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[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected.
The original spelling has been retained.
Page 17: "some with faces turned upwards,"
the word "turned" was crossed
Page 234: Added a round bracket.
(A bullet whistles by on the right of Bill's head.)]
THE RED HORIZON
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
CHILDREN OF THE DEAD END.
The Autobiography of a Navvy.
Ten Thousand Printed within Ten
Days of Publication.
THE RAT-PIT. _Third Edition._
THE AMATEUR ARMY.
The Experiences of a Soldier in the Making.
THE GREAT PUSH.
THE RED HORIZON
BY
PATRICK MACGILL
WITH A FOREWORD BY
VISCOUNT ESHER G. C. B.
TORONTO
McCLELLAND, GOODCHILD &
STEWART, LIMITED
LONDON
HERBERT JENKINS, LIMITED
1916
THE ANCHOR PRESS, LTD., TIPTREE, ESSEX.
TO
THE LONDON IRISH
TO THE SPIRIT OF THOSE WHO FIGHT AND TO
THE MEMORY OF THOSE WHO HAVE PASSED AWAY
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
FOREWORD
_To_ PATRICK MACGILL,
Rifleman No. 3008, London Irish.
DEAR PATRICK MACGILL,
There is open in France a wonderful exhibition of the work of the many
gallant artists who have been serving in the French trenches through
the long months of the War.
There is not a young writer, painter, or sculptor of French blood, who
is not risking his life for his country. Can we make the same proud
boast?
When I recruited you into the London Irish--one of those splendid
regiments that London has sent to Sir John French, himself an
Irishman--it was with gratitude and pride.
You had much to give us. The rare experiences of your boyhood, your
talents, your brilliant hopes for the future. Upon all these the
Western hills and loughs of your native Donegal seemed to have a prior
claim. But you gave them to London and to our London Territorials. It
was an example and a symbol.
The London Irish will be proud of their young artist in words, and he
will for ever be proud of the London Irish Regiment, its deeds and
valour, to which he has dedicated such great gifts. May God preserve
you.
Yours sincerely,
ESHER.
_President_ County of London
Callander. Territorial Association.
_16th September, 1915._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE PASSING OF THE REGIMENT 13
II. SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE 19
III. OUR FRENCH BILLETS 30
IV. THE NIGHT BEFORE THE TRENCHES 43
V. FIRST BLOOD 49
VI. IN THE TRENCHES 69
VII. BLOOD AND IRON--AND DEATH 88
VIII. TERRORS OF THE NIGHT 110
IX. THE DUG-OUT BANQUET 116
X. A NOCTURNAL ADVENTURE 130
XI. THE MAN WITH THE ROSARY 138
XII. THE SHELLING OF THE KEEP 149
XIII. A NIGHT OF HORROR 175
XIV. A FIELD OF BATTLE 200
XV. THE REACTION 209
XVI. PEACE AND WAR 216
XVII. EVERYDAY LIFE AT THE FRONT 228
XVIII. THE COVERING PARTY 249
XIX. SOUVENIR HUNTERS 264
XX. THE WOMEN OF FRANCE 279
XXI. IN THE WATCHES OF THE NIGHT 292
XXII. ROMANCE 300
THE RED HORIZON (p. 013)
CHAPTER 1
THE PASSING OF THE REGIMENT
I wish the sea were not so wide
That parts me from my love;
I wish the things men do below
Were known to God above.
I wish that I were back again
In the glens of Donegal;
They'll call me coward if I return,
But a hero if I fall.
"Is it better to be a living coward,
Or thrice a hero dead?"
"It's better to go to sleep, my lad,"
The Colour Sergeant said.
Night, a grey troubled sky without moon or stars. The shadows lay on
the surface of the sea, and the waves moaned beneath the keel of the
troopship that was bearing us away on the most momentous journey of
our lives. The hour was about ten. Southampton lay astern; by dawn we
should be in France, and a day nearer the war for which we had trained
so long in the cathedral city of St. Albans.
I had never realized my mission as a rifleman so acutely before. (p. 014)
"To the war! to the war!" I said under my breath. "Out to France and
the fighting!" The thought raised a certain expectancy in my mind.
"Did I think three years ago that I should ever be a soldier?" I asked
myself. "Now that I am, can I kill a man; run a bayonet through his
body; right through, so that the point, blood red and cruelly keen,
comes out at the back? I'll not think of it."
