CHAPTER XXII

The Summons Comes for Mr Standfast

I slept for one and three-quarter hours that night, and when I awoke I

seemed to emerge from deeps of slumber which had lasted for days. That

happens sometimes after heavy fatigue and great mental strain. Even a

short sleep sets up a barrier between past and present which has to be

elaborately broken down before you can link on with what has happened

before. As my wits groped at the job some drops of rain splashed on my

face through the broken roof. That hurried me out-of-doors. It was just

after dawn and the sky was piled with thick clouds, while a wet wind

blew up from the southwest. The long-prayed-for break in the weather

seemed to have come at last. A deluge of rain was what I wanted,

something to soak the earth and turn the roads into water-courses and

clog the enemy transport, something above all to blind the enemy’s

eyes.... For I remembered what a preposterous bluff it all had been,

and what a piteous broken handful stood between the Germans and their

goal. If they knew, if they only knew, they would brush us aside like

flies.

As I shaved I looked back on the events of yesterday as on something

that had happened long ago. I seemed to judge them impersonally, and I

concluded that it had been a pretty good fight. A scratch force, half

of it dog-tired and half of it untrained, had held up at least a couple

of fresh divisions.... But we couldn’t do it again, and there were

still some hours before us of desperate peril. When had the Corps said

that the French would arrive?... I was on the point of shouting for

Hamilton to get Wake to ring up Corps Headquarters, when I remembered

that Wake was dead. I had liked him and greatly admired him, but the

recollection gave me scarcely a pang. We were all dying, and he had

only gone on a stage ahead.

There was no morning _strafe_, such as had been our usual fortune in

the past week. I went out-of-doors and found a noiseless world under

the lowering sky. The rain had stopped falling, the wind of dawn had

lessened, and I feared that the storm would be delayed. I wanted it at

once to help us through the next hours of tension. Was it in six hours

that the French were coming? No, it must be four. It couldn’t be more

than four, unless somebody had made an infernal muddle. I wondered why

everything was so quiet. It would be breakfast time on both sides, but

there seemed no stir of man’s presence in that ugly strip half a mile

off. Only far back in the German hinterland I seemed to hear the rumour

of traffic.

An unslept and unshaven figure stood beside me which revealed itself as

Archie Roylance.

“Been up all night,” he said cheerfully, lighting a cigarette. “No, I

haven’t had breakfast. The skipper thought we’d better get another

anti-aircraft battery up this way, and I was superintendin’ the job.

He’s afraid of the Hun gettin’ over your lines and spying out the

nakedness of the land. For, you know, we’re uncommon naked, sir. Also,”

and Archie’s face became grave, “the Hun’s pourin’ divisions down on

this sector. As I judge, he’s blowin’ up for a thunderin’ big drive on

both sides of the river. Our lads yesterday said all the country back

of Peronne was lousy with new troops. And he’s gettin’ his big guns

forward, too. You haven’t been troubled with them yet, but he has got

the roads mended and the devil of a lot of new light railways, and any

moment we’ll have the five-point-nines sayin’ Good-mornin’.... Pray

Heaven you get relieved in time, sir. I take it there’s not much risk

of another push this mornin’?”

“I don’t think so. The Boche took a nasty knock yesterday, and he must

fancy we’re pretty strong after that counter-attack. I don’t think

he’ll strike till he can work both sides of the river, and that’ll take

time to prepare. That’s what his fresh divisions are for.... But

remember, he can attack now, if he likes. If he knew how weak we were

he’s strong enough to send us all to glory in the next three hours.

It’s just that knowledge that you fellows have got to prevent his

getting. If a single Hun plane crosses our lines and returns, we’re

wholly and utterly done. You’ve given us splendid help since the show

began, Archie. For God’s sake keep it up to the finish and put every

machine you can spare in this sector.”

“We’re doin’ our best,” he said. “We got some more fightin’ scouts down

from the north, and we’re keepin’ our eyes skinned. But you know as

well as I do, sir, that it’s never an ab-so-lute certainty. If the Hun

sent over a squadron we might beat ’em all down but one, and that one

might do the trick. It’s a matter of luck. The Hun’s got the wind up

all right in the air just now and I don’t blame the poor devil. I’m

inclined to think we haven’t had the pick of his push here. Jennings

says he’s doin’ good work in Flanders, and they reckon there’s the

deuce of a thrust comin’ there pretty soon. I think we can manage the

kind of footler he’s been sendin’ over here lately, but if Lensch or

some lad like that were to choose to turn up I wouldn’t say what might

happen. The air’s a big lottery,” and Archie turned a dirty face

skyward where two of our planes were moving very high towards the east.

