The Red Horizon | Page 9

our billets. On the march a mate was speaking, one who had been late coming on parade in the morning.
"Saw the woman of the café in church?" he asked me. "Saw her crying?"
"I thought she looked unhappy."
"Just after you got off parade the news came," my mate told me. "Her son had been killed. She is awfully upset about it and no wonder. She was always talking about her petit gar?on, and he was to be home on holidays shortly."
Somewhere "out there" where the guns are incessantly booming, a nameless grave holds the "petit gar?on," the café lady's son; next Sunday another mourner will join with the many in the village church and pray to the Virgin Mother for the soul of her beloved boy.
CHAPTER IV
(p. 043)
THE NIGHT BEFORE THE TRENCHES
Four by four in column of route, By roads that the poplars sentinel, Clank of rifle and crunch of boot-- All are marching and all is well. White, so white is the distant moon, Salmon-pink is the furnace glare, And we hum, as we march, a ragtime tune, Khaki boys in the long platoon, Going and going--anywhere.
"The battalion will move to-morrow," said the Jersey youth, repeating the orders read out in the early part of the day, and removing a clot of farmyard muck from the foresight guard of his rifle as he spoke. It was seven o'clock in the evening, the hour when candles were stuck in their cheese sconces and lighted. Cakes of soap and lumps of cheese are easily scooped out with clasp-knives and make excellent sconces; we often use them for that purpose in our barn billet. We had been quite a long time in the place and had grown to like it. But to-morrow we were leaving.
"Oh, dash the rifle!" said the Jersey boy, getting to his feet and kicking a bundle of straw across the floor of the barn. "To-morrow (p. 044) night we'll be in the trenches up in the firing line."
"The slaughter line," somebody remarked in the corner where the darkness hung heavy. A match was lighted disclosing the speaker's face and the pipe which he held between his teeth.
"No smoking," yelled a corporal, who had just entered. "You'll burn the damned place down and get yourself as well as all of us into trouble."
"Oh blast the barn!" muttered Bill Sykes, a narrow chested Cockney with a good-humoured face that belied his nickname. "It's only fit for rats and there's 'nuff of 'em 'ere. I'm goin' to 'ave a fag anyway. Got me?"
The corporal asked Bill for a cigarette and lit it. "We're all mates now and we'll make a night of it," he cried. "Damn the barn, there'll be barns when we're all washed out with Jack Johnsons. What are you doin', Feelan?"
Feelan, an Irishman with a brogue that could be cut with a knife, laid down the sword which he was burnishing and glanced at the non-com.
"The Germans don't fire at men with stripes, I hear," he remarked, "They only shoot rale good soldiers. A livin' corp'ral's hardly as (p. 045) good as a dead rifleman."
Six foot three of Cumberland bone and muscle detached itself from the straw and looked round the barn. We call it Goliath on account of its size.
"Who's to sing the first song," asked Goliath. "A good hearty song!"
"One with whiskers on it!" said the corporal.
"I'll slash the game up and give a rale ould song, whiskers to the toes of it," said Feelan, shoving his sword in its scabbard and throwin' himself flat back on the straw. "Its a song about the time Irelan' was fightin' for freedom and it's called The Rising of the Moon! A great song entirely it is, and I cannot do it justice."
Feelan stood up, his legs wide apart and both his thumbs stuck in the upper pockets of his tunic. Behind him the barn stretched out into the gloom that our solitary candle could not pierce. On either side rifles hung from the wall, and packs and haversacks stood high from the straw in which most of the men had buried themselves, leaving nothing but their faces, fringed with the rims of Balaclava helmets, exposed to view. The night was bitterly cold, outside where the sky stood high splashed with countless stars and where the earth gripped tight on (p. 046) itself, the frost fiend was busy; in the barn, with its medley of men, roosting hens and prowling rats all was cosy and warm. Feelan cleared his throat and commenced the song, his voice strong and clear filled the barn:--
"Arrah! tell me Shan O'Farrel; tell me why you hurry so?" "Hush, my bouchal, hush and listen," and his cheeks were all aglow-- "I've got orders from the Captain to get ready quick and soon For the pikes must