It was dawn on Saturday morning, and the second phase of the Battle
of the Somme was more than twenty-four hours old. The programme had
opened with a night attack, always the most difficult and uncertain of
enterprises, especially for soldiers who were civilians less than two
years ago. But no undertaking is too audacious for men in whose veins
the wine of success is beginning to throb. And this undertaking, this
hazardous gamble, had succeeded all along the line. During the past
day and night, more than three miles of the German second system of
defences, from Bazentin le Petit to the edge of Delville Wood, had
received their new tenants; and already long streams of not altogether
reluctant Hun prisoners were being escorted to the rear by perspiring
but cheerful gentlemen with fixed bayonets.
Meanwhile--in case such of the late occupants of the line as were
still at large should take a fancy to revisit their previous haunts,
working-parties of infantry, pioneers, and sappers were toiling at
full pressure to reverse the parapets, run out barbed wire, and bestow
machine-guns in such a manner as to produce a continuous lattice-work
of fire along the front of the captured position.
All through the night the work had continued. As a result, positions
were now tolerably secure, the intrepid "Buzzers" had included
the newly grafted territory in the nervous system of the British
Expeditionary Force, and Battalion Headquarters and Supply Dépôts had
moved up to their new positions.
To Colonel Kemp and his Adjutant Cockerell, ensconced in a dug-out
thirty feet deep, furnished with a real bed, electric-light fittings,
and ornaments obviously made in Germany, entered Major Wagstaffe,
encrusted with mud, but as imperturbable as ever. He saluted.
"Good-morning, sir. You seem to have struck a cushie little home
time."
"Yes. The Boche officer harbours no false modesty about acknowledging
his desire for creature comforts. That is where he scores off people
like you and me, who pretend we like sleeping in mud. Have you been
round the advanced positions?"
"Yes. There is some pretty hard fighting going on in the village
itself--the Boche still holds the north-west corner--and in the wood
on the right. 'A' Company are holding a line of broken-down cottages
on our right front, but they can't make any further move until they
get more bombs. The Boche is occupying various buildings opposite, but
in no great strength at present. However, he seems to have plenty of
machine-guns."
"I have sent up more bombs," said the Colonel. "What about 'B'
Company?"
"'B' have reached their objective, and consolidated. 'C' and 'D' are
lying close up, ready to go forward in support when required. I think
'A' could do with a little assistance."
"I don't want to send up 'C' and 'D'," replied the Colonel, "until the
Divisional Reserve arrives. The Brigade has just telephoned through
that reinforcements are on the way. When they get here, we can afford
to stuff in the whole battalion. Are 'A' Company capable of handling
the situation at present?"
"Yes, I think so. Little is directing his platoons from a convenient
cellar. He was in touch with them all when I left. But it is possible
that the Boche may make a rush when it grows a bit lighter. At
present he is too demoralised to attempt anything beyond intermittent
machine-gun fire."
Colonel Kemp turned to Cockerell.
"Get Captain Little on the telephone," he said, "and tell him, if the
enemy displays any disposition to counter-attack, to let me know at
once." Then he turned to Wagstaffe, and asked the question which
always lurks furtively on the tongue of a commanding officer.
"Many--casualties?"
"'A' Company have caught it rather badly crossing the open. 'B' got
off lightly. Glen is commanding them now: Waddell was killed leading
his men in the rush to the final objective."
Colonel Kemp sighed.
"Another good boy gone--veteran, rather. I must write to his wife.
Fairly newly married, I fancy?"
"Four months," said Wagstaffe briefly.
"What was his Christian name, do you know?"
"Walter, I think, sir," said Cockerell.
Colonel Kemp, amid the stress of battle, found time to enter a note in
his pocket-diary to that effect.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, up in the line, 'A' Company were holding on grimly to what
are usually described as "certain advanced elements" of the village.
Village fighting is a confused and untidy business, but it possesses
certain redeeming features. The combatants are usually so inextricably
mixed up that the artillery are compelled to refrain from
participation. That comes later, when you have cleared the village of
the enemy, and his guns are preparing the ground for the inevitable
counter-attack.
