I slept for one and three-quarter hours that night, and when I awoke I
seemed to emerge from deeps of slumber which had lasted for days. That
happens sometimes after heavy fatigue and great mental strain. Even a
short sleep sets up a barrier between past and present which has to be
elaborately broken down before you can link on with what has happened
before. As my wits groped at the job some drops of rain splashed on my
face through the broken roof. That hurried me out-of-doors. It was
just after dawn and the sky was piled with thick clouds, while a wet
wind blew up from the southwest. The long-prayed-for break in the
weather seemed to have come at last. A deluge of rain was what I
wanted, something to soak the earth and turn the roads into
water-courses and clog the enemy transport, something above all to
blind the enemy’s eyes . . . For I remembered what a preposterous bluff
it all had been, and what a piteous broken handful stood between the
Germans and their goal. If they knew, if they only knew, they would
brush us aside like flies.
As I shaved I looked back on the events of yesterday as on something
that had happened long ago. I seemed to judge them impersonally, and I
concluded that it had been a pretty good fight. A scratch force, half
of it dog-tired and half of it untrained, had held up at least a
couple of fresh divisions . . . But we couldn’t do it again, and there
were still some hours before us of desperate peril. When had the Corps
said that the French would arrive? . . . I was on the point of shouting
for Hamilton to get Wake to ring up Corps Headquarters, when I
remembered that Wake was dead. I had liked him and greatly admired
him, but the recollection gave me scarcely a pang. We were all dying,
and he had only gone on a stage ahead.
There was no morning strafe, such as had been our usual fortune in the
past week. I went out-of-doors and found a noiseless world under the
lowering sky. The rain had stopped falling, the wind of dawn had
lessened, and I feared that the storm would be delayed. I wanted it at
once to help us through the next hours of tension. Was it in six hours
that the French were coming? No, it must be four. It couldn’t be more
than four, unless somebody had made an infernal muddle. I wondered why
everything was so quiet. It would be breakfast time on both sides, but
there seemed no stir of man’s presence in that ugly strip half a mile
off. Only far back in the German hinterland I seemed to hear the
rumour of traffic.
An unslept and unshaven figure stood beside me which revealed itself
as Archie Roylance.
‘Been up all night,’ he said cheerfully, lighting a cigarette. ‘No, I
haven’t had breakfast. The skipper thought we’d better get another
anti-aircraft battery up this way, and I was superintendin’ the job.
He’s afraid of the Hun gettin’ over your lines and spying out the
nakedness of the land. For, you know, we’re uncommon naked, sir.
Also,’ and Archie’s face became grave, ‘the Hun’s pourin’ divisions
down on this sector. As I judge, he’s blowin’ up for a thunderin’ big
drive on both sides of the river. Our lads yesterday said all the
country back of Peronne was lousy with new troops. And he’s gettin’
his big guns forward, too. You haven’t been troubled with them yet,
but he has got 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 Péguy 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 Bruyère 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 agonized 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
wavered. From time to time I glanced at my watch. Eight minutes
gone—ten—seventeen. If only the planes would come into sight! Even
the certainty of failure would be better than this harrowing doubt.
They should be back by now unless they had swung north across the
salient, or unless the miracle of miracles—
Then came the distant yapping of an anti-aircraft gun, caught up the
next second by others, while smoke patches studded the distant blue
sky. The clouds were banking in mid-heaven, but to the west there was
a big clear space now woolly with shrapnel bursts. I counted them
mechanically—one—three—five—nine—with despair beginning to take
the place of my anxiety. My hands were steady now, and through the
glasses I saw the enemy.
Five attenuated shapes rode high above the bombardment, now sharp
against the blue, now lost in a film of vapour. They were coming back,
serenely, contemptuously, having seen all they wanted.
The quiet was gone now and the din was monstrous. Anti-aircraft guns,
singly and in groups, were firing from every side. As I watched it
seemed a futile waste of ammunition. The enemy didn’t give a tinker’s
curse for it . . . But surely there was one down. I could only count
four now. No, there was the fifth coming out of a cloud. In ten
minutes they would be all over the line. I fairly stamped in my
vexation. Those guns were no more use than a sick headache. Oh, where
in God’s name were our own planes?
At that moment they came, streaking down into sight, four
fighting-scouts with the sun glinting on their wings and burnishing
their metal cowls. I saw clearly the rings of red, white, and blue.
Before their downward drive the enemy instantly spread out.
I was watching with bare eyes now, and I wanted companionship, for the
time of waiting was over. Automatically I must have run down the
knoll, for the next I knew I was staring at the heavens with Archie by
my side. The combatants seemed to couple instinctively. Diving,
wheeling, climbing, a pair would drop out of the melee or disappear
behind a cloud. Even at that height I could hear the methodical
rat-tat-tat of the machine-guns. Then there was a sudden flare and
wisp of smoke. A plane sank, turning and twisting, to earth.
‘Hun!’ said Archie, who had his glasses on it.
Almost immediately another followed. This time the pilot recovered
himself, while still a thousand feet from the ground, and started
gliding for the enemy lines. Then he wavered, plunged sickeningly, and
fell headlong into the wood behind La Bruyère.
Farther east, almost over the front trenches, a two-seater Albatross
and a British pilot were having a desperate tussle. The bombardment
had stopped, and from where we stood every movement could be followed.
