WITH THE GUNS
With the Guns
BY
F.O.O.
_SECOND IMPRESSION_
LONDON
EVELEIGH NASH COMPANY
LIMITED
1916
TO
D.C.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I ARTILLERY 9
II 'O.P.' 25
III OBSERVATION 42
IV THE FOUR DAYS 61
V THE DAY OF ASSAULT 77
VI STRAIGHTENING THE LINE 96
VII LOOS 117
VIII IN FRENCH TERRITORY 137
IX CHANGING POSITION 156
X TELEPHONES 171
XI BEHIND THE LINE 189
XII A WAR MESS 208
WITH THE GUNS
I
ARTILLERY
As these sketches of the changing phases of modern war are largely
concerned with the work of the artillery, as, indeed, they are written
from the standpoint of that branch of the Service, this would seem to
be a favourable place to explain shortly the significance of the arm.
My excuse, if any be needed, may be sought in the mind of the average
man who, terrified as ever of the contemplation of anything technical,
puzzled by the grandiloquence of the self-appointed "expert," regards
the art of the artilleryman as written in a book sealed to him for ever
by its own abstruseness.
Yet the general principles that guide the employment of the man with
the gun, as distinguished from the man with the rifle, are very simple.
In the first place, whereas the latter is only concerned with the
incapacitating of _personnel_, the former has in addition the task of
the destruction of _matériel_. The old and still popular idea of a
battle, wherein each arm engages exclusively the similar arm of the
enemy, has, since the middle of the last century, entirely disappeared.
In a few words it may be said that the function of the artillery of the
attack is to prepare the way for the infantry assault by the demolition
of the enemy's defences, so far as that may be possible, and during
this actual assault to prevent the enemy's troops from leaving their
shelter and offering resistance. The artillery of the defence, on the
other hand, must endeavour to check the fire of the hostile guns,
either by overwhelming the batteries themselves by a fire so intense
that the detachments cannot work the guns, or by the destruction of
their observation posts. During the assault, their object must be to
cover the space over which the hostile infantry must advance with
so continuous a rain of shell that they are unable to reach their
objective.
In order to perform these various duties with the greatest attainable
efficiency artillery must possess two essentials. In the first place,
it must be able to project the greatest possible weight of shell in
a given time, and in the second it must be capable of rapid movement
from one point to another so that it may be rapidly brought into use
whenever the need for it is greatest. Now, obviously, the heavier the
shell to be thrown, the greater must be the energy of the cartridge,
and the greater the energy of the cartridge, the greater the strength
(and consequently size and weight) of the gun necessary to withstand
the pressures produced upon its discharge. On the other hand, if a
gun is to be mobile, it must be as light as possible, both so that
it can be moved at the required speed, and also that it can be taken
over soft or difficult ground. Mobility and shell-power are therefore
naturally antagonistic, the two cannot be combined in the same gun.
The modern army, therefore, carries a range of guns, wherein maximum
mobility controls one end of the scale and maximum shell-power the
other. The former is represented by the mountain gun, firing a shell
weighing some ten pounds and capable of being moved with great rapidity
over practically any ground that a man can traverse laden, the latter
by pieces of ordnance throwing a shell whose weight approximates to
a ton, capable of very slow movement over good roads and requiring
elaborately prepared positions from which to fire.
Suppose, however, that we were to take a six-inch gun, that is to say
a gun firing a shell six inches in diameter and weighing a hundred
pounds, with a range of say twenty thousand yards. This gun will
require a cartridge consisting of about twenty pounds of propellant,
to withstand the explosion of which the gun must be made of such
massiveness that it will weigh some seven tons. Now instead of
requiring so great a range, we determine to be satisfied with a range
of six or seven thousand yards. We now find that a charge of only some
two pounds of propellant will give us this range, and that the gun can
now be built very much shorter and less massive, so that its weight
is reduced to a ton and a half. We have retained the same weight of
shell, but have sacrificed range to increased mobility, and the fruit
of our labours is no longer a six-inch gun, but a six-inch howitzer.
But in the process of conversion from a gun, the howitzer has acquired
a new characteristic. Owing to its heavy charge of propellant, a gun
projectile leaves the bore with great velocity, and consequently the
gun requires relatively little elevation to hit a target at any given
range. A howitzer, owing to its small charge, requires a far greater
elevation. Now a projectile reaches its mark travelling at very much
the same angle with the horizontal as when it started on its journey.
At a range within the capacity of both, therefore, if fired say at a
house, the shell from the gun will tend to hit the front wall, whereas
the shell from the howitzer will tend to drop upon the roof. This
tendency, combined with their difference in mobility, determines the
choice of a gun or howitzer with which to attack a given target. It may
be added that by still further reducing the range to be attained, say
to a few hundred yards, a charge of only a few ounces need be employed,
and a weapon produced, capable of being carried by a couple of men, yet
still throwing a comparatively heavy shell. The German _Minenwerfers_
and our own trench-mortars are the representatives of this class.
