Chapter IX: Book III: Into the Blue (3)

There was precious little information as to what had happened or was happening. Our infantry had captured the town immediately in front of us and were preparing to go forward behind our barrage to capture the next town which lay ahead. Everybody said that we had insufficient tanks for the task and that the enemy was making a determined stand. How much of this was conjecture and how much fact, nobody could assert positively. There was a feeling of tension and anxiety. No one was quite certain what he was expected to accomplish. Our own fear was that in firing without more exact information we might be killing our own men. The Major himself determined to go forward to ascertain the true condition of affairs. While he was gone, Heming returned from the wagon-lines, bringing with him two Hun field-guns he had found, so making us into an eight-gun battery.

We had been firing for about half an hour when a mounted signaller, sent back by the Major, rode up. He reported that the attack had been only partially successful, owing to the tremendous concentration of enemy machine-guns, which lay hidden in the wheat-fields between the two towns. Another attack was to take place within the hour; it was necessary that the battery should move up in order that our support might be more immediate and effective. The signaller added that the Major was at Death Corner, in full sight of the enemy and that his groom had been killed within five minutes of his arrival there.

We hooked in and started off by a mud-track. The mud-track was strewn on either side by men and horses, newly dead. Some of them we recognised as people who had passed us while we had been in action. The enemy shells were sweeping the track for all the world as though a gigantic hose were playing down its length. Now they would spray this part of it, then lift a hundred yards and spray that. Ahead of us stretched a billowy level of wheat-fields; to the right lay Rouvroy, the town which we had captured; at right angles to the track and passing in front of Rouvroy ran a road, which was clearly indicated above the wheat by a straight line of splintered trees. The point where the track met the road was Death Corner. It looked as unhealthy a spot as one could well imagine; everything was rocking in a whirlwind of explosions. Three hundred yards short of the corner we swung off to the left and came into action. Over the short distance which separated the battery from the Major we ran in a telephone wire. From where he was and indeed from any point on the high road, the entire battle-field lay exposed and, on its furthest edge, the entrenched town of Fouquescourt which it was essential we should possess.

The Major had arranged with the infantry that, at a given signal, we would at once open at an intense rate of fire and that behind our shells the advance against the town should commence. We had been firing for, perhaps, five minutes, when we received orders from our brigade headquarters, which were well in rear of us, to stop. The Major, watching from his point of vantage, saw that all of a sudden our advancing riflemen were left unprotected. He called to to know what was the matter and at once ordered us to go on. For the next two hours we purposely let our line to brigade go down so that we might be out of touch and left unhampered to do our work.

And what a two hours those next two hours were! The Hun was putting up the fight of his life. All through the three thousand yards of wheat-fields which separated Rouvroy from Fouquescourt wire-entanglements and machine-gun nests had been constructed. You could not see them for the grain, and did not know they were there until you were upon them. In the first advance which had failed, our men had walked straight into the traps and most of their officers had been shot down. In the second, which we had come up close to support, our men had wriggled their way forward and reached Fouquescourt, only to find that they were cut off and had left the enemy in the wheat behind them. In losing time we were giving the enemy his chance. He was bringing his guns up and getting them into better positions; every hour his artillery fire was becoming better directed and growing more intense. His airmen were regaining their courage, flying in leaps and bounds like great grasshoppers just above our heads, and picking off our men with machine-gun fire. We had to keep two Lewis guns mounted on the flanks of our battery to drive them off.

Things had reached a pretty desperate pass, everyone fighting without proper information and in many cases without leadership, when suddenly, silently and unheralded, out of the woods behind us appeared a cloud of cavalry. They drew up, as if on parade, about four hundred yards to our left flank and in line with ourselves. They were instantly spotted by a Hun plane, which flew to and fro over them, dropping bombs. He was so busily engaged that he did not notice one of our chaps swooping down on him. When he did see him, there was nothing for it but to escape. Then followed a wild chase; our chap hovering like a hawk on top and driving the Hun lower and lower towards the ground. Of a sudden the Hun burst into flames and shot downwards like a torch. But before he was caught he must have signalled back the cavalry target to his gunners, for right into the midst of the waiting horsemen the shells began to fall. Their courage was superb, the courage of the horses equalling that of the men. From the distance at which we watched, it was exactly like seeing rocks flung into a pond—only the rocks were high explosives and the pond was made up of living flesh. We saw the splash of bodies tossed high into the air, the ripple of horsemen reining back, and then the patient orderly reforming of their ranks.

A trumpet sounded. At a walk, and then at a gentle trot, a hundred men rode up on to the highroad and vanished into the sea of yellow on the other side. Then a hundred more. Then a hundred more, till none but those who could not rise were left. As each little company was displayed to the enemy, the high-road was swept with bullets as with pelting hall. Riders crumpled in their saddles; horses reared themselves up, pawing at the air and toppled over backwards. The survivors paid no heed to the agony which would certainly be theirs within the next few seconds; unhurriedly, keeping cool and using their heads, they set spurs to their horses and danced away to trample the machine-guns and clear a way for the infantry, or to die in the attempt. How many of them came back we did not count, but most of them found a grave in the sea of yellow.