So far 'A' Company had done nobly. From the moment when they had lined
up before Montauban in the gross darkness preceding yesterday's dawn
until the moment when Bobby Little led them in one victorious rush
into the outskirts of the village, they had never encountered a
setback. By sunset they had penetrated some way farther; now creeping
stealthily forward under the shelter of a broken wall to hurl bombs
into the windows of an occupied cottage; now climbing precariously to
some commanding position in order to open fire with a Lewis gun; now
making a sudden dash across an open space. Such work offered peculiar
opportunities to small and well-handled parties--opportunities of
which Bobby Little's veterans availed themselves right readily.
Angus M'Lachlan, for instance, accompanied by a small following
of seasoned experts, had twice rounded up parties of the enemy in
cellars, and had despatched the same back to Headquarters with his
compliments and a promise of more. Mucklewame and four men had bombed
their way along a communication trench leading to one of the side
streets of the village--a likely avenue for a counter-attack--and
having reached the end of the trench, had built up a sandbag
barricade, and had held the same against the assaults of hostile
bombers until a Vickers machine-gun had arrived in charge of an
energetic subaltern of that youthful but thriving organisation, the
Suicide Club, or Machine-Gun Corps, and closed the street to further
Teutonic traffic.
During the night there had been periods of quiescence, devoted to
consolidation, and here and there to snatches of uneasy slumber. Angus
M'Lachlan, fairly in his element, had trailed his enormous length in
and out of the back-yards and brick-heaps of the village, visiting
every point in his irregular line, testing defences; bestowing
praise; and ensuring that every man had his share of food and rest.
Unutterably grimy but inexpressibly cheerful, he reported progress to
Major Wagstaffe when that nocturnal rambler visited him in the small
hours.
"Well, Angus, how goes it?" inquired Wagstaffe.
"We have won the match, sir," replied Angus with simple seriousness.
"We are just playing the bye now!"
And with that he crawled away, with the unnecessary stealth of a
small boy playing robbers, to encourage his dour paladins to further
efforts.
"We shall probably be relieved this evening," he explained to them,
"and we must make everything secure. It would never do to leave
our new positions untenable by other troops. They might not be so
reliable"--with a paternal smile--"as you! Now, our right flank is not
safe yet. We can improve the position very much if we can secure that
_estaminet_, standing up like an island among those ruined houses on
our right front. You see the sign, _Aux Bons Fermiers_, over the door.
The trouble is that a German machine-gun is sweeping the intervening
space--and we cannot see the gun! There it goes again. See the
brick-dust fly! Keep down! They are firing mainly across our front,
but a stray bullet may come this way."
The platoon crouched low behind their improvised rampart of brick
rubble, while machine-gun bullets swept low, with misleading
_claquement_, along the space in front of them, from some hidden
position on their right. Presently the firing stopped. Brother Boche
was merely "loosing off a belt," as a precautionary measure, at
commendably regular intervals.
"I cannot locate that gun," said Angus impatiently. "Can you, Corporal
M'Snape?"
"It is not in the estamint itself, sirr," replied M'Snape. ("Estamint"
is as near as our rank and file ever get to _estaminet_.) "It seems to
be mounted some place higher up the street. I doubt they cannot see us
themselves--only the ground in front of us."
"If we could reach the _estaminet_ itself," said Angus thoughtfully,
"we could get a more extended view. Sergeant Mucklewame, select ten
men, including three bombers, and follow me. I am going to find a
jumping-off place. The Lewis gun too."
Presently the little party were crouching round their officer in a
sheltered position on the right of the line--which for the moment
appeared to be "in the air." Except for the intermittent streams of
machine-gun fire, and an occasional shrapnel-burst overhead, all was
quiet. The enemy's counter-attack was not yet ready.
"Now listen carefully," said Angus, who had just finished scribbling
a despatch. "First of all, you, Bogle, take this message to the
telephone, and get it sent to Company Headquarters. Now you others.
We will wait till that machine-gun has fired another belt. Then, the
moment it has finished, while they are getting out the next belt, I
will dash across to the _estaminet_ over there. M'Snape, you will come
with me, but no one else--yet. If the _estaminet_ seems capable of
being held, I will signal to you, Sergeant Mucklewame, and you will
send your party across, in driblets, not forgetting the Lewis gun. By
that time I may have located the German machine-gun, so we should be
able to knock it out with the Lewis."
Further speech was cut short by a punctual fantasia from the gun
in question. Angus and M'Snape crouched behind the shattered wall,
awaiting their chance. The firing ceased.
"_Now!_" whispered Angus.