All these various types and sizes of ordnance (the word "gun" is a
generic term that covers them all) employ two main types of projectile,
shrapnel and high explosive. Shrapnel may be considered as a sort of
shot gun fired from a rifled gun. It consists of a steel case filled
with round bullets except for a chamber in the base containing a small
quantity of powder. The head of the shell is fitted with a fuse which
can be set to act at any given time after the gun is fired. This fuse
ignites the powder in the base of the shell, which projects the bullets
from the case in the form of a cone whose axis is the direction in
which the shell is moving at the time. Shrapnel, therefore, depends
for its effect upon the destructive power of the flying bullets.
High-explosive projectiles consist of a very strong and heavy shell,
entirely filled with a high-explosive compound, and fitted with a
percussion fuse that acts when the shell strikes anything. The fuse
ignites a primer which detonates the high-explosive charge, and the
body of the shell splits up into pieces of various sizes which are
hurled in all directions with considerable velocity. This type of shell
has a double destructive power, that of the high explosive itself and
of the flying fragments. The Germans employ a compromise in addition,
known as "universal" shell, which may be described as a shrapnel with
a high-explosive charge, which can be used with either a time or
percussion fuse. They have also combined with the explosive charge of
some of their projectiles a substance which on combustion produces
an irritant gas with the property of attacking the eyes, and thereby
making a position untenable, and have also added phosphorus to produce
incendiary effects. It may be accepted as a general rule that howitzers
employ only high explosive, guns both shrapnel and high explosive.
We are now in a position to consider how artillery can best engage the
various types of target that offer themselves. The gunner's dream, a
mass of infantry in the open, is now but seldom seen, and when it is
no battery within range can restrain itself from hurling anything it
possesses at such a heaven-sent objective. The most suitable method
of procedure is to overwhelm it with a cloud of light shrapnel, burst
well above and in front of it, so as to produce a hail of bullets
beneath which nothing can live. In the case of the attack of a trench,
the method usually employed is a preliminary bombardment by light and
medium howitzers, with the object of destroying it and its occupants,
or at all events rendering it untenable, by dropping high explosive
into it; as soon as the infantry commence the assault, the field guns
cover the face of the trench with shrapnel to prevent its defenders
manning the parapet with their rifles. It has been found that wire
entanglements can be most easily and efficiently destroyed by light
shrapnel burst just above or if possible amongst them, followed if
necessary by a few light high-explosive shells to uproot the standards
without forming deep craters that would impede the assaulting infantry.
A hostile battery in position under cover is usually engaged with high
explosive from guns or howitzers. It is impossible to count upon a
direct hit destroying any of the guns composing it, although such lucky
shots have occurred. But the detachments may be forced to remain under
cover and the battery communications disorganized. Either result will
put the battery out of action so long as the fire continues. The real
difficulty of such a target is to discover its exact position.
Fortified positions such as redoubts and buildings may be destroyed by
the high-explosive fire of heavy guns and howitzers; observation posts
by guns, as they are usually small, and, speaking generally, it is
easier to hit a small mark with a gun than with a howitzer, owing to
the former possessing greater accuracy. A somewhat peculiar feature of
modern warfare is retaliation, of which the general principle is that
if the enemy incommodes one by the use of his artillery, one or more
batteries are ordered to fire a given number of rounds into some place
where his troops are known to collect, such as a town or large village
behind his lines. Guns firing high explosive are most suitable for
this, as the point selected for retaliation is usually beyond the range
of howitzers. It is often desired, more usually at night, to prevent
the enemy from sending reinforcements to his front line. To effect
this end, a "barrage" is established, usually by means of howitzers,
which draw a curtain of high explosive between the massing-place of the
reinforcements and their goal.
The first concern of any battery, once it is in position, is to be
capable of maintaining fire as long as it is called upon to do so,
and whenever necessary. To be able to do this presupposes immunity
from hostile fire, and, it having been found in practice impossible
to secure adequate protection from determined shelling, this involves
concealment, not alone from direct view from the enemy's positions, but
also from his aeroplanes and observation balloons. It is comparatively
easy to find some natural or artificial feature behind which to place
a battery, but it is almost a life study so to disguise that battery
that it will not be detected from above. Pits may have to be dug to
hold the gun and its detachment, spanned by iron rails carrying a load
of earth artistically planted with shrubs and flowers, the inside
of a hay-stack may be torn out so that a heavy howitzer can just be
manipulated in the space so formed, an innocent heap of beetroots may
conceal the long graceful contour of a sixty-pounder. Yet, however
careful the disguise, unless the detachments themselves hide under any
cover available and remain absolutely still when a hostile aeroplane
is overhead, or if by mischance the tell-tale flash of the gun betray
it, suddenly and without warning the heart-gripping whirr of heavy
shell will be heard, and before there is time for everybody to find
the dug-outs, the battery will be an inferno of unendurable explosions
and deadly flying splinters. Then, happy the battery commander whose
casualties are but slight!
