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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/28145-8.txt b/28145-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1465ed4 --- /dev/null +++ b/28145-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2038 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Attack, by Edward G. D. Liveing + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Attack + An Infantry Subaltern's Impression of July 1st, 1916 + +Author: Edward G. D. Liveing + +Release Date: February 20, 2009 [EBook #28145] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATTACK *** + + + + +Produced by Jeannie Howse and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + + * * * * * + + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For | + | a complete list, please see the end of this document. | + | | + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + + * * * * * + + + + + ATTACK + + + + + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS + ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO + + MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED + LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA + MELBOURNE + + THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. + TORONTO + + + + + ATTACK + + AN INFANTRY SUBALTERN'S IMPRESSIONS + OF JULY 1ST, 1916 + + BY + EDWARD G.D. LIVEING + + + WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY + JOHN MASEFIELD + + + New York + + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + 1918 + + _All rights reserved_ + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1918 + BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + + Set up and electrotyped. Published, April, 1918 + + + + + TO + + THE N.C.O.s + + AND + + MEN OF No. 5 PLATOON + + Of a Battalion of the County of London + Regiment, whom I had the good + fortune to command in France + during 1915-1916, and in + particular to the + memory of + RFN. C.N. DENNISON + My Platoon Observer, who fell in action + July 1st, 1916, in an attempt + to save my life + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +The attack on the fortified village of Gommecourt, which Mr. Liveing +describes in these pages with such power and colour, was a part of the +first great allied attack on July 1, 1916, which began the battle of +the Somme. That battle, so far as it concerns our own troops, may be +divided into two sectors: one, to the south of the Ancre River, a +sector of advance, the other, to the north of the Ancre River, a +containing sector, in which no advance was possible. Gommecourt +itself, which made a slight but important salient in the enemy line in +the containing sector, was the most northern point attacked in that +first day's fighting. + +Though the Gommecourt position is not impressive to look at, most of +our soldiers are agreed that it was one of the very strongest points +in the enemy's fortified line on the Western Front. French and Russian +officers, who have seen it since the enemy left it, have described it +as "terrible" and as "the very devil." There can be no doubt that it +was all that they say. + +The country in that part is high-lying chalk downland, something like +the downland of Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, though generally barer +of trees, and less bold in its valleys. Before the war it was +cultivated, hedgeless land, under corn and sugar-beet. The chalk is +usually well-covered, as in Buckinghamshire, with a fat clay. As the +French social tendency is all to the community, there are few lonely +farms in that countryside as there would be with us. The inhabitants +live in many compact villages, each with a church, a market-place, a +watering-place for stock, and sometimes a château and park. Most of +the villages are built of red brick, and the churches are of stone, +not (as in the chalk countries with us) of dressed flint. Nearly all +the villages are planted about with orchards; some have copses of +timber trees. In general, from any distance, the villages stand out +upon the downland as clumps of woodland. Nearly everywhere near the +battlefield a clump of orchard, with an occasional dark fir in it, is +the mark of some small village. In time of peace the Picardy farming +community numbered some two or three hundred souls. Gommecourt and +Hébuterne were of the larger kind of village. + +A traveller coming towards Gommecourt as Mr. Liveing came to it, from +the west, sees nothing of the Gommecourt position till he reaches +Hébuterne. It is hidden from him by the tilt of the high-lying chalk +plateau, and by the woodland and orchards round Hébuterne village. +Passing through this village, which is now deserted, save for a few +cats, one comes to a fringe of orchard, now deep in grass, and of +exquisite beauty. From the hedge of this fringe of orchard one sees +the Gommecourt position straight in front, with the Gommecourt salient +curving round on slightly rising ground, so as to enclose the left +flank. + +At first sight the position is not remarkable. One sees, to the left, +a slight rise or swelling in the chalk, covered thickly with the +remains and stumps of noble trees, now mostly killed by shell-fire. +This swelling, which is covered with the remains of Gommecourt Park, +is the salient of the enemy position. The enemy trenches here jut out +into a narrow pointing finger to enclose and defend this slight rise. + +Further to the right, this rise becomes a low, gentle heave in the +chalk, which stretches away to the south for some miles, becoming +lower and gentler in its slope as it proceeds. The battered woodland +which covers its higher end contains the few stumps and heaps of brick +that were once Gommecourt village. The lower end is without trees or +buildings. + +This slight wooded rise and low, gentle heave in the chalk make up the +position of Gommecourt. It is nothing but a gentle rise above a gentle +valley. From a mile or two to the south of Gommecourt, this valley +appearance becomes more marked. If one looks northward from this point +the English lines seem to follow a slight rise parallel with the +other. The valley between the two heaves of chalk make the No Man's +Land or space between the enemy trenches and our own. The salient +shuts in the end of the valley and enfilades it. + +The position has changed little since the attack of July 1. Then, as +now, Gommecourt was in ruins, and the trees of the wood were mostly +killed. Then, as now, the position looked terrible, even though its +slopes were gentle and its beauty not quite destroyed, even after two +years of war. + +The position is immensely strong in itself, with a perfect glacis and +field of fire. Every invention of modern defensive war helped to make +it stronger. In front of it was the usual system of barbed wire, +stretched on iron supports, over a width of fifty yards. Behind the +wire was the system of the First Enemy Main Line, from which many +communication-trenches ran to the central fortress of the salient, +known as the Kern Redoubt, and to the Support or Guard Line. This +First Main Line, even now, after countless bombardments and nine +months of neglect, is a great and deep trench of immense strength. It +is from twelve to fifteen feet deep, very strongly revetted with +timberings and stout wicker-work. At intervals it is strengthened with +small forts or sentry-boxes of concrete, built into the parapet. Great +and deep dug-outs lie below it, and though many of these have now been +destroyed, the shafts of most of them can still be seen. At the mouths +of some of these shafts one may still see giant-legged periscopes by +which men sheltered in the dug-out shafts could watch for the coming +of an attack. When the attack began and the barrage lifted, these +watchers called up the bombers and machine-gunners from their +underground barracks, and had them in action within a few seconds. + +Though the wire was formidable and the trench immense, the real +defences of the position were artillery and machine-guns. The +machine-guns were the chief danger. One machine-gun with ample +ammunition has concentrated in itself the defensive power of a +battalion. The enemy had not less than a dozen machine-guns in and in +front of the Kern Redoubt. Some of these were cunningly hidden in +pits, tunnels and shelters in (or even outside) the obstacle of the +wire at the salient, so that they could enfilade the No Man's Land, or +shoot an attacking party in the back after it had passed. The sites of +these machine-gun nests were well hidden from all observation, and +were frequently changed. Besides the machine-guns outside and in the +front line, there were others, mounted in the trees and in the higher +ground above the front line, in such position that they, too, could +play upon the No Man's Land and the English front line. The artillery +concentrated behind Gommecourt was of all calibres. It was a greater +concentration than the enemy could then usually afford to defend any +one sector, but the number of guns in it is not known. On July 1 it +developed a more intense artillery fire upon Hébuterne, and the +English line outside it, than upon any part of the English attack +throughout the battlefield. + +In the attack of July 1, Gommecourt was assaulted simultaneously from +the north (from the direction of Fonquevillers) and from the south +(from the direction of Hébuterne). Mr. Liveing took part in the +southern assault, and must have "gone in" near the Hébuterne-Bucquoy +Road. The tactical intention of these simultaneous attacks from north +and south was to "pinch off" and secure the salient. The attack to the +north, though gallantly pushed, was unsuccessful. The attack to the +south got across the first-line trench and into the enemy position +past Gommecourt Cemetery almost to the Kern Redoubt. What it faced in +getting so far may be read in Mr. Liveing's account. Before our men +left the trenches outside Hébuterne they were in a heavy barrage, and +the open valley of the No Man's Land hissed, as Mr. Liveing says, like +an engine, with machine-gun bullets. Nevertheless, our men reached +the third line of enemy trenches and began to secure the ground which +they had captured. + +During the afternoon the enemy counter-attacked from the south, and, +later in the day, from the north as well. Our men had not enough bombs +to hold back the attackers, and were gradually driven back, after very +severe hand-to-hand fighting in the trenches, to an evil little bend +in the front line directly to the south of Gommecourt Cemetery. At +about 11 P.M., after sixteen hours of intense and bitter fighting, +they were driven back from this point to their own lines. + +Mr. Liveing's story is very well told. It is a simple and most vivid +account of a modern battle. No better account has been written in +England since the war began. I hope that so rare a talent for +narrative may be recognised. I hope, too, that Mr. Liveing may soon be +able to give us more stories as full of life as this. + + JOHN MASEFIELD. + + +The Author wishes to thank Messrs. Blackwood and Sons for their kind +permission to republish this article, which appeared in _Blackwood's +Magazine_, December, 1917, under the title of "Battle." + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I. GATHERING FOR ATTACK 23 + + II. EVE OF ATTACK 28 + +III. ATTACK 54 + + IV. TOLL OF ATTACK 93 + + + + +ATTACK + +CHAPTER I + +GATHERING FOR ATTACK + + +The roads were packed with traffic. Column after column of lorries +came pounding along, bearing their freight of shells, trench-mortar +bombs, wire, stakes, sandbags, pipes, and a thousand other articles +essential for the offensive, so that great dumps of explosives and +other material arose in the green wayside places. Staff cars and +signallers on motor-bikes went busily on their way. Ambulances hurried +backwards and forwards between the line and the Casualty Clearing +Station, for the days of June were hard days for the infantry who dug +the "leaping-off" trenches, and manned them afterwards through rain +and raid and bombardment. Horse transport and new batteries hurried to +their destinations. "Caterpillars" rumbled up, towing the heavier +guns. Infantrymen and sappers marched to their tasks round and about +the line. + +Roads were repaired, telephone wires placed deep in the ground, trees +felled for dug-outs and gun emplacements, water-pipes laid up to the +trenches ready to be extended across conquered territory, while +small-gauge and large-gauge railways seemed to spring to being in the +night. + +Then came days of terror for the enemy. Slowly our guns broke forth +upon them in a tumult of rage. The Germans in retaliation sprayed our +nearer batteries with shrapnel, and threw a barrage of whizz-bangs +across the little white road leading into the village of Hébuterne. +This feeble retaliation was swallowed up and overpowered by the +torrent of metal that now poured incessantly into their territory. +Shells from the 18-pounders and trench-mortars cut their wire and +demoralised their sentries. Guns of all calibres pounded their system +of trenches till it looked for all the world like nothing more than a +ploughed field. The sky was filled with our aeroplanes wheeling about +and directing the work of batteries, and with the black and white +bursts of anti-aircraft shells. Shells from the 9.2 howitzers crashed +into strong points and gun emplacements and hurled them skywards. +Petrol shells licked up the few remaining green-leaved trees in +Gommecourt Wood, where observers watched and snipers nested: 15-inch +naval guns, under the vigilant guidance of observation balloons, +wrought deadly havoc in Bapaume and other villages and billets behind +their lines. + +Thrice were the enemy enveloped in gas and smoke, and, as they +stood-to in expectation of attack, were mown down by a torrent of +shells. + +The bombardment grew and swelled and brought down showers of rain. Yet +the ground remained comparatively dry and columns of dust arose from +the roads as hoof and wheel crushed their broken surfaces and +battalions of infantry, with songs and jests, marched up to billets +and bivouacs just behind the line, ready to give battle. