Mr. Standfast
the roads mended and the devil of a lot of new light railways, and any
moment we’ll have the five-point-nines sayin’ Good-mornin’.... Pray
Heaven you get relieved in time, sir. I take it there’s not much risk
of another push this mornin’?”
“I don’t think so. The Boche took a nasty knock yesterday, and he must
fancy we’re pretty strong after that counter-attack. I don’t think
he’ll strike till he can work both sides of the river, and that’ll take
time to prepare. That’s what his fresh divisions are for.... But
remember, he can attack now, if he likes. If he knew how weak we were
he’s strong enough to send us all to glory in the next three hours.
It’s just that knowledge that you fellows have got to prevent his
getting. If a single Hun plane crosses our lines and returns, we’re
wholly and utterly done. You’ve given us splendid help since the show
began, Archie. For God’s sake keep it up to the finish and put every
machine you can spare in this sector.”
“We’re doin’ our best,” he said. “We got some more fightin’ scouts down
from the north, and we’re keepin’ our eyes skinned. But you know as
well as I do, sir, that it’s never an ab-so-lute certainty. If the Hun
sent over a squadron we might beat ’em all down but one, and that one
might do the trick. It’s a matter of luck. The Hun’s got the wind up
all right in the air just now and I don’t blame the poor devil. I’m
inclined to think we haven’t had the pick of his push here. Jennings
says he’s doin’ good work in Flanders, and they reckon there’s the
deuce of a thrust comin’ there pretty soon. I think we can manage the
kind of footler he’s been sendin’ over here lately, but if Lensch or
some lad like that were to choose to turn up I wouldn’t say what might
happen. The air’s a big lottery,” and Archie turned a dirty face
skyward where two of our planes were moving very high towards the east.
The mention of Lensch brought Peter to mind, and I asked if he had gone
back.
“He won’t go,” said Archie, “and we haven’t the heart to make him. He’s
very happy, and plays about with the Gladas single-seater. He’s always
speakin’ about you, sir, and it’d break his heart if we shifted him.”
I asked about his health, and was told that he didn’t seem to have much
pain.
“But he’s a bit queer,” and Archie shook a sage head. “One of the
reasons why he won’t budge is because he says God has some work for him
to do. He’s quite serious about it, and ever since he got the notion he
has perked up amazin’. He’s always askin’ about Lensch, too—not
vindictive like, you understand, but quite friendly. Seems to take a
sort of proprietary interest in him. I told him Lensch had had a far
longer spell of first-class fightin’ than anybody else and was bound by
the law of averages to be downed soon, and he was quite sad about it.”
I had no time to worry about Peter. Archie and I swallowed breakfast
and I had a pow-wow with my brigadiers. By this time I had got through
to Corps H.Q. and got news of the French. It was worse than I expected.
General Peguy would arrive about ten o’clock, but his men couldn’t take
over till well after midday. The Corps gave me their whereabouts and I
found it on the map. They had a long way to cover yet, and then there
would be the slow business of relieving. I looked at my watch. There
were still six hours before us when the Boche might knock us to blazes,
six hours of maddening anxiety.... Lefroy announced that all was quiet
on the front, and that the new wiring at the Bois de la Bruyere had
been completed. Patrols had reported that during the night a fresh
German division seemed to have relieved that which we had punished so
stoutly yesterday. I asked him if he could stick it out against another
attack. “No,” he said without hesitation. “We’re too few and too shaky
on our pins to stand any more. I’ve only a man to every three yards.”
That impressed me, for Lefroy was usually the most devil-may-care
optimist.
“Curse it, there’s the sun,” I heard Archie cry. It was true, for the
clouds were rolling back and the centre of the heavens was a patch of
blue. The storm was coming—I could smell it in the air—but probably it
wouldn’t break till the evening. Where, I wondered, would we be by that
time?
It was now nine o’clock, and I was keeping tight hold on myself, for I
saw that I was going to have hell for the next hours. I am a pretty
stolid fellow in some ways, but I have always found patience and
standing still the most difficult job to tackle, and my nerves were all
tattered from the long strain of the retreat. I went up to the line and
saw the battalion commanders. Everything was unwholesomely quiet there.
Then I came back to my headquarters to study the reports that were
coming in from the air patrols. They all said the same thing—abnormal
activity in the German back areas. Things seemed shaping for a new 21st
of March, and, if our luck were out, my poor little remnant would have
to take the shock. I telephoned to the Corps and found them as nervous
as me. I gave them the details of my strength and heard an agonised
whistle at the other end of the line. I was rather glad I had
companions in the same purgatory.
I found I couldn’t sit still. If there had been any work to do I would
have buried myself in it, but there was none. Only this fearsome job of
waiting. I hardly ever feel cold, but now my blood seemed to be getting
thin, and I astonished my staff by putting on a British warm and
buttoning up the collar. Round that derelict farm I ranged like a
hungry wolf, cold at the feet, queasy in the stomach, and mortally edgy
in the mind.
