As I looked, the gun to the west fired - the gun where Stumm was. The shell dropped ten yards to our right. A second later another fell behind us.
Blenkiron had dragged himself to the parapet. I don't suppose he had ever been shelled before, but his face showed curiosity rather than fear.
'Pretty poor shooting, I reckon,' he said.
'On the contrary,' I said, 'they know their business. They're bracketing … '
The words were not out of my mouth when one fell right among us. It struck the far rim of the castrol, shattering the rock, but bursting mainly outside. We all ducked, and barring some small scratches no one was a penny the worse. I remember that much of the debris fell on Hilda von Einem's grave.
I pulled Blenkiron over the far parapet, and called on the rest to follow, meaning to take cover on the rough side of the hill. But as we showed ourselves shots rang out from our front, shots fired from a range of a few hundred yards. It was easy to see what had happened. Riflemen had been sent to hold us in rear. They would not assault so long as we remained in the castrol, but they would block any attempt to find safety outside it. Stumm and his gun had us at their mercy.
We crouched below the parapet again. 'We may as well toss for it,' I said. 'There's only two ways - to stay here and be shelled or try to break through those fellows behind. Either's pretty unhealthy.'
But I knew there was no choice. With Blenkiron crippled we were pinned to the castrol. Our numbers were up all right.
Chapter 22 The Guns of the North
But no more shells fell.
The night grew dark and showed a field of glittering stars, for the air was sharpening again towards frost. We waited for an hour, crouching just behind the far parapets, but never came that ominous familiar whistle.
Then Sandy rose and stretched himself. 'I'm hungry,' he said. 'Let's have out the food, Hussin. We've eaten nothing since before daybreak. I wonder what is the meaning of this respite?'
I fancied I knew.
'It's Stumm's way,' I said. 'He wants to torture us. He'll keep us hours on tenterhooks, while he sits over yonder exulting in what he thinks we're enduring. He has just enough imagination for that … He would rush us if he had the men. As it is, he's going to blow us to pieces, but do it slowly and smack his lips over it.'
Sandy yawned. 'We'll disappoint him, for we won't be worried, old man. We three are beyond that kind of fear.'
'Meanwhile we're going to do the best we can,' I said. 'He's got the exact range for his whizz-bangs. We've got to find a hole somewhere just outside the castrol, and some sort of head-cover. We're bound to get damaged whatever happens, but we'll stick it out to the end. When they think they have finished with us and rush the place, there may be one of us alive to put a bullet through old Stumm. What do you say?'
They agreed, and after our meal Sandy and I crawled out to prospect, leaving the others on guard in case there should be an attack. We found a hollow in the glacis a little south of the castrol, and, working very quietly, managed to enlarge it and cut a kind of shallow cave in the hill. It would be no use against a direct hit, but it would give some cover from flying fragments. As I read the situation, Stumm could land as many shells as he pleased in the castrol and wouldn't bother to attend to the flanks. When the bad shelling began there would be shelter for one or two in the cave.
Our enemies were watchful. The riflemen on the east burnt Very flares at intervals, and Stumm's lot sent up a great star-rocket. I remember that just before midnight hell broke loose round Fort Palantuken. No more Russian shells came into our hollow, but all the road to the east was under fire, and at the Fort itself there was a shattering explosion and a queer scarlet glow which looked as if a magazine had been hit. For about two hours the firing was intense, and then it died down. But it was towards the north that I kept turning my head. There seemed to be something different in the sound there, something sharper in the report of the guns, as if shells were dropping in a narrow valley whose rock walls doubled the echo. Had the Russians by any blessed chance worked round that flank?
I got Sandy to listen, but he shook his head. 'Those guns are a dozen miles off,' he said. 'They're no nearer than three days ago. But it looks as if the sportsmen on the south might have a chance. When they break through and stream down the valley, they'll be puzzled to account for what remains of us … We're no longer three adventurers in the enemy's country. We're the advance guard of the Allies. Our pals don't know about us, and we're going to be cut off, which has happened to advance guards before now. But all the same, we're in our own battle-line again. Doesn't that cheer you, Dick?'
It cheered me wonderfully, for I knew now what had been the weight on my heart ever since I accepted Sir Walter's mission. It was the loneliness of it. I was fighting far away from my friends, far away from the true fronts of battle. It was a side-show which, whatever its importance, had none of the exhilaration of the main effort. But now we had come back to familiar ground. We were like the Highlanders cut off at Cite St Auguste on the first day of Loos, or those Scots Guards at Festubert of whom I had heard. Only, the others did not know of it, would never hear of it. If Peter succeeded he might tell the tale, but most likely he was lying dead somewhere in the no-man's-land between the lines. We should never be heard of again any more, but our work remained. Sir Walter would know that, and he would tell our few belongings that we had gone out in our country's service.
We were in the castrol again, sitting under the parapets. The same thoughts must have been in Sandy's mind, for he suddenly laughed.
'It's a queer ending, Dick. We simply vanish into the infinite. If the Russians get through they will never recognize what is left of us among so much of the wreckage of battle. The snow will soon cover us, and when the spring comes there will only be a few bleached bones. Upon my soul it is the kind of death I always wanted.' And he quoted softly to himself a verse of an old Scots ballad:
'Mony's the ane for him maks mane,
But nane sall ken whar he is gane.
Ower his white banes, when they are bare,
The wind sall blaw for evermair.'
'But our work lives,' I cried, with a sudden great gasp of happiness. 'It's the job that matters, not the men that do it. And our job's done. We have won, old chap - won hands down - and there is no going back on that. We have won anyway; and if Peter has had a slice of luck, we've scooped the pool … After all, we never expected to come out of this thing with our lives.'
Blenkiron, with his leg stuck out stiffly before him, was humming quietly to himself, as he often did when he felt cheerful. He had only one song, 'John Brown's Body'; usually only a line at a time, but now he got as far as the whole verse:
'He captured Harper's Ferry, with his nineteen men so true,
And he frightened old Virginny till she trembled through and through.
They hung him for a traitor, themselves the traitor crew,
But his soul goes marching along.'
'Feeling good?' I asked.
'Fine. I'm about the luckiest man on God's earth, Major. I've always wanted to get into a big show, but I didn't see how it would come the way of a homely citizen like me, living in a steam-warmed house and going down town to my office every morning. I used to envy my old dad that fought at Chattanooga, and never forgot to tell you about it. But I guess Chattanooga was like a scrap in a Bowery bar compared to this. When I meet the old man in Glory he'll have to listen some to me.'
It was just after Blenkiron spoke that we got a reminder of Stumm's presence. The gun was