Dumble is arranging to shift the guns a bit north of the present
position,--do you approve of that, sir?"
"Yes, certainly," responded Major Mallaby-Kelby hastily. "If the
direction of the shelling indicates that it would mean more safety for
the battery I'm all for shifting." Beadle saluted and went away.
There was not as much spare room in the Nissen hut as the major had
thought. He asked me to "organise things" and to "scrounge round" for a
trench-cover to separate the subaltern and his gunners from our party;
but while I was dodging shells, making the search, he found a small
Boche combination hut and dug-out. The opening pointed the wrong way,
of course; but there was one tiny chamber twenty feet below ground with
a wooden bed in it, and upstairs a table, a cupboard, and a large heap
of shavings. It was now eight o'clock, and the major remembered that he
had not even had tea.
"Now what are we going to do about a meal?" he broke out. "We can't
have many servants up here, there's no room ... and it will be
difficult to get the mess cart up. Now, who has any suggestions? On
these matters I like to hear suggestions."
My own idea was that Meddings the cook, the major's servant, and one
other servant should bring up some bully-beef, cheese, and bread, and
bacon and tea for the morning. All that we wanted could be carried in a
couple of sandbags. We could do without valises and blankets that
night. Zero hour for the battle was 5.15 A.M. The mess cart could come
along afterwards. The proposition was favourably received, the major's
only revision referring to his white wine.
Headquarter waggons had remained the other side of Guillemont, and I
volunteered to walk back and bring the servants up. The major thought
that Wilde ought to accompany me; it was not too pleasant a pilgrimage
with the Boche maintaining his shelling.
But as we climbed the stairs of the dug-out the major made a further
decision. "I think you might as well bring the mess cart," he called
out. I paused. "Not very easy to bring it round here in the dark, sir,"
I said, and Wilde raised his eyebrows deprecatingly.
"Yes, I think you had better bring it," continued the major. "There are
two officers, and besides, the drivers have to learn the way to come
here.... Don't forget my bottle of white wine, old fellow," was his
parting reminder as Wilde and I set off.
The nature of the shelling caused us to direct our steps through the
Boche depot towards the railway again. "Pity we didn't have something
to eat before we came up here," growled Wilde. "What road are we going
to bring the cart along when we come back? There's no proper track when
we get off the main road."
I looked back towards the hut in which we had left the major and the
adjutant. There was little to distinguish it from several other huts.
"There's the Red Cross station and that big wooden building at the
corner; I think we shall recognise them again," I said.
"Do you see that signalling pole on the roadside? That's a pole
crossing, and I know there's a track leading off the road there," added
Wilde shrewdly. "That's the way we'd better bring the cart."
It was nearly dark when we reached the Guillemont cross-roads. Small
parties of infantrymen were coming along, and ammunition and ration
waggons. As we turned up the road leading south-west, a
square-shouldered man with a stiff big-peaked cap saluted with the
crisp correctness of the regular soldier. I recognised the
sergeant-major of A Battery.
"Were you much shelled when you took your waggon lines up there this
evening?" I asked him.
"Yes, sir. It got too hot, and Major Bullivant sent us down again half
an hour ago. All the batteries have shifted their waggon lines back
behind Guillemont, sir."
"All the more exciting for us," muttered Wilde. By the aid of my
electric torch we picked our way along a rough track that took us to
our waggons. The drivers and spare signallers were waiting orders to
settle down for the night. When I told the cook that we only wanted
bare necessities in the mess cart, he answered, "That'll mean emptying
the cart first. We've got everything aboard now." Such things as the
stove, the spare crockery and cutlery, several tins of biscuits, and
the officers' kit were quickly dumped upon the ground, and I told off
one of the servants to act as guard over it until the morning. "What
about this, sir?" inquired the cook, opening a large cardboard box.
"The interpreter sent it up this evening." I noted twenty eggs and a
cake. "Yes, put that in," I replied quickly.
Wilde detailed a signaller to accompany the driver of the cart, and,
with Meddings and two of the servants walking behind, the journey
commenced. A ten-minutes' hold-up occurred when Captain Denny of B
Battery, a string of waggons behind him, shouted my name through the
darkness. He wanted the loan of my torch for a brief study of the
shell-holes, as he intended establishing the battery waggon lines in
the vicinity.
