CHAPTER VIII

How my Comrades Fared
Seven supple lads and clean
Sat down to drink one night,
Sat down to drink at Nouex-les-Mines,
Then went away to fight.
Seven supple lads and clean
Are finished with the fight;
But only three at Nouex-les-Mines
Sit down to drink to-night.

Felan went up the ladder of the assembly trench with a lighted cigarette in his mouth. Out on the open his first feeling was one of disappointment; to start with, the charge was as dull as a church parade. Felan, although orders were given to the contrary, expected a wild, whooping forward rush, but the men stepped out soberly, with the pious decision of ancient ladies going to church. In front the curtain of smoke receded, but the air stunk with its pungent odour still. A little valley formed by the caprice of the breeze opened in the fumes and its far end disclosed the enemy's wire entanglements. Felan walked through[98] the valley for a distance of five yards, then he glanced to his right and found that there was nobody in sight there. Pryor had disappeared.

"Here, Bill, we've lost connection!" he cried, turning to his left. But his words were wasted on air; he was alone in his little glen, and invisible birds flicked angry wings close to his ears. His first inclination was to turn back, not through fear, but with a desire to make inquiries.

"I can't take a trench by myself," he muttered. "Shall I go back? If I do so some may call me a coward. Oh, damn it! I'll go forward."

He felt afraid now, but his fear was not that which makes a man run away; he was attracted towards that which engendered the fear as an urchin attracted towards a wasps' nest longs to poke the hive and annoy its occupants.

"Suppose I get killed now and see nothing," he said to himself. "Where is Bill, and Pryor, and the others?"

He reached the enemy's wire, tripped, and fell headlong. He got to his feet again and took stock of the space in front. There was the German trench, sure enough, with its rows of dirty sandbags, a machine-gun emplacement and a maxim peeping furtively through the loophole. A big, bearded German[99] was adjusting the range of the weapon. He looked at Felan, Felan looked at him and tightened his grip on his rifle.

"You——!" said Felan, and just made one step forward when something "hit him all over," as he said afterwards. He dropped out of the world of conscious things.

A stretcher-bearer found him some twenty minutes later and placed him in a shell-hole, after removing his equipment, which he placed on the rim of the crater.

Felan returned to a conscious life that was tense with agony. Pain gripped at the innermost parts of his being. "I cannot stand this," he yelled. "God Almighty, it's hell!"

He felt as if somebody was shoving a red-hot bar of iron through his chest. Unable to move, he lay still, feeling the bar getting shoved further and further in. For a moment he had a glimpse of his rifle lying on the ground near him and he tried to reach it. But the unsuccessful effort cost him much, and he became unconscious again.

A shell bursting near his hand shook him into reality, and splinters whizzed by his head. He raised himself upwards, hoping to get killed outright. He was unsuccessful. Again his eyes rested on his rifle.

"If God would give me strength to get it into my hand," he muttered. "Lying here[100] like a rat in a trap and I've seen nothing. Not a run for my money.... I suppose all the boys are dead. Lucky fellows if they die easy.... I've seen nothing only one German, and he done for me. I wish the bullet had gone through my head."

He looked at his equipment, at the bayonet scabbard lying limply under the haversack. The water-bottle hung over the rim of the shell-hole. "Full of rum, the bottle is, and I'm so dry. I wish I could get hold of it. I was a damned fool ever to join the Army.... My God! I wish I was dead," said Felan.

The minutes passed by like a long grey thread unwinding itself slowly from some invisible ball, and the pain bit deeper into the boy. Vivid remembrances of long-past events flashed across his mind and fled away like telegraph poles seen by passengers in an express train. Then he lost consciousness again.

About eleven o'clock in the morning I found a stretcher-bearer whose mate had been wounded, and he helped me to carry a wounded man into our original front trench. On our way across I heard somebody calling "Pat! Pat!" I looked round and saw a man crawling in on his hands and knees, his head almost touching the ground. He called to me, but he did not look in my direction. But I recognised the voice: the corporal was calling. I went across to him.

[101]

"Wounded?" I asked.

"Yes, Pat," he answered, and, turning over, he sat down. His face was very white.

"You should not have crawled in," I muttered. "It's only wearing you out; and it's not very healthy here."

"Oh, I wanted to get away from this hell," he said.

"It's very foolish," I replied. "Let me see your wound."

I dressed the wound and gave the corporal two morphia tablets and put two blue crosses on his face. This would tell those who might come his way later that morphia had been given.

"Lie down," I said. "When the man whom we're carrying is safely in, we'll come back for you."

I left him. In the trench were many wounded lying on the floor and on the fire-steps. A soldier was lying face downwards, groaning. A muddy ground-sheet was placed over his shoulders. I raised the sheet and found that his wound was not dressed.

"Painful, matey?" I asked.

"Oh, it's old Pat," muttered the man.

"Who are you?" I asked, for I did not recognise the voice.

"You don't know me!" said the man, surprise in his tones.

He turned a queer, puckered face half round,[102] but I did not recognise him even then; pain had so distorted his countenance.

"No," I replied. "Who are you?"

"Felan," he replied.

"My God!" I cried, then hurriedly, "I'll dress your wound. You'll get carried in to the dressing-station directly."

"It's about time," said Felan wearily. "I've been out a couple of days.... Is there no R.A.M.C.?"

I dressed Felan's wound, returned, and looked for the corporal, but I could not find him. Someone must have carried him in, I thought.

Kore had got to the German barbed-wire entanglement when he breathed in a mouthful of smoke which almost choked him at first, and afterwards instilled him with a certain placid confidence in everything. He came to a leisurely halt and looked around him. In front, a platoon of the 20th London Regiment, losing its objective, crossed parallel to the enemy's trench. Then he saw a youth who was with him at school, and he shouted to him. The youth stopped; Kore came up and the boys shook hands, leant on their rifles, and began to talk of old times when a machine gun played about their ears. Both got hit.

M'Crone disappeared; he was never seen by any of his regiment after the 25th.

The four men were reported as killed in the casualty list.