THE SOMME
There's a shell as 'as fell in the mud,
A bloomin' big shell in the mud,
A bloomin' big shell,
An' it might give us 'ell.
As it would if it wasn't a dud.
I was watching and saw where it goed,
Exactly the spot where it goed,
In a sweat o' a funk,
I watched where it sunk,
And I'm thankful it didn't explode.
(_From "The Dud."_)
The trench was quite a good one for the Somme, about six foot deep with
here and there a few dug-outs where men could sleep and eat.
There, on a certain autumn morning, we find the men of the London Irish
again, waiting to cross No Man's Land and attack the Germans. A month
has passed since they left Gorre and during that time they have seen
much fighting in which they have earned great renown.
"We're too well known," Bubb often remarked bitterly, but beneath all
his grumbling it could be seen that he was more than a little proud of
his regiment. "We're too well known that's wot it is," he would
continue. "If there's anything to be done oo's to do it? Us. We're
always in the thick o' it. If the 'eads 'ear that there's a stiff job to
be done and it wants an army corps to do it, wot do the 'eads say. They
say: 'Put the London Irish, the footballers of Loos on the job. They'll
soon do it.'"
On this morning Bubb was preparing breakfast in a dug-out while Bowdy
Benners was sleeping in a corner and Flanagan was out on the parapet
watching for Tanks. These monsters were going to cross presently, but as
yet they were not to be seen. In front, the self-sown crops were waving
in the breeze, and the barbed wire entanglements showed red and rusty
over the meadows. Nothing of the German wires remained; they had been
blown to bits. The German trenches could be seen in front, dipping out
of sight into a natural valley on the left and losing all outline
amongst the tree stumps on the right. The stumps were all that remained
of the well-known High Wood; the locality was pitted with shell-holes
and littered with dead, friend and foe, who lay together in silent
communion. The Germans still held the wood.
Bubb, having prepared breakfast, went to the door and called Flanagan
in, then he turned round and kicked Bowdy on the shins.
"Git out 't," he said. "Ye're not going to fight on an empty tummy, are
yer?"
Flanagan came into the dug-out. "That smells A.1." he remarked. "But the
Tanks," he said. "I can't see them yet. I hope they're not late."
"I hope they're not," Bowdy replied, and yawned. The arrival of the
Tanks did not interest him apparently. He reached out his hand for the
mess-tin of tea and drank.
"We're givin' them 'ell wiv our guns," said Bubb. "Blowin' the place to
'ell.... That's a good drop o' tea, ain't it?"
"Indeed, it's damned good," Flanagan replied. "I'm out for a V.C. this
time, anyhow.... Where's Snogger?"
"He's outside, somewhere," said Bowdy. "He thinks that he'll not come
through this scrap. He is quite nervy."
"I wouldn't mind 'avin' a job at these 'ere tanks," said Bubb. "It'd be
damn good sport.... 'Ave another piece of bacon, Bowdy?"
"Thank you," Bowdy replied, taking the half rasher which Bubb handed to
him. "I'm damned hungry.... Here, did you see Captain Thorley this
morning. He was giving cigarettes away. Turkish they were; must have
cost a penny apiece. Fat ones, like a cigar almost."
"'E's a good bloke, old Thorley," said Bubb.
"I wonder if the tanks are in sight yet," said Flanagan. "They're goin'
to make a clean sweep of all the High Wood.... What's the time now?"
"A quarter to seven," Bowdy replied, looking at his wrist watch. "It'll
all be over at ten o'clock one way or the other The Guards and
Northumberland Fusiliers are round one side of the wood and it's almost
closed in."
Having finished their breakfast, the men went outside into the trench.
The shells could be heard bursting on the German lines, and the enemy
were replying. The machine guns were going pit-pit, and bullets were
ripping the English sandbags.
"There, look!" shouted Bowdy Benners, pointing at the sky overhead. His
two mates looked up to see an aeroplane making its way across to the
enemy's lines. It was followed by two, three, half-a-dozen, flying low.
"There, the tanks!" somebody shouted, and a line of faces peeped over
the sandbags. One man in Benners' bay got hit through the head and fell
to the floor of the trench. The remainder drew back discreetly and kept
their heads under cover. Sergeant Snogger appeared suddenly, smoking a
cigarette and paring his nails with a clasp-knife. He leant his back
against the parados and looked at the trio.
