thoughts stray into strange channels during the course of the long days
of watching. How keenly he longs sometimes for "something to happen,"
especially during his first experiences of the work, before he realizes
that something is always happening under his eyes, if he can only
detect it. My own pet longing was to see my first real live Hun in
his natural surroundings, a longing conceived in much the same sort of
inquiring spirit that inspires the naturalist. I saw him at last, he
sprang from a trench in which a shell had just fallen, ran literally
as if his life depended on it, which, in grim earnest, it did, and
dived like a rabbit into a support trench a few yards away, followed
by cheers and bullets from our own lines. My observation post was at
that time not more than a hundred yards behind our front line, but,
owing to the intricate nature of the country, no signs of immediate
war could be seen except from the little slit in the wall from which I
observed. One day I was stretching my legs in the road outside, when a
staff officer, somewhat of a _rara avis_ in so advanced a spot, came
by, having evidently lost his way. Now a staff officer was once defined
to me by a very distinguished regimental officer as "a being whose
natural common sense was buried for ever beneath the vast mountain of
his own ignorance." This magnificent gentleman--he had probably been
a distinguished grocer, the pride of the local volunteers, before the
war--informed me that observation was impossible from where I then
was, and, indicating a ruin, the remains of whose roof could just be
seen above the hedges, expressed his intention of surveying the country
from its more favourable eminence. Bowing before his superior wisdom,
I saluted and we parted, he to pursue the even tenor of his way, I to
my seat behind the window to watch the fun, knowing that his objective
was about half a mile behind the German lines. With an unholy delight,
I saw him blunder into our trenches, exchange a hurried word with an
officer who came forward to meet him, and then beat a precipitate
retreat pursued by a most audible titter that ran swiftly along the
line.
He took care to avoid on his return the Bath Club, as we called that
O.P., from the number of flooded cellars it contained.
The study of nomenclature at the front is a very fascinating one, if
only for the light that it throws upon the psychology of nostalgia.
Every road, every communication trench is christened with some name
around which hang the memories of the men who gave it, so that the
native origins of these shrewd godfathers is never for a moment in
doubt. Who but a native-born Londoner would have evolved a Harrow
Road, off which, in an orgy of local geography, branch Edgware Road,
Finchley Road, Maida Vale and a dozen other familiar names? Who but
a young subaltern--his heart still unforgetful of the old _joie de
vivre_, having established an O.P. at the end of a muddy ditch already
known as Burlington Arcade, would have proudly labelled it "The
Bristol," or who, but his envious friends near Shaftesbury Avenue,
would have emulated him with "Maxime's" and "The Villa-villa"! Moray
Avenue, Prince's Street, Deansgate, Dale Street, College Green, all
tell their own story. And where association ends, description begins.
Stink Farm, is, I believe, now marked as such on the official maps.
Quality Street has already a place in history that may one day be
shared by Mud Cottage, Canadian Orchard, la Maison des Mitrailleurs,
Rue d'Enfer, and Le Tirebouchon. Sometimes the names of places have
been anglicized almost out of recognition. Wingles and Hinges are
pronounced as they appear to an English eye, Choques is Chokes, Gris
Pot is Grease Pot, Lozinghem is Lozenges, to quote a very few examples.
The same may be found on the German side. The Hohenzollern Redoubt
is familiar by name to everybody. Near it is Breslauer Chausée Loos
contained Unter den Linden, Friedrichstrasse, and, rather curiously,
Ringstrasse; Vendin le Vieil is Alt-Vendin, Lens, Lenze. But this is
yet another digression, the wandering thoughts of the idle observer;
let us suppose him suddenly recalled to the affairs of the moment by
the insistent voice of the telephone.
