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THE
CORNHILL MAGAZINE.

APRIL 1917.

JUTLAND.

BY FLEET SURGEON.

The time is seven bells in the afternoon watch, and in the wardroom of one of His Majesty’s battle-cruisers a yawning marine servant with tousled hair and not too conspicuously clean a face is clattering cups and saucers at regular intervals round the two long tables which are the most obvious objects to be seen. Although it is a bright summer’s day on deck, the electric lights are lit, the wardroom skylights are battened down, and the heavy bomb-proof shutters pulled into position. In all the ship, fore and aft, there is not a space where normal daylight can enter except in a few of the senior officers’ cabins and down the companion-ways. Without being actually dirty, the whole living spaces are dingy and depressing. On the mess decks the watch below are indulging in their afternoon ‘caulk,’ stretched out on the tables or stools, with their heads resting on their wooden ditty boxes, which are used as pillows. Their forms are covered by watch coats, old hammocks, or pieces of deck cloth, for the wind blows chilly in the North Sea even on the thirty-first of May.

The wardroom is as depressing as the men’s quarters. It measures roughly thirty feet by twenty; the walls are of white painted steel; the floor is of steel covered with corticine, which has been coated with red shellac varnish so that it may not absorb moisture. There are two doorways opening on the port and starboard sides. The furniture is of the simplest possible description, consisting of the two long tables already mentioned, a smaller table, two sofas, three easy-chairs, two fixed settees about ten feet long, a dilapidated-looking piano covered with bundles of torn music, and two sideboards in alcoves, in each of which is a sliding hatch communicating with the pantry. The walls are bare except for a photograph of the sinking Bluecher, an engraving of an earlier namesake of the ship, and some charts and war maps hanging limply from drawing-pins, which fix them to wooden battens. In one corner is a coal stove, the polished brass funnel of which, passing to the deck above, is the only bright object in the room. Suspended from the beams by their cords and covered with yellow silken shades whose colour has long ago lost its pristine freshness and daintiness, are the electric lights. The gentle swaying of the shades is the only indication that the ship is at sea. Thanks to her turbine machinery, no noise or movement can be felt, and she might be lying in harbour for all there is to indicate otherwise.

The ship herself is one of the mammoths of the sea. When describing her in comparison with any other ship, apply superlatives and you will dimly reach some idea of her qualities. She is the largest, fastest, most heavily armed, best armoured, best equipped, highest horse-powered, best arranged engine of destruction of her time. Compared with a merchant ship, she has over twice the horse-power of the Aquitania. Her crew is well over a thousand. She has been blooded already, and her officers have supreme confidence in her and themselves. For over an hour, practically single-handed, she has fought the fleeing German battle-cruisers, whilst her supporting consorts were endeavouring to catch her up.

A huge teapot containing a gallon of so-called tea is dropped with a thud on one of the wardroom sideboards. Plates are rattled violently as they are served around the table; there is a crash from the pantry as the third-class officers’ steward, who has been sleeping on top of the sink, strikes his yawning elbow against a pile of dirty tumblers left over since lunch-time, and the marine servant shouts out: ‘Tea is ready, gentlemen, please!’

There is a general movement from the settees, sofas and arm-chairs where tired officers have been snatching a brief rest. Four uncurl themselves from the small table where they have been sitting on high-backed chairs with their heads resting upon their arms. There is a general movement towards the long tables where the cups, saucers and plates show up startlingly white against the approved Admiralty pattern of serge tablecloth, whose main recommendation to the chooser must have been that it did not show the dirt. The dark red flowers have long ago become hopelessly mixed with the black background which is its most prominent feature when new.

The officers—there are thirty when they are all mustered—sit down at the tables and stare in front of them with the glassy, fixed eyes and owlish expression of those newly awakened from unrefreshing slumber in a tainted atmosphere. The marine servant, helped by another, carries round the enormous tin teapot and carelessly splashes a portion of the fluid into each cup as he passes. On the table are jugs containing ‘tinned cow’ and basins of brown sugar which the officers push to one another. For food there is good bread, butter and jam, and some musty fragments of old cake. For five minutes or so the meal is consumed in silence, when a signal messenger enters the wardroom and, with an air of conscious importance, lays a signal on the table beside the senior officer present. That individual gazes casually at it for a second, and then is suddenly galvanised into action. Holding it in both hands, he reads out eagerly: ‘Flag to all ships. Our light cruisers report that they have just sighted an enemy light cruiser.’

There is silence for a moment and then a voice is heard: ‘So much the worse for the enemy light cruiser!’

The scraping of the chairs against the floor is heard as they are hastily pushed back and the occupants rise, looking for their caps. No need to tell them what that signal means. ‘Action stations’ will be sounded in a few minutes.

A few whose duties are not so urgent remain behind, making hasty efforts at finishing their tea. They guess it will be a long time before they get the chance of another meal.

‘I’m a conscientious objector,’ says an engineer officer. ‘I want to go home to mummy!’

‘And I’m a pacifist,’ remarks a lieutenant, ‘but that’s no reason why I should drink filth as well as think it. Waiter! bring me a cup of freshly-made tea, and don’t let the dog get this or you’ll poison him.’

‘One little cruiser from the Spiritual Home

Met the British battle boats—

And then there were none!’

sang in unmelodious, raucous tones a paymaster.

‘Oh, shut up!’ said another. ‘There it goes.’

The bugle-call for ‘Action stations’ was heard gradually getting louder as the bugle-boy ran along the passage outside.

‘That puts the hat on it! No tea, no nuffink! Now for a drop of frightfulness. Wonder whether Fritz has any new gas shells.’

‘Put your respirator on first and sniff afterwards,’ said a doctor, as they crushed through the doorway together. ‘If you really want to sell that Gieve you were blowing about yesterday, I’ll give you an I.O.U. for a bob for it.’

‘No good!’ replied the lieutenant. ‘I’ve sold it to a snotty for a quid. His people sent him two pounds ten to buy one, and we went a burst on the thirty bob.’

‘Well, so long!’ said the doctor, as they parted at the bottom of a ladder. ‘If you fall into my hands you will be more cut up than I shall be.’

‘Go to the devil, you blood-thirsty abomination,’ shouted the lieutenant, and, seizing the rungs, ran rapidly up the horizontal ladder.

As he reached the upper deck and ran along towards the bridge ladders, he cast a glance round the horizon. ‘Visibility so-so!’ he thought; ‘but if it gets no worse than at present it will do. Can see 18,000 easily. Clouds a bit low though—not much more than a thousand up.’

He ran up the bridge ladders and finally reached the upper bridge, where the captain and navigating officer, officer of the watch, and signalmen were busy getting ready to go down to the armoured conning-tower. Above him towered the foremast, a central thick steel tube supported by two smaller steel tubes running down and outwards to the deck. On the after side of the central tube, dropped steel rungs were let into the mast; and, seizing hold of these, he climbed rapidly upwards until he reached the trap-door communicating with the top. Pushing up the door, he pulled himself bodily upwards and at last stood on the platform, a hundred and twenty feet above the level of the sea.

He was in a circular box about ten feet in diameter, covered with a roof and with bulwarks rising breast-high all the way round. His duty was spotting for the secondary armament, and to assist him there were two other officers and eight men acting as range-takers, messengers, timekeepers, and in charge of deflection instruments. He gave the range for the guns to the transmitting station, watched the fall of the shot, estimated its distance over or short of the target, and supplied the necessary corrections. As it was useless to expect that firing the secondary guns would be of any value until the range came down to about 12,000 yards, or to repel destroyer or light cruiser attack, there would be a long interval of waiting before he would have anything to do. Meanwhile, he went round the instruments and saw that they were all in working order, tested the voice tubes, and gave hints and instructions to his subordinates.

The sky was rapidly becoming more overcast and the clouds were lower, although the horizon was still plainly visible.

A message came up the voice-tube from the conning-tower, warning him to keep a sharp look-out on the port bow as the enemy battle-cruisers should be shortly sighted proceeding in a northerly direction. Every sense was subordinated to that of sight, and in the tense stillness he strained his eyes until the sockets hurt. Looking down on the ship, which was spread like a map beneath his feet, no sign of life was visible, although behind armoured side and beneath thick steel hoods eager-eyed men were chafing at the delay.

