THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES--THE POELCAPELLE ROAD.
(_September and October 1917._)
For three weeks there was no big offensive, though the artilleries
continued their pitiless duel without a break, and the miserable
infantry, tormented by bombs and shells as they crouched in their
water-logged holes, or staggering dully over the mud in a series of
little local attacks, which too often failed, could scarcely have
realised that there was a distinct lull in the battle. We were pulling
ourselves together for another enormous effort. The guns were pushed
forward, and more guns arrived. Tired Divisions were taken out and
new Divisions took their place with reduced fronts. There were new
groupings, new tactics.... A possible month of fighting weather
remained. We might still make something of this tragic struggle.
My company had returned from the Canal, as it was not likely that
we should be wanted again in the near future, and were living in
shameless comfort at La Lovie. The rain had stopped--we always had
bright sunshine in the Salient, when we were not ready to attack. If
it had not been for the growl of the guns, an occasional shell in
Poperinghe while we were bargaining for greengages, or the perseverance
of the enemy airmen, who dropped bombs somewhere in the neighbourhood
each fine night, we might have forgotten the war completely. There
were walks through the pine-woods, canters over the heath, thrilling
football matches against our rivals, little expeditions to Bailleul for
fish, or Cassel for a pleasant dinner in the cool of the evening. And I
fell in with Susie.
She was a dear, graceful little woman, with timid, liquid brown eyes,
black hair, a pleasant mouth, and the most marvellous teeth. Our
friendship began one night when, returning from mess, I found her
sitting on my bed.
It is better to be frank. She was half a German--at least we all
thought so, because, if she had no dachshund blood in her, she had no
other strain in her that we could recognise.
Then there was the Brigade barber across the way, who came from Bond
Street. He had been given his own little shop, and he possessed such a
store of the barber's polite conversation that to listen was to become
home-sick. Sometimes, as we were in Flanders, he would flavour his
stories a little fully, ending always with a half-apology--
"A topic, sir, I can assure you, that I should scarcely have
approached, if it had not been for my eighteen months in the ranks."
His little deprecating cough was pure joy....
On the 19th the weather broke again, and it rained heavily. On the
20th we delivered an attack in the grand style, with every man and gun
available. For a few days we were full of hope. The enemy could not
resist our sheer strength, and their line bent and almost broke. We
threw in Division after Division, attacking day after day. We thrust
him back to the fringes of the Houthulst Forest. We crawled along the
Passchendaele Ridge, and on the 26th we captured Zonnebeke. Then slowly
and magnificently the Germans steadied themselves, and once more the
attacks died down with the enemy line still in being. But the Great
General Staff must have had a terrible fright.
Ward's company had been engaged between the Poelcapelle Road and
Langemarck. Much to my disgust I had been compelled to hand over to him
two of my best tanks. His company did excellent work, though, as had
become customary in the Salient, only a few of his tanks returned. One
tank particularly distinguished itself by climbing a barricade of logs,
which had been built to block the road a few hundred yards south of
Poelcapelle, and slaughtering its defenders.
At the end of September we had driven back the enemy, on the front with
which I was principally concerned, to a position immediately in front
of Poelcapelle--that is, just over a mile N.E. of the cross-roads near
which Wyatt's section had fought at the end of August. Our progress in
a month, though we thought it to be satisfactory at the time, had not
been astonishingly rapid. It was determined to clear Poelcapelle as
soon as possible, since, while the Germans held it, we were greatly
handicapped in attacking either the S.E. edge of the Houthulst Forest
or the Passchendaele Ridge itself from the north-west. Further, the
only two main roads in the neighbourhood passed through the village.
Marris, who had succeeded Haskett-Smith in the command of No. 10
Company, was instructed to assist the infantry in the attack. His
company had just returned from Wailly, where they had greatly improved
their driving by hard practice over the derelict trenches. They had
suffered few casualties at Arras, and, as they had not previously been
engaged in the Salient, they were fresh and keen.
The attack was scheduled for October 4th. Marris brought down his tanks
into St Julien and camouflaged them in the ruins. St Julien, though
still easily within close field-gun range, was now respectably "behind
the line." It was only shelled once or twice a night, and during the
day on state occasions. It could not hope entirely to escape--the
bridge across the Hannebeek was too important--but it became the place
at which you left the car if you wanted to reconnoitre forward.
