"Then the American spoke for the first and last time. "You think you"re going to be carried to hospital,--you"re wrong. Put him down, Digger!"
And that ended that.
"Speaking seriously, though," he went on, "the Americans who have been attached to us are good stuff--keen to learn, and the right age and stamp. When they pick up more old-soldier cunning, they"ll be mighty good."
"From all we hear, you fellows will teach them that," answered our colonel. "I"m told that your infantry do practically what they like with the Boche on their sector over the river. What was that story a Corps officer told me the other day? Oh, I know! They say your infantry send out patrols each day to find out how the Boche is getting on with his new trenches. When he has dug well down and is making himself comfortable, one of the patrol party reports, "I think it"s deep enough now, sir"; and there is a raid, and the Australians make themselves at home in the trench the Boche has sweated to make."
The Australian colonel nodded with pleasure. "Yes, our lot are pretty good at the cuckoo game," he agreed.
Next morning our shaving operations were enlivened by the swift rush of three high-velocity sh.e.l.ls that seemed to singe the roof of the hut I was in. They scattered mud, and made holes in the road below. "The nasty fellow!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed our new American doctor, hastening outside, with the active curiosity of the new arrival who has been little under sh.e.l.l fire, to see where the sh.e.l.ls had burst. Our little Philadelphia medico had gone, a week before, to join the American forces. His successor was broad-built, choleric, but kind of heart, and came from Ohio. I suspected the new doctor of a sense of humour, as well as of an understanding of current smart-set satire. "They kept me at your base two months," he told me, "but I wanted to see the war. I also heard an English doctor say he would be glad of a move, as the base was full of P.U.O. and O.B.E."s."
After breakfast the colonel and myself pa.s.sed through the battered relics of Heilly on our way to the batteries. The rain and the tremendous traffic of the previous night had churned the streets into slush, but the feeling that we were on the eve of great events made me look more towards things of cheer. The sign-board, "--th Division Rest House," on a tumble-down dwelling ringed round with sh.e.l.l-holes, seemed over-optimistic, but the intention was good. At the little railway station a couple of straw-stuffed dummies, side by side on a platform seat as if waiting for a train, showed that a waggish spirit was abroad. One figure was made up with a black swallow-tailed coat, blue trousers, and a bowler hat set at a jaunty angle; the other with a woman"s summer skirt and blouse and an open parasol. B Battery, who had discovered excellent dug-outs in the railway cutting, reported that their only trouble was the flies, which were illimitable. A and C had their own particular note of satisfaction. They were sharing a row of dug-outs equipped with German wire beds, tables, mirrors, and other home comforts. "We adopted the Solomon method of division," explained Major Bullivant. "I picked out two lots of quarters, and then gave C first choice."
"We"ve got to select positions still farther forward for the batteries to move to if the attack proves a success," said the colonel next day; and on that morning"s outing we walked a long way up to the infantry outposts. We struck a hard main road that led due east across a wide unwooded stretch of country. A drizzling rain had set in; a few big sh.e.l.ls grunted and wheezed high over our heads; at intervals we pa.s.sed litters of dead horses, rotting and stinking, and blown up like balloons. At a cross-road we came to a quarry where a number of sappers were working. The captain in charge smiled when the colonel asked what was the task in hand. "General ---- hopes it will become his headquarters three hours after zero hour, sir."
"That ammunition"s well hidden," remarked the colonel as we followed a lane to the right, and noted some neat heaps of 18-pdr. sh.e.l.ls tucked under a hedge. We found other small dumps of ammunition hidden among the corn, and stowed in roadside recesses. Studying his map, the colonel led the way across some disused trenches, past a lonely burial-place horribly torn and bespattered by sh.e.l.l fire, and up a wide desolate rise. "This will do very well," said the colonel, marking his map. He looked up at the grey sky and the heavy drifting clouds, and added, "We"ll be getting back."
We came back along the main road, meeting occasional small parties of infantry, and turned to the right down a road that led to the nearest village. A Boche 59 was firing. The sh.e.l.ls fell at minute intervals four hundred yards beyond the road on which we were walking. The colonel was describing to me some of the enjoyments of peace soldiering in India, when there came a violent rushing of air, and a vicious crack, and a shower of earth descended upon us; and dust hung in the air like a giant shroud. A sh.e.l.l had fallen on the road forty yards in front of us.
We had both ducked; the colonel looked up and asked, "Well, do we continue?"
"We might get off the road and go round in a semi-circle, sir," I hazarded. "I think it would be safer moving towards the gun than away from it."
"No, I think that was a round badly "layed,"" said the colonel. "We"ll keep on the road. Besides, we shall have time to get past before the next one comes. But I give you warning," he added with a twinkle, "the next one that comes so near I lie down flat."
