and trudged on. They passed slowly forward and along branching
trenches until they came at last to the front line, from which, after
a short rest, they climbed and hoisted their machine-guns out into the
open. From here for the first time they could see something of the
battleground; but could see nothing of the battle except a drifting
haze of smoke, and, just disappearing into it, a shadowy line of
figures. The thunder of the guns continued, and out in front they could
hear now the crackle of rifle fire, the sharp detonations of grenades.
There were far fewer shells falling about the old “neutral ground”
than Ratty had expected, and even comparatively few bullets piping
over and past them. They reached the tumbled wreckage of shell-holes
and splintered planks that marked what had been the front German line,
clambered through this, and pushed on stumbling and climbing in and
out the shell-holes that riddled the ground. “Where’s the Buffs that’s
supposed to be in front o’ us,” shouted Ratty, and ducked hastily into
a deep shell-hole at the warning screech of an approaching shell. It
crashed down somewhere near and a shower of dirt and earth rained down
on him. He climbed out. “Should be ahead about a——here’s some o’
them now wi’ prisoners,” said Johnny. They had a hurried glimpse of a
huddled group of men in grey with their hands well up over their heads,
running, stumbling, half falling and recovering, but always keeping
their hands hoisted well up. There may have been a full thirty of them,
and they were being shepherded back by no more than three or four men
with bayonets gleaming on their rifles. They disappeared into the haze,
and the machine-gunners dropped down into a shallow twisting depression
and pressed on along it. “This is the communication trench that used
to be taped out along the edge o’ that cornfield in practice attack,”
said Johnny, when they halted a moment. “Trench?” said Ratty, glancing
along it, “Strewth!” The trench was gone, was no more than a wide
shallow depression, a tumbled gutter a foot or two below the level of
the ground; and even the gutter in places was lost in a patch of broken
earth-heaps and craters. It was best traced by the dead that lay in it,
by the litter of steel helmets, rifles, bombs, gas-masks, bayonets,
water-bottles, arms and equipment of every kind strewed along it.
By now Ratty had lost all sense of direction or location, but Johnny at
his elbow was always able to keep him informed. Ratty at first refused
to accept his statements, but was convinced against all argument, and
it was always clear from the direct and unhesitating fashion in which
they were led that those in command knew where they were and where to
go. “We should pass three trees along this trench somewhere soon,”
Johnny would say, and presently, sure enough, they came to one stump
six foot high and two splintered butts just showing above the earth.
They reached a wide depression, and Johnny pointed and shouted, “The
sunk road,” and looking round, pointed again to some whitish-grey
masses broken, overturned, almost buried in the tumbled earth, the
remains of concrete machine-gun emplacements which Ratty remembered had
been marked somewhere back there on the practice ground by six marked
boards. “Six,” shouted Johnny, and grinned triumphantly at the doubter.
The last of Ratty’s doubts as to the correctness of battle plans,
even of the German lines, vanished when they came to a bare stretch
of ground which Johnny reminded him was where they had been warned
they would most likely come under enfilading machine-gun fire. They
halted on the edge of this patch to get their wind, and watched some
stretcher-bearers struggling to cross and a party of men digging
furiously to make a line of linked-up shell-holes, while the ground
about them jumped and splashed under the hailing of bullets.
“Enfiladin’ fire,” said Ratty. “Should think it was too. Why the ’ell
don’t they silence the guns doin’ it?”
“Supposed to be in a clump o’ wood over there,” said Johnny. “And it
ain’t due to be took for an hour yet.”
The word passed along, and they rose and began to cross the open ground
amongst the raining bullets. “There’s our objective,” shouted Johnny
as they ran. “That rise—come into action there.” Ratty stared aghast
at the rise, and at the spouting columns of smoke and dirt that leaped
from it under a steady fall of heavy shells. “That,” he screeched back,
“Gorstrewth. Good-bye us then.” But he ran on as well as he could under
the weight of the gun on his shoulder. They were both well out to the
left of their advancing line and Ratty was instinctively flinching
from the direct route into those gusts of flame and smoke. “Keep up,”
yelled Johnny. “Remember the trench. You’ll miss the end of it.” Ratty
recalled vaguely the line of flags and tape that had wriggled over the
practice ground to the last position where they had halted each day and
brought their guns into mimic action. He knew he would have slanted to
the right to hit the trench end there, so here he also slanted right
and presently stumbled thankfully into the broken trench, and pushed
along it up the rise. At the top he found himself looking over a gentle
slope, the foot of which was veiled in an eddying mist of smoke. A
heavy shell burst with a terrifying crash and sent him reeling from
the shock. He sat down with a bump, shaken and for the moment dazed,
but came to himself with Johnny’s voice bawling in his ear, “Come on,
man, come on. Hurt? Quick then—yer gun.” He staggered up and towards
an officer whom he could see waving frantically at him and opening and
shutting his mouth in shouts that were lost in the uproar. He thrust
forward and into a shell-hole beside Johnny and the rest of the gun
detachment. His sergeant jumped down beside them shouting and pointing
out into the smoke wreaths. “See the wood ... six hundred ... lay on
the ground-line—they’re counter-attack——” He stopped abruptly and
fell sliding in a tumbled heap down the crater side on top of the gun.
