They waited, however, in the dug-out whilst Bill clattered up the stairs and so to the curtain. Peering out, he discovered it was already dusk, though he could still see the German sentry. The man was trapesing up and down in less soldierly manner—he was slouching in fact—looking about him a great deal more than he had done before, and, if only Bill could have read his mind, was wondering how long it would be before the dusk was sufficiently deep to allow him to bolt away suddenly from his captors.
"Only, then there's the alternative," this hulking German was saying to himself. "I must return to our forces—I must continue fighting. Ah! that is terrible! I am tired of it—always it is fight on! fight on!—for victory! We Germans outnumber them by hundreds of thousands, and then, where is the victory? Not at Verdun—where I fought! Not at Ypres before it! Not since then anyway. And now in this great 'push' shall we attain it?"
It was a question which many another German was asking himself at that moment—many indeed of the High Command. For Germany was staking everything—her very existence—upon this enormous and sudden offensive, which she had launched against the British Third and Fifth Armies. We have already recapitulated the facts of the case, and will only remind the reader that on March 21st, when this assault was opened, Germany's eastern front facing Russia had been almost completely depleted of German troops. The railways across Germany from Russia into France were almost worn out with the constant transit of battalions; and here they were—they and those guns—those guns manufactured by Britain for Russia and treacherously handed over to the Germans. Here they all were—thrown pell mell at the British—and already the line had bulged back, thanks to this enormous mass of fighting material and to a favouring mist; and the line was to go still farther back. Indeed the Fifth Army was to experience on this day, and for almost ten days following, as severe fighting as ever troops took part in on the Western Front. Nothing but swift retreat, fighting every inch of the way, could save the British line; nothing but constant pressure, giving here and there as German masses became overwhelming—constant pressure, with retreat at the psychological moment, and taking advantage of every coign and vantage-point—that and only that, with British valour behind it, could save the line and hold up this gigantic massed attack on the part of the enemy.
We may advance the story a little with advantage. The Fifth British Army, which by all the canons of warfare should have been annihilated, considering its inferior strength and the enormous advantage the mist gave the enemy—that army retreated rapidly at first, but maintained cohesion between its various units. It fought night and day, it fought for every foot of the road from Peronne and back to the valley of the Somme. It held up the German advance here and there and everywhere, and melted away from it as huge German reinforcements were brought up. It smote the enemy battalions, it laid thousands of them in the dirt, and finally, after days and nights of an ordeal which would have tried the best of troops, it passed the line at Albert, running north and south, where the British and French trench line had rested from 1914 onwards to the summer of 1916, until, indeed, the Somme battles were fought. There it settled down firmly like a rock, holding up further advance on the part of the enemy.
During these strenuous days the Third British Army, on the left of the Fifth, also fell back as respects its right flank, inflicting very severe casualties on the enemy, while French reserves and American troops were poured in the direction of Albert and Montdidier, where soon the Germans were beating against the Franco-American-British line ineffectually, fighting desperately to continue an advance and to force the British into a rout.
That retreat will, when its details are better known, be viewed as of as great historical importance as that from Mons to the south-east of Paris in 1914. Indeed, in a measure and in its own particular way, it will demand closer attention and perhaps greater admiration on the part of a future generation. For, whereas the retreat from Mons was performed by the British Expeditionary Force when small in numbers as compared with the enemy, the fighting was less strenuous, manœuvre warfare had only just commenced and that at the very commencement of hostilities. The retreat from Peronne to the Somme and across it was, on the contrary, manœuvre warfare following a long period of close trench warfare. In it the utmost use was made of mechanical means of killing people. No cavalry screens could hold the enemy off as our fine cavalry did on the road to the south-east of Paris. It was a case of machine-guns and trench mortars in front firing into the British, and British machine-guns and rifles attempting to hold up the advance of a horde of men armed to the teeth, behind whom were masses of guns constantly being hurried forward.
This retreat, however, is analogous to that from Mons in one respect, in that our very gallant French ally fought shoulder to shoulder with us. It marks as well a stage absolutely apart, a new era in this gigantic war in that at this moment American troops appeared, to fight shoulder to shoulder with us. Not yet had American troops appeared in force. There were some hundreds of thousands of them already in France, but the bulk—the millions that America can and will place in the field if need be—were still in America, five thousand miles distant, and time and ships were needed to convey such armies and the material essential for them. Those American troops, let us add—forerunners of the vast army above referred to—acquitted themselves like men. Though only a few of the number then in France were flung into this battle they did wonderful work, so that Larry and Jim and Bill had every reason to be proud of them.
Mention of the last brings us back to our friends. Bill, emerging from the dug-out entrance, gripped the German sentry.
"See that?" he said, pointing down the lane, now hardly distinguishable. "Move on. Don't turn to right or to left—and look out—we shall be following you. If you try to communicate with your pals—well, there'll be trouble."
He saw the lumbering German go plodding off down the lane, his rifle still over his shoulder, and waited until he disappeared into the gloom. Then he shouted down the stairway:
"Come up, boys, all clear!"
