THE BREAKING IN
"We take the old road we have taken for years;
For you cannot cut corners in war, it appears."
The truth of this old maxim was impressed on us by the roundabout route
we took to reach the field only a few hundred yards away where the
remainder of the battalion lay.
Actually about two companies strong, they looked a mere handful as they
lay huddled close to the hedges in the shallowest of shelter pits
scratched in the soil with the field entrenching tool.
The draft was immediately ordered to "dig in," as the plane we had been
watching a few minutes before had dropped its signal directly over this
position.
We lost no time in digging more of these shallow pits, that reminded one
rather gruesomely of graves, and had barely scraped them deep enough to
roll into before a hail of small high-explosive shell fell all around
us.
For half an hour the whoop and crash of falling and bursting shells kept
us alternately ducking our heads and raising them again to see "where
that one went," for curiosity is many times a stronger impulse than
fear.
Curious things happened. A tree was cut in half by a shell, and the
plumed top, falling clear of the stump, planted itself like a dart in
the ground a few feet away.
A pack horse suddenly bolted across the open field with a slight cut on
one flank, and half a dozen men made wild grasp at its bridle before one
succeeded in recapturing the brute. And here and there groups of men
finding their corner of the field a bit too "hot" for comfort would just
as suddenly bolt across to another part and start feverishly digging in
anew.
The shelling ended with as little warning as it had begun. There came a
pause, and we thought naturally, "Well, thank God that's over!"--and
said so. "Just a minute," said my companion; "there are the Three
Sisters to come yet!"
Before one could say "Here they are!" the rush of much larger
projectiles was heard, and in quick succession three heavy shells
crashed into the foot of the field, throwing up black columns of smoke.
"Those are coal-boxes," continued my tutor; "they used to have four guns
in that battery, but they are only using three now."
The chuckle with which he added this last showed that he, at any rate,
had no doubt as to the fate of the fourth gun.
This was evidently the end of the shelling, the enemy having,
theoretically, made the field untenable. The actual casualties were,
however, very slight, and the field entrenching tool, until now regarded
as a toy, became a valued possession. We were already beginning to learn
that the British infantry equipment is the finest in the world.
The shelling over, the draft was divided up amongst the remnants of the
four companies, and Lyte and the writer had the good fortune to be
placed with the same one.
Our company commander had been a lieutenant till a few days before, and
was now a temporary captain. His senior subaltern was wearing a "British
warm," the skirt of which had been riddled by machine-gun bullets, and a
sergeant was to come out in orders that evening as an officer to take
the remaining platoon.
A machine-gun duel in mid-air between one of our planes and an enemy
machine that was eventually driven off and the dropping of some large
shells into Ypres were the only other events of the day. Most of us
slept, as there was work for us to do that night, until the joyful sound
of "Tea up!" and the smell of hot "Maconachie" rations told us that
supper was ready.
At 7 o'clock the battalion fell in to move up to the front line and dig
some trenches. Hardly were we formed up when another violent shelling
started, and we hurried back to the cover of our funk-holes.
Again the shelling was singularly ineffective, due, probably, to the
fact that the enemy was using high explosive and not shrapnel. One shell
by an unfortunate chance caught an artillery limber full of ammunition
on the roadway, and it blew up with a sickening roar. The double report
of this explosion evidently satisfied the German gunners, for a few
minutes later the bombardment ceased and we again fell in.
The greatest secrecy was observed, and nobody but the guides knew our
destination, and we followed them in silence up the shell-pitted road
and across the pontoon bridge that spanned the Yser Canal. Various dark
forms hobbled past, their baggy trousers showing them to be Algerians. A
French outpost challenged us, and a party of Ghurkas passed us leading
pack horses with the bodies of their fallen officers lashed across the
saddles. The Ghurkas never leave an officer's body on the field, so the
sergeant in rear of the platoon ahead informed us.
On either side of the road was a ruined trench, and even in the weird
half-light of the flares we could see what a shambles they had become.
The road was well called "Suicide Alley!"
Then suddenly we left the road and took to the open fields on the left,
passing a trench occupied by some Imperial troops--it was our own first
line trench. Then we knew what our work was to be; we were to dig an
advance trench to link up with the French on our left and the English on
our right. The advance continued up a gentle slope across which--nearly
a thousand yards of bare bullet-swept field--the Ghurkas had a day or so
previously tried to charge. The bodies still lay there in rows just as
they had fallen under the bursts of fire that mowed them down--pitiful
huddled figures in the grass staring ahead into the great void. Few of
the faces showed signs of suffering--such is the mercy of the rifle
bullet; and so great was the resemblance to sleep that later, when we
came to retire, the writer and others shook the bodies mistaking them
for our own men.
In the midst of this ghastly scene, lit up by fitful glances of
moonlight as clouds scudded over the sky, two companies moved forward, a
long line of shadowy forms, to act as a covering party while the
remaining half-battalion dug the new trench.
As we moved forward and lay down we could hear the thudding of the picks
as they were driven into the ground, and from somewhere in the darkness
ahead the plick-plock of the sniper began. Captain H----, our new
company commander, passed down the line to warn us to count our men and
see that all bayonets were fixed and magazines loaded.
The sniping increased, and a farmhouse ahead of us that had been
smouldering for some time burst into flame. Two colts that were
evidently confined near the blaze started to whinny and neigh, and a man
who had been hit began to curse vilely.
From somewhere in rear a battery of French "seventy-fives" opened up
with their ear-splitting reports, and we could see the outlines of the
ruined farm ahead of us silhouetted against the crimson flashes of their
bursting shrapnel. But of the enemy there was no sign--nothing but the
arching trail of the flares that shot up and the steady plick-plock of
the snipers. It was most trying.
It was nearly 2 o'clock before the trench was completed and we wakened
our shivering men to retire, for so exhausted were they that, despite
the cold and danger, many had dozed there on the body-strewn field with
one hand firmly grasping the rifle.
By this time traces of dawn began to show themselves in the eastern sky,
and the moon seemed to flood the whole country with light.
Platoon by platoon in Indian file we drew off the field, carefully
checking the count of our men as they passed until all were accounted
for. Then the march back to billets began. And such a march! Worn out by
the week's hard fighting, the older men staggered all over the road, all
but dropping out from sheer exhaustion. Nor were the new men in better
condition. Unaccustomed as yet to the weight of their packs, shaken by
shell fire, and in some cases still weak from the sickness of the rough
Channel passage, it was only sheer pride and the cruel taunts of the
older men that kept them in the ranks. And thus we straggled on past the
French outposts and over the Yser again, and on, on past the field we
had lain in all day, on through Brielen to Vlamertinghe, back to
billets. But the draft was broken in.