The Parts Men Play

by Beverley Baxter

CHAPTER XXV.

THE FIGHT FOR THE BRIDGE.

I.

It was nearly noon when the tired youth awoke. He looked wonderingly about, and there was a haunting fear in his light eyes, like those of a stag that dreads the hunters. From the north there came the sound of drum-fire, a weird, almost tedious, rhythm of guns working at a feverish pace; and the near-by road was a mass of jumbled traffic. Ambulances, supply-wagons, field-artillery, lorries, with jingling harness or snorting engines—streams of vehicles moved slowly up and down their channel. At a reckless speed motorcyclists, carrying urgent messages, swerved through it all; and in the ditches that ran alongside, refugees were stumbling on, fleeing from the new terror, their crouching, misshapen figures like players from a grotesque drama of the Macabre.

'The sausage-eaters,' said Mathews philosophically, 'must be feelin' their oats, sir.'

At the sound of the familiar voice the fear passed from Dick's face. Memory had returned, and he smiled, though his body trembled as if with a chill. 'I'm starved,' he said, 'and I have nothing with me. How long did I sleep, Mathews?'

'Pretty near seven hours, Mas'r Dick. Here you are, sir—feedin'-time, and the bugle's went.'

He handed Durwent a sandwich, which the young man devoured ravenously, washing it down with some cold tea. Mathews also munched at a sandwich, and through the cornstalks they watched the two currents of war-traffic eddying past each other. There was a roar of engines behind them, and, flying low, a formation of sixteen British aeroplanes made in a straight line for the battle area.

With a map which the groom had thoughtfully borrowed from an officer the previous day, Dick managed to gain fairly accurate information as to their position. By calculation he figured out that they had travelled seventeen or eighteen miles during the night, and identifying the main road on which they had come, he saw that after two or three miles it would take a rectangular turn to the right, running parallel to the line of battle. Four miles to the south-east of the turning-point there was a river, and this the fugitives decided to reach that night.

'If we can locate that,' said Dick eagerly, 'it is bound to lead us into the French lines.'

'Werry good, sir,' said the groom, with an air of resignation. His contempt for maps and their unintelligibility was deep-rooted, but if his young master thought he could locate a river with one, he would keep an open mind on the subject until it had, at least, been given a fair trial.

'You see,' said Durwent, 'a great many of these troops on the road are
French, so when we follow that route we must get into French territory.'

'Yezzir,' said Mathews profoundly. 'I won't go for to say as 'ow you mayn't be right. All the same, Mas'r Dick, when it comes to enterin' the ring wi' them sausage-eaters I'd raither 'ave a dozen Lancashire or Devon lads about me than all the Frenchies you could put in Hyde Park. It ain't that these here spec'mens don't 'ave a good sound heart as far as standin' up and takin' knocks is concerned, but they be too frisky and skittish for my likin'. I see 'em all wavin' their arms like as if a carriage and pair has run away, and talkin' all at once and together, likewise and sim'lar. Wot's more, they does it in a lingo that no one can't go for to make out, not even a Frenchy hisself, because I never see one Frog listenin' to another—did you, sir? Wot's more, sir, they gets all of a lather over things which is only fit for women-folk to worry on—such as w'ether a hen has laid its egg reg'lar; or the coffee, was it black enough? From wot I see as puts a Frog in a dither, I sez to myself that if you was to take him to a real hoss-race, he'd never see the finish. No, sir; he'd be dead o' heart-failure afore the hosses was off.'

Dick smiled at the tremendous seriousness of the old groom, and lay back wearily on the ground. 'We had better both turn in for another nap,' he said. 'We'll need all our strength to-night, and if we stay awake we're sure to get hungry.'

'Werry sound advice, Mas'r Dick,' said Mathews. 'But would I be presumin', sir, to ask you a favour? I got a letter yesterday from my old woman, and wot with her writin' and me bein' nought o' a scholar, I was wonderin', Mas'r Dick, if you would just acquaint me with any fac's that you might think the old girl would like me for to know.'

'Willingly,' said Dick, taking a sealed letter from the groom, who squatted solemnly on the ground, assuming an air of deep contemplation, as one who has to give an opinion on a hitherto unread masterpiece.