One by one the men filed up from below, each carrying his rifle and ammunition as well as a haversack filled with provisions, while the majority also had water-bottles, and all wore steel helmets. Presently they stood outside the entrance in the gathering dusk, a forlorn little band, fully conscious of the fact that they stood as it were alone in this veritable "No-Man's-Land", surrounded by a host of Germans. Indeed, as they stood there waiting for the order to move, they could hear voices here and there—the guttural tones of the Kaiser's soldiers—while from their right, in a south-westerly direction, there came the continuous rattle of machine-guns, the rolling sounds of volleys and of independent rifle-firing, and, smothering all these sounds at times, the racket of a heavy cannonade. Far away sounds seemed to be echoing—the sounds of British guns and British rifles and other weapons.
"And then?" asked Nobby, his tin hat a little on one side, his hairy person standing out conspicuous from amongst the others in spite of the semi-darkness. "Over there," and he jerked a thumb towards the fighting-line, "there's ructions, and round about there's Huns, and there'll be Fritzes here and there and everywhere between us and the battle-line. Young Bill, you've got somethin' to face! What's the word?"
"Aye, what's the word?" others asked.
"March! Not a sound! Let no one answer if they challenge. But wait, we'll form up into column of twos, and I'll post a man on either flank of the column whose job it will be to tackle any inquisitive German. No shots to be fired, boys! Butt-ends!"
"Ah! butt-ends! I'll butt-end Fritz if he comes near me!" growled Nobby, his grin gone for a moment, looking, what indeed he was, a formidable fellow, as he swung his rifle-butt forward from the sling which was over his shoulder. "If Fritz comes between me and liberty—well, it'll be Fritz's fault. I've done 'em in before now, young Bill, and I'll do in a few more before this journey's finished."
"March!" Bill put himself at the head of the little column and trudged forward, first a few steps down the lane and then out through a gap which led from it towards the south-west. Right away, far on their right, he could distinguish a huge dull mass, which common sense and his knowledge of the geography of those parts told him must be the Butte of Warlencourt. Farther along, a little to the right of it, would lie the Albert-Bapaume road, the road which led to safety, and along that again, in the direction of Albert, on either side, a country decimated and torn to shreds by the fighting in 1916. There the Somme battles were bitterly contested, and for miles on either hand, where once had been a fair land dotted with pleasant villages, was now, as he knew from frequent observation, a blasted, battered rolling plain of mud and grass, and grass and mud and shell-holes interspersed with fragments of smashed villages. Here and there, perhaps as much as four feet of a wall remaining, elsewhere the base of some ancient church, a factory in another part crumbling to dust, its machinery rusting—rotten with exposure.
There would be derelict British tanks, too, turned on their sides, burst by interior explosion, and far and wide, here and there in groups—as in the case of the graves of those gallant Australians who captured Pozières—stood pathetic little crosses, beneath which rested all that remained of men who had gallantly fought for the empire. You who live secure in old England, and find it almost impossible to imagine such conditions, take the word of those who have seen. Conjure up in your mind's eye this blasted country, and recollect that there, on the fields they conquered, lie men who died for you, that you and England might survive the tyranny of Prussia.
But enough of such things. Bill knew every step of the way, for he had driven it and walked it on many an occasion.
"March!" he exclaimed; "we'll make straight for the Butte and then for the road. Look out for Germans! A few German overcoats would give us fine cover, and this mist also should help us far on our way. Step out—the faster we go the better!"
They went off through the gathering gloom, through the wet mist which was already cloaking the earth, and presently swung past the western end of the Butte of Warlencourt, which marked the limit of advance of the British army in 1916. Then their feet gained the Albert-Bapaume road, and presently they were speeding along it and getting every half-hour nearer to the sounds of battle. But though they marched nearer and nearer to their friends, what chance had they? Would they ever break through that line of Germans which undoubtedly extended far and wide and cut them adrift from the Allied armies?
"Halt! I hear men coming! There are troops on the road—listen!"
Bill, who was leading the party of men cut off from the British army—a party, be it remembered, comprising not only sturdy British soldiers, but just as sturdy members of the new American army—suddenly thrust out an arm and brought them to a standstill. There on the paved highway which runs from Albert to Bapaume, and which the British, with that thoroughness for which they have now no doubt won world-wide fame, had macadamized and rolled until it was as smooth as a billiard table, though but a few months before it had been churned and smashed to pieces by gun-fire—there, unhappily, the same churning and smashing process was being repeated between the spot where Bill and his friends stood and Albert itself, perhaps five miles distant. For in that direction the thunder of guns was loudest, and even the mist and the darkness could not hide the flash of hidden batteries and the bursting of shells from British artillery, nor could the sounds of distant battle altogether drown other sounds—the deep muffled tread of a mass of men.
"Coming back towards us from the Albert direction," said Bill. "Probably men who have been relieved, or perhaps it's a ration party. Anyway, off we go! Take the road here to the right. Look sharp!"