The man at the telephone was beckoning to me. “The Major wants you to speak with him.” he said. “Hulloa! hulloa! That you, Major?”

“Is that you, Chris?”

“Yes.”

“Is there anyone you can leave with the guns?”

“There’s Edwine, Sir.”

“Then come up to where I am at once.”

I handed over the battery and went forward. At Death Corner I was met by a sight which I shall not easily forget. In the middle of the crossroads the dead lay in mounds. Many of them were men whom I recognised. The place was strewn with horses. The first to catch my eyes was old Fury, the Major’s rusty charger; his hind-legs had been shot away from under him and he sat with his front-legs thrust out like poles, balancing himself and swaying his head. Pressed flat behind a tree I saw the Major, peering out across the waving corn, where the cavalry were charging death at the gallop. Crouching low and dodging the shells, I gained his place of hiding.

“Some picnic, isn’t it?” were his first words. He was as happy and excited as if he were the spectator of a gigantic football match. How he had been able to survive at Death Corner for so long was a marvel. I looked at the picnic. All I could see was men creeping back on their hands and knees, riderless horses writhing and drowning in the sea of yellow, stranded tanks, smouldering heaps marking the spots where aeroplanes had crashed incandescent as comets and, across the plain of wheat, a wall of fire where our shells were falling and columns of suffocating smoke were curling above the funeral pyres of towns.

“Some picnic, all right,” I said. The Major laughed at me out of the corner of his eyes. “It’s the real thing—open warfare, what we always wanted. See here, Chris, I’ve collected some of these infantry chaps; their officers have been nearly all wiped out. I’m going to lead them forward to clean up some of those enemy machine-gun nests. They’ve got to be cleaned up, because, they’re cutting us off from our troops who are in Fouquescourt. God knows what’s happening up there. Someone’s got to fight his way through and find out. I want you to stop here and watch for any messages I send back.”

His eye caught Fury. “I can’t leave him like that.”

At the risk of his life he dodged across the open space to where his old companion sat swaying his head forlornly. I saw him pat the velvet neck and then fumble for his revolver. He looked at the revolver and then at the horse. He came back to me slowly, “I can’t. You do it when I’m gone.”

Along the edge of the wheat the infantry were lying waiting for him; they were the stragglers and survivors of the first two attacks. As he reached them he fell on his hands and knees and crawled away, while they followed him at intervals through the golden stalks.

Had the Huns seen him at that moment, they would not have considered him an object of terror, under-sized and wizened as he was. But it was Charlie Wraith, despite his physical deficiencies, who put heart into defeated men that day and by his magnificent contempt for death forced a way into Fouquescourt to the support of troops which had become isolated. How many enemy strongholds he bombed out he alone knows, and he refuses to tell. The men whom he led cannot tell, for most of them are dead. He had always yearned to kill Germans face to face, so he must have had a time entirely satisfactory and satisfying. It wasn’t his job as an artilleryman; but, as he said in excusing himself afterwards, it was a dirty job and with most of the infantry officers gone west, there was no one else to do it.

He got severely strafed on his return for having left his battery, which he ought to have been commanding. Then news began to come in of what he had actually accomplished and how it was he who had flashed back the reports which had enabled the front to be consolidated. He’s been recommended for the V. C. and it looks as though he would get it. So he’s attained the desire nearest to his heart; he’s healed his wounded pride and will be able to prove to the girl who flung him down that her knowledge of human arithmetic was faulty.

VIII

WE are still in the neighbourhood of Death Corner. It looks as though the attack has been pressed as far as it can go at this point. The whole of Fouquescourt is now in our hands, but beyond that lies Fransart and the railroad, which the enemy is holding heavily. To the south of us the French are trying to turn the enemy’s flank of Noyon, but apparently with little success, for the resistance in front of us grows stiffer rather than less. The Hun is a long way from being beaten yet. Whatever may be the morale of his rank and file, his storm-troops never fought better. For two days after we had surrounded Fouquescourt there were machine-gunners who still refused to surrender and kept up a running scrap from house to house, causing us many casualties and much annoyance.

Every twenty-four hours we had to shift our guns owing to the Hun aerial activity. By day the enemy airmen spot us; under cover of night they return to bomb us. They have not scored any direct hits on our guns yet, thanks to our precautions in changing our positions every nightfall, but they have made us pay heavily in the loss of men. With so much shifting and changing it is not possible to build any overhead protection; the most we can do is to scoop holes in the ground of sufficient depth to hide us from the splinters. Next night we have to scoop fresh holes and spread our blankets somewhere else.

