A Soldier's Place Page 7

  The lieutenant lay his length ahead, perfectly still. They watched the bank and after a time three indistinct blurs appeared. It was a German patrol that had been on the other side of the road, on its way home. Some brigade gunner far back of the first trenches chose that moment to warm his gun and bullets zipped among the stumps. The three crouched blurs shot back for the cover of the ditch and it was pure chance that they dove for the exact spot the officer occupied.

  The lieutenant shot the leader so that he tumbled down beside him, and he fired twice at the others before their Lugers barked at him. Jimmy, bathed in sudden perspiration, pitched one of his bombs at the Germans, but did it so hastily that his throw was short. The grenade burst so close that a piece of metal screamed through the rim of his helmet and a million bells rang in his ears. He was dazed, and choked by acrid fumes. He groped to find his revolver, which he had lost. But there was no need of it. When the smoke cleared, no dark form menaced him. One of the Germans lay so near that he could touch his boots, and he could see the third man some yards away, as if he had tried to escape before he fell. Both lay sprawled, inert, dead.

  He turned and crawled to the officer who was moaning softly. “Are you hit, sir?” he whispered.

  There was no answer. The officer made queer, stiff motions with his arms and legs and then lay still. He, too, was dead. For a long minute he looked at him, then took his wristwatch and identification disk and started to crawl back. Crash—crash—crash! Three shells burst in succession on the road bank. Then, three more burst in the ditch not twenty yards from where he lay. He moved back toward the German wire. The shelling continued, a methodical strafing of the road and ditch, and he crawled until he was many yards beyond the dead men and very near the enemy trench.

  ***

  Hour after hour dragged by, punctuated by the shelling. Jimmy knew that the Germans must have heard the shooting and as their patrol did not return, figured that they had encountered hostile forces. The whole front wakened and machine guns clattered continually. He did not dare move from where he lay. He had seen flares go up from the Pig Stickers’ trench, and expected that they were signals meant for the officer, but he knew nothing about them, and had no idea of how long they had been out.

  After a second lot of flares went up the Boche redoubled his shellings; winking explosions lined the ditch until the reek of explosives drifted to him and burned his nostrils. He huddled in his meagre shelter and wondered if Pete knew that he was out, and what the hard-boiled sergeant would do if he were in the same position. Then he started nervously as a rat ran over his legs.

  Jimmy did not know when it was dawn. The endless series of explosions, the nearness of the concussions, had beat on his brain until it was numb. Twice, large bits of iron had hissed into the sod beside him and a small sliver had broke the officer’s watch on his wrist. He had dozed, jerking awake at times, until his sense of danger had dulled.

  He opened his eyes and saw that sunrise had turned the sky pink and red. He was cramped and chilled and foggy-minded. His back was against the road bank and he had wormed so low in the ditch that he could not be seen from the German trench, though by raising his head ever so little he could see the posts of their wire barricade. He looked back. The officer and two dead Germans were lying fifty yards from him, in the ditch, but the third man had continued his struggle until he was almost abreast of him. Then he had stiffened in a death agony. He had been wounded in the neck and Jimmy could see that his tunic was saturated with black, dried blood.

  His fingers clutched a stained and sodden-looking bandage.

  The sun rose and after a time an aeroplane with the Black Cross on its wings circled over the road and Jimmy wondered whether he had been seen or not. He remained perfectly still, but was conscious of his thirst, and he was also hungry. He tried to imagine what Pete was doing.

  All gunfire subsided and the sun gained power. After a time, Jimmy began to sweat. Buzzing flies tortured him and he had to keep turning to relieve his cramped position. A rat, a loathsome, bloated thing, slithered down the road bank and stared at him with an evil, unwinking gaze. He cursed it under his breath. When he turned, he saw the dead German watching him in a dull, listless way that made him want to yell a protest.

  Jimmy knew that he would never forget that day. Each hour of it branded deeper in his brain. He thought that the sun would not move. All his thoughts were on his chances of escape, on the inquiries that would be made about the officer’s death. He visioned constantly the happenings of the night, the searing flash of the bomb that he had tossed just clear of himself, the twitching of the officer as he died. He fought to make himself think of other things, and pictured the Graveyard and all its grisly horror. His nerves had been badly shaken.

