Читать книгу: «Front Lines», страница 4
V
IN THE MIST
When the Lieutenant turned out of his dug-out in the very small hours, he found with satisfaction that a thin mist was hanging over the ground.
“Can’t see much,” he said half an hour later, peering out from the front trench. “But so much the better. Means they won’t be so likely to see us. So long, old man. Come along, Studd.”
The other officer watched the two crawl out and vanish into the misty darkness. At intervals a flare light leaped upward from one side or the other, but it revealed nothing of the ground, showed only a dim radiance in the mist and vanished. Rifles crackled spasmodically up and down the unseen line, and very occasionally a gun boomed a smothered report and a shell swooshed over. But, on the whole, the night was quiet, or might be called so by comparison with other nights, and the quietness lent colour to the belief that the Hun was quietly evacuating his badly battered front line. It was to discover what truth was in the report that the Lieutenant had crawled out with one man to get as near as possible to the enemy trench – or, still better, into or over it.
Fifty yards out the two ran into one of their own listening posts, and the Lieutenant halted a moment and held a whispered talk with the N.C.O. there. It was all quiet in front, he was told, no sound of movement and only a rifle shot or a light thrown at long intervals.
“Might mean anything, or nothing,” thought the Lieutenant. “Either a trench full of Boche taking a chance to sleep, or a trench empty except for a ‘caretaker’ to shoot or chuck up an odd light at intervals.”
He whispered as much to his companion and both moved carefully on. The ground was riddled with shell-holes and was soaking wet, and very soon the two were saturated and caked with sticky mud. Skirting the holes and twisting about between them was confusing to any sense of direction, but the two had been well picked for this special work and held fairly straight on their way. No light had shown for a good many minutes, and the Lieutenant fancied that the mist was thickening. He halted and waited a minute, straining his eyes into the mist and his ears to catch any sound. There was nothing apparently to see or hear, and he rose to his knees and moved carefully forward again. As he did so a flare leaped upward with a long hiss and a burst of light glowed out. It faintly illumined the ground and the black shadows of shell-holes about them, and – the Lieutenant with a jump at his heart stilled and stiffened – not six feet away and straight in front, the figure of a man in a long grey coat, his head craned forward and resting on his arms crossed in front of him and twisted in an attitude of listening. Studd, crawling at the Lieutenant’s heels, saw at the same moment, as was told by his hand gripped and pressing a warning on the Lieutenant’s leg. The light died out, and with infinite caution the Lieutenant slid back level with Studd and, motioning him to follow, lay flat and hitched himself a foot at a time towards the right to circle round the recumbent German. The man had not been facing full on to them, but lay stretched and looking toward their left, and by a careful circling right the Lieutenant calculated he would clear and creep behind him. A big shell-crater lay in their path, and after a moment’s hesitation the Lieutenant slid very quietly down into it. Some morsels of loose earth crumbled under him, rolled down and fell with tiny splashings into the pool at the bottom. To the Lieutenant the noise was most disconcertingly loud and alarming, and cursing himself for a fool not to have thought of the water and the certainty of his loosening earth to fall into it, he crouched motionless, listening for any sound that would tell of the listening German’s alarm.
Another light rose, filling the mist with soft white radiance and outlining the edge of the crater above him. It outlined also the dark shape of a figure halted apparently in the very act of crawling down into the crater from the opposite side. The Lieutenant’s first flashing thought was that the German watcher had heard him and was moving to investigate, his second and quick-following was of another German holding still until the light fell. But a third idea came so instantly on the other two that, before the soaring flare dropped, he had time to move sharply, bringing the man’s outline more clearly against the light. That look and the shape, beside but clear of the body, of a bent leg, crooked knee upward, confirmed his last suspicion. Studd slid over soundless as a diving otter and down beside him, and the Lieutenant whispered, “See those two on the edge?”
“Both dead, sir,” said Studd, and the Lieutenant nodded and heaved a little sigh of relief. “And I think that first was a dead ‘un too.”
“Yes,” whispered the Lieutenant. “Looked natural and listening hard. Remember now, though, he was bareheaded. Dead all right. Come on.”