Owing to the precariousness of the way in which our front is held we have to be on duty all the time. At night we never dare to undress, nor even to remove our boots. This is not like the old days, when we had an elaborate system of trenches and a wide No Man’s Land between ourselves and the enemy; to-day we have outposts dotted here and there, and a thin line of riflemen strung out through ditches and woods. In a moving battle one is never quite certain where our country ends and the Hun’s commences. If we were for a minute to relax our vigilance, we might be overwhelmed. But the vigilance when combined with the bombing and the shelling is very wearing.

The weather has become unusually hot. The men go about stripped to the waist and dripping with sweat. We left all our surplus baggage behind before the offensive started, so there are few of us who have more than one change of underwear. The result is that all the time we feel prickly and dirty. We would give a month’s pay for a plunge in a river and a chance to clean ourselves. Try as we may to prevent it, already a number of the men are developing skin-diseases and nearly all of them are verminous. With the constant wearing of our boots, the feet of most of us are getting blistered and sore. One of our gun-detachments made a lucky find, which has caused them to be the envy of the battery. In what had been a Hun officers’ mess they found a quantity of woman s lingerie, all of the very daintiest—pink silk finery, with baby ribbons and much lace. They at once discarded their army shirts and now lend a touch of humor to our landscape as they fire their gun in their filmy attire.

The heat has caused the carcases of the dead horses to decompose more quickly than usual; they lie indecently throughout the wheat-fields and roads like huge inflated bag-pipes with their legs sticking woodenly in the air. For miles the atmosphere is tainted with the nauseating stench of decaying flesh. No one has the time or the energy for burying them; even our human dead have in very many cases not yet been accorded the common kindness of a grave. We are all too tired to form funeral parties and the risk of exposing one’s self is too great. All our movements have to take place under the cover of darkness; it is then that our ammunition is sent up. The Hun is perfectly aware of this; he keeps every road and suspected battery-position, with all its approaches, under constant bombardment from sundown to well after midnight.

Our rations, as may be imagined, are of the very plainest, consisting for the most part of bully beef, tea, and hard tack. To light fires to cook anything is dangerous; the smoke would give us away in a second. We have outrun our lines of communication. Our railhead is many miles behind. Everything has to be brought up to the battle area by motor-transport, across roads which the enemy did his best to destroy in his flight. We are entirely out of tobacco and cigarettes. Our only remaining smokes are Hun cigars, which we have found in abandoned billets or in the pockets of the dead.

It would have been normal to have supposed that in an advance of these dimensions we should have captured enough booty to have kept ourselves supplied. Where we are now was the Hun’s back-country a few days ago, to which his troops marched out to rest. His canteens were here, his workshops and hospitals. There were plenty of French civilians still in possession of these houses; the gardens and fields were under cultivation. Our advance was so unexpected and rapid that it gave him hardly any warning of our advent; and yet he contrived to strip everything and to carry it off in his wagons. Even the gardens are bare; nothing but the crops in the fields are left. The only fresh meat which any of us have had has been supplied us by our veterinary sergeant, who holds that horse-flesh is a perfectly healthy diet if you take only the best cuts. There are plenty of wounded horses wandering about, of no further service to the army.

War has certainly taught us one thing: that we all have a far greater power of endurance than we guessed. Here we are, having put up with every kind of hardship, having experienced every kind of shock, having lived with horror as a daily companion, having gone without sleep, without proper food or anything approaching cleanliness, and yet we are happy and cheerfully prepared for as much more punishment as may be allotted.

The extraordinary cheerfulness of our men, the kind of school-boy attitude they take up towards war, as though it were no more than a tremendous lark, is illustrated by the glee they displayed in firing the two whizz-bangs which Heming brought up to us when we were attacking Fouquescourt. I suppose they derived a grim satisfaction from pelting the enemy with his own shells. To have two more guns to serve meant that everybody had to do considerably more work. Besides the actual work of serving them, there was the added labour of hunting up and collecting the Hun ammunition which was scattered throughout the country-side. They did it all without a grumble, preferring to regard the undertaking as a joke at the enemy’s expense.

Yesterday we received an order that all captured ordnance had to be drawn back to a special park, some ten miles to the rear. When our men heard that, they went out and gathered together six hundred rounds per gun and spent the night in pooping them off into the enemy back-country just as fast as they could load and fire. Funny chaps! They won’t be so keen on working overtime when once they get back to their labour unions.

By the way, Suzette has just communicated to us an interesting fact about herself. She asked to be paraded before the Major, as though she were actually a Tommy instead of a civilian girl. In the queer broken English which she has picked up from our men, she told us that this was her country before the war came and she had to flee from it. Her home was in Fransart, which is the next town which we shall have to attack. She wanted to let us know this because she thought her knowledge of the district might be of value. And then came what was probably her real motive for asking to be paraded; a request that she might be allowed to accompany the next officer and party of signallers going up front.