  When at last it grew dusk, he was almost delirious. He started to his hands and knees when he heard voices. Then he saw heads outlined near the German wire. The dead Boche had been seen and a party was coming out to get them. Jimmy pressed close to the bank and looked wildly for cover. On the road, not far from him, a shell-battered tree trunk was lying at an angle that would hide him—but every so often a machine gunner near the Graveyard raked the log with bullets.

  He hesitated, then jumped for the fallen tree. Better chance the machine gun than accept the certainty of being taken a prisoner or killed.

  He was not seen. The Germans grunted and muttered among themselves and worked as fast as they could, keeping a nervous watch on the Canadian lines, and no sooner had they gone from sight that Jimmy was back in the ditch. Then the guns awoke, and this time it was a battery back at Saint Pierre that strafed the road. Then salvos fell into the German front line and Jimmy saw a tangled mass of stakes and wire heaved into the air.

  A shell exploded on the road just above him. Another made a geyser of black earth very near him. He was compelled to jump and run for his life. Shells were dropping all along the ditch. He headed straight for the German trench, holding his automatic ready, determined to go out fighting, as he fancied the hard-boiled sergeant would do.

  But not a man challenged him, nor was there a German in sight. They had taken cover from the shelling. He raced through an opening in their wire, jumped into the trench, glanced around, and scrambled over the bags in the rear. Another few yards and he dropped into a sap, falling headlong. Two more shells whizzed down very near him and he was showered with debris. His fall into the sap had saved his life.

  Someone pitched into the short trench, falling right at his feet. It was a German private, with a cloth cap pulled on in a hood fashion that almost hid his features. He quivered slightly and lay still. Jimmy touched him, and saw that he was dead. Under the arms of the grey tunic a broad white band was sewn, and he remembered being told that patrols and raiding parties usually wore such a mark to enable their fellows to distinguish them when in an enemy trench.

  Two more shells dropped very close, and then there was a rush of heavy feet. Jimmy rose up, ready, but the two men ran by the end of the sap and disappeared. He just had time to see that they, too, wore the queer cap and white band. Then he had a sudden idea. If they were going on patrol he could, perhaps, slip out with them, unnoticed, provided he wore the same distinctive markings. In one minute he had taken off the dead man’s tunic and slipped it on over his own. Then he put the cap on.

  He waited for a few minutes and then heard feet again. Rising cautiously, he saw three more banded Germans hurrying along the trench and, his heart beating like a mad thing, his hands trembling, he fell in behind and followed them.

  ***

  A few yards on, the way was almost blocked by debris and as the Germans followed by Jimmy scrambled over it, another white-banded soldier joined them. He fell in behind Jimmy, and Jimmy hoped they would not have to enter a lighted place, as his khaki breeches and puttees would give him away. They hurried around a corner and to the steps of an underground place. An officer was there and he snarled at them angrily. Ev
idently he had been waiting some time and did not think that the shelling should have delayed matters. Jimmy had no chance to turn back and he was sickened with dismay as he was pushed inside and had to go down the stairs.

  To his great relief he saw a long passage at the foot of the steps and saw that the only light was furnished by a flashlight the officer carried, and which he flashed ahead of him. They went on, and on, until he was completely baffled. Each instant he had expected to step into a lighted chamber, but they kept on until he judged that they had covered over one hundred yards. He wanted desperately to lag in the rear but there was no way of avoiding the man behind him. Each step, he felt, took him nearer a grim reckoning.

  Then he noticed that the tunnel they were in was an old one, mostly through a chalky formation that needed no bracing. Here and there were supports of masonry that had been there many years. He tried to sense their direction, and figured that they had followed the old French road.

  Suddenly they left the chalk-walled portion and entered a newly-dug passage. It was much smaller and was braced by timbers. They moved more slowly, the soldiers in front of him appearing like grey ghosts in the dim light. All at once Jimmy realized that the Germans probably had a secret exit very near the wire of the Pig Stickers, and by this means had made such successful raids in that sector.

