A Soldier's Place Read online

  “I’ve had a dream,” said Peter in a tense, excited way, “and it were something wonderful. The sun were coming up on the bald rock back of the Bay and there were a dory going ashore. A sunrise is wonderful good luck. I wish Simon were here. He’d know the signs.”

  “Signs!” repeated Telfer sleepily. “What signs?”

  “He’d know,” explained Peter, “whether it were good or bad luck.”

  “Dreams don’t mean nothing,” said Telfer, listening to shelling on their flank. “I never think of them again.”

  “Them as knows says dreams are signs,” said Peter determinedly and with a renewal of his excitement. “Sunrise must mean something wonderful. There’ll be a letter, sure.”

  Peter knew considerable about “signs.” Simon and he would never risk a stormy passage across the Bay without giving their caps the “fishermen’s toss,” and the more he pondered it the more he felt certain that his dream was a good omen, so that when the barrage rocked the earth and sky he was almost cheerful. Telfer, white-faced, hugged the shelter of the sandbags. Smashing, pounding, rending explosions almost burst the eardrums, and gradually the reek of high explosives drifted to their trench.

  The sergeant came along the trench, assisting an officer to issue a rum ration, and when he reached Peter he gave him a letter, saying it had come up in the night.

  “It’s my lucky day,” he shouted into Telfer’s ear. “Read it quick. We’ve not long now.” He lighted a candle and held the stub in his fingers.

  Telfer’s pallor was enhanced by the flickering glow. He tore the envelope open and his fingers were trembling. Peter placed his broad back in the entrance to the shelter to keep the draught from the candle flame, and waited eagerly. “Mary would know it’s out tenth wedding.” His voice was strong above the tumult outside. “She have planned the letter neat to time.”

  Telfer nodded. He stared at the missive, his hands shaking, then glanced at Peter with the affrighted look of a cornered animal. Peter put a hand on his shoulder soothingly.

  “Never mind the shelling,” he said in a voice for a windy sea. “I’ll stay by youse when we go. What’s Mary saying this time?”

  Telfer’s voice was so weak that Peter could not distinguish a word, and he shouted again. “Speak up, man.”

  He was pushed roughly and the sergeant squeezed in beside them.

  “You two come with me,” he bawled. “The captain wants me to be one flank. You bring bombs, Peter. I’ll use you, Telfer, for a runner.”

  “That’ll be all right,” responded Peter. “Hurry, man, and read my letter.”

  Telfer did not look up. He moistened his lips with his tongue, and read in a high-pitched tremolo: “My dear Peter: You must remember our wedding day and think of me. The garden has been fine. I have not gone to the salmon nets for there is no need at all. Simon’s boys have a net for me. There is plenty of grass for the goat back of the hills, and I have got berries preserved for when you come home. The boats are not running so often now and my letters will be later. Write to me as soon as you can. Simon’s wife is getting a pension. I love you, Peter, the same as I did ten years ago. Your loving wife, Mary.”

  For a full moment Peter did not move or speak and then his rugged face broke into a smile startingly alien to their surroundings. He puffed out the candle.

  “Man,” he shouted, “that’s wonderful writing. It’s the best letter I’ve ever had. Don’t youse be feared today. Good luck’s with me, sure.”

  The sergeant did not say anything. He stared at them both as they backed into the trench and made ready for “over the top.” As the signal whistle blew, Peter patted the letter in his pocket and smiled again.

  “Sunrise is a wonderful sign,” he cried cheerfully.

  An hour later Peter worked desperately, helping the sergeant establish a trench block. D Company had taken its objective, after heavy losses, but the enemy fought doggedly to hold a post on the extreme right. Noon found the situation unchanged and three of the flanking garrison added to the inert dead. Peter’s bombs were exhausted and he was depending on his rifle. The sergeant, fighting beside him, slightly wounded, decided to send for help. Twenty yards away, across a bit of open ground, a platoon was entrenched. If Telfer could reach them…

  He explained matters to the lad who crouched beside them.

  “One quick rush and you’re across. They’ll never get a shot at you. Go on. We can’t hold out here.”

  Peter saw Telfer gaze at dried pools of blood on the trench floor, at stained and sodden bandages beside a dead man, and knew that fear was holding him.

