He came! They poured one long volley into the long-coated line. It wavered, broke, thinned. At the junction with the Middlesex an Englishman gazed in unfeigned astonishment at the ugly, set features of his Norman companion.
"But," he said, "they might have wanted to be prisoners."
"Oh." Ozanne grunted, "don't want none," and squinting down the sights let loose another trio. "This," he added, "is the Great Undertaking."
"Yes, well?"
"I am the undertaker. For my job ... must 'ave bodies ... and I," grimly, "I'm getting 'em."
The other shuddered slightly. War is war, but these wild unkempt men of a strange tongue were something he could not quite grasp. Anyhow, they knew how to fight. That is all that matters.
Duggie Le Page went into No-Man's Land and pluckily brought in a wounded N.C.O. from one of the mounted regiments, but too late to save a life fast nearing its ebb.
A weakly sun crept up from amid thick grey clouds and shone wanly on the mud-spattered creatures lying each in his own water-logged trough. Hour followed hour without further sign of hostile movement from the enemy—nothing could be seen of him, and had the cavalry got through the attack could have been continued and Cambrai taken.
Casualties (the supreme sacrifice in two instances) began to trickle away from the Norman ranks, the majority from the attention of a sniper in the long grass who held on alone with plucky audacity. Unfortunately for his own welfare he was over-confident, exposed himself too long; and ten rifles cracked spitefully—all who fired hotly claiming the right to a notch.
Before mid-day it became apparent that Fritz had neither the heart nor the troops for launching a counter-attack on a scale large enough to make a definite impression on the newly-won area. His "strafing" was fitful, poorly sighted, and of small calibre. Here and there he still had the use of a machine gun or two and had concentrated a number of men at Noyelles. This village was attacked by a company of the Royal Fusiliers; fought for desperately in one brief, mad mêlée, during which blood ran freely, but remaining in the hands of the British, formed the nearest point in the Line to Cambrai.
At Nine Wood all was quiet—except for the unearthly sounds emanating from the nostrils of one Tich sleeping in the reserve troughs with one side of his features buried in an inch of brown mud. Desultory conversation came down from the wide trough "Old man Casey" had dug and had adorned with an empty whisky bottle found in the grass. He was looking at it lovingly where it stood mouth downwards: for the obvious reason, he observed, that its spirits were like his own—all run out.
The Ten Hundred were tired, dead-beat. Marching all Sunday night, fatigue for hours on Monday, again marching in the night. Finally the attack and its holding ... eyes were heavy with ache for sleep.
Between eight and nine they were relieved, stumbled away from the wood until feet rang noisily on the rough surface of a sunken road winding Marcoing-wards.
Near a side road a number of houses were used as billet—Marcoing was untouched by shells on that date—and into these buildings Ten Hundred unshaven, unwashed, worn-out Normans entered slowly, found corners for the long-wished-for rest and threw down equipment and packs. Some jerked off boots, some faked up pillows, but the majority turned on one side, head on valise, and fell straightway into an oblivion that nothing could disturb.
Lying across a doorway, his boots and equipment still on, a veritable boy breathed regularly in the same attitude into which he had sunk the moment he had passed inside. His pale, tired face was dimly visible in the hazy starlight and one wondered at the peaceful serenity.
The last boot clattered loudly on the floor, the last rattle of a rifle placed by the owner's side, the last long-drawn sigh of relief ... Silence. Above them all Woden wove the magic spell Oblivion, the Rest of the war-worn warrior.
Daybreak had long since passed and still no sound of movement from the rows of tangled sleeping MEN. Tangle! They were lying in all directions and at every angle; it was impossible to define whose feet were whose, or what had become of the chest and head of a pair of long legs leading from a jumbled heap. Duport had his feet fast in the heel of someone untraceable further than the knee—the first-named had munchers of the star-like (removable) variety. No. 2, unfortunately, struck out in his sleep, awakening the other to the fact that his teeth were promenading about at the top of his throat. He struggled to a sitting posture with a gasp, felt frenziedly for his "adjustables" and looked round upon the mixture of dirty, frowsy figures. He stirred Nobby into wakefulness by the simple expedient of tickling him beneath the chin with a grimy big toe protruding from a rent in an obsolete and far from odourless sock.
"'Ere," he said, "got any change."
"Any wha'," sleepily, "any, phew, wot a bloomin' niff. Put them blessed feet of your out of the winder. Change, wot of?"
"This yere trouser button."
"Funny, ain't it, like your face? 'It ole Wiffles there over the 'ead wid your rifle an' tell 'im breakfus' is up." This kindly action having succeeded, the victim looked around.
"Breakfus', where? What is it?"
"Oh, tin of Brasso; what d'you expect, 'am an' eggs or a filleted sausage."
The Ten Hundred awoke, gazed about and laughed until the echoes rang from rafter to rafter as the eye took in each black-featured, bearded and grubby individual. Stumpy was requested to "leave that foot of fungus on his face, as it hid what for weeks had been an infliction," and to which he cuttingly replied that the other gentleman had features that would make a bomb burst.
