obviously killed or a prisoner. Enemy troops also along road
leading to battery positions where officers could be found.
Returned to "sniping" howitzer.
4.30 P.M. The sergeant then endeavoured to get in touch with the
infantry, and to obtain orders from them. He found none of our
own infantry, but a machine-gun officer directed him to hold on
as long as he could. He returned again, and discovering Germans
close to the 18-pdr. and the 4.5 howitzer, ordered the
detachments to open fire on them with rifles. The enemy were
dispersed after ten minutes' shooting.
5.45 P.M. The two detachments came away, first blowing up the 4.5
how. and removing the breech mechanism, dial sight, and sight
clinometer of the 18-pdr. As soon as he had vacated the position
the sergeant reported to the machine-gun officer and then to his
battery's rear position.
"That's the way to carry on war," exclaimed the colonel when the
sergeant had saluted and departed: "A stout fellow that!"
The reports from Divisional Artillery and from the Infantry Brigade
with whom we were in liaison showed that the Hun was still coming on to
the left and the right of us. Directly in front of us he seemed
quiescent, but our orders were to get over the canal after nightfall.
The colonel dictated orders for the batteries to me, and then said--
"I want you to get a telephone line out from here over the canal. The
batteries will come into action behind the railway embankment." He
indicated the positions on the map. "I'm going to keep an officer at B
Battery's rear O.P. until the last moment, and the line must run from
him to here and thence over the canal to the batteries in their new
positions. You quite understand? I shall stay with General ---- (the
infantry brigadier) and cross the canal with him. Leave me one
telephonist. We'll have dinner and get the kit and the mess cart back
to the waggon lines; and you'd better get your line out immediately
after dinner."
These orders were clear enough. We dined comfortably, and by 8 P.M. all
the waggons, save the mess cart, were ready to move out of the quarry.
As I stepped out of the mess to see that arrangements were complete the
regimental sergeant-major approached me, saying: "They say the strong
point at ---- (about 600 yards away) has fallen, sir. We're quite ready
to move, sir!"
A voice behind me, the colonel's: "Put a stop at once to such a
ridiculous, panicky rumour. The next man who repeats it is to be put
under arrest."
Nevertheless, when the telephone bell rang and I went inside the mess
to answer it, the infantry brigade-major's high-pitched voice said in
quick sharp tones: "The strong point has just been carried by the
enemy. You'd better be clearing out of your quarry."
IV. THE NIGHT OF MARCH 21
Something that aroused anger, recrimination, and some amusement
occurred during our night evacuation of the quarry. Officers' and men's
kit, the signalling outfit, the doctor's medical stores, and the cook's
stove and kitchen utensils, had been packed. The sergeant-major had a
final hunt round, and then gave the order "Walk march!" The G.S.
waggon, drawn by six D.A.C. mules, set off at regulation pace, the mess
cart drawn by Minnie, the fat roan, followed with due sedateness; and
then, hang me! if the pole of the Maltese cart didn't snap in two.
Old-soldier resource and much hard swearing failed to make it a
workable vehicle. Worse still, it was this cart that contained the
officers' kit, including the colonel's. It was pitch-dark, and the
advancing enemy not more than a thousand yards away.
I wasn't there at that exact moment, but I believe the sergeant-major
blamed the size of our "on leave" adjutant's spare kit for the
breakdown. "A valise and a half, two bags and a portmanteau--enough for
three people," he growled. An attempt was made to get our kit away by
adding to the load on the G.S. waggon, but that made it altogether too
top-heavy; and after ten minutes of sweating and shouting the
sergeant-major told the drivers to move off, leaving the wrecked
Maltese cart and the officers' kit behind. That was how I found it--on
the ground--when, having received final instructions from the colonel
for linking up the batteries by telephone as soon as they took up new
positions on the other side of the canal, I came out of the mess. The
colonel's servant stood by, looking angrily at the abandoned kit; and
the sergeant-major, now on his horse, was saying he would try to borrow
a cart from one of the batteries and get the stuff over the canal at
any rate.
"Get away as soon as you can," I interrupted, "and bring back the first
cart you unload at the waggon lines. You've got to get the Maltese cart
away as well. Two of the servants will stay behind to help load up when
you return. And look sharp if you don't want the Boche to be here
first."
