I
"I wonder if they really mean business this time," surmised that youthful Company Commander, Temporary Captain Bobby Little, to Major Wagstaffe.
"It sounds like it," said Wagstaffe, as another salvo of "whizz-bangs" broke like inflammatory surf upon the front-line trenches. "Intermittent strafes we are used to, but this all-day performance seems to indicate that the Boche is really getting down to it for once. The whole proceeding reminds me of nothing so much as our own 'artillery preparation' before the big push at Loos."
"Then you think the Boches are going to make a push of their own?"
"I do; and I hope it will be a good fat one. When it comes, I fancy we shall be able to put up something rather pretty in the way of a defence. The Salient is stiff with guns—I don't think the Boche quite realises how stiff! And we owe the swine something!" he added through his teeth.
There was a pause in the conversation. You cannot hold the Salient for three months without paying for the distinction; and the regiment had paid its full share. Not so much in numbers, perhaps, as in quality. Stray bullets, whistling up and down the trenches, coming even obliquely from the rear, had exacted most grievous toll. Shells and trench-mortar bombs, taking us in flank, had extinguished many valuable lives. At this time nothing but the best seemed to satisfy the Fates. One day it would be a trusted colour-sergeant, on another a couple of particularly promising young corporals. Only last week the Adjutant—athlete, scholar, born soldier, and very lovable schoolboy, all most perfectly blended—had fallen mortally wounded, on his morning round of the fire-trenches, by a bullet which came from nowhere. He was the subject of Wagstaffe's reference.
"Is it not possible," suggested Mr. Waddell, who habitually considered all questions from every possible point of view, "that this bombardment has been specially initiated by the German authorities, in order to impress upon their own troops a warning that there must be no Christmas truce this year?"
"If that is the Kaiser's Christmas greeting to his loving followers," observed Wagstaffe drily, "I think he might safely have left it to us to deliver it!"
"They say," interposed Bobby Little, "that the Kaiser is here himself."
"How do you know?"
"It was rumoured in 'Comic Cuts.'" ("Comic Cuts" is the stately
Summary of War Intelligence issued daily from Olympus.)
"If that is true," said Wagstaffe, "they probably will attack. All this fuss and bobbery suggest something of the kind. They remind me of the commotion which used to precede Arthur Roberts's entrance in the old days of Gaiety burlesque. Before your time, I fancy, Bobby?"
"Yes," said Bobby modestly. "I first found touch with the Gaiety over 'Our Miss Gibbs.' And I was quite a kid even then," he added, with characteristic honesty. "But what about Arthur Roberts?"
"Some forty or fifty years ago," explained Wagstaffe, "when I was in the habit of frequenting places of amusement, Arthur Roberts was leading man at the establishment to which I have referred. He usually came on about half-past eight, just as the show was beginning to lose its first wind. His entrance was a most tremendous affair. First of all the entire chorus blew in from the wings—about sixty of them in ten seconds—saying "Hurrah, hurrah, girls!" or something rather subtle of that kind; after which minor characters rushed on from opposite sides and told one another that Arthur Roberts was coming. Then the band played, and everybody began to tell the audience about it in song. When everything was in full blast, the great man would appear—stepping out of a bathing-machine, or falling out of a hansom-cab, or sliding down a chute on a toboggan. He was assisted to his feet by the chorus, and then proceeded to ginger the show up. Well, that's how this present entertainment impresses me. All this noise and obstreperousness are leading up to one thing—Kaiser Bill's entrance. Preliminary bombardment—that's the chorus getting to work! Minor characters—the trench-mortars—spread the glad news! Band and chorus—that's the grand attack working up to boiling-point! Finally, preceded by clouds of gas, the Arch-Comedian in person, supported by spectacled coryphées in brass hats! How's that for a Christmas pantomime?"
"Rotten!" said Bobby, as a shell sang over the parapet and burst in the wood behind.