IN THE HEART OF THE HILL.
While the dead were being buried and the wounded removed, there was
a long cessation of the savage struggle. Indeed, the long lull in
the firing almost led some people to believe that it would be heard
no more. Crowds on the Western heights glanced curiously, anxiously,
towards Fort Warden, with some idea that its picked garrison would now
abandon their desperate and daring attempt to hold the position. It
became known that the enemy's plans had been in part defeated--either
by reason of some official blunder or through the watchfulness of
the French at the other extremity of the Channel Tunnel. The German
troops that were to have raided the French terminus, and then poured
into England, under the protection of the guns of Fort Warden, already
seized by their advance guard, had not arrived, and could not now
approach to aid their countrymen. Movements of foreign warships and
transports were hourly reported by telegraph and wireless messages, but
the British Fleet had by this time formed a deadly barrier of iron and
steel around the coast line of Kent and Sussex. There must be a great
battle and a great defeat of our squadrons before another foreigner
could set his foot on Kentish shore.
The brooding day wore on, tense with suspense and fear. In the
stillness that accompanied the deepening of twilight, hundreds of
field-glasses were finally directed towards the silent fort to
discover whether the American and German flags had yet given place to
the white flag of submission. Any such anticipation, however, proved
unfounded. For suddenly, as the dusk increased, the roar of artillery
was heard; the masked batteries of the British once more had opened
simultaneous fire upon the Fort. Instantly the challenge was accepted.
Fort Warden roared its defiance. The big naval gun thundered its
repeated demand for surrender; the siege guns crashed in unison; the
howitzers savagely chimed in, barking as in sudden fury, like monster
dogs of war; and fifty field guns combined to swell the dreadful,
deafening chorus.
Presently the fire from the Fort slackened. It seemed clear they were
husbanding their strength for work more crucial. Or could it be that
they were running short of ammunition? Perhaps, it was conjectured,
more damage had been done to Wardlaw's Works than the British had
supposed. Such speculations cheered the spirits of officers and men.
But the wiser among them only shook their heads. They appreciated the
mettle of the men who held the fort, realised that they had counted
the cost, expected no quarter, and meant to win or die. The British
staff knew that it would be folly to cry until they were out of the
wood. They realised that many a man must bite the dust in agony before
the British Standard floated over Wardlaw's Works again, if, indeed,
it ever fluttered there at all! The invaders would, and must, hold the
Fort till their last gasp--not because they in themselves could hope
for ultimate triumph over the increasing forces that now surrounded
them, but because to them time was everything--time for their
countrymen to develop elsewhere the work of conquest; time for the
American and German combined squadrons to land troops at unprotected
spots of Great Britain and Ireland, while they, the daring three
hundred, monopolised the attention of the flower of England's troops.
The plans of the Allies were elaborate. This was but their first great
move.
Meanwhile, imperative orders had been given for the British to attack
the Fort again. The attempt was to be made directly darkness had set
in, and it was only to pave the way for a new and even more determined
onslaught that the guns had broken forth in the renewed bombardment
already chronicled. Troops, Regular and Territorial, still were pouring
into Kent.
No drum or bugle note disturbed the evening air; an interval of ominous
silence, pregnant with dreadful threats and dire potentialities,
preceded the renewed attack. When the hour had come, the word of
command, uttered in a whisper, was whispered on from rank to rank.
In open order, the swarming infantry battalions crept swiftly up the
hill, simultaneously making for the Fort on every side. They reached a
certain point, then paused under the last scrap of cover that remained
available, while the field telephones sent swift messages to certain
batteries. The signals served their purposes, and as the guns burst out
again, the men sprang to their feet and doubled forward.
Those who were advancing from the South stopped almost instantly,
dazzled and confused. The powerful searchlight of the Fort glared
into their faces with bewildering suddenness, and the insistent
racket of rifles and machine guns told them that their advance had
been discovered. The doomed and blinded soldiers fell in scores, in
hundreds, before a withering storm of bullets. Then, just as suddenly
as it had been revealed, the flashlight was concealed; but only
to glare forth again on the British supports that were hurried to
the front. Thus, brilliant light and deepest darkness alternated in
swift and bewildering succession, and through both alike the leaden
messengers of death mowed down the advancing troops.
