Along this the Stonewalls now spread and took up their positions as supports for the lines that had gone ahead, and were now over somewhere amongst the German first-line trenches. From here they could look out over the couple of hundred yards’ width of what had been the neutral ground, at the old German front-line trench. Beyond its parapet they could see little or nothing but a drifting haze of smoke, but in the open ground between the trenches they could see many figures moving about, and many more lying in still and huddled heaps of khaki. The moving men were for the most part stretcher-bearers, and the Stonewalls were struck with what appeared to them the curious lack of haste and indifference to danger that showed in their movements. During many months, and in many visits to the trenches and spells in the forward fire trench, they had come to regard the neutral ground in daylight as a place whereon no man could walk, or show himself, and live; more than that, they had been taught by strongly worded precept and bitter experience that only to raise a head above the shelter of the parapet, to look for more than seconds ata time over neutral ground, was an invitation to sudden death. It struck them then as a most extraordinary thing that now men should be able to walk about out there, to carry a stretcher in, to hoist it, climbing and balancing themselves and their burden carefully on the parapet, clear and exposed to any chance or aimed bullet.
Kentucky watched some of these groups for a time and then laughed quietly.
“Well!” he drawled, “I’ve been kind of scared stiff for days past at the thought of having to bolt across this open ground, and here I come and find a bunch of fellows promenading around as cool and unconcerned as if there weren’t a bullet within a mile of them.”
“I was thinkin’ just the same thing,” agreed Pug, who was beside him, and looking with interest and curiosity over the open ground; “but if there ain’t many bullets buzzin’ about ’ere now you can bet there was not long ago. There’s a pretty big crowd of ours still lying na-poo-ed out there.”
But the ground was still far from being as safe as for the moment it appeared. The German artillery and the machine-gunners were evidently too busily occupied upon the more strenuous workof checking the advance, or did not think it worth while wasting ammunition upon the small and scattered targets presented by the stretcher-bearers. But when a regiment which prolonged the line to the left of the Stonewalls climbed from the trench, and began to advance by companies in open order across the neutral ground, it was a different story.
An exclamation from Pug and a soft whistle from Kentucky brought Larry to the parapet beside them, and the three watched in fascinated excitement the attempt of the other regiment to cross the open, the quick storm of shells and bullets that began to sweep down upon them the moment they showed themselves clear of the parapet. They could see plainly the running figures, could see them stumble and fall, and lie still, or turn to crawl back to cover; could see shell after shell burst above the line, or drop crashing upon it; could see even the hail of bullets that drummed down in little jumping spurts of dust about the feet of the runners.
A good many more of the Stonewalls were watching the advance, and apparently the line of their heads, showing over the parapet, caught the attention of some German machine-gunners.The heads ducked down hastily as a stream of bullets commenced to batter and rap against the parapet, sweeping it up and down, down and up its length.
“Doesn’t seem quite as safe as we fancied,” said Kentucky.
“I don’t think!” said Pug.
“Anyway,” said Larry, “it’s our turn next!”
He was right, for a few minutes later their officer pushed along and told them to “Stand by,” to be ready to climb out when the whistle blew, and to run like blazes for the other side.
“We’ll run all right,” said Pug to the others, “if them jokers lets us,” and he jerked his head upwards to the sound of another pelting sweep of bullets driving along the face of the parapet above them.
Before the whistle blew as the signal for them to leave the trench, an order was passed along that they were to go company by company, A being first, B second, and C third. A couple of minutes later A Company, out on the right of the battalion, swarmed suddenly over the parapet and, spreading out to open order as they went, commenced to jog steadily across the flat ground. Immediately machine-gun fire at an extreme rangebegan to patter bullets down amongst the advancing men, and before they were quarter-way across the “Fizz-Bang” shells also began to smash down along the line, or to burst over it. There were a number of casualties, but the line held on steadily. Some of the men of the remaining companies were looking out on the advance, but the officers ordered them to keep down, and under cover.
In C Company a lieutenant moved along the line, ordering the men down, and repeating the same sentences over and over again as he passed along.
“Keep down until you get the word; when we start across, remember that, if a man is hit, no one is to stop to pick him up; a stretcher-bearer will see to him.”
“That’s all right!” said Larry to the others, when the officer had passed after repeating his set sentences, “but I vote we four keep together, and give each other a hand, if we can.”
“’Ear, ’ear!” said Pug. “Any’ow, if any of us stops one, but isn’t a complete wash-out, the others can lug ’im into any shell ’ole that’s ’andy, and leave ’im there.”
“We’ll call that a bargain,” said Kentucky briefly. They sat fidgeting for a few seconds longer, hearing the rush and crash of the fallingshells, the whistle and smack of the bullets on the open ground beyond them.
“I’m going to have a peep,” said Larry suddenly, “just to see how ‘A’ is getting on.”
He stood on the fire step, with his head stooped cautiously below the level of the parapet; then, raising it sharply, took one long, sweeping glance, and dropped down again beside his fellows.
“They’re nearly over,” he said. “There’s a lot of smoke about, and I can’t see very clear, but the line doesn’t look as if it had been very badly knocked about.”
“There goes ‘B,’” said Billy Simson, as they heard the shrill trill of a whistle. “Our turn next!”
“That open ground is not such a healthy resort as we thought it a few minutes ago,” said Larry. “Personally, I sha’n’t be sorry when we’re across it.”
He spoke in what he strove to make an easy and natural voice, but somehow he felt that it was so strained and unnatural that the others would surely notice it. He felt horribly ashamed of that touch of faintness and sickness back in the communication trench, and began to wonder nervously whether the others would think he was acoward, and funking it; still worse, began to wonder whether actually they would be right in so thinking. He began to have serious doubts of the matter himself, but, if he had known it, the others were feeling probably quite as uncomfortable as himself, except possibly Pug, who had long since resigned himself to the comforting fatalism that if his name were written on the bullet it would find him. If not, he was safe.
None of the four looked to see how “B” Company progressed. They were all beginning to feel that they would have to take plenty of chances when it came their turn to climb the parapet, and that it was folly to take an extra risk by exposing themselves for a moment before they need.
A shout came from the traverse next to them.
“Get ready, ‘C’ Company; pass the word!”
