FORWARD OBSERVING
Among the stock situations of the melodrama, one of the most worked to
death is that of the beleaguered garrison at the last gasp, and the
thrilling arrival of the rescuing force at the critical moment. It is
so old and threadbare now that probably no theater would dare stage
it; but in the war the same situation has been played again and again
in the swaying and straining lines of battle in every variety of large
and small scale. What the theater has rejected as too theatrical,
the artificial as too artificial, the real has accepted as so much a
commonplace that it is hardly remarked. Actually the battle line is one
long series of critical situations on one side or the other, the timely
arrival, or failure to arrive, of assistance at the critical moment.
The great difference is that in the theater the rescue never fails to
arrive, in war it often does.
Certainly the Stonewalls were as near the last gasp as ever dramatist
would dare bring his crisis; but when their rescue came they were too
busy helping it, too busy pushing the Germans back into what they hoped
would be a similar unpleasant situation (without the timely rescue) to
bother about it being a “dramatic situation” at all.
The Scot and the three Stonewalls shooting from the shell crater a
little in front of the thin and scattered line were close enough to the
front groups of the advancing German line to distinguish the features
of the men’s faces, when they were suddenly aware that the groups were
going down: were vanishing from before their eyes, that the charging
line came no nearer, that its front, if anything, receded. The front
lines were being cut down now faster than they could advance, and the
lines which fell dropped out of the low vision line of the defenders,
and were hidden in the low-hanging smoke haze and in the welter of
shell-pits, furrows, and heaps of earth over which the advance moved.
The sound of the rifle fire swelled suddenly and heavily; the air grew
vibrant with the hiss and zipp of bullets.
The four in the shell pit continued to give all their attention to
rapid shooting until the sound of running footsteps and shouting
voices made them turn. All along the line to right and left of them
they could see figures running forward in short rushes, halting to
fire, running on again, dropping into holes and opening a rapid fire
from their cover. Into the pit beside the four tumbled three men one
after another, panting and blowing, but shouting and laughing. “Cheer
oh, mates,” called one. “Give us a bit o’ room on the front edge there,
will you?” Each of the three carried some burden. They clustered
closely together a moment, but with a delay of no more than seconds
stood up and began to hoist into position on the pit’s edge a light
machine gun. “Let ’er rip, Bill,” said one, who wore the tunic of an
officer; and Bill, crouching behind his gun, started to “let ’er rip”
in a stream of fire jets and clattering reports.
“You boys were pretty near the limit, eh?” said the officer. “Mighty
near,” said Kentucky; “you just sat into the game in time to stop ’em
scooping the pool, sir.”
“Hey, Chick, get a move on wi’ that loadin’ there,” said Bill; “you’re
hardly keepin’ the ol’ coffee mill grindin’.”
“You’re Anzacs, ain’t you?” said Pug, noticing the shirt-tunic the
officer wore. Bill was bare-headed; Chick wore a metal helmet crammed
down on top of his slouch hat.
“That’s what,” said Chick, feverishly busy with his loading. “What
crowd are you?”
“Fifth Sixth Stonewalls,” said Pug.
“You was damn near bein’ First ’n’ Last Stone-colds this trip,” said
Chick. “Good job we buzzed in on you.”
A few yards away another machine gun, peering over the edge of a shell
crater, broke out in frantic chattering reports.
“That’s Bennet’s gun, I expect,” said the officer; “I’ll just slide
over and see how he goes. Keep her boiling here, and mind you don’t
move out of this till you get the word.”
Chick nodded. “Right-oh!” he said, and the officer climbed out of the
hole and ran off.
For another minute or two the machine gun continued to spit its stream
of bullets. “They’re breaking again,” said Kentucky suddenly; “my Lord,
look how the guns are smashing them.”
The attack broke and fell back rapidly, with the running figures
stumbling and falling in clusters under the streaming bullets and
hailing shrapnel. In less than half a minute the last running man had
disappeared, the ground was bare of moving figures, but piled with dead
and with those too badly wounded to crawl into cover.
“First round to us,” said Bill cheerfully, and cut off the fire of his
gun. “An’ last move to a good many o’ them blokes out there,” said
Chick; “they fairly got it in the neck that time. I haven’t seen such a
bonzer target to strafe since we was in G’llipoli.”
“Is there many o’ you chaps here?” said Pug. “Dunno rightly,” said
Chick, producing a packet of cigarettes. “’Bout time for a smoke-oh,
ain’t it, Bill?”
