trench, sir.” Both sank to their knees and crawled carefully forward,
and in a minute came to the trench and the spot where the man had
vanished. “Coming near the front line, I expect,” said the Lieutenant,
and on the word came the crack of a rifle from the mist ahead. The
Lieutenant heaved a sigh of relief. “Keep down,” he said. “Work along
this trench edge. Sure to lead to the front line.”
A new hope flooded him. There was still the front trench to cross, but
the ease with which they had first come over it made him now, turning
the prospect over in his mind as he crawled, consider that difficulty
with a light heart. His own trench and his friends began to seem very
near. Crossing the neutral ground, which at other times would have
loomed as a dangerous adventure, was nothing after this hair-raising
performance of blundering about inside the German lines. He moved with
certainty and confidence, although yet with the greatest caution. Twice
they came to a belt of wire running down to the edges of the trench
they followed. The Lieutenant, after a brief pause to look and listen,
slid down into the trench, passed the wire, climbed out again, always
with Studd close behind him. Once they lay flat on the very edge of
the trench and watched a German pass along beneath them so close they
could have put a hand on his helmet. Once more they crouched in a
shell-hole while a dozen men floundered along the trench. And so they
came at last to the front line. Foot by foot they wriggled close up
to it. The Lieutenant at first saw no sign of a German, but Studd
beside him gripped his arm with a warning pressure, and the Lieutenant
lay motionless. Suddenly, what he had taken to be part of the outline
of the parapet beyond the trench moved and raised, and he saw the
outline of a steel-helmeted head and a pair of broad shoulders. The
man turned his head and spoke, and with a shock the Lieutenant heard
a murmur of voices in the trench, saw figures stir and move in the
mist. Studd wriggled noiselessly closer and, with his lips touching the
Lieutenant’s ear, whispered “I know where we are. Remember this bit
we’re on. We crossed to the left of here.”
They backed away from the trench a little and worked carefully along it
to their left, and presently Studd whispered, “About here, I think.”
They edged closer in, staring across for sight of the silhouette of the
rifle butt above the parapet. The mist had grown thicker again and the
parapet showed no more than a faint grey bulk against the lighter grey.
The trench appeared to be full of men—“standing to” the Lieutenant
supposed they were—and they moved at the most appalling risk, their
lives hanging on their silence and stealth, perhaps on the chance of
some man climbing back out of the trench. The Lieutenant was shivering
with excitement, his nerves jumping at every movement or sound of a
voice from the trench beside them.
Studd grasped his elbow again and pointed to the broken edge of trench
where they lay, and the Lieutenant, thinking he recognised the spot
they had climbed out on their first crossing, stared hard across to
the parapet in search of the rifle butt. He saw it at last. But what
lay between it and them? Were there Germans crouching in the trench
bottom? But they must risk that, risk everything in a dash across and
over the parapet. A puff of wind stirred and set the mist eddying and
lifting a moment. They dare wait no longer. If the wind came the mist
would go, and with it would go their chance of crossing the No Man’s
Land. He whispered a moment to Studd, sat up, twisted his legs round
to the edge of the trench, slid his trench dagger from its sheath and
settled his fingers to a firm grip on the handle, took a deep breath,
and slid over feet foremost into the trench. In two quick strides he
was across it and scrambling up the parapet. The trench here was badly
broken down and a muddy pool lay in the bottom. Studd caught a foot
in something and splashed heavily, and a voice from a yard or two on
their left called sharply. The Lieutenant slithering over the parapet
heard and cringed from the shot he felt must come. But a voice to their
right answered; the Lieutenant slid down, saw Studd scramble over
after, heard the voices calling and answering and men splashing in
the trench behind them. He rose to his feet and ran, Studd following
close. From the parapet behind came the spitting bang of a rifle and
the bullet whipped past most uncomfortably close. It would have been
safer perhaps to have dropped to shelter in a shell-hole and crawled on
after a reasonable wait, but the Lieutenant had had enough of crawling
and shell-holes for one night, and was in a most single-minded hurry
to get away as far and as fast as he could from Germans’ neighbourhood.
