Parvillers
As we went towards the river black shrapnel began to burst overhead with snarling menace, and on the left there were sudden geysers of soil and smoke. The noise of the barrage prevented any conversation and each man was tingling so that he could hardly keep from shaking. It was interesting to watch the faces of the men. Some were pale and drawn as they thought of the perils ahead, some expressed horror, for certain individuals, like the Professor, lived every event twice. Others were simply anxious about their rifles and bombs.
There was a stone bridge crossing the river but it had been preserved for the use of heavy traffic, and we did not mind such an order. It was very probable that old Fritz knew the exact location of the bridge and could make crossings precarious. The engineers had gone forward and placed pontoon crossings of boats with bath mats spiked across them, rather fragile-looking structures, and we had to cross in single file. The long hours of tramping and going without sleep had been a strain and I had had nothing to eat. The others had had a hurried breakfast just before the barrage opened. When I got out on the swaying, dipping bath mats and saw the muddy river swirling just inches below me I was almost dizzy, and could not have hurried. But the Germans were now shelling all the stream and had wrecked the bridge to our left, used by another company, and every one was moving painfully slow. Shells rained on all the bridge area, but it was a marshy spot and partly under water so that the explosions did little more than shower us with black filth.
When we were finally across a thick mist had settled over everything and we could not see one hundred yards ahead. Word was passed along that the objective was a hill, Hill 104. We entered a wooded area and found a trench where we stayed for some time, as our jump-off was not until 8.20 a.m. One lone shell came quite near as we waited there and wounded the man who had lost his nerve at Passchendale. He had been very nervous all the while and when we saw he had a “blighty” we felt relieved. As the sun grew stronger and began to clear the mist we saw more trees ahead and soon were filing to them. It was a sparse fringe of wood, and a brick wall came a distance from the left. Some of the men rushed to its cover. The rest of us took shelter behind tree trunks. Wheee-bang. One shell came through the limbs of the trees where Tommy and I were standing and exploded about thirty yards behind us. We looked around and saw a man pitch to earth. It was Eddie. He had “got his ticket” before we saw a German – he had had a clear vision.
We all got near the trees. Just to the left of me I saw Ted cowering behind a big bole. He had his rifle butt on the ground and as he peered around to watch the ground in front he, in some manner, discharged the weapon. His arm was resting over the muzzle. He screamed in agony and we rushed to him to find that he had a fearful wound. There had been a muzzle cap on the Lee-Enfield and he had had it turned over in place. It had been blown through the flesh and muscles, leaving a gaping rent one could thrust his fingers in. We tied a torniquet around his arm and twisted it with a stick, then bandaged the wound. He went white and sank to the ground just as we were signalled to advance.
We went up a long slope. Three Germans rose from the tall grass and shot at us before turning to run. Sparky dropped to his knees and sniped one of them very neatly, his first kill. He was exuberant and raced up the hill to look at his victim. Another of the trio fell before he reached the crest, potted by several bullets, but the third man vanished from view.
On top of the slope we looked down on a short length of grain that had been sown in that forward position. A deep ravine lay just beyond and we could see camouflage that told of gun emplacements. We were now in extended order and everyone was in great spirits. We were back of the first trench, had seen dead Germans sprawled there, very few of our own men among them, and the only boche sighted were on the run. As I rushed along, anxious to reach the ravine, a German suddenly popped up in the grain a few feet ahead of me. He rose so suddenly that I shot without taking aim. Experience had taught me to carry my rifle under my right arm, steadied by my left, a finger on the trigger, and only a pressure was required to beat out the other fellow.
As the German dropped he gave a ghastly groan and then I saw that he was a wizened old chap with steel-rimmed spectacles and a scraggly beard.
Probably an old character like Peter, and all he had wished was to surrender. He had no weapons of any kind. I looked down at him and saw that the bullet had entered his lungs. He tried to get up and I wanted to stop and help him, but Tommy urged me to keep on. We plunged down into the valley. Three guns were there with the canvas covers still over them. A dugout entrance was just in front of me and smoke was coming from the pipe at the side of the stairway. Over on the left, about fifty yards away I saw the fleeing gunners get neatly captured by men of another company. The leader of the men in gray was a fat officer with an Iron Cross dangling over his paunch. He lost it very quickly.
Our officer was vastly excited. It was his first time “over” and he had a brain wave. Why not wheel the guns around and strafe the enemy? He yelled at us to seize on the sheels and exert our strength, but I had none to waste. The long rush up the slopes had been a dragging task and I was ready to collapse unless I could get something to eat. Young Russell saw the dugout and ran to it, yelling his find. The others paid no attention to him and I went over. Possibly a Heinie was waiting below with a ready Luger, possibly a cook was down there with breakfast ready. I went down the steps. It was a splendid dugout, very elaborate. A clock was ticking on a shelf, two tumbled beds contained the finest linen; but what caught my eye was a jumbled heap of female finery and dainty slippers under the bed. Some lady had evidently just flown.