It was easy to see that the ships were travelling at full speed, and the smoke belching from the ships ahead blurred his view and damaged his eyes until he remembered the pair of motor goggles he had supplied himself with.

Suddenly his attention was riveted by a small patch of the horizon where the haze seemed slightly thicker than elsewhere. To anyone who had not spent long weary hours watching for just such a haze it would have suggested nothing at all, even if it had been observed. He picked up his binoculars, which were hanging round his neck from a strap, and took a long, long look.

The other two officers watched his face carefully. Suddenly he dropped the glasses from his eyes and turned to his companions. ‘Yes; that’s the enemy battle-cruisers all right. They are making a sixteen-point turn. I wonder what their game is. Are they running away as they did at the Dogger Bank, or are they falling back on the High Seas Fleet. Anyhow, there’s the Engadine sending up a seaplane.’

He watched the movements of the seaplane ship for a few minutes, and then heaved a sigh of relief as a gigantic bird rose in flight from her side.

‘We haven’t sighted any of their Zeppelins yet and they would be useless in this atmosphere. If I know anything of the Engadine’s people, we shall get all the information we need in a little.’

If anything, there was an access of speed on the part of the British ships. The officers in the top cowered behind the steel bulwark which protected them a little; but tiny hurricanes played around their coats and caps and pierced the almost Arctic clothing they were wearing.

The enemy ships were rapidly becoming distinguishable as funnels and masts hurrying beneath a pall of smoke. The hulls were still under the rim of the horizon, but were gradually rising.

‘When we can see the hulls the range will be approximately 24,000 yards, and firing will open any time after that,’ remarked the lieutenant to an officer whose first action this was.

Meanwhile, the range-finder was being rapidly adjusted by an able seaman who, seated behind it, commenced singing out in a monotonous voice with the suspicion of a shake of excitement in it: ‘22,000—20,500—19,000—18,000.’

As he reached the last figure, there was a spattering sound in the seas on their port side, and huge columns of spray were thrown 200 feet up in the air. Driven back by the wind, sheets of water swept against the top and drenched the luckless crew. Heedless, the lieutenant watched the fall of the shot and muttered: ‘Five hundred short. Damned good effort at opening the ball.’

As he spoke there was a thundering roar from the ship beneath him, and he instinctively stepped back from the edge of the top to avoid the blast from the guns beneath. ‘That’s A turret firing’; and as he traced the flight of the huge projectile which was plainly visible winging its way towards the distant speck, he waited anxiously for the splash which would indicate its fall. ‘Good hunting! About five hundred short, too!’

These were not his guns and were not under his control; but he knew that the capable lieutenant spotting in the gun control tower below him, and the warrant officer in the top twenty feet above him, would speedily correct the error. His job was to wait and watch.

The action had become general. Shells, looking like Gargantuan hailstones, were falling on every side of him; while columns of water, like geysers, were rising everywhere and obscuring the range. As a shell whizzed past them and its breath pushed them farther back into the top, a shout of admiration escaped him. ‘Straddled in the third salvo! Oh, by Jove! good shooting! Hope we’re doing as well!’

The top rocked to the thundering reverberation of our own guns; the air was thick with the cordite smoke; the whistle and shriek of shells as they passed, hit, or burst short were as insistent as the noise of a railway engine’s whistle in a tunnel; sheets of spray were wafted up to them and fell like waterfalls without making any distinguishable sound; whilst, as he caught sight of them between the showers, the range-finder’s voice, all trace of excitement gone, went on with its monotonous sing-song: ‘17,000—16,500—15,000.’

For a second the officer glanced at the ships ahead. Even as he turned, he saw three enemy shells falling on the next ahead.

The voice of the man at the range-finder again took up the refrain: ‘15,000—14,500—14,000.’

The hulls of the enemy ships were now plainly visible, but the range was still too great for the secondary armament to be of any value against the thickly armoured sides of the German ships. Would they never come any nearer? As if in reply to his question, he suddenly saw a line of low black hulls emerge from behind the enemy ships and come tearing in a line diagonally towards him.

Here was work at last! Seizing the navyphone, he shouted down to the captain: ‘Destroyer attack on the port bow. Request permission to open fire.’ The reply came back: ‘Open fire at 10,000.’

Dropping the navyphone, he picked up the voice tube and commenced the orders to the transmitting station which would let loose six thousand six hundred pounds of shell per minute at the rapidly approaching enemy.

‘Destroyer. One mast, two funnels.

‘Range 9500. Deflection 16 right. Rate 550 closing.

‘Load with lyddite. Salvoes.

‘Shoot!’

Anxiously he gazed at the leader of the approaching destroyers. Good shooting, but a little to the left. Undoubtedly she was hit or, at least, badly spattered, as she altered course a little. Correcting this, he shouted down: ‘Shoot!’

Again the deadly hail smothered the little vessel in foam. From the top the men on her decks could be clearly seen training the torpedo tubes and getting ready to fire. As she approached, the order was given: ‘Down 400! Shoot!’

There was a sudden burst of speed on the part of the destroyer, which was immediately allowed for.

‘Down 400. Close rate 200. Rate 750 closing! Shoot!’

‘Good hunting!’ he muttered, as the destroyer swerved in her path and, apparently badly injured, commenced to alter her course so as to get out of action.

Smoke and flame were belching from her forward, whilst amidships a ragged hole in her side could be seen from which great clouds of steam came out in gasps. She was heeling towards him, and the crew could be seen plainly through glasses, fitting on their life-belts and dragging at the falls of their badly damaged whaler. Rafts were being cast loose, and the deck was strewn with bodies which, even as they watched, commenced to roll slowly down the sloping deck.

‘Not much need to worry about him!’ thought the lieutenant. ‘He’s finished. Time to get on with the next.’

The second destroyer had been attended to by the ship astern, but the third was still coming on, apparently uninjured. She was rapidly altering both course and speed in order to avoid the deadly salvoes and spoil the range-finding.

‘Oh, that’s your game,’ said the officer. ‘We’ll see what we can do for you.’ Speaking down the voice-pipe again, he shouted: ‘Object shifted. Third destroyer from left. Range 8500. Same deflection and rate! Salvoes! Shoot!’

All-overs was reported by the spotter.

‘Down 400. Shoot!’

‘One hit, others short!’ shouted the spotter.

‘Up 200. Shoot!’

There was no need to listen to the spotter this time. The middle of the destroyer rose in the air and then burst asunder. With a roar, she broke in halves, and bow and stem were elevated skyward until she assumed the shape of the letter V. Almost instantaneously she disappeared. As she did so, she went straight downwards as if plucked under by a gigantic hand. The fourth destroyer put her helm hard over and turned sixteen points. She had been hit once by the ship astern and had evidently had enough.

The lieutenant chuckled. ‘Gave Fritz what-for that time! Guess our destroyers could have done better than that!

‘Cease firing!’

For the time being, the destroyer attack had been foiled, but others were sure to come, and, smothered in spray, the men on the top kept anxiously on the alert. As they looked ahead, they saw first one, then another, then several separate clouds of smoke on the horizon. The German battle-cruisers were heading straight for them, and the meaning of that was all too plain. Evidently these distant vessels were the German High Seas Fleet. The range of the German battle-cruisers was rapidly getting less, and it was possible to start shooting at them with the secondary armament with a fair chance of hitting.

The lieutenant began to give his orders again, after asking permission from the captain. And, busy and capable as he was professionally, another part of his brain was speaking to his inner consciousness. ‘This is Der Tag at last. Thank heaven we’re in it. Verdun must have been a failure. Where is Jellicoe? We can’t take on all these beggars by ourselves! Wonder how long Beatty is going to carry on! Their guns are badly rattled: they haven’t hit us a fair smack for over an hour.’

The rapidly advancing High Seas Fleet was approaching the parallel lines of fighting battle-cruisers. Still Beatty held on! But the lieutenant had no doubts in his own mind. ‘Jellicoe can’t be far away, and we are going to hold them until he comes up. May it be soon!’

