“Some picnic, all right,” I said. The Major laughed at me out of the corner of his eyes. “It’s the real thing—open warfare, what we always wanted. See here, Chris, I’ve collected some of these infantry chaps; their officers have been nearly all wiped out. I’m going to lead them forward to clean up some of those enemy machine-gun nests. They’ve got to be cleaned up, because, they’re cutting us off from our troops who are in Fouquescourt. God knows what’s happening up there. Someone’s got to fight his way through and find out. I want you to stop here and watch for any messages I send back.”
His eye caught Fury. “I can’t leave him like that.”
At the risk of his life he dodged across the open space to where his old companion sat swaying his head forlornly. I saw him pat the velvet neck and then fumble for his revolver. He looked at the revolver and then at the horse. He came back to me slowly, “I can’t. You do it when I’m gone.”
Along the edge of the wheat the infantry were lying waiting for him; they were the stragglers and survivors of the first two attacks. As he reached them he fell on his hands and knees and crawled away, while they followed him at intervals through the golden stalks.
Had the Huns seen him at that moment, they would not have considered him an object of terror, under-sized and wizened as he was. But it was Charlie Wraith, despite his physical deficiencies, who put heart into defeated men that day and by his magnificent contempt for death forced a way into Fouquescourt to the support of troops which had become isolated. How many enemy strongholds he bombed out he alone knows, and he refuses to tell. The men whom he led cannot tell, for most of them are dead. He had always yearned to kill Germans face to face, so he must have had a time entirely satisfactory and satisfying. It wasn’t his job as an artilleryman; but, as he said in excusing himself afterwards, it was a dirty job and with most of the infantry officers gone west, there was no one else to do it.
He got severely strafed on his return for having left his battery, which he ought to have been commanding. Then news began to come in of what he had actually accomplished and how it was he who had flashed back the reports which had enabled the front to be consolidated. He’s been recommended for the V. C. and it looks as though he would get it. So he’s attained the desire nearest to his heart; he’s healed his wounded pride and will be able to prove to the girl who flung him down that her knowledge of human arithmetic was faulty.
VIII
WE are still in the neighbourhood of Death Corner. It looks as though the attack has been pressed as far as it can go at this point. The whole of Fouquescourt is now in our hands, but beyond that lies Fransart and the railroad, which the enemy is holding heavily. To the south of us the French are trying to turn the enemy’s flank of Noyon, but apparently with little success, for the resistance in front of us grows stiffer rather than less. The Hun is a long way from being beaten yet. Whatever may be the morale of his rank and file, his storm-troops never fought better. For two days after we had surrounded Fouquescourt there were machine-gunners who still refused to surrender and kept up a running scrap from house to house, causing us many casualties and much annoyance.