minutes of receiving the first telephone-call, a cyclist was on his way
back to the five-mile-distant waggon-lines, another to the Ammunition
Column; Lodden and Torrington had left their Batteries for Headquarters,
Purves was getting communication (through three different
field-exchanges) with the forward batteries in Vermelles, the Doctor was
packing up his instruments, Mr. Black serving out a second “tea” to H.Q.
Staff, Gunner Horne preparing dinner for its officers. . . . Since tired
men _may_ fight, but hungry men, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred,
won’t.
By the time D.R.L.S.[12] arrived with confirmation of the vague
instructions, Bombardier Pitman and his typewriter were installed in the
mess-room; and Peter, map in front of him, was dictating exact
orders—“A and B would move by such and such a road, C and D would fall
in in rear of them at such and such a point; Ammunition sections must
keep touch by this means; Ration orderlies by that: the Brigade would
halt here; a mounted officer from each battery await the Colonel
there. . . .”
And all the time Stark was making certain, from Lodden, from Torrington,
from Mr. Black, from Purves and the Doctor, by telephone messages and
cyclists and mounted orderlies, about fodder and maps and a new gun for
A Battery, and telephone-wire, and sand-bags and spare springs, and the
million details which the Commander of a seasoned unit may leave to his
subordinates but the Colonel of a new Brigade dare not abandon to
chance.
Three quarters of a hour after the Weasel had said, “Gentlemen, we’re
for it this time,” he and Peter—warmed by a square meal and a glass of
port, their preliminary work accomplished, heavy belts bulging their
aproned hunting-mackintoshes—climbed to horse in the rain, and set off,
followed by their grooms, towards the shell-bursts over Vermelles.
Passing the gun-pits, Peter could see hurricane-lamps moving, figures
unpiling sand bags from the blocked entrances. . . .
-----
[12] Despatch Rider Letter Service.
§ 3
Single file through the streaming darkness, they jog-trotted the uneven
road.
The rain beat in Peter’s eyes; little Willie stumbled, pulling wet reins
through wet gauntlets; recovered himself; jogged on. Peter leaned over;
gentled the arched neck. Peering forward, he could just see the huge
chestnut’s lifting croup, the Weasel’s bobbing torso. . . . Something
came screaming out of the murk; flashed crimson; whistled; pattered to
ground. Instinctively, Peter’s knees tightened on the saddle-flaps.
Little Willie hunched himself for a gallop; felt steady hand at his
mouth; desisted. “Anybody hurt?” called the Colonel. Peter turned in his
saddle; saw Jelks wrenching Queen Bess back to the road, a second figure
coming up steadily behind. “No, sir. Ten yards to our left.” . . . They
rode on.
Now they were into Vermelles—a broad street of battered houses. The
Colonel slowed to a walk. Came another whistle, followed by the smash of
tiles, the clink of falling brick on cobble. “This is damned
unpleasant,” thought our Mr. Jameson. He saw Stark bend down, speak to a
shadow on the road. They veered left; right again; over a railway-line
into a soft road, trees on either side. The rain had almost stopped.
Behind them, shells still whistled over the town. Immediately about
them, all was quiet. Stark bent from his saddle; flashed a torch at the
roadway; inclined right. They jogged on three hundred yards over turf,
past a big hay-rick. Stark flashed his torch again: signalled
“dismount.”
“Sorry,” he said when Peter came up. “Couldn’t risk being blocked on the
main-road. That’s the farm. We’ll have to walk the rest.” He pointed to
a yellow light; handed reins to his groom—an old man, clean-shaven and
bow-legged.
“Doherty, you and Jelks will take the horses back to that hay-rick. Let
’em feed. Whatever happens, don’t move from it. You understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ruddy muck-up all round,” commented the Weasel to his Adjutant as they
stumbled down into a greasy trench; lost the light; hauled themselves
out; found it again; picked their way through five yards of wire; felt
mud and cobbles under their feet; saw the light close in front of
them. . . .
