FIGHTING MASCOT TOMMTK Class Book Gopiglit]!^?- CQEXRIGHT DEPGSm THE FIGHTING MASCOT I had got liim! I had got him! {Pcuje 35) THE FIGHTING MASCOT THE TRUE STORY OF A BOY SOLDIER BY THE BOY SOLDIER HIMSELF THOMAS JOSEPH KEHOE Rfm., No. 203144, 5th King's Liverpool Regiment WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY CLYDE FORSYTHE NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1918 40 '•r Copyright, 1918 By DODD, mead AND COMPANY, Inc. OCT VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY BiMaMAMTON AND NEW YO«K ©CI.A501965 S FOREWORD Bit hy hit Vve told this story of my adventures to recruiting meetings and Red Cross rallies and to lads I've met here and there on land and sea — told what- ever scrap of it came into my head and let the rest go for another time. I never could piece it all together the way it ought to he, and I was never a good hand at the writing. So I've found a writing man who knows a thing or two about how to straighten it all out and how to put the first part at the beginning and the last part at the end and the fighting and the talking and the rest in where they belong, while he drops what don't mat- ter much into his scrap basket. He's dropped more into that basket than I wanted him to, some fine songs I wrote for him from my own head having gone there; but the story's all here, with the hard words spelled right, and everything clear and sensible, which is more than ever I could have done myself. Thomas Joseph Kbhoe, Efm. P.S. — The writing man's name is E. L. Bacon, if anybody should wish to know. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I Squeezing in Through the Band ... 1 II Into the Big Noise 9 III In Dead Men's Alley 17 IV The Colonel Gets a Warning .... 23 V The Germans Come .30 VI The Lost Patrol 40 VII Ghosts of the Night '49 VIII Heroes and Cowards 57 IX "Hard Luck" Prophesies Again ... 66 X "Give 'Em THE Bayonet!" 74 XI It's the Fighting Fifth 84 XII The Mad Woman of Ypres 93 XIII Soldiers Three 100 XIV Bombs 108 XV Groping in the Dark 113 XVI The Low-Down Cur 119 XVII BoNESEY Becomes a Hero 126 XVIII The Man FROM America 134 XIX On the March -140 XX Sinking in the Bog . . . • • • -146 XXI The Battle of Flanders 154 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XXII Victims op the Huns 163 XXIII An Enemy Leaves Us 171 XXIV The Fight in the Stone House . . . 176 XXV An Old Pal "Goes West'' 189 XXVI Into the Trenches Again 200 XXVII I Meet "Israel Hands" 207 XXVIII "Good-Bye, Old Pals!" 215 XXIX I Meet the King 223 XXX The Last Adventure 229 ILLUSTRATIONS I had got him! I had got him! (Page 35) Frontispiece PACING PAGE One of our lads brought the butt of a gun down on his head 78 I felt the mud pulling me down 152 "Put the steel to 'im! Put the steel to 'im!" ... 182 1 THE FIGHTING MASCOT THE FIGHTING MASCOT CHAPTER I SQUEEZING IN THROUGH THE BAND I'M glad I never could learn to play a bugle. If ever I had caught the trick of it I should be blowing it yet, with never a look-in at the fighting. ^^If we was fightin' the Germans with chunes,'' the Bandmaster told me, ^^we'd have ye in the front trenches, me lad, and there 'd be a Hun drop dead every time ye gave a toot. ' ' I got to the front trenches all right, but not with a bugle. I carried a gun. I was three years too young for the firing line — just turned sixteen at my first battlei — but the Colonel couldn^t stand my bugling any longer. I was a Liverpool lad before I went to war. There's good seafaring blood in my veins, and I might have gone to sea myself. But my mother would say: '* Stick to the dry land, Tom. Your father 1 2 THE FIGHTING MASCOT was a sailor man, and now he's gone to the bottom, and his ship with him. Stick to the dry- land, my lad. There's too many dangers at sea." So I've stuck to it. But I've been through more dangers on land and been closer to death a hundred times than ever I should have been on the water. There's a bullet hole in my thigh and the scar from the butt of a German's gun on my head, and I should never have got them if I had followed the sea, the days of pirates being over. My mother and my step-father live at 15 Amelia Street, and the windows of our home look out over the big pier's head on the Eiver Mersey, where the liners come in. There's a little room up under the roof in that house where many's the night I've sat propped up in bed reading *^ Treasure Island" by candle light. I'll not soon forget the awful shock it gave me when my mother would glide in and take the candle away just when the pirates were doing their worst. I read that grand old book so many times that I shouldn't wonder if I could recite it back- ward if I tried. The more I read it the more SQUEEZING 3 I longed to sail away with a ship and see the world. But, remembering what my mother had said, I made up my mind that I should have to look for my adventures on land if there were any for me to find at all. If only I had lived in the days of Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver there would have been plenty of them, but I was afraid I had been born about one hundred and fifty years too late for such things. That^s what I was thinking just before the big war broke loose, which brought more ad- ventures than Jim Hawkins ever dreamed of. But how could I know the war was coming! I meant to get into that war, even though I was too young. It was too good to miss, and there might not be another in a life-time. I had blown a bugle a few times — just about enough to make a noise through it — and I thought that if they weren't very particular about how the music sounded I might get into the band of the Fifth King's Liverpool Eegi- ment, where Billy Clegg, who lived almost next door to us, was a rifleman. That would be a step to getting into the fighting ranks. I managed it without much trouble, and went with the battalion to Camp Oswestry, the train- 4 THE FIGHTING MASCOT ing camp near Cardiff. Nobody asked me whether I was much of a bugler and there was no reason why I should tell them. They would find out soon enough. And they did. The Colonel said I was the worst bugler in the serv- ice of the King, and what the Bandmaster said was even worse. By that time some of the riflemen wanted me as a mascot to bring them luck, and they did their best to help me get into the ranks. I weighed only ninety-six pounds and my height was only four feet ten, so it was hard to con- vince the Colonel that I was big enough, but the more he heard my bugling the more he seemed to like the idea of my carrying a gun. And at last he made a rifleman of me. I had to throw in three years to my age for good measure. I hope I may be forgiven for that one, for my mother brought me up to tell the truth. Anyway, it was in a good cause. In May, 1917, a batch of men was being made up for France, and our battalion was chosen. I took the train for Liverpool to say good-bye to my mother and my step-father and my friends. It was hard at home to say good-bye, for my SQUEEZING 5 mother cried over me and said she couldn't see why I wanted to go and fight at my age and come home with bullet holes through me and that it had been better had I gone to sea. But she screwed up her courage when it came time for me to go, and when I left the house she came running after me, threw her arms around me and tried to keep back the tears. As I marched down the street she stood in the door and cried after me words that came into my mind many a time after that: *^Be brave, have faith in God — and come back home!'' That night we crossed England on the train, and the following morning rolled into Folke- stone on the Channel. It was May 16, 1917 — my sixteenth birthday. That day we sailed for France. At the end of the first day's march toward the front there came a drizzling rain. A few hundred yards back from the road an old barn stood on the side of a hill, and it seemed to me it was just the kind of lodging I wanted. I found the door closed, and when I tried to open it a chorus of voices cried out: ^^No room! No room! Get out!" 6 THE FIGHTING MASCOT The Tommies were wedged in so close they were almost sleeping on top of one another. I prowled around to the rear, where I found a dog house built against the wall. I took off my pack, got down on hands and knees and began to creep in. Suddenly a man ^s foot was planted on top of my head and shoved me back. *'Well, blind me eyes!'' somebody croaked inside. ^^I thought it was the dog come back. Welcome to me 'umble 'ome, ye little swab. Come in." It was so dark inside that I couldn't see him at first, but as he seemed to be lying full length and as the dog house wasn't much more than five feet long I knew he couldn't be very big, especially as there was plenty of room for me alongside him. *^ Seems just like 'ome, matey," he said. ^^Many's the night in my young days in the old country I've slept in a dog 'ouse." I thought, ^ ^ This chap must have been a tramp before he joined the army." I asked him if the dogs never objected. ^^I never knew 'em not to," he answered. ^^But I'm death on dogs, matey. A bloke in my trade can't spend much time arguin' with SQUEEZING 7 'em. He's got to know 'ow to settle 'em." ** What's your trade!" I asked. *^Well, matey, a sort of a night worker's job was mine. Detective Martin, from Scotland Yard, who's now in A Company, could tell you a thing or two about wot I did. Knows all about me. Been keepin' an eye on me hever since we left England. Did you never 'ear of Bonesey? Well, that's me." Yes, I had heard of him, and I began to wish I hadn't crept into that dog house. The men in A Company had been talking about Bonesey only that day. They said he had been one of the cleverest housebreakers in England. My eyes were getting used to the dark and I took a look at him. His name certainly suited him, for he didn't seem to be much but skin and bones, though he looked healthy enough and as if he might be as strong as iron, as some bony men are. He was a middle-aged chap, whose hair was turning gray. He had sharp little eyes, a hard mouth, and an old scar lay across his nose. I thought that with a dark lantern in one hand and a pistol in the other he must have been a desperate looking lad when doing his housebreaking. 8 THE FIGHTING MASCOT iii That night I dreamed that Bonesey had crept into my room at home and was holding a gun at my head. Next day we were together on the march, and from that day on through six months of fighting we were pals. CHAPTER II INTO THE BIG NOISE THE next day we passed through little vil- lages where houses and churches had been torn with shells. Sometimes there would be nothing left of a village but ruins, with not a living thing in sight except now and then a lonely cat or dog. The noise of the guns was growing louder and louder. Boom! boom! boom! Even the ground seemed to shake. By afternoon we heard for the first time the rattle of machine guns. Typewriters was the name we learned for them after we got to the trenches, and they sound just enough like them to make a chap think of some girl pounding the keys in an office back home. Back home ! Oh, home and mother ! "Was I ever going to see them again! We knew when we heard the clickety-click of those typewriters that we were getting very near. I began to feel afraid. I couldn't help J 10 THE FIGHTING MASCOT it. I felt myself shaking; I could hardly hold my rifle. Billy Matchett, who was marching next to me, laughed. He had nerves of iron, that lad. The noise of the guns made him more and more cheerful the louder it grew. But there were other men — big chaps, too — who were shaking more than I was. They were as white as sheets, and one of them fainted and dropped in the road. He was a poor lad the Tommies had been calling ''Windy Dick'' be- cause he had been frightened ever since we left England. Windy is a word in the trenches to describe a chap who is nervous and jumpy un- der fire. But Windy Dick was a good enough sort at heart. He just couldn't help being afraid. While we were crossing the Channel he thought of nothing but submarines, and he had begun to shake the very first day we heard the guns. He had been shaking ever since. When I saw him drop I felt sorry for him and thought of what he had said to me one day on the march : ''Tommy" — and his voice was shaking even then — ' ' I hope I get shot before I 'm caught run- ning away or doing anything like that. It isn't that I'm not willing to die if I have to. It's the INTO THE BIG NOISE 11 fear of disgracing myself that worries me. I just can't help being afraid. It's my nerves." We left the poor chap for the water carts to pick up. He was going to have all the chance in the world to show himself a man later on. It was queer, but the sight of Windy and those other frightened lads braced me up, and the shaky feeling left me after a time. Once we got a glimpse of Ypres, far off — a ghostly lot of ruins; broken steeples, roofless houses, tumbling walls. Beyond it was a stretch of open ground without a tree or even a blade of grass, for the shells had ploughed up every inch of earth and pitted it with holes. Way off were low hills, half covered with patches of woods. I thought they were going to send us right into the fighting at the end of that day, but they didn't. Instead we slept beside the road, while