Mr. Standfast

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'Holding be damned! The Boche is clean through on a broad
front. He broke us today at Maissemy and Essigny. Yes, the battle-
zone. He's flinging in division after division like the blows of a
hammer. What else could you expect?' And he clutched my arm
fiercely. 'How in God's name could eleven divisions hold a front of
forty miles? And against four to one in numbers? It isn't war, it's
naked lunacy.'

I knew the worst now, and it didn't shock me, for I had known
it was coming. Laidlaw's nerves were pretty bad, for his face was
pale and his eyes bright like a man with a fever.

'Reserves!' and he laughed bitterly. 'We have three infantry divisions
and two cavalry. They're into the mill long ago. The French
are coming up on our right, but they've the devil of a way to go.
That's what I'm down here about. And we're getting help from
Horne and Plumer. But all that takes days, and meantime we're
walking back like we did at Mons. And at this time of day, too ...
Oh, yes, the whole line's retreating. Parts of it were pretty comfortable,
but they had to get back or be put in the bag. I wish to
Heaven I knew where our right divisions have got to. For all I
know they're at Compiegne by now. The Boche was over the canal
this morning, and by this time most likely he's across the Somme.'

At that I exclaimed. 'D'you mean to tell me we're going to lose Peronne?'

'Peronne!' he cried. 'We'll be lucky not to lose Amiens! ... And
on the top of it all I've got some kind of blasted fever. I'll be
raving in an hour.'

He was rushing off, but I held him.

'What about my old lot?' I asked.

'Oh, damned good, but they're shot all to bits. Every division
did well. It's a marvel they weren't all scuppered, and it'll be a
flaming miracle if they find a line they can stand on. Westwater's
got a leg smashed. He was brought down this evening, and you'll
find him in the hospital. Fraser's killed and Lefroy's a prisoner - at
least, that was my last news. I don't know who's got the brigades,
but Masterton's carrying on with the division ... You'd better get
up the line as fast as you can and take over from him. See the Army
Commander. He'll be in Amiens tomorrow morning for a pow-wow.'

Laidlaw lay wearily back in his car and disappeared into the
night, while I hurried to the train.

The others had descended to the platform and were grouped
round Archie, who was discoursing optimistic nonsense. I got
them into the carriage and shut the door.

'It's pretty bad,' I said. 'The front's pierced in several places and
we're back to the Upper Somme. I'm afraid it isn't going to stop
there. I'm off up the line as soon as I can get my orders. Wake,
you'll come with me, for every man will be wanted. Blenkiron,
you'll see Mary and Peter safe to England. We're just in time, for
tomorrow it mightn't be easy to get out of Amiens.'

I can see yet the anxious faces in that ill-lit compartment. We said
goodbye after the British style without much to-do. I remember
that old Peter gripped my hand as if he would never release it, and
that Mary's face had grown very pale. If I delayed another second I
should have howled, for Mary's lips were trembling and Peter had
eyes like a wounded stag. 'God bless you,' I said hoarsely, and as I
went off I heard Peter's voice, a little cracked, saying 'God bless
you, my old friend.'

I spent some weary hours looking for Westwater. He was not in
the big clearing station, but I ran him to earth at last in the new
hospital which had just been got going in the Ursuline convent. He
was the most sterling little man, in ordinary life rather dry and
dogmatic, with a trick of taking you up sharply which didn't make
him popular. Now he was lying very stiff and quiet in the hospital
bed, and his blue eyes were solemn and pathetic like a sick dog's.

'There's nothing much wrong with me,' he said, in reply to my
question. 'A shell dropped beside me and damaged my foot. They
say they'll have to cut it off ... I've an easier mind now you're
here, Hannay. Of course you'll take over from Masterton. He's a
good man but not quite up to his job. Poor Fraser - you've heard
about Fraser. He was done in at the very start. Yes, a shell. And
Lefroy. If he's alive and not too badly smashed the Hun has got a
troublesome prisoner.'

He was too sick to talk, but he wouldn't let me go.

'The division was all right. Don't you believe anyone who says
we didn't fight like heroes. Our outpost line held up the Hun for
six hours, and only about a dozen men came back. We could have
stuck it out in the battle-zone if both flanks hadn't been turned.
They got through Crabbe's left and came down the Verey ravine,
and a big wave rushed Shropshire Wood ... We fought it out yard
by yard and didn't budge till we saw the Plessis dump blazing in
our rear. Then it was about time to go ... We haven't many
battalion commanders left. Watson, Endicot, Crawshay ...' He
stammered out a list of gallant fellows who had gone.