The four stood up, and Larry lifted his voice, and shouted on to the next traverse.
“Get ready, ‘C’; pass the word!”
“Don’t linger none on the parapet, boys,” said Kentucky. “They’ve probably got their machine gun trained on it.”
The next instant they heard the blast of a whistle, and a shout rang along the line.
“Come on, ‘C’; over with you!”
The four leaped over the parapet, scrambling and scuffling up its broken sides.
Near the top Pug exclaimed suddenly, grasped wildly at nothing, collapsed and rolled backward into the trench. The other three half-halted, and looked round.
“Come on,” said Kentucky; “he’s safest where he is, whether he’s hurt much or little.”
The three picked their way together out through the remains of the old barbed-wire entanglements, and began to run across.
“Open out! Open out!” the officers were shouting, and a little reluctantly, for the close elbow-touching proximity to each other gave a comforting sense of helpfulness and confidence, they swerved a yard or two apart, and ran on steadily. The bare two hundred yards seemed to stretch to a journey without end; the few minutes they took in crossing spun out like long hours.
Several times the three dropped on their faces, as they heard the warning rush of a shell. Once they half-fell, were half-thrown down by the force of an explosion within twenty yards of them. They rose untouched, by some miracle, and, gasping incoherent inquiries to one another, went on again. Over and over again fragments from theshells bursting above the line rattled down upon the ground amongst their feet. At least two or three times a shell bursting on the ground spattered them with dust and crumbs of earth; the whole way across they were accompanied by the drumming bullets that flicked and spurted little clouds of dust from the ground about them, and all the time they were in the open they were fearfully conscious of the medley of whining and singing and hissing and zipping sounds of the passing bullets. They knew nothing of how the rest of the line was faring. They were too taken up with their own part, were too engrossed in picking a way over the broken shell-cratered ground, past the still khaki forms that lay dotted and sprawled the whole way across.
There was such a constant hail and stream of bullets, such a succession of rushing shells, of crashing explosions, such a wild chaos of sounds and blinding smoke and choking reek, that the whole thing was like a dreadful nightmare; but the three came at last, and unharmed, to the chopped and torn-up fragments of the old German wired defenses, tore through them somehow or anyhow, leaped and fell over the smashed-in parapet, and dropped panting and exhausted in thewrecked remains of the German trench. It was some minutes before they took thought and breath, but then it was evident that the minds of all ran in the same groove.
“I wonder,” said Larry, “if Pug was badly hit?”
“I’ve no idea,” said Kentucky. “He went down before I could turn for a glimpse of him.”
“I don’t suppose it matters much,” said Billy Simson gloomily. “He’s no worse off than the rest of us are likely to be before we’re out of this. Seems to me, by the row that’s goin’ on over there, this show is gettin’ hotter instead of slackin’ off.”
“I wonder what the next move is?” said Larry. “I don’t fancy they will leave us waiting here much longer.”
“Don’t you suppose,” asked Kentucky, “we’ll wait here until the other companies get across?”
“Lord knows,” said Larry; “and, come to think of it, Kentuck, has it struck you how beastly little we do know about anything? We’ve pushed their line in a bit, evidently, but how far we’ve not an idea. We don’t know even if their first line is captured on a front of half a mile, or half a hundred miles; we don’t know what casualties we’ve got in our own battalion, or even in our own company, much less whether they have been heavy or light in the whole attack.”
“That’s so,” said Kentucky; “although I confess none of these things is worrying me much. I’m much more concerned about poor old Pug being knocked out than I’d be about our losing fifty per cent. of half a dozen regiments.”
Billy Simson had taken the cork from his water-bottle, and, after shaking it lightly, reluctantly replaced the cork, and swore violently.
“I’ve hardly a mouthful left,” he said. “I’m as dry as a bone now, and the Lord only knows when we’ll get a chance of filling our water-bottles again.”
“Here you are,” said Larry; “you can have a mouthful of mine; I’ve hardly touched it yet.”
Orders came down presently to close in to the right, and in obedience the three picked up their rifles and crept along the trench. It was not a pleasant journey. The trench had been very badly knocked about by the British bombardment; its sides were broken in, half or wholly filling the trench; in parts it was obliterated and lost in a jumble of shell craters; ground or trench was littered with burst sandbags, splintered planks and broken fascines, and every now and again the three had to step over or past bodies of dead men lying huddled alone or in groups of anything up to half a dozen. There were a few khaki forms amongst these dead, but most were in the German gray, and most had been killed very obviously and horribly by shell or bomb or grenade.
“They don’t seem to have had many men holdingthis front line,” remarked Larry, “or a good few must have bolted or surrendered. Doesn’t seem as if the little lot here could have done much to hold the trench.”
“Few men and a lot of machine guns, as usual, I expect,” said Kentucky. “And if this is all the trench held they claimed a good bunch of ours for every one of theirs, if you judge by the crowd of our lot lying out there in the open.”
The three were curiously unmoved by the sight of these dead—and dead, be it noted, who have been killed by shell fire or bomb explosions might as a rule be expected to be a sight upsetting to the strongest nerves. They were all slightly and somewhat casually interested in noting the mode and manner of death of the different men, and the suspicion of professional jealousy evinced by a remark of Billy Simson’s was no doubt more or less felt by all, and all were a little disappointed that there was not more evidence of the bayonet having done its share. “The bloomin’ guns seem to have mopped most o’ this lot,” said Billy. “An’ them fellers that charged didn’t find many to get their own back on.” They were all interested, too, in the amount of damage done by the shells to the trench, in the methods of trench construction,in the positions and state of the dug-outs. And yet all these interests were to a great extent of quite a secondary nature, and the main theme of their thoughts was the bullets whistling over them, the rush and crump and crash of the shells still falling out on the open, the singing and whirring of their splinters above the trench. They moved with heads stooped and bodies half-crouched, they hurried over the earth heaps that blocked the trench, and in crossings where they were more exposed, halted and crouched still lower under cover when the louder and rising roar of a shell’s approach gave warning that it was falling near.
