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

pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.’ How could the paltry individual expect a private miracle in his own behoof? The age of such things was past: the text of consolation: ‘A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee’ was applicable only to spiritual experience, which, under present circumstances, made it a little inadequate. In point of fact it meant nothing at all. The healing solace of prayer as an instinctive exercise of the soul seemed more than a little at a discount. Everitt wanted help, and he received none.
    This cannot be put on one side as the flippant disclaimer of the prosperous fool – untouched by misfortune and proportionately puffed up – the man was in deadly peril, in anguish of mind and body. Never had he felt less reason for intellectual pride. By a curious mental twist, he felt impelled to shape in his thoughts a statement of belief. Let the stress of the time be the excuse for its inadequacy. ‘A personal God may exist; there is no evidence of His existence, but ignorance cannot deny it. But, if He does, He cares nothing for the fate of individuals. Men are “tossed down into the field,” and left to the blind disposal of natural laws. These sequences of cause and effect leave him no room for “free-will.” Traced to its source, his every action is an automatic reaction to external influences. In ignorance of these causes, he calls his vicissitudes “Chance,” for any event, originating outside his experience, is necessarily fortuitous to reason. The God of Earth and Heaven by no means interferes arbitrarily with these natural laws, and in themselves these laws are impersonal, rigid, and without mercy. I can do nothing to help myself and the misty God of the Christians will do nothing to help me. If the path of a bullet passes through my brain I shall die. In the contrary event, I shall live.’
    It was difficult to keep count of time (his watch had been broken long ago), but at the end of the longest hour of his life the firing showed signs of abating. Soon there was no doubt of it. Now it came in gusts, and gradually the continuous roar died away to sniping. But it was well he remained quiet, for, after perhaps another hour, the firing swelled out again to all its original fury. The old nerve-shaking suspense clutched him again, and the spurts of earth showed death searching and capricious. A sudden jab in his left elbow and a numbing pain after the manner of a jarred funny-bone must be another wound. Everitt could not help muttering ‘Number three,’ though with but a twisted grin, and it seemed hopeless that his luck could hold much longer.
    The renewed firing was occasioned by the advance of another line of khaki from the trench behind. These were men of the Loamshires from ‘D’ Company in support. It was evident that part at least of the battalion had gained some kind of objective, and that these happy warriors were intended to stiffen the defence. Everitt risked looking up at them, and feebly croaked ‘stick it,’ as they passed. The face of a man advancing against machine-guns is not good to see. Shell-fire can be regarded as haphazard at the worst, but a machine-gun in an attack fires almost point-blank at a very definite target. The men walked slowly, just as he had done, stumbling forward with a sort of dogged hopelessness, wincing and blinking in dread of a bullet. As far as he could see, for all their hopelessness there was no tendency to give up. It was a miracle that so few were hit.
    The glare of a Verey light roused Everitt from a kind of stupor, and he found to his surprise that it was dusk. Either he had slept or fainted, and it must now be eight o’clock. It was an indescribable relief to know that the time of inaction was passed, and the glow of hope burned more brightly. He had survived the