If the battery is so concealed from the enemy's positions that it
cannot be seen from them, it follows that neither can they be seen
from the battery. In order, therefore, to be able to bring fire to
bear upon any given point, the officer controlling the battery must
have recourse to one of three expedients. He must either go himself
to some point from which he can see his target, and from which he can
communicate with the battery, or he must plot the position of battery
and target on a map, and work on that, or he must have an observer
in an aeroplane who can see the target and can communicate with him.
The first of these methods is known as direct observation, and may be
described as one of the most important things that the war is teaching,
and the most absorbing phase of the artilleryman's life. The principles
underlying the second and third are self-evident, and the details of
their application too lengthy for description.
Finally, let me try to convey an impression of the gunner's
performances from various points of view. The infantryman is the
gunner's keenest critic, and here let me say once and for all that the
infantryman is at the same time the hero and the decisive factor of
every war. Artillery but exists to smooth his path to victory, on him
falls every brunt and every hardship, the gunner is a mere accessory
to his accomplishments. No battle and no war can ever be won except
by infantry, superiority in any other arm is useless if the enemy's
infantry gain the upper hand by greater numbers or efficiency. He
therefore has a right to weigh us in the balance, and it is the Allies'
brightest star that their infantry, after endless weary months of
suffering under vastly superior gun-fire, know at last that behind them
are men and weapons that daily exhibit their newly-won preponderance.
It is the prerogative of all good soldiers to grumble when they are
satisfied and contented, presumably as a reaction from the cheerful
and unmurmuring endurance of hardship. The infantryman of to-day,
although reposing every confidence in the artillery behind him, still
believes the gunner to be a man of bad habits and occasional lapses.
It is no use explaining to him that the round that fell so short as
to burst in his trench instead of the enemy's was merely an evidence
of senile decay on the part of the gun, and it would be mere waste of
time to attempt to convey to the clay-plastered working-party who are
busy shovelling up the parapet that it knocked down that accidents
will happen even in the best regulated batteries. I have heard higher
praise bestowed on our efforts than that of a group of senior officers,
who whilst walking down a communication trench at night, contrived so
firmly to entangle themselves in the telephone wire to my observing
station that it took a whole platoon armed with wire-cutters to unbind
them--they irresistibly reminded me of the Laocoon when I arrived upon
the scene. Further, it is easy to understand that men who wade along a
muddy ditch to the prospect of five long days and nights in a morass
are apt to speak slightingly of others sleeping the sleep of the just
in warm dry dug-outs a mile or so back.
The gunner, on his part, admires the infantry with an admiration no
less deep because it is hidden. Of course, he lacks soul, thinks the
gunner, he has no imagination to see that yesterday's bombardment of
the enemy's trench, although it _did_ send a few splinters whizzing
into his own, must have a subtle and profound bearing upon the issue of
the war entirely outweighing any temporary inconvenience it may have
caused him. Besides, he is an incurable marauder, nothing that can be
made to burn in a bucket fire is safe for an unguarded moment. Lastly,
he _will_ clamour for vengeance upon an offending _Minenwerfer_ just as
the light is getting too bad for observation and one's servant appears
with tea. But--one can turn in and dream of home in the knowledge that
he is between oneself and the enemy.
It is interesting to follow the variations of German military opinion
on the subject of the Allied artillery. Bernhardi, writing a year or
two before the war, gives it as his opinion that the Krupp gun is
slightly superior to all other weapons, as, at that time, before the
perfection of the French "_soixante-quinze_," it probably was. He
advocates the abandonment of shrapnel for "universal" shell, and throws
doubts upon the ability of a German commander to use efficiently all
the batteries at his disposal. The outbreak of war found the Allies, as
regards "field" artillery, that is to say mobile ordnance throwing a
shell of from fifteen to twenty pounds, in the possession of superior
weapons in slightly inferior numbers. As regards "heavy" artillery,
grouping under that heading all natures of ordnance heavier than a
field gun, to every twenty pieces brought into action by the enemy we
possibly had one. It will probably be the verdict of history that the
rapidity of the hostile advance up to the Marne, and the ability of
the enemy to establish himself, practically unmolested, upon a strong
defensive line, were due entirely to this fact. Documents captured
lately, however, have revealed that the higher German artillery
advisers consider that, weapon for weapon, our guns have a slight
superiority, and in numbers available upon the Western front a distinct
preponderance. They also impress upon battery commanders the need of
study of our method of concealment and observation, as being in many
ways preferable to their own.