'It begins,' said Dick, with some difficulty making out the writing, which was extremely small in some words and very large in others, and punctuated mainly with blots—'"Dear Daddy"'——

'That,' said Mathews, 'is conseckens o' me bein' sire to little
Wellington.'

'Oh yes,' said Dick. '"Dear Daddy, ther ain't nothing to tell you
Wellington has took the mumps and the cat had some more kittens"'——

'That's a werry remark'ble cat,' observed Mathews. 'I never see a animal so ambitious. Wot does the old girl say Wellington has took?'

'Mumps.'

'By Criky! I hope it don't go for to make his nose no bigger. Wot a infant he is! Mumps! Go on, Mas'r Dick—the old girl's doin' fine.'

'"The day,"' resumed Dick—'"the day afor Tuesday come last week"'——

'Don't pull up, sir,' said Mathews as Dick paused to re-read the puzzling words. 'You has to take my old woman at a good clip to get her meanin'—but you'll find it hid somewere, Mas'r Dick. I never see the old girl come a cropper yet.'

With this to guide him, the reader found his place again with the aid of a blot, a half-inch square, which surrounded the first word. '"The day afor Tuesday,"' he went on, '"come last week Wellington and the rector's boy Charlie fit."'

'Werry good,' said Mathews approvingly.

'"Wellington's nose were badly done in and he looks awful bad but the rector's boy"'——

'Wot does she say about him?' asked Mathews, staring into space.

'"The rector's boy could not see out of neither eye for 3 days."'

Repressing a chuckle by a great effort, Mathews hastily fumbled for his corncob pipe, and placing it unlit in his mouth, continued to look into space with a face that was almost purple from smothered exuberance.

'"Milord and Lady,"' resumed Dick, '"is just the same and Milord always asks how you was and will I remember him to you."'

'A thoroughbred—that's wot he is,' said Mathews, apparently addressing the distant refugees.

'"Miss Elise was heer last week and is that sweet grown that all the woonded tommies fit with pillos to see who wud propos to her. There ain't no news. Bertha the skullery maid marrid a hyland soldier and they are going for to keep a sweet-shop after the war. Wellington sprayned his ankil yesterday by clyming out of the windo where I had locked him in as he has the mumps."'

'Wot a infant!' commented Mathews admiringly.

'"I am sending you a parsil and a picter of me and Wellington. We are very lonesum, daddy, and I'll be reel glad when the war is over and you come back. It is awful lonesum and Wellington is to. This morning he cut his hand trying to carv our best chair into the shape of a horse. I am feeling fine and hope the reumatiz don't worry you no more. With heeps of love from me and Wellington, your wife, Maggie."'

It was a strange contrast in faces as the young man folded the letter and handed it back. In the countenance of the groom there was a sturdy pride in the epistolary achievement of his wife—a pride which he made a violent but unsuccessful effort to conceal. In the pale, handsome face of the young aristocrat there was a whimsical pathos. By the picture conjured up in the crudely written letter he had seen his parents, his sister, the humble cottage of the groom, and the wife's faithfulness and cheeriness. He had seen them, not as separate things, but hallowed and unified by a common sacrifice for England.

For the first time since his escape Dick Durwent regretted it. He could see no safety ahead for Mathews, no matter how long they evaded arrest. Although a cool, fretful wind was blowing over the fields, the warm noon sun made his eyelids heavy.

Against the wish of the groom, he insisted upon spreading the greatcoat over them both, and in a few minutes master and man were resting side by side as comrades.

'Mathews,' said Dick quietly.

'Yezzir?'

'Give me your word that if you ever reach England you will never tell my family about this. They don't know I am in France, and'——

'Mum as a oyster, sir—that's the ticket. Werry good, Mas'r Dick. A oyster it is.'

Ten minutes had passed without either of them speaking, when Mathews partially raised himself on one elbow. 'If women,' he said ruminatingly, 'was to have votes, my old girl would run for Parlyment, sure as skittles. I wonder, Mas'r Dick, if a feller who courted a girl in good faith, and arter a few years found she were Prime Minister of England—would that constitoot grounds for divorce?'

But Dick was asleep, and dreaming of days when happiness was in the air one breathed; when brother and sister had revelled in nature's carnival of seasons. After several minutes' contemplation of the uncertainty of married life, the old groom followed him into a slumber which was unattended by dreams, but did not lack a sonorous serenade.

