Germany's Greatest Effort
It was cold and raw as Bill put his head up from the dug-out where he
and his chums had their head-quarters.
"Something doin'," he said laconically, bobbing down again and
clambering to the depths below, where in 1915 the Germans had dug hard
to prepare a defensive line which would arrest the British forces.
Yet that contemptible force, as the Kaiser had arrogantly called it,
swollen to unwonted proportions, had overrun this line in spite of
strenuous German resistance, and here, in March, 1918, in place of the
Hun enjoying such comfort as these dug-outs provided--here were Bill
and his friends snug under cover.
"Somethin' doin'," Bill repeated, as he joined the throng down below,
some thirty-five feet under the surface, and stumbled in to find a seat
in the dug-out, about which sat or lounged, perhaps, a dozen men facing
the centre, where, perched on a kerosene tin, a single army-pattern
candle spluttered and glimmered.
"Oh, aye!" answered one, as he pulled at his pipe. "Sounds like it!
Shouldn't wonder!"
They listened. Each man, as if by habit, lifted his head and stared
hard at the spluttering candle.
"Yep!" Larry interjected, pulling his hat from his head and rubbing his
fingers through his hair. "It do sound something like a ruction. This
here gunnin's been goin' on this four hours. Say, Bill, what's it doin'
upstairs?"
"Aye, what's it doin'?"
They turned their eyes upon the young soldier, and then sat there still
staring at the fluttering flame of the candle, listening, listening
to the thud, thud, thud, the almost continuous roar of distant
guns--damped down, as it were, by their deeply entrenched position, yet
a roar for all that--and listening to the distant reverberation, which
shook the earth and sent tremors through the dug-out.
For hours, indeed, German guns had been thundering; for hours shells
of every variety, but mainly gas shells, had been crashing into the
British defences, and crashing upon roads, levelling all that was
left of the puny walls of one-time pleasant hamlets, creating more
destruction in an area already almost utterly destroyed by previous
bombardments. And to those guns British guns made answer, till the roar
made speaking well-nigh impossible even deep down there in that dug-out.
"Best get something to eat, boys," said the practical Jim, when
a few minutes had passed in silence--that is, silence save for
that interminable thud, the occasional whine of a shell scarcely
perceptible deep down in the dug-out, and the deep rumbling of the
earth caused by so many concussions. "It looks as if the Germans are
coming on, and, that being so, the man who's got his waistcoat well
lined will be ready for them. Ah! hear that one? That's an ammunition
dump gone up! Hit direct, I shouldn't wonder."
They had been almost deafened by a rumbling roar, and sat for a while
again in silence, then from an adjoining opening there emerged a
tin-hatted, hairy individual bearing a dixie in one hand and a ladle in
the other. It was the cook--a stalwart British Tommy, his muffler wound
round his face, a cigarette between his lips, the very embodiment of
coolness and nonchalance.
"Food, boys!" he called out, "and maybe it's the last we'll get down in
this dug-out. With all that fire comin' over, it ain't possible that
we shall advance, and from what I've sorter gathered we'll be lucky
if we can hold our ground. There's millions of Germans. The Kaiser's
been bringin' 'em over from Russia all the time, and I expects that
'e's been bringin' all the guns and ammunition that the Russians left
to 'im. 'Ere you are, Bill, hold yer plate! Good bully and stew with
a potato or two a-floatin' around. You won't turn yer nose up at it,
I know, nor Larry neither. I don't know America, but I guess there
couldn't be anything better put before you out there--eh, Larry?"
"Yep! You bet! Feedin' ain't no better and no worse out there, and
it'll never be better than it is here," the American answered, sniffing
at the stew and smacking his lips.
Indeed he spoke the truth, for never were soldiers better fed than
those belonging to Britain. They ate their stew with relish, those men
down in that deep well of the earth, and then fell to smoking and to
chatting, while Bill clambered along flights of steep wooden steps till
he came to the gas curtain which hung across the exit, and, keeping his
gas respirator at the "alert" position, ready to pop the mask over his
face at any instant, he pushed the curtain aside, and, helmet on head,
emerged into the open. It was light--that is to say, it was lighter
than it had been three hours earlier, though a damp, wet fog clung to
the ground. Gun-fire still sounded, but for some uncanny reason its
fierceness had subsided; though now, in place of the heavy thuds of
distant batteries and the bursting of shells, there was to be heard the
sharp, crisper report of smaller explosive missiles.
