to pack our surplus kit, and have it at the Quartermaster's Stores at
a certain time. We drew a long breath. This meant that the actual
date, which up to the present had been somewhat indefinite, was close
at hand. We were given orders to draw our tanks and the whole Company
was marched over to work sheds about two miles away at E----, where
tanks and stores were issued.
The variety and number of little things which it is necessary to draw
when fitting out a tank for action is inconceivable. Tools, small
spares, Pyrenes, electric lamps, clocks, binoculars, telescopes,
petrol and oil funnels, oil squirts, grease guns, machine guns,
headlights, tail lamps, steel hawsers, crowbars, shovels, picks,
inspection lamps, and last, but not least, ammunition. The field-gun
ammunition has to be taken out of its boxes and placed in the shell
racks inside the tank. The S.A.A. (small arms ammunition) must be
removed from its boxes and stacked away. At the same time every single
round, before being put into the drum, must be gauged. All this has to
be done in the last two or three days, and everything must be checked
and countersigned. There is always a great deal of fun for Tank
Commanders in drawing their stores. It is a temptation, when in the
midst of all these thousands of articles, to seize the opportunity,
when no one is looking, to pocket a few extra spares and dainty little
tools, not, of course, for one's own personal benefit, but simply
because such things are always being lost or stolen, and it is
exasperating, to say the least, to find one's self, at a critical
moment, without some article which it is impossible to duplicate at
the time.
During these last few days it was a continual march for the men from
B---- to E----. Very often they were called back when their day's work
was over to draw some new article or make some alteration which had
been forgotten at the time they were in the workshops.
At last, however,--on the third day following the grand concert,--the
kits were packed, loaded on to the lorries, and sent off to E----. The
troops said "Good-bye" to the village which had been such a happy home
and school during that winter of 1916, and the officers made their
fond adieus to the mothers and daughters of the houses in which they
had been billeted.
The companies formed up and marched along to the workshops. Every one
was in high spirits, and there was a friendly race to see which
Company of the Battalion could load up their tanks in the shortest
time on to the specially constructed steel trucks.
A few days before all these activities commenced, Talbot and another
Tank Commander had gone on to the tanks' ultimate destination, A----,
a village which had been evacuated a few days before by the Germans on
their now famous retirement to the Hindenburg Line. It was a most
extraordinary sight to ride along the road from Albert to Bapaume,
which during the summer and winter of the preceding year had witnessed
such heavy fighting. The whole country on each side of the road was a
desolate vista of shell-holes as far as the eye could see. Where
villages had been, there was now no trace left of any sort of
habitation. One might think that, however heavy a bombardment, some
trace would be left of the village which had suffered. There was
literally nothing left of the village through which had run the road
they were now travelling. Over this scarred stretch of country were
dotted camps and groups of huts, with duck-boards crossing the old
shell-holes, some of which were still full of water.
On approaching B---- they saw traces everywhere of the methodical and
organized methods by which the Germans had retired. The first sign was
a huge shell-crater in the middle of the road, about forty feet deep,
which the Boche had arranged to prevent armoured cars from following
him up. If they did succeed, the transports would be delayed in
reaching them, at all events. These holes were rather a nuisance, for
the road itself was a mass of lesser shell-craters and the soft ground
on each side was impassable. The road was crowded with engineers and
labor battalions, filling in the shell-holes, and laying railways into
the outskirts of A----.
In A---- the old German notices were still standing as they had been
left. Strung across the road on a wire was a notice which read:
"Fuhrweg nach Behagnies." Every house in the town had been pulled
down. The wily Boche had not even blown them up. Instead he had saved
explosives by attaching steel hawsers to the houses and by means of
tractors had pulled them down, so that the roof and sides fell in on
the foundation. Every pump handle in the village had been broken off
short, and not a single piece of furniture was left behind. Later, we
found the furniture from this and other villages in the Hindenburg
Line.
Saddest of all, however, was the destruction of the beautiful poplar
trees which once bordered the long French roads built by Napoleon.
