A Man Could Stand Up - Ford Madox Ford [54]
The Sergeant in the mouth of 'A' Company headquarters dugout started to turn out some sort of a guard, but Tietjens stopped him. 'A' Company ran itself on the lines of regulars in the depot. The O.C. had a conduct sheet book as neat as a ledger! The old, bald, grim fellow. Tietjens asked the Sergeant questions. Had they their Mills bombs all right? They weren't short of rifles--first-class order?...But how could they be! Were there any sick?...Two!...Well, it was a healthy life!...Keep the men under cover until the Hun barrage began. It was due now.
It was due now. The second-hand of Tietjens' watch, like an animated pointer of hair, kicked a little on the stroke of the minute...'Crumb!' said the punctual, distant sound.
Tietjens said to Aranjuez:
'It's presumably coming now!' Aranjuez pulled at the chin strap of his tin hat.
Tietjens' mouth filled itself with a dreadful salty flavour, the back of his tongue being dry. His chest and heart laboured heavily. Aranjuez said:
'If I stop one, sir, you'll tell Nancy Truefitt that...'
Tietjens said:
'Little nippers like you don't stop things...Besides, feel the wind!'
They were at the highest point of the trenches that ran along a hillside. So they were exposed. The wind had undoubtedly freshened, coming down the hill. In front and behind, along the trench, they could see views. Land, some green, greyish trees.
Aranjuez said:
'You think the wind will stop them, sir?' appealingly. Tietjens exclaimed with gruffness:
'Of course it will stop them. They won't work without gas. Yet their men hate to have to face the gas-screens. It's our great advantage. It saps their moral. Nothing else would. They can't put up smoke-screens either.'
Aranjuez said:
'I know you think their gas has ruined them, sir...It was wicked of them to use it. You can't do a wicked thing without suffering for it, can you, sir?'
It remained indecently quiet. Like Sunday in a village with the people in church. But it was not pleasurable.
Tietjens wondered how long physical irregularities would inconvenience his mind. You cannot think well with a parched back to your tongue. This was practically his first day in the open during a strafe. His first whole day for quite a time. Since Noircourt!...How long ago?...Two years?...Maybe!...Then he had nothing to go on to tell him how long he would be inconvenienced!
It remained indecently quiet! Running footsteps, at first on duckboards, then on the dry path of trench. They made Tietjens start violently, inside himself. The house must be on fire!
He said to Aranjuez:
'Some one is in a hurry!'
The lad's teeth chattered. They must have made him feel bad too, the footsteps...The knocking on the gate in 'Macbeth'!
They began. It had come. Pam...Pamperi...Pam! Pam!...Pa...Pamperi...Pam! Pam!...Pampamperipampampam...Pam...They were the ones that sound like drums. They continued incessantly. Immensely big drums. The ones that go at it with real zest...You know how it is, looking at an opera orchestra when the fellow with the big drum-sticks really begins. Your own heart beats like hell. Tietjens' heart, did. The drummer appears to go mad.
Tietjens was never much good at identifying artillery by the sound. He would have said that these were anti-aircraft guns. And he remembered that, for some minutes, the drone of plane engines had pervaded the indecent silence...But that drone was so normal it was part of the silence. Like your own thoughts. A filtered and engrossed sound, drifting down from overhead. More like fine dust than noise.
A familiar noise said: 'We...e...e...ry!' Shells always appeared tired of life. As if after a long, long journey they said: 'Weary!' Very much prolonging the 'e' sound. Then 'Whack!' when they burst.
This was the beginning of the strafe...Though he