YPRES: THE 31ST JULY (_continued_).
I.
I have been told that the gigantic clap of sound produced by the
simultaneous discharge of two or three thousand guns at zero that
morning was a phenomenon never to be forgotten by those who heard it.
But I do not remember hearing it at all. Enclosed in a vibrating box of
steel, the subdued throbbing of my engine drowned even this apocalyptic
crash. And this effect of silence--for we were all so accustomed to the
local noise of our machinery that it may be said we were unconscious
of it--made yet more wonderful the really astounding display of
pyrotechnics which in a second blazed up around the whole arc of the
Salient. At 3.49 A.M., when I looked at my clock for the last time, the
night was dark and misty and very still. Heavier clouds had rolled up,
and there was no sign of the dawn. Only the pistol lights still soared
and died away about us. Precisely at 3.50 two or three thousand shells
of every calibre burst virtually together in two great semicircles on
or over the enemy’s first and second lines--ten miles or so of sudden
flame and horror. A few hundred yards in front of our leading tank
the very earth seemed to erupt. It spouted fire and fragments like a
volcano. The mist which hung over the trenches in the little valley was
rent to tatters in a blaze of orange light, while hundreds of shrapnel
bursts sparkled above, and the drums of thermit poured down their
molten oil like burning rain. Far behind, where the 9.2 barrage fell
along the crown of the ridge, great tongues of flame leapt and wavered
in volumes of scarlet smoke. And from out of this instantaneous inferno
arose strings of green and crimson rockets--the S.O.S. calls of the
enemy. It was the apotheosis of the artillery barrage, although no one
suspected it then: the greatest blast of gun-fire ever concentrated at
once on any battlefield, and, so far at least as the British Army was
concerned, the last of its kind. The next offensive battle, at Cambrai,
was to inaugurate a new order of things.
From Hill Top, or Frascati, this great curve of spouting fire must
have been a magnificent spectacle, and the sudden shattering noise of
it appalling; and I was so fascinated by the small part of it which I
could see that I forgot entirely to start the tank. The whole of my
crew was crowded forward behind the driver and myself, craning over our
shoulders to watch through the flaps such a display of fireworks as
they had never dreamed of. Realising suddenly that the interval between
G 46 and the tank in front was increasing, I touched Johnstone on the
arm; and the roar of the engine deepened as, with a slight jerk, we
also began to move. Already the glare of the bursting shells, still
raining down upon the zero line, was dulled by a pall of smoke and
dust. The spectacular glory of the barrage was at an end. Within a few
seconds it was due to lift forward at a rate of a hundred yards every
four minutes. But it still showed as a flickering haze of light across
our front; and against this one could see the long line of tanks moving
downward to Forward Cottage, about which point groups of dark figures
were standing on the parapets or walking carelessly forward across
Admiral’s Road toward the German trenches.
It seemed a long time before G 46 reached these trenches. There were,
in fact, continual stoppages as the tanks in front struggled to find
a crossing in the narrow gap between Hampshire and Canadian Farms.
At length, after a particularly long halt, I swung out of the line to
the right to make, if possible, a passage for myself. We were then
somewhere in the middle of No Man’s Land. Dawn had broken--a miserable
grey twilight behind heavy clouds; and the creeping barrage, with its
following infantry, was already far up the ridge. It was when we drew
up to the German front line that the cause of these irritating delays
became painfully obvious. We had anticipated difficulties here, but
the reality was worse than anything that I, for one, had imagined.
The front line was not merely obliterated: it had been scorched and
pulverised as if by an earthquake, stamped flat and heaved up again,
caught as it fell and blown all ways; and when the four minutes’ blast
of destruction moved on, was left dissolved into its elements, heaped
in fantastic mounds of mud, or excavated into crumbling pits already
half full of water. There cannot have been a live man left in it. At
our point of crossing there was nothing to be seen which remotely
resembled a trench: before us yawned a deep muddy gulf, out of whose
slimy sides obtruded fragments of splintered timber, broken slabs
of concrete, and several human legs clothed in German half-boots.
Immediately beyond, a veritable lagoon, fringed by a few stripped and
blackened willow-stumps, marked the site of Hampshire Farm. Infantry
were strolling about here in a very casual manner, smoking, eating,
and ferreting for souvenirs. The battle seemed a long way off. The
morning was so dark, and the murk of mist and smoke so thick upon the
ridge, that one could see only a few hundred yards in front. I was
determined not to get ditched so early in the day if I could avoid it;
and for five or ten minutes we hung over this black chasm, backing,
swinging, nosing about in vain for a likely crossing. We were rather
too much to the right of our proper track, but the ground everywhere
was so broken and treacherous that there was little choice. We had made
several tentative efforts, but had shied each time at the prospect
of crumbling and slithery mud-heaps in front of us; and I was about
to leave the tank to search for a crossing-place myself when Kessel
unexpectedly appeared outside. With his help we got over, at a point
where some revetting-stakes and wire still survived, holding the soil
together and providing a quasi-stable surface for the tracks to grip.