Still the battle-cruisers held on, while the German battleships commenced firing at long ranges.

At last the signal to go about was given, and the helm was jammed hard a-port so that the big ship heeled heavily over as she spun round. As she did so, it was obvious enough that the German battle-cruisers were doing the same and racing back in the direction they had come. They had apparently got the idea that Beatty was trying to avoid them and was suffering too much punishment to be able to reply effectually. But that officer had his own game to play and knew as soon as the German battle-cruisers turned immediately after him that they had fallen into the very error he had desired them to make.

The Fifth Battle Squadron had now joined up and was engaging both the enemy’s cruisers and battleships, and, as far as the battle was concerned, the day was now more in favour of the British.

As the ships swung round, one after the other, keeping perfect station as if at manœuvres, they fired their broadsides with telling effect, which was plainly seen, at the German battleships, which responded indifferently.

It was easy for those in the top to guess what Beatty’s tactics were. Evidently, Jellicoe was somewhere up in the north-west, and the whole German Fleet were walking straight into his hands. If only the light would hold, but already, although it was barely 5 P.M., the horizon was becoming misty and the outlines of the enemy ships were no longer sharply defined. To control effectively this long length of battle line, good light was absolutely essential.

Still Beatty sped along, keeping station on the German cruisers at 13,000 yards, leaving their battleships to the Fifth Battle Squadron. The Germans by this time were suffering heavily, and the Lutzow was seen to drop out of the line.

Suddenly, ahead on the port bow, were seen the welcome signs of the Grand Fleet arriving at last. There was no longer any doubt as to what the result would be. Inevitable defeat was staring the Germans in the face. With the instinct of the born fighting sailor, Beatty seized the chance to turn the German defeat into a rout. The battle-cruisers leaped ahead at full speed and he dashed like a fury across towards the head of the German line in order to concentrate on their leading ships and crumple their formation. The manœuvre was perfectly successful. The German line bent, broke and fled, but the thick mist which had gradually been coming down robbed Jellicoe of the fruits of his victory. As the Grand Fleet deployed into line and brought their guns to bear on the enemy’s line, they found for target an occasional wraith-like hull appearing for a few seconds between the banks of smoke and fog. The battle-cruisers were in the same quandary, firing at intervals at the flashes which showed the position of the German ships. The utmost confusion apparently reigned on board them, and in the thick fog and scattered condition of both fleets, to go on with the action was impossible.

Once again, as often before, the weather conditions had favoured the defeated, and both fleets mutually broke off action—the Germans to flee for their home ports, and the British to re-form for the battle at dawn.

During the night, that best test of the morale of a fleet, a destroyer attack, was carried out by the British with marked success; but there was no retaliation on the part of the Germans. They had had enough and more than enough.

At 10.30 P.M. a group of stiff and wearied officers left the top and made for the wardroom to get some food. The forsaken afternoon tea was still standing as it had been left on the table, and, lying about on chairs, sofas and settees, were men too wearied even to desire to eat.

They sat and looked at one another and said nothing. Members of the mess who had been joyfully skylarking eight hours before would never draw their chairs up to the table again. One who had left his cup of tea untasted had drunk to the dregs the cup that Death had offered him. Only one officer made a remark: ‘The action is to be resumed at dawn.’ And only one man made a reply: ‘They won’t get away this time.’

But they did. A Zeppelin was sighted at 3.30 A.M., evidently shadowing the British Fleet. For ten hours they cruised over the battle area strewn with the horrible relics of the fight, but the Germans were nowhere to be seen. They had gone home to celebrate their victory by getting their wounded into hospital, their dead buried, and their sunken ships renamed.

IN THE WOOD.

BY BOYD CABLE.

The attack on the wood had begun soon after dawn, and it was no more than 8 A.M. when the Corporal was dropped badly wounded in the advance line of the attack where it had penetrated about four hundred yards into the wood. But it was well into afternoon before he sufficiently woke to his surroundings to understand where he was or what had happened, and when he did so he found the realisation sufficiently unpleasant. It was plain from several indications—the direction from which the shells bursting in his vicinity were coming, a glimpse of some wounded Germans retiring, the echoing rattle of rifle fire and crash of bombs behind him—that the battalion had been driven back, as half a dozen other battalions had been driven back in the course of the ebb-and-flow fighting through the wood for a couple of weeks past, that he was lying badly wounded and helpless to defend himself where the Germans could pick him up as a prisoner or finish him off with a saw-backed bayonet as the mood of his discoverers turned. His left leg was broken below the knee, his right shoulder and ribs ached intolerably, a scalp wound six inches long ran across his head from side to side—a wound that, thanks to the steel shrapnel helmet lying dinted in deep across the crown, had not split his head open to the teeth.

He felt, as he put it to himself, ‘done in,’ so utterly done in, that for a good hour he was willing to let it go at that, to lie still and wait whatever luck brought him, almost indifferent as to whether it would be another rush that would advance the British line and bring him within reach of his own stretcher-bearers, or his discovery by some of the German soldiers who passed every now and then close to where he lay.

Thirst drove him to fumble for his water-bottle, only to find, when he had twisted it round, that a bullet had punctured it, and that it was dry; and, after fifteen tortured minutes, thirst drove him to the impossible, and brought him crawling and dragging his broken leg to a dead body and its full bottle. An eager, choking swallow and a long breath-stopping, gurgling draught gave him more life than he had ever thought to feel again, a sudden revulsion of feeling against the thought of waiting helpless there to be picked up and carted to a German prison camp or butchered where he lay a quick hope and a desperate resolve to attempt to escape such a fate. He had managed to crawl to the water-bottle; he would attempt to crawl at least a little nearer to the fighting lines, to where he would have more chance of coming under the hands of his own men. Without waste of time he took hasty stock of his wounds and set about preparing for his attempt. The broken leg was the most seriously crippling, but with puttees, bayonets, and trenching-tool handles he so splinted and bound it about that he felt he could crawl and drag it behind him. He attempted to bandage his head, but his arm and shoulder were so stiff and painful when he lifted his hand to his head that he desisted and satisfied himself with a water-soaked pad placed inside a shrapnel helmet. Then he set out to crawl.

It is hard to convey to anyone who has not seen such a place, the horrible difficulty of the task the Corporal had set himself. The wood had been shelled for weeks, until almost every tree in it had been smashed and knocked down and lay in a wild tangle of trunks, tops, and branches on the ground. The ground itself was pitted with big and little shell-holes, seamed with deep trenches, littered with whole and broken arms and equipments, German and British grenades and bombs, scattered thick with British and German dead who had lain there for any time from hours to weeks. And into and over it all the shells were still crashing and roaring. The air palpitated to their savage rushing, the ground trembled to the impact of their fall, and without pause or break the deep roll of the drumming gun-fire bellowed and thundered. But through all the chaos men were still fighting, and would continue to fight, and the Corporal had set his mind doggedly to come somewhere near to where they fought. The penetration of such a jungle might have seemed impossible even to a sound and uninjured man; to one in his plight it appeared mere madness to attempt. And yet to attempt it he was determined, and being without any other idea in his throbbing head but the sole one of overcoming each obstacle as he came to it, had no time to consider the impossibility of the complete task.

Now, two hundred yards is a short distance as measurement goes, but into those two hundred yards through the chaos of wrecked wood the Corporal packed as much suffering, as dragging a passage of time, as many tortures of hope and fear and pain, as would fill an ordinary lifetime. Every yard was a desperate struggle, every fallen tree-trunk, each tangle of fallen branch, was a cruel problem to be solved, a pain-racked and laborious effort to overcome. A score of times he collapsed and lay panting, and resigned himself to abandoning the struggle; and a score of times he roused himself and fought down numbing pain, and raised himself on trembling arms and knees to crawl again, to wriggle through the wreckage, to hoist himself over some obstacle, to fight his way on for another yard or two. Every conscious thought was busied only and solely with the problems of his passage that presented themselves one by one, but at the back of his mind some self-working reason or instinct held him to his direction, took heed of what went on around him, guided him in action other than that immediately concerned with his passage. When, for instance, he came to a deep trench cutting across his path, he sat long with his whole mind occupied on the question as to whether he should move to right or left, whether the broken place half a dozen yards off the one way or the more completely broken one a dozen yards the other would be the best to make for, scanning this way down and that way up, a litter of barbed wire here and a barrier of broken branches there; and yet, without even lifting his mind from the problem, he was aware of grey coats moving along the trench towards him, had sense enough to drop flat and lie huddled and still until the Germans had passed. And that second mind again advised him against crawling down into the trench and making his easier way along it, because it was too probable it would be in use as a passage for Germans, wounded and unwounded.