When they had moved up enough to be in close touch with the rest of the company and halted there, they found themselves in a portion of trench with a dug-out entrance in it. The entrance was almost closed by a fall of earth, brought down apparently by a bursting shell, and when they arrived they found some of the other men of the company busy clearing the entrance. “Might be some soo-veniers down ’ere,” one of the men explained. “An’, any’ow, we’d be better down below an’ safer out o’ reach o’ any shell that flops in while we’re ’ere,” said another.
“Suppose there’s some bloomin’ ’Uns still there, lyin’ doggo,” suggested Billy Simson. “They might plunk a shot at yer when you goes down.”
“Shouldn’t think that’s likely,” said Larry. “They would know that if they did they’d get wiped out pretty quick after.”
“I dunno,” said one of the men. “They say their officers an’ their noospapers ’as ’em stuffed so full o’ fairy tales about us killing all prisoners that they thinks they’re goin’ to get done in anyhow, an’ might as well make a last kick for it. I vote we chuck a couple o’ bombs down first, just to make sure.”
Everybody appeared to think this a most natural precaution to take, and a proposal in no way cruel or brutal; although, on the other hand, when Larry, with some feeling that it was an unsporting arrangement, suggested that they call down first and give any German there a chance to surrender, everybody quite willingly accepted the suggestion. So work was stopped, and all waited and listened while Larry stuck his head into the dark opening and shouted with as inquiring a note as he could put into his voice the only intelligible German he knew, “Hi, Allemands, kamerad?” There was noanswer, and he withdrew his head. “I don’t hear anything,” he said; “but perhaps they wouldn’t understand what I meant. I’ll just try them again in French and English.” He poked his head in again, and shouted down first in French and then in English, asking if there was anybody there, and did they surrender. He wound up with a repetition of his inquiring, “Kamerad, eh? kamerad?” but this time withdrew his head hurriedly, as an unmistakable answer came up to him, a muffled, faraway sounding “Kamerad.” “There’s some of them there, after all,” he said, excitedly, “and they’re shouting ’Kamerad,’ so I suppose they want to surrender all right. Let’s clear away enough of this to get them out. We’ll make ’em come one at a time with their hands well up.”
There was great excitement in the trench, and this rather increased when a man pushed round the traverse from the next section with the news that some Germans had been found in another dugout there. “They’re singin’ out that they want to kamerad,” he said; “but we can’t persuade ’em to come out, an’ nobody is very keen on goin’ down the ’ole after ’em. We’ve passed the word along for an officer to come an’ see what ’e can do with ’em.”
“Let’s hurry up and get our gang out,” said Larry enthusiastically, “before the officer comes”; and the men set to work with a will to clear the dugout entrance. “It’s rather a score for the Stonewalls to bring in a bunch of prisoners,” said one of the men. “We ought to search all these dugouts. If there’s some in a couple of these holes it’s a fair bet that there’s more in the others. Wonder how they haven’t been found by the lot that took the trench?”
“Didn’t have time to look through all the dugouts, I suppose,” said Larry. “And these chaps would lie low, thinking the trench might be retaken. I think that hole is about big enough for them to crawl out. Listen! They’re shouting ‘Kamerad’ again. Can’t you hear ’em?”
He looked down the dark stairway of the entrance and shouted “Kamerad” again, and listened for the reply. “I wonder if the door is blocked further down,” he said. “I can hear them shout, but the sound seems to be blocked as if there was something between us and them still. Listen again.”
This time they all heard a faint shout, “Kamerad. Hier kom. Kamerad.”
“Hier kom—that means come here, I fancy,” said Larry. “But why don’t they hier kom to us? Perhaps it is that they’re buried in somehow and want us to get them out. Look here, I’m going to crawl down these steps and find out what’s up.”
He proceeded to creep cautiously down the low and narrow passage of the stair, when suddenly he saw at the stair foot the wandering flash of an electric torch and heard voices calling plainly in English to “Come out, Bochie. Kamerad.”
The truth flashed on Larry, and he turned and scuttled back up the stair gurgling laughter. “It’s some of our own lot down there,” he chuckled to the others. “This dug-out must have another entrance in the next traverse, and we and the fellows round there have been shouting down the two entrances at each other. Hold on now and listen and hear them scatter.” He leaned in at the entrance again, and shouted loudly. “As you won’t come out and surrender, Boche, we’re going to throw some bombs down on you.” He picked up a heavy stone from the trench bottom and flung it down the steps. There was a moment of petrified silence, then a yell and a scuffling rush of footsteps from the darkness below, while Larry and the others sat and rocked with laughter above. They pushed round the traverse just as a coupleof badly scared and wholly amazed Stonewalls scrambled up from the dug-out, and commenced a voluble explanation that “the blighters is chuckin’ bombs, ... told us in English, good plain English, too, they was goin’ to ’cos we wouldn’t surrender.”
Just then an officer pushed his way along to them, and the joke was explained with great glee by Larry and the men from the other part of the trench. Every one thought it a huge joke, and laughed and cracked jests, and chuckled over the episode. Kentucky listened to them with some wonder. He had thought that in the past months of peace and war he had come to know and understand these comrades of his fairly well. And yet here was a new side in their many-sided characters that once more amazed him. A couple of dead Germans sprawled in the bottom of the trench a yard or two from them; their own dead lay crowded thick on the flat above; the bullets and shells continued to moan and howl overhead, to rush and crash down close by, the bullets to pipe and whistle and hiss past and over; while only a few hundred yards away the enemy still fought desperately to hold their lines against our attacks, and all the din of battle rolled and reverberatedunceasingly. And yet the men in that trench laughed and joked. They knew not the moment when one of those shells falling so close outside might smash into the trench amongst them, knew that all of those there would presently be deep in the heart of the battle and slaughter that raged so close to them, knew for a certainty that some of them would never come out of it; and yet—they laughed. Is it any wonder that Kentucky was amazed?
And they continued to chuckle and poke fun at the two who had been the butt of the jest and had run from the flung stone, continued even as they began to move slowly along the ruined trench that led towards the din of the fighting front lines.
“C” Company of the Stonewalls progressed slowly for some distance up the communication trench, with the whistling of bullets growing faster the nearer they approached to the firing line. This trench too had been badly damaged previous to the attack by the British artillery, and the cover it afforded to the crawling line of men was frequently scanty, and at times was almost nil. There were one or two casualties from chance bullets as men crawled over the débris of wrecked portions of the trench, but the line at last reached what had been one of the German support trenches, and spread along it, without serious loss.
