Part 21

The failure of water supply reaching these outposts increased an already severe existence. Someone would go "over the top," crawl to and fill water-bottles up at the nearest shell-hole. A body or limb might be at the bottom--who cares! The water is rank, putrid, evil-smelling; but the fierce, mad craving for drink is not to be denied.

A shell found one of the small advanced posts, killed a few outright and gashed a long tear into the abdomen of the one survivor. He languished there alone with the dead for eight hours--they had been "lost." He was found, removed, died before reaching a Casualty Clearing Station. Inexorable law of Chance.

Fritz sent over gas shells night and day, hampering rationing parties, and enforcing prolonged agony inside the hot respirators. Gas, heavier than air, hangs low over the ground, follows inundations up and down, and slinks across water: hanging for days over damp soil, and permeating water with a sickly colour--an obvious danger to troops drinking this liquid.

Where the country was flooded duck-boards were raised to a height sufficient to stand above the water and presented at night (all movements are generally done at nightfall) an alluring task of maintaining balance on a narrow planking (couple of feat or so) adorned with no handrails or supports and invisible five feet away. When Fritz sends over gas and respirators have to be donned during the intricate negotiation of this "pathway"----!

Clarke and Bennet, moving gingerly beneath two heavy ration issues, paused abruptly to duck to a whining shell. The latter slipped, fell off into the miniature ocean, clambered out.

"Oh, 'ell, bloomin' bread too--LOOK OUT!"

"That's the second dud."

"Yes, must be gas." Respirators on they were unable to peer a foot either way, sat down uncomfortably on the boards and waited for the attack to move away. But when they did stand up and gazed about them ... WHICH WAY WAS WHICH?

The absence in places of any line or wiring (posts would not stand up in the watery soil) permitted men o' nights to wander unawares towards the Fritz trenches. A crack, a fall--for weeks the body would lie outside the enemy lines until it rotted and fell apart. And someone was posted "Missing."

Trench feet began to find its victims among the young Staffords--they trekked away in agony, but withal glad to get out of it. With the puzzling rapidity of trench casualties the daily roll increased without anyone quite grasping how or when this or that man went. He would be with you this morning, to-morrow you would miss him; inquire and learn that he had stopped a Blighty.

Evans, an adherent of the occult, vowed that he had been visited by some eternal being of the spirit world. Stumpy was profoundly interested.

"Wot'd 'e say?"

"Nothing much. Only that somethin' would portend for me to-morrow."

"Oh, did 'e want a drink?"

"Course not."

"If 'e 'ad asked you for your rum ration, would you," anxiously, "'ave given it to 'im."

"Couldn't: 'adn't any left."

"Wot woz 'e like?"

"Tall, shadowy."

"An' you really believes it?"

"Yus. I 'ave proof--"

"I see. I, I s'pose 'e could give you anything you asked 'im for?"

"Within reason."

"Then," whispered ironically, "ask 'im next time to give me a soft Blighty an' a drop of toddy, an', oh, some bloomin' fags."

"Can't be done, for something will 'appen to me to-morrow."

He was wrong; decided that the spook had altered for his own good reasons the daily course of his life and eagerly awaited a visit that never materialised. Stumpy was disgusted.

"All me eye. I know it wasn't a bloomin' spook when I 'eard 'e 'adn't asked for a drink. Wot on earth would anyone visit these yere bloomin' trenches for unless he smelt rum?"

"You don't understand."