SHELLS

'_. . . to the right a violent artillery bombardment has been in

progress._'--ACTUAL EXTRACT FROM OFFICIAL DESPATCH.

No. 2 Platoon of the Royal Blanks was cooking its breakfast with

considerable difficulty and an astonishing amount of cheerfulness when

the first shell fell in front of their firing trench. It had rained

most of the night, as indeed it had rained most of the past week or the

past month. All night long the men had stood on the firing step of the

trench, chilled and miserable in their sodden clothing, and sunk in

soft sticky mud over the ankles. All night long they had peeped over

the parapet, or fired through the loopholes at the German trench a

hundred yards off. And all night long they had been galled and stung

by that 'desultory rifle fire' that the despatches mention so casually

and so often, and that requires to be endured throughout a dragging day

and night before its ugliness and unpleasantness can be realised.

No. 2 Platoon had two casualties for the night--a corporal who had

paused too long in looking over the parapet while a star-shell flared,

and 'caught it' neatly through the forehead, and a private who, in the

act of firing through a loop-hole, had been hit by a bullet which

glanced off his rifle barrel and completed its resulting ricochet in

the private's eyes and head. There were other casualties further along

the trench, but outside the immediate ken of No. 2 Platoon, until they

were assisted or carried past on their way to the ambulance.

Just after daybreak the desultory fire and the rain together had almost

ceased, and No. 2 Platoon set about trying to coax cooking fires out of

damp twigs and fragments of biscuit boxes which had been carefully

treasured and protected in comparative dryness inside the men's

jackets. The breakfast rations consisted of Army bread--heavy lumps of

a doughy elasticity one would think only within the range of badness of

a comic paper's 'Mrs. Newlywed'--flint-hard biscuits, cheese, and tea.

'The only complaint against the rations bein' too much plum jam,' said

a clay-smeared private, quoting from a much-derided 'Eye-witness'

report as he dug out a solid streak of uncooked dough from the centre

of his half-loaf and dropped it in the brazier.

Then the first shell landed. It fell some yards outside the parapet,

and a column of sooty black smoke shot up and hung heavily in the damp

air. No. 2 Platoon treated it lightly.

'Good mornin',' said one man cheerfully, nodding towards the black

cloud. 'An' we 'ave not used Pears' soap.'

'Bless me if it ain't our old friend the Coal Box,' said another. 'We

'aven't met one of 'is sort for weeks back.'

'An' here's 'is pal Whistling Willie,' said a third, and they sat

listening to the rise-and-fall whistling _s-s-sh-s-s-sh_ of a

high-angle shell. As the whistle rose to a shriek, the group of men

half made a move to duck, but they were too late, and the shell burst

with a thunderous bang just short of the front parapet. Mud and lumps

of earth splashed and rattled down into the trench, and fragments of

iron hurtled singing overhead.

The men cursed angrily. The brazier had been knocked over by a huge

clod, half-boiling water was spilt, and, worst of all, the precious dry

wood had fallen in the mud and water of the trench bottom. But the men

soon had other things than a lost breakfast to think of. A shrapnel

crashed overhead and a little to the right, and a sharp scream that

died down into deep groans told of the first casualty. Another shell,

and then another, roared up and smashed into the soft ground behind the

trench, hurting no one, but driving the whole line to crouch low in the

narrow pit.

'Get down and lie close everyone,' shouted the young officer of No. 2

Platoon, but the 'crump-crump-crump' of another group of falling shells

spoke sterner and more imperative orders than his. For half an hour

the big shells fell with systematic and regular precision along the

line of the front trench, behind it on the bare ground, and further

back towards the supports' trench. The shooting was good, but so were

the trenches--deep and narrow, and steep-sided, with dug-outs scooped

under the bank and strong traverses localising the effect of any shell

that fell exactly on the trench. There were few casualties, and the

Royal Blanks were beginning to congratulate themselves on getting off

so lightly as the fire slackened and almost died away.

With the rest of the line No. 2 Platoon was painfully moving from its

cramped position and trying to stamp and shake the circulation back

into its stiffened limbs, when there came a sudden series of swishing

rushes and sharp vicious cracks overhead, and ripping thuds of shrapnel

across and across the trench. The burst of fire from the light guns

was excellently timed. Their high velocity and flat trajectory landed

the shells on their mark without any of the whistling rush of approach

that marked the bigger shells and gave time to duck into any available

cover. The one gust of light shells caught a full dozen men--as many

as the half-hour's work of the big guns.