This trench had been reversed by our Engineers, that is to say, the sandbags and parapet on what had been its face, looking towards the British line, had been pulled down and re-piled on the new front of the trench, which now looked towards the ground still held by the Germans. The trench wasonly some three to four hundred yards behind what was here the most advanced British line, the line from which some of our regiments were attacking, and in which they were being attacked. Practically speaking, therefore, the Stonewalls knew their position was well up on the outer fringe of the infantry fighting, and through it swirled constantly eddies from the firing line in the shape of wounded men and stretcher-bearers, and trickling but constantly running streams of feeders to the fighting—ammunition carriers, staggering under the weight of ammunition boxes and consignments of bombs and grenades; regimental stretcher-bearers returning for fresh loads; ration parties carrying up food and water. There were still communication trenches leading from the Stonewalls’ position to the firing line, but because these had been and still were made a regular target by the German guns, had been smashed and broken in beyond all real semblance of cover or protection, and brought their users almost with certainty under the bursting shrapnel or high explosive with which the trench was plastered, most of the men going up or coming back from the forward trench, and especially if they were laden with any burden, preferred to take their chanceand make the quicker and straighter passage over the open ground.
The daylight was beginning to fade by now, the earlier because dark clouds had been massing, and a thin misty drizzle of rain had begun to fall; but although it was dusk there was no lack of light in the fighting zone. From both the opposing trenches soaring lights hissed upwards with trailing streams of sparks, curved over, burst into vivid balls of brilliant light, and floated slowly and slantingly downwards to the ground.
The Stonewalls could see—if they cared to look over their parapet—this constant succession of leaping, soaring, and sinking lights, the dancing black shadows they threw, and the winking spurts of fiery orange flame from the rifle muzzles and from the bursting grenades, while every now and again a shell dropped with a blinding flash on or behind one or other of the opposing parapets. There were not many of the Stonewalls who cared to lift their heads long enough to watch the blazing display and the flickering lights and shadows. The position of their trench was slightly higher than the front line held by the Germans, and as a result there was always a hissing and whizzing of bullets passing close overhead, a smacking and slappingof others into their parapet and the ground before it; to raise a head above the parapet was, as the men would have said, “Askin’ for it,” and none of them was inclined needlessly to do this. But the other men who passed to and fro across their trench, although they no doubt liked their exposure as little as the Stonewalls did, climbed with apparent or assumed indifference over the parapet and hurried stooping across the open to the next trench, or walked back carefully and deliberately, bearing the stretcher laden with the wounded, or helping and supporting the casualties who were still able in any degree to move themselves.
The Stonewalls were given no indication of the time they were to remain there, of when or if they were to be pushed up into the forward trench. The thin rain grew closer and heavier, a chill wind began to blow, setting the men shivering and stamping their feet in a vain attempt to induce warmth. Some of them produced food from their haversacks and ate; almost all of them squatted with rounded shoulders and stooping heads and smoked cigarettes with hands curved about them to hold off the rain, or pipes lit and turned upside down to keep the tobacco dry. They waited therefor hours, and gradually, although the sounds of fighting never ceased on their front, the rolling thunder that had marked the conflict during the day died down considerably as the night wore on, until it became no more than a splutter and crackle of rifle fire, a whirring and clattering outburst from some distant or near machine gun, the whoop and rush and jarring burst of an occasional shell on the British or German lines.
At intervals the fight flamed upward into a renewed activity, the rifle fire rose rolling and drumming, the machine guns chattered in a frenzy of haste; the reports of the bursting bombs and grenades followed quickly and more quickly upon each other. Invariably the louder outburst of noise roused the guns on both sides to renewed action. The sky on both sides winked and flamed with flashes that came and went, and lit and darkened across the sky, like the flickering dance of summer lightning. The air above the trenches shook again to the rush of the shells; the ground about and between the front lines blazed with the flashes of the bursts, was darkened and obscured by the billowing clouds of smoke and the drifting haze of their dissolving. Invariably, too, the onslaught of the guns, the pattering hail of theirshrapnel, the earth-shaking crash of the high explosives, reduced almost to silence the other sounds of fighting, drove the riflemen and bomb-throwers to cover, and so slackened off for a space the fierceness of the conflict.
To the Stonewalls the night dragged with bitter and appalling slowness; they were cramped and uncomfortable; they were wet and cold and miserable. The sides of the trench, the ground on which they sat, or lay, or squatted, turned to slimy and sticky mud, mud that appeared to cling and hold clammily and unpleasantly to everything about them, their boots and puttees, the skirts of their coats, their packs and haversacks, their hands and rifles and bayonets, and even to their rain-wet faces.
Long before the dawn most of the men were openly praying that they would soon be pushed up into the front rank of the fighting, not because they had any longing or liking for the fight itself, not that they had—any more than any average soldier has—a wish to die or to take their risks, their heavy risks, of death or wounds, but simply because they were chilled to the bone with inaction, were wholly and utterly and miserably wet and uncomfortable, were anxious to go on and getit over, knowing that when they had been in the front line for a certain time, had been actively fighting for so long, and lost a percentage of their number in casualties, they would be relieved by other regiments, would be withdrawn, and sent back to the rear. That sending back might mean no more than a retirement of a mile or two from the front trench, the occupation of some other trench or ditch, no less wet and uncomfortable than the one they were in; but, on the other hand, it might mean their going back far enough to bring them again into touch with the broken villages in the rear, with houses shattered no doubt by shell fire but still capable of providing rough and ready-made shelter from the rain, and, a boon above all boons, wood for fires, with crackling, leaping, life-giving flames and warmth, with the opportunity of boiling mess-tins of water, of heating tinned rations, and of making scalding hot tea.
