The report of that lively reconnaissance had just been written when word came from the Commanding Officer that he had received a message from headquarters, instructing him to attack Malt and Gamp Trench at nightfall.
‘What about artillery preparation?’ I asked.
‘There will be none,’ he explained.
‘And no artillery support?’
‘Not a shell!’
I told him what I knew of the trench, how strongly it was held, how impossible, without artillery preparation, against its strong entanglements.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to do it. But you must not go over. You’ve had a solid go already. An officer in reserve will take over the attack.’
‘It will be very hard on the boys, Sir,’ I urged. ‘Tell them it’s quite impossible to get through. It’s a useless, hopeless stunt.’
‘What am I to do?’
‘Ring up Brigade, Sir, tell them of my reconnaissance, and ask them for artillery preparation to beat down the wires.’
The reply was that no artillery aid was possible, that the attack must go on at all costs. I never had a doubt as to the result. The attack might be heroic, but it was hopeless, and in the conjunction of these two words in war is the whole gamut of tragedy. ‘Well, Cull,’ said the C.O. ‘I’m sorry to ask it, but you know the ground; you had better lead the two companies.’
By that time I was in no condition to lead a desperate venture. With six days and nights in the trenches, very little sleep, and for the last forty-eight hours scarcely anything to eat, I was just upon the point of collapse from fatigue— in anything by the condition for ‘a forlorn hope’. In all the circumstances some sense of depression might have been expected. Premonitions were being discredited, almost every day, yet still persisted. Knowing absolutely all the difficulties of this duty, confident that few of us could escape its consequences, I had the most profound conviction that I would personally return unscathed. But my mind was full of gloom, my heart of grief for the gallant company who were to go upon a quest where valour within the limits of human possibilities as of little avail. The companionship of battle makes one very tolerant as to little indiscretions, appreciative of great virtues. And my boys, who possessed in high perfection some of the finest attributes of manhood, were to be sacrificed!
‘Can’t you get round their wires?’ asked the commanding officer. The question showed that he too realised the hopelessness of getting through them, yet had no real appreciation of the position and could have none, unless he could see those triple lines of continuous entanglements as I had seen them. We were to rendezvous in the sunken road, which for a second time that day furnished refuge. There was still light enough, as we marched down, for the Germans to see us and put an intense artillery barrage over the spot, though fortunately we were well under shelter before they laid it down. There we waited some time for the troops which were to co-operate with us, but none arrived. With a full sense of my responsibility to the men whom I was to lead to sure destruction, I took advantage of those few moments to send a last appeal to the second-in-command.
‘In view of the fact that units supposed to co-operate have not materialised, and that the Huns are putting down a heavy barrage—guns and machine guns—may we, not even now, have artillery support?’
The reply was curt and conclusive.
‘Attack at all costs.’
It was an order so definite, received an hour after the time originally fixed for the assault, that there was no alternative but to carry it through, comforting oneself with the belief that behind the sacrifice was some hidden reason such as that which influenced our move against the Butte de Warlencourt a few nights before.17 The luck of that hazard too stimulated the hope that, even without the element of surprise, I might still chance to find some lane through the German entanglements large enough to pass a few men at a time. Scouts were sent forward to feel for such an opening, but no news came back. Hope that such passage might exist, I had conformed the attack so as to have a better chance of finding and making use of it. Instead of advancing in waves—a plan by means of which, with the wires beaten down by gun-fire, casualties were lessened—we moved in column of shallow sections, roughly single file at intervals, a method afterwards adopted, I understand, at Bullecourt for an advance against machine-gun nests or ‘block houses.’
It was so dark that for a time we advanced unobserved and without casualties, until within sixty yards of the wire. And such a barrier! Forty yards of almost solid wire, with slight intervals breaking it into distinct bands—a barbed breastwork some four feet six inches in height. Even in broad daylight and without any opposition it would have been difficult, but to break a path through such a barrier against a strongly protected enemy, with machine guns each firing 600 rounds a minute, the utter hopelessness of it may be realised. A last halt in the shell holes, in hope that the scouts might still return with some news of import, and, while still lying on the ground, I shouted the order to charge.
Once under their flares we were as fully exposed as in daylight, and immediately the deadly shower of bomb and bullet struck us. From that point it was just a maddening melee—pure martyrdom, with doomed but dauntless men tearing hopelessly at that impregnable wire with bare and bleeding hands. There was but one idea—to get as far forward as we could, and use our bombs.
The impetus of the rush carried me right over the first barrier so that I fell in the open space between. The next effort found me in their second layer of wire, hopelessly entangled and held. Bombs were bursting so close that the flame almost reached me. I had just thrown the second last of my own bombs when one of theirs fell right under me, the force of the explosion blowing me clean out of the detaining wire into the open space again. I remember calling out: ‘God! My hip’s smashed.’
I tried to move and crawl out, but my body seemed to be paralysed, my legs were quite useless, life and the power of motion remained in my arms alone. Lieutenant William Corne and Private Claude Martin both heard me call, and were soon alongside.