He stepped off the macadam, to find himself to his arm-pits in a huge shell-hole—a relic of 1916—in which also reclined what remained of a shattered tank—one of the land fighting-ships which Britain had brought to bear against the Germans. Clambering out of it, with two other men of the party who had been similarly unfortunate, he struck away from the road, the others following closely. Then, of a sudden, Larry called to him.
"Say, Bill, here's just the sort of stunt for us! Seems like an old building."
"Aye, a sucrerie. I remember it," came from Nobby. "Here you are, here's one of the tanks in which they boiled their roots. It's Pozières—for a hundred! Pozières! don't I know it? Here's where the Australians did in the Germans what was holding 'em up, and pushed on towards Courcelette."
Bill recollected the place at once. Not once but a hundred times probably had he been up or down this Albert-Bapaume road, and, like everyone who had traversed it, he remembered well that little graveyard on the left with the crosses to the gallant Australians, and on the right, here and there, lost almost amongst the tumbled earth and smashed country-side, solitary little crosses, and farther along on the left again, as he went to Bapaume or Peronne, that shattered factory with the old sugar-tanks, smashed and crumbled and perforated by shrapnel and machine-gun bullets, lying three hundred yards from the road, sole relic of the once flourishing and pretty village of Pozières, now relic only of a spot which was the scene of some of the bitterest fighting in 1916.
"In you go," said Bill. "These ruins will hide us, and we can sit down and have a feed. Nobby, you know the place you say—tell us all about it, so that we may know what we're in for. Any good hiding-places?"
"Know the place?" grinned Nobby, as they entered the shattered walls of the factory and sat themselves down on the floor, which was still littered with much of the broken material left by the British. "Well now, when I was here—seems months and months ago—there was a medical post stationed 'ere, covered up in sand-bags. And, my word, didn't they want 'em! Shrapnel was comin' over all the time, and you've only got to see those tanks outside to realize how machine-gun bullets were buzzing. Yet it was a comfortable enough crib then, though rough, and gave fair shelter."
"Fair shelter?" said Bill, suddenly pricking up his ears and thinking. "Supposing now we were forced to protect ourselves, it would——"
The gallant Nobby realized his meaning promptly. "It would," he said with emphasis. "These 'ere old walls, what you can see of 'em in the mist and the darkness, are thick—that is, what's left of 'em is—and there used to be a cellar underneath the floor. If Fritz becomes inquisitive and tries to round us up, why, believe me, this 'ere place might do us a treat. Better'n being in the dug-out anyway. 'Sides, as I remember it, it just tops a rise, and the ground slopes gently away from it all round. That'ud be nasty for the Boche, eh?"
"It'ud provide us with a hiding-place perhaps," said Bill thoughtfully, as they all sat down and munched a ration. "Looks to me, Larry, as though we'd better have another council of war, we fellows, right forward there. We might with a bit of luck get right through the lines during the night. On the other hand, we mightn't. We'd stand a better chance if we could hide up in a place like this, which, as Nobby says, ain't a dug-out, but gives us shelter. We could then get an observation post and look round the neighbourhood. Of course the place might be searched; but then we always stand a chance of being discovered, even if we move on, eh? What's your idea? What do you say about it?"
"Yep," said Larry, pursing his lips. "Gee! this here's a conundrum! I'd like to treat it as our folks say in 'judgematical' manner. Supposin' we move on—well, soon we've got to get off the road, for we've come somewhere near the line where troops are moving. You may say that the Germans have pushed right ahead, past the Butte of Warlencourt and beyond Pozières. They've made a tidy advance in the few hours that have passed since their offensive opened, and now they're held up, or nearly held up, let's hope, somewheres just in front of us. But where is that somewheres? It may be just a mile ahead; it mayn't, on the other hand. Supposin' we moves on, then we may barge into a whole crowd and get bayoneted for our trouble; we may get shot down by our own guns; or we may even find ourselves mixed up in a German offensive and get done in by German machine-gun bullets, perhaps American machine-gun bullets—for some of our boys will get rushed up to help the Allied line. No, siree, I vote that we sits down here for the night, and, come morning, hides away. Then we'll look up some place from which we can observe, and will try to get an idea of what's happening."
"And Jim?" asked Bill, for Jim was one of those quiet Americans who never spoke unless he had something worth saying, but whose opinion was valuable.
"I'm in with Larry," he said. "There's uncertainty either way, whether we go forward or remain here. We may get hunted out to-morrow, or caged in this place like rats in a trap. If so, we can put up a fight at least, same as I guess many other pockets of soldiers overrun by the Germans will be doing. Better that than push on and shove our noses into a noose."
One after another the men gave vent to their own particular personal opinions, and so it became apparent that the general consensus of thought was that the party should halt where it was and rest till dawn came. After that—well, their fortunes lay in the lap of the gods. It was hardly likely that they would escape from such a predicament without trouble or danger, but, if it came, they would be better able to face it after having rested.
