CHAPTER V

JIM BRENT'S V.C.

If you pa.s.s through the Menin-Gate at Ypres, and walk up the slight rise that lies on the other side of the moat, you will come to the parting of the ways. You will at the same time come to a spot of unprepossessing aspect, whose chief claim to notoriety lies in its sh.e.l.l-holes and broken-down houses. If you keep straight on you will in time come to the little village of Potige; if you turn to the right you will eventually arrive at Hooge. In either case you will wish you hadn't.

Before the war these two roads--which join about two hundred yards east of the rampart walls of Ypres--were adorned with a fair number of houses. They were of that stucco type which one frequently sees in England spreading out along the roads that lead to a largish town.

Generally there is one of unusually revolting aspect that stands proudly by itself a hundred yards or so from the common herd and enclosed in a stuccoesque wall. And there my knowledge of the type in England ends.

In Belgium, however, my acquaintance with this sort of abode is extensive. In taking over a house in Flanders that stands unpleasantly near the Hun, the advertis.e.m.e.nt that there are three sitting, two bed, h. and c. laid on, with excellent onion patch, near railway and good golf-links, leaves one cold. The end-all and be-all of a house is its cellar. The more gloomy, and dark, and generally horrible the cellar, the higher that house ranks socially, and the more likely are you to find in it a general consuming his last hamper from Fortnum & Mason by the light of a tallow dip. And this applies more especially to the Hooge road.

Arrived at the fork, let us turn right-handed and proceed along the deserted road. A motor-car is not to be advised, as at this stage of the promenade one is in full sight of the German trenches. For about two or three hundred yards no houses screen you, and then comes a row of the stucco residences I have mentioned. Also at this point the road bends to the left. Here, out of sight, occasional men sun themselves in the heavily-scented air, what time they exchange a little playful badinage in a way common to Thomas Atkins. At least, that is what happened some time ago; now, of course, things may have changed in the garden city.

And at this point really our journey is ended, though for interest we might continue for another quarter of a mile. The row of houses stops abruptly, and away in front stretches a long straight road. A few detached mansions of sorts, in their own grounds, flank it on each side.

At length they cease, and in front lies the open country. The poplar-lined road disappears out of sight a mile ahead, where it tops a gentle slope. And half on this side of the rise, and half on the other, there are the remnants of the t.i.t-bit of the whole b.l.o.o.d.y charnel-house of the Ypres salient--the remnants of the village of Hooge. A closer examination is not to be recommended. The place where you stand is known in the vernacular as h.e.l.l Fire Corner, and the Hun--who knows the range of that corner to the fraction of an inch--will quite possibly resent your presence even there. And shrapnel gives a nasty wound.

Let us return and seek safety in a cellar. It is not what one would call a good-looking cellar; no priceless prints adorn the walls, no Turkey carpet receives your jaded feet. In one corner a portable gramophone with several records much the worse for wear reposes on an upturned biscuit-box, and lying on the floor, with due regard to s.p.a.ce economy, are three or four of those excellent box-mattresses which form the all-in-all of the average small Belgian house. On top of them are laid some valises and blankets, and from the one in the corner the sweet music of the sleeper strikes softly on the ear. It is the senior subaltern, who has been rambling all the preceding night in Sanctuary Wood--the proud authors of our nomenclature in Flanders quite rightly possess the humour necessary for the production of official communiques.

In two chairs, smoking, are a couple of officers. One is a major of the Royal Engineers, and another, also a sapper, belongs to the gilded staff. The cellar is the temporary headquarters of a field company--office, mess, and bedroom rolled into one.

"I'm devilish short-handed for the moment, Bill." The Major thoughtfully filled his pipe. "That last boy I got a week ago--a nice boy he was, too--was killed in Zouave Wood the day before yesterday, poor devil.

Seymour was wounded three days ago, and there's only Brent, Johnson, and him"--he indicated the sleeper. "Johnson is useless, and Brent----" He paused, and looked full at the Staff-captain. "Do you know Brent well, by any chance?"

"I should jolly well think I did. Jim Brent is one of my greatest pals, Major."

"Then perhaps you can tell me something I very much want to know. I have knocked about the place for a good many years, and I have rubbed shoulders, officially and unofficially, with more men than I care to remember. As a result, I think I may claim a fair knowledge of my fellow-beings. And Brent--well, he rather beats me."

He paused as if at a loss for words, and looked in the direction of the sleeping subaltern. Rea.s.sured by the alarming noise proceeding from the corner, he seemed to make up his mind.

"Has Brent had some very nasty knock lately--money, or a woman, or something?"

The Staff-captain took his pipe from his mouth, and for some seconds stared at the floor. Then he asked quietly, "Why? What are you getting at?"

"This is why, Bill. Brent is one of the most capable officers I have ever had. He's a man whose judgment, tact, and driving power are perfectly invaluable in a show of this sort--so invaluable, in fact"--he looked straight at his listener--"that his death would be a very real loss to the corps and the Service. He's one of those we can't replace, and--he's going all out to make us have to."

