Read Online The Penguin Book of First World War Stories by None, Anne-Marie Einhaus - Free Book Online

because I hadn’t made good that bally 3 road. I sent Hogbin with a chit to Warburton, telling him to take his platoon and establish posts three hundred yards beyond the road. And now comes this order from Division! What the devil do they mean?’
    Ellerton looked slowly round him and took a deep breath. The dull misty twilight of a greyish November afternoon was deepening about them. The worn
pavê
road, still littered with dêbris from the retreating German armies, ran with dreary straightness through bare blank fields. A few hundred yards in front were the meagre leafless trees of the main road from Maubeuge to Mons. To their left was a dirty little hamlet, intact except for the smoke-blackened ruins of the church, burned in 1914.
    â€˜I should say the war is ending.’
    Baron was amazed and annoyed by this remark.
    â€˜Don’t talk such nonsense! Why, we’re scarcely in Belgium yet, and we’ve got to get to Berlin. The old Boche will make a stand at every river, especially the Rhine. We’re miles ahead of our transport and most of the artillery. You know we’re tired out – ought to have been relieved days ago. The colonel says we’re going so fast the relieving division can’t overtake us. A regular staff yarn…’
    The motor despatch-rider had turned his machine and chugged off into the gloom. Ellerton sighed at Baron’s eloquent complaints. He more than half shared his pessimism about the duration of the war, though the Boches certainly were retreating in undisguised panic, and had made no attempt at a real standfor days. Still, you never knew with the old Boche. He had blown bridges, culverts, crossroads, with exemplary military destructiveness. Every railway they passed had each alternative rail most neatly blown about six inches – the maximum of destructiveness with the minimum of effort. The whole railway would have to be re-laid. They must be forty to sixty miles from rail-head. It certainly was impossible to fight even one more big battle at present… Ellerton sighed again.
    â€˜I suppose you’re right. Probably they don’t want us to overrun our objective and get involved in a premature action. I’ll go myself and tell Warburton to bring his platoon back.’
    â€˜All right. I’d better go and see the colonel again. He told me we were to continue the pursuit at dawn – I expect he’s changed his mind, too!’
    And the agitated little man, still occasionally pushing up his helmet, plodded off irritatedly.
    Ellerton found Warburton, a round-faced, yellow-haired young man, with a perpetual frown of perplexity giving verbose orders to a couple of sections.
    â€˜Hullo, Ellerton. I say, there must be a Boche machine-gun post somewhere to our front. I sent out a couple of patrols, and Corporal Eliot was killed – damn nuisance, one of our best NCOs. I’m going out with a couple of sections to try and snaffle the post after dark.’
    â€˜No, you’re not! There’s an order from Division just arrived – we’re to retire behind the Mons–Maubeuge road.’
    â€˜What on earth for?’
    â€˜God knows. But that’s the order.’
    Warburton swore copiously.
    â€˜And my best corporal’s killed!’
    C Company officers bivouacked that night in a cold empty cottage, which however had the luxury of a roof and of an undamaged board floor to sleep on. Iron rations. Baron denounced the lack of organization in the ASC, with several pointed hints to Warburton, the Company Mess President. The night was very cold, and they shivered as they lay on the floor in their trench coats. Gusts of raw, damp air flowed into theroom each time one of the sleeping officers was roused to relieve his predecessor on duty.
    Ellerton took the two-to-four watch, after nearly four hours’ sleep. Seated on the only available chair, in front of a biscuit-box table with a guttering candle stuck in a