Rank after rank reeled back upon their climbing comrades. On the South
side, once more, the attack had failed, and failed at heavy cost.
North, West, and East, the result had been the same--repulse, defeat.
The night was now illumined with extraordinary brilliance. Star-shells,
rising high into the air above the Fort, burst in quick and dazzling
succession. The blinding glare lighted up the hill, the sea, and
every field and building, revealing, too, the fleeing figures of the
retreating force and the prostrate forms of hosts of dead and wounded.
A hail of bullets from the Maxims persistently pursued the remnant of
the fleeing soldiers, and swept the plateau and the hillside clear of
living things.
Pom, pom, pom! the murderous machines of wholesale destruction
continued their deadly work until the men who worked them could find no
living thing to put to death.
Broken and beaten--many of them desperately and horribly wounded--the
panting remnant of the attacking force heard, as, at last, they halted,
a shrill shout of triumph from the jubilant defenders of the Fort.
But the night's work was far from finished. The Fort must fall--cost
what it might, the Fort must fall. If it could not be captured above
ground in the staring light of star-shells, the attack must be made
by burrowing in darkness through the hill itself. Preparations for
this desperate and dangerous work had been already started, and much
progress made. For twelve hours or more, during what appeared to be
a suspension of hostilities, the sappers had worked in relays with
furious and unremitting energy. While their comrades above ground were
being repulsed, while the star-shells went up in a rapid succession,
and the implacable searchlight swept the hill in all directions, the
picks of the Engineers, yard by yard, were steadily hacking a way
towards the very foundations of the Fort.
These tunnelling operations would have been infinitely more tedious
and more arduous had not an elaborate system of subterranean passages
already been provided by Major Wardlaw. Various cunningly devised
galleries bad been secretly cut in the hill in order to furnish the
garrison of the Fort (on the assumption that the garrison would be
English and acting on the defensive), with the means of taking an
attacking force in the rear, and of laying mines for the destruction
of any besiegers. But the tables had been turned, though how far, if
at all, the invaders were aware of these hidden avenues and the method
by which they could be made available, remained a matter of doubt and
anxious speculation to the British Staff. Meanwhile, hour after hour,
deep in the heart of the hill, the sappers sweated at their work.
Nearer and nearer they approached to the spot at which a mine, if
exploded, might be expected to shatter at least a section of the Fort,
and open a way for British bayonets to enter.
A few more yards and the vital point would be reached. Then, suddenly,
the sapper who was wielding a pickaxe in advance of all the rest paused
in his work, listening intently. He raised his hand excitedly, and the
officer in command of the party instantly crept forward, and with an
imperious gesture stopped the work. The sappers, their faces shining
in the lantern light, at first wondered what it meant. But soon enough
they heard and understood. Faintly, as through a massive wall, there
came to their ears the fateful sound of tapping--the click, click,
click of other pickaxes. It came from below the tunnel they themselves
were cutting. One thing, and only one, could explain the sound. The
invaders had found out, or someone had betrayed to them, one of the
secret tunnels of the hill.
The sappers, pale as death, gazed in each other's faces. In a flash
they realised the awful jeopardy in which they stood. The invaders were
counter-mining at a lower stratum! beneath their very feet. At any
moment--while a breath was drawn or glances were exchanged--they might
explode their mine!
There was an awesome pause, then the officer gave a sharp,
half-whispered order. Instantly, boldly, the picks were at their
work again. It was a desperate race for time--here in this cramped
tunnel--in the smothering depths of mother earth; and no man's life
was worth a moment's purchase. Yet iron self-discipline prevailed. The
sappers worked with almost frenzied haste and vigour. After ten minutes
of furious, exhausting labour, they were allowed to pause. The chests
of the toilers heaved painfully; some of them tried to hold their
breath; others shook their heads impatiently, as if to stop the singing
in their ears. They wanted to listen, to hear, and know their fate.
No sound reached them. It was a moment of agonizing tension. Then,
nearer than before, they heard the picks again. Suddenly the sound
ceased. The invaders had completed their work. There was no time to
lose. At a sign from the officer, who brushed a handkerchief across his
face and drew a laboured breadth, a grim-faced sergeant began to crawl
back swiftly to the distant opening of the tunnel for the dynamite.