There might be much to go through before such a heaven could be reached. There were certainly more long hours in the hell of the forward line, there was black death and burning pain, and limb and body mutilation for anything up to three-fourths of their number, to be faced. There were sleeting rifle bullets, and hailing storms from themachine guns, shattering bombs and grenades, rending and tearing shrapnel and shell splinters, the cold-blooded creeping murder of a gas attack perhaps; the more human heat and stir of a bayonet charge; but all were willing, nay, more, all would have welcomed the immediate facing of the risks and dangers, would have gladly taken the chance to go on and get it over, and get back again—such of them as were left—to where they could walk about on firm ground, and stretch their limbs and bodies to sleep in comparative dryness. But no order came throughout the night, and they lay and crouched there with the rain still beating down, with the trench getting wetter and muddier and slimier about them, with their bodies getting more numbed, and their clothing more saturated; lay there until the cold gray of the dawn began to creep into the sky, and they roused themselves stiffly, and with many groans, to meet what the new day might bring forth to them.
The day promised to open badly for the Stonewalls. As the light grew, and became sufficiently strong for the observation of artillery fire, the guns recommenced a regular bombardment on both sides. From the first it was plain that the support trench occupied by the Stonewalls hadbeen marked down as a target by the German gunners. The first couple of shells dropped on the ground behind their trench and within fifty yards of it, sending some shrieking fragments flying over their heads, spattering them with the mud and earth outflung by the explosions. Another and then another fell, this time in front of their trench, and then one after another, at regular intervals of two to three minutes, a heavy high explosive crashed down within a yard or two of either side of the trench, breaking down the crumbling sides, blowing in the tottering parapet, half-burying some of the men in a tumbling slide of loose, wet earth and débris; or falling fairly and squarely in the trench itself, killing or wounding every man in the particular section in which it fell, blasting out in a fountain of flying earth and stones and mud the whole front and back wall of the trench, leaving it open and unprotected to the searching shrapnel that burst overhead and pelted down in gusts along the trench’s length.
The Stonewalls lay and suffered their cruel punishment for a couple of hours, and in that time lost nearly two hundred men, many of them killed, many more of them so cruelly wounded they might almost be called better dead; lost their twohundred men without stirring from the trench, without being able to lift a finger in their own defense, without even the grim satisfaction of firing a shot, or throwing a bomb, or doing anything to take toll from the men who were punishing them so mercilessly for those long hours.
Larry, Kentucky, and Simson lay still, and crouched close to the bottom of the trench, saying little, and that little no more than expressions of anger, of railing against their inaction, of cursings at their impotence, of wondering how long they were to stick there, of how much longer they could expect to escape those riving shells, that pounded up and down along the trench, that sent shiverings and tremblings through the wet ground under them, that spat at them time and again with earth and mud and flying clods and stones. In those two hours they heard the cries and groans that followed so many times the rending crash and roar of the shell’s explosion on or about the trench; the savage whistling rush and crack of the shrapnel above them, the rip and thud of the bullets across trench and parapet. They saw many wounded helped and many more carried out past them to the communication trench that led back to the rear and to the dressing-stations. For all through thetwo hours, heedless of the storm of high explosive that shook and battered the trench to pieces, the stretcher-bearers worked, and picked up the casualties, and sorted out the dead and the dying from the wounded, and applied hasty but always neat bandages and first field-dressings, and started off those that could walk upon their way, or laid those who were past walking upon their stretchers and bore them, staggering and slipping and stumbling, along the muddy trench into the way towards the rear.
“I wonder,” said Larry savagely, “how much longer we’re going to stick here getting pounded to pieces. There won’t be any of the battalion left if we’re kept here much longer.”
“The front line there has been sticking longer than us, boy,” said Kentucky, “and I don’t suppose they’re having any softer time than us.”
“I believe it’s all this crowd trampin’ in an’ out of our trench that’s drawin’ the fire. They ought to be stopped,” said Billy Simson indignantly. “Here’s some more of ’em now.... Hi, you! Whatjer want to come crawlin’ through this way for? Ain’t there any other way but trampin’ in an’ out on top of us ’ere?”
The couple of mud-bedaubed privates who hadslid down into the trench and were hoisting an ammunition-box on to the parapet stopped and looked down on Billy crouching in the trench bottom. “Go’n put yer ’ead in a bag,” said one coarsely. “Of course, if you says so, me lord dook,” said the other with heavily sarcastic politeness, “we’ll tell the C.O. up front that you objects to us walkin’ in your back door an’ out the front parlor; an’ he must do without any more ammunition ’cos you don’t like us passing through this way without wipin’ our feet on the mat.”
“Oh, come on an’ leave it alone,” growled the first, and heaved himself over the parapet. The other followed, but paused to look back at Billy. “Good job the early bird don’t ’appen to be about this mornin’,” he remarked loudly, “or ’e might catch you,” and he and his companion vanished.
“What’s the good of grousing at them, Billy?” said Larry. “They’ve got to get up somehow.” He was a little inclined to be angry with Billy, partly because they were all more or less involved in the foolish complaint, and partly no doubt just because he was ready to be angry with any one or anything.
“Why do they all come over this bit of trench, then?” demanded Billy. “And I’m damned if’ere ain’t more of ’em. Now wot d’you suppose he’s playin’ at?”
“They’re Gunners,” said Larry, “laying a telephone wire out, evidently.”
A young officer, a Second Lieutenant, and two men crept round the broken corner of the trench. One of the men had a reel of telephone wire, which he paid out as he went, while the other man and the officer hooked it up over projections in the trench wall or tucked it away along the parts that offered the most chance of protection. The officer turned to the three men who crouched in the trench watching them.
“Isn’t there a communication trench somewhere along here?” he asked, “one leading off to the right to some broken-down houses?”
“We don’t know, sir,” said Larry. “We haven’t been further along than this, or any further up.”
“The men going up to the front line all say the communication trenches are too badly smashed, and under too hot and heavy a fire to be used,” said Kentucky; “most of them go up and down across the open from here.”
“No good to me,” said the officer. But he stoodup and looked carefully out over the ground in front.
“No good to me,” he repeated, stepping back into the trench. “Too many shells and bullets there for my wire to stand an earthly. It would be chopped to pieces in no time.”
“Look out, sir,” said Larry hurriedly; “there comes another one.”
The officer and his two men stooped low in the trench, and waited until the customary rush had ended in the customary crash.
“That,” said the officer, standing up, “was about a five-point-nine H.E., I reckon. It’s mostly these six-and eight-inch they have been dumping down here all the morning.”