II.

The night was streaked with tragedy as the fugitives stole to the road. The drum-fire of the guns had grown to a roar, through which there came the blast and the crash of siege artillery, shaking the earth to its very foundations, as if the gases of hell had ignited and were bursting through. As though by lightning striking low, the night was lit with flashes illuminating the fields and the roads about; and shells were screaming and whining through the air, winged, blood-sucking monsters crying for their prey. Across a yellow moon broken clouds were driven on a gale that whipped the dust of the roads into moaning whirlpools.

Dense traffic moved sullenly on, the ghostly figures of drivers astride horses that whinnied in terror of the night. Not a light was shown. There were only the glimpses of the sickly moonlight and the flame-red flashes of the guns; and, unnoticed, Durwent and the groom followed beside a lorry.

Once, as they strode forward in the roar and horror of the dark, they heard the explosion of a shell that, by a trick of ill-luck, had found the road. There followed the shriek of wounded horses, quick commands penetrating the darkness. Corpses of men, dead horses, and shattered vehicles were drawn aside, and the long line that had been halted for four minutes closed the gap and moved on.

When they reached the turn in the road, they left the shadowy procession and made for the river by following a soft wagon-path that cut across the fields. For two hours they hurried on through the night's madness. More than once they were almost thrown to the ground by the terrific explosion of heavy guns that had taken up positions by the path; and by the flashes in the fields they could see the weird figures of the gunners toiling at their work of death.

As they neared the river they caught a glimpse of coloured flares not far ahead, and there came a momentary lull in the confused bombardment.

'Listen!' cried Dick.

From somewhere on the banks of the river there was the sound of rifle-fire, and the rat-tat-tat-tat of machine-guns, like the rattle of riveters at work on a steel structure.

Following a tow-path which ran by the river, they appeared to be entering a zone of comparative quiet. Although the sound of rifle-fire grew more clear, the noise of the guns came from behind them, but to the right and the left. For an hour they ran rapidly forward, and it seemed that the tide of battle had swept to the north, leaving this area denuded of troops. They saw neither guns nor infantry, although a renewed burst of machine-gun fire told them they were nearing their unknown destination.

They had not started from their hiding-place until nearly midnight, and as they reached a slight rise of the ground they could see that the darkness was slowly lifting with day's approach.

'See, sir,' said the groom, pointing ahead, 'yonder side o' the river to the right.'

'I can't see anything,'

'Look 'ee, Mas'r Dick. Follow the river. I think that that there gray streak is a bridge.'

It was not until they had gone ahead a considerable distance that Durwent could make out a heavy bridge spanning the river, which ran with a swift current, and was more than two hundred feet in width. A blurring red was tinting the black clouds in the east as they crept along the path, when they heard a sharp challenge.

'Friends,' cried Dick, and halted.

'Stand still until I give you the once over.' An American corporal, who had apparently been running and was out of breath, came up to them, carrying a revolver, and looked closely into their faces.

'What are you doing here?' he asked.

'Stragglers,' answered Durwent, 'separated from our unit.'

'Where in Samhill is the rest of your army?'

'There are no troops back here for ten miles,' answered Dick.

The American took off his helmet and wiped his brow.

'Jumping Jehosophat!' he exclaimed ruefully, 'do I have to marathon ten miles and back? They sure are generous with exercise in the army. Say, you guys—if you're on the level about being stragglers, and want a real honest-to-God showdown scrap, you hike over that bridge. Do you see that big tree over in the bush? Can you make it out? Well, when you get across the river, just line your lamps on that tree, and after half a mile or so you'll come to a sunken road. Report to Major Van Derwater, and tell him you're the only army M'Goorty—that's me—has found so far. And tell him I'll discover the French admiral who is supposed to be bringing up reinforcements, if I have to search this whole one-horse country for him. You'd better get a move on before the light comes up, for, believe me, Lizzie, those Boches can shoot, and if ever they see you coming across that bridge you may as well kiss yourselves good-bye.'

Having delivered himself of this expressive monologue, the corporal replaced the revolver in its holster and took a seaman's hitch in his breeches. Again the machine-guns spat out, the sound seeming to be borne on the wind as the bullets traversed the air.

