Men, Women and Guns. H. C. McNeile

or so they pushed on, and why they stopped when they did is—as far as I am concerned—one of life's little mysteries. Perhaps the utter success of their gas surprised even them; perhaps they anticipated some trap; perhaps the incredible heroism of the Canadians in hanging up the German left caused their centre to push on too far and lose touch; perhaps—but, why speculate? I don't know, though possibly those in High Places may. The fact remains they did stop; their advantage was lost and the situation was saved.

      Such was the state of affairs when O'Rourke opened his eyes on the morning of Saturday, April 24th. The horses were dimly visible through the heavy mist, his blankets were wringing wet, and hazily he wondered why he had ever been born. Then the cook dropped the bacon in the fire, and he groaned with anguish; visions of yesterday's grilled kidneys and hot coffee rose before him and mocked. By six o'clock he had fed, and sitting on an overturned biscuit-box beside the road he watched three batteries of French 75's pass by and disappear in the distance. At intervals he longed to meet the man who invented war. It must be remembered that, though I have given the situation as it really was, for the better understanding of the story, the facts at the time were not known at all clearly. The fog of war still wrapped in oblivion—as far as regimental officers were concerned, at any rate—the events which were taking place within a few miles of them.

      When, therefore, Dick O'Rourke perceived an unshaven and unwashed warrior, garbed as a gunner officer, coming down the road from Woesten, and, moreover, recognised him as one of his own term at the "Shop," known to his intimates as the Land Crab, he hailed him with joy.

      "All hail, oh, crustacean!" he cried, as the other came abreast of him. "Whither dost walk so blithely?"

      "Halloa, Dick!" The gunner paused. "You haven't seen my major anywhere, have you?"

      "Not that I'm aware of, but as I don't know your major from Adam, my evidence may not be reliable. What news from the seat of war?"

      "None that I know of—except this cursed gun, that is rapidly driving me to drink."

      "What cursed gun? I am fresh from Ciro's and the haunts of love and ease. Expound to me your enigma, my Land Crab."

      "Haven't you heard? When the Germans——"

      He stopped suddenly. "Listen!" Perfectly clear from the woods to the north of them—the woods that lie to the west of the Woesten-Oostvleteren road, for those who may care for maps—there came the distinctive boom! crack! of a smallish gun. Three more shots, and then silence. The gunner turned to Dick.

      "There you are—that's the gun."

      "But how nice! Only, why curse it?"

      "Principally because it's German; and those four shots that you have just heard have by this time burst in Poperinghe."

      "What!" O'Rourke looked at him in amazement. "Is it my leg you would be pulling?"

      "Certainly not. When the Germans came on in the first blind rush after the French two small guns on motor mountings got through behind our lines. One was completely wrecked with its detachment The motor mounting of the other you can see lying in a pond about a mile up the road. The gun is there." He pointed to the wood.

      "And the next!" said O'Rourke. "D'you mean to tell me that there is a German gun in that wood firing at Poperinghe? Why, hang it, man! it's three miles behind our lines."

      "Taking the direction those shells are coming from, the distance from Poperinghe to that gun must be more than ten miles—if the gun is behind the German trenches. Your gunnery is pretty rotten, I know, but if you know of any two-inch gun that shoots ten miles, I'll be obliged if you'll give me some lessons." The gunner lit a cigarette. "Man, we know it's not one of ours, we know where they all are; we know it's a Hun."

      "Then, what in the name of fortune are ye standing here for talking like an ould woman with the indigestion? Away with you, and lead us to him, and don't go chivying after your bally major." Dick shouted for his revolver. "If there's a gun in that wood, bedad! we'll gun it."

      "My dear old flick," said the other, "don't get excited. The woods have been searched with a line of men—twice; and devil the sign of the gun. You don't suppose they've got a concrete mounting and the Prussian flag flying on a pole, do you? The detachment are probably dressed as Belgian peasants, and the gun is dismounted and hidden when it's not firing."

      But O'Rourke would have none of it. "Get off to your major, then, and have your mothers' meeting. Then come back to me, and I'll give you the gun. And borrow a penknife and cut your beard—you'll be after frightening the natives."

      That evening a couple of shots rang out from the same wood, two of the typical shots of a small gun. And then there was silence. A group of men standing by an estaminet on the road affirmed to having heard three faint shots afterwards like the crack of a sporting-gun or revolver; but in the general turmoil of an evening hate which was going on at the same time no one thought much about it. Half an hour later Dick O'Rourke returned, and there was a strange look in his eyes. His coat was torn, his collar and shirt were ripped open, and his right eye was gradually turning black. Of his doings he would vouchsafe no word. Only, as we sat down round the fire to dinner, the gunner subaltern of the morning passed again up the road.

      "Got the gun yet, Dick?" he chaffed.

      "I have that," answered O'Rourke, "also the detachment."

      The Land Crab paused. "Where are they?"

      "The gun is in a pond where you won't find it, and the detachment are dead—except one who escaped."

      "Yes, I don't think." The gunner laughed and passed on.

      "You needn't," answered Dick, "but that gun will never fire again."

      It never did. As I say, he would answer no questions, and even amongst the few people who had heard of the thing at all, it soon passed into the limbo of forgotten things. Other and weightier matters were afoot; the second battle of Ypres did not leave much time for vague conjecture. And so when, a few days ago, the question was once again recalled to my mind by no less a person than O'Rourke himself, I had to dig in the archives of memory for the remembrance of an incident of which I had well-nigh lost sight.

      "You remember that gun, Bill," he remarked, lying back in the arm-chair of the farmhouse where we were billeted, and sipping some hot rum—"that German gun that got through in April and bombarded Poperinghe? I want to talk to you about that gun." He started filling his pipe.

      "'Tis the hardest proposition I've ever been up against, and sure I don't know what to do at all." He was staring at the fire. "You remember the Land Crab and how he told us the woods had been searched? Well, it didn't take a superhuman brainstorm to realise that if what he said was right and the Huns were dressed as Belgian peasants, and the gun was a little one, that a line of men going through the woods had about as much chance of finding them as a terrier has of catching a tadpole in the water. I says to myself, 'Dick, my boy, this is an occasion for stealth, for delicate work, for finesse.' So off I went on my lonesome and hid in the wood. I argued that they couldn't be keeping a permanent watch, and that even if they'd seen me come in, they'd think in time I had gone out again, when they noticed no further sign of me. Also I guessed they didn't want to stir up a hornet's nest about their ears by killing me—they wanted no vulgar glare of publicity upon their doings. So, as I say, I hid in a hole and waited. I got bored stiff; though, when all was said and done, it wasn't much worse than sitting in that blessed ploughed field beside the road. About five o'clock I started cursing myself for a fool in listening to the story at all, it all seemed so ridiculous. Not a sound in the woods, not a breath of wind in the trees. The guns weren't firing, just for the time everything was peaceful. I'd got a caterpillar down my neck, and I was just coming back to get a drink and chuck it up, when suddenly a Belgian labourer popped out from behind a tree. There was nothing peculiar about him, and if it hadn't been for the Land Crab's story I'd never have given him a second thought. He was just picking up sticks, but as I watched him I noticed that every now and then he straightened himself up, and seemed to peer around as if he was searching the undergrowth. The next minute out came another, and he started the stick-picking stunt too."

      Dick