The Garment of Fear.

Levin Daily Chronicle, 13 November 1917, Page 1

The Garment of Fear.

HOW IT SLIPPED OFF. "Look liere, old man," said the young captain to his friend as they sat over supper in the windowless house which served tliem as a rest billet, "have you ever studied odd thingsmysterious sensations, queer impressions, and . . . and that sort of business?" '' Well, now and then I 've mugged up various sorts of semi-scientific stunts for recreation. What's the wherefore of your question?" "Just this: how do you account for the fact that there are some days when I feel absolutely safe, perfectly suro that no harm can come to me; when I could face a machine gun pumping lead and not turn a hair; and there are other days when I'm as seared as a nervous recruit at a bombing class —when I'm frightened to be anywhere outside the deepest dug-out, and fancy every shell is coming to my address?" There was a lengthy tobacco-laden pause. "Can't explain it, old chap. It's possibly a mystery of the particular arrangement of your nervous system. But I have a theory, or an idea, that if in one of your funky lits you deliberately faced some rather exceptional danger the spell would be broken. You would upset the timing mechanism of the "half of you that, gets frightened, and it would be out of order ever after. That's my notion" "I wonder,'' mused the other. And soon afterwards they separated. In two more days the "rest"—within sound of the guns —was over, and the young captain returned to the zone where leisurely suppers and clean sheets were simply lovely memories. At one in the morning, when a curious silence fell between the general spasms of noise, he sent out a patrol. An hour wont by and then some imaginative youngster let off his rifle and woke up the German army, which promptly "got the wind up'' and telephoned for their heavies to stop an entirely imaginary attack; and as the batteries had evidently registered on this part of the British line the landscape began to alter —and not at all quietly. Where was the patrol? He couldn't help picturing that little group of men in No Man's Land stumbling across the pitted earth, standing like statues when the lights rocketed aloft trying to edge their way back. Useless to "patrol" any more now, And the young captain sickened with a deadly horror as here and there, in front, behind, blasts of exploding shells shook the earth. Fear crept over him, enveloped him, clung to him like a disgusting clammy garment that he could not shake off.

The words of Ills friend came to liim, "Deliberately face some exceptional (Linger " Was this exceptional — this lurid inferno? He pulled himself into the open trench, mounted a firestep, and with a lurch and a scramble entered the land so full of dread and death that it is claimed by no man. Never before in his excursions had he felt so clearly that lie was between the I two greatest armies of history-—lines I and groups and companies of men and ! guns behind him, before him, miles deep. He shuddered but stumbled onward, crouching low, pausing now and then as the stars of man outshone tlio stars of heaven. He tripped against something soft. He had done it before—but this one moved. He stopped, saw. and spoke. "Sergeant . . are you badly pipped? Here's a drink —you can hold the flask?" He saw the face smile. He had loved tliis sergeant for a jolly fellow. The hands of the man wandered stiffly significantly to his his leg. "Can you hang 011 to mo?" He lay down for the man to clasp him, then rose, lifting him bodily. One leg swung heavily like a pendulum, beating to and fro as he plodded back. Was he in the right direction? Three times he nearly fell; once a piece of madly flung iron ripped Ms coat. It seemed an hour; but the trench was reached at last, and he laid his load down in the shelter of his own dug-out. As he did so the firing of the heavies slackened. A mesenger came in, "Patrol back safe, sir, all but one." He realised as lie gave the sergeant hot drinks and made liim comfortable until the arrival of the ambulance men that there had been a moment in that short, terrible journey when his garment of fear had slipped from him, had dropped away like the Pilgrim's burden, never, ho hoped, to return. The days and niglits flickered by like pictures 011 some slow, spectral film thrown to earth by a sardonic, hidden operator: but the "half of him that was frightened" had been put out of gear permanently. Then our own artillery burst forth. It was a stupendous salvo. It rumbled overhead like gigantic engin.es thundering through the air. In front of us the attackers wavered. The detonation of bombs sounded farther down the trcnch. I turned my periscope sideways. Hun bodies were being flung over our parapet. . . .My sergeant appeared. "Cleared 'em out with bombs, sir," he remarked. "Look, sir!" lie pointed'to our front. "Cease fire," I ordered. For the attackers had disappeared. What was left of them had retired. "That's the end, sir!" chuckled my sergeant. I thrust my hands into my breeches pockcts. I did not want l;im to see tliey were trembling —WILFRED L. EANDELL.