''Contemptible'' by - (ebooks online reader .TXT) 📖

morning they learned that their turn of duty as Local Reserve was over, and that they were "to take over" a line of trenches that evening. The Captain went alone to be shown round in the morning.

They wrote letters all morning, had an early dinner, and retired early to the outhouse to put in a few hours sound sleep in anticipation of several "trying" nights.

At about five o'clock they awoke, and found that the Captain had returned in the meantime. He explained the position to them as they drank their tea.

"The trenches are just in the edge of a wood," he said. "It is extraordinarily thick. It would be absolutely impossible to retire. The field of fire is perfect. The skyline is only two hundred yards away, and there wouldn't be an inch of cover for them, except a few dead cows."

"I shouldn't think dead cows were bullet-proof, should you?" asked the Senior Subaltern.

"There's one thing you will have to watch. There are any amount of spies about, and they let the Germans know, somehow, when the reliefs are coming up the road, and then the road gets searched. They don't know exactly where you are, you see. They have the road on the map, and plaster it on the off chance. If you see a shell burst on the road, the only thing to do is to get clear of it. Give it about forty yards' grace, and you will be safe enough."

Soon after they set out along a road that they had never travelled before, leading directly up the hill in front of Souvir. About half-way up, they almost stumbled into the holes that the German shells had eaten deep into the road. Evidently, however, the spies in Souvir had not succeeded in informing the enemy of their approach. There was perfect quietness.

It was a stiff hill to climb, and they halted alongside of a battery of artillery to take breath. There was a deep cave in the rock, which the gunners had turned into a very comfortable "dug-out." The Subaltern envied them very sincerely. He felt he would have given anything to have been a "gunner." They had such comfortable dug-outs—horses to ride—carriages to keep coats and things in. Above all, there could not be that terrible strain of waiting—waiting.

The road curled sharply round the rock precipice, and plunged into a thick forest. A guide had met them, and absolute silence was ordered. They had breasted the rise, and were nearing the trenches. The road had ceased abruptly, and the paths that they had laboured along were nothing but narrow canals of mud. Here and there a few broken trees and mangled branches showed where a shell had burst.

Hands were held up silently in front. A halt was ordered for a few minutes, while the leading Platoon moved along into its allotted trenches. They had arrived.

Nothing warned the Subaltern, when at length he was shown the line for his own Platoon, that this night was to be any different from any of the other nights he had spent in the face of the enemy.

It was not, strictly speaking, a line of trenches at all. As usual, each man had dug a hole by himself, and each man was his own architect. Very few holes had been connected by a rough sort of trench at the back. The Captain had described the topography of the situation very exactly. The holes were dug on the borders of the forest, but were concealed from enemy artillery observation by the trees. The field of fire was absolutely open. It stretched to the top of the hill, which formed their horizon, a distance of rather less than two hundred yards. It was smooth grass, and it struck the Subaltern as being exceptionally green. A few dead cows, in the usual grotesque attitudes of animals in death, were scattered over the green grass.

He selected his hole, and then began to take careful stock of his surroundings. The fact that he could see no sign of the opposite trenches perhaps lulled him into a sense of false security. Anyway, after having disposed of his haversack, and the sacks he had brought up with him, he got up from his hole, and began to walk along behind the holes. On the extreme left he found his Sergeant.

"Well, this looks a pretty safe position," he said.

"Yes, sir. I've just had a shot at a man's head that I thought I saw out there. I can't say whether or no I shot him. He disappeared quick enough. I should put the range at two hundred and fifty, sir."

"I wonder what is on our left, here?" he asked.

"I don't know, sir. I haven't had time to look."

"I think I had better go and find out for myself."

He set off, pursuing his way through the thick undergrowth and trees. It was longer than he thought. But all was still quiet, so the thought of being "spotted" in the open did not occur to him.

He found the edge of the next trench. It was thrown forward in front of the wood. After making the usual arrangements that are vaguely called "establishing touch," he turned back out of the shelter of the parapet, over the dangerous ground.

Twilight was deepening every second. He did not run; and he only hurried, because he wanted to get really established in his "funk hole" before it grew too dark to see what he was doing.

Then, almost simultaneously, the enemy and the regiment in the trenches opened fire. He stopped short, and turned round to watch. He could see nothing but thin red spurts of fire in the grey twilight. He turned quickly on his heel, meaning to reach his own men before the attack should develop on their front, where, as yet, all was quiet.

He almost reached the end of his trenches....