On the table between the beds were several letters, some unopened, a big parcel not opened, and a pile of German newspapers. I grabbed the parcel and at the same time glanced at the stove. A pan of eggs was still sizzling. Two were too crisp to consume but the others were suitable for me, and there were sausages, a few bottles of beer, and black bread on shelves. We sat down and ate and drank in great style, and Russell found the coffee pot on the floor – full of nice hot coffee. We gorged ourselves and then I slit the parcel open. It contained a few candles, a silk handerkerchief, and a big cake covered with pink frosting. The address said it was from Berlin, so I cut the cake and handed Russell a healthy slice. He gobbled it down and I watched him anxiously while the clock ticked off the minutes. “Do you feel all right?” I asked. “Jake,” he snorted. “Hand us another chunk.”
I did, and then cut a huge slice for myself. We took the rest upstairs and found the officer fuming. Earle and Sparky and a few more loyal lads were straining their muscles as they tried to heave one of the guns around. “Come here, you two,” the lieutenant yelled. “Give a hand.” We ignored him and passed the cake. Russell told the boys how I had him test it and there was a wild hoot. Then we went on over the hill in front and the officer followed. Some of the boys said he marked the guns with chalk in order to prove our capture of them.
No sooner were we on the high ground than we met a party of Germans, prisoners coming back on the trot. There were over twenty of them and at the rear were three doctors who spoke English. One of them was in that helpless nightmare stupor that seems to fall on some of those taken prisoner, but his mates talked with us and seemed real decent fellows. They were more than willing to assist in looking after any wounded and assured us that we would now go far as there were no organized defenses for us to encounter. While Tommy and I talked with them the others had made a thorough search of the remaining prisoners and had acquired quite a haul of souvenirs in the shape of marks, two Iron Crosses, several watches, and fancy trinkets.
We went on over the slope until we were near Claude Wood and well beyond our objective. There was no fighting to mention but a shell dropped near and killed Cockburn and Christensen was hit in the arm by a piece of shrapnel. After he was bandaged I went over to him. “You see now that you were wrong,” I said. “You’re away for Blighty.”
He simply grinned. “Bird,” he said in his slow way. “By night I’ll be a corpse. Remember what I tell you.”
He went on over the hill out of sight and we went on toward the Wood and then extended and lay down on the soft grass. We could see Germans running everywhere on the horizon. Some were in the edge of the Wood hurriedly arranging machine guns, but the majority were fleeing on the other side, racing at top speed, without rifles or helmets. There was a village not far off, Beaucourt, and we could make out the Amiens-Roye Road. An aeroplane crashed down close beside us, startling every one as we had not heard its engine. The airman was a boy of twenty and both his legs had been almost severed with machine gun fire. We helped him to the ground and bandaged him as best we could. He seemed calm and only asked for a cigarette.
All at once there was a shout and we turned from watching the Huns scuttle about the Wood to see one of the finest spectacles, if not the finest, of the whole war. It is certain that very few were privileged to occupy such ringside seats as we had that day, and yet not be forced to take part or suffer from the contact. Over the slope came the cavalry, the Royal Canadian Dragoons, the Fort Garry Horse, the Strathconas, riding like mad, sabres flashing, lances glittering, all in perfect formation. They swept by us with a thundering beat of hoofs and drove at the Wood. Some passed to right and some to left of it. Following them came the whippets, small tanks with remarkable speed and with guns mounted on the top.
The mounted men dashed into the Wood, directly at the waiting gunners. Killing began as if on signal from some master director. The Maxims opened fire and men and horses rolled among the shrubbery or fell in the open. I saw an officer rise in his stirrups and strike a Hun across the neck with his sabre, so that the German’s head lolled oddly. I saw a lancer pierce another gunner so that the weapon stuck out behind his shoulders. A trio of Huns were beaten to earth under the horses’ hoofs as the cavalry rode straight at them. It was whirlwind fighting, so fast and furious that the machine guns did not take half the toll we expected. One crew alone survived the charge and a tank bore straight for them. They fired frantically and we saw a man on the tank slither to the ground, but the tank went on, and right over gun and crew, making the thrust so quickly that not a man escaped. After it had passed, we saw a body rolled on the sod, glistening white, completely stripped of clothing.
Those who had gone toward the village appeared to be in difficulties and we got more thrills. More pounding horses came into view, a battery of heavy guns. They rushed by us and over on the wide plateau swung about and into action with astounding speed. We saw the shells striking in the village, sending up great clouds of smoke and dust, and soon the cavalry pressed on.