He turned and moved slowly along the edge of the trench at last, and held to it for some distance because the parapet raised along its edge held up many of the fallen trees and branches enough to let him creep under them. That advantage was discounted to some extent by the number of dead bodies that lay heaped on or under the parapet and told of the struggles and the fierce fighting that had passed for possession of the trench, but on the whole the dead men were less difficult to pass than the clutching, wrenching fingers of the dead wood. The pains in his head, shoulder, and side had by now dulled down to a dead numbness, but his broken leg never ceased to burn and stab with red-hot needles of agony; and for all the splints encasing it and despite all the care he took, there was hardly a yard of his passage that was not marked by some wrenching catch on his foot, some jarring shock or grind and grate of the broken bones.

He lost count of time, he lost count of distance, but he kept on crawling. He was utterly indifferent to the turmoil of the guns, to the rush and yell of the near-falling shells, the crash of their bursts, the whirr of the flying splinters. When he had been well and whole these things would have brought his heart to his mouth, would have set him ducking and dodging and shrinking. Now he paid them no fraction of his absorbed attention. But to the distinctive and rising sounds of bursting grenades, to the sharp whip and whistle of rifle bullets about him and through the leaves and twigs, he gave eager attention because they told him he was nearing his goal, was coming at last to somewhere near the fringe of the fighting. His limbs were trembling under him, he was throbbing with pain from head to foot, his head was swimming and his vision was blurred and dim, and at last he was forced to drop and lie still and fight to recover strength to move, and sense to direct his strength. His mind cleared slowly, and he saw at last that he had come to a slightly clearer part of the wood, to a portion nearer its edge where the trees had thinned a little and where the full force of the shell blast had wrecked and re-wrecked and torn fallen trunks and branches to fragments.

But although his mind had recovered, his body had not. He found he could barely raise himself on his shaking arms—had not the strength to crawl another yard. He tried and tried again, moved no more than bare inches, and had to drop motionless again.

And there he lay and watched a fresh attack launched by the British into the wood, heard and saw the tornado of shell-fire that poured crashing and rending and shattering into the trees, watched the khaki figures swarm forward through the smoke, the spitting flames of the rifles, the spurting fire and smoke of the flung grenades. He still lay on the edge of the broken trench along which he had crept, and he could just make out that this ran off at an angle away from him and that it was held by the Germans, and formed probably the point of the British attack. He watched the attack with consuming eagerness, hope flaming high as he saw the khaki line press forward, sinking again to leaden depths as it halted or held or swayed back. To him the attack was an affair much more vital than the taking of the trench, the advance by a few score yards of the British line. To him it meant that a successful advance would bring him again within the British lines, its failure leave him still within the German.

Into the trench below him a knot of Germans scrambled scuffling, and he lay huddled there almost within arm’s length of them while they hoisted a couple of machine-guns to the edge of the trench and manned the parapet and opened a hail of fire down the length of the struggling British line. Under that streaming fire the line wilted and withered; a fresh torrent of fire smote it, and it crumpled and gave and ebbed back. But almost immediately another line swarmed up out of the smoke and swept forward, and this time, although the same flank and frontal fire caught and smote it, the line straggled and swayed forward and plunged into and over the German trench.

The Corporal lying there on the trench edge was suddenly aware of a stir amongst the men below him. The edge where he lay half screened in a débris of green stuff and huddled beside a couple of dead Germans was broken down enough to let him see well into the trench, and he understood to the full the meaning of the movements of the Germans in the trench, of their hasty hauling down of the machine-guns, their scrambling retirement crouched and hurrying along the trench back in the direction from which he had come. The trench the British had taken ran out at a right angle from this one where he lay, and the Germans near him were retiring behind the line of trench that had been taken. And that meant he was as good as saved.

A minute later two khaki figures emerged from a torn thicket of tree stumps and branches a dozen yards beyond the trench where he lay, and ran on across towards the denser wood into which the Germans had retreated. One was an officer, and close on their heels came half a dozen, a dozen, a score of men, all following close and pressing on to the wood and opening out as they went. One came to the edge of the trench where the machine-guns had been, and the Corporal with an effort lifted and waved an arm and shouted hoarsely to him. But even as he did so he realised how futile his shout was, how impossible it was for it to carry even the few yards in the pandemonium of noise that raved about them. But he shouted again, and yet again, and felt bitter disappointment as the man without noticing turned and moved along the trench, peering down into it.

The Corporal had a sudden sense of someone moving behind him, and twisted round in time to see another khaki figure moving past a dozen paces away and the upper half bodies of half a score more struggling through the thickets beyond. This time he screamed at them, but they too passed unhearing and unheeding. The Corporal dropped quivering and trying to tell himself that it was all right, that there would be others following, that some of them must come along the trench, that the stretcher-bearers would be following close.

But for the moment none followed them, and from where they had vanished came a renewed uproar of grenade-bursts and rifle fire beating out and through the uproar of the guns and the screaming, crashing shells. The Corporal saw a couple of wounded come staggering back ... the tumult of near fighting died down ... a line of German grey-clad shoulders and bobbing ‘coal-scuttle’ helmets plunged through and beyond the thicket from which the khaki had emerged a few minutes before. And then back into the trench below him scuffled the Germans with their two machine-guns. With a groan the Corporal dropped his face in the dirt and dead leaves and groaned hopelessly. He was ‘done in,’ he told himself, ‘clean done in.’ He could see no chance of escape. The line had been driven back, and the last ounce of strength to crawl.... He tried once more before he would finally admit that last ounce gone, but the effort was too much for his exhausted limbs and pain-wrenched body. He dropped to the ground again.

The rapid clatter of the two machine-guns close to him lifted his head to watch. The main German trench was spouting dust and débris, flying clouds of leaves, flashing white slivers of bark and wood, under the torrent of shells that poured on it once more. The machine-guns below him ceased, and the Corporal concluded that their target had gone for the moment. But that intense bombardment of the trench almost certainly meant the launching of another British attack, and then the machine-guns would find their target struggling again across their sights and under their streaming fire. They had a good ‘field of fire,’ too, as the Corporal could see. The British line had to advance for the most part through the waist-high tangle of wrecked wood, but by chance or design a clearer patch of ground was swept close to the German trench, and as the advance crossed this the two machine-guns on the flank near the Corporal would get in their work, would sweep it in enfilade, would be probably the worst obstacle to the advance. And at that a riot of thoughts swept the Corporal’s mind. If he could out those machine-guns ... if he could out those machine-guns ... but how? There were plenty of rifles near, and plenty of dead about with cartridges on them ... but one shot would bring the Germans jumping from their trench on him.... Bombs now ... if he had some Mills’ grenades ... where had he seen....

He steadied himself deliberately and thought back. The whole wood was littered with grenades, spilt and scattered broadcast singly and in heaps—German stick-grenades and Mills’. He remembered crawling past a dead bomber with a bag full of Mills’ beside him only a score of yards away. Could he crawl to them and back again? The Germans in the trench might see him; and anyhow—hadn’t he tried? And hadn’t he found the last ounce of his strength gone?

But he found another last ounce. He half crawled, half dragged himself back and found his bag of grenades, and with the full bag hooked over his shoulder and a grenade clutched ready in his hand felt himself a new man. His strength was gone, but it takes little strength to pull the pin of a grenade, and if any German rushed him now, at least they’d go together.

The machine-guns broke out again, and the Corporal, gasping and straining, struggled foot by foot back towards them. The personal side—the question of his own situation and chances of escape—had left him. He had forgotten himself. His whole mind was centred on the attack, on the effect of those machine-guns’ fire, on the taking of the German trench. He struggled past the break in the trench and on until he had shelter behind the low parapet. He wanted some cover. One grenade wasn’t enough. He wanted to make sure, and he wouldn’t chance a splinter from his own bomb.

