Leaves from a Field Note-Book

by J. H. Morgan

II

When John Stokes found himself once more in charge of a platoon he was greatly puzzled. He had been suddenly given back his arms and his belt, which no prisoner, whether in close or open arrest, is supposed to wear, and his guard had gone with him. He knew nothing about Paragraph 482 of the King's Regulations, which contemplates "emergencies"; still less did he know that an emergency had arisen—such an emergency as will cast lustre upon British arms to the end of time. But that strange things were happening ahead he knew full well, for his new unit was as oddly made up as Falstaff's army: gunners, cooks, and A.S.C. drivers were all lumped together to make a company. Some carried their rifles at the slope and some at the trail, some had bayonets and some had not, certain details from the Rifle Brigade marched with their own quick trot, and some wore spurs.

Of one thing he was thankful: his old battalion, wherever they were, were not there. And the company commander coming along and perceiving the stripes on his sleeve, had, without further inquiry, put him in charge of a platoon, and thereafter he lost sight of his guard altogether.

He knew nothing of where he was. Few soldiers at the Front ever do: they will be billeted in a village for a week and not know so much as the name of it. But that big business was afoot was evident to him, for they were marching in column of route almost at the double, under a faint moon and in absolute silence—the word having gone forth that there was to be no smoking or talking in the ranks.

Not a sound was to be heard, except the whisper of the poplars and the tramp of the men's feet upon the pavé. The road was so greasy with mud that it might have been beeswaxed, and Stokes's boots, the nails of which had been worn down, kept slipping as on a parquet floor. As they passed through the mean little villages not a light was to be seen; even the estaminets were shut, but now and again a dog barked mournfully at its chain. Once a whispered command was given at the head of the column, which halted so suddenly that the men behind almost fell upon the men in front, and then backed hastily; and these movements were automatically communicated all down the column, so that the sections of fours lurched like the trucks of a train which is suddenly pulled up. At that moment something flashed at the head of the column, and Stokes suddenly caught a glimpse of the faces of the captain and the subaltern in an aureole of light lit by the needle-like rays of an electric torch as they studied a map and compass.

But in no long time their ears told them they were nearing their destination, even as a traveller learns that he is nearing the sea. For they heard the crackle of musketry following upon the altercation of guns. All this passed as in a dream, and it seemed little more than a few minutes before Sergeant Stokes, having passed through a curtain of shrapnel, had his platoon extended in some shallow support trenches to which the remnants of the regiment whom they were called upon to stiffen had fallen back. It was a critical moment: our first trenches were in the hands of the enemy, and the whole line was sagging under the impact of the German hordes. Somehow that trench had to be recaptured—to be recaptured before the Germans had converted the parados into an invulnerable parapet and had constructed a nest of machine-guns to sweep with a crossfire the right and left flanks, where our line curved in like a gigantic horse-shoe. Of all this Sergeant Stokes knew as little as is usually given to one platoon to know on a front of eight miles.

As dawn broke and the stars paled, the word came down the line, and, in a series of short rushes, stooping somewhat in the attitude of a man who is climbing a very steep hill, they moved forward in extended order about eight or ten paces apart carrying their rifles with bayonets fixed. A hail-storm of lead greeted them, and all around him Sergeant Stokes saw men falling, and as they fell lying in strange attitudes and uncouth—some stumbling (he had seen a hare shot in the back dragging its legs in just that way), others lying on their faces and clutching the earth convulsively as they drummed with their feet, and some very still. Overhead there was a sobbing and whimpering in the air. A little ahead to the left of him a machine-gun was tap-tapping like a telegraph instrument, and as it traversed the field of their advance the men went down in swathes.

If only he could get to that gun! On the right a low hedge ran at right angles to the German trench, and making for it he took such little cover as it afforded, and ran forward as he had never run before, not even on that night of baneful memory. His heart was thumping violently, there was a prodigious "stitch" in his side; and something warm was trickling down his forehead into his eyes and half blinding him, while in his ears the bullets buzzed like a swarm of infuriated bees. The next moment he was up against a little knot of grey-coated figures with toy-like helmets, he heard a word that sounded like "Himmel," and he had emptied his magazine and was savagely pointing with his bayonet, withdrawing, parrying, using the butt, his knees, his feet. He suddenly felt very faint....

That is all that John Stokes remembers of the first battle of Ypres. For the next thing he knew was that a voice coming from an immense distance—just as he had once heard the voice of the dentist when he was coming to after a spell of gas—was saying something to him as he seemed to be rising, rising, rising ever more rapidly out of unfathomable depths, and then out of a mist of darkness a window, first opaque and then translucent, framed itself before his eyes, and he was staring at the sun. The voice, which was low and sweet—an excellent thing in woman—was saying, "Take this, sonny," and the air around him was impregnated with a faint odour of iodoform. Then he knew—he was in hospital.