Suddenly, Peter grew aware of noise. A noise inhuman. The whimper of
damned souls. A wail as of wet fingers on an enormous glass: a wail that
rose and fell, interminable, unbearable. Suddenly, he was aware whence
that wail came.
All along the muddy roadway they lay: the wounded: hundreds of them:
thousands: brown blanket shapes: some muttering: some moaning: some
singing in delirium: some quite still. The agony of it gripped Peter in
the stomach. Vomit rushed to his throat; was choked down again. . . .
The Colonel stepped over a moaning form; pulled back a sack curtain
revealing bare walls, an oil-lamp, three gunner officers eating round a
trestle table.
“Is this Le Rutoire?” rasped the Weasel.
The three officers rose to their feet: “Part of it, sir,” said one, “the
rest’s about fifty yards down the road.”
“Is General Ballardyce here?”
“No, sir.”
“Who are you?”
“Siege,” said the officer, and gave his number. “We’ve got two six-inch
Hows. in the farm.”
“Haven’t seen an Infantry General anywhere about?”
“No, sir.”
“All right. I’ll try down the road.”
“Have a drink before you go, sir?”
“No, thanks.”
They clambered back into the darkness; set off, between the moaning
forms, down the road; found a great gloomy gateway. Here, the wounded
lay in hundreds. Shapes stood over them; lifted them; loaded them into
the shelves of hooded cars. The cars chugged away. Other cars chugged
up. . . .
They passed through the gateway. “Do you know if General Ballardyce is
here?” asked Stark of a big man, chaplain’s cross on his cap.
“No, I don’t,” answered the parson. “Who the hell is General
Ballardyce?”
They searched the farm, gloomy outhouse after gloomy outhouse.
Everywhere lay the wounded, brown shapes, moaning and wailing. Finally,
they found steps; stumbled down them into an underground cellar. The
place looked, smelt, was a charnel house. The reek of it struck Peter
like a blow. Reek of blood! Blood everywhere. Bloody forms lying on
bloody sacks. Bloody bandages in bloody buckets. A man with bloody hands
stooping over bloody flesh.
“Let’s get out of this,” rasped Stark. . . .
Once more they stood outside the farm, among the chugging cars, the
moaning wounded. A form approached them. A voice asked “Are you General
Ballardyce?”
“I am not,” said Colonel Stark.
The form materialized into a pale-faced subaltern, whom Peter
recognized.
“Aren’t you Rutton of the Chalkshires?”
“Yes. Jameson, isn’t it? I say, I wish you could help me. I’ve got all
the travelling cookers of the 2nd Infantry Brigade just up the road. And
I’ve been ordered to rendezvous with them at Haisnes Church at
dawn. . . .”
“Haisnes is three miles away from here; and it’s inside the Boche lines,
young man,” interrupted Stark.
“I know, sir. But I’ve got written orders.” He fumbled inside his coat,
produced a message-form. Stark flashed a torch on it. “You see, sir.
It’s quite clear. What _am_ I to do, sir?”
“Use your common sense, young man. You can’t charge the Boche with your
sanguinary kitchens. . . .”
An orderly stumbled up; saluted Rutton; said, “The General’s been gone
three hours, sir. One of the doctors just remembered him riding up and
riding off again.”
“What _am_ I to do, sir?” wailed Rutton.
But Stark was indulging himself in one real outburst: a frothing torrent
of scarlet blasphemy that submerged every gilded head between Saint Omer
and the Pylons of Loos. . . .
§ 4
Men under fire for the first time are not usually frightened.
Peter, re-walking the muddy road between those wailing wounded, was
conscious of no fear. His orders—to find the horses, take them back
through Vermelles and rejoin his Colonel at the cross-roads which the
map called Corons de Rutoire—seemed simple enough. But he was in a
black rage at the incompetence of those behind; and he cursed them as he
pashed into the greasy trench, hauled himself out of it, tried to locate
that hay-stack.