  “Go on,” yelled the sergeant. “We can’t stick it here. We’ve got to get help.”

  Telfer gave him a dog-like glance of entreaty, then tried to climb to the open, slipping twice on the mud-greased bags so that the sergeant swore again. Peter, watching, made sudden resolve. Telfer had helped him with his letters; he must help Telfer. Why not attack the enemy? Only a few of them remained and they might be routed. Through all the mad fighting, the plunging, stumbling, headlong charge, the shooting and bombing and clubbing, he had had one phrase singing in his mind, carrying him, buoying him over every obstacle. “My dear Peter.” Never before had Mary begun a letter so affectionately. “I love you, Peter, the same as I did ten years ago.” Battered, bruised, bleeding from a dozen minor hurts, he was exuberant, exhilarated. Mary, his Mary, loved him. What else mattered?

  “Wait,” he shouted as the sergeant turned to enforce his order. “Youse follow me.” Before they could stop him he had leaped the trench barrier and was over at the German garrison like an avenging fury.

  In five minutes the German post was a welter of blood and its owners were the sergeant and Telfer, but the cost was dear. Peter lay on the fire step with a terrible wound in his side, a wound they could not staunch.

  He was conscious but he could not keep his thoughts clear. There were so many things he could not understand. How had the Germans been able to strike him down, at the very last moment of fighting, when this was his lucky day? Didn’t a sunrise always mean luck, and hadn’t his letter proved it?

  The noise that beat on his ears troubled him. Where was he? It reminded him of the storms, the tearing, slamming northeasters at Old Bear Bay. He was tired, too, as he usually was when he had had a rough time in a dory or had just got back from his trap lines. He kept his eyes shut.

  When they were open he could see mud walls and broken sandbags, but when they were closed he could vision a tiny harbour with a tossing sea confronting it, and hills overhanging dark water, hills that sheltered little cottages snug on their windward side.

  “Telfer!” Peter’s cheeks were grey and he breathed with labour. “Read—that letter.”

  Telfer fumbled at Peter’s pocket and then his voice rose shrill and tremulous. “My dear Peter.”

  Around the traverse a new parapet had been constructed and a Lewis gun mounted so the sergeant lingered and listened and wondered. Telfer’s gaze was not on the writing. When he stopped reciting Peter breathed once more, a long restful sigh, and lay still. Telfer’s white face strained to new lines. He made to fold the letter but the sergeant took it and read.

  “Dear Peter”—the scrawled writing seemed pitifully weak—“Mary died last night. Come three weeks Sunday she were up on the rocks where you used to sit, and fell. Her wouldn’t let us write before. Her been going up there since Simon were killed. The boys will tend the goats and your nets. Last thing her thought of your wedding day. Please God you don’t be hurt. I had to send this word. Your cousin, Ann Teale.”

  He read it a second time and stared at Telfer, who was covering Peter’s face. The Lewis gun barked savagely for a moment, then stilled, and the sergeant spoke.

  “You did him a grand turn,” he spoke gruffly to steady his voice, “but how did you know what to say?”

  “I knew what he wanted, Sarge.
” Telfer’s fear had left his voice, temporarily at least. “And if you’ll let me use some of them prisoners we’ll carry him back and bury him decent, like he wanted.”

  “Go ahead,” said the sergeant. “He deserves it, and there’s nothing he’d like better. But listen. What if he hadn’t—what if he found out?” He glanced at the grim covered figure.

  “I daren’t tell him the truth,” Telfer said slowly. “He’s been so mighty good to me.” He turned, too, and looked at the still body. “Poor old Peter,” he muttered. “He thought this was his lucky day.”

  There was a long silence. The sergeant was reading again the letter in his hand. He stirred at last. “I believe it was,” he said softly.

  White Collars: A Tale of the “Princess Pats”

  Outside the estaminet a huge caterpillar rumbled over the cobblestones with a long naval twelve-inch in tow; overhead droned a flight of night bombers, on their way to some German back area. Yet no one in Madame Julie’s establishment was conscious of their passing.

  It was one of the usual “vin blink” dispensaries that invested the partially-blighted strip back of the trenches which the heavy hand of war had but brushed, but tonight its smoke-ridden atmosphere was charged with explosive intensity, and John Renforth sat tight on his bench near the door waiting for the explosion.