After noon a long column of men came in sight, battalions of the Fourth Division going through to carry on the attack. I saw the 85th Battalion and hurried over to see my brother but he had gone by. Suddenly the fighting seemed far away. No shells were falling near us and no Germans except prisoners and dead men were in sight. The tanks had gone and the big ones were lumbering up, one laden with water and ammunition. We went on to Claude Wood and the dead Huns were searched for souvenirs. At dusk we had wandered far beyond and had found many things of interest. I had picked up a sabre, a long-bladed thing, that was very supple steel, and Tommy had got a very nice revolver, a German Luger.
We slept in the wood. Our cooks had come up and served a hot meal and the 49th had also come to the same area for the night. I saw Sergeant-major Davies and he told me that he had seen Eddie away back by the trees. Then he said. “Wasn’t it funny about Christensen?”
“What?” I asked.
“He was alone, going through the same place, when a shell came and he was killed by shrapnel. He was away back there and one would have thought him safe for Blighty.”
Tommy and I looked at each other, and said nothing.
We moved to Folles Village and there saw many signs of hurried German flight. All kinds of equipment and clothing lay about. A dressing station was nearby. Two dead Germans lay under blankets ready for burial. Other cots were just as the patients had been taken from them. Outside, packs and rifles and helmets and gas masks, piled in a passage way, were eloquent of heavy casualties. The weather continued dry and sultry and at evening the western sky was lovely, opalescent, radiant, a riot of colour. There were streamers of rose and onyx, flecks of pearl, lights of crimson and gold. We hated the smell of the building and occupied unique resting-places – wooden coffins that were stood against the rear end of the building. They were dry and fairly comfortable.
The next day we went on and halted at night by a field near the quarters occupied by the transport section. Tommy and I had our bed on a grassy bank near the road and I went over to the cobbled yard of the farmhouse where the transport men were staying. I had our water bottles and filled them at the pump there. When I had done so I strolled over to talk to a chap I knew who was smoking by a gate. Someone touched me on the arm and I swung around. It was light enough to see plainly as a harvest moon was overhead, and no one was there!
I left the man in the middle of my sentence, for I had become very sensitive to such touches. In a moment I was away from the yard and hurrying back to Tommy. Suddenly I heard a zoom-zoom-zoom above me – Boche bombing planes – and before I had taken another stride a gash of scarlet flame spurted from the very gate at which I had been standing. More bombs crashed, and several were the kind the boys called the “spring” variety. They seemed to explode above the ground a few feet and spread death in a wide circle. Many horses were killed before the raid was over, thirty-six, a soldier said as we went forward to inquire. The man to whom I had been talking was horribly mangled. Two others had been killed and ten wounded.
We went to Parvillers. As we marched into the village and saw the square with its church still intact we thought that the war had become a grand picnic, but inside the hour our thoughts had changed. Salvos of shells came in among the buildings with diabolical accuracy. We ran for shelter, hurried around corners and headed for the old trenches of that area. We were to relieve a Borderer regiment but when we met their guides they seemed bewildered. They said the Hun was established in strength and that they had lost nearly three-quarters their strength in trying to drive him back. We grew impatient as the companies huddled about, too closely grouped, and nothing was done. Shells were coming very near. One dropped beside the officers as they conversed. Our colonel was talking to the colonel of the Borderers, and while he was not hurt the Borderer had his arm blown off and died before morning.
At length Williams and “Waterbottle” and I were called to the front and asked to find the way we should go. We managed to get the platoons into position shortly before daylight. We were in old grassed trenches, with concrete emplacements quite plentiful, and as we scanned the sector in the breaking light and saw wide tangles of rusting barbed wire in every direction, and dead Borderers strewn everywhere, we knew that we were to meet a grim proposition.
We slept a short while and then were roused. Williams and I were called again. He was to go to sixteen platoon and I to fifteen. Why we were to do so we could not find out, and the only satisfaction we got was that we would probably be needed before night. It was very hot, stifling hot in the old trench. The attack was not to take place until three, some said, but no one seemed to know definitely.
The platoon I was with filed slowly into an old trench that branched off the one we had first entered. There was a network of them everywhere, in all directions, and each platoon was to go a different route and try to meet as they got across the first area. We halted at a place where some of the dead Borderers were still lying, and waited there. There was not a breath of air. We sat, perspiring in the burning sun. It was still, uncannily still, except for the buzzing of flies about the corpses. They were turning black and there was a stench that made us want to get on with our work.
