Chapter XVIII: Uses of a Transport Lorry

The Rutlands had a somewhat longer spell in billets than usual. They were awaiting a draft from the base to make good their losses. The officers and kind friends at home had provided books and games as a relief from the constant mental strain to which modern warfare subjects a man, and with these and impromptu smoking concerts they beguiled the tedium of inaction.

Monsieur Obernai was very active in effort on their behalf. Speaking English with only a trace of foreign accent, he went freely about among the men, conversing with them about their experiences, retailing reminiscences of Alsace, making liberal presents of cigarettes. He was very affable with the officers billeted in his house, and sometimes joined them in their mess-room. On one of these occasions he remarked with a smile that but for the incessant booming of the guns he would hardly have known that war was going on, so little did they talk about it.

"Anything but that, monsieur," replied Captain Adams. "'Deeds, not words,' is our motto. The whole thing is so frightful that we try to forget all about it at off times."

"It is so different in our army," said Monsieur Obernai. "Our officers are not capable of such detachment."

"'A still tongue makes a wise head,' monsieur," said the captain.

Monsieur Obernai looked puzzled, but smiled amiably. He had a pleasant smile.

One day the battalion was suddenly paraded. A few minutes afterwards a motor car drove up, and the men recognised with a thrill that the commander-in-chief had come to inspect them. Sir John French passed up and down the lines, addressing a man here and there, then made a little speech to the battalion as a whole, complimenting them on the work they had done and promising them stiff work in the future and ultimate victory. After visiting a few slightly injured men who remained in the village, the field-marshal drove away amid ringing cheers.

The battalion had only just been dismissed when the whirr of an aeroplane was heard, and a few seconds later a Taube flew over the place.

"Look out!" cried somebody.

Some of the men scuttled for cover, others looked up nonchalantly into the sky. The aeroplane was out of range. Suddenly there was a terrific explosion. A column of earth and smoke shot up from a field a few hundred yards west of the village. The Taube was seen flying back, chased by a couple of English aeroplanes.

"It almost looks as if they knew the chief was to be here," remarked Colonel Appleton, watching the chase among his officers.

"And we only knew it ourselves twenty minutes before he arrived," said Captain Adams.

"Well, I knew it last night, but I kept it to myself. Got word by telephone. They may have tapped the wire. The spies aren't all scotched yet, Adams."

"The deuce!" exclaimed the captain. "I'd like to catch some of them."

"The Germans have very little for their money, though. Look! our fellows have brought the Taube down."

Behind the German lines the aeroplane was whirling in precipitous descent from an immense height.

"Two more good men lost!" said the colonel. "And the spies will go on spying."

Next night the Rutlands were ordered back to the hill village. The enemy was to be turned out at all costs. Regiments were coming up in support, and as soon as a sufficient reserve was collected the attack was to be driven home. The men were fired with grim resolution. News had just come in of the employment of poisonous gas at Ypres, miles away to the north, and as they cleaned their bayonets they vowed to avenge their fallen comrades from Canada.

The upper part of the hill had been held against repeated assaults by the Germans. The opposing lines crossed the main street, about ninety yards apart. Between them the houses had been demolished by one side or the other. The houses above the British trenches, and those below the German, were occupied by snipers. The British snipers had an advantage in being above the enemy; on the other hand they were more exposed to artillery fire, and their positions had been a good deal knocked about. To protect themselves from the fire of these snipers the Germans had made the parapets of their trenches unusually high. This handicapped them to some extent in replying to rifle fire; but they had compensated themselves by installing a large number of machine guns, which were certain to take a heavy toll of the attackers when they charged down the hill.

Soon after the Rutlands reached their position at the top of the hill, in the dusk, a lorry came up from the rear with supplies for the next day. Owing to the rearward slope the vehicle could be brought to within a few yards of the trenches without being seen by the enemy, and since horses were employed as less noisy than a motor engine, supplies had been regularly brought up in this way without the knowledge of the Germans.

Kenneth and Ginger, with other men, were unloading the lorry when a second lorry appeared near the foot of the hill on the British side. It was heavily laden, and the slope proved to be too much for the two horses drawing it.

"Old cab horses, they are," said the driver of the lorry that was being unloaded. "Not fit for this job. I'll have to go down and lend a hand."