Trust the British soldier and his American chum to make the most of any sort of surroundings and to gain comfort in spite of bleak conditions. Half an hour later the whole party—with the exception of one man who watched at the exit of the factory—lay fast asleep, snoring, in their greatcoats under the blankets, which each of them had carried. The sentry stood on a piled-up heap of shattered masonry which had once supported the upper floor of the factory, looking through one of the exits. We have said one of the exits, though that hardly gives a good idea of the condition of the place, seeing that British guns and German guns had each in turn hammered this property, with the result that walls had been flattened and holed. The upper story had gone entirely, windows were no more, and but a battered wreck remained, with hardly a semblance of a factory about it, gaping to the skies with wide rents in all directions. Its interior was a mass of fallen stones, save where lay relics of previous British occupation.
Morning found the party, refreshed by their sleep, fit once more and ready for anything. The mist, too, was not sufficiently thick to prevent their inspecting their immediate surroundings, and Bill, as leader of the party, at once proceeded to make himself familiar with them.
"Good!" he exclaimed. "Some hundreds of sand-bags here. Some of 'em rotten and going to pieces, but others quite sound. They formed, of course, the protection to the aid post. And here's the 'elephant' shelters still standing. Better still! they'll keep the rain out. Now for a squint all round, and then for the cellar. Seems to me we might hold out here for some time."
Months before, parties of natives and others employed by the British had swept over the Somme battle-field, throughout its vast extent, and had salvaged a great amount of material for future use: guns here and there, munitions elsewhere, telephone wires, every sort of warlike material had been gathered in to one collecting centre, even timbers had been extracted from the deep dug-outs constructed by the Germans. But sand-bags and this heavy iron sheeting forming the "elephant" shelter were not worth removing, and were therefore left to rot like the remainder of their surroundings. To Bill and his friends they promised a certain amount of security.
"You see," said Bill, "we could set to work now, select the bags that are in good order, and form a strong post here, out of which no sort of machine-gun fire could drive us—they'd have to bring guns along, or bombs, to do us in—eh, Larry? What about it, Nobby? Suppose the Germans did track us to this spot, are you going to surrender without putting up a fight?"
Nobby looked distinctly annoyed. He glared at Bill, and looked more enormous and more formidable in his hairy coat in that morning mist than he had done previously. He smote himself violently on the chest and tilted his tin hat forward.
"Me give in to Fritz without a fight?" he asked. "'Ere, young chap, what d'yer take me for?—a blinkin' blighter?"
Bill didn't. He mollified the great Nobby by placing one hand on his stalwart shoulder, and then turned to Larry. It was characteristic of the latter that he merely smiled.
"What should I do? What'ud you do yerself, Bill? Give in, of course! Walk out and ask Fritz to be friendly! That's you all over, that is. Just what you'd do, Bill: hob-nob with him—ask him to take a cup of tea—sit down and be pally."
"Huh!" It was then that Jim laughed—Jim, the usually silent American. Larry's sarcasm tickled him wonderfully, and then, of course, he knew Bill so thoroughly. Was it typical of Bill, the young fellow who led them, cool, quiet, and calm on most occasions, yet already an approved fire-eater—was it typical of him to suggest surrender without putting up a strenuous opposition? Jim cackled loudly.
"There'll be trouble here soon, Larry," he went on, "ef you carry on like that. This here Bill was only asking a polite question, and it's up to you to answer politely—you and Nobby, who's about the biggest and most pugnacious man I've come across this side of the water. As ef we didn't know that both of you are crazy for a fight, and believe me, yep, you'll be having it soon, to your heart's content. Here we are, boxed in, we might say, only in nicer surroundings than we was back there in the dug-out, and d'you mean to say that we're going to give up these comfortable quarters because Fritz asks us to do so?"
Jim stood up and stretched his hands out on either side, pointing to their immediate surroundings—those shattered masses of bricks and mortar, tumbled beams, and wrecked and twisted ironwork—for all the world as if it were a palace. And, indeed, to these men, accustomed to the decimated country of France, in which war was now raging, these shattered factory walls did present the aspect, if not of a palace, then of a place which offered some sort of protection. Those sand-bags, for instance, the ironwork of the "elephant" shelter, the heaps of bricks also, all offered something which would allow them to put up a formidable resistance. It was not a matter that needed explaining to any one of the party, it was merely a question of coming to a decision as to their plans. Not a single one of the party was likely to be behindhand in his determination; yet it was good to hear Larry talking so sarcastically to Bill, Jim laughing at them, and to see the huge Nobby getting red with indignation at the very suggestion of surrender. It was encouraging to see the spirit of cheerful confidence, as well as defiance, that animated all.
"In course we all comes in," blurted out one of the party, himself no inconspicuous person, inasmuch as he stood nearly six feet in his socks, and was as fine and clean-limbed a young Englishman as one could wish to find. "I ain't got no particular 'down' on Fritz, I ain't, though I bears in mind the fact that he's murdered women and children and old men up and down the country; all I asks for is a clean fight, if he can give it, which I doubts. If not, then let's have a fight that'll do for him, and if I don't give Mr. Fritz 'is stomick full, why, you can send me home to Blighty. Fight, Bill? In course we will! Nobby knows you will, only he likes a row, he does. What about fixing the plans up—eh? so as to make ready."