The machine-guns were chattering and clattering at top speed, and as he pulled the pin of his first grenade the Corporal saw another gun being dragged up beside the others. He held his grenade and counted ‘one-and-two-and-throw—’ and lobbed the grenade over into the trench under the very feet of the machine-gunners. He hastily pulled another pin and threw the grenade ... and as a spurt of smoke and dust leaped from the trench before him and the first grenades crash-crashed, he went on pulling out the pins and flinging over others as fast as he could pitch. The trench spouted fire and dust and flying dirt and débris, the ground shook beneath him, he was half stunned with the quick-following reports—but the machine-guns had stopped on the first burst.

That was all he remembered. This time the last ounce was really gone, and he was practically unconscious when the stretcher-bearers found him after the trench was taken and the attack had passed on deep into the wood.

And weeks after, lying snug in bed in a London hospital, after a Sister had scolded him for moving in bed and reaching out for a magazine that had dropped to the floor, and told him how urgent it was that he must not move, and how a fractured leg like his must be treated gently and carefully if he did not wish to be a cripple for life, and so on and so forth, he grinned up cheerfully at her. ‘Orright, Sister,’ he said, ‘I’ll remember. But it’s a good job for me I didn’t know all that, back there—in the wood.’

A TALK WITH COLERIDGE.

Abstract of a discourse with Mr. Coleridge on the state of the country in December 1830, written at the time by John Frere.[1]

[While staying with the daughter of Mr. John Frere I came across this paper in one of the many manuscript volumes in his writing. Educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, he was one of those known as the ‘Apostles’ at Cambridge, and Charles and Alfred Tennyson were among his friends as well as Arthur Hallam, whom he admired greatly, and Coleridge.

The volume is a quaint collection of many things—original verses, extracts from books, and notes of sermons; and the reader can only wish that a few of the evenings spent with the Apostles might have been recorded within these marbled covers.

But this one conversation has a charm peculiarly its own, and we will no longer keep the reader from entering the Hampstead room well known to the literary men of the day, where silently he may observe an old-world courtesy and ceremony belonging to a past age, while listening to a discourse only too seldom to be heard.]

C. Is there anything stirring now in the world of letters, anything in the shape of poetry lately produced, for I see nothing of the sort, nor even a Review that is not a year old?

F. No, Sir, at least I have heard no talk of any such thing; these continual burnings occupy all men’s thoughts and conversation.

C. And what remedies are proposed? They talk I suppose of retrenchments, but what good can retrenchment do? Alas! revolutionary times are times of general demoralisation; what great men do they ever produce? What was produced by the late Revolutionary Spirit in France? There must be something uppermost to be sure in such disturbances; some military superiority, but what great—I mean truly great—man was produced?

In England the same spirit was curbed in and worsted by the moral sense, afterwards there followed times of repose, and the Muses began to show themselves. But now what is going forward? The depravity of the spirit of the times is marked by the absence of poetry. For it is a great mistake to suppose that thought is not necessary for poetry; true, at the time of composition there is that starlight, a dim and holy twilight; but is not light necessary before?

Poetry is the highest effort of the mind; all the powers are in a state of equilibrium and equally energetic, the knowledge of individual existence is forgotten, the man is out of himself and exists in all things, his eye in a fine &c.

There is no one perhaps who composes with more facility than your Uncle; but does it cost him nothing before? It is the result of long thought; and poetry as I have before observed must be the result of thought, and the want of thought in what is now called poetry is a bad sign of the times.

There is a want of the proper spirit; if a nation would flourish (politically speaking) there must be a desire in the breast of each man of something more than merely to live—he must desire to live well; and if men cannot live well at home they will go and live well elsewhere. The condition upon which a country circumstanced as ours is exists, is that it should become the Mother of Empires, and this Mr. W. Horton feels, but his plans are not extensive or universal enough. I had a conversation with him, but could not make him enter into my views. We ought to send out colonies, but not privately or by parishes; it should be a grand National concern; there should be in every family one or more brought up for this and this alone.

A Father should say, ‘There, John now is a fine strong fellow and an enterprising lad, he shall be a colonist.’

But then some fool-like Lord ⸺ gets up and tells us ‘Oh no! America should be a warning.’

Good Heavens, Sir! a warning, and of what? Are we to beware of having 2 [sets?] of men bound to us by the ties of allegiance and of affinity; 2 [sets] of men in a distant part of the world speaking the language of Shakspear and Milton, and living under the laws of Alfred. But a warning they should be to us, to give freely and in good time that liberty which is their due, and which they will properly extort from us if we withhold.

F. Is it not moreover true, Sir, that we should show ourselves really a Mother and not a Stepmother to those Empires which we found? We should with a nursing hand lead them through the dangers of infancy; but why keep them in leading strings when they are able to act for themselves? We should relax our hold by slow degrees as they are able to bear it, and nurture them to be free and manly states, and not the slaves of any, still less of their own Mother. What Mother ever complains of the ingratitude of her Son because he does not follow at her apron-strings all the days of his life? Why then do we complain of America, who with greater justice might complain of us that we have been far from remembering one great duty, namely that a Mother if need be should even sacrifice herself for her child?

C. What you say is very true; but with regard to the execution of a plan of Colonisation, why should we not make the absurd system of Poor Laws subservient to the measure?

Why not, since as Sir N. T.[2] told Bartle the other day, An offer and refusal is as good as an acceptance, propose to any person requiring assistance of the overseer the following terms:—We have it is true bound ourselves by a most foolish promise to find you work; we have none here, but if you choose to go out to the Swan River, you shall have as much as you want, and we will carry you out there, your wife and your children too, if you have them, and you shall get your livelihood in an honorable and independent way—and mind you are now to consider us discharged of our promise to find you work.

F. It is true that this would be fair enough, but as long as the poor man sees the rich enjoy a liberty which he does not, viz. that of living in the land in which he was born, he would complain, and not without reason. Let then the young and active in the higher ranks set them the example. And why should the unlearned be deprived of the countenance and assistance of the wiser? What can hand do without head, especially in untamed countries? Heaven knows the labouring classes have been most iniquitously considered for some time and are now becoming, as Mr. Coleridge says, more things than persons, and are therefore more than ever unfit to be sent alone.

C. And therefore the younger sons of noblemen and the fops of town would have been employed in a manner much better for their country, and more happy for themselves had they been brought up as members and limbs of a colony instead of thrusting themselves into situations to which they do not naturally belong, and to the exclusion of all competition, or wasting their energies at Newmarket or in Crockfords.

C. Almost all thinking Jews are Deists. I wonder Mr. ⸺ should ever have talked with you on those subjects; the persecution which a Jew would undergo from his brethren if it was known that he did so, is not to be calculated. The life, you know, of Spinoza was twice attempted, but he professed Christianity, at least in his way in a letter to a friend; for he said that if the Logos could be manifested in the flesh, it must converse and act as Jesus did. At the same time his notions of a God were very Pantheistic, a ⊙le. whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere. He had no notion of a Conscious Being of a God—but with these ideas to talk of God becoming flesh appears to me very much like talking of a square ⊙le.

Spinoza is a man whom I most deeply reverence, I was going to say whom I reverence as much as it is possible for me to reverence any creature. He was on the borders of the truth, and would no doubt had he lived have attained it.

But bless me! to talk of converting the Jews, people are not aware of what they undertake.

Mr. ⸺ say’d to me, and I thought very beautifully, ‘Convert the Jews! Alas, Sir, Mammon and Ignorance are the two giant porters who stand at the gates of Jerusalem and forbid the entrance of Truth.’

F. You have not read much of Keats, Sir, I think.

C. No, I have not. I have seen two Sonnets which I think showed marks of a great genius had he lived. I have also read a poem with a classical name—I forget what. Poor Keats, I saw him once. Mr. Green,[3] whom you have heard me mention, and I were walking out in these parts, and we were overtaken by a young man of a very striking countenance whom Mr. Green recognised and shook hands with, mentioning my name; I wish Mr. Green had introduced me, for I did not know who it was. He passed on, but in a few moments sprung back and said, ‘Mr. Coleridge, allow me the honour of shaking your hand.’

