'_. . . supported by a close and accurate artillery
fire . . ._'--EXTRACT FROM OFFICIAL DESPATCH.
From his position in the 'Observation Post' the Artillery Forward
Officer watched the fight raging along his front much as a spectator in
the grand-stand watches a football match. Through his glasses he could
see every detail and movement of the fighters, see even their facial
expressions, the grip of hands about their weapons. Queerly enough, it
was something like looking at the dumb show of a cinema film. He could
see a rifle pointed and the spit of flame from the muzzle without
hearing any report, could see an officer gesticulating and his mouth
opening and closing in obvious stentorian shoutings without hearing the
faintest sound of his voice, could even see the quick flash and puffing
smoke of a grenade without catching the crash of its explosion. It was
not that he was too far off to hear all these sounds, but simply
because individually they were drowned in the continuous ear-filling
roar of the battle.
The struggle was keenly interesting and desperately exciting, even from
a spectator's point of view; and the interest and excitement were the
greater to the Forward Officer, because he was playing a part, and an
important part, in the great game spread before him. Beyond the line
of a section of the British front white smoke-puffs were constantly
bursting, over his head a succession of shells streamed rushing and
shrieking; and the place where each of those puffs burst depended on
him, each shell that roared overhead came in answer to his call. He
was 'observing' for a six-gun battery concealed behind a gentle slope
over a mile away to his right rear, and, since the gunners at the
battery could see nothing of the fight, nothing of their target, not
even the burst of a single one of their shells, they depended solely on
their Forward Officer to correct their aim and direct their fire.
All along the front--or rather both the fronts, for the German
batteries worked on exactly the same system--the batteries were pouring
down their shells, and each battery was dependent for the accuracy of
its fire on its own Observing Officer crouching somewhere up in front
and overlooking his battery's 'zone.'
The fighting line surged forward or swayed back, checked and halted,
moved again, now rapidly, now slowly and staggeringly, curved forward
here and dinted in there, striving fiercely to hold its ground in this
place, driving forward in that, or breaking, reeling back into the arms
of the supports, swirling forward with them again. But no matter
whether the lines moved forward or back, fast or slow, raggedly and
unevenly, or in one long close-locked line, ever and always the shells
soared over and burst beyond the line, just far enough barely to clear
it if the fight were at close quarters; reaching out and on a hundred,
two hundred, yards when the fighters drew apart for a moment; always
clear of their own infantry, and as exactly as possible on the fighting
line of the enemy, for such is the essence of 'close and accurate
artillery support.'
The Forward Observing Officer, perched precariously in an angle of the
walls of a ruined cottage, stared through his glasses at the confusion
of the fight for hour after hour until his eyes ached and his vision
swam. The Forward Officer had been there since daybreak, and because
no shells obviously aimed at his station had bombarded him--plenty of
chance ones had come very close, but of course they didn't count--he
was satisfied that he was reasonably secure, and told his Major back at
the Battery so over his telephone. The succession of attack and
counter-attack had ceased for the time being, and the Forward Officer
let his glasses drop and shut his aching eyes for a moment. But,
almost immediately, he had to open them and lift his head carefully, to
peer out over the top of the broken wall; for the sudden crash of
reopening rifle fire warned him that another move was coming. From far
out on his left, beyond the range of his vision, the fire began. It
beat down, wave upon wave, towards his front, crossed it, and went
rolling on beyond his right. The initiative came from the British
side, and, taking it as the prelude of an attack, developing perhaps
out of sight on his left, the Forward Officer called up his Battery and
quickened the rate of its fire upon the German line. In a few minutes
he caught a quick stir in the British line, a glimpse of the row of
khaki figures clambering from their trench and the flickering flash of
their bayonets--and in an instant the flat ground beyond the trench was
covered with running figures. They made a fair target that the German
gunners, rifles, and maxims were quick to leap upon. The German trench
streamed fire, the German shells--shrapnel and high-explosive--blew
gaping rents in the running line. The line staggered and flinched,
halted, recovered, and went on again, leaving the ground behind it
dotted with sprawling figures. The space covered by the Forward
Officer's zone was flat and bare of cover clear to the German trench
two hundred yards away. It was too deadly a stretch for that gallant
line to cover; and before it was half-way across, it faltered again,
hung irresolute, and flung itself prone to ground. The level edge of
the German trench suddenly became serrated with bobbing heads,
flickered with moving figures, and the next moment was hidden by the
swarm of men that leaped from it and came charging across the open.
This line too withered and wilted under the fire that smote it, but it
gathered itself and hurled on again. The Forward Officer called down
the shortening ranges to the guns, and the answering shrapnel fell
fiercely on the German line and tore it to fragments--but the fragments
still advanced. The remnant of the British line rose and flung forward
to meet it, and as the two clashed the supports from either side poured
out to help. As the dense mass of Germans emerged, and knitted into
close formation, the Forward Officer reeled off swift orders to the
telephone. The shrieking tempest of his shells fell upon the mass,
struck and slew wholesale, struck and slew again. The mass shivered
and broke; but although part of it vanished back under the cover of the
trench, although another part lay piled in a wreckage of dead and
wounded, a third part straggled forward and charged into the fight.
The British line was overborne, and pushed struggling back until new
supports brought it fresh life and turned the tide again. The Germans
surviving the charge were killed, wounded, or taken prisoners, and the
Forward Officer, lifting his fire and pouring it on the German trench,
checked for the moment any further rush of reinforcements. The British
line ran forward to a field track running parallel to the trenches and
nearly midway between them, flung itself down to escape the bullets
that stormed across and began, as rapidly as the men's cramped position
would allow, to dig themselves in. To their right and left the field
track sank a foot or two below the surface of the field, and this
scanty but precious shelter had allowed the rest of the line to stop
half-way across and hold on to get its breath and allow a constant
spray of supports to dash across the open and reinforce it. Now, the
centre, where the track ran bare and flat across the field, plied
frantic shovels to heap up some sort of cover that would allow them
also to hang on in conformation of the whole line and gather breath and
reinforcements for the next rush.