A squadron of Yeomanry, with picks and shovels, were lining up in front
of the quarry as I came away with three of the signallers. It was
extremely dark, there was a dampness in the air that suggested rain,
some Boche howitzers were firing over our heads across the canal, and a
steady "putt-puttr-putt-putt" in the direction of the strong point,
that less than half an hour ago had fallen, told of a machine-gun duel
in progress. It was not an inspiriting moment; and over us, like a
pall, lay an atmosphere of doubt and apprehension, that lack of
knowledge of what was really happening only added to.
But at such moments there's nothing so steadying to mind and senses as
something definite to do. Earlier on I had noted marked on a Corps
signalling-map a test-box between the quarry and the canal and another
one along the railway embankment, not far from the retiring positions
assigned to the batteries. If we could find them the labour of laying
an overland telephone wire from the quarry to the opposite side of the
canal would be saved. We set out, got off the roadway, and did a good
deal of floundering about in hedge-bottoms and over waste lands; but
the important thing was that we found both test-boxes, and that the
buried cables we hoped for were there.
10.30 P.M.: I had reeled out my lines alongside the railway from the
test-box to D Battery and to C and A, who, because of the nine guns the
brigade had lost in the morning, had become a composite battery. They
had crossed the canal in comparative quiet and were now laying out
lines of fire by compass bearings. B Battery were coming along to a
spot near the railway farther north, and my signallers were waiting to
connect them up. Things were indeed getting ship-shape again. I had
spoken through to the colonel and put him in touch with his battery
commanders, and to the F.O.O. left at the rearmost O.P. on the eastern
side of the canal. The colonel had issued a night-firing programme just
as if we were in settled positions, and with fresh ammunition arriving
from the original waggon lines the batteries began "pooping off" with
brisk enthusiasm, their object being, of course, to cover the
retirement of our infantry.
Every one of us had turned out that morning immediately the Hun
bombardment started. No sleep could be looked for that night either;
but there was the morrow, March 22nd, to be reckoned with--it might
entail even more wear and tear than the day which was ending; so I sent
back to the waggon lines all but six of the signallers, the brigade
clerks, the two wireless operators, who had nothing whatever to do, and
most of the servants, telling them to get as much sleep as possible.
The colonel's servant was still in the quarry guarding our castaway
kit; my own servant I had stationed on the canal bridge so that he
could report to me as soon as the sergeant-major and the rescuing
waggon hove in sight.
Our discovery of the buried cable running under the canal had a sequel
equally welcome. One of the telephone linemen said he believed there
was another "bury" on the far side of the railway cutting, and that it
connected with the back areas. The signalling-sergeant and myself set
out on another hunt, and, joy! we discovered, after patient test calls
with a D.III. telephone, that by speaking through two exchanges we
could communicate with our own Divisional H.Q. It was six hundred yards
from the railway cutting, but I could now keep in touch with the
colonel in front, the batteries to right and left of me along the
railway, and the brigadier-general and the brigade-major in rear.
1 A.M.: My work for the moment was complete and I could take it easy. I
stood outside the test-box that had become a sort of Brigade H.Q. and
listened to the waspish crack of our 18-pdrs. sending defiance to the
enemy. The six signallers--plus a terrier--had crowded into the tiny
sandbag shelter that protected the test-box. One of them, receiver to
ear, waited for calls, a candle stuck on an inverted mess-tin shedding
sufficient light for the pencilling of messages. The others sprawled in
cramped positions, snuggled one against another for warmth, and sought
sleep. The doings of the Boche seemed more puzzling than ever. What was
happening on the other side of the canal? Five hours ago he had
captured a strong post within 1800 yards of the spot on which I now
stood, and we had no reserve lines of infantry in front of him. Why
this strange quiescence? And then my mind took another turn. What had
become of the sergeant-major with the waggon that was to gather up our
left kit? Why did he take such a long time? I thought bitterly of my
field boots, and the British warm I was beginning to want, and the new
jacket and breeches, all in my valise. Why hadn't I put on my best pair
of leggings to come away in? The Boche would have been welcome to the
older ones I was wearing; besides, they didn't fit so well as the pair
left in the quarry.
