Book: Contemptible

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The relief at this order was impossible to describe. Their spirits rose
meteorically. They scarcely succeeded in hiding their joy from the
cavalry who were to be left in their trenches, and when they set off
towards Poussey there was a wonderful swing in their step.

In an hour's time they were back in their old billets, and the Officers
opened a bottle of wine, on the strength, as some one said, of getting
out of an "extraordinarily awkward position."

"Well," said the Captain, with a half-full tumbler in his hand, "here's
hoping that our wonderful luck keeps in."

They drank in silence, and soon after adjourned to the outhouse.




CHAPTER XXX

THE JAWS OF DEATH


The next 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 almost fancied that
they made matters worse.

As for the paralysed limbs, theirs was a negative trouble. He did not
know where his right hand was. He had to grope about with his left hand
under coats to find it. And when found, it was as if he had grasped
somebody else's hand. The situation was weird, and in an uncanny way it
amused and pleased him to take hold of the inert fingers. They were so
soft and cold. The hand of a dead man, heavy, heavy--impossible to
describe the dragging, inert weight of it.

But what frightened him more than anything was his face. One side was
drawn up, and was as impossible to move as the arm. The lower jaw seemed
clamped to the upper, and it, too, ached. A horrible fear crept into his
head.

"Tetanus!"

He recalled tales of the terrible end of those who were marked down by
this terrible disease. How they died in awful agony, the spine bent
backwards like a bridge!

In spite of the coats, the cold seemed to eat into his very heart.

He started the night bravely enough, and fought against his troubles
until his nerve collapsed hopelessly. The night was too long: it was too
much to bear. He groaned aloud in his agony, and discovered that it was
an immense relief.

The men near him began to open fire. If it were really an attack, it was
soon beaten down, and he began to shriek at them for wasting precious
ammunition that they might want when it was too late. He used words that
he never even knew that he knew. Great bursts of anger, he found,
distracted his attention from the pain, if only for a few moments. To
this end he worked himself into such a transport that the bleeding
re-commenced, and he was forced to cease, exhausted. In another hour
his nervous downfall was completed. He began to cry.

Each second of the interminable night dragged slowly by, as if it
gloated over his pain. In the end it became too much for him and he
fainted away, peacefully and thankfully.




CHAPTER XXXI

THE FIELD HOSPITAL


When he came to, it was daylight, and two Stretcher Bearers were tugging
at his feet. The weight of him seemed terrific, but eventually they
hoisted him on to the stretcher.

Some of his men gathered round, and told him that "they'd soon put him
straight at the hospital."

He smiled, rather wryly, but still he smiled, and mumbled: "Well, good
luck, No. 5 Platoon."

And so they carried him away, feet foremost.

They plunged along the muddy paths. He was convulsed with fear that they
would overturn him. And the jolting sent red-hot pains through his head,
and twisted his back terribly.

A Company came straggling up the path, led by no other than the Major,
who had been his Company Commander at the beginning of the war.

"Well, young feller, how are you? You'll be all right in a day or two."

Reply was impossible for him, and the Major hurried on.

The men who followed seemed shy of him. They looked at him covertly, and
then turned their eyes quickly away, as if he were some horrible
object. It annoyed him not a little.

That journey was the most painful thing that happened to him. But each
sickening jolt had the compensation of landing him a yard nearer the
hospital, and the hope of easing his pains buoyed him up somehow.

When they arrived at the Gunner's Cave, the Stretcher Bearers put him
resolutely down, and intimated that it was not "up to them" to take him
any further. The Ambulance, they said, ought to be there to "take over"
from them. But there was no sign of an Ambulance, and meantime he was
literally thirsting for the attentions and comforts of a hospital. His
natural reserve broke completely down. He begged, and entreated, and
prayed them to take him on.

After a little hesitation, they set out once more with a little
excusable cursing and grumbling.

It was about seven o'clock when at last they laid him down in the hall
of the hospital, and departed with unfeigned gladness.