The Germans saw plainly enough what was the plan, and took instant
steps to upset it. Their first and best chance was to thrust hard at
the weak and ill-protected centre, overwhelm it and then roll up the
lines to right and left of it.
A tornado of shell fire ushered in the new assault. The shells burst
in running crashes up and down the advanced line, and up and down the
British trench behind it; driving squalls of shrapnel swept the ground
between the two, and, in addition, a storm of rifle and machine-gun
bullets rained along the scanty parapet, whistled and droned and hissed
across the open. And then, suddenly, the assault was launched from all
along the German line.
At the same instant a shell struck the wall of the Forward Officer's
station, burst with a terrific crash, swept three parts of the
remaining wall away in a cloud of shrieking splinters and swirling dust
of brick and plaster, and threw the Forward Officer headlong half a
dozen yards. By some miracle he was untouched. His first thought was
for the telephone--the connecting link with his guns. He scrambled
over the debris to the dug-out or shelter-pit behind his corner and
found telephonist and telephone intact. He dropped on hands and knees
and crawled over the rubble and out beyond the end of the wall, for the
cloud of smoke and plaster and brick-dust still hung heavily about the
ruin. Here, in the open as he was, the air sang like tense
harp-strings to the passage of innumerable bullets, the ground about
his feet danced to their drumming, flicked and spat little spurts of
mud all over him.
But the Forward Officer paid little heed to these things. For one
moment his gaze was riveted horror-stricken on the scene of the fight;
the next he was on his feet, heedless of the singing bullets, heedless
of the roar and crash of another shell that hit the ground and flung a
cart-load of earth and mud whizzing and thumping about him, heedless of
everything except the need to get quickly to the telephone.
'Tell the Battery, Germans advancing--heavy attack on our front!' he
panted to the telephonist, jumped across to his corner, and heaved
himself up into place. The dust had cleared now, so that he could see.
And what he could see made him catch his breath. An almost solid line
of Germans were clear of their trenches and pushing rapidly across the
open on the weak centre. And the Battery's shells were falling behind
the German line and still on their trenches. Swiftly the Forward
Officer began to reel off his corrections of angles and range, and as
the telephonist passed them on gun after gun began to pitch its shells
on the advancing line.
The British rifles were busy too, and their fire rose in one continuous
roar. But the fire was weakest from the thin centre line, the spot
where the attack was heaviest. The guns were in full play again, and
the shells were blasting quick gaps out of the advancing line. But the
line came on. The rifles beat upon it, and a machine-gun on the less
heavily pressed left turned and mowed the Germans down in swathes.
Still the line came on stubbornly. It was broken and ragged now, and
advanced slowly, because the front ranks were constantly melting away
under the British fire. The Forward Officer watched with straining
eyes glued to his glasses. A shell 'whooped' past close over his head,
and burst just beyond him. He neither turned his head nor moved his
glasses. One, two, three, four burst short, and splinters and bullets
sang past him; two more burst overhead, and the shrapnel clashed and
rattled amongst the stone and brick of the ruins. Without moving, the
Forward Officer began to call a fresh string of orders. The rush of
his shells ceased for a moment while the gunners adjusted the new
angles and ranges. 'Number One fired. Two fired. Three, Four, Five,
Six fired, sir,' called the telephonist, and as he spoke there came the
shrieks of the shells, and the white puffs of the bursts low down and
between the prone British line and the advancing Germans.
'Number Three, one-oh minutes more left!' shouted the Forward Officer.
'Number Five, add twenty-five--repeat.'
Again came the running bursts and puffing white smoke, and satisfied
this time with their line, position, and distance, the Forward Officer
shouted for 'Gun-fire,' jumped down and across to the telephonist's
shelter-pit.
'I'm putting a belt of fire just ahead of our line,' he shouted,
curving his fingers about his lips and the mouthpiece in an attempt to
shut out the uproar about them. 'If they can come through it we're
done--infantry can't hold 'em. Give me every round you can, and as
fast as you can, please.' He ran back to his place. A cataract of
shells poured their shrapnel down along a line of which the nearest
edge was a bare twenty yards from the British front. The Forward
Officer fixed his eyes on the string of white smoke-puffs with their
centre of winking flame that burst and burst and burst unceasingly. If
one showed out of its proper place he shouted to the telephonist and
named the delinquent gun, and asked for the lay and fuse-setting to be
checked.
The advancing Germans reached at last the strip of ground where his
shrapnel hailed and lashed, reached the strip and pushed into it--but
not past it. Up to the shrapnel zone the advance could press; through,
it could not. Under the shrapnel nothing could live. It swept the
ground in driving gust on gust, swept and besomed it bare of life.
Here and there, in ones and twos and little knots and groups, the
Germans strove desperately to push on. They came as far as that deadly
fire belt; and in ones and twos and little knots and groups they stayed
there and died. Supports hurried up and hurled themselves in, and a
spasm of fresh strength and fury lifted the line and heaved it forward.
So far the fire of its fury brought it; and there the hosing shrapnel
met it, swept down and washed it away, and beat it out to the last
spark and the last man.
But from the German trenches another assault was forming, from the
German batteries another squall of shell-fire smote the British line;
and to his horror, the Forward Officer saw his own shells coming slower
and slower, the smoke-bursts growing irregular and slower again. He
leaped down and rushed to the telephone.
Back in the Battery the telephone wires ran into a dug-out that was the
brain-centre of the guns, and from here the Forward Officer's
directions emerged and were translated to the gunners through the
Battery Commander and the Battery Sergeant-Major's megaphone.