Of the gunner himself a few words will suffice. He is of a traditional
type, big, burly and equipped with a vocabulary that has been known to
fuse the delicate windings of an over-sensitive telephone. His gun,
for which his terms of endearment are expressed in profanity, is his
only care, in his spare time he will sit in its emplacement as in his
natural home. The "limber-gunner," an old soldier selected for each gun
to keep it groomed and immaculate, is jealous of his charge as he has
been for all time, since the day when Alfonso d'Este of Ferrara hurled
the brazen statue of Pope Julius II into the melting-pot wherewith
to cast more cannon. Hear him discoursing to a group of youngsters
on the regimental motto. "Ubique," he says, "ubique, that means, my
sons, that whenever there's a scrap on you an' me an' the bloomin' old
pop-gun's got to up an' trek an' earn our blessed rum ration doin' ten
days' work in one." And I think he speaks the truth.
II
'O.P.'
The mystifying habit of speaking in abbreviations, the result of a
constant use of rapid means of communication, is one that is developed
to its maximum degree in the jargon of artillery. For instance, "L.X.C.
El. 25° 30´, 15´ M L ORD BYF 40´´" is a very common type of order, and
is the form in which that order would be transmitted. Consequently,
whether in writing or in speech, the Observation Post is invariably
referred to as the O.P. What more fitting than that these two letters
should stand at the head of a sketch that proposes to deal with some of
the aspects of these same observation posts?
The modern battery is so concealed that the view from it is often
restricted to a few hundred yards in any direction. It therefore
follows that the officer who wishes to direct its fire must discover
some place from where he can see the target he proposes to engage,
and from whence he can establish communication, in practice almost
invariably by telephone, with his battery. He may be lucky enough to
find some point near at hand, such as a church tower, from which he can
obtain the necessary range of vision, and such points certainly have
the advantage that they usually afford an extended view. But far more
frequently, especially if his target is a hostile trench only a few
yards from our own lines, some point right up forward must be selected,
for preference just behind our own front line. This usually involves
the selection of alternative positions, both because the view from each
is usually restricted to a very small section of the hostile line, and
also in the not-uncommon event of the observation officer being shelled
out of his post, the battery is out of action until he has established
himself somewhere else. The forward observation officer (F.O.O.) is
the eye of the artillery, it is his business to observe not only the
shooting of his own battery, but also to keep a watch over the whole
of the enemy's territory visible from his post; to learn by constant
inspection every detail, to perceive the smallest alteration or
movement that may give a hint from which enemy plans or dispositions
may be deduced. Hence it is clear that the selection of a good
observation post is one that demands no small skill and experience.
Nor is this selection altogether devoid of humour. A battery arrives,
apparently from nowhere, its officers have a bundle of unfamiliar maps
thrust into their hands, and are told to go and find as many O.P.s
as they require to see a certain prescribed area. "So-and-so will go
with you, if you like, he knows all about this part of the world."
So-and-so is eventually, after a prolonged search, unearthed from the
one comfortable chair in his mess, it being, as he bitterly explains,
the only afternoon he has had off for a month. We start, preferably
along a road pitted with shell-holes that look disconcertingly recent.
Our guide informs us with melancholy pride that two telephonists of the
652nd Battery were killed there yesterday. "But it's usually pretty
healthy----" A small and particularly vicious shell whizzes apparently
just over our heads and bursts a hundred yards or so away. We change
the conversation. We come to a place where the road ends, and where it
seems as though some lover of beauty had cut a narrow winding course
for a merry little streamlet that murmurs contentedly between its
banks. Some yards away stands what was once a house, but the doors
have been wrenched off their hinges, the windows are blocked up--no
loss to internal illumination, for a dozen huge gaps in the wall amply
supply the deficiency--and the roof has collapsed, leaving only the
chimney-stacks standing. "That might do for you," says our guide,
"750th Battery used it for months." "How do we get there?"--for the
country looks suspiciously open and deserted beyond our present retreat
behind the hedge. "Oh, they don't often snipe here, we can walk across
one at a time, or there's the communication trench," pointing to the
streamlet. Heroes all, we elect a soldier's death rather than wet feet,
and the first of our party starts to walk across the open. Before he
reaches the shelter of the house, zip! comes a bullet with the ugly
sound that marks the rifle fired in one's own direction. He makes a
wild dive for shelter, from which he subsequently watches us as we
wade, cursing its maker, knee-deep along the communication trench, and
exhorts us to be careful to change our socks when we get home. After
much argument, we decide that the house will suit us, and we splash
homewards through our clay-coloured rivulet, by no means comforted
by the thought that this is the only safe means of access to our
new-found property, unless we propose to go there before daylight and
stay till after dark. Small things provoke humour where amusements are
few. I subsequently discovered that the depth of water in this trench
was about two inches less than the length of my gum-boots, and that,
therefore, by careful progression, I could navigate it safely. Whilst
doing this one day, a large dog, presumably frightened by a shell
bursting near him--although animals of all kinds get extraordinarily
accustomed to such things as a rule--plunged into the water within
a foot of me. The wave of his impact overflowed my boots--they have
never been really dry since--and the splash soaked me to the skin. As
I stood telling the world at large what I thought of war and dogs and
trenches, a gentle voice, near at hand but unseen, demanded of me, in
the catchword of the day, "Daddy, what did _you_ do in the great war?"