our ears buzzed with a noise like the pounding of a thousand boiler makers on sheet iron. Yet with all that clatter most of the Jrag^ went sound asleep as soon as they were curled in their blankets, and didn't wake till morning. But Billy Clegg, Billy Matchett, old Bonesey and I cuddled up together and talked things 12 THE FIGHTING MASCOT over. Three of us were pals already and nat- urally got together whenever we had a chance and needed a little consolation, but Bonesey, who hadn't been in the same company with us till we got to Boulogne, was a brand-new chum. He seemed to take a liking to us, and he was about as hard to lose as a cootie after that. Before long the two Billies fell asleep, but Bonesey was a night owl and it was a long time before he stopped talking and dropped off. As for me, I was on the edge of the biggest adven- ture a boy could ever hope to find, and I lay thinking about it half the night, listening to the guns and watching the rockets and the shells against the black sky. In the morning the first thing I heard was the voice of Billy Clegg saying: ^ ^ I got some straw down my neck. I can 't get it ouf Then I discovered that I had a prickly feeling myself and began to dig for it. All around me the lads were doing the same thing. *^ Straw!'' said the Sergeant. ^^Why, that ain't straw you blighters have got. It's coot- ies." And he was right. We all had them — the lit- INTO THE BIG NOISE 13 tie crawlers that get into every soldier's clothes as soon as he gets to the front and stick to him like a loving brother till he gets back to Blighty. I wonder if Jim Hawkins had those things. I hadn't counted on them when I went adventure hunting. Before the sun set that day I had gone into the greatest bit of adventure a boy could ever hope to find, for that afternoon we filed into the trenches. Frightened? Oh, I'll admit it. So was Billy Clegg. I'm not so sure about Bonesey. He kept his mouth shut and looked as serious as an undertaker, and there was no telling how he felt. Billy Matchett was the only one of us who didn't change a bit, no matter how close the shells came. He went in humming a tune. We relieved the Black Watch, who had been there for weeks and who didn 't like the place a bit. They said it was one of the worst positions on the front — the dirtiest trenches, the biggest rats, the liveliest cooties and the hardest fight- ing. '^I feel a bit sorry for you poor blokes," said the big Black Watch trench guide who took us in. *^ After you've been in this blooming hell- 14 THE FIGHTING MASCOT hole as long as we have you'll be glad enough to get out. Keep your heads down, you pop- eyed blighters, if you don 't want Fritzie to drill holes through you. ' ' Those Black Watch lads made me open my eyes, I can tell you. Grimy they were as if they had been wallowing in mud for a year, and some had scars from knives or bayonets or bullets across their faces. Their regiment was famous already, for it had been through some of the hottest fighting of the war. Veterans, every one of them, these lads, who had seen more ter- rible things than I had ever dreamed of, who had killed Germans by the hundreds, who had had more wonderful escapes from death than they could remember. And here I was in their trenches chumming with them — with the heroes I had heard of so often — and one of a regiment come to take their places. It was a strange world, sure enough. Anything might come true after that. Bonesey nudged me as we filed along. *'Say, Mascot,'' he whispered; ^^I've seen 'ard-lookin' blokes in my time but never the like of these. Wy, that big lad that's leadin' us 'asn't 'ad a bath in ten years, and, blimey, if I INTO THE BIG NOISE 15 don't believe 'e was a murderer before 'e joined the army from the looks of 'im. How'd you like to meet a chap like that alone in a dark alley, nowT' Bonesey was a hard-looking blighter himself, but he looked as sweet as an angel beside those Black Watchers. I hadn't been in the trenches half an hour before I forgot my fear. It seemed to be a fairly safe place, after all. Shells were flying overhead, and now and then a bullet plunked into the parapet, but hidden down there I didn 't see any pressing need for worry. That's what I was thinking, when suddenly a fine young lad jumped to the firing step to get a look at the Germans. He lifted head and shoulders above the top, and looked over. Just below him I stood staring up at him, wonder- ing at his recklessness. I saw him wave his cap, like the poor, innocent rookie he was, and I heard a sergeant roar at him to come down. He did come down, that very instant, falling backward almost on top of me, with a bullet hole in his head. The sight turned me half sick with fear and horror. He was the first man I have ever seen 16 THE FIGHTING MASCOT killed, and though I Ve seen hundreds dead and dying since that time I shall never forget the way he came tumbling down in a heap at my feet, without a cry or a groan. You never for- get the first dead man ; afterward there are too many to remember. The Black Watch went away to a well-earned rest before long and their trenches became ours. But the lad who had led us in hung on for a. time to tell us a few more pleasant things about what we might expect. The more he told us the sadder we grew, and the sadder he saw us growing the worse became his story of what we had come to. CHAPTER III IN DEAD men's ALLEY MAKE your wills and say your prayers/' said the big Black Watcher, ' ' for if any of you lads get out of this hole alive you'll be lucky, I can. tell you that. Dead Men's Alley we've named it, for of all the blooming unlucky spots on the line this bit of trench is the worst. ' ' Maybe we weren't a nervous lot when we heard that! Ow! I felt cold and shaky all over. Something happened a few minutes later that didn't make me feel any better, I can tell you. There came a sound like a railroad train go- ing through a tunnel with the engine whistle go- ing. Then came a crash that seemed to shake the whole trench, and not a hundred feet from where I stood a black column of smoke shot up to the sky. A shell had struck against our sand-bags. When the smoke cleared away I saw a man's body hanging over our wires and another lying 17 18 THE FIGHTING MASCOT across tlie parapet. Soon the news ran along the line that three others had been struck by pieces of the shell and badly wounded. A thing that seemed strange to us, who were new to the queer ways of shells, was that a lad who had been standing only two yards from the explosion was not hurt nor even knocked off his feet, though a man close beside him had been blown out of the trench and was one of those I had seen lying dead. For the first few hours after the Black Watch chap and his regiment of grimy old veterans left us it didn't take much to make us think the Germans were coming. Sometimes one of us would believe he smelled gas and we would grab for our masks. If the German typewrit- ers rattled a little louder than usual our offi- cers would imagine they were getting ready for a raid and would call every man of us to the firing step. The first time I got there I found I couldn't reach to the top, so I got a sand bag and stood on it. That made me just high enough to see over and shoot. But the first Hun we saw came from another direction than we expected. With a loud buzz- ing noise he dropped down on us in his airplane IN DEAD MEN^S ALLEY 19 right out of the sky and swooped along our trench not a hundred feet above our heads, pep- pering us with lead as he went. One man was killed not ten feet from where I stood and sev- eral more dropped not very far away. I had often wondered what it was going to be like to be under fire and had never once thought that I shouldn't have the nerve to face it. But when I saw that lad fall dead almost at my side while the shadow of that big, buzzing monster was creeping along the trench the old shaky feeling got hold of me again and I was as weak as a baby. I crouched in the bottom of the trench and covered my eyes to shut out the sight of the horrible thing overhead, and I thought of No. 15 Amelia Street and of what a safe, cosy, comfortable home it was. Oh, that little room of mine at home, and ^^ Treasure Is- land *' by candle light! It was all over in a moment. The buzzing noise died away and the stretcher bearers were coming through the trench after the dead and wounded. I got to my feet and looked about to make sure nobody had noticed me. The men I saw were too busy watching the sky to pay any at- 20 THE FIGHTING MASCOT tention to what might be going on in the trench. I looked up. There, far above ns, the Hun was being attacked by one of our own flyers. They circled round and round each other, firing all the time, and then Fritzie broke away and flew off as fast as he could go, our man giving him a hot chase. A big, black thunder cloud was rolling up from the East and Fritzie made for it. In a moment they had both disappeared inside of it. While we watched for them we could hear the thunder bellow and see flashes of lightning. They had gone right into the heart of the storm. Then came a streak of lightning that blinded us, and in the same instant out of the spot from which the flash had come an airplane, disabled and helpless, dropped as straight as a rock over the German lines. Whether it was our man or Fritzie we had no way of knowing, but a moment later the other plane came swooping out of the storm and cir- cled easily down behind our trenches. Then we knew it was Fritzie who had lost the fight and you should have heard the cheers that our men sent up. Even the Germans heard them way IN DEAD MEN'S ALLEY 21 off in their lines, and answered them with a terrific rattling of their typewriters. One of our sentries was killed a few minutes later. I had a good look at him as they carried him past us on a stretcher. He was a man I had known at Oswestry, and he had been joking with me only that morning. I had seen more than one man die that day, but the sight of that lad that I had known so well made death seem more dreadful than ever before. I had heard him speak of his mother and sisters he had left at home, and I felt like crying when I thought of them. That night we crept into our dug-outs to sleep. Next to me lay Billy Matchett. *^Well, Mascot,'' said Billy, **here we are in it at last ; right into all that we 've been dream- ing about. Seems queer, don't it? Begin to wish you were back home, don't you now?" * ^ Not yet, Billy, ' ' I answered. * ^ I want to see the whole thing through. Then home will seem like a good place to get back to for a while." I meant every word of it, for the big adven- ture was only just beginning then, but if any- body had asked me the same question a month 22 THE FIGHTING MASCOT or two later, after we had been shot at and shelled and bombed and gassed and had slept in mud and rain along the Flanders roads I think I should have given a different answer. CHAPTER IV THE COLONEL GETS A WAENING THE Black Watcher liad told us those were the worst dug-outs he had ever been in. I don't believe he exaggerated. They couldn't have been worse. They were so small that only four men could creep into one and they were dirty and smelly. If the four men happened to be big chaps they had to sleep almost on top of one another, but I was so small that there were really only three and a half in ours and, one of them being Billy Matchett, who was long and narrow, we had room to spare. ' ' Sleep tight, Mascot, ' ' said Billy. ' ' No tell- ing how soon they'll call us out of this." But how can a fellow sleep tight when a rat runs over his face every ^yq minutes! I had no more than dropped off when the first one came. The feet of a rat are the most horrible, cold, clammy things in the world and when they pattered right across my face I came wide awake with a jump and a yell. 23 24 THE FIGHTING MASCOT Up jumps Billy the same moment. * * Ow ! I say, Mascot ! I can 't stand tliis, yon know. That thing was kissing me, that's what he was.'