"THE BEST O' LUCK--AND GIVE 'EM HELL!"
Imagine a bright crisp morning in late September. The sun rises high and
the beams strike with comforting warmth even into the fire-trench where we
gather in groups to catch its every glint.
We feel good on such a morning. We clean up a bit, for things are
quiet--that is, fairly quiet. Only a few shells are flying, there is little
or no rifle fire and nobody is getting killed, nobody is even getting
plugged.
The whole long day passes quietly. We are almost content with our lot. We
laugh a good deal, we joke, we play the eternal penny ante, and possibly
the letters come.
Just before stand-to at sundown the quiet will be broken. The artillery
behind our lines will open up with great activity. We notice that the big
shells only are being used and we notice that they are concentrating
entirely on the German front line, immediately ahead and to the right and
left of where we have our position. We are more than a little interested.
There is decidedly something in the wind. We wait, but nothing happens. We
have stand-to and get our reliefs for guard.
Every man has his bayonet fixed for the night. We give it a little extra
polish. It may be needed soon. There is no outward show of nervousness. No
man speaks to his neighbor of his immediate thoughts. We begin to smoke a
little more rapidly, perhaps. We might have had a cigarette an hour during
the heavy shelling of the day. During the night we will increase to one
every half-hour, every twenty minutes. We light a fag, take a few puffs and
throw it away. That is the only evidence of nerves.
We are in a state of complete ignorance as to what the outcome of this
shelling may be. We have seen it just as severe before and nothing but a
skirmish result. Some of us have seen shelling of the same intensity and
have gone over the top and into a terrible mélange. We are always kept in
ignorance; no commands and no orders are given. Did we know for hours
ahead that at such and such a time we would go over the top, our nerves
could hardly stand the strain. The noise, the terrific noise of our
artillery bombarding the German trenches is hard enough on our nerves; what
it must be on the nerves of the enemy is beyond conception. We do not
wonder that in these latter days they fall on their knees and yell
"_Kamerad_!"
As a rule a charge takes place just before dawn, when the gray cold light
of morning is struggling up from the East. All night we are occupied
according to our individual temperaments. Some are able to sleep even in
such a racket. The great majority of us are writing letters. There are
always a few last things to be said to the home-folks, a few small
possessions we want to will in special ways. We hand our letters to an
officer or to some special chum. If this is to be our last time over--if it
is to be our last charge--the officer or chum will see to it, if he lives,
or the stretcher-bearers or the chaplains, if he doesn't, that the small
treasures go back home to the old folks.
Just before dawn there is a difference in the character of the shelling.
The heavy shells are falling farther back on German reserves and lighter
artillery is being used on the enemy front line. The position lies some
three hundred yards from the enemy front.
The light shells sweep close overhead as they go by our trench. We have to
hug the sides close; sometimes the vacuum is so great that it will carry
off a cap; if we are not careful it may suck up a head or lift us
completely off our feet.
This curtain of fire continues for hours; it varies in direction now and
then, but never in intensity. There is a controlling force over this
tremendous bombardment. To my mind the most important man on the
battle-field is he who holds the ordering of the bombardment--the
observation officer. He must know everything, see everything, but must
never be seen. During a heavy bombardment he works in conjunction with
another observation officer. They are hidden away in any old place; it may
be a ruined chimney, it may be a tree which is still left standing, or it
may be in some hastily built up haystack. He controls the entire artillery
in action on his special front, and he holds the lives of thousands of men
in the hollow of his hand. One tiniest miscalculation and hundreds of us
pay the price.
He is cool, imperturbable, calculating, ready in any emergency,
good-tempered, deliberate and yet with the power to act instantly. At times
he has command over a magnificent number of invectives!
As the minutes pass and the day lightens we smoke a fag every five minutes,
every three minutes. The trench is filled with the blue gray smoke of
thousands of cigarettes, lighted, puffed once, thrown away. It soothes our
nerves. It gives us something to do with our hands. It takes our mind off
the impending clash.
If we make an attack in broad daylight, which is seldom done except under a
special emergency, the only command to charge will be the click, click,
click of bayonets going into place all along the line. But charges are
mostly made at gray-dawn, when bayonets are already fixed. Suddenly, away
down the line we catch sight of one of our men climbing over the parapet.
Then trench ladders are fixed, and in a twinkling every man of us is over
the top with: "The best o' luck--and give 'em hell!"
We crawl out over the open. We reach our own barbed wire entanglements. We
creep through them, round them, and out to No Man's Land. We are in it now
for good and all.
The enemy is now concentrating his fire on our reserves. He knows that we
have not had sufficient men in the front line trench to be of great effect.
He knows that we can not fit them in there. He knows that the moment we
have cleared the top of the parapet hundreds of men have poured from the
communication trenches into our places. He knows that for miles back men
are massed as thick as they can stand in the reserve trenches. His object
is to destroy our reserves and not the immediate trench in front of him.
