Part 9

"Yes, well?"

"I am the undertaker. For my job ... must 'ave bodies ... and I," grimly, "I'm getting 'em."

The other shuddered slightly. War is war, but these wild unkempt men of a strange tongue were something he could not quite grasp. Anyhow, they knew how to fight. That is all that matters.

Duggie Le Page went into No-Man's Land and pluckily brought in a wounded N.C.O. from one of the mounted regiments, but too late to save a life fast nearing its ebb.

A weakly sun crept up from amid thick grey clouds and shone wanly on the mud-spattered creatures lying each in his own water-logged trough. Hour followed hour without further sign of hostile movement from the enemy--nothing could be seen of him, and had the cavalry got through the attack could have been continued and Cambrai taken.

Casualties (the supreme sacrifice in two instances) began to trickle away from the Norman ranks, the majority from the attention of a sniper in the long grass who held on alone with plucky audacity. Unfortunately for his own welfare he was over-confident, exposed himself too long; and ten rifles cracked spitefully--all who fired hotly claiming the right to a notch.

Before mid-day it became apparent that Fritz had neither the heart nor the troops for launching a counter-attack on a scale large enough to make a definite impression on the newly-won area. His "strafing" was fitful, poorly sighted, and of small calibre. Here and there he still had the use of a machine gun or two and had concentrated a number of men at Noyelles. This village was attacked by a company of the Royal Fusiliers; fought for desperately in one brief, mad mêlée, during which blood ran freely, but remaining in the hands of the British, formed the nearest point in the Line to Cambrai.

At Nine Wood all was quiet--except for the unearthly sounds emanating from the nostrils of one Tich sleeping in the reserve troughs with one side of his features buried in an inch of brown mud. Desultory conversation came down from the wide trough "Old man Casey" had dug and had adorned with an empty whisky bottle found in the grass. He was looking at it lovingly where it stood mouth downwards: for the obvious reason, he observed, that its spirits were like his own--all run out.

The Ten Hundred were tired, dead-beat. Marching all Sunday night, fatigue for hours on Monday, again marching in the night. Finally the attack and its holding ... eyes were heavy with ache for sleep.

Between eight and nine they were relieved, stumbled away from the wood until feet rang noisily on the rough surface of a sunken road winding Marcoing-wards.

Near a side road a number of houses were used as billet--Marcoing was untouched by shells on that date--and into these buildings Ten Hundred unshaven, unwashed, worn-out Normans entered slowly, found corners for the long-wished-for rest and threw down equipment and packs. Some jerked off boots, some faked up pillows, but the majority turned on one side, head on valise, and fell straightway into an oblivion that nothing could disturb.

Lying across a doorway, his boots and equipment still on, a veritable boy breathed regularly in the same attitude into which he had sunk the moment he had passed inside. His pale, tired face was dimly visible in the hazy starlight and one wondered at the peaceful serenity.

The last boot clattered loudly on the floor, the last rattle of a rifle placed by the owner's side, the last long-drawn sigh of relief ... Silence. Above them all Woden wove the magic spell Oblivion, the Rest of the war-worn warrior.

Daybreak had long since passed and still no sound of movement from the rows of tangled sleeping MEN. Tangle! They were lying in all directions and at every angle; it was impossible to define whose feet were whose or what had become of the chest and head of a pair of long legs leading from a jumbled heap. Duport had his feet fast in the heel of someone untraceable further than the knee--the first-named had munchers of the star-like (removable) variety. No. 2, unfortunately, struck out in his sleep, awakening the other to the fact that his teeth were promenading about at the top of his throat. He struggled to a sitting posture with a gasp, felt frenziedly for his "adjustables" and looked round upon the mixture of dirty, frowsy figures. He stirred Nobby into wakefulness by the simple expedient of tickling him beneath the chin with a grimy big toe protruding from a rent in an obsolete and far from odourless sock.

"'Ere," he said, "got any change."

"Any wha'," sleepily, "any, phew, wot a bloomin' niff. Put them blessed feet of your out of the winder. Change, wot of?"

"This yere trouser button."

"Funny, ain't it, like your face? 'It ole Wiffles there over the 'ead wid your rifle an' tell 'im breakfus' is up." This kindly action having succeeded, the victim looked around.

"Breakfus', where? What is it?"

"Oh, tin of Brasso; what d'you expect, 'am an' eggs or a filleted sausage."

MARCOING--MASNIERES

The Ten Hundred awoke, gazed about and laughed until the echoes rang from rafter to rafter as the eye took in each black-featured, bearded and grubby individual. Stumpy was requested to "leave that foot of fungus on his face, as it hid what for weeks had been an infliction," and to which he cuttingly replied that the other gentleman had features that would make a bomb burst.

But there could be detected in these rallies an undercurrent of strong mutual respect, of which they had all hitherto had no cognisance. They were each one intensely proud of what had been so efficiently carried out; although very little WAR was spoken they were keenly alive to the fact that personally and collectively the Ten Hundred had opened the innings with an abundance of "runs" as far as the enemy was concerned.

Rations came up fairly regularly in the advanced areas unless the ration-party becomes lost, drops a portion or makes an appointment with a 9.2. There is a constant daily issue of hard-wearing substance camouflaged as "biscuit," intended originally for the heel of concrete ships and for bomb-proof blockhouses. It can be further utilised as a body-shield, for paving roadways, or with the aid of a hammer and three chisels (why three? In case the first two break) this "biscuit" could be, and was, eaten.

Tea and sugar, enclosed in one tin, were soaked in water: boiled over a small round tin of a form of solidified paraffin, set alight beneath the mess tin.

Then bacon--Your issue might be red--and it might NOT. Perhaps the faintest suspicion of lean fringed it or you might moodily survey a square inch of fat--if there was not a buckshee inch of rind. The flowing locks of hair with which this bacon was sometimes adorned has convinced one that a number of farmers fatten their porkers on "Thatcho"--it could be combed with a fork!

Bully Beef is, ugh! IT was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be ... NEVER AGAIN.

Bread!