On Convoy Duty
A moon, half risen and not yet full, lit up the surroundings as the
supply column drew away from the village where Bill and his friends had
their head-quarters. The road wound away from them pale and ghost-like,
a ribbon of shimmering greenish-white, once shaded by trees, the stumps
of which alone remained. Woods cropped their green heads up here and
there, a stream tinkled in the immediate neighbourhood, and all around
lay a blue-green waste over which moonbeams played gently.
"Pipes out!" came the order. "Young Bill, you'll come along with this
French sergeant; you can call him any name you like, he'll answer to
it. Do as he says all the time and you won't get into trouble. Larry,
you come along with me; Jim's fixed with another Frenchman. I needn't
tell you that no matches must be struck, and when we get a couple
of miles nearer not one of you must speak above a whisper. If heavy
shelling starts you'll carry on just the same until further orders."
Bill climbed to the seat beside the driver of the wagon to which the
Sergeant had pointed, and found himself reared well above the column,
able to look right along it. There for an hour he was jolted and jarred
as the vehicles were pulled northward, and there he listened to the
chatter of the men and to the clatter of the horses' hoofs as they
trod the highway. Far away in the distance guns spoke; nearer at hand
at times there were louder clashes as French guns answered. More than
once the hum of an engine could be heard; far overhead and soaring
upwards he caught a fleeting glimpse of an aeroplane hurrying to its
destination. Once, too, a still period was of a sudden broken by the
sharp tattoo of a machine-gun up in the trenches, followed by silence
which was almost painful.
"Just a little 'do'," the Frenchman told him. "Oh yes, _mon
ami_, I speaks the American well, but you--ah! _Je me rappelle!_
you--you--speak French beautifully."
It was just the politeness of the Frenchman; indeed Bill was to find
the friendly and gallant _poilu_ a boon companion, and the few hours he
spent with this soldier made him feel the warmest friendship for him.
"What's that?" he asked a little later, as the pale rays of the moon
were put in the shade by a brilliant conflagration which lit up the sky
ahead and made every horse, every vehicle, and every driver stand out
boldly silhouetted against the ground.
"Very lights! Listen to the machine-gun again! Someone's restless up
there; perhaps it's the Boche suffering from toothache and strolling
out in 'No-Man's-Land'. My comrades of France always shoot when a Boche
is in sight. They do not forget the invaded districts of France, my
friend! They do not forget Belgium! _Pardieu!_ They do not love the
Boche! No, not at all, _mon ami_. Ah, it has died down! Now we shall
push on, for we are within one and a half miles of the trenches."
They clattered on their way steadily; behind them came other columns,
and presently they found themselves driving abreast with another which
had emerged from a side road. Under those mysterious beams they pushed
forward along the road, a collection of vehicles containing all that
makes war possible to an army; bread and meat, and bacon and coffee,
and wine, and such-like articles; trench stores, rifles, ammunition,
barbed wire, and poison gas apparatus; shells for the soixante-quinze,
the famous French quick-firer; shells for the howitzers; and in
bigger and stronger vehicles, which were motor-propelled, shells for
other guns, of larger calibre, which had been pushed up towards the
trench-line. Then the column halted.
"Here we go straight on while the others branch off to various
rendezvous," said the driver. "Do you find it a queer sensation, this
driving at night with the trench-line in front, knowing that there are
men there stretched on either hand for miles upon miles--yes, for four
hundred miles--American, British, Portuguese, Belgian; and opposite
them the Boche--the hated Boche? Do you realize, _mon ami_, that on
every road along that four hundred miles at this very moment similar
convoys are pushing up stores to be carried to the trenches, and that
on the far side of 'no-man's-land' the same is going forward? For the
Boche also must replenish the stomachs and the ammunition dumps of
his soldiers. Poof, you will say, it is all wasted labour! That all
this ammunition will be fired into the air, and that, being fired, it
will cause more waste, for it will kill people! But is it waste? _Mon
Dieu! Non!_ It is spent for the freedom of all nations. This pouring
out of shells and blood, though some of it is thrown to the winds in
these days, will bring forth fruit in the future; for it will see the
defeat of the Germans and the downfall of Prussian militarism, and
will find France mightier than ever, Britain the Queen of Empires,
and America--well, America refined by the fire through which she has
passed, nobler than at the moment. The price, my friend? Well, it
appears high--outrageously high--in our day; posterity will realize
that it was not too high for the liberty it purchased.