The upshot of it all was that they put their heads together, and very soon every one of the party, save one particular man, was hard at work perfecting their defences, selecting the best of the sand-bags and piling them into the openings in the brickwork, so that the shell of the factory, no very considerable place, was soon converted into a species of filter, in the centre of which a ragged hole gave access to a rotting and severely damaged staircase, and that in turn to a cellar which would give protection from gun-fire.
In the meanwhile a single man had clambered to a post of vantage on the walls, where his figure was concealed by a mass of ivy, which already was invading the interior of the factory. From that point he could survey the country-side, and, as the mist lifted, was able to report to his friends what was going forward.
"There's guns and men and carts of all sorts filing along the road—thousands of 'em—all making towards Albert; and—'arf a mo! bless me, if there ain't aeroplanes comin' along in this direction! What's they got, naughts or crosses? Ah, it's naughts! They're British. Oh, and ain't they givin' 'em 'arf a time! Believe me, they're a-clearin' this 'ere road from Albert to Bapaume, divin' down and droppin' things! And Fritz ain't 'arf a-boltin'. Look at them blighters scuttlin' in among the trees like a flock o' scared chickens!"
The announcement brought every man of the party to some aperture from which he looked craftily towards the road, but a little way distant; and there, as he watched, as the sentry had told him, he could see columns of Germans pressing on after the British line, which had retreated, some of the battalions marching across the ploughed-up and shell-destroyed land on either hand. Overhead, flights of aeroplanes could be seen, and some of these were skimming low over the road, emptying their machine-guns into the massed infantry, which in turn either broke up in confusion, and dived from the road, or fired with their rifles upon the aeroplanes, though with little or no effect.
From the far distance came the muffled roar of guns, sometimes silenced, as it were, by the nearer staccato rattle of machine-guns, and then from perhaps five hundred yards away was heard the sharp report of anti-aircraft weapons.
"And it do yer good," said Nobby, hidden well behind the masonry, staring up into the sky, "it do yer good to see them boys up there fightin' their aeroplanes same as ships is fought at sea. Gee! as our one and only Larry says, if they ain't cleared the road already! There's not a bloomin' German left on it, which says somethin' for aeroplanes and more for British machine-guns, lettin' alone the young chaps as works 'em. If only some of 'em could see us down 'ere and drop to the ground to take us off! I wouldn't be scared, give you my word, though I'd rather go through any sort of battle in the front line than go up in an aeroplane. They don't look safe, and they ain't, that's my belief, though to see them boys of ours a-goin' off in 'em you'd think it was just a joy ride. S'welp me! 'Ere, what's happenin'?"
Bill, standing close beside him, gripped his arm.
"Get down!" he said; "they're coming this way. Our machine-guns have driven them from the road, and they are looking for shelter. This is an awkward business."
"Awkward! It's—it's—rotten!" said Nobby.
"Yep," they heard the inevitable lisp from Larry. "Gee! it is real awkward that! Them German chaps don't like your British machine-guns firing down on 'em, and I don't wonder; but that didn't ought to make 'em want to come poachin' here on our shelter. We ain't got no use for 'em! See here, Bill, it's likely to show us up."
Necks were craned round odd corners, eyes peered out across the broken ground towards the road, and fixed themselves upon numbers of crawling figures—the figures of German infantry who a little while before had been marching full of confidence along the Albert road. But those swirling aeroplanes which had drawn the admiring glances of Bill and his friends had swooped down upon them, and, as we have described, they had cleared the road in little time, but for the men who lay killed or wounded upon it, and now had shot off towards Bapaume, bombing and machine-gunning other troops behind. But they might return at any instant, and, with that in mind, the Germans, swept from the road, were seeking the closest cover. Some of them had been attracted by the ruins where Bill and his party hid, and were coming rapidly towards them.
"And there's quite a whole heap of 'em," said Nobby.
"Ah!" he heard Bill exclaim. "If it was a matter of a dozen, or even two, we might take 'em one by one as they crawled in, and——"
"And do 'em in," whispered Nobby. "Here, let me get down to that place there for which they are making. I'll do 'em in, 'struth I will!"
"No!" Bill told him abruptly. "Hun or no Hun, we'd play the game and take 'em prisoners; but there's too many of 'em."
"And a jolly good job too," Nobby growled. "If it's to be a case of taking prisoners and playing the game, or a case of fightin', let's fight. There's not one of us as ain't ready for it."
"Not one." A glance round at the assembled men showed them all eager, some gripping their rifles with bayonets fixed, others already opening pouches which carried their bombs, while Larry had produced from amongst the ruins an iron bar some two feet in length, which he proposed to use as a club. Bill smiled upon them.
"Good boys!" he said. "One of you chaps pitch a bomb over, just to let 'em know that they ain't welcome; then the fight'll start fair. Now, all the rest get down under cover."
