It never did. As I say, he would answer no questions, and even amongst the few people who had heard of the thing at all, it soon passed into the limbo of forgotten things. Other and weightier matters were afoot; the second battle of Ypres did not leave much time for vague conjecture. And so when, a few days ago, the question was once again recalled to my mind by no less a person than O'Rourke himself, I had to dig in the archives of memory for the remembrance of an incident of which I had well-nigh lost sight.
"You remember that gun, Bill," he remarked, lying back in the arm-chair of the farmhouse where we were billeted, and sipping some hot rum—"that German gun that got through in April and bombarded Poperinghe? I want to talk to you about that gun." He started filling his pipe.
"'Tis the hardest proposition I've ever been up against, and sure I don't know what to do at all." He was staring at the fire. "You remember the Land Crab and how he told us the woods had been searched? Well, it didn't take a superhuman brainstorm to realise that if what he said was right and the Huns were dressed as Belgian peasants, and the gun was a little one, that a line of men going through the woods had about as much chance of finding them as a terrier has of catching a tadpole in the water. I says to myself, 'Dick, my boy, this is an occasion for stealth, for delicate work, for finesse.' So off I went on my lonesome and hid in the wood. I argued that they couldn't be keeping a permanent watch, and that even if they'd seen me come in, they'd think in time I had gone out again, when they noticed no further sign of me. Also I guessed they didn't want to stir up a hornet's nest about their ears by killing me—they wanted no vulgar glare of publicity upon their doings. So, as I say, I hid in a hole and waited. I got bored stiff; though, when all was said and done, it wasn't much worse than sitting in that blessed ploughed field beside the road. About five o'clock I started cursing myself for a fool in listening to the story at all, it all seemed so ridiculous. Not a sound in the woods, not a breath of wind in the trees. The guns weren't firing, just for the time everything was peaceful. I'd got a caterpillar down my neck, and I was just coming back to get a drink and chuck it up, when suddenly a Belgian labourer popped out from behind a tree. There was nothing peculiar about him, and if it hadn't been for the Land Crab's story I'd never have given him a second thought. He was just picking up sticks, but as I watched him I noticed that every now and then he straightened himself up, and seemed to peer around as if he was searching the undergrowth. The next minute out came another, and he started the stick-picking stunt too."
Dick paused to relight his pipe, then he laughed. "Of course, the humour of the situation couldn't help striking me. Dick O'Rourke in a filthy hole, covered with branches and bits of dirt, watching two mangy old Belgians picking up wood. But, having stood it the whole day, I made up my mind to wait, at any rate, till night. If only I could catch the gun in action—even if the odds were too great for me alone—I'd be able to spot the hiding-place, and come back later with a party and round them up.
"Then suddenly the evening hate started—artillery from all over the place—and with it the Belgian labourers ceased from plucking sticks. Running down a little path, so close to me that I could almost touch him, came one of them. He stopped about ten yards away where the dense undergrowth finished, and, after looking cautiously round, waved his hand. The other one nipped behind a tree and called out something in a guttural tone of voice. And then, I give you my word, out of the bowels of the earth there popped up a little gun not twenty yards from where I'd been lying the whole day. By this time, of course, I was in the same sort of condition as a terrier is when he's seen the cat he has set his heart on shin up a tree, having missed her tail by half an inch.
"They clapped her on a little mounting quick as light, laid her, loaded, and, by the holy saints! under my very nose, loosed off a present for Poperinghe. The man on guard waved his hand again, and bedad! away went another. The next instant he was back, again an exclamation in German, and in about two shakes the whole thing had disappeared, and there were the two labourers picking sticks. I give you my word it was like a clown popping up in a pantomime through a trap-door; I had to pinch myself to make certain I was awake.
"The next instant into the clearing came two English soldiers, the reason evidently of the sudden dismantling. Had they been armed we'd have had at them then and there; but, of course, so far behind the trenches, they had no rifles. They just peered round, saw the Belgians, and went off again. I heard their steps dying away in the distance, and decided to wait a bit longer. The two men seemed to be discussing what to do, and ultimately moved behind the tree again, where I could hear them talking. At last they came to a decision, and picking up their bundles of sticks came slowly down the path past me. They were not going to fire again that evening."
Dick smiled reminiscently. "Bill, pass the rum. I'm thirsty."
"What did you do, Dick?" I asked, eagerly.