“I’m too blame dry to smoke,” said Bill. “Wonder wot we’re waitin’ ’ere
for now. D’you think the other battalions is up?”
“Have you heard anything about how the show is going?” said Kentucky.
“Good-oh, they tell us,” said Chick. “We saw a big bunch o’ prisoners
back there a piece, an’ we hear there’s two or three villages taken. We
came up here to take some other village just in front here. I s’pose
they’ll loose us on it presently.”
There was a short lull in the gunfire, and the noisy passage of the
shells overhead slowed down. A shout was heard: “Close in on your
right, Stonewalls. Rally along to the right.”
“Hear that?” said Pug, “there is some Stonewalls left, then. Blimey, if
I wasn’t beginnin’ to think we was the sole survivors.”
“We’d best move along,” said Kentucky, and the three made ready. “Well,
so long, mates,” said Chick, and “See you in Berlin--or the nex’
world,” said Bill lightly.
“To your right, Stonewalls; close to your right,” came the shout
again, and the three clambered out of their hole and doubled in
across the torn ground to their right. There were other men doing the
same, stooped low, and taking advantage of any cover they found, and
gradually the remains of the battalion gathered loosely together, in
and about the remains of the old trench. Pug and Kentucky anxiously
questioned every man they met as to whether they had seen anything
of Larry Arundel, but could get no tidings of him. The battalion
was rapidly if roughly sorted out into its groups of companies, and
when this was done and there were no signs of Larry, little could be
concluded but that he had been killed or wounded. “He’d sure have been
looking for us,” said Kentucky; “I’m afraid he’s a wash-out.” “Looks
like it,” said Pug sadly. “But mebbe he’s only wounded. Let’s hope it’s
a cushy one.”
The guns were opening behind them again, and bombarding with the utmost
violence a stretch of the ground some little distance in front. “It’s a
village we’re to take,” one of the sergeants told them. “That was our
objective when the German counter-attack stopped us. We were to attack,
with the Anzacs in support. Suppose we’re going on with the original
program; but we’re pretty weak to tackle the job now. Hope the Jocks on
the left didn’t get it too bad.”
“Should think we was due for a bit of an ease-off,” said Pug. “It’s
long past my usual desh-oo-nay time as it is.”
An officer moved along the line. “Now, boys, get ready,” he said, “the
next bit’s the last. Our turn’s over when we take this village. Make a
quick job of it.”
In front of them the ground was shrouded again with drifting smoke,
and out beyond the broken ground and the remains of a shattered
parapet they could see the flashing fires and belching smoke clouds
of the shells that continued to pour over and down. In a minute or
two the fire lifted back from the belt where it had been thundering,
and at that the Stonewalls, with the Highlanders to one side and
another regiment to the other, rose and began to advance. From their
front there came little opposition, but from somewhere out on the
flank a rain of machine-gun bullets swept driving down upon them. The
Stonewalls pushed on doggedly. It was heavy going, for the ground
was torn and plowed up in innumerable furrows and pits and holes and
ridges, laced with clutching fragments of barbed-wire, greasy and
slippery with thick mud. The Stonewalls went on slowly but surely, but
on their right the other regiment, which had perhaps caught the heavier
blast of fire, checked a little, struggled on again gamely, with men
falling at every step, halted, and hastily sought cover amongst the
shell holes. The Stonewalls persisted a little longer and went a little
further, but the fire grew fiercer and faster, and presently they too,
with the Highlanders on their left, flung down pantingly into such
cover as they could find.
Kentucky and Pug had struggled along together, and sought shelter from
the storming bullets in the same deep shell hole. Three minutes later
an officer crawled over the edge and tumbled in after them. He was
wounded, the blood streaming from a broken hand, a torn thigh, and a
bullet wound in the neck.
“One of you will have to go back,” he said faintly; “I can’t go
further. You, Lee,” and he nodded at Kentucky; “d’you think you can
take a message through to the gunners?”
“Why, sure,” said Kentucky, promptly. “Leastways, I can try.”
So the officer crawled to the edge of the pit and pointed to where,
amongst some scattered mounds of earth, they had located the nest of
machine guns. Then he pointed the direction Kentucky must take to find
the Forward Observing Officer of Artillery. “About a hundred yards
behind that last trench we were in,” said the officer. “Look, you can
see a broken bit of gray wall. Get back to there if you can, and tell
the officer where these machine guns are. Tell him they’re holding us
up and the C.O. wants him to turn every gun he can on there and smash
them up. Take all the cover you can. You can see it’s urgent we get the
message through, and I don’t know where any of the regular runners are.”
