A VILLAGE AND A HELMET
Kentucky decided that it was as useless as it was unnecessary for him
to remain alone in his exposed position, and forthwith proceeded to
crawl back to where he knew that at least he would find some one. So,
keeping as low as possible, he started back, dodging from shell hole
to shell hole. In about the fourth one he came to he found a group
of several men, all dead, and plainly killed by the one low-bursting
shell. He could see that they were Stonewalls, too, and began to
wonder if the reason for his failing to find the line was the simple
one that the line no longer existed. It was a foolish supposition
perhaps, but men are prone to such after long day and night strain in
a hot action, are even more prone to it under such circumstances as
brought Kentucky to this point of crouching on the edge of a shell-hole
with sudden death whistling and crashing and thundering in his ears,
spread horribly under his eyes. He shivered, skirted round the pit,
and over into the next one, just as another man stepped crouching
over its edge. Kentucky saw him, and with a sense of enormous relief
recognized him too as one of the Stonewalls’ officers. Here at last
was some one he knew, some one who knew him, some one who would tell
him perhaps what had happened, would certainly tell him what to do,
give him simple orders to be simply obeyed. The officer was a boy with
a full quarter less years to his age than Kentucky himself had, a lad
who in normal life would probably still have been taking orders from a
schoolmaster, who certainly, instead of giving, would have been taking
orders or advice from a man his equal in education, more than his equal
in age and worldliness, as Kentucky was. And yet Kentucky saw him with
something of the relief a lost child would feel to meet his mother, and
the officer was as natural in giving his orders as if Kentucky were the
child. There is nothing unusual in all this. I only mention it because
its very usualness is probably odd to any one outside the Service, and
is likely to be little realized by them.
“I’m mighty glad to see you, sir,” said Kentucky. “I thought I’d clean
lost the battalion.”
“The battalion’s strung out along here,” said the officer. “But I’m
just passing along orders to retire a little on the supporting line
behind us. So just push along back, and pass the word to do the same
to any of ours you run across.” He moved on without further word, and
Kentucky continued his rearward journey. He was aiming for the same
lot of men he had passed through on his way forward, but in the broken
litter of ground missed them, and instead ran on another group of half
a dozen sheltering in another deep shell crater. He explained to them
that in obedience to orders he had retired to join their line.
“Well, you got to keep on retirin’, mate,” said one of them sulkily,
“if you’re going to hitch in with us. We just got the office too that
we’re to take the back track.”
“Hope it’s all right,” said another doubtfully. “Seems so dash crazy to
push up here and then go back for nix.”
“That Curly’s such a loose-tiled kid, he might easy have mistook the
order,” said another.
“Anyway,” said the first, “this bloke says ’im an’ ’is cobbers is
hittin’ out for the back paddock, and----”
“What’s that?” several interrupted simultaneously, and moved eagerly
to the crater edge. Clear through the rolling rifle and gun-fire came
a shrill “Coo-ee,” and then another and another, louder and nearer.
Kentucky scrambled to the edge with the others and looked out. Down
to their right they could see figures climbing out of shell holes,
starting up from the furrows, moving at the run forward, and again
they heard the shrill “coo-ee’s” and a confusion of shouts and calls.
Kentucky saw the half-dozen Anzacs scrambling from their hole like
scared cats going over a fence, scuffling and jostling in their haste,
heard them shouting and laughing like children going to a school treat.
“Come on, mates ... nix on the back track ... play up, Anzacs....”