He and Studd ran on, and no more shots followed them. The mist was
thinning rapidly, and they found their own outposts in the act of
withdrawal to the trench. The Lieutenant hurried past them, zigzagged
through their own wire, and with a gasp of relief jumped down into
the trench. He sat there a few minutes to recover his breath and then
started along the line to find Headquarters and make his report.
On his way he met the officer who had watched them leave the trench and
was greeted with a laugh. “Hullo, old cock. Some mud! You look as if
you’d been crawling a bit. See any Boche?”
“Crawling!” said the Lieutenant. “Any Boche! I’ve been doing nothing
but crawl for a hundred years—except when I was squirming on my face.
And I’ve been falling over Boche, treading on Boche, bumping into
Boche, listening to Boche remarks—oh, ever since I can remember,” and
he laughed, just a trifle hysterically.
“Did you get over their line then? If so, you’re just back in time.
Mist has clean gone in the last few minutes.” A sudden thought struck
the Lieutenant. He peered long and carefully over the parapet. The last
wisps of mist were shredding away and the jumble of torn ground and
trenches and wire in the German lines was plainly visible. “Look,” said
the Lieutenant. “Three or four hundred yards behind their line—hanging
on some wire. That’s my coat....”
VI
SEEING RED
THE Mess, having finished reading the letters just brought in, were
looking through the home papers. Harvey, who used to be a bank clerk,
giggled over a page in _Punch_ and passed it round. “Pretty true,
too, isn’t it?” he said. The page was one of those silly jolly little
drawings by Bateman of men with curly legs, and the pictures showed
typical scenes from the old life of an average City clerk, trotting to
business, playing dominoes, and so on, and the last one of a fellow
tearing over the trenches in a charge with a real teeth-gritted,
blood-in-his-eye look, and the title of the lot was “It’s the Same Man.”
Everyone grinned at it and said “Pretty true,” or something like that.
“It reminds me ...” said the Australian.
Now this is the Australian’s story, which he said he had got from
one of the fellows in the show. For the truth or untruth I give no
guarantee, but just tell the tale for what it’s worth.
Teddy Silsey was an Australian born and bred, but he could not be
called a typical Australian so far as people in the Old Country count
him “typical.” With them there is a general impression that every real
Australian can “ride and shoot,” and that men in Australia spend the
greater part of their normal existence galloping about the “ranch”
after cattle or shooting kangaroos. Teddy Silsey wasn’t one of that
sort. He was one of the many thousands of the other sort, who have been
reared in the cities of Australia, and who all his life had gone to
school and business there and led just as humdrum and peaceable a life
as any London City clerk of the _Punch_ picture.
When the War came, Teddy was thirty years of age, married, and
comfortably settled in a little suburban house outside Sydney, and
already inclined to be—well, if not fat, at least distinctly stout.
He had never killed anything bigger than a fly or met anything more
dangerous than a mosquito; and after an unpleasant episode in which
his wife had asked him to kill for the Sunday dinner a chicken which
the poultry people had stupidly sent up alive, an episode which ended
in Teddy staggering indoors with blood-smeared hands and chalky face
while a headless fowl flapped round the garden, both Teddy and his wife
settled down to a firm belief that he “had a horror of blood,” and told
their friends and neighbours so with a tinge of complacency in the fact.
Remembering this, it is easy to understand the consternation in Mrs.
Teddy’s mind when, after the War had been running a year, Teddy
announced that he was going to enlist. He was firm about it too. He had
thought the whole thing out—house to be shut up, she to go stay with
her mother, his separation allowance so much, and so much more in the
bank to draw on, and so on. Her remonstrances he met so promptly that
one can only suppose them anticipated. His health? Never had a day’s
sickness, as she knew. His business prospects? The country’s prospects
were more important, and his Country Wanted Him. His “horror of blood”?
Teddy twisted uneasily. “I’ve a horror of the whole beastly business,”
he said—“of war and guns and shooting, of being killed, and ... of
leaving you.” This was diplomacy of the highest, and the resulting
interlude gently slid into an acceptance of the fact of his going.