"Message for you, sir--from headquarters," says the telephonist,
bearing a piece of pink paper in his hand. I take it, and read, "Fire
twenty rounds at intersection of communication trenches at----" Here
follow a combination of figures and letters that denote the position
on the map. "Very well, call up the battery and give 'action.' Tell
them to report when ready." Out comes the map, and the point mentioned
in the message found. A road runs east and west close by it, yes, I
know that road, have often noticed it. A communication trench runs
along it for some way, then turns off at right angles by a hedge, which
it follows for a couple of hundred yards till it meets its fellow,
which place of meeting I am ordered, in the parlance of the front, to
"strafe." Can I see that hedge, I wonder? Prolonged inspection through
the glasses assures me that I cannot. There is nothing for it but to
take a bearing. One hundred and seventeen degrees from my position,
five degrees left of the church tower. Compass and sextant agree,
giving me the line to the corner of a wood on the horizon, on which
line my target must somewhere be situated. Out come the glasses again.
There certainly is a mound right in line with my mark in the centre
of that meadow, but it might be anything. Yes, the telescope shows it
to be earth thrown up from some excavation or other, it must be the
trench junction. It looks hopelessly foreshortened, nothing like the
map, but then the map seems to look down on things with a calm judicial
air, whilst I can only peer at them from their own level. A very little
practice in observation soon shows one that the human eye is utterly
unreliable as a gauge of the length of anything that stretches away
from it. "Battery reports ready for action, sir," says the telephonist.
"Thank you. No. 1 gun ranging, elevation nineteen degrees, etc., etc."
Back comes the warning, "No. 1 reports ready to fire, sir." "Fire No.
1!" "No. 1 fired, sir!" and then an eternity of breathless anxiety,
during which all the fabled deadly sins of gunners long since condemned
to everlasting execration rush upon my memory. Suppose I have read
the map wrong, and that is not the place at all? An instant's piercing
scrutiny, which fails to reassure me in the least. Even if that is
the place, it is not very far from our own trenches. Did I give the
right elevation? Did I allow enough for wind? Were my orders perfectly
clear to the section commander? Did the layer lay correctly? Shall I
be "broke" if I slaughter a whole platoon in our own trenches, or only
shot?... Eternity comes to an end at last after a life of some ten
seconds, and I hear the whistle of the shell coming ever nearer--safely
over my head, anyhow, thank heaven! Yes, she must have passed the
trenches by now; where's she going to fall? The whistle ends abruptly,
but nowhere is there any sign of smoke, nor does the sound of the burst
reach me. A blind, I suppose, the shell must have fallen into something
soft, but I'd give ten years of my life to know _where_. Well, there is
nothing for it--"No. 1, repeat, fire!" "No. 1 fired, sir!" The whistle
again, then right in line with the target, and hiding it, a bright
flash, a spout of earth and a cloud of black smoke, followed by a
peculiar, sharp crash, and the hell of doubt gives way to the heaven of
satisfaction. Such are the delights of observation.
And variously the excitement infects the blood of the observer. One
will sit far back from his window, lest prying eyes should detect him
through it, and give his orders slowly and methodically, weighing each
carefully and making elaborate calculations the while, and occasionally
exhorting the battery to care and deliberation. Another will thrust a
telescope through a chink between two sandbags so that it shines like
a heliograph in the morning sun and one wonders if some well-disposed
angel has smitten the enemy with blindness for that every battery
within range does not open fire on him. He, meanwhile, oblivious of
such minor dangers, roars contradictory orders as through a megaphone,
calling on the inhabitants of Tophet with strange formulæ because
his orders are not obeyed before he gives them. I have seen a French
Territorial battery in action for the first time in their lives, Mons.
le capitaine subdued, almost tearful, but resolved to die in his O.P.
