As one walks from the Grand Place of Ypres down the Rue de Lille to the old hoary town- gateway and the deep broad moat where the white swans used to revel in the sunlight, there stands about half-way down on the left hand side or rather stood, for nothing stands now in that once beautiful city a little tavern, which up to the month of April last was much frequented by the British soldiery. It was a humble enough place a little room with eight or nine tables and about twice as many chairs. Half a dozen faded prints hung on the walls, cheap muslin curtains were on the windows, and the decoration was completed by two blue china pots, each holding the remains of a dusty plant, long since dead. There was no oil-cloth on the floor, no mats: the girl who made the coffee said they used to have them before the October bombardment, but now well, it was safer and more economical to have as few things as possible to be destroyed. And she would pout with her pretty lips and shrug her dainty shoulders.
One Sunday evening, as the sun was setting and the shadows were long in the white dusty streets, I heard in that room a queer story, a story the like of which I had never heard before past man's understanding. Four of us sat at a table, the only occupants of the room at the time, and the air was thick with our tobacco smoke. The girl behind the bar was cleaning glasses and humming gaily to herself--they sang and laughed in Ypres to the last. Outside, the broad thoroughfare was thronged with soldiers and civilians walking in the evening light. Occasionally the windows would rattle as chance shells exploded in the town.
The man who told the tale was a private soldier, dirty, mud-stained, and unshaven. Yet from his lips fell a wonderful story, just as in strange places one lights on some rare flower. He told it with many an oath and many a blasphemy, as soldiers love to do, but with a fire in his eyes which bespoke a living soul. And those two friends who sat with me there and listened to him have passed into the clearer light where the secrets of the stars are disclosed and every tangled skein of earth is unravelled to the eye: and I am left alone, to grope in the darkness, to wonder, to hope, and again to wonder; until for me, too, all mists be rolled away. And as I tell this tale as I heard it a great sadness fills my heart for I feel that I tell it to a world that will believe it not.
It was in the grey of the early morning that a sentry spotted something moving among the long grass beyond the barbed wire. He watched intently for a few minutes but could not be quite certain the ground mist was heavy and was so deceptive. A few seconds later he again felt convinced that something moved near the same place. He raised his rifle and fired three rounds on the off chance of it being a prowling German. His, shot seemed to be the signal for a perfect tornado of yells, and suddenly out of the mist there loomed phantom-like figures, armed with cutters. In a moment they were on the wire, cutting as for their life snip went strand after strand.
It was all sudden and unexpected, but in a minute the trench garrison lined the parapet, and a murderous fire poured in upon the attacking Germans. There is small chance of life when cutting wire ten yards from the enemy's trench, and the grey figures went down by scores, some hanging on the wire, others piled in heaps of dead and wounded. Yet on they came in dense masses, swarming through the mist like ghosts in the teeth of a sweeping storm of lead. Nothing seemed to be able to stop them, and, though falling by hundreds in doing it, the wire was being cut more and more each minute. And ever on they came, climbing over the heaps of their dead. Soon there would be a bridge of corpses over the entanglements.
The rifles of the defenders grew red-hot in their hands, but they kept up the fire. Through the rattle and din could be heard the shrill voices of the Cockney Tommies vieing with one another as to who should go into the jaws of death with the best joke on his lips.
And the Germans still swarmed over. At the right flank of the trench they were almost through the wire and would soon be scrambling over the big ditch and up the parapet; a few seconds more and the centre might fall.
"Keep it up, lads, keep it up, for God's sake," yelled the platoon sergeant through the uproar;" when I gives the word, up and at 'em with the bayonet."
With their hands blistered and cut, and their faces filthy with powder and smoke, the dishevelled wild-eyed garrison fired on. A shrill whistle suddenly sounded, and the Germans turned and retreated into the mist, leaving behind them their dead and wounded, piled in heaps. A hoarse cheer went up from the British trenches. The enemy had retired when victory was almost within their grasp, had they but realised it.
"That was a near thing an' no mistake," said the platoon-sergeant, drawing the back of his hand across his cracked lips. "Gawd! I'm 'ot !" He pushed his cap back off his forehead and, sitting down on an ammunition box, began to pull through the barrel of his rifle.
"All rifles cleaned at once, boys," he shouted along the trenches. "Come on there, Atkins, lift your carcase off that fire-step you're not 'ere on a bloomin' pic-nic, are yer?" The hot smoking rifles were cleaned and polished, ready for immediate use; the corroded barrels were oiled and shining.
"They'll be at us again before long," growled the sergeant, squirting tobacco juice from the corner of his mouth. "The wire's down now, and they've got a bloomin' Piccadilly over their pals' corpses. Double these sentries, Gray."
His corporal walked along the trench and saw the order executed, then returned and sat down by the sergeant.
"Where's the orficer been all the while?" he asked, lighting a cigarette.
"Blow'd if I know--never seen him since the blighters attacked--well, my lad, what is it?"
The officer's orderly approached.
"Mr. Venables wants to speak to you, sergeant," he said; "I can't make out what's gone wrong with him. He slept in his dug-out all through the attack. I shook and shook him an' 'e wouldn't wake. I yells inter his ear and he wouldn't 'ear me. Then I pours the water out of 'is bottle over 'is face and down 'is neck and damn'd if he'd open 'is bloomin' eyes. I thought 'e was dead but for 'is breathin' . . . Never see'd anythin'
"Arnott!" shouted a voice from the officer's dug-out.
