Alf's Button. W. A. Darlington
with Donaldson and the sergeant-major, had been over the trenches the day before. It is not usual for all the officers of a relieving company to see the ground for themselves; but this was a piece of line quite new to the Home Counties' Territorial Division, of which the Middlesex Fusiliers' Brigade formed part. The authorities therefore had deemed it advisable to use even more care than usual.
It was bitterly cold. The Great Frost of January and February, 1917—the coldest spring that France had known for a period of years variously estimated at twenty-one, a hundred and eight, and intermediately—was still in being. Richards turned up the collar of his British warm and longed for soup. He was just considering the advisability of shouting to the servants to serve his dinner at once, when there came a trampling on the stairs, a metallic clang, and some picturesque cursing. A moment later, Denis Allen emerged from the gloom, followed by little Shaw.
"Thank God for my tin hat," said Denis piously. "That's about the only thing it's good for. I'd have brained myself long ago on these stairs without it."
He divested himself of the article in question, as also of his equipment, glasses and trench coat; these he piled upon the recumbent form of Donaldson, bringing that warrior to a sudden and profane wakefulness.
"Here," said Allen to Shaw, "we have the company commander sitting at home in luxurious idleness, while we poor blighters do his work for him outside in the cold. If you've drunk all the whisky, Dickie, there's going to be a mutiny. I'm simply perishing. Where's the dinner?"
"Here, sir," said Private Corder, the senior servant, entering with the soup.
"Bless you, Corder. May your shadow never grow less."
"No, sir. Please, sir, Private 'Iggins wants to see you, sir."
"Me?" said Richards. "Oh, yes, of course. Send him down in a minute, but give me time to finish the soup first."
He warmed his fingers round the steaming mug.
"Well, Denis," he went on. "How did you like the front trenches?"
"Fine. Best lot I've seen. Top-hole duck-boards, good dug-outs, quiet bit of line. Couldn't be better, except for the cold. Shaw here was most impressed, and said he'd like to have shown his mother round them."
Second-Lieutenant Shaw grinned.
"Well, she gets the wind up rather, you see," he explained. "I think she imagines the front line with a perpetual barrage playing on it like a garden hose. I must say I didn't expect to see it quite so peaceful myself. Or so clean and tidy."
"Ah, that's the frost. I tell you, we've been grousing enough lately about being here for the hardest frost within memory, but you've got to remember that it does keep the water frozen up in the trench walls. Let's pray the frost doesn't break while we're in the line."
Allen looked suddenly grave.
"I did notice a trickle of water here and there to-day," he said. "Dickie, I'm afraid we're in for a thaw. We shall be wading up in gum-boots in two days, you'll see. Here comes Higgins."
A nondescript private, with a straggling mustache and a pair of round, childish blue eyes, came into the light and saluted.
"Oh, Higgins," said Captain Richards, "you're to join Company Headquarters as a runner. D'you know the job?"
"Yes, sir. Carryin' messages."
"Yes. Well, now, I was only told to-day that I'd to have an extra one, otherwise you'd have been sent up with the rest to look round. However, you'd better take my trench map away with you and study the lie of the land from it. You can read a map, I suppose?"
"No, sir."
"Not at all?"
"No, sir."
"Good Heavens, I asked for an intell—however, there's nobody else. That will do, then, Higgins. Report to me before we move off, and do your best."
"Yes, sir."
Private Alfred Higgins departed, marveling at the strange chance that had elevated him to this responsible post. He was not sure whether he was pleased or otherwise. A runner's is a business admitting of startling variations. In a quiet sector of the line there may be no messages to take, or at least no shells to dodge in the process; but in a lively part of the front the runner's job is the most consistently perilous of all. Besides this, Alf Higgins had always considered it the wisest plan to steer carefully clear of those in authority. As a runner, he would be in constant personal touch with his officer.
He returned to his mates with mixed feelings, and confided his news to his bosom pal, Bill Grant, who deeply offended him by roaring with laughter at the mere idea.
As for Sergeant Lees, Lieutenant Allen's second in command of No. 9 Platoon, he seemed to regard Higgins' latest employment as marking the beginning of the end.
"If 'Iggins is a bright, intelligent man for a runner," he remarked bitterly, "I may be a blinkin' brigadier yet."
Lieutenant Allen's gloomy weather predictions duly came to pass. When the battalion moved up the thaw had begun in earnest. The water so long imprisoned streamed out of the walls of the trenches, and the disgusted men found themselves committed to wading five miles through communication trenches already a foot deep in water. This water grew visibly deeper as they went forward, till progress became difficult and most exhausting. Richards, plugging along doggedly in front of his company with the guide from the 4th Battalion, looked at his watch when they had covered half the distance and found that they were already an hour overdue. He hated being late with a relief, but greater speed was impossible. As the flow of water increased, the sides of the trenches began to fall in; the earth thus mixed with the water thickened it to a consistency which might be likened to very rich soup, and the pace grew slower still.
Now and then a dark cavern would yawn suddenly beside them, and a ghostly glimmer in the bowels of the earth would show an inhabited dug-out; and as the relieving party squelched slowly past, the water in the trench would be forced above the level of the dug-out entrance, and would flow thundering down the staircase like a miniature Niagara. Terrible objurgations from beneath would express the inmost thoughts of some weary warrior rudely awakened from sleep by the impact of a cold wave of muddy water against the back of his neck. Sympathetic, but powerless to avoid continuous repetition of the offense, the company plodded on.
At last, four hours behind the time fixed, a husky voice out of the darkness informed Richards that he had reached his destination.
Some time elapsed before everything had been satisfactorily handed over and explained to the incoming company, but at last the 4th men splashed thankfully off—to cause another series of Niagaras to descend upon the indignant warrior aforesaid—leaving Captain Richards entirely responsible for several hundred yards of the British front.
It was at this point, when the Company Headquarters went off to their comparatively dry dug-out, leaving the rest of the company to their miserable vigil on the surface, that Private Higgins realized that the runner's lot can be a very happy one.
This opinion grew more and more pronounced as time went on. Officers relieved each other in the front line, coming off duty covered with wet clay nearly to the waist and scraping their breeches clean with their knives before lying down to snatch a little rest; while he—Higgins—lay warm and dry, with nothing to do but eat and sleep.
All was quiet up above; both armies were far too much occupied with their own discomforts to think about adding to those of their adversaries. Possibly, thought Higgins in a flash of foolish optimism, his whole four days might be spent in a dry dug-out, eating and sleeping. But he must have omitted to touch wood, for at this point he heard his name called.
Captain Richards was holding in his hand a paper which the signaler had just handed to him.
"Higgins," he ordered. "Take this up to Mr. Donaldson in the front line at once, and bring back an answer. It's a report on the condition of the front line dug-outs. Understand?"
"Yessir!"
"Are