They crept out past the two dead men, and, abating no fraction of their caution, moved noiselessly forward again. They passed many more dead in the next score of yards, dead twisted and contorted to every possible and impossible attitude of unmistakable death and uncannily life-like postures, and came at last to scattered fragments and loose hanging strands of barbed-wire entanglements. Here, according to previous arrangements, Studd – ex-poacher of civilian days and expert scout of the battalion – moved ahead and led the way. Broken strands of wire he lifted with gingerly delicate touch and laid aside. Fixed ones he raised, rolled silently under and held up for the Lieutenant to pass. Taut ones he grasped in one hand, slid the jaws of his wire-nippers over and cut silently between his left-hand fingers, so that the fingers still gripped the severed ends, released the ends carefully, one hand to each, and squirmed through the gap.
There was very little uncut wire, but the stealthy movements took time, and half an hour had passed from first wire to last and to the moment when the Lieutenant, in imitation of the figure before him, flattened his body close to the muddy ground and lay still and listening. For five long minutes they lay, and then Studd twisted his head and shoulders back. “Nobody,” he whispered. “Just wait here a minute, sir.” He slipped back past the Lieutenant and almost immediately returned to his side. “I’ve cut the loose wires away,” he said. “Mark this spot and try’n hit it if we have to bolt quick. See – look for this,” and he lifted a bayoneted rifle lying beside them, and stabbed the bayonet down into the ground with the rifle butt standing up above the edge of the broken parapet.
“Cross the trench,” whispered the Lieutenant, “and along behind it. Safer there. Any sentry looking out forward?”
Studd vanished over the parapet and the Lieutenant squirmed after him. The trench was wide and broken-walled back and front, and both clambered up the other side and began to move along the far edge. In some places the trench narrowed and deepened, in others it widened and shallowed in tumbled shell-craters, in others again was almost obliterated in heaped and broken earth. The mist had closed down and thickened to a white-grey blanket, and the two moved more freely, standing on their feet and walking stooped and ready to drop at a sound. They went for a considerable distance without seeing a single German.
Studd halted suddenly on the edge of a trench which ran into the one they were following.
“Communication trench,” said the Lieutenant softly. “Doesn’t seem to be a soul in their front line.”
“No, sir,” said Studd, but there was a puzzled note in his voice.
“Is this their front line we’ve been moving along?” said the Lieutenant with sudden suspicion. “Those lights look further off than they ought.”
The dim lights certainly seemed to be far out on their left and a little behind them. A couple of rifles cracked faintly, and they heard a bullet sigh and whimper overhead. Closer and with sharper reports half a dozen rifles rap-rapped in answer – but the reports were still well out to their left and behind them.
“Those are German rifles behind us. We’ve left the front line,” said the Lieutenant with sudden conviction. “Struck slanting back. Been following a communication trench. Damn!”
Studd without answering dropped suddenly to earth and without hesitation the Lieutenant dropped beside him and flattened down. A long silence, and the question trembling on his lips was broken by a hasty movement from Studd. “Quick, sir – back,” he said, and hurriedly wriggled back and into a shallow hole, the Lieutenant close after him.
There was no need of the question now. Plainly both could hear the squelch of feet, the rustle of clothes, the squeak and click of leather and equipment. Slowly, one by one, a line of men filed past their hiding-place, looming grey and shadowy through the mist, stumbling and slipping so close by that to the Lieutenant it seemed that only one downward glance from one passing figure was needed to discover them. Tumultuous thoughts raced. What should he do if they were discovered? Pass one quick word to Studd to lie still, and jump and run, trusting to draw pursuit after himself and give Studd a chance to escape and report? Or call Studd to run with him, and both chance a bolt back the way they came? The thick mist might help them, but the alarm would spread quickly to the front trench… Or should he snatch his revolver – he wished he hadn’t put it back in his holster – blaze off all his rounds, yell and make a row, rousing the German trench to fire and disclose the strength holding it? Could he risk movement enough to get his revolver clear? And all the time he was counting the figures that stumbled past – five … six … seven … eight… Thirty-four he counted and then, just as he was going to move, another lagging two. After that and a long pause he held hurried consultation with Studd.