The mention of Lensch brought Peter to mind, and I asked if he had gone

back.

“He won’t go,” said Archie, “and we haven’t the heart to make him. He’s

very happy, and plays about with the Gladas single-seater. He’s always

speakin’ about you, sir, and it’d break his heart if we shifted him.”

I asked about his health, and was told that he didn’t seem to have much

pain.

“But he’s a bit queer,” and Archie shook a sage head. “One of the

reasons why he won’t budge is because he says God has some work for him

to do. He’s quite serious about it, and ever since he got the notion he

has perked up amazin’. He’s always askin’ about Lensch, too—not

vindictive like, you understand, but quite friendly. Seems to take a

sort of proprietary interest in him. I told him Lensch had had a far

longer spell of first-class fightin’ than anybody else and was bound by

the law of averages to be downed soon, and he was quite sad about it.”

I had no time to worry about Peter. Archie and I swallowed breakfast

and I had a pow-wow with my brigadiers. By this time I had got through

to Corps H.Q. and got news of the French. It was worse than I expected.

General Peguy would arrive about ten o’clock, but his men couldn’t take

over till well after midday. The Corps gave me their whereabouts and I

found it on the map. They had a long way to cover yet, and then there

would be the slow business of relieving. I looked at my watch. There

were still six hours before us when the Boche might knock us to blazes,

six hours of maddening anxiety.... Lefroy announced that all was quiet

on the front, and that the new wiring at the Bois de la Bruyere had

been completed. Patrols had reported that during the night a fresh

German division seemed to have relieved that which we had punished so

stoutly yesterday. I asked him if he could stick it out against another

attack. “No,” he said without hesitation. “We’re too few and too shaky

on our pins to stand any more. I’ve only a man to every three yards.”

That impressed me, for Lefroy was usually the most devil-may-care

optimist.

“Curse it, there’s the sun,” I heard Archie cry. It was true, for the

clouds were rolling back and the centre of the heavens was a patch of

blue. The storm was coming—I could smell it in the air—but probably it

wouldn’t break till the evening. Where, I wondered, would we be by that

time?

It was now nine o’clock, and I was keeping tight hold on myself, for I

saw that I was going to have hell for the next hours. I am a pretty

stolid fellow in some ways, but I have always found patience and

standing still the most difficult job to tackle, and my nerves were all

tattered from the long strain of the retreat. I went up to the line and

saw the battalion commanders. Everything was unwholesomely quiet there.

Then I came back to my headquarters to study the reports that were

coming in from the air patrols. They all said the same thing—abnormal

activity in the German back areas. Things seemed shaping for a new 21st

of March, and, if our luck were out, my poor little remnant would have

to take the shock. I telephoned to the Corps and found them as nervous

as me. I gave them the details of my strength and heard an agonised

whistle at the other end of the line. I was rather glad I had

companions in the same purgatory.

I found I couldn’t sit still. If there had been any work to do I would

have buried myself in it, but there was none. Only this fearsome job of

waiting. I hardly ever feel cold, but now my blood seemed to be getting

thin, and I astonished my staff by putting on a British warm and

buttoning up the collar. Round that derelict farm I ranged like a

hungry wolf, cold at the feet, queasy in the stomach, and mortally edgy

in the mind.

Then suddenly the cloud lifted from me, and the blood seemed to run

naturally in my veins. I experienced the change of mood which a man

feels sometimes when his whole being is fined down and clarified by

long endurance. The fight of yesterday revealed itself as something

rather splendid. What risks we had run and how gallantly we had met

them! My heart warmed as I thought of that old division of mine, those

ragged veterans that were never beaten as long as breath was left them.

And the Americans and the boys from the machine-gun school and all the

oddments we had commandeered! And old Blenkiron raging like a

good-tempered lion! It was against reason that such fortitude shouldn’t

win out. We had snarled round and bitten the Boche so badly that he

wanted no more for a little. He would come again, but presently we

should be relieved and the gallant blue-coats, fresh as paint and

burning for revenge, would be there to worry him.