The Boche had started his night-firing in earnest by the time the mess
cart and party passed the cross-roads at Guillemont. A pungent smell of
gas led to much coughing and sneezing. The air cleared as the road
ascended, but shells continued to fly about us, and no one looked
particularly happy. There were nervy, irritating moments when waggons
in front halted unaccountably; and, just before the railway crossing,
Wilde had to go forward and coax a pair of R.E. mules, who refused to
pass the four dead horses lying in the road. The railway crossing
passed, we began to look for the black-and-white signalling pole.
"Here it is," called Wilde with relief, as a 5.9 sped over us towards
the railway line. "Come along, Miller," he shouted to the mess-cart
driver, fifty yards behind us. The cart creaked and wobbled in the
bumpy ditch-crossing that led past the pole. "There's the big
building," said I, going on ahead, "and here's the Red Cross place.
We're getting on fine. We'll tell M'Klown and Tommy Tucker that we'll
apply for a job with the 980 company" (the A.S.C. company that supplied
the Brigade with forage and rations).
"We want to go half-right from here," I continued, lighting up my torch
for four or five seconds. The track led, however, to the left, and we
slowed our pace. Another two hundred yards and we came to a junction;
one track curved away to the right, the other went back towards the
road.
A high-velocity shell screamed over and burst with a weird startling
flash of flame a hundred yards away. We followed the right-hand path,
and found that it bent to the left again. "This is getting puzzling," I
said to Wilde in a low voice. "I think we've come right so far," he
replied, "but I shall be glad when we're there."
We went on for another five minutes, the cart following. Then suddenly
the situation became really worrying. We were facing a deep impassable
trench. "Damn!" said Wilde angrily. "I was afraid this would happen."
"I don't think we can be more than a couple of hundred yards from where
we want to get," I answered. "It ought to be in that direction. Let's
give 'em a hail."
"They'll be down below--they won't hear us," said Wilde gloomily.
We stood up on the trench and called first the name of the Brigade and
then the name of the adjutant. Not a sound in reply. We shouted again,
the servants joining in. Another shell, bursting near enough to spray
the mess cart with small fragments! At last we heard a cry, and shouted
harder than ever. A figure came out of the gloom, and I recognised
Stenson, A Battery's round-faced second lieutenant. "Ah! now we're all
right," I called out cheerfully. "You see how we're tied up," I said,
turning to Stenson. "Our headquarters is close to your battery. Which
is the way to it?"
Stenson's face fell. "That's what I was hoping you would tell me," he
replied blankly. "I've lost myself."
There was a groan from Wilde.
"I left the battery about half an hour ago because some one was
shouting outside in the dark," went on Stenson. "I found a major
sitting in a shell-hole; he had lost his way trying to get back to the
railway. I managed to put him right--now I can't find the battery."
Another voice came from the far side of the trench, and we peered at
the newcomer. It was one of the Brigade orderlies, who also had lost
his way trying to find an infantry battalion headquarters. I examined
him on his sense of direction, but all I got from him was that if he
could reach the road and see the fifth telegraph pole from the wood, he
would know that Brigade Headquarters lay on a line due north.
More shells dropped near, and I began to think of Minnie, our patient
mess-cart mare. We must get her and the cart out of the way as soon as
possible. Close by stood a big Nissen hut, sunk half-way below ground.
After consulting with Wilde, I told the servants to unload the cart and
carry the stuff into the hut. The cart having gone, we went inside;
and, lighting a candle, discovered the usual empty bottles and
scattered German illustrated periodicals that indicate a not too
hurried Boche evacuation. After a ten minutes' wait, during which the
Boche shelling increased in intensity, Stenson, the orderly, and myself
went forth with my torch, bent upon trying all the tracks within reach
until we found the right one. And though we twice followed ways that
disappointed us, and turned and searched with a bitter sense of
bafflement, our final path led in the direction to which I had first
pointed. We found ourselves close to the shell-stricken hut where I had
met Beale of A Battery earlier in the evening. "I know where we are
now," I shouted hilariously.