as befits a soldier. His telephonists and assistants (he appeared to
have dozens) equally anxious to see the fray, festoon themselves all
over the building, hanging out of windows, clambering on to the roof,
expressing their delight at the top of their voices. Eventually he
restores some degree of order, and, rushing to the telephone, sweeps
aside the operators, and gives the word himself. "Tirez, tirez, pour
l'honneur de la belle France!" The shot falls apparently in a totally
different direction to where he anticipates. Again he rushes to the
instrument, more perhaps in sorrow than in anger, and demands the
presence of the section commander. "Mon lieutenant!" he says, "ce n'est
pas juste, c'est épouvantable! Je me sens brisé! Nom d'un nom, que vous
êtes maladroit! Dirigez la pièce encore vous même!" He finishes his
series at last, and as he turns to go, he salutes me gravely, saying,
"Au revoir, monsieur, j'aimerais bien travailler ici à coté de vous,
mais, hélas! c'est fort impossible. Dans cette observatoire il y en a
toujours de bruit!" It must not for a moment be supposed that I speak
disparagingly of the French gunners. They are, as a matter of fact,
far better artillerists than ourselves, and we have much to learn from
them. Possibly they lack something of our insular calm, as we certainly
lack the vivid power of imagination and discernment that contributes
very largely to their success. For this same calm the British gunner
is hard to beat. On one occasion a heavy shell hit an O.P. fair and
square, bringing it down in a heap of ruins. The observer, who by some
miracle was not hurt, extricated himself from the pile of rubbish
under which he found himself, and rushed down to the cellar, where he
expected to find the mangled remains of his telephonist. There was
the man, his hands full of fragments that had once been a telephone,
standing with a puzzled expression on his face. "I 'ardly know what to
do with this 'ere instrument, sir," was his greeting. "I don't see as
'ow I'm goin' to mend it without goin' back to the battery for some
spare parts."
Observation by night is sometimes useful, as then the flashes of
hostile batteries can be seen most distinctly. It is, however, a
peculiarity of modern propellants that the actinic power of the flame
produced on their combustion is such as to attract attention in broad
daylight. I have had my eye caught by the flash of a ten-centimetre
gun about four miles away at four o'clock on a sunny afternoon in
September, and there is no doubt that this distance has frequently
been exceeded. Still, night of course is the best time, although then
it is very much easier to mistake the flash of a bursting shell for
that of a gun, and even if flashes are observed, nothing can be noted
except their direction, their surroundings being invisible. And a few
hours at night in an O.P. have their compensations. Over the trenches
rise continually the searching lights, throwing everything into sudden
contrast of light and shade, making of the familiar scene whose every
stone and blade of grass one thought to know by heart, a strange land
of white snow islands standing sheer out of yawning black gulfs. Every
now and then sharp tongues of flame dart out from the parapet, a sudden
lurid flash in the air shows a bursting shrapnel, or a brighter one
on the ground the more violent detonation of high explosive. Perhaps
a rocket signal of green and red goes up, followed by a quicker
succession of flashes of all kinds as a patrol between the trenches is
discovered. Perhaps one may be lucky enough to see a chance shell start
a huge fire, such as burnt once for three days and three nights in
Cité St. Pierre, producing a glow as of twilight two good miles away.
Whatever may be seen, night has its fascination in this strange world
of sleepless activity as much as in a land of quiet, but here its
fascination is a stirring into life of eager pulses, a whispering in
the ear of that ever-ready lust of battle that makes of war the finest
sport that man ever devised. Somehow at night all deeds seem possible.
IV
THE FOUR DAYS
(September 21-24, 1915)
Although many descriptions and maps of the country round about Loos
have been issued, it may not be out of place to attempt one more brief
outline, from which the general trend of the operations from September
25, 1915, onward can be followed. Descriptions of a country that one
does not know being invariably flat and unconvincing, it may suffice
to lay down the main features in a very few words. From the La Bassée
Canal southward to Souchez is a purely coal-mining district, one of
the most important in France, an undulating country devoid of natural
features, but abounding in artificial ones, such as chimney-stacks,
mine-shafts and dump-heaps. The miners' villages, locally termed
_corons_, group themselves about the pit-heads, and form two long
lines of almost continuous brick and mortar, separated by a shallow
valley, normally under cultivation, but now lying fallow and deserted,
varying in width from a few hundred yards to a couple of miles or so.
In the centre of this valley lies Loos, a village of some two thousand
inhabitants, conspicuous for miles round from the huge double shaft,
the famous Pylons, that rise nearly three hundred feet above the
surface of the plain.