We follow the same plan. For, as we advance in short sharp rushes, the
observation officer, who never for a moment relaxes his hold on the
situation, flashes back by telegraph or field telephone the command to the
artillery lying miles away to raise their curtain of fire. They do so, and
shells fall on the German reserves, while we press forward, teeth bared and
cold steel gleaming grayly, to take the front lines. We leap the parapet of
the German trench. We spot our man and bear down on him. We clean out the
dugouts and haul away the cowering officers, and already we are
straightening and strengthening the German trench.
Behind us come wave on wave of our reserves. The second will take the
second trench of the enemy; the third, the third, and so on. Then we
consolidate our position, and Fritz is a sad and sorry boy.
That is the way it should work, but in the early days of the war we used to
find this very difficult. We of the front line would charge and take our
trench. We would get there and not a German to be seen! He would be beating
it down his communication trenches, or what was left of them, as hard as he
could go. We were supposed to stay in the front trench of the enemy. Well,
it was simply against human nature, against the human nature of the First
Canadian boys at any rate. We may have been out there for months and not
had a chance to see a German. And had been wishing and waiting for this
very opportunity. We would see Fritz disappear round a traverse and we
simply could not stand still and let him go, or let the other fellow get
him. We were bound to go after him. This was really our traditional
weakness. Often-times we went too far in our eagerness to capture the Hun,
and were unable to hold all that we got.
In the early days, too, we charged in open formation. Certainly we lost, in
the first instance, fewer men by that method, but when we reached the enemy
trench, took it, and had established ourselves therein, we were rarely
strong enough in numbers to repulse the almost certain counter-attacks that
came a few minutes or even an hour or so later.
We have altered this method now. We attack, not in the close formation,
shoulder to shoulder, of the German, but in a formation which is a
variation of his. We attack in groups of twenty or thirty men, who are
placed shoulder to shoulder. If a shell comes over one group, it is
obliterated, to be sure, but suppose no shell comes; then several such
groups will reach the enemy lines, and Hans has not got the ghost of a
chance once we get to close quarters. He has not the glimmer of a chance in
a counter-attack when we have sufficient men to hold on to what we have
gained.
On the other hand a German charge on our lines is a pretty sight. They
advance at a dog-trot. They come shoulder to shoulder, each man almost
touching his neighbor. They are in perfect alignment to start, and they
lift their feet practically in exact time one with the other. Unlike us,
they shoot as they advance. We have a cartridge in our magazine, but we
have the safety catch on. We dare not shoot as we advance because our
officers are always ahead, always cheering the boys forward. The German
officer is always behind. He drives his men.
They shoot from the hip, but in that way their fire is never very
effective. As they advance it is practically impossible to miss them, no
matter how bad a shot any of us might be. We get fifteen rounds per minute
from our rifles and our orders are to shoot low and to full capacity.
In the attacks of the enemy which I have seen they certainly have been
brave. One must give them their due. It takes courage to advance in face of
rifle fire, machine gun fire and artillery shells, in this close formation.
Wave after wave of them come across in their field gray-blue uniforms and
they never cower. One wave will be mowed down and another will quicken the
pace a trifle and take its place. One man will go down and another will
step into the gap. They are like a vast animated machine.
In one attack which we repulsed I am conservative when I say that they were
lying dead and wounded three and four deep and yet they attacked again and
again without faltering, only to be driven back to defeat in the end.
This war is not over yet by a long shot, and I should like to offer some
advice to the boys who are going over from this continent. Our officers
know better than we. The generals and aides who have been working on the
problem, on the strategy and tactics during the three years gone by, are
more qualified to conduct the war than the private who has lately joined.
If you are told to stay in a certain place, then stay there. If you are
told to dig in, you are a bad soldier if you don't dig and dig quickly. You
are only a nuisance as long as you question authority. It does not pay. The
boys of the First Division learned by experience. Do as you're told. The
heads are taking no undue risks. Your life is as valuable to them as it is
to you. They won't let you lose it unnecessarily. Get ahead and obey.
There is no need to lose your individuality. The vast difference between us
and the enemy soldier is that we can think for ourselves should occasion
arise; we can act on our own responsibility or we can lead if the need be.
Remember, that every single man is of importance. Each one is a cog in the
vast organization and one slip may disrupt the whole arrangement. Obey, but
use your intelligence in your obedience. Don't act blindly. Consider the
circumstances and as far as you can use your reason as you believe the
general or the colonel has used his. You are bounded only by your own small
sector. What you know of other salients is hearsay. The general knows the
situation in its entirety.
Obedience, a cool head, a clean rifle and a sharp bayonet will carry you
far.
[Illustration: ©_Famous Players--Lasky Corporation. Scene from the
Photo-Play_
SHERMAN WAS NOT ALWAYS RIGHT.]
[Illustration: Behind the barrage]