Damn that hay-stack! Where the devil could it have moved to? He saw the
thing suddenly, outlined black against the saffron of a shell-burst; saw
the silhouettes of horses rearing at their bridles; dashed forward. As
he reached the two men, he heard the whistle of another shell; heard it
stop, plop into the ground. No detonation followed.
“By the Lord an’ I’m glad to see you, sir,” ejaculated the shadow of
Driver Doherty, “I’ve been thinking we’d be killed every minute.”
“You will be if you don’t hurry up,” snapped Peter, swinging himself
straight from the ground to his saddle. “Up you get, both of you.”
Unthinking, he put spurs to Little Willie; set off at a hand-canter;
turned in his saddle; saw the Colonel’s groom struggling with the big
chestnut. The old ostler had caught his right leg against the
unaccustomed rifle-bucket; couldn’t get it across the saddle of his own
horse. Jelks was in the act of mounting. Peter wrenched his horse’s head
round; galloped back; threw the man somehow into his seat. Another shell
whistled over, plopped harmless into the ground. The Colonel’s chestnut
reared.
“For God’s sake get a move on,” roared P.J., and slashed the groom’s
mount over the croup with his heavy riding-stick. The old man and his
two horses shot forward down the track; Peter and Jelks followed at a
gallop.
They came unscathed to the road; slowed to a trot, Peter taking the
lead. No more shells followed: the road was deserted. They crossed the
railway, swung left, arrived suddenly in an empty square. Above them
rose the skeleton of a church tower. Peter pulled up; took out his map;
flashed torch at it. The grooms joined him.
“You can’t stop here, sir.” A sentry popped up amazingly from nowhere.
“Why not?”
“Road’s being shelled every two minutes. One’s just about. . . .” The
whizz-bang gave no warning. Even as Peter flung up his arm to cover his
face, he saw it hit the ground ten yards in front, detonate blue in the
dust. Little Willie reared straight up; Peter flung himself forward on
the horse’s neck; gave him his head. He came down again; stood
shivering.
“Anybody hurt?” asked P.J.
“No, sir.”
“Then come on.”
Behind them, they heard shells bursting; in front, the road lay deserted
between shattered houses. They trotted past a level crossing; came on
confusion beyond belief.
In the inky darkness, men, horses, guns, infantry cookers, cars,
motor-cyclists, lorries were fighting their way forward. There was no
traffic control, no attempt at order. On the road, at the side of the
road, anywhere man or beast could find foothold, feet pashed, wheels
rumbled. An enormous pontoon-boat on its low carriage had broken down.
Round it, and about it, stood cursing men. There were cries in the
darkness: “Who the ’ell’s that? Where are you, mate? Are you the
Suffolks?”
Damning and blasting, Peter barged his way through; made the
cross-roads. There, just lighting a cigarette, he found Stark.
“Didn’t expect you quite so soon. Fine picnic, isn’t it?” said the
Weasel, as the three horsemen dismounted. “Didn’t see anything of the
Brigade, did you?”
“No, sir. They’ll have a job getting through.”
“They’re not due yet.”
Peter drew off his gauntlet; looked at his watch; saw the hands pointed
to ten o’clock; groped instinctively for his cigar-case; pulled out a
weed; bit off the end of it; found his matches; lit up.
“What about General Ballardyce, sir?”
“God knows where he’s got to. You might ask some of these infanteers.
The whole place is swarming with them. Don’t be away long.”
Peter plodded off haphazard into the murk; barked his shin against a
vehicle. “Who’s that?”
“Cookers. Second Southdown Infantry Brigade,” answered Rutton’s voice.
“I say that Colonel of yours is a brick.”