^ * ^ Oh, let him kiss yon ; what 's the difference 1 ' ' somebody growls in the dark. All four of us grumble and squirm a while; then we drop off. *^0w!'' It's Billy's voice again. *'I say! That rat's come back." ^*Pull your coat over your face and shut up." Billy and I took the hint, and slept till the Sergeant called us out. That morning we heard that the Prussian Guard had taken the places of the Saxons in the trenches facing us and that we might ex- pect trouble. Prussians always mean trouble. They're the best fighters in the Kaiser's army — the best, the meanest, the crudest. The Fritzies' artillery and ^typewriters" were much busier after the Prussians arrived, and our lads on the firing step didn't take any chances in sticking their heads up any higher than they had to. A lad gets used to the * typewriters " and the rifles, but oh, those big guns ! They sent all THE COLONEL GETS A WARNING 25 kinds of stuff at us, but the whiz-bangs were the worst. We called them that because of the way they went — with a whiz and a bang. A whiz-bang does a plucky lot of damage when it strikes, and very often they struck much too near to be pleasant. It made me nervous watch- ing them and wondering how much would be left of me if one should explode too close. One of these things struck our cook house, smashed it to pieces and killed every cook on duty — five of them. Dinner was an hour late that day. After that whenever the food wasn 't up to the mark some lad would be sure to say, ^'I'm thinking it's about time we had some more cooks killed.'' Everybody had an idea that with all that fir- ing the Prussians were getting ready to raid us and to show us what kind of lads they were. But there wasn't one of them to be seen all day — not even a helmet popping up. I know now why they didn't come; they had another kind of a game in mind. We had all heard, of course, of the miners, the moles who spend all their time tunnelling deep under No Man's Land with shovels and picks hoping to plant a charge of dynamite under the 26 THE FIGHTING MASCOT enemy ^s trench. We had seen some of our own, who would disappear into dark holes and be gone for hours. A story spread along the line that the Germans^ miners were digging under- neath us and that we might expect to be blown to the sky any minute. We didn't know whether to believe it or not, but it wasn't good for our nerves. As for me, I should rather have heard the whole German army was coming at us than to feel that we might be standing over a mine. Along came Bonesey, looking glum as an owl. ^* What's the trouble, Bonesey, old boy?" I sung at him, trying to cheer him a bit. ^ ' You 're not worrying about that mine 1 ' ' **Mine be blowed! If one goes off under me I'll never know it, so wot should I care? It's this Scotland Yard lad that's on me nerves, little man. When I joined the army I thought I was goin' to be somewheres where the police wouldn't be botherin' of me, but that lad's got 'is eye on me hevery time I come within sight of 'im. Wot's he think I'm up to now — 'ouse- breakin'?" A Eoyal Welsh Fusilier, whose regiment held the same line with ours, came along a moment later and began to tell us of what had been going THE COLONEL GETS A WARNING 27 on before we arrived. He had been in the war ever since it started, and he told us things that made our eyes open. He told us how the Huns tortured prisoners and women and children and of horrible things he had seen with his own eyes. From what we heard from him and later from many others, too, I knew that the Huns had gone mad, the whole race of them, that fighting them was just like fighting savages and that it might be better to be killed than to fall alive into their hands. And I knew it not only from what I heard but from what before long I saw myself ; terrible things that sent cold shivers through me and that I couldn't get out of my thoughts. I would dream of them at night, and sometimes I would wake up with a cry, thinking those fiends had come to torture me. *^We old timers don't take any prisoners,'' said the Welshman. *^Not after what we've seen. After you've been in the trenches a month, my boy, you'll find killing Huns is just like killing vermin. You'll know the Lord is glad every time you stick your bayonet into one." I've heard stories of how the North Ameri- can Indians tortured people, but they were not 28 THE FIGHTING MASCOT as bad as what I heard and saw in Flanders. That Welshman had heard about the mine, too, and he told us it wouldn't surprise him if the whole trench went up into the air before long. He said the talk about the mine had been going on for days and that all the officers had heard it and had put our miners at work investi- gating. The miners, he said, thought at first that it might have been the rats that had started the scare and that the sound caused by their scurrying about in the dark had been mistaken for the scraping and shovelling of underground Germans. But he thought they must have given up that idea, because they were still searching for a tunnel. ^ ^ But I 'm telling you, ' ' he said, * ' that getting blown up by a mine would be the pleasantest sort of an end a Britisher could come to in this plaguey spot.'' I Ve met more cheerful lads than that Welsh- man. He was as solemn as a mourner at a funeral, and he talked about nothing but trou- ble. Five minutes with him would take the laugh out of a laughing hyena. I felt glum for the rest of the day. A mine right under my feet, as likely as not, and a couple of hundred THE COLONEL GETS A WARNING 29 yards away the worst fiends on earth waiting for a chance to torture me. Nice place I had come to. That evening came an order to withdraw to a trench in the rear, and we knew the mine story must be true. "We filed out through the communication trenches, leaving the sentries to keep guard until we were gone. Fifteen minutes later came a crash and a roar that staggered me. The whole world seemed to be blowing to pieces. Smoke and flame and flying earth filled the whole sky. Then it came again and again. Boom! boom! boom ! It was enough to burst our ear drums — the most awful noise I had ever heard. Then out of the great black smoke cloud the body of a man was tossed a hundred feet into the air — one of our own men who had stayed behind too long. We learned later that our miners had discov- ered not ten minutes before the order came for us to get out that the Germans were ready to blow us up, and word had been sent to the Colo- nel in a hurry. It's lucky the Colonel acted promptly. The old boy could act as quick as lightning when there was trouble in the wind. CHAPTER V THE GERMANS COME THAT cloud of smoke had scarcely disap- peared when the Germans opened up on us with everything they had. Bullets and shells were flying everywhere. The whiz-bangs tore gaps in our wire fences and in our sand-bag par- apet. Showers of sand, earth and pebbles fell over us and half blinded us. We lost some men; how many I don't know, but I saw two blown to pieces by a shell that dropped right into the trench. We four pals — Billy Clegg, Billy Matchett, Bonesey and I — were squatting in the trench in the dark, glad it wasn't our turn on the firing step in all that fuss, when along came that same funeral-faced Welshman. **I say, old 'Ard Luck," shouted Bonesey; **wot's biting yer now?" **That mine was there all right," croaked Welshie. ' ' Didn 't I tell you ? And I 'm telling THE GERMANS COME 31 you now that there's more trouble coming be- fore long." As he spoke we heard somebody shouting orders down the trench. ^'Coming!" yelled Billy Clegg. ''Its' here now!'' And he jumped to his feet. The same instant came the gas-mask signal. I grabbed for mine. My hands were shaking so I could hardly hold it, but there wasn't any time to lose if I wanted to live. As I fumbled with it I kept mumbling to myself, ''Fifteen seconds ! Fifteen seconds! One, two, three, four — " According to instructions, fifteen seconds was about the time allowed for a gas wave to arrive, and if that mask wasn't adjusted properly by the time I had counted fifteen then good-bye to Tommy Kehoe. I had got up to ten and was still fumbling, when Welshie grabbed me and put the thing in place on my head. Then we both jumped for the firing step. Not one hundred feet away a long, low fog bank was creeping toward us close to the ground. It was the gas wave. Our rockets were shooting up through the dark, and in their glare the wave turned yellow and red and green 32 THE FIGHTING MASCOT as it rolled on. Behind it all was pitch black. By the light of the rockets I could look along our line of trench and see our lads in helmets and masks stiff as statues, with their rifles pointing over the parapet. My mask was warm and stifling, and I felt like pulling it off for a big breath of fresh air before the wave should reach us, but I didn't dare. I had heard of men who had taken such a chance and who hadn't lived to tell of it. One moment the wave was sparkling white, like phosphorescent surf on a sand-bar, the next it gleamed green and red, like the deadly thing it was. And it crept toward us, oh, so slowly. Perhaps it was only ten seconds before it rolled over the sand bags, but it seemed like ten times as long. Then it swept over us. I gasped for air. I thought I was suffocating. I was sure there was a hole in my mask somewhere and that it was all over with me. But it wasn't as bad as that. I was half stifled, but there was a lot of life left in me, though the gas did get a few fellows — knocked them flat. There wasn't time to do any thinking about THE GERMANS COME 33 the lack of air, for I saw something else rolling toward us, way out in the dark. Another gas wave, I thought. The fellows beside me were firing into it as fast as they could pull the trig- gers and I got busy with my rifle too. But why were they shooting at a wave! Then I saw what it was — not a gas wave but a mass of charging men. And how they did come! It seemed only an instant before they were in plain view — hundreds of hooded Huns, rushing on with fixed bayonets. What marks they were, all massed together, with the rockets throwing a glare over them! We scarcely had to take aim. Our bullets were sure to find them. I saw them fall, sometimes groups of them going down together. The ma- chine guns were mowing lanes right through their ranks. Yet they never once stopped. Again and again the gaps in their ranks closed up. Always came more men from over there in the dark to take the places of the dead and wounded. Not a hundred feet away they were when our lads were jumping to the parapet to meet them with their bayonets. I made a leap for the top of the ladder, grabbed at it, missed and 34 THE FIGHTING MASCOT slipped back. Somebody reached out a hand and pulled me up. Almost on us they were. Oh, never in my worst dreams — and IVe had many a bad one since then — have I seen a more dreadful sight than that. They came at us out of the dark like fiends from another world, like the pictures I We seen of men from Mars, for their heads were covered with the most devilish-looking masks that anybody could imagine, masks with huge round eyes and long, piggish snouts. Shells were bursting above them, machine guns were tearing through their ranks and their masks were white and ghastly in the light of the rock- ets. Many a time I had thought of what war would be like, but never had I thought I should look on such a sight as that. ^^ Fight or die. Tommy Kehoe! Fight or die!" That's what I told myself as I crouched in front of the sand bags, with my bayonet ready for them. Whopping big men they were, head and shoul- ders above me. But as I waited there a thought flashed through me of the Bantam regiment, lit- tle fellows scarcely bigger than I, who had made THE GERMANS COME 35 good against even those giant Prussians. Size didn't count behind a bayonet. It was quick- ness that counted. I was sure of it. If it didn't then it was all over with me. Even then, when they were almost up to us, how the guns were mowing them down! It looked as if none could be left in a moment or two. But those that didn't fall came on like madmen and poured through the lanes where the big guns had levelled our wires. One — he was a six-footer if he was an inch — ran straight for me with his bayonet out. I crouched and thrust at him — thrust upward. His bayonet went over my shoulder. He stag- gered and fell over my gun. I had got him! I had got him! In the stomach ! 'Twas lucky for me there was no time to think over it or to stand there gaping at the dead Hun hanging over my gun with his masked head almost touching me, for it was horrible. For a second or two I turned dizzy and sick. But it was fight again or die. I jerked my rifle back and stumbled over the dead man as he flopped to the ground. **Make for their stomachs, Tommy Kehoe! 36 THE FIGHTING MASCOT Make for their stomachs!'' I told myself. **Size don't count." A fellow was coming for me swinging his gun above his head ready to strike me with the butt. He frightened me. I hadn't counted on that kind of fighting. Just then somebody stuck him from behind with a bayonet and he fell. There were more Huns coming and I thought it was all up with us. But as I looked at them again I saw that they were without their rifles and that they were holding their hands above their heads. They were surrendering. The fight was over. Yes, it was over, but dead and wounded men were all about us, and we had lost many of our own. I didn 't recognize any of them as they lay there, for they were masked, but later I found that lads I had known were missing. There was much work for the stretcher bearers in front of the trenches that night. Dangerous work it was, too, for the Huns never stopped shooting at them. Before long a wind sprang up that blew the gas away, and we pulled off our masks, glad to breathe the fresh air again. Oh, how good that fresh wind was in our faces ! We got together THE GERMANS COME 37 in little groups and talked over the fight. One lad named John Goldstein, from London, showed us a steel breastplate he was wearing under his uniform. He said his father had sent it to him hoping it would save his life. ^ ^ And it has saved it, ' ^ Goldstein said. * ^ Look here.'' He struck a match and showed us a dent in the breastplate close to his heart, and a little above it he pointed out a scratch. *^The dent's where a bullet struck," he said. ** Knocked me flat on my back, but that's all the harm it did, thanks to my old man at home. And that scratch I got from a Boche bayonet. The Hun ran at me and jabbed me hard. Must have thought I wasn't human when his bayonet wouldn't go through. He's out there near the wires now, what's left of him. I got him." **This workin' in the dark is wot suits me," said Bonesey. *^I got three of the beggars, but I'd 'ave 'ated to meet 'em by day. I never was no good in the daytime. ' ' From somewhere in the dark I heard, ^'Didn't I tell you there was going to be trouble?" I knew that voice. It belonged to that funeral- faced Welshie. 