I had no new facts on which to base my optimism, only a changed point

of view. And with it came a recollection of other things. Wake’s death

had left me numb before, but now the thought of it gave me a sharp

pang. He was the first of our little confederacy to go. But what an

ending he had made, and how happy he had been in that mad time when he

had come down from his pedestal and become one of the crowd! He had

found himself at the last, and who could grudge him such happiness? If

the best were to be taken, he would be chosen first, for he was a big

man, before whom I uncovered my head. The thought of him made me very

humble. I had never had his troubles to face, but he had come clean

through them, and reached a courage which was for ever beyond me. He

was the Faithful among us pilgrims, who had finished his journey before

the rest. Mary had foreseen it. “There is a price to be paid,” she had

said—“the best of us.”

And at the thought of Mary a flight of warm and happy hopes seemed to

settle on my mind. I was looking again beyond the war to that peace

which she and I would some day inherit. I had a vision of a green

English landscape, with its far-flung scents of wood and meadow and

garden.... And that face of all my dreams, with the eyes so childlike

and brave and honest, as if they, too, saw beyond the dark to a radiant

country. A line of an old song, which had been a favourite of my

father’s, sang itself in my ears:

There’s an eye that ever weeps and a fair face will be fain

When I ride through Annan Water wi’ my bonny bands again!

We were standing by the crumbling rails of what had once been the farm

sheepfold. I looked at Archie and he smiled back at me, for he saw that

my face had changed. Then he turned his eyes to the billowing clouds.

I felt my arm clutched.

“Look there!” said a fierce voice, and his glasses were turned upward.

I looked, and far up in the sky saw a thing like a wedge of wild geese

flying towards us from the enemy’s country. I made out the small dots

which composed it, and my glass told me they were planes. But only

Archie’s practised eye knew that they were enemy.

“Boche?” I asked.

“Boche,” he said. “My God, we’re for it now.”

My heart had sunk like a stone, but I was fairly cool. I looked at my

watch and saw that it was ten minutes to eleven.

“How many?”

“Five,” said Archie. “Or there may be six—not more.”

“Listen!” I said. “Get on to your headquarters. Tell them that it’s all

up with us if a single plane gets back. Let them get well over the

line, the deeper in the better, and tell them to send up every machine

they possess and down them all. Tell them it’s life or death. Not one

single plane goes back. Quick!”

Archie disappeared, and as he went our anti-aircraft guns broke out.

The formation above opened and zigzagged, but they were too high to be

in much danger. But they were not too high to see that which we must

keep hidden or perish.

The roar of our batteries died down as the invaders passed westward. As

I watched their progress they seemed to be dropping lower. Then they

rose again and a bank of cloud concealed them.

I had a horrid certainty that they must beat us, that some at any rate

would get back. They had seen thin lines and the roads behind us empty

of supports. They would see, as they advanced, the blue columns of the

French coming up from the south-west, and they would return and tell

the enemy that a blow now would open the road to Amiens and the sea. He

had plenty of strength for it, and presently he would have overwhelming

strength. It only needed a spear-point to burst the jerry-built dam and

let the flood through.... They would return in twenty minutes, and by

noon we would be broken. Unless—unless the miracle of miracles

happened, and they never returned.

Archie reported that his skipper would do his damnedest and that our

machines were now going up. “We’ve a chance, sir,” he said, “a good

sportin’ chance.” It was a new Archie, with a hard voice, a lean face,

and very old eyes.

Behind the jagged walls of the farm buildings was a knoll which had

once formed part of the high-road. I went up there alone, for I didn’t

want anybody near me. I wanted a viewpoint, and I wanted quiet, for I

had a grim time before me. From that knoll I had a big prospect of

country. I looked east to our lines on which an occasional shell was

falling, and where I could hear the chatter of machine-guns. West there

was peace for the woods closed down on the landscape. Up to the north,

I remember, there was a big glare as from a burning dump, and heavy

guns seemed to be at work in the Ancre valley. Down in the south there

was the dull murmur of a great battle. But just around me, in the gap,

the deadliest place of all, there was an odd quiet. I could pick out

clearly the different sounds. Somebody down at the farm had made a joke

and there was a short burst of laughter. I envied the humorist his

composure. There was a clatter and jingle from a battery changing

position. On the road a tractor was jolting along—I could hear its

driver shout and the screech of its unoiled axle.