The little American doctor suddenly nipped my elbow. I had missed him
during the last two hours. "Say, son," he said, "come and take a walk
along the line: I've happened on a hut down along there with a fire in
it. Belongs to some sappers. Come and take a warm."
"Can't," I replied, shaking my head; "I'd like to, but I shall have to
be like the Boy who stood on the Burning Deck to-night. I must stop on
this spot until the colonel comes across."
The doctor toddled off, and I got the telephonist to ring through to
the colonel. "The enemy seems to be waiting. He's not troubling our
infantry," he informed me, and then added, "Has the kit been got away
from the quarry yet?"
I made sure that the telephonist was ringing up each battery every ten
minutes to see that the lines were in working order, and then climbed
up the railway bank and walked over to inquire if the brigade-major had
any news. He hadn't. "And try and keep in touch with us on this line,"
he added. "It's the only way we have at the moment of speaking to your
Brigade."
2 A.M.: The best news of the night. The sergeant-major had crossed the
bridge. Our precious kit would be borne to safety! At 3.15 A.M. he
passed again, triumphant, the Maltese cart in tow as well. Hurrah! Let
the war now proceed!
At 4.30 the colonel telephoned that the infantry brigadier and himself
were about to cross the canal. The telephone wire could be cut, and I
was to meet him at the railway bridge in twenty minutes' time.
"The infantry are crossing the canal at six o'clock," he said when he
rode up and called my name through the mist. "Batteries will start to
withdraw to their next positions at 6.30. Each battery will withdraw a
section (two guns) at a time; and the last section must not pull out
until the preceding section is in action at the new position." He gave
me the map co-ordinates of the new positions, and rode off to visit the
battery commanders.
6 A.M.: Extraordinary, it was to be another rainless hazy morning. How
the weather always assists the Boche! In the grey gloom on top of the
embankment I could see forms moving--our own infantry, marching
steadily, neither cheerful nor depressed, just moving, impersonal
forms. "What's happened?" I asked a subaltern, keeping time with him as
he marched.
"We're going back to Rouez Wood," he answered. "The Westshires are
lining up now behind the canal."
"Are they going to hold it?" I asked.
"Don't know," was the reply; "only know our orders."
"Had many casualties?" I asked again.
"No! only a few from snipers. We weren't in the counter-attack."
They swung round and passed over the railway bridge, making west. On
the bridge stood a keen-eyed, small-featured sapper major. I talked to
him.
"No!" he informed me, "there's no intention of making a stand here.
We've blown up all the canal bridges except one." A muffled boom! "Ah,
there goes the last one. All our infantry are over by now."
A few German 4.2's were coming over now, mostly on the western side of
the railway cutting. They helped to put a bit of ginger into the
withdrawal of the guns. A section of each battery had now pulled out;
the teams "walked out," crossing the bridge and heading down the road.
There was no trotting. The batteries went out heads high.
7 A.M.: On the telephone I learned that the last two sections were
waiting the arrival of mounted orderlies to tell them to pull out.
Right! I disconnected the wires, told the signallers to report to B
Battery where I would pick them up, and not to waste time getting
there. Then I sought a copse on the other side of the bridge, where I
knew my horses would be waiting.
The sentry and the sappers who waited to blow up the bridge remained at
their posts silent and still. Forty yards after passing them I was
alone. I stopped in the road and turned to look back. The sun was
breaking through the mist, but it was a mournful landscape--dull,
soulless. All at once I felt chilled and tired, and for the first time
my thoughts turned seriously and intently towards what the
newly-arrived day had in store for myself, for the Brigade, for
England.
From the other side of the canal the "putt-puttr-putt" of machine-guns!
I turned westwards and went in search of my horses.
V. A GUNNER'S V.C.
Not even on this twenty-second of March did we realise fully the vast
conception and the extent of the German swoop, and that our Brigade was
as jetsam and as flotsam carried along on the mightiest part of the
storm flood.
7.30 A.M.: The last sections of our batteries to pull out from behind
the railway embankment passed me on the road, the horses walking
grandly, the men tired but in high enough spirits. The enemy long-range
guns were waking up now and playing a damnable tattoo on the main
routes leading west. I saw one limber-waggon belonging to the Engineers
blown sky-high, and three maimed horses had to be shot.