Once across, Kessel scrambled in through one of the sponson doors, and
as we lurched warily round the lagoon he informed me by shouts that
all this was “great fun” (a point which had escaped me), and that poor
Brassington was bogged hopelessly somewhere near at hand. We were now
climbing out of the dead ground in which the front line had run. The
light was improving rapidly, but so dense a screen of smoke and mist
hung over the ridge that no landmarks were visible. In front of me a
line of tanks--the leading section of 19 Company--was moving obliquely
to the right. Nearer at hand was one on fire, and a second apparently
ditched. No shells seemed to be falling in our neighbourhood, but far
ahead a flicker of light in the fog showed where our barrage continued
its annihilating progress up the slope. Indistinct groups of figures
moved about in the gloom--signallers laying lines of wire, platoons in
support digging themselves in, stretcher-bearers, runners, and walking
wounded trailing back to the aid-posts. The damp air reeked of the
pungent gases of high explosives. The ground, although one intricate
net of shell-holes, grew firmer as we left the infamous region about
the front line; and, with skilful driving, we were able to make fair
progress without running extravagant risks. Johnstone, indeed, drove
extraordinarily well. The great trouble at first was to find our right
direction, for all our famous groups of trees were still invisible, and
Kitchener’s Wood was veiled completely by the smoke and dust of the
barrage. The German trenches which we had studied on the map were blown
to pieces and unrecognisable. One could see nothing anywhere, in fact,
but a brown waste of mud blasted into ridges and hollows like a frozen
sea, littered with debris, and melting on all hands into the prevailing
haze. The gradient of the ridge was too slight to be a guide under the
circumstances; my compass was chasing its tail and behaving generally
as if it was drunk; and, after we had swung a dozen times to avoid the
more dangerous craters that lay in our way, we might have been heading
in almost any direction. It was therefore with some relief that Kessel
and I detected presently, in the smoky distance, a familiar object
that both of us, like Captain Reece’s washerwoman, long had loved from
afar. This was Lone Tree--a rotund bushy shrub near Kultur Farm, whose
exceeding merit it was to look the same from every point of view. It
was unmistakable; and now, happily preserved amid the universal ruin,
it still stood, a little battered and entirely denuded of foliage,
as a signpost on the way. Very shortly after the ragged tree-tops of
Kitchener’s Wood came also into view.
About this time Kessel scrambled out, leaving behind him various
impedimenta, including a haversack and the section flag--this last an
emblem of red and green, the battalion colours, with a large white
“10” sewn on to it. I could now see Merchant’s tank, apparently in
trouble, in a sort of marshy gully to my right front; but a little
while later he passed me again, going in great style. Time was slipping
away: it was nearly five o’clock, and already we were late, owing to
the delays at the front line. We were not far, however, from our first
objectives--Boche Castle and the German second system in front of
Kitchener’s Wood, where I still hoped to overtake the infantry. The
heavy howitzers had now lifted to the Steenbeek and beyond, and the
creeping barrage was crashing in the wood itself, above which hung
clouds of smoke. The enemy’s counter-barrage, falling in the beginning
on our front and assembly trenches, had developed into a heavy but
promiscuous bombardment of the western slope of the ridge; and for the
first time since zero, I saw the sinister black fountains of earth
spouting up in front, and heard the occasional rattle of fragments on
the roof of G 46. It was, presumably, one of these pieces of shell,
or perhaps a shrapnel ball, that cut the lashings of my unditching
beam about this time. As we dipped our nose into a shell-hole the beam
slid down over the cab on to the ground. Stopping at once, I got my
whole crew out to recover it; but to lift on to the roof again 9 cwt.
of steel and wood in so unhandy a form was beyond our powers; and the
occasion being urgent, I decided to abandon the thing rather than waste
time in manœuvring the tank and fixing the clamps or other tackle.
We obtained a more comprehensive view of the outer world during this
excursion, but there was little to be seen. The battlefield wore that
melancholy and deserted air characteristic of modern war. Acres of foul
slime below, dark and heavy clouds hanging low overhead, odours of
gases and corruption, a few tree-stumps, a few bodies lying crumpled in
the mud, half a dozen tanks labouring awkwardly in the middle distance,
and the shell-bursts shooting upward like vast ephemeral mushrooms--and
that was all. There was hardly a sign of life in all that mournful
and chilling landscape. The dark but busy interior of G 46, crowded
with humanity, was homely by comparison and infinitely quieter. War
has been translated into terms of sound, and the racket of gun-fire
was appalling. Coming from inside a tank, where one heard nothing but
the familiar roar of the engine, this eternal throbbing blast of noise
deafened and bewildered. Overhead the shells were rushing in a torrent
with a continual cry like that of a gale among trees--“whee-u, whee-u,
whee-u, whee-u....” For the first few minutes, until I can become used
to it, any loud and sudden noise (and this was worse than any ever
heard before) always renders me virtually imbecile, almost incapable
of coherent thought or action; and I was heartily glad to clamber back
again to the company of decent mechanical reverberations to which I
was accustomed.
We moved on once more. I can remember very little of our normal
progress beyond a general impression that the ground everywhere was
atrocious, and that Johnstone’s driving was exceptional. We passed
over a ruined trench, which a line of men was labouring to convert
with pick and shovel; and once we came upon a wounded infantryman
lying at the bottom of a shell-hole which we were about to cross. We
stopped instantly and swung to avoid him, but in the act of changing
the secondary gears the tank lurched forward a foot or two and hung
over the very lip of the crater; and I shall not easily forget the
terror in the man’s face as he watched the huge machine rearing up
fifteen feet above him, about (as he supposed) to crash down upon him
with all its thirty tons. It was about 5.15 when we drew near to the
site of the estaminet called Boche Castle. On our right was the dark
mass of Kitchener’s Wood, its trees blackened and mangled and almost
bare of leaves. No living soul was to be seen, and it was plain that
the infantry had carried the strong-point itself, and the whole of
the German second line in this neighbourhood, and had already pushed
on toward the Steenbeek. The trenches ran generally along the western
edge of the wood, but a few hundred yards from the northern end of
it they turned westward through Boche Castle and Hurst Park toward
Pilkem. I have spoken of an estaminet at Boche Castle, but of course
this building, where a few years before the Walloons had drunk their
indifferent beer, had been reduced long since to a pile of rubble.
Amid this debris the Germans had constructed a concrete tower, which
commanded the whole face of the ridge. I have mentioned also that
this interesting innovation had been shelled by our 15-inch guns. The
effect of this bombardment was extraordinary, for in that moist and
ruined soil the huge projectiles had penetrated to a depth of fifteen
or twenty feet before they exploded; and the result was a congeries
of immense craters, which I believed to be caused by mines, until I
reflected that no mine-shafts could have been driven so far. The mebus
itself had been uprooted bodily, like a plaything, and now lay flat
upon its side, cracked, but still more or less entire--an advertisement
of the resisting powers of reinforced concrete.