‘It’s all right, Captain, we’ll get you out.’ One of them held up the wires while the other tried to drag me under, but I was still fast. Looking along the line, everywhere as bright as day under the Hun flares, it seemed most of my poor fellows were hanging and struggling in the wires. Some had fallen limply forward and ceased to struggle. Everywhere was the cry: ‘Pass the word for stretcher-bearers,’ but none came. They too had been knocked out.
I told Lieutenant Corne, a good and plucky officer, to go along the line and see what he could do. If nothing more was possible, he was to collect the men and take them back. Before he left Private Martin went down on his hands and knees and asked the Lieutenant to place us back to back, so that he could try and crawl out with me. But I had been partly disembowelled by the bomb explosion, and the moment Martin attempted to crawl I fell off helplessly.
‘There’s no chance,’ I said, for I was a heavier man than Martin, and with 800 yards even to our outposts to go, I realised the impossibility of it. Corne had only moved about three paces away when he stepped right into a burst of machine-gun fire, and with a single exclamation fell dead. I asked Martin to put me into a shell hole, if there was one near, and to get away himself. Just then a machine-gun burst swept close to us. I saw the flash of a bullet as it struck their wire. With the velocity somewhat lessened, it caught me an angle blow across the forehead, and the blood for a moment blinded me. To my mind it was the finishing stroke.
‘That’s done it, anyhow,’ I said. ‘Just wipe the blood out of my eyes, drop me into a shell hole, and you get away.’
‘Oh no, you’ll be all right, Sir.’
‘Yes, I’ll be all right now. Nothing can do me any harm, so you must save yourself.’
‘No, I’m going to stay with you, Captain,’ he said emphatically. ‘I won’t leave you.’ As he held me up he was sobbing like a child. Then he bent down and kissed me on the forehead. ‘No, I won’t leave you,’ he persisted.
‘Laddie,’ I said, ‘nothing can do me any more harm. If you stay you will be either captured or killed. It’s your duty to go back.’ So my last word to that true comrade was a command that he should retire. As he turned a few paces off, illuminated in the flares, I shall never forget the regard that shone in his brave, loyal face. In or out of the lines he was a dare-devil. Not that war, its pains and its sacrifices, matter at all to Martin now. He is waiting for the daybreak out yonder, one of the lost heroes.18
For a while I must have fainted. When I came back to consciousness it was still without pain, only a feeling of stunned helplessness, but with my vision still fairly clear. It was a horrible awakening. All around me men were groaning in their agony. I put my hand back to feel for my wounds, but there seemed to be nothing like a bloody pulp. I had shut my teeth hard with the determination not to scream, but in spite of it one groan, springing from the depths of utter misery, escaped me, and it seemed somehow to ease the pain which had suddenly become intense. With the thought of tetanus I kept my jaws working, wondered how long it would be before the end and whether the Germans would come out in time to take me alive. Now that there was no longer any hope of escape, I wished that they would come, though what the Battalion would think of me if they knew that I was taken prisoner worried me. The thought was so bitter that for a moment I cared little whether I lived or died. Even if the Huns treated me humanely, it was a terrible price to pay for life. Then came thoughts of home, of my people, what it would mean to them, and, grinding my teeth, I determined to live. There was still one Mills bomb in my pocket, and thinking that, if the enemy found it, they might be tempted to try it on me, I buried it in the mud. While Martin and Corne were trying to drag me out the lanyard of my revolver had caught in the wire, so unhooking the revolver, I threw it away into the wires.
For a little while later I must again have fallen unconscious, and next I heard voices speaking in German behind me. Where there had been men groaning to the left of me was now complete silence; on my right the wounded were still calling out. The thought struck me that perhaps the Germans had killed them, and some time afterwards I knew that I owed them no apology for that suspicion. Then men were stooping over me, and one of them asked in French, ‘What are you?’
‘Captain,’ I answered. For a moment afterwards there was a discussion in German, some them apparently a bit excited. Next one of them got down on his knees and felt me over.
‘Where is your revolver?’ he asked, and I told him that I hadn’t got one.
‘Where is your watch?’ was his next question. It was on my wrist, and, with the contents of my pockets, soon disappeared. My Sam Browne belt, which he next examined, had little interest for him, and he tossed it out into No Man’s Land, but took my compass and another souvenir.
‘Get up and go in,’ he said, but I explained that I couldn’t.
‘What are your injuries then?’ I told him as far as I knew. ‘Oh, you can hop along on one leg,’ he remarked. ‘We’ll lift you up.’
They raised me partly to my feet, but again I went out, and when consciousness returned I was alone, lying in a shell hole. Then I noticed immediately that there was no more groaning to my right. In about three minutes the party of Huns were back again, this time with a waterproof sheet, on which they placed me. So with my campaigning ended, hope gone, and it seemed but little of life left, I was carried into the enemy trench, prisoner of war.