Then came word that there would not be any barrage. It seemed an odd thing to make a daylight attack without one but it was simply to be trench fighting, bombing and rushing. There would not be the usual deafening crescendo of drum fire to bewilder one, nor the whine and blast of five nines to unsettle the nerves.
To my surprise I was told to remain in the rear of the platoon. Geordie was there, acting as company sergeant-major. We simply moved up the trench. Suddenly there came the clatter of machine gun fire. Rat-tat-tat-tat. It was everywhere. Bullets snapped and crackled over our heads and it seemed as if the guns were shooting from ahead, both sides, and the rear. We could not tell where the enemy was making his stand, or whether he was shooting at our lads or other platoons.
Suddenly, I saw a dead man lying in the trench. We walked past him. It was Haldane, the big MacLean Kiltie, a fine-built man, and he had been shot just below the heart as he rushed in as bayonet man. The bombers were going first, and the bayonet men followed up the throwing of grenades, while our Lewis gunners were ready for an opening. Again we passed a dead Canadian, and still no German was seen. Then I saw, in a long stretch, the captain, up with the leaders. He was with the platoon and had been in charge of the attack, so far ahead that we were sure he would be spotted and killed. We came to where a trench branched left. It was a high-banked affair and no one was in it. Where did it lead? Did it cross the trenches taken by the others? We went by it and came to a second turn, again to the left. A halt was made and word came that I was to take a man with me and go to explore the first trench for some distance, then send back a report.
As I hurried up the trench I saw that no one had been on it. The earth was not hardpacked and footprints showed. But I came to more turnings, three saps leading from the trench I followed, and I did not know which way to go first. I told the chap with me to go about fifty yards along the first sap, and then come back to me, while I watched the main trench. He had barely gone before I heard German voices almost beside me. I could not see a person but I sprang for cover. There was a V-shaped place that had evidently been an overland exit and I jumped into it and pulled a pin from a Mills bomb as I did so. The next instant three German officers appeared as if by magic. They came from the bowels of the earth, out of a dugout entrance I had not seen as it was almost obscured by overhanging weeds and grass. They were talking together, eagerly, excitedly, and never saw me as they started up the way I had been going. I released the lever, counted two, and tossed the bomb. It exploded shoulder-high behind them, and they went down like jackstraws. I was ready with my rifle but there was no need. No others popped out of the dugout and the three in the trench lay still. I examined them. Two were dead, one with part of his head blown away, but the third man was still breathing. He was wounded about the neck and the spine so that he could not possibly live. I ran back to the sap where my helper had gone but he was not in sight. I went up the trench a distance to meet him, but did not see him, then came back and peered into the dugout. The wounded man had recovered consciousness and he looked at me and spoke in good English. “You are Canadians,” he said.
I said “yes,” curtly, and asked him how many more were in the dugout. He answered that there was not one, and that it was an underground place with a second opening. They had used it as a passage. He groaned then and twisted in agony. I stooped over him and took his Luger and also removed the weapons from the dead men. These I hid in the grass down the trench a distance and stuck a stick in the old parapet to mark the place.
My man did not return and I did not know what to do, so ran back and reported to the captain. He at once called for the “original” with whom I had gone on patrol, and told him to go with me and others up the trench I had been in, and to find a way to reach the other platoons on our left. The “others” were Peoples, Coleman, a Lewis gunner and his crew of three. When we got back to where the German officers lay I told the “original” how I had thrown the bomb but he made no response. The wounded man looked up at me and asked me for a drink. I had no water left, none of us had, and the others did not want to wait. But the German had beckoned me to bend down and listen.
“In the dugout,” he said, weakly, “there is a spring of water that is very good. Go down the steps and turn to your left about sixteen paces. You will find it.”
He gasped the words out painfully and I told the men what he said. Coleman warned me that it was likely a trap. The “original” said nothing. He pushed on up the trench and the others followed slowly. I got a bomb ready and went through the hanging weeds and down the dugout stairs. I had no light, no candles, no matches, but I wanted to give that German a drink; I felt that killing from behind as I had done was a ghastly thing no matter what the rules of war.
I found the steps as he had said, turned left and went sixteen paces, put down my hand and touched cold water. I had often seen seepage in dugouts, but it was the only time I found a spring in an underground passage. I filled my water bottle and hurried up, and gave the German a drink. He had brown hair and brown eyes. One of the gunners and I bandaged him as best we could, but hurriedly, then moved him to a shady corner at the sap end. But it was fearfully warm; the sun blistered one. My head ached with the heat, and our steel helmets burned our necks if they touched the skin. Even our rifles were hot. And all about the area machine guns were crackling and bullets whining. There was a great deal of old wire strewn along the trench banks and there were continual ricochets from it.
