FRONT LINES
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│ BY THE SAME AUTHOR │
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FRONT LINES
BY BOYD CABLE
AUTHOR OF
“BETWEEN THE LINES,” “ACTION FRONT,” “GRAPES OF WRATH”
[Illustration: LOGO]
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 FIFTH AVENUE
COPYRIGHT, 1918,
BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
_All Rights Reserved_
Printed in the United States of America
THESE LINES, WRITTEN AT AND TELLING
ABOUT THE FRONT, ARE DEDICATED—WITH
THE FERVENT WISH THAT THOSE THERE
MAY SOON SEE THE LAST OF IT—TO THE
FRONT, BY
THE AUTHOR
FOREWORD
THESE tales have been written over a period running from the later
stages of the Somme to the present time. For the book I have two
ambitions—the first, that to my Service readers it may bring a few
hours of interest and entertainment, may prove some sort of a picture
and a record of what they themselves have been through; the second,
that it may strike and impress and stir those people at home who even
now clearly require awakening to all that war means.
I know that a great many war workers have been, and still are, bearing
cheerfully and willingly the long strain of war work, and I very gladly
and thankfully offer my testimony to what I have seen of this good
spirit. But it would be idle to deny, since the proofs have been too
plain, that many war workers are not doing their best and utmost, are
not playing the game as they might do and ought to do, and it is to
these in particular I hope this book may speak.
Surely by now every worker might appreciate the fact that whatever
good cause they may have for “war weariness” they are at least
infinitely better off than any man in the firing line; surely they can
understand how bitter men here feel when they hear and read of all
these manifestations of labour “discontent” and “unrest.” We know well
how dependent we are on the efforts of the workers at home, and there
are times when we are forced to the belief that some workers also know
it and trade on it for their own benefit, are either woefully ignorant
still of what the failure of their fullest effort means to us, or,
worse, are indifferent to the sufferings and endurings of their men
on active service, are unpatriotic, narrow, selfish enough to put the
screw on the nation for their own advantage.
I beg each war worker to remember that every slackening of their
efforts, every reduction of output, every day wasted, every stoppage
of work, inevitably encourages the enemy, prolongs the war, keeps
men chained to the misery of the trenches, piles up the casualties,
continues the loss of life. A strike, or the threat of a strike,
may win for the workers their 12½ per cent. increase of pay, the
“recognition” of some of their officials, their improved comfort; but
every such “victory” is only gained at the expense of the men in the
trenches, is paid for in flesh and blood in the firing line.
When men here are suffering as they must suffer, are enduring as they
do endure with good heart and courage, it comes as a profound shock and
a cruel discouragement to them to read in the papers, or go home and
discover, that any people there are apparently indifferent to their
fate, are ready to sacrifice them ruthlessly for any trivial personal
benefit, refuse to share the pinch of war, must have compensating
advantages to level up “the increased cost of living,” will even bring
a vital war industry to a standstill—it has been done—as a “protest”
against the difficulty of obtaining butter or margarine and tea. It
may be that one grows one-sided in ideas after more than three years’
soldiering, but can you blame us if we feel contempt for pitiful
grumblers and complainers who have a good roof overhead, a warm room
and fire, a dry bed, and no real lack of food, if we feel anger against
men who have all these things and yet go on strike, knowing that we
must pay the penalty? And let me flatly deny the claim which some
strikers and agitators still make that in these upheavals and checks on
war industry they are “fighting for the rights of their mates in the
trenches.” Their “mates in the trenches” will be ready and able to, and
certainly will, fight for their own rights when the war is won and they
can do so without endangering or delaying the winning.
Meantime can any man be fool enough honestly to believe that “mates
in the trenches” want anything more urgently than to win the war and
get out of it? If there are any such fools let them try to imagine the
feelings of the “mate” cowering and shivering over a scanty handful of
wet wood or black-smoky dust “coal ration” who hears that coal miners
at home threaten a strike; of the man crouched in a battered trench
that is being blasted to bits by German steel shells from steel guns,
who learns that our steel-makers are “out” and if their demands were
not satisfied would continue to strike indefinitely and hold up the
making of the guns and shells which alone can protect us; of the man
who is being bombed from the air night after night in his billets and
reads that 50,000 aircraft workers are on strike, and that the Front
will be poorer as a result by hundreds of the aircraft which might bomb
the enemy ’dromes out of action and stop their raiding; the dismay of
the man about to go on a long deferred and eagerly waited leave when
he is told that all leaves may have to be stopped because a threatened
strike of “foot-plate” workers may strand him at his debarkation port.
Will it soothe or satisfy a man in any of these cases to be told the
strikes are really fights for his rights, especially when you remember
he knows that as a result of the strike he may be too dead to have any
rights to be fought for?
The best I can wish for this book is that it may do even one little
bit to make plain with what cheerfulness—cheerfulness and even at
times almost incredible humour—the Front is sticking it out, with what
complete confidence in final victory this year’s fight is being begun;
and may make yet more plain the need for every man and woman at home
to give their last ounce of energy to help win the war speedily and
conclusively.
BOYD CABLE.
