A Soldier's Place Page 3

  Over him swept a tortuous despair. His revolver was empty and the Germans were thrusting forth a machine gun. In one heartbeat the absurd futility of his enterprise struck like an agony and drove him, without sensing his incongruity, to a formless prayer for—Lieutenant McLean.

  Pin-n-ng! Whining shrapnel ricocheted from cement and smoke flurries blotted the doorway of the Huns, lifting to reveal a shambles indescribable. Another Mills bomb had landed with deadly accuracy. Two quick shots sounded just behind him and every German outside the pill-box lay still.

  “Kamerad—Kamerad!” The cry came distinctly, shaken with animal fear.

  With an effort Red raised himself and looked back. Swaying towards him, his face a chalky pallor, one side of it torn and bleeding, his left arm dangling useless while more blood dripped from his fingertips, came Lieutenant Murdock Malcolm McLean. The officer’s eyes met Red’s, and his features distorted in the semblance of a smile. The quavering pleas of surrender were redoubled, but the man on the ground – as soon as he had essayed an answering smile – allowed himself to sink into delicious oblivion, knowing that the arrival of his “twin” had assured all else. The last thing that registered on his mind was that kilted men were swarming about the battered pill-box.

  When Red became conscious, strong odours of iodine reached his nostrils. Other wounded men lay near him, and attendants hurried about speaking in a quick, jerky fashion. He lay awhile, too weak to ask questions, wondering how the lieutenant had fared, and thus wondering fell asleep. In spasmodic dreams he lived again those vivid moments at the pill-box, each time experiencing the feelings of a frightened child, until he envisioned eyes that smiled through torture.

  In the night he was moved to a field hospital and the jogging of the ambulance set his wounds raging like demons, but dominant in his mind were thoughts of the white-faced, wounded man who had arrived in the nick of time.

  Late the next afternoon he was feeling much easier in body, his rugged vitality having asserted itself, but was anxious to learn something about his rescuer. When, therefore, he turned his head and saw his colonel standing by, his eyes and fever-hardened lips asked the same question: “How’s the lieutenant, sir?”

  “He’s resting fine, McLean.” The grim old Scotsman’s voice was none too steady. “And he’s wanting to know about you. He can’t talk for a day or so, for a machine gun bullet creased his jaw, and he’s got about seven other wounds. What’s that? Sure, he’ll live. You can’t kill a McLean!”

  The old veteran’s laugh was noisy, but it relieved emotion. His leathery countenance sobered again. “Now, I’ve just a few minutes, the Doc says, and I want some facts, McLean. That stunt at the pill-box is worth a Victoria Cross, but no one seems to know which of you led the way.” The Colonel’s hand shook as he tugged at his pocket and withdrew a notebook.

  “It was a fool thing, understand,” he growled fiercely, “and against discipline. If it were anyone else, I’d court-martial ’em.”

  He sat down on the edge of the cot. “The bombing corporal is worse than a child,” —he was still bear-like—“for he told me ten different stories in half an hour. Now—the truth, my man.”

  A doctor had come over and stood listening.

  “It was the officer d-did it all.” Red’s voice was eager, if weak. “He thought we c-could manage and s-sent me under cover. H-he let them s-see him s-so they didn’t spot m-me, and I just heaved a b-bomb inside; then he r-rushed up with another and d-drove them inside. He was the whole w- works.”

  The doctor turned and walked away, and the Colonel blew his nose violently. “I know the both of you should have the Cross,” he rumbled, “and the lieutenant’ll get it if I have to tip hell over. But I’ll put you down for the Distinguished Conduct Medal, McLean, for I’ve heard of you two before. Are you twins?”

  “N-no sir,” stammered Red. “I’d be proud if I were, but—but,” he hesitated, and then his chin set with its characteristic resolution, “I’m just his deputy, as it were.”

  “His deputy,”—the Colonel’s features wrinkled with humour—“That’s a good one, McLean! His deputy—I’ll say you are!”