Placing a brick under one of the wheels, he unharnessed his horses and led them down the hill. Kenneth and Ginger were carrying a box between them to the communication trench running downwards from the crest when a shell came whizzing over from the German side and exploded near the lorry they had just left, bespattering them with earth, felling one or two of their comrades, and sending the rest scampering into the trench. The shock of the explosion caused Kenneth to drop his end of the box: both he and Ginger were dazed for a few seconds. When they looked round, they were aghast to see the lorry moving backward down the hill. Only half its load had been removed, and though its motion was at present slow, it would gather speed and, unless it could be checked, would crash into the second lorry to which the driver was now yoking his horses. For a moment they were paralysed by realisation of the frightful danger. Men, horses, stores would all be hurled and crushed in hideous wreck. The heavy vehicle was already rolling on more quickly when with mutual decision they left the box and sprinted after it. The case was desperate. Neither of them had any idea how the catastrophe could be averted. It would scarcely be possible to loose the skid and throw it into position while the lorry was running, faster every moment.

More fleet of foot than Ginger, Kenneth rushed ahead, overtook the lorry, and, a thought striking him, seized the pole, and exerting all the force of which he was capable while running at speed, twisted it to the left. The lorry swerved, appeared to hesitate, then ran into a shallow ditch at the side of the road and turned over. The pole, striking against a tree, snapped off, flinging Kenneth to the ground.

"Whew!" gasped Ginger, running down. "That was a near thing."

"Twenty yards," said Kenneth, rising and rubbing his elbow.

"George! that was a near 'un!" panted the driver, who had hastened up. His face was very pale. "I owe you one, mate. Nothing else would have saved us. Hope you ain't hurt."

"Nothing to speak of. The lorry has come off the worst."

"George! you're right! It's what you may call snookered. Done for, that's what it is. We'll have to shove it out of the way before I can bring my horses up, and leave it. What you say, Bill?"

"Can't do nothing with it," said the driver of the second lorry.

"Take my tip, and put the skid on when you get yourn up, mate. George! it give me a fright and no mistake."

They drove the second lorry to the summit, leaving Kenneth and Ginger to carry up the spilled load.

"The lorry isn't so badly damaged as he thinks," said Kenneth. "The brake is bent, and a good deal of wood is chipped off, but the thing will run all right."

He so informed the driver when he met him.

"All the same, you don't catch me driving it back to-night," said the man. "It's nearly dark, the road's bad enough when you're too complay, as the Frenchies say. I'll leave it to the morning at any rate."

It was dark when Kenneth and Ginger had finished their task. They took their places with their platoon in the firing trench.

"Think they'll have any gas for us to-morrow?" said Ginger.

"It's not very likely," said Kenneth. "The gas the Germans have been using lies low; it would be more useful to us."

"Well, why shouldn't we use it too? What's the odds whether you're killed with gas or shrapnel? Gas don't hurt, I expect, and it's a deal cleaner."

"Upon my word I don't know," Kenneth replied. "There's no logic in it. But somehow it goes against the grain. You poison dogs with gas, not men."

"Besides, it's taking an unfair advantage," said Harry. "It depends on the wind--and there's no crossing over at half-time."

The notes of a flute came along the trench from the left.

"Stoneway's at it again," said Ginger.

"The fellow can play," remarked Harry. "Good stuff, too. He doesn't confine himself to the trumpery tunes of the musical comedies. That's a bit of Mozart."

"I've heard that tune somewhere," said Ginger reflectively. "I haven't got much of an ear for music, but I know them twiddles. Why, hang me, I heard 'em when I was in that cellar. Somebody was playing 'em upstairs."

"It's a concerto every flautist knows," said Harry. "The Germans certainly lick us in music."

"A pity they're not satisfied with that," said Kenneth.

They listened in silence till the conclusion of the piece, and joined in the general applause. After a short interval the performer began again, now, however, playing detached notes that had neither time nor tune.

"Those exercises, again!" said Ginger. "That's the worst of music. My little Sally is learning the pianner, and she makes me mad sometimes with what she calls the five-finger exercises. 'For mercy's sake play us a tune,' says I. 'I've got to practise this, Dad,' says she. 'What's the good of it?' says I. 'Teacher says it's to get my fingers in order,' says she. Anybody'd think her fingers weren't the same as other people's; they're all right; a very pretty hand she's got.... He's stopped, thank goodness! Pass up the word for 'Dolly Grey,' mates."

Silence presently reigned. The men reclined, dozing.

"I say, Harry," said Kenneth.

"What is it?" replied Harry sleepily.

"I've been thinking. We might make good use of that lorry."

"How?"

"Let it loose on the Germans."

"Send it down-hill, you mean?"

"Yes."

"What's the good? They'd hear it coming and clear out of the way. It might break their wire and a bit of the parapet--hardly enough damage to be worth the fag."