ON THE WESTERN FRONT,
_January 7th, 1918._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. TRENCH-MADE ART 1
II. THE SUICIDE CLUB 21
III. IN THE WOOD 44
IV. THE DIVING TANK 62
V. IN THE MIST 74
VI. SEEING RED 99
VII. AN AIR BARRAGE 117
VIII. NIGHTMARE 137
IX. THE GILDED STAFF 156
X. A RAID 172
XI. A ROARING TRADE 183
XII. HOME 205
XIII. BRING UP THE GUNS 227
XIV. OUR BATTERY’S PRISONER 246
XV. OUR TURN 262
XVI. ACCORDING TO PLAN 277
XVII. DOWN IN HUNLAND 297
XVIII. THE FINAL OBJECTIVE 318
XIX. ARTILLERY PREPARATION 327
XX. STRETCHER-BEARERS 336
XXI. THE CONQUERORS 345
FRONT LINES
I
TRENCH-MADE ART
BY the very nature of their job the R.A.M.C. men in the Field
Ambulances have at intervals a good deal of spare time on their hands.
The personnel has to be kept at a strength which will allow of the
smooth and rapid handling of the pouring stream of casualties which
floods back from the firing line when a big action is on; and when a
period of inactivity comes in front the stream drops to a trickle that
doesn’t give the field ambulances “enough work to keep themselves warm.”
It was in one of these slack periods that Corporal Richard, of the
Oughth London Field Ambulance, resumed the pleasurable occupation of
his civilian days, to his own great satisfaction and the enormous
interest of his comrades. Richard in pre-war days had been a sculptor,
and the chance discovery near the ambulance camp of a stream where
a very fair substitute for modelling clay could be had led him to
experiments and a series of portrait modellings. He had no lack of
models. Every other man in his squad was most willing to be “took,”
and would sit with most praiseworthy patience for as long as required,
and for a time Richard revelled in the luxury of unlimited (and
free-of-cost) models and in turning out portraits and caricatures in
clay. He worked with such speed, apparent ease, and complete success
that before long he had half the men endeavouring to imitate his
artistic activities.
Then Richard attempted more serious work, and in the course of
time turned out a little figure study over which the more educated
and artistic of his friends waxed most enthusiastic, and which he
himself, considering it carefully and critically, admitted to be “not
bad.” On the other hand, it is true that many members of the company
regarded the masterpiece with apathy, and in some cases almost with
disapproval. “Seems a pity,” said one critic, “that the corp’ril should
’ave wasted all this time over the one job. Spent every minute of ’is
spare time, ’e ’as, fiddlin’ an’ touchin’ up at it; could ’ave done a
dozen o’ them picturs o’ us chaps in the time. An’, now it is done,
’tain’t quarter sich a good joke as that one o’ the sergeant-major wi’
the bottle nose. Fair scream, that was.”
But in due time the corporal went home on leave, and took his
study along with him. Later it gained a place in an exhibition of
“Trench-made Art” in London, many newspaper paragraphs, and finally a
photo in a picture paper and a note stating who the work was by and the
conditions under which it was performed.
A good score of the picture papers arrived at the Oughth London from
friends at home to men in the unit. That did it. There was an immediate
boom in Art in the Oughth London, and sculpture became the popular
spare-time hobby of the unit. This was all, as I have said, at a period
when spare time was plentiful. The unit was billeted in a village well
behind the firing-line in a peacefully sylvan locality. It was early
summer, so that the light lasted long in the evenings, and gave plenty
of opportunity to the sculptors to pursue their Art after the day’s
duties were done.
As a consequence the output of sculpture would have done credit—in
quantity if not, perhaps, in quality—to a popular atelier in full
swing. The more enterprising attempted to follow the corporal’s path
in portrait and caricature, and it must be confessed were a good deal
more successful in the latter branch. The portraits usually required an
explanatory inscription, and although the caricatures required the same
in most cases, they only had to be ugly enough, to show a long enough
nose, or a big enough mouth, and to be labelled with the name of some
fair butt or sufficiently unpopular noncom. to secure a most satisfying
and flattering meed of praise.
Less ambitious spirits contented themselves with simpler and more
easily recognisable subjects. The cross or crucifix which, as a rule,
marks the cross or forked roads in this part of France had from the
first caught the attention and interest of the Londoners, and now, in
the new flush of Art, provided immediate inspiration. Almost every man
in the new school of sculpture graduated through a course of plain
crosses to more fancy ones, and higher up the scale to crucifixes.
But in point of popularity even the cross sank to second place when
Private Jimmy Copple, with an originality that amounted almost to
genius, turned out a miniature model coffin. The coffin, as a work
of art, had points that made it an unrivalled favourite. It was so
obviously and unmistakably a coffin that it required no single word of
explanation or description; it was simple enough in form to be within
the scope of the veriest beginner; it lent itself to embellishment and
the finer shades of reproduction in nails and tassels and name-plate;
and permitted, without evidence of undue “swank” on the part of the
artist, of his signature being appended in the natural and fitting
place on the name-plate.
There was a boom in model coffins of all sizes, and a constantly
flickering or raging discussion on details of tassels, cords, handles,
and other funereal ornaments. Private Copple again displayed his
originality of thought by blacking a specially fine specimen of his
handiwork with boot polish, with nails and name-plate (duly inscribed
with his own name and regimental number) picked out in the white clay.
He was so pleased with this that he posted it home, and, on receiving
warm words of praise from his mother in Mile End, and the information
that the coffin was installed for ever as a household ornament and an
object of interest and admiration to all neighbours, a steady export
trade in clay coffins was established from the Oughth London to friends
and relatives at home.
