IV
But the task was hopeless. Number Nine Platoon had been bombing, hacking, and digging all day. Several of them were slightly wounded—the serious cases had been taken off long ago by the stretcher-bearers—and Cockerell's own head was still dizzy from the fumes of a German gas-shell.
He lined up his disreputable paladins in the darkness, and spoke—
"Sergeant M'Nab, how many men are present?"
"Eighteen, sirr." The platoon had gone into action thirty-four strong.
"How many men are deficient of an emergency ration? I can make a good guess, but you had better find out."
Five minutes later the Sergeant reported. Cockerell's guess was correct. The British private has only one point of view about the portable property of the State. To him, as an individual, the sacred emergency ration is an unnecessary encumbrance, and the carrying thereof a "fatigue." Consequently, when engaged in battle, one of the first (of many) things which he jettisons is this very ration. When all is over, he reports with unctuous solemnity that the provender in question has been blown out of his haversack by a shell. The Quartermaster-Sergeant writes it off as "lost owing to the exigencies of military service," and indents for another.
Lieutenant Cockerell's haversack contained a packet of meat-lozenges and about half a pound of chocolate. These were presented to the Sergeant.
"Hand these round as far as they will go, Sergeant," said Cockerell. "They'll make a mouthful a man, anyhow. Tell the platoon to lie down for ten minutes; then we'll push off. It's only fifteen miles. We ought to make it by breakfast-time …"
Slowly, mechanically, all through the winter night the victors hobbled along. Cockerell led the way, carrying the rifle of a man with a wounded arm. Occasionally he checked his bearings with map and electric torch. Sergeant M'Nab, who, under a hirsute and attenuated exterior, concealed a constitution of ferro-concrete and the heart of a lion, brought up the rear, uttering fallacious assurances to the faint-hearted as to the shortness of the distance now to be covered, and carrying two rifles.
The customary halts were observed. At ten minutes to four the men flung themselves down for the third time. They had covered about seven miles, and were still eight or nine from St. Grégoire. The everlasting constellation of Verey lights still rose and fell upon the eastern horizon behind them, but the guns were silent.
"There might be a Heavy Battery dug in somewhere about here," mused
Cockerell. "I wonder if we could touch them for a few tins of bully.
Hallo, what's that?"
A distant rumble came from the north, and out of the darkness loomed a British motor-lorry, lurching and swaying along the rough cobbles of the pavé. Some of Cockerell's men were lying dead asleep in the middle of the road, right at the junction. The lorry was going twenty miles an hour.
"Get into the side of the road, you men!" shouted Cockerell, "or they'll run over you. You know what these M.T. drivers are!"
With indignant haste, and at the last possible moment, the kilted figures scattered to either side of the narrow causeway. The usual stereotyped and vitriolic remonstrances were hurled after the great hooded vehicle as it lurched past.
And then a most unusual thing happened. The lorry slowed down, and finally stopped, a hundred yards away. An officer descended, and began to walk back. Cockerell rose to his weary feet and walked to meet him.
The officer wore a major's crown upon the shoulder-straps of his sheepskin-lined "British Warm" and the badge of the Army Service Corps upon his cap. Cockerell, indignant at the manner in which his platoon had been hustled off the road, saluted stiffly, and muttered: "Good-morning, sir!"
"Good-morning!" said the Major. He was a stout man of nearly fifty, with twinkling blue eyes and a short-clipped mustache. Cockerell judged him to be one of the few remnants of the original British Army.
"I stopped," explained the older man, "to apologise for the scandalous way that fellow drove over you. It was perfectly damnable; but you know what these converted taxi-drivers are! This swine forgot for the moment that he had an officer on board, and hogged it as usual. He goes under arrest as soon as we get back to billets."
"Thank you very much, sir," said Master Cockerell, entirely thawed. "I'm afraid my chaps were lying all over the road; but they are pretty well down and out at present."
"Where have you come from?" inquired the Major, turning a curious eye upon Cockerell's prostrate followers.
