"All right, lead round here!"
He led them to a large barn, and they turned in to sleep just as they were. No supper, not a fire to dry their sodden clothes, not a blanket to cover their chilled bodies.
As usual, they got to sleep somehow, and as usual dawn came about thirty hours before they were ready for it.
They moved out immediately, and continued the course of the march. The rain-laden clouds had rolled completely away. The sky looked hard and was scarcely blue; the country was swept by a strong nipping wind, for which they were very thankful, since it served to dry their clothes.
The Machine-gun Officer, passing down the Battalion, walked with them while he told them two wonderful stories. It may have been crude, but in another way it was almost as satisfying as breakfast.
He solemnly explained to them that the war was nearly over. The Germans, lured into making this tremendous and unnecessary effort to capture Paris, had left their eastern front dangerously weak. The Russians were pouring into Germany in their millions. The Cossacks were already around Posen. Nobody quite knew where Posen was, but it sounded deliciously like Potsdam. Anyway, they would be there in a month.
A few surplus millions, who, presumably on account of the crush, could not burst into Germany by the quickest route, had been despatched, via Archangel, to the northern coast of Scotland. Their progress thenceforwards is, of course, notorious. By now they had safely landed at Antwerp, and had pursued a career that must have bored them as monotonously victorious. Namur, "and all those places" had been captured, and at that moment Maubeuge was being relieved. The Germans were being sandwiched between the victorious Russian, French and British Arms. They could only escape as through the neck of a bottle. And the end of the war was so near, and so definite, that it almost lacked interest.
The Subaltern was elated. He refused to question the likelihood of such tales. He was hungry for just such cheering stories of success. And when he got them, he devoured them with avidity, without ever looking at them. The effect on him was bracing. It was glorious, he told himself, to have taken part in such happenings. The only cloud on his horizon was the fact that the chance to do distinguished acts had never come to him. The Regimental Colours never required saving under heavy fire, for the simple reason that they reposed safely at the depôt. Neither did the Colonel, a most profitable person to rescue, ever get wounded in the open, and give an opportunity for gallant rescue work. He had never had a chance to "stick a Bosch." He had never drawn his sword in a triumphant charge, never blazed his revolver in a face, never twisted a bayonet on a body. It would require courage, he told himself, to admit these things when he was back again at home.
You must not laugh at the stories of the Machine-Gunner. He believed what he wanted to believe. Remember, too, that the Allies were then at the zenith of the greatest victory that was achieved in the first eighteen months of the war. The strategical ideas of the Machine-Gunner may have been faulty, but he has saved more lives with his guns than any doctor in the land.
At about eight o'clock in the morning, the Subaltern saw the Company in front twisting off the road, and forming up in "mass" in the open field. They were then in the centre of a large plateau, which offered an uninterrupted view of miles of flat country on every side. A rough "outpost" disposition, with which he was fortunately not sent, was detailed, and the news was spread that there was to be a halt of several hours.