These had been sawn off at their base and allowed to fall on the side
of the road, not across it, as one might suppose. If they had been
allowed to fall across the road, the Boche, himself, would have been
hindered in his last preparations for his retreat. Everything was done
with military ends in view. The villages were left in such a condition
as to make them uninhabitable, the more to add to our discomfort and
to make our hardships severer. The trees were cut down only on those
parts of the road which were screened from observation from his
balloons and present trenches. In some places where the road dipped
into a valley the trees had been left untouched.
At the place where our tanks were scheduled to arrive, and which had
lately been a railhead of the Boche, all the metals had been torn up,
and in order to destroy the station itself, he had smashed the
cast-iron pillars which supported the roof, and in consequence the
whole building had fallen in. But nothing daunted, the British
engineers were even now working at top speed laying down new lines.
Some of the metals, which a few short weeks before had been lying in
countless stacks down on the quays at the Bases, now unrolled
themselves at the rate of about two and a quarter miles a day. One
interesting feature of this rapid track-laying was that when the tank
train left E----, on its two and a half days' journey down to the
railhead at A----, the track on which the train was to run was not
completed into A----. But, nevertheless, the track arrived ahead of
the train, which was the main point!
As they rode into the ruined village of A---- Talbot and his companion
came across still further evidence of the steps which the German will
take to inconvenience his enemy. In order to battle against the hordes
of rats which are so prevalent in the old parts of the line in France,
the Boche breeds cats in enormous numbers. Yet, in order to carry out
to the limit his idea that nothing of value should fall into our
hands, he had killed every cat in the village. In every house three or
four of these poor little creatures lay around with their heads
chopped off. Tabby cats, black cats, white cats, and little kittens,
all dead. Farther on, over a well at the corner of the main square was
posted a sign which read: "This well is poisoned. Do not touch. By
order. R.E."
Here and there a house had been left intact, with its furniture
untouched. It was not until later that it struck us as peculiar that
these houses had been spared from the general destruction. Two or
three days later, however, after we had moved in, and headquarters had
been established, we discovered that under many of these houses, and
at certain crossroads which had not been blown up in the usual manner,
the Boche had left mines, timed to go off at any time up to
twenty-eight days. One could never be sure that the ground underneath
one's feet would not blow up at any moment. These mines were small
boxes of high explosive, inside of which was a little metal tube with
trigger and detonator attached. Inside the tube was a powerful acid,
which, when it had eaten its way through, set free the trigger and
exploded the charge. The length of time it took for the mine to
explode was gauged by the strength or weakness of the acid in the
tube.
[Illustration: A TANK MOVING TO THE ATTACK DOWN WHAT WAS ONCE
A MAIN STREET]
We were also impressed with the mechanical genius of the German. The
Boche had made a veritable mechanical toy out of nearly every house in
the village which he had spared. Delightful little surprises had been
prepared for us everywhere. Kick a harmless piece of wood, and in a
few seconds a bomb exploded. Pick up a bit of string from the floor
and another bomb went off. Soon we learned to be wary of the most
innocent objects. Before touching anything we made elaborate
preparations for our safety.
One of the men was greatly annoyed by a wire which hung over his head
when he was asleep, but he did not wish to remove it. He had decided
that it was connected with some devilish device which would do him no
good. Finally, one morning, he could endure this sword of Damocles no
longer. With two boon companions, he carefully attached a string about
fifteen yards long to the wire. They tiptoed gently out of the house
to a discreet distance, and with a yell of triumph, the hero pulled
the string,--and nothing happened!
But there was another side to all this. McKnutt some time afterwards
came in with an interesting story. Some Sappers, he said, had been
digging under a house in the village, presumably for the mysterious
reasons that always drive the Engineers to dig in unlikely places. One
of them pushed his shovel into what had been the cellar of the house,
but as the roof had fallen in on the entrance, they did not know of
its existence. When they finally forced their way in, they found two
German officers and two Frenchwomen in a terribly emaciated condition.