From this and other indications (_e.g._, the absence of dead or wounded
on the ground except at one spot, to be noted later), it was clear
that there had been no very serious fighting about this point; and
indeed the first impact of 9.2’s at zero, followed later by the lighter
creeping barrage, had virtually obliterated the whole system in front
of the wood. It was no easy task for a tank to thread its way among
these vast excavations about Boche Castle, and things were complicated
by the presence of a large patch of boggy ground there which had also
to be avoided. As we proceeded, we discovered that Merchant’s tank,
less fortunate than our own, had become ditched in one of the biggest
craters, where it lay at a most uncomfortable angle, looking very much
like a drowned beetle in the bottom of a wine-glass.
Our own ultimate disaster was near at hand. There ran out of the
salient the dismal remains of a thoroughfare known to us as Boundary
Road, which, after crossing Admiral’s Road in No Man’s Land and then
the German front line, zigzagged past the reserve trenches at Kempton
Park and Gatwick Cottage to Hurst Park and Boche Castle itself, from
where it hugged the north end of Kitchener’s Wood before descending
the reverse slope to a culvert over the Steenbeek. Up this latter part
of it was laid a light railway, as disclosed by aeroplane photographs,
and duly recorded on the map. Information from prisoners led to the
belief that this road was mined; and Merchant and I had been warned
time and again on no account to move along it. We were to cross it
in the neighbourhood of Boche Castle, proceed parallel to it on the
north, and recross it beyond the wood, thus reducing to a minimum the
risk of striking one of the mines. The road itself, when I arrived at
it, was indistinguishable from the surrounding mud; but the twisted
metals of the light railway betrayed its site; and in accordance with
my instructions, without thinking twice about it, I drove straight
over it at a point midway between the wood and the prostrate mebus at
Boche Castle. I then swung to the right and moved forward parallel to
it. As written down, this manœuvre sounds a simple one; but already
another peculiarity of the Salient was disturbingly manifest. Owing,
as I suppose, to some arrangement of strata--the same phenomenon is to
be found in parts of Dorsetshire, among other places--the water with
which Flanders is too abundantly provided collects on top of the ridges
as well as in the adjacent valleys. The boggy patch on the other side
of Boche Castle before mentioned was a symptom of this eccentricity.
And across the vanished road the conditions became at once appalling.
The ground was one network of big shell-holes, and every one was full
of water. There was no escaping it. On all hands lay these brimming
pools, divided only by a sort of mesh of semi-liquid mud. I tried at
once to get back to the road, preferring the possibility of mines to
the certainty of being ignominiously engulfed, but in that amphibious
world the engine was not powerful enough to induce the tank to reverse
or swing. She would only plough her way slowly forward through the mud.
The end was inevitable. We covered (and this in itself was something
of a miracle) about two hundred yards of this quagmire, forcing our
way through it rather than over it. It was during this final lap that
I heard my left-hand pair of gunners open fire with their Lewis guns.
Knowing that we were still behind our infantry, I induced them to stop
by hammering the nearest man on the back; and it was not until some
time later that I learnt the cause of their firing. All this while we
tried continually to swing back toward the road, a hundred yards away,
but the tank was sunk in mud to her belly, and would move only in the
one direction. We arrived at length at a point abreast of the far edge
of Kitchener’s Wood: water lay everywhere about us; and immediately in
front were two or three large shell-holes, full to the brim. It being
impossible to avoid them, G 46, like a reluctant suicide, crawled
straight into the first, which we could only hope was shallower than
it appeared to be. The water rushed in through the tracks and sponson
doors, covered the floorboards, and flooded the sump: the fly-wheel
thrashed through it for a second or two, sending showers about the
interior; and then the tank, not having been constructed for submarine
warfare, gave up the struggle. The engine raced with an increased but
futile noise, for the wet clutch had ceased to grip, and we did not
move.
It was nearly six o’clock, and the rain had begun to fall. To take
stock of the situation we had to climb out through the manhole in the
roof, the water having risen to such a height above the floor that we
could not use the sponson doors. Once outside, it was manifest that
there was nothing to be done. The lost unditching beam would not have
helped us with the clutch half under water. The tail of the tank just
touched the muddy rim of the shell-hole, but on every other side the
great pool extended for several feet. The accompanying photograph,
although taken a couple of months later, after the tank had been hit
on one track and elsewhere, shows her exactly as she lay at that
moment, and as we left her the following afternoon. A hundred yards
to our right was the northern corner of Kitchener’s Wood. Three or
four hundred yards to the left was a ruined building, converted with
concrete into a machine-gun post, which was known as Von Werder House.
This was not visible until one stood on top of the tank, for the latter
was sunk deep in the shell-hole, and was screened also on this side by
the tattered remnants of a hedge. A quarter of a mile in front of us
the ridge fell away toward the Steenbeek, and over the edge we could
see the tops of the trees which lined the banks of that stream;
while to our rear, beyond a row of wrecked sheds made of timber and
corrugated iron, rose the white pile of rubble and concrete where Boche
Castle had stood. Occasional shells burst along the ridge. The shriek
of our own projectiles rushing overhead was continuous, and the actual
throbbing blast of gun-fire a torture to the nerves; but not a living
soul except ourselves was within eyesight. I did not know how far our
infantry had progressed, but supposed them to be somewhere near the
Steenbeek. A heavy rattle of rifle and machine-gun fire sounded out of
the valley. Nearer at hand, but invisible, one or two Vickers’ guns
were indulging in overhead fire.
[Illustration: Tank G 46 as I left her (except for hit on track),
August 1, 1917.]
