Chapter XIX: The Attack

The reconnoitering cavalry of the advancing forces gave way to groups of infantry, scattered in loose formation, feeling their way toward the German trenches. The points and small flanking parties of the advance guards, in front of each column of advance, crept along with straining eyes in search of the enemy's line of observation.

A few hundred yards to the rearward the supports advanced alertly, ready to scatter into a thin line of skirmishers at the first shot and rush ahead to where the points halted. In the rear of them the infantry columns, with one rumble of artillery close to the front, moved and halted, as the thin line to the front paused for a moment to scan ahead, then pushed on again.

Out of the stillness of the dew-dripping woods in front, the shot came. There was no reply for a moment, then two or three closer reports rang loud in reply; then there came another pause, and as the hurrying supports deployed and flung themselves behind the nearest cover, in momentary scanning before pushing ahead to investigate decisively, there came a short, ragged volley from out ahead.

The reports were flat and dull, as a rule, but a few cracked viciously as though fired close at hand. These last followed the vacuum of low-flying bullets and had a spat and twang of their own.

For weeks these two armies had been facing each other; for a week assault had wrestled with counter assault and the armies had striven time after time to snatch an advantage from a massing of columns, or a seeming check.

For miles to right and left, every road, every footpath, every few yards of broken ground was trodden by the feet of short columns, prepared to charge into lines at the needed moment, when the fire of the enemy became a menace. The trenches were abandoned in the rear, yet should the columns in the rear, which by the heads formed a long, long line of supports, be hurled back in repulse after an unsuccessful attack, the trenches would be greeted as comfortable old friends and reoccupied.

The leading columns deployed into thin lines, with short intervals between the men, as the shrapnel broke. From out the blur of the mingling of landscape and sky there came, simultaneously, a whir, a crash, and the quick dash of shrapnel balls over the ground, and of the brief flash which marked the shrapnel's burst there remained only a dimly-seen lingering cloud of dirty smoke and some silent, writhing forms on the ground.

Then came crash after crash, as the hostile artillery opened in strength. The silence of the morning fled into a hideous din as the infantry broke into a dog trot and pushed ahead.

There came a clank of trace chains and the pounding of hoofs mingling with hoarse commands as the artillery of the Russians wheeled out of column to position in battery, the ring of hastily-opened breechblocks, the hollow thump of the blocks closing and the shrill notes of a silvery whistle. Then the earth began to tremble.

Thunderbolt after thunderbolt seemed to be discharging close in the rear, until the very trees shook and men swayed under the compression of air in the vicinity. Over the heads of the silent infantry, shrapnel shrieked in reply, one after another, as the batteries opened with salvos from flank to flank.

Through the gaps between the belching batteries poured the infantry, the columns dashing forward until, beneath the trajectory of the guns, it was safe to spread out in the always thin line of the infantry advance. The leading lines pushed on till they disappeared in the yet dim light, and at a short distance behind them came others, until it seemed that the end would never come, and that a hurrying city was passing.

Ahead, the leading infantry line, absorbing the scattered men of the first light contact line, halted at command under the mounting rifle fire of the enemy, halted and flung itself prone, while ready hands reached backward for intrenching tools, and the line scraped, clawed, scooped and burrowed into the fresh earth in shallow pits, and went about its business of returning the German fire.

Then a second thin line ran up and merged with the first. Again shovel and small mattock came into play and the volume of fire redoubled. Above the cracking of the rifles the only sounds to be heard were the sharp whistles of the officers. They shrilled in a variety of notes and combinations, yet with an understood speech of their own, for in parts of the line the fire slackened and two or three men left their shelter and crept forward a few paces; or, crouching down low, dashed ahead until the whistles spoke again.

Intrenching tool again; then fire. That was the order of the advance. More men crept or rushed to the new position to dig themselves into the ground and open fire, until the entire line had advanced a few yards under the hostile shots and a new line occupied the shelter trenches recently abandoned.

Here and there lay quiet forms across the path of advance. The hardy bodies in the well-fitting uniforms seemed pitilessly small and their clothing hung in baggy folds. Their comrades passed them by with hardly a glance. The litter sections were far to the rear, for their time was not yet. Duty called for assault, not for succor.

The thunder of the contending batteries continued. Over the hastily carved trenches the hostile shrapnel scorched their way, singing along with a note of wild rage, searching the crevasses and folds of the ground and scoring the earth.

But the Russian infantry still advanced.

