VILLIERS-COTTERETS
Twenty minutes later the Column was again on the move, but this time not
for long. Having reached the edge of another forest, a fresh halt was
made while the Transport was hauled past them into the wood. The
Transport, known technically as "second line" of a Brigade, is a very
large, cumbersome, and slow-moving affair, and it must be protected at
all costs, for without it the Brigade is lost.
A swift deployment was then made, and the edge of the wood was held
astride of the road. After everything had been arranged, there was a
wait of thirty to forty minutes. Nothing could be seen, as the position
was on the "reverse slope" of the incline, but the field of fire was
absolutely clear for at least two hundred yards in front. It is the most
trying time of all, this waiting for the approach of an enemy you cannot
see, and it tells on the most phlegmatic disposition. The men occupy the
heavy moments by working the bolts of their rifles, and seeing that they
work easily. The success or failure of the defence depends mainly on the
speed and accuracy with which the defenders "get their rounds off." The
Officers pace about, making sure of "keeping touch" with the units on
their flank, discovering the best way to retire, and so on. There is at
such moments an odd desire to give way to the temptation of saying to
oneself, "Where shall I be in an hour's time?" One gazes with a subtle
feeling of affection on one's limbs, and wonders, "Where shall I get
it?" Subconsciously one is amused and a little ashamed of such
concessions to sentimentality. The best thing to do under the
circumstances is to go and check the range-finders' figures, or prepare
the headlines of a message or two.
* * * * *
A Taube, like some huge insect with a buzz of whirring wings, flew
overhead, dropping multi-coloured stars from its tail. Then our guns
"opened the ball."
There was something blatant and repulsive about that first burst of
sound. The ferns of the forest shivered, as if awakened from a sunny
dream to face terrible calamities. The trees seemed to shake with a
delicate fear of what was in store for them. The enemy's fire burst upon
them with a startling intensity.
There was no point in holding the advanced edge of the wood under such a
bombardment until the actual appearance of the enemy infantry made it
necessary, so the whole line was retired some fifty yards into the wood.
By this manoeuvre the Colonel lost no advantage, and must have saved
many lives.
Although artillery fire had been a pretty frequent occurrence, this was
the heaviest the men had yet experienced. The noise was ear-splitting;
the explosions filled the quivering air; the ground seemed to shudder
beneath them. Branches fell crashing to the ground; it seemed as if a
god was flogging the tree-tops with a huge scourge. The din was awful,
petrifying, numbing.
And in the middle of all this inferno, with the sight of men with ashen
faces limping, crawling, or being dragged to the rear, with the leaves
on the ground smoking from the hot, jagged shell-casings buried among
them, the Subaltern suddenly discovered that he was not afraid. The
discovery struck him as curious. He argued with himself that he had
every right to feel afraid, that he ought to feel "queer." He said to
himself, "Here you are, as nervous and temperamental a youth as ever
stepped, with a mental laziness that amounts to moral cowardice, in the
deuce of a hole that I don't expect you'll ever get out of. You ought to
be in an awful state. Your cheeks ought to be white, and there they are
looking like two raw beef-steaks. Your tongue ought to cleave to the
roof of your mouth; and it isn't. You ought to feel pains in the pit of
your stomach, and you're not. Devil a bit! You know, you're missing all
the sensations that the writers told you about. You're not playing the
game. Come, buck up, fall down and grovel on the ground!" But he did
not. He did not want to. He felt absolutely normal.
A man sheltering behind the same tree suddenly spun round, and, grasping
his left arm, fell with a thud to the ground. He reeled over, with knees
raised and rounded back, and staggered immediately to his feet. "Oh, my
arm, my arm!" he moaned plaintively, and turned away towards the rear,
whimpering a little as he went, and tenderly holding the wet,
dark-stained sleeve as he went. The Subaltern felt that he ought to have
winced with horror at the mutilation of the poor stricken thing, but
beyond a slight sinking sensation between the lungs and the stomach, the
incident left him with no emotion. He picked up the man's rifle, leant
it against the tree, and continued to scan the skyline with his glasses,
feeling all the while a bit of a brute.
At the same time he experienced a sensation of pleasure at the immunity
from mental sufferings that are generally supposed to afflict men under
these conditions. He felt like a man who unexpectedly finds a five-pound
note, the very existence of which he had forgotten, hidden away in some
unusual pocket. It was something of the same sensation that he used to
have at school, when by chance he saw other boys working at impositions
which he had himself escaped.