A sense of humour will make, even of war, the finest game in the world.
Frequently the guide is young and enthusiastic, apt to let his
confidence outstrip his local knowledge. A representative of this type
volunteered to take one of us to a place from whence he declared we
could see a particular point that puzzled us. The two set out smiling,
and promptly entangled themselves in a maze of unfamiliar trenches.
The guide declared he knew every inch of them, and for many hours as
it seemed the two wandered in and out, like trippers in the maze at
Hampton Court. At last they reached the ruins of a farmhouse. "If you
climb up there you can see all right," said the guide. The unwary
pilgrim did so, and found himself, outlined against the evening sky,
gazing at the German trenches not thirty yards away. My friend is the
soul of discretion, he hurled himself rather than jumped into the
security of the trench, followed by a _rafale_ of machine-gun and rifle
fire. Nor was he mollified by the words of a choleric and indignant
infantry major, who came up and wanted to know what the devil he meant
by acting like an infernal clown and drawing fire on his trench--I
soften his epithets. There was a marked coolness between the three for
many days to come.
More harrowing still is the whispered legend of two adventurous spirits
who, in the early days of the war, when the armies were not, as now,
divided by an unbroken line of trenches, set out to seek for some
commanding position from which to survey the surrounding country. At
dusk they found a piece of rising ground, that seemed to promise the
fulfilment of all their hopes. Seeing a group of men at work upon it,
they strolled up to them and enquired whether it were possible to
observe the Germans from there. "I know of but one place more suitable,
gentlemen, and that is Berlin," was the reply, and in a very short time
they were on their way thither. They had chanced upon the headquarters
of a German division!
The observation post once found, the next step is to make it tenable.
It may be, if Fate is kindly disposed, the upper storey or garret of a
house, from whence through a hole in the roof or walls the necessary
view can be obtained. Happy the man who finds such available! The
alternative is a straw-stack, on the top of which one must lie,
covering oneself as much as possible with straw; a tree, amongst whose
branches one must perch like a disconsolate and clumsy bird for whom
there is no close time; or, worse than all, a spot in some particularly
exposed trench, over whose parapet one pops one's head at the longest
possible intervals for the shortest possible time, wondering the while
whether the man opposite will pull his trigger before one gets it down
again. Generally speaking, all these latter are to be avoided. Any sort
of ruin is preferable, and the more of a ruin it is, the less likely is
the enemy to sit up and take notice of it. It is as well to make it as
bullet-proof as possible, by judicious strengthening with timbers and
sandbags. Anything more ambitious is waste of time; if a shell of any
size hits it directly, it is coming down and oneself inside it, despite
the most elaborate fortifications, which in this case only serve to
bury one the deeper. All one can hope for is a little box wherein to
sit and observe, proof as far as possible from rain and bullets, and a
dug-out for one's telephonists, in which one may take shelter oneself
if shelled--that is, if one is lucky enough to get there in time. The
most important thing to remember is that the exact appearance of every
single object within view is known to the observers on the other side,
and that consequently it is a remarkably sure form of suicide to alter
the exterior view of anything that one proposes to occupy. A careful
man, however, can establish quite a home-like resort almost anywhere.
I have known observation posts within two or three hundred yards of
the German trenches whose occupants have lived in profound peace and
contentment for weeks at a time.
A church tower, or even the remains of one, is an ideal place. It
is, certainly, sure to be shelled periodically, but the first round
is not going to hit it, and a rapid (and, for preference, carefully
rehearsed) descent into a cellar or dug-out at its foot usually averts
a _contretemps_. Of course, as happened once in my experience, a lucky
round may carry away the stairs or ladders inside the tower below the
observing officer, who then spends a _mauvis quart d'heure_ whilst the
enemy leisurely shells him. It is surprising, though, how many direct
hits from even heavy ordnance a tower will stand without falling. If no
church is available, the tallest house or ruin that can be found must
be adapted, by making a tiny slit in the wall or roof, invisible at a
distance of a hundred yards or so, and rigging up a platform inside
on which to sit whilst observing. A very ingenious method that I once
saw employed by a French battery was to make a wooden box the exact
shape and size of the chimney stack of a cottage, and painted brick
red. The box was hollow and had small peep-holes cut in it. One night
they skilfully removed the real stack and substituted the imitation
one, which served them admirably for many months. In another case all
that was left of what had been a fair-sized house was a wall facing
towards the enemy. A neighbouring ruined village was ransacked for a
dovecot and a long ladder. A band of amateur carpenters fitted the
dovecot to the inside of the wall, as high up as possible, cut a small
hole through the wall, and arranged the ladder as a means of access to
it. I can vouch from personal experience for the comfort and general
excellence of the completed work.