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +EVE OF ATTACK + + +Boom! Absolute silence for a minute. Boom! followed quickly by a more +distant report from a fellow-gun. At each bellowing roar from the 9.2 +near by, bits of the ceiling clattered on to the floor of the billet +and the wall-plaster trickled down on to one's valise, making a sound +like soot coming down a chimney. + +It was about three o'clock in the morning. I did not look at my watch, +as its luminous facings had faded away months before and I did not +wish to disturb my companions by lighting a match. A sigh or a groan +came from one part of the room or another, showing that our +bombardment was troublesome even to the sleepers, and a rasping noise +occasionally occurred when W----k, my Company Commander, turned round +uneasily on his bed of wood and rabbit-wire. + +I plunged farther down into the recesses of my flea-bag, though its +linings had broken down and my feet stuck out at the bottom. Then I +pulled my British Warm over me and muffled my head and ears in it to +escape the regularly-repeated roar of the 9.2. Though the whole house +seemed to be shaking to bits at every minute, the noise was muffled to +a less ear-splitting fury and I gradually sank into a semi-sleep. + +About six o'clock I awoke finally, and after an interval the battery +stopped its work. At half-past seven I hauled myself out of my valise +and sallied forth into the courtyard, clad in a British Warm, pyjamas, +and gum-boots, to make my toilet. I blinked as I came into the light +and felt very sleepy. The next moment I was on my hands and knees, +with every nerve of my brain working like a mill-stone. A vicious +"swish" had sounded over my head, and knowing its meaning I had turned +for the nearest door and slipped upon the cobbled stones of the yard. +I picked myself up and fled for that door just as the inevitable +"crash" came. This happened to be the door to the servants' quarters, +and they were vastly amused. We looked out of the window at the +_débris_ which was rising into the air. Two more "crumps" came +whirling over the house, and with shattering explosions lifted more +_débris_ into the air beyond the farther side of the courtyard. +Followed a burst of shrapnel and one more "crump," and the enemy's +retaliation on the 9.2 and its crew had ceased. The latter, however, +had descended into their dug-out, while the gun remained unscathed. +Not so some of our own men. + +We were examining the nose-cap of a shell which had hit the wall of +our billet, when a corporal came up, who said hurriedly to W----k, +"Corporal G----'s been killed and four men wounded." + +The whole tragedy had happened so swiftly, and this sudden +announcement of the death of one of our best N.C.O.s had come as such +a shock, that all we did was to stare at each other with the words: + +"My God! Corporal G---- gone! It's impossible." + +One expects shells and death in the line, but three or four miles +behind it one grows accustomed, so to speak, to live in a fool's +paradise. We went round to see our casualties, and I found two of my +platoon, bandaged in the leg and arm, sitting in a group of their +pals, who were congratulating them on having got "soft Blighty ones." +The Company Quartermaster-Sergeant showed me a helmet, which was lying +outside the billet when the shells came over, with a triangular gash +in it, into which one could almost place one's fist. At the body of +Corporal G---- I could not bring myself to look. The poor fellow had +been terribly hit in the back and neck, and, I confess it openly, I +had not the courage, and felt that it would be a sacrilege, to gaze on +the mangled remains of one whom I had valued so much as an N.C.O. and +grown to like so much as a man during the last ten months. + +Dark clouds were blowing over in an easterly direction; a cheerless +day added to the general gloom. We had a Company Officers' final +consultation on the plans for the morrow, after which I held an +inspection of my platoon, and gave out some further orders. On my +return to the billet W----k told me that the attack had been postponed +for two days owing to bad weather. Putting aside all thought of orders +for the time being, we issued out rum to the men, indulged in a few +"tots" ourselves, and settled down to a pleasant evening. + + * * * * * + +In a little courtyard on the evening of June 30 I called the old +platoon to attention for the last time, shook hands with the officers +left in reserve, marched off into the road, and made up a turning to +the left on to the Blue Track. We had done about a quarter of the +ground between Bayencourt and Sailly-au-Bois when a messenger hurried +up to tell me to halt, as several of the platoons of the L---- +S---- had to pass us. We sat down by a large shell-hole, and the men +lit up their pipes and cigarettes and shouted jokes to the men of the +other regiment as they passed by. + +It was a very peaceful evening--remarkably peaceful, now that the +guns were at rest. A light breeze played eastward. I sat with my face +towards the sunset, wondering a little if this was the last time that +I should see it. One often reads of this sensation in second-rate +novels. I must say that I had always thought it greatly "overdone"; +but a great zest in the splendour of life swept over me as I sat there +in the glow of that setting sun, and also a great calmness that gave +me heart to do my uttermost on the morrow. My father had enclosed a +little card in his last letter to me with the words upon it of the +prayer of an old cavalier of the seventeenth century--Sir Jacob +Astley--before the battle of Newbury:--"Lord, I shall be very busy +this day. I may forget Thee, but do not Thou forget me." A peculiar +old prayer, but I kept on repeating it to myself with great comfort +that evening. My men were rather quiet. Perhaps the general calmness +was affecting them with kindred thoughts, though an Englishman never +shows them. On the left stood the stumpy spire of Bayencourt Church +just left by us. On the right lay Sailly-au-Bois in its girdle of +trees. Along the side of the valley which ran out from behind +Sailly-au-Bois, arose numerous lazy pillars of smoke from the wood +fires and kitchens of an artillery encampment. An English aeroplane, +with a swarm of black puffs around it betokening German shells, was +gleaming in the setting sun. It purred monotonously, almost drowning +the screech of occasional shells which were dropping by a distant +château. The calm before the storm sat brooding over everything. + +The kilted platoons having gone on their way, we resumed our journey, +dipping into the valley behind Sailly-au-Bois, and climbing the +farther side, as I passed the officers' mess hut belonging to an +anti-aircraft battery, which had taken up a position at the foot of +the valley, and whence came a pleasant sound of clinking glass, a wild +desire for permanent comfort affected me. + +Bounding the outskirts of Sailly-au-Bois, we arrived in the midst of +the battery positions nesting by the score in the level plain behind +Hébuterne. The batteries soon let us know of their presence. Red +flashes broke out in the gathering darkness, followed by quick +reports. + +To the right one could discern the dim outlines of platoons moving up +steadily and at equal distances like ourselves. One could just catch +the distant noise of spade clinking on rifle. When I turned my gaze to +the front of these troops, I saw yellow-red flashes licking upon the +horizon, where our shells were finding their mark. Straight in front, +whither we were bound, the girdle of trees round Hébuterne shut out +these flashes from view, but by the noise that came from beyond those +trees one knew that the German trenches were receiving exactly the +same intensity of fire there. Every now and then this belt of trees +was being thrown into sharp relief by German star-shells, which +rocketed into the sky one after the other like a display of fireworks, +while at times a burst of hostile shrapnel would throw a weird, red +light on the twinkling poplars which surrounded the cemetery. + +As we marched on towards the village (I do not mind saying it) I +experienced that unpleasant sensation of wondering whether I should be +lying out this time to-morrow--stiff and cold in that land beyond the +trees, where the red shrapnel burst and the star-shells flickered. I +remember hoping that, if the fates so decreed, I should not leave too +great a gap in my family, and, best hope of all, that I should instead +be speeding home in an ambulance on the road that stretched along to +our left. I do not think that I am far wrong when I say that those +thoughts were occurring to every man in the silent platoon behind me. +Not that we were downhearted. If you had asked the question, you would +have been greeted by a cheery "No!" We were all full of determination +to do our best next day, but one cannot help enduring rather an +unusual "party feeling" before going into an attack. + +Suddenly a German shell came screaming towards us. It hurtled overhead +and fell behind us with muffled detonation in Sailly-au-Bois. Several +more screamed over us as we went along, and it was peculiar to hear +the shells of both sides echoing backwards and forwards in the sky at +the same time. + +We were about four hundred yards from the outskirts of Hébuterne, when +I was made aware of the fact that the platoon in front of me had +stopped. I immediately stopped my platoon. I sat the men down along a +bank, and we waited--a wait which was whiled away by various +incidents. I could hear a dog barking, and just see two gunner +officers who were walking unconcernedly about the battery positions +and whistling for it. The next thing that happened was a red flash in +the air about two hundred yards away, and a pinging noise as bits of +shrapnel shot into the ground round about. One of my men, S---- (the +poor chap was killed next day), called to me: "Look at that fire in +Sailly, sir!" I turned round and saw a great yellow flare illuminating +the sky in the direction of Sailly, the fiery end of some barn or +farm-building, where a high explosive had found its billet. + +We remained in this spot for nearly a quarter of an hour, after which +R----d's platoon began to move on, and I followed at a good distance +with mine. We made our way to the clump of trees over which the +shrapnel had burst a few minutes before. Suddenly we found ourselves +floundering in a sunken road flooded with water knee-deep. This was +not exactly pleasant, especially when my guide informed me that he was +not quite certain as to our whereabouts. Luckily, we soon gained dry +ground again, turned off into a bit of trench which brought us into +the village, and made for the dump by the church, where we were to +pick up our materials. When we reached the church--or, rather, its +ruins--the road was so filled with parties and platoons, and it was +becoming so dark, that it took us some time before we found the dump. +Fortunately, the first person whom I spotted was the Regimental +Sergeant-Major, and I handed over to him the carrying-party which I +had to detail, also despatching the rum and