“The Battalion is moving off in an hour’s time, sir!”
Johnson stood over our Ensign, as he lay curled up in his Wolseley
valise on the floor of his tent. A canvas bucket of hot water steamed
in the servant’s hand. Our young man felt as though he had slept but an
hour. Still, there was nothing for it, so he staggered in his pyjamas
out into the sunshine, where The Beak, in similarly airy costume, was
shaving himself at a little mirror propped up against the flap of his
tent.
“Is it over the top for us, Beak?” queried our Ensign of his company
commander.
“Don’t think so yet,” mumbled The Beak under the lather; “it’s fatigues
for to-day, anyhow, ... carrying up stuff for the fellows in the front
line. Have a good time last night?”
“Ensanguined!” retorted our young man with feeling, as he soaped his
face.
Once again he was doomed to travel that dusty road towards the Front,
only this time he footed it at the head of his platoon, and he found
walking to be a good deal easier than cycling. About the hour of 9 A.M.
he led his platoon into the wood, which had been indicated to him as
their destination.
Ravaged by shell fire, seamed by trenches, gashed and blood-drenched
and blackened, that wood had seen some of the fiercest fighting of the
War. Not a tree lived; there was not so much as a green leaf to gladden
the eye; not a bird twittered in the branches. The wood and all in it
were dead, as dead as the mouldering relics of the fight that were
scattered plentifully about in the yawning shell-holes, coffined by
the criss-cross of fallen trunks and torn branches.
The trenches in which the two companies were to live were in places
foot-deep in water, so our Ensign and Bryan, by The Beak’s directions,
got the men to bale them out. By the time they had got the men
comfortably settled it was luncheon time. Apollo invited our Ensign to
accompany him on a tour of discovery round the wood. Our Ensign shook
his head decisively. He thought not, thank you! He had some idea as
to what an examination of that wood might reveal. He wouldn’t mind
going, but he’d have his lunch first. So they agreed to go afterwards,
Roderick accompanying them.
Our Ensign felt glad that he had had his lunch when he looked upon the
horrors which the deeper recesses of the wood contained. Those who
have never seen a modern battlefield can have no idea of its utter and
wanton _untidiness_ ... the extraordinary jumble of arms and equipment
and clothing, and papers and letters and playing-cards and empty
bottles and crumbling remnants of food. The trenches were literally
foot-deep in equipment in some places, with here and there a shapeless,
inert mass of khaki or field-grey, as lax and limp as a sack of straw,
which once had been a man.
One such scene of silent tragedy gave the three an unpleasant shock.
It was in a remoter corner of the wood, where the bare and blackened
tree-trunks stood closer together, where a line of wrecked dug-outs and
a profusion of German equipment lying about showed that the enemy had
made a stand. As our Ensign and his companions plunged in and out of
the fallen tree-trunks and the splintered branches lying athwart the
shell-craters, Apollo, who was leading, came to a sudden halt. He stood
silent with pointing finger.
At his feet, pinned securely to the ground under a massive elm which
had been torn bodily from its roots by a shell, was a skeleton yet
clothed in its mud-stained and mouldy field-grey. It lay on its face,
prone beneath the weight of the tree, its arms outstretched in the form
of a cross.
“Poor devil!” said Roderick.
“I expect it broke his back!” observed Apollo, stooping down to get
a closer view of the grim figure. But our Ensign, who was fresher
than they to these sights of war, said nothing. He was thinking of
the shells screaming about those wrecked dug-outs, the crash of the
falling trees, the reverberating explosions, the reek of sulphur, and
that solitary German felled to the earth as he bolted for shelter, and
pinned down among the chaos....
* * * * *
The Beak met them as they sauntered back to tea.
“Sorry, old boy,” he said to our Ensign; “there’s a fatigue to-night.
It’ll be you, as Bryan did the last one!”
“Sir!” quoth the Ensign in his best manner, and proceeded to note
his instructions. He was to take a party of seventy men and proceed
to a certain R.E. Dump, the map reference of which was given to him,
there collect various material, and thence go to a certain Brigade
Headquarters, where he would receive further orders.
It was dark by the time the party started off. It was a black night,
without moon or stars, and, as on the previous evening, the air
trembled to the ear-splitting crash of the guns. The first thing our
Ensign did was to lose his way. There was plenty of traffic on the
roads, but everybody was either going up or coming down, and no one
seemed to have ever heard of an R.E. Dump in those parts. At last the
party met a Sapper officer.
“A Dump?” he said, in reply to a question. “I believe they are forming
one down there ... about a mile along this road.” And he pointed in
the direction from which the party had come.
Our Ensign groaned, then faced about and led his men in the opposite
direction. After marching for about a quarter of an hour, they came to
a place by the roadside where some dark figures were moving about among
large indistinguishable heaps.
“Is that the R.E. Dump?” sung out our Ensign.
“Yes! Is that the Guards’ fatigue party?” came back from the darkness.
“Yes!” shouted our Ensign in return, switching on the lamp fastened to
his belt.
A Staff Officer stepped out of the roadside blackness into the circle
of light.