"Trench mortars, shouldn't wonder," he thought, "and that's rifle-fire,
machine-gun firing, and it's spreading all along the line! It's---- by
James! it's behind us! It's close here to our left! It's---- who are
they?"
He peered through the mist, and then, lifting the curtain, dived down
the steps of the dug-out, reaching his friends eventually in a confused
heap, for he had missed his footing on the damp stairway.
"Why, it's our little Bill," chaffed Larry, and then looked serious,
for Bill sat up, his clothes awry, his helmet dangling in one hand, his
eyes starting.
"They're Huns--Huns I tell you! They're all round us! They've got
behind us! Our men have fallen back. It's been a surprise attack, and
the mist and the fog have helped them. It's--it looks as though we're
cornered."
"Cornered! Cornered! Looks as though we're cornered," they repeated,
the words coming to Bill's ears as if from a far distance, first with a
decided flavour of the American accent, then in broad Devonshire, and
again from Jim in that drawl which was so unmistakable. "Cornered!"
"Yep!"
"But," said Larry, diving for his morsel of cigar, "you don't mean----?"
"I mean," said Bill, "that the Germans are all round us, that we chaps
down here are probably cut off, and that we're in a tight fix. Where's
yer rifles? Where's yer bombs? Some of you men have got a store of
bombs down here that you were to carry up to the front line, and what
about ammunition stocks? This is a business! Look here, boys, make
ready whilst I go up and have another look round. The thing to do would
be to decide which way to go, how to act if we are surrounded. We shall
be made prisoners the moment we turn out, or get shot down. I'm not
asking to be made a prisoner--not me!"
"Nor me neither," came from the burly individual who had borne the
steaming dixie into the dug-out, "nor me neither, Bill. I had some!"
he added, and he actually grinned in spite of the precariousness of
their situation. "Don't yer forgit, young feller, that in 1915 I was
took at Hulloch, opposite Loos, you know--no yer don't, 'cos you was
in America; but Hulloch's just where we gave the Hun proper stuff
somewhere about September, 1915. Well, I got pinched, and for about
a week I was a guest of the Kaiser's. Oh, no thanks! No more being a
guest of the Kaiser nor of any other Hun, I thank you. Skilly ain't in
it--I give yer my word, I was worn wellnigh to a shadow--I----"
The incorrigible, loquacious fellow would have gone on discussing the
event for half an hour had not Bill abruptly interrupted him, while
another of the men brusquely ended his conversation.
"Stow it, Nobby! You as thin as a rake, eh? You'll be thin soon if you
don't hold yer wind and help us to get out of what looks like a nasty
business. Yes, young Bill, you nip up, me and the other boys'll make
ready."
"And I'll go along with him," said Jim, making towards the stairway.
They clambered up rapidly, Jim adjusting his gas respirator. Then,
arrived at the gas curtain, they pulled it slowly aside and peered out.
It was lighter still, for every minute now made a difference. Mounting
higher overhead was the spring sun, though still invisible, yet
sucking continuously at the moisture, driving deep lanes through it,
trying all the while to send its rays to the soaked earth underneath.
There were figures moving about, a batch of men disarmed and dressed
in khaki were being marched across the narrow foreground; officers
dressed in field grey--the German uniform--were galloping to and fro,
and a host of men were staggering past bearing machine-guns and trench
mortars. It was a German invasion in fact. For the German hosts,
seizing the opportunity provided by mist, had taken the British Fifth
Army at a disadvantage, and, coming on by the thousand, had swept
through their front line and were already hotly engaged with other
troops farther to the rear. In that sudden, successful advance they had
overwhelmed small parties of the British, they had run over trenches
and advanced posts and dug-outs, and, in fact, they had erected a
curtain between those men in the front line who had been unable to fall
back, and their comrades now resisting the enemy advance.
In that area which they had so suddenly captured lay the dug-out in
which Bill and his friends were quartered, and they too, like many
another party, were derelict, surrounded, encompassed by enemies, with
no way out, though as yet they were not actually prisoners.