soup parties--the latter +to the company cooker. + +Leaving the platoon in charge of Sergeant S----l, I went with my guide +in search of the dump. In the general _mêlée_ I bumped into W----k. We +found the rabbit wire, barbed wire, and other material in a +shell-broken outhouse, and, grabbing hold of it, handed the stuff out +to the platoon. + +As we filed through the village the reflections of star-shells threw +weird lights on half-ruined houses; an occasional shell screamed +overhead, to burst with a dull, echoing sound within the shattered +walls of former cottages; and one could hear the rat-tat-tat of +machine-guns. These had a nasty habit of spraying the village with +indirect fire, and it was, as always, a relief to enter the recesses +of Wood Street without having any one hit. This communication trench +dipped into the earth at right angles to the "Boulevard" Street. We +clattered along the brick-floored trench, whose walls were overhung +with the dewy grass and flowers of the orchard--that wonderful orchard +whose aroma had survived the horror and desolation of a two years' +warfare, and seemed now only to be intensified to a softer fragrance +by the night air. + +Arriving at the belt of trees and hedge which marked the confines of +the orchard, we turned to the right into Cross Street, which cut along +behind the belt of trees into Woman Street. + +Turning to the left up Woman Street, and leaving the belt of trees +behind, we wound into the slightly undulating ground between Hébuterne +and Gommecourt Wood. "Crumps" were bursting round about the +communication trench, but at a distance, judging by their report, of +at least fifty yards. As we were passing Brigade Headquarters' +Dug-out, the Brigade-Major appeared and asked me the number of my +platoon. "Number 5," I replied; and he answered "Good," with a touch +of relief in his voice--for we had been held up for some time on the +way, and my platoon was the first or second platoon of the company to +get into the line. + +It was shortly after this that "crumps" began to burst dangerously +near. There was suddenly a blinding flash and terrific report just to +our left. We kept on, with heads aching intolerably. Winding round a +curve, we came upon the effects of the shells. The sides of the trench +had been blown in, while in the middle of the _débris_ lay a dead or +unconscious man, and farther on a man groaning faintly upon a +stretcher. We scrambled over them, passed a few more wounded and +stretcher-bearers, and arrived at the Reserve Line. + +Captain W----t was standing at the juncture of Woman Street and the +Reserve Line, cool and calm as usual. I asked him if New Woman Street +was blocked, but there was no need for a reply. A confused noise of +groans and stertorous breathing, and of some one sobbing, came to my +ears, and above it all, M---- W----'s voice saying to one of his men: +"It's all right, old chap. It's all over now." He told me afterwards +that a shell had landed practically in the trench, killing two men in +front of him and one behind, and wounding several others, but not +touching himself. + +It was quite obvious to me that it was impossible to proceed to the +support trench via New Woman Street, and at any rate my Company +Commander had given me orders to go over the top from the reserve to +the support line, so, shells or no shells, and leaving Sergeant S----l +to bring up the rear of the platoon, I scaled a ladder leaning on the +side of the trench and walked over the open for about two hundred +yards. My guide and I jumped into New Woman Street just before it +touched the support line, and we were soon joined by several other men +of the platoon. We had already suffered three casualties, and going +over the top in the darkness, the men had lost touch. The ration party +also had not arrived yet. I despatched the guide to bring up the +remainder, and proceeded to my destination with about six men. About +fifteen yards farther up the trench I found a series of shell-holes +threading their way off to the left. By the light of some German +star-shells I discerned an officer groping about these holes, and I +stumbled over mounds and hollows towards him. + +"Is this the support line?" I asked, rather foolishly. + +"Yes," he replied, "but there isn't much room in it." I saw that he +was an officer of the Royal Engineers. + +"I'm putting my smoke-bombers down here," he continued, "but you'll +find more room over towards the sunken road." + +He showed me along the trench--or the remains of it--and went off to +carry out his own plans. I stumbled along till I could just +distinguish the outlines of the sunken road. The trench in this +direction was blown in level with the ground. I returned to W----k, +whose headquarters were at the juncture of New Woman Street and the +support line, telling him that the trench by the sunken road was +untenable, and that I proposed placing my platoon in a smaller length +of trench, and spreading them out fanwise when we started to advance. +To this he agreed, and putting his hand on my shoulder in his +characteristic fashion, informed me in a whisper that the attack was +to start at 7.30 A.M. As far as I can remember it was about one +o'clock by now, and more of my men had come up. I ensconced them by +sections. No. 1 section on the left and No. 4 on the right in +shell-holes and the remains of the trench along a distance of about +forty yards, roughly half the length of the trench that they were to +have occupied. At the same time I gave orders to my right-and +left-hand guides to incline off to the right and left respectively +when the advance started. I was walking back to my headquarters, a bit +of trench behind a traverse, when a German searchlight, operating from +the direction of Serre Wood, turned itself almost dead on me. I was in +my trench in a second. + +Shortly afterwards Sergeant S----r arrived with No. 8 platoon. I +showed him one or two available portions of trench, but most of his +men had to crowd in with mine. The Lewis-gunners, who arrived last, +found only a ruined bit of trench next to my "headquarters," while +they deposited their guns and equipment in a shell-hole behind. + +It was somewhere about four or half-past when I made my last +inspection. I clambered over the back of the trench and stood still +for a moment or so. Everything was uncannily silent. There was just a +suspicion of whiteness creeping into the sky beyond the rising ground +opposite. Over towards the left rose the remains of Gommecourt Wood. +Half its trees had gone since the last time that I had seen it, and +the few that remained stood, looking like so many masts in a harbour, +gaunt and charred by our petrol shells. + +The men in the left fire-bay seemed quite comfortable. But, standing +and looking down the trench, it suddenly dawned upon me that I was +gazing right into a line of chalky German trenches, and consequently +that the enemy in those trenches could look straight into this trench. +I left instructions with the corporal in charge of that section to +build up a barricade in the gap before daybreak. As I went along the +rest of our frontage, Sergeant S----l doled out the rum. + +I retired to my "headquarters," but not so Sergeant S----l, who seemed +not to bother a bit about the increasing light and the bullets which +came phitting into the ground in rather an unpleasant quantity. I was +glad when I had finally got him down into the trench. W----k had also +told him to get in, for he remarked-- + +"Captain W----k, 'e says to me, 'Get into the trench, S----l, you +b---- fool!' so I've got in." + +He was just in time. A prelude of shrapnel screamed along, bursting +overhead, and there followed an hour's nerve-racking bombardment. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +ATTACK + + +Dawn was breaking. The morning was cool after a chill night--a night +of waiting in blown-down trenches with not an inch to move to right or +left, of listening to the enemy's shells as they left the guns and +came tearing and shrieking towards you, knowing all the time that they +were aimed for your particular bit of trench and would land in it or +by it, of awaiting that sudden, ominous silence, and then the +crash--perhaps death. + +I, for my part, had spent most of the night sitting on a petrol tin, +wedged between the two sides of the trench and two human beings--my +sergeant on the left and a corporal on the right. Like others, I had +slept for part of the time despite the noise and danger, awakened now +and then by the shattering crash of a shell or the hopeless cry for +stretcher-bearers. + +But morning was coming at last, and the bombardment had ceased. The +wind blew east, and a few fleecy clouds raced along the blue sky +overhead. The sun was infusing more warmth into the air. There was the +freshness and splendour of a summer morning over everything. In fact, +as one man said, it felt more as if we were going to start off for a +picnic than for a battle. + +"Pass it down to Sergeant H---- that Sergeant S----l wishes him the +top o' the mornin'," said my sergeant. But Sergeant H----, who was in +charge of the company's Lewis-guns, and had been stationed in the next +fire-trench, was at present groping his way to safety with a lump of +shrapnel in his back. + +An occasional shell sang one way or the other. Otherwise all was +quiet. We passed down the remains of the rum. Sergeant S----l pressed +me to take some out of a mess-tin lid. I drank a very little--the +first and last "tot" I took during the battle. It warmed me up. Some +time after this I looked at my watch and found it was a minute or two +before 6.25 A.M. I turned to the corporal, saying-- + +"They'll just about start now." + +The words were not out of my mouth before the noise, which had +increased a trifle during the last twenty minutes, suddenly swelled +into a gigantic roar. Our guns had started. The din was so deafening +that one could not hear the crash of German shells exploding in our +own lines. + +Sergeant S----l was standing straight up in the trench and looking +over to see the effects of our shells. It was a brave thing to do, but +absolutely reckless. I pulled him down by the tail of his tunic. He +got up time and again, swearing that he would "take on the whole +b----German army." He gave us pleasing information of the effects of +our bombardment, but as I did not want him to lose his life +prematurely, I saw to it that we kept him down in the trench till the +time came for a display of bravery, in which he was not lacking. + +We had been told that the final bombardment that day would be the most +intense one since the beginning of the war. The attack was to encircle +what was almost generally considered the strongest German "fortress" +on the Western Front, the stronghold of Gommecourt Wood. There was +need of it, therefore. + +Just over the trenches, almost raising the hair on one's head (we were +helmeted, I must say, but that was the feeling), swished the smaller +shells from the French .75 and English 18-pounder batteries. They gave +one the sensation of being under a swiftly rushing stream. The larger +shells kept up a continuous shrieking overhead, falling on the enemy's +trenches with the roar of a cataract, while every now and then a noise +as of thunder sounded above all when our trench-mortar shells fell +amongst the German wire, blowing it to bits, making holes like mine +craters, and throwing dirt and even bits of metal into our own +trenches. + +I have often tried to call to memory the intellectual, mental and +nervous activity through which I passed during that hour of hellish +bombardment and counter-bombardment, that last hour before we leapt +out of our trenches into No Man's Land. I give the vague recollection +of that ordeal for what it is worth. I had an excessive desire for the +time to come when I could go "over the top," when I should be free at +last from the noise of the bombardment, free from the prison of my +trench, free to walk across that patch of No Man's Land and opposing +trenches till I got to my objective, or, if I did not go that far, to +have my fate decided for better or for worse. I experienced, too, +moments of intense fear during close bombardment. I felt that if I was +blown up it would be the end of all things so far as I was concerned. +The idea of after-life seemed ridiculous in the presence of such +frightful destructive force. Again the prayer of that old cavalier +kept coming to my mind. At any rate, one could but do one's best, and +I hoped that a higher power than all that which was around would not +overlook me or any other fellows on that day. At one time, not very +long before the moment of