LIBERATED
A PROLONGED spell of steady westerly winds delayed the British air
squadron's return to the Western Front. A week or more had passed
since the arrival of Blake and his companions on Russian soil, and
although the hospitality of their hosts exceeded all expectations,
the airmen eagerly looked for a favourable breeze to aid them on
their lengthy flight.
Especially was there anxiety when they learnt the news--a widespread
secret--that the great Anglo-French offensive was shortly to take
place. On the Eastern Front, especially in Bukovina, the Muscovite
troops were displaying great activity. Already the Austrians were
being pushed back in headlong rout towards the Carpathians. In Italy,
too, their frenzied offensive, which in the first instance had pushed
Cadorna's troops from the Trentino Mountains, had been checked and
hurled backwards by the magnificent valour of the Italian armies.
On the Western Front Verdun was still proving the grave of thousands
of the Kaiser's troops, who, in hopes of being able to announce a
splendid though costly victory, had been ineffectually hurled day
after day upon the grim, determined lines of Frenchmen backed by
their tremendously effective "Seventy-fives."
Meanwhile in the neighbourhood of Riga Hindenburg had to be watched.
More, his projected offensive had to be met and broken. Here, too,
there was a good prospect of success for the Allied arms, for not
only had the Russians vast reserves of men and munitions, but since
the bad smashing of the German Fleet off the Jutland shore, the
danger of a naval attack upon Riga was at an end. And not only that;
the almost intact Russian Baltic Fleet, aided by a number of British
submarines, could co-operate with the land forces and seriously
menace the left flank of the German armies in Courland.
Private Thomas Smith, who was now putting on weight rapidly and was
fast recovering his normal health and spirits, had been made a
supplementary member of the battleplane's crew. On learning the names
of his new officers he made the announcement that for three months
during his incarceration at Meseritz he had been acting as servant to
Athol's father.
There were, he reported, four British officers at the prison camp, on
whom the task of maintaining discipline devolved; for, owing to the
horrible sanitary conditions and totally inadequate food, typhus had
broken out in the camp. It was Wittenburg all over again. The
Prussian guards, terrorised by the thought that they were exposed to
the dread disease, had kept well aloof from their prisoners,
supplying them food by means of iron trucks that were hauled in and
out of the camp by endless ropes. To make matters worse the trucks
were liberally sprinkled with chloride of lime, which had the effect
of making the already unwholesome food absolutely unpalatable.
"Not a single man of us left the camp alive during those days,"
continued Smith. "Afterwards it got a lot better, so they hired us
out like a lot of cattle. As things went it turned out all right for
me. No, sir, I haven't seen anything of Colonel Hawke for nearly six
months. He was all right then--as well as could be expected in that
horrible den."
At daybreak on the following morning the rumble of guns, that for the
past week had been intermittent, increased into a continuous and
terrific roar. All along the Courland Front dense clouds of smoke
drifted slowly across the Russian lines. The ground, twenty miles
from the actual scene of the furious cannonade, trembled under the
pulsations of the concentrated artillery.
"Would you like to have a nearer view of the action?" enquired the
courteous Russian colonel who acted as the British officers'
principal host. "To-day we hope to achieve something."
"Our battleplane is at your service, sir," replied Blake.
"No, no," protested the Russian. "That is not what I meant. Your work
is best performed on your own front when the climatic conditions
permit of your return. Here, while you are on Russian soil, it is our
duty to take good care of you. Nevertheless, should you wish to see
how your Russian brothers-in-arms can fight the Huns----?"
"Assuredly," replied Blake.
Within five minutes a swift motor-car was in readiness. Accompanied
by two Russian officers, Blake, Athol and Dick were soon speeding
over an excellent road that had only recently been completed--one of
the vast network of communications made by the Russians during the
winter of 1915-16, and which enabled them to move their troops with
the same facilities as did their highly-organised foes.
"This is as far as I dare take you, gentlemen," announced one of the
Russian officers, as the car came to a standstill in the rear of a
slightly-rising ridge. "His Excellency Colonel Dvouski has impressed
upon me the necessity of caution. It will be fairly safe to walk to
the summit of this hill. From it we can see much of the operations."
The party alighted and accompanied their guide. The view at first
sight was distinctly monotonous. Both the Russian and the German
triple lines of trenches were completely invisible, the zigzag lines
of clay being garbed in a verdant cloak of wavy grass interspersed
with gay-coloured flowers. But, although the trenches were concealed
from direct view the Russian gunners had the range of the hostile
guns to a nicety, thanks to the efficient aid given by their
observing aeroplanes.
As far as the eye could reach the German lines were being subjected
to a terrific bombardment. Clouds of dust and smoke, mingled with
flying timbers, sandbags, human bodies and limbs testified to the
stupendous power of the high-explosive shells which Russia's
erstwhile foe was now lavishly pouring into her new ally's magazines.
Two miles beyond the German third line trenches another deluge of
shells was falling, forming a "barrage" or impassable zone of fire in
order to prevent the enemy's reserves from being rushed up to assist
the already demoralised front line defenders.
The Russian officer consulted his watch.
"In seven and a half minutes from now," he announced laconically and
as calmly as if he were stating the time of departure of a train.
Breathlessly Athol and Dick watched the bursting shells, mentally
comparing the hail of friendly projectiles with the state of affairs
when they were "foot-slogging" in the Flanders trenches. Then they
were in the unenviable position of being subjected to a heavy
"strafing" with the disconcerting knowledge that the Huns were
sending three shells to the British one. Now, thanks to energetic
measures to provide munitions, it was the other way about. The sight
that the lads witnessed near Riga was but a part of a similar and
concerted plan of action stretching between the Baltic and the
Carpathians on the Eastern Front; from the North Sea to the Swiss
frontier on the Western, and in no less a degree against the
Austrians on the Italian border.