Kenneth was silent for a little. Then he roused Harry again. There ensued a long conversation between them, at the conclusion of which Kenneth crept along the trench to find Captain Adams. It was some time before he returned.

"The colonel agrees," he said in some excitement. "There's no time to lose. We've got to attack at four o'clock. Wake up, Ginger."

Ginger having been informed of what was intended, he and Kenneth stole from the trench, up the communication trench, and set off at a trot towards their billets. Two hours later they returned in a motor car, which halted at the eastern foot of the hill. They carried up a large rectangular object, and at a second journey a number of bolts and a heavy hammer. Soon the men in the trenches heard the clank of hammering, and Harry suggested that the lorry was being repaired.

His comrades were in fact at work on the lorry. The object which they had brought up consisted of several sheets of corrugated zinc which Ginger, a skilled mechanic, had bolted together in the village. This he was now fixing upright over the rear axle of the lorry, so that it overlapped the body of the vehicle on each side. With the assistance of Kenneth and the driver of the car he was turning the lorry into an armoured car, of unusual form, it is true, but likely, they thought, to serve its purpose. When the zinc was in position, they filled up the space between the sheets with sand, and so completed a bullet-proof screen about nine feet wide. Then, going into one of the half-ruined houses, they brought out a number of planks and carried them to the centre of the firing trench. There, over a space of about ten feet, the parapet was quickly demolished, and the planks were laid across side by side, forming a bridge. The men of the platoon had meanwhile been taken into their confidence, and when Captain Adams called for volunteers to cut the wire immediately in front, several men crawled out and did the work without being detected.

These preparations having been completed, half a dozen men quickly pushed the lorry over the crest of the hill to within a few yards of the trench. Favoured by pitch darkness, and moving with the utmost quietness, they had everything in readiness by three o'clock, without the knowledge of the Germans, and even of the more distant platoons of their own battalion.

The orders of the day were already known along the British line. They were to attack just before dawn. The hill was to be cleared of Germans. It was a task for rifles, bayonets, and hand grenades. They could expect no help from artillery, so narrow was the space dividing the lines.

At the appointed moment, twenty men of the 1st platoon formed up in file behind the lorry, each carrying a hand grenade in addition to his rifle. The word was given. They pushed the lorry off; on each side the other men scrambled out of the trenches; some crawled forward and cut the wire on either side. Then, without uttering a sound, they charged down the hill.

The lorry rumbled slowly over the plank bridge, on to the road, and gathered way as it bumped and jolted down towards the German trenches, the twenty men running behind it. When it had covered a dozen yards it was greeted with rapid rifle fire from the German sentries. There were shouts from below, but before the enemy realised the manoeuvre, a shower of hand grenades fell among them, the lorry crashed through the wire entanglement, broke through the parapet, and turned a somersault over the trench.

Then a yell burst from the throats of the Rutlands, and the air was rent by the crackle of rifles all along the line except at the spot where the lorry had fallen. There Kenneth and his companions sprang into the trench, and pushing along to right and left, cleared it with the bayonet, the panic-stricken Germans fleeing before them or flinging up their hands in token of surrender. Confusion spread along the whole line. The British arrangements had been thoroughly made. While the Rutlands charged down the main street, other regiments were sweeping through the streets and alleys on either side, raking them with fire from machine guns, flinging bombs into the occupied houses, chasing the Germans at the point of the bayonet. Here and there were furious hand to hand encounters; at one point a mass of the enemy's reserves surged forward and gained ground, only to be borne back in turn by the irresistible dash of British supports. In half an hour the streets were cleared, and while some of the British blocked up the captured trenches against counter-attack, others rushed the houses to which the enemy still clung, and stormed them one after another.

All this had happened in the grey chill dawn. By the time the sun's rim appeared over the distant horizon the position was completely won, at comparatively slight cost. More than two hundred prisoners remained in British hands, and among them Ginger, who had escaped with a few bruises, recognised the lieutenant to whom he had been indebted for a uniform.

When the roll was called, it was found that of the twenty men who had followed the lorry only one had been wounded.

"A capital idea of yours, Amory," said Captain Adams. "It's a pity we can't always be going down-hill behind screens. There's a fortune awaiting the man who invents a bullet-proof protection for infantry in the field."

"Wouldn't that result in stale-mate, sir?"

"Well, if it put an end to warfare by machinery it would give us a chance for our fists! Men will fight, I suppose, to the crack of doom. It would be much healthier if we could fight out our quarrels without killing one another."