attack, I felt to its intensest depth the +truth of the proverb, "Carpe diem." What was time? I had another +twenty minutes in which to live in comparative safety. What was the +difference between twenty minutes and twenty years? Really and truly +what was the difference? I was living at present, and that was enough. +I am afraid that this working of mind will appear unintelligible. I +cannot explain it further. I think that others who have waited to "go +over" will realise its meaning. Above all, perhaps, and except when +shells falling near by brought one back to reality, the intense +cascade-like noise of our own shells rushing overhead numbed for the +most part of the time one's nervous and mental system. Listening to +this pandemonium, one felt like one of an audience at a theatre and +not in the least as if one was in any way associated with it oneself. + +Still, the activity of a man's nerves, though dulled to a great +extent inwardly, were bound to show externally. I turned to the +corporal. He was a brave fellow, and had gone through the Gallipoli +campaign, but he was shaking all over, and white as parchment. I +expect that I was just the same. + +"We must be giving them hell," I said. "I don't think they're sending +much back." + +"I don't think much, sir," he replied. + +I hardly think we believed each other. Looking up out of the trench +beyond him, I saw huge, black columns of smoke and _débris_ rising up +from our communication trench. Then, suddenly, there was a blinding +"crash" just by us. We were covered in mud which flopped out of the +trench, and the evil-smelling fumes of lyddite. The cry for +stretcher-bearers was passed hurriedly up the line again. Followed +"crash" after "crash," and the pinging of shrapnel which flicked into +the top of the trench, the purring noise of flying nose-caps and soft +thudding sounds as they fell into the parapet. + +It was difficult to hear one another talking. Sergeant S----l was +still full of the "get at 'em" spirit. So were we all. The men were +behaving splendidly. I passed along the word to "Fix swords." + +We could not see properly over the top of the trench, but smoke was +going over. The attack was about to begin--it was beginning. I passed +word round the corner of the traverse, asking whether they could see +if the second wave was starting. It was just past 7.30 A.M. The third +wave, of which my platoon formed a part, was due to start at 7.30 plus +45 seconds--at the same time as the second wave in my part of the +line. The corporal got up, so I realised that the second wave was +assembling on the top to go over. The ladders had been smashed or used +as stretchers long ago. Scrambling out of a battered part of the +trench, I arrived on top, looked down my line of men, swung my rifle +forward as a signal, and started off at the prearranged walk. + +A continuous hissing noise all around one, like a railway engine +letting off steam, signified that the German machine-gunners had +become aware of our advance. I nearly trod on a motionless form. It +lay in a natural position, but the ashen face and fixed, fearful eyes +told me that the man had just fallen. I did not recognise him then. I +remember him now. He was one of my own platoon. + +To go back for a minute. The scene that met my eyes as I stood on the +parapet of our trench for that one second is almost indescribable. +Just in front the ground was pitted by innumerable shell-holes. More +holes opened suddenly every now and then. Here and there a few bodies +lay about. Farther away, before our front line and in No Man's Land, +lay more. In the smoke one could distinguish the second line +advancing. One man after another fell down in a seemingly natural +manner, and the wave melted away. In the background, where ran the +remains of the German lines and wire, there was a mass of smoke, the +red of the shrapnel bursting amid it. Amongst it, I saw Captain +H----and his men attempting to enter the German front line. The Boches +had met them on the parapet with bombs. The whole scene reminded me of +battle pictures, at which in earlier years I had gazed with much +amazement. Only this scene, though it did not seem more real, was +infinitely more terrible. Everything stood still for a second, as a +panorama painted with three colours--the white of the smoke, the red +of the shrapnel and blood, the green of the grass. + +If I had felt nervous before, I did not feel so now, or at any rate +not in anything like the same degree. As I advanced, I felt as if I +was in a dream, but I had all my wits about me. We had been told to +walk. Our boys, however, rushed forward with splendid impetuosity to +help their comrades and smash the German resistance in the front line. +What happened to our materials for blocking the German communication +trench, when we got to our objective, I should not like to think. I +kept up a fast walking pace and tried to keep the line together. This +was impossible. When we had jumped clear of the remains of our front +line trench, my platoon slowly disappeared through the line stretching +out. For a long time, however, Sergeant S----l, Lance-corporal M----, +Rifleman D----, whom I remember being just in front of me, raising his +hand in the air and cheering, and myself kept together. Eventually +Lance-corporal M---- was the only one of my platoon left near me, and +I shouted out to him, "Let's try and keep together." It was not long, +however, before we also parted company. One thing I remember very well +about this time, and that was that a hare jumped up and rushed towards +and past me through the dry, yellowish grass, its eyes bulging with +fear. + +We were dropping into a slight valley. The shell-holes were less few, +but bodies lay all over the ground, and a terrible groaning arose from +all sides. At one time we seemed to be advancing in little groups. I +was at the head of one for a moment or two, only to realise shortly +afterwards that I was alone. + +I came up to the German wire. Here one could hear men shouting to one +another and the wounded groaning above the explosions of shells and +bombs and the rattle of machine-guns. I found myself with J----, an +officer of "C" company, afterwards killed while charging a machine-gun +in the open. We looked round to see what our fourth line was doing. My +company's fourth line had no leader. Captain W----k, wounded twice, +had fallen into a shell-hole, while Sergeant S----r had been killed +during the preliminary bombardment. Men were kneeling and firing. I +started back to see if I could bring them up, but they were too far +away. I made a cup of my mouth and shouted, as J---- was shouting. We +could not be heard. I turned round again and advanced to a gap in the +German wire. There was a pile of our wounded here on the German +parapet. + +Suddenly I cursed. I had been scalded in the left hip. A shell, I +thought, had blown up in a water-logged crump-hole and sprayed me with +boiling water. Letting go of my rifle, I dropped forward full length +on the ground. My hip began to smart unpleasantly, and I left a +curious warmth stealing down my left leg. I thought it was the boiling +water that had scalded me. Certainly my breeches looked as if they +were saturated with water. I did not know that they were saturated +with blood. + +So I lay, waiting with the thought that I might recover my strength (I +could barely move) and try to crawl back. There was the greater +possibility of death, but there was also the possibility of life. I +looked around to see what was happening. In front lay some wounded; +on either side of them stakes and shreds of barbed wire twisted into +weird contortions by the explosions of our trench-mortar bombs. Beyond +this nothing but smoke, interspersed with the red of bursting bombs +and shrapnel. + +From out this ghastly chaos crawled a familiar figure. It was that of +Sergeant K----, bleeding from a wound in the chest. He came crawling +towards me. + +"Hallo, K----," I shouted. + +"Are you hit, sir?" he asked. + +"Yes, old chap, I am," I replied. + +"You had better try and crawl back," he suggested. + +"I don't think I can move," I said. + +"I'll take off your equipment for you." + +He proceeded very gallantly to do this. I could not get to a kneeling +position myself, and he had to get hold of me, and bring me to a +kneeling position, before undoing my belt and shoulder-straps. We +turned round and started crawling back together. I crawled very slowly +at first. Little holes opened in the ground on either side of me, and +I understood that I was under the fire of a machine-gun. In front +bullets were hitting the turf and throwing it four or five feet into +the air. Slowly but steadily I crawled on. Sergeant K---- and I lost +sight of one another. I think that he crawled off to the right and I +to the left of a mass of barbed wire entanglements. + +I was now confronted by a danger from our own side. I saw a row of +several men kneeling on the ground and firing. It is probable that +they were trying to pick off German machine-gunners, but it seemed +very much as if they would "pot" a few of the returning wounded into +the bargain. + +"For God's sake, stop firing," I shouted. + +Words were of no avail. I crawled through them. At last I got on my +feet and stumbled blindly along. + +I fell down into a sunken road with several other wounded, and crawled +up over the bank on the other side. The Germans had a machine-gun on +that road, and only a few of us got across. Some one faintly called my +name behind me. Looking round, I thought I recognised a man of "C" +company. Only a few days later did it come home to me that he was my +platoon observer. I had told him to stay with me whatever happened. +He had carried out his orders much more faithfully than I had ever +meant, for he had come to my assistance, wounded twice in the head +himself. He hastened forward to me, but, as I looked round waiting, +uncertain quite as to who he was, his rifle clattered on to the +ground, and he crumpled up and fell motionless just behind me. I felt +that there was nothing to be done for him. He died a hero, just as he +had always been in the trenches, full of self-control, never +complaining, a ready volunteer. Shortly afterwards I sighted the +remains of our front line trench and fell into them. + +At first I could not make certain as to my whereabouts. Coupled with +the fact that my notions in general were becoming somewhat hazy, the +trenches themselves were entirely unrecognisable. They were filled +with earth, and about half their original depth. I decided, with that +quick, almost semi-conscious intuition that comes to one in moments of +peril, to proceed to the left (to one coming from the German lines). +As I crawled through holes and over mounds I could hear the vicious +spitting of machine-gun bullets. They seemed to skim just over my +helmet. The trench, opening out a little, began to assume its old +outline. I had reached the head of New Woman Street, though at the +time I did not know what communication trench it was--or trouble, for +that matter. The scene at the head of that communication trench is +stamped in a blurred but unforgettable way on my mind. In the remains +of a wrecked dug-out or emplacement a signaller sat, calmly +transmitting messages to Battalion Headquarters. A few bombers were +walking along the continuation of the front line. I could distinguish +the red grenades on their arms through the smoke. There were more of +them at the head of the communication trench. Shells were coming over +and blowing up round about. + +I asked one of the bombers to see what was wrong with my hip. He +started to get out my iodine tube and field dressing. The iodine tube +was smashed. I remembered that I had a second one, and we managed to +get that out after some time. Shells were coming over so incessantly +and close that the bomber advised that we should walk farther down the +trench before commencing operations. This done, he opened my breeches +and disclosed a small hole in the front of the left hip. It was +bleeding fairly freely. He poured in the iodine, and put the bandage +round in the best manner possible. We set off down the communication +trench again, in company with several bombers, I holding the bandage +to my wound. We scrambled up mounds and jumped over craters (rather a +painful performance for one wounded in the leg); we halted at times in +almost open places, when machine-gun bullets swept unpleasantly near, +and one felt the wind of shells as they passed just over, blowing up a +few yards away. In my last stages across No Man's Land my chief +thought had been, "I must get home now for the sake of my people." +Now, for