“But why? What for?” the Major questioned.

“Eet was my ‘ome,” she said. “I wish zo much to zee eet before zee guns—-.” She puffed out her cheeks and then emptied them with an explosive sound. “Before zay make eet all flat.”

At first the Major refused her emphatically. But the Major has a soft place for Suzette; I’m not at all sure that he is not just as much in love with her as Heming. For some time I’ve had the feeling of a growing hidden rivalry between the two men—hidden because, being friends, they are ashamed to acknowledge rivalry. And then again, neither of them is willing to own her attraction. She has no right to be here. Were it discovered that the reason for her presence in a fighting unit was the Major’s or the Captain’s affection, the affair would wear a very different aspect in the eyes of not only the higher authorities, but also of the men in the battery itself. Compelled by her pleading, the Major has promised her that on the first quiet day he will allow her-to accompany one of us up front. In granting her request I think he is ill-advised. But it is clear to me now that, were she to make any request of him, however mad, he would not be able to withstand her.

As I look back, I am amazed that I have been so blind; I can remember incidents and chance phrases, insignificant in themselves, which pieced together prove beyond a doubt that the Major has been in love with her from the very first. A topsy-turvy world! Nothing really matters when you may be blown into eternity any second. All I hope is that no one else has noticed.

Charlie Wraith on that day at Death Corner, laughing like a boy playing pirates! It’s now plain what he was doing: he was winning the admiration of Suzette.

IX

DURING the last two days I have seen the best bit of fighting of the entire war. As a rule an attack is a big sprawling affair, the whole of which no one can foresee, and the whole of which in all its details no single person can command. Everyone sets out with general instructions; but the variations in the methods by which those instructions are carried out depend on personal initiative and chance. For the first time I was in an attack every phase of which one could follow up and watch. If a moving-picture man had been there, he could have made his fortune. From first to last the entire performance was stage-set and capable of being focussed.

I was sent up forward to do liaison work with the battalion which was holding the line in front of Fouquescourt. Everything was quiet and no attack was contemplated, so Suzette had her way and was allowed to accompany me. I did not much relish having the responsibility of a girl with me in what was practically the Front-line, though nobody by looking at her could have guessed that she was a girl. Her appearance was that of a slightly built boy, who was probably two years below the military age; but there was nothing to arouse suspicion in that, for many of our Tommies have obviously increased their age in order to get themselves into the Army. She accompanied me ostensibly as a telephonist in my signalling party.

Battalion headquarters were situated in a deep trench, which crossed the road which runs between Fouquescourt and Fransart. This road was raked day and night by hostile fire. The trench itself was anything but a pleasant spot. The moment one poked his head up to look over the top a bullet would whizz by; Hun snipers were everywhere and quite close up. Suzette’s idea in accompanying me had been to get a glimpse of Fransart before it was flattened by shells; but apart from the snipers this was impossible, for the fields sloped up into a ridge which hid all but the tops of the village trees from the trench where we were. This being the case there was not much sense in allowing her to remain in a place of danger, so I made up my mind to send her back to the battery with the runner who would carry down my situation report at nightfall.

I had never had much talk with Suzette; that afternoon as I sat in the hot sun-baked trench I got a glimpse of her mind for the first time. The rest of my party were sprawled out on their backs, trying to make up for broken nights, so we were quite by ourselves.

“Suzette,” I said, “why do you follow us? It isn’t a happy sort of life. Surely somewhere you must have friends.”

She shrugged her shoulders ever so slightly, “My friends! Zay was all in Fransart. You are my friends now.”

I tried to get her to outline to me what had happened to her since the start of the war, but she wasn’t to be drawn out on that point. “Ze Germans, zay was not nice,” she said; “zay killed my mother over zare.” It appeared that her mother had kept pigeons in the loft of their cottage. When the Germans discovered that the birds had rings on their legs, they had suspected that they were intended for the carrying of messages, and her old mother had been led out and shot. She herself had escaped through their outposts and regained the unconquered territory. What had happened between the time of her escape and our finding her she passed over in a phrase, “Eet was cold and un’appy, and zen you were kind.”

I found that what she really preferred to talk about was her girlhood, before calamity had touched her; so let her talk on. It was over there in Hallu Wood, from which the sniping was coming, that she had gone each spring with the village children to gather primroses. It was through these fields, where corpses were now lying, that she used to walk with her pail at milking-time. She peopled the battlefield with ghosts, recreating all the peasant ways of life that the ferocity of war had terminated. She made me see the old priest in his rusty black skirt and round felt hat, going down the lanes between the little cottages. She made me see the pool in the brook where her mother used to kneel with the village women, singing and banging the linen white against the stones. But most of all she made me see herself—Suzette, with the gold-brown plaits, whom all the boys used to follow with their eyes, before there was any Bully Beef or any hint of catastrophe in the world.