“They’re moving up the way we came down,” he said. “We’re right off the front line. Must get back. Daren’t keep too close to this trench though. D’you think we can strike across and find the front line about where we crossed?”
“Think so, sir,” answered Studd. “Must work a bit left-handed.”
“Come on then. Keep close together,” and they moved off.
In three minutes the Lieutenant stopped with a smothered curse at the jar of wire caught against his shins. “’Ware wire,” he said, and both stooped and felt at it. “Nippers,” he said. “We must cut through.” He pulled his own nippers out and they started to cut a path. “Tang!” his nippers swinging free of a cut wire struck against another, and on the sound came a sharp word out of the mist ahead of them and apparently at their very feet a guttural question in unmistakable German. Horrified, the Lieutenant stood stiff frozen for a moment, turned sharp and fumbled a way back, his heart thumping and his nerves tingling in anticipation of another challenge or a sudden shot. But there was no further sound, and presently he and Studd were clear of the wire and hurrying as silently as they could away from the danger.
They stopped presently, and the Lieutenant crouched and peered about him. “Now where are we?” he said, and then, as he caught the sound of suppressed chuckling from Studd crouched beside him, “What’s the joke? I don’t see anything specially funny about this job.”
“I was thinkin’ of that Germ back there, sir,” said Studd, and giggled again. “About another two steps an’ we’d have fell fair on top of ’im. Bit of a surprise like for ’im, sir.”
The Lieutenant grinned a little himself. “Yes,” he said, “but no more surprise than I got when he sang out. Now what d’you think is our direction?”
Studd looked round him, and pointed promptly. The Lieutenant disagreed and thought the course lay nearly at right angles to Studd’s selection. He had his compass with him and examined it carefully. “This bit of their front line ran roughly north and south,” he said. “If we move west it must fetch us back on it. We must have twisted a bit coming out of that wire – but there’s west,” and he pointed again.
“I can’t figure it by compass, sir,” said Studd, “but here’s the way I reckon we came.” He scratched lines on the ground between them with the point of his wire nippers. “Here’s our line, and here’s theirs – running this way.”
“Yes, north,” said the Lieutenant.
“But then it bends in towards ours – like this – an’ ours bends back.”
“Jove, so it does,” admitted the Lieutenant, thinking back to the trench map he had studied so carefully before leaving. “And we moved north behind their trench, so might be round the corner; and a line west would just carry us along behind their front line.”
Studd was still busy with his scratchings. “Here’s where we came along and turned off the communication trench. That would bring them lights where we saw them – about here. Then we met them Germs and struck off this way, an’ ran into that wire, an’ then back – here. So I figure we got to go that way,” and he pointed again.
“That’s about it,” agreed the Lieutenant. “But as that’s toward the wire and our friend who sang out, we’ll hold left a bit to try and dodge him.”
He stood and looked about him. The mist was wreathing and eddying slowly about them, shutting out everything except a tiny patch of wet ground about their feet. There was a distinct whiteness now about the mist, and a faint glow in the whiteness that told of daylight coming, and the Lieutenant moved hurriedly. “If it comes day and the mist lifts we’re done in,” he said, and moved in the chosen direction. They reached wire again, but watching for it this time avoided striking into it and turned, skirting it towards their left. But the wire bent back and was forcing them left again, or circling back, and the Lieutenant halted in despair. “We’ll have to cut through again and chance it,” he said. “We can’t risk hanging about any longer.”
“I’ll just search along a few yards, sir, and see if there’s an opening,” said Studd.
“Both go,” said the Lieutenant. “Better keep together.”
Within a dozen yards both stopped abruptly and again sank to the ground, the Lieutenant cursing angrily under his breath. Both had caught the sound of voices, and from their lower position could see against the light a line of standing men, apparently right across their path. A spatter of rifle-fire sounded from somewhere out in the mist, and a few bullets whispered high overhead. Then came the distant thud, thud, thud of half a dozen guns firing. One shell wailed distantly over, another passed closer with a savage rush, a third burst twenty yards away with a glaring flash that penetrated even the thick fog. The two had a quick glimpse of a line of Germans in long coats ducking their “coal-scuttle” helmets and throwing themselves to ground. They were not more than thirty feet away, and there were at least a score of them. When their eyes recovered from the flash of the shell, the two could see not more than half a dozen figures standing, could hear talking and laughing remarks, and presently heard scuffling sounds and saw figure after figure emerge from the ground.