The officer ran back mouthing unheard angry shouts at them again.
Ratty was getting angry himself. How could a man get into action
with a fellow falling all over his gun like that? They dragged the
sergeant’s twitching body clear and Ratty felt a pang of regret for
his anger. He’d been a good chap, the sergeant.... But anger swallowed
him again as he dragged his gun clear. It was drenched with blood.
“Nice bizness,” he said savagely, “if my breech action’s clogged up.” A
loaded belt slipped into place and he brought the gun into action with
a savage jerk on the loading lever, looked over his sights, and layed
them on the edge of the wood he could just dimly see through the smoke.
He could see nothing to fire at—cursed smoke was so thick—but the
others were firing hard—must be something there. He pressed his thumbs
on the lever and his gun began to spurt a stream of fire and lead, the
belt racing and clicking through, the breech clacking smoothly, the
handles jarring sharply in his fingers.
The hillock was still under heavy shell-fire. They had been warned in
practice attack that there would probably be shell-fire, and here it
was, shrieking, crashing, tearing the wrecked ground to fresh shapes
of wreckage, spouting in fountains of black smoke and earth, whistling
and hurtling in jagged fragments, hitting solidly and bursting in
whirlwinds of flame and smoke. Ratty had no time to think of the
shells. He strained his eyes over the sights on the foot of the dimly
seen trees, held his gun steady and spitting its jets of flame and
lead, until word came to him, somehow or from somewhere to cease
firing. The attack had been wiped out, he heard said. He straightened
his bent shoulders and discovered with immense surprise that one
shoulder hurt, that his jacket was soaked with blood.
“Nothing more than a good Blighty one,” said the bearer who tied him
up. “Keep you home two-three months mebbe.”
“Good enough,” said Ratty. “I’ll be back in time to see the finish,”
and lit a cigarette contentedly.
Back in the Aid Post later he heard from one of the Jocks who had
been down there in the smoke somewhere between the machine-guns and
the wood, that the front line was already well consolidated. He heard
too that the German counter-attack had been cut to pieces, and that
the open ground before our new line front was piled with their dead.
“You fellies was just late enough wi’ your machine-guns,” said the
Highlander. “In anither three-fower meenits they’d a been right on top
o’ us.”
“Late be blowed,” said Ratty. “We was on the right spot exackly at the
programme time o’ the plan. We’d rehearsed the dash thing an’ clocked
it too often for me not to be sure o’ that. We was there just when we
was meant to be, an’ that was just when they knew we’d be wanted. Whole
plunky attack went like clockwork, far’s our bit o’ the plans went.”
But it was two days later and snug in bed in a London hospital, when
he had read the dispatches describing the battle, that he had his last
word on “planned attacks.”
“Lumme,” he said to the next bed, “I likes this dispatch of ole
’Indenburg’s. Good mile an’ a half we pushed ’em back, an’ held all
the ground, an’ took 6,000 prisoners; an’, says ’Indenburg, ‘the
British attack was completely repulsed ... only a few crater positions
were abandoned by us according to plan.’”
He dropped the paper and grinned. “Accordin’ to plan,” he said.
“That’s true enough. But ’e forgot to say it was the same as it always
is—accordin’ to the plan that was made by ‘Aig an’ us.”
XVII
DOWN IN HUNLAND
IT was cold—bitterly, bitingly, fiercely cold. It was also at
intervals wet, and misty, and snowy, as the ’plane ran by turns through
various clouds; but it was the cold that was uppermost in the minds of
pilot and observer as they flew through the darkness. They were on a
machine of the night-bombing squadron, and the “Night-Fliers” in winter
weather take it more or less as part of the night’s work that they are
going to be out in cold and otherwise unpleasant weather conditions;
but the cold this night was, as the pilot put it in his thoughts, “over
the odds.”