It was Nobby who stepped into the centre of the ruin so as to give his arm free play, and, pulling the safety-pin from his grenade, measured the distance with his eye and lobbed it over, all eyes following its path till presently it struck the ground perhaps twenty yards in front of the leading German. Then there was a violent explosion; the enemy advancing upon the ruin halted, looked at one another, discussed the situation, and even began to retreat. But, a minute later, one, who proved to be an officer, crawling right behind the others, came to the head of the column, and, realizing that none but an enemy could have tossed that bomb, and that here, quite by accident, he and his men had unearthed a party of the British, sent scouts out to surround the place, and presently, calling other men to his assistance, opened rifle-fire upon them. The action had begun. From the numbers engaged upon it on the enemy's side it looked as though Bill and his friends had little chance of pursuing their journey.
"It's going to be an attack from all sides," said Bill, as he crouched behind a mass of masonry which stood rather higher than the rest, and which, while giving a certain amount of shelter, also allowed him to look out over the wreckage of the factory, to peer into neighbouring shell-holes, past shattered and rent tree trunks towards the Albert-Bapaume road in one direction, to Courcellette in the other, and elsewhere across the desert of churned-up earth which represented the heart of this once beautiful Somme country. "And I can see heads bobbing up here and there and everywhere, and, yes, there go the bullets!"
One of them splashed debris and rotting mortar in his eyes as it struck the fractured masonry just above his head, while another thudded into a sand-bag not a yard from him—a sand-bag which had lain there rotting since 1916, and which now, receiving the sudden blow, burst asunder, the earth which it had contained spouting out in a cascade. It was answered almost instantly by a shot fired from a crevice somewhere down below him. He searched for the figure of the man who had discharged his weapon, and after a while distinguished the well-known form of Nobby, his broad shoulders squeezed in an angle of broken masonry, his head thrust forward, his tin hat covering him like a halo, legs bent beneath him, arms pressed to his sides, weapon at the ready. Glancing across the open space towards Courcellette, Bill saw one of those dodging German figures suddenly rear itself erect, bend forward as if about to fall, then with an effort straighten up, only of a sudden to give vent to a shrill shout—a shriek almost—and collapse into the shell-hole from which he had originally clambered.
"One Hun the less," grinned Nobby, turning round, "and he won't be the only Fritz as'll 'go west' in this 'ere skirmish. Larry boy, d'yer want our commanding officer to be shot down out of hand, just because he must put himself up where there's no cover. I'm only a humble private, you're a full-blown sergeant, why don't yer see to the chum that's commanding us?"
It wasn't the first occasion, perhaps, when the good-natured Larry had shown unusual energy and decision. Not that he was incapable of either or both those virtues, but it was typical of Larry that as a general rule he lounged and drawled and lisped, and really made pretence that he was a person of no great consequence and of no great ability in any way. Yet friends knew that he was stanch, that danger did not daunt him, that fear was almost foreign to the nature of this diminutive, delicate-looking, nonchalant, and unconcerned American. He turned swiftly in the narrow angle where he lay near Nobby, and cast a threatening glance at Bill.
"Hi! Here, you, young Bill, you come right out of that!" he shouted. His face reddened with emotion as he gave the order. "You ain't got no call to stand up there like a darned fool, askin' the Hun to shoot you! Look at that? What did I tell you? Chips of mortar all round you! They've got a machine-gun going! Come down! d'yer hear?"
Jim, on the far side of the ruin, watching the shell-seamed earth between the factory and the main road, turned round too, lay flat on his back for a moment under the shelter of the wall, and shook a fist at Bill. Till then he had not noticed the perilous position in which the young fellow had placed himself, but now he saw it clearly, and, as showing what he thought of Bill, he too became heated, and that, let us add, was something foreign to Jim's calm, contented nature.
"Yep," he roared. "You come right down! What d'yer want for to get right up there, a-starin' round, when there's heaps of ruins down here to cover anyone? Ef yer don't move quick I'll be up after yer!"
Bill surveyed the two with something approaching curt disdain. He peered over the top of the masonry which protected his head, and turned slowly until he had made a complete circle; then of a sudden he pointed.
"Boys," he called out, "the officer that's commanding them is yonder on the way to the road, and he's got a machine-gun mounted. They are loading fast, so as to keep our attention while the rest of the men are collecting right opposite and are making ready just now to rush us. You'll——"
The rattle of the machine-gun in question drowned his next words, and as the splutter died down, and the chips of mortar and bricks and stone dropped and flew about Bill's figure, it was Jim's voice and that of Larry that again were heard.
"You ain't heard us, Bill," Jim shouted. "Come down, won't yer! Yer askin' to get killed."
"I'll Fritz yer, yep!" Larry called, rising from the spot in which he lay, and jamming his tin hat closely down. "If yer don't come yerself I'll be up there to make yer."
But Bill scarcely noticed them; he turned to look first at Jim and then at Larry, and then cast a glance over his shoulder towards the spot where the attacking party of Germans were forming.