Having satisfied myself that the tank was bogged beyond immediate
repair (a fact, indeed, so obvious that no consideration was needed),
I sent my crew inside again and started to walk back to Merchant’s G
45, lying in the big crater by Boche Castle, where I expected to find
Kessel. The distance was about five hundred yards. It was now raining
heavily, and walking was reduced to a maddening process of dragging
one’s feet through deliquescent mud, sliding into shell-holes, and
crawling, sometimes on all-fours, laboriously out again. As I drew
near to Boche Castle I crossed what was left of the support trenches
of the German second line, and here, lying face downward side by side
over a fragment of parados, were the bodies of six British infantrymen,
all shot through the head--killed together as they were in the act of
climbing out of the trench. I was to become only too familiar with
these unfortunates in the course of that day and the next. A little
farther beyond was the series of great craters about the strong-point.
On reaching the lip of the one in which G 45 still lay engulfed, I saw
Kessel, Merchant, and the crew grouped far below me round the tank.
They instantly made violent signals to me to come into cover, and I
slid down the side of the crater with some precipitation. Believing
that all the enemy must have been driven off the ridge in our
neighbourhood, since the infantry was out of sight ahead, I had taken
no precautions in walking across beyond listening anxiously for the
whistle of unfriendly shells; but on arriving, muddy and breathless,
among the others in the crater bottom, I learnt that all this while
there was a German machine-gun still in action in Von Werder House,
then nearly half a mile behind our front. Its very gallant gun-crew
(I never knew if there was only one man there or more), cut off by
the annihilation or flight of the defenders of the second line,
apparently went to ground until our attacking waves had passed by,
only to reappear afterwards and begin sniping conscientiously at any
one who came within range. This sort of conduct always seems to me the
height of heroism or fanaticism, for the ultimate fate of such isolated
rearguards is certain. In all ignorance I had walked right across the
front of this gun within a few hundred yards of it, and I can only
suppose that at the time the gunners were occupied at a loophole on the
other side of the mebus. It appeared that Merchant had left his true
course, and so become ditched in the crater, in an attempt to reach
and silence this nuisance; and when I returned later to my own tank I
learnt that it was the “tap-tap” of bullets on the armour, no doubt
from the same source, that had provoked my gunners to open fire. And I
imagine that the six dead infantrymen whom I had just seen were also
among the victims of Von Werder House.
Having reported to Kessel the hopeless situation of G 46, I was told
to evacuate her, leaving, however, two men as a guard. This was
in accordance with orders, and was in one sense a very necessary
provision; for it had been found that any ditched or disabled tank left
unguarded was sure to be stripped within a few hours of every removable
part. But the duty, never popular, was likely to be peculiarly
dangerous in the Salient, on account of the persistent shelling to be
expected there. Near Mousetrap Farm, a day or two later, four men were
killed while guarding a couple of derelict tanks, after which the
practice of leaving such guards east of the canal was abandoned. And
the position of G 46 was exceptional. She lay so near to the Steenbeek,
our final objective for that day, as to be in imminent danger from any
counter-attack, and she was, in fact, farther forward than any machine
left within our lines. She might be seen from the next ridge, and
her neighbourhood, whatever else happened, probably would be shelled
heavily. Under these circumstances, much as I disliked the prospect of
remaining in her myself, I felt that I could not leave two of my crew
alone there; and I determined, therefore, to form one of the guard.
Merchant’s tank was as immovable as my own. Its engine had failed in an
attempt to pull it out of the big crater, and it now lay at a highly
uncomfortable angle, its nose pointing obliquely upward and its floor
so tilted that one could not stand inside. Fortunately for the crew,
the crater was comparatively dry for the Salient. It was merely a
mud-hole--that is to say, without much water in the bottom. I remained
here for about half an hour, talking to the others, for I confess I
was in no hurry to begin my return journey. Most of us, I think, are
great cowards when we are alone and have no gallery to play to, and I
did not relish the idea of exposing myself again to the occupant of
Von Werder House, who might not overlook me a second time. When at
length I moved off, I took rather elaborate precautions, keeping under
cover when possible, running across the open spaces, and making a
wide circuit through the moist and reeking undergrowth of Kitchener’s
Wood. It was an ignominious performance, and I am not proud of it; but
I could not forget those six men lying in a row with bullets through
their heads. And as it happened, the machine-gun was now permanently
silenced. When I came out from the wood upon the ruined road abreast
of my tank, prepared to duck or run for it, I saw a party of kilted
infantry, belonging to the supporting battalion of the 117th Brigade,
gathered round Von Werder House. Presumably the plucky German gunner
had been killed. Scrambling back into G 46, I told my crew (sitting
dismally immersed to the knees in water and oil) to draw lots for the
doubtful privilege of remaining behind with me. The duty fell to my
second driver, Swain, who successfully dissembled his joy. The others
began to collect their kit, most of which was under water, for in a
tank everything gravitates eventually to the floor. These men would
have to carry with them also the six Lewis guns and the compass, and
their journey through the shells and rain and clinging mud to Frascati,
thus encumbered, promised few pleasures. There was still a job of work
for them to do before they left. I wished to camouflage the tank to
some extent with mud and branches, and especially to obliterate the
conspicuous number painted on the roof of the cab. (I have explained
already my reasons for this diffidence.) At this work we toiled for
half an hour, slipping and splashing in the surrounding pool; but the
rain, now falling in sheets, washed the mud away almost as fast as we
shovelled it on, and we had to depend upon the relics of the adjacent
hedge. It was nearly nine o’clock when my corporal, Mitchell, and the
other five prepared finally to leave the tank. At this juncture another
tank appeared, homeward bound, round the corner of Kitchener’s Wood. It
was one of 19 Company’s, commanded by Maelor Jones. It had been across
the Steenbeek into St Julien, where it had been attacked by infantry
with hand grenades, and Maelor Jones himself had shot a German N.C.O.
with his revolver through the flap. He was now struggling home with a
badly leaking radiator. I do not remember how he came to be so far off
his direct route, which was south of the wood, a mile away. I gave him
all my spare water, and also put into his tank my six Lewis guns, to
save my crew this extra burden. When he moved off again he contrived to
navigate the lake district about us without disaster; but eventually
(as I discovered later) came to a standstill, with an empty radiator,
half a mile beyond Boche Castle, where the tank was hit soon after. At
the same time my six men left me for Hill Top Farm and Frascati, with
orders to report to the company commander at the first-named place.