"There 'e is, sergeant, hollerin' for yer . . . better look slippy."
Sergeant Arnott scrambled along to the dug-out and crawled inside. The subaltern in charge of the trench sat on a biscuit box, his head in his hands. He sat in silence for a while, then looked up his eyes were very bright and shining.
"When did that attack begin, Arnott?"
"About ten minutes after you had been round the trench, sir it came on sudden-like."
"And how long did it last?"
"About 'arf an hour, sir. I thought the blighters were in on us they would 'ave bin, too, if they'd only 'ad the sense to keep on. They'll be at us again soon, sir the wire's mostly all cut."
The subaltern passed a hand wearily across his brow.
"It's so funny, Arnott, but I must have been asleep all the time they were attacking."
"You was, sir," interposed the sergeant gravely, "sleepin' like a top. . . . Meredith, 'e couldn't waken you, 'e says, although 'e poured the water from your water-bottle down your neck."
The subaltern smiled faintly. "Yes? . . . But I had a strange dream . . . can't remember much of it, ... but a shining figure seemed to speak to me and to tell me we were going to be in for a deuced hot time of it you see, Arnott, this part is the key to the British position."
The sergeant nodded.
"But he said we were to stick it out no matter what happened and he would help us and then he went away ... I remember he had a sword in his hand--it looked like fire. He was awfully like a big fellow on the reredos in the church at home--an angel--Michael, I think they call him. But it was all rather strange, Arnott, wasn't it?" he added, smiling, and lit a cigarette.
"It was that, sir."
"Well, come round the trench with me and see that these fellows are all ready if they do attack us."
The words had scarcely left his lips when there was a wild shout from the sentries, and the rattle of rapid fire broke out. The officer and his sergeant raised their heads above the parapet. It was clear enough now to see the German lines, and the sight they saw was that which, when seen for the first time, brings a curious momentary flutter to even the stoutest heart--the German hordes attacking in close formation. They were already half over the no-man's-land between the two trenches, falling, falling, row after row, but still coming on. Over the British trench shrieked the shrapnel, and glancing backwards, the officer saw it bursting over the support trenches, and the intervening waste being smashed with high explosives. Few, if any, supports would get up through that awful inferno. The reserves of grey troops seemed endless would they never stop pouring over the distant parapets?
Step by step they gained ground, despite the steadiness and accuracy of our fire; little by little the ranks came nearer, mown down like grain, but always immediately replaced. On either side the British trenches poured in their enfilade fire, then ceased--it was getting too risky, as they might damage their own men.
"Keep that -- machine-gun go in', men," yelled Sergeant Arnott, perspiration running in streams down his fiery face, "keep it goin' !.... what the 'ell are you waitin' for?"
"Machine gun's jammed!" came back the grim reply.
"God in 'eavin'!" muttered the sergeant, "our ticket's in"... and seizing a rifle he commenced blazing away.
"'Ow's that for Bisley?" shouted a Tommy, as a bearded German fell fifteen yards from the parapet.
"First bull you ever made, sonny," jeered his neighbour; "'oly Moses, but they're gettin' close."
The little band prepared to face the end.
"We all go the same way 'ome' " blithely sang a young private, jamming his magazine full.
For five minutes they fired desperately.
"Bill! wot the 'ell's that?" yelled someone.
"Wot the 'ell's wot?"
The two men filled their magazines like lightning, and shouted as they fired:
"That there trampin'--I can 'ear it above the bloomin' row--there you are, at our back! like a bloomin' army."
Bill glanced hurriedly over the waste ground between the firing line and supports.
"There's no bloomin' army there," he said, grimly; "wish to Gawd there was."
But in a moment he heard it--so did the others--the sound as of a great host advancing in their rear. Glances were cast over their shoulders, but the fire never slackened. There was no one there, and the Germans drew nearer.
Tramp, tramp, tramp. . . .
It sounded on their ears through the roar of the shells and the rattle of the musketry, like the marching of ten thousand men, steady, rythmical, coming nearer, nearer. . . .
Tramp, tramp . . . like the surge of a great sea . . . and the clatter of hoofs, loud and fierce, the clatter of squadrons of horsemen . . . Tramp, tramp . . . the unseen host drew closer, closer . . . over the British trench swept something like the rush of a mighty wind, whirling them from their feet on to the ground. The Germans who had reached the parapet stood as if turned to stone. One man had time to fire his bullet at the subaltern . . . then the grey battalions turned and fled. . . .
Tramp, tramp, tramp and onward swept the unseen host. . . .
"O, thank God! there he is," cried the subaltern, shot in the head, ere he fell back, "there he is--how like he is to the fellow on the reredos in the church at home--at home--"
As he fell back he pointed beyond their parapet, and those near him who heard him and followed his finger saw a great light, a radiant figure, something that flashed like a sword of flame only for a moment then nothing but the retreating Germans, rushing for the cover of their trenches.
"I 'ope I 'aven't tired you with my story sirs," said the private when he finished, "but as you was good enough to speak to me, I thought you would like to 'ear it ... goodnight, sirs."
He saluted and went out.
That man, snatched in some mysterious way from the mouth of death, believed that on his side that day had fought Gabriel the captain of the hosts of heaven, Michael the archangel, and all angels, with the powers and principalities of light--had fought for him, and did smite and win the victory. . . .
And I believe it too.
More Charles L. Warr Short Stories
