So Martin only recruited a wife that day, and evidently secured a sensible one, for Elsie, taking thought, on hearing certain vivid descriptions of trench life on the Sunday evening, vetoed the wedding trip to Scotland, and persuaded her husband to “go the limit” in London, where plenty of society and a round of theaters acted as a wholesome tonic after the monotony of high-explosive existence in a dugout.
In February, 1917, Martin was “in billets” at Armentières. He had been promoted to the staff, and had fairly earned this coveted recognition by a series of daring excursions into “No Man’s Land” every night for a week, which enabled him to plan an attack on the German lines at Chapelle d’Armentières. Never thinking of any personal gain, he drew up a memorandum, which he submitted to his colonel. The latter sent the document to Divisional Headquarters; the scheme was approved. Fritz was pushed forcibly half a mile nearer Lille, and “Captain Reginald Ingram Grant” was informed, in the dry language of the Gazette, that in future he would wear a red band around his field service cap and little red tabs on the shoulders of his tunic.
That was a great day for him, but his elation was as nothing compared with the joy of Elmsdale when the Messenger reprinted the announcement. Elsie, of course, imagined that her husband was now comparatively safe for the rest of the war, and he has never undeceived her. As a matter of fact, his first real “job” was to carry out a fresh series of observations at a point south of Armentières along the road to Arras. This might involve another six days of lurking in dugouts at the front and six nights of crawling through and under German barbed wire.
His companion was a sapper sergeant named Mason. They suspected that the German position was heavily mined in anticipation of an attack at that very point, and it was part of their business at the outset to ascertain whether or not this was the case.
The enemy’s lines were about one hundred and fifty yards away, and all observers agree that the chief difficulty experienced in the pitch-black darkness of a cloudy, moonless night is to estimate the distance covered. Crawling over shell-torn ground, slow work at the best, is rendered slower by the frequent waits necessary while rockets flare overhead and Verrey lights describe brilliant parabolas in unexpected directions. Martin, up to every trick and dodge of the “listening post,” surveyed the field of operations through a periscope, and noticed that one of the ditches which mark boundaries in northern France ran almost in a straight line from the British trenches to the German, and had at one time been reinforced by posts and rails. The fence was destroyed, but many of the posts remained, some intact, others mere jagged stumps. He estimated that the nineteenth was not more than a couple of yards from the enemy’s wire, and knew of old that it was in just such an irregular hollow he might expect to find a weak place in the entanglement.
Mason agreed with him.
“We can save a lot of time by following that trail, sir,” he said. “There’s only one drawback——”
“That Fritz may have hit on the same scheme,” laughed Martin. “Possible; but we must chance it.”
Mason and he were old associates. They had perfected a code of signals, by touch, that enabled them to work in absolute silence. Thus, a slight hold meant “Halt”; a slight push, “Advance”; a slight pull, “Retire.” Each carried a trench knife and a revolver, the latter for use as a last resource only. They were not going out for fighting but for observation. If enemy patrols were encountered, they must be avoided. Germans are not phlegmatic, but, on the contrary, highly nervous. Continuous raids by British bombing parties had put sentries “on the jump,” and the least noise which was not explained by a whispered password attracted a heavy spray of machine-gun fire. Especially was this the case during the hour before dawn. By hurrying out immediately after darkness set in, the two counted on nearing the German front-line trench at a time when reliefs were being posted and fatigue parties were plodding to the “dump” for the next day’s rations.