"We didna' make it," returned Macalister. "Germany began it." Excited comment on the translation.
"If you'll just listen to me a minute," said Macalister deliberately, "I can prove I am right. Sir Edward Grey——" Bursts of exclamation greeted the name, and Macalister grinned slightly.
"You'll no be likin' him," he said. "An' I can weel understan' it."
The questioner went off on a different line. "Haf your soldiers know," he asked, "that the German fleet every day a town of England bombard?"
Macalister stared at him. "Havers!" he said abruptly.
The German went on to impart a great deal of astonishing information—of the German advance on Petrograd, the invasion of Egypt, the extermination of the Balkan Expedition, the complete blockade of England, the decimation of the British fleet by submarines.
After some vain attempts to argue the matter and disprove the statements, Macalister resigned himself to contemptuous silence, only rousing when the German spoke of England and English, to correct him to Britain and British.
When at last their interest flagged, the Germans ordered him to move on. Macalister asked where he was going and what was to be done with him, and received the scant comfort that he was being sent along to an officer who would send him back as a prisoner, if he did not have him killed—as German prisoners were killed by the English.
"British, you mean," Macalister corrected again. "And, besides that, it's a lie."
He was told to go on; but as he moved be saw a foot-long piece of barbed wire lying in the trench bottom. He asked gravely whether he would be allowed to take it, and, receiving a somewhat puzzled and grudging assent, picked it up, carefully rolled it in a small coil, and placed it in a side jacket pocket. He derived immense gratification and enjoyment at the ensuing searches he had to undergo, and the explosive German that followed the diving of a hand into the barbed-wire pocket.
He arrived at last at an officer and at a point where a communication trench entered the firing trench. The officer in very mangled English was attempting to extract some information, when he was interrupted by the arrival from the communication trench of a small party led by an officer, a person evidently of some importance, since the other officer sprang to attention, clicked his heels, saluted stiffly, and spoke in a tone of respectful humility. The new arrival was a young man in a surprisingly clean and beautifully fitting uniform, and wearing a helmet instead of the cloth cap commonly worn in the trenches. His face was not a particularly pleasant one, the eyes close set, hard, and cruel, the jaw thin and sharp, the mouth thin-lipped and shrewish. He spoke to Macalister in the most perfect English.
"Well, swine-hound," he said, "have you any reason to give why I should not shoot you?" Macalister made no reply. He disliked exceedingly the look of the new-comer, and had no wish to give an excuse for the punishment he suspected would result from the officer's displeasure. But his silence did not save him.
"Sulky, eh, my swine-hound!" said the officer. "But I think we can improve those manners."
He gave an order in German, and a couple of men stepped forward and placed their bayonets with the points touching Macalister's chest.
"If you do not answer next time I speak," he said smoothly, "I will give one word that will pin you to the trench wall and leave you there. Do you understand!" he snapped suddenly and savagely. "You English dog."
"I understand," said Macalister. "But I'm no English. I'm a Scot"
The crashing of a shell and the whistling of the bullets overhead moved the officer, as it had the others, to a more sheltered place. He seated himself upon an ammunition-box, and pointed to the wall of the trench opposite him.
"You," he said to Macalister, "will stand there, where you can get the benefit of any bullets that come over. I suppose you would just as soon be killed by an English bullet as by a German one."
Macalister moved to the place indicated.
"I'm no anxious," he said calmly, "to be killed by either a British or a German bullet."
"Say 'sir' when you speak to me," roared the officer. "Say 'sir.'"
Macalister looked at him and said "Sir"—no more and no less.
"Have you no discipline in your English army?" he demanded, and Macalister's lips silently formed the words "British Army." "Are you not taught to say 'sir' to an officer?"
"Yes—sir; we say 'sir' to any officer and any gentleman."
"So," said the officer, an evil smile upon his thin lips. "You hint, I suppose, that I am not a gentleman? We shall see. But first, as you appear to be an insubordinate dog, we had better tie your hands up."
He gave an order, and after some little trouble to find a cord, Macalister's hands were lashed behind his back with the bandage from a field-dressing. The officer inspected the tying when it was completed, spoke angrily to the cringing men, and made them unfasten and re-tie the lashing as tightly as they could draw it.
"And now," said the officer, "we shall continue our little conversation; but first you shall beg my pardon for that hint about a gentleman. Do you hear me—beg," he snarled, as Macalister made no reply.
"If I've said anything you're no likin' and that I'm sorry for masel',
I apologize," he said.
The officer glared at him with narrowed eyes. "That'll not do," he said coldly. "When I say 'beg' you'll beg, and you will go on your knees to beg. Do you hear? Kneel!"
Macalister stood rigid. At a word, two of the soldiers placed themselves in position again, with their bayonets at the prisoner's breast. The officer spoke to the men, and then to Macalister.
"Now," he said, "you will kneel, or they will thrust you through."
Macalister stood without a sign of movement; but behind his back his hands were straining furiously at the lashings upon his wrist. They stretched and gave ever so little, and he worked on at them with a desperate hope dawning in his heart.
"Still obstinate," sneered the officer. "Well, it is rather early to kill you yet, so we must find some other way."
At a sentence from him one of the men threw his weight on the prisoner's shoulders, while the other struck him savagely across the tendons behind the knees. Whether he would or no, his knees had to give, and Macalister dropped to them. But he was not beaten yet. He simply allowed himself to collapse, and fell over on his side. The officer cursed angrily, commanding him to rise to his knees again; the men kicked him and pricked him with their bayonet points, hauled him at last to his knees, and held him there by main force.
"And now you will beg my pardon," the officer continued. Macalister said nothing, but continued to stretch at his bonds and twist gently with his hands and wrists.
The officer spent the next ten minutes trying to force his prisoner to beg his pardon. They were long and humiliating and painful minutes for Macalister, but he endured them doggedly and in silence. The officer's temper rose minute by minute. The forward wall of the firing trench was built up with wicker-work facings and the officer drew out a thick switch.
"You will speak," he said, "or I shall flay you in strips and then shoot you."
Macalister said nothing, and was slashed so heavily across the face that the stick broke in the striker's hands. The blood rose to his head, and deep in his heart he prayed, prayed only for ten seconds with his hands loose; but still he did not speak.
At the end of ten minutes the officer's patience was exhausted. Macalister was thrust back against the trench wall, and the officer drew out a pistol.
"In five minutes from now," he gritted, "I'm going to shoot you. I give you the five minutes that you may enjoy some pleasant thoughts in the interval."
Macalister made no answer, but worked industriously at the lashings on