'Gosh!' said the corporal, 'but I'd give a year's tips to see that scrap out. They had the bulge on us by about three to one, and we had to back up to keep the line straight, but now we're holding them great. Say—we've got a bunch of bowhunks there who could shoot the wart off a snail. Some scrap, believe me. Well, so long.'

He had just started off at a run, when he stopped and turned round. 'If you ever come to New York, look me up at the Belmont. I'm a waiter there, and I can put you wise to a lot of things. Chin, Chin!'

'Cheerio,' answered Dick, as the energetic corporal disappeared.

'I'm gettin' 'ard o' 'earin',' said the old groom. 'Leastways I ain't sure I 'eerd 'im correct. Wot did 'e say?'

'Mathews!'—Dick turned to his servant, and his voice shook with excitement—'there's a battle going on the other side of the river, and we're to report to Major Van Derwater. By heavens, Mathews! I feel half-mad with joy. They didn't get us after all, did they? We sha'n't be shot like curs, at any rate. Think of it, old man—we've won out! They can't stop us now'—— His words stopped suddenly. 'Mathews,' he said, 'you must not come. Stay here, and join the reinforcements when they turn up. You have to consider your wife and little Wellington.'

For answer the groom started along the path towards the bridge, and
Durwent was forced to break into a run before he could head him off.

'Mathews,' he said sternly.

'Mas'r Dick,' replied the groom, snorting violently, 'you shouldn't go for to insult me. Beggin' your pardon and meanin' no disrespeck, this here war is as much mine as yourn. Orders or no orders, I'm agoin' to have a howd'ee with them sausage-eaters, and, as that there free-spoke young gen'l'man observed, the bridge ain't exactly a chancery in the daylight. Come along, sir; argifyin' don't get nowhere.'

Realising that further expostulation was useless, Dick followed the groom to the bridge. As they crossed it he noted that it was strongly built of steel, with supports that would bear the heaviest of weights. Gaining the opposite side, they waited as Dick took his bearings by the tree; and crossing a hard, chalky field, they stole towards the sunken road. They could hear the occasional crack of a rifle, and there was the ping of a bullet passing over their heads as they pressed on through the lightening gloom.

'Halt!'

A voice rang out, and they were questioned as to their identity. On being ordered to advance, they jumped down into a sunken road which constituted an admirable trench, and were at once surrounded by American soldiers.

'I was ordered to report to Major Van Derwater,' said Durwent.

They were asked various questions, and were then escorted a few yards to the right, where an officer was looking over the bank which hid the road.

'British stragglers, sir,' said the sergeant who had taken charge of them.

'What unit are you from?' asked the officer.

His voice was calm and deep, but gave no indication as to how he felt disposed towards the two fugitives. In answer to his question Dick gave the name of his battalion, and Mathews did the same.

'How did you know my name?'

'We met your corporal, sir,' said Durwent.

'Where are your rifles?'

'Lost them, sir.'

'In what engagement were you cut off from your units?'

Dick tried to reply, but not only was he ignorant of the locality through which he had travelled, but his soul burned with resentment at being forced into lying. Mathews said nothing, and seemed quite untroubled. He was prepared to accept his young master's choice of engagements for his own, no matter where or when it might have taken place.

'I don't like this,' said the officer. 'These men are a long way from the British lines, and are either deserters or worse. Guard them closely, and if things get hot, tie their arms together so they will give no trouble.'

'Very good, sir,' answered the sergeant, preparing to lead them away; but Durwent, whose blood, had run cold with dismay at the officer's words, struggled forward.

'Sir,' he cried, 'if you think I'm not to be trusted, give me a dirty job—anything. A bombing-raid, or a patrol—I'll do anything at all, sir, if you'll only give me a chance.'

'Well spoke, Mas'r Dick,' said Mathews proudly. 'Werry well spoke indeed.'

The officer, who had been about to issue a peremptory order, stopped at the sturdy honesty of the groom's voice. 'Send for Captain Selwyn,' he said. 'You will find him at the creek.'

III.

By a creek that trickled across the road, Captain Austin Selwyn was watching the brushwood which concealed the enemy. Beside him, lining the bank, every available man was on the alert, waiting the developments which would follow the raising of night's curtain. In the misty gray of dawn they looked fabulous in size, and indistinct.