But there could be detected in these rallies an undercurrent of strong mutual respect, of which they had all hitherto had no cognisance. They were each one intensely proud of what had been so efficiently carried out; although very little WAR was spoken they were keenly alive to the fact that personally and collectively the Ten Hundred had opened the innings with an abundance of "runs" as far as the enemy was concerned.
Rations came up fairly regularly in the advanced areas unless the ration-party becomes lost, drops a portion or makes an appointment with a 9.2. There is a constant daily issue of hard-wearing substance camouflaged as "biscuit," intended originally for the heel of concrete ships and for bomb-proof blockhouses. It can be further utilised as a body-shield, for paving roadways, or with the aid of a hammer and three chisels (why three? In case the first two break) this "biscuit" could be, and was, eaten.
Tea and sugar, enclosed in one tin, were soaked in water: boiled over a small round tin of a form of solidified paraffin, set alight beneath the mess tin.
Then bacon—Your issue might be red—and it might NOT. Perhaps the faintest suspicion of lean fringed it or you might moodily survey a square inch of fat—if there was not a buckshee inch of rind. The flowing locks of hair with which this bacon was sometimes adorned has convinced one that a number of farmers fatten their porkers on "Thatcho"—it could be combed with a fork!
Bully Beef is, ugh! IT was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be ... NEVER AGAIN.
Bread!
Had the biscuit been again as hard the famished Ten Hundred would have got their teeth deep into it. Hunger. A mad craving for food that cannot be swallowed, because of a dry stickiness in the mouth a tongue that somehow would not function; a moisture that would not come.
That tea! warm, refreshing, life-inspiring liquid. Drink, to drink long and thirstily ... the relief, the new vitality. Food vanishes with abnormal rapidity, every crumb, however minute, is carefully searched for, gathered into the hand and eaten.
And afterwards you are still hungry, still thirsty.
The "schemers" slipped away quietly from the billets, crossed into the main thoroughfare and commenced a scrounging expedition for grub. ("Scrounging," an exciting operation whereby the required article is obtained by any means otherwise than legal.)
Winterflood, Mace and the Duo found their way by instinct born of experience to an advanced dressing station where buckshee tea was being doled out. Cups were not to be had, a milk can having to deputise in three instances while the fourth dug his features deep into a foot long tin with a quarter-inch layer of tea. Then Fritz dropped a shell, kru-ump, clean into the centre of the courtyard. The jar caused a pint of the tea to run caressingly down two tunics then again the genial enemy sent over another. Si-izz-krump! One of the four scroungers grunted.
"Boo—want, want any more tea?"—chuckling. They didn't! A third, a fourth, and a fifth followed. Men looked significantly at each other.
"Bringin' his guns up."
"Yes—heavy stuff, too."
"Be as hot as Hades round 'ere soon."
It was. Hun artillery were adepts at "shooting off the map" (e.g., calculating the angle of elevation for concentration on a certain spot by means of a map), and began to drop near the roadways and cross-roads a series of heavy calibre shells. Here and there, as his guns went searching across the town, a house crumbled under with a grinding, spluttering crash. Hun aeroplanes, also, made an unpleasant announcement of their presence above Marcoing, directing their artillery fire upon a number of points.
Our Brigade Headquarters were situated, of all unhealthy spots, in a house the last of a row culminating at a four-cross-road. Phew—and he dropped one on it and got five of us. Wilshire (Royal Fusiliers) came in for a fearful gash, ten or twelve inches long and three wide, right across the spine. Conscious, but paralysed, he looked round on us with a piteous, hopeless appeal for succour in his eyes and made wild, inarticulate sounds for water. One of the signals (R.E.) fell face downward on the floor in a widening pool of his own blood, one part of his face blown away. Poor laddies, full of youth, vim, life—cursed artillery from your far-off safety! Aye, hands clench; if ever OUR chance comes....
He played on Marcoing throughout the night, inflicted a few light casualties on the Normans, deprived a few more house of rafters, and ploughed an occasional portion of the road.
One wondered grimly on looking up at a thin slate roof what protection it would form against a "heavy," and into how many unrecognisable fragments your person would be dispersed should he land one direct on you. Close your eyes and sleep; then if he does plump one in, you won't worry much about it.
We seemed to have no 'planes of our own to interfere with Fritz's evening gambols, nor were there any Archie guns in the sector to give the Hun aviators something with which to amuse themselves.
Coloured cavarly had ridden in, out and around Marcoing throughout the day, but apparently were not going through. The advance was ended and there was every indication of establishing this new line for the quieter period of winter.
The Normans, with the 80th Brigade, moved in the evening dusk out from Marcoing to Masnières—a town that constituted almost the apex of the salient formed by the drive.
