The Somme by H. G.; A. D.; Wells Gristwood Read Free Book Online

for the moment had not the courage to test his fears.
    A machine-gun not two hundred yards away swept the ground in a leisurely traverse, the deliberate ‘pop, pop, pop, pop, pop’ waxing to deafening sharpness as the fire drew nearer. Again and again the tattoo of the gun rose and fell with the sweep of its traverse, and always, at the zenith of its crescendo, Everitt clenched his teeth and shut his eyes in breathless anticipation of another wound. He had no means of knowing whether the Germans could see him or whether he was the victim of a chance shot. If he lay motionless was he invisible? Or would they think him dead? Perhaps after all they could not see him. Above all he must lie still, for it seemed that shots answered his slightest movement.
    The man near him lay exposed on a mound of earth, and a body-wound made it impossible for him to roll or crawl to shelter. Twice more he was hit, and still he did not lose consciousness. Moaning and sobbing miserably, with tragic futility he called continually for stretcher-bearers (as though such could live for a moment in the open). ‘It hurts so, it hurts so,’ he kept crying, a child again in his pain, and soon he was praying to God and his mother to help him. ‘Try to get in a hole, chum,’ Everitt called to him. His duty was to try to help the other, at least to bandage his wounds and drag him to shelter, but he dared not leave his hole. The bullets continued to raise little spurts of earth around them, and he could do nothing but watch them in frozen fascination.
    â€˜Would they hit him again? Where would they get him?’ ‘That was a near one. If only it would get dark.’ Night became a thing to watch for as a possible deliverer. It must be past three o’clock – five or six hours to wait, and then, if he wasn’t hit again and the Germans didn’t counter-attack at dusk, it might yet be possible to escape. This was the first faint glow of hope, a determination not to give in, to reach home yet in spite of everything.
    He remembered again that this was Sunday. ‘P.S.A.,’ he murmured, and thought of hymn-singing in church, where the sun filled the air with the smell of warm varnish. No doubt his father was dozing after dinner in his easy chair, with mouth agape and waistcoat unbuttoned. Outside the bees were busy with the flowers, and the cat was sleeping in the sunshine. What a fool he was to be there – what fools they all were. There were a hundred ways of avoiding this horror, and what was the good of it all? Thousands of men were lying crumpled in those fields, helpless, agonized, hopeless, frozen with terror, tortured with wounds. Blind fate slew them and spared them and death came often as a boon. And now the horror continued and grew greater, and more men were struck minute by inexorable minute. The bullets fell impartially on earth and flesh, and the maddening clamour of the machine-guns showed no sign of slackening. Moans, prayers, curses, entreaties inarticulate cries, the stench of mud and blood and fumes and smoke, the thunder of guns, the shriek of shells and the rattle of rifle-fire, a chill rain soaking unchecked into that medley of woe – a modern battlefield! And fools talk of the glory of war, and the joy of battle! ‘The lordliest life on earth!’
    Perhaps Everitt was growing light headed, for abruptly his thoughts jerked in another direction. Was it any use to pray? He had heard in a dozen sermons that in extremity the stoutest atheist would pray for help to the God he denied. The parsons assured him that freethinker and agnostic joined with the most devout believer in instinctive supplication: the fact was stated as a final buttress of belief. But his actual experience was different. With men dead and dying on every side it was impossible to believe that God cared. Obviously He did not help the sufferers, call they never so poignantly. ‘Either he is talking, or he is