Then the heavies opened again as accurately as before and twice as

fast. The trench began to yawn in wide holes, and its sides to crumble

and collapse. No. 2 Platoon occupied a portion of the trench that ran

out in a blunted angle, and it caught the worst of the fire. One shell

falling just short of the front parapet dug a yawning hole and drove in

the forward wall of the trench in a tumbled slide of mud and earth. A

dug-out and the two men occupying it were completely buried, and the

young officer scurried and pushed along to the place shouting for

spades. A party fell to work with frantic haste; but all their energy

was wasted. The occupants of the buried dug-out were dead when at last

the spades found them . . . and broken finger-nails and bleeding

finger-tips told a grisly tale of the last desperate struggle for

escape and for the breath of life. The officer covered the one

convulsed face and starting eyes with his handkerchief, and a private

placed a muddy cap over the other.

'Get back to your places and get down,' said the officer quietly, and

the men crawled back and crouched low again. For a full hour the line

lay under the flail of the big shells that roared and shrieked overhead

and thundered crashing along the trenches. For a full hour the men

barely moved, except to shift along from a spot where the shaken and

crumbling parapet gave insufficient cover from the hailing shrapnel

that poured down at intervals, and from the bullets that swept in and

smacked venomously into the back of the trench through the shell-rifts

in the parapet.

A senior officer made his way slowly along the sodden and quaking

trench. He halted beside the young officer and spoke to him a few

minutes, asking what the casualties were and hoping vaguely 'they would

ease off presently.'

'Can't our own guns do anything?' asked the youngster; 'or won't they

let us get out and have a go at them?'

The senior nodded towards the bare stretch of muddy plough before their

trench, and the tangle of barbed wire beyond.

'How many men d'you suppose would get there?' he asked.

'Some would,' said the youngster eagerly, 'and anything would be better

than sticking here and getting pounded to pieces.'

'We'll see,' said the major moving off. 'They may ask us to try it

presently. And if not we'll pull through, I dare say. See that the

men keep down, and keep down yourself, Grant. Watch out for a rush

through. This may be a preparation for something of the sort.'

He moved along, and the lad flattened himself again against the side of

the wet trench.

A word from a man near him turned him round. '. . . a 'tillery

Observin' Officer comin'. P'raps our guns are goin' for 'em at last.'

The gunner officer stumbled along the trench towards them. Behind him

came his signaller, a coil of wire and a portable telephone in a

leather case slung over his shoulder. No. 2 Platoon watched their

approach with eager anticipation, and strained ears and attention to

catch the conversation that passed between their officer and the

artilleryman. And a thrill of disappointment pulsed down the line at

the gunner's answer to the first question put to him. 'No,' he said,

'I have orders not to fire unless they come out of the trenches to

attack. We'll give 'em gyp if they try it. My guns are laid on their

front trench and I can sweep the whole of this front with shrapnel.'

'But why not shut up their guns and put a stop to this?' asked the

officer, and his platoon fervently echoed the question in their hearts.

'Not my pidgin,' said the gunner, cautiously peering through the

field-glasses he levelled through a convenient loophole. 'That's the

Heavies' job. I'm Field, and my guns are too light to say much to

these fellows. Look out!' and he stooped low in the trench as the

rising rush of sound told of a shell coming down near them.

'That's about an eight-inch,' he said, after the shell had fallen with

a crash behind them, a spout of earth and mud leaping up and spattering

down over them and fragments singing and whizzing overhead. 'Just tap

in on the wire, Jackson, and raise the Battery.'

The telephonist opened his case and lifted out his instrument, groped

along the trench wall a few yards and found his wire, joined up to his

instruments, dashed off a series of dots and dashes on the 'buzzer,'

and spoke into his mouthpiece. No. 2 Platoon watched in fascinated

silence and again gave all their attention to listening as the

Artillery officer took the receiver.

'. . . That you, Major? . . . Yes, this is Arbuthnot. . . . In the

forward firing trench. . . . Yes, pretty lively . . . big stuff

they're flinging mostly, and some fourteen-pounder shrap. . . . No, no

signs of a move in their trenches. . . . All right, sir, I'll take

care. I can't see very well from here, so I'm going to move along a

bit. . . . Very well, sir, I'll tap in again higher up. . . .

Good-bye.' He handed back the instrument to the telephonist. 'Pack up

again,' he said, 'and come along.'