For a moment Kentucky was puzzled. He had plain orders to retire to
the support line. “Come on, cully,” shouted the last man out, looking
back at him--but if the support line was advancing--”... your bunch
is mixin’ it with us.” He paused to catch up and fling along the line
the coo-ee that came ringing down again, hitched his rifle forward,
and doubled off after the others. Kentucky climbed out and followed
him. At first the whistle and shriek and _snap-snap_ of bullets was
continuous, and it seemed impossible that he should continue without
being hit, that each step he took must be the last. He wondered where
the bullet would hit him, whether it would hurt much, whether he would
have to wait long for the stretcher-bearers. He slackened his pace at
sight of an Anzac officer rolling on the ground, coughing and spitting
up frothy blood. But the Anzac saw his pause, and gathered strength to
wave him on, to clear his choking throat and shout thickly to “Go on,
boy; go on. I’m all right. Give ’em hell.” Kentucky ran on. The bullets
were fewer now, although the roar of firing from in front seemed to
grow rather than slacken. His breath came heavily. The ground was rough
and killingly slippery. He was nearly done up; but it was crazy to slow
down there in the open; must keep on. He caught up one of the groups
in front and ran with them. They were shouting ... where did they get
the wind to shout ... and how much further was it to the trench? Then
he saw the men he ran with begin to lift their rifles and fire or shoot
from the hip as they ran; he saw gray coats crawling from a dug-out
a dozen yards to his left, and with a shock realized that there was
no trench to cross, that the shells must have leveled it, that he was
actually into the enemy position. He ran on, heavily and at a jog-trot,
without a thought of where he was running to or why he ran. He didn’t
think; merely ran because the others did. He stopped, too, when they
stopped, and began to fire with them at a little crowd of Germans who
emerged suddenly from nowhere and came charging down at them. Several
Germans fell; the others kept on, and Kentucky saw one of them swing
a stick bomb to throw. Kentucky shot him before he threw--shot with
his nerves suddenly grown steel strong, his brain cool, his eye clear,
his hand as steady as rock. He shot again and dropped the man who
stooped to pick the bomb that fell from the other’s hand. Then the
bomb exploded amongst them. There were only four standing when the
smoke cleared, and the Anzacs were running at them with bayonets at the
level. There were only three Anzacs now, but the Germans threw their
hands up. Then when the Anzacs slowed to a walk and came to within
arm’s length, with their bayonet points up, one of the Germans dropped
his hand and flashed out a pistol. Kentucky shot him before he could
fire. He had not run in with the others, and was a score of paces
away, and one of the Anzacs half-hid the man with the pistol. But he
shot knowing--not believing, or thinking, or hoping, but _knowing_
he would kill. It was his day, he was “on his shoot,” he couldn’t
miss. The other Germans dropped their hands too, but whether to run or
fight--the bayonet finished them without a chance to answer that. “Come
on, Deadeye,” shouted one of the Anzacs; and when Kentucky joined them,
“Some shootin’, that. I owe you one for it too.”
They went on again, but there was little more fighting. Anyhow,
Kentucky didn’t fight. He just shot; and whatever he shot at he hit,
as surely and certainly as Death itself. There were a great many dead
Germans lying about, and the ground was one churned heap of broken
earth and shell-holes. They came suddenly on many men in khaki, walking
about and shouting to each other. Then a Stonewall corporal met him
and pointed to where the Stonewalls were gathering, and told him he
had better go join them, and Kentucky trudged off towards them feeling
all of a sudden most desperately tired and done up, and most horribly
thirsty. The first thing he asked when he reached the Stonewalls was
whether any one had a drop of water to spare; and then he heard a
shout, a very glad and cheery shout that brought a queer, warm glow to
his heart, “Kentuck! Hi, Kentucky!”
“Pug,” he said. “Oh, you, Pug! My, but I’m glad to see you again, boy.”
They talked quickly, telling in snatches what had happened to each
since they separated, and both openly and whole-heartedly glad to be
together again.
“I got a helmet, Kentuck,” said Pug joyfully, and exhibited his German
helmet with pride. “Tole you I’d get a good ’un, didn’t I? An’ I downed
the cove that ’ad it meself. We potted at each other quite a bit--’im
or me for it--an’ I downed ’im, an’ got ’is ’elmet.”
Now the capture of the village was a notable feat of arms which was
duly if somewhat briefly chronicled in the General Headquarters
dispatch of the day with a line or two enumerating the depth and
front of the advance made, the prisoners and material taken. The
war correspondents have described the action more fully and in more
enthusiastic and picturesque language, and the action with notes of the
number of shells fired, the battalions and batteries employed, and nice
clear explanatory maps of the ground and dispositions of attackers and
defenders will no doubt in due course occupy its proper place in the
history of the war.
But none of these makes any mention of Pug and his helmet, although
these apparently played quite an important part in the operation. Pug
himself never understood his full share in it--remembered the whole
affair as nothing but a horrible mix-up of noise, mud, bursting shells
and drifting smoke, and his acquirement of a very fine helmet souvenir.