First one, then another, climbed uppermost and dived back, swooped out
and wheeled in again, so that the two planes seemed to clear each
other only by inches. Then it looked as if they closed and
interlocked. I expected to see both go crashing, when suddenly the
wings of one seemed to shrivel up, and the machine dropped like a
stone.
‘Hun,’ said Archie. ‘That makes three. Oh, good lads! Good lads!’
Then I saw something which took away my breath. Sloping down in wide
circles came a German machine, and, following, a little behind and a
little above, a British. It was the first surrender in mid-air I had
seen. In my amazement I watched the couple right down to the ground,
till the enemy landed in a big meadow across the high-road and our own
man in a field nearer the river.
When I looked back into the sky, it was bare. North, south, east, and
west, there was not a sign of aircraft, British or German.
A violent trembling took me. Archie was sweeping the heavens with his
glasses and muttering to himself. Where was the fifth man? He must
have fought his way through, and it was too late.
But was it? From the toe of a great rolling cloud-bank a flame shot
earthwards, followed by a V-shaped trail of smoke. British or Boche?
British or Boche? I didn’t wait long for an answer. For, riding over
the far end of the cloud, came two of our fighting scouts.
I tried to be cool, and snapped my glasses into their case, though the
reaction made me want to shout. Archie turned to me with a nervous
smile and a quivering mouth. ‘I think we have won on the post,’ he
said.
He reached out a hand for mine, his eyes still on the sky, and I was
grasping it when it was torn away. He was staring upwards with a white
face.
We were looking at the sixth enemy plane.
It had been behind the others and much lower, and was making straight
at a great speed for the east. The glasses showed me a different type
of machine—a big machine with short wings, which looked menacing as a
hawk in a covey of grouse. It was under the cloud-bank, and above,
satisfied, easing down after their fight, and unwitting of this enemy,
rode the two British craft.
A neighbouring anti-aircraft gun broke out into a sudden burst, and I
thanked Heaven for its inspiration. Curious as to this new
development, the two British turned, caught sight of the Boche, and
dived for him.
What happened in the next minutes I cannot tell. The three seemed to
be mixed up in a dog fight, so that I could not distinguish friend
from foe. My hands no longer trembled; I was too desperate. The patter
of machine-guns came down to us, and then one of the three broke clear
and began to climb. The others strained to follow, but in a second he
had risen beyond their fire, for he had easily the pace of them. Was
it the Hun?
Archie’s dry lips were talking.
‘It’s Lensch,’ he said.
‘How d’you know?’ I gasped angrily.
‘Can’t mistake him. Look at the way he slipped out as he banked.
That’s his patent trick.’
In that agonizing moment hope died in me. I was perfectly calm now,
for the time for anxiety had gone. Farther and farther drifted the
British pilots behind, while Lensch in the completeness of his triumph
looped more than once as if to cry an insulting farewell. In less than
three minutes he would be safe inside his own lines, and he carried
the knowledge which for us was death.
•••••
Someone was bawling in my ear, and pointing upward. It was Archie and
his face was wild. I looked and gasped—seized my glasses and looked
again.
A second before Lensch had been alone; now there were two machines.
I heard Archie’s voice. ‘My God, it’s the Gladas—the little Gladas.’
His fingers were digging into my arm and his face was against my
shoulder. And then his excitement sobered into an awe which choked his
speech, as he stammered—’It’s old——’
But I did not need him to tell me the name, for I had divined it when
I first saw the new plane drop from the clouds. I had that queer sense
that comes sometimes to a man that a friend is present when he cannot
see him. Somewhere up in the void two heroes were fighting their last
battle—and one of them had a crippled leg.
I had never any doubt about the result, though Archie told me later
that he went crazy with suspense. Lensch was not aware of his opponent
till he was almost upon him, and I wonder if by any freak of instinct
he recognized his greatest antagonist. He never fired a shot, nor did
Peter . . . I saw the German twist and side-slip as if to baffle the
fate descending upon him. I saw Peter veer over vertically and I knew
that the end had come. He was there to make certain of victory and he
took the only way. The machines closed, there was a crash which I felt
though I could not hear it, and next second both were hurtling down,
over and over, to the earth.
They fell in the river just short of the enemy lines, but I did not
see them, for my eyes were blinded and I was on my knees.
•••••
After that it was all a dream. I found myself being embraced by a
French General of Division, and saw the first companies of the
cheerful bluecoats whom I had longed for. With them came the rain, and
it was under a weeping April sky that early in the night I marched
what was left of my division away from the battle-field. The enemy
guns were starting to speak behind us, but I did not heed them. I knew
that now there were warders at the gate, and I believed that by the
grace of God that gate was barred for ever.
They took Peter from the wreckage with scarcely a scar except his
twisted leg. Death had smoothed out some of the age in him, and left
his face much as I remembered it long ago in the Mashonaland hills. In
his pocket was his old battered Pilgrim’s Progress. It lies before
me as I write, and beside it—for I was his only legatee—the little
case which came to him weeks later, containing the highest honour that
can be bestowed upon a soldier of Britain.
It was from the Pilgrim’s Progress that I read next morning, when in
the lee of an apple-orchard Mary and Blenkiron and I stood in the soft
spring rain beside his grave. And what I read was the tale in the end
not of Mr Standfast, whom he had singled out for his counterpart, but
of Mr Valiant-for-Truth whom he had not hoped to emulate. I set down
the words as a salute and a farewell:
Then said he, “I am going to my Father’s; and though with great difficulty I am got hither, yet now I do not repent me of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me that I have fought His battles who now will be my rewarder.”
So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.
THE END
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