ACTION
“Messagefrom Head-quarters, sir.” The runner was breathing hard, and his eyes were strained and tense-looking. He had not shaved for days. Fritz’s “thousand guns on the Somme,” that the papers talk of so glibly, were tuning up for business.
Major Ogilvie took the message, read it, and handed it on to me. “Zero hour will be at 6.30P.M. AAA. Our artillery will bombard from 5.30 to 6.20P.M., slow continuous, and from 6.20 to 6.29P.M.hurricane fireAAA. You will give all possible assistance, by means of rifle and machine-gun fire toULTRAMARINE, and arrange to reinforce, if necessary, in case of heavy counter-attackAAA.ULTRAMARINEwill indicate that objective has been gained by firing two red rockets simultaneouslyAAA. Please render situation reports every half-hour to B.H.Q.,A.21.d.1.4½.AAA.”
We looked at each other and smiled a little grimly. To be on the flank of an attack israther worse than to attack, for it means sitting tight while Fritz pounds the life out of you.
“You stop here,” said Ogilvie, “in this glory-hole of ours, while I go up and see Niven. He will have to put his men in those forward saps. If you get any messages, deal with them, and make sure that Townley keeps those bombers of his on both sides of the road. Theymuststop there, as long as there are any of them left, or the Hun might try to turn our flank. So long.”
He set out towards the north, leaving me in “AK” Coy.’s “head-quarters.” The latter consisted of a little niche, three feet wide, ran back a foot, and was four feet high, cut in the parapet of the front line. The runner, Thomson, one of our own company, was curled up in a little cubby-hole at my feet, and had fallen asleep.
It was lonely in that trench, although there were invisible men, not thirty feet away, on both sides of me.
The time was 5.25P.M.
Our guns were still silent. Fritz was warming up more and more. He was shelling ourright most persistently, putting “the odd shell” around head-quarters.
Punctually to the minute our artillery started in. Salvos of heavies, way back, shrapnel all along the front line and supports.
A wickedly pretty sight along a thousands yard front: Fritz began to get irritated, finally to be alarmed. Up went his red lights, one after the other, as he called on his guns, called, and kept on calling. They answered the call. Above us the air hissed unceasingly as shells passed and exploded in rear. He was putting a barrage on our supports and communication trenches. Then he opened up all along our trench. High explosive shrapnel, and those thunder-crackling “woolly bears.” I wondered where Ogilvie was, if he was all right, and I huddled in close to the damp crumbling earth.
It was 5.50P.M.
“Per-loph-UFF.” An acrid smell of burnt powder, a peculiar, weird feeling that my head was bursting, and a dreadful realisation that I was pinned in up to my neck, and could not stir. A small shell, bursting on graze, had lit in the parapet, just above my head, exploded,and buried me up to the neck, and the runner also. He called out, but the din was too great for me to hear what he said. I struggled until my hands were free, and then with the energy of pure fear tore at the shattered sand-bags that weighed me down. Finally I was free to bend over to Thomson.
“Are you hurt?”
“No, sir, but I can’t move. I thought you was dead.”
I clawed him out with feverish haste. The air reeked with smoke, and the shelling was hellish. Without any cessation shells burst in front of, above, and behind the trench; one could feel their hot breath on one’s cheek, and once I heard above the din a cry of agony that wrung my torn and tattered nerves to a state of anguish.
“Get out of here,” I yelled, and we crawled along the crumbling trench to the right.
“Hrrumph!” A five-nine landed just beyond us. I stopped a second. “Stretcher-bearer!” came weakly from a dim niche at my side. Huddled there was one of my boys. He was wounded in the foot, the leg, the chest, and very badly in the arm. It tookfive minutes to put on a tourniquet, and while it was being done a scout lying by my side was killed. He cried out once, turned, shivered, and died. I remember wondering how his soul could go up to Heaven through that awful concentration of fire and stinging smoke.
It was 6.15P.M.
There were many wounded, many dead, one of those wonderfully brave men, a stretcher-bearer, told me, when he came crawling along, with blood-stained hands, and his little red-cross case. None of the wounded could be moved then, it was impossible. I got a message, and read it by the light of the star shells: “Please report at once if enemy are shelling your area heavilyAAA.” The answer was terse: “YesAAA.”
Suddenly there was a lull. One of those inexplicable, almost terrifying lulls that are almost more awesome than the noise preceding them. I heard a voice ten yards away, coming from a vague, shadowy figure lying on the ground:
“Are you all right, ‘P.’?” It was Ogilvie.
“Yes. Are you?”
We crawled together, and held a hurried conversation at the top of our voices, for the bombardment had now started in with violent intensity from our side, as well as from Fritz’s.
“We’ll have to move to the sap, with Niven ... bring ... runners ... you ... make ... dash for it.”
“How ... ’bout Townley?”
“’S’all right.”