Next moment officer and corporal were flying across the open, and
before the mechanical Boche gunner could jerk the new belt into
position, both had found sanctuary within the open doorway of the
half-ruined _estaminet_.
Nay, more than both; for as the panting pair flung themselves into
shelter, a third figure, short and stout, in an ill-fitting kilt,
tumbled heavily through the doorway after them. Simultaneously a
stream of machine-gun bullets went storming past.
"Just in time!" observed Angus, well pleased. "Bogle, what are you
doing here?"
"I was given tae unnerstand, sirr," replied Mr. Bogle calmly, "when I
jined the regiment, that in action an officer's servant stands by his
officer."
"That is true," conceded Angus; "but you had no right to follow me
against orders. Did you not hear me say that no one but Corporal
M'Snape was to come?"
"No, sirr. I doubt I was away at the 'phone."
"Well, now you are here, wait inside this doorway, where you can see
Sergeant Mucklewame's party, and look out for signals. M'Snape, let us
find that machine-gun."
The pair made their way to the hitherto blind side of the building,
and cautiously peeped through a much-perforated shutter in the
living-room.
"Do you see it, sirr?" inquired M'Snape eagerly.
Angus chuckled.
"See it? Fine! It is right in the open, in the middle of the street.
Look!"
He relinquished his peep-hole. The German machine-gun was mounted
in the street itself, behind an improvised barrier of bricks and
sandbags. It was less than a hundred yards away, sited in a position
which, though screened from the view of Angus's platoon farther down,
enabled it to sweep all the ground in front of the position. This it
was now doing with great intensity, for the brief public appearance
of Angus and M'Snape had effectually converted intermittent into
continuous fire.
"We must get the Lewis gun over at once," muttered Angus. "It can
knock that breastwork to pieces."
He crossed the house again, to see if any of Mucklewame's men had
arrived.
They had not. The man with the Lewis gun was lying dead halfway across
the street, with his precious weapon on the ground beside him. Two
other men, both wounded, were crawling back whence they came, taking
what cover they could from the storm of bullets which whizzed a few
inches over their flinching bodies.
Angus hastily semaphored to Mucklewame to hold his men in check for
the present. Then he returned to the other side of the house.
"How many men are serving that gun?" he said to M'Snape. "Can you
see?"
"Only two, sirr, I think. I cannot see them, but that wee breastwork
will not cover more than a couple of men."
"Mphm," observed Angus thoughtfully. "I expect they have been left
behind to hold on. Have you a bomb about you?"
The admirable M'Snape produced from his pocket a Mills grenade, and
handed it to his superior.
"Just the one, sirr," he said.
"Go you," commanded Angus, his voice rising to a more than usually
Highland inflection, "and semaphore to Mucklewame that when he hears
the explosion of _this_"--he pulled out the safety-pin of the grenade
and gripped the grenade itself in his enormous paw--"followed,
probably, by the temporary cessation of the machine-gun, he is to
bring his men over here in a bunch, as hard as they can pelt. Put it
as briefly as you can, but make sure he understands. He has a good
signaller with him. Send Bogle to report when you have finished. Now
repeat what I have said to you.... That's right. Carry on!"
M'Snape was gone. Angus, left alone, pensively restored the safety-pin
to the grenade, and laid the grenade upon the ground beside him. Then
he proceeded to write a brief letter in his field message-book. This
he placed in an envelope which he took from his breast pocket. The
envelope was already addressed--to the _Reverend Neil M'Lachlan, The
Manse_, in a very remote Highland village. (Angus had no mother.) He
closed the envelope, initialled it, and buttoned it up in his breast
pocket again. After that he took up his grenade and proceeded to make
a further examination of the premises. Presently he found what he
wanted; and by the time Bogle arrived to announce that Sergeant
Mucklewame had signalled "message understood," his arrangements were
complete.
"Stay by this small hole in the wall, Bogle," he said, "and the moment
the Lewis gun arrives tell them to mount it here and open fire on the
enemy gun."
He left the room, leaving Bogle alone, to listen to the melancholy
rustle of peeling wall-paper within and the steady crackling of
bullets without. But when, peering through the improvised loophole, he
next caught sight of his officer, Angus had emerged from the house by
the cellar window, and was creeping with infinite caution behind the
shelter of what had once been the wall of the _estaminet's_ back-yard
(but was now an uneven bank of bricks, averaging two feet high), in
the direction of the German machine-gun. The gun, oblivious of the
danger now threatening its right front, continued to fire steadily and
hopefully down the street.