We followed the party down the trench. It was a narrow cutting, and too straight to be rushed. But we did not meet any Germans and finally reached a very deep and wide trench that crossed our way and made a sharp “T.” There we halted and the “original” seemed more nervous than the others. He asked Peeples and I to go to the left along the trench and explore for one hundred yards or so. He and the rest would cover our rear.
We went slowly. The trench sides were three feet higher than my head, and weeds and thistles and poppies grew on the banks. We could see webs of black, long-barbed wire beyond them. The trench floor was slimed in places and the wooden posts at corners were covered with moldy fringes. As we passed a third traverse I heard the sound of German voices and cautioned Peeples to keep ready while I climbed the trench side to see where the enemy was hiding. I had found a queer periscope resting on the firestep. Its frame was like ribs of an umbrella and it held an unusually large glass. I put it up and had just spotted a few pot helmets a considerable distance away when I heard an exclamation beside me. I turned and witnessed a tableau that is stored in my memory. Peeples was six feet three inches tall, and he had not shaved for several days. He held his bayonet ready and his kilt was high hitched above his great, bony knees. In his hand, pressed against the rifle barrel, was a Mills bomb. The German facing him was a young, white-faced fellow. He had stopped as if paralyzed, open-mouthed, cringing, and he was not armed.
Crack! Peeples, after sixty long seconds of gazing, pulled the trigger. He declared that he had not meant to, but his finger simply tightened. The muzzle was not six feet from the Hun and pointed at his stomach, and the poor chap groaned frightfully as he collapsed. I never heard a worse sound. The unexpected report and the groan startled Peeples so that he jumped about, losing the bomb, and ran headlong down the trench. I fell from my perch on the trench side, dived at the bomb – but the pin had not been pulled. No other Germans were in sight but I could now hear them jabbering just around the corner so I got the grenade ready and made a lovely throw into their bay. Then I hustled after Peeples.
He was telling the “original” all about it when I got to the trench corner, and was so excited that he hardly knew what he was saying. It was his first battle and his first kill. The “original” now suggested that Coleman and I go to the right and find where the Germans were. We went about one hundred yards and stopped at a traverse as we heard voices, then advanced very slowly. Perspiration was running down our faces. We had our tunics opened and our shirts rolled back. The “seam squirrels” were very busy and Coleman caught a very fine specimen and held him up to admire, saying that I could not match him. He was a very cool lad. There we were, away from the others, with the firing and sniping all around us, and voices ahead – and matching lice as if out at billets. I searched for one and secured a champion and was just holding him up when a party of Huns appeared about twenty yards away, coming around a traverse. I always had my rifle in position and it saved us. The Huns had their rifles up and the leader, a big man was taking aim as I simply slashed the trigger. The bullet caught his coal bucket helmet and struck the earth bank behind him in such a way as to scatter dust all over him and into the eyes of his mates. The German shot but his bullet struck the trench wall ahead of us, and as Coleman fired in turn he brought the big man down. I shot a second time, an easy kill, bringing down a short, fat goose-stepper. Then my rifle jammed. Coleman shot at a third German as he was running back and winged him in the arm. The man dropped his rifle and clutched the wound with his other hand and yelled wildly.
We hurried back to our post and told the “original” what had happened. He decided that we had better go back up the trench a distance so the Huns could not come at us from both sides. It was a wise move. We had not got back fifty yards up the narrow trench before Peeples, using his height, saw pot helmets bobbing along the trench toward where we had been. At the same time he saw five Germans get up on the bank and start overland, so as to cut off the corner and rush us where we were. He was so excited that he climbed out of our trench to meet them and we, not knowing what was happening, followed him. The Lewis men jumped back in the trench as soon as they saw the five gray men, but Coleman and I stayed a moment with Peeples. We fired at the Germans and they shot at us. The range was not over seventy-five yards and yet the first exchange had no results. We tried a second time, just as the “original,” who had not left the trench, yelled for us to return, and both sides scored. Three of the Heinies “bit the dust,” and both Peeples and Coleman were hit. We jumped down and found that Coleman had a bullet through the arm and that Peeples had one eye shot out, a horrible wound. We tied him up and Coleman led him down the trench, as he had lost sight of his other eye. I had heard a queer snapping noise but did not notice anything until one of the gunners pointed at my steel hat. Its rim was punctured on both sides.
The Germans pressed us. They stayed in the big, deep trench but they hurled potato masher bombs without stint, a regular barrage of them, while they sniped at us from all sides. We retreated until we had a good place to build a block and there put the gun in position. Then the “original” sent a man back to report to the captain and to ask for help. The captain himself returned with a small party, then sent a runner, my old friend, “Doggy,” and I, to look up three saps and locate the man who had first come with me, and to find where the saps ended. We went up the first sap and found it ended at, and butted, a road. The man we were looking for was lying there, dead, his badges gone, his pockets ransacked. He had been shot by some sniper lying in wait as he looked over the road.