“Oh, to hell with you and your cookers,” said Peter, and plodded on
again. He had been sweating: now the perspiration began to dry. Also the
black rage was on him again. He heard the jingle of bits in the
darkness; somebody shouted “Halt!” A shell, out of sight, crashed to
ground. Then somebody called out from his horse, “I say, you with the
cigar?”
“Yes,” answered Peter.
“Can you tell me where I am?”
“Who are you?”
“Southdown Yeomanry.”
Peter gave the information; and added, “I should get out of this if I
were you. It’s no place for Cavalry.”
Asked the somebody, “Have I your permission to retire, sir?”
And Peter Jameson, Adjutant of the 4th Southdown Brigade, who had as
much right to order Yeomanry out of action as Driver Jelks,
said—without a quiver in his voice—“You have”; listened, cigar in
mouth, to the somebody’s “Walk—March,” to the jingle of bits and the
creak of accoutrements; saw the last file of that squadron disappear
into the darkness.
“Discipline be sugared,” thought P.J. “A child could see that this isn’t
the place for Divisional Cavalry.”
He plodded on, enquiring of all he met: “Have you seen General
Ballardyce?” But nobody he met had either seen, heard of, smelt or felt
the missing General of the 2nd Southdown Infantry Brigade.
§ 5
Meanwhile, Lieutenant-Colonel Douglas Stark, D.S.O. R.A., ruminated at
the roadside. In front of him, the amazing traffic disentangled itself
somehow; moved forward, a grotesque shadow-show, through the darkness.
Behind him, he heard the jingle of harness, a battery moving forward
over turf. He called out, “Who are you?” “B Battery 3rd Southdown
Brigade,” came the answer. The battery disappeared. . . .
Stark began to reason out his position. He knew Ballardyce of old: a
sound fellow, the last person to disregard detail. Therefore, Ballardyce
had not been told to keep touch with his guns at Le Rutoire. Point one
settled. Point two—Murchison’s cryptic orders about the forward move.
Murchison was over-conscientious in the transmission of orders. Followed
that Murchison had practically no information. Point two settled. And
with that—added to his own private telephone-talk to the Brigade Major
of Seventh Artillery—Stark arrived at a definite conclusion: The
blunder lay further back than either Southdown or Seventh Division
Headquarters.
Obviously. Because Rutton’s order to rendezvous with firstline transport
at a village still in possession of the enemy, proved an entire
misconception of the battle-front. . . .
The Weasel had not wasted the hour it had taken his Adjutant to find the
horses and return with them to the cross-roads. He had spent it in
reconnoitring, as far as possible, the immediate ground; in acquiring
miscellaneous scraps of information.
Remained three problems—the exact position of our own front line, which
section of it he would be asked to protect, and where to plant his
batteries.
And the Weasel thought: “This road runs straight into Loos village.
There are no shells coming from that direction. We are supposed to have
taken Loos. I think we have. Beyond Loos”—he consulted his map—“is
this Hill 70. The chances are we have not taken Hill 70. There is a lot
of hostile artillery fire coming from my left front. . . .”
He timed with his watch the period between the discharges of the guns
and the shell bursts over Vermelles. . . . “Those guns are not much over
two thousand yards from me. I know for certain, because of the targets
we were firing at this evening, that the centre of our original attack
was held up: and if P.J.’s information about City Saint Élie was
correct. . . .”
“And by Jove it _was_ correct.” The Weasel suddenly broke into speech.
“That gun-fire proves it. As sure as God made little apples I’m sitting
on the base-line of a semi-circle, plum in the middle of a five-mile
salient.”
Then he took out his compass; laid it on the ground till the needle
steadied; and turned due west. “Damn it,” said the Weasel, “what’s
happened to the Véry Lights? . . .” And even as he spoke, directly to
the south of him, he caught a faint white shimmer in the sky; and even
as that faded, due north of him, he caught the barest glimpse of
another.
“Oh, hell!” thought the Weasel. “Oh, ruddy hell!”