Swain and I remained alone in G 46, with a prospect (at the best) of
indefinite discomfort before us. The only thing remaining for me to do
was to despatch my two pigeons with duplicate messages, giving my exact
state and situation.
II.
The tank, as I have said, was almost knee-deep in water. The rain
dripped in steadily through the imperfectly fitting armour-plating
of the roof. And about this time the enemy’s shelling, scattered
hitherto in a desultory fashion over his lost positions, settled down
to a sustained and heavy bombardment of the whole crest of the ridge.
It fell with particular intensity on certain areas, of which our
own deserted and impracticable neighbourhood unfortunately was one.
Possibly the Germans thought we were using or repairing the road; but
except for one platoon of infantry, ploughing along it in single file
on either side, to avoid (as I suppose) the legendary mines, I never
saw a living soul upon that obliterated highway, and very few anywhere
else about us. Whatever the reason, from about ten o’clock on the
morning of the 31st until I left the place at four in the afternoon of
the following day, a period of thirty hours, 5.9 shells fell about us
without intermission at the rate of one every minute. The particular
gun or guns responsible for our little sector maintained with Teutonic
exactitude the same invariable line, represented approximately by G 46
on top of the crest, Boche Castle 300 yards in rear, and Merchant’s
tank 200 yards beyond that; and the feature of this apparently
senseless expenditure of metal was the fact that neither tank was hit
during this time.
It might appear the obvious remedy, in these circumstances, to have
left the half-drowned “Gina” for some other shelter a few hundred
yards away. But there was no shelter to be found, or I could find
none. Trenches had been beaten to a muddy pulp; dug-outs, if they
existed, were undiscoverable in the prevailing devastation; water lay
everywhere; and shells were falling almost as thickly in Kitchener’s
Wood and about Von Werder House as in our immediate neighbourhood.
The tank at least offered protection against splinters, and, apart
from a few leaks, against the ceaseless downpour of rain. It held our
food and other possessions, which were kept moderately dry. And it is
a well-known, if illogical, truth, that any overhead cover is better
than none. A parasol would give one infinite comfort in battle. G 46,
nevertheless, was not an ideal home. She vibrated periodically from the
concussions near at hand: every fifteen minutes or so came an explosion
so close that lumps of mud pattered heavily upon the roof; and once or
twice the whole thirty tons of metal seemed to jump bodily. With the
engine silent, one heard the crescendo of every approaching shell, and
had ample time to speculate on its point of arrival. It is one thing to
be shelled in this manner when you are actively engaged in some work
which helps to occupy your mind: it is altogether another to have to
sit through two days and a night of it within a few feet of thirty or
forty gallons of refined and expensive petrol, with nothing whatever
to do but wonder what exactly will happen when you are hit. It was
natural to dwell upon the fact that a 5.9 projectile goes through a
tank’s armour as if it was paper, and then bursts inside. Thirty hours
of this life, in short, became in the end a little wearing; and I hope
sincerely never to repeat the experience.
Yet of all that long period, which seemed so interminable at the
time, I found afterwards I could remember very little. When Swain
and I were left alone in the tank, we proceeded to make ourselves as
comfortable as circumstances allowed. Swain curled himself up in the
driver’s seat. I sat with my shoulders against the front of the cab,
using a tin box of Lewis-gun ammunition as a back-rest. Half of the
engine cover, laid over a couple of oil-drums which rose well above
the water-level, served to keep my legs out of the flood. Both of us,
of course, were already soaked to the skin and plastered with mud, so
that the steady trickle of rain from the roof mattered little to us.
For the first hour or so I think we were asleep, too tired to worry
about the manifest increase in the shelling about us. Toward midday we
ate a cold and uninspiring lunch of bully and sardines, supplemented by
whisky. These delicacies lived close at hand in lockers on each side of
the cab, room for which, and also for a small drinking-water tank, had
been made in the Mark IV. by the removal aft of the petrol-supply. Our
drinking water, unfortunately, was rather mature, there having been no
opportunity of refilling the tank since the postponement on the 24th.
On all counts I congratulated myself on the two bottles of whisky. We
were now fully alive to the fact that shells were bursting very near G
46 with great regularity, and so far as I was concerned further sleep
proved to be out of the question. After each periodic whistle and
explosion, I peered around through the revolver ports in the cab to
see where the resultant cloud of black smoke was hanging, and usually
discovered it unpleasantly close. It may have been about this time that
the infantry I have mentioned came up the road past the edge of the
wood. They deployed into open order and halted for a few minutes; and
having left the tank to learn something about the general situation,
I found the subaltern in command sitting with his sergeant in a
comparatively dry shell-hole. They could tell me very little, however.
The firing line, which they were moving to support, was believed to
be along the Steenbeek, about 800 yards in front of us. The rattle of
machine-guns in the valley was more persistent than ever. The Vickers
on the ridge had fallen silent or gone forward, and from the loud
throb of gun-fire behind us it was clear that field batteries had, in
some miraculous manner, been got over the German front line and through
the slough beyond. I returned to the tank as the infantry platoon began
its stumbling progress forward again; and the last I saw of it was a
scattered line of figures disappearing beyond the brow of the hill.
This was the only formed body of troops that came within sight during
our stay on the ridge.