"You'll stay in your places," he ordered sharply. "Someone's got to be here to watch those fellows, and that someone's going to be the one you've put in command. If you're not contented with him, get someone else, for while I'm in command of the party here I stay. Jim, stop cackling! Go over there and lie down by Larry. Here, boy!" he called to another of the men, "your rifle'll be useful over here to stop the rush, and, Nobby, you're the boy for the bombs—get 'em ready and heave 'em over as the Huns get within distance!"
The incipient mutiny collapsed as rapidly as it had commenced. Not indeed that Larry or Jim or any of the others were inclined to quarrel over-much with the young leader they had themselves appointed. The urgency of the situation in the first place made argument undesirable if not impossible, and then Bill's abrupt commands, his obvious control of a difficult situation, the fact that an attack was just about to be launched, caused them to think of other matters; the rattle of the machine-gun, too, assisted, and to that was presently added heavy firing from many points, which caused all to keep under cover, that is, all but Bill, who stood stoically peering out over the top of the ruin, watching that party of Germans as they crept from shell-hole to shell-hole, firing an occasional shot, and getting closer every minute.
But if Bill remained aloft in his post of vantage and of danger, and if he had summarily quelled the anticipated mutiny, he could not arrest entirely the growls of Nobby, the surreptitious scowls of Larry, and the almost open threats thrown at him by Jim. Then Nobby put an end to the matter.
"He's right," he said. "That there young Bill is a-doin' just like what one of our young orficers would do, same as your orficers would take on, Larry, and here are you a-cussin' of him for it. You ought to be ashamed of yerself, you ought!"
That, with bullets flicking just above the wall and half an inch over the top of Nobby's tin hat! Not that it upset this gallant British soldier, not either that it could upset Larry—the quiet and somewhat retiring Larry. To speak the truth, in all his experience of Bill, Larry had never been so abruptly silenced, and, conscious as he was that his young friend was quite in the right, he yet burned with indignation at the summary way in which his own efforts had been worsted, and, finding Nobby close at hand and now trying to turn the tables on him, he swung round, leant up on one elbow, and poured a torrent of invective upon him.
"Say, here, this is real fine! Here's you and me and Jim gets turned down by that there young cuss of a Bill, and when he's put in the last word and fired the last shot, as you might say, there's you come roundin' on a pal—you, Nobby, what never could keep yer mouth shut. See here, sir; you're British, I'm American—only just as British as you are, if you know what I mean—I——"
A bullet put a very sudden end to Larry's explosion; it hit the tip of his tin hat and sent it off amongst the ruins booming and clanking, while the shock of the blow partly stunned the American. He blinked at Nobby, who just a second before had raised a huge grimy fist and placed it within an inch of his nose. Larry blinked again. Nobby grinned. Jim roared outright, and thus, with the help of an enemy bullet, the little fracas was brought to a friendly ending. A second later Bill's voice was heard.
"Boys!" he called out; "there's a bunch of Huns within sixty yards of us, and they've all converged into one shell-hole. I don't suppose there's a man here who could pitch a bomb that far—only if there was——"
"Look 'ere, young chap," came from Nobby, "sixty yards! and yer don't think a man can do it! You watch. Larry, stand by to corpse the first Fritz that puts his head up and tries to shoot at me. Jim, you do the same. Same over there. You watch the boys with that machine-gun. I don't take much notice of a single rifle, but being filled up with lead ain't healthy, as Larry likes to say; it ain't good for a fellow. So just you watch, and yer mates with you. Now then for brother Fritz in the shell-hole!"
He stood up, deliberately measured the distance from the ruin to the shell-hole at which Bill then pointed, pulled the pin from a bomb, and, swinging his powerful shoulders back, sent it hurtling towards the object. It struck a shell-hole three yards nearer, and for a moment obscured the one at which he had aimed, flinging up a cloud of mud and grass and loose material. By then Nobby had poised himself for a second attempt, and, hardly pausing to measure the distance, launched his missile, and then stood watching its curve as it approached the object.
It was Larry then who shouted, and Bill too joined in.
"Bang! Right in the centre," the latter called. "If they don't pick it up they'll be done for. They can't! Look at 'em! They're trying to bolt."
"They ain't got time—not any," Larry told him as they peered over the top of the breastwork. "There she goes!"
There was a dull detonation, a bright flash of flame, and then shouts. A second before, the shell-hole, into which Bill could look to some extent but the interior of which was hidden from the eyes of his comrades, had appeared empty but for a drain of water at the bottom; but, as the bomb fell, heads had bobbed up, and, just before the explosion occurred, fifteen or more men had struggled desperately to dash away from it. That explosion caught them in the midst of the act, and every one was killed or wounded. It was indeed a brilliant ending to this first attempt to defend themselves against the enemy, and caused the garrison of the shattered factory to set up a shout.
"But they ain't done—not by a whole heap," said Larry, producing his cigar. "It stands to reason, seeing we are here right in the midst of the enemy, that they'll have reinforcements. The noise of the bomb'll bring 'em along if the officer's whistle don't do it. Hear that? You can hear him a-whistlin' now for help. Boys, there's goin' to be a stand-up tussle."
