Sapper

“ She seemed to him like the spirit of the Spring, when the bluebells are flowering and the world is young. But on the German's face there was no answering smile. It was set and stern, and imprinted with a look of such utter hopelessness that the Kid, who saw it over the girl's shoulder, almost cried out with the pain of it.
"Do you love me enough, Marie," he went on at length, "to do a big thing for me—a very big thing?"
"That depends on what it is." She spoke gaily, but the Kid could see her body stiffen slightly. "I'm no good at big things." ”

“ It calls for leadership of the highest type. There is many a man capable of supreme devotion in a crisis who is incapable of the steady, unseen strain, day in, day out, of keeping up his men's spirits—in fact, of appreciating human nature in one of its many phases.
The men feel that dull routine on which the limelight does not shine, and only the leader can help them. It claims its victims, just as do the big offensive, that trench life, when the flares lob up ceaselessly and the bursts of machine-gun fire come swishing over the ground. Here men are wiring ”

“ This is not a story; there is no plot; it is just what happens every day somewhere or other in the land of glutinous, stinking mud, where the soles are pulled off a man's boots when he walks and horses go in up to their bellies; where one steers a precarious and slippery course on the narrow necks of earth that separate shell holes, and huddled things stare up at the sky with unseeing eyes. ”

“ Toc—toc—toc; the slow tapping of a German machine-gun sounds from the direction he had fondly imagined Battalion Head-quarters to be; the swish of bullets come nearer as the Hun sweeps the ground; a flare goes up, showing—holes. Another compulsory descent; a phut! as a bullet passes over his head, and the swishing passes on. Shortly that swishing will come back, and in the meantime are there not—holes? But as for the front trench, whither he is bound, the contest is unequal. No man can fight—holes. ”

“ The men walked three inches higher; the men, as men, had come into their own. Every new draft that came heard the story; every new draft realised it had got something to live up to. No longer sand bags and smells their horizon, but the memory of one glorious half-hour.
And when he thought over it afterwards, there was only one small thing that struck Samuel Pipston as peculiar. He was just retailing to Reginald Simpkins—with some wealth of detail—his experiences in the German dug-out, when he became aware of the Honourable James beside him, who listened for a while until he had finished. ”

“ Even the Kid, watching silently from the bed, felt conscious of the power which seemed to spring from him as he stood there, squat and repulsive, with the lovely French girl kneeling at his feet. He saw her throw her arms around his knees, and turn up her face to his in an agony of pleading; and then of a sudden came the tragedy.
Discipline or no discipline, a man is a man, and Fritz Rutter had reached the breaking-point. ”

“ Thus ended the episode of Percy FitzPercy—his man-trap.
It might have happened to any one, but only FitzPercy would have searched carefully amongst the crockery, and having found what he was looking for made a point of bringing it to head-quarters just as the tin was finally removed.
To emerge into the light of two candles and an electric torch with a bit of one ear and half a face deficient, and realise that the man responsible for it is offering you your uppers in three parts and some fragments, is a situation too dreadful to contemplate. ”

“ Every now and then a man pitched forward and lay still; or muttered a curse as he felt the sting of something in his arm. A section on the left dropped suddenly, only to worm on again by ones and twos, trying to avoid the dreaded toc-toc—slow and menacing—of a German machine-gun. Then the bombers were there. Crouching back, a man would pull the pin out of his bomb, run forward, and hurl it into the trench where the Germans were huddled in groups. ”

“ Forgetful of everything he was on the point of going over to him and telling him to stick it out, when his eyes rested on the entrance. And there was the girl: the girl he had seen in the corner, the girl of the jasmine scent. For a while she stood watching the bowed figure at the table, and then she tip-toed across to him and laid her hand on his head.
With a quick start he looked up, and into his face there came the light of all the ages, the light of the man for the woman he loves.
"Marie," he whispered hoarsely. "Marie—que je t'adore." He caught her to him and kissed her on the lips. ”

“ And during that hour Percy lived.
It is given to few to see their hopes and aspirations realised so beautifully and quickly; as in a dream he listened to the hideous cachinnations that floated up through the slabs of the trench-board. A continuous booming noise as of a bittern calling to its young was varied with heavy grunts and occasional blows of a heavy bludgeon on metal. ”

“ But with a bayonet the matter is different. No longer is the man you fight an unknown impersonality. He stands before you, an individual whose face you can see, whose eyes you can read. He has taken unto himself the guise of a man; he has dropped the disguise of an automaton. In those eyes you may read the redness of fury or the greyness of terror; in either case it is you or him. And a soldier's job is to kill. ...
In nine cases out of ten he has forfeited the right to surrender, for as Jimmy used to say, "There's only one method of surrendering, and that's by long-distance running. ”

“ Now when a German sniper takes the life of a man in a battalion which goes in for the art itself, it is an unwritten law that from that moment a blood feud exists between the German and English snipers opposite. Though it takes a fortnight to carry out, yet death is the only finish. ”

“ One remembers the times when the bomb did not emerge, but stuck half way and exploded violently; one remembers when the entire gun fell over and propelled the bomb in the direction of battalion headquarters; above all, one remembers the loathing and contumely with which the mere arrival of the trench mortar in any part of the trenches was greeted. Then there was no attempt at camouflage; one's sole endeavour was to avoid being killed by the beastly thing. ”

“ Human sympathy—the appealing to the spark of better things that lies in the worst; the inculcation of an ideal to live up to—the ideal of the regiment. All the hundred and one things that go to make up a man's life and not an automaton's; all the things that make for the affection and love of those under you. It is a very great thing for an officer to be loved by his men. ”

