The Nets of Fate

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 355, 16 May 1928, Page 5

The Nets of Fate

By

CHAPTER XXIV. “Well?” he asked abruptly, throwing away his cigarette. “Dat woman and Ambrose dey have gone to New Scotland Yard.” Dorian Paxton jumped to his feet. “Then the game is up. We shall have to quit.” “Quit is the word. I do so like lightning. The papers—you have destroyed dem?” Paxton, who was already slipping off his coat, nodded, “There’s nothing dangerous left.” “How vil you go?” asked the German. “As we arranged. I’ve an outfit at ‘The Whisperer’ office, and the necessary papers.” “Good!” said the German. “Den we meet later.” Half-an-hour later, when two inspectors from the Criminal Investigation Department arrived in Jermyn Street, it was to find Paxton’s rooms in darkness, and Paxton himself flown. “Phew!” As he gav% vent to the long-drawn whistle John* Lancaster looked out from the rough dug-out, and watched the bursting of the German shells. It was not yet dawn, though the east was turning grey, and the shells flamed like stars in the darkness. In front, and along the lines of trenches which two thousand Britishers were to hold against twelve times that number of Germans, appeared a perfect inferno, behind was a small village on the road to Ypres, and behind that the road to Calais, and the short sea-way to England on which the Hun Lord’s will was set. “They’ll attack, of course,” said a voice behind him, and he turned to find Colonel Chomley at his shoulder. “I should say that is what all this infernal gunfiring means.” Teddy Chomley nodded. “There’s no question about it!” A contemplative look came on the soldier’s face. “We are up against it, if they do. They’re ten to one against us in front, and we’re no reserves. Our line is no thicker than a banjo -string. They’ll snap it if they really try.” John Lancaster nodded. He had held the same thought, but had been reluctant to give expression to it, and even now did not wish to speak of it. “But we’ve got to hang on to the position whatever happens!” “Exactly!” said Chomley quietly. “But what it’s going to be the Lord only knows.” He whistled softly as he watched the bursting shells, and John Lancaster, leaving the dug-out, began the patrol of the trench from end to end. The crash of bursting shrapnel was

SERIAL STORY

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everywhere, and the drone of the missiles so loosed was like that of swarming bees. Men were struck and carried out of the firng line; officers, endeavouring to keep the nerves of their men steady, walked about regardless of danger, and many fell to rise no more. Lancaster noted the dispositions, and went back to report to Chomley-; and even while he was doing so, the shelling ceased, and there was evidence of a movement in front. The Germans were about to charge. They advanced without hurry, a huge grey wave rolling to engulf the thin line before them, careless of the guns in front, confident of victory. Then the machine-guns and rifles in the British line spoke, and the wave broke and recoiled. It was still there, but further away, and on the ground between the dead and dying lay in awful heaps. Again the wave gathered volume and form, advanced, apparently irresistible, and again was broken and rolled backward. The artillery attack began again, and toward evening Chomley, whose shoulder was bandaged and whose right arm was in a sling, sent for John Lancaster. “Lancaster,” he said, “the Busbies ought to be here and they aren’t. Mixed as to the road, I expect. You know the country hereabouts pretty well. For heaven’s sake go and find and hurry them, or we’re done. The enemy will attack again, and if they come as they came last time we shall be rolled back like a straw oh a flooding tide. Find ’em and bring them here at the double.” '‘lf it is to be done, I’ll do it!” He found a horse, and, regardless of the bursting shrapnel, rode away from the lines, through the shot-swept streets of the village and on to the Ypres road. As he travelled he kept eyes wide open for any sign of the men he sought, but in the dusk there was little to be descried; and the sense of hearing was rendered almost useless by reason of the crescendo of artillery behind him. He had ridden three-quarters of an hour when the dull reverberation of the great guns suddenly ceased, and three minutes later he caught the distant rattle of small arms. He knew that the attack, which Chomley feared, had begun, and that the men whom he had left were facing certain death. Where were the Busbies? His heart grew sick as he thought of what would happen if he failed to find them. He wished that he was back in the line; that some other man had been sent, that Out of the dusk ahead came the sound of many voices raised in song, and with that there n’ ~gled :he rhythm’s tramp of marching feet. He

listened. The voices were • English, the song a music-hall catch very popular with the men of the expedi tionary force. He rode forward exultantly, recklessly, and three minutes later was talking to the officer in command. “You’re the Busbies, aren’t you?” “Yes, who ” “Then you’re wanted badly. Kiw many men have you?” “Three companies or so. Say five hundred.”

Lancaster groaned. “Not quarter enough. There’s an army corps infront of us. But can they hurry?” “Well, they’re a bit foot-worn, but if you tell them they’re going to fight ” “Fight!” Lancaster laughed shortly. “They’ll get all they want. But for the Lord’s sake hurry them.” The Busbies, rejoicing at going into action, hurried. They reached the outskirts of the village and found that it was an inferno, that cottages were aflame and that there was fighting in the streets. Wounded men were dribbling out of the inferno into . the friendly darkness, and one of these, Lancaster stopped to question. It was a man of Chomley’s battalion, and Lancaster recognised him. “What has happened, Stott?” he asked shortly. “Everything’s happened, sir. The Germans came on like —like locusts. They simply walked over us, though we must have killed thousands. They’re in the trench and they command the line from the centre. They’re there, too,” he jerked his head toward the village—“though some of iur chaps are potting them from the windows ” Lancaster looked at the officer of the Busbies. “We’ve got to win the centre back, or ” “I know. If you’ll stand by to take charge in case I go down, we’ll do it, and I shall want you, for you know where these trenches are.” Four minutes later those five hundred men charged through the blazing street, sweeping the Germans nefoie them. At first the latter tried to stand, and died in doorways, in the lower rooms of houses, in the streets itself. But the Busbies were irresistible. They yelled as they stabbed with the bayonet, or smote with the steel-shod butt. The Germans found the onset too much for them and retreated before it. Through the village they drove them across the stubble and the trampled turnips to the lost trenches. Here again the Teutons tried to stand, but British blood was up, the men had lost all thought of life, all fear of death; the terrible, exultant fighting lust was on them, and almost sportively they flung the enemy from the