Even when Pug told his story Kentucky hardly understood all it meant,
only indeed came to realize it when he added to it those other official
and semi-official accounts, his--Kentucky’s--own experience, and the
mysterious impulse that he had seen change the Anzacs’ retreat into
an attack, into the charge which swept up the Stonewalls and carried
on into and over the village. To get the story complete as Kentucky
came to piece it out and understand it we must go back and cover Pug’s
doings from the time Kentucky left him and the others in the shell-hole
to carry the message back to the artillery F.O.O.
After the German counter-attack was caught in the nick of time and
driven back with heavy loss, a good many of the counter-attackers
instead of risking the run back to the shelter of their trench dropped
into shell-holes and craters, and from here the more determined of them
continued to shoot at any head showing in the British line. The men
of the latter were also scattered along the broken ground in what at
one time had been the open between two trenches, but was now a better
position and in its innumerable deep shell craters offered better cover
than the wrecked fragment of a trench behind them. On both sides too
the gunners were ferociously strafing the opposition trenches, but
since they dare not drop their shells too near to where they knew their
own front lines to be located the tendency on both sides was for the
front line to wriggle and crawl forward into the zone left uncovered
by bursting high-explosive shells and shrapnel. The German and British
infantry naturally did their best to discourage and make as expensive
as possible the forward movement by the opposition, and industriously
sniped with rifle and machine gun any men who exposed themselves for a
moment. But when the counter-attack fell back Pug was for some minutes
too busily engaged in helping to bandage up a badly wounded man to
pay much attention to what the Germans were doing. When the job was
completed he raised his head and looked out of the shell hole where he
and the others were sheltering and peered round through the drifting
smoke haze. He caught dim sight of some moving figures and raised
his voice lustily. “Stretche-e-er!” he shouted, and after waiting a
minute, again “Stre-tche-e-er!” Amidst all the uproar of battle it is
not probable that his voice had a carrying power of more than scanty
yards, but when no stretcher-bearers immediately materialized in answer
to his call Pug appeared a good deal annoyed. “Wot d’you s’pose them
blanky bearers is doin’?” he grumbled, then raised his voice and bawled
again. He shouted and grumbled alternately for a few minutes with just
the growing sense of annoyance that a man feels when he whistles for a
taxi and no taxi appears. Two or three times he ducked instinctively
at a hiss of a close bullet and once at the “Cr-r-ump” of a falling
shell and the whistle of its flying splinters, and when he stood to
shout he took care to keep well down in his shell hole, raising no
more than his head above its level to allow his voice to carry above
ground. Apparently, although he thought it unpleasantly risky to be
above ground there, and in no way out of place for him not to expose
himself, he took it quite for granted that stretcher-bearers would
accept all the risk and come running to his bellowings. But in case it
be thought that he expected too much, it ought to be remembered that it
is the stretcher-bearers themselves who are responsible for such high
expectations. Their salving of broken bodies from out the maelstrom of
battle, their desperate rescues under fire, their readiness to risk the
most appalling hazards, their indifference to wounds and death, their
calm undertaking of impossibly difficult jobs, these very doings which
by their constant performance have been reduced to no more than the
normal, have come to be accepted as the matter-of-fact ordinary routine
business of the stretcher-bearers. Pug, in fact, expected them to come
when he called, only because he had seen them scores of times answer
promptly to equally or even more risky calls.
And the stretcher-bearers in this instance did not fail him. A couple
appeared looming hazily through the smoke, and at another call labored
heavily over the broken ground to him. They saw the wounded man
before Pug had time to make any explanation of his call, and without
stopping to waste words, slid over the edge of the crater, dropped the
stretcher in position beside the wounded man, ran a quick, workmanlike
glance and touch over the first field-dressings on him, had him on the
stretcher and hoisted up out of the hole all well inside a couple of
minutes.
