A PROJECTED ATTACK---DIGGING A SAP--
AN 'ELL OF A NIGHT--THE ATTACK--
PUNCTURING PRUSSIANS
[Illustration: O]
One evening I was sitting, coiled up in the slime at the bottom of my
dug-out, toying with the mud enveloping my boots, when a head appeared
at a gap in my mackintosh doorway and said, "The Colonel wants to see
you, sir." So I clambered out and went across the field, down a trench,
across a road and down a trench again to where the headquarter dug-outs
lay all in a row.
I came to the Colonel's dug-out, where, by the light of a candle-end
stuck on an improvised table, he was sitting, busily explaining
something by the aid of a map to a group of our officers. I waited till
he had finished, knowing that he would want to see me after the others,
as the machine-gunner's job is always rather a specialized side-line.
Soon he explained to me what he wished me to do with my guns, and gave
me a rough outline of the projected attack. He pointed out on the map
where he wished me to take up positions, and closed the interview by
saying that he thought I should at once proceed to reconnoitre the
proposed sites, and lay all my plans for getting into position, as we
were going to conduct an operation on the Boches at dawn the next day.
I left, and started at once on my plans. The first thing was to have a
thorough good look at the ground, and examine all the possibilities for
effective machine-gun co-operation. I determined to take my sergeant
along with me, so that he would be as familiar with the scheme in hand
as I was. It was raining, of course, and the night was as black as pitch
when we both started out on our Sherlock Holmes excursion. I explained
the idea of the attack to him, and the part we had to play. The troops
on our right were going to carry out the actual attack, and we, on their
left flank, were going to lend assistance by engaging the Deutschers in
front and by firing half-right to cover our men's advance. My job was
clear enough. I had to bring as many machine guns as I could spare down
to the right of our own line to assist as much as possible in the real
attack. My sergeant and I went down to examine the ground where it was
essential for us to fix up. We got to our last trench on the right, and
clambering over the parapet, did what we could to find out the nature of
the ground in front, and see how we could best fix our machine guns to
cover the enemy. We soon saw that in order to get a really clear field
of fire it was necessary for us to sap out from the end of our existing
right-hand trench and make a machine-gun emplacement at the end.
[Illustration: 'Ere, you leave that ---- rum jar alone.]
This necessitated the digging of a sap of about ten yards in length,
collecting all the materials for making an emplacement, and mounting our
machine gun. It was now about 11 p.m., and all this work had to be
completed before dawn.
Having rapidly realized that there was not the slightest prospect of any
sleep, and that the morrow looked like being a busy day, we commenced
with characteristic fed-up vigour to carry out our nefarious design.
A section, myself and the sergeant, started on digging that sap, and
what a job it was! The Germans were particularly restless that night;
kept on squibbing away whilst we were digging, and as it was some time
before we had the sap deep enough to be able to stand upright without
fear of a puncture in some part of our anatomy, it was altogether most
unpleasant. At about an hour before dawn we had got as far as making the
emplacement. This we started to put together as hard as we could. We
filled sandbags with the earth excavated from the sap, and with frenzied
energy tried to complete our defences before dawn. The rain and
darkness, both very intense that night, were really very trying. One
would pause, shovel in hand, lean against the clay side of the sap, and
hurriedly contemplate the scene. Five men, a sergeant and myself, wet
through and muddy all over; no sleep, little to eat, silently digging
and filling sandbags with an ever-watchful eye for the breaking of the
dawn.
Light was breaking across the sky before the job was done, and we had
still to complete the top guard of our emplacement. Then we had some
fireworks. The nervy Boches had spotted our sap as something new, and
their bullets, whacking up against our newly-thrown-up parapet, made us
glad we had worked so busily.
We were bound to complete that emplacement, so, at convenient intervals,
we crept to the opening, and after saying "one, two, three!" suddenly
plumped a newly-filled sandbag on the top. Each time we did this half a
dozen bullets went zipping through the canvas or just past overhead.
This operation had to be done about a dozen times.
A warm job! At last it was finished, and we sank down into the bottom of
the sap to rest. The time for the artillery bombardment had been fixed
to begin at about 6 a.m., if I remember rightly, so we got a little rest
between finishing our work and the attack itself.
Of course the whole of this enterprise, as far as the bombardment and
attack were concerned, cannot be compared with the magnitude of a
similar performance in 1915. All the same, it was pretty bad, but not
anything like so accurately calculated, or so mechanically efficient as
our later efforts in this line. The precise time-table methods of the
present period did not exist then, but the main idea of giving the
Opposition as much heavy lyddite, followed by shrapnel, was the same.
At about half-past six, as we sat in the sap, we heard the first shell
go over. I went to the end of the traverse alongside the emplacement,
and watched the German trenches. We were ready to fire at any of the
enemy we could see, and when the actual attack started, at the end of
the bombardment, we were going to keep up a perpetual sprinkling of
bullets along their reserve trenches. A few isolated houses stood just
in line with the German trenches. Our gunners had focussed on these,
and they gave them a good pasting.
"Crumph! bang! bang! crumph!"--hard at it all the time, whilst shrapnel
burst and whizzed about all along the German parapet. The view in front
soon became a sort of haze of black dust, as "heavy" after "heavy" burst
on top of the Boche positions. Columns of earth and black smoke shot up
like giant fountains into the air. I caught sight of a lot of the enemy
running along a shallow communication trench of theirs, apparently with
the intention of reinforcing their front line. We soon had our machine
gun peppering up these unfortunates, and from that moment on kept up an
incessant fire on the enemy.
On my left, two of our companies were keeping up a solid rapid fire on
the German lines immediately in front.
At last the bombardment ceased. A confused sound of shouts and yells on
our right, intermingled with a terrific crackle of rifle fire, told us
the attack had started. Without ceasing, we kept up the only assistance
we could give: our persistent firing half-right.
How long it all lasted I can't remember; but when I crept into a
soldier's dug-out, back in one of our trenches, completely exhausted, I
heard that we had taken the enemy trench, but that, unfortunately, owing
to its enfiladed position, we had to abandon it later.
Such was my first experience of this see-saw warfare of the trenches.
A few days later, as I happened to be passing through poor, shattered
Plugstreet Wood, I came across a clearance 'midst the trees.
Two rows of long, brown mounds of earth, each surmounted by a rough,
simple wooden cross, was all that was inside the clearing. I stopped,
and looked, and thought--then went away.