I was struck by the energy of his manner, and gave him my hand.

He passed on and we stood still looking after him, when Mr. Green said,

‘Do you know who that is? That is Keats, the poet.’

‘Heavens!’ said I, ‘when I shook him by the hand there was death!’ This was about two years before he died.

F. But what was it?

C. I cannot describe it. There was a heat and a dampness in the hand. To say that his death was caused by the Review is absurd, but at the same time it is impossible adequately to conceive the effect which it must have had on his mind.

It is very well for those who have a place in the world and are independent to talk of these things, they can bear such a blow, so can those who have a strong religious principle; but all men are not born Philosophers, and all men have not those advantages of birth and education.

Poor Keats had not, and it is impossible I say to conceive the effect which such a Review[4] must have had upon him, knowing as he did that he had his way to make in the world by his own exertions, and conscious of the genius within him.

Have you seen, Mr. F., anything of Lord Byron’s poetry?

F. Nothing, Sir, but the Translation of ‘Faust.’

C. And what do you think of that?

F. Being unacquainted, Sir, with the original I cannot speak of its merits as a translation. As a poem I think it meagre, nor do I conceive that the metres are adapted to the subject in English whatever they may be in German.

C. I have been asked why I did not translate the camp scenes in ‘Wallenstein.’

The truth is that the labour would have been immense, and besides it would not have been borne in English, to say nothing of the fact that Mrs. Barbauld reviewed my translation of the rest of the play and abused it through thick and thin, so that it sold for wastepaper. I remember your uncle telling me that he had picked it up—he approved it, so did Canning to whom he showed it—and so might one or two more, but the edition sold for wastepaper.

F. Had you ever any thought of translating the ‘Faust’?

C. Yes, Sir, I had, but I was prevented by the consideration that though there are some exquisite passages, the opening chorus, the chapel and the prison scenes for instance, to say nothing of the Brocken scene where he has shown peculiar strength in keeping clear of Shakspear, he has not taken that wonderful admixture of Witch Fate and Fairy but has kept to the real original witch, and this suits his purpose much better. I say that a great deal of it I do not admire, and some I reprobate. The conception of Wagner is bad: whoever heard of a man who had gained such wonderful proficiency in learning as to call up spirits &c. being discontented?

No, it is not having the power of knowledge that would make a man discontented—neither would such a man have suddenly become a sensualist. The discourses too with the pupil are dull. The Mephistapholes (sic), or whatever the name is, is well executed, but the conception is not original. It was ⸺ who had before said, ‘The Devil is the great humourist of the world.’ There are other parts too which I could not have translated without entering my protest against them in a manner which would hardly have been fair upon the author, for those things are understood in Germany in a spirit very different from what they would infuse here in England. To give you an example, the scene where Mephistopheles is introduced as coming before the Almighty and talking with Him would never be borne in English and this whole scene is founded on a mistranslation of a passage in Scripture, the opening of Job. You remember how Satan means properly one who goes his rounds, and hence it came to mean one of those officers whom the King in Eastern countries used to send round to see how his subjects were going on. This power was soon abused and the Satans used to accuse people falsely, and hence the word came to have the meaning now attached to it of a calumniator, a διάβολος, an accuser.

Now in the Book of Job (which is undoubtedly very ancient, before the law for there is no mention of the law in it, undoubtedly the most ancient book in the world) the word Satan meant only this officer, the prime vizier of the Sultan (you remember in the ‘Arabian Nights’ the Caliph and his vizier are very fond of going their rounds for the same purpose). God Almighty is shown to us under the semblance of a mortal king holding his court, and his officer comes, as the book tells us, ‘from going his rounds on the earth and walking up and down in it,’ but mind there is nothing like malignity attached to him.

The King asks him concerning Job—the officer answers that he is a perfect man—but (adds he) ‘He has yet had no temptation; he is prosperous, and he might alter if his circumstances were altered.’

The King then commands him to try and to destroy his possessions. (N.B.—This is a mistake, He gives him leave.)

Again on another day the same things happen and when the officer is asked about Job he says ‘He is yet integer but many men will do this. I can say nothing for his integrity as long as his possessions only are touched; but stretch out your hand against his person and see if he will curse Thee then?’ It is evident that there is no suggestion, no evil in the officer at all—indeed the belief in Angels and that sort of poultry is nowhere countenanced in the Old Testament and in the New, nowhere else.

F. Indeed, Sir, I think I know a very strong passage.

C. Well, what is it?

F. Our Saviour tells his disciples when alone with them and apart that a certain kind of Devils goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.

C. Well, and what has that to do with Angels?

F. I beg your pardon, Sir. I thought you included devils in your feathered fowl.

C. There is nothing I say in the New Testament to countenance the belief in Angels. For what are the three first Gospels? Every one must see that they are mere plain narrations, not of things as they are but of things as they appeared to the ignorant disciples—but when we come to John, Mr. F., there we find the difference. He told things as they were, and therefore you must not believe everything that you read implicitly; and with respect to Devils entering into a man, why it is quite absurd. What do we mean when we say a thing is in another? Why ‘in’ is merely a relative term. [The argument, though I was compelled to assent to it, I am sorry to say was far above my comprehension, and therefore I could not catch it, still less bag it and carry it away,—however it proved that there could be no Devils and still less could there be Devils in a man.] Spirit therefore was not more in a man than it was out of him, the mistake arising from a misconception of the word in. As for all notions of men with wings, of course they are absurd in the extreme.

I return however to ‘Faust.’

F. Did you ever see Shelley’s translation of the Chorus in ‘Faust’ you were just mentioning?

C. I have, and admire it very much. Shelley was a man of great power as a poet, and could he only have had some notion of order, could you only have given him some plane whereon to stand, and look down upon his own mind, he would have succeeded. There are flashes of the true spirit to be met with in his works. Poor Shelley, it is a pity I often think that I never met with him. I could have done him good. He went to Keswick on purpose to see me and unfortunately fell in with Southey instead. There could have been nothing so unfortunate. Southey had no understanding for a toleration of such principles as Shelley’s.

I should have laughed at his Atheism. I could have sympathised with him and shown him that I did so, and he would have felt that I did so. I could have shown him that I had once been in the same state myself, and I could have guided him through it. I have often bitterly regretted in my heart of hearts that I did never meet with Shelley.

F. It is time to be gone now I fear, Mr. Coleridge, and when I come up again I hope you will allow me to bring a volume of Keats with me.

C. I shall be most happy to see you for any night you like to come, and any day before 12 o’clock. Thursday nights are over now, but any night whether Thursday or not I shall be most happy to see you.

F. I must not allow you to come out into the passage, Sir. Good night....

It was nearly a hundred years ago, yet we seem to see Mr. Frere stepping out into the night, his mind busy with the thoughts of the last hour.

Were the link boys running through the streets with flaring torches, and did the stately sedan chair carry home the gay beauty of those far-off days?

The picture arises which each reader can colour according to his fancy, yet the impression left as we close the manuscript volume with its marbled cover, is less of contrast than of unity. The matters that were of interest in the state of the country in 1830 are of interest in 1917, though in some cases we see the fulfilment of what was then hoped for.

To-day as the Colonies send their sons in their thousands to uphold the Motherland in her fight for Justice and Freedom, we know that our colonial attitude has been more than justified, and England is indeed proud of her Dominions.

The marble-covered volume closely written in a scholarly hand is once more placed on the shelf. The ink has grown pale with age, and the question arises—‘Who to-day would find time to write down an evening’s conversation, however interesting?’ But another question is more insistent, as we compare the popular opinion expressed then about Keats, and other persons and subjects with the verdict of time:

Can a contemporary judgment be as good as a judgment formed when the person or matter is further from us? And this consideration brings the consoling thought that not all that may appear failure at the time is really failure. The age in which they live may be unworthy of its poets and prophets, yet none the less is their message Divine, and their voice will be heard at last.