Then suddenly the cloud lifted from me, and the blood seemed to run
naturally in my veins. I experienced the change of mood which a man
feels sometimes when his whole being is fined down and clarified by
long endurance. The fight of yesterday revealed itself as something
rather splendid. What risks we had run and how gallantly we had met
them! My heart warmed as I thought of that old division of mine, those
ragged veterans that were never beaten as long as breath was left them.
And the Americans and the boys from the machine-gun school and all the
oddments we had commandeered! And old Blenkiron raging like a
good-tempered lion! It was against reason that such fortitude shouldn’t
win out. We had snarled round and bitten the Boche so badly that he
wanted no more for a little. He would come again, but presently we
should be relieved and the gallant blue-coats, fresh as paint and
burning for revenge, would be there to worry him.
I had no new facts on which to base my optimism, only a changed point
of view. And with it came a recollection of other things. Wake’s death
had left me numb before, but now the thought of it gave me a sharp
pang. He was the first of our little confederacy to go. But what an
ending he had made, and how happy he had been in that mad time when he
had come down from his pedestal and become one of the crowd! He had
found himself at the last, and who could grudge him such happiness? If
the best were to be taken, he would be chosen first, for he was a big
man, before whom I uncovered my head. The thought of him made me very
humble. I had never had his troubles to face, but he had come clean
through them, and reached a courage which was for ever beyond me. He
was the Faithful among us pilgrims, who had finished his journey before
the rest. Mary had foreseen it. “There is a price to be paid,” she had
said—“the best of us.”
And at the thought of Mary a flight of warm and happy hopes seemed to
settle on my mind. I was looking again beyond the war to that peace
which she and I would some day inherit. I had a vision of a green
English landscape, with its far-flung scents of wood and meadow and
garden.... And that face of all my dreams, with the eyes so childlike
and brave and honest, as if they, too, saw beyond the dark to a radiant
country. A line of an old song, which had been a favourite of my
father’s, sang itself in my ears:
There’s an eye that ever weeps and a fair face will be fain
When I ride through Annan Water wi’ my bonny bands again!
We were standing by the crumbling rails of what had once been the farm
sheepfold. I looked at Archie and he smiled back at me, for he saw that
my face had changed. Then he turned his eyes to the billowing clouds.
I felt my arm clutched.
“Look there!” said a fierce voice, and his glasses were turned upward.
I looked, and far up in the sky saw a thing like a wedge of wild geese
flying towards us from the enemy’s country. I made out the small dots
which composed it, and my glass told me they were planes. But only
Archie’s practised eye knew that they were enemy.
“Boche?” I asked.
“Boche,” he said. “My God, we’re for it now.”
My heart had sunk like a stone, but I was fairly cool. I looked at my
watch and saw that it was ten minutes to eleven.
“How many?”
“Five,” said Archie. “Or there may be six—not more.”
“Listen!” I said. “Get on to your headquarters. Tell them that it’s all
up with us if a single plane gets back. Let them get well over the
line, the deeper in the better, and tell them to send up every machine
they possess and down them all. Tell them it’s life or death. Not one
single plane goes back. Quick!”
Archie disappeared, and as he went our anti-aircraft guns broke out.
The formation above opened and zigzagged, but they were too high to be
in much danger. But they were not too high to see that which we must
keep hidden or perish.
The roar of our batteries died down as the invaders passed westward. As
I watched their progress they seemed to be dropping lower. Then they
rose again and a bank of cloud concealed them.
I had a horrid certainty that they must beat us, that some at any rate
would get back. They had seen thin lines and the roads behind us empty
of supports. They would see, as they advanced, the blue columns of the
French coming up from the south-west, and they would return and tell
the enemy that a blow now would open the road to Amiens and the sea. He
had plenty of strength for it, and presently he would have overwhelming
strength. It only needed a spear-point to burst the jerry-built dam and
let the flood through.... They would return in twenty minutes, and by
noon we would be broken. Unless—unless the miracle of miracles
happened, and they never returned.
Archie reported that his skipper would do his damnedest and that our
machines were now going up. “We’ve a chance, sir,” he said, “a good
sportin’ chance.” It was a new Archie, with a hard voice, a lean face,
and very old eyes.
Behind the jagged walls of the farm buildings was a knoll which had
once formed part of the high-road. I went up there alone, for I didn’t
want anybody near me. I wanted a viewpoint, and I wanted quiet, for I
had a grim time before me. From that knoll I had a big prospect of
country. I looked east to our lines on which an occasional shell was
falling, and where I could hear the chatter of machine-guns. West there
was peace for the woods closed down on the landscape. Up to the north,
I remember, there was a big glare as from a burning dump, and heavy
guns seemed to be at work in the Ancre valley. Down in the south there
was the dull murmur of a great battle. But just around me, in the gap,
the deadliest place of all, there was an odd quiet. I could pick out
clearly the different sounds. Somebody down at the farm had made a joke
and there was a short burst of laughter. I envied the humorist his
composure. There was a clatter and jingle from a battery changing
position. On the road a tractor was jolting along—I could hear its
driver shout and the screech of its unoiled axle.
My eyes were glued to my glasses, but they shook in my hands so that I
could scarcely see. I bit my lip to steady myself, but they still