Suddenly the guns pounding the German first line trenches "lifted,"
transferring their hail of projectiles to a line well beyond.
Simultaneously swarms of grey-coated Russian infantry appeared from
the invisible trenches, clambered over the parapets, and surged
shoulder to shoulder across the intervening "no man's land."
Numbers fell, for the Huns had contrived, even amidst the inferno of
high explosive shells, to keep some of their machine-guns intact.
But the Czar's troops were not to be denied. With the sunlight
glinting upon their long bayonets, and with a succession of rousing
cheers they swept forward unfalteringly and irresistibly.
Penetrating the barbed wire entanglements they closed. Here and there
bayonet crossed bayonet, or clubbed rifle fell upon foeman's skull,
but for the most part the Huns, their spirits crushed by the
nerve-racking bombardment, threw down their rifles and raised their
hands above their heads in token of surrender.
Over the parados of the captured trench swept the triumphant troops,
hurling hand grenades by hundreds into the second line of Hun
defences. The reserve trenches shared the same fate, and in less than
forty minutes the surviving Germans, unable to flee owing to the
steady barrage fire, surrendered to their hitherto despised foes.
Already swarms of prisoners, closely guarded, were being marched to
the rear of the Russian positions, while a long line of wounded, some
supported by their comrades, others borne in stretchers, and others
walking slowly and painfully, testified to the stubbornness of the
conflict.
"What are those fellows doing, I wonder?" asked Dick, indicating a
large body of unarmed men who were approaching with every indication
of delight. They were still some distance off, but by the aid of
their binoculars Blake and his party could see the men with
comparative distinctness.
They were clad mostly in a motley of rags Their faces were black with
dirt and almost hidden by long, straggling beards. Yet in spite of
their battered and scarecrow appearances they marched with a good
idea of military order.
"Poles, perhaps," suggested one of the Russian officers. "The Huns
have forced a lot of them into their ranks. That is what the Germans
meant by granting them self-government."
"You are wrong there, Alexis Ivanovitch," said his brother officer,
speaking in French, for, out of politeness to their guests, they had
refrained from talking to each other in their native tongue. "Those
men are not Poles; they are English and French."
"Surely?" inquired Blake incredulously.
"I am certain of it," continued the Russian. "They are some of the
prisoners whom the Huns have sent from their concentration camps to
work in their trenches on this front. These Germans have a saying,
'Scratch a Russian and you will find a Tartar.' The whole civilised
world can now very well say, 'Show me a Hun and I will show you a
brute.'"
Nearer and nearer marched the ragged regiment, proceeding along a
road that led about a quarter of a mile from the hillock on which
Blake and his companions were standing.
"Let us go and give the poor fellows a bit of a welcome," he
suggested, to which the Russian officer agreed.
Suddenly, to his comrades' surprise, Athol broke into a run and made
straight for the advancing men. His sharp eyes had discovered a tall,
attenuated figure at the head of the column. In spite of the grey
beard, the hollow cheek, and bent shoulders the lad recognised his
father. Not so Colonel Hawke; he never expected to find his son, a
tall strapping youth in the uniform of an officer of the Royal Flying
Corps, on this remote corner of Russian soil.
When at length the colonel grasped the situation, he could only gasp
in speechless wonderment, while Athol shook his hands as if they were
a couple of pump-handles.
The rest of the released prisoners, numbering half a dozen British
and French officers, and about four hundred men, halted, broke ranks,
and crowded round the rest of Blake's party, filled with delight at
the sight of the well-known uniforms once more.
At the same time a Russian regiment on its way to the captured
positions halted. The troops with characteristic kindness were soon
offering their water-bottles, rations and tobacco to their starving
allies.
"It has been simply hell," declared Athol's father, after he had
recovered from the surprise that had all but rendered him speechless
with emotion. "Those swine of Germans compelled our poor fellows to
slave in their first-line trenches. Our spirit was broken by hunger
and exhaustion. We would have welcomed a Russian shell, but even that
was denied us. They pushed us into dug-outs and mine galleries, and
kept us there for three days without food. Thank heaven, though, the
boys kept their end up pretty well. At least three large mines failed
to explode as the Russians stormed the first line trenches, and I
think I know why. We tampered with the wires."
"We have a motor-car which is at your disposal, Colonel Hawke," said
the Russian officer responsible for the safety of the British airmen.
"It will indeed be an honour to offer you hospitality."
Athol's parent shook his head.
"Many thanks, sir," he replied, "but I must decline. Until I see
these men safely quartered and given a good meal my place is with
them. Well, good-bye, Athol, for the present. I'll try to look you up
this evening. I say," he added anxiously, "what's this we've heard
about a great German naval victory in the North Sea?"
"If the fact that Wilhelmshaven and Kiel are chock-a-block with
crippled German warships, that a score or more are at the bottom of
the North Sea, and that Jellicoe's fleet still holds undisputed
mastery of the sea--if that constitutes a German victory they may
repeat their success as many times as they like," observed Desmond
Blake. "I suppose that in Germany the people still believe the tissue
of lies issued by the German Admiralty. Already neutrals know the
truth. I feel sorry for the Kaiser when his subjects learn the actual
facts."
"I feel sorry for no German," declared Colonel Hawke. "I never was of
a vindictive nature, but--a Somali would give a Hun points as far as
'culture' is concerned, while an Afghan or a Turk is streets above
the brutal, degraded louts who sport the Kaiser's uniform. My great
wish at the present moment is to get back to England as soon as
possible, pick myself up--and I want a lot of feeding up, I
fancy--and then have another go at the Huns."