Now the Canadian, who is responsible for this story, openly confesses that the last thing on earth he should have thought of attempting was any resistance of the German advance, and more than that, that it was with the greatest possible reluctance he did finally join the imperturbable Tommy in the impossible task. He tried first to point out the folly of it.
‘See here, Tommy,’ he called from the inn door. ‘You don’t rightly understand. There’s hundreds of these chaps coming, thousands of ’em for all I know, but at least a regiment from what the old man says who saw them. We can’t do anything to a lot like that. We’d far better get off the grass while we’ve a chance.’
But Tommy had planted his empty barrel fairly in the middle of the road and was settling himself snugly at full length behind it, his legs spread wide and left shoulder well advanced after the approved fashion of his musketry instructor. ‘They’re goin’ south,’ he called back. ‘An’ we come over ’ere to stop ’em going south. So we’ll just ’ave to stop ’em.’ And he commenced to lay cartridges in a convenient little pile at his elbow and push a clip into his rifle magazine.
Even then the Canadian hesitated. The whole thing was so utterly mad, such a senseless throwing away of their three lives that he was still inclined to clear out and away. But that prone figure in the road held him. He felt, as he puts it himself, that he couldn’t decently leave the beggar there and run away. And a call from outside settled the matter by the calm assurance it held that the two of them were going to stand by and see the game through. ‘You two ’ad better be jildi.[3] I can see the dust risin’ just round the corner.’
The Canadian flung a last hurried sentence to the piou-piou, ran out and across the road and dropped into the ditch in line with the barrel. The Frenchman looked round at the women and old men, shrugged his shoulders and laughed shortly. ‘These mad English,’ he said hopelessly, ‘but, name of a name, what can a Frenchman do but die along with them?’ and he too ran out and took his place in the nearer ditch in line with the others.
Tommy looked over his shoulder at him and nodded encouragingly. ‘Good man, Froggy,’ he said loudly, and then turning to the Canadian and lowering his voice to a confidential undertone, ‘I’m glad to see Froggy roll up, for the credit of ’is reg’ment’s sake—whatever ’is reg’ment may be. ’E was so long, I was beginnin’ to think ’e was funkin’ it.’ The Canadian admits to a queer relief that he himself had not ‘funked it,’ but he had little time to think about it.
A thin dust rose slowly from the road at the distant bend, and ‘’Ere they come,’ said Tommy. ‘Don’t begin shootin’ till I do. We want to get into the brown of ’em before we start, an’ we haven’t cartridges enough to keep goin’ long. I think about four ’undred should be near enough the range, but I’ll try a sightin’ shot first at that an’ you’ll see where it lands.’
For long interminably dragging minutes the three lay there, and then suddenly, in a bang that made him jump, the Canadian heard the soldier’s first shot. ‘Just short,’ said Tommy coolly. ‘Better put your sights four fifty an’ take a fine sight. Come on, let ’em ’ave it.’
The three rifles opened in a crackle of rapid fire, and far down the road a swirl of dust and a stampede of grey-coated figures to the sides of the road showed the alarm that the sudden onslaught had raised. It took several minutes for the crowd to get to any sort of cover, and before they did so they evidently began to understand how weak was the force opposed to them. The grey mass dropped to the road and next minute a steady drum of rifle fire and a storm of bullets came beating down on the three. The road was pavé, floored with the flat cobble-stones common on first-class French roads, and on these the bullets cracked and smacked with vicious emphasis, ricochetted and rose with ugly screams and whirrs and singings. A dozen times in that first minute the hollow barrel banged to the blow of a bullet, but the figure behind it kept on firing steadily and without a pause. And presently the Germans, impatient of the delay perhaps, or angered by the impudence of the attack of such a handful as they were now sure blocked the way, began to climb over the fence along the roadside and move along the fields firing as they came, while another group commenced to trot steadily straight down the road. ‘Now then, Canada,’ called Tommy, ‘pick your target an’ tell Froggy we’ll fire in turns. We can’t afford to waste shots.’