A Soldier's Place Read online

  The Hun had cleared the foot of the stairway. The earth was handled easily but the crossed timbers were difficult, and finally wedged planks were encountered. The force of the explosion had driven them deep in the chalky soil and their release seemed impossible. Calico informed Izzard of their problem and got little response.

  “I didn’t think we could get out,” said the hater of drill grounds, “but this air is all right yet. I’ll have a look at them beams when I get through with this brasso monkey. We’ve found a lot more equipment in these bunks.”

  They had and, urged mercilessly by Izzard, the RSM did his best to shine the dull German buckles. Any time he glanced around he gazed directly into two dark tubes of indescribable menace, and the holder of them broke forth in fresh insult. Finally the equipment was finished.

  “Come over here, now,” shrilled Izzard, waving his revolvers. “Shine the buttons on this bristly sausage grinder.”

  It was the height of cruelty. Sunshine’s abhorrence for dead men was common knowledge, but in the face of certain death the brasso king yielded. The picture of fear and aversion, he knelt and applied polish to the lustreless buttons of the dead Prussian officer. Beads of perspiration rolled down the cheeks of the man who had intimidated companies, and he no longer responded to Izzard’s taunts. Calico halted after an examination of the dugout and witnessed the performance.

  “A little of that goes a long way, Izzard,” he drawled after a short time. “That’ll do for the stiff, but you can try him on this live Kaiser.”

  Izzard looked around. The voice of his chum had assumed a strange authority. “Get up, you shiner,” he snarled at his victim, “and try the buttons of this live Fritz.”

  The eye of the Hun bulged. He was plainly baffled by the happenings about him. Sunshine walked up to him and daubed polish on his drab buttons, then brushed with energy, and not till all had received attention did he slacken. Izzard, tiring of his sport, waved him to one side, and Sunshine sank in a corner, exhausted, his eyes holding the expression of a hunted animal.

  “What’s next?” asked Izzard. “I’ll let Sunshine get his wind—before I start him all over again.”

  “I think we can get out,” stated Calico. “That box-thing over there that the officer looked into is a ventilator of some kind and we’ve got lots of air. I found a Mills bomb among that junk the Heinies have stole off a stiff at night, that’s the only way they could have got it, and I’m going to blow these planks out of the way. We’ll get the earth from behind them a bit first.”

  “Why not let Sunshine have a chance at the shovel?” rasped Izzard. “They always hunt work for us when we’re supposed to be resting.”

  Calico nodded and the short man sprang into action. “Get on your pins, Brasso,” he snapped, “and freeze onto this shovel. Toot sweet.”

  Sunshine laboured manfully, and before he had satisfied his masters was coated with chalky grime.

  “Stand back, now,” said Calico, “and watch a Mills bomb do its part in the Great War.”

  He knew that the RSM had never become acquainted with such implements of destruction, and, as if fascinated, Sunshine watched every movement as the bomb was placed. “Now we’ll pull the pin that holds the lever,” Calico remarked, “and when that happens you want to be out of the way.”

  Everyone ducked with alacrity. Cra-a-ash! Black smoke billowed into the dugout and bits of shrapnel struck into the walls. A cartload of earth and splintered wood slid down. Simultaneously the sounds of firing overhead came sharp and loud.

  “Jake-aloo,” yelled Calico, “we’ve broke through. Wait till the smoke clears and I’ll go up first. Then send that Heinie and Sunshine up to me.”

  Izzard conducted his end of the programme with all the austerity of an army general. A well-like cavity merged into a great crater that rimmed a remnant of the trench. The Mills bomb had merely broken the wall of earth that separated the stairway from the crater. The night was still black and machine guns were active at various points. Izzard fancied the entire front was in combat but Calico broke the illusion.

  “They’re not fighting,” he stated, “but just shooting a bit before they retire. It’s nearly two o’clock by this watch I took off that officer. We ought to get out of here.”

  “Sure,” said Izzard, “but which way do we go?”