"I shall do exactly as you do, sir," I responded in the same spirit.
The colonel was right as usual. The next round went well over the road again, and we walked along comfortably. At the entrance to the village lay two horses, freshly killed. The harness had not been removed. The colonel called to two R.A.M.C. men standing near. "Remove those saddles and the harness," he said, "and place them where they can be salvaged.
It will mean cutting the girths when the horses commence to swell."
At 4.30 next morning the batteries were roused to answer an S.O.S.
call. The rumble of guns along the whole of our Divisional front lasted for two hours. By lunch-time we learned that strong Hun forces had got into our trenches and penetrated as far as the quarry where the colonel and myself had seen the sappers at work. Twenty sappers and their officer had been caught below ground, in what had been destined to become General ----"s headquarters. Our counter-attack had won back only part of the lost ground.
"I"m afraid they"ll spot all that ammunition. They are almost certain now to know that something"s afoot," said the colonel thoughtfully.
"Something like this always does happen when we arrange anything,"
broke in the adjutant gloomily.
There were blank faces that day. We waited to hear whether there would be a change of plan. But after dark the ammunition waggons again poured ceaselessly along the roads that led to the front.
VI. THE BATTLE OF AUGUST 8
On the afternoon of August 7 the colonel left us to a.s.sume command of the Divisional Artillery, the C.R.A. having fallen ill and the senior colonel being on leave. Major Veasey, a Territorial officer, who was senior to our two regular battery commanders, a sound soldier and a well-liked man, had come over from D Battery to command the Brigade. A determined counter-attack, carried out by one of our Divisional infantry brigades, had won back most of the ground lost to the Boche the day before. Operation orders for the big attack on the morning of the 8th had been circulated to the batteries, and between 9 P.M. and 10 P.M. the guns were to move up to the battle positions. The old wheeler was looking ruefully at the ninety-two steps leading from the quarry up to our mess. Made of wooden pegs and sides of ammunition boxes, the steps had taken him three days to complete. "My gosh! that does seem a waste of labour," commented the American doctor, with a slow smile.
"Doctor, those steps will be a G.o.dsend to the next people who come to live here," I explained. "That"s one of the ways in which life is made possible out here."
We dined at eight, and it was arranged that Major Veasey, the adjutant, and the signalling officer should go on ahead, leaving me to keep in telephone touch with batteries and Divisional Artillery until communications were complete at the new headquarters.
Down below the regimental sergeant-major was loading up the G.S. waggon and the Maltese cart. An e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n from Wilde, the signalling officer, caused every one to stare through the mess door. "Why, they"re putting a bed on, ... and look at the size of it.... Hi! you can"t take that," he called out to the party below.
The doctor rose from his seat and looked down. "Why, that"s _my_ bed,"
he said.
"But, doctor, you can"t take a thing like that," interposed the adjutant.
The doctor"s face flushed. This being his baptismal experience of the Front, he regarded the broad wire bed he had found in his hut as a prize; he seemed unaware that in this part of the world similar beds could be counted in hundreds.
"But I like that bed. I can sleep on it. I want it, and mean to have it," he went on warmly.
"Sorry, doctor," answered the adjutant firmly. "Our carts have as much as they can carry already."
The doctor seemed disposed to have the matter out; but Major Veasey, who had been regarding him fixedly, and looked amused, stopped further argument by saying, "Don"t worry, doctor. There are plenty of beds at the new position."
The doctor sat down silent but troubled, and when the others went he said he would stay behind with me. I think he wanted my sympathy, but the telephone kept me so busy--messages that certain batteries had started to move, demands from the staff captain for a final return showing the shortage of gas-sh.e.l.l gauntlets, and for lists of area stores that we expected to hand over, and a request from the adjutant to bring the barometer that he had overlooked--that there was little time for talk.
It was half-past ten when word having come that full communication had been established at the new position, I told the two signallers who had remained with me to disconnect the wires; and the doctor and I set off.
It was a murky night, and the air was warmly moist. The familiar rumble of guns doing night-firing sounded all along the Front; enemy sh.e.l.ls were falling in the village towards which we were walking. There was a short cut across the river and the railway and then on through corn-fields. To strike it we ought to pa.s.s through a particular skeleton house in the village we were leaving, out by the back garden, and thence along a narrow track that led across a swamp. In the dark I failed to find the house; so we plodded on, past the church, and took to a main road. After walking two kilometres we switched south along a by-road that led to the position A Battery had occupied. Not a soul had pa.s.sed since we took to the main road; the Boche sh.e.l.ls, now arriving in greater numbers, seemed, as is always the case at night, nearer than they actually were.