Slowly, painfully, Angus crawled on, until he found himself within the
right angle formed by the corner of the yard. He could go no further
without being seen. Between him and the German gun lay the cobbled
surface of the street, offering no cover whatsoever except one mighty
shell-crater, situated midway between Angus and the gun, and full to
the brim with rainwater.
A single peep over the wall gave him his bearings. The gun was too far
away to be reached by a grenade, even when thrown by Angus M'Lachlan.
Still, it would create a diversion. It was a time bomb. He would--
He stretched out his long arm to its full extent behind him, gave
one mighty overarm sweep, and with all the crackling strength of his
mighty sinews, hurled the grenade.
It fell into the exact centre of the flooded shell-crater.
Angus said something under his breath which would have shocked a
disciple of Kultur. Fortunately the two German gunners did not hear
him. But they observed the splash fifty yards away, and it relieved
them from _ennui_, for they were growing tired of firing at nothing.
They had not seen the grenade thrown, and were a little puzzled as to
the cause of the phenomenon.
Four seconds later their curiosity was more than satisfied. With a
muffled roar, the shell-hole suddenly, spouted its liquid contents and
other _débris_ straight to the heavens, startling them considerably
and entirely obscuring their vision.
A moment later, with an exultant yell, Angus M'Lachlan was upon them.
He sprang into their vision out of the descending cascade--a towering,
terrible, kilted figure, bare-headed and Berserk mad. He was barely
forty yards away.
Initiative is not the _forte_ of the Teuton. Number One of the German
gun mechanically traversed his weapon four degrees to the right and
continued to press the thumb-piece. Mud and splinters of brick sprang
up round Angus's feet; but still he came on. He was not twenty yards
away now. The gunner, beginning to boggle between waiting and bolting,
fumbled at his elevating gear, but Angus was right on him before
his thumbs got back to work. Then indeed the gun spoke out with no
uncertain voice, for perhaps two seconds. After that it ceased fire
altogether.
Almost simultaneously there came a triumphant roar lower down the
street, as Mucklewame and his followers dashed obliquely across into
the _estaminet_. Mucklewame himself was carrying the derelict Lewis
gun. In the doorway stood the watchful M'Snape.
"This way, quick!" he shouted. "We have the Gairman gun spotted, and
the officer is needing the Lewis!"
But M'Snape was wrong. The Lewis was not required.
A few moments later, in the face of brisk sniping from the houses
higher up the street, James Bogle, officer's servant,--a member of
that despised class which, according to the _Bandar-log_ at home,
spend the whole of its time pressing its master's trousers and smoking
his cigarettes somewhere back in billets,--led out a stretcher party
to the German gun. Number One had been killed by a shot from Angus's
revolver. Number Two had adopted Hindenburg tactics, and was no more
to be seen. Angus himself was lying, stone dead, a yard from the
muzzle of the gun which he, single-handed, had put out of action.
His men carried him back to the _Estaminet aux Bons Fermiers_, with
the German gun, which was afterwards employed to good purpose during
the desperate days of attacking and counter-attacking which ensued
before the village was finally secured. They laid him in the
inner room, and proceeded to put the _estaminet_ in a state of
defence--ready to hold the same against all comers until such time
as the relieving Division should take over, and they themselves be
enabled, under the kindly cloak of darkness, to carry back their
beloved officer to a more worthy resting-place.
In the left-hand breast pocket of Angus's tunic they found his last
letter to his father. Two German machine-gun bullets had passed
through it. It was forwarded with a covering letter, by Colonel Kemp.
In the letter Angus's commanding officer informed Neil M'Lachlan that
his son had been recommended posthumously for the highest honour that
the King bestows upon his soldiers.
* * * * *
But for the moment Mucklewame's little band had other work to occupy
them. Shelling had recommenced; the enemy were mustering in force
behind the village; and presently a series of counter-attacks were
launched. They were successfully repelled, in the first instance by
the remainder of "A" Company, led in person by Bobby Little, and,
when the final struggle came, by the Battalion Reserve under Major
Wagstaffe. And throughout the whole grim struggle which ensued, the
_Estaminet aux Bons Fermiers_, tenanted by some of our oldest friends,
proved itself the head and corner of the successful defence.