“Good evening!” he said genially. “They want you to take some of this
stuff up to the Welsh Guards. If you report to them, they’ll tell you
what to do with it. I’ve got a guide here. This Dump was only formed
this morning, so I don’t quite know what there is here; but you just
go ahead, and load up the men with anything you think useful. It’s all
for you fellows when you go over the top ... you will want plenty of
stuff to consolidate with! You’ll be all right then, will you? They
shell a bit as a rule going up, but the guide will lead you off the
road into the open if it gets really dangerous. Good-night!”
He vanished into the night. A Grenadier private loomed up large in the
patch of light.
“Guide, sir!” he said, saluting.
Our Ensign called his senior sergeant, and with him inspected the Dump.
He then divided his men into as many groups as there were heaps of
different material, and got them loaded up with rolls of barbed wire,
pickets, stakes, giant coils of French wire, and so forth. When they
were ready the men fell in in single file, and with the guide and our
Ensign at the head, the party moved off into the darkness.
It was a good two-hours’ march up to the Battalion Headquarters of
the Welsh Guards. The guide led them out on to a narrow track which
wound its solitary way across a bare immensity of plain, in and out of
shell-holes lying so thick that the lip of one crater touched the lip
of the other. It was a dank, raw night, with occasional gusts of rain.
The cold wind blowing down the gentle slope of the plain brought the
evil odour of death from the spouting lights on the horizon where the
trenches lay.
The plain was a place of death. By the roadside, in every shell-hole,
the dead lay thick, British and German--now a solitary corpse, its face
a white patch in the gloom, now a little knoll of men stricken down by
the one shell.
The going was terrible. Under the effect of the thousands of pounds
of high explosive that had worked devastation over the slope the very
earth had lost its binding power and crumbled like sand beneath the
feet. The darkness was intense. The men kept stumbling under their
burdens, and more than one toppled headlong into a shell-hole, often on
to the silent form of its uncoffined occupant. Our Ensign had learned
already that in night marching the tendency of the head of a column is
always to go too fast, yet though he steadied the pace down to a bare
two miles an hour, the tail of the party kept on straggling behind.
With the sweat running down his face, the officer spent the greater
part of the march in stumbling hastily from one end of the long train
to the other.
There was a good deal of sporadic shelling ... principally
“whizz-bangs,” that stank most vilely in the nostrils. Most of the
shells seemed to be falling about the road ahead of them, and presently
the guide led the party off the track into the open, where everybody
had to make the best of his way in and out of the shell-holes. At last
the guide pointed to a dim tangle of bare trees on the skyline to the
right.
“That’s where we shall find the Welsh, sir!” he said.
He brought the party finally up to a white chalky trench, where, in the
yellow light of a lantern, a group of officers were standing about the
entrance to a deep and cavernous dug-out. A regimental aid-post was
somewhere in the vicinity, for the sides of the trench were lined with
stretchers, and the cry of “Make way for the stretcher-bearers!” kept
resounding as fresh cases were brought in. Many of the forms lying on
the stretchers on parapet and parados were field-grey. One of these
figures, with a livid face, opened his eyes, as our Ensign stepped over
him to reach the entrance of the dug-out, and murmured: “Ach! Mutter!”
Our Ensign reported himself to the Adjutant of the Welsh Guards, who
was just emerging from the dug-out while the men of his fatigue party,
their forms looming large against the skyline, sat about and chatted
with the orderlies and stretcher-bearers.
“We’re just going out of this,” said the Welsh Guardsman; “you’d better
report to the Scots Guards. The Adjutant is about somewhere.”
Our young man found the Adjutant, and reported himself again.
“R.E. material, eh?” said the latter. “Good. We shall want you to take
it up to the left company in the front line. I’ve got a good guide
here. He’ll take you along.”
Our Ensign felt a trifle dismayed, for he had imagined his night’s
labours to be over. He glanced at his wrist. It was 11 P.M.
They started off again, past the regimental aid-post, and out on to
a sunken road, where the corpses lay thick. As they plodded on, they
seemed to come to a village, for crumbling bricks lay about the road.
But of houses there was not a sign. Where the tide of battle has passed
on the Somme you will not find stone left upon stone.
The guide, who had been leading them very confidently so far, now began
to flag. He started to look about him. An awful suspicion seized upon
the officer. He knew the symptoms well enough. He guessed what the
guide’s hesitation portended. There are very few officers who have
served in the trenches in this war who have not been led astray by a
guide some time or other.
A shell whizzed noisily overhead, and exploded close by with an
appalling crash. Its orange burst revealed for a brief instant the
devastation in that village of the dead.
“Mind yourself, sir!” called out the guide suddenly. Two figures came
dashing out of the darkness with levelled rifles.
“Hands up!” they yelled.
Our Ensign had pulled out his revolver.
“Stop that infernal noise!” he shouted, and then, heedless of
consequences, he switched on his lamp.
Two figures in khaki were facing him.
“Are you British?” cried one, while the other gasped, panting--
“Oh dear! we’ve just walked into the German lines. Have you seen our
officer, sir?” And they mentioned the name of their regiment.
