This is their busy
hour.
Presently the pace grows even slower, and finally we stop altogether.
Another battalion has cut in ahead of us, and we must perforce
wait, snapping our fingers with impatience, like theatre-goers in
a Piccadilly block, whose taxis have been held up by the traffic
debouching from Berkeley Street.
"Luckily the curtain doesn't rise till five-fifty," observes Captain
Wagstaffe.
We move on again at last, and find ourselves in Central Boyau, getting
near the heart of things. Suddenly we are conscious of an overpowering
sense of relief. Our guns have ceased firing. For the first time for
three days and nights there is peace.
Captain Wagstaffe looks at his watch.
"That means that our first line are going over the parapet," he says.
"Punctual, too! The gunners have stopped to put up their sights and
lengthen their fuses. We ought to be fairly in it in half an hour."
But this proves to be an under-estimate. There are mysterious and
maddening stoppages--maddening, because in communication-trench
stoppages it is quite impossible to find out what is the matter.
Furious messages begin to arrive from the rear. The original form of
inquiry was probably something like this: "Major Kemp would like to
know the cause of the delay." As transmitted sonorously from mouth to
mouth by the rank and file it finally arrives (if it ever arrives at
all) in some such words as: "Pass doon; what for is this (asterisk,
obelus) wait?" But as no answer is ever passed back it does not much
matter.
Pages:
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285