At the cross-roads east of the wood behind which the batteries were
retiring I came upon the colonel, his overcoat buttoned up, his face
pallid with sleeplessness; but his mood was one for overriding
difficulties. He rode beside me awhile, and then pulled up, exclaiming,
"Let's have a cup of tea to start the day with. Laneridge"--to his
groom--"bring my Thermos flask."
"The first thing for you to do," he went on, as we drank tea and
munched ration biscuits, a few of which wise folk always slip into
their pockets when things are a-doing out here, "is to get wires out to
the batteries again. Headquarters will be at Rouez. Division have gone
back to where ---- Corps were yesterday, and we take over their
quarters."
"What's the view of things at Infantry Headquarters, sir?" I asked as
we mounted again.
"Well, they blame the mist for the enemy getting past the outposts.
Most of the machine-guns they camouflaged with so much trouble never
came into the picture. But for some reason or other the Boche didn't
follow up. Perhaps he was waiting for reserves, or perhaps he got
suspicious. Our infantry didn't suffer many casualties, and I'm sure
the enemy didn't. We retired according to schedule time, and things
were quite quiet when I crossed the canal at four o'clock this morning.
"Extraordinary attitude of mind some of the men out here nowadays
have," he proceeded. "Last night they brought in one of the ----'s, who
was captured by the Boche in the morning but escaped and got back to
the battalion. He said that the enemy set prisoners bringing ammunition
up to their front line. When he was asked how he escaped, he said that
a shell killed 'the man-in-charge' of the party and he got away. 'The
man-in-charge,'" repeated the colonel. "He spoke as if the Boche N.C.O.
were a sort of foreman, and as if bringing up ammunition which was to
be shot at your own countrymen was the most ordinary thing in the
world."
Two high-velocity shells whizzed above our heads, and the colonel's
mare plunged excitedly. The enemy were evidently "stoking up" for a
fresh effort. We trotted on and toured the batteries, the colonel
inspecting the O.P.'s from which our fire was to be directed, and
ascertaining whether there was difficulty in keeping ammunition supply
up to 300 rounds per gun. When we reached the Brigade Headquarters
horse lines, I instructed the sergeant-major to turn out the telephone
waggon in readiness to lay lines to the new battery positions. Then
breakfast--steaming tea and sizzling fried eggs and bacon cooked to the
minute. Nothing like being out all night for galvanising the breakfast
appetite. And no time for lingering afterwards. A canter along the
roadside to catch up the telephone cart; then, while the
signalling-sergeant, a good fellow who could read a map, reeled out
lines through the wood to the batteries, I undertook a tussle with the
terminal boards in the huge and elaborate dug-out telephone exchange,
that up to 5 A.M. had been the chief exchange of the whole Division.
Now that Divisional Headquarters had been established where Corps
Headquarters had been the day before, four miles back, there had to be
a re-allotment of lines to Infantry, Artillery, Engineers, A.S.C., and
the other units that work out the will of the Divisional Commander.
"I'll get young Bushman down from B Battery to do signalling-officer
to-morrow. It will be difficult for you to do adjutant and
signalling-officer as well," remarked the colonel two hours later, as
he bent over his maps.
3 P.M.: A R.H.A. brigade had put in a claim for the quarters destined
for us. Three days ago this would have resulted in polite recrimination
and telephoned appeals to higher authorities, but to-day, such is the
effect of mobile warfare, we all managed to dig in somehow. A decent
hut for the colonel had been found, and there was a room in a
bomb-mauled cottage, where the doctor, "Swiffy," the veterinary
officer, and myself hoped to spread our camp-beds. We had shaved and
washed and lunched, and looked and felt respectable again. The C.R.A.
and the brigade-major had called and gone off with the colonel to see
the batteries shoot. I had forwarded by despatch-rider the Brigade
return of casualties to the staff captain, so that reinforcements might
be applied for forthwith. A French pointer of confiding disposition,
who came into the mess from nowhere in particular, seemed quite to have
made up his mind that we were come to stay.
The telephone bell! The brigade-major of our companion Infantry
Brigade, with the latest news! "He's not crossed the canal on our front
yet, and your guns are doing good work keeping him back. But he's got
farther forward than we expected north of us. It's from the south that
we want more news. There's a report that we have been pushed out of
Tergnier. That's very bad, if true."
