Exactly at eleven o’clock, when the thunder of the guns had reached
its climax, two thousand, four hundred and forty-five men of all ranks
stepped out of their holes and walked into No Man’s Land towards the
enemy. They advanced in artillery formation, by sections.
This time, only seven men went over the top with Corporal Williams.
They were gathered about him in a bunch and he looked like the leader
of a primitive band of nomads, driven from their hole by ram, hunger,
disease or vermin, seeking a better hole. On either side, other
Corporals advanced with similar groups. There was no excitement, no
haste, no grandeur, no drums, no banners, no gleaming weapons, no
plumes, no terrifying devices, no shouting of war-maddened warriors;
just little crowds of dirty, stooping men, with ugly steel hats, gas
masks, bags of bombs.
A miserable, heat-less sun now shone in the sky. The earth seemed a
void, barren of life, the crater of a dead world; and the thunder of
the guns was no longer romantically awe-inspiring. The crash of their
bursting had become barren of power in their ears.
Suddenly, when they had advanced three hundred yards, the enemy opened
fire with his artillery. Shells began to fall in front of them.
Instinctively, they gathered closer together and shuddered. Their steps
became more brisk. Not a word was spoken. The shells fell more thickly.
They seemed to be alive, hissing as they swooped through the air. Yet
when they burst, they became almost impotent, smothered by the slime.
They reached the slope of the hill and began to ascend. Now
machine-guns opened fire to the left. They could see the hollow beyond
the hill and afar off, green fields, stumps of trees, ruined houses,
walls, roads, black railway lines. But there was no sign of an enemy;
just flashes of fire spotting the earth, which was a black crater,
scarred with holes, littered with wreckage, coated with oozing slime.
Above the roar of the artillery and the rattle of machine-guns, their
anxious ears caught the moaning of wounded men. The signal came: “Take
cover.” “Down. Down.”
Corporal Williams and his seven men threw themselves on the ground
at once and lay still, hugging the mud, unconscious now of hunger,
thirst, cold, wet, lice and other miseries, all except one, the misery
of death. As still as rabbits and with the fixed eyes of terrified
rabbits, they lay flat, while the gigantic missiles whined and burst
about them, covering them with a spray of mud. They were under cover
from bullets, lying in a crater formed by several shell-holes that had
been converted into one hole by other shells. There was a roar above
their heads, as if the earth had burst and was flying about in clashing
fragments, rebursting, revolving. The drums of their ears could not
differentiate between sounds. They were no longer afraid. They no
longer thought. They had lost individual consciousness. They had ceased
to be human.
Then a man came running across from the right, threw himself down
into their hole and called in a voice that startled them by its stern
fearlessness, “Corporal Williams!”
It was the Platoon Sergeant. They all raised their heads and stared
at him in amazement, because he had retained the power of speech and
of individual consciousness. He pointed towards the front and yelled
something into the Corporal’s ear. There was a clod of blood-stained
mud or human flesh on his moustache under his nose. Then he jumped to
his feet and ran crouching to the right.
The Corporal shouted to his men, “Come on, lads. We’re to dig in there
in front. Get ready.”
They again became afraid at the realisation that they had to rise from
the mud and become alive, in order to guide their bodies towards a
place somewhere in front, where they had to dig, exposed to this shower
of hot iron.
“It’s a massacre,” whined Jennings.
“Get ready, lads,” said the Corporal.
Suddenly, Lamont, who lay beside Gunn, jumped to his feet and dropping
his rifle, tried to run out of the hole towards the enemy.
Gunn seized him and hauled him back.
“Wait for it,” shouted the Corporal, in his excitement not
understanding the nature of Lamont’s movements.
“Now,” he shouted.
They all jumped up and ran forward. Gunn thrust his rifle into Lamont’s
hand. Then he seized him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him
along. The Corporal, running in front, threw himself down. They all
followed, dropping around him in a row. They now lay on exposed ground,
which offered only a few inches of cover.
“Dig,” cried the Corporal.
“How are we to dig into this?” yelled McDonald in an insane voice,
as he thrust his fingers into the slime and then pulled them forth,
webbed, as from a cake of kneaded flour.
Now they all babbled.
“What’s the good of entrenching tools here?” cried Friel.
“Dig in,” yelled the Corporal.
They got out their entrenching tools and began to dig.
“No use,” said Gunn, savagely driving his tool into the mud. “It’s
putty.”
“Dig, you bastards!” screamed the Corporal.
Like idiots, they all began to tear at the mud, without making the
slightest impression on the ground. It was a mass of sticky slime.
But they worked furiously, without thought, without hope of achieving
anything, merely obeying the order to drive their tools into the earth
and to pull them forth again.
Lamont struck the ground once feebly with his tool and then hauled at
it with both hands trying to draw it forth. His exhausted muscles were
unable for the effort. With the handle in his hand, he stared at the
ground and shuddered.
Gunn drove his elbow into the boy’s side and yelled, “Keep down. Make
cover for yourself.”