"But there, I am romancing. I think in these night hours, I think of my
country saddened by its losses, of yours, and of Britain and our other
allies. I wish that this war had not been, but, being a philosopher, I
see that it was inevitable. And the Boche, does he wish that it had
never been? Bah! Ask him! It was a bad day for the Kaiser when he let
loose his soldiers. An easy conquest was then promised. Does it look
easy now? Will he achieve triumph? Never! Even if he were to do so it
would be to discover a shattered, broken Germany. Ah, here we are at
the rendezvous! Now we halt and feed our horses; presently the fatigue
parties from the trenches will come down and then our stuff will be
taken."
A little later a ghostly line of men appeared out of nothingness as
it were; they were challenged by the officer commanding the convoy,
and soon, laden with material for themselves and their comrades, went
trudging off again under the moonbeams, making for the entrance to the
communicating-trench which led to the front line.
"Heigh ho! a good job done!" said the _poilu_ as he picked up his reins
again. "Get along to the leaders, my friend, and help to turn them, for
these roads are narrow for steering a cart of this sort round. Another
half-hour and we shall be able to light pipes. My word, this night work
costs the country something in tobacco!"
Not a shot, not a shell of any description, had come near the convoy
so far, and in fact the front line, illuminated quite brilliantly a
little while before, and stirred to some movement, as evidenced by the
rattle of machine-guns, had now sunk as it were into blissful slumber.
Even the Very lights failed to illuminate the sky. It looked as though
the two armies had decided upon a truce until the morning. But not so!
Some ten minutes later there came the boom of distant guns, and then a
screech ending in a loud detonation.
"Hum!" thought Bill. "Heard that sort of thing before! Shrapnel--and
not very far away either."
"Just ahead. You can hear the bullets dropping on the roadway," the
_poilu_ answered, pointing. "It's just a strafe; they know, as we know,
that convoys occupy the roads at night, and every now and again they
send over a feeler. If they have luck--poof! it is uncomfortable for
some of us. But then, so also for the Boche; for if he shells, so do we
also. Besides, there are the aeroplanes; they swoop down on the roads.
A week ago the Boche had the impudence to attack us, but we hurried
under some trees, and in the darkness he lost us. But, plague take the
Boche, there are more shells! He is wakeful! It must be the man with
the toothache again, for listen to the machine-guns. Bother the man!
Why does he not go to the doctor?"
Bill could hear him chuckling. That the Frenchman was undisturbed by
the shells now sailing over the country-side was quite evident. He did
not even duck his head as one played over the convoy and ricochetted
from the road perhaps a hundred yards in advance. If his features had
been clearly visible, his eyebrows would have been seen to lift as if
he were vastly astonished when another one spluttered shrapnel to the
left of the convoy. He even laughed when one plunged into the ground
not ten yards away.
"It's always so," he said quite quietly. "You've heard, my friend, that
the bullet does not strike you which has not your number on it. It is
a great joke, I tell you; my number--my regimental number--is so great
that I doubt the bullet was never made that can hold it. But a shell.
Ah! that is different--eh? We can smoke now--_bien_! That is a comfort."
Bill might have found it a comfort too if he had taken yet to smoking;
instead, he sat perched up beside this cool Frenchman, listening to
his words, turning his head round to watch the bursting shells, and
listening to others which hurtled through the air at a distance.
"Uncanny, yes!" he told himself. "It makes one rather feel inclined to
shiver, as if a jug of cold water were being poured slowly down one's
back. But yes, it is something to be a philosopher, only difficult
under such conditions. Somehow it's so different from what it was on
the trawler; then everything was movement, hurry, rush, with fighting
to be expected; here it's all so peaceful--er--except for the shells."
It was peaceful in its own way, though dangerous enough as many have
already discovered; yet, to do him justice, Bill never flinched, and
indeed rather enjoyed the whole experience.
"A man gets used to it," said the Sergeant, when they got back to
their quarters, having in the meanwhile surreptitiously obtained a
report on Bill and his two chums. "You three fellows were not, of
course, expected to mind shelling after that trawler affair; but you
can take my word for it, son, that shelling gets on a man's nerves even
when he thinks he's used to it. You may go up to the trenches night
after night; sometimes there's not a shot fired; then you come in for
a burst of it and things are lively. If you don't, every odd gun that
sounds in your ear may have a shell for you--you're listening for it,
expecting it; it's almost as bad as a strafe same as I've been talkin'
of. Now, young shaver, you turn in! Precious soon you may be takin'
your own convoy up."
Less than a month had passed when Bill was actually driving one of
the convoy carts, Larry and Jim being placed in similar responsible
positions. Then each got a step in rank and became lance-corporal, and
finally, when a few weeks had passed, were full sergeants. Just about
then it happened they were transferred from the Franco-American unit
to one of the new units working with the American army, which was now
swelling visibly and increasing in numbers.