  “That way, I think.” Calico pointed vaguely in the gloom. “I’ll take care of Von Kluck, and we’ll call off the rough stuff on Sunshine.” He lowered his voice and drew Izzard to one side, keeping hold of the German. “Look here,” he murmured, “we’ve got to get back to the company and we’re in wrong. Sunshine’ll have us sent to Rousen for life.”

  “He’ll not,” hissed Izzard. “Leave him to me. He’ll promise here and now never to report us—or he’ll never go back. Get me?”

  “Don’t be a fool, Izzard,” Calico’s voice raised a trifle. “You can’t kill a man for that.”

  The short man dug Calico with his elbow. “I’ll shoot him like a dog if he doesn’t promise,” he said loudly.

  Calico started, but Izzard turned slowly. He had felt rather than seen the RSM at his elbow. Swinging his guns around he snarled like a dog. “I want to shoot you, you brasso fool, but Calico says not to. But you’ll promise not to report us or I’ll put lead in you right now. You’ll be ‘killed in action’ all right. Make up your mind toot sweet.”

  “I’ll never report either of you,” promised Sunshine fervently. “You are overstrung. Just get me back to headquarters.” He spoke with sincerity and pleading.

  Izzard faced about. “Go on, Calico, lead on,” his voice was triumphant. “Everything’s Jake.”

  They started, but the going was difficult, and when they heard voices Calico halted. “Better give Sunshine one of your guns,” he called in a low voice. “No telling who’s in front of us.”

  A faint “plunk” in the mud was barely audible.

  “I’ve only got one,” came Izzard’s reply. “I lost the other one away back.” The short man was not taking chances.

  One hour later they arrived at the headquarters of D Company. Two hours later their exploits were known to every man in the RCR trenches, and held equal interest with reports of the raid, which had been a success. According to rumour the trio had captured a dugout full of Germans after a desperate hand-to-hand battle, killing all its occupants but one, and had then held the trench until time to retire. Calico had said little, but Sunshine’s appearance and the presence of the Hun prisoner proved the tale. The colonel sent for the three and had Sunshine retell the story. At its close he shook hands with each one, complimenting them on their bravery, and informed Izzard he was no longer a prisoner, his sentence would be quashed as a reward for courageous conduct.

  ***

  When the RCRs marched out to billets Izzard was the happiest he had been in France. He was now regarded as a hero, had got the best of Sunshine, and he had an infection on his right knee that was progressing nicely. A few more days of non-attention should ripen it up for a trip down the line. Sunshine appeared on parade, immaculate as ever, with a blue and white medal ribbon at his chest. He had been awarded the Military Cross. Then came the thunderbolt.

  Izzard, with the picture of Sunshine in the dugout ever before him, had confidently informed the platoon that he would never again be detailed for obnoxious duties, nor “pulled” for a dirty rifle. His suggestions were mysterious, but such as to indicate that he had personally saved the RSM’s life. Therefore the jibes and jeers of his comrades were peculiarly bitter when the sergeant came around and called out his name for the next guard. Izzard resolved that a mistake had been made, until the NCO explained that Sunshine had named him in particular. At this information the short man bounded outside without his belt and marched straight to Sunshine’s billet. He was ushered in by a wary batman, and the man he met was not the craven wreck he had bullied in the dugout, but the regim
ental sergeant-major of the Royal Canadians.

  “What for you, my man?” the query was crisp and impatient. “Did you detail me for guard?” Izzard was boiling inwardly.

  “I detailed a guard, certainly. Perhaps you are on it. What about it?” Came the challenge. “Don’t you think you’re going to soldier now?” There something dire and sinister in the now.

  Izzard felt his ground slipping. Nevertheless he delivered the ultimatum he planned. “I’ll go,” he said stubbornly, “but if you don’t get me off it I’ll tell what happened in that dugout to the whole world—and Calico’ll back me up. You hear me.” The short man stalked out, and Sunshine was wordless.

  Izzard hunted up his chums and told all that had been said. Calico went paler than usual. “You’ve done it now,” he drawled. “Sunshine knows he’ll never get caught that way again, and he knows that his word’ll go further than ours. He’s got the upper hand. Don’t be a fool, Izzard. We’re cooked if you balk on guard.”