"Cheero, sarg," said Bubb. "Fancy yer chance?"
"Not 'arf," said Snogger. "It'll be a walk-over."
"Pass the word along for Sergeant Snogger," came the message up the
trench.
The sergeant closed his knife, put it in his pocket and rushed round the
traverse.
"I didn't see the tanks," said Bubb. "There are none 's far as I could
see."
"I saw one," Bowdy said. "Over on the right."
"There were two," said Flanagan. "Crawlin' along as if they were pickin'
up worms. Big, ugly lookin' brutes they were. God! they'll make the
Germans sit up.... You have yer helmet twisted round, Bubb."
Bubb adjusted his helmet, lit a cigarette, pulled his rifle towards him,
cleaned a speck of dirt from his bayonet, then put his rifle back to its
original place. Bowdy and Flanagan followed the movement with intent
eyes. From their look it might seem as if their very existence depended
on the job which Bubb had done.
"Yes, it's some strafing," said Bowdy. "The Germans are getting enough
to go on with, anyway. Phew!"
The three men crouched to avoid the fragments from a shell which burst
on the parapet to the left. Somebody called out for stretcher-bearers
and the message sped along the trench.
"It'll be quite easy getting across here," said Bowdy. "One whistle and
up you go and the best of luck. Here, I haven't got a cigarette.... Oh,
yes, I have, here they are, I put them into the wrong pocket. Have one,
Flanagan--one Bubb?"
Bubb took the cigarette, placed it behind his ear and continued smoking
the one which he had in his mouth. "I'll keep this'n to smoke when we
get across there," he said.
"It's about time to move now," said Bowdy, and he raised his head
cautiously and looked over.
"There!" he said. "They're making head-way. No damned stopping them.
Bravo! the tanks! Good old tanks!"
"Bravo!" said Bubb, sticking his head over. But he pulled it back
quickly, for a bullet ripped a sandbag beside him, and a handful of clay
and chalk was slapped into his face.
"Gawd, that's a bloomin' poultice," he muttered, ducking down and wiping
the grit from his eyes. "It 'asn't knocked my 'ead off, but I feels as
if it 'as.... I'm not goin' to look over again till the whistle's
blown."
Bowdy Benners placed a mirror on a bayonet and held it over the trench.
Looking in it he could see the field in front, the barbed wire
entanglements, the shell-holes, the German trench on which the shells
were falling, gouging out the occupants. And the tanks. Yes, he could
see them crossing, mammoths moving forward with irrevocable decision,
serious minded leviathans which knew their business and went about it in
a deliberate manner. Bullets rattled on their hides, struck sparks out
of their scaly armour, but had no effect on the air of detachment with
which the great monsters in steel pursued their inexorable way. Nosing
complacently forward, they crawled down into shell-craters, hiccoughed
up again, straightened themselves out, and stealthily pursued their way
towards the enemy trench.
"They're getting on," said Bowdy. "We'll soon be over, too." He detached
the mirror from its rest and placed it in his pocket. "I never knew a
better one for shaving; it's so handy."
Sergeant Snogger came into the bay again frantic with anger.
"I would like to know oo sent that bloody message up," he thundered.
"Gawd, I'll find out, and then someone will be damned unlucky."
He stopped, then gave an inarticulate cry and collapsed in a heap.
Bubb's jaw dropped and he stared at Snogger with dilated eyes. The
sergeant lay silent and motionless, death was instantaneous for a
shrapnel bullet had smashed his spine.
Bowdy and Flanagan lifted the dead man in their arms and placed him on
the firestep.
"I never seed anybody knocked out so sudden," said Bubb in a nervous
voice. "One minute speakin' and then...."
"Don't think of it," said Flanagan. "The tanks are well on now. What a
funny thing--tanks. They are as old as the hills. Montaigne speaks about
them. He calls them coaches. Listen."
