of making a line upon which some thousands of Huns would be rendered
casualties before it capitulated. Jerry, watching them do it, with
ironical humour left them alone as if their labour were in vain, and
long before the trenches would be required the British Army would be cut
in two. Perhaps!
Fritz adopted a nasty habit in the form of lobbing over from fifteen
miles away a new type of heavy shell, apparently under experimental
observation. One fell among the Guernsey cookers, tearing a chunk cut of
Sergt. Le Lacheur (he had been waiting for a Blighty for months),
wounding several and mauling a few into fearsome masses of red flesh.
Grouser--he had not been with the Battalion long--found vent for his
feelings. "Ain't got any blarsted sense, them Germans aint. War--it
ain't war to smash up the bloomin' cookers ... 'ow the 'ell does 'e
think we'll do about grub now?"
"Complain. Grouser, ole son, to the C.O." (C.O.: Commanding Officer--the
colonel.--Draws the best paying winner in the Battalion Stakes and also
the softest job). He was let in for a baiting.
"Send Jerry a bar of chocolate in exchange for a new cooker."
"Ask 'em to confer the O.B.E. on the Jerry wot fired the shell."
"You needn't worry about the grub. Grouser--you can live on nuts."
"Plenty of hay with the transport."
"Oh," Grouser turned abruptly, "plenty of hay.... You found yer bloomin'
natural fodder, eh! Aye, ye're every bit such a donkey as ye look."
"Look 'ere, wot d'you take me for?"
"Take you for? Wouldn't take you fer a bloomin' gift. We used to have
one like you with our organ--'ad it on a chain."
The Ten Hundred prepared after a last night in the line to move back
during the first week in April for the long rest upon which their
anticipations had been longingly concentrated for weeks.
No Battalion moved more than a few miles behind the sectors owing to the
uncertainty of future enemy developments. His line of attack had been
lengthened from both original flanks until at the lull in his scheme of
offensive a length of over seventy miles had been attained.
He was preparing for a second wild onslaught, again to the far south of
Passchendaele ... of the result everyone felt a little uncertain. It was
obvious that sooner or later he would attempt a headlong rush upon those
lines of communication with the Home Country--Channel Ports--so vital a
factor in the efficient maintenance of the B.E.F.
The Normans came out. D Company was sent on in the direction of Proven,
attained within a kilo of the town and was intercepted by a despatch
rider, who carried with him orders for their immediate return. A stir of
apprehensive uncertainty spread through the ranks. What had happened?
Surely they were not going to be rushed into the line somewhere ... they
had only just come out.
They turned, encountered the Battalion at Brandhoek. A fleet of lorries
was awaiting them.
Something was ON.
A thunderstorm turned its lashing rain upon their unprotected forms,
drenched them utterly and damped their spirits. A sense of some
indefinable presentiment of future dimmer crept over the mind, that
subtle consciousness of approaching death forced its black pessimism
upon their thoughts. They watched the heavy grey clouds scuttling
overhead, watched the rain dropping from off each man's steel helmet,
and gazed across the long desolate stretch of watery earth, tangled
debris and shattered cottages.
Shivering with the cold, wet, hungry and weary. An hour before, marching
elated in the knowledge of a few days' freedom from the haunting
knowledge of Life's uncertainty--now they were in for something they all
pregnantly felt would involve them in a slaughter that might place Finis
to the Battalion. The Cambrai survivors stared sadly into the closing
gloom ... they had gone through Rues Vertes--COULD their luck hold
twice!
The lorries moved away ... the Norman Ten Hundred went out again to
hang-on or fall, to uphold the traditions dearly bought by those who had
gone over the Divide a few months before.
If they could DO IT then, they could do it NOW.
XV
APRIL 10-14, 1918
DOULIEU-ESTAIRES
The Ten Hundred slept in their lorries at Berquin before moving into
billets. No sign of enemy activity presented itself apart from the
incessant rumble of distant guns. A Jerry 'plane came over on
reconnaissance, taking little precaution and not flying high. They had
unpleasant recollections of enemy 'planes, turned their rifles on him,
and between C and D Companies brought him down--they took the occupants
prisoners.
At five o'clock received orders to move up in the direction of Doulieu
in reserve. They dug in with the inadequate implement carried in all
equipment, accompanied only by an unnatural quiet. No troops were
falling back on them, no hurried retreat or artillery, and no fierce
strafing from enemy guns.
Throughout the night they stared far away into the East watching for the
enemy who was coming. The silence was still undisturbed, they waited
with fast-beating pulse for the long rows of onward, sweeping grey....
Dawn! And with it orders to move forward to Doulieu itself and there
fill in the gap.