All the morning the gunners followed those orders blindly, sluing the
hot gun-muzzles a fraction this way or that, making minute adjustments
on sights and range drums and shell fuses. They could see no glimpse
of the fight, but, more or less accurately, they could follow its
varying fortunes and trace its movements by the orders that came
through to them. When they had to send their shells further back, the
enemy obviously were being pressed back; when the fire had to be
brought closer the enemy were closer. An urgent call for rapid fire
with an increasing range meant our infantry attacking; with a lessening
range, their being attacked.
Occasionally the Battery Commander passed to the Section Commanders
items of news from the Forward Officer, and they in turn told the
'Numbers One' in charge of the guns, and the gun detachments.
Such a message was passed along when the Forward Officer telephoned
news of the heavy pressure on the weakened centre. Every man in the
Battery knew what was expected, and detachment vied with detachment in
the speedy correcting of aim and range, and the rapid service of their
guns. When the order came for a round of 'Battery fire'--which calls
for the guns to fire in their turn from right to left--one gun was a
few seconds late in reporting ready, and every other man at every other
gun fretted and chafed impatiently as if each second had been an hour.
At another message from the Forward Officer the Battery Commander
called for Section Commanders. The Sergeant-Major clapped megaphone to
mouth and shouted, and two young subalterns and a sergeant jumped from
their places, and raced for the dug-out. The Major spoke rapidly and
tersely. 'We are putting down a belt of shrapnel in front of our own
infantry--very close to them. You know what that means--the most
careful and exact laying and fusing, and fire as hot and heavy as you
can make it. The infantry can't hold 'em. They're depending on us;
the line depends on us. Tell your men so. Be off, now.' The three
saluted, whirled on their heels, and were off. They told their men,
and the men strained every nerve to answer adequately to the call upon
them. The rate of fire worked up faster and faster. Between the
thunder-claps of the gun the Sergeant-Major's megaphone bellowed,
'Number Six, check your lay.' Number Six missed the message, but the
nearest gun caught the word and passed it along. The Section Commander
heard, saluted to show he had heard and understood, and ran himself to
check the layer's aim.
Up to now the Battery had worked without coming under any serious fire.
There were always plenty of rifle bullets coming over, and an
occasional one of the shells that roared constantly past or over fell
amongst the guns. A few men had been wounded, and one had been killed,
and that was all.
Then, quite suddenly, a tempest of high-explosive shell rained down on
the battery, in front of, behind, over, and amongst the guns.
Instinctively the men hesitated in their work, but the next instant the
voices of the Section Commanders brought them to themselves. There
were shelter-pits and dug-outs close by, and, without urgent need of
their fire, the guns might be left while the gunners took cover till
the storm was over. But there could be no thought of that now, while
the picture was in everyone's mind of the infantry out there being hard
pressed and overborne by the weight of the assault. So the gunners
stayed by their guns and loaded, laid, and fired as fast as they could
serve their pieces. The gun shields give little or no protection from
high-explosive shells, because these burst overhead and fling their
fragments straight down, burst in rear, and hurl jagged splinters
outwards in every direction. The men were as open and unprotected to
them as bare flesh is to bullet or cold steel; but they knelt or sat in
their places, and pushed their work into a speed that was only limited
by the need for absolute accuracy.
A shell burst close in rear of Number One gun, and the whirlwind of
splinters and bullets struck down half the detachment at a blow. The
fallen men were lifted clear, the remaining gunners took up their
appointed share of the lost men's duties, a shell was slung in, the
breech slammed shut, the firing-lever jerked--and Number One gun was in
action again and firing almost as fast as before. The sergeant in
charge of another gun was killed instantaneously by a shrapnel bullet
in the head. His place was taken by the next senior before the last
convulsive tremors had passed through the dead man's muscles; and the
gun kept on without missing a round.
The shell-fire grew more and more intense. The air was thick and
choking with smoke and chemical fumes, and vibrant with the rush and
shriek, of the shells, the hum of bullets, and the ugly whirr of
splinters, the crash of impacting shells, and ear-splitting crack of
the guns' discharge, the 'r-r-rupp' of shrapnel on the wet ground, the
metallic clang of bullets and steel fragments on the gun-shields and
mountings. But through all the inferno the gunners worked on, swiftly
but methodically. After each shot the layers glared anxiously into the
eye-piece of their sights and made minute movements of elevating and
traversing wheels, the men at the range-drums examined them carefully
and readjusted them exactly, the fuse-setters twisted the rings marking
the fuse's time of burning until they were correct literally to a
hair-line; every man working as if the gun were shooting for a
prize-competition cup. Their care, as well as their speed, was needed;
for, more than any cup, good men's lives were at stake and hanging on
their close and accurate shooting. For if the sights were a shade to
right or left of their 'aiming point,' if the range were shortened by a
fractional turn of the drum, if a fuse was wrongly set to one of the
scores of tiny marks on its ring, that shell might fall on the British
line, take toll of the lives of friend instead of foe, go to break down
the hard-pressed British resistance instead of upholding it.
Man after man was hit by shell splinter or bullet, but no man left his
place unless he was too badly injured to carry on. The seriously
wounded dragged themselves clear as best they could and crawled to any
cover from the bursting shells; the dead lay where they fell. The
detachments were reduced to skeleton crews. One Section Commander laid
and fired a gun; another, with a smashed thigh, sat and set fuses until
he fainted from loss of blood and from pain. The Battery Commander
took the telephone himself and sent the telephonist to help the guns;
and when a bursting shell tore out one side of the sandbags of the
dug-out the Battery Commander rescued himself and the instrument from
the wreckage, mended the broken wire, and sat in the open, alternately
listening at the receiver and yelling exhortation and advice to the
gunners through the Sergeant-Major's megaphone. The Sergeant-Major had
gone on the run to round up every available man, and brought back at
the double the Battery cooks, officers' grooms, mess orderlies and
servants. The slackening fire of the Battery spurted again and ran up
to something like its own rate. And the Major cheered the men on to a
last effort, shouting the Forward Officer's message that the attack was
failing, was breaking, was being wiped out mainly by the Battery's fire.
