The False Faces | Page 3

a shapeless
tunic and trousers of shoddy drab stuff.
"'E 'asn't got no arms--'e 'asn't got nothink, not so much as 'is blinkin'
latch-key."
"Very good. Get back on yer post. I'll tike charge o' this one."
Grounding his own rifle, the corporal fixed its bayonet, then employed
it in a gesture of unpleasant significance.
"'Bout fice," he ordered. "March. Yer can drop yer 'ands--but don't go
forgettin' I'm right 'ere be'ind yer."
In silence the prisoner obeyed, wading down the flooded trench, the
spot-light playing on his back, striking sullen gleams from the inky
water that swirled about his knees, and disclosing glimpses of coated
figures stationed at regular intervals along the firing-step, faces
steadfast to loopholes in the parapet.
Now and again they passed narrow rifts in the walls of the trench,
entrances to dugouts betrayed by glimmers of candle-light through the
cracks of makeshift doors or the coarse mesh of gunnysack curtains.
From one of these, at the corporal's summons, a sleepy subaltern
stumbled to attend ungraciously to his subordinate's report, and
promptly ordered the prisoner taken on to the regimental headquarters

behind the lines.
A little farther on captive and captor turned off into a narrow and
tortuous communication trench. Thereafter for upward of ten minutes
they threaded a labyrinth of deep, constricted, reeking ditches, with so
little to differentiate one from another that the prisoner wondered at the
sure sense of direction which enabled the corporal to find his way
without mis-step, with the added handicap of the abysmal darkness.
Then, of a sudden, the sides of the trench shelved sharply downward,
and the two debouched into a broad, open field. Here many men lay
sleeping, with only waterproof sheets for protection from that bitter
deluge which whipped the earth into an ankle-deep lake of slimy ooze
and lent keener accent to the abiding stench of filth and decomposing
flesh. A slight hillock stood between this field and the
firing-line--where now lively fusillades were being exchanged--its
profile crowned with a spectral rank of shell-shattered poplars sharply
silhouetted against a sky in which star-shells and Verey lights flowered
like blooms of hell.
Here the corporal abruptly commanded his prisoner to halt and himself
paused and stood stiffly at attention, saluting a group of three officers
who were approaching with the evident intention of entering the trench.
One of these loosed upon the pair the flash of a pocket lamp. At sight
of the gray overcoat all three stopped short.
A voice with the intonation of habitual command enquired: "What have
we here?"
The corporal replied: "A prisoner, sir--sez 'e's French--come across the
open to-night with important information--so 'e sez."
The spot-light picked out the prisoner's face. The officer addressed him
directly.
"What is your name, my man?"
"That," said the prisoner, "is something which--like my intelligence--I
should prefer to communicate privately."
With a startled gesture the officer took a step forward and peered
intently into that mud-smeared countenance.
"I seem to know your voice," he said in a speculative tone.
"You should," the prisoner returned.
"Gentlemen," said the officer to his companions, "you may continue
your rounds. Corporal, follow me with your prisoner."

He swung round and slopped off heavily through the mud of the open
field.
Behind them the sound of firing in the forward trenches swelled to an
uproar augmented by the shrewish chattering of machine-guns. Then a
battery hidden somewhere in the blackness in front of them came into
action, barking viciously. Shells whined hungrily overhead. The
prisoner glanced back: the maimed poplars stood out stark against a sky
washed with wave after wave of infernal light....
Some time later he was conscious of a cobbled way beneath his sodden
footgear. They were entering the outskirts of a ruined village. On either
hand fragments of walls reared up with sashless windows and gaping
doors like death masks of mad folk stricken in paroxysm.
Within one doorway a dim light burned; through it the officer made his
way, prisoner and corporal at his heels, passing a sentry, then
descending a flight of crazy wooden steps to a dank and gloomy cellar,
stone-walled and vaulted. In the middle of the cellar stood a broad table
at which an orderly sat writing by the light of two candles stuck in the
necks of empty bottles. At another table, in a corner, a sergeant and an
operator of the Signal Corps were busy with field telephone and
telegraph instruments. On a meagre bed of damp and mouldy straw,
against the farther wall, several men, orderlies and subalterns, rested in
stertorous slumbers. Despite the cold the atmosphere was a reek of
tobacco smoke, sweat, and steam from wet clothing.
The man at the centre table rose and saluted, offering the commanding
officer a sheaf of scribbled messages and reports. Taking