Jim Brent Read online

  “‘Are you sure?’ he said, ‘for I have some valuable horses with me, and I would not lose them.’

  “‘Am I sure?’ said I. ‘Would I be riding for three days without ceasing, with a thirst like the morning after, if I were not sure?’

  “‘What will I do?’ he said, ‘for ’tis the first I have heard of it.’

  “‘Do!’ I said. ‘The first thing you will do is to give me a drink, and my horse as well, and then you will gather your lads and you will ride south, and you will not stop riding for a week or so; for if you do not, ’tis little riding you’ll any of you do again.’

  “When he saw I was in earnest ’twas a terrible blather he got into, and the last I saw of him he was riding into the dusk with his boys behind him and his stud of twelve horses, while the old woman who cleaned his house was hopping along beside him in the road, hanging on to his stirrup-leather – and she a martyr to the indigestion, as one of the lads told me. I know not what happened to him, but the next morning I saw his house fired, and ’twas a mercy I had the whisky removed. ’Tis the little things like that that make the people realise what war is; and we have not had the like in England at all, and it perhaps would be a good thing if we had, I’m after thinking.”

  He paused to light another of my cigarettes.

  “But it was of Mr O’Rourke I would tell you, sir,” he went on. “’Twas the morning after the little affair of which I have just told you, that we received the orders to go at once to a bridge nearby and have it prepared for the demolition. Mr O’Rourke was in charge and I was with him, and we had about a dozen of the lads. When we got there we found ’twas a big one over a river – a sort of suspension bridge, and ’twas evidently an important one. ’Twas another scorching day, and ‘Mr O’Rourke’, he says, ‘Let’s get it fixed up quick, boys,’ he says, ‘and it’s a bathe we can have.’ Well, there is not the necessity for me to tell you the details of the fixing – of how we placed the gun-cotton on the cables, and the leads were running to the exploder hidden behind a tree on our own side. We tested it all, and we had the bit of fuse and another detonator fixed up in case of any failure in the electricity. When we had it done, some of the lads had a bathe, and we lay in the shade of a few trees, most of us fast asleep – for you will mind that our orders were only to prepare it for the demolition, and not actually to blow it up. ’Twas still – ’twas just peace: the heat haze shimmering in the blue, and the buzz of the little flies and things, to send one to sleep, for we were well behind our own men. Two hours later – well, we will come to that, sir, but it will give you an idea of how those fellows came on. It seemed as if we had been there but a minute, but maybe it was half an hour, when with a crash one of the Horse Batteries galloped over the bridge. The dust rose in great choking clouds, and through it we could see the drivers – their collars open, their faces grey with it, some with hats and some without, themselves sitting down and riding like men possessed, while their horses sweated and galloped and the guns swayed behind. In a second they were gone, and only the dust remained.

  “Mr O’Rourke he turned to me and he said, ‘They were going fast even for the Horse,’ he said, ‘along a road; and I would to heaven it had been the other way they were galloping,’ for I should tell you, sir, they were going south. Five minutes later we heard them come into action a quarter of a mile behind us. ‘Covering the retreat again,’ he muttered; and barely had he spoken when an infantry regiment came in sight – going the same way. Mr O’Rourke and I we went into the centre of the bridge to keep our eye on the charge, and we watched them come by. Walking dogged they were, with a fixed sort of stare, and some were asleep as they marched, and some were whistling through lips that made no noise. The sweat was caked on them, and they were grey from head to foot, and the officers were staggering up and down cheering them on – for those lads had been going without rest at all for ten days and more. And one of the sergeants said to me as he went by, he said, ‘There are thousands of them, and they’re close behind.’ When they had gone I went to Mr O’Rourke and I said to him, ‘It’s close work it’s going to be, sir, I’m thinking for they are near behind.’

  “And then up galloped a staff officer.

  “‘Are you the engineer officer in charge?’ he said.

  “‘I am that,’ said Mr O’Rourke.

  “‘There are still two squadrons of Lancers between you and the Germans,’ he said, ‘and they will be across soon, for they are only covering the infantry who have just gone over. When they are over blow up the bridge, and do not linger to admire the view, for it will be unhealthy.’