“Right, sir,” said Kentucky; “I’ll get it through.” He nodded to Pug,
“S’long, Pug,” and Pug nodded back, “So long, Kentuck. Goo’ luck.”
Kentucky scrambled from the hole and went off, crouching and dodging
and running. No other man was showing above ground, and as he ran he
felt most horribly lonely and appallingly exposed. He took what cover
he could, but had to show himself above ground most of the time,
because he gained little in safety and lost much in time by jumping
in and out of the shell holes. So he skirted the larger ones and ran
on, and came presently to the line of Anzacs waiting to support. He
hardly waited to answer the eager questions they threw him, but hurried
on, crossed the ruined fragments of the old trench, found presently
a twisted shallow gully that appeared to run in the direction he
wanted, ducked into it, and pushed on till he came almost abreast of
the gray wall. He had to cross the open again to come to it, and now,
with a hazy idea that it would be a pity to fail now, took infinite
precautions to crawl and squirm from hole to hole, and keep every scrap
of cover he could. He reached the wall at last and crept round it,
exulting in his success. He looked round for the officer--and saw no
one. A shock of amazement, of dismay, struck him like a blow. He had
struggled on with the one fixed idea so firmly in his mind, looking on
the gray wall so definitely as his goal, measuring the distance to it,
counting the chances of reaching it, thinking no further than it and
the delivery of his message there, that for a moment he felt as lost,
as helpless as if the sun had vanished at noon. He was just recovering
enough to be beginning to curse his luck and wonder where he was to
look for the lost officer when a loud voice made him jump. “Section
fire ten seconds,” it said, and a moment later a hollow and muffled
voice repeated tonelessly: “Section fire ten seconds.” Kentucky looked
round him. A dead man sprawled over the edge of a shell hole, a boot
and leg protruded from behind some broken rubble, but no living man was
in sight, although the voices had sounded almost elbow close.
“Hullo,” said Kentucky loudly. “Artillery. Where are you, sir?”
“Hullo,” answered the voice. “Who is there?” and from a tumbled pile of
sandbags at the end of the broken wall a head was cautiously raised.
“Do you want me? Keep down out of sight. I don’t want this place
spotted.”
Kentucky was creeping carefully towards him when a sepulchral voice
from underground somewhere made him jump. “Beg pardon, sir. Didn’t
catch that last order, sir.”
“All right, Ridley,” said the officer. “I was talking to some one up
here”; and to Kentucky, “What is it?”
Kentucky gave his message briefly. “Right,” said the officer, pulling
out a soiled map. “Come along beside me here, and see if you can point
the spot from here. Careful now. Keep down. If they spot this for an Oh
Pip[2] they’ll shell us off the earth.”
[2] O.P. Observation Post.
The officer was a young man, although under the mask of dirt and mud
splashes and unshaven chin he might have been any age. He was sprawled
against a broken-down breastwork of fallen bricks and timber, with
a rough strengthening and buttressing of sandbags, and an irregular
shaped opening opposite his head to look out from. Kentucky sidled
to the opening and looked long and carefully for landmarks on the
smoke-clouded ground before him. He found the task difficult, because
here he was on slightly higher ground, from which the aspect appeared
utterly different to the little he had seen of it from below. But at
last he was able to trace more or less the points over which he had
passed, to see some of the Anzacs crouching in their cover and moving
cautiously about behind it, and from that to locate the Stonewalls’
position and the rough earth heaps--which now he could see formed part
of an irregular line of trench--where the machine-guns were supposed
to be. He pointed the place out to the officer, who looked carefully
through his glasses, consulted his map, looked out again.
“Likely enough spot,” he commented. “It’s been well strafed with shell
fire already, but I suppose they have their guns down in deep dugouts
there. Anyhow, we’ll give ’em another going over. Ridley!”
“Sir,” answered the voice from below. “Stop. Fresh target. Machine-guns
in trench. All guns....” and followed a string of orders about degrees
and yards which Kentucky could not follow. “Now you watch the spot,”
said the officer when the voice had reported “All ready, sir,” and he
had settled himself in position with glasses to his eyes. “Watch and
see if the shells land about the place you think the guns are.” He
passed an order to fire, and a few seconds later said sharply, “There!
