CHAPTER XXXIII
"HELL UPSIDE DOWN!"
There was strangely little exultation. Each man felt the tussle was yetto come and nerved himself for it. The big square lay out silent underthe moon, splashed with the shadows of the pollarded poplars, thebenches upturned, a tree or two uprooted, and beyond all the black gashknocked in the row of white houses. It had a strange look, sinister,threatening, all the more so because it had always been so peaceful andwell-ordered--like a man's tranquil life till the day Fate'smortal-shell bursts and there is no more peace for ever and ever.
"Now mind, you fellows," said Jack Jaikes, "fire low and steady. Theyare ten times our numbers, but we will fight in shelter and we havethese beauties!"
He patted the three mitrailleuses in turn. He had taken charge of themiddle one himself, and set his friend Allerdyce and young Brown tocommand those on either side. We stood at attention, each man knowingthat the time could not be long.
Far down towards the Chateau we heard the rush and jar of an attack. Asimilar noise came from farther up the wall towards the fitting shops.
"Jehoshaphat, they are flanking us!" exclaimed Jack Jaikes. And beforeanyone could interfere--supposing that any had so dared--Jack Jaikes hadstepped outside the wall into the cumbered Cours of Aramon. I took theliberty of following. Away to the right we could see nothing, except theclouds of smoke drifting up or being tossed by the rough sudden swoop ofthe blast, stooping down out of the moonlit heavens and the night ofstars.
Jack Jaikes must have been conscious of my presence, but he did notorder me back. He was talking to himself and he wanted a listener. AsBacon says, he wanted a friend with whom to toss his ideas as a haymakertosses hay.
"Down there by the Chateau doesn't matter," he said, looking that waylong and earnestly, "Dennis Deventer is there--with MacIntyre and thewhole Clydebank gang--little to fear there. Listen, young fellow, howthe machine guns are barking--_U-r-r-r-rh!_ I wish ours were talkingtoo, but that mortar shot rather scared them--though it ought not--easything to rush a four-inch gun firing shell at that distance and withtheir numbers. One hole in the line, and then you are upon her.But--see, young un, there they go butting in at the corner of the wallyonder. We must give them a volley. Fellows, run out themitrailleuses--my own one first. Easy there over the stones! Now theothers!"
Presently with the three machine guns we were standing completelyshelterless in the Cours of Aramon with half a dozen darksome streetsand alleyways gaping at us truculently. "Turn them to the left," heshouted. "Farther out, Allerdyce! Keep your alignment, youBrown--swearing's forbidden, but think that ye hear Donald Iverach atit!"
The light little guns with the pepperpot snouts were swiftly swung roundin the direction of the scaling ladders and the hurrying clouds of men.
Each man, Allerdyce, Brown, and Jack Jaikes himself, had his hand on thehandle which was to grind death.
"Lie down, you sweeps!" he called to us. "Flat--not a head up."
We lay down, but I looked sideways between the wheels of the centremachine gun. The long legs of Jack Jaikes almost bestrode me.
"GO!"
And then all hell broke loose. The noise of the jarring explosionsmelted into one infernal whoop, and seemed to ride the storm which atthis moment was mounting to the heavens from the south and shutting outthe moon.
The attacking party was mown as with a clean-swept scythe. For aninstant three swathes were clearly visible--Jack Jaikes, Brown, andAllerdyce had each made his share of the crop lie down.
There came an explosion of rage and anguish.
"Again!" shouted Jack Jaikes. "Keep down that head," he cried to me, andkicked savagely in my direction as he danced about. I obeyed. No accountcould be required of men at such moments. He might stamp on my head ifhe found it in his way.
"Sweep the wall and fire low!" was the next order. "Mind, Donald Iverachand the boys are on top. We must not shoot them, but we _must_ helpthose ladders down. It is a pity we dare not run out the four-inch--onlywe could never get her back."
Again the rending siren shriek divided the night. We lay on the groundseeing gigantic shapes twisted in seeming agony over guns high above us.Our chins were in the dust and the play of the lightning flashes madethe thing somehow demoniacal and unearthly.
"Hell upside down!" as the man next to me pithily said--a parson's sonlike myself, but from Kent, Pembury in Kent, where young Battersby isstill not forgotten.