'Get back double quick, Hannay. They want you. I'm not happy
about Masterton. He's too young for the job.' And then a nurse
drove me out, and I left him speaking in the strange forced voice of
great weakness.

At the foot of the staircase stood Mary.

'I saw you go in,' she said, 'so I waited for you.'

'Oh, my dear,' I cried, 'you should have been in Boulogne by
now. What madness brought you here?'

'They know me here and they've taken me on. You couldn't
expect me to stay behind. You said yourself everybody was wanted,
and I'm in a Service like you. Please don't be angry, Dick.'

I wasn't angry, I wasn't even extra anxious. The whole thing seemed
to have been planned by fate since the creation of the world. The game
we had been engaged in wasn't finished and it was right that we should
play it out together. With that feeling came a conviction, too, of
ultimate victory. Somehow or sometime we should get to the end of
our pilgrimage. But I remembered Mary's forebodings about the
sacrifice required. The best of us. That ruled me out, but what about her?

I caught her to my arms. 'Goodbye, my very dearest. Don't
worry about me, for mine's a soft job and I can look after my skin.
But oh! take care of yourself, for you are all the world to me.'

She kissed me gravely like a wise child.

'I am not afraid for you,' she said. 'You are going to stand in the
breach, and I know - I know you will win. Remember that there is
someone here whose heart is so full of pride of her man that it
hasn't room for fear.'

As I went out of the convent door I felt that once again I had
been given my orders.

It did not surprise me that, when I sought out my room on an
upper floor of the Hotel de France, I found Blenkiron in the
corridor. He was in the best of spirits.

'You can't keep me out of the show, Dick,' he said, 'so you
needn't start arguing. Why, this is the one original chance of a
lifetime for John S. Blenkiron. Our little fight at Erzerum was only
a side-show, but this is a real high-class Armageddon. I guess I'll
find a way to make myself useful.'

I had no doubt he would, and I was glad he had stayed behind.
But I felt it was hard on Peter to have the job of returning to
England alone at such a time, like useless flotsam washed up by a flood.

'You needn't worry,' said Blenkiron. 'Peter's not making England
this trip. To the best of my knowledge he has beat it out of this
township by the eastern postern. He had some talk with Sir Archibald
Roylance, and presently other gentlemen of the Royal Flying
Corps appeared, and the upshot was that Sir Archibald hitched on
to Peter's grip and departed without saying farewell. My notion is
that he's gone to have a few words with his old friends at some
flying station. Or he might have the idea of going back to England
by aeroplane, and so having one last flutter before he folds his
wings. Anyhow, Peter looked a mighty happy man. The last I saw
he was smoking his pipe with a batch of young lads in a Flying
Corps waggon and heading straight for Germany.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
How an Exile Returned to His Own People

Next morning I found the Army Commander on his way to Doullens.

'Take over the division?' he said. 'Certainly. I'm afraid there isn't
much left of it. I'll tell Carr to get through to the Corps Headquarters,
when he can find them. You'll have to nurse the remnants,
for they can't be pulled out yet - not for a day or two. Bless me,
Hannay, there are parts of our line which we're holding with a man
and a boy. You've got to stick it out till the French take over.
We're not hanging on by our eyelids - it's our eyelashes now.'

'What about positions to fall back on, sir?' I asked.

'We're doing our best, but we haven't enough men to prepare
them.' He plucked open a map. 'There we're digging a line - and
there. If we can hold that bit for two days we shall have a fair line
resting on the river. But we mayn't have time.'

Then I told him about Blenkiron, whom of course he had heard
of. 'He was one of the biggest engineers in the States, and he's
got a nailing fine eye for country. He'll make good somehow if you
let him help in the job.'

'The very fellow,' he said, and he wrote an order. 'Take this to
Jacks and he'll fix up a temporary commission. Your man can find
a uniform somewhere in Amiens.'

After that I went to the detail camp and found that Ivery had
duly arrived.

'The prisoner has given no trouble, sirr,' Hamilton reported.
'But he's a wee thing peevish. They're saying that the Gairmans is
gettin' on fine, and I was tellin' him that he should be proud of his
ain folk. But he wasn't verra weel pleased.'