Of the delights of a certain pear-tree, behind whose ample trunk was a
most rickety ladder, up whose rotten rungs one climbed fearfully--the
tree was about seventy yards behind our front trenches, and in full
view from the German line--I will not speak. As autumn pursued its
sorrowful course we watched the leaves of our tree fall off one by
one, until to the prejudiced eyes of the man who had to climb into it
there seemed hardly enough cover to hide a caterpillar. Finally, when
an enthusiastic sportsman dumped a trench-mortar--the surest thing in
the world to provoke a long-suffering enemy to fury--into a pit some
twenty yards away, we shook our heads sadly and left it to its fate.
It stands there still, waving its bare arms mockingly at us, but I, for
one, shall not tempt its embraces until May has seen fit to dress it
decently again.
The enemy, on his side, is no less ingenious and probably more
painstaking. There was a certain water-tower that stood in a wood,
with its top just visible above the surrounding trees. Imperceptibly,
as the days went by, it seemed to grow out of the wood, until a month
or so after we first noticed it, about ten feet of it were visible.
The solution appears to have been that, to increase the field of view,
all the trees in front of it, and there must have been two or three
hundred of them, were very cautiously pruned every night, so as to show
no apparent alteration from day to day, but gradually to allow the
required observation.
It sometimes happens that it is necessary for the observing officer
to remain night and day in the post, and under such circumstances
continual interest is necessary if life is not to become very dull.
Frequently the enemy are good enough to provide this interest, an
unexpected shell now and again either just over or just short is a
powerful antidote against ennui. More often our own headquarters,
with a laudable intention of preventing one's interest from flagging,
send one encouraging messages--"Can you see a hostile working party
at such-and-such a place? If so, kindly keep under observation and
report half-hourly," or "Infantry report flashes of hostile battery
in the direction of Hill 0, observe and locate if possible." One
observes till one's eyes ache as the light grows too bad to see, when
a second message comes, "Flashes reported by infantry ascertained to
be caused by summer lightning." At night one crawls into the dug-out
and endeavours to slumber with one ear glued to the telephone,
and, strangely enough, despite the presence of two loud-sleeping
telephonists, one usually does.
Or perhaps it is only necessary for the observing officer to be at
his post during the hours of daylight, which involves a pleasant walk
an hour before sunrise and another an hour after sunset, both times
at which the approaches to the O.P. are being shelled, or swept by a
machine gun, or at all events are receiving some sort of attention from
the enemy, who appear to take a kindly interest in one's movements.
Still, this system secures one a night in bed, which is a luxury by no
means to be despised, and one is rewarded for one's early rising and
walk by the prospect from the observation post during what is often the
clearest part of the day, just before and after sunrise. There, right
in front, are the two lines of trenches, seemingly deserted, except
where a faint curl of blue smoke denotes preparation for breakfast.
Over the whole space of country before one there is no sign of life
or movement, unless perhaps at some point from a communication trench
a spade-full of earth rises regularly. In the middle distance over a
cross-roads a succession of white puffs shows the suspicious nature of
one of our field batteries, but further back still smoke rises from a
tall chimney as though the world knew of no war. The aeroplanes are
up, of course, each cruising about in the centre of a constellation
of greyish wisps of shrapnel, like flashes of cotton-wool against the
greenish blue of the sky. Rifles crack startlingly near at hand. The
drone of spent bullets rises and falls, the distant sound of guns
blends with the bursting of the shrapnel far overhead and the hum of
the aeroplanes. Surely all this noise is of another world, it cannot
have any relation to the peaceful scene before our eyes? The treachery
of the quicksand is the calm serenity of this Forbidden Land.
Observation posts have each their own legend, which clings to them
through successive tenancies. We shared one once with a very youthful
officer whose nervousness was only excelled by his ignorance. I fancy
myself that he was only there to keep a claim on the place for his
battery, but it so happened one fatal afternoon that he had to observe
a series. The first round was fired, and the young man, suddenly
discovering that observation of fire is one of the most difficult
things in the world, and being utterly at sea as to where the shot had
fallen, hesitated in his report. The rest of the tale is best told by
the telephone. The battery commander is the first speaker. "Ask the
observing officer to report where that round fell." "Mr. Jones reports
that was a very good shot, sir." "Tell Mr. Jones I don't want criticism
of my shooting, I want to know where the rounds fall. No. 2 is just
firing." "Mr. Jones reports the last round fell about an inch from the
target." "Then I can assume that as a hit?" "Mr. Jones says he means an
inch on the map, not an inch on the ground." Threatenings and slaughter
_ad lib_!