The attack was incredibly successful. Of Marris's twelve tanks, eleven
left St Julien and crawled perilously all night along the destroyed
road. At dawn they entered the village with the infantry and cleared
it after difficult fighting. One section even found their way along
the remains of a track so obliterated by shell-fire that it scarcely
could be traced on the aeroplane photographs, and "bolted" the enemy
from a number of strong points. Then, having placed the infantry
in possession of their objectives, the tanks lurched back in the
daylight. It was a magnificent exhibition of good driving, which
has never been surpassed, and was without doubt the most successful
operation in the Salient carried out by tanks.
Unfortunately the tanks could not remain in the village. By midday
every German gun which could bear had been turned upon it, and by dusk
the enemy had forced their way back into the ruins at the farther end
of the long street.
It soon became clear that we should be required to finish the job. The
weather, of course, changed. A few days of drying sun and wind were
followed by gales and heavy rain. The temperature dropped. At night it
was bitterly cold.
On the 6th, Cooper and I made a little expedition up the Poelcapelle
Road. It was in a desperate condition, and we felt a most profound
respect for the drivers of No. 10 Company. The enemy gunners had
shelled it with accuracy. There were great holes that compelled
us to take to the mud at the side. In places the surface had been
blown away, so that the road could not be distinguished from the
treacherous riddled waste through which it ran. To leave the road was
obviously certain disaster for a tank. Other companies had used it,
and at intervals derelict tanks which had slipped off the road or
received direct hits were sinking rapidly in the mud. I could not help
remembering that the enemy must be well aware of the route which so
many tanks had followed into battle.
We were examining a particularly large shell-hole, between two derelict
tanks, when the enemy, whose shells had been falling at a reasonable
distance, began to shell the road....
Two sections of my tanks--Talbot's and Skinner's--had moved forward
once more from the Canal, and were safely camouflaged in St Julien by
dawn on the 8th. All the tank commanders and their first drivers had
reconnoitred the road from St Julien to the outskirts of Poelcapelle.
The attack was to be made at 5.20 A.M. on the 9th. The tanks were
ordered to enter Poelcapelle with the infantry and drive the enemy out
of the houses which they still held.
I was kept at La Lovie until dusk for my final instructions. I started
in my car, intending to drive to Wieltje, two miles from St Julien,
but Organ was away, and I found to my disgust that my temporary driver
could not see in the dark. Naturally, no lights were allowed on the
roads, and the night was black with a fluster of rain. After two minor
collisions on the farther side of Vlamertinghe I gave up the car as
useless, and tramped the two and a half miles into Ypres. The rain held
off for an hour, and a slip of moon came out to help me.
I walked through the pale ruins, and, though the enemy had ceased to
shell Ypres regularly, fear clung to the place. For once there was
little traffic, and in the side streets I was desperately alone. The
sight of a military policeman comforted me, and, leaving the poor
broken houses behind, I struck out along the St Jean road, which the
enemy were shelling, to remind me, perhaps, that there could still be
safety in Ypres.
It began to rain steadily and the moon disappeared. I jumped into an
empty ambulance to escape from the rain and the shells, but beyond St
Jean there was a bad block in the traffic; so, leaving the ambulance,
I wormed my way through the transport, and, passing the big guns on
the near side of the crest which the enemy had held for so many years,
I splashed down the track into St Julien. I only stumbled into one
shell-hole, but I fell over a dead mule in trying to avoid its brother.
It was a pitch-black night.
We had decided to use for our headquarters a perfectly safe "pill-box,"
or concreted house in St Julien, but when we arrived we discovered that
it was already occupied by a dressing station. We could not stand upon
ceremony--we shared it between us.
Soon after I had reached St Julien, weary, muddy, and wet, the enemy
began to shell the village persistently. One shell burst just outside
our door. It killed two men and blew two into our chamber, where,
before they had realised they were hit, they were bandaged and neatly
labelled.
My crews, who had been resting in our camp by the Canal, arrived in the
middle of the shelling, and, paying no attention to it whatever, began
to uncover their tanks and drive them out from the ruins where they had
been hidden. Luckily nobody was hurt, but the shelling continued until
midnight.