Whereat Larry gripped his cigar and wetted his lips, while his eyes flashed. It was plain indeed that this diminutive American felt no fear, but rather that he was full of enthusiasm and ready for anything that might happen. That Jim, too, was thirsting for adventure there was little doubt, while the rest of the party could be relied upon to support their young commander and his two American friends. Nobby himself was likely to be quite a formidable opponent.
"You see, Bill," he called out after a while, "having had one sort of lesson, and now that they know we've got bombs with us, they'll keep at a distance and'll turn machine-guns on us. Seems to me we've got to think out some clever way of fightin' 'em. What d'you think, boy? Supposin' they gets shootin' bombs in here, same as we've been throwin' 'em out—as they will, 'cos Fritz is a nasty chap at thinkin' things out—and supposin' we're a-lyin' as we are now—not healthy—eh, boy?"
"You bet!" Larry chimed in; "we should get 'done in', like Fritz over there in the shell-hole."
"Then we'll separate," Bill told him. "What d'you say to this, boys? That German officer and his men have seen us here in this ruined factory, and every shot they've fired has been put in in this particular direction. If shell-holes are good enough for Fritz, ain't they good enough for us too? Why not separate, though still forming a sort of circle? I'll stay up here and can call out to any one of you; then if bombs are thrown in, as Nobby says——"
"As you can see for yourself," said Nobby dryly, as a rifle sounded in the distance and a grenade flew over the wrecked factory and burst beyond it, "as you can see for yourself now, Bill."
"As I know," went on Bill, "then there's only one that's likely to be damaged."
"And that's you," said Larry.
"And who else?" Bill asked him curtly. "We've had all that before. You clear off, Larry, and you too, Jim. Boys, scatter in the same direction as you're lying in now. Slip off to the nearest shell-hole, get the best cover, and hold your fire till you know you've cause to use your rifles—we've got to keep the enemy out till night-fall."
And then what was to happen to this gallant and somewhat forlorn little party? Could they, having regard to all the circumstances in which they stood, really look forward to securing their liberty and to gaining the Allied line? Could they, when they remembered that between them and that line there stretched a host of Germans, and reflected also that at the moment they were surrounded—could they reasonably expect to make further progress? It was hardly possible, certainly not probable, though, fortunately for all the members of the little band commanded by Bill, such thoughts hardly crossed their minds, and there was no time for reflection. Even as they wriggled off from the ruined walls of the factory, sidling in behind layers of brick, dodging between battered and perforated boilers and so gaining shell-holes, enemy bullets came buzzing thicker than ever over the scene, while every minute or so a rifle grenade reached the ruins, and, bursting, filled the air with bits of iron, with fragments of stone and mortar, and threw up such a cloud of dust, in spite of recent wet weather, that life became more difficult.
"Still, we've got pretty good cover," Bill thought, as, perched in a niche he had selected, he hung to his post and watched carefully all round, every now and again raising his rifle and firing at a German figure. "If only it would get dark. But it won't, not for hours yet, and there's no mist—nothing to cover us. Hi, Larry!" he shouted; "they're bunching up in front of you and Nobby. Break 'em up, if you can!"
Nobby, with a cigarette hanging to the very corner of his mouth, grinned in Bill's direction and then at Larry. It was an extremely cool and methodical Nobby who then proceeded to pip, as he termed it, brother Fritz, his shots, together with Larry's equally well-aimed fire, soon dispersing the band of Germans approaching from the point directly in front of them. But there were other points from which the enemy were advancing also. Unpleasant little rushes were indulged in here and there, all of which served to bring the enemy still nearer, till, as the minutes grew to an hour, and that hour into two, the defenders were more closely surrounded, engirdled by an increasing number of Germans, whose offensive became increasingly insistent. Bombs, too, became more frequent, bursting amongst the ruins, and in course of time driving Bill and the defenders completely out of them.
"It's no go!" Nobby was at length forced to admit, smiling grimly and somewhat wryly at Bill.
"See here, Bill," Larry joined in, for the three were now in a shell-hole together, "ef it was a case of dying hard, so as we might hold the line that meant the safety of our pals yonder, we would be right to do it, and we'd do it willingly. But a live man, Bill, is much better than a dead one, eh?"
"Yep, a live man lives perhaps to fight again, while if he's dead he ain't no longer any use. Nobby's right: there ain't nothin' degradin' in giving in. Things has gone against us."
That was the opinion of them all, though quite loyally they had supported their young leader without a grumble. Yet already more than one of the defenders had paid the price for resisting the enemy, while of the latter quite a number were grovelling lifeless in the surrounding shell-holes. It was a little after noon, therefore, that Bill, tying a somewhat dirty handkerchief to the top of his bayonet, lifted the latter over the top of the shell-hole and waved it. The machine-gun answered it with an angry rattle and then ceased, while a glance over the top showed him an answering signal. Then there came an order shouted in a loud voice: "Stand out, all of you, and advance without your arms. You've put up a good fight and shall have fair treatment."