The ‘phone tinkled, breaking the spell, and the telephonist on duty called to let me know that I was wanted by the Major.

“Hulloa, sir, I was going to have called you up. I’m sending Suzette back. There is nothing for her to see up here.”

“Don’t send her back—not yet.” The Major’s voice sounded abrupt and agitated.

“But why——?”

“Here’s why. Bully Beef is lost and we don’t want her to know until we’ve found him.”

“Lost, but——”

“Yes, lost. I know what you are going to say; that he can’t have gone far and must have been picked up by some other unit. The fact is, however, that he’s as completely vanished as if the ground had opened and swallowed him. Keep her with you until we’ve made a proper search. We may not have to tell her.”

That night instead of returning with the runner to the battery, Suzette stayed with us in the Front-line. When night had fallen and the snipers could no longer see her, she sat on the lip of the trench, staring out into the darkness towards Fransart. Once she pointed to a lone tree on the ridge, saying that she could see the village from there and asking me to allow her to go forward; but the enemy patrols were likely to be abroad, so I had to deny her. Several times I heard her sigh heavily and more than once I could have sworn that tears glistened in her eyes. She was realising all that she had lost. But how much she had lost even she did not know as yet, for every time I phoned back to the battery and questioned I received the same answer; there was no news of her child.

At the Front men are missing very often for weeks before you find a trace of them. They stray into the enemy lines. They get wounded by a chance shell. Their nerve fails them at the moment when they have accomplished some heroic act and they desert. We had one man who brought in a wounded officer at the risk of his life and was recommended for a decoration. Then it was discovered that the man could not be found. When he was found, he was awarded the D. C. M. for valour and court-martialed for the cowardice of desertion. We never give up hope when a man goes missing until he is proved to be dead. But with a civilian it is different; there are no army records through which to trace and report them. Were Bully Beef found killed, it would be nobody’s business. At the Front one’s responsibility extends no further than to the men in khaki.

Next morning on enquiring across the ‘phone, I was told that they had picked up a rumour: a child had been seen on the road between the wagon-lines and Death Corner. If that were so, it would mean that Bully Beef had wandered out of the wagonlines in the direction of the battery in search of his mother. He had come up once or twice to the battery-position with the ammunition-wagons, and would have a vague idea of the way. Seeing that he had not arrived at the battery, it was likely that he had gone past it; in which case he must be somewhere in the wheatfields between Death Corner and Fourquescourt. A detail of men were out searching for him, led by Big Dan.

Then something arose which swung my thoughts clean away from this personal anxiety. To the south of us drum-fire had been pounding away all morning; we guessed that the French had been going after Noyon once again. At one o’clock we got a sudden intimation that within two hours we must capture Franeart and, if possible, the railroad which lay beyond. This left no time for the working out of the usual detailed plans for artillery co-operation. Moreover, we were too far forward to dare to send our instructions back by telephone; the Hun listening-machines would pick up our conversations and the enemy would be forewarned. We had to make out a rough barrage-table and run it back to the guns by messenger. When that was done it was necessary that I and my party should go forward to the jumping-off point with the infantry, since the ridge in front blocked the view of the area where the fighting was to take place. Suzette volunteered to accompany my party, and since I had far too few signallers for a show and no time to obtain more I was compelled to accept her. Leaving one man in the trench to watch for our messages, we struck out along the Fouquescourt-Fransart road and commenced to lay in wire to the point from which we proposed to observe the fight.

It was a brilliantly hot afternoon; all the parched landscape seemed to shift and quiver in the dancing haze. One’s clothes rasped the flesh like sand-paper and one’s eyes were blinded by perspiration. We made little progress with the laying of our wire, for every few minutes we had to go back to mend a break caused by shell-fire. At last we abandoned the idea of keeping in touch with the rear by telephone and determined to rely on visual signalling. We passed the ruined village of Fouquescourt on our right. It was seething in a cloud of smoke; the shriek of bursting shells was like the wild applause of waves breaking on a rock-bound coast. We abandoned the road and bore over towards the left, till we came to an old Hun trench, which ran straight up to Fransart and passed near to the lone tree on the ridge, from which we intended to signal back our messages. As we stole crouching between its shallow banks, we noted how our chaps had flung away the heavier part of their equipment; it was strewn with haversacks, Mill’s bombs and tins of bully. Then, when we almost thought that we had advanced too far, we came across them. They were kneeling close together, panting like over driven animals, their bayonets gleaming thirstily in the fierce sunshine. Many of them were reinforcements who had never been in battle before—men who had been sent to replace the heavy casualties of our encounters. Their faces were haggard with the struggle against terror and they trembled as they waited for our guns to open fire. One could pick out the veterans among them at a glance by their fatalistic carelessness. Having posted a signaller with flags and a lamp, I pushed forward to where the Company Commander was waiting to lead the advance. He was just on the crest, from where one could look down on the approaches to Fransart. The village itself was still hidden from sight, but one could see the little country road, running through fields straight and white as an arrow from Fouquescourt, and crossing the road a line of apple trees. It looked very sleepy and innocent. One would scarcely have been surprised to have seen blue-clad peasants rise out of the grass and commence to sharpen their scythes. There was no hint of murder and strife; the suspense of the crouching men behind us struck a false note of melodrama. The Company Commander consulted his wrist-watch, counting off the minutes.

