The Silencing of the Guns
The German guns were flinging a terrific barrage fire behind us in a
vain attempt to prevent our reserves coming up, and Dennis found that
the spot at which they had emerged was close to the entrance of the
village, if one could dignify those shapeless heaps of brick and mortar
by such a name.
Oddly enough, above his head towered a gilded Calvary, untouched by our
previous bombardment or the rain of bullets that sang through the air.
He found the rest of his company lining a low bank on which flowers were
growing, and replying to some hot fire from the other side of the
street, at the entrance to which a company of the kilted battalion which
had gone over on their left was re-forming after suffering severely.
A good score of them were lying face downwards between what had been the
first houses of the village, and he recognised the regiment by the
green-and-yellow tartan.
There was no need to ask the reason of their pause, for eye and ear told
him that machine-guns were trained along the street, into which no man
might pass and live.
Somebody gave a tug at the skirt of Dennis's tunic as he knelt on one
knee, looking sharply about him, and he saw that it was Private Harry
Hawke, lying prone on his stomach, in the act of recharging his
magazine, and there was an odd grin on the little Cockney's face.
"I know what you're thinkin' abart, sir," he said. "Them guns is yonder
in the church. I got 'em set the moment we took cover 'ere. You and me
and Tiddler could do it on our own, if you'd only say the word!"
Dennis had followed the directions of Hawke's dirty finger, and he
smiled, for the thing had been in his own mind before the private spoke.
Sixty yards up the village street the ways forked, passing to right and
left round what had once been a white-walled church with a square tower,
and it was easy to see that, although our guns had played havoc with the
sacred edifice and reduced it to a shapeless mass of rubbish, with the
mere stump of the tower remaining, the enemy had turned it into a point
of vantage.
The door at the foot of the tower had been built up by a great pile of
sandbags, leaving a narrow embrasure in the corner--a mere slit like
that of an exaggerated slot in a pillar box.
But that slit commanded the street, and from it came that continuous
stream of lead which had stayed the Highlanders' attack. It was an
isolated fortress, and, so far, none of our troops had reached it; but a
few resolute men might accomplish much, and Dennis bent down.
"We'll have a go at it, Hawke," he said. "But we'd better have half a
dozen." And as Hawke and Tiddler crawled back out of the firing-line,
Dennis called four others by name, and beckoned them to follow him
behind the ruins of an adjoining house.
"We're going to take that gun, boys," he said.
"There are two guns, sir," corrected one of the men.
"Then we're going to take both of them," said Dennis; and, stooping down
on his hands and knees, he crawled through the ruined gardens, only
pausing as they came to a gap where there was no cover, and darting
across it to the shelter of the next heap.
Two such openings they negotiated successfully, but as they crossed the
third a German bullet smashed the water bottle at Hawke's hip.
"My bloomin' luck!" he grinned. "And me wiv a thirst I wouldn't sell for
'arf a crown, 'cos it's honestly worth three-and-six. Look out, sir!
We're coming level with the church now." And, glancing to their left as
they lay flat, they saw a curl of smoke wreathing out of the embrasure,
and another succession of little puffs above it, which told them that
the second gun had been hoisted to the first floor of the ruined belfry.
Dennis raised himself on his hands and reconnoitred carefully. The air
was full of sound. The rifle-fire behind them mingled with the
continuous rattle of the guns they had planned to capture, and yet not
an enemy was to be seen, although they knew that there were thousands of
them hidden away in their immediate neighbourhood. Now all depended on
their gaining the back of the church unseen.
Far away on the right they could hear an English cheer, and knew that
the battalions on that flank of the brigade were making good, while
their own portion of the line was held up.
In front of them lay a team of dead horses, attached to the fragments of
a wagon, and the flies were buzzing about them. A little farther on was
a German reservist on his back with his knees up, and the flies were
busy with him too. The rest was an extraordinary wilderness of shattered
homes and shell craters, which seemed of no possible value to anybody,
but it had to be captured, and time was flying.
"You see that third heap in front of us?" said Dennis. "We'll make for
that, and, if we reach it, then dash straight across the open for the
back of the church, and leave the rest to chance. It's rotten work
fighting broken bricks and mortar, but there it is; it's got to be
done."
He jumped up suddenly and ran forward, his companions streaming out
behind him, everyone bending double, for bullets were flying in every
direction, some from their own battalion, and some no doubt from hidden
snipers, who would have to be reckoned with later on.
"Are we all here?" said the lad, as they reached the third heap, which
had been an estaminet before a British 9.2 had brought it down like a
house of cards. "Now for it!" And they bolted across the open square,
and gained their goal at last.
Only the skeleton of the church walls remained, and the sun slanted in
through the ruined windows on to a scene of indescribable wreckage.
Where the roof had fallen in the debris formed a barrier across the
aisle, and the eastern end of the ruin had evidently been used as a
dressing-station. Several stretchers lay on the floor there, and on one
of them was a dead man with a tourniquet still clamped on his thigh.
The saw on the ground, and the ugly contents of the bowl beside it, told
of an interrupted amputation--perhaps the other man huddled up in the
corner had been the surgeon himself!