  The stage was well set. Fat Madame Julie, her hands clasped despairingly over her ample bosom, and fear livid in her eyes, sputtered a perfect barrage of broken French. At the same time she kept well away from the centre of a ring, which had been formed by pushing tables back to the wall. In the cleared space, swaying unsteadily, his tunic unbuttoned, his cap pushed back cockily, was a private of the London Rifles, a burly, gorilla-shouldered fellow. His features were distorted by drunken fury and he was speaking with slurring insolence.

  “I sye it again, mytes,” he stated. “These blinkin’ Canidians gives me a belly ache with their swanks and airs. An’ here’s these bleedin’ Pats thinkin’ they’ve won the bally war. Twice the pay us blokes get—an’ wot the hell!”

  He ceased abruptly. A table had been hurled to one side, smashing its load of glass, and a great catapult shot into the ring. Renforth just glimpsed the driving fist that landed with a dull crack on the jaw of the aggrieved one, then saw him go down on the tiled floor with a sickening thud. A dozen voices betokened pent emotions, and each was flavoured with a Cockney accent. Very slowly the man on the floor revived. His legs straightened, he turned over and sat up, staring sullenly at his assailant.

  “Anything else ya got to say about yer betters?” The taunt came from the human catapult, and Renforth turned to look. He could not resist a grunt of admiration. Straight, taut, and ready, stood a magnificent specimen of manhood, a superb six-foot-two of blond menace. On his shoulders were the famous red-and-white cloth markings, PPCLI: The Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry had a very able representative.

  “Move off, myte.” The curt words were accompanied by a thrust of ungentle hands, and Renforth stood aside as the bench on which he had been sitting was pushed across the door. A table and chairs were added to the barricade, its grim significance could not be misunderstood. The fight was to be to the finish. Renforth hastily summed the onlookers. There were six more of the London Rifles and a trio of old French labourers. He was the only other Canadian present.

  The man with gorilla shoulders got to his feet. Apparently the jolt had cleared his brain, for his unsteadiness was gone. His features were set with animal-like savageness, and as he faced his opponent Renforth saw that the fellow was no amateur with his fists. At the second exchange of blows the Londoner landed a straight jab on the mouth of the blond giant. It was as if he had touched a fuse. With a roar like a bull the Canadian rushed. Once—twice, his fists thudded home, breaking through his enemy’s guard, and the fight was over. The Londoner crashed down under a table, and for a moment there was a stillness only broken by Madame’s sobbing.

  Then, like wolves, the six allies of the fallen man leaped to attack the conqueror. Madame’s sobbing changed to shrieks of fright. Arms, heads, and feet whirled in a maelstrom of action. Hard pressed, but winning, the giant knocked men right and left, and soon three of his attackers were down for the count. The others gave ground, dodging, and striking from three sides. One seized a chair and manoeuvered to the rear. Another instant and the blond champion would have met disaster, but Renforth leaped, carrying man and chair to the wall. The fellow struck head on and lay inert.

  The last of the Londoners went down with a crash, and the next instant the giant was guiding Renforth through a maze of wrecked furniture to a door at the rear of Madame’s bar. In a trice they were outside and running. Behind them they heard a new crashing in the estaminet and many excited voices.

  “Just in time, Kiddo,” wheezed the big man in Renforth’s ear. “Them’s MPs an’ there’ll be hell to pay. Let’s catch this lorry an’ get outa town.”

  Too breathless to make a rejoinder, Renforth spurted and they gained the road in time to catch the rear of a large truck that was lumbering through the village.

  “Where wuz ya headin’, Kiddo?” The query was gasped as soon as they had found seats on the lorry’s load of SAA boxes.

  “I’m on my way to the Princess Pats,” said Renforth. “I came from the railhead this afternoon, and have been told that they are going to Amiens. Do you happen to know where they are?”

  “I should, Kiddo.” The big man pushed close in the dark so that the odour of his copious perspiration was extremely unpleasant. “I belong to th’ gang myself.”

  “I’ve heard of them ever since the war started,” Renforth replied, “and I am proud to join them. No wonder the Imperials are jealous of their record.”