By 10 P.M. the tanks had started on the night's trek, with the
exception of one which had been driven so adroitly into a ruin that
for several hours we could not extract it. By midnight the rain had
stopped and the moon showed herself--but with discretion.
Very slowly the seven tanks picked their way to Poelcapelle. The strain
was appalling. A mistake by the leading tanks, and the road might be
blocked. A slip--and the tank would lurch off into the mud. The road
after the rain would have been difficult enough in safety by daylight.
Now it was a dark night, and, just to remind the tanks of the coming
battle, the enemy threw over a shell or two.
One tank tried to cross a tree-trunk at the wrong angle. The trunk
slipped between the tracks and the tank turned suddenly. The mischief
was done. For half an hour S. did his best, but on the narrow slippery
road he could not swing his tank sufficiently to climb the trunk
correctly. In utter despair he at last drove his tank into the mud, so
that the three tanks behind him might pass.[16]
About 4 A.M. the enemy shelling increased in violence and became a very
fair bombardment. The German gunners were taking no risks. If dawn
were to bring with it an attack, they would see to it that the attack
never developed. By 4.30 A.M. the enemy had put down a barrage on every
possible approach to the forward area. And the Poelcapelle Road, along
which tanks had so often endeavoured to advance, was very heavily
shelled. It was anxious work, out in the darkness among the shells, on
the destroyed road....
In the concrete ruins we snatched a little feverish sleep in a sickly
atmosphere of iodine and hot tea. A few wounded men, covered with thick
mud, came in, but none were kept, in order that the station might be
free for the rush on the morning of the battle.
By four the gunnery had become too insistent. I did not expect Talbot
to send back a runner until just before "zero," but the activity of the
guns worried me. The Poelcapelle Road was no place for a tank on such a
night. Still, no news was good news, for a message would have come to
me if the tanks had been caught.
We went outside and stood in the rain, looking towards the line. It was
still very dark, but, though the moon had left us in horror, there was
a promise of dawn in the air.
The bombardment died down a little, as if the guns were taking breath,
though far away to the right a barrage was throbbing. The guns barked
singly. We felt a weary tension; we knew that in a few moments
something enormously important would happen, but it had happened so
many times before. There was a deep shuddering boom in the distance,
and a shell groaned and whined overhead. That may have been a signal.
There were two or three quick flashes and reports from howitzers quite
near, which had not yet fired. Then suddenly on every side of us and
above us a tremendous uproar arose; the ground shook beneath us; for a
moment we felt battered and dizzy; the horizon was lit up with a sheet
of flashes; gold and red rockets raced madly into the sky, and in the
curious light of the distant bursting shells the ruins in front of us
appeared and disappeared with a touch of melodrama....
We went in for a little breakfast before the wounded arrived....
Out on the Poelcapelle Road, in the darkness and the rain, seven tanks
were crawling very slowly. In front of each tank the officer was
plunging through the shell-holes and the mud, trying hard not to think
of the shells. The first driver, cursing the darkness, peered ahead or
put his ear to the slit, so that he could hear the instructions of his
commander above the roar of the engine. The corporal "on the brakes"
sat stiffly beside the driver. One man crouched in each sponson,
grasping the lever of his secondary gear, and listening for the signals
of the driver, tapped on the engine-cover. The gunners sprawled
listlessly, with too much time for thought, but hearing none of the
shells.
S. was savagely attempting to unditch the tank which he had purposely
driven into the mud.
The shells came more rapidly--in salvos, right on the road, on either
side of the tanks. The German gunners had decided that no tank should
reach Poelcapelle that night. The tanks slithered on doggedly--they are
none too easy to hit....
Suddenly a shell crashed into the third tank, just as it was passing
a derelict. The two tanks in front went on. Behind, four tanks were
stopped. The next tank was hit on the track.
It was a massacre. The tanks could not turn, even if they had wished.
There was nothing for it but to go on and attempt to pass in a rain
of shells the tanks which could not move, but each tank in turn
slipped off into the mud. Their crews, braving the shells, attached the
unditching beams--fumbling in the dark with slippery spanners, while
red-hot bits flew past, and they were deafened by the crashes--but
nothing could be done. The officers withdrew their men from the fatal
road and took cover in shell-holes. It was a stormy cheerless dawn.