We went back and up the second sap and found a dugout entrance. Doggy had his pocket filled with bombs and he had a flashlight, so we went down to explore. There were several benches about the place, and an atmosphere that spoke of very recent occupation. It was a chamber of concrete walls and ceiling and very strongly built. In the centre was a table and on it were a big map and telephone, one of those funny, European “paper weight” kind. “Doggy” picked up the ear-piece and then grinned at me. German voices, harsh and heated, were clashing so that the wire almost curled. At the first lull Doggy put his mouth close to the speaking-tube and said slowly, “Get off the wire, you blasted squareheads. You’ve got the wrong number!”
The silence that followed was more eloquent than any reply could have been. We rushed back up the stairs and ran along looking for another dugout, but found none and reached the same road that headed the other sap. Doggy jumped up on it and ran up it a distance. I shouted to him to keep low but he waved to me to come and pointed out the end of the third sap. We jumped down into it to search for more underground places – and bumped headlong into three Germans. They had telephones and equipment and were without rifles, though each man had stick bombs and the leader had a Luger. He shot at Doggy from about a ten-foot range and missed him. Then that shaggy-headed, big-footed tumbler coolly reached back and seized my rifle. I had sense enough to let him have it and we made an exchange with a speed long practice could not have exceeded, I getting his revolver. Doggy hated pistols worse than poison, could not shoot straight with them, he had seen another runner get a wrist shattered through accidentally slipping the safety release off a Colt. From the time the Hun shot first until Doggy lunged at him would not be three counted seconds and his bayonet point spoiled the German’s second try. Then Doggy was in on him, in an awkward but effectual fashion. He did not thrust in the orthodox manner but made a queer, overhead drive and the steel struck the Hun in the cheek, tearing flesh to the bone and ripping one nostril open. The German staggered back and dropped his pistol, trying to surrender but pawing at the air in a mad way. Blood gushed over his face and he breathed with a hard snuffle.
Doggy did not drive at him but found the trigger and shot the man. “You tried to plug me,” he yelled, “there’s yours.”
While this was happening I had been shooting. I aimed at the second Hun who had dropped his load at his feet and snatched at the stick bombs hanging to his belt. He had one unhooked as the wounded man stumbled back against the trench side and he threw it high in order to avoid him. It exploded on the bank beside us, showering us with dust and chalky bits. I fired again as he threw a second, and the other German started to run. Once more the potato masher burst on the bank. I shot a third time and the man went down just as Doggy dropped his adversary.
Wham! The trench was going around in circles and there was a tremendous roaring in my ears. That third Hun had hurled a stick bomb from his vantage point beyond and it had exploded between Doggy and I. Though I was the nearest to it I recovered the quickest. Doggy was slumped as if wounded and luckily for us the German tried to get away, dropping two more bombs in the trench as he ran. I recovered sufficiently to send a shot after him and by good luck drilled him fairly. He went down like a baseball player sliding to home plate.
Doggy was not hurt, only stunned. He shook himself and presently the ringing in our ears stopped. We looked at the second German and found that I had hit him every time. He had three bullets through him and all near the heart, yet had thrown three bombs after being hit the first time. We pushed the paraphernalia they had been carrying to one side and went into the dugout they had left. The entrance was not twenty feet from where we met them and we were sure that we had heard one of them speaking in the place on the next sap. There was nothing in the dugout except rations on the table and a few bottles of soda water. We opened two of them at once and Doggy tried to eat some black bread, but failed. We sat there on a bench and listened to the staccato shooting all around us. My hands were trembling a little and my clothes stuck to me. We were grimy with the dust that had plastered us from the bomb bursts and a small gravel stone had cut Doggy’s cheek enough to make it bleed. It was cool down there and we sat long enough to empty a second bottle of the stuff. It helped our thirst but seemed to bloat one.
When we went up to the trench again Doggy ran back to the road at the end and stepped up on it in order to look around. He ducked down in a moment and beckoned to me. I got up beside him and saw about a dozen Germans filing hastily overland away ahead on one flank. They seemed to be in a maze of wire so that we knew they were near the trenches. As we looked a Lewis gun rattled from some point and two of the Huns pitched down at the first burst. The others promptly took cover, and then we saw a man rise up near where we had left the “original” and captain. He had an enormous rifle, and a second man scrambled out of a trench and helped him carry it. It was an “anti-tank” gun, the first I had seen, and I fired at the carriers until they dropped it and ran. Doggy declared I hit one man but I was not sure. As I watched to see them re-appear I felt a light tap on the shoulder. I wheeled instantly. No one was there! “Come,” I shouted, and jumped into the trench.