  The Creeping Phantom

  There was a clank of equipment in the deep front trench that cut across the outer fringe of Mustard Wood, a “flat iron” of stubs and thickets on the left of the Ypres salient. The thick, warm darkness was like that of a dark tropical night, and the Australians moved with caution as they relieved a battalion of the London Rifles.

  “Have you called in your covering patrol?” asked the officer commanding the company that was taking over the Wood Front.

  “We haven’t any out, sir,” answered a nervous voice in the murk.

  “What—no patrol out while a relief is on?” asked the captain, peering to see who had spoken. “Where’s your officer?”

  It was a sergeant who had answered him, and the man spoke again. “He was killed last night, sir. He was out on patrol in that Wood, sir. They were all killed.”

  “In that Wood? Was it machine guns or bombs?”

  “It weren’t neither, sir,” came the husky answer. “There weren’t a sound, sir, and it were the third night a patrol went out and didn’t come back.”

  The sergeant tried to push past and follow his men, who had fairly scuttled from their posts as they were relieved.

  “Wait you,” commanded the officer. “Come here, Sergeant Rader, and hear this fellow.”

  “We haven’t any patrol out yet, sir.” There was mild protest in the words, then a tall figure loomed alongside the sergeant of the Rifles.

  “Perhaps you won’t want to put one out, after you hear all this man tells you,” said the captain grimly. “Tell him, Sergeant.”

  “That Wood isn’t safe, sir.” The Londoner’s teeth almost chattered. “There’s a creepin’ death in there. We’ve lost ten men in three nights. Not a bomb, not a shot, nothin’ you could hear. You can see one of the chaps when it’s light. He’s back of a bush, like as if he were froze when he stopped to listen, but his throat’s cut, sir. The outfit we relieved lost two patrols, four men each time, then they didn’t send any more out. They said their chaps were caught the same—throats cut, sir. It’s a creepin’ death gets you in there.”

  “But you chaps sent out patrols, eh?”

  “Yes, our officer he were bound to,” replied the sergeant, shivering. “Last night he went out hisself, sir, and he never come back. I’d stay out of it, sir.”

  “Why did your officer go?” The Australian captain asked his question sharply. He sounded as though the information had tautened his own nerves.

  “He heard things, sir. The Germans were in there, talkin’ and whisperin’ like. And there were noises like a bush crackin’, sir. He were sure he could find them.”

  “I see. You may go, Sergeant.” Captain Hazlett let the man squeeze past. Then he turned to the tall form beside him.

  “Rader,” he said quietly, “tell your patrol all the sergeant said, then let them go outside our wire, not much farther. Don’t you go out at all. You’re too valuable to lose before we know what we’re up against. We’ll look the Wood over tomorrow, and we’ll put up flares as soon as we get our posts established.”

  “But, sir, you know these Londoners. There can’t be anything out there but Germans. I’ll be careful.”

  “Not tonight, Sergeant. That chap was scared stiff and he seemed to be an old soldier. There must be something out of the ordinary.”

  A runner found them in the dark. “Message from the CO,” he said. “No patrols to go out till you’ve seen him, sir.”

  “All right, runner. You heard that, Rader? I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Sergeant Rader stood on the fire step and peered into the thick gloom beyond the wire entanglements, listening to every sound. There was not much shelling, and the machine guns were fairly quiet. Now and then a s
tartled sentry shot into the dark, but on the whole the night was unusually still.

  To the right and left, flares were going up regularly. But in Mustard Wood no light flickered. It was as if the Germans knew perfectly well that no patrol dared venture into its death-ridden tangles. The sergeant started. A slight sound had come to his ears, a muffled crackling, as if a stick had been snapped under a heavy body.

