TO STRAIGHTEN THE LINE
Later in the morning there would probably be an inspection of arms. They
had always to be very careful that the rifles were in proper working
order. A few stiff bolts at a critical moment might make all the
difference.
The next function would be dinner. This generally consisted of bully
beef made into a sort of stew, and some potatoes, stolen from a field
near by. It must be confessed that the stews were not a great success,
and the Subaltern conceived a violent dislike to them. The sudden change
from "the move" to "reserve" perhaps upset his system. He confessed to
not "feeling very fit." The others, however, all seemed to have
insatiable appetites for food and sleep. Instead of marching twenty
miles a day on one or two meals, they now had their rations regularly
and got very little exercise. They slept as if sleeping sickness was
laying its hold upon them, and when not sleeping they were eating.
The wine store had not yet been exhausted in the village, and very often
they had a bottle with their suppers. The honey in the two jars seemed
inexhaustible--indeed, everybody grew tired of it in time; and in the
end the remnants were presented to another Company. The pâtisserie
continued to yield new bread, and they ate such quantities of it, still
hot from the oven, that many of them got "livers." They were notoriously
the first Company when it came to "looking after themselves." "Which,"
as the Senior Subaltern said, "shows sense."
Once, when they had just finished their midday meal, the usual order "to
stand to arms" came through, and they were hurried along the road that
ran parallel to the river, towards Soissons. The march was longer than
usual, and they were just beginning to entertain hopes that the deadlock
had been broken and that they were once more on the advance, when an
abrupt halt was called, and they were ordered to throw themselves
hastily behind the bank along the roadside.
They could see nothing, neither friend nor foe. The only sound of firing
was miles and miles down the line, in the direction of Poussey. The
Subaltern's Platoon happened to be the second in the leading Company.
Already there was movement in front, and, crawling forward to the end of
the line, he climbed up the bank to take stock of the position. To the
north was a little copse, the intervening ground a vegetable field.
Further off, to the east, there was a big hill, crowned with a
dense-looking forest which, as far as he could see, was deserted.
The Colonel, who was not to be deceived by a new appearance of quietude,
had somehow made his way to the little copse, and was examining the
hill with his glasses. The Adjutant, who had followed him, presently
rose to his feet.
"Bring ... your ... men ... over ... carefully ... in ... extended ...
order!"
The words floated across on the wind.
Feeling that he would like to see his men all safely across before he
left any of them, the Subaltern motioned to the Sergeant to lead them,
and they set off in a long, dotted and irregular line towards the
thicket.
"Hurry ... them ... up. Hurry!" shouted the Adjutant.
And just as the last man had left the bank, and he had started himself,
he realised what the Adjutant meant.
"Phwhizz ... phwizz ... phwizz."
Like malignant wasps the bullets hummed past him. There was a regularity
in the discharge and a similarity in the aim that left him no chance to
doubt that a machine-gun had been turned on them.
"I was a bit of a fool not to have gone first," he said to himself.
But the bullets hummed harmlessly by his head and shoulders, and the
thought that struck him most forcibly, as he plunged through the
cabbages, was the impossibility of realising the consequences if any one
of them had been a few inches nearer his head. It momentarily occurred
to him to lie down and crawl through the cabbages, trusting to luck that
the machine-gun would lose him; but, of course, the only thing was to
run for it, and so he ploughed along. Whether the journey occupied more
than a minute or not he is unable to say, but it seemed an incredible
lapse of time before he reached the copse--and safety.
"We shall have some artillery turned on to us in a minute," said the
Colonel; "we had better get on with the operation."
They debouched from the copse in open order, and advanced in the usual
lines of platoons, to attack the hill.
The Subaltern loosened his sword in his scabbard, so that when the time
came he could draw it more easily. He had already picked up a rifle from
some unfortunate.
There seemed to be a certainty of a hand-to-hand fight. He did not feel
at all eager to kill; on the other hand, he scarcely felt afraid. He
just felt as if he grudged the passing of the yards under his feet which
separated him from the edge of the wood. The idea of being "stuck"
himself never occurred to him.
The bullets flew about rather thickly for the first few minutes, but no
harm was done, and then the enemy's resistance seemed to die down. There
was complete silence for several minutes as our men plodded steadily on.
Then, away on the right, the Colonel's whistle sounded, and a halt was
called.
The enemy had taken fright and had retired, machine-guns and all, before
their advance.
This little affair, although too small to figure in the communiqués at
home, was a great personal triumph for the Colonel. The enemy, having
broken through the line and pushed his way almost to the banks of the
river, had been driven back and the line straightened out, without, as
far as the Subaltern could see, any loss whatever.
They were not allowed to follow up this easy success, and consequently
the enemy was still left in possession of a small salient. The
Subaltern's own Company was then sent to prolong the right of the
Battalion, and to get in touch with the "people" on the right.
This was eventually done; the "people" proving to be a regiment of
cavalry, employed as infantry.
In this particular part of the line the situation was, to say the least
of it, a little muddled. The cavalry did not seem to be altogether at
home in their new rôle. Their trenches seemed too small and detached.
The front was covered with copses, which were continually changing
hands. The whole line seemed to be dangerously weak, and the facilities
for communication too precarious. The Subaltern regarded the whole
affair as a sort of nightmare, and prayed fervently that they would not
be made to stop permanently in that quarter.
It appeared that they had been told off to hold in check the side of the
salient. They took up their position along the edge of a wood, three or
four yards in it.
"We'll be shelled in about twenty minutes, so dig all you know," said
the Captain.
How they dug can be easily understood. They had only their entrenching
implements, but in ten minutes most of them had very fair "lying down"
cover. Ten minutes was all they were allowed. There was no artillery
fire by the end of that time, but the bullets began to whizz past, or
flatten themselves in the tree trunks. It was rather hard to see
precisely what was happening. Black dots emerged from the wood, and
quickly flitted back again. The enemy seemed rather half-hearted.
When the attack, if attack it could really be called, had subsided, a
Sergeant got up from somewhere down the line, and continued work on his
hole. There was a whizz overhead, and he dropped back abruptly. The
Subaltern thought that he had realised the danger and had naturally
bobbed down for safety, but word was passed up "to keep down, as
Sergeant Simkins had been shot dead--through the heart." He never
uttered a sound, and must have met his death instantly.
Work was continued, but with the utmost caution. Meanwhile the afternoon
was drawing rapidly to a close, and the prospect of holding such a
position appalled the Subaltern when he thought of it. The Sergeant had
been killed by enfilade fire. It was quite obvious that their line was
thrown out, as it were, between the two general lines. Consequently they
were enfiladed by the enemy, threatened very seriously on their front,
on account of the proximity of the copses, and if forced to retire there
was absolute certainty of being mown down by their own cavalry. The
Senior Subaltern succeeded in clearing one copse, after firing a few
shots and making a bold advance, but had not sufficient men to retain
it. Then, just as darkness was closing down on the hopeless tangle, a
message was passed up to "close on the road."
The relief at this order was impossible to describe. Their spirits rose
meteorically. They scarcely succeeded in hiding their joy from the
cavalry who were to be left in their trenches, and when they set off
towards Poussey there was a wonderful swing in their step.
In an hour's time they were back in their old billets, and the Officers
opened a bottle of wine, on the strength, as some one said, of getting
out of an "extraordinarily awkward position."
"Well," said the Captain, with a half-full tumbler in his hand, "here's
hoping that our wonderful luck keeps in."
They drank in silence, and soon after adjourned to the outhouse.