But the thoughts could not be chased away. The month was March, and
the night was bitterly cold on deck. A sharp penetrating wind swept
across the sea and sung eerily about the dun-coloured funnel. With my
overcoat buttoned well up about my neck and my Balaclava helmet pulled
down over my ears I paced along the deck for quite an hour; then,
shivering with cold, I made my way down to the cabin where my mates
had taken up their quarters. The cabin was low-roofed and lit with two
electric lamps. The corners receded into darkness where the shadows
clustered thickly. The floor was covered with sawdust, packs and
haversacks hung from pegs in the walls; a gun-rack stood in the centre
of the apartment; butts down and muzzles in line, the rifles (p. 015)
stretched in a straight row from stern to cabin stairs. On the benches
along the sides the men took their seats, each man under his
equipment, and by right of equipment holding the place for the length
of the voyage.
My mates were smoking, and the whole place was dim with tobacco smoke.
In the thick haze a man three yards away was invisible.
"Yes," said a red-haired sergeant, with a thick blunt nose, and a
broken row of tobacco-stained teeth; "we're off for the doin's now."
"Blurry near time too," said a Cockney named Spud Higgles. "I thought
we weren't goin' out at all."
"You'll be there soon enough, my boy," said the sergeant. "It's not
all fun, I'm tellin' you, out yonder. I have a brother----"
"The same bruvver?" asked Spud Higgles.
"What d'ye mean?" inquired the sergeant.
"Ye're always speakin' about that bruvver of yours," said Spud. "'E's
only in Ally Sloper's Cavalry; no man's ever killed in that mob."
"H'm!" snorted the sergeant. "The A.S.C. runs twice as much risk as a
line regiment."
"That's why ye didn't join it then, is it?" asked the Cockney. (p. 016)
"Hold yer beastly tongue!" said the sergeant.
"Well, it's like this," said Spud----
"Hold your tongue," snapped the sergeant, and Spud relapsed into
silence.
After a moment he turned to me where I sat. "It's not only Germans
that I'll look for in the trenches," he said, "when I have my rifle
loaded and get close to that sergeant----"
"You'll put a bullet through him"; I said, "just as you vowed you'd do
to me some time ago. You were going to put a bullet through the
sergeant-major, the company cook, the sanitary inspector, the army
tailor and every single man in the regiment. Are you going to destroy
the London Irish root and branch?" I asked.
"Well, there's some in it as wants a talking to at times," said Spud.
"'Ave yer got a fag to spare?"
Somebody sung a ragtime song, and the cabin took up the chorus. The
boys bound for the fields of war were light-hearted and gay. A journey
from the Bank to Charing Cross might be undertaken with a more serious
air: it looked for all the world as if they were merely out on (p. 017)
some night frolic, determined to throw the whole mad vitality of youth
into the escapade.
"What will it be like out there?" I asked myself. The war seemed very
near now. "What will it be like, but above all, how shall I conduct
myself in the trenches? Maybe I shall be afraid--cowardly. But no! If
I can't bear the discomforts and terrors which thousands endure daily
I'm not much good. But I'll be all right. Vanity will carry me through
where courage fails. It would be such a grand thing to become
conspicuous by personal daring. Suppose the men were wavering in an
attack, and then I rushed out in front and shouted: 'Boys, we've got
to get this job through'--But, I'm a fool. Anyhow I'll lie on the
floor and have a sleep."
Most of the men were now in a deep slumber. Despite an order against
smoking, given a quarter of an hour before, a few of my mates had the
"fags" lit, and as the lamps had been turned off the cigarettes glowed
red through the gloom. The sleepers lay in every conceivable position,
some with faces turned upwards, jaws hanging loosely and tongues
stretching over the lower lips; some with knees curled up and (p. 018)
heads bent, frozen stiff in the midst of a grotesque movement, some
with hands clasped tightly over their breasts and others with their
fingers bent as if trying to clutch at something beyond their reach. A
few slumbered with their heads on their rifles, more had their heads
on the sawdust-covered floor, and these sent the sawdust fluttering
whenever they breathed. The atmosphere of the place was close and
almost suffocating. Now and again someone coughed and spluttered as if
he were going to choke. Perspiration stood out in little beads on the
temples of the sleepers, and they turned round from time to time to
raise their Balaclava helmets higher over their eyes.
And so the night wore on. What did they dream of lying there? I
wondered. Of their journey and the perils that lay before them? Of the
glory or the horror of the war? Of their friends whom, perhaps, they
would never see again? It was impossible to tell.
For myself I tried not to think too clearly of what I might see
to-morrow or the day after. The hour was now past midnight and a new
day had come. What did it hold for us all? Nobody knew--I fell asleep.