A strange march, although a mere couple of miles or so, in that throughout the entire line of companies there could be sensed some indefinable presentiment of a something to be feared. High above the direct line of march could be discerned the black puffs of enemy timed shrapnel bursting in the air. And you had to pass through it—it was inconceivable that everyone could get through unharmed. Again, it might not be you. The egotism of unconscious thought; the indisputable truth of Darwin's "Will to Life."
At Rues Vertes the Battalion halted. The nerves were highly strung, men gazed about with slight shudders as one is wont to do in the midst of weird ghost stories when someone comes softly, unexpectedly down the darkened stairs.
What was the unshakeable phenomenon? Was it the moaning of a lost wind in the dark woods that reacted so upon that rudimentary, instinctive Fear of the Unknown, the Night; inherited from the primitive man who watched trembling throughout the wakeful hours when Fear was his sole companion?
"I—I don't fancy this," Tich whispered hoarsely, "it puts a feelin' of death on me." Fatal prophecy!
The Ten Hundred carried on, crossed a swampy field, and moving up nearer the line, filed once again into the dismal occupation of trenches newly dug, affording inadequate cover and protected by wire that would have to be raised by their own efforts.
Winter was already getting a grip on the land, nights were cruelly cold and days but little better. And this first night at Masnières was frequented with that sensation of ill-omen pervading the minds of many who felt—as Tich had said—somehow that their days were drawing to a close. They would lie unmoving for an hour obsessed by their thoughts; the brain flying with its lightning rapidity from picture to picture resurrected from a happy past. In words would some communicate their apprehensions.
"I feel—rotten to-night. Something's got on my nerves...."
But the rum ration soon soared the depressed spirits. Man is prey to his inherited instincts. Even Tich recovered his nerve.
"I only felt like that once before," he said, "that's when I was spliced."
"Wot, frightened of something?"
"Yes, and," gloomily in abrupt relapse, "it came right, too." The cherubic tones of Stumpy emanated from somewhere.
"Wot I say is, respect a man's principles. Any teetotalers about yere wot wants to find a 'appy 'ome for their rum ration? Wot I say is, respe—yes, yere I am, old son, pass the sinful liquor over."
Half an hour later he warbled a jumbled melody:
"In Ari—Arizona. It's there a girl in Ari—Ari...."
The night was far more lively than any preceding. Fritz trench mortar batteries sending over a series of particularly nastily ranged shells. This is a type of shell that can be heard coming from far in the air and its flight, by an acute observer, can be gauged to within a dozen yards or so of the point of impact with the earth. Situated right up in the forward line this dangerous little weapon, at a range of one thousand or less (according to distance between opposing lines) yards, is fired at an almost perpendicular elevation and therefore descends again in approximately a direct line into the trenches: this factor naturally increases its probability of getting INTO the narrow excavation where a long-range shell at a more acute angle would merely dig itself into the parapet. And the havoc among human bodies confined within a small area that this small shell creates is conceivable only by those who have been of a party devastated by such a visitation. It must be borne in mind that three men can be almost obliterated by an explosion while the fourth may pick himself up dazedly, white and shaken, but unscathed. Take it as a concrete fact that any man, however courageous, who comes close enough into contact with a shell to be conscious of its hot breath on his face and to be violently thrown by its concussion, will regain his feet with shaken nerves to a degree necessitating half-hour or more before restoration to normal. Some few never recover—hence the term "shell shock."
There are tales of iron men who are unaffected by a dozen such experiences—perhaps! The writer was blown clean through an open door in Marcoing and had difficulty in keeping his hand steady afterwards to light a pipe—but he does not consider himself particularly brave. Quite the reverse. I could get round a corner with more rapidity than any man in the Battalion if a shell came my way.
Masnières, if external and internal appearances of buildings is a criterion of financial status, must have been peopled by a moderately wealthy class. In fairness to Fritz it must be granted that in three years' occupation he had not purloined to any large extent from the larger houses—with the exception perhaps of a few dozen clocks, a piano or two, and a few similar articles.
Tho cause of this may, of course, be found in the knowledge that right up and during the British attack all these towns—Marcoing, Noyelles and Masnières—unvisited by shell fire, were still occupied by their owners. Coming up from where they had hidden trembling in their cellars during our advance, they were immediately advised to go "down the line," and in accordance treked away from their old homes with what few personal belongings they could take with them. The road from Masnières to Marcoing was strewn with the pitiful remnants of lost bundles, which, unable to carry further, sobbing women had cast down by the wayside.
They had crowded in tearful, grateful groups around a few of the Guernsey and other battalions. Young and old. Old! Bent of shoulder, white-haired old dames; from whose kindly care-lined faces grateful tears were fast flowing, poured out volumes of thanks to the Normans in their mother tongue. Upon old backs that had long since earned repose were bundles, sad little bundles, tied up in red handkerchiefs. Ambulances were used for the conveyance of the old and spent to safety zones. Rough, big Britishers picked up the frail old frames in muscular arms, carried them with infinite gentleness to the ambulance and esconsed them securely there.
"'Ow's that, mother. A bit of all right, eh?" And the ready tears would course again down the old withered cheeks; words would not come; she could only grasp tightly on the firm young hand. How that lump WOULD rise in the throat; how one fought to appear unconcerned.