One of the Boches and one of the women lay dead, locked in each
other's arms. The other two still breathed, but when they were brought
up into the open they expired within a few hours without either of
them giving an explanation. The only reason we could find for their
terrible plight was that the women had been forced down there by the
officers to undergo a last farewell, while the Germans were destroying
the village, and that the house had fallen in on top of them. Later,
probably no one knew where they had disappeared, and they were unable
to get out of the ruins or to make themselves heard. The village of
A---- gained a romantic reputation after that, and it was curious to
realize that we had been living there for days while this silent
tragedy was being enacted.
In addition to the destruction in the towns, the beautiful orchards
which are so numerous in France were ruined. Apple, pear, and plum
trees lay uprooted on the ground, and here again the military mind of
the German had been at work. He did not wish the fruit that the trees
would bear in future to fall into our hands.
But although the village was a pretty poor place in which to stay, the
near presence of a B.E.F. Canteen was a comfort. It is always amazing
to visit one of these places. Within perhaps four or five miles of the
firing line we have stores selling everything from a silver cigarette
case to a pair of boots, and everything, too, at nearly cost price.
The Canteen provides almost every variety of smoking materials, and
eatables, and their only disadvantage is that they make packages from
home seem so useless. As the tobaccos come straight out of bond, it is
far cheaper to buy them at the Canteen, than to have them forwarded
from home. These Canteens are managed by the Army, and are dotted all
over the country inhabited by the British troops. Since they have
sprung into existence life at the front has been far more comfortable
and satisfactory in France, and people at home are discovering that
money is the best thing to send out to their men.
Finally, one cold, sunny morning, about half-past five, the tank train
steamed slowly into A----, and drew up on a siding. It was not
possible to begin the work of unloading the tanks until night fell. So
the tired crews turned into the roofless houses which had been
prepared for them, and slept until dusk. When darkness fell, as if by
magic, the town sprang to activity.
V
PREPARATIONS FOR THE SHOW
That night the engines were started up, and one by one the tanks
crawled off the train. Although the day had begun with brilliant
sunshine, at dusk the snow had begun to fall, and by the time the
tanks came off, the snow was a foot thick on the ground. The tanks
moved down to the temporary tankdrome which had been decided upon near
the railway, and the sponson trucks were towed there. The night was
spent in fitting on the sponsons to the sides of the machines. It was
bitterly cold. The sleet drove in upon us all night, stinging our
hands and faces. Everything seemed to go wrong. We had the utmost
difficulty in making the bolt-holes fit, and as each sponson weighs
about three tons they were not easy to move and adjust. We drove ahead
with the work, knowing that it must be done while the darkness
lasted.
Finally, about two hours before dawn broke, the last bolt was
fastened, and the tanks were ready to move. The night was blacker than
ever as they lumbered out of the tankdrome, and were led across the
snow to a halfway house about four miles from the railhead, and an
equal distance from the front-line trenches. We had not quite reached
our destination when the darkness began to lift in the east, and with
feverish energy we pushed ahead, through the driving snow.
Late that afternoon, Talbot was again sent ahead with five or six
troopers and orderlies to a village in the front line. It was
necessary for us to spend three or four days there before the attack
commenced, in order to study out the vulnerable points in the German
line. We were to decide also the best routes for the tanks to take in
coming up to the line, and those to be taken later in crossing No
Man's Land when the "show" was on. We rode along across fields denuded
of all their trees. The country here was utterly unlike that to which
we had been accustomed in "peace-time trench warfare." This last
expression sounds like an anomaly, but actually it means the life
which is led in trenches where one may go along for two or three
months without attacking. In comparison with our existence when we are
making an offensive, the former seems like life in peace times. Hence,
the expression. But from this it must not be supposed that "peace-time
trench warfare" is all beer and skittles. Quite the contrary. As a
matter of fact, during four or five days in the trenches there may be
as many casualties as during an attack, but taking it on an average,
naturally the losses and dangers are greater when troops go over the
top. Curiously enough, too, after one has been in an attack the
front-line trench seems a haven of refuge. Gould, who was wounded in
the leg during a battle on the Somme, crawled into a shell-hole. It
was a blessed relief to be lying there, even though the bullets were
whistling overhead. At first he felt no pain, and he wished, vaguely,
that he had brought a magazine along to read! All through the burning
summer day he stayed there, waiting for the night. As soon as it was
dark he wriggled back to our trenches, tumbled over the parapet of the
front-line trench, and narrowly escaped falling on the point of a
bayonet. But he never forgets the feeling of perfect safety and peace
at being back, even in an exposed trench, with friends.