"Huh!" grunted Bill, peering from beneath the flap of the blanket, "it
don't look healthy--do it? A fellow don't know which way to turn nor
what to do. If we wait, we are taken. There'll be a party of Germans
come along and summon us to surrender. Then it would be a case of
'hands up' and 'come out'--or----"
"Be burst in by a bomb," said Jim. "I know it! I went up with a party
of our chaps in one of those raids of ours when we blew up some of the
German dug-outs. My, it was a game!"
They lowered the gas curtain over the entrance again and stumbled down
the stairway.
"Yes, it was a game," said Jim, as they entered the dug-out and joined
their comrades. "A game for the Huns, you bet! Gee! and we wouldn't
find it so."
The big man in the hairy waistcoat, with the broad smile on his strong
face, grinned, and, taking the cigarette from his mouth, tapped Larry
familiarly on the shoulder.
"A game I've played too, up here in these very parts in the days when
we was fighting the Germans back over the Somme. Kamerad! D'you know
the call? They'd come tumbling up from the dug-outs, with their hands
above their heads, and, if you believe me, they'd offer money, watches,
anything, for their lives, boys. We gave 'em somethin' that time. Of
course, if they didn't come up we gave 'em a smoke-bomb; and if that
didn't fix 'em we put a sentry at the door and waited till a chap came
along with something stronger."
"Hold hard! Sentry! Oh!" Bill shouted.
"Oh!" repeated the big man; "and what's now? You ain't frightened?"
"Frightened!" glared Larry. For the very thought sent him into a hot
flush of indignation. "Him!--Bill!--the chap----"
"Shut up!" said Bill. "I was thinking of that sentry. We're
cornered--that's what all agreed--eh?"
Even the big man in the hairy waistcoat could not fail to be in
sympathy with the suggestion. If he had, a glance out through the
door of the dug-out would have soon satisfied him. The light was now
stronger. The mist was clearing. On every side Germans could be seen,
while behind them, where there had been British support-lines before,
was now the fierce rattle of machine-guns and of trench mortars.
Across what had been "No-Man's-Land" streamed columns of Germans, some
marching in good order, others trapesing over the ground dragging every
sort of war material. There were detached bands, too, marching hither
and thither, and halting unexpectedly. They were searching for the
hidden caches of British soldiers, cut off by this sudden advance, and
for dug-outs.
"Hold hard!" said Bill. "You chaps wait down here. Larry and Jim come
along up with me. I'm going to post a sentry over our show," he said,
when they had gained the curtain and were able to peep out. "Perhaps
we'll get a chance."
"A chance!" said Larry, scratching his head--"a chance to place a
sentry! You mean a chance to get hold of some togs in which to rig one
of us up. That's a fine idea, Bill, but it would mean shooting if we
were discovered."
"Not if the sentry's a real German," grinned Bill. "You know what I
mean--a real stout, floppy German!"
"A real stout---- Here, what are you getting at!" cried Jim, and he too
was grinning.
As for Larry, as one might expect, he merely cocked his hat a little
farther forward, fumbled automatically for the stump of his cigar, and
scrutinized the smiling Bill from the top of his tin hat to his thick
boots.
"Look here, me lad, this 'ere fat, floppy German," he said. "What are
you after? Gee, lad, but--but I do believe----"
"Hist! Sit down! Let the blanket drop! There are men there, fat and
floppy," whispered Bill, pulling them both back well into the entrance,
and seeing that the curtain was carefully lowered. Then, pushing it
aside with a single finger, he bid them in turn peer out.
A shattered hedge ran not far from the opening to the dug-out, masking
the entrance to some extent. A bank, too, obstructed the approach to
it, and bordered a sunken road, which no doubt at one time had been
a feature of the village situated just there. But the village had
gone long since. High-explosive shells had churned the ground in all
directions, had torn the pleasant dwellings of the villagers to shreds,
had lacerated the trees and broken them on every side, had even turned
water-courses, by bursting in their channels, and, having dug deep
holes and pits in all directions and flattened every prominence known
by the residents, had transformed the country thereabouts, and indeed
for miles and miles on either hand, into a vast disordered desert.