  The party halted and the officer turned to flash the light on his men. His back was against the earth wall and as Jimmy, fearful of being exposed by the searching beams, tried to squeeze back of the man ahead of him, he saw the officer stiffen in an extraordinary manner. Every man exclaimed at once. The flashlight was waved in a circle and dropped. It fell so that it was pointed at the officer’s face and chest. His face was distorted, ghastly. But Jimmy gasped as he saw what protruded from the chest of the grey tunic. It was a rusty bayonet point!

  The man nearest the officer seemed frozen with horror. Then he leaned forward and touched the lieutenant on the arm. The dead man tumbled forward, collapsing in a huddle, and as he did so dragged with him the rifle to which the bayonet was attached—and the earth wall caved in.

  Jimmy was knocked backward against the man who had crowded up to him. The party struggled to get away from the awful thing that had slid in with the loose earth, partially blocking the passage. It was a skeleton, a grisly, horrible thing, its skull rotting eerily, its bony fingers still clutching like hooks on the stock of the rifle.

  The party surged back its length from the spot where the flashlight’s ray played on the grim intruder. More earth rolled in, almost covering the long electric torch, and then the Germans in front doubled back like rabbits, thrusting their comrades out of the way. Jimmy was driven against the wall, was knocked about in the scramble, and for the moment could not see what had happened. Then his knees were suddenly weak and his throat so dry he could not articulate, for the second intruder was far more startling than the skeleton. It was the ghost of Graveyard Corner!

  Only one man remained in front of Jimmy, and he had slumped down, shaking with fright. A tall Frenchman peered at them as he stooped and entered the opening. He was dressed in a long black coat and trousers and he wore a tall black hat. His face was a ghastly pallor, horribly unreal.

  He stooped to enter the tunnel and pick up the flashlight. Then he gazed at Jimmy, and as he did there shuddered into the passage a fearful, long-drawn moan, a harrowing cry as of some soul sick with horror. It was repeated, more shuddering and appalling than before. Then the only sound was that of the whistling gasps of the Germans cowering in the tunnel behind Jimmy. One long minute, and then the man in front of him, who had been gibbering with fright, got to his feet and dashed to the rear, bowling Jimmy over again, driving headfirst into one of his mates, and screaming with fear. Then the Frenchman moved. He played the light down the tunnel on the men who remained, rested it an instant on Jimmy, and stepped toward him.

  The Germans behind him tumbled over each other, gasping their fear. Jimmy himself was too paralyzed with shock to move. He had, like the Germans, had a full look at their ghostly visitant, and his blood had run cold. Over and beneath and around the eyes of the tall Frenchman ringed a deep crimson, as if the sockets were bursting and letting loose the blood behind, and, to enhance this new horror, the long-drawn moan was repeated.

  The Frenchman came and placed a hand on Jimmy’s arm, then turned him up the tunnel and pushed him. Jimmy went obediently, though he scarcely knew what he was doing. Everything had happened so rapidly, was so fantastically unreal, that he felt he must be having a horrible nightmare. But twenty paces beyond where the earth had fallen in he saw steps. He mounted them. Was this the exit? A wild plan entered his head. If it were, he would make a desperate plunge for escape.

  The steps ended in a low wooden door that was barred. Not a word had been spoken. Only, in the passage below, there filtered again that awful screech, that made Jimmy start as he removed the bar. A cold sweat broke over him. He fumbled at the door, jerked at it in a frenzied way, got it open and crawled out the small opening—into a wrecked grave!

  A corpse faced him, a hideous, huddled thing, and he leaped by it and sprang upon the bank. “Wait for me.”

  It was the Frenchman who spoke, the ghost who had thrust out of the opening. “It’s me, Pete, don’t you know me?”

  “You—Pete?” faltered Jimmy, hesitating. “Wha—what—where did you get that rig?”

  “Half a second and I’ll tell you everything and we’ll get the gang here.” The pseudo Frenchman was ripping off his black coat, revealing a khaki tunic underneath. Then he sat down and tugged at his trousers. When they were removed he jumped up beside Jimmy and led the way.