Cockerell explained When he had finished, he added wistfully—
"I suppose you have not got an odd tin or two of bully to give away, sir? My fellows are about—"
For answer, the Major took the Lieutenant by the arm and led him towards the lorry.
"You have come," he announced, "to the very man you want. I am practically Mr. Harrod. In fact, I am a Corps Supply Officer. How would a Maconochie apiece suit your boys?"
Cockerell, repressing the ecstatic phrases which crowded to his tongue, replied that that was just what the doctor had ordered.
"Where are you bound for?" continued the Major.
"St. Grégoire."
"Of course. You were pulled out from there, weren't you? I am going to St. Grégoire myself as soon as I have finished my round. Home to bed, in fact. I haven't had any sleep worth writing home about for four nights. It is no joke tearing about a country full of shell-holes, hunting for people who have shifted their ration-dump seven times in four days. However, I suppose things will settle down again, now that you fellows have fired Brother Boche out of the Kidney Bean. Pretty fine work, too! Tell me, what is your strength, here and now?"
"One officer," said Cockerell soberly, "and eighteen other ranks."
"All that's left of your platoon?"
Cockerell nodded. The stout Major began to beat upon the tailboard of the lorry with his stick.
"Sergeant Smurthwaite!" he shouted.
There came a muffled grunt from the recesses of the lorry. Then a round and ruddy face rose like a harvest moon above the tailboard, and a stertorous voice replied respectfully—
"Sir?"
"Let down this tailboard; load this officer's platoon into the lorry; issue them with a Maconochie and a tot of rum apiece; and don't forget to put Smee under arrest for dangerous driving when we get back to billets."
"Very good, sir."
Ten minutes later the survivors of Number Nine Platoon, soaked to the skin, dazed, slightly incredulous, but at peace with all the world, reclined close-packed upon the floor of the swaying lorry. Each man held an open tin of Mr. Maconochie's admirable ration between his knees. Perfect silence reigned: a pleasant aroma of rum mellowed the already vitiated atmosphere.
In front, beside the chastened Mr. Smee, sat the Major and Master Cockerell. The latter had just partaken of his share of refreshment, and was now endeavouring, with lifeless fingers, to light a cigarette.
The Major scrutinised his guest intently. Then he stripped off his
British Warm coat—incidentally revealing the fact that he wore
upon his tunic the ribbons of both South African Medals and the
Distinguished Service Order—and threw it round Cockerell's shoulders.
"I'm sorry, boy!" he said. "I never noticed. You are chilled to the bone. Button this round you."
Cockerell made a feeble protest, but was cut short.
"Nonsense! There's no sense in taking risks after you've done your job."
Cockerell assented, a little sleepily. His allowance of rum was bringing its usual vulgar but comforting influence to bear upon an exhausted system.
"I see you have been wounded, sir," he observed, noting with a little surprise two gold stripes upon his host's left sleeve—the sleeve of a "non-combatant."
"Yes," said the Major. "I got the first one at Le Gateau. He was only a little fellow; but the second, which arrived at the Second Show at Ypres, gave me such a stiff leg that I am only an old crock now. I was second-in-command of an Infantry Battalion in those days. In these, I am only a peripatetic Lipton. However, I am lucky to be here at all: I've had twenty-seven years' service. How old are you?"
"Twenty," replied Cockerell. He was too tired to feel as ashamed as he usually did at having to confess to the tenderness of his years.
The Major nodded thoughtfully.
"Yes," he said; "I judged that would be about the figure. My son would have been twenty this month, only—he was at Neuve Chapelle. He was very like you in appearance—very. His mother would have been interested to meet you. You might as well take a nap for half an hour. I have two more calls to make, and we shan't get home till nearly seven. Lean on me, old man. I'll see you don't tumble overboard …"
So Lieutenant Cockerell, conqueror of the Kidney Bean, fell asleep, his head resting, with scandalous disregard for military etiquette, upon the shoulder of the stout Major.