Part 24

'"We must hurry," sez the F.O. "They're going to bombard a trench for ten minutes at noon, and I must be in touch by then."

'We scurried round to the other post, and just got fixed up before the shoot commenced. And in the middle of it--phutt goes first one wire an' then the other. The F.O. said things out loud when I told him. "Come along," he finished up; "we must mend it at once. The infantry assault a trench at the end of the ten minutes. There they go now," and we heard the roar of the rifles swell up again. He took a long stare out through his glasses and then we doubled out. The Germs must have thought there was a big assault on, and their gunners were putting a zone of fire behind the trenches to stop supports coming up. An' we had to go through that same zone, if you please. 'Strewth, it was hot. There was big shells an' little shells an' middle-sized shells, roarin' an' shrieking up and bursting H.E. shrapnel or smashing into the ground. If there was one threw dirt over us there was a dozen. One buzzed close past and burst about twenty feet in front of the F.O., and either the windage or the explosion lifted him off his feet and clean rolled him over. I thought he was a goner again, but when I came up to him he was picking himself up, an' spittin' dirt an' language out between his teeth, an' none the worse except for the shakin'. We couldn't find that break. We had to tap in all along the wire to locate it and all the time it was a race between us finding the break and a shell finding us. At last we got it, where we'd run the wire over a broke-up shed. The F.O. was burnin' to talk to the Battery, knowing they'd be anxious about their shoot, so he picked a spot in the lee of a wall an' told me to tap in on the wire there. Just as he began talkin' to the Battery a Coal-Box soars up an' bumps down about twenty yards away and beyond us. The F.O. looks up, but goes on talkin'; but when another shell, an' then another, drops almost on the exact same spot, he lifted the 'phone closer in to the wall and stoops well down to it. I needn't tell you I was down as close to the ground as I could get without digging. "I think we're all right here," sez the F.O., when another shell bust right on the old spot an' the splinters went singin' over us. "They look like keepin' on the same spot, and we must be out of the line the splinters take."

'It looked like he was right, for about three more fell without touchin' us, and I was feeling a shade easier in my mind. There was some infantry comin' up on their way to the support trenches, an' they filed along by the wall that was coverin' us. Just as they was passin' another shell dropped. It was on the same spot as all the others, but blow me if it didn't get three of them infantry. They fell squirmin' right on top o' us an' the instrument, so I concluded that spot wasn't as safe as the F.O. had reckoned, an' there was a flaw in 'is argument somewheres that the Coal-Box 'ad found out. The F.O. saw that too, an' we shifted out quick-time. After that things quietened down a bit, an' the short hairs on the back o' my neck had time to lie down. They stood on end again once or twice in the afternoon, when we'd some more repairin' under fire to do; an' then to wind up the day they turned a maxim on just as we was comin' away from the post, an' we had to flop on our faces with the bullets zizz-izz-ipping just over us. We took a trench, I hear; an' the Jocks in front of us had thirty casualties, and the Guards on our left 'ad some more, 'cos I seed 'em comin' back to the ambulance.

'On the 'ole, it's been about the most unpleasantest day I've spent for a spell. What wi' wadin' to the knees in the trench mud, getting soaked through wi' rain, not 'aving a decent meal all day, crawlin' about in mud an' muck, an' gettin' chivvied an' chased all over the landscape wi' shells an' shrapnel an' machine-guns an' rifles, I've just about 'ad enough o' this King an' Country game.'

The Signaller paused a moment. But his gaze fell on the letter he still held in his hand, and he tapped it with a scornful finger and burst out again violently: 'King an' Country--huh! An' a bald-'eaded blighter sittin' warm an' dry an' comfortable by 'is fireside at 'ome writes out an' tells me what the Country's thinkin'. I come in 'ere after a day that's enough to turn the 'air of a 'earse-'orse grey, an' I'm told about my pals bein' casualtied; an' to top it all I gets a letter from 'ome--"why don't you do somethin'? Why don't you get up an' go for 'em?" Ar-r-rh!!'

''Ome,' remarked the Limber Gunner. ''Ome don't know nuthin' about it.'

'They don't,' agreed the Signaller. 'But what I wants to know--an' there's a many 'ere like me--is why don't somebody let 'em know about it; let 'em really know.'

Disconnected.

Ricochets.

Overcoat.