  Sergeant Rader was the champion scout of the battalion. Tall, lean, lithe as a jaguar, without making a sound, and he could sense his direction with a sureness uncanny to his fellows. His record of trapping enemy patrols was not equalled in the entire brigade; and as he stood and watched and listened, he tingled with a desire to match his craft with whatever phantom was stalking the Wood before him.

  There were hurried steps along the trench and Captain Hazlett returned. “Rader,” he said anxiously, “that sergeant wasn’t stretching things any. There’s a big Bavarian officer here they call the ‘Creeping Death,’ and he’s been here for two weeks. They say he can find his way like a cat in the dark, and he’s killed over thirty of our best men who’ve tried to beat him at his game.”

  “Did anyone ever see him, sir?”

  “Yes, the Manchesters’ scout officer was allowed to come back to his company—after the Bavarian had captured him. The officer had three men with him and was in the left part of the Wood. He said he never heard one of his men speak. They were crawling in an open patrol, and the German killed every one of them with his knife without the officer hearing him. Then he stunned the lieutenant with a sort of blackjack and picked him up like a child and carried him into the German tent.”

  Rader grunted as if he were incredulous. “How could that German crawl around without making any noise?” he demanded.

  “That,” said Captain Hazlett, “is the mystery. He said he never heard a thing at all. From all accounts this Bavarian is as big a man as you are, too, but he must be very tricky in the dark. One of the Manchester patrols stumbled over him near their wire the first night he came, but he fought like a tiger and killed two of them before he got away.”

  The sergeant looked at the dark wood. “I’d like to meet him, sir,” he drawled calmly. “Did the colonel give any orders?”

  “Yes, you are to send out the two-man patrol, just outside our wire. You tell them what has happened along here, and tomorrow we’ll get all the observation we can. I’m having plenty of flares put up tonight and we’ll keep a sharp watch. Did you hear anything while I was away?”

  “Yes, sir. There was a queer noise, as if someone had crawled on a dry stick.”

  “Ah, that’s him. They say he’s so bold now that he doesn’t mind you knowing when he’s in the Wood. He’s their watchdog, that big Bavarian, and I don’t mind telling you that I wouldn’t like to go in there tonight. When he let that Manchester officer go, he told him that he was doing it in order to let the Manchesters know how little he feared them, and that he would cut the throat of any man who dared go into the Wood. ‘You don’t use bombs or shoot, and I won’t,’ he said. The officer was allowed to come back in broad daylight, and he saw his three men lying not ten feet from each other—with their throats cut. He was so furious that he got six volunteers to go out with him that night for revenge. Every man of them was a six-footer, and had a knife and club. Not one of them got back, and when it was daylight the Manchesters could see the six of them, with their officer, piled in a heap in an open space—all with their throats cut.”

  Sergeant Rader never got excited. Long years in the never-never lands of Australia, with only his horse and his dog, had rendered him impervious to emotion. “Some chap has been telling a heap of lies,” he said coolly. “There isn’t any German like that.”

  “It was their own major.” Captain Hazlett stopped speaking. Another dry stick had snapped in the dark of the Wood. Whoever prowled there was careless of who heard him. Rader stared in the blurred gloom. “That Heine’s out there now, askin’ for trouble,” he drawled softly. “I’d like to go meet him.”

  The captain shook his head. “You wouldn’t have half a chance, now,” he said. “Wait till you’ve had a look in daylight. Say, that damned place makes me creepy. Did you notice how queer things sound in there?” He stirred himself. “Send your men out,” he ordered. “I’ll have flares going up right away.”

  The two scouts went out, crawling through the patrol gap in the wire, and going to the left. Then flares soared over the array of broken stubs in front. Their eerie, wavering light revealed a jungle of snarled and ragged stumps, spaced by little clumps of trees that had escaped the spasmodic shelling of that sector. When the flares fell with a sizzle into the brush tangles they vanished, as if they had fallen into a pit. A hundred men could lie hidden among the stumps and thickets.

  The captain rejoined Rader. “I never saw a worse mess between the wires,” he said gravely. “No wonder that Bavarian can creep up on a man.”