“Trench there,” whispered Studd, leaning in to the Lieutenant’s ear. “They jumped down.”
“Yes,” breathed the Lieutenant. He was fingering cautiously at the wire beside him. It was staked out, and as far as he could discover there was something like a two-foot clearance between the ground and the bottom strands. It was a chance, and the position was growing so desperate that any chance was worth taking. He touched Studd’s elbow and began to wriggle under the wires. Six feet in they found another line stretched too low to crawl under and could see and feel that the patch of low wire extended some feet. “More coming,” whispered Studd, and the Lieutenant heard again that sound of squelching steps and moving men. They could still see the grey shadowy figures of the first lot standing in the same place, and now out of the mist emerged another shadowy group moving down the line and past it. There was a good deal of low-toned calling and talking between the two lots, and the Lieutenant, seizing the chance to work under cover of the noise, began rapidly to nip his way through the wire. It was only because of their low position they could see the Germans against the lighter mist, and he was confident, or at least hoped, that from the reversed position it was unlikely they would be seen. The second party passed out of sight, and now the two could see a stir amongst the first lot, saw them hoist and heave bags and parcels to their shoulders and backs, and begin to move slowly in the opposite direction to that taken by the party passing them.
“Ration party or ammunition carriers,” said Studd softly.
“And moving to the front line,” said the Lieutenant quickly. In an instant he had a plan made. “We must follow them. They’ll guide us to the line. We keep close as we can … not lose touch and not be seen. Quick, get through there.” He started to nip rapidly through the wires. The party had moved and the outline of the last man was blurring and fading into the mist. The Lieutenant rose and began to stride over the low wires. A last barrier rose waist high. With an exclamation of anger he fell to work with the nippers again, Studd assisting him. The men had vanished. The Lieutenant thrust through the wires. His coat caught and he wrenched it free, pushed again and caught again. This time the stout fabric of the trench coat held. There was no second to waste. The Lieutenant flung loose the waist-belt, tore himself out of the sleeves and broke clear, leaving the coat hung in the wires. “Freer for running if we have to bolt at the end,” he said, and hurried after the vanished line, with Studd at his heels. They caught up with it quickly – almost too quickly, because the Lieutenant nearly overran one laggard who had halted and was stooped or kneeling doing something to his bundle on the ground. The Lieutenant just in time saw him rise and swing the bundle to his shoulder and hurry after the others. Behind him came the two, close enough to keep his dim outline in sight, stooping low and ready to drop flat if need be, moving as silently as possible, checking and waiting crouched down if they found themselves coming too close on their leader. So they kept him in sight until he caught the others up, followed them again so long that a horrible doubt began to fill the Lieutenant’s mind, a fear that they were being led back instead of forward. He would have looked at his compass, but at that moment the dim grey figures before him vanished abruptly one by one.
He halted, listening, and Studd at his elbow whispered “Down into a trench, sir.” Both sank to their knees and crawled carefully forward, and in a minute came to the trench and the spot where the man had vanished. “Coming near the front line, I expect,” said the Lieutenant, and on the word came the crack of a rifle from the mist ahead. The Lieutenant heaved a sigh of relief. “Keep down,” he said. “Work along this trench edge. Sure to lead to the front line.”