And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the tornado of shell-fire about
them ceased, shifted its storm-centre, and fell roaring and crashing
and hammering on an empty hedge and ditch a full three hundred yards
away.
And at the same moment the Major shouted exultingly. 'They're done!'
he bellowed down the megaphone; 'they're beat! The attack--and he fell
back on the Forward Officer's own words--'the attack is blotted out.'
Whereat the panting gunners cheered faintly and short-windedly, and
took contentedly the following string of orders to lengthen the range
and slacken the rate of fire. And the Battery made shift to move its
dead from amongst the gun and wagon wheels, to bandage and tie up its
wounded with 'first field dressings,' to shuffle and sort the
detachments and redistribute the remaining men in fair proportion
amongst the remaining guns, to telephone the Brigade Headquarters to
ask for stretcher-bearers and ambulance, and more shells--doing it all,
as it were, with one hand while the other kept the guns going, and the
shells pounding down their appointed paths.
For the doing of two or more things at once, and doing them rapidly,
exactly, and efficiently, the while in addition highly unpleasant
things are being done to them, is all a part of the Gunners' game of
'close and accurate artillery support.'
'NOTHING TO REPORT'
'_On the Western Front there is nothing to report. All remains
quiet._'--OFFICIAL DESPATCH.
The 7th (Territorial) King's Own Asterisks had 'taken over' their
allotted portion of the trenches and were settling themselves in for
the night. When the two facts are taken in conjunction that it was an
extremely unpleasant night, cold, wet and bleak, and the 7th were
thoroughly happy and would not have exchanged places with any other
battalion in Flanders, it will be very plain to those who know their
Front that the 7th K.O.A. were exceedingly new to the game. They were:
and actually this was their first spell of duty in the forward firing
trenches.
They had been out for some weeks, weary weeks, filled with the digging
of communication trenches well behind the firing trenches, with drills
and with various 'fatigues' of what they considered a navvying rather
than a military nature. But every task piled upon their reluctant
shoulders had been performed promptly and efficiently, and now at last
they were enjoying the reward of their zeal--a turn in the forward
trenches.
The men were unfeignedly pleased with themselves, with the British
Army, and with the whole world. The non-coms, were anxious and
desperately keen to see everything in apple-pie order. The Company
officers were inclined to be fidgety, and the O.C. was worried and
concerned to the verge of nerves. He pored over the trench maps that
had been handed to him, he imagined assaults delivered on this point
and that, hurried, at the point of the pencil, his supports along
various blue and red lines to the threatened angles of the wriggly line
that represented the forward trench, drew lines from his machine-gun
emplacements to the red-inked crosses of the German wire entanglements,
frowned and cogitated over the pencil crosses placed by the O.C. of the
relieved battalion where the lurking-places of German maxims were
suspected. Afterwards he made a long and exhaustive tour of the muddy
trenches, concealing his anxiety from the junior officers, and speaking
lightly and cheerfully to them--following therein truly and
instinctively the first principle of all good commanders to show the
greater confidence as they feel it the less. He returned to the
Battalion Headquarters, situated in a very grimy cellar of a
shell-wrecked house behind the support trenches, and partook of a
belated dinner of tinned food flavoured with grit and plaster dust.
The signallers were established with their telephones at the foot of
the stone stair outside the cellar door, and into this cramped
'exchange' ran the telephone wires from the companies in the trenches
and from the Brigade Headquarters a mile or two back. Every word that
the signallers spoke was plainly heard in the cellar, and every time
the Colonel heard 'Hello! Yes, this is H.Q.,' he sat motionless
waiting to hear what message was coming through. When his meal was
finished he resisted an impulse to 'phone' all the forward trenches,
asking how things were, unlaced his boots, paused, and laced them up
again, lay down on a very gritty mattress in a corner of the cellar,
and tried to sleep. For the first hour every rattle of rifle fire,
every thud of a gun, every call on the telephone brought him up on his
pillow, his ears straining to catch any further sound. After about the
tenth alarm he reasoned the matter out with himself something after
this fashion:--
'The battalion is occupying a position that has not been attacked for
weeks, and it is disposed as other Regular battalions have been, and no
more and no less effectually than they. There isn't an officer or man
in the forward trenches who cannot be fully trusted to keep a look-out
and to resist an attack to the last breath. There is no need to worry
or keep awake, and to do so is practically admitting a distrust of the
7th K.O.A. I trust them fully, and therefore I ought to go to sleep.'
Whereupon the Colonel sat up, took off his wet boots, lay down again,
resolutely closed his eyes--and remained wide awake for the rest of the
night.
But if there be any who feel inclined to smile at the nervousness of an
elderly, stoutish, and constitutionally easy-going Colonel of
Territorials, I would remind them of a few facts. The Colonel had
implicit faith in the stout-heartedness, the spirit, the fighting
quality of his battalion. He had had the handling and the training of
them ever since mobilisation, and he knew every single man of them as
well as they knew themselves. They had done everything asked of them
and borne light-heartedly rough quarters, bad weather, hard duties.
But--and one must admit it a big and serious 'but'--to-night might be
their real and their first testing in the flame and fire of War.
Even as no man knows how he will feel and behave under fire, until he
has been under fire, so no regiment or battalion knows. The men were
razor-keen for action, but that very keenness might lead them into a
rashness, a foolhardiness, which would precipitate action. The Colonel
believed they would stand and fight to the last gasp and die to the
last man rather than yield a yard of their trench. He believed that of
them even as he believed it of himself--but he did not know it of them
any more than he knew it of himself. Men, apparently every bit as good
as him, had before now developed some 'white streak,' some folly, some
stupidity, in the stress and strain of action. Other regiments,
apparently as sound as his, had in the records of history failed or
broken in a crisis. He and his were new and untried, and military
commanders for innumerable ages had doubted and mistrusted new and
untried troops.