Two Hospital Orderlies carried him along a passage and into the
identical billiard-room that he had seen from the garden.

A Doctor undid the soiled bandages with quick, strong fingers, and bent
down to examine the wound with an expression of concentrated ferocity on
his face. An Orderly brought a bowl, and the Doctor began to wash the
place.

It was a painful business, but nothing to be compared to the pain
produced by the "prober." They even tried to shave the hair from the
affected spot. He bore it as long as he could. But it was too much. His
left side shook and trembled. It was too terrible to begin to describe.

"It's no good," he said, "it's more than you can expect any one to put
up with. You'll have to stop it."

So they tied his head up once more, and he was carried upstairs into a
bedroom. They lifted him on to the bed, managed at length to divest him
of his jacket, turned some clothes over him, and left him.

* * * * *

In an hour a raging fever had taken hold of him.

Only intermittently, during the next three or four days, did he so much
as touch the world of realities. The only improvement was his face,
which had to a great extent relaxed. Otherwise the pain and the
paralysis were the same, and all the time the fever raged within him.

Somehow, when he awoke from his horrible dreams it was always dark. And
the remarkable thing was that the same nightmares seemed to haunt him
with persistent regularity. Always he lay down upon a hillside--nebulous
black, and furry. Always too, he had been "left," and the enemy was
swooping quickly down upon him. He would wake up to find himself once
more inert upon the bed, would curse himself for a fool, and vow that
never again would he allow his mind to drift towards that terrible
thought again.

J.O. double F.R.E? What was it? A Name? Whose? When and Why? He would
catch himself worrying about this many times. He would awake with a
start, and realise that the solution was a perfectly easy matter. Then
he would straightway fall asleep, to worry once again.

There was a big vase on a table near the bedside. He took an implacable
dislike to it, and longed to shatter it into atoms. "Horrible
pretentious affair," he would mutter.

When he awoke from his fever, he would always make frantic efforts to
hang on to consciousness. To this end he would always call the Orderly,
ask the time, demand water or Bovril--anything to keep him a little
longer in touch with the world.

Sometimes he would see bleared faces looking down upon him out of the
dizzy greyness. He remembers being told that "the Colonel" was coming to
see him. He never knew whether it was his own Colonel or some A.D.M.S.

The thought did indeed come to him that he was going mad. But he had not
the power to worry about the discovery, and insensibility would claim
him once more before he could realise the terrors of insanity.

All this time he lay on his back. It was impossible to move him, but he
longed to lie comfortably on his side, as he had always been accustomed
to do. He was sure he could sleep then--ordinary sound sleep, free from
worry, phantomless, refreshing. How he longed for it!

One evening a Doctor came to him and told him that they were going to
move him away. The news was by no means a relief. He did not feel equal
to the exertion of being carried about. He wanted to be allowed just to
lie quietly where he was, and live or die, just as Fate decreed. For
anything more, he had no energy; and the prospect of another journey
appalled him.

In the dead of night four silent Orderlies heaved him on to a stretcher,
carried him downstairs, and out of the chateau. His stretcher was then
slid into an ambulance, and he awaited impatiently the filling of the
others.

Another stretcher was slipped in by his side. It was too dark to see the
man upon it, but he was apparently suffering from the last stages of
thirst. He had been shot through the roof of the mouth and the throat,
and could not swallow. He was dying of thirst and hunger. He begged and
entreated them for water. He pleaded with them, tried to bribe them,
tried to order them, tried to bully them. It was pitiable to hear a
strong man brought so low. And if they gave him a drop of water in a
teaspoon, he would cough and choke to such a degree that it was obvious
that too frequent doses would be the end of him. He would gurgle, and
moan, and pine. It was awful.

They were journeying to the Clearing Hospital. The road, bad at the best
of times, was now pitted with shell holes, and was truly abominable. "Is
a country," he said to himself, "that will not allow its wounded
pneumatic tyres to ride upon, worth fighting for?"