I still remember it distinctly, my thought was, "Will my +name appear in the casualty list under the head of 'Killed' or +'Wounded'?" and I summoned up a mental picture of the two alternatives +in black type. + +After many escapes we reached the Reserve Line, where a military +policeman stood at the head of Woman Street. He held up the men in +front of me and directed them to different places. Some one told him +that a wounded officer was following. This was, perhaps, as well, for +I was an indistinguishable mass of filth and gore. My helmet was +covered with mud, my tunic was cut about with shrapnel and bullets and +saturated with blood; my breeches had changed from a khaki to a purple +hue; my puttees were in tatters; my boots looked like a pair of very +muddy clogs. + +The military policeman consigned me to the care of some excellent +fellow, of what regiment I cannot remember. After walking, or rather +stumbling, a short way down Woman Street, my guide and I came upon a +gunner Colonel standing outside his dug-out and trying to watch the +progress of the battle through his field-glasses. + +"Good-morning," he said. + +"Good-morning, sir," I replied. + +This opening of our little conversation was not meant to be in the +least ironical, I can assure you. It seemed quite natural at the time. + +"Where are you hit?" he asked. + +"In the thigh, sir. I don't think it's anything very bad." + +"Good. How are we getting on?" + +"Well, I really can't say much for certain, sir. But I got nearly to +their front line." + +Walking was now becoming exceedingly painful and we proceeded slowly. +I choked the groans that would rise to my lips and felt a cold +perspiration pouring freely from my face. It was easier to get along +by taking hold of the sides of the trench with my hands than by being +supported by my guide. A party of bombers or carriers of some +description passed us. We stood on one side to let them go by. In +those few seconds my wound became decidedly stiffer, and I wondered if +I would ever reach the end of the trenches on foot. At length the +communication trench passed through a belt of trees, and we found +ourselves in Cross Street. + +Here was a First Aid Post, and R.A.M.C. men were hard at work. I had +known those trenches for a month past, and I had never thought that +Cross Street could appear so homelike. Hardly a shell was falling and +the immediate din of battle had subsided. The sun was becoming hot, +but the trees threw refreshing shadows over the wide, shallow +brick-floored trenches built by the French two years before. The +R.A.M.C. orderlies were speaking pleasant words, and men not too badly +wounded were chatting gaily. I noticed a dresser at work on a man near +by, and was pleased to find that the man whose wounds were being +attended to was my servant L----. His wound was in the hip, a nasty +hole drilled by a machine-gun bullet at close quarters. He showed me +his water-bottle, penetrated by another bullet, which had inflicted a +further, but slight, wound. + +There were many more serious cases than mine to be attended to. After +about five or ten minutes an orderly slit up my breeches. + +"The wound's in the front of the hip," I said. + +"Yes, but there's a larger wound where the bullets come out, sir." + +I looked and saw a gaping hole two inches in diameter. + +"I think that's a Blighty one, isn't it?" I remarked. + +"I should just think so, sir!" he replied. + +"Thank God! At last!" I murmured vehemently, conjuring up visions of +the good old homeland. + +The orderly painted the iodine round both wounds and put on a larger +bandage. At this moment R----, an officer of "D" company, came limping +into Cross Street. + +"Hallo, L----," he exclaimed, "we had better try and get down to +hospital together." + +We started in a cavalcade to walk down the remaining trenches into the +village, not before my servant, who had insisted on staying with me, +had remarked-- + +"I think I should like to go up again now, sir," and to which proposal +I had answered very emphatically-- + +"You won't do anything of the sort, my friend!" + +R---- led the way, with a man to help him, next came my servant, then +two orderlies carrying a stretcher with a terribly wounded Scottish +private on it; another orderly and myself brought up the rear--and a +very slow one at that! + +Turning a corner, we found ourselves amidst troops of the battalion in +reserve to us, all of them eager for news. A subaltern, with whom I +had been at a Divisional School, asked how far we had got. I told him +that we were probably in their second line by now. This statement +caused disappointment. Every one appeared to believe that we had taken +the three lines in about ten minutes. I must confess that the night +before the attack I had entertained hopes that it would not take us +much longer than this. As a matter of fact my battalion, or the +remains of it, after three hours of splendid and severe fighting, +managed to penetrate into the third line trench. + +Loss of blood was beginning to tell, and my progress was getting +slower every minute. Each man, as I passed, put his arm forward to +help me along and said a cheery word of some kind or other. Down the +wide, brick-floored trench we went, past shattered trees and battered +cottages, through the rank grass and luxuriant wild flowers, through +the rich, unwarlike aroma of the orchard, till we emerged into the +village "boulevard." + +The orderly held me under the arms till I was put on a wheeled +stretcher and hurried along, past the "boulevard pool" with its +surrounding elms and willows, and, at the end of the "boulevard," up a +street to the left. A short way up this street on the right stood the +Advanced Dressing Station--a well-sandbagged house reached through the +usual archway and courtyard. A dug-out, supplied with electric light +and with an entrance of remarkable sandbag construction, had been +tunnelled out beneath the courtyard. This was being used for +operations. + +In front of the archway and in the road stood two "padrés" directing +the continuous flow of stretchers and walking wounded. They appeared +to be doing all the work of organisation, while the R.A.M.C. doctors +and surgeons had their hands full with dressings and operations. +These were the kind of directions: + +"Wounded Sergeant? Right. Abdominal wound? All right. Lift him +off--gently now. Take him through the archway into the dug-out." + +"Dead? Yes! Poor fellow, take him down to the Cemetery." + +"German? Dug-out No. 2, at the end of the road on the right." + +Under the superintendence of the R.C. "padré," a man whose sympathy +and kindness I shall never forget, my stretcher was lifted off the +carrier and I was placed in the archway. The "padré" loosened my +bandage and looked at the wound, when he drew in his breath and asked +if I was in much pain. + +"Not an enormous amount," I answered, but asked for something to +drink. + +"Are you quite sure it hasn't touched the stomach?" he questioned, +looking shrewdly at me. + +I emphatically denied that it had, and he brought a blood-stained mug +with a little tea at the bottom of it. I can honestly say that I never +enjoyed a drink so much as that one. + +Shells, high explosives and shrapnel, were coming over every now and +then. I kept my helmet well over my head. This also served as a shade +from the sun, for it was now about ten o'clock and a sultry day. I was +able to obtain a view of events round about fairly easily. From time +to time orderlies tramped through the archway, bearing stretcher-cases +to the dug-out. Another officer had been brought in and placed on the +opposite side of the archway. The poor fellow, about nineteen, was +more or less unconscious. His head and both hands were covered in +bandages crimson with blood. So coated was he with mud and gore that I +did not at first recognise him as an officer. At the farther end of +the arch a young private of about eighteen was lying on his side, +groaning in the agony of a stomach wound and crying "Mother." The +sympathetic "padré" did the best he could to comfort him. Out in the +road the R.A.M.C. were dressing and bandaging the ever-increasing flow +of wounded. Amongst them a captive German R.A.M.C. man, in green +uniform, with a Red Cross round his sleeve, was visible, hard at +work. Everything seemed so different from the deadly strife a +thousand or so yards away. There, foe was inflicting wounds on foe; +here were our men attending to the German wounded and the Germans +attending to ours. Both sides were working so hard now to save life. +There was a human touch about that scene in the ruined village street +which filled one with a sense of mingled sadness and pleasure. Here +were both sides united in a common attempt to repair the ravages of +war. Humanity had at last asserted itself. + +It was about eleven o'clock, I suppose, when the "padré" came up again +to my stretcher and asked me if I should like to get on, as there was +a berth vacant in an ambulance. The stretcher was hoisted up and slid +into the bottom berth of the car. The berth above was occupied by an +unconscious man. On the other side of the ambulance were four sitting +cases--a private, a sergeant, a corporal, and a rifleman, the last +almost unconscious. Those of us who could talk were very pleased with +life, and I remember saying: "Thank God, we're out of that hell, +boys!" + +"What's wrong with him?" I asked the corporal, signifying the +unconscious man. + +"Hit in the lungs, sir. They've set him up on purpose." + +The corporal, pulling out his cigarette case, offered cigarettes all +round, and we started to smoke. The last scene that I saw in Hébuterne +was that of three men dressing a tall badly wounded Prussian officer +lying on the side of the road. The ambulance turned the corner out of +the village. There followed three "crashes" and dust flew on to the +floor of the car. + +"Whizz-bangs," was the corporal's laconical remark. + +We had passed the German road barrage, and were on our way to peace +and safety. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +TOLL OF ATTACK + + +We climbed the little white road which led through the battery +positions now almost silent, topped the crest, and dipped into +Sailly-au-Bois. The village had been very little shelled since the +night before, and appeared the same as ever, except that the intense +traffic, which had flowed into it for the past month, had ceased. +Limbers and lorries had done their work, and the only objects which +filled the shell-scarred streets were slow-moving ambulances, little +blood-stained groups of "walking wounded," and the troops of a new +division moving up into the line. + +Though we were all in some pain as the ambulance jolted along through +the ruts in the side of the road, we felt rather sorry for those poor +chaps as they peered inside the car. Our fate was decided, theirs +still hung in the balance. How often on the march one had looked back +oneself into a passing ambulance and wished, rather shamefully, for a +"Blighty" one. Sunburnt and healthy they looked as they shouted after +us: "Good luck, boys, give our love to Blighty." + +At the end of the village the ambulance swung off on a road leading to +the left. It must have crossed the track by which my platoon and I had +gone up the night before. About 11.30 A.M. we arrived at Couin, the +headquarters of the First Field Ambulance. + +A hum of conversation and joking arose from every side, and, with some +exceptions, you could not have found such a cheery gathering anywhere. +The immediate strain of battle had passed, and friends meeting friends +compared notes of their experiences in the "show." Here a man with a +bandaged arm was talking affectionately to a less fortunate "pal" on a +stretcher, and asking him if he could do anything for him; it is +extraordinary how suffering knits men together, and how much sympathy +is brought out in a man at the sight of a badly wounded comrade: +yonder by the huts an orderly assisted a "walking case," shot through +the lungs and vomiting blood freely. + +Near by I recognised E----'s servant of the L---- S----. When he had +finished giving some tea or water to a friend, I hailed him and asked +him if Mr. E---- was hit. Mr. E----, he told me, had been laid up for +some days past, and had not taken part in the attack. He was, however, +going round and writing letters for the men. Would I like to see him? +We were fairly good acquaintances, so I said that I should. Presently +he arrived. + +"Bad luck, old chap. Where have you caught it?" he asked. + +"In the thigh," I replied. + +He wrote two post-cards home for me, one home and another to +relatives, and I did