38 THE FIGHTING MASCOT *^No need of tellin' us, old 'Ard Luck,'' sung out Bonesey. *' There's always trouble comin' when you 're about. ' ' ^^Cheero!" said Billy Matchett. *'It's all over." And he sat down in the bottom of the trench and sang: "Are loe downhearted now? Not likely ichile Britannia rules the leaves! While we've Jacky on the sea and Tommy on the land We needn't fret. It's a long, long way to Tipperary, But we're not downhearted yet." **Come and sing. Mascot," he said, *'and for- get about trouble for a little. ' ' I sat down beside him in the dark, and we sang together '^The Ship That's Bound for Blighty," *'Boys in Khaki, Boys in Blue," and ''Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty," and for a time I forgot about the bloody work we had had that night. Some of the lads came along and crouched down beside us to listen. When we had finished old Bonesey pulled me up and pounded me on the back. "I'm thinkin' the Mascot made good," he said. "The bloomin' little shaver got one — THE GERMANS COME 39 right in the stomach. Ain't he the cute little beggar nowT' Bonesey always did have a good word to put in for me. But I didn't need it that night. I had killed my first German, and I was as puffed up with pride over it as a lad who's just got his V. C. CHAPTER VI THE LOST PATROL BILLY CLEGG was a great lad for dreams. Once he dreamed that a German officer was lying in the bottom of a shell hole near our wires with a wounded leg. And, so help me, it was the truth. The German was found there the night after Billy told about it. I was never much of a believer in dreams and things like that myself, but the lads in the trenches get to believe almost anything, so many queer things happen there, and IVe more faith in dreams than I once had. IVe kno^vn them to come true many a time. Two of Billy Clegg's did — the one about the German and another about himself. ^^ Mascot,'' he said to me one morning as he crawled out of his dug-out, ^'I had a bad one last night.'' ** About what?" said L *^ About being out between the lines," an- swered Billy. *^0w! It makes me shiver yet. 40 THE LOST PATROL 41 It was this way : They sent me out in the dark with a patrol. That is, in my dream they did. The first thing we knew we had walked right into a party of Germans three times as big as our own. They were all around us, and we couldn't get away. And they came at us with the bayonets. '^ '^And what happened to youT' I asked. ^^I don't know a blooming thing more about what happened," said Billy. ''That's the end of the dream." And that same day they picked Billy Clegg as one of a party to go out on patrol. That night he and fifteen other lads went out. I saw them go. Just before they climbed up over the sand bags Billy came up to me and shook me by the hand. A fine young fellow he was, all smiles and jokes as a rule, but he looked as solemn as an owl just then. ''Good-bye, Mascot," he said. "And if I shouldn't come back write a letter home for me." Standing on the firing step, I put my head over the top and watched them go out. I could see them until they had passed through the lanes between our wires and a little beyond ; then the 42 THE FIGHTING MASCOT darkness swallowed them up. I wondered whether I should ever see Billy Clegg again. ^^Of course he'll come back/' I told myself. ^'That dream has got on his nerves. But there's no sense in dreams, and anyway he didn 't dream he was killed. ' ' Then I turned in for some sleep. It was daylight when I woke up, and the big guns were booming, as they almost always were. ^^Did our patrol get back all right?" I asked of a sergeant. * ^ Still out, ' ' he answered. ^ ^ Something gone wrong perhaps, or they may be lying safe out in shell holes or in the wood over yonder." The morning passed, and they hadn't re- turned. But we didn't give up hope, because patrols had been known to stay out two or three days and come back safe. By the time it grew dark our officers decided that something must have happened to the patrol. There came a call for volunteers to go out and search for them. In the party were Bones ey and I and eight others. It was dangerous work, because the sky was clear, there was no fog, and the moon was due in less than an hour. It was dark enough THE LOST PATROL 43 to hide us from the German trenches, but if the moon should come up in a clear sky we should have to come back in a hurry, and more than likely the Boches would drop us on the way. It was rough going, because almost every square yard of the ground had been churned up by shells. Sometimes we sank to our ankles, and, as the earth was sticky, it was hard to pull our feet out. Whenever the Germans sent up a light we dropped flat on the ground and lay there till it grew dark again. We had been prowling about for perhaps fif- teen minutes, when Bonesey dropped to the ground and pulled me down beside him. ^^ Bodies,'^ he whispered. The beggar's ears were as sharp as a bird dog's. * ' I can 't hear anything, ' ' I said. ^ ^ Whisht ! Listen ! ' ' whispered Bonesey. The rest of the patrol had followed our ex- ample, and were lying flat, too. We lay still for a full minute. Then I heard voices. They seemed to be drawing nearer. The men, who- ever they were, were speaking very softly, but now and then we could hear their footsteps and the rattling of their guns. 44 THE FIGHTING MASCOT *' Perhaps they are our own men/^ I said. ^'Don^t be fooling of yourself, little boy,'' an- swered Bonesey. ** Didn't I 'ear 'em talking? And don 't I know their bloomin ' language when I 'ears it I" The next moment I saw them. They were coming straight toward us. I counted them. Twenty-two ! We were outnumbered more than two to one. If they saw us we were as good as done for. Oh, what beautiful marks they were ! We could have drawn a line on eight of them and missed not one. That would have left fourteen, and we might have got a few more before they would begin shooting. But then what would happen? As soon as they heard the firing the Germans in the trenches would open up on us with their star-lights and guns and wipe us out. It's never safe to fire a gun in No Man's Land. The patrol came closer. I almost stopped breathing, thinking every second that they would see us. For a moment one of them stood so near to me that I could have reached out and almost touched him. I don't think I breathed at all while he stood there. I thought he must hear my heart pounding against my ribs, for it THE LOST PATROL 45 TV as going like a trip-hammer. But he passed on, and after a few moments I heard Bonesey whisper : ^'They're gone. Blind me eyes! IVe 'ad close squeezes, Mascot, but never one like that.*' I jumped up and gasped for air. I was shak- ing all over. We waited, listening, a little while; then we moved on. After a few minutes of prowling about we decided we should have to go back, or the moon would catch us. We had just turned toward our own trench when we came across a body. It was one of the men in the missing patrol. There was a bayonet hole through him. We searched over the ground near where he lay and found six more of them, all dead. The others we couldn't find, and we were sure they must have been taken prisoners. I saw one of our lads bending' over one of the bodies. He looked up and turned to me. ^^Give a hand, Mascot,'' he said, ^*and we'll carry him in. It's Billy Clegg." It was hard going and all we could do to get across the rough ground with the bodies, but we knew we had to move fast. Once I looked over 46 THE FIGHTING MASCOT my shoulder, and what I saw gave me a scare. Over the German trenches the sky was growing bright. Suddenly a glow of light fell over us. The moon was up. The Germans would surely get sight of us in a moment. Just then we came up against the wires- — our own wires, and in an- other minute we were safe. The next day the postman brought a letter and a package for Billy Clegg. The letter was from his girl, for I knew her writing — a pretty girl in Liverpool whom he had hoped to marry some day. There was a package for me, too, from my mother. Inside were some things to eat and a mouth organ. I played the mouth organ and Billy Matchett sang a song, while we tried to forget about what had happened to Billy Clegg. But I couldn't forget that the poor lad had asked me to write to his people at home. I'm a bad hand at writing, but I got out a pencil and paper and did the best I could. I got as far as, * * You will be sorry to hear that Billy is dead, ' ' and there I stuck. I couldn't think of another word to say that would do any good. After a lot of thinking I made up my mind to add that THE LOST PATROL 47 the Bodies drove a bayonet through him, but Bonesey told me not to. ^^You got to write only wot's cheerful and consoling," he said. "Say, ' 'E died like a 'ero, fighting for hold England.' '' So I did, and let it go at that. "Now,'' said Bonesey, "I'm thinking that I should be doing some writing myself. The close squeeze I 'ad last night has set me thinking that I may get killed before this war is over, and my will's not made." He pulled out his pay book, for there is a blank place left in them for the lads to make their wills, and began to write. "Didn't know you had a family, Bonesey," I said. "Not a soul belonging to me in this world, ' ' he answered. "Then what's the good of making a will?" "There might be a few shillings of back pay comin' to me," he said, "and there's a few lit- tle things I've left back in London." "Who's going to get it?" "A girl. Mascot. She's the daughter of a lad that was once a pal of mine. Shot by me side, 'e was, while we was doing a little job of 'ouse- 48 THE FIGHTING MASCOT breaking one night. I've looked after 'er since she wasn 't much more than knee 'igh to me, and many's the night I've taken chances with the bobbies to get swag enough for 'er proper schoolin'. She's full grown now and able to look after 'erself, but she 'asn't forgotten old Bonesey, not she. ^'When we marched off for the war about every blighter in the company 'ad somebody come to see 'im off and wish 'im well. And I says to myself, ^I'm the only bloke in the lot that 's got nobody to say good-bye to. ' *^But, so 'elp me, the next minute I gets me eyes on that little lassie, come hall the way from London to give me a cheer. Blimey, if it didn 't make me feel good ! * ^She'll get the back shillings coming to me. Mascot, and w'atever else I've got, for she's the only bloomin' soul on earth wot will drop a tear for Bonesey when 'e's planted under the dais- ies." A shell ploughed into the sand bags, and the shock almost sent the pad out of his hands ; but he held onto it and began to write his will. CHAPTER VII GHOSTS OF THE NIGHT NIGHT sentry-go is an ugly, creepy job. My first try at it was the longest night I've ever put in. Afterward it wasn't so bad. * * So that mascot of ours is going to guard us to-night," said Billy Matchett, who thought he was a great joker because before he joined the army he got his living in the music halls in that way and with his singing. ^'That means the Boches will get us sure. The kid's scarce old enough to keep awake in the daytime, let alone at night." Then he and big Tom Brannigan got busy stretching the joke along till I felt like giv- ing them a feel of my bayonet. Red-headed Murphy joined in with them, too, and he was worse than either of them, for he never knew when to stop, but I saw him killed on the road to Arras a month later and I can forgive him for all the fun he got out of me. Sentry-go was two hours on and two hours off 49 50 THE FIGHTING MASCOT all night. I hadn't slept well the night before, for the '* cooties'' and the rats had been after me hard, but up there alone on the firing step I felt so important that I forgot all about being sleepy. I got to thinking of all the sleeping soldiers I was guarding from danger and of how the lives of all of them might hang on how well I did the job in case the Huns should creep up in the dark. And I said to myself : ^^It's quite a job for a sixteen-year-old lad, Tommy Kehoe, and you should be proud of yourself. There's many a friend of yours at home in Liverpool that would like to be in your shoes tonight." Sometimes it grew so quiet that I could hear our men talking together in low voices in the dug-outs. One voice was shrill and squeaky, and I knew it belonged to ** Windy" Bullen, who was always talking about the ** cooties" and rats he had killed. He was a proud lad whenever he killed a ** cootie" that was differ- ent from the rest. ** Blimey now," I heard him squeaking, *4f it wasn't pink with green eyes, the bloody bloater! And he chawed clean through me bloomin' 'ide!" GHOSTS OF THE NIGHT 51 Then the artillery would begin again or a machine gnn would break loose. Every few minutes a star-light would go