Almost into the objective before they saw him. Grey-coated forms swarmed
for miles in relay upon relay of everincreasing rows, advanced with
deadly certainty, and supported by an astonishing mass of machine-guns.
The grim old spirit came to the fore. They rained in on the approaching
waves a mad fire from smoking rifles and Lewis guns. His pace slackened
not one jot ... again the Normans pumped in the lead until the hands
blistered from hot rifles. Futile! They had not the men to stop
one-tenth of the foe moving in thousands over fields and hedges upon
them. Teeth clenched in agony. "Curse you," they sobbed, "curse your
numbers...."
His machine-guns whined over into their ranks ten or twelve thousand
rounds a minute along the frontage. Men fell in huddled heaps across one
another. The machine-gun barrage swept backwards and forwards over the
first and second lines, sweeping and intercrossing in one mighty net ...
the Normans were ordered to fall back, make liaison with battalion
relieving on either flank and dig in on a new line.
Again through the night they watched the pall before them, and again
Jerry made no sign. Orders were given just after daybreak for a further
retirement ... they marched back four or five kilos with heavy hearts.
Why not have fought to a standstill where they had first sighted him?
They shrugged shoulders wearily, and turned to the task of digging in.
He opened his machine-guns upon the thin row of khaki figures, a figure
here and there fell forward upon the little spade into a grave he had
prepared for himself. Two young Staffords collapsed side by side upon
the turf and smiled fixedly up into the sky, six or eight holes
perforating each chest.
The bullets whined and whistled everywhere, conveying to the mind a huge
swarm of bees. He tried a long sweep of low shots, just skirting the
tops of the semi-completed excavations ... got home every twenty yards
or so, clean through the neck or forehead.
The Normans settled down, opened fire steadily and played havoc amongst
the advanced enemy machine-guns. His progress stopped, the opposing
lines sniped at each other. The Normans were in their element--they knew
how to shoot.
"'Olding 'im up now."
"Yes. 'E can't shoot with 'is rifles."
"No--seems to 'ave all bloomin' machine-guns."
For two hours, they kept him pinned down to one position, wiped out his
one brief rush and inspired within him an unholy fear or their rifles.
They watched with fierce cunning the movements of fifty or so snipers
and "light" machine-gunners creeping upon them under cover of long
grasses ... a bloody fire was opened for ten minutes on the figures--the
grass stained red. Not one returned.
A Battalion on the Norman right fell back under the weight of enemy
forces, thereby exposing a Guernsey flank.... Another retirement and
again a wild scramble across fields interlaced by row after row of
irrigation canals conveying water in this wide net-like system over a
large area from one main source of supply. To avoid the larger
excavations men were wont to crowd into the roadways, make in a body for
ready gateways and openings. Upon these obvious points Jerry
concentrated a continuous stream of machine-gun fire; the casualties
here were heaped up hideously in small masses and the blood from one man
trickled over another.
Troops from half-a-dozen regiments, scattered confusedly in all
directions, moved rearwards side by side. It was almost an impossibility
to rejoin Battalions--Battalions!--a mere couple of hundred men and a
few officers formed what after two days of fighting constituted a
Battalion. But they had to DO the work of a full Battalion--and they
DID!
Wounded fell despairingly, gazed with appealing eyes at the lines of
ever distancing khaki, placed their rifles to one side and awaited the
onrushing enemy tide. Some few with what futile strength could be
mustered by superhuman effort tottered and staggered uncertainly in the
direction they dimly imagined their comrades had taken. One by one fell
prey to exhaustion, dropped with a last frenzied sob unto the earth;
some lay still and quiet, peppered by a second stream of lead. Others,
writhing in agony, dazed, mad, waited the Jerry approach and picked off
man after man until a bayonet thrust put finis to their last impotent
struggles.
In secluded corners a few bled slowly undiscovered, unthought of ...
there for days they remained until the bodies--lockjaw, gangrene, loss
of blood--were rolled together into one great hole or perchance buried
apart, and for tombstone the late owner's rifle stuck into the earth and
inscribed thereon that only too frequent epitath--an unknown British
soldier!
Back, ever back! The disheartening realisation that he CANNOT be stayed
for any lengthy period, that his reserves are undiminished and
constantly moving up to fill the gaps made in his ranks, cast a heavy
shadow of pessimism over the ragged, weary figures for ever moving
westward. At lengthy intervals no sign of the grey figures anywhere met
the eye, but the inevitable order to retreat was obeyed--grumbling,
cursing.
"Wot the 'ell are we goin' back again for? There ain't any sign of
Jerry."
"No, but 'e 'as got through too far to the south."
"Yes--an' we're moving back north-west now."
"Why?"
"Dunno. 'E's got round some'ow to the south."