Pug returned to his own particular business, and settling himself
against the sloping wall of the crater nearest the Germans took a
cautious survey of the ground before him. At first he saw nothing but
the rough, churned-up surface and a filmy curtain of smoke through
which the resuming British bombardment was again beginning to splash
fountains of shell-flung reek and dust. But as he looked a figure
appeared, came forward at a scrambling run for a score of paces and
dropped out of sight into some hole. At first sight of him Pug had
instinctively thrust forward his rifle muzzle and snapped off a quick
shot, but the man had run on apparently without taking any notice of
it. Pug was a fair enough shot to feel some annoyance. “D’jer see
that?” he asked his neighbor. “Beggar never even ducked; an’ I’ll bet I
didn’t go far off an inner on ’im.” The neighbor was taking a long and
careful sight over the edge of the pit. He fired, and without moving
his rifle gazed earnestly in the direction he had shot. “Wot’s that,
Pug?” he said at last, jerking out the empty shell and reloading. “Who
ducked? Ah, would yer!” he exclaimed hastily, and pumped out a rapid
clipful of rounds. Pug joined in with a couple of shots and the dodging
figures they had shot at vanished suddenly. “Wot’s their game now, I
wonder,” said Pug. “D’you think they’re edgin’ in for another rush?” He
had raised himself a little to look out, but the venomous _hiss-zizz_
of a couple of bullets close past his head made him bob down hurriedly.
“You gotter look out,” said the other man. “A lot o’ blighters didn’t
bolt when we cut up their attack. They just dropped into any hole that
come handy, an’ they’re lyin’ there snipin’ pot shots at any one that
shows.”
Pug banged off a shot, jerked the breech open and shut and banged off
another. “See that,” he said. “Same bloke I potted at afore. Not ’arf
a cheeky blighter either. Keeps jumpin’ up an’ runnin’ in to’ards us.
But you wait till nex’ time--I’ll give ’im run.” He settled himself
nicely with elbow-rest, wide sprawled legs, and braced feet, and waited
with careful eye on his sights and coiled finger about the trigger. Two
minutes he waited, and then his rifle banged again, and he exclaimed
delightedly, “I gottim, chum. I gottim that time. See ’im flop?” But
his exclamation changed to one of angry disgust as he saw the man he
supposed he had “got” rise from behind his cover, beckon vigorously to
some one behind him, and move forward again another few steps.
Pug blazed another shot at him, and in response the man, in the very
act of dropping to cover, stopped, straightened up, and after staring
in Pug’s direction for a moment, turned, and lifting the helmet from
his head repeated the beckoning motion he had made before.
“Well of all the blinkin’ cheek,” said Pug wrathfully; “take that, you
cow,” firing again.
“Wot’s up?” said his companion. “Is some bloke stringin’ you?”
“Fair beats me,” said the exasperated Pug. “I’ve ’ad half a dozen clean
shots at ’im, an’ ’e just laughs at ’em. But I’ve marked the last place
’e bogged down into, an’ if ’e just pokes a nose out once more, ’e’ll
get it in the neck for keeps.”
“Where is ’e?” said the interested chum; “show us, an’ I’ll drop it
acrost ’im too when ’e pops out.”
“No,” said Pug firmly, “fair dinkum. ’E’s my own private little lot,
an’ I’m goin’ to see ’im safely ’ome myself. S-steady now, ’ere ’e
comes again. Just ’avin’ a look out, eh Fritz. Orright, m’ son. Keep
on lookin’ an’ it’ll meet yer optic--plunk,” and he fired. “Missed
again,” he said sadly as he saw a spurt of mud flick from the edge
of the German’s cover. “But lumme, chum, di’jer see the ’elmet that
bloke ’ad?” The German it may be remembered had drawn attention to
his helmet by taking it off and waving it, but Pug at that moment
had been too exasperated by the impudence of the man’s exposure to
notice the helmet. But this time a gleam of light caught the heavy
metal “chin-strap” that hung from it, and although the helmet itself
was covered with the usual service cover of gray cloth, Pug could see
distinctly that it was one of the old pickel-hauben type--one of the
kind he so greatly coveted as a “souvenir.”
“That settles it,” said Pug firmly. “I’m goin’ to lay for that bloke
till I gets ’im, an’ then when we advance I’ll ’ave ’is ’elmet.”
