THE ATTACK.
The reconnoitering cavalry of the advancing forces gave way to groups of
infantry, scattered in loose formation, feeling their way toward the
German trenches. The points and small flanking parties of the advance
guards, in front of each column of advance, crept along with straining
eyes in search of the enemy's line of observation.
A few hundred yards to the rearward the supports advanced alertly, ready
to scatter into a thin line of skirmishers at the first shot and rush
ahead to where the points halted. In the rear of them the infantry
columns, with one rumble of artillery close to the front, moved and
halted, as the thin line to the front paused for a moment to scan ahead,
then pushed on again.
Out of the stillness of the dew-dripping woods in front, the shot came.
There was no reply for a moment, then two or three closer reports rang
loud in reply; then there came another pause, and as the hurrying
supports deployed and flung themselves behind the nearest cover, in
momentary scanning before pushing ahead to investigate decisively, there
came a short, ragged volley from out ahead.
The reports were flat and dull, as a rule, but a few cracked viciously
as though fired close at hand. These last followed the vacuum of
low-flying bullets and had a spat and twang of their own.
For weeks these two armies had been facing each other; for a week
assault had wrestled with counter assault and the armies had striven
time after time to snatch an advantage from a massing of columns, or a
seeming check.
For miles to right and left, every road, every footpath, every few yards
of broken ground was trodden by the feet of short columns, prepared to
charge into lines at the needed moment, when the fire of the enemy
became a menace. The trenches were abandoned in the rear, yet should the
columns in the rear, which by the heads formed a long, long line of
supports, be hurled back in repulse after an unsuccessful attack, the
trenches would be greeted as comfortable old friends and reoccupied.
The leading columns deployed into thin lines, with short intervals
between the men, as the shrapnel broke. From out the blur of the
mingling of landscape and sky there came, simultaneously, a whir, a
crash, and the quick dash of shrapnel balls over the ground, and of the
brief flash which marked the shrapnel's burst there remained only a
dimly-seen lingering cloud of dirty smoke and some silent, writhing
forms on the ground.
Then came crash after crash, as the hostile artillery opened in
strength. The silence of the morning fled into a hideous din as the
infantry broke into a dog trot and pushed ahead.
There came a clank of trace chains and the pounding of hoofs mingling
with hoarse commands as the artillery of the Russians wheeled out of
column to position in battery, the ring of hastily-opened breechblocks,
the hollow thump of the blocks closing and the shrill notes of a silvery
whistle. Then the earth began to tremble.
Thunderbolt after thunderbolt seemed to be discharging close in the
rear, until the very trees shook and men swayed under the compression of
air in the vicinity. Over the heads of the silent infantry, shrapnel
shrieked in reply, one after another, as the batteries opened with
salvos from flank to flank.
Through the gaps between the belching batteries poured the infantry, the
columns dashing forward until, beneath the trajectory of the guns, it
was safe to spread out in the always thin line of the infantry advance.
The leading lines pushed on till they disappeared in the yet dim light,
and at a short distance behind them came others, until it seemed that
the end would never come, and that a hurrying city was passing.
Ahead, the leading infantry line, absorbing the scattered men of the
first light contact line, halted at command under the mounting rifle
fire of the enemy, halted and flung itself prone, while ready hands
reached backward for intrenching tools, and the line scraped, clawed,
scooped and burrowed into the fresh earth in shallow pits, and went
about its business of returning the German fire.
Then a second thin line ran up and merged with the first. Again shovel
and small mattock came into play and the volume of fire redoubled. Above
the cracking of the rifles the only sounds to be heard were the sharp
whistles of the officers. They shrilled in a variety of notes and
combinations, yet with an understood speech of their own, for in parts
of the line the fire slackened and two or three men left their shelter
and crept forward a few paces; or, crouching down low, dashed ahead
until the whistles spoke again.
Intrenching tool again; then fire. That was the order of the advance.
More men crept or rushed to the new position to dig themselves into the
ground and open fire, until the entire line had advanced a few yards
under the hostile shots and a new line occupied the shelter trenches
recently abandoned.
Here and there lay quiet forms across the path of advance. The hardy
bodies in the well-fitting uniforms seemed pitilessly small and their
clothing hung in baggy folds. Their comrades passed them by with hardly
a glance. The litter sections were far to the rear, for their time was
not yet. Duty called for assault, not for succor.
The thunder of the contending batteries continued. Over the hastily
carved trenches the hostile shrapnel scorched their way, singing along
with a note of wild rage, searching the crevasses and folds of the
ground and scoring the earth.
But the Russian infantry still advanced.