He went, and—to get along with the War—at last came to France, and
with his battalion into the trenches. He had not risen above the rank
of private, partly because he lacked any ambition to command, and in
larger part because his superiors did not detect any ability in him
to handle the rather rough-and-ready crowd who were in his lot. Far
from army training and rations doing him physical harm, he throve on
them, and even put on flesh. But because he was really a good sort, was
always willing to lend any cash he had, take a fatigue for a friend,
joke over hardships and laugh at discomforts, he was on excellent terms
with his fellows. He shed a good many, if not all, of his suburban
peace ways, was a fairly good shot on the ranges, and even acquired
considerable skill and agility at bayonet practice. But he never quite
shed his “horror of blood.” Even after he had been in action a time or
two and had fired many rounds from his rifle, he had a vague hope each
time he pulled trigger that his bullet might not kill a man, might at
most only wound him enough to put him out of action. The first shell
casualty he saw in their own ranks made him literally and actually
sick, and even after he had seen many more casualties than he cared to
think about he still retained a squeamish feeling at sight of them.
And in his battalion’s share of The Push, where there was a good deal
of close-quarter work and play with bombs and bayonet, he never had
urgent need to use his bayonet, and when a party of Germans in a dug-out
refused to surrender, and persisted instead in firing up the steps at
anyone who showed at the top, Teddy stood aside and left the others to
do the bombing-out.
It was ridiculous, of course, that a fighting man who was there for
the express purpose of killing should feel any qualms about doing it,
but there it was.
Then came the day when the Germans made a heavy counter-attack on the
positions held by the Australians. The positions were not a complete
joined-up defensive line along the outer front. The fighting had
been heavy and bitter, and the German trenches which were captured
had been so thoroughly pounded by shell fire that they no longer
existed as trenches, and the Australians had to be satisfied with the
establishment of a line of posts manned as strongly as possible, with
plenty of machine-guns.
Teddy’s battalion was not in this front fringe when the counter-attack,
launched without any warning bombardment, flooded suddenly over the
outer defences, surged heavily back, drove in the next lines, and broke
and battered them in and down underfoot.
Something like a couple of thousand yards in over our lines that first
savage rush brought the Germans, and nearly twoscore guns were in
their hands before they checked and hesitated, and the Australian
supports flung themselves in on a desperate counter-attack. The first
part of the German programme was an undoubted and alarming success.
The posts and strong points along our front were simply overwhelmed,
or surrounded and cut off, and went under, making the best finish
they could with the bayonet, or in some cases—well, Teddy Silsey and
a good many other Australians saw just what happened in these other
cases, and are not likely ever to forget it. The German attack—as in
many historic cases in this war—appeared to fizzle out in the most
amazing fashion after it had come with such speed and sweeping success
for so far. Our guns, of course, were hard at work, and were doing the
most appalling damage to the dense masses that offered as targets; but
that would hardly account for the slackening of the rush, because the
guns had waked at the first crash of rifle and bomb reports, and the
Germans were under just about as severe a fire for the second half of
their rush as they were at the end of it when they checked. There
appeared to be a hesitation about their movements, a confusion in their
plans, a doubt as to what they ought to do next, that halted them long
enough to lose the great advantage of their momentum. The first hurried
counter-attack flung in their face was comparatively feeble, and if
they had kept going should easily have been brushed aside. Thirty-odd
guns were in their hands; and, most dangerous of all, one other short
storm forward would have brought them swamping over a whole solid mass
of our field guns—which at the moment were about the only thing left
to hold back their attack—and within close rifle and machine-gun range
of the fringe of our heavies. But at this critical stage, for no good
reason, and against every military reason, they, as so often before,
hesitated, and were lost. Another Australian counter-attack, this time
much better organised and more solidly built, was launched headlong on
their confusion. They gave ground a little in some places, tried to
push on in others, halted and strove to secure positions and grip the
trenches in others. The Australians, savagely angry at being so caught
and losing so much ground, drove in on them, bombing, shooting, and
bayoneting; while over the heads of the front-rank fighters the guns
poured a furious tempest of shrapnel and high explosive on the masses
that sifted and eddied behind. The issue hung in doubt for no more than
a bare five minutes. The Germans who had tried to push on were shot
and cut down; the parties that held portions of trench were killed or
driven out; the waverers were rushed, beaten in, and driven back in
confusion on the supports that struggled up through the tornado of
shell-fire. Then their whole front crumpled, and collapsed, and gave,
and the Australians began to recover their ground almost as quickly as
they had lost it.