There was a crisp crash, a blinding light flew up like a circular sunset around him, a dreadful twinge, as of hair and skin and skull being jerked from his head with the strength of a giant! For the millionth part of a second he was at a loss to understand what had happened. Then, with sickening horror, he realised that he had been shot in the head.

It is impossible to convey with what speed impressions rushed through his mind.

The flaring horizon tilted suddenly from horizontal nearly to perpendicular. His head rushed through half a world of black, fury-space. His toes and finger-tips were infinite miles behind. A sound of rushing waters filled his ears, like deathly waterfalls stamping the life from his bursting head. Black blurred figures, nebulous and meaningless, loomed up before his face.

"Hit in the head—you're done for."

"Hit in the head—you're done for."

The inadequate thought chased through his brain.

"What a pity, what a shame; you might have been so happy, later on."

"What a pity, what a shame; you might have been so happy later on."

He was conscious that it was a foolishly futile thought at a supreme moment.

His life seemed pouring out of his head, his vitality was running down as a motor engine, suddenly cut off. He felt death descending upon him with appalling swiftness. Where would the world go to? And what next?

He was afraid.

Then, with a tremendous effort he turned his thoughts on God, and waited for death.

He was swimming in that black fury-sea that was neither wet nor clinging. He was made of lead in a universe that weighed nothing. He was sinking, sinking. In vain he struggled. The dark, dry waters closed over him....

Still the waterfalls pounded in his ears, and still the dry waves reeled before his eyes, and under his head a pool, sticky and warm.

What was that? This time surely something tangible and real moving towards him. With a supreme effort he tried to jerk his body into moving. His left leg moved. It moved wearily; but still it moved. His left arm too.

What was this?

The right arm and leg were gone, gone.

The rest of him was flabbergasted at the horror of the discovery.

No, not gone! They were there. But they would not move. He could not even try to move them. He could not so much as feel them.

Then he awoke to the horror of the thing.

His right side was dead!

The shape was really alive. It resolved itself into a man crawling in the darkness to his rescue.

"You need not bother about me, I'm done for. Get back into the trench."

He had a feeling that though he meant his lips to frame these words, he was in reality saying something quite different. It was an exhausting effort to speak.

The form asked him questions in a fierce whisper. He had not the strength to understand or answer.

Very slowly and cautiously he was dragged over the few yards of ground that separated him from the first hole.

It was awful. His brain conceived the thought: "For God's sake let me die in peace." But his lips were all twisted, and refused to move at the bidding of his brain. He could only groan.

With wonderful gentleness the man placed his Officer's broken head over the hole, and with the help of another man lowered him into it.

His next thought was: "Well, they can only hit my feet, now!" There had not been room in the hole for all of him, so his feet had been left protruding out of it. The thought fanned some smouldering ember of humour in him. A moment later he discovered with a thrill—

"I'm going to live, I'm going to live. I will live!"

The discovery, and the resolution which followed, by no means excited him. He arrived quite quietly at the conclusion. And set his mind to await the development of the next event.

The man who had dragged him in now tied the "first field dressing" over his head, and fastened the strings beneath his chin. Interminable ages passed slowly by, and yet the Doctor did not come. He regarded the arrival of the Doctor, like the coming of the Last Day, as the end of all difficulties, and the solution of many mysteries.

Needless to say he was disappointed. The Doctor could naturally do little or nothing for him. With the aid of a match or two he "had a look," replaced the dressing by some bandages, and moved him about a little to ease his position. To carry him away that night, said the Doctor, was absolutely impossible. And with that he went away.

The Senior Subaltern, who had come up with him, stayed a little longer, and earned his eternal gratitude. He made further efforts to straighten him out, assured him that the effects of the shock would wear off by morning, and that he would once more be able to move. He collected a few extra blankets and coats and spread them over him, for he was growing terribly cold. Then with cheery words on his lips he left him.

Left alone in the silence of the night, the Subaltern felt the horror of the situation take hold of him. He was alone with his pain and his paralysis. There was no hope of alleviation until morning. What time was it then? he asked himself. Seven, at the latest. That meant eight long hours of agony, before anything happened! That is what the wounded love and long for—something to happen—something to distract the attention from the slow, insistent pain—something to liven drooping spirits, and raise falling hopes.

Slowly and surely he began to take stock of the situation. First of all came his head. The pain of the wound was an ache, a dull ache that sharpened into shooting pains if he moved. Still, he told himself that it might be worse. There was much worse pain in the world. It could not be called unbearable or excruciating.

His spine seemed in some way twisted. It ached with an insistence and annoyance only second to the wound. All his most determined efforts to wriggle it straight failed lamentably. Indeed, he