The night in January at the University Club in New York had marked a reconciliation between Selwyn and Van Derwater. With the issue between America and Germany so clearly defined, they had both lent their voices to the insistent demand for war. At first people had been incredulous, and hazarded the guess that the young author was endeavouring to cover his own tracks; but when he enlisted in the ranks at the outbreak of hostilities, they made a popular hero of him. They spoke of him as the Spirit of the Cause; but he paid little attention to the clamour. His joy in the prospect of action, and the release from all his mental tortures, had produced in him a kind of frenzy, that crystallised into an intense hatred of Germany.

The pendulum had swung to its extreme. Once a man animated with a passionate humanitarianism, in whom the spirit of universal brotherhood burned with an inextinguishable force, he had become a creature drunk with lust for revenge. Patriotism, Justice, Freedom—they were all catch-words to hide the brutal, primeval instinct to kill.

In the little thought which he permitted himself, Selwyn argued that the ignorance of many nations had made war possible, but only Germany had been vile enough to try to exploit it for the achievement of world-power. For that reason alone she was a thing of detestation.

His enthusiasm and quickly acquired knowledge of army routine marked him for promotion. He was given a commission, and at the request of Van Derwater was attached to the same regiment as himself. Together they had crossed to France, and were among the first American troops in action.

In the months that followed, Selwyn had revelled in the carnage and the excitement of war. He was reckless to the point of bravado, and his keen dramatic instinct drove him into unnecessary escapades where his senses could enjoy a thrill not far removed from insanity. Only when out of the line, when the mockery and the hideousness of the whole thing demanded his mind's solution, would the mood of despondency return. But in the trenches he knew neither pity nor fear. Men fought for the privilege of serving under him, and with their instinct for euphony and love of the bizarre gave him the name of 'Hell-fire.' He gloried in the physical ascendancy of it all—in the dangers—in the discomforts. He was an instrument of revenge, a weapon without feeling.

On the other hand, Van Derwater had undergone no appreciable change. He carried himself with the same dignity and formality as in his days at Washington—except when emergency would scatter the wits of his fellow-officers, and he would suddenly become a dynamic force, vigorous in conception and swift of action. Yet success or failure left him unmoved, once a crisis had passed. His men respected but did not understand him. They wove a legend about his name. They said he had come to France wanting to be killed, but that no bullet could touch him. And even those who scoffed, when they saw him, unruffled and strangely solitary, moving about with almost ironic contempt of danger, wondered if there might not be some truth in the story.

'Major Van Derwater would like to speak to you right away, sir.'

Telling a non-commissioned officer to take his place, Selwyn followed the messenger along the road until they came to the spot which Van Derwater had chosen for his headquarters. Daylight was emerging from its retreat, and there was the promise of a warm day in the glowing east.

'You sent for me, sir?' he said.

'Yes. You might question these two British stragglers. Their story is not straight, but they seem decent enough fellows. If you are not satisfied'——

He was interrupted by an exclamation of astonishment from Selwyn, who had noticed the Englishmen for the first time.

'Great Scott!' gasped Selwyn. 'Dick Durwent!'

Dick looked up, and at the sight of the American's face he uttered a cry of relief. 'Is that really you, Selwyn? What luck! You remember Mathews at Roselawn, don't you? You can say'——

'Good-mornin', sir,' said the unperturbed groom. 'This is a werry pleasant surprise, to be sure. How are you, sir?'

'Van,' said Selwyn, after shaking hands with them both, 'this is Lord Durwent's son, and the other is his groom, Mathews. I will vouch for them absolutely.'

'Good!' Van Derwater slightly inclined his head as an indication that he was satisfied. 'We need every man. You had better take them in your section and equip them with rifles from casualties.'

IV.

A few minutes later, after he had procured food for the two men, who were growing faint with hunger, Selwyn resumed his post. The heavy grass fringing the bank made it possible to keep watch without being directly exposed as a target; but beyond a desultory rifle-fire about a mile on their right, there was no indication of enemy activity.