trenches, and followed them toward their own lines. The remnant .of them were recalled by their officers, and returned to hold what they had saved by their desperate valour. John Lancaster stood swaying and laughing in the regained trench. He had a bayonet thrust in his arm, though he did not remember where he had got it, and he was laughing at Chomley who, with his head bandaged, had been found in the trench when the Germans evacuated it. “Still here, Teddy?” “Yes, thank God! But if it hadn’t been for you and the Busbies ” The sudden scream of a shrapnel shell broke in on his words. Another and another. The disappointed Germans were again shelling the position which they had lost. A dropping shell crashed exactly on the epaulement of the trench. The night was flecked with flame and the air was filled with fumes. Colonel Chomley coughed as the fumes got in his throat, and then peered about him, the darkness seeming more ddnse after the glare of the explosion. “Are you there, Lancaster?” he called. “Yes —I’m here.” Teddy Chomley saw a shadow rising from the darkness, which was the bottom of the trench. It stood upright and then stretched an arm toward him. “You’re not hurt again, are you, Lancaster” “Not much. My face is peppered a little with gravel, I fancy. A litUe in my eyes, too, from tlie feel of it. Any way, they’re smarting, and I ce-’t see.” _ Colonel Chomley said nothing. From his tunic pocket he took out a silver match box, and gently struck one of the vestas it contained. As the little taper flamed up, he shaded it with his hand and looked at his companion. Lancaster had a handkerchief in his hand, and was rubbing his eyes with it Chomley watched him without speaking, until the vesta burned down, then he threw it away and waited. John Lancaster did not speak, but as the Colonel waited a star-shell burst over the English lines, and by its radiance 'Chomley caught sight of his companion’s face. There was a frown upon it. The eyes were wide open looking straight at him, but as he saw them a great fear smote the soldier’s heart. He waited until the light had failed, and then struck a second vesta. Lancaster was standing with the handkerchief in his hand. He was blinking his eyes rapidly, and his face was grey with fear. The Colonel thrust the lighted vesta toward the blinking eyes. Lancaster did not start, or give any sign that the light was ,so near him. Instead he said: “It's very dark, isn’t it, Chomley?” Chomley dropped the match, and did his best to make his voice steady as he replied, “Very!” Then he stifled a groan and turned away. “Poor devil,” he said compassionately. “Poor devil! I’d sooner be shot outright!”

Sister Marie, of the Hospital at Rouen, which had once been a Convent

of the Sacred Heart, had a tender heart for all her patients. She was French, and all these brave men had risked their lives and shed their blood for France, and she loved them all with the passionless love which is given to these women who serve those who are broken as these men were broken, and to so great an end. There was the boy—Pierre was no more—from sunny Yonne. When next he wandered among the vines it would be with a crutch, for he had left a leg on the field from which he had been sent. She loved him for the laughter that still danced in his eyes, for the cheerful way in which he took his loss.

“A leg! Pooh! What is that, Sister Marie? I still can laugh and sing. I have s‘ill an arm, nay, two arms, left for little Babette —little Babette, who is not my sister —to fly to. She will weep over me, how she will weep! But I shall grow a new leg, of wood, this time; and when my son is born I shall tell him tales of the great war ” She loved Pierre for his lightheartedness, and she had a tender regard for the hard-featured Breton, who lay in his cot, helpless, and talked to any one who would listen to him of the little farm at Gruchy, in Normandy, where the great Millet was born. He loved that farm as he loved France, and he looked forward to his return there, as a child tries to anticipate some tremendous pleasure quite beyond its realisation. There were others, and Sister Marie •loved them all, but there was one for whom her tender heart was torn with pity. That was the Englishman in the far cot, the man with the wounded arm, and the bandaged eyes.

Ah! his case was very terrible. They said he was a very wealthy man, a millionaire; in fact, who had left his business in order to fight for la belle France, and now the doctor feared that never again would he look on the beauty of the world. And for three days he had played with a letter which had reached him in the hospital two days after he had arrived there. Sister Marie wondered what was in that letter. She knew that it was in a woman’s handwriting, for she had carried, that letter to Monsieur Lancaster, and had offered to read it to him. But he had held out his hand for the letter, and had inhaled the faint perfume that exhaled from it, then he had shaken his head. “No, Sister,” he had said quietly. “This is one of the letters that one reads for one’s self. I have waited weeks for it, now I will wait a few days longer until the bandages are removed, and then perhaps ” He had not finished the sentence, and there had been no need for him to do so. She understood quite well what he hoped, and as she looked at his ravaged face, she knew also that his hope was beset with fears. (To be continued)