The next incident I remember was the startling return, about 4 o’clock,
of Corporal Mitchell and three others of my crew, who had left us six
hours earlier. It appeared that having reached the dug-out at Hill
Top Farm, after losing their way several times and enduring other
unpleasant vicissitudes, the original six had reported to the company
commander there, only to be told to return and stand by the tank,
a complete reversal of our original instructions. Orders to this
effect had been sent to Merchant by runner immediately on receipt of
a pigeon-message from him announcing his hopeless situation; but the
runner, having intercepted this crew just as it was starting for home,
had returned without bringing on the order to me. In any event, nothing
was to be gained by leaving the two crews, except a certainty of more
casualties if either tank should be hit; and trained tank personnel was
never so easily come by that it could be risked without a proper cause.
The crew of a tank left derelict on or near the front line can often
be of use by getting out and helping the infantry with Lewis guns,
but we were respectively half and three-quarters of a mile behind. I
had sent my guns back, perhaps rather foolishly, by Maelor Jones, and
both machines were so placed that they would be of little or no help
in repelling a counter-attack. In short, this clearly was a case where
the section and tank commanders on the spot ought to decide on the best
course of action. As for my own men, this development entailed for them
the additional fatigue and danger of the two-mile tramp back from Hill
Top to the tank. They started to return at once. Almost immediately
one of the gunners was hit in the head by a shrapnel bullet, and
a second man was left with him to help him to the nearest dressing
station. The other four eventually rejoined me after six hours’
continuous struggle through slime, rain, and shell-fire, and they were
so famished and exhausted that, although a certain amount of petrol was
floating about in the tank, I went to the risk of lighting a primus
stove in one of the sponsons in order to make them some tea. Braced
with a little rum, this drink, like godliness with contentment, was
great gain. It was no easy matter now to pack six men inside G 46 above
water-level, but with the aid of engine-covers and petrol and oil-tins,
the returned wanderers contrived somehow to fit themselves in.
Shortly after this I paid a visit to Merchant. Never an attractive
expedition, as it involved a good deal of wading to begin with and
subsequent periodic dives into the mud to dodge shell fragments, this
occasion provided me with a quite superfluous thrill. Hearing suddenly
the alarming crescendo of a 5.9 coming apparently straight at my head,
I dropped in a hurry just as it landed within a very few yards of me.
Fortunately it plunged some ten feet down into the semi-liquid ground
before it burst, so that beyond a bad shaking and a temporary immersion
beneath a perfect deluge of mud, I was none the worse. A little dashed
by the incident, however, I ran (or attempted to run) the rest of the
way, and of course almost fell over the six dead infantrymen lying so
neatly spaced in front of Boche Castle. I was glad to get down into the
fallacious shelter of Merchant’s gigantic crater, where I found his
crew brewing tea on a primus in the rain. They had with them two German
prisoners commandeered to help in a last hopeless effort to dig out the
tank. One of these men was dazed, speechless, and useless; and it was
supposed that he was suffering from shock until some one discovered
that the poor wretch had been hit in the stomach. Heaven knows how he
managed to stand upright. He vanished after a while, probably to die
miserably in some shell-hole; and his comrade, having been made to
understand with difficulty that his services were no longer required,
hurried off toward the rear with every symptom of relief. Merchant, I
found, had received no further orders, nor indeed any news whatever,
and he and his men were as weary of this mode of life as I and mine,
although spared our amphibious discomforts. His N.C.O., Sergeant
Meyrick, a splendid type of long-service soldier from the R.F.A.,
had the beginnings of an attack of fever, and was shaking like St
Vitus, while his first driver, Waller, was also ill. (Both these men
came to be associated with me, in circumstances peculiarly creditable
to them, in our next action, when I learnt thoroughly to appreciate
their merits.) While I was in the crater at this time a number of
shells burst so near to us that we left the tank in an endeavour to
find shelter elsewhere, but we soon abandoned the search. As in my
own case, the derelict machine remained the most attractive of the
several unsatisfactory alternatives. I may point out once more that
this instinctive desire to leave a ditched tank when shells are falling
about it arises from the fact that the protection the tank offers
against splinters is heavily outweighed by the knowledge of what almost
certainly will happen if it receives a direct hit, especially from such
a projectile as a 5.9. The terrific explosion in the restricted space,
the whirlwind of flying white-hot metal, and the inevitable fire which
follows, leave the crew with a poor hope of escaping, as was proved in
several tragic instances that morning; whereas in the open, lying flat
behind a lump of mud, the probabilities are all the other way. I think
it was the rain and the general wretchedness of things outside, as much
as the total lack of any standing cover, which induced us to remain
throughout inside our tanks.
Having spent about half an hour with Merchant, I started on my return.
In spite of a fixed intention of avoiding the six corpses on my route,
I ran into them once more, but arrived at my own watery home without
further unpleasantness. Inside G 46 the tide appeared to have risen in
my absence.
It would be tedious to inflict in detail my fragmentary recollections
of that evening or of the interminable night which ensued. The
conditions may be pictured as before. The rain fell heavily,
unceasingly, like fate. The water within the tank rose slowly but
perceptibly, and the shells exploded about us with the punctuality
of unwelcome guests. After each shriek and detonation which sounded
more than usually close to us, I would see the dim faces of my crew
turned rather anxiously toward me to see how I took it. It seemed
then advisable to make some silly joke, which, although it should
have deceived no one, helped apparently to ease the tension. And
this experience, recurring frequently through many hours, impressed
me forcibly with certain truisms lying, as I imagine, behind all
theories of military conduct and training, of which the chief was the
moral value of responsibility to others. If I had been left alone in
the tank, with nothing to think of but my own predicament, I should
have dwelt upon this until it became unbearable. Probably I should
then have run away. As it was, however, my main business necessarily
was to set a fairly decent example to the men who relied on me and
for whom I was responsible. In other words, it was their presence
and obvious dependence upon my behaviour which governed the latter,
while conversely this influence reacted upon them to the extent that
my artificial optimism and rather feeble jokes set up some sort of
standard which they felt obliged to imitate. We were all equally
afraid, but so long as we were all equally ashamed to admit it we
could carry on. The point of interest in our case, otherwise very
ordinary, was the fact that a number of men who never in their lives
before had been in any serious danger were now called upon in their
first action to endure a test exceptionally trying to nerve and
courage: to sit, during a day and a half of persistent heavy shelling,
passive, idle, and helpless in a flooded steel box on top of gallons
of inflammable spirit, protected overhead by nothing more than a thin
plate which a substantial sledge-hammer would have dented. I have said
all this before, and it may appear scarcely to warrant the previous
digression, but I will not labour to excuse the latter. It represents
the reflections which occurred to me afterwards. No doubt they have
occurred to millions of others since the first prehistoric battle; and
the whole thing may be summed up in the axiom that, when in doubt or
tribulation, it is a very material help to be forced to act a part.
