Captain Pasley removed his hat and scratched his balding pate and put the hat back on again.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Like a London fog, only worse.’
The big snake of turning yellow reached the parapet of the Algerian stretch of the trench far over to the right and now strange noises were heard. The soldiers seemed to be milling about haphazardly, as if invisible soldiers had fallen in on them, and were bayoneting without restraint. That wasn’t a good sound. The colonial men were roaring now, and there were other frightening cries, as if the unseen horde were throttling them. Of course, the Irishmen could not see into the trenches as such, but in their mind’s eye ferocious slaughter was afoot. Those men from country districts must have thought of pookas and fairy hordes because only such tales of childhood and firesides seemed to match these evil miracles. Horrible laments rose from the affronted Algerians. Now they were climbing up the parados and seemed to be fleeing back towards the rear. The smoke came steadily on.
‘It’s the smoke,’ said Captain Pasley, ‘there’s something wrong with the smoke, gents.’
Now, in his old house at home in Wicklow there were seven fireplaces, and two or three of them were as leaky as old buckets, and when they were lit, smoke poured forth into the bedrooms above them. And that was an evil smoke, but it would not drive you back as if you were cattle, as was happening to those poor men of Algiers, now for some reason tearing off their uniforms and writhing on the ground, and howling; howling was the word for it.
The Dublin Fusiliers took the smoke at the furthest right tip beside the Algerians. Exactly the same thing happened. Now the men were possessed of an utter fear of this dark and seemingly infernal thing creeping along, seeming to make the grass fizz and silencing birds and turning men into howling demons. On instinct the men pushed down along the trench, as anyone would do in the same circumstance, crowding into the next stretch suddenly, so that the men there for a moment thought they were being attacked from the turn of the trench. These men in turn were panicked and poured on into the next section, and because the line of the trench was at only the slightest of angles to the line of the smoke, they had to move proportionately faster to keep ahead of it. Soon the third and fourth stretches were in a hopeless tangle and the smoke poured in upon them. In the sudden yellowy darkness awful sounds sprang up like a harvest of hopeless cries.
O‘Hara started to scramble up the parados behind and it was only Christy Moran’s bark that made him stop. The sergeant-major looked to the captain. Captain Pasley’s face had turned the colour of a sliced potato; there was the same bloom on it also of damp.
‘I need to ring headquarters and ask them what to do. What is this hellish thing?’
‘No time for that, sir,’ said the sergeant-major. ‘Can I let the men fall back, sir?’
‘I have no earthly orders for such a thing,’ said Captain Pasley. ‘We are to hold this position. That’s all there is to it.’
‘You won’t hold nothing against that smoke, sir. Best to fall back to the reserve trenches anyhow. There’s something deathly and wrong.’
But before such a sensible conversation could continue, the smoke was slipping down the parapet about a dozen yards ahead, itself like dozens and dozens of slithering fingers, and there was a stench so foul that Willie Dunne gripped his stomach. Joe McNulty came tumbling down from his emplacement, gripping his Mayo throat, like a dog done in by poison meant for rats.
‘Get the fuck out,’ said Christy Moran.
All right,‘ said the captain. ‘I’ll hold the fort here, Sergeant-Major.’
‘You will on your fuck, sir, begging your flaming pardon. Come on.’
Willie Dunne and his comrades scaled the parados and everyone started to stumble back across the broken ground. It was astonishing to be up,
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Like a London fog, only worse.’
The big snake of turning yellow reached the parapet of the Algerian stretch of the trench far over to the right and now strange noises were heard. The soldiers seemed to be milling about haphazardly, as if invisible soldiers had fallen in on them, and were bayoneting without restraint. That wasn’t a good sound. The colonial men were roaring now, and there were other frightening cries, as if the unseen horde were throttling them. Of course, the Irishmen could not see into the trenches as such, but in their mind’s eye ferocious slaughter was afoot. Those men from country districts must have thought of pookas and fairy hordes because only such tales of childhood and firesides seemed to match these evil miracles. Horrible laments rose from the affronted Algerians. Now they were climbing up the parados and seemed to be fleeing back towards the rear. The smoke came steadily on.
‘It’s the smoke,’ said Captain Pasley, ‘there’s something wrong with the smoke, gents.’
Now, in his old house at home in Wicklow there were seven fireplaces, and two or three of them were as leaky as old buckets, and when they were lit, smoke poured forth into the bedrooms above them. And that was an evil smoke, but it would not drive you back as if you were cattle, as was happening to those poor men of Algiers, now for some reason tearing off their uniforms and writhing on the ground, and howling; howling was the word for it.
The Dublin Fusiliers took the smoke at the furthest right tip beside the Algerians. Exactly the same thing happened. Now the men were possessed of an utter fear of this dark and seemingly infernal thing creeping along, seeming to make the grass fizz and silencing birds and turning men into howling demons. On instinct the men pushed down along the trench, as anyone would do in the same circumstance, crowding into the next stretch suddenly, so that the men there for a moment thought they were being attacked from the turn of the trench. These men in turn were panicked and poured on into the next section, and because the line of the trench was at only the slightest of angles to the line of the smoke, they had to move proportionately faster to keep ahead of it. Soon the third and fourth stretches were in a hopeless tangle and the smoke poured in upon them. In the sudden yellowy darkness awful sounds sprang up like a harvest of hopeless cries.
O‘Hara started to scramble up the parados behind and it was only Christy Moran’s bark that made him stop. The sergeant-major looked to the captain. Captain Pasley’s face had turned the colour of a sliced potato; there was the same bloom on it also of damp.
‘I need to ring headquarters and ask them what to do. What is this hellish thing?’
‘No time for that, sir,’ said the sergeant-major. ‘Can I let the men fall back, sir?’
‘I have no earthly orders for such a thing,’ said Captain Pasley. ‘We are to hold this position. That’s all there is to it.’
‘You won’t hold nothing against that smoke, sir. Best to fall back to the reserve trenches anyhow. There’s something deathly and wrong.’
But before such a sensible conversation could continue, the smoke was slipping down the parapet about a dozen yards ahead, itself like dozens and dozens of slithering fingers, and there was a stench so foul that Willie Dunne gripped his stomach. Joe McNulty came tumbling down from his emplacement, gripping his Mayo throat, like a dog done in by poison meant for rats.
‘Get the fuck out,’ said Christy Moran.
All right,‘ said the captain. ‘I’ll hold the fort here, Sergeant-Major.’
‘You will on your fuck, sir, begging your flaming pardon. Come on.’
Willie Dunne and his comrades scaled the parados and everyone started to stumble back across the broken ground. It was astonishing to be up,
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