Big, awkward phlegmatic Britishers; unhappy beneath all this honouring—it makes a man feel such a bally goat.
Thus the people returned to France, while on the ground near by the still figures smiled serenely at the sky. Perhaps they knew! Renouf, a plucky, good-humoured Private, walked down just afterwards with the blood dripping from his side.
The ensuing week, during which the Ten Hundred partook in wiring off the sector, completion of the poorly-dug trench system, and kindred work, was ardous not only in the physical sense, but from the constantly increasing attention of Hun airmen, artillery, and machine guns. Casualties increased, and of them Death claimed a singularly high proportion, one unfortunate Lewis-gun team coming in for a welter that shattered practically every man and ended two young lives in a fearful state of dismemberment.
Wiring constitutes in itself an operation of fatal possibilities. It has to be constructed at night, without sound; but posts have to be driven into the earth; someone will inevitably slip, accompanied by a loud clatter. Then—ping, ping, ping!!! A hundred rounds fly whining through the night from a Fritz machine-gun.
The utter wretchedness of that wiring; the sickening knowledge that any moment a trail of bullets may spring without warning at you—and if ONE machine-gun shot gets you, another FIVE will be somewhere in your body before you reach the turf. It appears an impossibility to carry on alive in such an undertaking from night to night; but still you DO IT. It is funny—afterwards.
Robin hated it, after falling and introducing twenty barbs to that portion of him utilised usually in a chair; he had to reline a little to one side for a couple of days. Then blood poisoning set in, he reported "sick," and was sent down the line as a casualty.
"Of all bloomin' luck." Stumpy growled; "'ere's me wots fallen down two shell 'oles and nearly twisted me bloomin' neck, been knocked over by a shell wot capsized all my rum issue—an' not a sign of a Blighty one."
"It's a pity you didn't," Le Huray observed.
"Wot?"
"Twist yer bloomin' neck."
"Look 'ere, my lad, if I comes over there I'll twist yer tongue and tie it up behind yer 'ead, an' it wont be a Blighty yer'll 'ave—no, it'll be a blooming' corfin."
"Shut yer row, the two of you," Casey shouted, "yer like a couple wots been married a year, chewin' each others 'ead orf. Come yere an' give me a 'and. Stumpy," and he turned again to the task of clearing a layer of mud from his rifle bolt with a grimy piece of rag an inch square.
There is a refreshing originality (sic) in the al fresco meals partaken of in the fresh open air, in a comfortable trench—so comfortable that legs are twelve inches too long, knees in the way of your chin, and somebody's boots making doormats of your tiny bit of cheese. Water and tea—when you get it—has a most uncommon flavour of petrol due to being transported in petrol cans. Stumpy was of the opinion that the War Office should be advised to utilise rum jars instead.
Fritz has a gentlemanly knack of dropping a shell near you and depositing a mighty chunk of black filth in the very midst of your grub. Resultant language unprintable.
Slight falls of snow began to take place, the wind increased and nights in the trenches became one long vista of drawn-out agony. Hands and feet froze; maintain circulation was an absolute physical impossibility: but it had to be faced through the long, over long, hours of waiting, and there was no alternative, no remedy. You suffered, Royal Guernseys, men of a warm, sunny isle, who had not hitherto known the harsh winter of miles inland spots. But you stuck it well, rifle grasped in a hand gone stiff, face cut and blistered from the fierce wind; feet aching with inconceivable agony.
Gas, sent over in shells, made an unpleasant addition to the already numerous "attractions" of the picnic. There is in this form of gas two factors that materially assist in bringing about casualties. Firstly, this type of shell cannot usually be distinguished from a "dud" and therefore alarm is rarely given until three or four of these shells have landed, by which time, if the wind is in your direction, the gas is on you. Secondly, men are careless: "Oh, the wind won't blow it this way ... might only be a 'dud,' too."
Men regard and withstand all this hardship with varying moral. There are a few who sadly collapse before the onslaught of adverse circumstances, who give way without a fight to nervous prostration, and who are subject at times to wild spasms of uncontrolable trembling, finally going down the line with a form of shell-shock altogether distinct to shock from violent concussion.
Some are stoic, hanging on doggedly; characteristic of the quiet man from tiny Sark, who, failing to understand the why and wherefore of their presence in this Hell and yet individually conscious of a sacred duty to carry on, gave a constant example of philosophic acceptance of life as it was that indicated no lack of courage. Of very similar psychological tendency were the men from Alderney—a fine, physically, body of lads, if short—and from the more remote portions of Guernsey.
The town men were adept growlers, found something funny in everything and calmly palmed off all the arduous tasks upon the good-natured but less sly countrymen. It should be recalled, however, that a large percentage of these men were "old soldiers," had seen service at Guillemont with the Royal Irish, and were therefore au courant with every form of deep scheming.