Now Teddy Silsey, while all this was going on, had been with his
company in a position mid-way across the depth of captured ground.
He and about forty others, with two officers, had tried to hold the
battered remnant of trench they were occupying, and did actually
continue to hold it after the rush of the German front had swept far
past them. They were attacked on all sides, shot away their last
cartridge, had their machine-guns put out of action by bombs, had
about half their number killed, and almost every man of the remainder
wounded. They were clearly cut off, with thousands of Germans between
them and their supports, could see fresh German forces pressing on
past them, could hear the din of fighting receding rapidly farther and
farther back. The two officers, both wounded, but able more or less to
stand up, conferred hastily, and surrendered.
Of this last act Teddy Silsey was unaware, because a splinter of some
sort, striking on his steel helmet, had stunned him and dropped him
completely insensible. Two dead men fell across him as he lay, and
probably accounted for the Germans at the moment overlooking him as
they collected their prisoners.
Teddy wakened to dim consciousness to find a number of Germans busily
and confusedly engaged in setting the bit of trench in a state of
defence. They trod on him and the two dead men on top of him a good
deal, but Teddy, slowly taking in his situation, and wondering vaguely
what his next move should be, did the wisest possible thing under the
circumstances—lay still.
A little before this the Australian counter-attack had been sprung, and
before Teddy had made up his mind about moving he began to be aware
that the battle was flooding back on him. The Germans beside him saw
it too, and, without any attempt to defend their position, clambered
from the trench and disappeared from Teddy’s immediate view. Teddy
crawled up and had a look out. It was difficult to see much at first,
because there was a good deal of smoke about from our bursting shells,
but as the counter-attack pushed on and the Germans went back, the
shells followed them, and presently the air cleared enough for Teddy
to see glimpses of khaki and to be certain that every German he saw
was getting away from the khaki neighbourhood as rapidly as possible.
In another minute a couple of Australians, hugging some machine-guns
parts, tumbled into his trench, two or three others arrived panting,
and in a moment the machine-gun was in action and streaming fire and
bullets into the backs of any parties of Germans that crossed the
sights.
One of the new-comers, a sergeant, looked round and saw Teddy squatting
on the broken edge of the trench and looking very sick and shaken.
“Hullo, mate,” said the sergeant, glancing at the patch of coloured
cloth on Teddy’s shoulder that told his unit. “Was you with the bunch
in this hole when Fritz jumped you?” Teddy gulped and nodded. “You
stopped one?” said the sergeant. “Where’d it get you?”
“No,” said Teddy; “I—I think I’m all right. Got a bit of a bump on the
head.”
“’Nother bloke to say ‘Go’ bless the tin-’at makers’ in ’is prayers
every night.” He turned from Teddy. “Isn’t it time we humped this
shooter a bit on again, boys?” he said.
“Looks like the Boche was steadyin’ up a bit,” said a machine-gunner.
“An’ our line’s bumped a bit o’ a snag along on the left there. I
think we might spray ’em a little down that way.”
They slewed the gun in search of fresh targets, while from a broken
trench some score yards from their front a gathering volume of
rifle-fire began to pelt and tell of the German resistance stiffening.
“Strewth,” growled the sergeant, “this is no bon! If we give ’em time
to settle in—— Hullo,”—he broke off, and stared out in front over
the trench edge—“wot’s that lot? They look like khaki. Prisoners, by
cripes!”
Every man peered out anxiously. Two to three hundreds yards away they
could see emerging from the broken end of a communication trench a
single file of men in khaki without arms in their hands, and with half
a dozen rifle- and bayonet-armed Germans guarding them. Teddy, who was
watching with the others, exclaimed suddenly. “It’s my lot,” he said.
