A TRENCH RAID
In the morning the members of the raiding party were taken back a
mile or so to the rear and were given instruction and rehearsal.
This was the first raid that "Batt" had ever tried, and the staff
was anxious to have it a success. There were fifty in the party,
and Blofeld, who had organized the raid, beat our instructions into
us until we knew them by heart.
The object of a raid is to get into the enemy's trenches by stealth
if possible, kill as many as possible, take prisoners if
practicable, do a lot of damage, and get away with a whole hide.
We got back to the front trenches just before dark. I noticed a lot
of metal cylinders arranged along the parapet. They were about as
big as a stovepipe and four feet long, painted brown. They were the
gas containers. They were arranged about four or five to a
traverse, and were connected up by tubes and were covered with
sandbags. This was the poison gas ready for release over the top
through tubes.
[Illustration: A HEAVY HOWITZER, UNDER CAMOUFLAGE. Copyright, by
Underwood & Underwood, N.Y.]
The time set for our stunt was eleven P.M. Eleven o'clock was
"zero." The system on the Western Front, and, in fact, all fronts,
is to indicate the time fixed for any event as zero. Anything
before or after is spoken of as plus or minus zero.
Around five o'clock we were taken back to Mechanics trench and
fed--a regular meal with plenty of everything, and all good. It
looked rather like giving a condemned man a hearty meal, but grub
is always acceptable to a soldier.
After that we blacked our faces. This is always done to prevent the
whiteness of the skin from showing under the flare lights. Also to
distinguish your own men when you get to the Boche trench.
Then we wrote letters and gave up our identification discs and were
served with persuader sticks or knuckle knives, and with "Mills"
bombs.
The persuader is a short, heavy bludgeon with a nail-studded head.
You thump Fritz on the head with it. Very handy at close quarters.
The knuckle knife is a short dagger with a heavy brass hilt that
covers the hand. Also very good for close work, as you can either
strike or stab with it.
We moved up to the front trenches at about half-past ten. At zero
minus ten, that is, ten minutes of eleven, our artillery opened up.
It was the first bombardment I had ever been under, and it seemed
as though all the guns in the world were banging away. Afterwards I
found that it was comparatively light, but it didn't seem so then.
The guns were hardly started when there was a sound like escaping
steam. Jerry leaned over and shouted in my ear: "There goes the
gas. May it finish the blighters."
Blofeld came dashing up just then, very much excited because he
found we had not put on our masks, through some slip-up in the
orders. We got into them quick. But as it turned out there was no
need. There was a fifteen-mile wind blowing, which carried the gas
away from us very rapidly. In fact it blew it across the Boche
trenches so fast that it didn't bother them either.
The barrage fire kept up right up to zero, as per schedule. At
thirty seconds of eleven I looked at my watch and the din was at
its height. At exactly eleven it stopped short. Fritz was still
sending some over, but comparatively there was silence. After the
ear-splitting racket it was almost still enough to hurt.
And in that silence over the top we went.
Lanes had been cut through our wire, and we got through them
quickly. The trenches were about one hundred twenty yards apart and
we still had nearly one hundred to go. We dropped and started to
crawl. I skinned both my knees on something, probably old wire, and
both hands. I could feel the blood running into my puttees, and my
rifle bothered me as I was afraid of jabbing Jerry, who was just
ahead of me as first bayonet man.
They say a drowning man or a man in great danger reviews his past.
I didn't. I spent those few minutes wondering when the machine-gun
fire would come.
I had the same "gone" feeling in the pit of the stomach that you
have when you drop fast in an elevator. The skin on my face felt
tight, and I remember that I wanted to pucker my nose and pull my
upper lip down over my teeth.
We got clean up to their wire before they spotted us. Their
entanglements had been flattened by our barrage fire, but we had to
get up to pick our way through, and they saw us.
Instantly the "Very" lights began to go up in scores, and hell
broke loose. They must have turned twenty machine guns on us, or at
us, but their aim evidently was high, for they only "clicked" two
out of our immediate party. We had started with ten men, the other
fifty being divided into three more parties farther down the line.