An hour or undisturbed quiet. Nothing could be seen, no shells (his
artillery was unable to keep pace with the rapidity of advance), no gas.
Then through the silence, from nowhere it seemed, a half-spent bullet
whistled and buried itself with a spiteful "phut." After a pause ... a
whine, accompanied by others, falling short. In the distance his
machine-gunners and advanced screen of scouts appeared ... the whining
merged into a constant buzzing, men coughed furiously and bent forward,
fell awkwardly ... straightened out. Here and there a khaki figure
clutched fiercely at tufts of grass, writhed feverishly in one last
desperate fight for breath, looked a sad farewell at their living
comrades--a glance that went straight to the heart--and went their way
into the warrior's hall in Valhalla.
From far down the flank a further movement rearward could be noticed
spreading yard by yard until once more, weary of spirit, worn, hungry,
you stood up somewhere in the stream of lead and retired.
At nightfall he would be out of view. By morning his advanced posts
would be sniping at the thin khaki line. Night ... an ebony pall pierced
by a score of brilliant burning houses. Fantastic, grotesque. Crimson
glows upon which tired eyes rested unthinking, uncaring, the mind worn
under the ceaseless repetition: "When will we stop? Why don't they let
us fight it out? God, we'd make a mess of him anyhow." Then someone
would address no one in particular:
"Wonder 'ow many we 'ave left?"
"Gawd knows. About a 'undred an' fifty."
"See 'im toppling our lads out at Verbequie?"
"Yes. An' by that meadow gate. It makes me blood boil to think they
won't let us 'ave a go at 'im."
"Ah, well. I s'pose it will be my turn to-morrow."
That is the crux of it: Your turn to-morrow? Who can tell ... what does
it matter ... what is life after all? But the all-pervading ardour of
youth's "Will of Life" whispers with a bitter realisation of what death
really means that you WANT to live. Never before has existence been so
full of future possibilities, the wish for life so poignant!
His overwhelming numerical superiority gave no evidence of slackening,
his pressure on the gaping line of khaki continued unabated. No
reserves, or hope of relief, were apparent. There was no alternative but
to carry on day after day in continuous fighting retreat with very small
numbers spread over a wide area.
Over the fields and meadows roamed farm cattle, some bleeding and
running wildly about bellowing with fear. Cows moaned in agony for the
dire need of milking, but who was there to do it? In the farms were
styes full of half-starved pigs, grunting and groaning with hideous
effect. They were turned loose to fend for themselves, ran rampant over
the carefully sown ground and growing potatoes--the sad results of
months of painstaking effort. Fowls fluttered and screamed with wild
flapping wings, men seized the eggs and drank them down in a fierce
famished hunger.
Along all the roads for miles streamed a piteous spectacle of old women,
children and dogs. Before them a plaintive little barrow of belongings,
on the backs of the men small red bundles tied hastily together.
Wrinkled old men limped laboriously along on heavy sticks ... sometimes
by the wayside a white-faced, white-haired old dame sat exhausted,
crouching in fear over a poor little bundle; alone, trembling, deserted.
The whine of the bullets crept nearer and troops began to pass.
"'Ere, mother, can't you get on?" Not comprehending the words but fully
grasping the meaning, the unhappy old head was shaken. A passing
ambulance was stopped and the frail old form gently placed in with the
wounded--sometimes. There was not always an ambulance. Many a wrinkled,
bent old man or woman, shrinking in fear by the roadside, were left in
dire desolation to the mercy of their foe.
Some few old folks stood by their homes to the last, until the khaki
rows were far across the fields away, and shot whistling about the eaves
of the old thatched roof farm ... dotted here and there on their grass
land a still Britisher kept them company until the Germans passed over
and onward, collected the bodies, buried them.
Unshaven, tattered and unwashed, Stumpy, lamed in the left foot, potted
shot after shot at each retirement, aiming at no one target, but, as he
observed. "Even if I don't 'it 'im, I might puncture 'is bloomin' rum
ration."
"But wot are you aimin' at?"
"Nothin'. Just 'igh in the air. Like--that there. Who knows: why it
might just ketch ole Kaiser Bill in the bloomin' belly if 'e came up
close 'nough."
Uncouth, uncultured, rough of manner, of speech. Good-natured, full of
courage, humour. Stumpy ... short, fat and clumsy. Withal a man, a
warrior. Before mid-day blood was spouting from out five vital wounds
and in a few seconds faintness began to spread over him. His eyes filled
with tears.
"I feels bad," he said, "can't, can't the bleedin' be stopped? I don't
want to go under ... think they can get me away before Jerry comes?
Things some'ow ain't over clear: everything foggy." Casey came over to
him, white-faced and half-crying himself.
