Behind the Lines (9 page)

Time was passing and he was becoming desperate. She would be leaving soon and he would have but a few
minutes with her at the most. He began to regret not having shouted to her from the bank. He walked the street rapidly, scanning both pavements for the neat uniformed figure. For the tenth time he looked into the paper shop and the tea shop. He dared not try the station again: that was too far from the square.

Then back again he came to the square, striding fast and answering salutes impatiently, to find the ambulance gone. And he had not said one word to her.

Regardless of military dignity he raced towards the Arras road, but dropped precipitately into a walk as he saw the ambulance emerge from a side street a few yards from him.

He raised his hand to the salute as it turned slowly into the main road. She saw him and smiled. He put a hand on the wing of the car gliding slowly past him.

“Are you going along the Arras road?” he asked breathlessly, with scarlet face. She nodded. “Be an angel and give me a lift,” he panted desperately.

For answer she brought the car to rest, and he climbed in beside her. She let in the clutch and they glided down the street and out along the tree-shaded road without speaking.

“Get back all right last time?” he inquired at last, inanely.

She nodded. “Did you?”

“Yes, rather.”

He was supremely happy sitting there beside her, but for the life of him he could think of nothing to say. And
he wanted to talk. He had wasted so much time already hunting for her in Doullens. Soon they would reach the sunken track which was his way back to the village. Suddenly he remembered the concert party she had said she was going to see.

“I say, did you enjoy that concert party?” he asked, knowing well that she had not yet been.

“I haven't seen it yet,” she answered. “It is coming on Friday.”

“I am going to try to borrow a motor-bike or else lorry-jump in to see it,” he announced.

They had reached the sunken track and passed it. She had given it a glance, but had made no comment.

“Do you think we could go together?” he asked quickly. “I would like to awfully, if you wouldn't mind very much—would you?”

“I should love it,” she said.

“That's splendid. It will be great fun.”

He found he could talk more easily now, and he was elated at the prospect of spending over two hours in her society. She had pointed out that they had nearly reached the village in which was her C.C.S., but he had replied, “Yes—if you go the nearest way, but is there any hurry?” And she had taken the next turning and driven off into a maze of side roads.

She fell silent at length, and presently she stopped the car and turned to him. Her little face was troubled.

“This isn't fair,” she said. “You know you ought to go. We passed your turning hours ago. I ought to be back,
and I've taken you all over the place. It isn't fair to make me go on.”

He jumped out quickly on to the road and stood with his hands on the wheel looking appealingly at her. He was terribly afraid that he had angered her by his selfishness.

“I say, I'm awfully sorry,” he said. “You are absolutely right. Jolly caddish of me. You're not frightfully angry with me, are you? Serve me right if you were. But you are not, are you?” he pleaded.

She shook her head with a wistful smile at his earnestness.

“Beastly selfish of me, but I enjoyed it so much,” he said.

She looked down at the ignition lever and rasped it forward and then back. “So did I,” she confessed; “but I thought you would never go.”

“I'm forgiven then?”

She nodded.

“Till Friday evening, then. Goodbye—Berney.”

She let in the clutch and the car began to move.

“Goodbye—Peter.”

He watched the car out of sight and then strode gaily along, slapping his field-boot every other step with his crop.

V

A period of rest in a peaceful back area village within reasonable distance of Doullens was an event which any of the hard-worked batteries in France would have hailed with joy, and B Battery were enjoying their stay at
Ervillers. The Major never fussed his command, and apart from the necessary parades of stables and exercise that are inseparable from a mounted unit, he left the battery in peace. The men played football among themselves and matches with the other batteries of the brigade; and several villagers gathered in the dusk outside the billets to listen to the harmonized sentimental songs of the contented men within.

