CHAPTER X
A Nocturnal Adventure
Our old battalion billets still,
Parades as usual go on.
We buckle in with right good will,
And daily our equipment don
As if we meant to fight, but no!
The guns are booming through the air,
The trenches call us on, but oh!
We don't go there, we don't go there!
I have come to the conclusion that war is rather a dull game, not that blood-curdling, dashing, mad, sabre-clashing thing that is seen in pictures, and which makes one fearful for the soldier's safety. There is so much of the "everlastin' waitin' on an everlastin' road." The road to the war is a journey of many stages, and there is much of what appears to the unit as loitering by the wayside. We longed for action, for some adventure with which to relieve the period of "everlastin' waitin'."
Nine o'clock was striking in the room downstairs and the old man and woman who live in the house were pottering about, locking doors, and putting the place into order. Lying on the straw in the loft we could hear them moving chairs and washing dishes; they have seven sons in the army, two are wounded and one is a prisoner in Germany. They are very old and are unable to do much hard work; all day long they listen to the sound of the guns "out there." In the evening they wash the dishes, the man helping the woman, and at night lock the doors and say a prayer for their sons. Now and again they speak of their troubles and narrate stories of the war and the time when the Prussians passed by their door on the journey to Paris. "But they'll never pass here again," the old man says, smoking the pipe of tobacco which our boys have given him. "They'll get smashed out there." As he speaks he points with a long lean finger towards the firing line, and lifts his stick to his shoulder in imitation of a man firing a rifle.
Ten o'clock struck. We were deep in our straw and lights had been out for a long time. I couldn't sleep, and as I lay awake I could hear corpulent Z—— snoring in the corner. Outside a wind was whistling mournfully and sweeping through the joists of the roof where the red tiles had been shattered by shrapnel. There was something melancholy and superbly grand in the night; the heaven was splashed with stars, and the glow of rockets from the firing line lit up the whole scene, and at intervals blotted out the lights of the sky. Here in the loft all was so peaceful, so quiet; the pair downstairs had gone to bed, they were now perhaps asleep and dreaming of their loved ones. But I could not rest; I longed to get up again and go out into the night.
Suddenly a hand tugged at my blanket, a form rose from the floor by my side and a face peered into mine.
"It's me—Bill," a low voice whispered in my ear.
"Well?" I interrogated, raising myself on my elbow.
"Not sleepin'?" mumbled Bill, lighting a cigarette as he flopped down on my blanket, half crushing my toes as he did so. "I'm not sleeping neither," he continued. "Did you see the wild ducks to-day?"