"You're orl right, ole pal," he said, "not bleedin' much now."
"No. But it's cloudy. D'you find it cloudy?"
"Yes. A 'ell of a mist creepin' up. Want any water?"
"No, but," with a faint grin, "got any rum?"
"'Ere you," an N.C.O. ran up and touched Casey, "Captain wants a runner.
Get a move on."
"But poor ole Stumpy yere----"
"D'you 'ear wot I said. Go on, 'op it, or I'll--well, put lead in
yer."
"Orl right. So long, ole pal."
"So long." Stumpy tried hard to see him through the mistiness before his
eyes, "but you'll get me away before Jerry comes...." Casualty list two
weeks later: "Pte.----." Missing. April 12th. He is still unheard of,
forgotten. His grave is undisturbed somewhere in peaceful loneliness.
Estaires and Doulieu were several miles in the enemy lines, the Normans
entangled with Staffords and Middlesex converged back past Bleu, moving
as far as any one direction could be determined, approximately
north-west.
There seemed to be no officers left, few over fifty Royal Guernsey ranks
could be counted. Company Headquarters were no more, the scattered few
had no means of access to their C.O., joined in and formed fighting
blocks with mutual consent and without actual leaders, and carried on
the hourly withdrawal. From out this remnant Lance-Corporal Hamel
scrambled away to a dressing station, two ominous trickles of blood
streaming down his legs. Winter Gregg (M.M.), too, got away in a
semi-conscious condition.
One of the few trench mortar shells burst within a yard of a tall
youngster. Unscathed, blackened, he turned with a piercing scream.
"God, oh my God! Where is the sun? The light 'as gone out. Someone, his
voice rose to a mad shriek, 'someone come 'ere. I can't see. I'm blind,
I'm blind, oh I'm blind." He threw himself on the earth and sobbed in
fearful agony. They helped him to his feet, led him away, but there
echoed back his remorseful wail; "I'm blind, blind!"
That gets you. Blind! Better death....
The hours sped. Men fell with none to replace them, and in the knowledge
that the enemy had fresh troops, was well supplied, and in his rear a
great artillery straining forward to take part in the slaughter,
aeroplanes above, the tail-end of a few decimated Battalions fought on
against the hopeless odds before them. As long as a man had life in his
body, rifle and shot, he used them to advantage. The next Britisher
might be forty yards away or more, but until he was ordered to retire he
would ... "'ang on like 'ell to that there strip."
The Staffords after three days of it, through the whole of which period
they had stuck doggedly, pluckily, to their task, had dwindled down to a
scattered few on the nightfall of the 15th April. Forty, perhaps fifty,
completely exhausted, filthy and tattered Normans still clung about
their C.O. on a frontage a few miles south of Merris. The very
mechanical stupor that at last commenced to give way beneath unceasing
hardship. Nature demanded sleep. Not the brief, wakeful moments snatched
at intervals in the night, but sleep, long, quiet, undisturbed.
From an observation balloon high in the air above its motor trolley
Jerry observers reported on the shattered remnant still holding out. He
pressed home his advantage upon the tired troops ... rifles grew hot.
The few Normans were again forced back.
Relief by Australians was effected near Merris. The tiny, devastated
string of Normans (53) came out. But in a situation of acute urgency
they were still used to construct trenches upon which withdrawal by the
newly engaged Divisions could be made.
The Brigadier. G.O.C., 80th Brigade, a few weeks later bade farewell to
the little force in a speech that sent a wild thrill of pride throughout
the small Battalion.
In their honour the Divisional band played them on their march to a
station ("Ebblingham"), from which they entrained for G.H.Q., where they
were to take over duties from the H.A.C.
And thus the Passing from the Great Undertaking!
Farewell, Norman warriors who this night in Valhalla sing of mighty
deeds of valour from high with the Anses.
Farewell, a sad farewell, to for ever lost echoes to ten hundred voiced
raised in rallying chorus to the swing of square shoulders and the ring
of manly feet.
The "old order changeth." Away from the strong fray ... free life ...
laughter, glamour, song ... the Great Open ... the MEN....
Back to the little world, its little things, to ITS LITTLE LIFE.
See ye Masnieres canal a flood
And where yon green graves lay?
There Norman warriors fled to their God
Ne'er more to glimpse the day.
But writ there, first, a name in blood--
Norman Ten Hundred.
At Doulieu, the night birds flits
Across yon blue-gray water.
And in dusk ghost warriors sit--
Wraiths of a fearsome slaughter.
There too in blood the name is writ--
Norman Ten Hundred.
And thus there the battle's flame
Laid men out fast and low,
So Young Sarnia died, but Fame
Cast o'er their graves its glow,
And honours wove about the name
Norman Ten Hundred.