Well . . . he had done his best, and at least the next twenty-four
hours should show him how good or how bad that best had been. But
meantime let no one blame him for his anxiety or nervousness.
And meantime the 7th Asterisks, serenely unaware of their Commanding
Officer's worry and doubt--and to be fair to them and to him it must be
stated that they would have flouted scornfully any suggestion that he
had held them--joyfully set about the impossible task of making
themselves comfortable, and the congenial one of making the enemy
extremely uncomfortable. The sentries were duly posted, and spent an
entirely unnecessary proportion of their time peering over the parapet.
There were more Verey pistol lights burnt during the night than would
have sufficed a trench-hardened battalion for a month, and the Germans
opposite, having in hand a little job of adding to their barbed-wire
defences, were puzzled and rather annoyed by the unwonted display of
fireworks. They foolishly vented their annoyance by letting off a few
rounds of rapid fire at the opposition, and the 7th Asterisks eagerly
accepted the challenge, manned their parapets and proceeded to pour a
perfect hurricane of fire back to the challengers. The Germans, with
the exception of about a dozen picked sharp-shooting snipers, ceased to
fire and took careful cover.
The snipers, daring the Asterisks' three minutes of activity, succeeded
in scoring seven hits, and the Asterisks found themselves in possession
of a casualty list of one killed and six wounded before the Company and
platoon commanders had managed to stop the shooting and get the men
down under cover.
When the shooting had ceased and the casualties had been cleared out on
their way to the dressing station, the Asterisks recharged their
rifle-magazines and spent a good hour discussing the incident, those
men who had been beside the casualties finding themselves and their
narratives of how it happened in great demand.
And one of the casualties, having insisted, when his slight wound was
dressed, on returning to the trench, had to deliver a series of
lecturettes on what it felt like, what the Medical said, how the other
fellows were, how the dressing station was worked, and similar
subjects, with pantomimic illustrations of how he was holding his rifle
when the bullet came through the loophole, and how he was still fully
capable of continuing to hold it.
A heavy shower dispersed the audiences, those of the men who were free
to do so returning to muddy and leaky dug-outs, and the remainder
taking up their positions at the parapet. There was as much chance of
these latter standing on their heads as there was of their going to
sleep, but the officers made so many visiting rounds to be certain of
their sentries' wakefulness, and spent so long on each round and on the
fascinating peeps over into 'the neutral ground,' that the end of one
round was hardly completed before it was time to begin the next.
Occasionally the Germans sent up a flare, and every man and officer of
the K.O.A. who was awake stared out through the loopholes in
expectation of they knew not what. They also fired off a good many
'pistol lights,' and it was nearly 4 A.M. before the Germans ventured
to send out their working-party over the parapet. Once over, they
followed the usual routine, throwing themselves flat in the mud and
rank grass when a light flared up and remaining motionless until it
died out, springing to silent and nervous activity the instant darkness
fell, working mostly by sense of touch, and keeping one eye always on
the British parapet for the first hint of a soaring light.
The 'neutral ground' between the trenches was fairly thickly scattered
over with dead, the majority of them German, and it was easy enough for
an extra score or so of men, lying prone and motionless as the dead
themselves, to be overlooked in the shifting light. The work was
proceeding satisfactorily and was almost completed when a mischance led
to the exposure of the party.
One of the workers was in the very act of crawling over the parapet
when a British light flared. Half-way over he hesitated one moment
whether to leap back or forward, then hurriedly leapt down in front of
the parapet and flung himself flat on his face. He was just too late.
The lights revealed him exactly as he leapt, and a wildly excited
King's Own Asterisk pulled back the cut-off of his magazine and opened
rapid fire, yelling frenziedly at the same time that they were
coming--were coming--were attacking--were charging--look out!
Every K.O.A. on his feet lost no time in joining in the 'mad minute'
and every K.O.A. who had been asleep or lying down was up in a
twinkling and blazing over the parapet before his eyes were properly
opened. The machine-gun detachment were more circumspect if no less
eager. The screen before the wide loophole was jerked away and the fat
barrel of the maxim peered out and swung smoothly from side to side,
looking for a fair mark.
It had not long to wait. The German working-party 'stuck it out' for a
couple of minutes, but with light after light flaming into the sky and
exposing them pitilessly, with the British trench crackling and
spitting fire from end to end, with the bullets hissing and whistling
over them, and hailing thick amongst them, their nerves gave and broke;
in a frantic desire for life and safety they flung away the last chance
of life and safety their prone and motionless position gave them.
They scrambled to their feet, a score of long-cloaked, crouching
figures, glaringly plain and distinct in the vivid light, and turned to
run for their trench. The sheeting bullets caught half a dozen and
dropped them before they had well stood up, stumbled another two or
three over before they could stir a couple of paces, went on cutting
down the remainder swiftly and mercilessly. The remainder ran,
stumbling and tripping and staggering, their legs hampered by their
long coats, their feet clogged and slipping in the wet, greasy mud.
The eye glaring behind the swinging sights of the maxim caught that
clear target of running figures, the muzzle began to jet forth a stream
of fire and hissing bullets, the cartridge belt to click, racing
through the breach.
The bullets cut a path of flying mud-splashes across the bare ground to
the runners, played a moment about their feet, then lifted and swept
across and across--once, twice, thrice. On the first sweep the
thudding bullets found their targets, on the second they still caught
some of them, on the third they sang clear across and into the parapet,
for no figures were left to check their flight. The working party was
wiped out.
It took the excited riflemen another minute or two to realise that
there was nothing left to shoot at except an empty parapet and some
heaps of huddled forms; but the pause to refill the empty magazines
steadied them, and then the fire died away.