The greater portion of the remnants of Guernsey's volunteer companies in the Royal Irish had after their first casualty been drafted into the Ten Hundred, a large proportion receiving—and rightly—promotion. They were fine types, born fighters, born soldiers, and, some of them, born schemers.
It would be futile to endeavour to convey that nowhere in the Ten Hundred were found men in whom a white streak was obviously apparent. White of face and faint of heart; the first to avoid any undertaking where their skin was endangered: crouched far below the parapet, and who at the least indication of enemy activity gazed frenziedly rearward at the nearest line for a headlong retreat. One in perhaps every hundred.
Fear, the instinct to guard life; the warning of danger; the all-absorbing sense of primitive ancestors who have handed down an almost uncontrollable Fear of the Unknown, indelibly imprinted upon the brain and imbibed into the very blood from centuries of fearful watch upon the Death that came out of the Darkness.
The fear of death overcome, there grasps the young warrior in a sudden frenzy the revelation that in some critical moment he "might funk it." There lies the crux of it. Afraid that he might BE AFRAID and bring upon him from the lips of those whose opinions he values most the fatal slur "Coward." For death is far better than that those men who have placed upon you—and you upon them—the implicit reliance of MAN for MAN, should find you wanting in the test and pass sentence upon you that a lifetime regret could not one whit abate.
Two hundred, perhaps three hundred, yards from the Front Line a Fritz blockhouse (a concrete, more or less shell-proof fortress, impervious to rifle and machine gun fire, utilised on a large scale by the Germans and garrisoned with machine guns) held an advantageous position bearing on the lines of communication leading up from Masnières, thereby playing pretty havoc upon ration parties and all movement within focus of the enemy machine-gunners.
It HAD to be taken, without artillery support. The Ten Hundred were nearly let in for the job, but owing to alteration of date the Lancashire Fusiliers had the onus upon them.
Surprise was the great deciding factor.
It failed! Creeping over through the night one half of the journey was accomplished ... in one piercing whine of spiteful machine-gun fire Fritz almost wiped out the first wave. For an hour the British tried again and again with constantly refilling gaps, while upon them was turned every German machine gun in the area. From half a mile away the creeping line of advance could be gauged by the tone of firing. Higher, higher, in one mad high-pitched shriek, ten thousand shots in one minute from twenty or more enemy machine-guns sang and hummed in the inky pall. The high key lowered; the mind pictured the khaki line retreating, reforming—forward again. Then up again the shrill staccato; line drawing nearer. Higher, faster, louder the Satanic scream of lead. Higher, still higher! The head throbbed, beads glistened on the brow—surely the climax was reached. And then it lowered—failed again.
A minor operation, of no importance to Official Report!
In a field near Brigade Headquarters an unfortunate cow had investigated the explosive powers of a 9.2, with the result that it no longer had to waste its days chewing the cud. We cut away steaks by bringing the bayonet into service, but had no fat in which to fry the savoury article. The more tender portions were eaten raw—we were hungry—and the remainder fried with water and a tot of rum. A rum steak—it was "rum," inflicted us with gumboils for a week.
Some of the cheese now being issued found its way up without a ration party and upon approaching Brigade caused a false alarm of gas to be sounded. It has been found effective in poisoning lice. This little adherent is now in dozens upon every other fellow. Folk at home have a peculiar tendency for sending out powders, for the entertainment of these pests, upon which they wax fat: dying sometimes of constipation.
The mail had arrived on the Thursday night (November 28th) that the Ten Hundred came out of the line for the last time. The Division will move, out on the morrow after nearly two weeks' marching and fighting. Casualties had increased: the Lanes, and Royal Fusiliers numbering but little over 500 men. (They entered the action about 700 strong.)
The Normans had lost between forty and fifty, inclusive of several Supreme Sacrifices. Muray had one eye blown out by shrapnel from a trench mortar without losing consciousness.
A draft should have joined the Battalion, but halted for the night in Rue Vertes, coming in for a bout of shelling that put the wind up the entire party, with inflicting much bodily harm.
A strange non-appearance of British 'planes has caused comment, nor did there appear to be any heavy guns remaining on the sector apart from such artillery that forms a Brigade complement. Fritz, on the other hand, maintained uncomfortable concentration upon the towns and roads with a large number of guns brought up from somewhere (Lille—where an Army Corps had been awaiting transfer to Italy). The number of gas shells indicates that his supply in this direction is unlimited, for this type comes over regularly day and night. He concentrated, too, upon the canal lock in the probable vague hope of flooding the district. His shells fell by the scores around, above, short of and beyond the objective, everywhere except, by extraordinary bad luck, upon it.
4.30 a.m., Friday, November 30th.—Quiet, comparative quiet everywhere. Gas shells came over with an ever increasing frequency, but men slept on without masks. A shell, heavy, unmistakably from a huge howitzer, crashed with a mighty uproar into a small house and demolished it at a stroke. Then another, and another, and still another ... phew, what was he "searching" for? From the doorway of Brigade Headquarters I looked into the night and listened to the whistle of shells passing overhead from eastward into our lines. Our own artillery was silent. No sound came from our near infantry lines, not the crack of a rifle, not the splutter of a machine-gun.