A quarter of an hour later he rang up again. "There's a report that
enemy infantry are massing in Z 23 d 5.8. Can you turn your guns on to
'em?" I looked at the map co-ordinates he had given, and rang through
to the batteries.
4.30 P.M.: Pretty definite signs now that the enemy was coming on. A
5.9 had made a hole a hundred yards from where Headquarter horse lines
had been staked out. Another had crashed among the trees that sheltered
our mess, and a branch, after being jerked yards high in the air, had
fallen plunk through the cook's bed. And they were not long-range
shells either. Also, there had been seven shots from the most wicked,
the most unsettling weapon in the Hun armoury--the 4.2 high-velocity
gun, that you don't hear until it is past you, so to speak. One shell
grazed the top of the office in which the doctor and myself were
sitting; another snapped off a tree-trunk like--well, as a 4.2 does
snap off a tree-trunk. Most ominous sign of all--when the seven shots
had been fired, three ugly-looking holes ringed themselves round the
colonel's hut. Next, a Hun aeroplane, with irritating sauciness,
circled above our camp, not more than five hundred feet up. Our
"Archies" made a lot of noise, and enjoyed their customary success: the
Hun airman sailed calmly back to his own lines.
6 P.M.: The adjutant of the R.H.A. Brigade came in to tell me that the
enemy were getting closer, and that the break-through on our right
admitted of no doubt. I despatched written orders to the battery waggon
lines for gun teams and limbers to be brought up to within a thousand
yards of the guns.
7 P.M.: The colonel was back. A battery that had only reached France
three days before had been put under his command, to compensate for the
loss of seven guns from A and C batteries. It was getting dark, but the
officers at the O.P.'s in front of the wood were still able to pick up
moving targets, and many Germans were being accounted for.
The colonel found time to mention more episodes of the March
Twenty-first fighting. "Every bridge over the canal was blown up by
6.30 this morning," he said; "but, do you know that D Battery's cook,
who had got left behind last night, and seems to have wandered about a
good deal, did not come over until nine o'clock this morning? No wonder
we retired in comfort."
The brigadier had told him more of what had happened to the --rd, our
companion Divisional Artillery Brigade. "Their C Battery put up a
wonderful fight--got infantry and trench mortars to help, and didn't
come away until 10 P.M., after putting their guns out of action. One
gunner did extraordinarily stout work. Unaided, and with a rifle, he
held up a Boche machine-gun party that had worked round on the
battery's left flank, and later, with three others, captured the
machine-gun. One Boche, who broke through, he chased over half the
country apparently, and shot him down. The amusing thing is that when
he had killed the Boche he searched his pockets, and found a cake,
addressed to a bombardier in another battery. The Huns had scuppered
this battery and ransacked their dug-outs. The bombardier was somewhat
surprised last night when the gunner handed him his lost cake."
This was a gunner who eventually was awarded the highest honour a
soldier can win.
8 P.M.: A dinner much disturbed by German artillery. They started a
tremendous shelling of the wood in which we were encamped. Salvos of
5.9's made deafening crashes among the trees, and the earth was shaken
by the heavier, more awe-inspiring "crump" of the 8-inch how. There was
now, too, a steady bombardment of Villequier Aumont, the village, a
mile and a half behind, in which the battery waggon lines had been
installed.
The colonel came to a rapid decision. "They'll make Villequier Aumont
and the wood too hot for waggon lines to-night," he remarked. "We'll
move them at once to the other side of Villequier Aumont. Dump them on
the roadside. You'd better go and see it carried out. Leave me two
cycle orderlies, and I'll stay with the Infantry Brigade. They have a
mined dug-out here."
So, for the second time in twenty-four hours, we did a night
retirement. Infantry were coming back along the road, and big shells
were falling at regular intervals.
Any amount of retreating traffic on the other side of Villequier
Aumont, but no signs of panic or confusion. A block caused by supply
lorries coming from the opposite direction threatened to hold up some
ambulance cars, but it was only momentary. Our little American doctor
did good work here, galloping off to halt the supply lorries and
raising Cain until the traffic sorted itself out.