my best to sign them. I remember that on one of +them was inscribed: "This is to let you know that E---- has been +caught bending," and wondering what my grandfather, a doctor, would +make out of that! + +The sun was beating down on us now, and since, after I had been duly +labelled "G.S.W. (gun-shot wound) Back," a Medical Staff Officer +advised that I should be transferred into the officers' hut, I entered +its cooler shades with much gladness. + +Captain W----t came in soon afterwards. In the second line German +trench he had looked over the parados to see if any opposition was +coming up from the third line trench, and had been hit by a +machine-gun bullet in the shoulder. In making his way home he had been +hit twice again in the shoulder. H---- also put in an appearance with +a bullet wound in the arm. He had taken a party of "walking wounded" +up to Sailly-au-Bois, and got a car on. A doctor brought round the +familiar old beverage of tea, which in large quantities, and in +company with whisky, had helped us through many an unpleasant day in +the trenches. Captain W----t refused it, and insisted on having some +bread and jam. I took both with much relish, and, having appeased an +unusually large appetite, got an orderly to wash my face and hands, +which were coated with blood. + +"I dare say you feel as you was gettin' back to civilisation again, +sir," he said. Much refreshed, and quietly looking at a new number of +_The Tatler_, I certainly felt as if I was, though, in spite of an air +ring, the wound was feeling rather uncomfortable. At the end of the +hut two or three poor fellows were dying of stomach wounds. It was a +peculiar contrast to hear two or three men chatting gaily just outside +my end of the hut. I could only catch fragments of the conversation, +which I give here. + +"When Mr. A---- gave the order to advance, I went over like a bird." + +"The effect of the rum, laddie!" + +"Mr A---- was going strong too." + +"What's happened to Mr. A----, do you know?" + +"Don't know. I didn't see 'im after that." + +"'E's all right. Saw him just now. Got a wound in the arm." + +"Good. Isn't the sun fine here? Couldn't want a better morning for an +attack, could you?" + +The hut was filling rapidly, and the three stomach cases being quite +hopeless were removed outside. A doctor brought in an officer of the +K----'s. He was quite dazed, and sank full length on a bed, passing +his hand across his face and moaning. He was not wounded, but had been +blown up whilst engaged in cutting a communication trench across No +Man's Land, they told me. It was not long, however, before he +recovered his senses sufficiently enough to walk with help to an +ambulance. A "padré" entered, supporting a young officer of the ----, +a far worse case of shell shock, and laid him out on the bed. He had +no control over himself, and was weeping hysterically. + +"For God's sake don't let me go back, don't send me back!" he cried. + +The "padré" tried to comfort him. + +"You'll soon be in a nice hospital at the Base, old chap, or probably +in England." + +He looked at the padré blankly, not understanding a word that he was +saying. + +A more extraordinary case of shell shock was that of an officer lying +about three beds down from me. In the usual course of events an +R.A.M.C. corporal asked him his name. + +"F----," he replied in a vague tone. + +The corporal thought that he had better make certain, so with as +polite a manner as possible looked at his identification disc. + +"It puts Lt. B---- here," he said. + +There followed a lengthy argument, at the end of which the patient +said-- + +"Well, it's no use. You had better give it up. I don't know what my +name is!" + +A Fusilier officer was carried in on a stretcher and laid next to me. +After a time he said-- + +"Is your name L----?" + +I replied affirmatively. + +"Don't you recognise me?" he questioned. + +I looked at him, but could not think where I had seen him before. + +"My name's D----. I was your Company Quartermaster-Sergeant in the +Second Battalion." Then I remembered him, though it had been hard to +recognise him in officer's uniform, blood-stained and tattered at +that. We compared notes of our experiences since I had left the second +line of my battalion in England nearly a year before, until, soon +afterwards, he was taken out to an ambulance. + +At the other end of the hut it was just possible to see an officer +tossing to and fro deliriously on a stretcher. I use the word +"deliriously," though he was probably another case of shell shock. He +was wounded also, judging by the bandages which swathed the middle +part of his body. The poor fellow thought that he was still fighting, +and every now and again broke out like this-- + +"Keep 'em off, boys. Keep 'em off. Give me a bomb, sergeant. Get down! +My God! I'm hit. Put some more of those sandbags on the barricade. +These damned shells! Can I stand it any longer? Come on, boys. Come +along, sergeant! We must go for them. Oh! my God! I must stick it!" + +After a time the cries became fainter, and the stretcher was taken +out. + +About three o'clock I managed to get a doctor to inject me with +anti-tetanus. I confess that I was rather anxious about getting this +done, for in crawling back across No Man's Land my wound had been +covered with mud and dirt. The orderly, who put on the iodine, told me +that the German artillery was sending shrapnel over the ridge. This +was rather disconcerting, but, accustomed as I had become to shrapnel +at close quarters, the sounds seemed so distant that I did not bother +more about them. + +It must have been about four o'clock when my stretcher was picked up +and I passed once again into the warm sunlight. Outside an orderly +relieved me of my steel and gas helmets, in much the same way as the +collector takes your ticket when you pass through the gates of a +London terminus in a taxi. Once more the stretcher was slid into an +ambulance, and I found myself in company with a young subaltern of the +K----'s. He was very cheery, and continued to assert that we should +all be in "Blighty" in a day or two's time. When the A.S.C. driver +appeared at the entrance of the car and confirmed our friend's +opinion, I began to entertain the most glorious visions of the +morrow--visions which I need hardly say did not come true. + +"How were you hit?" I asked the officer of the K----'s. + +"I got a machine-gun bullet in the pit of the stomach while digging +that communication trench into No Man's Land. It's been pretty bad, +but the pain's going now, and I think I shall be all right." + +Then he recognised the man on the stretcher above me. + +"Hullo, laddie," he said. "What have they done to you?" + +"I've been hit in the left wrist and the leg, sir. I hope you aren't +very bad." + +The engine started, and we set off on our journey to the Casualty +Clearing Station. For the last time we passed the villages, which we +had come to know so intimately in the past two months during rest from +the trenches. There was Souastre, where one had spent pleasant +evenings at the Divisional Theatre; St. Amand with its open square in +front of the church, the meeting-place of the villagers, now deserted +save for two or three soldiers; Gaudiempré, the headquarters of an +Army Service Corps park, with its lines of roughly made stables. At +one part of the journey a 15-inch gun let fly just over the road. We +had endured quite enough noise for that day, and I was glad that it +did not occur again. From a rather tortuous course through bye-lanes +we turned into the main Arras to Doullens road--that long, straight, +typical French highway with its avenue of poplars. Shortly afterwards +the ambulance drew up outside the Casualty Clearing Station. + +The Casualty Clearing Station was situated in the grounds of a +château. I believe that the château itself was used as a hospital for +those cases which were too bad to be moved farther. We were taken into +a long cement-floored building, and laid down in a line of stretchers +which ran almost from the doorway up to a screen at the end of the +room, behind which dressings and operations were taking place. On my +right was the officer of the K----'s, still fairly cheery, though in a +certain amount of pain; on my left lay a rifleman hit in the chest, +and very grey about the face; I remember that, as I looked at him, I +compared the colour of his face with that of the stomach cases I had +seen. A stomach case, as far as I can remember, has an ashen pallor +about the face; a lung case has a haggard grey look. Next to him a boy +of about eighteen was sitting on his stretcher; he was hit in the jaw, +the arms, and the hands, but he calmly took out his pipe, placed it in +his blood-stained mouth, and started smoking. I was talking to the +officer of the K----'s, when he suddenly fell to groaning, and rolled +over on to my stretcher. I tried to comfort him, but words were of no +avail. A doctor came along, asked a few questions, and examined the +wound, just a small hole in the pit of the stomach; but he looked +serious enough about it. The stretcher was lifted up and its tortured +occupant borne away behind the screen for an operation. That was the +last I saw of a very plucky young fellow. I ate some bread and jam, +and drank some tea doled out liberally all down the two lines of +stretchers, for another line had formed by now. + +My turn came at last, and I was carried off to a table behind the +screen, where the wound was probed, dressed, and bandaged tightly, and +I had a foretaste of the less pleasant side of hospital life. There +were two Army nurses at work on a case next to mine--the first English +women I had seen since I returned from leave six months before. My +wound having been dressed, I was almost immediately taken out and put +into a motor-lorry. There must have been about nine of us, three rows +of three, on the floor of that lorry. I did not find it comfortable, +though the best had been done under the circumstances to make it so; +neither did the others, many of whom were worse wounded than myself, +judging by the groans which arose at every jolt. + +We turned down a road leading to the station. Groups of peasants were +standing in the village street and crying after us: "Ah! les pauvres +blessés! les pauvres Anglais blessés!" These were the last words of +gratitude and sympathy that the kind peasants could give us. We drew +up behind other cars alongside the hospital train, and the +engine-driver looked round from polishing his engine and watched us +with the wistful gaze of one to whom hospital train work was no longer +a novelty. Walking wounded came dribbling up by ones and twos into the +station yard, and were directed into sitting compartments. + +The sun was in my eyes, and I felt as if my face was being scorched. I +asked an R.A.M.C.N.C.O., standing at the end of the wagon, to get me +something to shade my eyes. Then occurred what I felt was an extremely +thoughtful act on the part of a wounded man. A badly wounded +lance-corporal, on the other side of the lorry, took out his +handkerchief and stretched it over to me. When I asked him if he was +sure that he did not want it, he insisted on my taking it. It was +dirty and blood-stained, but saved me much discomfort, and I thanked +him profusely. After about ten minutes our stretchers were hauled out +of the lorry. I was borne up to the officers' carriage at the far end +of the train. It was a splendidly equipped compartment; and when I +found myself between the sheets of my berth, with plenty of pillows +under me, I felt as if I had definitely got a stage nearer to England. +Some one behind me called my name, and, looking round, I saw my old +friend M---- W----, whose party I had nearly run into the night before +in that never-to-be-forgotten communication trench, Woman Street. He +told me that he had been hit in the wrist and leg. Judging by his +flushed appearance, he had something of a temperature. + +More wounded were brought or helped in--men as well as officers--till +the white walls of the carriage were lined with blood-stained, +mud-covered khaki figures, lying, sitting, and propped up in various +positions. + +The Medical Officer in charge of the train came round and asked us +what we should like to drink for dinner. + +"Would you like whisky-and-soda, or beer, or lemonade?" he questioned +me. This sounded pleasant to my ears, but I only asked for a lemonade. + +As the train drew out of the station, one caught a last glimpse of +warfare--an aeroplane, wheeling round in the evening sky amongst a +swarm of tell-tale smoke-puffs, the explosions of "Archie" shells. + + + + + * * * * * + +PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + * * * * * + + + + +The following pages contain advertisements of a few of +the Macmillan books on kindred subjects. + + + + +Ambulance 464: Encore des Blesses + +BY JULIEN H. BRYAN + + _Illustrated. Cloth, 12mo._ + + Here we have the story of the experiences of a Princeton + Junior--a boy of seventeen, who went to the war and drove an + ambulance car in the Verdun and Champagne sectors. He tells + exactly what he saw and heard in the American Ambulance + Corps, bringing his story down to August, 1917. His accounts + are modest, interesting, sometimes amusing--always vivid. + + War books by soldiers are very popular these days. The + author-fighter has contributed some of the most informing + volumes that have been issued on the great conflict. Of all + of those who have been to the front and have returned to + write about it, no one, perhaps, has had more unusual + experiences than fell to the lot of this youth. He has + written a book in which he tells what happened to him and his + immediate associates; a book that is remarkable for the + thrilling character of its narrative, the spirit of good + humor, of adventure and excitement which runs through it. + + Mr. Bryan had his kodak with him and his text is illustrated + with many altogether unusual pictures, giving a new and clear + idea as to the war and its method of prosecution. + + + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + + + +_MASEFIELD'S NEW WAR BOOK_ + +The Old Front Line + +BY JOHN MASEFIELD + + _Illustrated. 