Of the two lines of villages, that surrounding the mines owned by
the Compagnie des Mines de Béthune, and consisting of Cambrin,
Vermelles, Philosophe, Mazingarbe, Les Brebis, Grenay, Maroc, and Aix
Noulette, was, about the middle of September, held by the Allies. The
eastern line, consisting of Auchy, Haisnes, Cité St. Elie, Hulluch,
Benifontaine, Vendin, Cité St. Auguste, Lens and its countless suburbs,
and Liévin, was, at the same period, held by the enemy. Along the
course of the valley, but well up the western slope of it, so that the
village of Loos lay a mile within them on the German side, ran the
two opposing lines, with their maze of support and reserve trenches,
their sinuous lines of communication trenches leading up the slopes
of the valley to the villages in rear. From our observation posts in
Maroc the whole of the southern sector of these parallel works could
be plainly seen, the line of each trench through the green overgrowth
of weeds being conspicuously marked by the white chalk thrown up in
excavating them. Behind these again, two long black arms stretched
out towards us, with a sinister look as though inviting us to leave
the comparative security of our trenches and rush to the attack of
the body from which they grew, the city of Lens. In reality nothing
but embankments formed by the continual deposition of refuse from the
mines, these two arms, the northern known as the Double Crassier, the
southern as the Puits XVI embankment, had been transformed by the enemy
into exceedingly strong positions, mined, entrenched, fortified by
every known means, the westernmost ramifications of the fortress into
which Lens had been converted. Opposite the extremity of the Puits XVI
embankment the Allied armies met, the right of the British line resting
upon the Tenth French Army, the first of that great chain of armies
that spreads, with one short gap, to the faraway Swiss mountains.
All through August and September the roads behind the Allied front
had been covered by infantry and artillery, and even towards the end
by cavalry, all moving eastwards through the all-pervading chalk dust.
Rumour, as ever, was busy with conjecture. This was merely a feint,
maintained the pessimists, the real advance is to lie with the French
in Champagne. Nonsense, replied the optimists, this is at last the
long-looked-for general advance, the death-blow of trench warfare, the
dawning of the millennium when the Battle of Position shall give way to
the Battle of Movement, the beginning of the final struggle that will
end only with the death-throes of the enemy on the Rhine! Whatever were
one's individual opinions, the scent of battle, the glorious prospect
of a "scrap," was in the air, and spirits rose accordingly.
Slowly, from the august sources wherein the strategy of armies has
its birth, the true intentions of the Allies percolated. Looking back
now, it seems that too much was allowed to be known from the first.
Documents containing detailed programmes of the proposed operations
were circulated in some cases as much as a fortnight before the
selected day, and in the field it is impossible to prevent the contents
of such documents becoming common knowledge within an incredibly
short time, which is practically equivalent to sending the originals
across to the enemy with one's compliments. It was subsequently
established by the examination of prisoners that the German General
Staff had full knowledge of our plans many days before the attack
took place, and had, indeed, made dispositions to meet it. It is
undoubtedly essential to circulate beforehand exact instructions as
to the part that each unit is to perform in contemplated operations,
but it is extremely doubtful if it is expedient to do so until the
last possible moment. Apart from the danger of leakage to the enemy,
it is always found, as indeed in this case, that the interval that
elapses between the receipt of instructions and their execution is
filled with a storm of amplifications, contradictions and amendments,
poured out by intermediate commanders, until the unfortunate commander
of a unit is faced, when called upon to act, by an accumulation of
mutually incompatible orders. If a strong man, he throws them all
indiscriminately into the fire, and, acting by the light of his own
commonsense and initiative, stands a fair chance of succeeding; if
a weak man, he endeavours to act upon them all, and, with deadly
certainty, fails.
The ultimate intention of the General Staff will not be revealed until
long after the end of the war, if even then, nor need we concern
ourselves with anything but the general instructions issued to the
Fourth Corps, the southernmost portion of the First British Army,
the army that held the line from the canal southward to the junction
with the French. Briefly, these were to seize Loos, Hill 70, which is
merely the eastern slope of the valley behind Loos, and to establish
themselves on this slope in such a position as to command Lens from the
north. It was understood that the French were to make a simultaneous
attack from the direction of Souchez, occupy the Vimy ridge, and
similarly threaten Lens from the south.