Sounds of horses and of orders sharply given! It was the last section of A Battery pulling out; in command young Stenson, a round-faced, newly-joined officer, alert and eager, and not ill-pleased with the responsibility placed upon him. "Have the other sections got up all right?" I asked him. "Yes," he answered, "although they were sh.e.l.led just before getting in and Bannister was wounded--hit in the face, not seriously, I think." Bannister, poor fellow, died three days later.
The doctor and I pa.s.sed on, following a sh.e.l.l-plastered road that wound towards a rough wooden bridge, put up a week before; thence across soggy ground and over the railway crossing. There was a slight smell of gas, and without a word to each other we placed our box-respirators in the alert position. To avoid the pa.s.sage of a column of ammunition waggons crunching along one of the narrow streets we stepped inside a crumbling house. No sign of furniture, no stove, but in one corner--quaint relic of less eventful days--a sewing-machine, not even rusted.
A grove of poplars embowered the quarry that we were seeking; and soon our steps were guided by the neighing of horses, and by the raised voice of the R.S.M. hectoring his drivers. The doctor and I were to share a smelly dug-out, in which all the flies in the world seemed to have congregated. The doctor examined at length the Boche wire bed allotted to him, and refused to admit that it was as comfortable as the one left behind. However, he expressed satisfaction with the mahogany side-board that some previous occupant had loaned from a neighbouring house; our servants had bespread it with newspapers and made a washing-table of it.
The doctor quickly settled himself to sleep, but there were tasks for me. "This is where I"m the nasty man," exclaimed Major Veasey, descending the dug-out with a signalling watch in his hand. "I"m afraid I shall have to ask you to take the time round to the batteries and to the --th Brigade, who aren"t in communication yet with Divisional Artillery. Sorry to fire you out in the dark--but secrecy, you know."
Zero hour was timed for 4.20 A.M.; it was now 11.30 P.M.; so I donned steel helmet and box-respirator, and was moving off when a loud clear voice called from the road, "Is this --nd Brigade Headquarters?" It was Major Simpson of B Battery, buoyant and debonair. "Hallo!" he burst forth, noticing me. "Where are you bound for?... Um--yes!... I think I can save you part of the journey.... I"m here, and Lamswell is coming along.... We"re both going to the new positions."
Captain Lamswell of C Battery suddenly appearing, accompanied by young Beale of A Battery, we made our way to the mess, where Major Veasey and the adjutant were sorting out alterations in the operation orders just brought by a D.A. despatch-rider. Beale and Major Simpson slaughtered a few dozen flies, and accepted whiskies-and-sodas. Then I synchronised watches with representatives of the three batteries present, and young Beale said that he would check the time with D Battery, who were only two minutes" walk from A. That left me to call upon the --th Brigade, who lay on the far side of the village three parts of a mile out.
We set out, talking and jesting. There was a high expectancy in the air that affected all of us. Major Simpson broke off humming "We are the Robbers of the Wood" to say, "Well, if this show comes off to-morrow, leave ought to start again." "I should shay sho," put in Lamswell in his best Robey-c.u.m-Billy Merson manner. "Doesn"t interest me much,"
said I. "I"m such a long way down the list that it will be Christmas before I can hope to go. The colonel told me to put in for a few days in Paris while we were out at rest last month, but I"ve heard nothing more about it."
When Major Simpson, Lamswell, and Beale, with cheery "Good-night," made for the sunken road that led past the dressing station, and then over the crest to their new positions, I kept on my way, leaving a red-brick, barn-like factory on my left, and farther along a tiny cemetery. Now that I was in open country and alone, I became more keenly sensitive to the damp mournfulness of the night. What if to-morrow should result in failure? It was only four months since the Hun was swamping us with his tempestuous might! Brooding menace seemed in the air. A sudden burst of fire from four 59"s on to the cross-roads I had just pa.s.sed whipped my nerves into still greater tension.
I strode on, bending my mind to the task in hand.
At 4.40 A.M. I lifted my head to listen to the sound of the opening barrage--a ceaseless crackle and rumble up in front. I had not taken off my clothes, and quickly I ascended the dug-out steps. Five hundred yards away a 60-pdr. battery belched forth noise and flame; two 8-inch hows. on the far side of the road numbed the hearing and made the earth tremble. A pleasant enough morning: the sun just climbing above the sh.e.l.l-shattered, leaf-bare woods in front; the moon dying palely on the other horizon; even a school of fast-wheeling birds in the middle distance. Ten minutes, a quarter of an hour, half an hour. Still no enemy sh.e.l.ls in this support area. Could it be that the attack had really surprised the Boche?
I turned into the adjutant"s dug-out and found him lying down, telephone to ear. "Enemy reply barrage only slight," he was repeating.
"Any news?" I asked.
"Some of the tanks missed their way," he answered. "A Battery have had a gun knocked out and four men hit. No communication with any of the other batteries."