Again the dull drone of the heavy stuff—the practised ear could gauge its fall, and I retreated a few yards into the passage. The courtyard outside caught it, and the entire chateau trembled violently at the concussion. But why, why these big guns? Another landed in the yard, followed by an unearthly tinkle of falling glass. Someone ran in from the gateway with a headlong rush, gained the passage and paused.
"Phew," excitedly, "what the devil is Fritz up to? Heaviest shells on this front."
"Yes. Might be coming over."
"Hardly."
"Why these heavies?"
"Dunno. He's shelling along the whole line—good God," in a shout, "look at that chap there ... it, oh, my God, it's got him ... did you, did you, see THAT?" A heavy had whined into the yard just as a runner essayed a blind rush. Nothing was left. Nausea, a slight dizziness enveloped us.
"What," he asked hoarsely, "what is this place?"
"86th Brigade."
"I want the Guernseys."
"In the Catacombs. The road up on the right." He walked out on to the steps, stared intently into the night—in a flash we both sensed Death. He ran down the flight:
"Good-night." He was a death casualty that night, and we HAD BOTH KNOWN IT.
Presentiment of looming danger was pregnant, became accentuated with the increase of heavy shelling falling from three angles: from directly overhead, from the right rear flank and left rear.
It all culminated before dawn into a barrage on our lines, shells raining in on every acre by the dozens. From the top of the chateau (it was built on a hill) with the coming of day, wave upon wave of grey-coated infantry could be discerned through the glasses. It was impossible to estimate their number, line followed line in such rapid sequence that the eye was bewildered.
They were up against the 29th. The Division wiped out, not partially but completely, row after row. Rifles and machine-guns mingled in hasty chorus, incessant, rapid, accurate. Fritz fell back.
The glasses swept over to the right: the heart gave one wild leap of anxiety. The Division on the right had to face an advance it was unable to stem, a first line had fallen and a bunch of khaki figures were being hurried away into the German rear. Beneath pressure too heavy the line gave, retired rapidly, and the 29th's flank was exposed at a mere HALF-MILE'S distance.
A call was given for a Guernsey scout ... from the passage an inferno of shells were visible bursting every few yards, instantaneously the mind formed: "Impossible to go through alive." One wild frenzied run across the vibrating yard, hearing everywhere the thunderous bursts, fumes fouling the nostrils, breath coming and going in gasps; running like Hades, bent almost double: any second the singing pieces of shrapnel flying past will get you. Into the Brigade Headquarters with a wild laugh! You're through, but you have got to get BACK.
In response to that message the Ten Hundred turned out.
They swung out into Masnières' cobbled hill, rifles slung, and marched with all the nonchalance in the world towards the bridge, cigarettes and pipes going, laughing and joking—thus have I a hundred times watched them go on parade.
That march, a classic; let it go down into history as an emblem of the old Ten Hundred. Their last march together, their last foot chorus on the long trails. Square of shoulder, upright, I see even now those figures that have long since been still. Every yard a man crumpled up, any yard it might be YOU. And they laughed and smoked, went forth to call "Halt!" to those waves of grey, advancing some hundred yards away, as if they had a hundred lives to give. Let coming generations marvel. The Farewell March of the First Ten Hundred. Before the sun had reached its noon many had crossed the Groat Divide and passed the portals of Valhalla to swell the throng of their Viking forefathers.
The enemy advance had continued with remarkable rapidity towards Rues Vertes and Marcoing. Rear Brigade Headquarters, in Rues Vertes, or at least above that village, had been seized, and the R.E.'s, a portion of the N.C.O. staff, all rations and ammunition captured. A dressing station filled with R.A.M.C. and wounded was taken, but Frit acted honourably, placed a sentry over the entrance and allowed the Red Cross men to carry on with their work.
From Marcoing the 88th Brigade formed a line running towards Masnières, and with the dull, wicked bayonet went out to meet the grey forces. Here and there bayonet met bayonet. Again it was the 29th. Blood poured into pools on the grass, Hun after Hun clasped his weakening grip upon the British bayonet rasping through his chest. He fell and with a foot on the body for leverage a red, dipping blade was withdrawn. On again, crack! crack!! Lunge, until the ribs snapped like dry sticks beneath each thrust. Stoic British, unmoved, unexcited ... well might you Germans call the 29th the Iron Division. Aye, the Cult of the Bayonet!
The enemy sickened ... ran.
Lining the roads above and below the broken Masnières bridges, with its half sunk tank, the Ten Hundred pumped an annhilating shower or lead into the lines of enemy creeping along the canal bank. He turned and retreated, but a swarm of grey figures had taken Rues Vertes and were consolidating their positions in what constituted a direct menace to both the 88th Brigade at Marcoing and the other two (89th and 87th) holding on against the onslaught on a line stretching from Masnières to Nine Wood. In this village the enemy held a pivot from which a turning movement, if supported with sufficient troops and guns, could be enforced. He had both these essentials and his aeroplanes grasped in a moment that an advance from here would, if successful, bring the Hun infantry into the direct REAR of those British lines still intact, cut the only line of retreat and force the capitulation of the Divisions at the apex of the salient.
