Leaving instructions that the men should keep well under cover to avoid casualties in our absence, we set out. Treading gingerly up the trench mined with booby-traps, we came to a turning which led off to the right. Here things were comparatively quiet, all the firing passing well above our heads. We followed the turning for about two hundred yards, and then peered stealthily over the top. Not fifty yards away was the railroad, with the freight-cars either standing on the tracks or thrown over on their sides to form, a barrier. Poking out from loopholes, which had been cut in the woodwork, were the muzzles of rifles. We had seen all that was necessary; we knew that we must take, a gambler’s chance. I arranged with the Company Commander that he should lead his men still further forward to this trench so that they might be clear of our shellfire, and that he should see to the warning of our infantry who were in Fransart, while I ran the orders back to the guns and saw to it that reinforcements were sent up the moment our bombardment ended.
The return journey to the signalling-station where the apple-trees crossed the road, was as hot a piece of work as I remember. Suzette took it as coolly as if it were no more than a country-walk. We had to pass through both our own barrage and the enemy’s. Of the two ours was the worse. In Fransart itself the trench had been made more shallow by direct hits with shells. As we wriggled our way on hands and knees over dibris, we could see the Hun machine-gunner? blazing away from the attics of houses and our own men crawling through the undergrowth to rush the entrances with bombs. I remember discussing with my conscience the decency of permitting Suzette to run such risks. But I had no choice, for if I were killed, she might survive to get the messages back; in any case, when she learnt about Bully Beef, she would receive her death-warrant.
We found our signaller where we had left him and at once got him to work flag-wagging the information to the rear. The enemy spotted him after the first few minutes; but with a reckless disregard for his own safety, he carried on amid a hail of bullets till the task was ended. A quarter of an hour later, like a hurricane let loose, the levelling of Fransart commenced. The wood rocked as in a gale. Roofs were stripped from the houses; the walk shuddered and knelt slowly down like camels. This concentrated commotion was intensified for us by the contrast of the breathless stillness of the surrounding country. For myself I was picturing the wild scramble for life of the Huns whom we had seen firing from the windows of the attics. They were brave men, who had purposed to sell their lives dearly. To kill them without giving them a chance, in a way which they had not anticipated, was fair; but its fairness did not make it less appallingly dramatic.
I was roused from these thoughts by a trembling at my side; it came from Suzette. She was kneeling with her face cushioned in her hands and was weeping violently. I bent over her, asking what was the matter. “Eet was my ‘ome,” she said.
Suddenly she leapt to her feet and stood tiptoe, staring. I followed her gaze. Out of the wood where trees were crashing and the ground was billowing itself into mounds, two men were advancing. They walked gropingly and the arm of the taller was flung about the other’s neck. The taller man was wounded and in khaki; his companion was a plump little Bavarian—evidently one of the machine-gunners who had been firing in our backs. Every now and then we lost them as a shell burst in their path; but always they emerged through the smoke of the bombardment, dragging themselves by inches nearer to the comparative safety that was ours. Without a word of warning, Suzette burst from me and commenced to race towards them. It was sheer foolishness to venture into that inferno where every second seemed to be a man’s last. I started after her, intending if need be to hold her back by force.
As I drew nearer, I saw what her sharp eyes had discerned already, that the wounded man carried a child against hip breast; then I recognized who he was. At that moment he pitched forward, pulling the Bavarian with him to the ground. When the enemy had tottered slowly to his feet, he rose alone and had transferred the child to his own arms. But Suzette had reached him now; she snatched the child to her body. Like a drama played out, the last shell fell and the bombardment was ended.
I glanced behind me. Like a winding stream, following the serpentine wanderings of the trench, I saw the gleaming bayonets of our reinforcements shining above the tangled grass. Five minutes later when I re-entered the ravished wood, guiding up the supports to a new attack, I passed Suzette. She had forgotten that she was dressed in khaki. She sat among the dibris of splintered trees mothering Bully Beef, who was quite unhurt, while the plump little Bavarian smiled down on her in mild astonishment. At full length lay Dan, his old soldier’s face composed and kindly—his last fight ended. He had had his desire, as so often expressed in his favourite song: his duty accomplished, he had simply “faded.”