Rawley alone was uneasy. He asked himself irritably why he could not enjoy this spell out of the Line without bothering about Rumbald. But everything the fellow did irritated him, and justifiably surely. They had been playing
vingt-et-un
one evening, Rawley, Whedbee, Piddock, and Rumbald, in the little farmhouse mess-room. Rumbald sat with his back to the old-fashioned mantelpiece on which stood a mirror overmantel. He had been losing, and Whedbee who sat opposite him had been winning. Suddenly, with an exclamation, Rumbald had jumped up from his chair and covered the mirror behind him with a newspaper. Whedbee had merely lowered his head and peered over his glasses at Rumbald's fat hands tucking the edges of the newspaper behind the mirror, and Piddock had contented himself with asking Rumbald sarcastically whether he was expecting the sweep, but Rawley refrained only with difficulty from an outburst at this gratuitous insult.

And there had been the incident of Sergeant Cooper's billet. Sergeant Cooper was a little inclined to be familiar with the men, and in consequence the discipline of his
section was a shade below the high standard maintained by the other sections. His billet was a small wood shed, opening off the archway that gave entrance to the farm courtyard on the other side of which the section were billeted. The shed, separated only by a rough wooden partition from the cart-shed beside it, was not more than eight feet long by six feet broad, but a bed composed of a rough wooden frame covered with wire netting had been fitted along one wall and made it a comfortable billet for one man.

As orderly officer Rawley had turned in one night under the archway with Sergeant Jameson to see that lights were out in the men's billets. A streak of light and the sound of a voice came from Sergeant Cooper's door which was ajar, and as they passed it Rawley distinguished the concluding words of a story Penhurst had told that evening in Amiens.

He hesitated at the sound of the laugh which followed the words, and Sergeant Jameson halted regimentally beside him. He hesitated a moment longer and then stepped to the door and flung it open. The little shed was lighted by two candles stuck in cigarette tins nailed to the wooden partition, and on the low, brown-blanket covered bunk sat Rumbald and Sergeant Cooper. Rumbald's cap was on the back of his head, and he was dressed in the khaki slacks and shoes that were worn in the mess back in billets. A half-burnt cigar was in his mouth, and he held an enamel mug in his hand. The collar and top buttons of Sergeant Cooper's tunic were undone, exposing the greyback army
shirt and the brown and green identity disc hanging by a greasy cord round his neck. A chipped enamel mug rested on his knee. At the sight of Rawley with Sergeant Jameson standing rigid and sphinx-like beside him, he rose quickly to attention and fumbled to do up the buttons of his tunic. There was a half-guilty; embarrassed look in his eyes.

Rumbald, lounging on the wire-netting bunk, cried heartily, “Hullo, Pete!”

Rawley nodded. His eyes encountered those of Sergeant Jameson fixed enigmatically on his. He hesitated a moment, and then stepped back and closed the door. Followed by Sergeant Jameson he walked in moody silence round the midden to the men's billet. “So that was it,” he mused. “Drinking and telling dirty stories with an N.C.O. in his bunk! A little of that sort of thing would play old Harry with the discipline of the battery.”

CHAPTER VII

I

At exercise one morning as the long column of horses filed back along the road to the village, Piddock clattered up beside Rawley. “I say, Rawley,” he began, “can't we commandeer a car from somewhere and get into Armeens tonight. This simple life stunt is all right in small doses, but personally, I can't work up much enthusiasm over watching the local ploughman homeward plod on his beery way. I think a drink at Charley's Bar, and a dinner at the Godbert, is the right prescription. Are you game?”

“Sorry, but I've a previous engagement,” Rawley told him.

“What, here in the wilds of Picardy!” Piddock exclaimed. He shook his head sanctimoniously. “Peterkins! Peterkins! You're leading a double life, I fear—but couldn't you lead me astray, too?”

Rawley laughed. “As a matter of fact I'm going into Hocqmaison to see a divisional concert party—but it's a secret. Come along, too, if you can keep it.”

“Who provides transport?”

“I'm borrowing one of the battery cycles.”

“Holy Hindenburg! What, push-biking all the way!”

Rawley nodded.

Piddock spoke soothingly. “My dear old battle-scarred war horse, I hate to shatter your illusions, but the luscious damsels in divisional concert parties are really
only anaemic bombardiers dressed up in camisoles and what-you-may-call-ems.”