The whole thing was over so quickly that the rifle fire had practically
ceased before the Artillery behind had time to get to work, and by the
time they had flung a few shells to burst in thunder and lightning roar
and flash over the German parapet, the storm of rifle fire had
slackened and passed. Hearing it die away, the gunners also stopped,
reloaded, and laid their pieces, waited the reports of their Forward
Officers, and on receiving them turned into their dug-outs and their
blankets again.
But the batteries covering the front held by the Asterisks remained by
their guns and continued to throw occasional rounds into the German
trenches. Their Forward Officers had passed on the word received from
the Asterisks of a sharp attack quickly beaten back--that being the
natural conclusion drawn from that leaping figure on the parapet and
the presence of Germans in the open--and the guns kept up a slow rate
of fire more with the idea of showing the enemy that the defence was
awake and waiting for them than of breaking up another possible attack.
The battalions of Regulars to either side of the Asterisks had more
correctly diagnosed the situation as 'false alarm' or 'ten rounds rapid
on working parties,' and their supporting Artillery did no more than
carry on their usual night firing.
The result of it all was that the Asterisks throughout the night
enjoyed the spectacle of some very pretty artillery fire in the dark on
and over the trenches facing them, and also the much less pleasing one
of German shells bursting in the British trenches, and especially in
those of the K.O.A. They had the heaviest share on the simple and
usual principle of retaliation, whereby if our Section A of trenches is
shelled we shell the German section facing it, and _vice versa_.
The fire was by no means heavy as artillery fire goes these days, and
at first the Asterisks were not greatly disturbed by it. But even a
rate of three or four shells every ten or fifteen minutes is galling,
and necessitates the keeping of close cover or the loss of a fair
number of men. It took half a dozen casualties to impress firmly on
the Asterisks the need of keeping cover. Shell casualties have an
extremely ugly look, and some of the Asterisks felt decidedly squeamish
at sight of theirs--especially of one where the casualty had to be
collected piece by piece, and removed in a sack.
For an hour before dawn the battalion 'stood to,' lining the trench
with loaded rifles ready after the usual and accepted fashion,
shivering despite their warm clothing and mufflers, and woollen caps
and thick great-coats in the raw-edged cold of the breaking day. For
an hour they stood there listening to the whine of overhead bullets and
the sharp 'slap' of well-aimed ones in the parapet, the swish and crash
of shells, the distant patter of rifle fire and the boom of the guns.
That hour is perhaps always the worst of the twenty-four. The rousing
from sleep, the turning out from warm or even from wet blankets, the
standing still in a water-logged trench, with everything--fingers and
clothes and rifle and trench-sides--cold and wet and clammy to the
touch, and smeared with sticky mud and clay, all combine to make the
morning 'stand to arms' an experience that no amount of repetition ever
accustoms one to or makes more bearable.
Even the Asterisks, fresh and keen and enthusiastic as they were, with
all the interest that novelty gave to the proceedings, found the hour
long-drawn and trying; and it was with intense relief that they saw the
frequently consulted watches mark the finish of the time, and received
the word to break off from their vigil.
They set about lighting fires and boiling water for tea, and frying a
meagre bacon ration in their mess-tin lids, preparing and eating their
breakfast. The meal over, they began on their ordinary routine work of
daily trench life.
Picked men were told off as snipers to worry and harass the enemy.
They were posted at loopholes and in various positions that commanded a
good outlook, and they fired carefully and deliberately at loopholes in
the enemy parapet, at doors and windows of more or less wrecked
buildings in rear of the German lines, at any and every head or hand
that showed above the German parapet. In the intervals of firing they
searched through their glasses every foot of parapet, every yard of
ground, every tree or bush, hayrick or broken building that looked a
likely spot to make cover for a sniper on the other side. If their eye
caught the flash of a rifle, the instantly vanishing spurt of haze or
hot air--too thin and filmy to be called smoke--that spot was marked
down, long and careful search made for the hidden sniper, and a sort of
Bisley 'disappearing target' shoot commenced, until the opponent was
either hit or driven to abandon his position.
The enemy's snipers were, of course, playing exactly the same game, and
either because they were more adept at it, or because the Asterisks'
snipers were more reluctant to give up a position after it was
'spotted' and hung on gamely, determined to fight it out, a slow but
steady tally was added to the Asterisks' casualty list.
Along the firing and communication trenches parties set to work of
various sorts, bailing out water from the trench bottom, putting in
brushwood or brick foundations, building up and strengthening dug-outs
and parapets, filling sandbags in readiness for night work and repairs
on any portion damaged by shell fire.
By now they were learning to keep well below the parapet, not to linger
in portions of the communication trench that were enfiladed by
shrapnel, to stoop low and pass quickly at exposed spots where the
snipers waited a chance to catch an unwary head. They had learned to
press close and flat against the face of the trench or to get well down
at the first hint of the warning rush of an approaching shell; they
were picking up neatly and quickly all the worst danger spots and
angles and corners to be avoided except in time of urgent need.
One thing more was needed to complete their education in the routine of
trench warfare, and the one thing came about noon just as the Asterisks
were beginning to feel pleasant anticipations of the dinner hour. A
faint and rather insignificant 'bang' sounded out in front. The
Asterisks never even noticed it, but next moment when something fell
with a thudding 'splosh' on the wet ground behind the trench the men
nearest the spot lifted their heads and stared curiously. Another
instant and with a thunderous roar and a leaping cloud of thick smoke
the bomb burst. The men ducked hastily, but one or two were not quick
enough or lucky enough to escape, although at that short distance they
were certainly lucky in escaping with nothing worse than flesh wounds
from the fragments of old iron, nails and metal splinters that whirled
outwards in a circle from the bursting bomb. Everyone heard the second
shot and many saw the bomb come over in a high curve.
