Alf's Button. W. A. Darlington
your gum-boots all right?"
"Yessir!"
"Right! Carry on!"
Higgins clambered up the steps to the surface. Before he stepped over the dam which had been constructed round the dug-out entrance, he glanced round. The complicated canal system, which had been the trenches, looked even more forbidding by day than it had the previous night, and the water looked horribly cold. But there was nothing to be gained by waiting, and he waded off up a communication trench. Very soon he found himself in difficulties. The trench walls had continued to fall in, with the consequence that in places the thick soup had become glue. Once or twice he felt his foot sticking in the viscous stuff that had collected over the duck-boards, and had to struggle hard before he could release himself. Suddenly, without warning, he struck an even worse patch. Both feet were seized and held as in a vise. He fought hard, but only sank deeper. At last, quite exhausted, he felt his feet reach the duck-boards; and, thankful that at least he could sink no lower, he settled down with stoical resignation to wait till some one should come.
But an hour went by, and nothing happened; Higgins began to be hungry. Possibly, he thought, this particular trench had been found impassable, and traffic directed through other channels, in which case he might never be found. Appalled by this idea, he lifted up his voice.
"Hi!" he yelled. "'Elp!"
For sole answer, a German "fish-tail" whirred overhead and burst with great violence not far away. His own side remained as quiet as the grave.
Higgins began to lose his head.
"'Elp! 'Elp!" he bawled, a note of panic in his voice.
"There now, duckie!" came in soothing accents from round the corner in front of him. "Mummie's comin'! What the 'ell's the matter?"
A gum-booted, leather-jerkined private came slowly into view.
"Why," he exclaimed, "it's old Alf! Thought you was on G.H.Q. staff, 'elpin' 'Aig, Alf. What's all the row about?"
"Bringin' a message up to the orficer, an' I got stuck. Been 'ere hours, I 'ave."
"Stuck in the 'Glue-Pot,' that's what you 'ave, ole son," said Private Bill Grant cheerfully. "You must 'ave been a mug to use this way. Every one's usin' number One-Eight-Oh now; it's deeper, but not so sticky. The officer brought that message up 'isself when 'e came on dooty. They was sayin' some nice things about you, I don't think. You're in for it, you are, when you gets out o' that."
Higgins was past caring.
"'Ere, Bill, can't you pull me out?" he pleaded.
"Not if I knows it. That's the Glue-Pot you're in. If I started pullin' you out, I'd get stuck there meself, that's all. You'll 'ave to stop till arter dark, an' we'll come along over the top and 'ave yer out with a rope. So long."
The unfeeling Bill kissed his not over-clean hand and disappeared round the corner. Silence—broken occasionally by the sharp crack of a rifle bullet or the explosion of a casual shell—settled down once more. Higgins sank into a kind of stupor. …
* * * * * * *
"Hist!" said a slightly dramatic voice above him, and he woke to a consciousness that darkness had fallen, and that the rescue party was at hand.
"That you, sergeant?" he asked joyfully.
"Not so loud, you blinkin' fool!" whispered Sergeant Lees fervently. "It ain't daylight now. The Boche 'as the wind up proper, an' if 'e 'ears you there'll be 'ell on. Catch 'old o' this rope. Now then, lads, ready? 'Eave!"
Higgins felt the rope tighten. Then came an almost intolerable strain on his body as the six panting figures up above opposed their joint strength to the passive resistance of his firmly-embedded gum-boots. Something had to give somewhere. That something turned out to be Higgins' old pair of braces, which had been forced to undertake the support of the said boots in addition to their usual responsibility. They snapped suddenly. The tug-of-war party collapsed in a heap, and Alf shot into the air like a cork from a champagne-bottle (leaving his trousers behind him) and fell again into the trench beside his tenantless and immovable boots.
He owed it to the quick wit of Sergeant Lees that he did not become bogged once more. His legs were already sinking in the ooze of the Glue-Pot when the sergeant leaned over, seized him by the coat collar and dragged him up by main force, just as his jacket split along its whole length with a rending sound. A Boche machine-gunner, much alarmed at the highly unusual sounds proceeding from the British lines, began to enquire into the matter. The shell-hole into which Alf rolled for safety happened to be full of filthy water, icy cold.
CHAPTER II ALF CLEANS HIS BUTTONS
When the battalion moved out of the line the appearance of Private Higgins could not be described as smart. The only person who attempted to describe it at all was the company sergeant-major; he did it rather well.
Higgins did not spend the remainder of his tour of duty in the condition of indecorous discomfort in which he was hauled from the Glue-Pot. On crawling out of his shell-hole, he first rescued his trousers with some difficulty from inside his derelict thigh-boots, and then made his way to the dressing-station—a large dug-out—where he was dried and his torn jacket was roughly repaired. For the rest of his time he wore the felt-lined leather jerkin which he had forgotten to take with him on his former adventure; but as luck would have it he was not required on any further errand.
The battalion left its trenches—handed over thankfully to the North Surreys—about midnight, eight days after it had moved in. Its numbers, in spite of the mildness of Fritz, had been sadly depleted. All precautions notwithstanding, a large number of men had succumbed to trench feet, and the remainder could scarcely do more than crawl. They made their way painfully as far as the reserve trenches, and next day they reached a village some miles behind the line, where they found themselves in quite comfortable billets—the men in huts, the officers in farms and cottages. The hut allotted to "C" Company contained a complicated erection in wood and wire-netting, which provided two tiers of bedsteads down almost the entire length of each side. There was, however, a small space at one end, screened off with waterproof sheets; this was appropriated to the joint use of the C.S.M. and the C.Q.M.S.
As soon as the battalion was settled in, the usual business began of repairing the ravages of the trenches and transforming a crew of ragged, bearded scaramouches back into self-respecting members of a smart regiment.
Captain Richards paraded his company in front of its billet, and surveyed it more in sorrow than in anger. He himself and his officers had managed, in some wonderful way, to turn themselves out as spotless as if they had just strolled in from Piccadilly. But they had the advantage over the men of carrying spare suits of clothes in their valises, and of possessing servants.
"Well, 'C' Company," remarked its Commander. "The quartermaster is going to take you in hand this afternoon, and I don't envy him his job. You'll hand in your tin hats and your jerkins, and you'll draw service caps, badges and shoulder-titles. Those of you who need new things must take the opportunity of getting them. Private Higgins, for instance, needs a new tunic."
There was a roar of laughter, for Higgins' misadventure in the communication trench was the company's latest family joke.
"I see," continued Richards, grinning, "that he's mended his old one with a piece of rope. Well, that won't do for me after to-day. To-morrow I expect to see the company something like itself. March 'em off, Sergeant-Major French; I'll be coming along shortly."
Clothing parade was a lengthy business. Most of the battalion seemed to need clothes, and the quartermaster's overworked staff appeared to regard each new application as a personal insult. At last Higgins obtained his new tunic, and started back to his billet with this and his other issues. On the way he passed a small cottage marked "Estaminet"; he entered and indulged in a miniature orgy of very light French beer.