"We're off to the Somme area," Larry said. "Say now, ain't that the
place where British chaps fought the Huns somewheres about 1916, when
America wasn't yet in the war, and when the President was still tryin'
to keep us out of it? Guess it would want a lot of keepin' us out of it
now! What was it they said when we came in?--'in with both feet'--eh?
Gee. It's more than our feet we're putting into this business."
They went by road to Amiens, where the famous Cathedral overshadows the
ancient city, soon to be the objective of the Germans; then they turned
due east and rode to Peronne, where, to their amazement, to Bill's
huge delight and none the less to the satisfaction of Larry and Jim,
they found themselves billeted next to British troops and their unit
actually attached to a British division.
"It's getting a sorter mix-up, boys," a friend of theirs explained.
"Way north there's Belgians and French and British sorter mixed up
together; then there's Portuguese and British and French again sorter
mixed up and jumbled lower down; there's us and more British and
French, and then more Americans, all of 'em facin' the Hun and ready
for him. Folks say as how he's about to start a big offensive. There's
hundreds of thousands of German troops on t'other side of 'No Man's
Land'. For that we've got to thank the Revolutionists in Russia--or
rather, a chap should say, the Bolshevists--who, I reckon, are sorter
super-Socialists, and are agin' the law and agin' everything as the
Irish might say. Well, we're watching for Mr. Hun and his offensive."
"And meanwhile we go on learning our own particular job with motor
transport," said Bill, for this part of the work entrusted to him
and his friends interested him even more than that of the horsed
transport. "You seem to be able to do so much more with motors; you
can go so much faster and farther, and the loads you carry are so much
heavier. Then, too, our job is to take up shells; and when you hear the
guns shying them over at the Huns you somehow feel that you're doing
better work than you were beforehand. An offensive--eh, Larry? Wonder
where it'll start? I did hear that this front might be attacked."
"Guess the Hun wants to win back the line the British and French took
from him in the Somme offensive," Jim said. "You see, he was lying
then just east of Albert and pretty nigh within easy shot of Amiens;
then he got pushed back right away past Fricourt and Pozières and
other historical places, till his line was so broken and his defences
so upset that he made a forced retirement after the battle was over,
clearing out of Bapaume, Peronne, and Noyon to mention a few of the
places. It must have shook him up a little that offensive of our
allies, and if he's made up his mind to recapture the ground, well it
ain't wonderful."
"Not when you come to remember the fact that the Russians are out of
this business altogether," declared Larry with a curl of his lip;
for somehow or other the downfall of the great Muscovite nation, the
refusal of the soldiers there to fight, and the upheaval and revolution
which had undermined the strength of the country, roused something
like contempt. "There ain't no longer need for Germans in the east nor
for Austrians either; a few battalions marching here and there are
quite enough to occupy the country and to bully and overawe the people.
Meanwhile the Kaiser is moving every man-jack he can find into France.
Folks says that the railways are worn-out with transporting guns and
men; and yonder, just over there"--and standing up the diminutive Larry
stretched out a hand to the country beyond Peronne, where the German
lines were--"somewhere yonder there are masses of the enemy, masses of
guns too, I dare say, thousands of gas shells, trench mortars, bombs,
and every sort of implement, all being stored and made ready for the
day when the Germans will fling themselves upon Britons and French and
Belgians and Americans, not to mention Portuguese and others who are
fighting on the Western Front. It will be a terrific combat."
Yet days went by, settled weather arrived, and the end of March was
already approaching. Those were days of beautiful sunlight, when men
began to think of throwing off the hairy waistcoats with which the
British soldier is provided, when greatcoats were discarded during
the daytime, and when men sniffed at the breeze, scented the spring
flowers, and thought of summer. But at night cold winds played over
the ground, and the earth, in which so many thousands were living,
dug deeply into it, struck chill and cold, and, as the early hours
of morning came, condensed the moisture. Then the country-side was
obscured in damp, wet fog, which hid the combatants from one another,
hid, indeed, all but the sound of guns, which thundered here and there
along the battle line.
For days past, indeed, gun-fire had been a feature along the front;
it broke out here and there with violence; it subsided, perhaps, only
to burst into double fury at an adjacent point; while for some hours
now the enemy artillery had been thudding over a wide stretch, and
the Allied guns had been answering shot for shot, so that there was
pandemonium. Then, in the early hours of the 21st March, German masses
were suddenly launched through the dense fog which still clad the
country-side, and threw themselves with desperate fury upon the British
Third and Fifth Armies.