Fighting with French: A Tale of the New Army

by Herbert Strang

Suddenly he heard the characteristic scream of a shell not far ahead. Immediately afterwards the deep boom of a heavy gun came from his right. The German gunners had started work. In a few seconds there was rolling thunder on each side of him; it was evident that a violent artillery duel was in progress. The hedges prevented him from seeing anything; but reflecting that the gunners were aiming at each other's positions he was not disturbed about his own safety.

He had just turned an awkward corner, narrowly avoiding a sideslip, and was congratulating himself on a few yards of straight track and a widening that gave hope of reaching an open road, when, amid the sound of guns, he caught another sound, which at first he mistook for the whirr of an aeroplane. In a moment, however, he recognised his error. It was the purring of a motor bicycle, and in front, approaching him. Almost as soon as he knew this, the machine came in sight at the far corner, perhaps a hundred yards away, running at no great speed. At the first glance he saw that the rider was a German; at the second that the German was not unprepared to meet him. He realised afterwards that, the wind being with him, the noise of his own swiftly running engine must have been heard first.

Each had only a few moments to decide what to do. The German, the instant he recognised the approaching rider as a British soldier, screwed on his brakes, turned the bicycle across the lane, sprang off and drew a revolver, no doubt expecting that the Englishman would swerve at the obstacle, be forced into the hedge, and present an easy target. His reasoning, if such it was, would have been sound enough had it not proceeded from a faulty estimate of the English mind--an error into which the Germans have been betrayed many times since the Kaiser made his initial blunder in the same kind. The German is a master of the obvious, and imagines that what he would do is the best thing to be done, and that an Englishman will do it badly.

Harry, however, was not committed by training or habit to either of the obvious courses: to allow himself to be forced into the hedge, or to stop dead and fight the German on foot. It seemed to him, in those few seconds that he had for deciding, better to clear the way for Kenneth, who, no doubt, was not far behind. A spill would at any rate not hurt his feelings, as it might a German's. Accordingly, instead of applying the brakes, he opened the throttle, and bracing himself for the shock, drove his machine at ever-increasing speed straight for the enemy.

This, of course, from the German point of view, was English madness. Still, it was unexpected, and when the German fired, at the distance of twenty paces, his aim was flurried by his natural surprise, and by the sudden realisation that his machine would certainly be smashed. Dropping his revolver, and shouting something that was far from complimentary, he tried to pull his bicycle clear; but his action was not only too late; like so many well-meant efforts to prevent mischief, it furthered it. His movement of a few inches caused Harry's bicycle to strike the hub of the driving wheel instead of the middle of the machine, for which he was steering. Harry was flung over the handle-bars into the hedge, a few feet in advance of the bicycles, which lay mangled together, and not quite so far from the German, who had very luckily escaped being crushed beneath them.

The two men staggered to their feet almost at the same moment, bruised and shaken, but equally unconscious of their hurts. The German, with his cultivated instinct, fumbled for his revolver, remembered it was on the ground out of reach, and was drawing his sword-bayonet when Harry, in the British way, flung himself upon him. And when Kenneth, half a minute later, drawn up at speed by the sound of the crash, came upon the scene, he beheld with mingled amazement and concern two military figures, begrimed with mud, struggling on the ground. The figure in grey was undermost.

"Go on!" shouted Harry. "I've got the Hikiotoshi on him."

Kenneth had slowed down, but remembering the captain's injunction, and seeing that his friend was well able to take care of himself, he opened out and in a few seconds was pushing along at as high a speed as the greasy lane permitted. He could not help smiling at the recollection of his own bewilderment and naïve indignation when, in one of his early lessons in jujutsu from Mr. Kishimaru, he had found both legs suddenly swept from under him, and heard the Japanese, beaming down upon him, gently remark:

"That, my dear sir, is the Hikiotoshi."

Kenneth's experiences along the road had been identical with Harry's. But a few seconds after he had left the scene of the collision he had reason to wonder, for the first time, whether he would ever reach his destination. The bridle track opened into a road that intersected a stretch of plain. It had suffered hardly at all from shells; being on a higher level than the bridle track it was fairly dry and gave a better surface for riding; but it was fully exposed on either hand, without protection of hedge or dyke; and anyone passing along it must be in full view for a considerable distance left and right. And Kenneth found that he had run into the very centre of the artillery duel the sounds of which he had heard for some minutes. Shells whizzed over his head in both directions. Bang to the left of him, boom to the right of him, and above him shriek and moan in various tones. And in the midst of the broken sounds came the continuous hum of an aeroplane somewhere in the neighbourhood.