L X . ^ 1-^ 
Kl K.^i-l\y •J- C/* 
drove into tli» wall of tlie trendi a liUlo board into which 
ho cut a notch. Then with infinite care, having set the ba.'^e 
of the prop in thf 'lotch. he once more sliorcd up the ro:tf 
which he still here upou the top of liis head like a despondent 
Atlas, and, as he so did, remarked: 
" I didn't ort t' be 'ero, I ort t' be in Stourtou, (Jiat's 
where I ort L' be, 'avin' a 'ot bath." 
" That's what we all say about you," remarked a distant 
voice. Private Langley could find notiiing to reply to tiu3 
insult and went on steadily muttering under his breath. 
When at last the roof was fixed and Private Langley, 
who had no illusions left, waited for it to subside again under 
shrapnel, a rumour reached him. 
'■ D'you know what Sergeant says? " Bradden remarked. 
" He says we're going to cut the wire-entauglements to-night. 
You know, crawl out on the q.t. while they're not looking. 
They're going to call for volunteers to do the job." 
"Oh, are they?" said Private Langley with delibera- 
tion. " Well, I know one man who won't go." (Life to him 
was so grave that he never swore.) " What do they take 
me for? I ain't a plumber, 'tain't my job; wire-cutting'j 
obaolesete." 
'' Good word, obolcesete," said the ironic and anonymous 
voice further down. 
" Wire didn't ort t' be cut," Private Langley went on, 
" it ort t' be brort down with explosive shell. An' if there 
ain't no shell, it's an engineer's job, that's what it is, and 
any'ow it ain't my job, and I ain't goin'; too scratchy fer 
me, an' they say the groun's full of titanic germs." 
An ofBcer walked along the trench. The men watched 
him excitedly. He was a popular lieutenant, rather bluff, 
very familiar, and as he had been wounded four times was 
obviously destined to be hanged. 
" Well, boys, we're going to have a little picnic in the 
barbed wire. There's room for ten, don't all talk at once! 
You, Bradden? one. And Jones? two. And — yes, three, 
four. Good! Denny, too ? That's five, six, seven. What? 
Is that all? You too? " ha said to the voice further down. 
" Eight and, I can't see your face, that's nine." 
There was a pause. 
" Put me down, sir," said Langley darkly. . . . 
He was crawling in the absolute blackness of a moon- 
less night, slowly, so that not even a little stone should 
rumble under him. He panted forward, face upon the 
ground, painfully dragging himself along with hooked 
fingers and gripping toes. He was faintly aware of Bradden 
upon his left, of other men almost noiseless near by. It 
seemed a very long way to the entanglement, and, as he 
went quiet as some velvety weasel, he thought,: 
" Can't even talk. Stick a man in the mud on his 
stomach and don't even give 'im a chance to express 'is feel- 
ings. Call that a life? " He removed a large stone which 
suddenly chucked him under the chin. " It's a dirty 
country; where it ain't too soft, it's too 'ard." He rubbed 
the place on his chin and crawled on. 
It seemed endless, for they went so slowly, and it was 
so difficult to keep a straight line; sometimes he drew too 
ujar to Bradden and then thought: 
" Look at 'ira, can't even crorl straight; it ain't a man, 
it's a crab." Then a wire-cutter, which was slung across his 
shoulders, stuck one of its handles in his ear. He shifted 
the ear: " Great, lumping thing," he thought. "I'd do it 
with my pocket-knife, I would, if it weren't against regu- 
lations." And then, as he crawled on, he was filled with 
venom at the thought of the King's regulations. 
It was very silent out there by the entanglements. Ha 
could just see them, their posts blacker than the night, 
and the strands of barbed wire, with the spirals loose in the 
middle, shining a little in the dark. Like ghosts round him, 
the other men, flat upon the ground as he, unobserved 
n:r.de the tiniest little clicks as they snipped wire after wire. 
The Germans did not know; there 'was no firing, except that 
licw and then came a bullet sent on the chance from the 
German trench towards the anywhere. Stolidly, one by one 
he cut the wires. The manual work soothed him, and he 
cculd not think while he had the pleasure of feeling the 
metal grow soft and part in the wire-cutter. The enemy 
seemed unsuspicious, yet they fired a little more often; a 
bullet buried itself behind him. He nearly exclaimed for 
another bullet had grazed his left hand ; he felt the sting on 
it. It was nothing, of course, for it had not even taken off 
the skin. But as Private Langley methodically went on 
cutting he thought: 
"Them Germans! Them blighters! Firing at you on 
the chance without knowing if yer there ain't°playin' the 
pame. When I want to 'it a man I pick 'im out. They 
^ive me the fair sick, they do." And as he went on cutting, 
14* 
he elaborated in his mind increasingly horrible tortures to 
which he would subject the Kaiser when he caught him. 