up from the Ger- mans^ trenches, and, oh! it was a lovely sight as it sent a soft glow over all the ugly shell holes. It was like watching fireworks at home on a holiday, only the air smelled better at home, for there there weren't any dead bodies lying about. Whenever a star-light went up I could see some of those bodies. When my legs grew stiff from standing still looking over the sand bags I marched back and forth along the firing step. A guard can do that, but it's none too safe, for you never know when the Germans will get busy. I had heard of a night guard who was taking a little walk to stretch his legs, when a Hun crept up and knocked him on the head just as he made the turn in his beat, and I couldn't help thinking that the same thing might happen to me. Two hours of it brought my lay-ofP, and I got a little sleep till the Sergeant rapped me up with a biff on the sole of my foot. Then back again to the firing step. Nothing to do but stand there looking over the sand bags wondering whether a sniper would get me. More likely it 52 THE FIGHTING MASCOT would be a machine gun, for it was too black for snipers. A sniper is a wonder when the moon is up or the stars bright and the air clear, but dark nights put him out of business, and I felt lucky for that. Snipers or no, a guard has to keep his helmet over the top more or less. Except when the star-lights went up, I could see just about as far as our wires. Just in front of me something black was swinging against them. It was a dead Hun with his head hang- ing down. How long he had been there I don't know, but I got a strong whiff of him every time the breeze came toward me and he couldn't have been a new comer. The worst thing about night sentry-go is the trouble a lad has keeping awake. If you go to sleep and the Sergeant catches you — ow ! They could shoot a man for doing that, and no matter how lucky he may be he never gets off easy. But I couldn't help getting sleepy. I tried to keep awake by walking, but as soon as I would come back to my perch I would begin to nod again. And then I dropped off. I didn't know anything more till I heard a low whistle. That brought me wide awake with a jump. I had been standing up, leaning against GHOSTS OF THE NIGHT 53 my gun, but I may have been snoring for all I knew. It gave me an awful scare. For a sec- ond I didn^t know whether the whistle had come from the Sergeant or a German, but either way would have been bad enough. I thought I was done for. Then from somewhere down in the trench came a whisper: ' ' Whisht ! Wake up. Mascot ! ' ' So it wasn't either the Sergeant or a Hun, and I was safe. I kept wide awake after that. There's something about night sentry-go that stirs up a lad 's imagination till everything about him is like a dream, and mostly like a bad dream, too. The Irish boys from Liverpool are al- ways seeing ghosts in the dark. Brannigan used to see a headless soldier walking up and down in front of the trench, and he would watch the thing until cold shivers ran through him. He saw the headless soldier coming for him in a raid once, and it was the only time I ever saw Big Tom afraid. He came near getting shot by his officer for starting to run back to our trench. And one day a little later, when a Hun whose head had just been blown off tumbled right on top of him in a shell hole he let out a yell that we could hear above the artillery. 54 THE FIGHTING MASCOT That first night on guard I saw something myself that I know now couldn't have been true but that I couldn 't get out of my mind for days and days afterward. As I was staring over the top a rocket went up from the Germans and sent a broad path of light from their trench almost to ours. Eight in the centre of that lighted way I saw somebody coming toward me. It was a woman with her arms stretched out, as if she were pleading. The light was shining full on her face, and I saw it was my mother. I thought I heard her calling, ** Tommy, lad! Tommy, lad!'' But the artillery was going just then and I knew I couldn't have heard her voice at that distance. Then the light went out and she disappeared in the dark. I believed that night that I really had seen her, and I wondered whether she was groping about for me out there in the dark. Then I began to be afraid. I thought my mother might be dead and that this was her ghost come to find me. It was terrible to think of her moving about out there among all those dead men ; but it seemed just as bad to have her creeping to- GHOSTS OF THE NIGHT 55 ward me out of the dark. Ghosts are ghosts, and I didn 't care to meet with one alone in the night, even my mother's. A week later I got a letter from her that told me she was as well as ever. It wasn't death or the dead soldiers that frightened the Tommies; it was those dead sol- diers' ghosts. I remember that after Charlie Tapper was killed his pal, McGuire, couldn't sleep nights for fear Charlie would come back and haunt him. And one night Charlie's ghost did come. McGuire was in his dug-out writing a letter home. He felt a puff of cold air on his face, and, looking up, he saw Charlie, who didn't seem to be made of anything much but white fog, com- ing in through the door. ^^Mac," says the ghost, ^'I can't rest easy till I get a plug of tobacco. Could you spare your old matey a cut of it?" Mac spilled the ink all over the paper and buried his head in a blanket. When at last he got up nerve enough to peek out Charlie was gone, and Mac never forgave himself for not passing over the plug. Thinking over those things up there against 56 THE FIGHTING MASCOT the parapet made me nervous. I thought I saw the dead German who was hanging on the fence move his arms, and it made me jump. Then a rocket went up and I got a look at his face, and even though he was hanging head down he looked as if he might be asleep, dreaming of his home. ^'Well, Fritzie,'' I told him, ^^I shouldn't wonder if that's how it will come to all of us — with a dream of home." Then I thought of my own home, and imagined I could see my mother looking out of the win- dow to the pier's head where the ships come in and wondering when I was coming back. ^ ' Tommy, lad, ' ' I said to myself, * ^ if ever I get back there again that's where I'll stay. It's too full of dead men's ghosts out here." CHAPTER VIII HEEOES AND COWARDS YOU may think a man a coward when he's not ; you may think another is brave when he's not. I've found that it's only in the trenches that you tind out much about a man that's more than skin deep. ^^ There's many a lad that's no good that looks good and seems good," our chaplain, Fa- ther O'Brien, told me. ^^And there's many a lad who's all white inside without you ever thinking it. A man's got to do more than say his prayers to prove he's a Christian." One night a party went out on patrol, and one of them was ^^ Windy" Dick, who had fainted when he heard the artillery as we marched to Ypres. ^^ Better say your prayers. Windy," some- body called to him. ^^ That's a bad job you're on. The Boches will get you like as not." *^ Windy" didn't make any answer to that. 57 58 THE FIGHTING MASCOT The lads had been making fun of him ever since the day he dropped in the road, and he had learned that it only made them worse to talk back. He went up over the top with the rest of. the party, and that was the last we saw of him till after dark the next evening. The pa- trol had got back long before that without him, and it was an even bet whether '^ Windy'' had been shot or scared to death. We had about made up our minds we were never going to see him again when three men hove in sight out of the dark beyond the wires. One was driving the other two along at the end of his bayonet and was ripping out a curse at them with every step. *^ Blimey if it isn't Windy Dick!" cried Bone- sey. ^^Has me eyesight gone wrong, or am I dreaming!" That was who it was, too ; *' Windy" with two prisoners, and his chest was sticking out like a pigeon's with pride. ^^I've been lying out in a shell hole all day with these two blokes waiting for dark before bringing them in," he said. '^They've been whining ^kamerad' at me three times a minute for fifteen hours thereabouts and I'^ve been HEROES AND COWARDS 59 tickling them with the bayonet every time they said it. ' * ^ ^You're not meaning to tell ns you got that pair all by your little self f said Big Tom. ^*I did,'' answered ^* Windy," *^ which is more than you've done. And don't you be calling me * Windy' any more, either." The lads thought *' Windy" must have gone balmy. Not only had he taken two prisoners all by himself, but he was a changed man. There wasn't anything meek and timid about the way he carried himself now. The next day he told me what had happened. Somehow in the dark he had got separated from the patrol, and while wandering about alone try- ing to find them he had caught sight of the two Huns. He had been so scared when he went out with the patrol that he made up his mind he was going to be killed sure, and when he saw the Huns he thought his time had come to go west. That idea put some ginger into him, and he said to himself that if he'd got to die he might as well pass out fighting. So he sailed into the Huns, who didn't see him coming and who were so taken by surprise when they saw his bayonet 60 THE FIGHTING MASCOT under their noses that they threw up their hands. *^ Windy'' wandered about with the two Boches till sunrise, for he had lost his bearings and was afraid of getting into the German trench by mistake. When it grew light he made sure which way to go, and dropped with the Boches into the shell hole to wait for dark when walking wouldn't be sure death. After that there wasn 't a better fighter in the company than *' Windy" Dick, who had been scared into being brave. One of the bravest men of the war was in our regiment. He was James Proctor, of Liver- pool. He brought in twenty-four wounded men one at a time on his shoulders from in front of the German guns, and won the Victoria Cross. I wasn't there when that was done, but the lads were all talking about it, and one of them, Michael 'Grady, of A Company, said he was going to win the Victoria Cross, too, or die trying for it. ^'I'm going over to the Boches trench to drop a bomb," he told Sergeant Griffiths. It was a bright night, with the snipers busy, HEROES AND COWARDS 61 and the Sergeant warned him that he would be killed. * * I don 't care, ' ' answered 'Grrady. * ' I want to earn something/' He crept up over the top and began crawling toward the Germans. The Sergeant thought he would be killed before he had gone ten yards, but, although the bullets began to fly, none of them struck him. He had crawled to within a few feet of the Germans ' first line when he was killed. Another brave man was ^^Red'' Bullen, who was brave because he had got the notion into his head that he couldn't be killed. *^I've been through more tight places than any man in the company, ' ' ^ ^ Red ' ' would say, ^ ^ with- out a scratch to show for it. If I'd been slated to die I'd have been buried long ago. Look at this. It's what saves me. I can't be killed so long as I've got this about me." Then he would pull out a little cross a French girl had given him and that he wore hanging from a string around his neck. She had told him it would save him from being shot as long as he wore it. One day he and three other men were to- 62 THE FIGHTING MASCOT gether behind the lines when a shell exploded where they were standing. *^Red^' was knocked down, but he jumped up and found that he was unhurt except for some gravel in his eyes. Then he saw that the three men who had been standing beside him had all been killed. After that he was more certain than ever that the cross would save him. No matter how fast the bullets came, *^Red" didn't care. ^^They can't get me,'' he would say. *^I needn't worry." And then one day a bullet did get him. **He must have lost his cross," said Big Tom, who was superstitious and believed in things like that. And, so help me ! he had lost it. It wasn't on his body, and the string around his neck was broken. *^ Don't tell me there's nothing in luck pieces," said Big Tom. ^^And yet I've known 'em to fail. A man I knew in B Company had a bead a girl had given him, and he always wore it next his skin, thinking it would save him. But he was killed the first day he was in the front line. How can you account for that now? HEROES AND COWARDS 63 The way I figure it is that some of these luck pieces are lucky and some are unlucky, and there's never smj telling which is which. You Ve just got to wear 'em and take a chance.'' But I never could see it that way myself. If a lad has to take a chance with them he might as well take a chance without them. I never wore one, and here I am alive. Speaking of brave men, there were none braver than the Ghurkas, who fought side by side with us in those Ypres trenches. They had brought with them from India their big knives, curved like mowing sickles and sharp- ened on the concave edge, and they used them more often than the bayonet. They would swing them around and chop off the Huns ' heads just as if they were mowing grass. Then on the points of the knives they would carry the heads back to their own trenches. Of all the men in our line the Grermans