"Who's that?" called some one sharply. I turned my torch on to the
owner of the voice. It was Kelly of D Battery, yet another lost soul.
"I'm hanged if I know where I am," he explained angrily. "I can't find
the battery. I was going to lie down inside here until it got light,
... but I have no matches, and I put my hand on a clammy dead Boche."
"Get away with you!" I laughed. "That's a dead horse. I saw it this
afternoon."
Sure of my ground now, I walked comfortably towards the dug-out where
Major Mallaby-Kelby and the adjutant were waiting. It was 11.15 P.M.
now. Tired and hungry and without candles, they had fallen asleep.
"By Gad! you're back," ejaculated the major when I touched him....
"Have you brought my white wine?"
"It is coming, sir, before very long," I responded soothingly.
I stood outside, flashed my torch, and yelled for Wilde. An answering
shout was succeeded by Wilde himself. "Why, we were quite close all the
time," he said in surprise.
"Now you go back with the orderly and bring Meddings over with
something to eat," I went on, "every one's famished." Soon Meddings
arrived, striding across shell-holes and treacherous ground with a
heavy mess-box balanced on his head.
"Only bully beef to-night, sir," said Meddings to the expectant major
as he dumped the box on the floor of the hut.
"My dear fellow, I can eat anything, a crust or a dog-biscuit, I'm so
hungry."
Meddings raised the lid and we all crowded round. "By Gad! this is too
much," snapped the major.
The box contained nothing but cups and plates and saucers.
When Meddings returned with a second box the major and the adjutant
seized some biscuits and munched happily and voraciously. "You devils,"
said the major, grinning reproachfully at Wilde and myself, "I bet you
had whiskies-and-sodas at the waggon line. Why were you so long?"
We didn't go into full explanations then, and I must confess that when
the major, in his haste, knocked the bottle of white wine off the table
and smashed it, Wilde and myself could scarcely forbear a chuckle. That
ought, of course, to be the climax of the story; but it wasn't. I had
put two bottles of the major's white wine into the mess cart, so the
concluding note was one of content. Also I might add, Stenson called
upon us to say that A Battery's mess cart had failed to arrive, and
four foodless officers asked us to have pity upon them. So A Battery
received a loaf and a big slab of the truly excellent piece of bully, a
special kind that Meddings had obtained in some mysterious fashion from
a field ambulance that was making a hurried move. "You two fellows have
earned your supper," said the now peaceful major to Wilde and myself.
"I didn't think you were going to have so trying a journey." We ate
bully sandwiches solidly until 1 A.M. Then the major and the adjutant
descended to their little room below ground. I glanced through 'The
Times,' and then Wilde and myself found a restful bed upon the
shavings. The cook and the servants had gone back to the Nissen hut.
The major's last words as he fell asleep were, "I've to be at the --th
Infantry Brigade Headquarters at 4.45 in the morning. I think I'll take
the adjutant with me.... No,"--sleepily,--"you'd better come, Wilde."
At 4 A.M., when the major's servant woke us, the major called up the
stairs to me, "I think, after all, you'd better come with me." As I had
not removed my boots, it didn't take me long to be up and ready.
Before we were fifty yards from the hut the major and I shared in one
of the narrowest escapes that have befallen me in France. We heard the
shell coming just in time to crouch. According to Meddings, who stood
in the doorway of the hut, it fell ten yards from us. Smothered with
earth, we moved forward rapidly immediately we regained our feet.
"We shall be right for the rest of the day after that," panted the
major. "The --th Brigade are in the bank along the road from Leuze Wood
to Combles," he added, reading from a message form. As we left the
dewy grass land and got on to the road that led through the wood, other
shells whistled by, but none of them near enough to set our nerves
tingling again. Indeed the state of mind of both of us seemed sanguine
and rose-coloured. "Fine bit of country this," said the major in his
quick jerky way, "and that purple haze is quite beautiful. It ought to
be lighter than this. It's not even half morning light yet.... My old
uncle in County Clare would be sure to call it dusk. He often used to
say when we were arranging a day's fishing, 'Let me see, it will still
be dusk at 5 A.M.'"
The major drew an envelope from his pocket and fixed his eyeglass.
"Awkward thing sometimes having a double-barrelled name," he continued.