Quietly filling the gaps that had grown in the firing line since the attack commenced, the supporting lines came to the front. Each accession of reenforcements seemed to give an added impetus to the forward movement, for upon the arrival of each fresh contingent the line surged ahead like breakers on a coast, and, like the incoming tide, each surge left its mark higher upon the strand.

With a calmness which bespoke experience, despite the light of battle which blazed in their eyes, the new men brought and distributed fresh bandoliers of ammunition to those who had gone before, then took their places alongside to aid in its expenditure. The lines were not straight. They zigzagged a trifle. There was no time for chalk-mark adjustment or inspection, and the moment a panting body struck the ground after a forward rush, the earth began to fly on the spot beneath the chop of the trench-digging tools, and the hot rifles to speak.

Men growled, muttered and shouted. Under the fighting fog that beset each one in its own way, there came snatches of song, humming and whistling. There were those, too, who fought silently, as though deeply wrapped in thought, and there was bickering when a hasty comrade crowded too close for free operation of the flying breechbolts; yet the faces were ever turned to the front, except when they turned to the sky or the earth, and nerveless hands fell sprawling with half-emptied rifles.

Where officers, binoculars in hand, bent hastily to the line, men detached themselves at intervals, and clawing at their belts, seized the wire cutters pendant there and crawled forward. Now and then one of the creeping ones would spring into the air and topple over, but the rest, apparently paying no heed, continued on their way toward where the Germans had erected wire entanglements to hold the stormers under the blast of the enemy's fire.

Ahead, the trenches of the Germans crackled and spat with fury, and even under the ceaseless rain of shrapnel from above the assaulting lines the enemy kept his place. The firing line had thickened until it was a solid mass, one man deep, and in the rear line after line had sprung to its feet and was closing up in support to the crucial assault. At the trenches of the defenders, batteries, with horses falling and being cut away in an instant, dashed to the line, unlimbered and poured in their scattering salutations of zero shrapnel to the men in front.

Came a clank and rattle of bayonets snapped onto the muzzles of the assaulting line; then, with a last frenzied emptying of magazines, the lines sprang to foot, and with hoarse voices screeching at top note, the slender line charged forward.

The trenches were lined with the defenders in an instant. The rifle fire redoubled in intensity and the artillery, which had come up to stem the tide, or assault when the supporting batteries of the attack were compelled to hold their fire for fear of obliterating their own attacking lines, barked at four-second intervals, opening great gaps in the racing line at every discharge.

In rear of the supporting lines of the assault, which were closing up at a dead run, galloped the batteries which were to make a rallying point in case the assault failed, or occupy the trenches, should the defenders be driven out, and the cannoneers clutched the side rails as the pieces swayed and rocked across the rough ground and clustered bodies which strewed the field.

At the crest of the parapet the lines, attack and defense met with a ring of steel. Bayonets flashed, darted, parried and struck. Rifle butts whirled above bare heads and the stocks crashed down through bone and flesh. From both sides came a rain of hand grenades, bombs which exploded upon touch. From the rear of the trenches there came running formed troops, to assist in the repulse of the Russians, and as the supporting lines of the attack threw themselves into the fray, the whirling, struggling, fighting lines on the trenches' top thickened and swayed.

The line sagged, bulged, trembled, and broke in huge gaps. Into the splaying breaches there rushed fresh troops from front and rear, and the lines thickened and swayed again. Men discarded their arms to lock in one another's embrace, fighting to the last.

The din was deafening, yet above it there rang out the detonation and shock of a great explosion, where a delayed mine belched upward under the pressure of the hastening troops coming up with the attacking reserve. Earth, stones, wire entanglements, arms and men shot upward in a dense geyser of death, and came down in the midst of the fierce fighting.

Then the line broke again, and the shattered reserves of the attack, summoning the last resources, poured into the breach with bayonet and magazine.

The defense gave way.

Crumpled under the last despairing hurling of last reserves, the entrenched line shuddered along its length, then the line lost its cohesion, stood irresolute for a moment, then fled precipitately to the rear.

The whistles of the Russian officers blew again and again. Officers had fallen until corporals and sergeants commanded platoons and companies; yet they, too, had their whistles and knew their duties; and out of the scramble of the attack, regardless of company, regiment or brigade, the Russians fell into rough line, knelt, and opened fire upon the routed enemy, while the supporting batteries dashed to the trenches, unlimbered and belched fire and iron into the fleeing mass.

The standards of the Russians, which had changed hands a dozen times, during the course of the assault, were planted on the works; the troops themselves, exhausted and spent by the might and fury of their efforts, threw themselves into tired heaps as other brigades came up to hold the position.

The trenches were won!