dreaded those black Ghurkas the most. Sometimes we would steal the Ghurkas' shirts, but they were a good-natured lot so long as we didn't go too far with our jokes. But if anybody went past the limit with them he was sure to be in trouble, for the Ghurka is a bad 64 THE FIGHTING MASCOT man to have dealings with when he's angry. Whenever they set out for the German trenches the Ghurkas never stopped, no matter how thick the bullets were flying. And, oh ! how Fritzie hated to see them coming! With those big knives of theirs they could clean out a Ger- man trench quicker than any men I ever saw. But they were no account if the officers wanted prisoners, for they were too fond of chopping the Huns ' heads off to take any of them alive. We had many lads of our own as brave as any Ghurka that ever lived, but we had cowards, too, and that's more than the Ghurkas had. I learned a thing or two from those men who were afraid. I found that they were just as likely to get killed as the men who were brave. And I said to myself, ** What's the use of being a coward when it doesn't even save your life!" Most of them w^ere bom cowards, and they never got over it, no matter how much fighting they went through. One of them came up to me one day and held up his trigger finger. *^ Shoot it off for me, will you. Mascot?" he said. ''I want to go back to Blighty." I wouldn 't do it, but he kept on asking till he HEROES AND COWARDS 65 found somebody who did the job for him. I could count a dozen such men who tried to lose the trigger finger to get out of the war. And I knew another who wanted to lose a finger but who didn 't have the nerve. Every day he would talk about it, but when somebody would ofPer to shoot it off he would change his mind. That poor chap was always afraid, and even after he had been weeks in the trenches he would jump every time a shell came near. Then came a night when he had to go over the top in a raid. He was shaking so much he could scarcely climb out of the trench. Half way across No Man's Land he got a bullet in the back, and it was said afterward that it was one of our own officers who shot him because he was running away. Better to be a brave man than a coward, and just as safe — perhaps a little safer. That's the lesson I learned from such men as he. CHAPTER IX BLIND me eyes! If 'ere isn't old 'Ard Luck back again! Wot's goin' to 'ap- pen to us now?" It was old Bonesey, giving a welcome to the funeral-faced lad from the Fusiliers. "We hadn't seen Welshie for some time, but he hadn't changed. He was the same old cheer-killer. ^*Now, I'm telling you, there's trouble on the way," Welshie began as soon as he had joined us. ^* There's always trouble, with you about," growled Bonesey. ^ * Wot 's the gay word you 've brought now?" **Just set your eyes on that sky," said Welshie. *^I'm telling you we're in for bad weather, and you '11 know what that means after we've had a few days of it. It rains something awful in this God-forgotten land when it does rain, and I'm telling you it's on the way. 66 ^^HARD LUCK'' PEOPHESIES 67 There'll be good swimming in these trenches be- fore it's over." Welshie should have been in the government weather office. People would always know when storms were coming then. Only there 'd be nothing else but storms. It came just as that cheerful lad had pre- dicted. That evening it began to rain. It rained all night hard. The water came into our dug-outs and soaked us through and through. No chance of dry clothes to change to. When we got wet we stayed wet. While we slept we oozed with water and mud. The rats splashed about beside us, spattering us and now and then running over us. A dry rat feels bad enough on a lad 's face, but a wet one — ow ! I squirmed all the rest of the night after feeling one. In the morning we got some tea, dog-biscuits and bully beef, but we couldn't get the mud out of our mess-tins, and it got mixed up with the food. There was only one thing to console us : the guns weren't so busy as usual. Sometimes an hour would pass without a sound but the rain and the curses of the soldiers. Now and then the artillery would loosen up a little, and the shells sent the mud spouting up in big, brown 68 THE FIGHTING MASCOT geysers. A shell struck only a few feet away from us, and the mud storm that went up from the hole it made came down all over us. I thought before that happened that we were as muddy as we could be, but we were a lot worse afterward. ^ * I say, Mascot, ' ' Billy Matchett called to me as he tried to wipe the mud out of his eyes. ^^What did you ever get into this blinkin' war for? You didn't have to.'' **To get a bit of adventure, Billy," I an- swered. *^And I'm getting it — more than I wanted. Those old pirates I used to read about were better off than we. They didn't have mud like this where they were, or if they did the book writers forgot to mention it." ^^When this war is over," said Billy, *^I'll look for my adventures down on the tropic is- lands, if I need any more. I've had enough of this country." The trenches were filling up fast. The pumps worked steadily, but the water came in faster than they could send it out. By the end of that day it was up to my waist. And, oh, it was cold! I almost froze. It wouldn't have been so bad if I had known I was going to have a ^^HAED LUCK" PROPHESIES 69 dry place to creep into at night to sleep, but there was no hope of that. We knew we should have to stay where we were, shivering and with our teeth chattering, until the rain stopped and the sun came out, and there was no telling when that would be. **The water's spoiled all my fags," moaned Billy. ^ ^ I 'd give all the back pay coming to me for a smoke." Most of the lads were in the same fix, and not having any cigarettes made them sadder than ever, for a Tommy doesn't think life is worth living when he can't smoke. There was no singing in the trench that day; even Billy had lost his voice, and it wasn 't often he was without a song to cheer us with. Nothing but growls and curses, and the swish, swish, swish of the rain. Up on the firing step the sentries, with the water running from their helmets, were staring over the top, but they couldn't see anything but the rain. There didn't seem to be much need of their being there, for the Germans weren't going to attack in such weather. The fight must have been taken all out of those Huns, as it was out of us. And yet one of them did come — just one — 70 THE FIGHTING MASCOT througli all that rain and mud. But lie hadn't come to fight. He came wallowing through the mud and water like a half -drowned rat, with his hands above his head, and crying, ^^Kamerad! Kamerad ! ' ' The sentries let him pass, and as he jumped into the trench the splash he sent up half blinded us. ^*How did you get here!" asked the Sergeant, when Fritzie had come to the surface and had blown the water out of his mouth. ^^Ach! Mein Gott!'' cried Fritzie. ^^I svimmed here.'' Then he told how when nobody was looking he had climbed out of his own trench, which he said was in even worse shape than ours, and had crawled over the sand bags into the mud. In all the rain the German sentries didn't notice him, but for the first few yards he was afraid to stand up and crawled through the mud, where sometimes he sank so deep that he thought he was lost. Once he fell into a shell hole, and sank in mud and water to his neck. He thought he would never get out of that hole, but he man- aged it at last. Then he lost his way, and splashed about for ^^HAED LUCK" PEOPHESIES 71 hours. At last lie came up against our wires, but he didn't know whether they were ours or the Germans \ He lay there listening, and after a time heard somebody calling in English. He told us he had had enough of fighting and had been trying to get aw^ay for weeks. He had been told that the English tortured their prison- ers, but long before the war he had been a waiter in a London hotel and had learned so much about the English then that he didn't believe what he had heard about us in the trenches. That night the dug-outs were too full of wa- ter to sleep in, and we stayed in the trenches. Oh, what a night ! Eain, rain, rain ! It never stopped. And all night long the cold, muddy water half covered us. Some of the men dropped asleep standing up. Sometimes one of them would lose his balance, fall over into the water with a big splash and disappear. Then he would come floundering up from the bottom with the sleep all washed out of him, and mad as a hatter. That happened to Billy Matchett once, and when I saw him coming up from under the water blowing and puffing I thought of the worrying he had done on our first day at the front about how he was going to 72 THE FIGHTING MASCOT get his regular daily bath, for he had been a natty chap back in Liverpool. We had just gone into the first-line trench, when he asked of a Black Watcher: ^ ^ Tell me, old top : how do w^e get our morn- ing tub T' ^^You gets it when it rains," said the Black Watcher. *^And then you gets it good.'' For an hour or two after he heard that, Billy lost all interest in trench life. He had been talking about baths and dreaming about them ever since. And now that he was getting a good one he was no more satisfied than he had been before. We thought the lads out on ^* night ops" be- tween the lines were lucky for once, for they didn't have to spend the night in water and could move about and get warm. But when they came back, just before daylight, we found they hadn't been so lucky after all. We were a hard- looking lot ourselves by that time, and they looked even worse than we. They had been on the go all night in mud so deep and sticky that every step was hard work. Sometimes they had sunk in it to their knees. They were covered all over with it, and we *^HARD LUCK" PEOPHESIES 73 couldn't recognize our best friends among them. They told us they had spent the worst night of their lives, and that there wasn't one of them who hadn't fallen into a shell hole where he went out of sight in the mud. Once they had been so close to the enemy trench that they heard what the Boches were saying, and they had stayed to listen to some of Fritzie's sad songs. The Boches will sing no matter how un- happy they may be, but when things go wrong their songs are about as cheerful as a funeral march. About noon that day the rain stopped, and before long the sun came out. But that didn't help matters much, because the water and mud in the trench were as bad as ever. At last the pumps got the water out, but a good part of the sun-baked mud stuck to us as long as we were up in front. CHAPTER X ^^GivE, 'em the bayonet!'' A BIG push was coming. We all knew it, though how is more than I can say. For days the word had been going about that we were going to get after Fritzie hard and send him back a little nearer to where he came from. *'It's about time," growled Big Tom, ^Hhat this blinkin' lot of blighters got another name than the ^Scruffy Fifth,' and here's our chance to get it if we're going after them bloomin' Bodies at last. ' ' The ^^ Scruffy Fifth" we were called because we were so grimy and buggy, but it wasn't through any fault of ours. How could we be any- thing else but scruffy when we hadn 't been able to wash our faces since we got to the trenches ? I'd have bet my pay that a lot of others who gave us that name were no cleaner than we. I never could understand why they picked us out for that title, when the whole army should have 74 ^^GIVE 'EM THE BAYONET!'' 75 had it if anybody. But we had got it, and there wasn't a lad among us who didn't make up his mind, when he heard the big push was com- ing, that the ''Scruffy Fifth" would win a bet- ter name, if we all had to die for it. One evening the word was passed around that we were going over the top some time before morning, and before long we were told that the time was set for midnight sharp. I had heard enough from the old-timers to know what that meant. It meant that a lot of us would be killed, and a lot more wounded. I couldn't help feeling nervous and jumpy. A good deal worse I should have felt, too, if I hadn't killed that big Hun in the raid, but that put heart into me and made me sure that, even though I was only a ninety-six pounder, I was going to have an even chance with those six-foot- ers from Prussia. ''Go for their stomachs. Tommy," I kept say- ing to myself. ' ' Go for their stomachs. Dodge under their bayonets, and get 'em from below." We spent a lot of time cleaning our guns and making sure our bayonets were in good shape, and the bombers tilled their haversacks with enough stuff to blow up the whole German line. 76 THE FIGHTING MASCOT Twenty minutes before midnight every man of US was ready and waiting. Those minutes of waiting were the hardest part of all that night's work, for it was only then that we had any time to think, and worry, and wonder what was going to happen to us. And that little bit of time dragged along as if it were hours. I never knew the men to be so quiet ; no tallying, no laughing, no singing. If we had been old timers it wouldn 't have mattered, and we should have been as cheerful as ever, but a lad does a lot of hard thinking just before his first time over the top. Twelve o 'clock came. Up we went and over. It was a black night, but dozens of rockets were going up, and the way lay clear before us. Our wire cutters had cut wide lanes in our fences for us, and we crowded through them. The artillery and the machine guns were going like mad. The bullets w^ere singing all around us. Some of our men fell. One toppled over right in front of me, so close that I had to run over him. If he was dead it didn 't matter and if wounded I doubt if my ninety-six pounds hurt him much. A shell whizzed along just above us. I felt *^GIVE 'EM THE BAYONET!" 