See them?”
But Kentucky had not seen them, and had to confess it. Or rather he
had not seen these particular bursts to be sure of them, because the
whole air was puffing and spurting with black smoke and white smoke and
yellowish smoke.
“They were a bit left and beyond where I wanted ’em,” said the officer.
“We’ll try again. I’m firing four guns together. Look for four white
smoke bursts in a bunch somewhere above your earth heaps.”
“See them?” “I got ’em,” exclaimed the officer and Kentucky
simultaneously a moment later. Kentucky was keyed up to an excited
elation. This was a new game to him, and he was enjoying it thoroughly.
He thought the four bursts were exactly over the spot required, but
the more experienced observer was not so satisfied, and went on
feeling for his target with another couple of rounds before he was
content. But then he called for high explosive, and proceeded to deluge
the distant trench with leaping smoke clouds, flashes of fire, and
whirlwinds of dust and earth. Kentucky watched the performance with
huge satisfaction, and began to regret that he had not joined the
artillery. It was so much better, he concluded, to be snugly planted
in a bit of cover calling orders to be passed back per telephone and
watching the shells play on their target. He was soon to find that this
was not quite all the gunners’ business. He ducked suddenly back from
the lookout as a shower of bullets threshed across the ground, swept up
to the broken wall, and hailed rattling and lashing on and round it.
The hail continued for some seconds and stopped suddenly. “Some beast
out there,” said the officer reflectively, “has his suspicions of this
spot. That’s the third dose I’ve had in the last half-hour. Machine
gun.”
He went on with his firing, watching through his glass and shouting
corrections of aim to the signaler below if a gun went off its target.
Another shower of bullets clattered against the stones, and two spun
ricocheting and shrieking through the loophole. Kentucky began to think
observing was hardly the safe and pleasant job he had imagined. “Afraid
my little eighteen-pounder pills won’t make enough impression there,
if they’re in dug-outs,” said the officer. “Think I’ll go ’n ask the
Brigade to turn the Heavies on to that lot. If you’re going back you
can tell your C.O. I’m fixing it all right, and we’ll give ’em a good
hammering.”
A shell shrieked up and burst close overhead, followed in quick
succession by another and another.
“Better wait a bit before you start,” said the Forward Officer. “Looks
as if they might be making it hot round here for a bit. Come along
below while I talk to the Brigade. Carefully now. Don’t let ’em spot
you.”
The two crawled back, and then dived down a steep stair into a deep
dug-out. Close to the entrance a telephonist sat on the ground with an
instrument beside him. The officer squatted beside him and worked the
“buzzer” for a minute, and then explained the situation to whoever was
at the other end.
“That’s all right,” he said at the finish. “The Heavies are going to
hot ’em a bit. You’d better wait a little longer,” he continued, as
the dug-out quivered to a muffled crash somewhere above them. “They’re
still pasting us. I’m going up to observe for the Heavies,” he said,
turning to the signaler. “You just pass my orders back and the battery
will put them through.”
He disappeared up the narrow stair just as another heavy shell crashed
down. The signaler set his instrument beside him, lifted the receiver
to his head, and leaned back wearily against the wall. “Are you ready,
sir?” he shouted a moment later, and faintly the officer’s reply came
back to them, “All ready,” and was repeated into the telephone. A
moment later, “Fired, sir,” the signaler shouted, and after a pause
down came the officer’s remarks, to be repeated back word for word.
Once Kentucky started up the stairs, but on reaching the open he heard
what had failed to penetrate to the dug-out, the loud whistling screams
of shells, the sharp crack of their overhead burst, the clash and thump
of the flying fragments on the stones and ground. Kentucky came down
the steps again. “Bit warm up there, ain’t it?” said the signaler,
continuing to hold the receiver to his ear, but placing his hand over
the mouthpiece in speaking to Kentucky.
“Mighty warm,” said Kentucky. “I don’t fancy your officer’s job up top
there in the open.”
The signaler yawned widely. “He’s the second to-day,” he said. “One
expended to date--bit o’ shrap--killed straight out.”
“You look kind of tuckered out,” said Kentucky, looking at the man.
“I’m nex’ door to doin’ the sleep-walkin’ act,” said the signaler.