Suddenly Private Langley dropped his wire-cutter, and, 
half-blind, fumbled for it in the loose soil. He was stru--'- 
gling; it was horrible, for he could hardly open his eyes. 10 
blinded was he with light. He turned his head away, oul/ 
to see his hand violently white under the searchlight. Head 
down to keep his eyes away from the bluish ray, he fumbled 
for his wire-cutter, struggling, exposed, as if knocked down 
by this violent light, half-dazed, like a moth against an elec- 
tric bulb. Every now and then he glimpsed the men near 
bim; they, too, violently lit up as they hugged the soil. Ha 
saw them as he had never seen them before, every detail of 
their faces — wrinkles, new expressions — in this light so much 
Hiore brutal than the sun's. He was all instinct as he struggled 
60, and he did not think of the bullets which were now pock- 
ing the ground all about him with a soft, wet sound. He 
was light-mad ard conscious only of one desire— to find a 
darkness wLuch even his lowered eyelids could not give him. 
The bluish light seemed to pierce right through to his brain. 
He hexrd cries through the firing, for there was no rea.^on for 
silence now. A bur-;t of shrapnel a little way off, and then 
above the din the whistling that recalled his party. With 
animal suppleness ho turned, trying to sink himself into the 
soil as he crawled. He could see Ihe British trench as the 
searchlight touched it, like a long hutch with a black pole. 
Then he heard his name called. He stopped. 
" What's up? " he shouted. 
"Hit in the leg! Give us a lift." It was Bradden'i 
voice. 
Langley said: "'It in the leg, are you? Serve yoa 
right! What d'you want to v/ave yer leg about for? " 
"Oh, hold yer jaw! " Bradden roared. 
"That's what I'll do," said Langley, with great 
dignity. " Some fellers are arskin' for it. What did you lilt 
yer leg for? To scratch yer 'ead ? An' 'ow am I t' git 
there? Where are you? Not that I'm comin'; it ain't my 
job. Not fer me to bring in th' wounded ; I'll tell the 
R.A.M.C. — that's all I can do for you. 11 ain't fair; I 
ain't no odd-jobs man." 
The eight men of the party who had regained the trench 
watched the entanglement. Under the searchlight it .shona 
like frosted silver. The ofilcer stared into his periscope. 
" We seem to have lest two, sir," said the sergeant. 
They were all very watchful in the trench, 'fhey could 
now see in the middle of the entanglement a motionless 
figure, black in the blue rays. That was one of them. Then 
a little quiver of excitement went along the line, for they 
saw a movement in the wires as if something at the edge of 
the entanglement were struggling with them, pushing them 
away, something that, crawling over the sharp spikes, worked 
its way along the ground towards tie wounded man. They 
gasped; it was impo.ssible. But, no; it was true. Thera 
grovelled a man unhurt: he looked like a black snake worm- 
ing its way under the full glare of the blue light, through 
steady firing that somehow spared him. They could see the 
bullets now and then strike the posta which had carried the 
entanglement, sometimes a few inches from the man's head. 
_ And still he went on, somehow unscathed, but uncertain 
as if blinded by the light that was heavy as metal. They 
saw him as if in full sunlight seize the wounded man's 
shoulders and di-aw him along the ground through the cut 
wires, and on, and still on, under the searchligh't that fol- 
lowed him like a malignant eye, and yet still on through the 
storm of bullets that struck to the right and left, and 
magically spared him and his charge. . . . 
They nearly fell into the trench, rescuer and rescued ; 
their clothes torn to rags by the wires, their faces soiled with 
earth and sweat. 
"Well done, Langley!" said the officer. "That's 
Bradden you brought in, isn't it? " 
" Yes, sir," said Langley, and sat down exhausted. Bub 
he leaped up and remarked, as he felt his trousers, "Of 
course I picked the wettest place; they can't even drain their 
trenches properly." He addressed the half company in 
general: " What d'you think I'm up to? Taking the cold- 
water cure, or what? Tell you what; this ain't fightin'. It 
ain't a man's job— arsking 'im to wallow about in the mud 
like a bloomin' buffalo. Tell you what, I'm goin' to buy 
myself out; that's what I'm goin' to do." 
Two days later Private Langley waa informed that he 
would be recommended for the V.C. Some weeks later, 
after the investiture, he stood on the steps of the depot at 
Stourton, a halfpenny picture paper in his hand. It related 
briefly what it called the greatest deed of bravery of the war- 
also it printed his photograph. Private Langley gazed at 
that photograph with growing fury and deepenin<T gloom Ha 
was wondering whether he could sue the editor for libel. 