"What do you mean?" The question expressed no surprise; the speaker seemed merely to be demanding confirmation of what he already knew.

"Brent is deliberately trying to get killed. There is not a shadow of doubt about it in my mind. Do you know why?"

The Staff-officer got up and strolled to a table on which were lying some ill.u.s.trated weekly papers. "Have you last week's _Tatler_?" He turned over the leaves. "Yes--here it is." He handed the newspaper to the Major. "That is why."

"_A charming portrait of Lady Kathleen Goring; who was last week married to that well-known sportsman and soldier Sir Richard Goring. She was, it will be remembered, very popular in London society as the beautiful Miss Kathleen Tubbs--the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Silas P. Tubbs, of Pittsburg, Pa._"

The Major put down the paper and looked at the Staff-captain; then suddenly he rose and hurled it into the corner. "Oh, d.a.m.n these women,"

he exploded.

"Amen," murmured the other, as, with a loud snort, the sleeper awoke.

"Is anything th' matter?" he murmured, drowsily, only to relapse at once into unconsciousness.

"Jim was practically engaged to her; and then, three months ago, without a word of explanation, she gave him the order of the boot, and got engaged to Goring." The Staff-captain spoke savagely. "A d.a.m.n rotten woman, Major, and Jim's well out of it, if he only knew. Goring's a baronet, which is, of course, the reason why this excrescence of the house of Tubbs chucked Jim. As a matter of fact, d.i.c.k Goring's not a bad fellow--he deserves a better fate. But it fairly broke Jim up. He's not the sort of fellow who falls in love easily; this was his one and only real affair, and he took it bad. He told me at the time that he never intended to come back alive."

"d.a.m.n it all!" The Major's voice was irritable. "Why, his knowledge of the lingo alone makes him invaluable."

"Frankly, I've been expecting to hear of his death every day. He's not the type that says a thing of that sort without meaning it."

A step sounded on the floor above. "Look out, here he is. You'll stop and have a bit of lunch, Bill?"

As he spoke the light in the doorway was blocked out, and a man came uncertainly down the stairs.

"Confound these cellars. One can't see a thing, coming in out of the daylight. Who's that? Halloa, Bill, old c.o.c.k, 'ow's yourself?"

"Just tottering, Jim. Where've you been?"

"Wandered down to Vlamertinghe this morning early to see about some sandbags, and while I was there I met that flying wallah Petersen in the R.N.A.S. Do you remember him, Major? He was up here with an armoured car in May. He told me rather an interesting thing."

"What's that, Jim?" The Major was attacking a brawn with gusto. "Sit down, Bill. Whisky and Perrier in that box over there."

"He tells me the Huns have got six guns whose size he puts at about 9-inch; guns, mark you, not howitzers--mounted on railway trucks at Tournai. From there they can be rushed by either branch of the line--the junction is just west--to wherever they are required."

"My dear old boy," laughed Bill, as he sat down. "I don't know your friend Petersen, and I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that he is in all probability quite right. But the information seems to be about as much use as the fact that it is cold in Labrador."

"I wonder," answered Brent, thoughtfully--"I wonder." He was rummaging through a pile of papers in the stationery box.

The other two men looked at one another significantly. "What hare-brained scheme have you got in your mind now, Brent?" asked the Major.

Brent came slowly across the cellar and sat down with a sheet of paper spread out on his knee. For a while he examined it in silence, comparing it with an ordnance map, and then he spoke. "It's brick, and the drop is sixty feet, according to this--with the depth of the water fifteen."

"And the answer is a lemon. What on earth are you talking about, Jim?"

"The railway bridge over the river before the line forks."

"Good Lord! My good fellow," cried the Major, irritably, "don't be absurd. Are you proposing to blow it up?" His tone was ponderously sarcastic.

"Not exactly," answered the unperturbed Brent, "but something of the sort--if I can get permission."

The two men laid down their knives and stared at him solemnly.

"You are, I believe, a sapper officer," commenced the Major. "May I ask first how much gun-cotton you think will be necessary to blow up a railway bridge which gives a sixty-foot drop into water; second, how you propose to get it there; third, how you propose to get yourself there; and fourth, why do you talk such rot?"

Jim Brent laughed and helped himself to whisky. "The answer to the first question is unknown at present, but inquiries of my secretary will be welcomed--probably about a thousand pounds. The answer to the second question is that I don't. The answer to the third is--somehow; and for the fourth question I must ask for notice."

"What the devil are you driving at, Jim?" said the Staff-captain, puzzled. "If you don't get the stuff there, how the deuce are you going to blow up the bridge?"

"You may take it from me, Bill, that I may be mad, but I never antic.i.p.ated marching through German Belgium with a party of sappers and a G.S. wagon full of gun-cotton. Oh, no--it's a one-man show."

"But," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Major, "how the----"

"Have you ever thought, sir," interrupted Brent, "what would be the result if, as a heavy train was pa.s.sing over a bridge, you cut one rail just in front of the engine?"