Of course, it is an unpardonable crime to do anything in or near an
O.P. which might draw the enemy's attention to it. A battery of my
acquaintance had for some weeks been installed in a pretty little villa
residence of which they were very proud, situated on the outskirts
of a mining village. They had certainly spared no pains to make it
comfortable or safe; indeed, the interior was a solid mass of sandbags
through which a sort of tunnel ran to the little observation chamber,
elaborately reached by a series of ladders and passages. One day the
battery commander was conducting a deliberate and deeply calculated
series, his mind too full of figures and angles to allow room for
any idea of possible molestation by the enemy. Suddenly, directly
behind the house, he heard a series of violent explosions. In rather
less than the proverbial twinkling of an eye he was down below in
the dug-out, nearly flayed by violent contact with ladders and other
unyielding substances, but still alive and safe. Still the explosions
continued, but no shell seemed to strike the house. At last one of his
telephonists, more daring than the rest, ventured to peer out, and
there, right in the sacred enclosure, was an armoured car in full and
noisy action. The scene that followed baffles description. Two heads,
one thrust through the hatchway of the car, one cautiously hidden
behind a projecting sandbag, discussed the question of unmentionable
idiots who wheeled their indescribable tin perambulators into other
people's preserves, until the hardy navigators in the car and the
stalwart gunners in the O.P. blushed to hear them. Finally, upon a
reiterated threat from the major to turn his own battery on to the car
if it did not move off, the nuisance was abated. But "Sans Souci," as
we called the place, was never its old self again, its restful charm
had departed. Some hostile battery had seen the flashes of the car's
gun, and afterwards, at uncertain intervals, presumably when things
were dull with it, would fire a few rounds in friendly greeting.
The gunner's appreciation of these things is usually keener even than
one's own. One day when reconnoitring for an O.P. with a couple of
telephonists, I came upon a house that had once been used for the
purpose, but out of which its occupants had been driven by heavy
shell-fire. The interior of the place presented an indescribable
appearance. Its original owners had fled early in the war, leaving
everything as it stood, and a succession of inquisitive searchers
had been all through it to see if they could find anything of value.
Dresses, broken bottles, letters, rags of all descriptions, a sewing
machine, blended with the plaster from the walls and clay from the
burst sandbags. Very little of the roof was left, and heavy rain had
made of this mass a peculiarly evil-smelling mud, from which protruded
here and there lumps of bread, bully-beef and cheese, whose increasing
age was apparent. Some sort of cesspit had burst and flooded the
cellar, which had been used as a dug-out, and in the centre of the
savoury flood floated a mattress that looked as if it held the germs
of all the plagues of Egypt. Outside, shrapnel were bursting freely,
I fancy the enemy had seen us enter the place. I overheard one of
my telephonists apostrophizing it: "You're a nice 'ouse, you are,"
he said. "Blowed if I don't advertise yer in the bloomin' papers,
'Charming bijou residence, quiet 'ealthy situation, perfect repair,
hevery convenience, pleasant garden.' I _don't_ think!"
III
OBSERVATION
It has been said in a previous chapter that the fire of any given
battery is, in the majority of cases, directed by an officer in an
observation post from whence he can see the target and the ground
surrounding it. The general principles of this observation are as
follows. The position of the battery and target are ascertained upon
a map, and by means of it the range and direction of the target from
the battery are obtained. A calculation based upon this information is
made, and a certain elevation and direction given to the guns. A round
is then fired, and the position of the point where it falls relative
to the target noted by the observation officer, who gives a correction
based upon the error. This correction is transmitted to the battery
by methods depending on the distance between it and the observation
post, but almost invariably by telephone, and applied to the guns.
Another round is then fired, which is again observed and a fresh
correction made as before. This process continues until the rounds are
falling at or very close to the target. It sounds remarkably simple,
but is in practice extremely difficult. To hit an unknown target with
the expenditure of the minimum possible number of rounds requires
considerable experience in observation, for the puff of a bursting
shell lasts only for the fraction of a second, and is apt to look
very small at a distance of more than a few hundred yards. Further,
knowledge of the vagaries of each individual gun is required, and
also a keen appreciation of the nature of the country round about the
target. Observation of fire may be truly said to be an art, in that it
comes naturally to some people, whilst others may spend a lifetime in
its practice without ever becoming proficient.
The second part of an observation officer's duty, that of keeping a
general watch on the ground spread out in front of him, is considerably
easier, as it only requires a keen eye and a good memory. After a
little practice, it is soon found that the apparent changeless calm of
a deserted land is in the highest degree deceptive. Although they are
utterly invisible, that land is thickly populated with hidden troops,
whose object it is perpetually to turn every feature of it, natural
and artificial, to the best possible use for attack or defence. The
ruins of a barn stand some little way back from the enemy's line,
roofless and abandoned. The telescope shows it to have some part of
its walls yet standing, and within them a ladder. Now ladders are
precious things in a strip of country where everything is made to
serve a useful purpose. Examine the place daily and perhaps at dawn
a single figure may be seen scurrying up the ladder, or perhaps its
position may have altered slightly. For weeks, perhaps, one has noticed
a dilapidated house, so broken down that through the shell-holes that
breach the front wall one can see the horizon beyond. Yet one morning
one of these shell-holes shows dark, or perhaps a new one has appeared
higher up, although no battery has been seen to fire at it. A flock
of starlings pours suddenly from the stump of what was once a church
tower, and for a long time the birds circle in clamorous flight about
it, seemingly afraid to re-enter their accustomed haunt. Hints, all of
these, indicating that some use is being made of these places, either
as observation stations or snipers' posts.