When he had gone No. 2 Platoon turned eagerly on the telephonist, and

he ran a gauntlet of anxious questions as he followed the Forward

Officer. Nine out of ten of the questions were to the same purpose,

and the gunner answered them with some sharpness. He turned angrily at

last on one man who put the query in broad Scots accent.

'No,' he said tartly, 'we ain't tryin' to silence their guns. An' if

you partickler wants to know why we ain't--well, p'raps them Glasgow

townies o' yours can tell you.'

He went on and No. 2 Platoon sank to grim silence. The meaning of the

gunner's words were plain enough to all, for had not the papers spoken

for weeks back of the Clyde strikes and the shortage of munitions? And

the thoughts of all were pithily put in the one sentence by a private

of No. 2 Platoon.

'I'd stop cheerful in this blanky 'ell for a week,' he said slowly, 'if

so be I 'ad them strikers 'ere alongside me gettin' the same dose.'

All this time there had been a constant although not a heavy rifle fire

on the trenches. It had not done much damage, because the Royal Blanks

were exposing themselves as little as possible and keeping low down in

their narrow trenches. But now the German rifles began to speak

faster, and the fire rose to a dull roar. The machine-guns joined in,

their sharp rat-tat-tat sounding hard and distinct above the rifles.

As the volume of rifle fire increased, so, for a minute, did the shell

fire, until the whole line of the Royal Blanks' trenches was vibrating

to the crash of the shells and humming with rifle bullets which whizzed

overhead or smacked with loud whip-crack reports into the parapet.

The officer of No. 2 Platoon hitched himself higher on the parapet and

hoisted a periscope over it. Almost instantly a bullet struck it,

shattering the glass to fragments. He lowered it and hastily fitted a

new glass, pausing every few moments to bob his head up over the

parapet and glance hastily across at the German trench. A second time

he raised his instrument to position and in less than a minute it was

shot away for a second time.

The Artillery officer came hurrying and stumbling back along the

trench, his telephonist labouring behind him. They stopped at the

place where they had tapped in before and the telephonist busied

himself connecting up his instrument. The Artillery officer flung

himself down beside the Platoon commander. 'My confounded wire cut

again,' he panted, 'just when I want it too. Sounds as if they meant a

rush, eh?' The infantryman nodded. 'Will they stop shelling before

they rush?' he shouted.

'Not till their men are well out in front. Their guns can keep going

over their heads for a bit. Are you through, Jackson? Tell the

Battery to "eyes front." It looks like an attack.'

The telephonist repeated the message, listened a moment and commenced,

'The Major says, sir----' when his officer interrupted sharply, 'Three

rounds gun-fire--quick.'

'Three rounds gun-fire--quick, sir,' bellowed the telephonist into his

mouthpiece.

'Here they come, lads. Let 'em have it,' yelled the Platoon commander,

and commenced himself to fire through a loophole.

At the same moment there came from the rear the quick thudding reports

of the British guns, the rush of their shells overhead, and the sharp

crash of their shells over the German parapets.

'All fired, sir,' called the telephonist.

'Battery fire one second,' the Observing Officer shouted without

turning his head from his watch over the parapet.

'Number one fired--two fired--three fired,' the signaller called

rapidly, and the Observing Officer watched narrowly the white

cotton-wool clouds of the bursting shrapnel of his guns.

'Number three, ten minutes more right--all guns, drop

twenty-five--repeat,' he ordered, and in swift obedience the guns began

to drop their shrapnel showers, sweeping along the ground in front of

the German trench.

But the expected rush of Germans hung fire. A line of bobbing heads

and shoulders had showed above their parapet and only a few scattered

groups had clambered over its top.

'They're beat,' shouted the infantry officer, exultingly. 'They're

dodging back. Give it to 'em, boys--give it--_ow_!' He broke off and

ducked down with a hand clapped to his cheek where a bullet had scored

its way.

'Get down! get down! Make your men get down,' said the gunner officer

rapidly. 'It's all . . .'

Again there came the swishing rush of the light shells, a series of

quick-following bangs, and a hail of shrapnel tearing across the

trench, before the men had time to duck.

'All a false alarm--just a dodge to get your men's heads up within

reach of their Fizz-Bangs' shrapnel,' said the artilleryman, and called

to the signaller. 'All guns raise twenty-five. Section fire five

seconds. . . . Hullo--hit?' he continued to the Platoon officer, as he

noticed him wiping a smear of blood from his cheek.

