“Goostave niver knowed what hit him,” said McDermott. And if there had been any one to hear, in all that din, a note of regret that Gustave never knew might have been remarked in his voice.
McDermott turned his attention to the machine gun, which, with its tripod, had been knocked to the floor. He squatted, with his head below the level of the window sill, and looked it over.
“'Tis not broken,” he decided, after some moments of examination. “Did Goostave do it so? Or did he do it so?” He removed his helmet and rubbed the scar under his red hair reflectively. “If I was to make up me mind to jine that war,” mused McDermott, “this same w'u'd be a handy thing to take wid me. It w'u'd that! Now, did that Goostave that used to be here pull this pretty little thingumajig so? Or did he pull it so? Ihaveut! He pulled it so! And thim ca'tridges, now—do they feed in so? Or do they feed in so? 'T w'u'd be a handy thing, now, f'r a man that had anny intintions av jinin' the war to know about all thim things!”
And, patiently, McDermott studied the mechanism, while the red sunlight turned to yellow in the Grande Place outside, and the budding green vines withered along the broken walls, and the stones ran blood, and the Hôtel Fauçon began to fall to pieces about his ears. McDermott did not hurry; he felt that there was no need to hurry; he had not yet made up his mind whether he intended to participate in this war. By the time he had learned how to work that machine gun, and had used it on the Germans for a while, he thought, he might be vouchsafed some light on that particular subject. It was one of McDermott's fixed beliefs that he was an extremely cautious sort of man, though many of his acquaintances thought of him differently, and he told himself that he must not get too far into this war until he was sure that it was going to be congenial. So far, it promised well.
And also, McDermott, as he puzzled over the machine gun, was not quite the normal McDermott. He was, rather, a supernormal McDermott. He had been awakened rudely from an alcoholic slumber and he had been rather busy ever since; so many things had taken place in his immediate neighborhood, and were still taking place, that he was not quite sure of their reality. As he sat on the floor and studied the weapon, he was actually, from moment to moment, more than half convinced that he was dreaming—he might awaken and find that that war had eluded him again. Perhaps he is scarcely to be chided for being in what is sometimes known as a state of mind.
And while McDermott was looking at the machine gun, the British commander prayed, as a greater British commander before him had prayed one time, for assistance, only this one did not pray for night or Blucher as Wellington had done. Night was many hours beyond all hope and would probably bring its own hell when it came, and as for Prussians, there were too many Prussians now. His men would hold on; they had been holding on for epic days and unbelievable nights, and they would still hold while there was breath in their bodies, and when their bodies were breathless they would hold one minute more. But—God! For Foch's poilus! There is a moment which is the ultimate moment; the spirit can drag the body until—until spirit and body are wrenched into two things. No longer. His men could die in their tracks; they were dying where they stood and crouched and lay, by dozens and by scores and by heroic hundreds—but when they were dead, who would bar the way to Hazebrouck, and beyond Hazebrouck, to the channel ports?
That way was all but open now, if the enemy but realized it. Any moment they might discover it. A half-mile to the south of the village the line was so thinly held that one strong, quick thrust must make a gap. Let the enemy but fling a third of the troops he was pounding to pieces in the bloody streets of the town, in the torn fields that flanked it, and in the shambles of the Grande Place that was the center of this action, at that weak spot, and all was over. But with a fury mechanical, insensate, the Germans still came on in direct frontal attacks.
The British had slain and slain and slain, firing into the gray masses until the water boiled in the jackets of the machine guns. Five attacks had broken down in the Grande Place itself—and now a sixth was forming. Should he still hold fast, the colonel asked himself, or should he retire, saving what machine guns he might, and flinging a desperate detachment southward in the attempt to make a stronger right flank? But to do that might be the very move that would awaken the Germans to their opportunity there. So long as they pounded, pounded at his center, he would take a toll of them, at least—but the moment was coming—
“I have ut!” cried McDermott, and mounted his gun at the window.
“It is time to retire,” said the British colonel, and was about to give the order.