Even the innocent-looking surface of a weed-grown field is not above
suspicion. The naked eye is suddenly drawn to it by what seems at first
almost inspiration, but one becomes conscious as one watches of an
indeterminable movement taking place on its surface. Mark the place
very carefully and bring the telescope to bear upon it. The sense of
movement resolves itself into the periodic sprinkling of brown earth
thrown up as by an industrious mole. These are spadefuls of earth,
showing that a trench is being dug. Natural features themselves have a
habit of changing their positions with the same disconcerting effect
as that phenomenon had upon Macbeth. Of course, one is never lucky
enough to catch them actually in motion, but a morning of surprises
will often reveal the disappearance of a well-known hedge, or the
sudden apparition of an orchard of full-grown trees in the middle of
a ploughed field, or even a stately plantation of elms on what was
formerly a _pavé_ road. The hedge was removed to provide something with
a field of fire, or to allow somebody to see a particular part of our
line; the game is now to discover the whereabouts and nature of that
something or somebody. The orchard and the elm trees were required as
cover, probably for guns; the surest plan is to shell them and await
developments. It may be possible to drive the detachments out into the
open, when every weapon that can be brought to bear will sing its own
particular song of triumph.
A certain redoubt was located by our aeroplanes, and its position
indicated to us by the fact that it lay right in front of the seventh
from the northern end of a row of trees such as occur at intervals
along the side of most French _Routes Nationales_. For many days
we used this mark, until it suddenly struck one of our observation
officers that the trees looked somehow different to what they did when
first he noticed them. Suspicion being thus aroused, further aeroplane
reconnaissance was undertaken, when it was found that the third tree of
the row now marked the position of the redoubt. The enemy, seeing that
they had been "spotted" by the first aeroplane, had dug up the four
trees at the northern end of the row and replanted them at the southern
end, and must consequently have watched, with a delight not very
difficult to imagine, our shells raising a little inferno of their own
a couple of hundred yards away from them.
All this is a part of the great game of war that it is most difficult
to learn in times of peace. "Pretending to look for something you
know isn't there," as I have heard it described, is an occupation
that palls upon the dullest mind. Well do I remember many years ago
forming one of a class of young officers under instruction in the use
of the "Observation of Fire Instrument," which consists of a telescope
fearfully and wonderfully mounted on a gigantic tripod--it is now, in
the language beloved of the text-books, "becoming obsolescent," may it
soon be relegated to the limbo of forgotten things! Our instructor,
a highly capable but choleric major (majors always were apt to be
petulant, I thought, in those days), had spent the best part of a
warm June morning explaining the use of the cumbrous toy, until the
whole class were sick at heart. At last he sent one of our number some
distance away with orders to observe and report upon some object in
the distance out to sea, the while he discoursed to the remainder. The
minutes slipped by, and no word came from the keeper of the lonely
vigil. "Go and see what that dam! fool is up to, sergeant-major,"
said our instructor. Anon the sergeant-major returned, with a face as
impassive as the metal of the instrument itself. "Well?" rapped out the
major. "If you please, sir, Mr. Robinson is a-studying observation on
the ladies' bathing-place!"
Observation, it may be repeated, is an art, but every art requires
considerable training, if only in technique, before the artist can
acquire perfect and instinctive expression. Where, as in the case of
the art of the gunner, art leans for its support upon the strong arm of
science, the probationary stage requires even more time and application
on the part of the tyro. It has been said that it takes three years
to teach an artillery officer the elements of his profession. It
will doubtless be claimed as a triumph of foresight for our military
administration that, although at the outbreak of war our heavy
artillery _matériel_ was, in equipment and numbers, such as would not
inspire pride in a Central American Republic, we had a large reserve of
highly-trained artillery officers and men languishing in the enforced
sloth of our coast fortresses all over the world. Well it is for us
that this was so, for this is a war of heavy artillery, and without
these men to train, command and leaven the newly formed batteries that
we were forced so hurriedly to raise, our artillery would never have
attained its present admitted dominance. Splendid indeed is the new
material; the artillery manage to secure officers of the higher and
better educated classes, and men, thanks to rigidly-enforced physical
standards, of the sturdier build; all ranks are full of the interest
of their new profession, enthusiastic, keen to learn, absorbing in the
sharp days of war knowledge that others required the leisurely weeks
of peace to acquire. Still, may the country, in its just pride in
the performances of these men, never forget the debt that it owes to
that little band whose pay it loved to curtail and whose ambitions to
discourage in the old forgotten years of peace!