The Art School was still flourishing when the unit was moved up
from its peaceful and prolonged rest to take a turn up behind the
firing-line. The removal from their clay supply might have closed
down the artistic activities, but, fortunately, the Oughth had hardly
settled in to their new quarters when it was found that the whole
ground was one vast bed of chalk, chalk which was easily obtainable in
any shaped and sized lumps and which proved most delightfully easy to
manipulate with a jack or pen-knife. The new modelling material, in
fact, gave a fillip of novelty to the art, and the coffins and crosses
proved, when completed, to have a most desirable quality of solidity
and of lasting and retaining their shape and form far better than the
similar objects in clay.
Better still, the chalk could be carried about on the person as no clay
could, and worked at anywhere in odd moments. Bulging side-pockets
became a marked feature of inspection parades, until one day when the
C.O. went round, and noticing a craggy projection under the pocket of
Private Copple, demanded to know what the private was loading himself
with, and told him abruptly to show the contents of his pocket. On
Copple producing with difficulty a lump of partially carved chalk,
the C.O. stared at it and then at the sheepish face of the private in
blank amazement. “What’s this?” he demanded. “What is it?”
“It—it’s a elephant, sir,” said Copple.
“An elephant,” said the C.O. dazedly. “An _elephant_?”
“Yessir—leastways, it will be a elephant when it’s finished,” said
Copple bashfully.
“Elephant—will be——” spluttered the C.O., turning to the officer who
accompanied him. “Is the man mad?”
“I think, sir,” said the junior, “he is trying to carve an elephant out
of a lump of chalk.”
“That’s it, sir,” said Copple, and with a dignified touch of resentment
at the “trying,” “I _am_ carving out a elephant.”
The C.O. turned over the block of chalk with four rudimentary legs
beginning to sprout from it, and then handed it back. “Take it away,”
he said. “Fall out, and take the thing away. And when you come on
parade next time leave—ah—your elephants in your billet.”
Copple fell out, and the inspection proceeded. But now the eye of the
C.O. went straight to each man’s pocket, and further lumps of chalk of
various sizes were produced one by one. “Another elephant?” said the
C.O. to the first one. “No, sir,” said the sculptor. “It’s a coffin.”
“A co—coffin,” said the C.O. faintly, and, turning to the officer, “A
coffin is what he said, eh?” The officer, who knew a good deal of the
existing craze, had difficulty in keeping a straight face. “Yes, sir,”
he said chokily, “a coffin.” The C.O. looked hard at the coffin and at
its creator, and handed it back. “And you,” he said to the next man,
tapping with his cane a nobbly pocket. “Mine’s a coffin, too, sir,” and
out came another coffin.
The C.O. stepped back a pace, and let his eye rove down the line. The
next man shivered as the eye fell on him, as well he might, because
he carried in his pocket a work designed to represent the head of the
C.O.—a head of which, by the way, salient features lent themselves
readily to caricature. None of these features had been overlooked
by the artist, and the identity of the portrait had been further
established by the eye-glass which it wore, and by the exaggerated
badges of rank on the shoulder. Up to the inspection and the horrible
prospect that the caricature would be confronted by its original, the
artist had been delighted with the praise bestowed by the critics
on the “likeness.” Now, with the eye of the C.O. roaming over his
shrinking person and protruding pocket, he cursed despairingly his own
skill.
“I think,” said the C.O. slowly, “the parade had better dismiss,
and when they have unburdened themselves of their—ah—elephants
and—ah—coffins—ah—fall in again for inspection.”
The portrait sculptor nearly precipitated calamity by his eager move
to dismiss without waiting for the word of command. And after this
incident sculpings were left out of pockets at parade times, and the
caricaturist forswore any attempts on subjects higher than an N.C.O.
The elephant which Private Copple had produced was another upward
step in his art. He had tried animal after animal with faint success.
The features of even such well-known animals as cats and cows had
a baffling way of fading to such nebulous outlines in his memory as
to be utterly unrecognisable when transferred to stone or chalk. A
horse, although models in plenty were around, proved to be a more
intricate subject than might be imagined, and there were trying
difficulties about the proper dimensions and proportions of head, neck,
and body. But an elephant had a beautiful simplicity of outline, a
solidity of figure that was excellently adapted for modelling, and a
recognisability that was proof against the carping doubts and scorn
of critics and rival artists. After all, an animal with four legs, a
trunk, and a tail is, and must be, an elephant. But there was one great
difficulty about the elephant—his tail was a most extraordinarily
difficult thing to produce whole and complete in brittle chalk, and
there was a distressing casualty list of almost-finished elephants from
this weakness.
At first Private Copple made the tail the last finishing touch to his
work, but when elephant after elephant had to be scrapped because the
tail broke off in the final carving, he reversed the process, began his
work on the tail and trunk—another irritatingly breakable part of an
elephant’s anatomy—and if these were completed successfully, went on
to legs, head, etc. If the trunk or tail broke, he threw away the block
and started on a fresh one. He finally improved on this and further
reduced the wastage and percentage of loss by beginning his elephant
with duplicate ends, with a trunk, that is, at head and stern. If one
trunk broke off he turned the remaining portion satisfactorily enough
into a tail; if neither broke and the body and legs were completed
without accident, he simply whittled one of the trunks down into a tail
and rounded off the head at that end into a haunch.
But now such humour as may be in this story must give way for the
moment to the tragedy of red war—as humour so often has to do at the
front.