  The scout sergeant nodded. “But every man has the same chance in there,” he drawled, “and there’s other men as good as he is.”

  The flares were shooting over the right, but the tangles there seemed as bad, or worse. After a long period of watching and listening the captain went back to report. “Soon as your scouts come in, have the Lewis gunners shoot off a few pans,” he ordered. “A chance bullet might do us a lot of good, and we’ll let that German know we’re here. I think the best idea would be to let the artillery shoot that bunch of stumps and brush off the map.”

  Rader made no response. He gazed into the darkness. When the officer had gone, he moved quickly. He went along the trench and softly called signals to his scouts. There was no response. He waited a time and tried again. There was no answer. Then a sentry came to him. “Are you callin’ to your scouts?” he asked. “They came to my post about an hour ago and got two of my mates to go out with them. They said they could hear a Heine patrol close by in the Wood.”

  The sergeant grunted. He left the sentry without speaking to him, and hurried along the trench, peering, listening. The darkness seemed more intense, like moist black velvet. There were no sounds at all from the Wood. Its stubs showed at times the glimmer of the flares like the fangs of some great monster, waiting, noiseless, sinister, for unwary intruders.

  At that moment, Captain Hazlett returned. “Where’re your men, Rader?” he asked. “Didn’t they come in?”

  “No, sir,” said the sergeant. “And they didn’t answer any of my signals.”

  The captain started. He peered at the tall man. “What—they couldn’t have—” He did not say it.

  “Brogan and Woolard are my two best men,” drawled the sergeant, “and I told them not to go far from the wire.”

  “But it’s over four hours since they went out. How long did you tell them?”

  “An hour, sir.” The officer looked worried. “They came in to one of the posts on the left and got two of the sentries to go out with them. They said they could hear a German patrol quite near.”

  “Two more—four of them. Good heavens! Let’s get busy. You go one way in the trench, and I’ll go the other. Signal to them, and let me know as soon as you get an answer.”

  They went back and forth many times, listening, straining their eyes in the darkness, giving low signals that were not answered—and at dawn the four men had not returned.

  Rader arranged a number of loopholes before it was light. He removed sandbags from the parapet and replaced them with others, special contrivances, hollowed to admit his head and field glasses. From a dozen different angles he peered into the Wood, and then he saw them!

  Brogan was drooped over an upheaved tree root, his tunic pulled and twisted as if he had fought. Woolard was quite a distance from him, sprawled on his back. Beside him were the two sentries, contorted, grotesque. All had had their throats cut.

  All the morning, Rader went up and down the trench, visiting each peephole
in turn until he had a fair idea of the Wood. It was not over two hundred yards through it to the German lines, and in many places he could see their wire barricade and the tops of sandbagged machine-gun emplacements. There were several wide gaps in different places, and so cunningly had they been cleared that they afforded the enemy a chance to cross-fire with their Maxims, so as to sweep all the Australian trench. The Wood formed a salient in the line, and from either flank German sentries could watch all the Australian Front.

  The sergeant made his last trip carefully, checking up at every point, then stopped and pondered. He saw that the enemy could watch all the front, and he cautiously raised his steep helmet at one of the lower parts of the trench. Ping! A bullet struck it from his hands. Snipers were watching to see that no one entered the Wood in the daytime.

  ***

  Rader went to a loophole and looked long and carefully. Shell-fire had stripped the trees of their upper branches, had left but stumps of many, and here and there had gouged great holes in the moss and black earth beneath the brush. On the left the Wood was more open. A wide roadway had angled through it, and it was now strewn with a tangle of wires, shell cases, and the charred remnants of a lorry that had evidently received a direct hit while laden with ammunition. He saw marks in ferns, where his scouts had gone from the post they had visited. What had they met in that sinister darkness? How had the Bavarian been able to strike without making a sound? Why had his men not used their automatic pistols?