Doggy thought I had seen something and dived after me. As he did a Maxim opened fire from somewhere ahead and clipped weeds like a scythe in the very place where we had been crouched. We had been seen and would have been filled with bullets had I not had that touch in time.
When we reported there was not much shooting. It was nearly dusk and the firing had stopped, making the sector a weird place. Everyone was watching in all directions as we did not know where we were, where the other platoons were, or where the Germans might pop into view from some underground place. Two more dugouts had been found on the trench where I had killed the officers and they were connected by a passage.
Doggy and I were to go with the sergeant-major and captain and find how the rest of the company was established for the night. I saw a thirteen platoon man, big Dave, an ex-member of the Edinburgh police force, escorting nine Germans down a trench we reached on the left, and at once went up the way he had come. We found 42nd men in three different directions and all seemed well. There did not seem anything for me to do as Doggy was sent with a message and so I wandered up one trench until I met Tommy. He was seated on planks at a bashed-in dugout entrance binding up the hurts of a man from one of the other companies. Beside him were dried pools of blood and stained cotton wads and when I looked around the bay I saw a dead Hun lying there, a chap with both arms bandaged.
Tommy was excited. We were glad to see each other and after comparing notes I was sure that he had had the more hectic afternoon. He said that “Waterbottle” and Earle and Lockerbie and Barron had made the greatest team he had seen in action. They had got far in advance as they cleared the trenches and an officer of the 44th Battalion had followed along, cheering them, advising them.
“Old Waterbottle was worth four ordinary men,” said Tommy. “Him and Lockerbie rushed old Heinie so fast he couldn’t get set anywhere. They kept right on his heels and Earle and Barron were there to take their turn. Waterbottle twice caught stick bombs, snatched them as they came at him, and threw them back. He hit a Heinie with a Mills bomb and knocked him down. Potato mashers went off all around them. He and Lockerbie ran right at about half a dozen Germans who were slinging bombs as fast as they could pull the strings and neither man was hit. Once I saw a potato masher burst beside Waterbottle and he only jumped and yelled. He and Lockerbie were terrors with the bayonet and that’s how Lockerbie got killed.”
“Killed?” I said.
“Yes,” said Tommy. “He tried to get in on four Heinies who were waiting around the bay, rushed them with the steel and they shot him full of holes. Then a big Hun ran along the bank of the trench and threw an egg bomb at Barron so hard that it broke his shoulder bone – and yet the bomb never exploded. Earle and Waterbottle went on. Thornton got his, up on a firing step trying to fight two Heinie guns at once. He put one chap out of business, we found him afterwards, and then he got a dozen bullets in the head.”
I went up the trench with Tommy. Dead Germans were around every traverse, some killed by bombs, some by bayonets, some by bullets. “Old Bill” and Hayward had been stationed to watch at a branching sap and a trio of Huns had appeared with an antitank gun. The Germans had expected the tanks in our attack. We found three of those “elephant guns” in and near the trenches, and there were many more seen. When the three faced “Old Bill” he let out a yell and charged them and he and Hayward shot one fellow. The rest beat it.
Then there had been a block to be rushed and in the excitement Morris, the new man, got ahead and into the Huns. He was terribly wounded before the rest of the boys got to him but the Germans were routed. They fixed him up as best they could, bandaging his wounds, and went on up the trench. A second block faced them but before they could attack it a party of Huns came overland and attacked from the rear. They rushed back by Morris and managed to escape the sandwich, then scattered the flanking party, killing most of them. It was an hour, however, before they fought through and cleared the trench where Morris had lain. He was not there but they found him further up the trench. He was lying on a length of bath mat, and his badges, even his tunic buttons were gone. The Germans had tried to carry him away with them, but our boys had pressed them too closely. He told the fellows that the Heinies had had six men killed there at the block and had carried them all back before they retired, and that they had threatened him, Morris, with their bayonets as they left him. But an officer had saved him, driving his men away. He was very white then and had asked Tommy when they could take him to an ambulance. Tommy had made him some promise and gotten away. He knew that Morris would never leave the trench alive. He died at dusk.
Beyond a low road the clearing party had sighted the same wide, deep trench that we had found up our way. But a machine gun had been placed on the bank of the deep trench, facing the long part of the “T” and they knew it would be suicide to try to rush the place. Fourteen platoon, however, had another new officer. Since Mcintyre had been killed at Passchendale new officers had been the platoon’s epidemic. This particular one had had no experience in France but a great deal of tactical work on parade grounds and in lecture halls. He promptly ordered the men forward. One quick rush would cow the Huns. The party hung back, staring at him, and pointing out the position of the gun. “Pooh!” he snorted. “I’m ordering you to rush it.”
