All material (by ceaseless working parties) had been withdrawn from forward areas. Troops moving out to rest were maintained at points within a few miles of the Line, and could be rushed up without appreciable delay into any gap that Jerry might by pure weight of numbers force in the British lines--nothing was left to chance.
It was pointed out that he would never attempt Flanders mud after the British experience in the Pa.s.schendaele-Poelcapelle stunts of September-October, 1917. This was countered by that pivot of sentimental strategy--Ypres. He wanted it--therefore....
He would not GET IT, anyhow!
In the midst of all these conflicting rumours and views the Normans marched to G.o.dewaersvelde and entrained there for a return to Brandhoek.
At Red Rose Camp they prepared for another lengthy period in the Line, about the second week in March moved up to another camp in a sh.e.l.led area.
Jerry"s offensive was expected at any moment; everybody was nervy: and each Battalion as it came out of the Line thanked its lucky stars that they had escaped the first onslaught. To even the ignorant strategist it was patent that either side could, by a preconceived attack, penetrate a mile or so into any chosen sector of a few miles frontage: but such a salient had little absolute value in a scheme of operations having the turning or breaking of a portion of front as objectives. A break had to be made of twenty or thirty miles and ten or twelve deep, at a stroke, otherwise with the wonderful elasticity of modern warfare the smashed-in line would reform, the gap be lost temporarily and by slight withdrawal of flanks the entire front straighten out and become once more a concrete whole.
Jerry knew it--and we knew he knew it.
XIV
MARCH-APRIL, 1918
IN THE LINE
California Camp, the Normans" jumping off point for their IN and OUT occupation of the trenches and working parties when not in the former, was composed of a collection of tiny huts constructed on similar lines to the Nissen. The attractions peculiar to this obnoxious a.s.sortment of pygmy habitations were two: could not lie down straight in them, absolutely impossible to stand up. Circular of roof, mode of entrance was an enforced elegant att.i.tude on hands and knees wherein a decided advantage could be derived by going in lobster-wise--backwards, for there was NOT an ample s.p.a.ce in which to turn about.
Jerry artillery had fitful moods of strafing. Days of wild "searching"
with a disgusting series of violent heavies bursting in all directions, blowing out candles with the concussion and in the darkness bringing about language-provoking situations that culminated in clumsy searches for matches ... light would reveal your watery rice careering smugly about in a boot and half a dozen f.a.gs floating sadly in the remnant of your mess tin of tea!
Bitter cold of night increased. Boots, however soft and pliable when taken off, however well oiled, would be frozen hard and stiff in the morning as if cut in steel. To force these essential protections on called for painful, struggling efforts.... The only remedy was to sleep with the boots next the body. Placing beneath a pillow was fatuously inadequate.
They went into the line on a frontage beyond the actual Pa.s.schendaele village and on the far side of the ridge looking down on Jerry trenches.
Watery mud again everywhere ... a further protection of sandbags around the legs was not a success; trench feet became more and more prevalent and the germs of trench fever placed Martel, Robin and a long roll on the casualty list.
Eight days of it, followed by arduous fatigues and working parties in the reserve lines. Trenches upon trenches in relays were with difficulty cut into a spongy soil, having apparently one fixed intention, e.g., to clog on to the spade in gummy lumps. Redoubts were constructed under directions from R.E."s and a series of strong points run up at brief intervals.
When Jerry decided to come over he would have an ample reception. The weather had developed a finer, milder tone, enabling the occupants of enemy observation balloons to peer down on the ma.s.s of men engaged in rapid construction of several reserve lines of defence. At times the fit would take him to play on these exposed areas with his artillery, raining on the troops a brief fierce barrage, blowing men, horses and waggons to fragments in all directions, and playing mad havoc amongst partially-completed earthworks ... but the work went on.
Another eight days in! Night raids, patrols--casualties. Jerry came over once in the early morning--he went back!
A party of R.E."s moving up from the south-ard brought with them tidings of what had occurred near St. Quentin.
"Jerry started "is little game. Came over in thousands," The speaker was overwhelmed with eager inquiries.
"Anythin" doin"?", "Did we wash "im out?", "Wot "appened?"
"One at a time. Smashed in our line on a fifty mile front."
"WOT!" shouted in chorus.
"Yus. St. Quentin fallen. Fifth Army fair smashed up."
"Good Gawd!"
"Ten miles into our lines."
"Oh, "ell!"
"Took thirty thousand prisoners--Gawd knows "ow many guns."
"WOT!"
"Thousands of casualties."
"And "ave we stopped "im?"
"No--still fallin" back."
Pessimism, something akin to consternation, found a hold upon the mental outlook of the troops in the sector. They had held an extraordinary unshakeable faith in the might of the Army, in its absolute certainty of holding impregnable what had been theirs from 1916, and upon which all enemy attempts had realised no concrete success.
And now, at one mighty knock-out blow, the Army was in retreat on a fifty mile front!
They glanced back upon Ypres. He would try for it ... take it? Day after day the black budget of "falling back", "prisoners", "using up our man-power," put the wind up them to such an extent that they began to curse at their own impotency and helplessness; to fret angrily at a forced comparative inactivity.
Why were they kept up there while "nothing was doing"? Why were they not sent south to give a hand to the lads who were daily fighting a stubborn retreat against avalanches of German reserves?
The Pa.s.schendaele sector remained unusually quiet; little strafing occurred from either artillery, with the exception of a sunset entertainment organised daily for the benefit of ration parties and reliefs.
Aeroplanes, after prolonged reconnaissances far into Jerry"s territory, returned and the observers reported no movement or ma.s.sing of enemy troops, guns or transport were taking place on a scale beyond the customary. No advance upon Ypres was at the moment antic.i.p.ated unless he still farther stretched out an already extended, far-flung battle zone.
The working parties put their backs into the work with every intention of making a line upon which some thousands of Huns would be rendered casualties before it capitulated. Jerry, watching them do it, with ironical humour left them alone as if their labour were in vain, and long before the trenches would be required the British Army would be cut in two. Perhaps!
Fritz adopted a nasty habit in the form of lobbing over from fifteen miles away a new type of heavy sh.e.l.l, apparently under experimental observation. One fell among the Guernsey cookers, tearing a chunk cut of Sergt. Le Lacheur (he had been waiting for a Blighty for months), wounding several and mauling a few into fearsome ma.s.ses of red flesh.
Grouser--he had not been with the Battalion long--found vent for his feelings. "Ain"t got any blarsted sense, them Germans aint. War--it ain"t war to smash up the bloomin" cookers ... "ow the "ell does "e think we"ll do about grub now?"
"Complain. Grouser, ole son, to the C.O." (C.O.: Commanding Officer--the colonel.--Draws the best paying winner in the Battalion Stakes and also the softest job). He was let in for a baiting.
"Send Jerry a bar of chocolate in exchange for a new cooker."
"Ask "em to confer the O.B.E. on the Jerry wot fired the sh.e.l.l."
"You needn"t worry about the grub. Grouser--you can live on nuts."
"Plenty of hay with the transport."
"Oh," Grouser turned abruptly, "plenty of hay.... You found yer bloomin"
natural fodder, eh! Aye, ye"re every bit such a donkey as ye look."
"Look "ere, wot d"you take me for?"