Another and more torturing pause ensued.
Which mine would be exploded first?
It was an affair of minutes, then of seconds. Their mine was not yet
ready. But duty held them to their ground. Though hell should burst
upon them on the instant, the flaming portals must be faced.
Out in the open, those who watched and waited suddenly heard a
thunderous detonation. A huge mass of earth and chalk rose high in the
air, and clouds of whitish smoke spread skyward in the full glare of
the searchlights. Three engineers, half doubled up, now came rushing
from the tunnel to the outlet, bursting among a little group of
officers, who staggered back with horror in their faces.
"Done for ... countermined!" One of the sappers gasped out the fateful
words, then sank exhausted on the ground.
"My God!" exclaimed Helmore, the officer in charge of the relief party,
falling back a pace. Then, promptly recovering his self-control, he
cried: "Forward to the rescue. Some of our men may be alive!" He
himself dashed into the tunnel, followed by half a dozen men. At
a little distance, the narrow avenue was blocked. The miners were
entombed! but an indirect opening had been made by the concussion,
which gave the rescuing party access to another tunnel. Following
this, and finding it intact, Helmore, in advance of the party, raised
his lanthorn and saw in the distance an exposed angle of a massive
concrete wall. He understood at once that the exploded mine, working
in a lateral direction as well as upward, had exposed the caponiere,
or covered lodgment under the counter-scarp, which Wardlaw had sunk in
that position designedly for the protection of the Fort. Therefore, the
holders of the Fort, in a measure, were hoist with their own petard.
Their mine had exploded first, but at the same time it had exposed a
point against which a subterranean attack now might be directed.
The moat encircling the Fort was twenty-eight feet wide and eighteen
deep. Strongly fortified everywhere, a special feature of its strength
lay in the caponiere gallery. The walls of this gallery, constructed
beneath the entire counter-scarp, were some seven feet thick. On
this, the South side, as also on the East, the gallery was divided by
concrete partitions into five communicating cells or chambers. These
chambers, as Lieutenant Helmore knew from the confidential plans of
the defence works, communicated, cell with cell, by low and narrow
doorways. From the last of the five cells, by a narrow flight of steps,
could be reached a door of massive steel, and on the other side of that
door a passage five feet wide passed beneath the rampart and the moat
into the interior of the Fort itself. This communication, of course,
was intended to enable defenders of the Fort to reach the caponieres
which jutted into the moat at intervals, and thence fire upon any
troops that sought to bridge it.
The enormous importance of his discovery made Helmore forget for a
moment the fate or peril of his ill-starred comrades--buried as they
were in the adjacent débris. Indeed, it was apparent that nothing could
be done for them. Their dreadful fate was sealed, and the faint groans
that at first reached the ears of the would-be rescuers soon entirely
ceased to be heard.
Helmore, after a moment's pause, sent a man back with news of the
discovery to his commanding officer, who instantly grasped the
requirements of the situation. He issued certain rapid orders, and a
hundred men darted down the hill in prompt obedience. Meanwhile, the
relief sappers, guided by Helmore, crept through the narrow tunnel into
which an opening had been forced by the explosion. Without losing an
instant, the Engineers began to chisel several holes in the exposed
section of the concrete wall. A charge of dynamite was passed along,
and all made ready. The men rushed back and waited. The crack and crash
of a violent explosion followed, and the sappers, hurrying forward,
followed by other troops, found that a broad gap had been made in the
gallery of the caponiere. Through this breach they crept and crawled,
to find themselves in the first of the five cells, or gallery-sections,
that have been described.
Opposite to them was the arched doorway leading into the next chamber.
But already the defending force had occupied it. Foreseeing that the
entire gallery might be rushed chamber by chamber, they had brought
heavy sandbags and piled them high, close to the first doorway.
Against these obstacles the attacking party hurled themselves,
furiously but in vain. Half a dozen engineers immediately commenced
to break through the wall itself, in the hope of thus reaching the
adjoining chamber. Only a few men could work in so confined a space,
and while they hacked against the solid wall, the German defenders
now thrust their rifles between the gaps of the sandbags and fired
at random. Four Englishmen fell dead, or desperately wounded. Their
comrades dragged them back, making room for others. The Colonel's
orders had now been carried out, and hand grenades were passed along
from man to man. These fearful engines of destruction were only to be
used in case of dire extremity; because, closed within these walls,
beneath the hill, the explosives might well prove as fatal to the men
who used them as to the enemy. For the same reasons, doubtless, the
German soldiers engaged in this subterranean struggle, so far, had made
no use of bombs.