He lay for several minutes, watching the spot where the German was
concealed as a cat watches a mouse-hole, and when his patience was
rewarded by a glimpse of gray uniform he took steady aim, carefully
squeezed the trigger until he felt the faint check of its second
pull-off, held his breath, and gave the final squeeze, all in exact
accordance with the school of musketry instructions. The patch of gray
vanished, and Pug could not tell whether he had scored a hit, but
almost immediately he saw the spike and rounded top of the helmet lift
cautiously into sight. Again Pug took slow and deliberate aim but then
hesitated, “Tchick-tchicked” softly between his teeth, aimed again and
fired. The helmet vanished with a jerk. “Lookin’ over the edge of ’is
’ole, ’e was,” said Pug. “An’ at first I didn’t like to shoot for fear
of spoilin’ that ’elmet. But arter all,” he conceded cheerfully, “I
dunno’ that it wouldn’t maybe improve it as a fust-class sooven-eer to
’ave a neat little three-oh-three ’ole drilled in it.”
“Did you drill it?” asked his companion directly.
“Dunno,” admitted Pug, “but I’m keepin’ a careful eye on ’im, an’ I’ll
soon know if ’e moves again.”
But in the process of keeping a careful eye Pug was tempted for an
instant into keeping a less careful head under cover than the situation
demanded. A bullet leaped _whutt_ past within an inch of his ear and
he dropped flat to earth with an oath. “That was ’im,” he said, “I saw
the flash of ’is rifle. Looks like ’e’s got me piped off, an’ it’s
goin’ to be ’im or me for it.”
Chick and another man in the same hole had been busy shooting at any
mark that presented, but when their every appearance above ground began
to be greeted by an unpleasantly close bullet, they ceased to fire
and squatted back in the hole to watch Pug and the conducting of his
duel. A dozen times he and the German fired, each drawing or returning
instant shot for shot, Pug moving from one spot to another in the shell
crater, pushing his rifle out slowly, lifting his head cautiously an
inch at a time.
Over their heads the great shells shrieked and rushed, round them
crackled a spattering rifle fire, the occasional hammering of a
machine gun, the rolling crash and whirr of bursting shells and flying
splinters. Wide out to right and left of them, far to their front
and rear the roar of battle ran, long-thundering and unbroken, in a
deafening chorus of bellowing guns, the vibrating rattle of rifles and
machine guns, the sharp detonations and reports of shells and bombs and
grenades. But Pug and, in lesser degree, his companions, were quite
heedless of all these things, of how the battle moved or stayed still.
For them the struggle had boiled down into the solitary duel between
Pug and his German; the larger issues were for the moment completely
overshadowed, as in war they so often are, by the mere individual and
personal ones. Pug insisted in finishing off his duel single-handed,
declining to have the others there interfere in it. “It’s ’im or me
for it,” he repeated, “fair dinkum. An’ I’m goin’ to get ’im _and_ ’is
’elmet on my blinkin’ own.”
He decided at last to move his position, to crawl along and try to
catch his opponent in flank, to stalk his enemy as a hunter stalks a
hidden buck. Since he could not escape from the crater they were in
without exposing himself to that watchful rifle, he scraped down with
his entrenching tool a couple of feet of the rim of the crater where
it formed a wall dividing off another crater. When he had cleared the
passage he came back and fired another shot, just to keep his enemy
watching in the same spot for him, and hurriedly crawled over into
the next crater, squirmed and wriggled away from it along cracks and
holes and folds of the torn and tumbled ground in a direction that he
reckoned would allow him to reach the German sheltering in his hole
and behind a broken hillock of earth. But before he reached such a
position as he desired he found himself looking over into a deep crater
occupied by an officer and half a dozen men with a machine gun.
The officer looked up and caught sight of him. “Hullo, Sneath,” he
said. “Where are you off to? You’re moving the wrong way, aren’t you?
The order was to retire, and you’re moving forward.”
Pug wriggled over into the crater and crouched puffing and blowing
for a moment. “I ’adn’t ’eard nothin’ about retiring, sir,” he said
doubtfully.
“That’s the order,” said the officer briskly. “I don’t know what it
means any more than you do, but there it is. You’d better wait now and
move back with us.”
Pug was annoyed--exceedingly annoyed. This retirement looked like
losing him his duel, and what was more, losing him his coveted helmet.