The fields across which we rode had been ploughed the preceding autumn
by the French civilians. Later, when the snow had disappeared, we
could see where the ground had been torn up by the horses of a German
riding-school of ten days before. On some of the roads the ruts and
heavy marks of the retreating German transports could still be seen.
It was a new and exciting experience to ride along a road which only
two or three days before had been traversed by the Germans in a
retreat, even though they called it a "retirement." The thought was
very pleasant to men who, for the last two years, had been sitting _in
front_ of the Boche month after month, and who, even in an attack, had
been unable to find traces of foot, hoof, or wheel mark because of
the all-effacing shell-fire. Here and there were places where the
Boche had had his watering-troughs, and also the traces of scattered
huts and tents on the ground where the grass, of a yellowish green,
still showed. The front line of defence here was really no front line
at all, but was merely held as in open warfare by outposts, sentry
groups, and patrols.
At night it was the easiest thing in the world to lose one's self
close up to the line and wander into the German trenches. In fact,
over the whole of this country, where every landmark had been
destroyed and where owing to the weather the roads were little
different from the soil on each side, a man could lose himself and
find no person or any sign to give him his direction. The usual guide
which one might derive from the Verey lights going up between the
lines was here non-existent, as both sides kept extremely quiet. Even
the guns were comparatively noiseless in these days, and were a man to
find himself at night alone upon this ground, which lay between two
and three miles behind our own lines, the only thing he could do
would be to lie down and wait for the dawn to show him the direction.
As we rode toward O---- our only guide was a few white houses two or
three miles away on the edge of the village. The German had not
evacuated O---- of his own free will, but a certain "Fighting
Division" had taken the village two days before and driven the German
out, when he retired three or four hundred yards farther to his rear
Hindenburg Line. The probable reason why he hung on to this village,
which was really in front of his line of advance, was because at the
time he decided to retire on the Somme, the Hindenburg Line was
incomplete. In fact, the Boche could still be seen working on his wire
and trenches.
We arrived in O---- at nightfall. Some batteries were behind the
village, and the Germans were giving the village and the guns a rather
nasty time. Unhappily for us, the Boche artillery were dropping
five-nine's on the road which led into the village, and as they seemed
unlikely to desist, we decided to make a dash for it. The horses were
a bit nervous, but behaving very well under the trying circumstances.
(With us were some limbers bringing up ammunition.) Shells were
exploding all around us. It would never do to stand still.
The dash up that hundred yards of road was an unpleasant experience.
As we made the rush, the gunners tearing along "hell for leather" and
the others galloping ahead on their plunging horses, we heard the dull
whistle and the nearer roar of two shells approaching. Instinctively
we leaned forward. We held our breath. When a shell drops near, there
is always the feeling that it is going to fall on one's head. We
flattened ourselves out and urged our horses to greater speed. The
shells exploded about thirty yards behind us, killing two gunners and
their mules, while the rest of us scrambled into the village and under
cover.