Lamont gasped and threw himself against Friel, who was digging on the
other side of him. He tried to crawl under Friel’s body. Friel swore,
raised himself on his knees and then seized Lamont to push him away.
Lamont crawled over to Gunn. As Friel was lying down again to dig, he
made a loud sound in his nostrils and then grunted. He fell prone,
doubled up at once and grasped his stomach with both hands.
He had been shot six times through the stomach. He began to moan.
Just then a shell burst immediately behind them. They all lay flat,
while the mud dislodged by the shell came falling down. Then they heard
Friel moaning.
“Who’s that?” cried the Corporal, raising his head.
He looked all round him and saw two things that interested him. One
was Friel, lying on his face, writhing, grasping his stomach with his
hands. The other was men running back on all sides. Somebody, far back,
was signalling, giving the order to retire.
“Retire,” cried the Corporal. “Get out of it.”
Lamont jumped up first and ran back like a deer. As McDonald was about
to follow, he saw Friel and stooped to pick him up.
“Leave him to me,” said Reilly. “Run.”
“Shouldn’t we open rapid fire,” said Shaw, “while Friel is carried
back?”
“There are no orders to fire,” said the Corporal.
“Jesus!” said Reilly. “What a bloody circus!”
Gunn and Reilly dragged Friel back into a shell-hole.
The others raced back, scattering into various shell-holes. Here it was
quiet. They were under cover from machine-gun fire, sheltered by the
hill. The shells were all dropping in front, exactly where they had
been ordered to dig in by the officers in charge.
Gunn and Reilly cut open Friel’s great-coat and tunic. He was bleeding
terribly. The Corporal dashed over from the shell-hole into which he
had dropped. Everybody was calling for stretcher bearers. Men in other
shell-holes were also calling for stretcher-bearers. Nobody came. They
tried to bandage the wound, but it was impossible to do so, as the
stomach seemed to be full of holes. On account of the filthy state of
their hands and their utter weariness, they only added to the poor
wretch’s agony without helping him.
“Where is the dressing station?” said Reilly. “We can do nothing with
him. He’s bleeding internally. His guts are smashed.”
“Where is the dressing station?” said the Corporal. “Eh?”
Nobody knew where anything was. They just gaped at one another.
“Come on,” said Reilly. “Put him on my back. I’ll carry him.”
As soon as they tried to lift him, Friel uttered a horrible moan and
clawed at them. Then he began to wriggle and a great gush of blood
issued from his stomach through the field bandages they had placed
on it. His face contorted. He bared his teeth, opened his mouth and
just when he was going to close it, Reilly thrust the handle of
his jack-knife between the teeth. His jaws closed with a snap; he
shivered, and strange gurgling noises issued from his throat.
“Stretcher-bearers, for Christ’s sake!” cried Gunn.
Friel began to make sounds like a dummy, a loutish mumbling. He threw
out his right leg and tapped the ground violently with his heel. Then
he shook all over and lay still, all except his chest, which rose and
fell slowly, at long intervals, causing a rumble in his throat. Another
stream of blood gushed forth, covering Reilly’s hand.
Reilly took away the bloody hand which he had placed on the torn
stomach to press in the bandages. “Good-bye, lad. Cheerio!” he said.
Gunn got to his feet, stared angrily at the Corporal and began to curse.
“What did you say?” said the Corporal.
Gunn raised his hand, muttered something and sat down, looking at the
ground gloomily.
The Corporal, paying no heed to him, leaned over the side of the hole
and yelled, “Keep your heads down! Stretcher-bearers!”
Shells were beginning to fall around. The enemy was getting the range
again. Friel was now motionless.
“It’s too late now,” said Reilly. “He’s gone West.”
The jack-knife was still in Friel’s mouth. Reilly forced open the jaws
and pulled it out. The jaws would not close again.
No. 9087 Private Michael Friel, formerly a constable in the Royal Irish
Constabulary, had died from hæmorrhage, following numerous gun-shot
wounds in the abdomen, received in action. He left three mistresses,
resident in Dublin, London and Liverpool.
“Where’s Lamont?” said Gunn, jumping to his feet.
He ran out of the hole, threw himself on the ground while a shell burst
and then ran on again, shouting, “Hey! Louis! Where are you?”
McDonald stuck his head out of a hole and cried, “He’s here.”
He ducked again at once. Gunn entered that hole. Lamont was sitting at
the bottom, doubled up. McDonald was cutting open a tin of bully beef.
He stopped when Gunn looked at him. Gunn glanced at Lamont and then
turned to McDonald.
“Where did you get that bully?” he said. “You took it from the kid.”
“Yer a liar, I didn’t,” said McDonald. “It’s out of my...”
He paused and looked around him furtively. He was eating his iron
rations.
Gunn raised Lamont’s head. The boy was deadly pale. He tried to smile
and then drew in his breath through his teeth. Gunn dropped the lad’s
head.
“Give us a bit,” he said to McDonald.
He now felt terribly hungry.
“Eat your own rations,” said McDonald, ravenously devouring lumps of
meat that he hauled out of the tin with his knife.