Retirement was a thing he had not for an instant calculated upon. He
had taken it quite for granted that if he could slay the wearer of the
helmet, the helmet was his, that he had only to wait until the line
advanced to go straight to it and pick it up. With a vague idea that
he would have managed the affair much better on his own, without these
interfering directions of his movements, he began to wish he had never
come across this officer, and from that passed to wondering whether he
couldn’t give the officer the slip and finish off his program in his
own way.
At that moment the British artillery fire redoubled in intensity and
the rush of shells overhead rose to a roaring gale.
“Sharp there,” said the officer. “Get that gun picked up. Now’s our
chance to get back while the guns are socking it into ’em.”
He was right, of course, and their chances of retirement were likely
to be improved by the heavier covering fire. Pug was also right in
a half-formed idea that had come to him--that the covering fire
would also lessen the risk of a move forward, or as he put it to
himself--“With all them shells about their ears they’ll be too busy
keepin’ their heads down to do much shootin’ at me if I chance a quick
rush; an’ most likely I’d be on top o’ that bloke wi’ the ’elmet afore
’e knew it.”
The others were picking up the machine gun and preparing to move, and
Pug took a long and careful look over the edge of the hole to locate
his helmet wearer. With a quick exclamation he snatched the rifle to
his shoulder, aimed, and fired.
“That’ll do,” said the officer sharply turning at the sound of the
shot. “Cease firing and get along back.” But Pug was gazing hard in
the direction of his shot. “I’ve got ’im,” he said triumphantly, “I’ll
swear I got ’im that time. Showin’ a fair mark ’e was, an’ I saw ’im
jerk ’an roll when I fired.”
“Never mind that,” said the officer impatiently. “There’s their rifle
fire beginning again. Time we were out of this. Keep down as well as
you can all of you. Move yourselves now.”
The men began to scramble out of the hole, and in an instant Pug’s mind
was made up. They were retiring; so far as he knew the battalion might
be retiring out of the line, out of the battle, and out of the reach
of chances of German helmets. And meantime there was his helmet lying
there waiting to be picked up, lying within a hundred yards of him.
He climbed up the rear wall of the crater, halted and spoke hurriedly
to the officer. “I won’t be ’alf a mo’, sir,” he said. “Something there
I want to pick up an’ bring in,” and without waiting for any reply
turned and bolted across the open towards his helmet. The officer was
consumed with a quick gust of anger at such disobedience. “Here,” he
shouted and scrambled out of the pit. “Hi, come back you”; and as Pug
gave no sign of having heard him, he shouted again and ran a few paces
after him.
And so it was that about a dozen Anzacs rising sullenly and grumblingly
out of a big shell crater in reluctant obedience to the order to
retire, saw a khaki figure rise into sight and go charging straight
forward towards the enemy, and a second later the figure of an officer
bound into sight and follow him.
Two or three of the Anzacs voiced together the thought that rose to all
their minds.
“Who said retire.... What blundering fool twisted the order ... retire,
Gostrewth, they’re advancing ... us retire, an’ them goin’ forward ...”
To them the position required little thinking over. They could see some
men advancing, and distinctly see an officer too at that. And how many
more the smoke hid----
In an instant they were swarming up and out of their crater; there was
a wild yell, a shrill “Cooee,” a confused shouting, “Come on, boys ...
at ’em, Anzacs ... Advance, Australia,” and the dozen went plunging off
forward. Out to right and left of them the yell ran like fire through
dry grass, the coo-ees rose long and shrill; as if by magic the dead
ground sprouted gleaming bayonets and scrambling khaki figures. Every
man who looked saw a ragged and swiftly growing line surging forward,
and every man, asking nothing more, taking only this plain evidence of
advance, made haste--exactly as Kentucky’s companions made haste--to
fling into it. Straight at the flashing rifles and the drifting
fog-bank of shell smoke that marked the German position the shifting
wave swept and surged, the men yelling, shouting and cheering. Bullets
beating down upon them, shells crumpling and smashing amongst them cut
them down by dozens, but neither halted nor slowed down the charging
line. It poured on, flooded in over the wrecked trenches and dug-outs,
the confused litter of shell holes big and little, piled earth heaps,
occasional fragments of brickwork and splintered beams that alone
remained of the village. The flank attacks that had been launched a few
minutes before and held up staggering under the ferocious fire that
met them, found the weight of their opposition suddenly grow less,
took fresh breath and thrust fiercely in again, gained a footing, felt
the resistance weaken and bend and break, and in a moment were through
and into the tumbled wreckage of a defense, shooting and stabbing and
bayoneting, bombing the dug-outs, rounding up the prisoners, pushing
on until they came in touch with the swirling edges of the frontal
attack’s wave, and joining them turned and overran the last struggling
remnants of the defense. The village was taken; the line pushed out
beyond it, took firm grip of a fresh patch of ground, spread swiftly
and linked up with the attack that raged on out to either side and bit
savagely into the crumbling German line.