It was the Night-Fliers’ second trip over Hunland. The first trip had
been a short one to a near objective, because at the beginning of
the night the weather looked too doubtful to risk a long trip. But
before they had come back the weather had cleared, and the Squadron
Commander, after full deliberation, had decided to chance the long trip
and bomb a certain place which he knew it was urgent should be damaged
as much and as soon as possible.
All this meant that the Fliers had the shortest possible space of
time on the ground between the two trips. Their machines were loaded
up with fresh supplies of bombs just as quickly as it could be done,
the petrol and oil tanks refilled, expended rounds of ammunition for
the machine-guns replaced. Then, one after another, the machines
steered out into the darkness across the ’drome ground towards a
twinkle of light placed to guide them, wheeled round, gave the engine
a preliminary whirl, steadied it down, opened her out again, and one
by one at intervals lumbered off at gathering speed, and soared off up
into the darkness.
The weather held until the objective was reached, although glances
astern showed ominous clouds banking up and darkening the sky behind
them. The bombs were loosed and seen to strike in leaping gusts of
flame on the ground below, while searchlights stabbed up into the sky
and groped round to find the raiders, and the Hun “Archies” spat sharp
tongues of flame up at them. Several times the shells burst near enough
to be heard above the roar of the engine; but one after another the
Night Fliers “dropped the eggs” and wheeled and drove off for home, the
observers leaning over and picking up any visible speck of light or the
flickering spurts of a machine-gun’s fire and loosing off quick bursts
of fire at these targets. But every pilot knew too well the meaning of
those banking clouds to the west, and was in too great haste to get
back to spend time hunting targets for their machine-guns; and each
opened his engine out and drove hard to reach the safety of our own
lines before thick weather could catch and bewilder them.
The leaders had escaped fairly lightly—“Atcha” and “Beta” having only
a few wides to dodge; but their followers kept catching it hotter and
hotter.
The “Osca” was the last machine to arrive at the objective and deliver
her bombs and swing for home, and because she was the last she came
in for the fully awakened defence’s warmest welcome, and wheeled with
searchlights hunting for her, with Archie shells coughing round, with
machine-guns spitting fire and their bullets _zizz-izz-ipping_ up past
her, with “flaming onions” curving up in streaks of angry red fire and
falling blazing to earth again. A few of the bullets ripped and rapped
viciously through the fabric of her wings, but she suffered no further
damage, although the fire was hot enough and close enough to make her
pilot and observer breathe sighs of relief as they droned out into the
darkness and left all the devilment of fire and lights astern.
The word of the Night-Fliers’ raid had evidently gone abroad through
the Hun lines however, and as they flew west they could see searchlight
after light switching and scything through the dark in search of them.
Redmond, or “Reddie,” the pilot, was a good deal more concerned over
the darkening sky, and the cold that by now was piercing to his bones,
than he was over the searchlights or the chance of running into
further Archie fire. He lifted the “Osca” another 500 feet as he flew,
and drove on with his eyes on the compass and on the cloud banks ahead
in turn.
Flying conditions do not lend themselves to conversation between
pilot and observer, but once or twice the two exchanged remarks, very
brief and boiled-down remarks, on their position and the chances of
reaching the lines before they ran into “the thick.” That a thick was
coming was painfully clear to both. The sky by now was completely
darkened, and the earth below was totally and utterly lost to sight.
The pilot had his compass, and his compass only, left to guide him,
and he kept a very close and attentive eye on that and his instrument
denoting height. Their bombing objective had been a long way behind the
German lines, but Reddie and “Walk” Jones, the observer, were already
beginning to congratulate themselves on their nearness to the lines and
the probability of escaping the storm, when the storm suddenly whirled
down upon them.
It came without warning, although warning would have been of little
use, since they could do nothing but continue to push for home. One
minute they were flying, in darkness it is true, but still in a clear
air; the next they were simply barging blindly through a storm of
rain which probably poured straight down to earth, but which to them,
flying at some scores of miles per hour, was driving level and with the
force of whip cuts full in their faces. Both pilot and observer were
blinded. The water cataracting on their goggles cut off all possibility
of sight, and Reddie could not even see the compass in front of him or
the gleam of light that illuminated it. He held the machine as steady
and straight on her course as instinct and a sense of direction would
allow him, and after some minutes they passed clear of the rain-storm.