Copple was just in the middle of a specially promising elephant
when orders came to move. He packed the elephant carefully in a
handkerchief and his pocket and took it with him back to the training
area where for a time the Oughth London went through a careful
instruction and rehearsing in the part they were to play in the next
move of the “Show” then running. He continued to work on his elephant
in such spare time as he had, and was so very pleased with it that he
clung to it when they went on the march again, although pocket space
was precious and ill to spare, and the elephant took up one complete
side pocket to itself.
Arrived at their appointed place in the show, Copple continued to
carry his elephant, but had little time to work on it because he was
busy every moment of the day and many hours of the night on his hard
and risky duties. The casualties came back to the Aid Post in a steady
stream that swelled at times to an almost overwhelming rush, and every
man of the Field Ambulance was kept going at his hardest. The Aid Post
was established in a partly wrecked German gun emplacement built of
concrete, and because all the ground about them was too ploughed up and
cratered with shell-fire to allow a motor ambulance to approach it,
the wounded had to be helped or carried back to the nearest point to
which the hard-working engineers had carried the new road, and there
were placed on the motors.
Private Copple was busy one morning helping to carry back some of the
casualties. A hot “strafe” was on, the way back led through lines and
clumped batches of batteries all in hot action, the roar of gun-fire
rose long and unbroken and deafeningly, and every now and then through
the roar of their reports and the diminishing wails of their departing
shells there came the rising shriek and rush of a German shell, the
crump and crash of its burst, the whistle and hum of flying splinters.
Private Copple and the rest of the R.A.M.C. men didn’t like it any more
than the casualties, who appeared to dread much more, now that they
were wounded, the chance of being hit again, chiefly because it would
be such “rotten luck” to get killed now that they had done their share,
got their “Blighty,” and with decent luck were soon to be out of it
all, and safely and comfortably back in hospital and home.
But, although many times the wounded asked to be laid down in a
shell-hole, or allowed to take cover for a moment at the warning shriek
of an approaching shell, the ambulance men only gave way to them
when, from the noise, they judged the shell was going to fall very
perilously close. If they had stopped for every shell the work would
have taken too long, and the Aid Post was too cram-full, and too many
fresh cases were pouring in, to allow of any delay on the mere account
of danger. So there were during the day a good many casualties amongst
the ambulance men, and so at the end Private Copple was caught. He had
hesitated a moment too long in dropping himself into the cover of the
shell crater where he had just lowered the “walking wounded” he was
supporting back. The shell whirled down in a crescendo of howling,
roaring noise, and, just as Copple flung himself down, burst with
an earth-shaking crash a score or so of yards away. Copple felt a
tremendous blow on his side.
They had ripped most of the clothes off him and were busy with first
field dressings on his wounds when he recovered enough to take any
interest in what was going on. The dressers were in a hurry because
more shells were falling near; there was one vacant place in a motor
ambulance, and its driver was in haste to be off and out of it.
“You’re all right,” said one of the men, in answer to Copple’s faint
inquiry. “All light wounds. Lord knows what you were carrying a lump of
stone about in your pocket for, but it saved you this trip. Splinter
hit it, and smashed it, and most of the wounds are from bits of the
stone—luckily for you, because if it hadn’t been there a chunk of
Boche iron would just about have gone through you.”
“Stone?” said Copple faintly. “Strewth! That was my blessed elephant in
my bloomin’ pocket.”
“Elephant?” said the orderly. “In your pocket? An’ did it have pink
stripes an’ a purple tail? Well, never mind about elephants now. You
can explain ’em to the Blighty M.O.[1] Here, up you get.” And he
helped Copple to the ambulance.
Later on, the humour of the situation struck Private Copple. He worked
up a prime witticism which he afterwards played off on the Sister who
was dressing his wounds in a London hospital.
“D’you know,” he said, chuckling, “I’m the only man in this war that’s
been wounded by a elephant?”
The Sister stayed her bandaging, and looked at him curiously. “Wounded
by a elephant,” repeated Copple cheerfully. “Funny to think it’s mebbe
a bit of ’is trunk made the ’ole in my thigh, an’ I got ’is ’ead and
’is ’ind leg in my ribs.”
“You mustn’t talk nonsense, you know,” said the Sister hesitatingly.
Certainly, Copple had shown no signs of shell-shock or unbalanced mind
before, but——
“We used to carve things out o’ chalk stone in my lot,” went on Copple,
and explained how the shell splinter had been stopped by the elephant
in his pocket. The
Sister was immensely interested and a good deal amused, and
laughed—rather immoderately and in the wrong place, as Copple thought
when he described his coffin masterpiece with the name-plate bearing
his own name, and the dodge of starting on the elephant with a trunk at
each end.
“Well, I’ve heard a lot of queer things about the front, Copple,” she
said, busying herself on the last bandage. “But I didn’t know they went
in for sculpture. ‘Ars longa, vitæ brevis.’ That’s a saying in Latin,
and it means exactly, ‘Art is long, life is short.’ You’d understand
it better if I put it another way. It means that it takes a long, long
time to make a perfect elephant——”
“It does,” said Copple. “But if you begins ‘im like I told you, with a
trunk each end——”
“There, that’ll do,” said the Sister, pinning the last bandage. “Now
lie down and I’ll make you comfortable. A long time to make a perfect
elephant; and life is very short——”
“That’s true,” said Copple. “Especially up Wipers way.”