77 the wind from it. It was so close that it lifted the caps from some of the men's heads. Once I stumbled and fell. For a moment I lay there feeling myself all over, wondering if I had been hit. When I had made sure I was all right I jumped up and ran on. By that time the men were well ahead of me. As I tried to catch up a shell burst among them and I saw some bodies flying into the air. Then the way began to be filled with dead and wounded. Some of the wounded were dragging themselves over the ground, trying to get into shell holes or back to our trenches. I passed a man who was kneeling by the side of a dying lad whose legs had been blown off. The man on his knees was our chaplain. I heard him pray- ing as I went by. A brave man was Father O'Brien — brave and good, and careless of his own life when there were wounded lads who needed him. He had gone over the top with the first of us, though I have known of many a chap- lain who would never do that and who would wait for the wounded to be brought to him be- hind the lines. Over to the right a big tank, the first I had ever seen in action, was bobbing along toward 78 THE FIGHTING MASCOT the German line. It broke througli the wires as if they had been no more than cobwebs, and came to a stop right over the Germans' first trench, with all its guns spouting. I was almost there now, and I saw our lads piling in on top of the Huns. Ow ! How they did pile in on them ! Even the artillery couldn 't drown the chorus of yells and groans that came up from that tangle of fighters. It was like a whole menagerie of starved wildcats let loose. I didn't think of anything then but of jumping into the fight. There wasn't time to be afraid. As I reached the trench I came up in front of a big Hun, who was standing on the parapet with his gun raised over his head and his bayonet pointing down at me. I ducked my head and went for him. I 'd have been a goner if I hadn 't. It was my only chance. His bayonet must have slid over me just as my own got him in the stomach. He threw up his arms, his gun came tumbling over me, and he went down on his knees, while his body slowly crumpled up into a heap. It's queer what thoughts sometimes come into a chap's mind at such moments. As I jabbed him the words of that Welsh Fusilier ran One of our lads brought the butt of a gun down on his head ^^GIVE ^EM THE BAYONET!^' 79 through my head: ^ ^You'll know the Lord is glad every time you stick your bayonet into a Hun." And I did know it. I knew the Lord was fighting on our side, as Father 'Brien had told us, and that I was doing His work. A good many of our men had jumped clear over that first trench and had gone on to the next, but when I made the leap I landed in the bottom in a heap. It isn't easy to make a long jump with a rifle in your hands unless you're long in the legs, and I'm not. When I got to my feet I saw a German coming for me. I jumped back a foot or two just as he made a lunge for me with his bayonet, and he missed me by an inch. He was going at me again, when one of our lads brought the butt of a gun down on his head and knocked him cold. About twenty feet away there were some more Germans, but before I had to worry about them a bomber did the trick for the whole lot. There were six of them. The bomb killed three and tore the others up so badly that they couldn't have lived very long. By that time the first trench was fairly well cleaned out. The only Germans left in it were dead or wounded except the prisoners, and there 80 THE FIGHTING MASCOT were a lot of them. Fritzie will fight hard un- til he sees the game is up, and then he doesn't lose any time in throwing up his hands and cry- ing, ^^Kamerad!'' It was while I was watching those prisoners that I learned what a tricky, savage beast Fritzie can be. There was one among them who managed to get his hand into his coat, and from it he pulled out a bomb. He was about to throw it into a group of our men when somebody ran him through with a bayonet. The bomb dropped to the ground. It didn't explode, and the man who had killed him picked it up and threw it over the top. It burst with an awful crash a few yards away, but no one was hurt. After that I climbed up to see what had be- come of the lads who had gone on to the second trench. There was a lot of fighting going on over there, and I decided to make a run for it and take a hand in the fuss, for my fighting blood was up by that time and I wasn 't thinking of danger. I went, and luck was with me, for, though the artillery and the ^ ^ typewriters ' ' were showering all the ground that lay between, I wasn't touched. Perhaps it was because I was so much ''GIVE 'EM THE BAYONET!'' 81 smaller than the rest and harder to hit. I have often thought there was something in that no- tion, for it always seemed to me there were more big men killed than little ones. I was almost across to the second trench, when I saw a lad from our company crawling toward me, wounded. I stopped, thinking I should help him. ' * Go on, kid, and fight, ' ' he cried. ^ ^ It 's only a broken leg." So I left him and ran on. It was the liveliest kind of a fight that I jumped into. Our lads and the Huns were all mixed up together, clubbing, bayoneting and shooting, while our bombers were cleaning out the dug-outs fast. I killed another Hun in that trench. It was easy, for I caught him on my bayonet while he was going at somebody else, and he didn't see me coming. That made two for me — fairly good for a lad of my size, I thought — but I didn't get a chance at another, though we cap- tured a third trench before the fighting was over. By the time we got that third trench we liked the fighting so much that we didn't want to stop. 82 THE FIGHTING MASCOT and we might have gone on to Berlin if our officers had let us. That was the place I wanted to get to, and I thought I should see it some day. I wanted a chance to shake my fist in the Kaiser's face, the bloody blighter! and perhaps to run a prince along at the end of my bayonet. But the fighting was over for that day, though there was much work to be done, running the prisoners back to the rear, patching up the trenches we had won and putting up parapets, and we were a tired lot when night came. We got some sleep then. But out on the shell-pitted ground we had crossed there was no sleep for the stretcher bearers. Four hundred and fifty of our dead and wounded lay out there in the dark, and many a fine lad I had known among them. Yes, the fimest of all was among them — our chaplain, dead beside a dying rifleman. They found him on his knees, and they thought at first that he was praying. The tears came to my eyes when I heard that he was gone, for he had been a good friend to me, and there wasn't a man among us who didn't love him. Many a time after that I thought of him, and sometimes when I was feeling homesick, or when the rains ^'GIVE 'EM THE BAYONET !'' 83 and the mud and the hard marching were taking the heart out of me it seemed to me I heard his voice speaking to me, telling me to be brave and have faith in God. CHAPTER XI IT^S THE FIGHTING FIFTH GOOD-BYE, old ' ' Scruffy Fifth ! ^ ^ It 's the ^'Fighting Fifth'' now. Ask any British soldier who was at Ypres in the summer of 1917 what they called the Liverpool Fifth Battalion. Ask a London Scottie or a Welsh Fusilier; ask the Bantams or the Ghurkas, for they were all there, and any one of them will answer, ^^The ^Fightingi Fifth' is their name, and they've earned it." From the night we took the three German trenches at the loss of so many of our men we began to hear that new name, and it wasn't many days before we were known by it every- where. And I can tell you I was proud of it. I belonged to the * ' Fighting Fifth, ' ' and the old fighters in the lines would have to forget that they had called me *^the Scruffies' mascot." We all went about with our chests sticking out as if every one of us had won the V. C, and we 84 IT'S THE FIGHTING FIFTH 85 no longer envied even the Black Watch, famous though they were and heroes of many battles. *^It's about time, I'm thinking," said Big Tom, **that since we're the Scruffies no more they should send us back where we can get a little water to wash our faces with, to say noth- ing of washing all over." We had been in the front trenches a month, and I know my own face hadn 't been washed in all that time, except in the muddy water that we wallowed in when it rained, for clean water was too scarce to use for washing. But at last we were told that we were going back to rest bil- lets, and that every one of us was going to have a bath. It made us all happy except Bonesey. ^^ Blimey!" he grumbled. ^'I don't know as I take to this hidea of a bath, it's so long since I've 'ad one. It'll give me a cold or worse. Wot's the use of washin' us? We're all right as we are, and most of us blokes weren't the bathin' kind at any time. There's that old blighter in A Company that was a tramp before the war and that would rather sit up on the sand bags for the snipers to shoot at than get scrubbed. 'E'll desert to the Germans if this bloomin ' bath is forced on 'im. ' ' 86 THE FIGHTING MASCOT But Billy Matcliett almost fainted with joy when he heard the news. Back in Liverpool he had never gone without his morning tub, and he had been ashamed to keep company with him- self ever since he got to the front. We needed that rest, for w^e had lost a lot of sleep in the trenches and had fought and worked hard. There had been two days when we got along on nothing but tea and biscuit, for something — I never learned just what the trouble was — had gone wrong with the food supply, and at the best of times the food hadn 't been anything to brag about. We had shivered in the wet for days together. We had put up with ^^ cooties'' and rats, and the German artil- lery had been hammering at us day and night. We were fed up with front-trench life when at last the order came that sent us back to the rear. A grimier lot of lads never came out of a coal mine than we were when we went marching back to our base, five miles away. Our clothes were ragged, most of the men hadn't shaved in more than a month, and almost all of them had a tired, half -wild look in their eyes. No wonder the girls we passed wouldn't give us so much as a IT'S THE FIGHTING FIFTH 87 smile and that the children ran away from lis. But we didn't care. We were the ^'Fighting Fifth." Back at the base we got all cleaned up in no time, even Bonesey — baths, new clothes, shaves, though I didn't have to trouble about the shav- ing part of it, not being old enough to grow whiskers. I wished those girls we had passed could have seen us then. We would have shown them what a fine-looking lot the '' Fighting Fifth" could be. It was an easy, cushy life back at the base — nothing to do but lie about most of the time and talk and play ^' house" and ^^brag." Those are the two card games the soldiers play. Poor old Bonesey did love the cards, and we hadn't been back at the base two days when he had lost his pay playing ^^ house," besides a German helmet and a lot of other relics he had brought from the front. Even his ^^fags" he lost, and he had to borrow smokes to keep him going to the next pay day. For hours at a time we lay out in the sun talking over all we had been through and what each of us had done in the big raid on the Ger- mans. Bonesey had killed ten men, so he said, 88 THE FIGHTING MASCOT but I think he must have counted wrong, for some of the lads who had been fighting close to him said he killed only one and wounded an- other. But Big Tom had killed six, and had witnesses to prove it. I don't know how many Billy got. He was a brave lad, but wasn 't given to bragging. We had a theatre back at the base, and Billy was one of the singers. Some famous singers and players came over from England to enter- tain us. Harry Lauder was one of them, and the lads gave him a great welcome. Life in those dirty old front trenches seemed like a bad dream while we were having all those good times. When it rained we crept into dug-outs or shacks or houses, but in fair weather we were out under the sky day and night. At night, lying in our blankets on the ground, we watched the shells and rockets shooting up into the sky, and were glad we were out of all that danger for a while. We could lie there, clean and quiet and peaceful, and watch the stars twinkle while we thought about our people at home and of how good it would be to get back there. All kinds of people we met at those rest bil- IT^S THE FIGHTING FIFTH 89 lets — Belgian women and children who had been driven from their homes by the Germans, old Frenchmen who had been in the Franco-Prus- sian war, and men in our own army who had served for many years and had fought in many lands. There