  “Huh, I dunno as they’re much of a mob.” There was no enthusiasm in the response. “They made a big name up to Ypres and was the first battalion to git in France, but that’s all. They’re mostly a buncha college ginks now, white collar guys, which is no good in this war.”

  “You mean the reinforcements they got from McGill University,” said Renforth. “Why, I’ve always heard favourably of them.”

  “Look here,” the voice hissed like escaping air. “Ya talks like one of them white collar guys yerself. Are ya one?”

  Renforth sensed impending hostility, but he answered with courage. “I did wear a white collar in civilian life,” he said calmly, “but I can’t see that clothes make any difference in men.”

  “Well, yer th’ first one of them I’ve seen that had any guts.” The voice of the big man was friendly again in a reluctant way. “An’ if ya hadn’t got that guy with th’ chair they’d had me purty.”

  “I had just come in,” said Renforth, to change the subject. “What was it all about?”

  “Nothin’ special. I can’t stand th’ damn white collars in my section an’ I went down there so’s I could have a beer without hearin’ their fool jabber. But them limeys wuz mixin’ their drinks an’ talkin’ too loose to suit ‘Bull’ McCann.”

  It was nearly an hour’s run to where the Pats were billeted for the night. Renforth’s huge guide led him to a brick stable where men snored unmusically on dirty straw. He prodded one individual awake.

  “This here’s a new guy just come,” he announced. “We’re a guy short in our section, how about takin’ him on?”

  “Where th’ devil has he been?” The man was surly as he fought his sleepiness.

  “I missed my party at the railhead,” Renforth explained, “while I was looking for something to eat.”

  “All right. Never mind yer story. You umpty-umps would git lost in a box car. You’re Renforth? All right, go hit th’ hay an’ don’t git lost again. Reveille’s at five.”

  “That’s th’ sarge,” chuckled the big man as he led the way to another part of the barn and made room for their bed by unceremoniously rolling a sleeper to one side. “H
e’s a tough nut, but a good man in th’ trenches. None of yer damn white collars.”

  “Yer in section four now,” grunted the giant as he kicked off his boots and rolled out a blanket. “An’ yer with ‘Bull’ McCann till he squares th’ little account of th’ guy with th’ chair. I don’t like yer handle, so I’ll just use ‘Kiddo’.”

  Despite his weariness Renforth smiled at the man’s blunt speech, then slept like a child till a rude hand yanked him awake. “Snap out of it,” bellowed a voice in his ear. “We’re movin’ in half an hour. Ya would-a missed yer bacon if ya hadn’t a nurse.”

  Renforth stared. McCann had two steaming mess tins and two tops with thick slices of bread soaked in bacon grease. Bull had got his breakfast for him, and such kindness was unexpected.

  ***

  The battalion marched until noon and Renforth was glad when a halt was called. They rested until dark and then moved on till midnight. Renforth had started to ask questions at noon, but a soldier thrust a pay book in his face, opened at a page that held a newly pasted order: “Keep your mouth shut.” They bivouacked in a wood and the new man was impressed by the jam of traffic they skirted. Lorries, limbers, tractors, guns, and marching men congested the roads. Near them, as they lay in the bush, were many other battalions. Everywhere was commotion, and expectancy that thrilled him.

  “We’re kickin’ off in th’ mornin’, Kiddo,” said Bull as he rigged their ground sheets. “Bit tough to have to go over th’ first time in.”

  “You mean we’re going to attack?” asked Renforth. “Is it a raid or what?”

  “Raid!” snorted Bull. “Listen, Kiddo. Th’ whole blinkin’ line’s goin’ over, twenty miles of it. Th’ barrage’ll tip yer hat in the mornin’. Now sleep while ya can an’ don’t worry while Bull McCann is with ya.”

  In spite of the advice there was little sleep for Renforth. He listened to the droning planes overhead, to the booming of guns on the left, and was aware of the murmur of voices here and there in the gloom as other restless soldiers chatted of the morrow. Now and then a big shell whined overhead but he could not tell whether they were from or going to the Hun. After an hour’s fitful sleep he got to his feet. To his surprise there were others about. Groups were here and there, shivering a little in the chill that precedes dawn, and the glow of cigarettes predominated. An officer came among them. “Everyone up,” he called. “Zero at four twenty.”