They jolted on through the remaining part of the night. At dawn they
were disembarked, and put to rest in a little farm-house, where they
gave them soup and milk. But there were only mattresses thrown on a
stone floor, and the pain in his spine was so acute that he almost
forgot about his head.

His companion on the journey was placed in the same room. At the
beginning of the night he had pitied the poor fellow immensely. But his
prayers and entreaties were too pitiful to bear. What he must have been
suffering! It added an extra weight to his own burden. Thank God, he had
never been very thirsty!

"Just a little water! Just a drop. I won't swallow it. I won't! I swear
before Heaven I won't! Just a teaspoonful! Please!... Oh! I'm dying of
thirst.... Only a drop.... I won't swallow it this time.... There's five
pounds in my pocket." He would gurgle and groan pitifully for a moment.
Then in a voice, astoundingly loud, but thick with blood, he would
shout, quaveringly: "Orderly, blast you, you ----, give me some water, or
I'll--"

Sad to say, there came a time when the Subaltern could bear it no
longer. His own troubles and the entreaties of the other unnerved him.

"Give him water! Chuck it at him! In a bucket!" he shouted in a frenzy.
"Let the poor wretch die happy, anyway."

The Corporal in charge came over to him.

"You might get me some milk, Corporal," he said.

"For you, sir?"

"Oh no! You ----, to water the plants with, of course!"

"I was only asking, sir."

"All right, Corp'ral. Can't you see I'm a little upset this morning?"

* * * * *

They carried him on to the Clearing Hospital in a motor Ambulance, and
deposited him in the hall of a little estaminet that had been turned
into an Officer's Hospital.

A Doctor and Sister were conversing in low tones outside a closed door.

"I'm afraid there are all the symptoms of enteric," she was saying.

Neither of them took the slightest notice of him. But he was getting
used to being carried about and never spoken to, like a piece of
furniture. And the Sister entranced him. The Clearing Hospitals were the
nearest places to the fighting-line that women could aspire to. He had
not seen an English lady since leaving England. And her waist pleased
him. Such few French peasant women had any waists at all. And her voice
was higher-pitched; more intellectual, if less poetic.

When the two of them had quite finished discussing their "case" she
called for an Orderly, and without so much as looking at him, said,
"Put that one in there," indicating another door. Another Orderly was
fetched, and the painful business of hauling him off the stretcher on to
a bed began once more.

The novelty of his surroundings occupied his mind. The bed was soft, and
his spine ceased to ache. A feeling almost akin to contentment stole
over him, as they left him in the clean, cool bed. His companion without
the throat had been put in another room. There was only one more bed in
this one, and the occupant was sleeping peacefully.

About four o'clock in the afternoon he heard the faint ring of spurred
boots in the hall.

"This is an Officer's Ward, sir," a voice was saying.

The Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief, followed by another Officer only
less distinguished than himself, came slowly in.

"Poor boys!" he said. "How are you getting on?"

"All right, thank you, sir," he answered, smiling with pride.

"Here's the latest news from England," added the great man, as he
dropped a paper on the bed. The Subaltern's left hand almost shot out of
bed to grasp it. He looked up just in time to see them disappearing
through the doorway.

He tried to read the paper, but the effort brought the very worst pains
back again to his head, so he concealed it under the coverlet of the
bed. He was determined to keep that paper. It was already growing dark,
when the young Doctor of the Ward came to his bedside, smiling.

"We are going to operate on you at eight o'clock," he said. "It will be
all right. We'll soon put you straight."

"Straight?" he echoed. "Yes, I dare say you will!"




CHAPTER XXXII

OPERATION


The news came as a distinct shock to him. He had not even entertained
the possibility of undergoing an operation. Years ago he had had his
adenoids removed, and the memory was by no means pleasant. All along he
had told himself he would recover in time--that was all he wanted. To
have an operation was, he thought, to run another and unnecessary risk.

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