When Durwent had been equipped with a steel helmet and a rifle, Selwyn called him over to his side, and as concisely as possible explained the military situation. In the German attack against the French forces (with which the Americans were brigaded) the line had been swept back. Deep salients had been driven in on both their flanks, but orders had been received to hold the bridge at all costs, as, if a counter-attack could be launched, it would be an enfilading one made by troops brought across the river. Relying on their machine-gun and rifle fire to overcome the Americans' resistance, the enemy's artillery had been drawn into the deepening salients; but in spite of all-day fighting the straggling line had held.

After a few questions from Durwent they relapsed into silence, gazing at the undulating expanse of country revealed by the ascending sun.

'Selwyn.' Dick cleared his throat nervously. 'I must tell you the truth. You were decent enough to stand sponsor for Mathews and me, and I want you to know everything. The major was right. We're not stragglers—we're deserters.'

Selwyn made no comment, and both men stared fixedly through the long grass that drooped with heavy dew.

'Yesterday morning,' said Durwent dully, 'I was to have been shot. I was drunk in the line, and deserved it. It's no use trying to excuse myself. I fancy my nerves were a bit gone after what we'd been through the last few months, but—— Well, I suppose I am simply a failure, as that chap said in London—there isn't much more to it than that. By a queer deal of the cards, Mathews was on guard, and helped me to escape. It was rotten of me to let him take the chance; but it's been that way all through. Even at the end of everything—after being a waster and a rotter since I was a kid—I have to drag this poor chap down with me. Promise, Selwyn, if you come out of this alive, that you'll fight his case for him.'

Selwyn murmured assent, but he was trying to shake off a haunting feeling that was enveloping him like a mist—a feeling that everything the young Englishman was saying he had heard before. It left him dazed, and made Durwent's voice sound far away. He tried to dismiss it as an illogical prank of the mind, but the thing was relentless. He could not rid himself of the thought that sometime in the past—months, years, perhaps centuries ago—this pitiful scene had been enacted before.

It chilled his soul with its presage of disaster. He saw the hand of destiny, and everything in him rebelled against the inexorable cruelty of it all. It was infamous that any life should be dominated by a whim of the Fates; that any creature should enter this world with a silken cord about his throat. Destiny. Does it mould our lives; or do our lives, inundated with the forces of heredity, mould our destinies? He tried to grapple with the thought; but through the pain and confusion of his mind he could only feel the presence of unseen fingers spelling out the words written in a hidden past.

'I wonder,' said Durwent, after a pause of several minutes, during which neither had spoken, 'what happens when this is finished.'

'Do you mean—after death?' said Selwyn, forcing his mind clear of its clouds.

Durwent nodded and leaned wearily with his arms on the bank. 'I tried to think it out the night before I was to be shot,' he said. 'I can't just say what I did think—but I know there's something after this world. Selwyn, is there a God? I wonder if there will be another chance for the men who have made a mess of things here.'

The American turned towards the young fellow, whose pale face looked singularly boyish, and had a wistfulness that touched him to his very heart. Durwent was gazing over the grass into the distance, oblivious of everything about him, and in the blue of his eyes, which borrowed lustre from the morning, there was the mysticism of one who is searching for the land which lies beyond this life's horizon.

'I wonder,' repeated Durwent dreamily.

Selwyn tried to frame words for a reply, but skilled as he was in the interpretation of thought, he was dumb in confession of his faith. He longed to speak the things which might have brought comfort to the lad's harassed soul, but everything which came to him, echoing from his former years, was so inadequate, so tinctured with smug complacency. Was there a God?

The question left him mute.

'There are times,' went on Durwent, almost to himself, 'when my head is full of strange fancies—when I'm listening to music—or at dawn like this. While I was under arrest, a little French girl who had heard I was to die brought some flowers she had picked for me. When I think of that girl, and her flowers, and Elise, and the faithfulness of old Mathews, I do believe there is some kind of a God. . . . Selwyn'—unconsciously his hands stretched forward supplicatingly—'surely these things can't die? . . . There's been so much that's ugly and lonely in my life. . . . Don't you believe that we fellows who have failed will be able to have a little of the things we've missed down here?'

'Dick,' said Selwyn hoarsely, 'I believe'——

The words faltered on his lips, and in silence the two men stood together in the presence of the day's birth. There was a strange calm in the air. The dew on the grass caught a faint sparkle from a ray of sunlight that penetrated the eastern skies.

V.

'The Boches, sir! They're coming!'