The mitrailleuses flared red below and the skies flared blue above. Thethunder roared continuously and the noise of the machine guns cut itlike the thin notes in the treble corner of a piano. Heaven ragedagainst earth, and earth in the person of Jack Jaikes ground out shrilldefiance. But that night the bolts from the earthly artillery were themore deadly.
"Cleaned the beggars out!" shouted Jack Jaikes, or at least that is nearenough to what he said. "Now then, up you fellows and we will get themback!"
It was easier said than done. For it was one thing to get the littleguns down the rubble heaps beneath the battered gateway and quiteanother to fetch them back. We were compelled to put all our three guncrews into one, and even then we could not have succeeded without thehelp of the men with ropes pulling from within. I saw Rhoda Pollytugging like one possessed, though why she was not on her tower I do notknow.
We had left the other two machine guns unprotected and had to jump backto rescue them. Still there was no enemy in sight and we got Brown'sfine No. 1 back into shelter. Remained Allerdyce, and as we rattled downto fetch her up, suddenly the whole of the square in front of us wasswept by a storm of bullets. Somehow I found Hugh Deventer beside me.
"You gave us a good easement up at the corner," he said, "I was surethey would get back on you next. Give me a place. I can hoist a gunbetter than you!"
He was behind the wheel, but even as he set his weight to itAllerdyce---eternally smiling Scot from Ayrshire, called SodaBannocks--collapsed over the piece he had commanded and worked. Anotherman yelled with sudden pain, and I felt a sharp blow on the calf of myleg.
"Clear!" shouted Jack Jaikes, "I will fetch the men. Up with the gun."And he drew Allerdyce off the top of the mitrailleuse as one mightgather a wet rag.
The storm passed and as we panted upwards the bullets still tore ourranks. It could not be done. We had not the force. We paused half-wayand blocked the wheels with stones so that she would not slip back.
"Great God, what's that?" I turned at the anguish and surprise in thevoice of Jack Jaikes, and I saw clear under the rain-washed splendoursof the moon Keller Bey walking down the main Cours of Aramon. One handheld aloft a white flag, and on the other side clasping his armwas--Alida!
I dreamed--I was sure I dreamed. That bullet--those fellows knockedover--Allerdyce smiling and abominably limp on the top of his owngun--Jack Jaikes gathering him up--all these things had crazed me, andno wonder. I saw "cats in corners," as I used to do in old college dayswhen I studied too much and too long.
But yet I looked and saw the vision continued. Moreover I heard. KellerBey was calling out something as he waved the flag. Black cats did notspeak. They keep an exact distance away--about four yards and always inthe corner of a room or in a stairway--never in the open. What was hesaying? One word recurred.
"Treve!--Treve!--Treve!"
"I proclaim a truce in the name of the Internationale!"
Mocking laughter answered him. The Internationale! What did they carefor the Internationale? They were out to kill and to take.
Little groups began to gather at the dark alley mouths. I could see theglitter of rifles and bayonets. Present fear was arrested when they sawus withdrawing our guns. Hope sprang into their minds that they mightcapture the mitrailleuse abandoned halfway up. Their losses stung themto a wild and reckless fury.
I do not know whence the first bullets came--I think from the north endof the Cours Nationale, where some men had been busy removing their deadand wounded. At any rate it was the signal for a general discharge. Thestreets and alley-ways vomi
ted fire. The crackle of rifle shots sprangfrom the windows of houses. Somehow we found ourselves outside on theCours. We had abandoned the gun. Jack Jaikes seemed to be giving somekind of instructions, but I could not make out what he was saying. WhatI saw was too terrible--Keller Bey on the ground, the white flag oftruce stained with blood, and Alida kneeling beside him.
"Take them up!" yelled Jack Jaikes, "run for it!"
Before me strode Hugh Deventer, huge and blond like a Viking. He caughtup Alida and would have marched off with her, but that Jack Jaikesbarred the way.
"Idiot," he cried, "who can carry a man of Keller's size but you? Givethe girl to Cawdor!"
I think at that moment Hugh could have killed him, but he gave me Alidaas bidden, and bending he shouldered the dead weight of the wounded man."Put him higher, then, you fool," he shouted to Jack Jaikes.