Yet this one feature remained--a narrow, sunken cart track, passing
along beside a bank which gave it shelter, perhaps, from the desolating
action of the shells--a bank which was seamed and furrowed by the
spades of men who had dug deep into it for shelter. It harboured
amongst those many cavities the entrance to this dug-out. As for the
lane itself, it harboured at this particular moment a German--a big,
lumbering man, whose steel helmet seemed so huge that it covered his
head as an extinguisher covers a candle. He was plodding along towards
the dug-out, perhaps some two hundred yards distant from it, his eyes
upon the ground, his weary feet moving heavily, his rifle over one
shoulder.
"That's him," said Bill, pointing a finger through a niche made by
withdrawing the curtain with his finger. "That's our sentry--a fine
big, fat German!"
He could feel rather than hear Larry giggling. As for Jim, he squatted
down beside the wooden sides of the entrance to the dug-out and did his
utmost to stifle the roars of laughter he felt bound to give way to.
For somehow the sight of that plodding German coming steadily towards
them, Bill's incriminating finger, and their own peculiar position,
struck a ludicrous note. It tickled his fancy immensely.
"Ho! ho! ho!" he roared, till Larry, turning, struck him sharply on the
shoulder.
"Gee, man!" he said; "d'yer think we're going to stay here and be
captured 'cos a big lout such as you gets a-laughin'? But Bill's right,
ain't he? A fine German, just fine! And won't he do for us! Just how'll
we tackle him?"
"Tackle him!" exclaimed Bill. "Easy! Get your gun, push it through the
curtain. Here, wait till he gets close to us, then watch and see!"
Neither of the three had any fears as to the result of the encounter,
and less so as the German drew nearer. From being just a big, fat,
ambling German, he was seen from a closer view to be in addition a very
shaken and frightened individual.
"Here, you just sit up sharp," said Larry, pushing his revolver through
an opening which Jim made, while Bill pushed his head up through the
other side of the curtain. "Hands up--quick! Now, young feller, you
come over here straight! D'you get me?"
The German "got him" at once. He stood of a sudden stock still, lifted
his eyes, and gazed at the entrance to the dug-out. Then he dropped his
rifle, opened his mouth wide as if about to shout, and half turned. But
at that instant Larry's weapon was pushed still farther forward, and,
obedient to Bill's beckoning finger, the German picked up his rifle,
holding it well above his head, and the other hand also, and advanced
towards them.
"Now, you look here, you Hun," said Larry, pushing his way farther
forward, "I'll be just behind you here--savvy?--with a bit of the
curtain between us. You'll march to and fro--get me? Just to and fro
same as any ordinary sentry. But if you try tricks, cunning tricks, me
boy, look out for it!"
"Aye, look out for it!" Jim chimed in; "because, if Larry misses, I
ain't so bad a shot by no means."
"Here, he doesn't understand. Let's try him with a bit of French,"
said Bill, stepping out to the bewildered German. "Speak English?" he
asked, and then, as the man answered "Nein"; "then understand this,"
he told him in French, "you're to act as sentry. If you are challenged
by any other Germans, simply say that you've been put here by orders.
Don't try to play any games with us. My friends here are Americans, and
perhaps you know what that means: they can shoot. You understand that,
eh?"
The man nodded; his mouth gaped for a moment, and then, flinging his
rifle over his shoulder, he began to move to and fro, to and fro, like
an automaton, glancing sheepishly at the entrance to the dug-out, and
seeing there every now and again a little niche or opening, and from
that niche the faces of either Jim or Larry or Bill, and sometimes
also the muzzle of a revolver. It was marching to and fro that
comrades of his saw him, and, taking it for granted that he had been
stationed there to watch the dug-out, they passed on without thinking
to challenge him. For the moment, in fact, Bill's ruse had saved his
comrades from capture, but how long would it act in that manner? The
sentry could not possibly march to and fro for ever, and presently
there would be more Germans in the neighbourhood. What then?
"Aye, what then?" asked Larry thoughtfully, as he cocked and uncocked
his revolver.
"Ah!" replied Jim, unable to fathom the difficulty.
"A teaser," agreed Bill. "Let's hope for the best! What about a meal
anyway?"
"Fine!" was Larry's terse rejoinder.