That night was peculiarly unpleasant. Owing to our position on the
crest it was inadvisable to show any adequate light. (It must be
remembered also that we were entirely ignorant of the day’s events. For
all we knew the Germans might have regained ground elsewhere on the
ridge from which the tank was in view at short range. One can learn
nothing from a mere inspection of a modern battlefield, for there is
nothing to be seen.) Normally, tanks are lighted by small electric
festoon lamps hung under the roof, but in G 46 these were now out of
action, the accumulators being under water. In any case, I should not
have used them, as even with everything shut down the light escaped
through numerous small chinks around the gun-ports and shields. The
more powerful hand-lamps were tabooed for the same reason. There
remained only the pair of coloured bulbs on the signalling belt, of
which the green, besides making us look as if we were in the last
stages of decomposition, was too brilliant to please me. The feeble
glow of the red bulb, however, could hardly have been seen by some one
standing close outside. I had to employ it sparingly, as I did not
know how long the small battery would last, but when at intervals I
switched it on the effect was rather curious. The dull crimson light
was reflected in the water beneath us, the rain-drops collecting along
the joints of the roof shone like rubies, and the complication of
exhaust-pipes and ammunition-boxes above the engine cast over half
the interior a great wavering shadow, in which I could see dimly the
faces of my crew, huddled in the sponsons and about the differential.
Between these theatrical glimpses we lived in pitchy darkness, talking
a little, sleeping hardly at all, feeling acutely the bolt-heads and
angles in our backs, drinking a periodic tot of whisky (for we were
soaked and chilled), listening to the rain and the shell-bursts and the
occasional ominous patter of mud on the roof, and praying for the dawn.
When at length it broke, dreary and weeping, and we could see once more
the too familiar landscape, the latter was as desert and uninviting as
before. There was more water about, and a large shell-hole in front of
us was brimming over into ours. We lit the primus again, regardless
of possible consequences, and rummaged about for our somewhat sodden
victuals. A good deal of food, including several loaves, was submerged,
and our two days’ rations began to look small.
The morning was a repetition of the previous day. The rain fell as
if it had never rained before, the shells whistled and crashed, and,
for all that we could see, we might have been in the Ark on Ararat,
whose situation indeed must have borne many points of resemblance to
our own. We had even despatched our doves, or pigeons. But there were
no high explosives on Ararat. About 11 o’clock I ventured forth again
rather reluctantly, and stumbled over the mud to call on Merchant.
For the fourth time I encountered on the way the six infantrymen, now
showing unequivocal signs of having been dead for a good many hours.
In the big crater I found neither orders nor news, although there had
arrived a very superfluous visitor in the person of a salvage officer,
come to lend us the assistance of his intellect toward the business of
extricating our tanks! To Merchant he offered some hints on the use of
sleepers, hints whose value was impaired by the fact that no sleepers
were to hand. When I returned to G 46 I took him with me, as I wanted
an independent report on the tank which hitherto no one had visited. He
was not impressed favourably with the neighbourhood, perhaps because we
arrived just in time to dodge a salvo of 5.9’s; and having advised me
to bale out my shell-hole with petrol-tins (!), he left in a hurry. I
never saw this useless individual again, and I have forgotten his name,
but I took an instinctive dislike to him.
Merchant and I agreed at this meeting that if no orders had reached us
by four that afternoon we would lock up the tanks and march back to
Frascati. Accordingly, after a second visit to him in the afternoon,
when I found him still without any news, I returned once more to make
my own final arrangements, by which time I was coming very thoroughly
to hate this solitary journey with its inevitable accompaniment of
shells and rain. My crew collected their kit (in most cases it was
under water), and we filled our haversacks and pockets with the
unspoiled residue of our rations and with the small equipment which had
to be salved--the clock, periscopes, lamps, &c.--and just before four
o’clock we climbed very thankfully out of the manhole and padlocked it
behind us. Only a beaver or an Indian pearl-diver could have got at
the sponson doors: any child, on the other hand, could have broken the
padlock. But that was not our concern. It was impossible to pretend
sorrow at parting from G 46: our main apprehension, indeed, was that
sooner or later we should have to return to her.
Merchant and his men were ready to move when we reached the crater,
and we set off together on our dreary trudge back to Frascati. We
each took our turn at carrying his four Lewis guns. Enough has been
written of the discomfort of marching anywhere in the Salient in bad
weather, and I will not dilate upon this hegira, of which, in fact, I
remember very little. One odd incident, however, sticks in my memory as
worth recording. As we struggled past the front of Kitchener’s Wood,
where the German shells were still crashing, and approached the big
camouflaged mebus which I have mentioned in an earlier chapter, a flock
of little black-and-white birds flew out from the trees and followed
us for some way, fluttering about our legs and twittering and squeaking
in a very agitated manner. I can only suppose that they came to us, the
sole living creatures to be seen, for company and protection, their
natural fear of mankind overcome by the greater terror of that reeking
wood, resounding with the crashes of exploding shells and falling
trees. It was a singular circumstance, but I was too tired at the
time to give much thought to it or even notice what birds they were.