But Mr. Coleridge and Mr. Frere have retired to rest, and we shall not again disturb them.

E. M. Green.

FOOTNOTES

[1] John Frere was the eldest son of George Frere of Lincoln’s Inn and Twyford, Herts, who was third son of John Frere of Roydon, Norfolk. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge; B.A. 1830, M.A. 1833, 2nd class Classical Tripos, 1st Sen. Op.; Curate of Hadleigh, Suffolk, under Archdeacon Lyall; Chaplain to Blomfield, Bishop of London; Rector of Cottenham, Cambe, 1839. Married Jane B. Dalton, 1839. Died May 21, 1851. He was first curate of Wakes Colne, Essex, at that time held with Messing Vicarage.

[2] Possibly Sir Nathaniel Tooke, a celebrated politician of those times.

[3] Possibly Rev. George Rowney Green, Fellow of Eton and grandfather to the finder of this paper.

[4] These lines were written by Byron in July 1821:

Who kill’d John Keats?

‘I,’ says the Quarterly,

So savage and Tartarly;

‘’Twas one of my feats.’

Who shot the arrow?

‘The poet-priest Milman

(So ready to kill man),

Or Southey or Barrow.’

‘THE WASTREL.’

The black-faced sheep were scattering about the moss when David Moir stopped to shut the loaning gate. It was getting dark and the lonely fells rolled back, blurred and shadowy, to the east. In the foreground, peat-hags showed gashes of oily black among the ling, but some were filled with leaden water, ruffled by the bitter wind. Beneath him, in a hollow, his small, white farmstead stood amidst a few bare ash trees, and a dim gleam to the west indicated the sea. Moir was gaunt and a trifle bent by age and toil, though his eyes were keen. Sheep dealers called him a hard man, but took his word about the flocks he sold. As a matter of fact, he lived with stern frugality because his upland farm was poor and his younger son’s folly had cost him dear.

By and by his old collie growled and he saw a line of indistinct figures crossing the moss. As one left the rest and came towards him he recognised a young Territorial sergeant, who was a seed merchant’s clerk in peaceful times.

‘Ye’ll hae had a cauld day amang the fells,’ he remarked. ‘What were ye looking for?’

‘I don’t know,’ the sergeant answered, smiling. ‘The idea may have been to keep us fit, but we had orders to inquire about the old drove road and note anything suspicious. You’ll have heard the tales about signal lights and mysterious cars that cross the moors after dark.’

‘Idle clashes!’

‘I’m not sure. The authorities seem to suspect that something’s going on, and a strange motor launch has been seen off Barennan Sands; then the old north road comes down to the shore this way. I expect you know it?’

Moir nodded. The new road, which led through two towns, followed the water of Ewan down a neighbouring valley; the old one ran straight across the lonely fells.

‘It’s a green ro’d, but the maist o’ it’s no’ so bad. I hae driven a young horse ower it in the dark, and it’s no’ verra steep until ye rin doon to Ewan glen.’

‘Well,’ said the sergeant, ‘you may have a visit from Lieutenant Jardine and his motor scouts. They start on a patrol at eight o’clock, and, as they go round by Turnberry Moss, should get to you about two hours later. There’s a mystery about their job, but my notion is they’re after the strange car. Anyhow I must catch the boys before they reach the big plantin’. They’re a sporting lot and I don’t trust them when there’s game about.’

He turned away, and as Moir went down the loaning the hazy outline of a ruined kirk on the fellside caught his eye. His only daughter was buried in its wind-swept yard, and his two sons had left him. Tam, who was a well-doing lad, had joined the Borderers and been wounded in France; it was a month since they had news of him. Jimmy had disappeared a year ago, after Moir, who had crippled himself financially to save the lad from arrest, disowned him. The farmer suspected that his unemotional wife sometimes blamed him for harshness and grieved in secret for the prodigal. She had borne with Jimmy as she had never done with steady Tam.

When he entered the stone-floored, farm kitchen, Janet was sitting near the peat fire. Her hair was whiter than Moir’s and her face deeply lined, but her plain dress was marked by austere taste, and she had a certain dignity. Man and wife were of the old, stern Calvinistic type that is now dying out. The room was large and draughty, and its precise neatness had a chilling effect. A rag-mat, which Janet had made before rheumatism stiffened her fingers, was the only concession to comfort, but shining china filled a rack above the plain oak press. The hearth-irons glittered, and a copper jelly pan flashed with an orange lustre in the glow of the peats. The herd had gone home to his cot-house and there was nobody else about. When Moir sat down Janet indicated a Glasgow newspaper.

‘Townheid brought it ower—there’s nae news,’ she said.

Moir knew she had been studying the casualty list. Janet seldom showed her feelings and he could not tell whether she was conscious of relief or renewed suspense.

‘We’ll maybe get a letter soon,’ he said. ‘I met Ferguson on the moss and he telt me Mr. Jardine is likely to be here with his men.’

‘Then I’ll hae to offer them a bite to eat. There’s nae loaf-bread and the scones are getting done; but Euphie’s coming and she’ll help me bake.’

Moir looked at her thoughtfully. Euphie Black was a neighbour’s daughter and would have married Jimmy had things gone well.

‘Does she ever hear frae him?’

Janet hesitated. ‘I dinna ken; whiles I think—But I’ll need to see if there’s enough soor milk,’ and she went off to the dairy, while Moir sat thinking of his wastrel son.

Jimmy was clever and it was by his mother’s wish he went into the Glasgow merchant’s office, but when he first came home for the Fair holidays, Moir owned that his wife was right. Jimmy looked well and more of a man, and his employer sent a good account of him. On subsequent visits Moir was less satisfied. The lad’s showy clothes offended his sober taste and he did not like his city smartness. These, however, were not serious matters, and Janet showed no alarm. Moir thought he could trust her judgment, but had reflected since that her mother’s partiality had blinded her. Then one Fair holiday Jimmy did not come home, and before the next arrived Moir was summoned to Glasgow by the boy’s employer. He remembered the curious glances cast at him as he walked through the dingy office to the merchant’s private room, from which he came out hiding a crushing load of shame behind a stern, set face. Half an hour later he returned with a bundle of British Linen notes and a letter of three bitter lines to be sent to the boy’s lodgings. Janet acquiesced in his decision and never spoke of her son, but the lines on her face had deepened.

By and by Euphie came in and Moir went to the stable, where he found some harness that needed repair. He set about it and, as he was thorough in all he did, an hour passed before he was satisfied. When he came out it was raining hard, and on going back to the kitchen he found the baking finished and supper ready for the patrol. They are hospitable folk among the western fells and Lieutenant Jardine was a nephew of Moir’s landlord’s. The farmer sat down and watched Euphie knit. She was tall and had an attractive face, with firmly-lined features and steady grey eyes. As a rule, she was quiet, but her character was decided, and Moir sometimes wondered what had drawn her to his weak son.

Nobody spoke. A cold wind wailed about the house and the drips from a flooded roaning beneath the flagstone eaves splashed against a window-pane. After a time Janet moved abruptly as the door rattled and began to open. It had an awkward old-fashioned latch that few strangers were able to lift. The door, however, had opened and an indistinct figure stood, hesitating, in the porch. Janet got up and beckoned, but Moir sat still with his mouth set.

A young man came in, the water running from his light overcoat, and mud splashed about his leggings. He was breathless, but his face was rather pale than hot, and as he approached the lamp Moir saw there was blood upon his sleeve. The lad said nothing, but Janet went to meet him and put her arms round his neck. She felt him wince at her embrace, and, drawing back, saw, for the first time, his torn and reddened sleeve. Then with a low, pitiful cry she led him forward to the fire.

‘Come away while I see til yere arm. How got ye hurt?’

Jimmy looked at his father, who made no sign, and afterwards at Euphie with a shamefaced air. She did not speak, but gave him a quiet, friendly smile that offended Moir. It was not for nothing he had disowned his son, and now the women had, without asking a question, re-instated him. Janet helped the lad to take off his wet coat, which he dropped upon the floor, and then, after telling Euphie to bring hot water, took him away.