Rawley grinned. “You silly ass, I'm not that type of fool. But there will be some real damsels there.”

Piddock nodded uninterestingly. “Oh, I daresay—horny-handed Hebes from the local midden, with black woollen stockings on their fat legs and black-heads on their red faces.”

“You're coarse,” Rawley told him. “But I don't mean Picardy farm wives; I mean English girls.”

“What! Oh, shut up, Rawley. You're delirious.”

“I mean it,” said Rawley.

“What, little darlings with silk fetlocks and powdered noses?”

Rawley nodded emphatically. “Yes—Army nursing sisters and lady ambulance drivers. There's a C.C.S. in the next village. It's one of those twin arrangements—one on each side of the stream.”

“You make me go all over alike. But there's a catch in this somewhere. First of all, how do you know (
a
) that any of these she-angels of Mons will be at the divisional follies tonight, and (
b
) supposing they are there, that we shall click?”

“That's the secret,” said Rawley. “Swear to keep it?”

“Wild whiz-bangs wouldn't get it out of me, my old Hannibal.”

“Well, the answer to (
a
) is that I know they are going to be there, because I heard one of them say so, and the answer to (
b
) is that I've already clicked.”

Piddock smote his booted leg with his crop. “Stout feller. Outsize in stout fellers! Go on, my martial Romeo,” he cried lyrically. “Go on, walk march, tell me how you met Whiz-bang Winnie, the battlefield belle.”

“Shut up,” growled Rawley. “She's too nice for that kind of rot. I met a little ambulance driver when I was in Doullens.”

“And you arranged to go with her to this show tonight?”

Rawley nodded.

“Stout feller! ‘A guardee or sapper may dazzle a flapper, but for women a gunner, what! What!' ” carolled Piddock gaily. “And will there be any more little drivers there?”

“Probably—but you will have to take your chance of that. Anyway, you keep off mine.”

“Sure thing, my dear old warrior. You registered first. I'll be as discreet as a blind monk at a grandmother's meeting.”

II

They left Rumbald in the mess making up to the adjutant from brigade headquarters, and rode off on two scarred green army bicycles. Piddock had not ridden a bicycle for some years, and his awkwardness was increased by the long field-boots and tight riding-breeches he was wearing. He wobbled erratically all over the road, but it was only when he locked handlebars with Rawley almost under the radiator of a passing staff car that he consented to ride in single file. A long dusty convoy of motor lorries,
that drove them to the gutter of the steeply-cambered road, where wobbling meant disaster, completed his discomfiture, but his cheery optimism carried him through, and they reached Hocqmaison in safety.

“The first thing,” said Rawley, “is to find somewhere to park our tin chargers.”

“And the next,” put in Piddock, “is to find some mess where we can get a drink; and then we shall be all ripe and fruity for the sob stuff.”

They walked their bicycles slowly up the village street.

“Look!” cried Piddock suddenly. “What a sight for scarred veterans!”

An army nursing sister in grey and red cape and large white coif was coming up the street towards them.

“On the command ‘Glad eyes right!' ” said Piddock, “we salute smartly with the Mark V smile.”

“We do nothing of the sort,” protested Rawley.

“Army sisters rank as officers,” persisted Piddock. “And I think this one is our senior; therefore we salute.”

“It isn't done,” said Rawley.

“It is,” affirmed Piddock cheerfully. “But the only thing is, how does one salute when wheeling ironmongery? Does one extend the arm at an angle of forty-five degrees across the saddle, turning the head and eyes to the right, or does one cant the cycle smartly upwards with the right hand, revolve the pedals with the left, bringing the bell in line with the right ear and left toe?” He saluted cheerfully as the sister went by, and she gave him a little smile and murmured, “Good evening.”

“There you are!” he cried enthusiastically, when she had passed. “She recognized in us two strong silent men from the wide open spaces, men who have never lost a trench, men who have faced the hairy Hun without flinching, men who have played laughing hazard with their young manhood to save her from worse than death! What wonder, then, that her little heart fluttered, that a delicate blush suffused her creamy cheek, that she faltered shyly—the magic words—”