He and his men went on busily with their wiring, and before they moved off into the next traverse he turned to give a word of warning to the infantrymen to be careful of his wire, and to jump on any one they saw pulling it down or trampling on it.
“Lots of fellows,” he said, “seem to think we run these wires out for our own particular benefit and amusement, but they howl in a different tune if they want the support of the guns and we can’tgive it them because our wire back to the battery is broken.”
The three regarded the slender, wriggling wire with a new interest after that, and if the rest of the trench full of Stonewalls were as zealous in their protection as they were, there was little fear of the wire being destroyed, or even misplaced, by careless hands or feet.
Billy Simson cursed strenuously a pair of blundering stretcher-bearers when one of their elbows caught the wire and pulled it down. “’Ow d’yer suppose,” he demanded, “the Gunners’ Forward Officer is goin’ to tell ’is guns back there to open fire, or keep on firin’, if yer go breakin’ up ’is blinkin’ wire?” And he crawled up and carefully returned the wire to its place.
“Look out,” he kept saying to every man who came and went up and down or across the trench. “That’s the Gunners’ wire; don’t you git breakin’ it, or they can’t call up to git on with the shellin’.”
About two or three hours after dawn the German bombardment appeared to be slackening off, but again within less than half an hour it was renewed with a more intense violence than ever. The Stonewalls’ trench was becoming hopelesslydestroyed, and the casualties in the battalion were mounting at serious speed.
“Hotter than ever, isn’t it?” said Larry, and the other two assented.
“We’re lucky to ’ave dodged it so far,” said Billy Simson; “but by the number o’ casualties we’ve seen carted out, the battalion is coppin’ it pretty stiff. If we stop ’ere much longer, there won’t be many of us left to shove into the front line, when we’re needed.”
“D’ye notice,” said Kentucky, “that the rifle firing and bombing up in front seems to have eased off a bit, and the guns are doing most of the work?”
“Worse luck,” said Larry, “I’d sooner have the bullets than the shells any day.”
“Ar’n’t you the Stonewalls?” suddenly demanded a voice from above them, and the three looked up to see a couple of men standing on the rearward edge of the trench.
“Yes, that’s right,” they answered in the same breath, and one of the men turned and waved his hand to the rear.
“Somebody is lookin’ for you,” he remarked, jumping and sliding down into the trench. “C Company o’ the Stonewalls, ’e wanted.”
“That’s us,” said Larry, “but if he wants an officer he must go higher up.”
Another figure appeared on the bank above, and jumped hastily down into the trench.
“Stonewalls,” he said. “Where’s ‘C’—why ’ere yer are, chums——”
“Pug?” said Larry and Kentucky incredulously. “We thought that—why, weren’t you hit?” “Thought you was ’alf-way to Blighty by now,” said Billy Simson.
“You were hit, after all,” said Larry, noticing the bloodstains and the slit sleeve on Pug’s jacket.
“’It?” said Billy Simson, also staring hard. “Surely they didn’t send yer back ’ere after bein’ casualtied?”
“Give a bloke ’alf a chance to git ’is wind,” said Pug, “an’ I’ll spin yer the cuffer. But I’m jist about puffed out runnin’ acrost that blinkin’ field, and dodgin’ Jack Johnsons. Thought I was niver goin’ to find yer agin; bin searchin’ ’alf over France since last night, tryin’ to ’ook up with yer. Where’ve you bin to, any’ow?”
“Bin to!” said Billy Simson, indignantly. “We’ve bin now’ere. We’ve bin squatting ’ere freezin’ and drownin’ to death—them that ’aven’t bin wiped out with crumps.”
“We came straight across from where we left you to the old German trench,” said Larry, “then up a communication trench to here, and, as Billy says, we’ve stuck here ever since.”
“An’ ’ere,” said Pug, “I’ve bin trampin’ miles lookin’ for yer, and every man I asked w’ere the Stonewalls was told me a new plice.”
“But what happened, Pug?” said Kentucky. “You were wounded, we see that; but why ar’n’t you back in the dressing station?”
“Well,” said Pug, hesitatingly, “w’en I got this puncture, I dropped back in the trench. I didn’t know w’ether it was bad or not, but one of our stretcher-bearers showed me the way back to the fust aid post. They tied me up there, and told me the wound wasn’t nothin’ worth worritin’ about, and after a few days at the Base I’d be back to the battalion as good as ever; so I ’ad a walk round outside, waitin’ till the ambulance come that they said would cart me back to the ’orspital train, and w’en nobody was lookin’ I jist come away, and found my way back to w’ere yer lef’ me. Then I chased round, as I’ve told yer, till I found yer ’ere.”
“Good man,” said Larry, and Kentucky nodded approvingly.
Billy Simson didn’t look on it in the same light. “You ’ad a chance to go back, and you come on up ’ere agin,” he said, staring hard at Pug. “For God’s sake, what for?”
“Well, yer see,” said Pug, “all the time I’ve bin out ’ere I’ve never ’ad a chance to see the inside of a German trench; an’ now there was a fust class chance to git into one, an’ a chance maybe of pickin’ up a ’elmet for a soo-veneer, I thought I’d be a fool not to take it. You ’aven’t none of yer found a ’elmet yet, ’ave yer?” and he looked inquiringly round.
“’Elmet,” said Billy Simson disgustedly. “Blowed if yer catch me comin’ back ’ere for a bloomin’ ’undred ’elmets. If I’d bin you, I’d a bin snug in a ’ospital drinkin’ beef tea, an’ smokin’ a fag by now.”
“Ah!” said Pug profoundly. “But w’at good was a week at the Base to me?”
“You would ’ave missed the rest of this rotten show, any’ow,” said Billy.
“That’s right,” assented Pug, “and I might ’ave missed my chance to pick up a ’elmet. I want a blinkin’ ’elmet—see—and wot’s more, I’m goin’ to git one.”
The Sergeant stumbled round the corner of the traverse and told the four men there that the battalion was moving along the trench to the right, and to “get on and follow the next file.” They rose stiffly, aching in every joint, from their cramped positions, and plodded and stumbled round the corner and along the trench. They were all a good deal amazed to see the chaotic state to which it had been reduced by the shell fire, and not only could they understand plainly now why so many casualties had been borne past them, but found it difficult to understand why the number had not been greater.
