The Exploits of A Company
"Tomkins!" cried the Captain, "bunk back to the C.O. if you can find
him, and tell him there's a strong counter-attack on. Say it's a matter
of minutes if we're going to hold the village."
Fifty yards beyond the outer fringe of those crumbled heaps a little
stream flowed, a shattered willow here and there marking its course, and
from the opposite bank the ground rose to what had once been a thick
wood.
In front of the wood a solid mass of German infantry had suddenly sprung
into view as if by magic, and, forming up elbow to elbow, moved down the
slope, breaking into a brisk run. The great grey wave overlapped A
Company for a considerable distance on either flank.
A strip of ragged garden hedge on our side of the stream, a well-head,
and the wooden ribs of a stable which had somehow survived the
bombardment were the only available cover, if one excepted two large
shell craters.
"Hadn't we better fall back, Bob?" said Dennis, as he arrived
breathlessly at his brother's side. "The thin red line at Balaclava was
a fool to this."
"Fall back be hanged!" cried the Captain. "If we give them an inch we
shall let them in. No, there's a better stunt than that. Where on earth
are our machine-guns I'd like to know?"
His words were almost lost as the company poured a terrific fusillade
into the advancing enemy, and the target being too big and too near to
miss, every bullet found its billet. Men in the front rank went down
like ninepins, but the rest came on over their bodies, and everyone
realised that they meant business.
For once the enemy had resolved to use the bayonet, and less than sixty
yards now separated them from the Reedshires.
Bob Dashwood sprang on to a heap of bricks, and his words rang out even
among the bang and clatter that filled the morning air:
"Platoons One and Two, line the edge of that crater on your front, and
hold your fire until they reach the water. Three and Four, form up at
the hedge here, and if a man of you touches a trigger until he gets the
word I'll give him four days' field punishment." Then he added, "Go to
your own platoon, Dennis, and keep your eye on me. As soon as the
beggars have felt our fire we'll try the cold steel on them."
As Dennis reached his men the Bavarians were already entering the water,
which took them to the waist, and the two platoons delivered a burst of
rapid fire as Bob had ordered.
The result was appalling, and for an instant the Bavarians seemed to
waver, but those behind urged the rest on, and they came splashing
through the brook, whose course was choked and reddened by at least a
couple of hundred dead and wounded.
It seemed an age before the other platoons at the hedgerow fired, but
the welcome crash of their volley suddenly rang out, followed by a
shrill blast on Bob's whistle.
"That's 'Cease fire,'" said Hawke; "and there goes the 'Charge.'"
"A Company, make ready!--go!" yelled their Company Commander, and he
might very well have said "Come," for he was the first off the mark, and
with a yell of wild delight, out of the crater, through the hedge, and
across the half-dozen strides that divided them from the determined
enemy, went the eager lads after their leader.
Dennis was conscious of a feeling of uncertainty as he raced forward,
for he had not seen two things that had caught his brother's eye.
One was a row of Kilmarnock bonnets bobbing up over a communication
trench a hundred yards away on the left flank of the company, and the
other, three little brown dots at the corner of a wrecked barn
considerably in advance of their right--little brown dots very busy
about a Lewis gun.
If A Company could only succeed in holding back the advancing line for
eighty seconds, their leader knew what would happen, and it was worth
the effort.
Bob Dashwood's speciality was bayonet fighting, and every man of his
command was a past-master in the art.
Brother officers had smiled indulgently at the Captain's enthusiasm for
inter-company contests in that war of trench and dug-out, but Bob
Dashwood had persisted on every possible opportunity, and it would be
hard now if he did not reap his reward.
With a clash, Lee-Enfield and Mauser met on the bank of the stream, and
Bob Dashwood scored first blood with the cold steel.
Three Bavarians went down before him with lightning rapidity, and as a
fourth fired at the Captain from the hip and missed him, the Company
Sergeant-Major was on him like a knife.
"Let 'em have it, boys!" shouted Bob, and as a voice replied, "Look to
yourself, sir, we're all right," the foremost rank of the enemy was
hurled into the water, through which the khaki lads splashed to the
opposite bank.
There was a scramble and a squeeze. One or two slipped back, and the
weight of their accoutrements took them to the bottom, but the bulk of
them gained foothold, and nothing "made in Germany" could stay the rush.
Then the Lewis gun barked from the barn end, and a tremendous yell from
the opposite flank told that the Highlanders were coming.
For the life of him, when he came to think over it afterwards, Dennis
could recall nothing of that mad minute but the crack of his own
revolver as he emptied it into the closely packed mass before him, and
then a sea of terrified faces, growing grey like the uniforms they wore,
as the Bavarians broke and went back helter-skelter up the slope.
Somebody shouted "Keep 'em moving, boys!" and the next thing he knew was
that the fugitives were flinging themselves into the trench on the
hill-top, and that he and A Company were dropping in after them,
regardless of all consequences.