He turned to me. “How many more do you make it?”

“Six minutes more to go,” I replied.

“What are you doing when the show has started?”

“I follow you up,” I said, “and keep you in sight. If you want to send any runners back, you’ll find some of my signallers in this trench.”

Then we again fell to watching the quiet country with a kind of wonder, counting off the minutes and the seconds.

There were only two minutes left when the infantry-officer jerked my elbow excitedly, “Good God, look at that!”

“At what?”

“Get your glasses out, man, they’re better than mine. That thing over there, moving towards the apple-trees down the road.”

I picked up the object with my naked eye when he pointed. It was a mere speck, creeping very slowly. It might have been a man crawling, only it was hardly big enough. Our riflemen already had their sights trained on it and their angers on the triggers, awaiting the order to fire. I raised my glasses. What I saw was a child, with chubby legs, short skirts and long hair to the middle of his back like a girl’s. His face was streaky with crying, and he kept digging his knuckles into his eyes. Through the glasses he looked so near that I could have touched him by reaching out my hand. It was horrible to see him out there, where in little over a minute our own shells would be falling. Our little Bully Beef, going in search of his mother! There wasn’t one of us who wouldn’t have given up his life to restore him to her, and we were powerless to draw him back. The rifles were lowered as the word was whispered round; we watched his progress in fascinated suspense.

Suddenly, rising out of a ditch behind him, came another figure—Big Dan’s. Big Dan, who had promised to take care of him in his mother’s absence! He leapt up and ran towards the enemy lines down the ribbon of white road. He must have called to Bully Beef, for we saw the child turn and fling out his arms at recognising him. Dan picked him up, holding him tight against his breast, and stood there hesitating, waiting for the enemy to take their revenge. I could almost hear him singing defiantly, in his deep base voice,

Old soldiers never die,

They simply fade away.

Then a hundred yards in front, out of the apparent emptiness a Hun stood up waving a handkerchief; beside the Hun were a dozen rifles all pointing in Dan’s direction. He moved forward, with the child’s face looking back across his shoulder. As the first of our shells fell, he stepped down and was lost to sight in the German trench. Like a squall at sea our barrage descended and everything was blotted out.

I turned to the signaller who was nearest to me, “Where is Suzette?”

“Behind the next traverse, sir.”

“She did not see? She does not know?”

“She doesn’t know, sir.”

“Then until it is all over we must not tell her.” It took five minutes for the enemy retaliation to come back. It burst like a hurricane along the ridge and along the shallow hiding place in which we were. No man could hide there for long. The only safety was to get either in front of it or behind it. The Company-Commander gave the signal to advance. With the men running and crouching low, the river of bayonets streamed past me. Like a trickling stream, I watched their silver gleaming grow more distant above the tall rank grass which lined the lip of the trench. God knows to what fate they were going or how many of those splendidly fashioned men would remain unbroken by sunset. For myself. I had other things to think about.

My job was to keep the attack in sight and to be sure that my chain of signallers was in touch with the rear, so that I could get my orders through for the directing of fire. To keep the attack in sight it was necessary to push on nearer to Fransart, so I took Suzette and one man with me, leaving the rest of my party strung out behind. Where the apple-trees crossed the road, I saw our men leap out of the trench and start at the run across the open. Instantly a withering fire was brought to bear on them from a little village in advance and over to the right, which we had been informed had been in our hands since morning. They began to go down like nine-pins, pitching forward into the dust and rolling over on their sides. We stood up to signal back the news of what was happening, but the first flapping of the flags brought about our heads a storm of bullets. Our only chance was to run the message back through the enemy’s barrage. The signaller started off down the trench. We waited for his return, but we waited in vain. A runner reached us from the Company Commander, asking for guns to be brought to bear upon a machine-gun nest which was holding up the advance. I had only Suzette left, so she took the message and vanished into the enemy barrage behind me. Shortly after she had gone on her errand another infantry-runner met me, with the message that our chaps had got through Fransart and were in sight of the railroad on the other side, but that the enemy machine-guns, which they thought they had demolished, were firing in their backs. None of my men had returned. I thought I knew why, for the ridge was boiling. There was no one left to send, so I set off to run the information back myself.