Euphie sat down silently when she returned, and Moir, who disliked untidiness, picked up the coat and, after washing the sleeve, hung it near the door. By and by mother and son came back, but Jimmy now wore a different suit that Moir remembered. It was an old one he had once left behind, but Janet had cleaned and pressed it and kept it for three years. Moir began to realise that he did not know his wife yet. He turned to Euphie when Jimmy sat down without looking at him.

‘It’s getting late and ye’d be better at home,’ he said.

‘No,’ she answered with firm quietness. ‘I was promised to Jimmy and I’ll hear what he has to tell.’

Moir made a sign of acquiescence and gave his son a stern commanding look.

‘What brought ye here?’ he asked.

‘I was hurt and had nowhere else to go,’ Jimmy answered in a strained voice. ‘I only want shelter for a few hours; not to stay.’

‘How did ye get hurt?’

‘A Territorial stopped me at a gate. He tore my arm with his bayonet, but the cut’s not very deep.’

‘Ye were hard put to it when ye tried to pass the soldier,’ Moir remarked.

‘I had to pass him. It was very dark, and there was a hole in the dyke not far off. I thought the others were after me.’

‘What ithers? But ye’ll go back and begin at the first o’ it. I sent ye the price o’ a third-class passage to Canada. Why did ye not go?’

‘The money was stolen.’

‘Ay,’ said Moir grimly, ‘I will not ask ye where! Gang on.’

Jimmy hesitated, but pulled himself together and told his tale. Soon after he was left penniless and disgraced, he found a friend in Fritz, one of the boon companions who had brought about his downfall. Fritz lent him a few small sums and by and by took him to see another man, who sent him to Leith. Jimmy did not mention what he did there, but stated awkwardly that he had got in too deep to draw back when he found out what his employer’s business really was. Then he stopped and said his arm was hurting him. The women looked puzzled, but Moir’s face set like flint.

‘So ye stayed and helped the Gairman spies!’

There was silence for a few moments. Euphie’s face was flushed and she fixed her eyes on the fire, while Janet nervously moved her hands.

‘Weel,’ Moir resumed, ‘ye can noo tell us how ye cam’ to visit this pairt o’ the country.’

Jimmy roused himself with an effort and went on in a low voice: ‘I came with them in the car now and then, by the old green road; you see I knew the way. They met another party at the waterfoot by Barennan Sands.’

‘Just that!’ Moir said grimly. ‘I ken why ye went to Leith. There was news to be picked up aboot the navy yards at Rosyth. What else did ye bring?’

‘Sometimes a man I didn’t know, and once a load of small iron drums. I can’t say what was inside. They didn’t tell me much.’

Moir pondered. He imagined that the drums held something that was needed by enemy submarines; but Jimmy’s frankness puzzled him. He did not think it was contrition, since he had no faith in his son. The lad seemed to have told the truth because he was afraid.

‘Where did ye leave yere foreign friends?’ he asked.

‘Where the road turns off to the old place of Whiterigg; they stopped there now and then, and there’s a gate, you mind. I got down to open it and they drove off.’

‘Why?’ Moir demanded, and the fear was plainer in Jimmy’s eyes.

‘I think their work must be nearly done and they meant to get rid of me. After all, I don’t know very much, and they’d reckon I’d be afraid to tell what I had found out.’

Moir began to understand. The old house at Whiterigg had lately been left in charge of a caretaker who obviously belonged to the gang, which indicated that the latter was well organised. The lad was perhaps in some danger from them.

‘But what for did they gang to the Whiterigg?’

‘To wait for high-tide, I expect. They’d run down to the waterfoot when a boat could come up the gut through the sands.’

‘That would be the way o’ it, nae doot; but I dinna ken yet why ye cam’ hame.’

‘Where else would he gang for safety?’ Janet asked in a pitiful tone.

‘Ony place but here! It’s to my sorrow he’s a son o’ mine. But let him speak.’

Jimmy’s narrative was not very lucid, but it appeared that he had been seized by a kind of panic when left in the road. He had very little money, something suspicious had happened at the last stopping place, and he thought his friends had betrayed him to the police, or might send somebody after him in the dark. He lost his nerve when he found the soldier in his way, and after getting past the man ran blindly across the moor towards home. When he finished Moir glanced at the tall oak clock.

‘Ye have aboot an ’oor, and then Mr. Jardine will be here with his motor scouts,’ he said, and taking his gun from a rack went out.

It was raining hard and very dark, but he made his way across the moss to where the old road ran down to Ewan Water, and stopped a short distance from the bank. A weak thorn hedge grew beside it, but Moir could see the pale glimmer of the water two or three yards below and hear the gurgle of the current, which swirled round a deep elbow-pool. A pair of stone gateposts stood close by, but the gate had been removed to allow the cattle fresh pasture, and Moir, who knew where it was, brought it back. He hung it to the post and fastened it firmly to the other with some wire from a fence. He had already lighted a lantern, and now examined his work. The gate was old, but looked pretty strong; some force would be required to break it down. Then he went up the steep hill away from the water and stopped at an opening in a dyke at the top. There was no gate here, and after hiding his lantern he sheltered behind the wall in a dangerous mood.

David Moir was a true descendant of the old Westland Whigs; sternly just and ready to suffer for his principles, he could make no allowance for a different point of view, and was subject to fits of cold anger which, while generally righteous, was tinged with fanaticism. His son’s treachery filled him with horror, but he was calm enough to see that the weak lad had been the victim of the men who used him. Well, he meant to settle the black account with them!

It was bitterly cold and he was getting wet, but his watchfulness did not relax. The growl of Ewan Water, brawling among the stones, rose from the valley and the wind whistled eeriely through the chinks in the dyke. For a time he heard nothing else, and then a faint throbbing began and grew louder. A big car, without lights, was travelling dangerously fast along the fellside, and as it came near Moir stood in the gateway holding up his lantern. He heard a warning shout and a rattle of stones as the locked wheels skidded, and the half-seen car stopped a few yards off. Moir turned the light upon the two men in it.

‘Which o’ ye is Fritz?’ he asked.

They looked surprised, but one said ‘You want to know too much. Why have you stopped us?’

‘My name is Moir. I want a word with ye.’

He put the lantern on the dyke and the light glimmered on the barrel of his gun. It was his duty to hand the men to the patrol, but if this was impossible, so much the worse for them. They had made his son a traitor to his country by taking advantage of his need, and Moir suspected that Fritz had first made him a thief.

‘You’re the young fool’s father, but we can’t waste time on you,’ said one. ‘Drop that gun and let us pass!’

‘Get doon!’ said Moir, who did not move.

‘Out of the way, or we’ll drive over you!’ the other cried.

The car rolled forward and Moir sprang back, hesitated as it ran past, and lowered his gun.

‘Drive tae h—, where ye belang!’ he said, as the car lurched furiously down the hill.

Then he stood and listened. A sharp-pitched throbbing now rose from the valley, through which the high-road wound on the other side of the water. It sounded like a motor bicycle, and Moir understood the impatience of the men he had stopped. Jardine’s scouts had got upon their track, but the chances were against the fugitives reaching the bridge where the roads joined. He waited with his face fixed like stone until he heard a heavy crash in the dark below. Then he picked up his lantern and ran down the hill.

When he reached the bottom everything was quiet except for the roar of Ewan Water and the hum of the approaching bicycle, but pieces of the broken gate lay about the road. Moir raised the lantern and saw a track deeply ploughed through the grass and stones, in front of which the hedge was smashed. Looking down through the gap, he distinguished something in the water. It looked like the wheel of an upset car, but he could not see it well, because the torrent foamed in an angry swirl across what lay below. If the men had not jumped before the plunge, it was too late for help.

A minute later, the motor bicycle rattled across the bridge a short distance off and sped towards him. It slowed and Lieutenant Jardine got down.

‘Have you seen a car, David?’ he asked.

‘I hae,’ said Moir. ‘Let yere machine stand. She’s in the pool.’

The young man followed him to the broken hedge and looked down. ‘What about the men?’

‘Maybe they jumpit aff. If no’, they’re under her.’

Lieutenant Jardine, who had seen no active service yet, caught his breath with a short gasp.

‘How long will it take to get her out?’