But they had no time to waste on idle speculation, for beyond the pile
of beams and tiles, red bricks and plaster, the machine-guns were still
firing; and, motioning his companions to caution, Dennis crept round a
broken pillar.
Under what remained of the belfry tower behind the rampart of sandbags
the grey-painted 77 mm. showed its square shield, and a crew of five men
were busy about it.
Somewhere above them in the bell chamber another and a lighter gun was
in full blast, and Dennis made a quick sign to Harry Hawke.
The crack shot of No. 2 Platoon raised his rifle, and the sergeant on
the seat behind the gun-shield reeled round and dropped, Hawke's second
bullet sending the man who was feeding the breech two feet into the air.
"Charge, boys, charge!" shouted Dennis. And before the three Germans who
remained realised what was happening, there was an ugly bit of
bayonet work, and the gun was silenced!
[Illustration: "Before the Germans realised what was happening, there
was an ugly bit of bayonet work"]
Then Tiddler jumped back with a shout, as the head and shoulders of
another German appeared like a Jack-in-the-box from a hole in the floor
of the church.
From the box he carried in his arms it was evident that the ammunition
supply was stored below; and as the man fell backwards from Tiddler's
bayonet with a scream of agony, an answering shout came up from the
depths beneath.
"Bombs, quick!" cried Tiddler. But Dennis seized Hawke's arms as he
already drew a deadly missile from his bag.
"Do you want to blow us all to smithereens?" shouted his officer. "Close
the trap, and haul the gun over it. That will keep them quiet down there
until we want them." And everyone lending a hand, as the trap-door shut
down with a dull boom, they dragged the gun back until the end of the
trail rested upon the covering and effectually secured it.
"Now for those chaps up there," said Dennis, with a thrill of
exultation. And they bolted for a little door in the thickness of the
tower wall.
A man named Rogerson was the first to enter, and he went pounding up the
winding stone steps in his heavy hobnailed boots, followed by Tiddler,
Dennis having to content himself with third place.
But their shout, the two rifle shots, and the sudden lull in the firing
of the 77 mm. had not been lost upon those above. The boarded floor of
the bell chamber was full of cracks and fissures, and through one of
them a sharp voice cried in German: "What's going on down there?"
"Wait and see!" retorted Dennis at random; and his men laughed at the
familiar catchword.
There was a great stamping of feet overhead, and Harry Hawke, who
chanced to be the last to reach the little door, cast his eyes upward as
he was about to enter.
A man's head was looking down, and Hawke fired at it.
The head remained where it was, but the marksman chuckled, knowing his
own powers; and as he stepped inside the doorway something splashed on
to the pavement where he had stood, something wet that shone very red in
the sunshine.
Their haversacks and water bottles brushed against the narrow sides of
the winding stairway; and as Rogerson reached the last step a revolver
cracked out, and he threw up his arms.
Tiddler immediately behind him caught the falling body on his head and
shoulder, and passed his rifle to Dennis.
"Poor old Jim!" muttered Tiddler, as he gripped the dead weight in both
hands, and, using the body as a shield, staggered into the bell chamber.
There, in the full blaze of the sun, the bells still dangled from a huge
transverse beam; but everything else had been carried away, and the
floor presented an open platform exposed to the sky, with a screen of
sandbags at its western edge, through which the Germans had worked a
Nordenfeldt.
There were only two men, and the one who had emptied his revolver into
Jim Rogerson held up his hands, crying in a terrified voice: "Mercy,
Kamerad!"
"Yus!" hissed Tiddler, dropping the dead man and snatching his rifle
from Dennis's hand before he could interfere. "The mercy you showed to
my mate!" And he ran him through.
As the grim khaki figures sprang out on to the platform, the other
German clubbed his rifle and made a dart for the head of the stairs, but
the man Hawke had shot lay between him and liberty; and, tripping up, he
plunged over the edge into space, clutched wildly at a broken beam that
still spanned the ruined walls, and dropped with a sickening crash on to
the floor below.
"Reckon he won't do that any more, sir," chuckled Harry Hawke; but
Dennis had already jumped on to the sandbags, and was semaphoring wildly
with both arms.
"Guns captured! Come on, you chaps!" he signalled. And as the message
was seen and understood, a wild cheer rose from the other end of the
street as the Highlanders and his own battalion jumped from their cover
and tore forward at the double.
He would have liked to linger on that point of vantage, which afforded a
fine view of the surrounding country; but their work was done, and he
followed the others down the stair again, only pausing for a moment to
secure poor Rogerson's identification disc as he passed him.
He found Hawke waiting at the stair-foot with a happy smile on his
snub-nosed visage, and the pair ran out into the little square to mingle
with the platoon which was going by at the double.
"Lumme!" exclaimed Harry Hawke, as a fearful burst of high explosive
shook the very ground; and, looking over their shoulders, they saw the
ruined tower they had just left sink to the ground amid a huge column of
dust!
Their eyes met, but before either of them could speak Bob Dashwood's
voice was heard shouting: "Look out, A Company! Ten rounds rapid, and
load up for your lives! Here's a whole Bavarian battalion on top of
us!"