The sergeant's warning rang out, and in an instant the air was shattered with battle. Protected by the fire from a nest of machine-guns, the Germans launched a converging attack towards the bridge. Waiting until the advancing troops were too close to permit the aid of their own machine-gun fire, the Americans poured a deadly hail of bullets into their ranks. The attack broke, but fresh troops were thrown in, and the line was penetrated at several points.

Van Derwater rallied his men, directed the defence, and time after time organised or led counter-attacks which restored their position. His voice rose sonorously above everything. Hearing it, and seeing his powerful figure oblivious to the bullets which stung the air all about him, his men yelled that they could never be beaten so long as he led them.

Half-mad with excitement, Selwyn repelled the attacks on his sector, though his casualties were heavy and ammunition was running low. Durwent's mood of reverie had passed, and he fought with limitless energy. Once, when the Huns had penetrated the road, one of their officers levelled a revolver on him, but discharged the bullet into the ground as the butt of Mathews's rifle was brought smashing on his wrist. The old groom followed his master with eyes that saw only the danger hanging over him. For his own safety he gave no care, but wherever Dick stepped or turned, the groom was by his side, with his large, rough face set in a look that was like that of a mastiff protecting its young.

As waves breaking against a rock, the Huns retreated, rallied, and attacked again and again, and each time the resistance was less formidable as the heroic little band grew smaller and the ugly story passed that ammunition was giving out.

They had just thrown back an assault, and Van Derwater had sent for his section commanders to advise an attack on the enemy in preference to waiting to be wiped out with no chance of successful resistance, when he heard a shout, and bullets spat over their heads. Turning swiftly about, they saw a tank lurching across the bridge. Amidst wild shouting from the Americans, the clumsy landship stumbled towards them, with bullets glancing harmlessly off its metal carcass. Lumbering on to the road, the tank stopped astride it.

In almost complete forgetfulness of the impending enemy attack, the jubilant Americans crowded about the machine and cheered its occupants to the echo, as a small door was opened and two French faces could be seen. In a few words Van Derwater explained the situation, receiving the discouraging information that no troops were anywhere near the vicinity. The tank had been discovered by the ex-Belmont waiter and sent on to the bridge.

'Pass word along,' said Van Derwater crisply, 'to prepare for an attack. The tank will go first, and when it is astride their machine-gun position we will go forward and drive them out of the brushwood into the open.—Messieurs, the machine-guns are gathered there—straight across, about forty yards from the great tree.'

The Frenchmen tried to locate the spot indicated, but were obviously puzzled and too excited to listen attentively. Van Derwater was about to repeat his instructions, when Dick Durwent shouldered his way into the group. Men's voices were hushed at the sight of his blazing eyes.

In a bound he was on the bank, and stood exposed to the enemy's fire. With something that was like a laugh and yet had an unearthly quality about it, he threw his helmet off and stood bareheaded in the golden sunlight. 'En avant, messieurs!' he cried. 'Suivez-moi!'

There was a grinding of the gears and a roar of machinery as the tank reared its head and lunged after him.

'Stop that man, Selwyn!'

Van Derwater's voice rang out just in time. The old groom had scrambled to the bank to follow his master, but four hands grasped him and pulled him back. With a moan he clung to the bank, following Dick with his eyes. And his face was the colour of ashes.

With their voices almost rising to a scream, the chafing Americans watched the Englishman walk towards the enemy lines. Bullets bit the ground near his feet, but, untouched, he went on, with the metal monster following behind. Once he fell, and a hush came over the watchers; but he rose and limped on. His face pale and grim, Van Derwater moved among his men, urging them to wait; but they cursed and yelled at the delay.

Again Dick fell, and with difficulty stumbled to his feet. For a moment he swayed as if a heavy gale were blowing against him, and as his face turned towards his comrades they could see his lips parted in a strange smile. Raising his arm like one who is invoking vengeance, he staggered on, and by some miracle reached the very edge of the enemy's position. There he collapsed, but rising once more, pointed ahead, and lurched forward on his face.

With a roar the American torrent burst its bounds and swept towards the enemy. Selwyn leaped in advance of his men, his voice uttering a long, pulsating cry, like a bloodhound that has found its trail.

He did not see, over towards the centre, that Van Derwater had stopped half-way and had fallen to his knees, both hands covering his eyes.