But no more shells fell.
The night grew dark and showed a field of glittering stars, for the air was sharpening again towards frost. We waited for an hour, just behind the far parapets, but never came that familiar whistle.
Then Sandy rose and stretched himself. “I’m hungry,” he said. “Let’s have out the food, Hussin. We’ve eaten nothing since before daybreak. I wonder what is the meaning of this ?”
I fancied I knew.
“It’s Stumm’s way,” I said. “He wants to torture us. He’ll keep us hours on , while he sits over yonder in what he thinks we’re enduring. He has just enough imagination for that ... He would rush us if he had the men. As it is, he’s going to blow us to pieces, but do it slowly and his lips over it.”
Sandy yawned. “We’ll disappoint him, for we won’t be worried, old man. We three are beyond that kind of fear.”
“Meanwhile we’re going to do the best we can,” I said. “He’s got the exact range for his whizz-bangs. We’ve got to find a hole somewhere just outside the castrol, and some sort of head-cover. We’re bound to get damaged whatever happens, but we’ll stick it out to the end. When they think they have finished with us and rush the place, there may be one of us alive to put a bullet through old Stumm. What do you say?”
They agreed, and after our meal Sandy and I crawled out to , leaving the others on guard in case there should be an attack. We found a hollow in the glacis a little south of the castrol, and, working very quietly, managed to enlarge it and cut a kind of shallow cave in the hill. It would be no use against a direct hit, but it would give some cover from flying fragments. As I read the situation, Stumm could land as many shells as he pleased in the castrol and wouldn’t bother to attend to the flanks. When the bad shelling began there would be shelter for one or two in the cave.
Our enemies were . The riflemen on the east burnt Very at , and Stumm’s lot sent up a great star-rocket. I remember that just before midnight hell broke loose round Fort Palantuken. No more Russian shells came into our hollow, but all the road to the east was under fire, and at the Fort itself there was a shattering explosion and a queer glow which looked as if a magazine had been hit. For about two hours the firing was intense, and then it died down. But it was towards the north that I kept turning my head. There seemed to be something different in the sound there, something sharper in the report of the guns, as if shells were dropping in a narrow valley whose rock walls doubled the echo. Had the Russians by any blessed chance worked round that flank?
I got Sandy to listen, but he shook his head. “Those guns are a dozen miles off,” he said. “They’re no nearer than three days ago. But it looks as if the sportsmen on the south might have a chance. When they break through and stream down the valley, they’ll be puzzled to account for what of us ... We’re no longer three adventurers in the enemy’s country. We’re the advance guard of the Allies. Our don’t know about us, and we’re going to be cut off, which has happened to advance guards before now. But all the same, we’re in our own battle-line again. Doesn’t that cheer you, Dick?”
It cheered me wonderfully, for I knew now what had been the weight on my heart ever since I accepted Sir Walter’s mission. It was the loneliness of it. I was fighting far away from my friends, far away from the true fronts of battle. It was a side-show which, whatever its importance, had none of the exhilaration of the main effort. But now we had come back to familiar ground. We were like the Highlanders cut off at Cite St Auguste on the first day of Loos, or those Scots Guards at Festubert of whom I had heard. Only, the others did not know of it, would never hear of it. If Peter succeeded he might tell the tale, but most likely he was lying dead somewhere in the no-man’s-land between the lines. We should never be heard of again any more, but our work remained. Sir Walter would know that, and he would tell our few that we had gone out in our country’s service.
We were in the castrol again, sitting under the parapets. The same thoughts must have been in Sandy’s mind, for he suddenly laughed.
“It’s a queer ending, Dick. We simply vanish into the infinite. If the Russians get through they will never recognize what is left of us among so much of the of battle. The snow will soon cover us, and when the spring comes there will only be a few bones. Upon my soul it is the kind of death I always wanted.” And he quoted softly to himself a verse of an old Scots ballad:
“Mony’s the ane for him maks mane,
But nane sall whar he is gane.
Ower his white banes, when they are bare,
The wind sall blaw for evermair.”
“But our work lives,” I cried, with a sudden great of happiness. “It’s the job that matters, not the men that do it. And our job’s done. We have won, old chap—won hands down—and there is no going back on that. We have won anyway; and if Peter has had a slice of luck, we’ve the pool ... After all, we never expected to come out of this thing with our lives.”
Blenkiron, with his leg stuck out stiffly before him, was humming quietly to himself, as he often did when he felt cheerful. He had only one song, “John Brown’s Body”; usually only a line at a time, but now he got as far as the whole verse:
“He captured Harper’s Ferry, with his nineteen men so true,
And he frightened old Virginny till she trembled through and through.
They hung him for a , themselves the traitor crew,
But his soul goes marching along.”
“Feeling good?” I asked.