  They were almost to the trench when machine-gun fire caught them. Jimmy had been conquering his shakiness and thrilling to the sight of the flares and distant gun flashes when all at once there was a distant rat-tat-tat-tat, and he was almost felled by a blow on the leg.

  “Beat it,” yelled Pete, and they plunged ahead a few jumps and leaped into the trench. There Jimmy’s leg buckled under him.

  “I’m hit, Pete,” he said tremulously. “They got me in the leg. Help me fix it up, will you?”

  “Do what I can, Jimmy, old-timer,” said Pete. “But I’ve got a beauty in the arm and there’s no time to lose. By the look of things the whole German army was down in that hole, and they’re wise to us now because they’re puttin’ a regular barrage on the Graveyard.”

  ***

  A dozen Maxims were firing from the Boche lines and bullets zipped and whined and snapped over them. Pete ran down the trench a distance and gave a long shrill whistle. It was answered, and Jimmy was on the verge of being hysterical as he saw a dozen members of his platoon hurrying toward him. His experiences and his long thirst and hunger had weakened him.

  The next day at noon, Jimmy was relaxed comfortably at a casualty clearing station, gazing at Pete, who was on the next stretcher.

  “Talk about luck,” he grinned. “You’re one man I wanted to see.”

  “Yeah,” said Pete, with a grin of his own. “I don’t mind lookin’ at you for a little bit. I had you down as missin’, and killed and captured. Never in my born days did I get such a start as when I saw that crooked nose of yours under that Heinie cap you had on in the tunnel. And say, I’m still shakin’ yet from the scare I got when that old grave caved in and let me down.”

  “Shoot it,” begged Jimmy. “Don’t stop till you tell me everything. I don’t know a thing.”

  “There’s not much to tell outside of what happened in that hole,” returned Pete. “You’ve been recommended for a bunch of medals, on account of your exposin’ the secret of them raids and so forth. Not a word now, I’m talkin’. It was me told them how you broke out of there and hollered till I come, and you’re goin’ to tell them the same story. There’ll be a bunch of brass hats and all that here to quiz you, and you’re to side with me, unless you want to see old Pete sent d
own to an army clink for duration. If they ever knew I was playin’ ghost, when I was supposed to be on a carryin’ party, I’d sure be in Dutch.”

  “But—how did you know I was there?” asked Jimmy. He would help Pete on any point, but he was baffled.

  “Me—I didn’t. And what’s more I didn’t intend gettin’ down there with you, didn’t want to. It just happened. You see, when you and that officer didn’t get back, these old-timers all begin talkin’ about you bein’ the cause of it. They said you was too new and green and that likely you got scared and let the officer down. Well, I didn’t know what happened, but I knew that you didn’t get cold feet and I got hot thinkin’ about it. That damn sergeant was the worst one, but they was all chewin’ the fat, and when that blasted Canary thought he had a right to sing his song too, I got wild. I figured I’d stop his mouth anyhow, because I’d seen how scairt he was of the Graveyard. The rest made fun of him, but none of them hung around that place.”

  Pete subsided while an orderly brought them cigarettes and helped them light up. Then he grinned and went on.

  “I had a look in one of them old houses back near the dump we went to, and I found an old trunk busted open and crammed full of Frog rig-outs. Right then I had a brain wave. I remembered them yarns about the Graveyard ghost and I took the best coat and pants and a top hat back with me. Then I found an old dickey for a shirt front and I was well set. When we went back I took the gear with me and I talked all the way about a guy seein’ the ghost again, right beside the trench. Every one of them brave soldiers was watchin’ the place when we went by.”

  Pete looked out of the window beside him. “There’s a car parkin’ now up at the other side of the ambulances,” he said. “That’ll be the captain and a bunch to talk to you. Mind you tell them how you got back there by yourself, at that gate rig they had, and hollered till I come.”

  “Yes, sure I will,” promised Jimmy. He almost forgot the pain in his leg as he thought of medals and the talk there would be in billets and dugouts about him solving the secret of the Boche raids. “But hurry and tell me what happened, before they get here.”