He fumbled in his haversack, brought out a dilapidated volume--Florio's
translation of Montaigne and read:--
"Were my memory sufficiently informed of them I would not
think my time lost, heere to set down the infinite variety
which histories present to us of the use of coaches in the
service of warre: divers according to the nations and
different according to the ages: to my seeming of great effect
and necessity.... Even lately in our fathers' time, the
Hungarians did very availefully bring them into fashion and
profitably set them a work against the Turks; every one of
them containing a Targattier and a Muskettier, with a certain
number of harquebuses or calivers, ready charged; and so
ranged that they might make good use of them: and all over
covered with a pavesado, after the manner of a Galliotte. They
made the front of their battaile with three thousand such
coaches: and after the Canon had playd, caused them to
discharge and shoote of a volie of small shott upon their
enemies, before they should know or feel, what the rest of the
forces could doe: which was no small advancement; or if not
this, they mainely drove those coaches amidde the thickest of
their enemies' squadrons, with purpose to breake, disroute and
make waie through them. Besides the benefit and helpe they
might make of them, in any suspicious or dangerous place to
flanke their troupe marching from place to place: or in hast
to encompasse, to embarricade, to cover or fortifie any
lodgment or quarter."
Captain Thorley appeared round the corner, his hand bandaged. A splinter
of shell had caught him a few minutes before.
"Getting ready, boys?" he asked. "You'll have no difficulty in crossing
here.... Another two minutes.... Snogger dead?... What a pity!"
He disappeared.
"I wish we did get across," said Bubb. "I'm fed up wiv this waitin': I
want to get at 'em."
Then a whistle was blown; another. The men scrambled up the parapet and
tumbled out on to the levels.
The bombardment seemed to increase; the German trenches were hidden by
smoke, flying dirt and logs. Their dug-outs were going sky-high. Over it
all, two aeroplanes glided gracefully through the air. The tanks were
still going forward. A platoon on the right had started too soon and the
men were half-way across. Bowdy Benners and Bubb walked abreast,
chatting leisurely. Flanagan had disappeared.
The air was alive with bullets, men were falling all round, groaning and
screaming. In front the tanks had both stopped, one in a shell-crater,
the other in a sap. The artillery lengthened its range and the shells
were falling behind the first line and the High Wood. But the enemy
machine guns had not been silenced, the High Wood was yet as venomous as
a wasps' nest.
"Forward!" The men advanced at a steady pace, their bayonets in air. One
man had his entrenching tool fastened over his stomach as a bullet
shield. Bowdy saw him get hit in the head.... The machine gun fire was
deadly; dozens fell and lay writhing. A tall youngster with a long neck
came to a dead stop, dropped his bayonet to the ground, put his hand
inside the waist of his trousers and groped around as if trying to catch
a flea. "I've copped a packet this time," he said and lay down.
The flanks of the marching line converged on the centre despite the
orders of the officers to the men. "Keep your distance!" "Spread out a
bit there!" etc. But the men felt inclined to huddle together, like
frightened children.... The machine guns seemed to intensify their fire,
the bullets struck the earth in a steady and incessant stream. On the
left a party of men advanced steadily. A shell dropped in the middle of
them....
Captain Thorley, who was leading his platoon, turned round.
"Under cover," he shouted. "It's no good going ahead yet. It's murder."
The men disappeared into adjacent shell-holes, others brought in the
wounded. The machine-guns swept the field with insistent vehemence.
Bowdy and Bubb joined themselves together in a deep crater.
"Couldn't 'ave a more swagger shell-'ole than this'n," said Spudhole.
"We're in luck's way. Flanagan got 'it," he continued. "I saw 'im cop
it. Right froo the 'ead. 'E didn't say nuffin', just fell and
stiffened."
He placed his back against the sloping wall of the swagger shell-hole
and drawing his cigarette from his mouth with a graceful swan-like
motion of the arm, he turned to Bowdy Benners.
"Blimey, I don't feel 'arf a swell 'ere," he said. "Wouldn't mind
stickin' it in this 'ere place for duration.... Eh, wot's that, Bowdy?"
A German shell came out from the unknown humming like a gigantic beetle.
Nearer it came and nearer.
"It's going to fall wide," said Bowdy, although he instinctively guessed
that it would fall very near.
It swept over the two men's heads with a vicious swish and dived into
the opposite wall of the shell-hole. Bowdy went red in the face, Bubb's
jaw dropped, his eyes protruded as if they were going to spring out of
his head. The shock paralysed the two boys for a second; they were so
unnerved that the feeling of fear was momentarily denied them. They
stared blankly at the shell which had only entered about a foot into the
ground. The base of the projectile was showing, it might explode at any
moment. They were in a position similar to that of a patient to whose
body a local anæsthetic is applied and who sees the surgeon at work but
does not feel the knife. Bowdy was the first to recover his composure.