My eyes were glued to my glasses, but they shook in my hands so that I

could scarcely see. I bit my lip to steady myself, but they still

wavered. From time to time I glanced at my watch. Eight minutes

gone—ten—seventeen. If only the planes would come into sight! Even the

certainty of failure would be better than this harrowing doubt. They

should be back by now unless they had swung north across the salient,

or unless the miracle of miracles—

Then came the distant yapping of an anti-aircraft gun, caught up the

next second by others, while smoke patches studded the distant blue

sky. The clouds were banking in mid-heaven, but to the west there was a

big clear space now woolly with shrapnel bursts. I counted them

mechanically—one—three—five—nine—with despair beginning to take the

place of my anxiety. My hands were steady now, and through the glasses

I saw the enemy.

Five attenuated shapes rode high above the bombardment, now sharp

against the blue, now lost in a film of vapour. They were coming back,

serenely, contemptuously, having seen all they wanted.

The quiet was gone now and the din was monstrous. Anti-aircraft guns,

singly and in groups, were firing from every side. As I watched it

seemed a futile waste of ammunition. The enemy didn’t give a tinker’s

curse for it.... But surely there was one down. I could only count four

now. No, there was the fifth coming out of a cloud. In ten minutes they

would be all over the line. I fairly stamped in my vexation. Those guns

were no more use than a sick headache. Oh, where in God’s name were our

own planes?

At that moment they came, streaking down into sight, four

fighting-scouts with the sun glinting on their wings and burnishing

their metal cowls. I saw clearly the rings of red, white, and blue.

Before their downward drive the enemy instantly spread out.

I was watching with bare eyes now, and I wanted companionship, for the

time of waiting was over. Automatically I must have run down the knoll,

for the next I knew I was staring at the heavens with Archie by my

side. The combatants seemed to couple instinctively. Diving, wheeling,

climbing, a pair would drop out of the melee or disappear behind a

cloud. Even at that height I could hear the methodical rat-tat-tat of

the machine-guns. Then there was a sudden flare and wisp of smoke. A

plane sank, turning and twisting, to earth.

“Hun!” said Archie, who had his glasses on it.

Almost immediately another followed. This time the pilot recovered

himself, while still a thousand feet from the ground, and started

gliding for the enemy lines. Then he wavered, plunged sickeningly, and

fell headlong into the wood behind La Bruyere.

Farther east, almost over the front trenches, a two-seater Albatross

and a British pilot were having a desperate tussle. The bombardment had

stopped, and from where we stood every movement could be followed.

First one, then another, climbed uppermost and dived back, swooped out

and wheeled in again, so that the two planes seemed to clear each other

only by inches. Then it looked as if they closed and interlocked. I

expected to see both go crashing, when suddenly the wings of one seemed

to shrivel up, and the machine dropped like a stone.

“Hun,” said Archie. “That makes three. Oh, good lads! Good lads!”

Then I saw something which took away my breath. Sloping down in wide

circles came a German machine, and, following, a little behind and a

little above, a British. It was the first surrender in mid-air I had

seen. In my amazement I watched the couple right down to the ground,

till the enemy landed in a big meadow across the high-road and our own

man in a field nearer the river.

When I looked back into the sky, it was bare. North, south, east, and

west, there was not a sign of aircraft, British or German.

A violent trembling took me. Archie was sweeping the heavens with his

glasses and muttering to himself. Where was the fifth man? He must have

fought his way through, and it was too late.

But was it? From the toe of a great rolling cloud-bank a flame shot

earthwards, followed by a V-shaped trail of smoke. British or Boche?

British or Boche? I didn’t wait long for an answer. For, riding over

the far end of the cloud, came two of our fighting scouts.

I tried to be cool, and snapped my glasses into their case, though the

reaction made me want to shout. Archie turned to me with a nervous

smile and a quivering mouth. “I think we have won on the post,” he

said.

He reached out a hand for mine, his eyes still on the sky, and I was

grasping it when it was torn away. He was staring upwards with a white

face.