“So, if making elephants gives some people the greatest possible
pleasure in life, why not let them make elephants? I’m an artist of
sorts myself, or was trying to be before the war, so I speak feelingly
for a brother elephant-maker, Copple.”
“Artist, was you?” said Copple, with great interest. “That must be a
jolly sorter job.”
“It is, Copple—or was,” said the Sister, finishing the tucking-up.
“Much jollier than a starched-smooth uniform and life—and lots in
it.” And she sighed and made a little grimace at the stained bandages
she picked up. “But if you and thousands of other men give up your
particular arts and go out to have your short lives cut shorter, the
least I can do is to give up mine to try to make them longer.”
Copple didn’t quite follow all this. “I wish I’d a bit o’ chalk stone,
Sister,” he said; “I’d teach you how to do a elephant with the two
trunks.”
“And how if a trunk breaks off one’s elephant—or life, one can always
try to trim it down to quite a useful tail,” said the Sister, smiling
at him as she turned to go. “You’ve already taught me something of
that, Copple—you and the rest there in the trenches—better than you
know.”
II
THE SUICIDE CLUB
THE Royal Jocks (Oughth Battalion) had suffered heavily in the fighting
on the Somme, and after they had been withdrawn from action to another
and quieter part of the line, all ranks heard with satisfaction that
they were to be made up to full strength by a big draft from Home.
There were the usual wonderings and misgivings as to what sort of a
crowd the draft would be, and whether they would be at all within the
limits of possibility of licking into something resembling the shape
that Royal Jocks ought to be.
“Expect we’ll ’ave a tidy job to teach ’em wot’s wot,” said Private
“Shirty” Low, “but we must just pass along all the fatigues they can
’andle, and teach ’em the best we can.”
“Let’s hope,” said his companion, “that they get an advance o’ pay to
bring with ’em. We’ll be goin’ back to billets soon, and we’ll be able
to introduce ’em proper to the estaminets.”
“You boys’ll have to treat ’em easy to begin with,” said a corporal.
“Don’t go breakin’ their hearts for a start. They’ll be pretty sick an’
home-sick for a bit, and you don’t want to act rough before they begin
to feel their feet.”
This was felt to be reasonable, and there was a very unanimous opinion
that the best way of treating the new arrivals was on the lines of the
suggestion about introducing them carefully and fully to the ways of
the country, with particular attention to the customs of the estaminets.
“And never forget,” said the Corporal in conclusion, “that, good or
bad, they’re Royal Jocks after all; and it will be up to you fellows to
see that they don’t get put on by any other crush, and to give ’em a
help out if they tumble into any little trouble.”
The sentiments of the battalion being fairly well summed up by this
typical conversation, it will be understood with what mixed feelings
it was discovered on the actual arrival of the draft that they, the
draft, were not in the slightest degree disposed to be treated as new
hands, declined utterly to be in any way fathered, declined still more
emphatically to handle more than their fair share of fatigues, and most
emphatically of all to depend upon the good offices of the old soldiers
for their introduction to the ways of the estaminets. The draft, which
was far too strong in numbers to be simply absorbed and submerged in
the usual way of drafts, showed an inclination to hang together for the
first few days, and, as the Battalion soon began somewhat dazedly to
realise, actually to look down upon the old soldiers and to treat them
with a tinge of condescension.
The open avowal of this feeling came one night in the largest and
most popular estaminet in the village to which the Battalion had been
withdrawn “on rest.”
“Shirty” and some cronies were sitting at a stone-topped table with
glasses and a jug of watery beer in front of them. The room was fairly
full and there were about as many of the draft present as there were
of the old lot, and practically all the draft were gathered in little
groups by themselves and were drinking together. Close to Shirty’s
table was another with half a dozen of the draft seated about it, and
Shirty and his friends noticed with some envy the liberal amount of
beer they allowed themselves. One of them spoke to the girl who was
moving about amongst the tables with a tray full of jugs. “Here, miss,
anither jug o’ beer, please,” and held out the empty jug. Shirty saw
his opportunity, and with an ingratiating smile leaned across and spoke
to the girl. “Don-nay them encore der bee-are,” he said, and then,
turning to the other men, “She don’t understand much English, y’see.
But jus’ ask me to pass ’er the word if you wants anything.”
A big-framed lad thanked him civilly, but Shirty fancied he saw a
flicker of a smile pass round the group. He turned back and spoke to
the girl again as she halted at their table and picked up the empty
jug. “Encore si voo play,” he said. “Eh les messieurs la ba——”
jerking a thumb back at the other table, but quite unostentatiously,
so that the other group might not see, “la ba, voo compree, payay
voo toot la bee-are.” He winked slyly at his fellows and waited
developments complacently, while all smoked their cigarettes gravely
and nonchalantly.
The girl brought the two jugs of beer presently and put one on each
table. “Combien?” said one of the draft who had not spoken before—a
perky little man with a sharp black moustache. He hesitated a moment
when the girl told him how much, and then spoke rapidly in fluent
French. Shirty at his table listened uneasily to the conversation that
followed, and made a show of great indifference in filling up the
glasses. The little man turned to him. “There’s some mistake here, m’
lad,” he said. “The girl says you ordered your beer and said we’d pay
for it.”
Shirty endeavoured to retrieve the lost position. “Well, that’s good of
you,” he said pleasantly. “An’ we don’t mind if we do ’ave a drink wi’
you.”