“By the state of this trench,” said Larry, “you’d have thought a battalion of mice could hardly have helped being blotted out.”
“It licks me,” agreed Kentucky; “the whole trench seems gone to smash; but I’m afraid there must have been more casualties than came past us.”
“Look out!” warned Billy Simson, “’ere’s another,” and the four halted and crouched again until the shell, which from the volume of sound of its coming they knew would fall near, burst in the usual thunder-clap of noise and flying débris of mud and earth. Then they rose again and moved on, and presently came to a dividing of the ways, and a sentry posted there to warn them to turn off to the left. They scrambled and floundered breathlessly along it, over portions that were choked almost to the top by fallen earth and rubble, across other parts which were no more than a shallow gutter with deep shell craters blasted out of it and the ground about it. In many of these destroyed portions it was almost impossible, stoop and crouch and crawl as they would and as they did, to avoid coming into view of some part of the ground still held by the Germans, but either because the German guns were busy elsewhere, or because the whole ground was more or less veiled by the haze of smoke that drifted over it and by the thin drizzle of rain that continued to fall, the battalion escaped any concerted effort of the German guns to catch them in their scanty cover. But there were still sufficient casual shells, and more than sufficient bullets about, to make the passageof the broken trench an uncomfortable and dangerous one, and they did not know whether to be relieved or afraid when they came to a spot where an officer halted them in company with about a dozen other men, and bade them wait there until he gave the word, when they were to jump from the trench and run straight across the open to the right, about a hundred yards over to where they would find another trench, better than the one they were now occupying, then to “get down into it as quick as you can, and keep along to the left.” They waited there until a further batch of men were collected, and then the officer warned them to get ready for a quick run.
“You’ll see some broken-down houses over there,” he said; “steer for them; the trench runs across this side of them, and you can’t miss it. It’s the first trench you meet; drop into it, and, remember, turn down to the left. Now—no, wait a minute.”
They waited until another dropping shell had burst, and then at the quick command of the officer jumped out and ran hard in the direction of the broken walls they could just see. Most of the men ran straight without looking left or right, but Kentucky as he went glanced repeatedly to hisleft, towards where the German lines were. He was surprised to find that they were evidently a good way off, very much further off, in fact, than he had expected. He had thought the last communication trench up which they moved must have been bringing them very close to our forward line, but here from where he ran he could see for a clear two or three hundred yards to the first break of a trench parapet; knew that this must be in British hands, and that the German trench must lie beyond it again. He concluded that the line of captured ground must have curved forward from that part behind which they had spent the night, figured to himself that the cottages towards which they ran must be in our hands, and that the progress of the attack along there had pushed further home than they had known or expected.
He thought out all these things with a sort of secondary mind and consciousness. Certainly his first thoughts were very keenly on the path he had to pick over the wet ground past the honeycomb of old and new shell holes, over and through some fragments of rusty barbed wire that still clung to their broken or uptorn stakes, and his eye looked anxiously for the trench toward which they were running, and in which they would find shelter fromthe bullets that hissed and whisked past, or smacked noisily into the wet ground.
There was very little parapet to the trench, and the runners were upon it almost before they saw it. Billy Simson and Larry reached it first, with Pug and Kentucky close upon their heels. They wasted no time in leaping to cover, for just as they did so there came the rapidrush-rush,bang-bangof a couple of Pip-Squeak shells. The four tumbled into the trench on the instant the shells burst, but quick as they were, the shells were quicker. They heard the whistle and thump of flying fragments about them, and Billy Simson yelped as he fell, rolled over, and sat up with his hand reaching over and clutching at the back of his shoulder, his face contorted by pain.
“What is it, Billy?” said Larry quickly.
“Did it get you, son?” said Kentucky.
“They’ve got me,” gasped Billy. “My Christ, it do ’urt.”
“Lemme look,” said Pug quickly. “Let’s ’ave a field-dressin’, one o’ yer.”
Simson’s shoulder was already crimsoning, and the blood ran and dripped fast from it. Pug slipped out a knife, and with a couple of slashes split the torn jacket and shirt down and across.
“I don’t think it’s a bad ’un,” he said. “Don’t seem to go deep, and it’s well up on the shoulder anyway.”
“It’s bad enough,” said Billy, “by the way it ’urts.”
Kentucky also examined the wound closely.
“I’m sure Pug’s right,” he said. “It isn’t anyways dangerous, Billy.”
Billy looked up suddenly. “It’s a Blighty one, isn’t it?” he said anxiously.
“Oh, yes,” said Kentucky; “a Blighty one, sure.”
“Good enough,” said Billy Simson. “If it’s a Blighty one I’ve got plenty. I’m not like you, Pug; I’m not thirstin’ enough for Germ ’elmets to go lookin’ any further for ’em.”
One of the sergeants came pushing along the trench, urging the men to get a move on and clear out before the next lot ran across the open for the shelter.
“Man wounded,” he said, when they told him of Billy Simson. “You, Simson! Well, you must wait ’ere, and I’ll send a stretcher-bearer back, if ye’re not able to foot it on your own.”
“I don’t feel much up to footin’ it,” said BillySimson. “I think I’ll stick here until somebody comes to give me a hand.”
So the matter was decided, and the rest pushed along the narrow trench, leaving Simson squatted in one of the bays cut out of the wall. The others moved slowly along to where their trench opened into another running across it, turned down this, and went wandering along its twisting, curving loops until they had completely lost all sense of direction.
The guns on both sides were maintaining a constant cannonade, and the air overhead shook continually to the rumble and wail and howl of the passing shells. But although it was difficult to keep a sense of direction, there was one thing always which told them how they moved—the rattle of rifle fire, the rapid rat-tat-tatting of the machine guns and sharp explosions of bombs and grenades. These sounds, as they all well knew, came from the fighting front, from the most advanced line where our men still strove to push forward, and the enemy stood to stay them, or to press them back.