We were looking at the sixth enemy plane.

It had been behind the others and much lower, and was making straight

at a great speed for the east. The glasses showed me a different type

of machine—a big machine with short wings, which looked menacing as a

hawk in a covey of grouse. It was under the cloud-bank, and above,

satisfied, easing down after their fight, and unwitting of this enemy,

rode the two British craft.

A neighbouring anti-aircraft gun broke out into a sudden burst, and I

thanked Heaven for its inspiration. Curious as to this new development,

the two British turned, caught sight of the Boche, and dived for him.

What happened in the next minutes I cannot tell. The three seemed to be

mixed up in a dog fight, so that I could not distinguish friend from

foe. My hands no longer trembled; I was too desperate. The patter of

machine-guns came down to us, and then one of the three broke clear and

began to climb. The others strained to follow, but in a second he had

risen beyond their fire, for he had easily the pace of them. Was it the

Hun?

Archie’s dry lips were talking.

“It’s Lensch,” he said.

“How d’you know?” I gasped angrily.

“Can’t mistake him. Look at the way he slipped out as he banked. That’s

his patent trick.”

In that agonizing moment hope died in me. I was perfectly calm now, for

the time for anxiety had gone. Farther and farther drifted the British

pilots behind, while Lensch in the completeness of his triumph looped

more than once as if to cry an insulting farewell. In less than three

minutes he would be safe inside his own lines, and he carried the

knowledge which for us was death.

Someone was bawling in my ear, and pointing upward. It was Archie and

his face was wild. I looked and gasped—seized my glasses and looked

again.

A second before Lensch had been alone; now there were two machines.

I heard Archie’s voice. “My God, it’s the Gladas—the little Gladas.”

His fingers were digging into my arm and his face was against my

shoulder. And then his excitement sobered into an awe which choked his

speech, as he stammered—“It’s old—”

But I did not need him to tell me the name, for I had divined it when I

first saw the new plane drop from the clouds. I had that queer sense

that comes sometimes to a man that a friend is present when he cannot

see him. Somewhere up in the void two heroes were fighting their last

battle—and one of them had a crippled leg.

I had never any doubt about the result, though Archie told me later

that he went crazy with suspense. Lensch was not aware of his opponent

till he was almost upon him, and I wonder if by any freak of instinct

he recognised his greatest antagonist. He never fired a shot, nor did

Peter.... I saw the German twist and side-slip as if to baffle the fate

descending upon him. I saw Peter veer over vertically and I knew that

the end had come. He was there to make certain of victory and he took

the only way. The machines closed, there was a crash which I felt

though I could not hear it, and next second both were hurtling down,

over and over, to the earth.

They fell in the river just short of the enemy lines, but I did not see

them, for my eyes were blinded and I was on my knees.

After that it was all a dream. I found myself being embraced by a

French General of Division, and saw the first companies of the cheerful

bluecoats whom I had longed for. With them came the rain, and it was

under a weeping April sky that early in the night I marched what was

left of my division away from the battle-field. The enemy guns were

starting to speak behind us, but I did not heed them. I knew that now

there were warders at the gate, and I believed that by the grace of God

that gate was barred for ever.

They took Peter from the wreckage with scarcely a scar except his

twisted leg. Death had smoothed out some of the age in him, and left

his face much as I remembered it long ago in the Mashonaland hills. In

his pocket was his old battered _Pilgrim’s Progress_. It lies before me

as I write, and beside it—for I was his only legatee—the little case

which came to him weeks later, containing the highest honour that can

be bestowed upon a soldier of Britain.

It was from the _Pilgrim’s Progress_ that I read next morning, when in

the lee of an apple-orchard Mary and Blenkiron and I stood in the soft

spring rain beside his grave. And what I read was the tale in the end

not of Mr Standfast, whom he had singled out for his counterpart, but

of Mr Valiant-for-Truth whom he had not hoped to emulate. I set down

the words as a salute and a farewell:

_“Then said he, ‘I am going to my Father’s; and though with great

difficulty I am got hither, yet now I do not repent me of all the

trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My sword I give to him

that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him

that can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witness

for me that I have fought His battles who now will be my rewarder.’_

_“So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other

side.”_