"I remember a bright young subaltern in a reserve brigade in England,
whose name was Maddock-Smith, or something like that. He complained
that the brigade clerk had not noticed the hyphen, and that he was down
to do double duty as orderly officer--once as Maddock and once as
Smith."
We were now through the wood, and walking down the hill direct to
Combles. Everything seemed profoundly quiet; not a soul in the road
save ourselves. "Seems strange," observed the major, frowning.
"Infantry Brigade Headquarters ought to be about here. They can't be
much farther off. The starting line is only a few hundred yards away."
"You'd certainly expect to see plenty of messengers and runners near a
brigade headquarters," I put in. "Hullo! here's some one on a bicycle."
It was a New Zealand officer. "Can you tell me where the --th Brigade
Headquarters are?" he asked.
"We are looking for them ourselves," replied the major. "I've to be
there by 4.45, and it's past that now."
We went down to where a track crossed the road at right angles. Still
no one in sight. "Don't understand it," remarked the New Zealand
officer. "I'm going back for more information."
The major and I remained about five minutes longer watching the haze
that enveloped the village below commence to lift. Then suddenly we
heard the sharp metallic crack of quick-firing guns behind, and dozens
of 18-pdr. shells whistled above us. The barrage had started.
Almost immediately red Very lights went up within a stone's-throw as it
seemed to me. And now Boche lights leapt up on our left where the haze
prevented us seeing the Morval ridge, the highest ground in the
neighbourhood, and still in enemy hands. Presently the devilish rattle
of machine-guns rapped out, spreading round the half-circle along which
the alarm lights were still soaring heavenwards.
"We can't do anything by staying here," decided the major. "My place is
with the Infantry Brigade, and I must find them."
"We can report, at any rate, that the Boche lights went up within a few
seconds of the start of our barrage, and that the enemy artillery
replied within four minutes," I remarked, looking at my wrist-watch, as
shells from the direction of the Boche lines poured through the air.
"Yes, we can say that," responded the major, "and ----, keep down!" he
called out violently.
A number of bullets had swished swiftly past us. We kept close to the
bank and walked, bending down, until we came again to the sunken
portion of the road.
"We can also report that this road was subjected to machine-gun fire,"
concluded the major pointedly.
We ducked again with startled celerity just before reaching the wood.
This time it was a short-range shell from one of our own guns--there
was no mistaking the wheezy, tinny sound of its passage through the
air. It fell in front of us on the edge of the road, and delivered its
shrapnel as vengefully as if it had fallen in the Boche lines. As we
came beyond the wood we met young Stenson with a small party of
gunners. His face shone with expectancy. He was on the way to man the
forward gun that A Battery had placed overnight under cover of a bank
not far from the road the major and I had just walked along.
"Well, old fellow," remarked the major, removing his steel helmet when
we got back to headquarters, "a cup of tea, and you'd better go
straight down to those trenches the other side of Guillemont and
inquire what has become of the Infantry Brigade. And you can deliver
our reconnoitring report."
It was a long walk, and I resolved to pick up my horse for the return
journey. The Infantry brigadier was taking an early cup of tea when I
found his headquarters. His brigade-major told me that there had been a
change of plan, and the Brigade did not come forward, as previously
arranged. "We couldn't find you to let you know," he explained. "Show
me the position of your headquarters on the map.... Oh, we have our
advanced headquarters not three hundred yards from you, and you will
find the 2nd ---- headquarters near there too.... I'm sorry we didn't
let you know last night. But none of our despatch-riders could find
you."
I rode back the best part of the way, and found the major, the
adjutant, and Wilde fortifying themselves with eggs and bacon.
"We'll look round for a better protected headquarters than this after
breakfast," said the major briskly.
"When I've had a shave, sir," I answered appealingly. "I can't maintain
my efficiency without a shave, you know."
X. A MASTERLY TURNING MOVEMENT
August 30: Before noon we learned that the battle had gone not
altogether our way. Our own Divisional Infantry had fought well and
scattered the Boche in the low-lying village of Combles, but the
Division on our left had failed to force the enemy from the Morval
Heights. Consequently our infantry had been ordered to withdraw their
line slightly, while it remained impossible for the Field Artillery to
push forward so long as the Boche observers possessed the Morval ridge.