The first two tanks, escaping the barrage, lurched on towards
Poelcapelle. The first, delayed by an immense crater which the enemy
had blown in the road, was hit and caught fire. The crew tumbled out,
all of them wounded, and Skinner brought them back across country. The
second, seeing that the road in front was hopelessly blocked--for the
leading tank was in the centre of the fairway--turned with great skill
and attempted vainly to come back. By marvellous driving she passed the
first derelict, but in trying to pass the second she slipped hopelessly
into the mud....
The weary night had passed with its fears, and standing in front of the
ruin we looked down the road. It was bitterly cold, and tragedy hung
over the stricken grey country like a mist. First a bunch of wounded
came, and then in the distance we saw a tank officer with his orderly.
His head was bandaged and he walked in little jerks, as if he were a
puppet on a string. When he came near he ran a few steps and waved his
arms. It was X., who had never been in action before.
We took him inside, made him sit down, and gave him a drink of tea.
He was badly shaken, almost hysterical, but pulling himself together
and speaking with a laboured clearness, he told us what had happened.
His eyes were full of horror at the scene on the road. He kept
apologising--his inexperience might lead him to exaggerate--perhaps
he ought not to have come back, but they sent him back because he was
wounded; of course, if he had been used to such things he would not
have minded so much--he was sorry he could not make a better report. We
heard him out and tried to cheer him by saying that, of course, these
things must happen in war. Then, after he had rested a little, we sent
him on, for the dressing station was filling fast, and he stumbled away
painfully. I have not seen him since.
The crews had remained staunchly with their tanks, waiting for orders.
I sent a runner to recall them, and in an hour or so they dribbled in,
though one man was killed by a chance shell on the way. Talbot, the old
dragoon, who had fought right through the war, never came back. He was
mortally wounded by a shell which hit his tank. I never had a better
section-commander.
We waited until late in the morning for news of Skinner, who had
returned across country. The dressing station was crowded, and a batch
of prisoners, cowed and grateful for their lives, were carrying loaded
stretchers along trench-board tracks to a light railway a mile distant.
Limbers passed through and trotted toward the line. Fresh infantry,
clean and obviously straight from rest, halted in the village. The
officers asked quietly for news. At last Cooper and I turned away and
tramped the weary muddy miles to the Canal. The car was waiting for
us, and soon we were back at La Lovie. I reported to the Colonel and to
the Brigade Commander. Then I went to my hut, and, sitting on my bed,
tried not to think of my tanks. Hyde, the mess-waiter, knocked at the
door--
"Lunch is ready, sir, and Mr King has got some whisky from the canteen,
sir!"
I shouted for hot water....
The great opportunity had gone by. We had failed, and to me the sense
of failure was inconceivably bitter. We began to feel that we were
dogged by ill-fortune: the contrast between the magnificent achievement
of Marris's company and the sudden overwhelming disaster that had swept
down on my section was too glaring. And we mourned Talbot....
During the next few days we made several attempts to salve our tanks
or clear the road by pulling them off into the mud, but the shells
and circumstances proved too much for individual enterprise. In
the following week, after the enemy at last had been driven beyond
Poelcapelle, I sent Wyatt's section forward to St Julien, and, working
under the orders of the Brigade Engineer, they managed to clear the
road for the passage of transport, or, with luck and good driving, of
tanks.
Later, there was a grandiose scheme for attacking Passchendaele
itself and Westroosebeke from the north-west through Poelcapelle. The
whole Brigade, it was planned, would advance along the Poelcapelle
and Langemarck Roads and deploy in the comparatively unshelled and
theoretically passable country beyond. To us, perhaps prejudiced by
disaster, the scheme appeared fantastic enough: the two roads could so
easily be blocked by an accident or the enemy gunners; but we never
were able to know whether our fears were justified, for the remains of
the Tank Corps were hurriedly collected and despatched to Wailly....
The great battle of the year dragged on a little longer. In a few weeks
the newspapers, intent on other things, informed their readers that
Passchendaele had fallen. The event roused little comment or interest.
Now, if we had reached Ostend in September ... but it remains to be
seen whether or not tanks can scale a sea-wall.