  Izzard was obstinate. “That blasted yellow-back is never going to bluff me,” he declared. “I’m just going on guard so’s he’ll have to get me off again. If he don’t I’ll tell everything, no matter what happens.”

  At guard mounting there were several spectators. Izzard had implied that he did not intend doing his beat, and so his fellows viewed proceedings at long range, clear of Sunshine’s displeasure.

  Another interesting item was the fact that Izzard was the dirtiest-looking soldier that had ever lined up for an RCR guard. His bayonet had not a semblance of polish.

  Sunshine appeared in all his glory. He strutted by the rear and came around to confront the guard, his eyes focused all the while on the shortest member of its ranks. As their eyes met, his hand shot in his pocket for the book that meant crime and punishment. Then the guards, old and new, and the distant watchers, beheld the strangest incident in the history of the regiment.

  Sunshine’s hand remained in the fateful pocket as if entrapped, while a distinct pallor spread beneath his bronze. His voice, when he spoke, was almost unrecognizable.

  “Private Izzard is to be substituted at once,” he said huskily, “on account of his conspicuous conduct recently.”

  Shortly after the three famed adventurers were travelling, each in a different direction. Izzard went in an ambulance. His destination was Blighty, so the orderly said, after examining the infected knee. Izzard would not explain the miracle of substitution.

  “Say good-bye to Calico for me,” he said to one of the platoon. “He’s not a bad sort, if he is a little dumb.”

  Sunshine went far out in the dusk, to a deep pool at the end of the field behind his billet. And all the while, since he had given his remarkable order, he kept his right hand in his tunic pocket.

  Very carefully he withdrew it, exposing his fingers clasped tightly around an egg-shaped object. He shuddered as he saw it—a slightly rusted Mills bomb. How it came to be in his pocket he did not know. This special tunic that he reserved for parades hung just inside the billet window; scores passed it in a single hour, and any man could slip the missile in his pocket unobserved by resting at the windowsill for a moment. With billets as they were, and men as they were, one had to depend on respect for authority. One thing he did know—the safety pin was missing from the bomb!

  Whoever placed the bomb in his pocked had wedged it cunningly with the notebook so that the lever was held in place until one or both were withdrawn. Then…. He shut his eyes and envisioned the explosion of that harmless-looking little bomb in the dugout stairway, the awful vent it had torn in the chalk-hardened soil. Had he not climbed up the crater it had created? Had this one exploded in his pocket…. Taking a quick look around he raised his arm and hurled the bomb in the centre of the pond, then ran. Beyond a splash nothing resulted, and he slowed his steps, satisfied. It was as he figured; the fuse had dampened in time. But as he went he wrestled a mighty problem. There were more bombs, more opportunities. The despot, known as Sunshine, ceased to exist from that hour.

  Calico Fuller strode in the third direction, toward Villers Au Bois. It was Friday again and he had managed to muster another green envelope and had much to say to a certain lady named Arabella. His epistle, however, made no mention of the placing of a Mills bomb in the pocket of a well-known sergeant major. Nor did he state that the said bomb had its detonator removed before being placed in aforesaid pocket. But then some of his mates said he was odd, and Izzard, from his hometown, said he was a little dumb.

  Perhaps that is why he smiled to himself as he began the letter that was to skip the eyes of his regimental officers: “Dearest Arabella,” he wrote, “the weather cleared favourably tonight at guard mounting. I think that we will have a spell of very pleasant Sunshine.”

  Sunrise for Peter

  The Newfoundlanders were moving to the Somme. Three days D Company had marched through a sun-bathed, picturesque part of France, fragrant with flowers and fruit trees, pleasing to the eye. Peasant women in the fields had smiled at them, and children had clapped their hands and shouted Bonne chance. The soldiers had feasted their eyes on homely, chalk-walled cottages nestled in backgrounds of deep verdure, grassy gay with buttercups and poppies, rich with clover in bloom. And now they were falling in for a night move, which meant that they were nearing the line.