Then we pulled ourselves together and went for it, stumbling along the trench, over heaped-up mounds of earth, past still forms that would never move again. On, on, running literally for our lives. At last we reached the saps. Two platoons were out there, crowded in a little trench a foot and a half wide, nowhere more than four feet deep. Some shrapnel burst above it, but it was the old front line, thirty yards in rear, on which the Germans were concentrating a fire in which no man could live long.
The runners, Major Ogilvie, Niven, and myself, and that amazing Sergeant-Major of ours, who would crack a joke with Charon, were all together in a few yards of trench.
Our fire ceased suddenly. It was zero hour. In defiance of danger Ogilvie stood up, perfectly erect, and watched what was going on. Our guns opened again, they had lifted to the enemy supports and lines of communication.
“They’re over!” we cried all together.
Machine-guns were rattling in a crescendo of sound that was like the noise of a rapid stream above the roar of a water-wheel. The enemy sent up rocket upon rocket—three’s, four’s, green and red. Niven, as plucky a boy as ever lived, watched eagerly. Then a perfect hail of shells began to fall. One could almost see our old trench change its form as one glanced at it. It was almost as light as day. Major Ogilvie was writing reports. One after another he sent out the runners to head-quarters, those runners every one of whom deserves the Victoria Cross. Some went never to return.
All at once two red rockets burst away forward, on the right, falling slowly, slowly to earth.
ULTRAMARINEhad attained the objective.
It was then 6.42P.M.
Curious, most curious, to see the strain pass momentarily from men’s faces. Two runners took the message down. It proved to be the earliest news received at H.Q. that the objective was reached.
But the bombardment did not cease, did not slacken. It developed more and more furiously. Niven, one of the very best—the boy was killed a few weeks after—lay with his body tucked close to the side of the trench. I lay with my head very close to his, so that we could talk. Major Ogilvie’s legs were curled up with mine. Every now and then he sent in a report.
My conversation with Niven was curious. “Have another cigarette?” “Thanks, Bertie.” “Fritz is real mad to-night.” “He’s got a reason!” “Thank the Lord it isn’t raining.” “Yes.” Pause. “Did you get any letters from home?” “Two.... Good thing they can’t see us now!” “Jollygood thing!” “Whee-ou, that was close!” “So’s that,” as a large lump of earth fell on his steel hat. Pause. “I must get a new pair of breeches.” “When?” “Oh, to go on leave with.” “So must I.” We relapsed into silence, andfrom sheer fatigue both of us fell asleep for twenty minutes.
I was awakened by Ogilvie, who kicked me gently. “I have had no report from Townley or Johnson for nearly two hours”—it was past eleven. “I want you to go up to the right and see if you can establish communication with them. Can you make it?” “I’ll try, sir.” Our guns had quieted down, but Fritz was still pounding as viciously as ever, and with more heavy stuff than hitherto. My experience in travelling perhaps a quarter of a mile of trench that night was the most awful that has befallen me in nearly two years of war at the Front.
The trench was almost empty, for the men had been put in advance of it, for the most part. In places it was higher than the level of the ground, where great shells had hurled parapet on parados, leaving a gaping crater on one side or the other. Fear, a real personal, loathly fear, ran at my side. Just as I reached the trench an eight-five exploded on the spot I had crossed a second before. The force of the explosion threw me on my face, and earth rained down on me. I knelt, crouching,by the parapet, my breath coming in long gasps. “Lord, have mercy on my soul.” I rushed a few yards madly, up, down, over; another pause, while the shells pounded the earth, and great splinters droned. I dared not move, and I dared not stay. Every shadow of the trenches loomed over me like the menacing memory of some past unforgettable misdeed. Looking down I saw a blood-stained bandage in a pool of blood at my side, and I could smell that indescribable, fœtid smell of blood, bandages, and death. As I went round a traverse, speeding like a hunted hare, I stumbled over a man. He groaned deeply as I fell on him. It was one of my best N.C.O.’s, mortally wounded. An eternity passed before I could find his water-bottle. His face was a yellow mask, his teeth chattered against the lip of the water-bottle, his lips were swollen and dreadful. He lay gasping. “Can I do anything for you, old man?” With a tremendous effort he raised his head a little, and opened wide his glazing eyes. “Write ... sir ... to my ... mother.” Then, his head on my arm, he died.
On, on, on, the sweat streaming from me,the fear of death at my heart. I prayed as I had never prayed before.
At last I found Johnson. He gave me his report, and that of Townley, whom he had seen a few moments before. I went back, another awful trip, but met Major Ogilvie half-way.
After nine and three-quarter hours, during which they threw all the ammunition they possessed at us, the German gunners “let up.” And Ogilvie and I went to sleep, along the trench, too weary to care what might happen next, to wake at dawn, stiff with cold, chilled to the bone, to face another day of “glorious war!”
The Temple Press Letchworth England
The Temple PressLetchworth England