In order to attain these objects, a four days' bombardment of the
enemy's position was to be undertaken, to be immediately followed by
an assault upon the fifth day. Of the actual details of the targets to
be engaged by each battery it is unnecessary to speak in a sketch of
this nature. Our own battery, in common with the rest, was allotted
targets to be engaged at different periods of each of the four days,
these days being not specified, but described as days V, W, X, and Y.
Throughout a breathless week we elaborated our plans, each day bringing
as a rule some modification of our original instructions. We spent our
daylight hours peering out of our observation slits, and our evenings
measuring ever new angles and ranges on our maps, until each one of
us knew every stone in the country that lay in front of us by some
pet name, and our maps developed strange diagrams in every possible
combination of coloured chalks, for all the world like the diagram of
the London Tubes. Thus we possessed our souls in a greater or less
degree of impatience, till at last the message came: "To-morrow is
day V," and on the night of September 20 I at least sought the genial
warmth of my valise feeling that the curtain was about to rise upon the
finest spectacle that the world had ever seen.
That night was the lull before the storm. All along our line the
restless field guns woke but fitfully, as a watch-dog to bark at the
moon, and then fell off to sleep again. Even the incomparable French
_soixante-quinzes_ on our right, whose voices are hushed neither by
day nor night, seemed restless, impatient, restrained, keeping long
silences, until in sheer desperation they burst into uncontrollable
passion, ceasing again as suddenly as they began, as though appalled
by their own act. Only the vivid lights soared brilliantly as ever
above the trenches, failing, however, to evoke the usual salutation
from their unsleeping wardens. So the morning dawned, unheralded by the
noisy "morning hate" with which the opposing armies invariably greeted
one another, the still air seeming to cower silently, awaiting the
shocks that were to come.
The spirit of expectancy had penetrated into the battery itself. The
gun detachments stood to their guns, polishing and oiling for the
twentieth time each smallest detail. The men off duty stood about in
groups, talking in hushed voices, broken suddenly now and then by a
loud laugh quickly checked, as men will when something is expected to
happen. In the telephone dug-out sat the officers, silent save for
spasmodic efforts at general conversation, starting nervously at each
note of the buzzer. At last a sudden stiffening of the telephonist on
duty, "Yes, I'm battery, yes--battery action, sir!" and the tension
ceased. Instantly the battery leapt into life. "Right section,
lyddite, full charge, load! Switch angle four degrees right----"
Strings of order pour from the section commanders, echoed by the
"numbers one" in the gun-pits, dying away to silence again. Then
the voice of the senior subaltern, "Report battery ready to fire!"
a breathless minute, seemingly interminable; at last a faint buzz
from the telephone, the sharp cry "Fire No. 1 gun!" and before the
last sound of the order dies away the flash and roar of the howitzer
proclaim that for us, at least, the Battle of Loos has begun.
So as the day passes on we fall into our usual routine. The battery is
seemingly uninhabited but for the strident section commanders standing
between their hidden guns, except when reliefs descend into the pits
as into Avernus, out of which presently appear a knot of men dusty,
grimy and incredibly thirsty. Sometimes an officer comes up to the
section commander, stands reading his notebook over his shoulder for
a few seconds, nods as he receives a terse word or so as to rate of
fire, takes over the notebook, pencil and megaphone and carries on the
ceaseless clamour. All the time, at regular intervals, the guns fire
and the orders pass. Sometimes a keener note is heard, "Left section,
cease loading! Fresh target----" and a new string of orders, soon
followed by a resumption of the periodic roaring, as of a thunderstorm
controlled by an angel with a stop-watch. Or perhaps "Fire No. 3 gun!"
and no instant report. "What's the matter, No. 3?" "Missfire, sir!"
"All right, look sharp!" "All ready, sir!" "Fire No. 3, then!" and the
rhythm commences again. After a time it all has a strangely soothing
effect on the senses. First one loses the din of the surrounding
batteries, then fails to notice the report of one's own guns a few feet
away, giving orders mechanically notwithstanding. Perhaps a stifled
yawn and a glance at the watch--is that infernal fellow never coming
to relieve me? Then the warning voice of the telephonist, "Fresh
target coming through, sir!" and the wandering attention leaps into
watchfulness again.