Our Ensign could not help them, and presently they disappeared into the
darkness. Then the party went plodding on until, once more, dark shapes
loomed out of the night.
A Guards’ officer came towards our Ensign. He took off his cap and
wiped his damp forehead.
“What a night!” he lamented. “My infernal guide walked us plumb into
the Hun lines. All the Huns were yelling, ‘Come on! We’re waiting for
you!’ We made a bolt for it. I can’t make out why they didn’t shoot. I
suppose they weren’t sure that some of their own fellows weren’t out as
well!”
_Woo-oof!_
A shell burst violently behind the group.
“Bad place to gossip in,” said our Ensign. “I suppose you don’t know
where we are, do you?”
“Devil a bit!” was the reply.
“You’ll find two of your men down the path a little way,” said our
Ensign; “they nearly shot us!”
“Right!” answered the other unconcernedly. “Well, cheery-oh! Where the
hell’s that guide?”...
He and his train padded past in the darkness.
Suddenly our Ensign’s guide recognised a landmark.
“I know that dead horse, sir,” he exclaimed; “it’s a little piece along
here! I know the way now!”
Indeed, in a little, he brought the party to the mouth of a trench.
There our Ensign found a Scots Guards subaltern.
“Here we are again!” observed the latter serenely. “Cheerful spot.”
“!!!!!!!!” replied our Ensign. “Where do you want the stuff dumped?”
“What stuff?” returned the other, straining his eyes to peer into the
outer blackness.
“R.E. material for the left company,” said our Ensign.
“Right company here,” answered the officer.
Our Ensign leant back against the parapet and, baring his head to the
night, invoked the vengeance of the powers of darkness on the guide.
Apparently the guide had likewise discovered his mistake, for from the
mirky blackness outside the trench our Ensign heard a voice--the voice
of one in authority--saying sternly--
“What dead horse?”
“The dead horse wot’s lying alongside of two dead Huns!” came the
pathetic voice of the guide.
“The dead horse you wanted, me lad,” answered back the stern voice,
“isn’t alongside of any Huns! It’s at the dead horse by the pond that
you wanted to turn off!”
Our Ensign turned desperately to the officer.
“Look here!” he said firmly, “I’ve had enough of this nonsense. My men
are dead-beat, and we are fed up with being led by a lot of fool guides
into every barrage on this front. I’m going to dump the goods here, and
you can send word along to the other company to come and fetch ’em!”
“My dear fellow,” replied the other, “you can’t do that. The other
company probably wants your stuff urgently.”
“If they want it so badly, they can dam well come and fetch it. I’m
going home. It’s half-past twelve and we’ve been footing it since
seven!”
“Look here,” said the other soothingly, “I’ve got a sergeant of the
left company here with me; he’s just brought a message across. You can
go back with him!”
Our Ensign wavered.
“How far is it?” he asked sullenly.
“Sixteen hundred yards,” replied the other promptly.
Our Ensign reflected that, if this were a prevarication, the other
would have said, “Just over there!” or, “A stone’s-throw!” So he
decided he would have to get those additional 1600 yards out of his
weary men.
The sergeant appeared--a resolute person; the two officers parted,
and once more the fatigue party strung out on its way along the
corpse-strewn path. The men were very tired, so our Ensign marched in
the rear and kept the stragglers together.
A lot of shells were coming over now, exploding noisily in the ruins
of the village. But our Ensign hardly noticed them. He was desperately
concerned lest, while he prevented the tail of his party from being
left behind and lost, the head might be walking straight into the
German lines.
The long train sagged, and finally halted. Our Ensign scrambled,
fuming, to the head.
“Where’s that guide?” he demanded.
“He’s just after going to look for the way, sir!” said a soft Irish
voice, which added: “Wirra, that’s near!” as a shell crashed into the
ground close by.
Our Ensign got all the men into shell craters. The sights in those deep
holes were enough to make a man sick. Then he told his sergeant he
would give the guide five minutes by the watch. If he had not turned up
at the end of that period of grace, they would dump their stuff where
they were and steer for home by the compass.
Those were the longest five minutes our Ensign had ever spent. He was
tormented by the fear lest a shell might fall in the midst of his
party, and he should have twenty or thirty casualties to report on
returning to the Wood. The shells came over fairly thick--about two a
minute,--but they all burst beyond the men in their shell-holes. The
men were magnificently cool. It struck our Ensign that they were more
concerned at not having reached their journey’s end, tired out as they
were, than at the dangers surrounding them.
Then a voice shouted from the darkness--
“Here you are! This way!”
Ten minutes later our Ensign led his party back along the sunken road
and across the brown, shell-scarred slope. Weary though the men were,
they were only too glad to force the pace and leave behind them the
sights and sounds of the night.
“They’re saying behind, sir,” said the senior sergeant to our Ensign,
as the party trudged along, “couldn’t we go a bit faster?”
“Oh! all right!” replied our Ensign carelessly, and quickened his pace.
But he did not tell the sergeant that the same idea had long since
occurred to him.