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It first gave the enemy the + knowledge that he was beaten." + + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + + + +A War Nurse's Diary + + _Illustrated, Cloth, $1.25_ + + High courage, deep sympathy without sentimentality, and an + all-saving sense of humor amid dreadful and depressing + conditions are the salient features of this little book. The + author, who preserves her anonymity, has been "over the top" + in the fullest sense. She has faced bombardments and aerial + raids, she has calmly removed her charges under fire, she has + tended the wounded and dying amid scenes of carnage and + confusion, and she has created order and comfort where but a + short time before all was chaos and suffering. And all the + while she marvels at the uncomplaining fortitude of others, + never counting her own. Many unusual experiences have + befallen this "war nurse" and she writes of them all in a + gripping, vivid fashion. + + + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + + + +Victor Chapman's Letters from France + + _Illustrated, $2.00_ + + Victor Chapman was studying architecture in Paris when the + war broke out and at once he joined the French Foreign + Legion. A year later he was transferred to the Aviation Corps + and went to the front as pilot in the American Escadrille. + This volume comprises his letters written to his family, + covering the full period of his service from September, 1914, + to a few days before his death. "They are," says the _New + York Times_ in commenting on them, "graphic letters that show + imaginative feeling and unusual faculty for literary + expression and they are filled with details of his daily life + and duties and reflect the keen satisfaction he was taking in + his experiences. He knew many of those Americans who have won + distinction, and some of them death, in the Legion and the + Aviation Service, and there is frequent reference to one or + another of them.... In few of the memorials to those who have + laid down their lives in this war is it possible to find + quite such a sense of a life not only fulfilled but crowned + by its sacrifice, notwithstanding its youthfulness, as one + gets from this tribute to Victor Chapman." + + + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + + * * * * * + + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + | Typographical errors corrected in text: | + | | + | Page 36: Bazencourt replaced with Bayencourt | + | Page 45: fraggrance replaced with fragrance | + | | + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + + * * * * * + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Attack, by Edward G. D. 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D. Liveing + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Attack + An Infantry Subaltern's Impression of July 1st, 1916 + +Author: Edward G. D. Liveing + +Release Date: February 20, 2009 [EBook #28145] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATTACK *** + + + + +Produced by Jeannie Howse and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<div class="tr"> +<p class="cen" style="font-weight: bold;">Transcriber's Note:</p> +<br /> +<p class="noin" style="text-align: left;">Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. +For a complete list, please see the <span style="white-space: nowrap;"><a href="#TN">end of this document</a>.</span></p> +</div> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h1>ATTACK</h1> + + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + + +<h4>THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br /> +NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS<br /> +ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO<br /> +<br /> +MACMILLAN & CO., <span class="sc">Limited</span><br /> +LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA<br /> +MELBOURNE<br /> +<br /> +THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, <span class="sc">Ltd.</span><br /> +TORONTO</h4> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<h1>ATTACK</h1> + +<h3>AN INFANTRY SUBALTERN'S IMPRESSIONS<br /> +OF JULY 1<span class="sc">st</span>, 1916</h3> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h3>BY<br /> +EDWARD G.D. LIVEING</h3> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h3>WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY<br /> +JOHN MASEFIELD</h3> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h5>New York<br /> +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br /> +1918</h5> + +<h5><i>All rights reserved</i></h5> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h5><span class="sc">Copyright, 1918</span><br /> +<span class="sc">By</span> THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br /> +<br /> +Set up and electrotyped. Published, April, 1918</h5> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>TO<br /> +THE N.C.O.s<br /> +AND<br /> +MEN OF No. 5 PLATOON</h4> + +<h4>Of a Battalion of the County of London<br /> +Regiment, whom I had the good<br /> +fortune to command in France<br /> +during 1915-1916, and in<br /> +particular to the<br /> +memory of</h4> + +<h4><span class="sc">Rfn.</span> C.N. DENNISON</h4> + +<h4>My Platoon Observer, who fell in action<br /> +July 1st, 1916, in an attempt<br /> +to save my life</h4> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>INTRODUCTION</h3> +<br /> + +<p>The attack on the fortified village of Gommecourt, which Mr. Liveing +describes in these pages with such power and colour, was a part of the +first great allied attack on July 1, 1916, which began the battle of +the Somme. That battle, so far as it concerns our own troops, may be +divided into two sectors: one, to the south of the Ancre River, a +sector of advance, the other, to the north of the Ancre River, a +containing sector, in which no advance was possible. Gommecourt +itself, which made a slight but important salient in the enemy line in +the containing sector, was the most <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>northern point attacked in that +first day's fighting.</p> + +<p>Though the Gommecourt position is not impressive to look at, most of +our soldiers are agreed that it was one of the very strongest points +in the enemy's fortified line on the Western Front. French and Russian +officers, who have seen it since the enemy left it, have described it +as "terrible" and as "the very devil." There can be no doubt that it +was all that they say.</p> + +<p>The country in that part is high-lying chalk downland, something like +the downland of Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, though generally barer +of trees, and less bold in its valleys. Before the war it was +cultivated, hedgeless land, under corn and sugar-beet. The chalk is +usually <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>well-covered, as in Buckinghamshire, with a fat clay. As the +French social tendency is all to the community, there are few lonely +farms in that countryside as there would be with us. The inhabitants +live in many compact villages, each with a church, a market-place, a +watering-place for stock, and sometimes a château and park. Most of +the villages are built of red brick, and the churches are of stone, +not (as in the chalk countries with us) of dressed flint. Nearly all +the villages are planted about with orchards; some have copses of +timber trees. In general, from any distance, the villages stand out +upon the downland as clumps of woodland. Nearly everywhere near the +battlefield a clump of orchard, with an occasional dark fir in it, is +the mark of some small village. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>In time of peace the Picardy farming +community numbered some two or three hundred souls. Gommecourt and +Hébuterne were of the larger kind of village.</p> + +<p>A traveller coming towards Gommecourt as Mr. Liveing came to it, from +the west, sees nothing of the Gommecourt position till he reaches +Hébuterne. It is hidden from him by the tilt of the high-lying chalk +plateau, and by the woodland and orchards round Hébuterne village. +Passing through this village, which is now deserted, save for a few +cats, one comes to a fringe of orchard, now deep in grass, and of +exquisite beauty. From the hedge of this fringe of orchard one sees +the Gommecourt position straight in front, with the Gommecourt salient +curving <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>round on slightly rising ground, so as to enclose the left +flank.</p> + +<p>At first sight the position is not remarkable. One sees, to the left, +a slight rise or swelling in the chalk, covered thickly with the +remains and stumps of noble trees, now mostly killed by shell-fire. +This swelling, which is covered with the remains of Gommecourt Park, +is the salient of the enemy position. The enemy trenches here jut out +into a narrow pointing finger to enclose and defend this slight rise.</p> + +<p>Further to the right, this rise becomes a low, gentle heave in the +chalk, which stretches away to the south for some miles, becoming +lower and gentler in its slope as it proceeds. The battered woodland +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>which covers its higher end contains the few stumps and heaps of brick +that were once Gommecourt village. The lower end is without trees or +buildings.</p> + +<p>This slight wooded rise and low, gentle heave in the chalk make up the +position of Gommecourt. It is nothing but a gentle rise above a gentle +valley. From a mile or two to the south of Gommecourt, this valley +appearance becomes more marked. If one looks northward from this point +the English lines seem to follow a slight rise parallel with the +other. The valley between the two heaves of chalk make the No Man's +Land or space between the enemy trenches and our own. The salient +shuts in the end of the valley and enfilades it.</p> + +<p>The position has changed little since <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>the attack of July 1. Then, as +now, Gommecourt was in ruins, and the trees of the wood were mostly +killed. Then, as now, the position looked terrible, even though its +slopes were gentle and its beauty not quite destroyed, even after two +years of war.</p> + +<p>The position is immensely strong in itself, with a perfect glacis and +field of fire. Every invention of modern defensive war helped to make +it stronger. In front of it was the usual system of barbed wire, +stretched on iron supports, over a width of fifty yards. Behind the +wire was the system of the First Enemy Main Line, from which many +communication-trenches ran to the central fortress of the salient, +known as the Kern Redoubt, and to the Support or Guard Line. This +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>First Main Line, even now, after countless bombardments and nine +months of neglect, is a great and deep trench of immense strength. It +is from twelve to fifteen feet deep, very strongly revetted with +timberings and stout wicker-work. At intervals it is strengthened with +small forts or sentry-boxes of concrete, built into the parapet. Great +and deep dug-outs lie below it, and though many of these have now been +destroyed, the shafts of most of them can still be seen. At the mouths +of some of these shafts one may still see giant-legged periscopes by +which men sheltered in the dug-out shafts could watch for the coming +of an attack. When the attack began and the barrage lifted, these +watchers called up the bombers and machine-gunners from their +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>underground barracks, and had them in action within a few seconds.