Down the road behind him, headlamp flaring recklessly, dodging in and
out among the traffic, a motor-cycle phutted its jolting way. The Weasel
jumped into the middle of the road; stood there, coat open, arms
outstretched. The cyclist halted, dropping one leg to the ground.
“D.R.L.S.?” asked the Weasel.
“Yes, sir. I’m in a hurry.”
“To hell with your hurry. Put that blasted lamp out. Now wait.” The
Weasel shaded the Orilux torch at his belt; drew a message-pad from his
pocket; inserted the carbon; began to write. And while he wrote, very
meticulously, he thought of the Brigade he had trained so carefully, of
his wife and the life she carried, and of a certain individual at St.
Omer who would not be displeased if Weasel Stark happened to make a
mistake. . . . For in the bigger affairs of earth, as in the smaller, it
is easier to break a subordinate than admit one’s own failure. . . .
“Sign on the message-form, please,” rasped the Weasel, holding his hand
over the meticulous words. Then he tore off the top copy, and stuffed it
into an envelope which he addressed, marking the time of dispatch on the
space provided, to: “B.M. Southdown Div. Arty.”
“And now,” rasped the Weasel, “why the devil didn’t you shout out who
your message was for? Don’t you know your job?”
“O.C. 4th Southdown Brigade R.F.A., sir,” said the cyclist. “He’s at Le
Rutoire farm, sir. . . .”
“Is he?” said the Weasel; and opening the envelope, began to read:
“Further to my B.M. 764, through 7 D.A., please report by bearer
map-references of your batteries and what time G.O.C. 2nd I.B. proposes
to attack. . . .”
“Why didn’t Davson or Hathway bring this?” asked the Colonel.
“I don’t know, sir. I only joined Divisional H.Q. this morning.”
The Weasel turned the torch on his own face: “You’ll know me next time,
young man. Now buzz off.”
“I was told to wait for an answer, sir,” said the cyclist, slipping the
empty envelope, signed for evidence of receipt, into the case slung at
his side.
“You’ve got your answer,” rasped the Weasel. “Buzz off; and be quick
about it.”
“Don’t switch on that headlamp till you reach Vermelles,” the great
voice boomed like a megaphone through the phutting darkness.
§ 6
One o’clock A. M. on the morning of the 26th. A drizzle of rain.
Stretching a mile down the road from Corons de Rutoire, its last
water-cart just clear of the shell-fire on the Vermelles
railway-crossing, waits a long column of dripping horses, loaded
vehicles and weary men. The men are dismounted. They stand, gunners by
gun-wheels, drivers at horses’ heads. “What’s happening, Joe? I dunno.
Wish we could smoke. Where’s the old man? Up in front! Anyone hit in
your lot? Only our Number one’s horse. Just a splinter. . . .”
Laughter. . . . “Bet he danced a bit. Who bound it up? The Doc. Good for
the Doc. He ought to be at Number Nine Hospital. What-ho!”
At the head of the column stands a little red-headed man; Adjutant by
his side; round him, his four battery commanders: Torrington, dropping
with fatigue; Lodden, very calm, all his irascibility vanished in the
presence of crisis; Bromley, twirling brown moustaches; Major
Lethbridge, the newcomer, a tiny fat man with a weak mouth and unsteady
eyes, fidgeting his riding-switch.
“Well, that’s the position,” says the Weasel. “We can’t move forward
because we haven’t got guides and God knows where the trench-bridges
are. We can’t go back, because Ballardyce has obviously been ordered to
attack. Therefore, though we may get it pretty hot if the Boche is still
in Fosse Eight tomorrow morning, I intend to stop where I am. There’s an
old trench just in front of us; the parados will give us a bit of
cover.”
“But what about the horses, Colonel?” from Torrington.
“They’ll have to stop with the guns till dawn anyway. If the front line
gives, we shall be liable to want our teams in a hurry. Well, gentlemen,
if nobody has anything better to suggest. . . .” A silence. . . . “All
right. Jameson, you’d better go with Bromley and mark for the right of
the Brigade. Batteries to come up one at a time in column of route.