I have read in history of men who were never afraid, but I have not met their like at the front. All the men out here have been afraid and will be afraid again tomorrow. They acknowledge their fear, and conquer and despise it. The difference between the brave man and the coward is that, whereas the coward gives way to his imagination, the brave man carries on as if he were untouched by terror. That day I was frankly afraid. As I entered the barrage every nerve in my body went on strike. Shells were exploding on the very lip of the trench; the shock of their concussion was like a blow aimed against my knee-joints. I felt blinded and faint. The smart of fumes was in my eyes; the reek in my throat was choking. I glanced across my shoulder to find that, where I had been standing a few seconds before, the trench had been blown up.

On in front across the part that I had to traverse, the grass was scorched and smoking. It was like being pummelled by a mob of invisible assassins. I staggered, and ran, and crawled, and panted; my heart was filled with hatred for the enemy miles behind at their guns, who bided their time and killed us at their leisure. Round each fresh traverse I expected to stumble across one of my men lying broken and sprawled out. Thinking that they might be in hiding I called their names again and again as I ran. I might just as well have called to the clouds in a storm at sea from a row-boat. I was mortally afraid that I should die alone. But beyond my terror was the sense of my obligation to those men up front, cut off from hope by the machine-guns firing in their backs: at any and every cost they must be helped.

X

I HAD reached the very heart of the barrage, when I felt a hand grabbing at my leg. I looked down and found two of my signallers and Suzette crouching in a hole which some infantry-men must have scooped for themselves. Had they not seized hold of me I should have gone past them, not knowing they were there. Bending down I shouted an enquiry as to whether they were wounded. They told me “No,” but that it was impossible to signal since every time they tried to use their flags they brought a hail of lead about their heads; moreover, so long as the barrage lasted all the chain of signallers behind them were held hammered against the ground. There was no one to read their messages and it was probable that more than one of the receiving-stations had been wiped out. Realising the truth of what they said, I sat down beside them to recover my breath. While we sat there, as suddenly as the storm of death had broken, it lifted and leapt half a mile to the rear to about the line on which battalion headquarters were established.

Getting my party on to their legs, I arranged to send all my messages back to the ridge by runner and to have them relayed on from there out of sight of the enemy by flag-wagging. Taking one man with me and Suzette, since she knew Fransart well, I again pushed forward.

I got as far along the trench as to where the apple-trees crossed the road; there I halted. The enemy was putting up an intense bombardment just in rear of the village to prevent the approach of our reinforcements. It was now some time since any messages from the infantry up front had reached me; I began to get nervous lest something disastrous had happened. At last I determined to leave the man behind me to relay orders, and to go forward with Suzette. I had another reason for wishing to get into the village; I wanted to see if I could find any traces of Bully Beef and Dan. From where I was I could make out the spot where the Hun had stood up and beckoned to them. There was little chance that they were alive, but I was anxious to satisfy myself.

Watching our chance, Suzette and I popped out on to the roadway and commenced to run, crouching low and zigzagging. At once we became a target for the sharpshooters in the uncaptured village, to our right flank. About our feet the dust began to go up in vicious spurts and about our heads we heard the sharp pizz pizz of bullets. The intoxicating excitement of danger got into our blood: we called to each other and laughed as we ran. God knows there was little enough to laugh about; of the company of a hundred and forty odd men who had attacked across that open space before us, upwards of a hundred were lying wounded and dead. But the curious psychology of battle is that no one ever thinks that other people’s misfortunes may befall himself. While the wine of adventure sings in his head he believes himself immortal. That is the explanation of the boys who go cheering across the Tom-Tiddler’s ground of death.

Breathless and still laughing we reached and jumped into what had been the Hun Front-line. Here the laughter was wiped from our lips in a second. Everything was scared and silent. Our attack had not been expected; the enemy had been caught for fair. Our wall of fire had descended on him, shattered him, choked him, buried him. The troops in this part of the line had been Bavarians: jovial, fresh-complexioned. fair-haired men. We knew them of old—genial fellows, with fine singing voices, who would exchange presents with you out in No Man’s Land, and kill you treacherously while your present was still in their hands, without any consciousness of broken honour or unkindness. Here in the polluted summer quiet they lay in every contortion of distress, mangled, smashed and ended, their blue eyes wide open, staring at the sky and still retaining an expression of panic astonishment. They had come to war as we had come to war; but they had not expected to die. That was what they seemed to be telling us: “Take example from us; turn back in time.”

We stumbled our way into a communication-trench, and hurried on, guessing at the direction our infantry must have taken. Here the brutality of what had happened was even more obvious; in the terror of their flight, the enemy had become jammed in the narrow space; they had fought with one another to escape and had trodden the wounded into the ground.

Now, following between the tunnelled roots of trees, we came to the village itself, lying in the heart of a little wood. The trench became so narrow that our equipment caught against its sides. Grass grew tall along its banks, and scattered through the grass were wild flowers. We had glimpses as we travelled of cottage gardens, bee-hives and curtained windows. But we were glad to keep our heads down, for shrapnel was stripping the leaves from the trees and bursting with the clash of cymbals above our heads. We were walking straight through our own barrage, and still there was no sign of our own infantry. We began to wonder whether we had gone beyond them or whether they had been all wiped out. Behind us in the houses of Fransart, which ought by rights to have been in our hands, we could hear the unmistakable cough of German machine-guns at work.