Fritz 'planes were up in scores flying in formation, and, having no opposition, were frequently at an altitude of a mere sixty or eighty feet. The scouts, peering down on the situation at Masnières, took in at a glance the wide area that had to be covered by the solitary Norman Battalion without support of any kind. This information was communicated to the German Command. Inroad from Rues Vertes was prepared with certain confidence; but they had not calculated with the Normans and before the Command could move a finger THEY HAD LOST RUES VERTES!
There was not in that first storming of the village the desperate hand-to-hand fighting that would inevitably have ensued had the Hun made a stand. The Normans scampered wildly into the one narrow road in the stop-at-nothing rush that came naturally to them; some slipped down the fields with Lewis-guns, and Fritz aware that his left flank was falling back before the grim counter-attack of the 88th, retired with abrupt haste. The Lewis-guns (a machine gun firing 700, or slightly over, shots a minute—in theory, 500 in actual practice) in the fields found that the German retreating line was by force of circumstance brought into that most-deadly fire, enfilade (e.g., firing across a line from a point of vantage at the flank). The guns opened without warning on the three waves, more or less in mass due to the involuntary retreat. No more adequate simile can convey the picture of the fast-falling figures than that of grass beneath the scythe. Five minutes, perhaps ten, and it was over. Bodies lay thick everywhere, and upon this area of wounded and dying shells were casting square feet of flesh yards into the air.
German 'planes, viewing this massacre from above, swept down in swift retribution, and flying low turned their machine-guns upon the unprotected Normans. An aeroplane travels at anything from eighty to one hundred miles an hour, and this very speed restricted a lengthy concentration on any one spot, but many a Norman fell forward on his face, a dozen leaden bullets in his skull and chest.
Duquemin, conscious and moaning piteously in agony, was lying crosswise over his rifle, one leg smeared with blood, and the other reclining grotesquely against the hedge twenty yards away. Doubled up on a hedge top, rifle still levelled at the foe, a figure lay and upon its shoulders a ghastly mess of brains and blood crushed flat in the steel helmet. Duval stumbled blindly towards the dressing station, the flesh gleaming red down one side of his face and an eye almost protruding. Le Lièvre limped away in the direction of Marcoing and walked for five hours before succour came his way. Tich was lying face earthwards near the Crucifix, a rifle shot in the very centre of his head. Rob, quiet, gentle-natured Rob, fell forward against the semi-trench.
"I—I've got in—the head," he said weakly "I—I'm going, go—." He collapsed ... life ebbed away and he was still.
BUT THE NORMANS HELD RUES VERTES.
The Germans launched a heavy offensive, for the retaking, wave after wave, line after line, moving ponderously forward. The Norman rifles and machine-guns shrieked out lead in a high staccato until the advance, slackened, wavered and fell back. Hun artillery showered shell, gas, and shrapnel over every yard of ground. For a period the Normans fell in dozens everywhere. The canal in places was stained red, and Norman bodies drifted twirling away on its fast-running waters before sinking.
AMMUNITION WAS SHORT. Scouts from Headquarters tried to get into Marcoing with the information. Clarke moving along the road found himself unable to return or to move because of a Fritz advanced post. One of the Middlesex crossing a clearing in the trees was wiped out by machine-gun fire and toppled over into the canal.
Mighty trees, a yard radius, bordered those waters, but at every few paces forward the eye took in one of these monsters split open by a shell. The pulse quickened; if it did that to a tree what would be left of you—anyhow you wouldn't know much about it. Approaching Marcoing the hum of an aeroplane, flying low sounded—in a second I feigned casualty, but he got home on the other scout ahead. Phew, wind up!
The very streets of Marcoing were almost obliterated by the jumbled heap of stone, wood-work and bricks lying across them. Bodies in every inconceivable state of partial or whole dismemberment made a ghastly array in the bleak sunlight, blood from man and animal formed dark pools in the hollow sections of the shattered roadway. Progress could only be made by moving apprehensively close up to what walls were still standing, and to sprint wildly over the open. Wounded were streaming in hundreds towards the dressing station in the square ... many failed to reach there alive.
From the top of the Chateau in Masnières, Corporal Cochrane (the finest little N.C.O. in the Battalion) and a few others were sniping at Hun ARTILLERY some four hundred yards distant. AT LAST had the infantryman his chance.
A steady glance down the sights. Crack! Miss! Crack! Got him but only slightly. Crack, crack! The unholy glee of it. You could see by the way he fell that it had gone home fatally. Crack—another five rounds are rammed into the magazine ... pump it into them, play hell with that Artillery while the chance lasts.