Action left. Get your guns as close to the trench as you can. Usual
intervals if possible. Teams to remain with the guns till dawn.
Purves. . . .”
“Yes, sir.” The Balliol man appears out of the darkness.
“Tell H.Q. to walk their horses forward to that hay-stack. See it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Unhook the telephone-wagon and the M. O.’s[13] cart. Send your horses a
hundred yards to the rear, and report to me when its done. Do you
understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
-----
[13] Medical Officer.
§ 7
If ever man in a tight corner drew comfort from good work done in the
past, it was Weasel Stark as he stood alone that night, and watched this
entity of his creating file past him in the darkness.
Very quietly they came, team after toiling team, gun after creaking gun,
subaltern after subaltern leading his section to their marked
position—O’Grady, Archdale, Pettigrew, Straker, Conway, Merrilees, Hall
and Hutchinson. One by one the teams were unhooked, led away; one by one
the guns swung round, muzzles across the gaping trench. And about each
gun, as it dropped into position, men laboured, men very weary of
labour, with pick and shovel and sand-bag, making what cover they might
against the dawn.
And till dawn began, up and down among the labouring men,—the orders he
had _anticipated_ received at last—strode the Weasel, rasping across
the darkness: “Dig! you blight-hawks. For the Lord’s sake, dig!”
PART SIXTEEN
ACTION LEFT!
§ 1
Daylight revealed an irregular line of fifteen field-guns and limbers,
weary men piling sandbags round their wheels. Already the sandbags had
risen to the gun-axles.
The line of guns lay in the centre of a great shallow saucer of ground,
scarred with zig-zag trenches; and as the first blue of dawn cleared to
white, the men who laboured could see, straight to their front and on
the lip of the saucer, the shattered top of a solitary tree. And looking
to the left of the tree, they saw,—first of all—a road, and then a big
battered farm-house, beyond which—miles away as it seemed to the weary
men—rose over the ultimate edge of the huge saucer a something which
Gunner Mucksweat, miner by trade, pronounced to be the wheel of a
pithead. Had Gunner Mucksweat been able to read a map, he would have
known the pithead wheel for the top of Fosse Eight.
Prolonging the line of guns on the left ran the road they had traversed
during the night—at its end, the torn roofs of Vermelles; and behind
the guns, bunched together over a square mile of ground, stood
horses—hundreds and hundreds of horses. For the fourth Southdown
Brigade was not alone in that huge saucer of chalk! And behind the
horses, parallel to the guns, lay another road, lined with red brick
houses, above which towered the huge slag-cone of Fosse Seven.
§ 2
The toe of a boot woke 2nd Lieutenant Stanley Purves to consciousness of
the fact that he was sleeping in the lee of a particularly noisome
hay-stack.
“Get up,” said P.J. “The Colonel wants you.”
“What’s the time?” asked the thing under the hay.
“Half-past four.”
“My grief, what a time to get up!”
He struggled to his feet, pulling wet wisps from his hair; realized that
he could hardly walk for cramp; limped forward; stumbled over a low
stretcher on two-cycle wheels, into the shafts of a hooded cart painted
with a large Red Cross.
“Anybody want me?” Doctor Carson, a light sleeper, pushed his white head
out from the tilt; saw Purves making for the guns. “Suppose I’d better
get up,” said the Doctor; and in doing so, woke Horrocks the Vet. They
cursed each other, and stepped out onto the wet ground.
Said Purves, returning: “The Weasel wants his breakfast, and he wants it
damn quick.” He limped off to find Gunner Horne, found him asleep under
the spidery telephone-waggon. Him, by right of seniority, Purves kicked
also. Moreover, after a careful reconnaissance, the Balliol man
discovered two foreign-looking boots projecting from the afore-said
hay-stack, which—being sternly pulled—produced Morency.