“ He laughed gently at the remembrance; and the hand on his forehead trembled. For laughter to be a pleasant thing to hear it is essential that the person who laughs should be in full possession of—well, it is better, at any rate, that his head should not have been hit by a bomb, especially if it was his lower jaw that bore the brunt.
"What are you trembling for, Molly?" The voice was tender. "The pain has quite gone—I must have had a touch of the sun."
But for a question to be answered it must be audible; and the girl whose hand was on his forehead heard no words. ”

“ It was just as he was visualising the scene: the sudden ghostly appearance of Shorty on top of the unsuspecting Germans; the sudden stroke of that awful weapon; the feeble attempt to get the bomb; the——well, it was just then that Reggie found himself contemplating from about six inches range the glaring face of a Prussian N.C.O. who had suddenly materialised. By the light of a flare down the line he watched, as he lay on top of the ground, with his head over the edge of the sap, the ring of the Prussian's revolver as it moved up towards his face. ”

“ Thus is it done if the leader of the regiment is a man of understanding; for each of his assistants, right down the long chain to the junior lance-corporal, have been imbued with their responsibility to those under them. They are there to help them, to lighten their burdens, to sink self for the men they lead. The strong must help the weak—that is the principle; and every one must pull his weight for the good of the team. ”

“ A sudden twitch, a snap of the jaw, and a bovine face would light up with unholy joy. The squad drawn up ready for practice, with the straw-filled sacks in front of them, would mutter ominously, and teeth would show in a snarl. Absurd, you say; not a bit; just a magnetic personality, and men of the right stuff. Dash it! I've seen even the Quartermaster, whose ways do not lie near such matters, hopping about from one leg to the other when Jimmy's peroration rose to its height.
"Have you a child, MacNab, a little wee kid?" he would begin. ”

“ And so at last MacNab would begin. Bits of sacking would fly in all directions, streams of straw and sawdust would exude. He's kicked it twice, and hit it an appalling welt with the butt of his gun. The sweat pours from his face; but his eyes are gleaming, as he stops at last from sheer exhaustion.
"Splendid, MacNab; you're a credit to Glasgow, me boy. Are you beginning to feel what it's like to stick your point into something, even though it's only a sack?" ”

“ An intensely pugilistic little man stamped his foot at me, and brandished a ball on the end of a stick in front of my face. One's aim and object, as far as I could tell from the book of the words, was to stab the ball with the point of one's bayonet, and at the same time grunt in a manner calculated to cause alarm and despondency to every one within earshot. At times you hit the ball with the butt of the rifle; at others you kick it, endeavouring if possible not to stub your toe. Everything depends on what part of the German's anatomy it is supposed to represent at the moment. ”

“ Fritz forced the words from his dry lips, only to stop at the upraised hand of the other.
"My name, dear young lady, is immaterial," he remarked genially. "Just an ugly old man, who has had no time to bask in the sunshine of the smiles of your charming sex." He sat down and lit a cigar. "So you are going to become a German's wife! Ah, Fritz, my boy, you're a lucky dog! You'll have to guard your Marie carefully from the rest of the garrison, when we have finally won and the war is over." He gave a grating laugh, and blew out a cloud of smoke. ”

“ A bullet spat over them viciously, but they did not alter their position—they knew they were not the target; and from their own lines came the sudden clang of a shovel. All around them the night was full of vague, indefinable noises; instinctively a man, brought suddenly into such a place and ignorant of his whereabouts, would have known that there were men all around him: men whom he could not see, men who flitted through the shadows bent on mysterious tasks, men who moved silently, with eyes strained to pierce the darkness. Behind the German lines a trench tramway was in use ”

“ The Kid stood up and glanced round the mess at his brother officers a little shamefacedly; only to find them engrossed—a trifle ostentatiously—in their own business. "I'm sorry, you fellows," he blurted out suddenly. "Forgive me being such a fool; I suppose I'm a bit tired."
The Doctor took him firmly by the arm, and led him towards the bed. "Look here, old soul," he remarked, "if you wish to avoid the wrath of my displeasure, you will cease talking and go to bed. Every one knows what it is to be weary; and there's only one cure—sleep." ”

“ The idea of concentrating men in the front line has long been given up by both sides.
If therefore one strolls along the firing line—a tedious amusement at all times—it is more than likely that one will find long stretches completely deserted. The scene is desolate; the walk is strangely eerie. Walls of sandbags tower on each side, in some cases two or three feet above one's head; the clouds go scudding by, while the shadows of a traverse dance fantastically as a flare comes hissing down. ”

“ But to the pawns in the game, the horizon is limited: it is just their own destination, their own life, their own fate that looms up big and blots out the rest. It's not the other hundred thousand who matter at the moment—it's the pawn himself who wonders, and laughs, and sings, and prays. ...
Shorty, smoking his pipe imperturbably, was feeling the edge of his own particular weapon, with critical finger, and every now and then stealing a look at the boy beside him. ”

“ It is possible that they have never really thought about the human side of killing: of killing as a hobby—as a trade. Vaguely they realise that a soldier does not go into the army to pick buttercups; vaguely they understand that men die and are killed in war, and that soldiers are the people who kill and are killed. But I venture to think that they do not realise the intense importance of inculcating in every private soldier the necessity and the desire of outing the other fellow. ”

“ For after a brief period of feverish pulling, during which the company commander broke his nails and Percy fell over backwards, the trap-door remained in statu quo.
"What the devil's the matter with the beastly thing?" muttered the Captain, savagely. "It's your fool-trick, FitzPercy! Can't you open it?"
"My dear old boy," remarked the proud inventor vaguely, "it generally opens—'pon my soul, it does." He turned his torch on to the reluctant trench-board and examined it through his eyeglass. "By Jove! that's it, dear old son, there's the trouble. ”