They stare wildly about in a frenzy. Crack, crack, crack! They have had enough and retreat a few hundred yards further south. Still, there lies a dozen or more who will not again pour into the quivering flesh shrapnel's hell-hot agony.
A glance along the Norman ranks during the late afternoon showed appreciably by the many gaps separating man from man how many casualties had already obtained. Shells claimed a large toll of victims even among the more or less screened rows of figures lying along the eastern edge of the canal. Le Poidevin and Le Page, lighting cigarettes from the same match, caught one in the right and the other the left leg, two flying pieces of shrapnel from a shell bursting over one hundred yards distant; fell and stared at each other in painful astonishment ... hobbled laboriously on the long journey (for a wounded man) into Marcoing.
Stumpy, secure behind a small mound, had gazed with black pessimism on life from the moment Tich had given ALL.
"Gawd," he observed generally, "ain't it orful. What with shells, an' dead, an' gas! An' I ain't 'ad any rum since last night. Wot a pore Tommy has got ter put up with."
Night. A night when men crouched over their rifle waiting to kill, when the owl had gone far from the slaughter and even not the fitful flutter of a bat sped through the dark pall. Only man: savage, primitive man, glared at where each remained hidden. The blood lust to kill, always to kill. Animal ferocity and passion: man's inheritance.
From No Man's Land came the sobbing call of wounded for succour. Far, far across the void sounded those despairing frenzied shrieks. Hoarse, appealing, incessant, until they weakened and nothing reached the ear but the smothered sobs of men whose life's sands were running out for want of that aid, so near, but which they were unable to reach.
Verey lights from Fritz's lines rose and fell with monotonous certainty, throwing faint glows on the huddled heaps lying in all directions between the two fronts. A gleam would catch reflection in the glassy eyes of a stiff form, fade and leave you staring hypnotised into the night. Was it distorted fancy ... then you would see it again, and again, until in its very frequency you noticed—nothing.
Shelling slackened. Now and again a pause when the stillness could be "heard." From the woods in intermittent intervals the one solitary gun still intact in an entire battery belched forth a lone shell into the enemy lines. In the fantastic flash of each explosion three shirt-sleeved forms showed a ruddy silhouette of blackened hands and features. A tearing, splintering crash awoke echoes as some great bough was shattered in impact with a "heavy" and crackled its cumbersome way past smaller branches to where it splashed into the canal.
Into an advanced dressing station about Rues Vertes one of the Duo stumbled, bleeding profusely from several wounds, dripping with slimy mud and water, features covered with the grey black dust that comes from close contact with a shell. Ozanne stared at him.
"Gawd," he said, "'ow'd you get that?"
"Scrap—with a Fritz outpost—got a stretcher?" He bent down in a half-faint, was carried to a stretcher and his wounds in body and arm bound. Fag in mouth he dozed, was startled into wakefulness by a call from the Padre.
"Boys," he was saying, "this village will be evacuated shortly—can't possibly hold on. Those wounded who can had better walk to Marcoing."
To Marcoing! Two and a half miles. The Norman moved dizzily out of his stretcher, stood up, and tottered to the entrance.
"Here, kid," a Corporal (R.A.M.C.) advised, "You can't do it."
"I can."
"Sooner that than—be—a prisoner. But I can—do it." He did!
Dawn! And with it an intensity of shelling over the whole area. Earth, limbs, trees were constantly somewhere in the air. Bodies of yesterday were torn asunder again and the wounded who had lasted out the night shrank and writhed in the fiery hail of shrapnel. Fritz came over again. He is a courageous warrior, not afraid of his own skin, but is at best when fighting in numbers. A lone fight, back to the wall, is not his métier; he, if at all threatened, retreats.
Rues Vertes fell.
It was a physical impossibility for the Ten Hundred to hold on. The casualties already exceeded three hundred, every man was utterly worn, hungry, had existed for twenty-four hours in a state of the highest nerve tension. Not one was there who had not missed death a dozen times by the merest of escapes. They had for ten or eleven days been engaged in an offensive and what meagre rest had been theirs was woefully insufficient to counteract the heavy demands made upon the stamina.
Out-numbered by twenty to one, completely out-gunned. No reserves, no supports, and only one small line of retreat. No aerial observation, no adequate cover, and an enemy who was aware that a mere shattered Battalion stood between them and the capitulation of one or more Divisions. They were half famished, tired out ... his troops were fresh. He had no doubts as to the result.
Again the 29th Division repelled an attack on its original front line. Fritz tried the flank, came on in waves stretching far over the hill crest. A fire stopped him—COULD there be only ONE corps before him. He rallied, swept on again, swarming over the canal banks and close up into the outer Masnières' defences; but on his lines hailed a rapid fire from the Normans, the like of which he had never deemed possible. Savident ran alone into the centre of a roadway with his Lewis-gun and poured every solitary shot by him in one long sweep up and down the wavering lines. Rifles cracked with the rapid reloading action of marksmen until the barrels burned hot in the hand. The Germans fell back. The Normans went forward in that reckless rush.