The sappers having found it hopeless to cut a wider entrance through
the wall into the adjoining chamber, another plan was quickly thought
of and attempted. A can of kerosene was passed along and poured upon
the sandbags; then another and another. The moment a light was applied,
the soaked sandbags began to burn with so fierce a flame that the
soldiers on each side were driven back, and for a brief space the
chambers on both sides of the archway were left quite tenantless. Then,
with a half stifled cheer, a dozen British soldiers, their rifles
clubbed, dashed across the chamber and thrust the burning mass into
the inner cell. The Germans in the opposite entry already were hastily
piling more sandbags in position, but the gap was not wholly filled
when the attacking party rushed upon them impetuously and with an
excited shout. Bayonets crossed bayonets now, but neither side could
get free play either for attack or for defence. Over the waist-high
sandbags in this second archway, the combatants with desperate fury
thrust and stabbed. Groans and savage oaths blended with the flash of
steel. The place grew slippery with blood. Men fell and could not rise
again. Comrade trod comrade under foot and heeded not.
Only one lanthorn now remained alight, half revealing the intent and
savage faces of the combatants. The Germans seemed to have no light at
all. And poor Helmore, who held the solitary lanthorn aloft to guide
his men, thus helped to direct the fatal thrust that laid him low.
With a hoarse cry, one of the Germans had hurled a bayonet through the
doorway. It pierced deep into the lieutenant's throat. The lanthorn
dropped from his upraised hand, and he fell against the wall. Blood
gushed in a torrent from his mouth, even while he bravely strove to
utter the last word of command:
"Forward, men, forward!" he gasped, then spoke no more.
A young soldier who heard him had marked well the position of the
archway, ere darkness hid it, and, maddened at the fall of his
officer, he hurled a hand grenade towards the opening. The effect was
instantaneous and terrific. The dreadful shock was succeeded by a still
more dreadful silence.
When a light was struck it was seen that every German in the inner
chamber had been blown to pieces.
A moment's hesitation in face of the ghastly sight, then, as the light
went out again, the British sprang into the inner cell to find, or
rather feel, that it was splashed and smeared with blood and clogged
with spongy fragments of the mutilated dead.
Cell number two, by some freak of the explosive, had not been affected,
and as the third chamber thus was gained, a sergeant, shouting in the
darkness, gave the eager word:
"Forward again! we'll have the Fort! By God, we'll have the Fort!"
Again the men pressed forward, but this time no defenders barred the
way. In the distance there was a sound of hurrying footsteps. The
Germans had retreated down the stone stair which led to the steel door
of communication.
Reinforcements had now reached the gallery, and fresh lights were
brought. Well might the newcomers shudder and turn sick at what those
lights revealed in chamber number three. At the moment it was quite
impossible to carry the dead and wounded to the rear. Officers and
men were swarming in, and none could leave the gallery. But word was
passed along for surgeons to be sent, and the wounded were laid against
the walls, leaving a clear gangway. Then the advance was cautiously
continued.
Another officer--Carlow, who had just obtained his company--now
took command. Promptly but slowly, he headed the advance, for this
silence, this sudden cessation of resistance, might betoken some deadly
ambuscade.
The men went forward, two and two. Chambers four and five proved to be
quite deserted. They reached the farther archway of cell number five,
and there Carlow, halting, peered down into the darkness of the narrow
stair.
As he stood, gazing, listening, strange and pungent fumes crept up
between the walls. He gasped for breath and staggered back. The men
behind him did the same. The fumes were rising, spreading--permeating
the low gallery with extraordinary rapidity, travelling swiftly
into every chamber. Only a few understood how this awful sense of
suffocation was occasioned; and some who guessed that from an air-pump
down below the Germans were pumping asphyxiating gas into the gallery
guessed it too late. A few, before the gas had wholly overpowered them,
fought their way back to the open, but more than a hundred men dropped
where they stood in the close chambers--dropped and died.