Everything was streaming wet—their faces, their goggles, their
clothes, and everything they touched in the machine. Reddie mopped
the wet off his compass and peered at it a moment, and then with an
angry exclamation pushed rudder and joy-stick over and swung round
to a direction fairly opposite to the one they had been travelling.
Apparently he had turned completely round in the minutes through the
rain—once round at least, and Heaven only knew how many more times.
They flew for a few minutes in comparatively clear weather, and then,
quite suddenly, they whirled into a thick mist cloud. At first both
Reddie and “Walk” thought it was snow, so cold was the touch of the wet
on their faces; but even when they found it was no more than a wet mist
cloud they were little better off, because again both were completely
blinded so far as seeing how or where they were flying went. Reddie
developed a sudden fear that he was holding the machine’s nose down,
and in a quick revulsion pulled the joy-stick back until he could feel
her rear and swoop upwards. He was left with a sense of feeling only
to guide him. He could see no faintest feature of the instrument-board
in front of him, had to depend entirely on his sense of touch and feel
and instinct to know whether the “Osca” was on a level keel, flying
forward, or up or down, or lying right over on either wing tip.
The mist cleared, or they flew clear of it, as suddenly as they had
entered it, and Reddie found again that he had lost direction, was
flying north instead of west. He brought the ’bus round again and let
her drop until the altimeter showed a bare two hundred feet above the
ground and peered carefully down for any indication of his whereabouts.
He could see nothing—blank nothing, below, or above, or around him.
He lifted again to the thousand-foot mark and drove on towards the
west. He figured that they ought to be coming somewhere near the lines
now, but better be safe than sorry, and he’d get well clear of Hunland
before he chanced coming down.
Then the snow shut down on them. If they had been blinded before, they
were doubly blind now. It was not only that the whirling flakes of
snow shut out any sight in front of or around them; it drove clinging
against their faces, their glasses, their bodies, and froze and was
packed hard by the wind of their own speed as they flew. And it was
cold, bone- and marrow-piercing cold. Reddie lost all sense of
direction again, all sense of whether he was flying forward, or up or
down, right side or wrong side up. He even lost any sense of time; and
when the scud cleared enough for him to make out the outline of his
instruments he could not see the face of his clock, his height or speed
recorders, or anything else, until he had scraped the packed snow off
them.
But this time, according to the compass, he was flying west and in the
right direction. So much he just had time to see when they plunged
again into another whirling smother of fine snow. They flew through
that for minutes which might have been seconds or hours for all the
pilot knew. He could see nothing through his clogged goggles, that
blurred up faster than he could wipe them clear; he could hear nothing
except, dully, the roar of his engine; he could feel nothing except
the grip of the joy-stick, numbly, through his thick gloves. He kept
the “Osca” flying level by sheer sense of feel, and at times had all
he could do to fight back a wave of panic which rushed on him with a
belief that the machine was side-slipping or falling into a spin that
would bring him crashing to earth.
When the snow cleared again and he was able to see his lighted
instruments he made haste to brush them clear of snow and peer
anxiously at them. He found he was a good thousand feet up and started
at once to lift a bit higher for safety’s sake. By the compass he was
still flying homeward, and by the time—the time—he stared hard at his
clock ... and found it was stopped. But the petrol in his main tank
was almost run out, and according to that he ought to be well over the
British lines—if he had kept anything like a straight course. He held
a brief and shouted conversation with his observer. “Don’t know where I
am. Lost. Think we’re over our lines.”
“Shoot a light, eh?” answered the observer, “and try’n’ land. I’m
frozen stiff.”
They both peered anxiously out round as their Verey light shot out and
floated down; but they could see no sign of a flare or an answering
light. They fired another signal, and still had no reply; and then,
“I’m going down,” yelled the pilot, shutting off his engine and letting
the machine glide down in a slow sweeping circle. He could see nothing
of the ground when the altimeter showed 500 feet, nor at 300, nor at
200, so opened the throttle and picked up speed again. “Shove her
down,” yelled the observer. “More snow coming.”
Another Verey light, shot straight down overboard, showed a glimpse of
a grass field, and Reddie swung gently round, and slid downward again.