When the machine guns started, we charged. Jerry and I were ahead
as bayonet men, with the rest of the party following with buckets
of "Mills" bombs and "Stokeses."
It was pretty light, there were so many flares going up from both
sides. When I jumped on the parapet, there was a whaling big Boche
looking up at me with his rifle resting on the sandbags. I was
almost on the point of his bayonet.
For an instant I stood with a kind of paralyzed sensation, and
there flashed through my mind the instructions of the manual for
such a situation, only I didn't apply those instructions to this
emergency.
Instead I thought--if such a flash could be called thinking--how I,
as an instructor, would have told a rookie to act, working on a
dummy. I had a sort of detached feeling as though this was a silly
dream.
Probably this hesitation didn't last more than a second.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jerry lunge, and I lunged
too. Why that Boche did not fire I don't know. Perhaps he did and
missed. Anyhow I went down and in on him, and the bayonet went
through his throat.
Jerry had done his man in and all hands piled into the trench.
Then we started to race along the traverses. We found a machine
gun and put an eleven-pound high-explosive "Stokes" under it. Three
or four Germans appeared, running down communication trenches, and
the bombers sent a few Millses after them. Then we came to a
dug-out door--in fact, several, as Fritz, like a woodchuck, always
has more than one entrance to his burrow. We broke these in in jig
time and looked down a thirty-foot hole on a dug-out full of
graybacks. There must have been a lot of them. I could plainly see
four or five faces looking up with surprised expressions.
Blofeld chucked in two or three Millses and away we went.
A little farther along we came to the entrance of a mine shaft, a
kind of incline running toward our lines. Blofeld went in it a
little way and flashed his light. He thought it was about forty
yards long. We put several of our remaining Stokeses in that and
wrecked it.
Turning the corner of the next traverse, I saw Jerry drop his rifle
and unlimber his persuader on a huge German who had just rounded
the corner of the "bay." He made a good job of it, getting him in
the face, and must have simply caved him in, but not before he had
thrown a bomb. I had broken my bayonet prying the dug-out door off
and had my gun up-ended--clubbed.
[Illustration: OVER THE TOP ON A RAID. Photograph from Underwood &
Underwood, N.Y.]
When I saw that bomb coming, I bunted at it like Ty Cobb trying to
sacrifice. It was the only thing to do. I choked my bat and poked
at the bomb instinctively, and by sheer good luck fouled the thing
over the parapet. It exploded on the other side.
"Blimme eyes," says Jerry, "that's cool work. You saved us the
wooden cross that time."
We had found two more machine guns and were planting Stokeses under
them when we heard the Lewises giving the recall signal. A good
gunner gets so he can play a tune on a Lewis, and the device is
frequently used for signals. This time he thumped out the old
one--"All policemen have big feet." Rat-a-tat-tat--tat, tat.
It didn't come any too soon.
As we scrambled over the parapet we saw a big party of Germans
coming up from the second trenches. They were out of the
communication trenches and were coming across lots. There must have
been fifty of them, outnumbering us five or six to one.
We were out of bombs, Jerry had lost his rifle, and mine had no
"ammo." Blofeld fired the last shot from his revolver and, believe
me, we hooked it for home.
We had been in their trenches just three and a half minutes.
Just as we were going through their wire a bomb exploded near and
got Jerry in the head. We dragged him in and also the two men that
had been clicked on the first fire. Jerry got Blighty on his wound,
but was back in two months. The second time he wasn't so lucky. He
lies now somewhere in France with a wooden cross over his head.
Did that muddy old trench look good when we tumbled in? Oh, Boy!
The staff was tickled to pieces and complimented us all. We were
sent out of the lines that night and in billets got hot food,
high-grade "fags", a real bath, a good stiff rum ration, and
letters from home.
Next morning we heard the results of the raid. One party of twelve
never returned. Besides that we lost seven men killed. The German
loss was estimated at about one hundred casualties, six machine
guns and several dug-outs destroyed, and one mine shaft put out of
business. We also brought back documents of value found by one
party in an officer's dug-out.
Blofeld got the military cross for the night's work, and several of
the enlisted men got the D.C.M.
Altogether it was a successful raid. The best part of it was
getting back.