Three days had wrought a transformation in Ivery. That face,
once so cool and capable, was now sharpened like a hunted beast's.
His imagination was preying on him and I could picture its torture.
He, who had been always at the top directing the machine, was
now only a cog in it. He had never in his life been anything but
powerful; now he was impotent. He was in a hard, unfamiliar
world, in the grip of something which he feared and didn't understand,
in the charge of men who were in no way amenable to his
persuasiveness. It was like a proud and bullying manager suddenly
forced to labour in a squad of navvies, and worse, for there was the
gnawing physical fear of what was coming.

He made an appeal to me.

'Do the English torture their prisoners?' he asked. 'You have
beaten me. I own it, and I plead for mercy. I will go on my knees if
you like. I am not afraid of death - in my own way.'

'Few people are afraid of death - in their own way.'

'Why do you degrade me? I am a gentleman.'

'Not as we define the thing,' I said.

His jaw dropped. 'What are you going to do with me?' he quavered.

'You have been a soldier,' I said. 'You are going to see a little
fighting - from the ranks. There will be no brutality, you will be
armed if you want to defend yourself, you will have the same
chance of survival as the men around you. You may have heard
that your countrymen are doing well. It is even possible that they
may win the battle. What was your forecast to me? Amiens in two
days, Abbeville in three. Well, you are a little behind scheduled
time, but still you are prospering. You told me that you were the
chief architect of all this, and you are going to be given the chance
of seeing it, perhaps of sharing in it - from the other side. Does it
not appeal to your sense of justice?'
He groaned and turned away. I had no more pity for him than I
would have had for a black mamba that had killed my friend and
was now caught to a cleft tree. Nor, oddly enough, had Wake. If
we had shot Ivery outright at St Anton, I am certain that Wake
would have called us murderers. Now he was in complete agreement.
His passionate hatred of war made him rejoice that a chief
contriver of war should be made to share in its terrors.

'He tried to talk me over this morning,' he told me. 'Claimed he
was on my side and said the kind of thing I used to say last year. It
made me rather ashamed of some of my past performances to hear
that scoundrel imitating them ... By the way, Hannay, what are
you going to do with me?'

'You're coming on my staff. You're a stout fellow and I can't do
without you.'

'Remember I won't fight.'

'You won't be asked to. We're trying to stem the tide which
wants to roll to the sea. You know how the Boche behaves in
occupied country, and Mary's in Amiens.'

At that news he shut his lips.

'Still -'he began.

still" I said. 'I don't ask you to forfeit one of your blessed
principles. You needn't fire a shot. But I want a man to carry
orders for me, for we haven't a line any more, only a lot of blobs
like quicksilver. I want a clever man for the job and a brave one,
and I know that you're not afraid.'

'No,' he said. 'I don't think I am - much. Well. I'm content!'

I started Blenkiron off in a car for Corps Headquarters, and in
the afternoon took the road myself. I knew every inch of the
country - the lift of the hill east of Amiens, the Roman highway
that ran straight as an arrow to St Quentin, the marshy lagoons of
the Somme, and that broad strip of land wasted by battle between
Dompierre and Peronne. I had come to Amiens through it in
January, for I had been up to the line before I left for Paris, and
then it had been a peaceful place, with peasants tilling their fields,
and new buildings going up on the old battle-field, and carpenters
busy at cottage roofs, and scarcely a transport waggon on the road
to remind one of war. Now the main route was choked like the
Albert road when the Somme battle first began - troops going up
and troops coming down, the latter in the last stage of weariness; a
ceaseless traffic of ambulances one way and ammunition waggons
the other; busy staff cars trying to worm a way through the mass;
strings of gun horses, oddments of cavalry, and here and there blue
French uniforms. All that I had seen before; but one thing was new
to me. Little country carts with sad-faced women and mystified
children in them and piles of household plenishing were creeping
westward, or stood waiting at village doors. Beside these tramped
old men and boys, mostly in their Sunday best as if they were going
to church. I had never seen the sight before, for I had never seen
the British Army falling back. The dam which held up the waters
had broken and the dwellers in the valley were trying to save their
pitiful little treasures. And over everything, horse and man, cart
and wheelbarrow, road and tillage, lay the white March dust, the
sky was blue as June, small birds were busy in the copses, and in the
corners of abandoned gardens I had a glimpse of the first violets.