Quietly filling the gaps that had grown in the firing line since the
attack commenced, the supporting lines came to the front. Each accession
of reenforcements seemed to give an added impetus to the forward
movement, for upon the arrival of each fresh contingent the line surged
ahead like breakers on a coast, and, like the incoming tide, each surge
left its mark higher upon the strand.
With a calmness which bespoke experience, despite the light of battle
which blazed in their eyes, the new men brought and distributed fresh
bandoliers of ammunition to those who had gone before, then took their
places alongside to aid in its expenditure. The lines were not straight.
They zigzagged a trifle. There was no time for chalk-mark adjustment or
inspection, and the moment a panting body struck the ground after a
forward rush, the earth began to fly on the spot beneath the chop of the
trench-digging tools, and the hot rifles to speak.
Men growled, muttered and shouted. Under the fighting fog that beset
each one in its own way, there came snatches of song, humming and
whistling. There were those, too, who fought silently, as though deeply
wrapped in thought, and there was bickering when a hasty comrade crowded
too close for free operation of the flying breechbolts; yet the faces
were ever turned to the front, except when they turned to the sky or the
earth, and nerveless hands fell sprawling with half-emptied rifles.
Where officers, binoculars in hand, bent hastily to the line, men
detached themselves at intervals, and clawing at their belts, seized the
wire cutters pendant there and crawled forward. Now and then one of the
creeping ones would spring into the air and topple over, but the rest,
apparently paying no heed, continued on their way toward where the
Germans had erected wire entanglements to hold the stormers under the
blast of the enemy's fire.
Ahead, the trenches of the Germans crackled and spat with fury, and even
under the ceaseless rain of shrapnel from above the assaulting lines the
enemy kept his place. The firing line had thickened until it was a solid
mass, one man deep, and in the rear line after line had sprung to its
feet and was closing up in support to the crucial assault. At the
trenches of the defenders, batteries, with horses falling and being cut
away in an instant, dashed to the line, unlimbered and poured in their
scattering salutations of zero shrapnel to the men in front.
Came a clank and rattle of bayonets snapped onto the muzzles of the
assaulting line; then, with a last frenzied emptying of magazines, the
lines sprang to foot, and with hoarse voices screeching at top note, the
slender line charged forward.
The trenches were lined with the defenders in an instant. The rifle fire
redoubled in intensity and the artillery, which had come up to stem the
tide, or assault when the supporting batteries of the attack were
compelled to hold their fire for fear of obliterating their own
attacking lines, barked at four-second intervals, opening great gaps in
the racing line at every discharge.
In rear of the supporting lines of the assault, which were closing up at
a dead run, galloped the batteries which were to make a rallying point
in case the assault failed, or occupy the trenches, should the defenders
be driven out, and the cannoneers clutched the side rails as the pieces
swayed and rocked across the rough ground and clustered bodies which
strewed the field.
At the crest of the parapet the lines, attack and defense met with a
ring of steel. Bayonets flashed, darted, parried and struck. Rifle butts
whirled above bare heads and the stocks crashed down through bone and
flesh. From both sides came a rain of hand grenades, bombs which
exploded upon touch. From the rear of the trenches there came running
formed troops, to assist in the repulse of the Russians, and as the
supporting lines of the attack threw themselves into the fray, the
whirling, struggling, fighting lines on the trenches' top thickened and
swayed.
The line sagged, bulged, trembled, and broke in huge gaps. Into the
splaying breaches there rushed fresh troops from front and rear, and the
lines thickened and swayed again. Men discarded their arms to lock in
one another's embrace, fighting to the last.
The din was deafening, yet above it there rang out the detonation and
shock of a great explosion, where a delayed mine belched upward under
the pressure of the hastening troops coming up with the attacking
reserve. Earth, stones, wire entanglements, arms and men shot upward in
a dense geyser of death, and came down in the midst of the fierce
fighting.
Then the line broke again, and the shattered reserves of the attack,
summoning the last resources, poured into the breach with bayonet and
magazine.
The defense gave way.
Crumpled under the last despairing hurling of last reserves, the
entrenched line shuddered along its length, then the line lost its
cohesion, stood irresolute for a moment, then fled precipitately to the
rear.
The whistles of the Russian officers blew again and again. Officers had
fallen until corporals and sergeants commanded platoons and companies;
yet they, too, had their whistles and knew their duties; and out of the
scramble of the attack, regardless of company, regiment or brigade, the
Russians fell into rough line, knelt, and opened fire upon the routed
enemy, while the supporting batteries dashed to the trenches, unlimbered
and belched fire and iron into the fleeing mass.
The standards of the Russians, which had changed hands a dozen times,
during the course of the assault, were planted on the works; the troops
themselves, exhausted and spent by the might and fury of their efforts,
threw themselves into tired heaps as other brigades came up to hold the
position.
The trenches were won!