The big man turned round. “Drink wi’s when ye’re asked,” he said
calmly. “But that’s no’ yet,” and he turned back to his own table.
“Tell her they’ll pay their ain, Wattie.” Wattie told her, and Shirty’s
table with some difficulty raised enough to cover the cost of the beer.
Shirty felt that he had to impress these new men with a true sense of
their position. “My mistake,” he said to his companions, but loudly
enough for all to hear. “But I might ’ave twigged these raw rookies
wouldn’t ’ave knowed it was a reg’lar custom in the Army for them to
stand a drink to the old hands to pay their footing. An’ most likely
they haven’t the price o’ a drink on them, anyway.”
“Lauchie,” said the big man at the other table, “have ye change o’ a
ten-franc note? No. Wattie, maybe ye’ll ask the lassie to change it,
an’ tell her to bring anither beer. This is awfu’ swipes o’ stuff t’
be drinkin’. It’s nae wonder the men that’s been oot here a whilie has
droppit awa’ to such shauchlin’, knock-kneed, weak-like imitations of
putty men.”
This was too much. Shirty pushed back his chair and rose abruptly. “If
you’re speakin’ about the men o’ this battalion,” he began fiercely,
when a corporal broke in, “That’ll do. No rough-housin’ here. We don’t
want the estaminets put out o’ bounds.” He turned to the other table.
“And you keep a civil tongue between your teeth,” he said, “or you’ll
have to be taught better manners, young fella me lad.”
“Ay,” said the big man easily, “I’ll be glad enough t’ be learned from
them that can learn me. An’ aifter the café closes will be a good
enough time for a first lesson, if there’s anybody minded for’t,” and
he glanced at Shirty.
“Tak him ootside an’ gie him a deb on the snoot, Rabbie,” said another
of the draft, nodding openly at the enraged Shirty.
“Ay, ay, Wullie,” said Rabbie gently. “But we’ll just bide till the
Corporal’s no about. We’ll no be gettin’ his stripes into trouble.”
All this was bad enough, but worse was to follow. It was just before
closing-time that a Gunner came in and discovered a friend amongst the
many sitting at Rabbie’s table. He accepted the pressing invitation to
a drink, and had several in quick succession in an endeavour to make an
abundant capacity compensate for the inadequate time.
“An’ how are you gettin’ on?” he asked as they all stood to go. “Shaken
down wi’ your new chums all right?”
And the whole room, new hands and old alike, heard Rabbie’s slow, clear
answer:
“We’re thinkin’ they’re an awfu’ saft kneel-an’-pray kind o’ push. But
noo we’ve jined them we’ll sune learn them to be a battalyun. I wish
we’d a few more o’ the real stuff from the depot wi’s, but Lauchie
here’s the lad tae learn them, and we’ll maybe mak a battalyun o’ them
yet.”
The “learning” began that night after the estaminets closed, and there
was a liberal allowance of black eyes and swollen features on parade
next morning. It transpired that boxing had been rather a feature back
at the depot, and the new men fully held their own in the “learning”
episodes. But out of the encounters grew a mutual respect, and before
long the old and the new had mixed, and were a battalion instead of
“the battalion and the draft.”
Only “Shirty” of the whole lot retained any animus against the new,
and perhaps even with him it is hardly fair to say it was against the
one-time draft, because actually it was against one or two members of
it. He had never quite forgiven nor forgotten the taking-down he had
had from Rabbie Macgregor and Lauchie McLauchlan, and continued openly
or veiledly hostile to them.
Thrice he had fought Rabbie, losing once to him—that was the first
time after the estaminet episode—fighting once to an undecided finish
(which was when the picket broke in and arrested both), and once with
the gloves on at a Battalion Sports, when he had been declared the
winner on points—a decision which Rabbie secretly refused to accept,
and his friend Lauchie agreed would have been reversed if the fight had
been allowed to go to a finish.
Shirty was in the bombing section, or “Suicide Club,” as it was
called, and both Rabbie and Lauchie joined the same section, and
painfully but very thoroughly acquired the art of hurling Mills’
grenades at seen or unseen targets from above ground or out of deep and
narrow and movement-cramping trenches.
And after a winter and spring of strenuous training, the battalion
came at last to move up and take a part in the new offensive of 1917.
This attack had several features about it that pleased and surprised
even the veterans of the Somme. For one thing, the artillery fire
on our side had a weight and a precision far beyond anything they
had experienced, and the attack over the open of No Man’s Land was
successfully made with a low cost in casualties which simply amazed
them all.
Rabbie openly scoffed at the nickname of “Suicide Club” for the Bombing
Section. They had lost a couple of men wounded in the first attack, and
had spent a merry morning frightening Boche prisoners out of their
dug-outs, or in obstinate cases flinging Mills’ grenades down the
stairways.
They had waited to help stand off the counter-attack the first night,
but never needed to raise their heads or fling a bomb over the edge
of the broken parapet, because the counter-attack was wiped out by
artillery and rifle fire long before it came within bombing distance.
“You an’ yer Suicide Club!” said Rabbie contemptuously to Shirty after
this attack had been beaten off. “It’s no even what the insurance folks
would ca’ a hazardous occupation.”
“Wait a bit,” said Shirty. “We all knows you’re a bloomin’
Scots-wha-hae hero, but you ’aven’t bin in it proper yet. Wait till you
’ave, an’ then talk.”