  “‘Very good, sir,’ says Mr O’Rourke.

  “‘And,’ says he, ‘let there be no mistake, for the love of heaven; for should the charge fail we are undone. This bridge is the most important of any there are to be destroyed, and they must not get it.’

  “‘They will not get it,’ says Mr O’Rourke; and with that he galloped away. When he had gone we walked off the bridge. ‘Pray heaven, Cassidy,’ he said, ‘that all is well, for we will not have much time, if there is a fault, to adjust it.’

  “‘It will be all right, sir,’ said I, ‘for we have it tested.’

  “And then the cavalry started coming back.

  “‘Clear out, you boys,’ shouted an officer; ‘they are in touch with us, and we cannot hold them longer.’

  “‘Cassidy,’ said Mr O’Rourke, ‘take the men back, for it is no good them stopping here.’

  “‘Would we be leaving you, sir?’ I cried.

  “‘You would not,’ he said; ‘but what good can you do? for if the charge fails there will be no time to relay it, and if it succeeds ’twill be easier for me to get away alone than if you are all here.’

  “I saw his point, and I knew he was right – though it went against the grain to leave him in the lurch, as it were. But he would not alter, and so I took them away – muttering and cursing they were. I took them to a little rise under cover two or three hundred yards away, where it was easy to clear from when the bridge was down without being fired on. Before I went I said to him, I said, ‘We will be yonder, and it’s there we will wait for you. If you go that way round you can get there easily.’ Just after we got there we saw a major gallop over the bridge with his orderly behind him, and he shouted something to Mr O’Rourke. We saw him running to the exploder and fixing the leads, and then he paused and straightened himself up behind the tree. From where we were we could see two Uhlans coming near the bridge, with more of them, hundreds of them, behind. And then he forced down the handle of the exploder. ‘Mother of heaven!’ I screamed, for nothing happened. He did it again, and it failed again. You will mind, sir, that from where he was he could not see the Uhlans and they could not see him – but we could see both of them from the rise. The men were sobbing and cursing. A corporal caught my arm, and he muttered, ‘It was not to fail,’ he said, ‘and it has. What will we do?’ ‘What can we?’ I said, ‘for they are on the bridge.’ And then of a sudden we saw the lad creeping along under cover of the trees, and he reached the bridge and ran like a hare to the charge. The Uhlans saw him too, and rode at him; and the men started screaming and cheering, for they were off their heads, and they thought he would be able to do something. ‘But what can he do?’ I groaned, ‘for the fuse will not burn quick enough. They are too close.’ He reached the charge first, and his revolver was drawn. It was drawn, I say, but it was not at the Uhlans it pointed. For a second he stood there, with his head thrown back, and it seemed to us as if he laughed at them. And the lads saw what was in his mind, and they were silent – saving only one, and he threw himself on the ground sobbing. And the Uhlans saw what was in his mind, and one pulled his horse over backwards trying to get off the bridge, while the other rode at him. And then he fired. From the range of an inch he fired into the gun-cotton, and the roar of the detonation shook the heaven. And he and the Uhlans disappeared. They were there one minute and the next they were not. And then, with a great sort of rending cra
sh, the whole thing fell into the river below.

  “We looked for a moment and then we stumbled away – and the most of us could not see with ease, for the lads had loved him well.”

  Cassidy paused and looked into the fire.

  “So it was not a failure,” I said softly as I left him.

  The Charge of the Cooks

  “I wonder if by chance you recall the fat lad that was cook for the officers’ mess when we used to go on the manoeuvres in England,” remarked Cassidy to me one day. We were strolling slowly through the Park, getting his foot into work again; but scenting one of his more expansive moments, I suggested a seat.

  “A great lad he was,” he went on when we had made ourselves comfortable, “and it was cook he was for the officers over yonder. You recall his name, sir – Michael M’Doolan. ’Tis true that he was not the equal of a French chef, but he was a worthy lad to work under our doctor, of which same gentleman and his way with the people I have already told you. Of course you will understand, sir, that before we came into the billets, and whenever we are fighting, the doctor has no time to do anything but his job, and so ’tis the cook who does what he can for the officers, such as milking any cow the owner has forgotten about, or the like.

