CHAPTER IV
GRUB
PENFOLD spoke of his escape without emotion. He had been long enoughcheck by jowl with death to express no surprise. He had merelyremarked that it was a lucky chance that the occupants of the shelleddug-out had not been inside when the heavy howitzer missile haddemolished it. What did seriously annoy him was the loss of thepromised food.
Ralph Setley, although by this time ravenously hungry, was ferventlythankful for his escape. Already the reaction of the raid into theGerman trenches was beginning to tell. Shorn of excitement of thewild rush over the top, the horrors of that nocturnal excursion roseup in his mind. The knowledge that he had bayoneted afellow-creature, although he were an enemy and a brutal Hun, worriedhim.
"Suppose the fellow would have done me in if I hadn't got him first,"he soliloquized. Then, aloud:
"What are you jabbering about, Alderhame?"
The former actor was stamping up and down the duck-boards, nowencrusted with a thin coating of ice:--
"Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, Thou dost not bite so nigh As benefits forgot."
"That's _As You Like It!_ chum. It aptly describes our condition.Horribly cold, and benefits in the shape of bully-beef gone, thoughnot forgotten. Where's our next lodging?"
The stream of prisoners and wounded Tommies had now dwindled.Penfold, addressing a sergeant, stated his case.
"D'ye think I'm a Cook's tourist guide?" snapped the N.C.O. "Turn inwhere you can. There are a good many half empty dug-outs now, I'mthinking."
A shell shrieked overhead. The Huns were putting up a barrage, theshrapnel falling amongst their own men, who, prisoners in the handsof the British, were being escorted to the "Advance cages."
"In here," said Penfold, making a dive for the nearest entrance.Alderhame followed close at his heels, then Setley and GeorgeAnderson, the latter still grousing at the loss of a quarter of aninch of his ear.
"Anyone at home?" enquired Penfold.
He pushed aside the covering to the sloping tunnel and entered thedug-out, which in point of size and contents was much the same as hisdemolished mud-hole--the damp steaming straw, the pungent fumes ofthe charcoal brazier, the moisture dripping through the timber-shoredroof, and the guttering candle--a typical Tommy's barrack-room on theSomme Front.
Seated on an upturned ammunition-case and with his feet resting onanother tin box, in order to keep them out of the slime, was a young,pale-faced, dark-haired soldier He was busily engaged in writing withan indelible pencil certain words of deeper violet hue, betraying thefact that the paper shared the general failing of the subterraneanabode--it was moist: uncommonly so.
So engrossed was the writer that for some moments he "carried on"with his task. Then looking up, and seeing strange faces, heexclaimed, in a lisping drawl:
"I say, you've made a mistake. This isn't your caboodle."
"No mistake, chummy," replied Penfold firmly. "We've been shelledout. We crave your hospitality. How many men in this dug-out?"
"There were eight this morning," replied the youth:
"Where are the others?"
"Ask me another."
"I will," rejoined Penfold, depositing his rifle on a bench. "Havethey left any grub?"
"Wish they had," was the grim answer. Then, with more eagerness thanhe had hitherto shown, he asked: "Have you any food? I haven't had abite since this morning. Finished the whole of my ration, includingjam, thinking that the fresh stuff would be in--but it isn't!"
"You're welcome to a share of ours, laddie," remarked Alderhame,"which happens to be nixes."
Ralph sat down on a bundle of straw, having first appropriated thelate occupant's pack as a pillow. He was feeling horribly tired. Hisfeet and hands were numbed with the cold. His saturated clothes werethrowing off wisps of muggy vapour. Even a huge rat pattering on themuddy floor and scampering through the straw hardly troubled him, anda few hours previously he would have gone twenty yards to avoid one.
In his drowsiness he found himself contemplating the latest of hismany new comrades.
"I'll bet that chap's a Jew," he thought.
Setley was right in his surmise. Sidney Bartlett was the grandson ofa Polish refugee who had become a naturalized Englishman and,dropping the name of Bariniski, had successfully engaged in businessin Birmingham. Like many of the Hebrew race, young Bartlett was apatriot and a staunch supporter of the land of his adoption. When thecall to arms came he rallied to the Colours, only to be sent backuntil he was sufficiently old to serve in His Majesty's Forces. Onlythree years previously Sidney was at a large day school, and thereoccurred an incident that was to influence his conduct at the SommeFront.
For some weeks the lad was persistently absent from school. The headmaster constantly received notes to the effect that Sidney was keptat home through domestic troubles, in which a grandmother figuredlargely. The caligraphy arousing his suspicions, the head wrote tothe lad's father, and then the "cat was out of the bag."
One afternoon Bartlett Senior, accompanied by his errant son, came tothe head master's study.