was Sergeant Doyle, of our own regi- ment, who had fought in India and with Kitch- ener in the Soudan, and who had many a tale to tell of what he had been through. A very different kind of fighting it had been to what we knew in Belgium; fighting with never a trench nor dug-out, tank nor gas ; fighting with the army on the move all the time and with the cavalry playing as big a part as the infantry. It all seemed as strange to us lads as the old days of the knights in armour, yet Sergeant Doyle was the younger side of fifty and it couldn't have been so very many years ago. I suppose that when I am a grey-headed gaffer the way we fought in Belgium will seem as strange to the young soldiers as the way Ser- geant Doyle fought in the Soudan did to us. And there was Fogarty, who had fought against the Mad Mullah in Somaliland and against the savages in South Africa, and who 90 THE FIGHTING MASCOT had wounds to show for it. Once he and a few other men had been surrounded on the desert by more than two hundred of the Mad Mullah's soldiers. *^We dropped into a hollow,'' Fogarty told us, as we lay out in a field one night under the stars, ^^and though there were only twelve of us, we made it so hot for those Arabs that they didn't dare come near. But they were on all sides of us, and we couldn 't get away. All day we lay there, and the heat was fit to kill. Then the night came down, but there wasn't a chance to sneak off in the dark, for the lines were drawn too close around us. We might hold them off, for they weren't too eager to lose a lot of men by rushing us, but it was the fear of thirst that worried us the most. Our wa- ter bottles were almost empty, and we didn't dare take another drink. Our throats were so dry we couldn't speak above a whisper. And then morning came, and the sun came up, scorch- ing hot, and the thirst drove us almost mad. Some of the men could stand it no longer, and drained their bottles dry, but the rest of us kept what few drops we had and only moistened our lips, not knowing how long we might be IT^S THE FIGHTING FIFTH 91 there. Before that day was over two of the men who had drained their bottles went crazy, and were for going out and fighting their way through the Arabs alone. We had to hold them back, and they fought us with their fists till the strength was all gone out of them. We knew we couldn 't stand another day of it, and how we kept our senses through the night I don't know. The next day broke, and we thought it was our last. And then, just as the sun came up over the sand, we caught sight of a column of British soldiers coming toward us, and we knew we were saved. ' ' Another night a Frenchman with one arm — he was out of the war for good then — told us how he had fought in the Battle of the Marne and of the vision, that his regiment had seen. Not one of us knew more than a few words of French, but he could speak English as well as anybody, for he had lived for years in Lon- don. **It was at the end of that great day when we turned the Boches back from their drive on Paris,'' he told us. *^The greatest day of the war it was, for the city was only a few miles away, and the whole world thought the Kaiser 92 THE FIGHTING MASCOT was going to get it. But we drove liis big army back, weak though we were. That evening there came a blaze of light over in the northern sky, and above it, among the clouds, we saw Joan of Arc on a white horse leading her army. You may doubt it, but I tell you I saw it with my own eyes, and so did thousands of others, and to- day the story is told all over France. There can have been no doubt of what we saw ; it was seen by too many to leave any question. If only I myself had seen it I might have thought I had been dreaming, but the whole regiment told the same story, and I saw many men fall down on their knees as they stared at it, while others cheered as if they took it as a sign from Heaven that France would be saved.'' The Tommies blew out a lot of cigarette smoke as he finished that story, and they said not a word. It was a queer one, I'll admit, and hard to swallow, but I heard it later in France from many a soldier who had fought at the Marne. CHAPTER XII THE MAD WOMAN OF YPKES WE thought we had learned in the trenches what a bad lot the Bodies w^ere, but after we had been back at the base a few days we knew far worse things about them. Many a story we heard of the black things they had done that made us feel like going out and try- ing to wipe out the whole bloody army of them, if we had to die for it. It had been a fine country around Ypres, full of lovely gardens and splendid houses, before the Huns got there, but the gardens were ruined now, and so were the big homes they belonged to. One day Billy, Bonesey and I were out for a stroll, when we came to a big chateau. At the foot of the road that led up to it stood a lodge which had been battered by shells and was fall- ing to pieces. Inside the gate in what was left of a great flower garden were rows and rows of little wooden crosses that marked the graves 93 94 THE FIGHTING MASCOT of soldiers. The chateau, like the lodge, was half ruined. Every window in it was broken, and shells had torn great holes through the roof. We went inside, and there we saw what a wreck the Huns had made of all the expensive furnishings. They had slashed the tapestries on the walls, chopped chairs and tables to pieces, broken mirrors, and used their knives on the woodwork without any other reason than love of mutilating things. Even the fine piano they had hacked to pieces. We were looking about at all this ruin, and Billy was talking loudly of what devils the Boches were, when an old man stepped up and spoke to us. He was a wrinkled, white-haired, stoop-shouldered old fellow, and his voice was not much more than a whisper. He spoke in broken English, with a lot of French words mixed in, but Billy knew a little French, and we managed to understand what he was saying. He told us that for fifty years he had been a servant of the family that owned the chateau. When the Germans were coming through Bel- gium the family had hurried over into France just in time to escape, but the old man had said, THE MAD WOMAN OF YPRES 95 *^No ; I shall not go. This has been my home always, and I shall live and die here." Then his two grandsons — only boys they were, younger than I — said they would stay with their grandfather, no matter what might hap- pen. The Huns came, and the old man tried to keep them out of the chateau, telling them it had been left in his care and he must protect it, but while he pleaded with them a soldier knocked him down with his gun. The blow made him unconscious for a while. When he came to life again he found that he had been dragged out into the garden and was lying there alone on the ground. After lying there some time, he managed to get to his feet, and began to look about for his grandsons. He couldn't find them. At last he learned that the Germans had brought some charge against them, and had marched them away to be shot. He wouldn't believe it until he found some persons who had seen them killed and who told him everything. And they were not the only young boys the Germans killed on the charge of being spies or of firing on the sol- diers. 96 THE FIGHTING MASCOT ^^Some day,'' the old man said, ^^tlie master and his family will come back and the old cha- teau will be made over, but I may not live to see that time. But I mean to live long enough to see the Boches beaten and punished. I know you will fight hard and win, you Englishmen. It is the Lord's work you are doing." More stories as dreadful as that old man 's we heard as we went about over the country. Women who had lost their husbands and chil- dren told them to us. Children told them to us who had lost their fathers and mothers. And, oh, what hate their eyes showed as they spoke of the Boches ! At one time while we were speaking with a group of children and trying to teach them some of the good old English songs, a woman came up and questioned them one by one. It was always the same question: *'Have you seen my little Mimi?" And the children would alw^ays shake their heads. A tall, fine-looking woman she was, with sad eyes and a soft voice. After she had questioned them all, she stood a moment staring at me, then at Bonesey, then at Billy, without saying THE MAD WOMAN OF YPEES 97 another word. And then she began to cry very softly, and walked away. *^It's the mad woman/' one of the children told us, and we learned how the Huns had killed her little Mimi, leaving the mother all alone in the world, for her husband had fallen while fighting for his country. Hearing such dreadful things made us so sad and gloomy that we were glad to get back to where the Tommies could cheer us with their jokes and their singing. Often I would lie awake at night long after the other lads had fallen asleep, and think over the stories I had heard, and wonder whether savages had ever been worse than those German devils that were trying to wipe us out. I made up my mind to kill as many of them as I could, and never to try to take a prisoner. And I told myself, too, that I should rather be killed than be taken pris- oner by them. There are some kind Huns, I suppose, just as there are kind savages, but I had heard of some of our soldiers who had fallen into the hands of the bad ones and who had been tortured. Glad we were when we could forget now and then the mad country we were in and all the 98 THE FIGHTING MASCOT mad tilings that were being done there, and bring our thoughts back to the good old days in England. It was good to hear old Bonesey tell stories of his housebreaking and of how he would manage to fool the bobbies. He didn't always fool them, for he had been caught and sent to prison several times, but he must have been a clever lad in his line if half of what he told us was true. I asked Martin, the Scotland Yard man, about him one day, and he said, ^^Yes, your friend Bonesey is a hard un, and some day when the war's over I may have to send him to prison myself. But I hope not. He's been too good a soldier. Better reform him. Mascot, while you've the chance." I did try to reform Bonesey, but it wasn't any use. *^Wot! Me be honest!" he would say, as he winked one eye at Billy. ^^Why, bless yer bloomin' 'eart. Mascot, I don't know wot bein' honest is. Back to the 'ousebreakin' trade I'm go in' when the war's over. But I'd sort of like to get a V. C. meantimes. With that on me it would sort of make me seem respectable in my line of work." *^ Don't you be trying to change a high-class THE MAD WOMAN OF YPRES 99 burglar into something he's not fitted for/' put in Billy. ** Every man to his trade is what I say, if he's good at it. There's chaplains I know of that are such cowards they stay behind the lines and wait for the dying soldiers to be brought back before they'll pray over them. And there's a lad I know who was only a beg- gar in the streets of Liverpool before the war, yet he's as brave as the best of them when it comes to bringing in the wounded from out in front. It's not what a man is outside, or what he calls himself; it's what he is inside that counts. Just remember — " '^Aw, shut up with the preachin'," grumbled Bonesey. ^^It's an actor you are, Billy Match- ett, and I'm tellin' yer now you're no account at the preachin'. A jail bird the Mascot 'ere would be if he listened to you, for you're so mixed up with wot you're tryin' to say that you'd 'ave him believin' a burglar's honest and an honest man's a burglar. Every man to his trade, and an actor to 'is, is wot I'm thinkin'." CHAPTER XIII SOLDIEES THREE BECAUSE a tin rooster hung over the door, Billy called it Chanticleer Tavern,- but it had a French name that I never could pro- nounce. The wine they sold there was just to Billy's taste, and, as there was good food too, he and I were often in the Chanticleer together of an evening. It was there that we met the red-headed tanker, and his friends the one-eared sniper and the fat miner. They all three came in together one night and sat down at our table. Being a chummy lot, they were soon telling us of some of the things they had been through. I thought I had had a bit of adventure myself since coming to the front, but it was nothing to what those three lads had seen. **I was in a tank at the Somme, where we gave the Boches the surprise of their lives,'' said the red-headed one, and he dipped a finger 100 SOLDIERS THREE 101 in his beer and drew wet lines on the table to show how the trenches had lain. *^Over here,'' he said, as he daubed with his 'finger, ^^were the Boches, and over there were we, and here was the river. The artillery had been pounding the Boches hard, and there was nothing much left of their front trenches, but their fences were still up, and our infantry might have been shot to pieces before they could get through them. *^ 'Twas then they sent us tankers into the tight. Along we rattled, swaying and bumping and rolling, with the bullets buzzing against our old steel shell and making not so much as a dent. And behind came the infantry, with us protect- ing them. We got to those wire fences, and we went through them without so much as a pause, and the infantry poured in after through the big lanes we made. <