seven hundred thousand men, with seven thousand guns specially trained and reinforced by the pick of the troops from Russia. A gun to every eleven yards of ground, they stood literally wheel to wheel. Opposed to them stood eleven divisions, one hundred and fifty thousand men, and one division in reserve. The Supreme General Staff had prepared their plans with the utmost care and skill for which that body was renowned. Casualties there would be and heavy casualties, but that mattered not since there would be no next year to provide for. In one great thrust they would separate the British from the French, sweep through Amiens to Paris, and win victory in the fifth year of the war.

  Advanced General Headquarters moved from Spa to Avesnes, and the five million troops on either side of the trenches gathered themselves for the last and fiercest struggle.

  At four-thirty on the morning of March the twenty-first the artillery storm broke; and at seven o’clock the grey flood of infantry burst its banks and flowed westward through the mist. Across the old Somme battlefield surged the grey tide, and hope ran high. Day after day the advance continued. Fresh divisions were flung in with a prodigal hand, leap-frogging the tired divisions. Victory was within their grasp. Before them was but a thin sagging line of tired troops who had fought for several days and nights without rest, without sleep, without reserves, and supported only here and there by artillery. Their cavalry, so long afoot, had taken to their horses, and day and night without rest the squadron rode and fought as gap after gap appeared in the sagging line and the tired men and horses strove to fill them. Victory was near.

  The British Commander-in-Chief himself told his troops that with their backs to the wall they must fight to the end. But indeed there was no wall to put their backs to; there was nothing behind that sagging battle-line, neither horse, nor guns, nor foot. Their backs were to the “blue.” A handful of recalled “leave” men were lined up on the quays of Havre and Boulogne, told off into platoons irrespective of units, bundled into lorries, and raced towards the oncoming tide. Another handful of cooks, farriers, sanitary men, town-majors’ batmen, and labour corps—a scratch collection of the aged and infirm that scarce knew how to use a rifle—was gleaned from the troop-denuded back areas and flung into the widening gaps. Already the towers of Amiens Cathedral were visible to the oncoming host.

  But though a hundred divisions had now been flung into the fight, the impetus of the grey tide was spent. The thin opposing line sagged, but did not break. At last supports were moving swiftly to their aid. The blue-clad poilus of France began to trickle across the fields behind them; the Australians deployed from the streets of Amiens; and the grey tide trickled to a halt.

  But not for long. Northwards, where the new bulging line swept back around Arras to hinge upon the old trench system, the storm re-broke with undiminished fury. Again wheel to wheel the concentration of guns hurled their hurricane upon the enemy. In six close ranks a hundred thousand men advanced towards the Vimy Ridge. Only two divisions barred the way, and behind them on the ridge some three hundred men, the sole reserve with which to stop the gaps that must appear in the hard-pressed line.

  Von Wahnheim bore his part in these great battles. Early in the fiercest fighting, his General had been killed, and he had taken over the command of the division. Later the appointment had been confirmed, and he had been promoted to the rank of General. Stark, hard man though he was, he commanded the confidence if not the devotion of his men. He did not hesitate to use them ruthlessly if the occasion so demanded, but in easier situations he was more solicitous for their welfare than were most Generals. Few men would willingly have transferred to his division, but his veteran troops themselves, who under his leadership were building up a reputation with blood and agony, were proud of their nickname, von Wahnheim’s lions, and of their prestige which less hardy troops envied without being willing to pay the price.

  No sooner had the Arras tide been dammed than the flood broke forth afresh. North at Armentières it overwhelmed the Portuguese and flowed over the Messines Ridge towards Ypres. Around and over Kemmel Hill it surged, engulfing the blue-clad poilus who fought and died upon it, on towards the Channel Ports. But again the sagging line tautened, and the attack died down.

  Again the flood broke forth. Now in the south. Again the tornado of shell fire hammered the enemy, and then four hundred thousand men swept back the opposing hundred thousand to the Marne, and halted only to prepare the crossings of the river. Forty-five miles from Paris they were, and shells fell in the city, and aircraft bombed it by night. The crisis had come.

  II

  During these weeks of unceasing battle, General von Wahnheim was wounded in the thigh, and whilst his veteran storm troops came out for a hard-earned rest, he was taken far back to a château that had been converted into a hospital for senior officers. It was a large and comfortable old house set in well-kept grounds from which the fury of battle was heard only as a distant muttering. Its clean corridors, neat, cheerful rooms, and general air of mellow dignity and calm made it a fairyland in comparison with the shell-shattered buildings, churned-up earth, and all-pervading atmosphere of blood, filth, and abomination amid which he had lived the past few weeks.

  It was not a regular military hospital. It was one of those institutions that were equipped and run by high-born ladies and staffed by ladies of much the same social standing. This particular hospital owed its existence to the generosity and service of Sonia, Duchess of Wittelsberg-Strelitz. And so von Wahnheim met again the beautiful sister of young Leo von Arnberg.

  “My crude soldier presence is again forced upon you, Duchess,” said von Wahnheim with his slow smile. “But you must forgive me. I thought you disapproved of my profession and all its works, and yet I find you up here working nobly in the cause.”

  “I disapprove as strongly as ever, General,” she answered with a malicious twinkle in her eyes. “My mission is to repair; yours is to destroy. And you soldiers have the advantage of us: your work is so much easier than ours. I know I ought to be proud to have such a national hero as General von Wahnheim in my care, but…”

  “But you are not?” he asked with an answering twinkle in his eye.

  She shook her head vigorously. “No,” she replied with charming candour. “You see, all those exploits of yours that make you a strong, iron hero-man to these poor troops are but so many damnable stain
s in my eyes. But the wrecked are always welcome here; we will forget that you are a wrecker by trade.”

  Von Wahnheim laughed softly. “I feel like a naughty boy that has been scratched whilst torturing the cat,” he said. “I will be a very good little boy till the scratch is healed.”

  It was in this spirit of friendly antagonism that they met, and that became a cloak for the growing friendship between them. Von Wahnheim found her beauty and calm, cultured voice soothing to his war-worn spirits. And it amused him to be ordered about and treated like a child by the imperious little ladies who assisted her in the hospital.

  All those patients who were not bedridden messed in the great dining-hall of the château, and the Duchess Sonia and several of her staff in evening dress were always present at dinner. As a woman it was her gesture of protest and defiance of the man-made desolation around her. “One must keep some grip on civilization,” she said. “Uniforms reduce one to a block of wood, and these soldiers will become like the beasts of the field if we let them.” And von Wahnheim was inclined to agree with her.

  On one occasion, looking at her neat uniform and thinking of her as he had met her first as the idol of Cologne, he said, “You have not married, Duchess.”

  “Nor have you, General,” she retorted.