"Clear out of it, Spudhole!" he yelled, and both clambered across the
rim of the crater into the open.
They lay out there for a few minutes and as the shell did not go off
they went back again. Outside the machine-gun bullets were ripping up
the ground. The two men lay down quietly without speaking a word. Bubb
put the stump of his cigarette back in his mouth and relit it.
"There! See the aeroplanes?" said Bowdy. "They're flying damned low over
the enemy trench. Hear their horns going? Signalling to the artillery, I
suppose."
"S'pose so," said Bubb, flattening out in the bottom of the shell-crater
and drawing his cigarette from behind his ear. He put it in his mouth
and lit it. "I knew it would be wanted," he said.
Ten minutes passed. The tanks were still stuck and showed no sign of
movement. The English artillery opened on the High Wood again. All guns
within range had apparently chosen it for their objective now. The
oft-lacerated tree-stumps were broken like glass, they were dragged out
by the roots and hurled broadcast; the wood was disgorging its entrails.
The unfortunate wretches who held it were in a ghastly situation. To
remain in their dug-outs was death. Their manner of dying was left to
their choice. They could come out into the hurricane and be blown to
bits, they could stay in their lairs and be buried alive. They were
confronted by two evils, one as bad as the other. The machine-guns were
silent now; probably they were all out of action.
Bowdy put up his head and looked across towards the German lines.
"God, they're getting it!" he said. "And the tanks are still stuck....
There! There're hundreds of the Germans coming across with their hands
up.... One batch is unlucky; a shell has dropped in the middle of them."
"Far as I can see, we'll 'ave nuffink to do when this strafin' is over,
bar go over an' take the trenches," said Bubb, who was looking at the
nerve-shaken Germans as they came rushing towards the craters. "I 'ope
we get relieved to-night after we've finished."
"'Course we'll get relieved," said Bowdy. "We've been in four days
now.... Here, what the devil's wrong with you?"
A wild-eyed German, armed with a rifle and bayonet, came to the rim of
the crater and lunged at Bubb. The Cockney, elusive as an eel, slipped
out of reach, seized his own rifle and fired at the man. The German fell
forward, dead, the bullet had gone through his neck and pierced the
jugular vein.
"Funny bloke, that feller," said Bubb.
"I think he had gone mad," said Bowdy, changing his position and getting
clear of the prostrate form which had fallen into the crater.
At this moment the artillery fire ceased ravaging the German front line,
the range was lengthened and the guns devoted their attention to the
enemy's support trenches.
A whistle was blown....
The men went forward, Captain Thorley leading. The bandage on his hand
was very dirty now.... The enemy trenches were very quiet, not a rifle
spoke. Parties of Germans came out with their hands in air, muttering
"Kamerad! Kamerad!" They were taken prisoners.
"It's a damned tame endin'," said Bubb. "After all that strafing."
"It's like a grand overture without a performance following," said
Captain Thorley who overheard Bubb's remark.
"Yes, sir," Bubb replied. "'Ave yer a match to spare, sir. I forgot
mine. Left them in the last dug-out, sir."
Every move augmented the number of prisoners, they rose from the ground
and from shell-holes and gave themselves up. Now and again an apparently
dead German was tickled with the point of a bayonet and he came to life
with startling suddenness. Bubb discovered a helmet, put it on and put
up his hands in imitation of the Germans who were surrendering.... Bowdy
discovered a box of cigars somewhere and lit up, then he handed the box
round.
"Have a smoke, boys," said Captain Thorley. "Just to celebrate the
taking of the High Wood...."
At that moment a shrapnel shell burst over the captain's head and he
fell to the ground mortally wounded. A bullet had hit him on the temple.
A few men rushed in to his assistance, Bubb leading. But nothing could
be done. His brains were oozing out.... Consciousness was lost, death
would come in a few moments. A stretcher-bearer appeared, then another,
and they carried the captain away. He died before reaching the
dressing-station.
The London Irish now set about consolidating their position and spent
long hours of spade-work on the job. Next night the men were relieved.