The sound kept growing ominously louder and nearer the further the Stonewalls pushed on along their narrow trench, and now they could hear, evenabove the uproar of the guns and of the firing lines, the sharp hiss and zipp of the bullets passing close above the trench, the hard smacks and cracks with which they struck the parapet or the ground about it. The trench in which they moved was narrow, deep, and steep-sided. It was therefore safe from everything except the direct overhead burst of high-explosive shrapnel, and of these there were, for the moment, few or none; so that when the men were halted and kept waiting for half an hour they could see nothing except the narrow strip of sky above the lips of the trench, but could at least congratulate themselves that they were out of the inferno in which they had spent the night and the early part of the morning. It was still raining, a thin, cold, drizzling rain, which collected in the trench bottom and turned the path into gluey mud, trickled down the walls and saturated them to a sticky clay which daubed the shoulders, the elbows, the hips, and haversacks of the men as they pushed along, coated them with a layer of clinging, slimy wetness, clammy to the touch, and striking them through and through with shivering chills. When they halted most of the men squatted down in the bottom of the trench, sitting on their heels and leaning their backsagainst the walls, and waited there, listening to the near-by uproar of the conflict, speculating on how little or how long a time it would be before they were into it actively; discussing and guessing at the progress the attack had made, and what ground had been taken, and held or lost. Here and there a man spoke of this point or that which the attack had reached, of some village or hill, or trench, which he heard had been taken. Usually the information had been gleaned from wounded men, from the stretcher-bearers and ammunition carriers with whom the Stonewalls had spoken, as they crossed and recrossed their trench early that morning.
In the trench they now occupied they gleaned no further news, because none of these wayfarers to and from the firing-line passed their way.
“Our front line can’t be getting pushed very hard,” suggested Larry; “because if they were, they’d have shoved us in support before now.”
“It looks to me,” said Kentucky, “that they have slid us off quite a piece to the right of where we were meant to go. What lot of ours do you suppose is in these trenches in front of us now?” But of that nobody had any definite opinion, although several made guesses, based on thevaguest rumors, and knowledge of this regiment or that which had gone up ahead of them.
“’Ark at the Archies,” said Pug suddenly. “They’re ’avin’ a busy season on somebody. D’yer think they’re ours, or the ’Uns’?”
“I don’t know,” said Kentucky, “but I fancy I hear the ’planes they’re shooting at.”
He was right, and presently they all heard the faint but penetrating whirr of an aeroplane’s engines, even above the louder and deeper note of the cannonade and rifle fire.
“There she is,” said Larry. “Can you see the marks on her?”
“It’s ours,” said Kentucky. “I see the rings plain enough.”
Although the aeroplane was at a good height, there were several who could distinguish the bull’s-eye target pattern of the red, white and blue circles painted on the wings and marking the aeroplane as British. For some time it pursued a course roughly parallel to the line of the trench, so that the Stonewalls, craning their heads back, could follow its progress along the sky, and the trailing wake of puffing smoke from the shrapnel that followed it. They lost sight of it presently until it curved back into the range of their vision,and came sailing swiftly over them again. Then another ’plane shot into view above them, steering straight for the first, and with a buzz of excited comment the Stonewalls proclaimed it a Hun and speculated keenly on the chances of a “scrap.”
There was a “scrap,” and in its opening phases the Stonewalls had an excellent view of the two machines circling, swooping, soaring, and diving in graceful, bird-like curves. The “Archies” ceased on both sides to fling their shrapnel at the airy opponents, because with their swift dartings to and fro, and still more because of their proximity to one another, the Archie gunners were just as liable to wing their own ’plane and bring it down, as they were to hit the enemy one. For two or three minutes the Stonewalls watched with the wildest excitement and keenest interest the maneuvering of the two machines. Half a dozen times a gasp or a groan, or a chorus of comment “He’s hit,” and “He’s downed,” and “He’s got him,” followed some movement, some daring plunge or nose dive of one or other of the machines; but always before the exclamations had finished the supposed injured one had righted itself, swooped and soared upward again, and swung circling into its opponent.
Once or twice the watchers thought they could catch the faint far-off rattle of the aeroplanes’ machine guns, although amongst the other sounds of battle it was difficult to say with any certainty that these shots were fired in the air; but just when the interest and excitement were at their highest, a sharp order was passed along the trench for every man to keep his face down, on no account to look upwards out of the trench, and officers and sergeants, very reluctantly setting the good example by stooping their own heads, pushed along the trench to see that the men also obeyed the order.
“Blinkin’ sell, I calls it,” exclaimed Pug disgustedly. “The fust decent scrap between two ’planes I’ve ever ’ad a chance to see, and ’ere I’m not allowed to look at it.”
“You wait until you get ’ome, and see it on the pictures,” said the Sergeant, who stood near them. “It’ll be a sight safer there. If you don’t know you ought to, that a trench full of white faces lookin’ up at a ’plane, is as good as sending a postcard to their spotter upstairs sayin’ the trench is occupied in force; and I don’t suppose,” he concluded, “you’re any more anxious than I am forthat ’Un to be sendin’ a wireless to his guns, and ’avin’ this trench strafed like the last one was.”
“From what I can see of it,” said Pug, “that ’Un up there was ’avin’ ’is ’ands too full to worrit about wot was goin’ on down ’ere.”
“Well, anyhow,” said the Sergeant, “you needn’t keep yer eyes down lookin’ for sixpences any longer. Both the ’planes is out of sight.”
“Well, I’m blowed,” said Pug, “if that’s not a sickener. ’Ere we ’as a fust-class fight, and us in the front seats for seein’ it, and they goes and shifts off so we don’t even know which side won.”
And they never did. A minute later the anti-aircraft guns broke out into fire again, their peculiar singing reports easily distinguishable from the other gun fire, even as the distant reports of their shrapnel bursts in the air were distinguishable from the other sounds of many bursting shells near the ground. But which of the “Archibalds” were firing they did not know. They could only guess that one of the machines had been shot down, and that the anti-aircraft guns of the opposing side were endeavoring to bring down the victor—but which was the victor, and whether he escaped or not, was never known to the Stonewalls.
“Bloomin’ Blind-Man’s-Buff, I calls it,” grumbled Pug. “Gropin’ round after ’Uns you can’t see, an’ gettin’ poked in the ribs without seein’ one—like Billy was.”