In the darkness, we found what had once been the shop of the village
blacksmith, and in the forge we tied up our horses. It was bitterly
cold. It was either make a fire and trust to luck that it would not be
observed, or freeze. We decided on the fire, and in its grateful
warmth we lay down to snatch the first hours of sleep we had had in
nearly three days. But the German gunners were most inconsiderate, and
a short time afterward they dropped a small barrage down the road. The
front of our forge was open, and we were obliged to flatten ourselves
on the ground to prevent the flying splinters from hitting us. When
this diversion was over, we stirred up our fire, and made some tea,
just in time to offer some to a gunner sergeant who came riding up. He
hitched his horse to one of the posts, and sat down with us by the
fire. The shell-fire had quieted down, and we dozed off, glad of the
interlude. Suddenly a shell burst close beside us. The poor beast,
waiting patiently for his rider, was hit in the neck by the shrapnel,
but hardly a sound escaped him. In war, especially, one cannot help
admiring the stoicism of horses, as compared with other animals. One
sees examples of it on all sides. Tread, for instance, on a dog's
foot, and he runs away, squealing. A horse is struck by a large lump
of shrapnel just under its withers, and the poor brute trembles, but
makes no sound. Almost the only time that horses scream--and the sound
is horrible--is when they are dying. Then they shriek from sheer pain
and fear. Strange as it may seem, one is often more affected by seeing
horses struck than when men are killed. Somehow they seem so
particularly helpless.
It was during these days at O---- that Talbot discovered Johnson.
Johnson was one of his orderlies. Although it did not lie in the path
of his duty, he took the greatest delight in doing all sorts of little
odd jobs for Talbot. So unobtrusive he was about it all, that for some
time Talbot hardly noticed that some one was trying to make him
comfortable. When he did, by mutual agreement Johnson became his
servant and faithful follower through everything. The man was
perfectly casual and apparently unaffected by the heaviest shell-fire.
It is absurd to say that a man "doesn't mind shell-fire." Every one
dislikes it, and gets nervous under it. The man who "doesn't mind it"
is the man who fights his nervousness and gets such control of
himself that he is able to _appear_ as if he were unaffected. Between
"not minding it" and "appearing not to mind it" lie hard-won moral
battles, increased strength of character, and victory over fear.
Johnson had accomplished this. He preserved an attitude of careless
calm, and could walk down a road with shells bursting all around him
with a sublime indifference that was inspiring. Between him and his
officer sprang up an extraordinary and lasting affection.
The wretched night in the forge at last came to an end, and the next
morning we looked around for more comfortable billets. We selected the
cellar of a house in fairly good condition and prepared to move in,
when we discovered that we were not the first to whom it had appealed.
Two dead Germans still occupied the premises, and when we had disposed
of the bodies, we took up our residence. Here we stayed, going out
each day to find the best points from which to view No Man's Land,
which lay in front of the village. With the aid of maps, we planned
the best routes for the tanks to take when the battle should have
begun. Not a detail was neglected.
Then something happened to break the monotony of life. Just back of
the village one of our batteries was concealed in such a fashion that
it was impossible to find it from an aeroplane. Yet every day,
regularly, the battery was shelled. Every night under cover of the
darkness, the position was changed, and the battery concealed as
cleverly as before, but to no avail. The only solution was that some
one behind our lines was in communication with the Germans, _every
day_. Secrecy was increased. Guards were doubled to see that no one
slipped through the lines. Signals were watched. The whole affair was
baffling, and yet we could find no clue.
Just in front of the wood where the battery was concealed, stood an
old farmhouse where a genial Frenchwoman lived and dispensed good
cheer to us. She had none of the men of her own family nor any
farmhands to help her, but kept up the farmwork all alone. Every day,
usually in the middle of the morning, she went out to the fields
behind her house and ploughed, with an old white horse drawing the
plough. For some reason she never ploughed more than one or two
furrows at a time, and when this was done, she drove the white horse
back to the barn. One day, an officer noticed that a German plane
hovered over the field while the woman was ploughing, and that when
she went back to the house, the plane shot away. The next day the same
thing happened. Later in the day, the battery received its daily
reminder from the Boche gunners, as unerringly accurate as ever.