  A ceaseless, far-away, throaty grumble of gunfire was as impressive as the low-spoken comment of the veterans, and Private Peter Teale spoke quietly to the white-faced youth beside him.

  “It’ll take us th’ night t’ get there, and we won’t be for it then.” The boy-like soldier looked up at him quickly, as if seeking a hope.

  “But they’ll shell us bad up there, won’t they?” he blurted, and his voice was unsteady.

  “It won’t be cushy, that’s sure,” returned Peter, “but it’ll not be too bad. There may be dugouts for the day.”

  The sergeant major barked an order and the men stood stiffly at attention as their company commander took over. The latter was a tall man, slightly stooped, and his voice was kind, though tense, as he proceeded, after telling them to stand at ease, to read an order. It dealt with a contemplated attack. The battalion would take over a part of the line near Bus and the company would be in Pineapple Trench. The enemy would be shelled for two hours previous to the assault, and there would be an abundance of artillery support afterward. During the actual attack each man was to do his utmost to reach the objective—the German second trench—and no one was to pause to assist a wounded comrade. Every moment would count toward success or disaster.

  Men shuffled uneasily, hitching at their equipment, and a coarse whisper was audible. “What a bloody hope we got.”

  The company moved out on the road and swung into rhythmical step. Just outside their billeting area an old curé stood by his church, peering at them as they passed, his head uncovered and bowed, a beautiful but ominous gesture. Peter felt melancholy, and a sort of homesickness banished all the thrill that had stirred him as they fell in; he felt incoherently sympathetic for all the blurred figures about him.

  They marched into open country, and as the night deepened he watched the colour drain out of the landscape, leaving all contours vague and grey beneath a pallid starlight.

  “Oh, mademoiselle from Armentières, parlez-vous…”

  The soldiers sang riotously, without attempts at harmony, seizing the song as an outlet for pent emotions. Peter did not join in. His melancholy muzzled him, and anyway he disliked the words. The doggerel ended and for a time there was only the thudding shuffle of hobnailed boots, the creak of equipment, and then someone started a similar ditty that drew mixed comment.

  “…and another poor mother has lost her son.” It finished like a ribald defiance to the future.

  They passed through another village. A door opened and a light gleamed, then a voice asked where they were going.

  “The Somme, the Somme!” The
challenge was unmistakable.

  “Somme. Ah, non bon.” The voice sounded hollow, hushed, seemed to drift in the damp air, ghostlike. “Ah, non bon.”

  It was disturbing, that sighing comment, but the marching men sang louder until they were exhausted. Then came a halt, and they fell out by the roadside and cigarettes glowed like fireflies. Peter sat by the youngster, and watched him loosen his belt and twist irritably at his haversack.

  “It’s cooler at nights,” he offered, “and there’s no marching to attention.”

  The youth twitched again. “My shoulders are raw,” he complained. “I’ll be glad when we’re there.”

  Peter was carrying the boy’s rifle and extra bandolier long before they reached the dark abyss of a communication trench that led to the front line, and in helping him he forgot for a time a worry that had gnawed at his heart. He had not, however, slumped on a chicken-wire bunk in the dugout to which they were assigned, before he remembered, and stirred about until he saw the sergeant.

  “Has no mail come up?” he asked.

  The non-com grunted wearily. “I’ll see,” he said. “The limbers came behind us.”

  By the flickering light of a few candles the dugout looked a grisly cavern. Its roof timbers and jutting bunks made gloomy, shadow-ridden corners, and the sleeping men sprawled about as if they had been so stricken. Peter gazed at them with a return of his melancholy, and watched for the sergeant’s return. Would there be a letter for him?

  He glanced at the white, upturned face of Telfer, the youth, and realized that if there were a letter he must wake the lad. He could not wait until morning to have its message read. If only there had been one the previous night, when they had been rested and had had a good supper of stew and bread and hot tea. Then he would have had time to ponder each line, each phrase, like a tasty morsel, until he had imbibed the whole so thoroughly that it would have become a part of his memory.