Here and there a too eager man was spitted on a German bayonet; here
and there also a pair of arms went up, and the hated word "Kamerad"
smote the ear with a false note. But the Reedshires were taking no
prisoners that morning, and having reached the trench on the very heels
of the foe, the Bavarians made no attempt to hold it, and went streaming
away along the communication that led into the heart of the wood.
Dennis looked back for a moment as he came to the shattered trees, which
lay about in all directions in the most extraordinary confusion, and saw
that the C.O. and the rest of the battalion had already cleared the
stream, and were coming up in support.
"Keep on, old chap!" cried a voice, as Bob ran up. "Are you all right so
far?"
"Yes, I'm all right; but, by Jove, you look a pretty beauty!"
The once smart captain, who somehow or other even in the wet trenches
had generally managed to appear spotless, like the officers of the
French army, who always looked as though they had been turned out of a
band-box, now presented a most disreputable appearance.
His helmet was gone, his Bedford cords were torn in seven or eight
places, and his left sleeve hung in ribbons. Up to his waist-belt he was
soaked by his passage through the stream. Above that his tunic was
covered with blood; on the whole, not a man you would have cared to sit
next to in a railway carriage or anywhere else.
But he only smiled as Dennis pointed to him. "Yes, I know," he said;
"but what's the odds? We've done a big thing, and the rest of the
battalion's done a big thing, and we've got to keep the beggars on the
go before they dig themselves in. Come on, dear old Den.; you'll hardly
believe it, but I haven't got a scratch of my own. All this gore belongs
to the enemy, and I don't think we've lost more than a couple of dozen
of A Company."
They ran side by side, and soon came up with a khaki mob of their own
men and the Highlanders streaming along each side of the German
communication trench, up which the Bavarians were still flying. Every
now and then they fired into it or threw bombs, but the older hands knew
that the walk-over would not last for ever, and kept their eyes skinned.
Suddenly, where the shattered trees thinned out and the still rising
ground showed an irregular ridge against the skyline, a sound which they
all knew only too well fell upon their ears.
There were two machine-gun emplacements on the ridge, and a murderous
fire was opened upon the victorious pursuers.
Bob Dashwood blew the order to take cover, and, as there was plenty of
it, A Company promptly flopped down behind the fallen trunks which our
bombardment had uprooted in every direction.
"Phew! 'Ot stuff!" ejaculated Harry Hawke, as he made room for Dennis
beside him, and wiped the perspiration from his forehead with the sleeve
of his jacket.
He was blowing like a grampus, for the pace had been fast.
"When we've got our wind, I reckon there's a little job up there for us,
sir," said Hawke, pointing over the top of the fallen beech behind which
they crouched.
"You mean the machine-gun, of course," said Dennis, nodding. "But
unfortunately, whilst we're getting our wind, so are the enemy, and
there's forty yards of open climb before we reach those sandbags up
yonder. It isn't like that village behind us, and you may bet your boots
the trench on the top of the ridge is packed with Germans like herrings
in a barrel, waiting for us. We'll have to lie low until the battalion
overtakes us."
Harry Hawke squinted thoughtfully down the short length of his snub
nose.
"There's two of those bloomin' tac-tacs of theirs--one covering the
communication trench, and t'other one yonder sweeping the front of the
wood," he said. "What price that Lewis gun, sir, that chipped in on our
right flank? Couldn't I go back and 'urry it up? If we could bring it
into action from the other corner of this 'ere wood, it 'ud mean saving
a lot of lives, for it's a sure thing the ridge has got to be taken."
While he was speaking they heard men running behind them, and looked
round, hoping to see their own people, but it turned out to be a little
party of the engineers laying a field telephone; and Dennis crawled on
hands and knees towards them.
"What's become of the machine-guns?" he inquired of an intelligent
corporal.
"Can't get 'em through the wood, sir. There are half a dozen on the
other side hung up. I rather think they're waiting for you to give 'em a
lead."
"Oh, are they? Any Lewis guns there?"
"Yes, there's one, sir. They were just starting along a path over yonder
when we left."
"I say, do you hear that, Bob?" Dennis called out, as his brother came
back, dodging from trunk to trunk, as every now and then one of the
German guns on the ridge raked the wood with a stream of bullets. "The
corporal says our Lewis is over yonder. What about my going over with a
couple of chaps to give them a hand? I believe we could do something."
"Right you are," said Bob. "I've just been talking to that Highland
officer, and he agrees with me that we must lie doggo until we are
reinforced. I have sent two men back to the C.O. Bunk off and see what
you can do."
"Thanks, old man," said Dennis, his face beaming with delight. "Hawke
and Tiddler, this way!" And at his call the two inseparables crept back
to where he stood.
"We're through now, sir, if you'd like to give them a shout at the other
end," said the corporal of the engineers.
"Oh, good business!" cried Captain Bob. "If I can get on to the Governor
that will buck things up a bit." And, leaving him kneeling behind a tall
poplar, the telephone receiver in his hand, Dennis and his companions
ran back a few yards into the shelter of the trees, and struck away at
right angles.