'Just a nice little scratch,' said the lad, grinning. 'Enough to let

me swank about being wounded and show off a pretty scar to my best girl

when the war's over.'

'Afraid that last shrapnel burst gave some of your fellows more'n a

pretty scar,' said the gunner. 'But I suppose I'd better slow my guns

up again. . . . Jackson, tell them the attack's evidently

stopped--section fire ten seconds.'

'Can't you keep on belting 'em for a bit?' asked the Platoon officer.

'Might make 'em ease up on us.'

The gunner shook his head regretfully.

'I'd ask nothing better,' he said. 'I could just give those trenches

beans. But our orders are strict, and we daren't waste a round on

anything but an attack. I'll bet that's my Major wanting to know if he

can't slack off a bit more,' he continued, as the signaller called

something about 'Wanted to speak here, sir.'

He went to the instrument and held a short conversation. 'Told you

so,' he said, when he returned to the infantry officer. 'No attack--no

shells. We're stopping again.'

'Doesn't seem to be too much stop about the Germs,' grumbled the

infantryman, as another series of crackling shells shook the ground

close behind them. He moved down the line speaking a few words here

and there to the crouching men of his platoon.

'This is getting serious,' he said when he came back to his place.

'There's more than the half of my lot hit, and the most of them pretty

badly. These shrapnel bullets and shell splinters make a shocking mess

of a wound, y'know.'

'Yes,' said the gunner grimly, 'I know.'

'A perfectly brutal mess,' the subaltern repeated. 'A bullet now is

more or less decent, but those shells of theirs, they don't give a man

a chance to pull through.'

'Ours are as bad, if that's any satisfaction to you,' said the gunner.

'I s'pose so,' agreed the subaltern. 'Ghastly sort of game altogether,

isn't it? Those poor fellows of mine now--the killed, I mean. Think

of their fathers and mothers and wives or sweethearts----'

'I'd rather not,' said the gunner. 'And I shouldn't advise you to.

Better not to think of these things.'

'I wish they'd come again,' said the Platoon commander. 'It would stop

the shells for a bit perhaps. They're getting on my nerves. One's so

helpless against them, sticking here waiting to know where the next

will drop. And they don't even give a fellow the ordinary four to one

chance of a casualty being a wound only. They make such a cruel messy

smash of a fellow. . . . Are you going?'

'Must find that break in my wire,' said the gunner, and presently he

and the telephonist ploughed off along the trench.

The bombardment continued with varying intensity throughout the day.

There was no grand finale, no spectacular rush or charge, no crashing

assault, no heroic hand-to-hand combats--no anything but the long-drawn

agony of lying still and being hammered by the crashing shells. This

was no 'artillery preparation for the assault,' although the Royal

Blanks did not know that and so dare not stir from the danger zone of

the forward trench. They were not even to have the satisfaction of

giving back some of the punishment they had endured, or the glory--a

glory carefully concealed from their friends at home, and mostly lost

by the disguising or veiling of their identity in the newspapers, but

still a glory--of taking a trench or making a successful attack or

counter-attack. It was merely another 'heavy artillery bombardment,'

lived through and endured all unknown, as so many have been endured.

The Royal Blanks were relieved at nightfall when the fire had died

down. The Artillery Observing Officer was just outside the

communication trench at the relief hour and saw the casualties being

helped or carried out. A stretcher passed and the figure on it had a

muddy and dark-stained blanket spread over, and an officer's cap and

binoculars on top.

'An officer?' asked the gunner. 'Who is it?' 'Mr. Grant, sir,' said

one of the stretcher-bearers dully. 'No. 2 Platoon.'

The gunner noted the empty sag of the blanket where the head and

shoulders should have been outlined and checked the half-formed

question of 'Badly hit?' to 'How was it?'

'Shell, sir. A Fizz-Bang hit the parapet just where 'e was lyin'.

Caught 'im fair.'

The bearers moved on, leaving the gunner groping in his memory for a

sentence in the youngster's last talk he had heard. "Ghastly business

. . . cruel messy smash,' he murmured.

'Beg pardon, sir?' said the telephonist.

The Forward Officer made no answer but continued to stare after the

disappearing stretcher-bearers. The signaller shuffled his feet in the

mud and hitched up the strap of the instrument on his shoulder.

'I suppose it's all over now, sir,' he said.

'Yes, all over--except for his father, or mother, or sweetheart,' said

the officer absently.