"I can't, they are coming at us with the white weapon. Heave himyourself," yelled back Jack Jaikes. I heard no more for Alida, wakingsuddenly to her position, fought desperately in my arms, escaped, andran up the broken stones past the abandoned machine gun till I lostsight of her in the dusk of the broken gateway. Hugh Deventer, stumblingafter with Keller Bey, cursed me for getting in his road. We did andsaid a number of things that night which can't well go in a log book,not even now.
I turned and in a moment was with the small band which Jack Jaikes hadgathered about the gun. At any cost we must not lose that. There weretoo many men in Aramon who knew how to make ammunition for any purpose.
Yes, they were coming. They were so near that I had just time to snap inmy bayonet and get beside Jack Jaikes. I saw him shake something wetfrom his hand.
"Are you wounded?" I asked anxiously, for that would have been the crownof our misfortunes.
"No, that's Allerdyce!" he answered, with ghastly brevity, butnevertheless the thing somehow nerved me. We all might be even asAllerdyce, but in the meantime we must stop that ugly black rush--thecharge "with the white" as they called a bayonet charge. Behind was thegun--Allerdyce's gun--and beyond that the open defenceless port, thewaiting men clewed there by their duty--and the girls!
Lord, how slow they were--these running men!
"Now then, one volley," said Jack Jaikes, "scourge them and then steadyfor the steel! Remember we are taller men and we have on an average afoot longer reach than they have. You, Gregory, keep behind and blowholes in anybody you can see running."
I cannot remember very clearly this part. How could I? I rather think wedid not stand very firm. I seem to remember charging out to meetthem--the others too--and Jack Jaikes laying about him in front ofeverybody with clubbed rifle, grunting like a man who fells bullocks.The lines met with a clash of steel. I remember the click and lungeperfectly. Then suddenly we seemed to be all back to back, and somehowor other the centre of a terrible mixed business, a sort of whirlpool offighting. Men quite unknown to us had appeared mysteriously from thedirection of the Mairie. They were attacking our assailants on theflank. It was warm there under the trees of the promenade for a fewminutes. But after a volley or two, as if they had come to seek forKeller Bey, our new allies decided to retire without him. They suckedback firing as they went, and taking with them the red mayoral flag theyhad carried.
We were left with our own battle to fight. But they had done something.The solidity of the attack had been somewhat fused down. We were not nowso closely surrounded.
"Glory, the tucker's out of them!" cried Jack Jaikes, "give them avolley--Henry rifles to the front. Scourge them!"
It was his word--"scourge them." And that to the best of our ability waswhat we did. The shooting was not very good, or we should have been ridof the enemy much more quickly.
"Stand clear, there!" commanded a voice from above our heads. RhodaPolly had got a team of men together to lever up Allerdyce's machinegun. She was now bending over it, and those who remained of the deadman's crew bent themselves to the task of getting it in order.
"To right and left, and fire as they run. Now then----!" commanded RhodaPolly.
"Re-r-r-r-rach-rach-rach!"
The mitrailleuse spat hate and revenge over our heads. The young"second-in-command," trained by Allerdyce, stood calmly to his post andswept the muzzle wherever he saw a cluster of assailants.
"Allerdyce! Allerdyce!" yelled the crew of No. 4. They did not mean himto hear. Allerdyce would never hear anything again--neither the voice ofhis native Doon, running free over the shallows, nor the raucous voiceof his beloved gun, nor even the shouting of his men as they wrote theirvengeance for a dead leader across the Cours of Aramon in letters ofblood.
This happened almost at the end of the battle, but what I remember bestof it all, in all that unknown and unknowable turmoil of death, is thehalf-wild, half-quixotic, altogether heroic figure of Jack Jaikes,dancing and vapouring under the splendours of the moonlight.
"Come back and fecht!" he yelled. "Come back and fecht for the sowl o'Allerdyce! On'y ten o' ye. I tell ye I'll slay ye for the sake o'Allerdyce! Ye made what's no human o' him. Come back and I will choke yewi' my bare hands. We were chums, Allerdyce and me, at the Clydebankyaird. God curdle your blood for what ye did to Allerdyce. Come back andfecht, ye hounds o' hell, come back and fecht!"