These wider issues were of course quite beyond the knowledge or
understanding of Pug. He had come uninjured to the spot where his
German lay, found he was an officer and quite dead, snatched up the
helmet that lay beside him, and turned to hurry back. Only then
was he aware of the line charging and barging down upon him, and
understanding nothing of why or how it had come there, noticing only
from a glimpse of some faces he knew that men of his own battalion
were in it, he slipped his arm through the chinstrap of his captured
helmet, turned again and ran forward with the rest. With them he played
his part in the final overrunning of the village--the usual confused,
scuffling jumble of a part played by the average infantry private in
an attack, a nightmarish mixture of noise and yelling, of banging
rifles, shattering bomb reports, a great deal of smoke, the whistle of
passing bullets, the crackling snap and smack of their striking ground
and stone, swift appearance and disappearance of running figures. He
had a momentary vision of men grouped about a black dug-out mouth
hurling grenades down it; joined a wild rush with several others on a
group of gray-coated Germans who stood firm even to a bayonet finish.
Scrambling and scuffling down and up the steep sides of the smaller
shell craters, round the slippery crumbling edges of the larger, he
caught glimpses--this towards the end--of scattered groups or trickling
lines of white-faced prisoners with long gray coats flapping about
their ankles, and hands held high over their heads, being shepherded
out towards the British lines by one or two guards. All these scattered
impressions were linked up by many panting, breathless scrambles over
a chaos of torn and broken ground pocked and pitted with the shell
craters set as close as the cells of a broken honeycomb, and ended
with a narrow escape, averted just in time by one of his officers, from
firing upon a group of men--part of the flank attack as it proved--who
appeared mysteriously out of the smoke where Germans had been firing
and throwing stick-grenades a moment before.
Through all the turmoil Pug clung tightly to his helmet. He knew that
there had been a stiff fight and that they had won, was vaguely pleased
at the comforting fact, and much more distinctly pleased and satisfied
with the possession of his souvenir. He took the first opportunity
when the line paused and proceeded to sort itself out beyond the
village, to strip the cloth off his prize and examine it. It was an
officer’s pickelhaube, resplendent in all its glory of glistening black
patent-leather, gleaming brass eagle spread-winged across its front,
fierce spike on top and heavy-linked chain “chin-strap” of shining
brass. Pug was hugely pleased with his trophy, displayed it pridefully
and told briefly the tale of his duel with the late owner. He told
nothing of how the securing of his prize had assisted at the taking of
the village, for the good reason that he himself did not know it, and
up to then in fact did not even know that they had taken a village.
He tied the helmet securely to his belt with a twisted bit of wire, and
at the urgent command of a sweating and mud-bedaubed sergeant prepared
to dig. “Are we stoppin’ ’ere then?” he stayed to ask.
“Suppose so,” said the sergeant, “seeing we’ve taken our objective and
got this village.”
Pug gaped at him, and then looked round wonderingly at the tossed and
tumbled shell-riddled chaos of shattered earth that was spread about
them. “Got this village,” he said. “Lumme, where’s the village then?”
Another man there laughed at him. “You came over the top o’ it, Pug,”
he said. “Don’t you remember the broken beam you near fell over, back
there a piece? That was a bit o’ one o’ the houses in the village. An’
d’you see that little bit o’ gray wall there? That’s some more o’ the
village.”
Pug looked hard at it. “An’ that’s the village, is it,” he said
cheerfully. “Lor’ now, I might ’ave trod right on top o’ it by
accident, or even tripped over it, if it ’ad been a bit bigger village.
You can keep it; I’d rather ’ave my ’elmet.”