As it dropped it appeared to be coming straight down into the trench
and every man had an uncomfortable feeling that the thing was going to
fall directly on him. Actually it fell short and well out in front of
the trench and only a few splinters and a shower of earth whizzed over
harmlessly high.
The third was another 'over' and the fourth another 'short' and the
Asterisks, unaware of the significance of the closing-in 'bracket'
began to feel relief and a trifle of contempt for this clumsy
slow-moving and visible missile. Their relief and contempt vanished
for ever when the fifth bomb fell exactly in the trench, burst with a
nerve-shattering roar, and filled the air with whistling fragments and
dense choking, blinding smoke and stench.
Having got their range and angle accurately, the Germans proceeded to
hurl bomb after bomb with the most horrible exactness and persistency.
For two hundred yards up and down the trench there was no escape from
the blast of the bursts. It was no good crouching low, or flattening
up against the parapet; for the bombs dropped straight down and struck
out backwards and sideways and in every direction.
Even the roofed-in dug-outs gave no security. A bomb that fell just
outside the entrance of one dug-out, riddled one man lying inside, and
blew another who was crouching in the entrance outwards bodily across
the trench, stunning him with the shock and injuring him in a score of
places. Plenty of the bombs fell short of the trench, but too many
fell fairly in it. When one did so there was only one thing to do--to
throw oneself violently down in the mud of the trench bottom, and wait,
heart in mouth, for the crash of the explosion.
The Artillery, on being appealed to, pounded the front German trench
for an hour, but made no impression on the trench-mortar. The O.C. of
the Asterisks telephoned the Brigade asking what he was to do to stop
the torment and destruction, and in reply was told he ought to bomb
back at the bomb-throwers. But the Asterisks had already tried that
without any success. The distance was too great for hand bombs to
reach, and the men appeared to make poor shooting with the rifle
grenades.
'Why not try the trench-mortar?' asked the Brigade; to which the
harassed Colonel replied conclusively because he didn't possess one,
hadn't a bomb for one, and hadn't a man or officer who knew how to use
one.
The Brigade apparently learnt this with surprise, and replied vaguely
that steps would be taken, and that an officer and detachment of his
battalion must receive a course of instruction.
The Colonel replied with spirit that he was glad to hear all this, but
in the meantime what was he to do to prevent his battalion being blown
piecemeal out of their trenches?
It all ended eventually in the arrival of a trench-mortar and a pile of
bombs from somewhere and a very youthful and very much annoyed
Artillery subaltern from somewhere else. The Colonel was most
enormously relieved by these arrivals, but his high hopes were a good
deal dashed by the artilleryman.
That youth explained that he was in effect totally ignorant of
trench-mortars and their ways, that he had been shown the thing a week
ago, had it explained to him--so far as such a rotten toy could be
explained--and had fired two shots from it. However, he said briskly,
if off-handedly, he was ready to have a go with it and see what he
could do.
The trench-mortar was carried down to the forward trench, and on the
way down behind it the youngster discoursed to the O.C. of the
Asterisks on the 'awful rot' of a gunner officer being chased off on to
a job like this--any knowledge of gunnery being entirely superfluous
and, indeed, wasted on such a kid's toy. And the O.C., looking at the
trench-mortar being prepared, made a mental remark about 'the mouths of
babes' and the wise words thereof.
The weapon is easily described. It was a mere cylinder of cast iron,
closed at one end, open at the other, and with a roomy 'touch-hole' at
the closed end. The carriage consisted of two uprights on a base, with
mortar between them and pointing up at an angle of about forty-five
degrees.
The charge was little packets of gunpowder tied up in paper in measured
doses. The bomb was a tin-can--an empty jam-tin, mostly--filled with a
bursting charge and fragments of metal, and with an inch or so of the
fuse protruding.
The piece was loaded by throwing a few packets of powder into the
muzzle, poking them with a piece of stick to burst the paper, and
carefully sliding the bomb down on top of the charge. A length of fuse
was poked into the touch-hole and the end lit, sufficient length being
given to allow the lighter to get round the nearest corner before the
mortar fired.
The whole thing was too rubbishy and cheaply and roughly made to have
been fit for use as a 'kid's toy,' as the subaltern called it. To
imagine it being used as a weapon of precision in a war distinguished
above all others as one of scientifically perfect weapons and
implements was ridiculous beyond words.
The Colonel watched the business of loading and laying with amazement
and consternation.
'Is it possible to--er--hit anything with that?' he asked.
'Well, more or less,' said the youthful subaltern doubtfully. 'There's
a certain amount of luck about it, I believe.'
'But why on earth,' said the Colonel, beginning to wax indignant, 'do
they send such a museum relic here to fight a reasonably accurate and
decidedly destructive mortar?'
The subaltern chuckled.
'That's not any museum antique,' he said. 'That's a Mortar, Trench,
Mark Something or other--the latest, the most modern weapon of the kind
in the British Army. It was made, I believe, in the Royal Arsenal, and
it is still being made and issued for use in the field--the Engineers
collecting the empty jam-pots and converting them to bombs. They've
only had four or five months, y'see, to evolve a---- look out, sir!
Here's one of theirs!'
The resulting explosion flung a good deal of mud over the parapet on to
the Colonel and the subaltern, and raised the youth to wrath.
'Beasts!' he said angrily, and poked a length of fuse in the
touch-hole. 'Get away round the traverse!' he ordered the mob near
him. 'And you'd better go, too, sir--as I will when I've touched her
off. Y'see, she's just as liable to explode as not, and, if she does,
she'd make more mess in this trench than I can ever hope she will in a
German one.'
The Colonel retired round the nearest traverse, and next moment the
lieutenant plunged round after him just as the mortar went off with a
resounding bang. Every man in the trench watched the bomb rise,
twirling and twisting, and fall again, turning end over end towards the
German trench.
At about the moment he judged it should burst, the lieutenant poked his
head up over the parapet, but bobbed down hurriedly as a couple of
bullets sang past his ear.