Presently as we topped a rise we came within full noise of the
guns. That, too, was new to me, for it was no ordinary bombardment.
There was a special quality in the sound, something ragged,
straggling, intermittent, which I had never heard before. It was the
sign of open warfare and a moving battle.

At Peronne, from which the newly returned inhabitants had a
second time fled, the battle seemed to be at the doors. There I had
news of my division. It was farther south towards St Christ. We
groped our way among bad roads to where its headquarters were
believed to be, while the voice of the guns grew louder. They
turned out to be those of another division, which was busy getting
ready to cross the river. Then the dark fell, and while airplanes flew
west into the sunset there was a redder sunset in the east, where the
unceasing flashes of gunfire were pale against the angry glow of
burning dumps. The sight of the bonnet-badge of a Scots Fusilier
made me halt, and the man turned out to belong to my division.
Half an hour later I was taking over from the much-relieved Masterton
in the ruins of what had once been a sugar-beet factory.

There to my surprise I found Lefroy. The Boche had held him
prisoner for precisely eight hours. During that time he had been so
interested in watching the way the enemy handled an attack that he
had forgotten the miseries of his position. He described with
blasphemous admiration the endless wheel by which supplies and
reserve troops move up, the silence, the smoothness, the perfect
discipline. Then he had realized that he was a captive and unwounded,
and had gone mad. Being a heavy-weight boxer of note, he had sent
his two guards spinning into a ditch, dodged the ensuing shots, and
found shelter in the lee of a blazing ammunition dump where his
pursuers hesitated to follow. Then he had spent an anxious hour
trying to get through an outpost line, which he thought was Boche.
Only by overhearing an exchange of oaths in the accents of Dundee
did he realize that it was our own ... It was a comfort to have Lefroy
back, for he was both stout-hearted and resourceful. But I found that
I had a division only on paper. It was about the strength of a
brigade, the brigades battalions, and the battalions companies.

This is not the place to write the story of the week that followed. I
could not write it even if I wanted to, for I don't know it. There
was a plan somewhere, which you will find in the history books,
but with me it was blank chaos. Orders came, but long before they
arrived the situation had changed, and I could no more obey them
than fly to the moon. Often I had lost touch with the divisions on
both flanks. Intelligence arrived erratically out of the void, and for
the most part we worried along without it. I heard we were under
the French - first it was said to be Foch, and then Fayolle, whom I
had met in Paris. But the higher command seemed a million miles
away, and we were left to use our mother wits. My problem was to
give ground as slowly as possible and at the same time not to delay
too long, for retreat we must, with the Boche sending in brand-new
divisions each morning. It was a kind of war worlds distant from
the old trench battles, and since I had been taught no other I had to
invent rules as I went along. Looking back, it seems a miracle that
any of us came out of it. Only the grace of God and the uncommon
toughness of the British soldier bluffed the Hun and prevented him
pouring through the breach to Abbeville and the sea. We were no
better than a mosquito curtain stuck in a doorway to stop the
advance of an angry bull.

The Army Commander was right; we were hanging on with our
eyelashes. We must have been easily the weakest part of the whole front,
for we were holding a line which was never less than two miles and
was often, as I judged, nearer five, and there was nothing in reserve
to us except some oddments of cavalry who chased about the whole
battle-field under vague orders. Mercifully for us the Boche blundered.
Perhaps he did not know our condition, for our airmen were
magnificent and you never saw a Boche plane over our line by day,
though they bombed us merrily by night. If he had called our bluff
we should have been done, but he put his main strength to the
north and the south of us. North he pressed hard on the Third
Army, but he got well hammered by the Guards north of Bapaume
and he could make no headway at Arras. South he drove at the
Paris railway and down the Oise valley, but there Petain's reserves
had arrived, and the French made a noble stand.

Not that he didn't fight hard in the centre where we were, but he
hadn't his best troops, and after we got west of the bend of the
Somme he was outrunning his heavy guns. Still, it was a desperate
enough business, for our flanks were all the time falling back, and
we had to conform to movements we could only guess at. After all,
we were on the direct route to Amiens, and it was up to us to yield
slowly so as to give Haig and Petain time to get up supports. I was
a miser about every yard of ground, for every yard and every
minute were precious. We alone stood between the enemy and the
city, and in the city was Mary.

