"Might as well kill us outright as scare us to death," complained Scarfe bitterly.

Nevertheless our hearts leaped when a moment later our mysterious black officer friend hove in sight. Life is sweet.

He asked them what they did with us. The tableau answered for itself before the words had left his lips. And then we had to listen to our fate discussed in language and gesture so eloquent and so fraught with terrible importance to us that our sensitized minds could miss no smallest point of each fine shade of cruel meaning.

"Little Willie" thought it scarce worth their while to bother with so small a bag; that it would not be worth the trouble to send a miserable ten of _Verd.a.m.nt Englander_ back to the Fatherland--Better to kill them like the swine they were.

Our blood froze to hear the man and to see the poison of that rat soul of his exuding from his every pore, in every gesture and in each fresh inflection of his rasping voice. And all his men shouted their fierce approval and shook in our faces their b.l.o.o.d.y butcher's bayonets. It was a bitter draught. If they had killed us then it would have had to have been done in most cold blood, exceeding even the murder of Taylor in planned brutality. He at least had not known that it was coming and had not felt this insane fear which we now experienced and which made us wonder how they would do it. Would each have to watch the other's end? And would it be done by bullet or by bayonet? We greatly feared it would be the latter. We pictured ourselves held down as hogs are--our throats slit----!

The dark officer thought otherwise and minced no words in the saying.

Our hearts leapt out to him warmly, in grat.i.tude.

He sharply ordered them to desist, at which they slunk sullenly away, as hungry dogs do from a bone.

I felt an uncomfortable physical sensation and ran my hand uneasily beneath my shirt. I was covered with a fine sweat.

CHAPTER VII

PULLING THE LEG OF A GERMAN GENERAL

Polygon Wood and Picadilly Again--German Headquarters--Surprising Kitchener--"Your Infantry's No Good"--The Germans Give Us News of the Regiment.

We were then escorted under heavy guard out over the fields in the rear, past the nearby farmhouse, which was simply filled with snipers.

The latter, however, did not shoot at us, presumably because they might have hit some of our numerous guards. We seemed to be working right through the heart of the German Army. Everywhere the troops were ma.s.sed. Along the road they lay in solid formation on both sides. If we had had artillery to play on them now they would have suffered tremendous losses. The whole countryside presented a living target.

All the way they shouted "Schwein" and taunted us in both languages.

Every sh.e.l.l-hole, farmhouse, hut, dugout and old trench on the three-mile stretch between the Front and Polygon Wood contributed its quota.

The regiment had evacuated Polygon Wood on the night of the third.

Across the old trail our fatigue parties had tramped new ones in the mud, up past Regent Street, Leicester Square and Picadilly. We pa.s.sed them all.

We were marched over to the little settlement of pine-bough huts which the regiment had previously taken over from the French. The men with me greeted them like old friends. Here was the Sniper's Hut, there the Commanding Officer's. This was the hut in which the brave Joe Waldron had "gone West," that on the site of one where fourteen of "ours" had stopped a sh.e.l.l while they slept. Memories submerged us and made us weak. Even the guiding rope that our men had used to hold themselves to the trail of nights still held its place for groping German hands.

Beside it lay the fragments of the French signboards, jocular advertis.e.m.e.nts of mud baths for trench fever, the _hotel_ this and the _maison_ that. One of my companions pointed to a larger hut which he said our fellows had called the Hotel Cecil. The board was missing now. And no German signboard took its place. Their wit did not run in so richly innocent a channel.

The huts lay just off the race track in front of the ruined chateau, buried deep in the remnants of what had once been the beautiful park of a large country estate. These huts were now the German headquarters.

There was as much English as German talked there that day. Everywhere there was cooking going on, mostly in portable camp kitchens.

As we came to a halt one big fellow smoking a pipe observed nonchalantly: "You fellows are lucky. Our orders were to take no Canadian prisoners."

The man was so casual, so utterly matter-of-fact and there was about his remark so simple an air of directness and of finality that there was no escaping his sincerity, unduly interested though we were.

Another officer said "Englander?"

The big fellow said "Kanadien." The other raised his brows and shoulders: "Uhh!"

A younger officer came up: "Never mind, boys: Your turn to-day. Might be mine to-morrow." Turning to the others, he too said: "Englander?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: WOUNDED CANADIANS RECEIVING FIRST AID IN A SUPPORT TRENCH AFTER AN ATTACK.]

"No! Canadian."

"Oh!" And he appeared to be pleasantly surprised. He asked me for a souvenir and pointed to the bra.s.s Canada shoulder straps and the red cloth "P. P. C. L. I.'s" on the shoulders of the others. But I had already shoved my few trinkets down my puttees while lying back of the trench that afternoon. Scarfe, however, gave up his "Canada" straps.

The young officer gave him in return a carved nut with silver filigree work and gave another man a silver crucifix for the bronze maple leaves from the collar of his tunic. And, more important still, he gave us all a cigarette, while he had a sergeant give us coffee.

That, the cigarette, was I think much the best of anything we received then or for some time to come. Since the bombardment and our wounding, our nerves had fairly ached for the sedative which, good, bad or indifferent, would steady the quivering harp strings of our nerves.

And a cigarette did that.

The headquarters staff appeared on the scene. They wanted information, just as ours would have done under similar circ.u.mstances, but these took a different method to acquire it. As before, in the trench, they selected me for the spokesman. The senior officer, a general apparently, addressed me: "How many troops are there in front of our attack?"

I lied: "I don't know."

He shook a threatening finger at me. "I'll tell you this, my man: We have a pretty good idea of how many troops lay behind you and if in any particular you endeavour to lead us astray it will go very hard with all of you. Now answer my question!" His English was good.

I cogitated. It would not do to tell him the terrible truth. That was certain. So I took a chance. "Three divisions." He appeared to be satisfied. The fact was, there were none behind us. We were utterly without supporting troops.

"And Kitchener's Army? How many of them are there here?"

"Why, they haven't even come over yet, sir."

"Don't tell me that: I know better. They've been out here for months."

"But they haven't," I persisted. I told the truth this time.

"Yes," he shouted angrily.

"No," I flung back.

"Well, how many of them are there?"

The division yarn had gone down well. And perhaps I was slightly heated. My spirit ran ahead of my judgment. "Five and a half to seven million," I said.

He exploded. And called me everything but a soldier. I could not help but reflect that I had overdone it a bit. And I certainly thought that I was "for it" then and there.

To make matters worse he asked the others and they, profiting by my mistake and following the lead of the first man questioned, put Kitchener's army at four and a half million; which was only a trifle of four million out. So I determined to be reasonable. When he came to me again I confirmed the latter figure, explaining my earlier statement by my lack of exact knowledge. And so that particular storm blew over.

The general came back to me again. "You Canadians thought this was going to be a picnic, didn't you?" He was very sarcastic.

"No, we didn't, sir."

"Well, you thought it was going to be a walk through to Berlin, didn't you?"

"Why, no. We thought it was the other way about, sir," I ventured.