The time came when it was no longer expedient to remain in the wood, so
they advanced, flitting from tree to tree, back to the edge of the
forest. The view was rather restricted from where the Subaltern was,
apparently on the right of where the full force of the attack was
breaking.
"Plop-plop-plop," the machine-gun spluttered with an amazing air of
detached insistence. The machine-guns strike in battle quite a note of
their own. Shells, screeching and roaring in their frenzy, give an
impression of passion, of untameable wrath. Rifle-fire is as inconstant
in volume as piano music; there is something of human effort to be heard
in the "tap ... tap ... tap ... tap-tap-trrrrapp" of its crescendos and
diminuendoes. But the machine-gun is different from these. It strikes a
higher note, and can be heard above the roar of the bursting shells. It
is mechanical, there is nothing about it of human passion; it is a
machine, and a most deadly one at that.
The Colonel dashed out into the open and dragged a wounded gunner into
the comparative shelter of the wood. Many more acts scarcely less heroic
were performed.
At last the moment came to retire. The guns had already rattled through
the line, and the companies drew away from the edge of the wood,
re-formed with great speed, and were soon marching once more in column
of route along the road.
The Subaltern felt exhausted in a way that he had never felt so badly
before. The withdrawal from the actual scene of battle seemed to leave a
gulf in his inside that positively yawned. It was not only the apparent
uselessness of trying to stem the German tide that depressed him. There
was something more than that. He felt like a man who wakes after a
heavy, drug-induced slumber. The sudden cessation of the intense
excitement of battles leaves the brain empty and weary. At such moments
the hopelessness of the whole thing appalled and depressed him. The
uncertainty of the future hurt him. Nor was he alone in this state of
mind. Not a voice was raised to break the throbbing monotony of the
march. Heads were bent low.
On they went. Night came down upon them and seemed to crush the spirit
out of them. As they emerged from the wood, the moon rose and flooded
the broad plain with weird, phosphorescent light. They struggled on,
swaying with sleep, past the ghostly outlines of poplars and hayricks,
past quiet, deserted cottages and empty stables. There was something
almost unearthly about that march in the moonlight. The accumulated
fatigue of a long and hot day, the want of food and the repressing
influence of a summer night, all these things joined in producing a
state of mental listlessness that destroyed the impression of reality
which things have in the daytime. They were drifting down a slow-moving
stream; the scenery glided by, but the sensation was by no means
pleasant. The brain was constantly at war with the lazy feet, striving
to keep them from stumbling and the eyelids from closing. Sound was
peculiarly muffled, as if darkness repressed and shut it in. The brain
was not commanding the limbs with the instantaneous co-ordination of the
daytime. The sensation that this produced--it is very difficult to give
any definite idea of it--was an impression of physical and mental
incompetence and uncertainty. And all the time every ounce of the body
was crying out to the mind to let it lie down and rest.
That night many men were lost.
* * * * *
It was not until ten o'clock that they arrived at a village where they
found the "cookers" and regimental transport. The Subaltern could not
help admiring the skill which was constantly being shown by the Staff
not only in the strategical dispositions of the retreat, but in
comparatively minute details such as this. The Brigade transport had
been guided and collected to a spot where it could safely be of service
to the battalions. Moreover, when the men arrived they found tea waiting
for them already brewed. Apparently the hour of the men's arrival had
been timed to such a nicety that the meal was just ready for them.
Assuming the truth of Napoleon's maxim about an army marching on its
belly, one can easily see from these pages that if Staff work had in any
way failed, or if the Army Service Corps had broken down, the Great
Retreat would have ended in disaster. It was these faultless
arrangements of the Army Service Corps that served to keep the sorely
tried army at any rate on its legs.
A fire had been lighted, and, grateful for its warmth, the five Officers
of the Company were soon clustering round it, sipping out of their mess
tins filled with strong, sweet tea, without milk but very strongly
flavoured with rum. Soon the worries and painful memories of the day
were dispelled. A feeling almost of contentment stole over them. There
is something so particularly adventurous and at the same time soothing
about a camp fire. They had all read books at school full of camp fires
and fighting and prairies, and they had all more or less envied such a
life. Here it was. But the adventure part of it was so minute, and the
drudgery and nerve strain so great that the most adventurous soul among
them had long since admitted that "if _this_ was Active Service, it was
not the life for him!"