On the far side of the wood we stumbled on our men—twenty-six of them: all that were left. They were scattered at intervals along the trench, hugging the ground. As we stepped over them, going in search of their officer, they paid us no attention. They were most of them green troops—reinforcements, who were tasting the bitterness of battle for the first time. But so was Suzette; she showed no signs of faint-heartedness Her eyes were gray stars, deep and quiet, and an eager smile played about her firm young mouth. In looking at her I was reminded of Joan of Arc, and could believe that she too had talked with heavenly presences.

Twenty-five yards ahead there was a trench-juncture, at which a lad was sitting with his legs wide apart and a scarlet hole bored through the centre of his forehead. No one had gone to his help; he merely sat there in the sunlight with a puzzled expression, watching the blood splash slowly on his hands. When I made to cross the trench-juncture, one of the men pulled me back. “A Hun sniper,” he panted with an eloquent economy of words; “he gets everyone who goes there.”

“But what’s the matter with you chaps?” I asked. “It’s the booby-traps, sir,” he said; “they’ve blown a lot of us up. We daren’t stir.”

Then I saw what he meant. Across the trench, beyond where the wounded man was sitting, cobwebs of wires had been strung a few inches above the ground, attached to pegs. They looked innocent enough, but were just at the right height to catch the feet of men advancing in single file. Should anyone trip against them, the jerk on the pegs would explode a series of mines.

I turned to the man. “Are you the furthest up of the attack?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you know what’s on ahead?”

“The railroad, sir, with a lot of freight-cars standing on the tracks. The Huns are hiding behind them and taking pot-shots at us.”

Just then the Company Commander hove in sight, crouching low to avoid the sharp-shooters and stepping warily between the wires of the traps. While I spoke to him. Suzette was dragging the wounded lad back from the trench-juncture and binding up his head.

“A pretty rotten mess. I call it,” the Company Commander growled pantingly, wiping the perspiration from his eyes. “We ought to have had tanks and aeroplanes to do this job and twice as many men. It’s sheer murder. My men haven’t a one per cent chance of coming out of the show alive; out of a hundred and forty I have twenty-six left. The enemy gets us from in front and from both flanks, while his machine-guns in Fransart are potting at our backs. And what the devil is our own artillery doing laying down a barrage behind us?”

The truth was the infantry had advanced too quickly, without first ascertaining that their gunners had been notified of their progress. They had also failed to “mop up” the enemy strongholds before pressing further forward. The consequence was that they had left pockets of resistance on every hand and that their own artillery was cutting them off from help. Their situation was desperate. There was only one remedy; to find out the exact locations of the machine-gun nests and to send the information back to the guns, that they might knock them out with high explosive; to send back orders to our artillery that the barrage should be raised; and to withdraw our troops from Fransart and subject the village to a fresh bombardment. But to what place could we safely withdraw our infantry while the bombardment was in progress—that was the question. To answer this question the Company Commander and I decided that a further reconnaissance was necessary. We did not know what lay on ahead or how near to us the Huns were; at all events, it could not be much more dangerous further forward.

Leaving instructions that the men should keep well under cover to avoid casualties in our absence, we set out. Treading gingerly up the trench mined with booby-traps, we came to a turning which led off to the right. Here things were comparatively quiet, all the firing passing well above our heads. We followed the turning for about two hundred yards, and then peered stealthily over the top. Not fifty yards away was the railroad, with the freight-cars either standing on the tracks or thrown over on their sides to form, a barrier. Poking out from loopholes, which had been cut in the woodwork, were the muzzles of rifles. We had seen all that was necessary; we knew that we must take, a gambler’s chance. I arranged with the Company Commander that he should lead his men still further forward to this trench so that they might be clear of our shellfire, and that he should see to the warning of our infantry who were in Fransart, while I ran the orders back to the guns and saw to it that reinforcements were sent up the moment our bombardment ended.

The return journey to the signalling-station where the apple-trees crossed the road, was as hot a piece of work as I remember. Suzette took it as coolly as if it were no more than a country-walk. We had to pass through both our own barrage and the enemy’s. Of the two ours was the worse. In Fransart itself the trench had been made more shallow by direct hits with shells. As we wriggled our way on hands and knees over dibris, we could see the Hun machine-gunner? blazing away from the attics of houses and our own men crawling through the undergrowth to rush the entrances with bombs. I remember discussing with my conscience the decency of permitting Suzette to run such risks. But I had no choice, for if I were killed, she might survive to get the messages back; in any case, when she learnt about Bully Beef, she would receive her death-warrant.