A new hope flooded him. There was still the front trench to cross, but the ease with which they had first come over it made him now, turning the prospect over in his mind as he crawled, consider that difficulty with a light heart. His own trench and his friends began to seem very near. Crossing the neutral ground, which at other times would have loomed as a dangerous adventure, was nothing after this hair-raising performance of blundering about inside the German lines. He moved with certainty and confidence, although yet with the greatest caution. Twice they came to a belt of wire running down to the edges of the trench they followed. The Lieutenant, after a brief pause to look and listen, slid down into the trench, passed the wire, climbed out again, always with Studd close behind him. Once they lay flat on the very edge of the trench and watched a German pass along beneath them so close they could have put a hand on his helmet. Once more they crouched in a shell-hole while a dozen men floundered along the trench. And so they came at last to the front line. Foot by foot they wriggled close up to it. The Lieutenant at first saw no sign of a German, but Studd beside him gripped his arm with a warning pressure, and the Lieutenant lay motionless. Suddenly, what he had taken to be part of the outline of the parapet beyond the trench moved and raised, and he saw the outline of a steel-helmeted head and a pair of broad shoulders. The man turned his head and spoke, and with a shock the Lieutenant heard a murmur of voices in the trench, saw figures stir and move in the mist. Studd wriggled noiselessly closer and, with his lips touching the Lieutenant’s ear, whispered “I know where we are. Remember this bit we’re on. We crossed to the left of here.”
They backed away from the trench a little and worked carefully along it to their left, and presently Studd whispered, “About here, I think.” They edged closer in, staring across for sight of the silhouette of the rifle butt above the parapet. The mist had grown thicker again and the parapet showed no more than a faint grey bulk against the lighter grey. The trench appeared to be full of men – “standing to” the Lieutenant supposed they were – and they moved at the most appalling risk, their lives hanging on their silence and stealth, perhaps on the chance of some man climbing back out of the trench. The Lieutenant was shivering with excitement, his nerves jumping at every movement or sound of a voice from the trench beside them.
Studd grasped his elbow again and pointed to the broken edge of trench where they lay, and the Lieutenant, thinking he recognised the spot they had climbed out on their first crossing, stared hard across to the parapet in search of the rifle butt. He saw it at last. But what lay between it and them? Were there Germans crouching in the trench bottom? But they must risk that, risk everything in a dash across and over the parapet. A puff of wind stirred and set the mist eddying and lifting a moment. They dare wait no longer. If the wind came the mist would go, and with it would go their chance of crossing the No Man’s Land. He whispered a moment to Studd, sat up, twisted his legs round to the edge of the trench, slid his trench dagger from its sheath and settled his fingers to a firm grip on the handle, took a deep breath, and slid over feet foremost into the trench. In two quick strides he was across it and scrambling up the parapet. The trench here was badly broken down and a muddy pool lay in the bottom. Studd caught a foot in something and splashed heavily, and a voice from a yard or two on their left called sharply. The Lieutenant slithering over the parapet heard and cringed from the shot he felt must come. But a voice to their right answered; the Lieutenant slid down, saw Studd scramble over after, heard the voices calling and answering and men splashing in the trench behind them. He rose to his feet and ran, Studd following close. From the parapet behind came the spitting bang of a rifle and the bullet whipped past most uncomfortably close. It would have been safer perhaps to have dropped to shelter in a shell-hole and crawled on after a reasonable wait, but the Lieutenant had had enough of crawling and shell-holes for one night, and was in a most single-minded hurry to get away as far and as fast as he could from Germans’ neighbourhood. He and Studd ran on, and no more shots followed them. The mist was thinning rapidly, and they found their own outposts in the act of withdrawal to the trench. The Lieutenant hurried past them, zigzagged through their own wire, and with a gasp of relief jumped down into the trench. He sat there a few minutes to recover his breath and then started along the line to find Headquarters and make his report.
On his way he met the officer who had watched them leave the trench and was greeted with a laugh. “Hullo, old cock. Some mud! You look as if you’d been crawling a bit. See any Boche?”
“Crawling!” said the Lieutenant. “Any Boche! I’ve been doing nothing but crawl for a hundred years – except when I was squirming on my face. And I’ve been falling over Boche, treading on Boche, bumping into Boche, listening to Boche remarks – oh, ever since I can remember,” and he laughed, just a trifle hysterically.
“Did you get over their line then? If so, you’re just back in time. Mist has clean gone in the last few minutes.” A sudden thought struck the Lieutenant. He peered long and carefully over the parapet. The last wisps of mist were shredding away and the jumble of torn ground and trenches and wire in the German lines was plainly visible. “Look,” said the Lieutenant. “Three or four hundred yards behind their line – hanging on some wire. That’s my coat…”