Earle and Waterbottle had been fighting continually for five hours and were in no mood for such an order. The officer had not been near them at all the critical points, only the 44th major keeping the work organized, and Earle faced around and very plainly told the man that he was a fool and that they were not going up the trench-unless he chose to lead them. The officer grasped his revolver. “Go,” he shouted, “or I’ll …”
He got no further, as he was looking into the small dark barrel of a Lee-Enfield, and was hearing several very cool voices telling him that just one more little move would be the last he would make on this earth. He choked, sputtered, went white, but put back his revolver. His mouth opened and shut but no words came. The men ignored him and began to plan as to how to take the machine gun post. In his excitement the officer stepped too far ahead of where they were standing. He was barely in view at the end of a sixty-yard stretch, yet the Maxim sent a blast of bullets and one pierced his neck. He bled like a stuck pig, yet after he was bandaged and helped away down the trench was so enraged that he sought out the captain and reported Earle and his band of brigands. His effort was entirely wasted; the captain knew his men.
As soon as the officer was out of the way Earle and Waterbottle planned to rush the Hun from overland by two parties. Earle got out on the left and sent over a rifle grenade and then began sniping from a shell hole. The Huns at once gave him all their attention. They simply cut the earth to powder with machine gun bullets and hurled stick bombs in showers. All the while big Waterbottle was creeping through foot-high thistles on the right. When within a few yards of the cross trench, he rose up, rushed like a great moose, leaping the trench, and was in on the terrified Huns yelling like a berserk killer. He speared the man at the gun before he could swing the weapon and all the crew and bomb throwers surrendered.
They had gone on then until they reached a second road where they had established for the night. Tommy said that he believed Waterbottle and his three with him had accounted for over fifty Germans, killed and captured. There were all kinds of rumours as I made my way around the maze of trenches. It seemed that in spite of the fact that over four miles of the network had been captured we had not cleared the Hun from the sector, and there was to be more work in the morning. Meanwhile we were to get ready to repulse night attacks. I heard that Boland had been killed, fighting his Lewis gun to the last, and that there were several boys wounded. As I went back to get around to my “original’s” post someone called to me faintly. A wounded man was lying on the trench floor. It was Siddall, with whom I had chummed at Ferfay.
He was badly wounded, too hurt to live, and I saw it as I knelt beside him. He looked at me a moment before he spoke and then he whispered. “Tell me straight – have I got mine?”
It was a hard question, but I answered him as I would have wanted anyone to answer me in a like position. “Yes, I think you have,” I said. “Is there anything I can do?”
He smiled. “Just a drink of water, that’s all,” he said. “I’m glad you told me. I can get myself ready now.”
I hadn’t a drop left in my bottle and so I went back to the place where the three officers lay and into the dugout where the cold water was to be found. I filled two bottles there, his and mine, and brought them back to where he lay. It was all the pay I wished to hear him murmur his thanks and then he begged that I sit beside him for a while until he went “to sleep.” It was strange to sit there in the dusk, sit without speaking, and wait till he quieted. I gave him water several times and then after a long silence – even the distant guns seemed stilled – I looked at him and he was rigid.
As I got up I remembered the Lugers I had taken and hidden in the morning and I made my way around to the trench and found them. A voice startled me. The German I had bandaged had not died. He was still conscious though he had lain there all those hours in the hot sun, and he wanted a drink. I gave it to him, and after he thanked me he said that he did not hold any grudge against anyone; that we were all fighting for our different flags, and might the best side win. At the foot of our trench I found several men of the different platoons. Some of them had acted as stretcher bearers and some had escorted prisoners to the rear. A wounded German lay in the next bay. He was to be carried back as soon as a stretcher came, and he was moaning softly. Batten was with the men and I talked with him a time and then we lay back in the trench in a reclining position and slept. At least we tried to, but I could not stop seeing all that happened that day passing in kaleidoscopical procession. When I did doze Batten roused me. “Just listen to that noise, will you,” he muttered. “I can’t sleep on account of him. What’ll I do?”
I had not noticed the sound, but the German seemed delirious and was calling continually some word that sounded like “water – water.”
“Go around and put him to sleep,” I said, jokingly, and dozed again.
A rough foot wakened me. “Who stuck that Heinie?” demanded Sykes.
I got up in amazement and followed him. A bayonet was driven into the German to the hilt, the rifle leaned over to one side resting against the trench wall. It was a sickening thing. “I can‘t tell you,” I said. “I never saw anyone go near him.”
Sykes made a fuss. He hated such work, and I went back to my place. Batten had his boyish face upturned and was sleeping like a child.