  “I remember one day – we had come up to where we are now, sir – it being a day in November, and we were all working pretty hard just then. You’ll mind, sir, our hours are different to the others, for we are on always, and we never know when we shall be wanted or where we have to go. The officers all go out each night with parties of men and work in front of the trenches and on the different jobs, and come back in the morning – when they want a bit of food before they go to sleep. ’Tis the same with the men. They all come back into the farm or the dugout behind the firing-line, where they get a chance of lying up during the day.

  “In the place where we were then the officers were in a farm. ’Twas a bit draughty, as there was more hole than wall, owing to the shells, and it was not over-distant from the firing-line itself, but hidden from it by a little hill. On the day I speak of I was walking from my own bit of a pigsty to their farm, when I felt the zip of a bullet as it went past my head. Thinks I to myself, ‘That was as close as was convenient,’ when another one zips past too. I was taking no risks, so I jumped into the ditch, the better to think. ‘If there is not a blackguard drawing on me,’ I says to myself, ‘may I never again see Ballygoyle; but where is it that he is, for it is not in the firing-line that he can be?’ seeing, as I have told you, we were hidden from it by a hill. I crept along the ditch to the officers’ farm, and there I finds M’Doolan. The officers and men were all out, but he was not alone, for there were gathered with him behind the wall of the farm the four other cooks for the mess.

  “‘What the devil are you all doing here?’ I said, as I got out of the ditch. ‘Is it a mothers’ meeting that it is, or why are you not at the dinners?’

  “‘Do you see the farm yonder?’ says M’Doolan, pointing to one we could just see.

  “‘I do,’ says I, following his finger.

  “‘They have us marked from there,’ he says. ‘There are three of them, I think, and it’s sniping us they’ve been for the last two hours.’

  “‘’Twas from there, was it,’ I says, ‘that it came?’ and I looked through a hole at the farm.

  “‘Have they been at you, Sergeant?’ they says.

  “‘Why else would I be in the ditch?’ says I. ‘I am not after training as a boy scout.’

  “At that moment there came another shot. There was a terrible ‘cluck’, and all was still. M’Doolan, he jumped up and rushed out before we could stop him, shouting, ‘The devils, the devils!’ at the top of his voice.

  “‘Come back, you fool,’ I cried, and went out and pulled him in. I pulled him in, I say, but he was peering through the different holes in the wall like a man possessed.

  “‘Was it a cluck I heard behind there?’ he says – in a terrible way he was – ‘was it a cluck, for if so ’twas Rosie.’

  “‘Rosie?’ I says. ‘What are you talking about, and who’s your Rosie at all?’

  “‘It was,’ he cries, peering through one of the holes, ‘for I can see her – and it’s dead she is.’

  “I looked out and I saw a hen lying in the corner with most of its feathers off, and she certainly did not look very lively.

  “‘’Tis only a hen,’ I cried in disgust. ‘Away with you and your Rosie.’

  “‘’Tis not that,’ he says; ‘’tis the major. ’Tis terrible particular he is about getting his egg in the morning when he comes in, and when we comes here a week ago I found little Rosie. She was the only one left, and saving only that an ammunition wagon passed over her the day before yesterday she has been doing well. Oh! ’tis a terrible thing she has passed away, Sergeant.

  “‘Why, only this morning she failed to do her duty, and when I went out there was nothing. The major he says, “M’Doolan,” he says, “where the deuce is the hen fruit? Hen fruit, you fool!” he cries, irritable-like, when I looks at him puzzled, “produce of the feathered biped – egg?”’

  “‘She has misfired, sir,” I says. ‘’Tis either the wagon which passed over her two days ago, or else the round of ammunition she ate yesterday – but she is looking unwell.’

  “‘Well, put her in a corner and sing to her this morning,’ he says, ‘and she’ll either lay an egg or the bullet – but for heaven’s sake get hold of eggs somehow.’