Possibly they were swallows. After following us in this fashion for
perhaps a quarter of a mile, they disappeared.
We were making our way obliquely across the front of the wood toward
the Wieltje-St Julien road, which was to have been put in use
immediately after the advance. It was out of our direct route, but with
the rain still falling in torrents and the elemental mud something
beyond the power of language to describe, any sort of stable surface
on which to walk was an attraction. Tired and burdened as we were, we
could not face a struggle of two or three miles through pure slime. And
presently signs of human and friendly activity were at length visible.
We passed a few 18-pounders buried in shell-holes or hidden behind
pollard stumps. A little later a line of moving figures and vehicles,
marking the road, came into view through the rain. We found the road
congested, in fact, by opposing streams of mule trains and ammunition
limbers, bringing their loads up to this new battery area and then
returning for more. Nearer the crest, about the mebus called Cheddar
Villa and the ruins of Vanheule Farm, it was being shelled heavily.
Its extemporised surface of brick-rubble and timber was swimming in
liquid mud which wheels and hoofs sprayed liberally over us. Dead
animals and abandoned limbers lay clustered on either side. We struck
it at a point where it crossed the unrecognisable debris of California
Reserve trench, the third line of the German front system, and just
here another hastily renovated track, also choked with traffic, forked
westward over No Man’s Land to Hammond’s Corner, where we had halted
before the attack. This branch, called Buffs Road, subsequently was
timbered almost throughout, and, with the continuation through St
Julien, came to be known only too well by all ranks of the 1st Tank
Brigade. We stumbled and splashed along it, involved in endless lines
of mules and horses, toward Frascati, which dilapidated haven, loathed
by all two days before, now beckoned to us like home. We reached it at
length, to find it transformed out of all knowledge. Its shell-pitted
fields, last seen deserted, swarmed with men and animals; engineers
and labour troops were digging and building, rows of horse lines
had sprung up, dumps were accumulating, and a dressing station was
established under the trees. The small ruined lanes behind were packed
with ammunition trains and ambulance convoys, and always an endless
tide of soaked and muddied transport flowed by the outskirts toward the
front line. Around La Brique, where we had been used to venture with
such misgivings, 60-pounder guns were firing noisily, while behind them
rested the novel gun-carrying tanks which had brought them into action.
III.
In some iron and timber shacks in the middle of the trees, by our
own petrol dump, we found Kessel, Winters (second in command of 19
Company), and various details, including Deakin of my own crew, who had
been left behind at Hill Top with the wounded man. Every one looked
tired and dirty, and had a three-days’ growth of beard, but they were
perfect d’Orsays by comparison with our disreputable party. Winters,
who was in command on the spot, had some dutiful misgivings as to the
strict propriety of our leaving our tanks without orders, and even
suggested that we might have to return to them; but Merchant and I held
forth so vigorously on the subject that this idea died a very rapid
death. Our men, in fact (to say nothing of ourselves), were dead-beat;
while it was because our remaining with the tanks was so palpably
useless that we had come away. The disadvantages of being attached
temporarily to another company were manifest throughout this affair.
No one in 19 Company took much interest in No. 10 Section. It appeared
that the company commander, without worrying at all about us, had gone
back to Lovie to sleep on the previous evening with the rest of his own
people, although their tanks, with one exception, were also ditched
at various points about the battlefield. He had not been seen since.
Kessel, having been in charge at Frascati during the greater part of
the day, had been unable to come out to us as he had intended. In
short, if we had not taken matters into our own hands, there appeared
really to be no reason why we should not have been left indefinitely on
the ridge without rations or orders.
Having seen the men settled down with some hot food, Merchant and I
looked after ourselves. I remember very vividly the excellence of a
mess-tin full of scalding stew which Kessel’s servant procured for
me. During this meal we learnt some of the details of the previous
day’s fighting. Considering the conditions, our two companies had done
uncommonly well at a light cost. Most of the tanks got into action.
The two sections of 21 Company on the left had taken the 51st Division
to its final objective on the Steenbeek, losing one section commander,
one tank commander, and about half a dozen men wounded. Of my section,
attached to 19 Company, the misfortunes of three tanks were known to
us. The fourth, Alden’s, had a happier career. It reached its objective
at Alberta, beyond Kitchener’s Wood, assisted the infantry to capture
this, and then, proceeding onward, passed inadvertently through our
stationary barrage and engaged in a unique duel across the Steenbeek
with a light railway train carrying a small gun, which it drove away.
Alden received the Military Cross for that morning’s work. Meanwhile,
on his right, 19 Company had attacked in two waves up the St Julien
road. Four or five tanks of the second wave got across the half-ruined
bridge and into the village. One, Jordan’s, actually pushed on as far
as Springfield, a fortified farm on the Langemarck-Zonnebeke road, but
the infantry could not follow. This tank, with Maelor Jones’s, alone of
those which crossed the stream, returned to the west bank. The others
were all disabled by artillery fire or ditched. Poor Lynch ran upon a
5.9 howitzer firing as a field-gun over open sights, and he and his
whole crew were killed by a shell which came through the front of the
cab and burst inside. The following year, when I was near Béthune,
I met a chaplain who had seen this tank a couple of months after it
was hit. He had found the skeletons of the crew still lying among the
shattered machinery. This complete destruction of a crew represented
the majority of fatal casualties in the battalion that morning. There
were in addition, in the two companies, four men killed and seven
officers and nineteen men wounded.
Having acquired this information and consumed large quantities of
stew, Merchant and I assembled our crews again and trudged off to
Reigersberg, where a lorry from the camp was due to arrive at six
o’clock. In the dismal château grounds a 15-inch howitzer was now
firing from a railway truck, the 8-inch weapons which had helped to
make the place so unhealthy having moved a mile or so farther forward.
The journey back in the lorry was a slow business, for the roads were
jammed with transport, and it was after eight when we arrived at Lovie
again.