'Pretty nippy lot across there!' he said. 'I must find a loophole to
observe from. And p'r'aps you'd tell some of your people to keep up a
brisk fire on that parapet to stop 'em aiming too easy at me. Now
we'll try another.'
At the next bang from the opposite trench he risked another quick peep
over and this time ducked down with an exclamation of delight.
'I've spotted him.' he said. 'Just caught the haze of his smoke. Down
the trench about fifty yards. So we'll try trail-left a piece--or
would if this old drain-pipe had a trail.'
He relaid his mortar carefully, and fired again. Having no sights or
arrangement whatever for laying beyond a general look over the line of
its barrel and a pinch more or less of powder in the charge, it can
only be called a piece of astounding good luck that the jam-pot bomb
fell almost fairly on the top of the German mortar. There was a most
satisfying uproar and eddying volume of smoke and eruption of earth,
and the lieutenant stared through a loophole dumb-founded with delight.
'I'll swear,' he said, 'that our old Plum-and-Apple pot never made a
burst that big. I do believe it must have flopped down on the other
fellow and blown up one or two of his bombs same time. I say, isn't
that the most gorgeous good luck? Well, good enough to go on with.
We'll have a chance for some peaceful practice now?'
Apparently, since the other mortar ceased to fire, it must have been
put out of action, and the lieutenant spent a useful hour pot-shotting
at the other trench.
The shooting was, to say the least, erratic. With apparently the same
charge and the same tilt on the mortar, one bomb would drop yards short
and another yards over. If one in three went within three yards of the
trench, if one in six fell in the trench, it was, according to the
lieutenant, a high average, and as much as any man had a right to
expect. But at the end of the hour, the Asterisks, who had been hugely
enjoying the performance, and particularly the cessation of German
bombs, were horrified to hear a double report from the German trench,
and to see two dark blobs fall twinkling from the sky.
The following hour was a nightmare. Their trench-mortar was completely
out-shot. Those fiendish bombs rained down one after the other along
the trench, burst in devastating circles of flame and smoke and
whirling metal here, there, and everywhere.
The lieutenant replied gallantly. A dozen times he had to shift
position, because he was obviously located, and was being deliberately
bombarded.
But at last the gunner officer had to retire from the contest. His
mortar showed distinct signs of going to pieces--the muzzle-end having
begun to split and crack, and the breech-end swelling in a
dangerous-looking bulge.
'Look at her,' said the lieutenant disgustedly. 'Look at her opening
out an' unfolding herself like a split-lipped ox-eyed daisy. Anyhow,
this is my last bomb, so the performance must close down till we get
some more jam-pots loaded up.'
The enemy mortars were evidently of better make, for they continued to
bombard the suffering Asterisks for another full hour. They did a fair
amount of damage to the trench and parapet, and the Germans seized the
opportunity of the Asterisks' attempted repairs to put in some maxim
practice and a few rounds of shrapnel.
Altogether, the 7th King's Own Asterisks had a lively twenty-four hours
of it, and their casualties were heavy, far beyond the average of an
ordinary day's trench work. Forty-seven they totalled in all--nine
killed and thirty-six wounded.
They were relieved that night, this short spell being designed as a
sort of introduction or breaking in or blooding to the game.
Taking it all round, the Asterisks were fully pleased with themselves.
Their Colonel had complimented them on their behaviour, and they spent
the next few days back in the reserve, speculating on what the papers
would say about them. The optimists were positive they would have a
full column at least.
'We beat on an attack,' they said. 'There's sure to be a bit in about
that. And look at the way we were shelled, and our Artillery shelled
back. There was a pretty fair imitation of a first-class battle for a
bit, and most likely there would have been one if we hadn't scuppered
that attack. And don't forget the bombing we stuck out--and the
casualties. Doesn't every one tell us they were extra heavy? And I
believe we are about the first Terrier lot to be in a heavy "do" in the
forward trenches. You see--it'll be a column at least, and may be two.'
The pessimists declared that two or three paragraphs were all they
could expect, on account of the silly fashion of not publishing details
of engagements. 'And whatever mention we do get,' they said, 'won't
say a word about the K.O.A. It'll just be a "battalion," or maybe "a
Territorial battalion," and no more.'
'Anyway,' said the optimists, 'we'll be able to write home to our
people and our pals, and tell them it was us, though the despatches
don't mention us by name.'
But optimists and pessimists alike grabbed the papers that came to hand
each day, and searched eagerly for the Eye-witness' reports, or the
official despatch or communiqué. At last there reached them the paper
with the communiqué dated the day after their day in the trenches.
They stared at it, and then hurried over the other pages, turned back,
and examined them carefully one by one. There were columns and columns
about a strike and other purely domestic matters at home, but not a
word about the 7th Kings Own Asterisks (Territorial), not a word about
their nine dead and thirty-six wounded--not a word; and, more than
that, barely a word about the Army, or the Front, or the War.
'There might be no bloomin' war at all to look at this paper,' said one
in disgust. 'There's plenty about speeding-up the factories (an' it's
about time they speeded up some one to make something better'n that
drain-pipe or jam-pot bomb we saw), plenty about those loafin' swine at
home, but not a bloomin' word about us 'ere. It makes me fair sick.'
'P'raps there wasn't time to get it in,' suggested one of the most
persistent optimists. 'P'raps they'll have it in to-morrow.'
'P'raps,' said the disgusted one contemptuously, 'an' p'raps not. Look
at the date of that despatch. Isn't that for the day we was in the
thick of it? An' look what it says. Don't that make you sick?'
And in truth it did make them 'sick.' For their night and day of
fighting--their defeat of an attack, their suffering under shell,
bullet, and bomb, their nine killed and their thirty-six wounded--were
all ignored and passed by.
The despatch for that day said simply: 'On the Western Front there is
nothing to report. All remains quiet.'