“That’s the captain—him with the red hair; and I recognise Big Mick,
and Terry—Terry’s wounded—see him limp. That’s my mate Terry.”
The firing on both sides had slacked for a moment, and none of the
watchers missed one single movement of what followed. It is unpleasant
telling, as it was unutterably horrible watching. The prisoners, except
the two officers, who were halted above ground, were guided down into
a portion of trench into which they disappeared. The guards had also
remained above. What followed is best told briefly. The two officers,
in full view of the watchers, were shot down as they stood, the rifle
muzzles touching their backs. The Germans round the trench edge tossed
bombs down on the men penned below. Before the spurting smoke came
billowing up out of the trench, Teddy Silsey leaped to his feet with
a scream, and flung himself scrambling up the trench wall. But the
sergeant, with a gust of bitter oaths, gripped and held him. “Get to
it there,” he snarled savagely at the men about the gun. “D’you want
a better target?” The gun muzzle twitched and steadied and ripped
out a stream of bullets. The Germans about the trench lip turned to
run, but the storm caught and cut them down—except one or two who
ducked down into the trench on top of their victims. Teddy found them
there three minutes after, stayed only long enough to finish them,
and ran on with the other Australians who swarmed yelling forward to
the attack again. Others had seen the butchery, and those who had not
quickly heard of it. Every group of dead Australians discovered as the
line surged irresistibly forward was declared, rightly or wrongly, to
be another lot of murdered prisoners. The advance went with a fury,
with a storming rage that nothing could withstand. The last remnant
of organised German defence broke utterly, and the supports coming
up found themselves charged into, hustled, mixed up with, and thrown
into utter confusion by the mob of fugitives and the line of shooting,
bombing, bayoneting Australians that pressed hard on their heels.
The supports tried to make some sort of stand, but they failed, were
borne back, bustled, lost direction, tried to charge again, broke
and gave, scattering and running, were caught in a ferocious flank
fire, reeled and swung wide from it, and found themselves penned
and jammed back against a broad, deep, and high belt of their own
barbed wire. Some of them, by quick work and running the gauntlet
of that deadly flanking fire, won clear and escaped round the end
of the belt. The rest—and there were anything over two thousand of
them—were trapped. The Australian line closed in, pouring a storm
of rifle fire on them. Some tried to tear a way through, or over, or
under the impenetrable thicket of their own wire; others ran wildly
up and down looking for an opening, for any escape from those pelting
bullets; others again held their hands high and ran towards the
crackling rifles shrieking “Kamerad” surrenders that were drowned in
the drumming roll of rifle fire; and some few threw themselves down
and tried to take cover and fire back into the teeth of the storm
that beat upon them. But the Australian line closed in grimly and
inexorably, the men shooting and moving forward a pace or two, standing
and shooting—shooting—shooting. ... Teddy Silsey shot away every
round he carried, ceased firing only long enough to snatch up a fresh
supply from a dead man’s belt, stood again and shot steadily and with
savage intensity into the thinning crowd that struggled and tore at the
tangled mass of wire.
And all the time he cursed bitterly and abominably, reviling and
pouring oaths of vengeance on the brutes, the utter savages who had
murdered his mates in cold blood. To every man who came near him he had
only one message—“Kill them out. They killed their prisoners. I saw
them do it. Kill the —— ——!” with a shot after each sentence.
And there was a killing. There were other results—the lost ground
recaptured and made good; the taken guns retaken, five of them damaged
and others with the unexploded destroying charges set and ready for
firing; some slight gains made at certain points. But the Australians
there will always remember that fight for the big killing, for
those murderer Huns pinned against their own wire, for the burning
hot barrels of the rifles, for the scattered groups of their own
dead—their murdered-prisoner dead—and for the two thousand-odd German
bodies counted where they fell or hung limp in the tangles of their
barbed wire.
And next day Teddy Silsey volunteered for the Bombing Company, the
Suicide Club, as they call themselves. He wanted close-up work, he
explained. With a rifle you could never be sure you got your own man.
With a bomb you could see him——and he detailed what he wanted to see.
He appeared to have completely forgotten his “horror of blood.”
VII
AN AIR BARRAGE