“Fine. I’m about the luckiest man on God’s earth, Major. I’ve always wanted to get into a big show, but I didn’t see how it would come the way of a citizen like me, living in a steam-warmed house and going down town to my office every morning. I used to envy my old dad that fought at Chattanooga, and never forgot to tell you about it. But I guess Chattanooga was like a in a Bowery bar compared to this. When I meet the old man in Glory he’ll have to listen some to me.”
It was just after Blenkiron that we got a of Stumm’s presence. The gun was well laid, for a shell plumped on the near edge of the castro. It made an end of one of the Companions who was on guard there, badly wounded another, and a fragment my . We took refuge in the shallow cave, but some wild shooting from the east side brought us back to the parapets, for we feared an attack. None came, nor any more shells, and once again the night was quiet.
I asked Blenkiron if he had any near relatives.
“Why, no, except a sister’s son, a college-boy who has no need of his uncle. It’s fortunate that we three have no wives. I haven’t any regrets, neither, for I’ve had a deal out of life. I was thinking this morning that it was a pity I was going out when I had just got my duo-denum to listen to reason. But I reckon that’s another of my mercies. The good God took away the pain in my stomach so that I might go to Him with a clear head and a thankful heart.”
“We’re lucky fellows,” said Sandy; “we’ve all had our . When I remember the good times I’ve had I could sing a of praise. We’ve lived long enough to know ourselves, and to shape ourselves into some kind of . But think of those boys who have given their lives freely when they scarcely knew what life meant. They were just at the beginning of the road, and they didn’t know what bits lay before them. It was all sunshiny and bright-coloured, and yet they gave it up without a moment’s doubt. And think of the men with wives and children and homes that were the biggest things in life to them. For fellows like us to shirk would be black . It’s small credit for us to stick it out. But when those others shut their teeth and went forward, they were blessed heroes....”
After that we fell silent. A man’s thoughts at a time like that seem to be double-powered, and the memory becomes very sharp and clear. I don’t know what was in the others’ minds, but I know what filled my own...
I fancy it isn’t the men who get most out of the world and are always buoyant and cheerful that most fear to die. Rather it is the weak-engined souls who go about with dull eyes, that cling most fiercely to life. They have not the joy of being alive which is a kind of earnest of ... I know that my thoughts were chiefly about the jolly things that I had seen and done; not regret, but . The of blue noons on the veld unrolled itself before me, and hunter’s nights in the bush, the taste of food and sleep, the bitter of dawn, the joy of wild adventure, the voices of old staunch friends. Hitherto the war had seemed to make a break with all that had gone before, but now the war was only part of the picture. I thought of my , and the good fellows there, many of whom had fallen on the Loos parapets. I had never looked to come out of that myself. But I had been spared, and given the chance of a greater business, and I had succeeded. That was the tremendous fact, and my mood was gratitude to God and pride. Death was a small price to pay for it. As Blenkiron would have said, I had got good value in the deal.
The night was getting bitter cold, as happens before dawn. It was frost again, and the sharpness of it woke our hunger. I got out the remnants of the food and wine and we had a last meal. I remember we pledged each other as we drank.
“We have eaten our Passover Feast,” said Sandy. “When do you look for the end?”
“After dawn,” I said. “Stumm wants daylight to get the full savour of his revenge.”
Slowly the sky passed from ebony to grey, and black shapes of hill outlined themselves against it. A wind blew down the valley, bringing the smell of burning, but something too of the freshness of morn. It stirred strange thoughts in me, and woke the old morning of the blood which was never to be mine again. For the first time in that long vigil I was torn with a sudden regret.
“We must get into the cave before it is full light,” I said. “We had better draw lots for the two to go.”
The choice fell on one of the Companions and Blenkiron. “You can count me out,” said the latter. “If it’s your wish to find a man to be alive when our friends come up to count their spoil, I guess I’m the worst of the lot. I’d prefer, if you don’t mind, to stay here. I’ve made my peace with my , and I’d like to wait quietly on His call. I’ll play a game of Patience to pass the time.”
He would take no denial, so we drew again, and the lot fell to Sandy.
“If I’m the last to go,” he said, “I promise I don’t miss. Stumm won’t be long in following me.”
He shook hands with his cheery smile, and he and the Companion slipped over the parapet in the final shadows before dawn.
Blenkiron spread his Patience cards on a flat rock, and dealt out the Double Napoleon. He was calm, and hummed to himself his only . For myself I was drinking in my last of the hill air. My contentment was going. I suddenly felt bitterly to die.
Something of the same kind must have passed through Blenkiron’s head. He suddenly looked up and asked, “Sister Anne, Sister Anne, do you see anybody coming?”
I stood close to the parapet, watching every detail of the landscape as shown by the revealing daybreak. Up on the shoulders of the Palantuken, snowdrifts lipped over the edges of the cliffs. I wondered when they would come down as . There was a kind of croft on one hillside, and ............