Suddenly Gunn, who had been only semiconscious from the moment that he
stepped out of the enemy’s front line trench, began to think once more.
A crowd of images and words rushed into his brain. He covered his eyes
with his hands, trying to conceal himself from the images. Then a voice
within him began to repeat: “Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!”
He shuddered, took away his hands from his eyes, looked at Lamont and
began to tap the boy on the back, making a sucking noise in the corner
of his cheek, like a man making friends with a dog.
“Hey!” said McDonald. “What are you doing?”
Gunn looked up.
McDonald threw away the remains of his bully beef, stood up and cried
out in a terrified voice, “Hey! Corporal!”
“Sit down,” muttered Gunn, “or I’ll run my bayonet through ye.”
McDonald ran out of the hole, leaving his rifle. He dived into the hole
where Corporal Williams was. Two stretcher-bearers had now arrived.
They were taking away Friel’s corpse.
“Gunn is gone mad,” said McDonald.
“You’re daft, yourself, you fool,” said the Corporal. “What’s he trying
on? That’s an old dodge.”
“Come and see him,” said McDonald. “He threatened to bayonet me.”
Now the enemy shell-fire had ceased again. Men were standing up in
their holes on all sides, looking about them. The Corporal, Reilly and
McDonald walked across to the hole where McDonald had been.
“Better be careful, Corporal,” said Reilly. “If he’s off his chump....”
“Don’t you worry,” said the Corporal.
Shaw and Jennings were standing up in another hole farther away.
“Is Friel badly hurt?” said Shaw.
“Gone West,” said Reilly.
“What’s the ticket now then?” said Shaw. “Where are you off to?”
The Corporal, getting afraid of Gunn as he approached, signalled to
Shaw, pointing to the hole where Gunn lay.
“What’s up?” cried Jennings.
Shaw got out of his hole, signalling to Jennings to follow him. They
thus approached Gunn from both sides, as if ambushing an enemy, with
their rifles at the high port. They arrived all together on the banks
of the hole. They found Gunn sitting on his heels, ravenously devouring
the remains of McDonald’s bully beef. He looked up at them in surprise.
His face looked calm, showing nothing more strange than the rather
disgusting expression of a half-starved man devouring food.
“What are you doing there?” said the Corporal.
Lamont looked up, roused by the Corporal’s voice. Gunn dropped the
bully beef tin and rubbed his hands along his thighs. He remained
silent.
“He’s eaten my bully,” said McDonald, jumping down into the hole.
Gunn looked from man to man, blinking.
“I thought you didn’t want any more of it,” he said to McDonald. “You
threw it away.”
“Did you threaten to bayonet McDonald, Gunn?” said the Corporal.
“I?” said Gunn. “Who said so?”
McDonald had picked up the tin and looked into it. It was empty. “He’s
finished it,” he cried in rage. “My iron rations.”
“Your what?” cried the Corporal, forgetting Gunn in the excitement of
having discovered a serious crime to enter into his notebook. “You ate
your iron rations?”
McDonald waved his hands. His ape-like face wrinkled. His teeth
chattered. He could think of no excuse to offer for the crime which his
stupidity and gluttony had exposed.
“Speak up!” cried the Corporal, jumping down into the hole.
McDonald, almost in tears, began to explain how “the bloody fool,
Appleby, went and drowned himself, with all our rations.”
“What’s your number?” said the Corporal.
Gunn looked up and saw Shaw whispering to Reilly. He knew they were
talking about him. He also knew that they thought he was mad and that
they were discussing the best thing to do with him. And he suddenly
became aware of a great cunning in himself. He became conscious of it,
_actually_ saw it in his mind (at least, he imagined he saw it, which
amounted to the same thing). In a flash, he told himself that he must
deceive them, for now at all costs he must avoid being sent back from
the line until he had done what he intended to do.
Speaking quite coldly, much more coolly than anybody else in the hole,
he said to Shaw, “Give us a smoke, ’20. I know you have a packet.”
Shaw looked at him in surprise.
“Come on, mate,” said Gunn, smiling and showing a set of flashing,
white teeth, which contrasted strangely with his coarse face. The
whiteness of his teeth made his face look cunningly evil at that
moment, instead of stupid, as it had been until then.
His face was now “strange” and inhuman.
Shaw came down into the hole, and gave him a piece of cigarette. Reilly
and Jennings also came down into the hole. Now the whole section was
there, sitting close together, all hysterical with fear, exhaustion
and shock, except Gunn who was mad.
The Corporal had forgotten to “crime” McDonald for his offence.
He was too hysterical and exhausted to execute a simple purpose.
McDonald was scraping out the tin of bully beef. Lamont, indifferent
to his environment, stared into the distance. The Corporal, suddenly
aware of his utter exhaustion, covered his face with his hands and
yawned. Reilly and Shaw, being old soldiers and properly trained, sat
motionless, without thought, just conserving their life; which is the
only proper occupation of a soldier not fulfilling an order. Jennings
scratched himself with one hand and with the other searched his pockets
for the butt of a cigarette. Gunn’s eyes glittered.