At the same time he fired a landing light fixed out under his lower
wing-tip in readiness for just such an occasion as this, and by its
glowing vivid white light made a fairly good landing on rough grass
land. He shut the engine off at once, because he had no idea how near
he was to the edge of the field or what obstacles they might bump if
they taxied far, and the machine came quickly to rest. The two men sat
still for a minute breathing a sigh of thankfulness that they were safe
to ground, then turned and looked at each other in the dying light of
the flare. Stiffly they stood up, climbed clumsily out of their places,
and down on to the wet ground. Another flurry of snow was falling, but
now that they were at rest the snow was floating and drifting gently
down instead of beating in their faces with hurricane force as it did
when they were flying.
Reddie flapped his arms across his chest and stamped his numbed feet.
Walk Jones pulled his gloves off and breathed on his stiff fingers.
“I’m fair froze,” he mumbled. “Wonder where we are, and how far from
the ‘drome?”
“Lord knows,” returned Reddie. “I don’t know even where the line
is—ahead or astern, right hand or left.”
“Snow’s clearing again,” said Jones. “Perhaps we’ll get a bearing then,
and I’ll go ’n’ hunt for a camp or a cottage, or anyone that’ll give us
a hot drink.”
“Wait a bit,” said Reddie. “Stand where you are and let’s give a yell.
Some sentry or someone’s bound to hear us. Snow’s stopping all right;
but, Great Scott! isn’t it dark.”
Presently they lifted their voices and yelled an “Ahoy” together at
the pitch of their lungs. There was no answer, and after a pause they
yelled again, still without audible result.
“Oh, curse!” said Jones, shivering. “I’m not going to hang about here
yelping like a lost dog. And we might hunt an hour for a cottage.
I’m going to get aboard again and loose off a few rounds from my
machine-gun into the ground. That will stir somebody up and bring ’em
along.”
“There’s the line,” said Reddie suddenly. “Look!” and he pointed to
where a faint glow rose and fell, lit and faded, along the horizon.
“And the guns,” he added, as they saw a sheet of light jump somewhere
in the distance and heard the _bump_ of the report. Other gun-flashes
flickered and beat across the dark sky. “Funny,” said Reddie; “I’d have
sworn I turned round as we came down, and I thought the lines were dead
the other way.”
The observer was fumbling about to get his foot in the step. “I thought
they were way out to the right,” he said. “But I don’t care a curse
where they are. I want a camp or a French cottage with coffee on the
stove. I’ll see if I can’t shoot somebody awake.”
“Try one more shout first,” said Reddie, and they shouted together
again.
“Got ’im,” said Reddie joyfully, as a faint hail came in response, and
Jones took his foot off the step and began to fumble under his coat for
a torch. “Here!” yelled Reddie. “This way! Here!”
They heard the answering shouts draw nearer, and then, just as Jones
found his torch and was pulling it out from under his coat, Reddie
clutched at his arm. “What—what was it——” he gasped. “Did you hear
what they called?”
“No, couldn’t understand,” said Jones in some surprise at the other’s
agitation. “They’re French, I suppose; farm people, most like.”
“It was _German_,” said Reddie hurriedly. “There again, hear that?
_We’ve dropped in Hunland._”
“Hu-Hunland!” stammered Jones; then desperately, “It can’t be. You
sure it isn’t French—Flemish, perhaps?”
“Flemish—here,” said Reddie, dismissing the idea, as Jones admitted he
might well do, so far south in the line. “I know little enough German,
but I know French well enough; and that’s not French. We’re done in,
Walk.”
“Couldn’t we bolt for it,” said Walk, looking hurriedly round. “It’s
dark, and we know where the lines are.”
“What hope of getting through them?” said Reddie, speaking in quick
whispers. “But we’ve got a better way. We’ll make a try. Here, quickly,
and quiet as you can—get to the prop and swing it when I’m ready.
We’ll chance a dash for it.”
Both knew the chances against them, knew that in front of the machine
might lie a ditch, a tree, a hedge, a score of things that would trip
them as they taxied to get speed to rise; they knew too that the
Germans were coming closer every moment, that they might be on them
before they could get the engine started, that they would probably
start shooting at the first sound of her start. All these things and
a dozen others raced through their minds in an instant; but neither
hesitated, both moved promptly and swiftly. Reddie clambered up and
into his seat; Walk Jones jumped to the propeller, and began to wind it
backwards to “suck in” the petrol to the cylinders. “When she starts,
jump to the wing-tip and try ’n’ swing her round,” called Reddie in
quick low tones. “It’ll check her way. Then you must jump for it, and
hang on and climb in as we go. Yell when you’re aboard. All ready now.”