The Bombing Section went into it “proper” next day, when the battalion
made a little forward move that cost them more casualties to take a
trench and a hundred yards of ground than the mile advance of the
previous day.
And when they had got the battered trench, the bombers were sent to
clear a communication trench leading out of it and held by the Germans.
This trench was more or less broken down, with fallen sides or tumbled
heaps of earth and gaping shell craters every here and there along
its length. The Germans contested it stoutly, and the bombers had to
keep below the level of the ground and strictly to the trench, because
above-ground was being swept by a hurricane of rifle and machine-gun
fire from both sides. Length by length of the zig-zag trench they
pushed their way, their grenades curving up and ahead of them, the
German “potato-masher” grenades whirling over and down in on them,
exploding with a prodigious noise and smoke but comparatively little
damage, and yet cutting down the attackers one by one
Rabbie, Lauchie, and Shirty were all in the trench together, and were
still on their feet when they came to the point where the communication
trench ran into another, a support trench presumably, running across
it. At this point they were supposed to hold on and consolidate. All
had gone well according to programme with Rabbie and his companions,
and they turned into the support trench, cleared a couple of bays to
either side of the communication way, pulled down sandbags, and piled
earth to make a “block” on either side, and settled down to hold their
position and to await orders.
They were not left in peaceful possession for long. A vigorous attack
was delivered, first at one barricade and then on the other, and both
were beaten off with some difficulty and a number of casualties. The
bombers had been reinforced several times to make up their reduced
numbers, but no further reinforcements had come to them for some time,
and now there were only half a dozen of them and one officer left.
The officer sent back a lightly wounded man to say they held their
point, but wanted support. The message, as they found afterwards, never
got through, because the messenger was killed on the way by a shell
splinter.
Another heavy and determined attack of bombers came soon after. For
five minutes the Germans showered over their grenades, and the short
section of trench held by the little party of Royal Jocks was shaken
to pieces by the force of the explosions, the sandbag “blocks” almost
destroyed, several more men hit, and the officer killed. The Jocks
returned the shower of bombs with plentiful Mills’ grenades, but they
were forced back, and almost the last thing the officer did before he
was killed was to retire the remnants of the party to the communication
trench entrance, build a fresh block, and prepare to hold on there.
There were only four men left, and all were more or less lightly
wounded with splinters from the German grenades. Just before another
attack came they were reinforced by two bayonet men, and one bomber
with buckets of Mills’.
“We’re all that’s left o’ C Company’s bombers,” said one of them. “We
were sent up to reinforce, but they’re shellin’ the trench back there,
an’ the others was knocked out.”
Another savage attack followed, and was beaten off with difficulty and
the loss of another couple of men. Since there was no officer and no
N.C.O. there, Shirty, as the oldest soldier, took charge.
“This isn’t good enough,” he shouted as another shower of grenades
began to pitch over and burst with rending explosions in and about the
trench. “Why don’t they reinforce. I’m goin’ to retire if they don’t
send supports soon.”
Now, as a matter of fact, the officer bringing up the last supports had
received orders to retire the party if they were hard pressed, because
the attacks up the other communication trenches had failed to clear a
way, and this one party was in danger of being overwhelmed. But since
the little party knew nothing of these orders they were reluctant to
retire, and unfortunately there was little prospect of the supports
they expected coming.
Their grenades were running short, too, and that decided the point
for them. Shirty Low and Rabbie were crouched close up against their
barricade, and Lauchie took what cover he could get behind the heaped
debris of the broken-down trench wall close at Rabbie’s side. He was
squatted in a little niche of the wall and high enough up to allow
him to lift his head and peep over the parapet. He ducked his head as
several grenades spun over, lifted it, and peered out again.
“Here they come,” he shouted. “Lat them hae’t. Rabbie, pass me up some
o’ they bombs.”
“Wull I hell,” retorted Rabbie, rapidly pulling the pins out, and
tossing his grenades over. “Get yer bombs yersel’.”
“One of you two must go back and get some Mills’,” shouted Shirty.
“We’ll ’ave to duck back, but we’ll need supplies to stand ’em off
with. Go on now, one o’ you. Look nippy. We’ve ’ardly any left.”
“Go on, Lauchie,” said Rabbie. “I’ve half a dizen left, an’ you’ve
nane.”
“I will no,” said Lauchie indignantly. “Gang yersel’. I’m the senior o’
us twa, an’ I’m tellin’ ye.”
“You ma senior,” shouted Rab indignantly. “Yer no ma senior. I was
sojerin’ lang afore ever ye jined up.”
“Havers, man, Ye’ve hardly been off the square five meenutes.”
Shirty broke in angrily. “Will you shut yer heads, and get back, one o’
you? We’ll be done in if they rush us again.”
“See here, Rabbie,” said Lauchie, “I’ll prove yer no ma senior, and
then mebbe ye’ll dae what yer telled. Here’s ma paybook, wi’ date o’
enlistment. Let’s see yours.”
And he was actually proceeding to fumble for his paybook, and Rabbie
eagerly doing the same, when Shirty again intervened, cursing savagely,
and ordering Rabbie back.
“I’m his senior, Shirty, an’ he should go,” said Rabbie. “Lat him show
you his book.”
“Book be blistered,” yelled Shirty. “Go for them Mills’ or I’ll have
you crimed for refusin’ an order.”