"Now, Sidney," said his sire, solemnly, "I vant you to tell detrut'--de whole trut', mind. Later on, in bizness, Sidney, you maytell a lie; but now you must tell de trut'."
Utterly worn out, Setley fell asleep--a slumber broken with dreams ofthe exciting episodes of the last few hours. Rats wandered at willover his couch of straw; vermin of other kind swarmed everywhere. Hiscompanions, too hungry to sleep, sat up and smoked, recountinganecdotes on almost every topic except the war. Without the gunsthundered incessantly, but the duel was chiefly betwixt theartillery, and the trenches were left almost untouched.
"I'm off to see if I can't find some grub," declared Penfold. "Who'sgame?"
Ginger Anderson volunteered to accompany him with the greatestalacrity. It was better than sitting still in a damp dug-out withhunger gnawing at one's vitals. Alderhame and Bartlett also expressedtheir willingness to take part in the foraging expedition.
"I reckon as if we do 'ave any luck," remarked Ginger, "the rationswill arrive directly we do, and all our work'll be for nothing."
"So much the better," rejoined Penfold.
"How about Setley?"
"Let him sleep on," suggested the ex-actor:
"Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber."
"'Buzzing night-flies' sounds poetical," remarked Penfold. "Poeticlicence shows tactful discretion in this case. Come along, youfellows."
The four adventurers sallied forth to beg, borrow, or steal somethingin the edible line. It was freezing so hard that the trench-boardswere immovably cemented in solid mud of the hardness of stone.
"Thank goodness we weren't warned for the wiring party," whisperedPenfold. "Black as pitch, and as cold as charity. Hist! What do youmake of that?"
He pointed to a faint ray of light emanating from an oblique shaft ofa dug-out--that of the major of his company. The opening was forventilating purposes, and was fitted with a piece of corrugated ironto prevent the water making its way into the underground room. Fromthe shaft came the unmistakable odour of roast meat.
One by one the men reconnoitred, and withdrew to a safe distance todeliberate.
"Regular old food-hog," declared Alderhame. "Not only is he about towolf a pound of meat, but there's a pudding and a packet of sausages.Presumably, his missis has sent him out a hamper."
"Too much for one man, albeit a field officer," decided Penfold."Lads, we must have some of that grub!"
"'Ow?" enquired Anderson. "Yer can't just pop in an' say, friendlylike: 'Wot cheer, major, old sport; 'ow abart it? Can yer?"
"Can't we lure him out?" suggested Alderhame.
"We might; but what's the use?" rejoined Penfold. "These officers'dug-outs have doors, and ten to one he'll lock it if he goes far fromhis grub."
"You get him out," said Sidney Bartlett. "I'll do the rest. All wewant is a light pole. The
re are some in the next traverse. Lash abayonet to one end and spear what we can through that hole."
"Sounds feasible," agreed Penfold. "Nip off and get the gear ready."
In a short space of time Bartlett had rigged up his improvisedfishing-tackle.
"Now," he said, "I'm ready. You carry on, Penfold."
Drawing his woollen cap well over his eyes and turning up the collarof his greatcoat as high as possible, Penfold knocked at the door ofthe Major's dug-out.
"Well?" enquired a deep muffled voice testily.
"Colonel's compliments, sir," announced the mendacious private, in anassumed tone. "He wants you to report to him at once upon the numberof men left in this section of the trench."
Grumbling, the Major issued from his subterranean retreat, carefullylocked the door, and set out to find the company sergeant-major, inorder to obtain the supposedly urgent information.
Before he returned the four raiders were scurrying back to theirdug-out, each with his mouth full of cold sausage, while Alderhameretained a painful impression of an otherwise appetizing repast inthe shape of a cut on his cheek, caused by the end of the pole as theelated Sidney swiftly withdrew it with the prized booty impaled uponthe bayonet.
"Where's my first-aid dressing?" enquired the ex-actor, with mockconcern.
"'And patches will I get unto these scars And swear I got them in the Gallia wars.'"
"Hardly good enough for Blighty," said Penfold, with a laugh. "Myword, won't the Major be in a tear when he misses his sausages!"
"Let him," said Bartlett. "He can only blame the rats."
"Halt! Who goes there?" exclaimed the hoarse voice of a sentry in thenext traverse.
"Engineers' ration party," was the reply. "Is this the RoyalEngineers?"
"Rather!" replied the ready Penfold. "Dump 'em down; we'll fetchthem."
Out of the neighbouring dug-outs poured other Tommies. Without havingany suspicion of the ruse played upon them, the ration party handedover the stores intended for a company of the Royal Engineers, whowere engaged in tunnelling on the left of the Wheatshires' trenches.Almost in the nick of time a famine was averted at the expense of thesappers and miners. But, as Penfold remarked, it was each man forhimself when it came to a case of semi-starvation.