  “‘Well, I was doing my best. I had her in the corner over there, and it was hypnotising her I was. She was standing on one leg, and something was happening. I was clucking to her, when a bullet went between my legs from that same devil yonder. So I hopped it, but little Rosie stayed on, for I watched her, and ’tis an egg she would have laid before evening, for it was in earnest she was. And now what will I be after saying to the major about it at all?’

  “‘’Tis rot you’re talking,’ I says. ‘If the hen has been shot – and, bedad, after it had been run over by a wagon, and had eaten a round of ammunition, and had been looked at by you close, ’twas a merciful end for the poor bird – why are you five great hulking blatherers here? Away with you, and capture the house and the snipers. Are not five sappers enough to do it, even if they are cooks?’

  “‘Less of your even and your cooks, Sergeant,’ says one. ‘We will do it at once.’

  “Bedad! sir,” laughed Cassidy, “you’d have laughed to see those five. M’Doolan elected himself the commander, and off they went up the ditch in great style, for all the world like a herd of hippopotamuses going to water. I followed them to see the fun. When they came to the end of the ditch they were still about two hundred yards from the house where they were. You’ll mind, sir, the line was a bit mixed up just there, and there were a lot of the German snipers behind our own lines and all over the place. M’Doolan in a voice like a foghorn, gathered them together behind a refuse heap and explained the situation.

  “‘Two of you,’ he says, ‘will fire at the devils from here, to keep them engaged like, while we three will go round the back and rush them,’ and away they crept. The two that were left behind were not in a manner of speaking marksmen, but as they had not fired a shot since the beginning they were all over it. They plastered the house and the ground and the refuse heap they were lying behind with bullets, and one of them struck a cow in the next field – leastways with a bellow of pain she disappeared towards the trenches.

  “But the diversion served, for the snipers had all their attention on the refuse heap, and M’Doolan and his two warriors reached the back unobserved. They crept up the stairs, and M’Doolan had his gun in one hand and Rosie in the other, for he was minded she should revenge herself. There were only two of them there, and they were occupied, as I have said, with the two outside. They crept into the room, and then with a whoop they were on them. M’Doolan tackled one. He hit him in the stomach with his rifle and in the face with Rosie, so that he dropped his gun and started pra
ying. The other two had not their rifles, but one of them hit the second German over the head with a bottle of curry powder, while the other collared him by the legs. The first of them was trying to get Rosie’s foot out of his mouth, and the other was sneezing curry when I got there; and it was a great diversion, for M’Doolan was taking no risks, and he still had them covered with his gun, while the other two were trying to gather up what was left of the curry powder.

  “‘Murderers!’ roars M’Doolan, brandishing Rosie in front of them, ‘could you not have let her be while she laid her last egg? You Huths, you Gons!’ he says, getting a trifle mixed. ‘’Tis my prisoners you are.’ With that he seized them both, and when the other two had taken their guns he marched them out. ’Twas a great procession. We went down the road with the Germans in front, the one plucking curry powder from his mouth and the other feathers. The first man we ran into was the major.

  “‘What the devil is this!’ he cries, putting up his eyeglass.

  “‘We have avenged the death of Rosie, sir,’ says M’Doolan, holding up the hen. ‘Those two devils slaughtered her as she was getting ready to lay the egg for your breakfast tomorrow.’

  “‘Great Scott!’ says he, ‘let’s hear about it.’

  “So M’Doolan told him the story. When he had finished the major looked at him and then he looked at the Germans. One had still got his teeth full of feathers and the other was covered with a sort of yellow foam. Lastly he looked at the hen, and then he laughed.

  “‘Take ’em away,’ he says to me; ‘take ’em away, and send ’em to headquarters with my compliments.’

  “‘But Rosie, sir,’ says M’Doolan. ‘Is it roast or boiled you will have her?’

  “The major he looks at M’Doolan and laughs again. ‘’Tis a second Napoleon you are, M’Doolan,’ he says, ‘and it is well you have done to capture them two; but with regard to your cooking, do which you like, for we will not know the difference.’”