Rabbie slid down from his place. “I suppose yer in chairge here,
Shirty,” he said. “But mind this—I’ll bring the Mills’, but as sure’s
death I’ll hammer the heid aff ye when I get ye back yonder again. Mind
that now,” and he scrambled off back along the trench.
He carried a couple of empty buckets with him, and as he went he heard
the renewed crash of explosions behind him, and hastened his pace,
knowing the desperate straits the two would be in without bombs to
beat off the attack. The trench was badly wrecked, and there were many
dead of both sides in it, so that for all his haste he found the going
desperately slow.
The guns were firing heavily on both sides, but presently above the
roar of their fire and the wailing rush of the passing shells Rabbie
heard a long booming drone from overhead, glanced up and saw the
plunging shape of an aeroplane swooping down and over his head towards
the point he had left the others. It was past in a flash and out of
sight beyond the trench wall that shut him in. But next instant Rabbie
heard the sharp rattle of her machine-gun, a pause, and then another
long rattle. Rabbie grunted his satisfaction, and resumed his toilsome
clambering over the debris. “That’ll gie the Fritzez something tae
think about,” he murmured, and then pounced joyfully on a full bucket
of Mills’ grenades lying beside a dead bomber. Many more grenades were
scattered round, and Rabbie hastily filled one of his own buckets and
grabbed up a sandbag he found partially filled with German grenades.
He turned to hurry back, hearing as he did so another crackle of
overhead machine-gun fire. Next moment the plane swept overhead with a
rush, and was gone back towards the lines before Rabbie could well look
up. Half-way back to where he had left the others he heard the crash of
detonating bombs, and next moment came on Lauchie crouching at a corner
of the trench, the blood streaming down his face, his last grenade in
his hand, and his fingers on the pin ready to pull it. Rabbie plumped
a bucket down beside him, and without words the two began plucking out
the pins and hurling the grenades round the corner.
“Where’s the ithers?” shouted Rabbie when the shattering roar of their
exploding grenades had died down.
“Dead,” said Lauchie tersely. “Except Shirty, an’ he’s sair wounded.
I left him hidin’ in a bit broken dug-out half-a-dizen turns o’ the
trench back.”
“Come on,” said Rabbie, rising abruptly. “We’ll awa’ back an’ get him.”
“He said I was t’ retire slow, an’ haud them back as well’s I could,”
said Lauchie.
“I’m awa’ back for him,” said Rabbie. “Ye needna come unless ye like.”
He flung a couple of grenades round the corner; Lauchie followed suit,
and the instant they heard the boom of the explosions both pushed round
and up the next stretch through the eddying smoke and reek, pulling the
pins as they ran, and tossing the bombs ahead of them into the next
section of trench. And so, in spite of the German bombers’ resistance,
they bombed their way back to where Shirty had been left. Several times
they trod over or past the bodies of men killed by their bombs, once
they encountered a wounded officer kneeling with his shoulder against
the trench wall and snapping a couple of shots from a magazine pistol
at them as they plunged through the smoke. Rabbie stunned him with a
straight and hard-flung bomb, leapt, dragging Lauchie with him, back
into cover until the bomb exploded, and then ran forward again. He
stooped in passing and picked up the pistol from beside the shattered
body. “Might be useful,” he said, “an’ it’s a good sooveneer onyway. I
promised a sooveneer tae yon French lassie back in Poppyring.”
They found Shirty crouched back and hidden in the mouth of a
broken-down dug-out, and helped him out despite his protests. “I was
all right there,” he said. “You two get back as slow as you can, and
keep them back all——”
“See here, Shirty,” Rabbie broke in, “yer no in charge o’ the pairty
now. Yer a casualty an’ I’m the senior—I’ve ma paybook here t’ prove
it if ye want, so just haud your wheesh an’ come on.”
He hoisted the wounded man—Shirty’s leg was broken and he had many
other minor wounds—to his shoulder, and began to move back while
Lauchie followed close behind, halting at each corner to cover the
retreat with a short bombing encounter.
Half-way back they met a strong support party which had been dispatched
immediately after the receipt by the H.Q. signallers of a scribbled
note dropped by a low-flying aeroplane. The party promptly blocked the
trench, and prepared to hold it strongly until the time came again to
advance, and the three bombers were all passed back to make their way
to the dressing station.
There Shirty was placed on a stretcher and made ready for the
ambulance, and the other two, after their splinter cuts and several
slight wounds had been bandaged, prepared to walk back.
“So long, Shirty,” said Rabbie. “See ye again when ye come up an’
rejine.”
“So long, chum,” said Shirty, “an’ I’m—er—I——”. And he stammered
some halting phrase of thanks to them for coming back to fetch him out.
“Havers,” said Rabbie, “I wisna goin’ t’ leave ye there tae feenish the
war in a Fritz jail. An’ yer forgettin’ whit I promised ye back there
when ye ordered me for they bombs—that I’d hammer yer heid aff when
we came oot. I’ll just mind ye o’ that when ye jine up again.”
“Right-o,” said Shirty happily. “I won’t let you forget it.”
“I wunner,” said Rabbie reflectively, lighting a cigarette after Shirty
had gone—“I wunner if he’ll ever be fit t’ jine again. I’d fair like
t’ hae anither bit scrap wi’ him, for I never was richt satisfied wi’
yon decesion against me.”
“He’s like t’ be Corporal or Sairgint time he comes oot again,” said
Lauchie. “Promotion’s quick in they Reserve an’ Trainin’ Brigades at
hame.”