If you ask me about our plans I can't tell you. I had a new one
every hour. I got instructions from the Corps, but, as I have said,
they were usually out of date before they arrived, and most of my
tactics I had to invent myself. I had a plain task, and to fulfil it I
had to use what methods the Almighty allowed me. I hardly slept, I
ate little, I was on the move day and night, but I never felt so
strong in my life. It seemed as if I couldn't tire, and, oddly enough,
I was happy. If a man's whole being is focused on one aim, he has
no time to worry ... I remember we were all very gentle and soft-
spoken those days. Lefroy, whose tongue was famous for its edge,
now cooed like a dove. The troops were on their uppers, but as
steady as rocks. We were against the end of the world, and that
stiffens a man ...

Day after day saw the same performance. I held my wavering
front with an outpost line which delayed each new attack till I
could take its bearings. I had special companies for counter-attack
at selected points, when I wanted time to retire the rest of the
division. I think we must have fought more than a dozen of such
little battles. We lost men all the time, but the enemy made no big
scoop, though he was always on the edge of one. Looking back, it
seems like a succession of miracles. Often I was in one end of a
village when the Boche was in the other. Our batteries were always
on the move, and the work of the gunners was past praising.
Sometimes we faced east, sometimes north, and once at a most
critical moment due south, for our front waved and blew like a flag
at a masthead ... Thank God, the enemy was getting away from
his big engine, and his ordinary troops were fagged and poor in
quality. It was when his fresh shock battalions came on that I held
my breath ... He had a heathenish amount of machine-guns and he
used them beautifully. Oh, I take my hat off to the Boche performance.
He was doing what we had tried to do at the Somme and the
Aisne and Arras and Ypres, and he was more or less succeeding.
And the reason was that he was going bald-headed for victory.

The men, as I have said, were wonderfully steady and patient
under the fiercest trial that soldiers can endure. I had all kinds in
the division - old army, new army, Territorials - and you couldn't
pick and choose between them. They fought like Trojans, and,
dirty, weary, and hungry, found still some salt of humour in their
sufferings. It was a proof of the rock-bottom sanity of human
nature. But we had one man with us who was hardly sane. ...

In the hustle of those days I now and then caught sight of Ivery.
I had to be everywhere at all hours, and often visited that remnant
of Scots Fusiliers into which the subtlest brain in Europe had been
drafted. He and his keepers were never on outpost duty or in any
counter-attack. They were part of the mass whose only business was
to retire discreetly. This was child's play to Hamilton, who had
been out since Mons; and Amos, after taking a day to get used to
it, wrapped himself in his grim philosophy and rather enjoyed it.
You couldn't surprise Amos any more than a Turk. But the man
with them, whom they never left - that was another matter.

'For the first wee bit,' Hamilton reported, 'we thocht he was
gaun daft. Every shell that came near he jumped like a young
horse. And the gas! We had to tie on his mask for him, for his
hands were fushionless. There was whiles when he wadna be
hindered from standin' up and talkin' to hisself, though the bullets
was spittin'. He was what ye call demoralized ... Syne he got as
though he didna hear or see onything. He did what we tell't him,
and when we let him be he sat down and grat. He's aye greetin' ...
Queer thing, sirr, but the Gairmans canna hit him. I'm aye shakin'
bullets out o' my claes, and I've got a hole in my shoulder, and
Andra took a bash on his tin that wad hae felled onybody that
hadna a heid like a stot. But, sirr, the prisoner taks no scaith. Our
boys are feared of him. There was an Irishman says to me that he
had the evil eye, and ye can see for yerself that he's no canny.'

I saw that his skin had become like parchment and that his eyes
were glassy. I don't think he recognized me.

'Does he take his meals?' I asked.

'He doesna eat muckle. But he has an unco thirst. Ye canna keep
him off the men's water-bottles.'

He was learning very fast the meaning of that war he had so
confidently played with. I believe I am a merciful man, but as I
looked at him I felt no vestige of pity. He was dreeing the weird he
had prepared for others. I thought of Scudder, of the thousand
friends I had lost, of the great seas of blood and the mountains of
sorrow this man and his like had made for the world. Out of the
corner of my eye I could see the long ridges above Combles and
Longueval which the salt of the earth had fallen to win, and which
were again under the hoof of the Boche. I thought of the distracted
city behind us and what it meant to me, and the weak, the pitifully
weak screen which was all its defence. I thought of the foul deeds
which had made the German name to stink by land and sea, foulness
of which he was the arch-begetter. And then I was amazed at our
forbearance. He would go mad, and madness for him was more
decent than sanity.

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