He passed another order. “We bin shootin’ like mad for a week. Not
too much sleep, going all the time, an’ I ’aven’t shut my eyes since
yesterday morning.”
Another shell hit the ground close outside, and some fragments of stone
and dirt pattered down the stair.
“Can’t say I like this,” said Kentucky restlessly. “If a shell plunked
into that entrance or bust it in where’d we be?”
“That’s easy,” said the telephonist. “We’d be here, an’ likely to stay
here,” and raised his voice again to shout a message to the officer.
They sat another five minutes with the walls shivering slightly or
quaking violently as the shells fell close or at a distance. The
telephonist sat apparently half-asleep, his eyes vacant, and his
shoulders rounded, his voice raised at times to shout to the Forward
Officer, sunk again to a monotonous drawl repeating the officer’s words
into the telephone. Once he glanced at Kentucky and spoke briefly. “Why
don’t you get down to it an’ ’ave a kip?” he said. And when Kentucky
said he didn’t feel particularly sleepy, and anyhow must move along in
five or ten minutes, “My Gawd,” said the telephonist; “not sleepy! An’
missin’ a chance for ten minutes’ kip. My Gawd!”
When the shelling appeared to have slackened Kentucky crawled up the
stair, and after a word with the officer set out on his return journey.
Ahead where he judged the German position to be he could see a swirling
cloud of dirty smoke, torn asunder every moment by quick-following
flashes and springing fountains of earth and more belching smoke-clouds
that towered upward in thick spreading columns, and thinned and rolled
outward again to add still further to the dirty reek. The earth shook
to the clamorous uproar of the guns, the air pulsed to the passage
of countless shells, their many-toned but always harsh and strident
shriekings. The greater weight of metal was from the British side, but
as he hurried forward, stumbling and slipping over the wet and broken
ground, Kentucky heard every now and then the rush and crash of German
shells bursting near him. The rolling, pealing thunder of the guns, the
thuds and thumps and bangings of their and their shells’ reports, were
so loud and so sustained that they drowned the individual sounds of
approaching shells, and several times Kentucky was only aware of their
burst on seeing the black spout of earth and smoke, on hearing the
flying fragments sing and whine close past or thud into the wet ground
near him.
He toiled on and came at last to an enormous shell crater in which a
full dozen of the Anzacs squatted or stood. He halted a moment to speak
to them, to ask how things were going. He found he had come through
the main Anzac line without knowing it, so broken and uptorn was the
ground, and so well were the men concealed in the deeper scattered
holes. This dozen men were well in advance and close up on the line
which held the Stonewalls and which they were supporting.
“Your mob is just about due to slam at ’em again, mate,” said a
sergeant, looking at his wrist-watch. “You’d better hustle some if you
want to go to it along wi’ yer own cobbers. There goes the guns liftin’
now. Time, gentlemen, please,” and he snapped down the cover of his
watch and stood to look out.
Kentucky climbed out and ran on. The thunder of the guns had not ceased
for an instant, but the fire-flashes and spurting smoke clouds no
longer played about the same spot as before. The guns had lifted their
fire and were pouring their torrent of shells further back behind the
spot marked for assault. Now, as Kentucky knew well, was the designed
moment for the attack, and he looked every moment to see a line of
figures rise and move forward. But he saw nothing except the tumbled
sea of broken ground, saw no sign of rising men, no sign of movement.
For full two or three minutes he hunted for the Stonewalls, for the
line he wanted to rejoin; and for those precious minutes no beat of
rifle fire arose, no hail of bullets swept the ground over which the
attack should pass. Then a machine gun somewhere in the haze ahead
began to chatter noisily, and, quickly, one after another joined it and
burst into a streaming fire that rose rapidly to a steady and unbroken
roar. Shells began to sweep and crash over the open too, and Kentucky
ducked down into a deep shell-hole for cover.
“What’s gone wrong?” he wondered. “They were sure meant to start in
when the guns lifted, and they’d have been well across by this. Now
the Boche machine-gunners have had time to haul the guns from their
dug-outs and get busy. What’s wrong? Surely the battalion hasn’t been
clean wiped out.”
He peered cautiously over the edge of his hole, but still he saw no
sign of movement. He was completely puzzled. Something was wrong, but
what? The Anzacs had told him the attack was due, and those lifting
guns had backed their word. And yet there was no attack. He waited
for long minutes--minutes empty of attack, empty of sign, empty of
everything except the raving machine guns and the storming bullets.