Our batteries, with an S.O.S. range of 1700 yards, were close enough,
as it was, to startle strict adherents of siege-war principles. Indeed
A Battery's forward section, handled first by Dumble and then by
Stenson, had boldly harassed the enemy machine-gunners from under 500
yards' range. Dumble had already been recommended for the Military
Cross, and Major Bullivant described Stenson's exploits while visiting
Brigade Headquarters during the afternoon.
"Yesterday," he told Major Mallaby-Kelby, "he took a sniping gun on to
the crest, and kept it in action for four hours, firing 150 rounds. At
one time he was within three hundred yards of the enemy. He wiped out
at least two infantry teams and waggons--although the Boche tried hard
to knock his gun out with 5.9's and whizz-bangs. This morning he fired
500 rounds over open sights, and the colonel of the ----s tells me he
helped our infantry a lot. I understand that more than once, when his
gunners got tired, he 'layed' the gun himself--not part of an officer's
work, perhaps--but he's a very sound youngster, and I should like to
get him something."
"I shall be pleased indeed to put him in," responded Major
Mallaby-Kelby. "A word from the infantry would, of course, help."
Our new headquarters, nearer to the Boche depot, consisted simply of a
deep stairless shaft with a 40 degrees slope. The props supporting the
roof were fusty with mildew and fungus, but the entrance faced away
from the German guns. As the colonel of the 2nd ----s was keen to be in
liaison with us, he and his adjutant and a couple of signallers shared
the shaft. The servants gathered clean straw from the German dump and
strewed it down the shaft. Major Mallaby-Kelby and the colonel, a slim
soft-voiced young man at least twenty-six years of age, with a proved
reputation for bravery and organising powers, had their blankets laid
side by side at the top of the shaft; the two adjutants, plus
telephones, came next; then a couple of signallers with telephone
switch-boards; and, lowest of all, the doctor and myself. Wilde and his
signallers, the cook and his servants, had installed themselves in a
roomy hut stuck in a big bank thirty yards away. There was a sort of
well at the top of the shaft, with steps cut in the earth, leading down
from the ground-level. We fastened a tarpaulin across the top of the
well and made it our mess. It was not unwise to pick such a
well-shielded nook; the Boche gunners flung shells about more in this
neighbourhood than along the slope where the batteries were situated.
We slept three nights in the shaft. Each morning on awaking I
discovered that I had slipped a couple of yards downhill. I made
further full acquaintance, too, with the completeness of the doctor's
snoring capabilities. Down in that shaft he must have introduced a new
orgy of nasal sounds. It commenced with a gentle snuffling that rather
resembled the rustling of the waters against the bows of a racing
yacht, and then in smooth even stages crescendoed into one grand
triumphant blare.
September 1 proved a day of glory in the history of the Division.
Conferences of Generals, and dashing to and fro of despatch-riders,
produced ambitious plans for an advance that would more than make up
for the set-back of August 30. A brigade of our own Divisional Infantry
was again to descend upon the village of Combles, while another
brigade, working on the flank, would effect a turning movement
northwards towards Fregicourt, a hamlet twelve hundred yards north-east
of Combles. Meanwhile the Division on our left intended to make a
desperate effort to free the Morval Heights.
My task was to be brigade liaison officer with the --th Infantry
Brigade, who had come up overnight to a quarry a quarter of a mile
beyond D Battery's position. It was a crisp invigorating day, with a
nip in the air that foretold the approach of autumn, and it would have
been a pleasant walk along the valley had not one constantly to get to
leeward of the dead horses that littered the way. And I shall always
recall a small log-cabin that stood isolated in the centre of the
valley--the sort of place that could mean lone settlers or hermit
hunters to imaginative boyhood. I felt drawn to the hut. The door hung
ajar and I looked in. A young German infantry soldier, dead, his face
palely putty-like, his arms hanging loose, sat on a bench before a
plain wooden table. There was no disorder in the hut. Many a time have
I seen sleeping men in more grotesque attitudes. But the open jacket
and the blood-stained shirt told probably of a miserable being who had
crept inside to die.