“Are we going out for training?”
“Do you think, sir, that it’s the Big Push at last?” I cannot see their faces, but I recognise them by their voices. They are drawn from every class of society. Some of them were college boys, some were mechanics, some day-laborers, some adventurers, some came out of gaol to join. Now only one quality lifts one man above another—his courage. Their questions are asked from all kinds of motives—friendliness, curiosity, nervousness. I am conscious of an atmosphere of tension throughout the battery. It seems a shame that, they should be told nothing. In no other game in the world would you march men to their death, without so much as warning them that it was to their death that they were going. From one of my questioners—a man who was wounded eight months ago and has just re joined us—I pick up a significant piece of information.
“I can see you’re not telling, sir, but I know. It’s to the Big Push that we’re going. And here’s why I know—when we left England, they were emptying every camp—sending drafts to France secretly every night. When I got to our Corps Reinforcement Camp, not thirty kilometres from here, I found the place so jammed that you could hardly find a space to spread your blanket. With the men they have there, the Corps must be fifty per cent over-strength. That means just one thing, sir——that we’re getting ready for fifty per cent casualties.”
“Perhaps,” I answer him, “but, if I were you, I wouldn’t talk about it.”
I reach the centre section, which Tubby Grain is commanding. Tubby is a plump little officer and rides a wicked little Indian pony as well-fleshed as himself.
“The Major’s compliments, and he wants you to look over your section and report on it,” I tell him.
His reply is, as usual, insubordinate and cheery. “Holy, jumping cat-fish! What does the Major think I am? Don’t I always look over my section when there’s a halt?” And then confidentially, “I say, old top, what about Bully Beef and Suzette?”
I tell him that I’m on my way to find out. As I ride away he shouts after me the latest catchword from Blighty, “How’s your father?” To which, if you are in the know, the proper reply is, “Very well, thanks. He still has his baggy pants on.” I’m in too much of a hurry to give the correct countersign, so Tubby facetiously sends a mounted bombadier after me, who catches me up while I’m speaking to Gus Ed wine, the commander of the left and rear section. The bombadier salutes without a smile and sits to attention, waiting for me to take notice of him in the darkness.
“Well, what is it, Bombadier?”
“Mr. Grain’s compliments, sir, and if you meet his father, would you tell him that he really ought to have his baggy pants on these cold nights.”