</p> + +<p>Though the wire was formidable and the trench immense, the real +defences of the position were artillery and machine-guns. The +machine-guns were the chief danger. One machine-gun with ample +ammunition has concentrated in itself the defensive power of a +battalion. The enemy had not less than a dozen machine-guns in and in +front of the Kern Redoubt. Some of these were cunningly hidden in +pits, tunnels and shelters in (or even outside) the obstacle of the +wire at the salient, so that they could enfilade the No Man's Land, or +shoot an attacking party in the back after it had passed. The sites of +these machine-gun nests were well hidden from all observation, and +were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>frequently changed. Besides the machine-guns outside and in the +front line, there were others, mounted in the trees and in the higher +ground above the front line, in such position that they, too, could +play upon the No Man's Land and the English front line. The artillery +concentrated behind Gommecourt was of all calibres. It was a greater +concentration than the enemy could then usually afford to defend any +one sector, but the number of guns in it is not known. On July 1 it +developed a more intense artillery fire upon Hébuterne, and the +English line outside it, than upon any part of the English attack +throughout the battlefield.</p> + +<p>In the attack of July 1, Gommecourt was assaulted simultaneously from +the north (from the direction of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>Fonquevillers) and from the south +(from the direction of Hébuterne). Mr. Liveing took part in the +southern assault, and must have "gone in" near the Hébuterne-Bucquoy +Road. The tactical intention of these simultaneous attacks from north +and south was to "pinch off" and secure the salient. The attack to the +north, though gallantly pushed, was unsuccessful. The attack to the +south got across the first-line trench and into the enemy position +past Gommecourt Cemetery almost to the Kern Redoubt. What it faced in +getting so far may be read in Mr. Liveing's account. Before our men +left the trenches outside Hébuterne they were in a heavy barrage, and +the open valley of the No Man's Land hissed, as Mr. Liveing says, like +an engine, with machine-gun bullets. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>Nevertheless, our men reached +the third line of enemy trenches and began to secure the ground which +they had captured.</p> + +<p>During the afternoon the enemy counter-attacked from the south, and, +later in the day, from the north as well. Our men had not enough bombs +to hold back the attackers, and were gradually driven back, after very +severe hand-to-hand fighting in the trenches, to an evil little bend +in the front line directly to the south of Gommecourt Cemetery. At +about 11 <span class="sc">p.m.</span>, after sixteen hours of intense and bitter fighting, +they were driven back from this point to their own lines.</p> + +<p>Mr. Liveing's story is very well told. It is a simple and most vivid +account of a modern battle. No better account has been written in +England since the war <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>began. I hope that so rare a talent for +narrative may be recognised. I hope, too, that Mr. Liveing may soon be +able to give us more stories as full of life as this.</p> + +<p class="right sc">John Masefield.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<p>The Author wishes to thank Messrs. Blackwood and Sons for their kind +permission to republish this article, which appeared in <i>Blackwood's +Magazine</i>, December, 1917, under the title of "Battle."</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span><br /> +<a name="toc" id="toc"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CONTENTS</h3> +<br /> + +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="65%" summary="Table of Contents"> + <tr> + <td class="tdr" width="10%" style="font-size: 80%;">CHAPTER</td> + <td class="tdl" width="70%"> </td> + <td class="tdr" width="20%" style="font-size: 80%;">PAGE</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">I.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">Gathering for Attack</a></td> + <td class="tdr">23</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">II.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">Eve of Attack</a></td> + <td class="tdr">28</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">III.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">Attack</a></td> + <td class="tdr">54</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">IV.</td> + <td class="tdlsc"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">Toll of Attack</a></td> + <td class="tdr">93</td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span><br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span><br /> + +<h1>ATTACK</h1> + +<h3>CHAPTER I<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>GATHERING FOR ATTACK</h4> +<br /> + +<p>The roads were packed with traffic. Column after column of lorries +came pounding along, bearing their freight of shells, trench-mortar +bombs, wire, stakes, sandbags, pipes, and a thousand other articles +essential for the offensive, so that great dumps of explosives and +other material arose in the green wayside places. Staff cars and +signallers on motor-bikes went busily on their way. Ambulances hurried +backwards and forwards between the line and the Casualty <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>Clearing +Station, for the days of June were hard days for the infantry who dug +the "leaping-off" trenches, and manned them afterwards through rain +and raid and bombardment. Horse transport and new batteries hurried to +their destinations. "Caterpillars" rumbled up, towing the heavier +guns. Infantrymen and sappers marched to their tasks round and about +the line.</p> + +<p>Roads were repaired, telephone wires placed deep in the ground, trees +felled for dug-outs and gun emplacements, water-pipes laid up to the +trenches ready to be extended across conquered territory, while +small-gauge and large-gauge railways seemed to spring to being in the +night.</p> + +<p>Then came days of terror for the enemy. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>Slowly our guns broke forth +upon them in a tumult of rage. The Germans in retaliation sprayed our +nearer batteries with shrapnel, and threw a barrage of whizz-bangs +across the little white road leading into the village of Hébuterne. +This feeble retaliation was swallowed up and overpowered by the +torrent of metal that now poured incessantly into their territory. +Shells from the 18-pounders and trench-mortars cut their wire and +demoralised their sentries. Guns of all calibres pounded their system +of trenches till it looked for all the world like nothing more than a +ploughed field. The sky was filled with our aeroplanes wheeling about +and directing the work of batteries, and with the black and white +bursts of anti-aircraft shells. Shells from the 9.2 howitzers <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>crashed +into strong points and gun emplacements and hurled them skywards. +Petrol shells licked up the few remaining green-leaved trees in +Gommecourt Wood, where observers watched and snipers nested: 15-inch +naval guns, under the vigilant guidance of observation balloons, +wrought deadly havoc in Bapaume and other villages and billets behind +their lines.</p> + +<p>Thrice were the enemy enveloped in gas and smoke, and, as they +stood-to in expectation of attack, were mown down by a torrent of +shells.</p> + +<p>The bombardment grew and swelled and brought down showers of rain. Yet +the ground remained comparatively dry and columns of dust arose from +the roads as hoof and wheel crushed their broken <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>surfaces and +battalions of infantry, with songs and jests, marched up to billets +and bivouacs just behind the line, ready to give battle.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER II<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>EVE OF ATTACK</h4> +<br /> + +<p>Boom! Absolute silence for a minute. Boom! followed quickly by a more +distant report from a fellow-gun. At each bellowing roar from the 9.2 +near by, bits of the ceiling clattered on to the floor of the billet +and the wall-plaster trickled down on to one's valise, making a sound +like soot coming down a chimney.</p> + +<p>It was about three o'clock in the morning. I did not look at my watch, +as its luminous facings had faded away months before and I did not +wish to disturb my companions by lighting a match. A sigh <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>or a groan +came from one part of the room or another, showing that our +bombardment was troublesome even to the sleepers, and a rasping noise +occasionally occurred when <span class="nowrap">W——k</span>, my Company Commander, turned round +uneasily on his bed of wood and rabbit-wire.</p> + +<p>I plunged farther down into the recesses of my flea-bag, though its +linings had broken down and my feet stuck out at the bottom. Then I +pulled my British Warm over me and muffled my head and ears in it to +escape the regularly-repeated roar of the 9.2. Though the whole house +seemed to be shaking to bits at every minute, the noise was muffled to +a less ear-splitting fury and I gradually sank into a semi-sleep.</p> + +<p>About six o'clock I awoke finally, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>after an interval the battery +stopped its work. At half-past seven I hauled myself out of my valise +and sallied forth into the courtyard, clad in a British Warm, pyjamas, +and gum-boots, to make my toilet. I blinked as I came into the light +and felt very sleepy. The next moment I was on my hands and knees, +with every nerve of my brain working like a mill-stone. A vicious +"swish" had sounded over my head, and knowing its meaning I had turned +for the nearest door and slipped upon the cobbled stones of the yard. +I picked myself up and fled for that door just as the inevitable +"crash" came. This happened to be the door to the servants' quarters, +and they were vastly amused. We looked out of the window at the +<i>débris</i> which was rising <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>into the air. Two more "crumps" came +whirling over the house, and with shattering explosions lifted more +<i>débris</i> into the air beyond the farther side of the courtyard. +Followed a burst of shrapnel and one more "crump," and the enemy's +retaliation on the 9.2 and its crew had ceased. The latter, however, +had descended into their dug-out, while the gun remained unscathed. +Not so some of our own men.</p> + +<p>We were examining the nose-cap of a shell which had hit the wall of +our billet, when a corporal came up, who said hurriedly to <span class="nowrap">W——k</span>, +"Corporal <span class="nowrap">G——'s</span> been killed and four men wounded."</p> + +<p>The whole tragedy had happened so swiftly, and this sudden +announcement of the death of one of our best N.C.O.s <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>had come as such +a shock, that all we did was to stare at each other with the words:</p> + +<p>"My God! Corporal <span class="nowrap">G——</span> gone! It's impossible."</p> + +<p>One expects shells and death in the line, but three or four miles +behind it one grows accustomed, so to speak, to live in a fool's +paradise. We went round to see our casualties, and I found two of my +platoon, bandaged in the leg and arm, sitting in a group of their +pals, who were congratulating them on having got "soft Blighty ones." +The Company Quartermaster-Sergeant showed me a helmet, which was lying +outside the billet when the shells came over, with a triangular gash +in it, into which one could almost place one's fist. At the body of +Corporal <span class="nowrap">G——</span> I could not bring myself to look. The poor <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>fellow had +been terribly hit in the back and neck, and, I confess it openly, I +had not the courage, and felt that it would be a sacrilege, to gaze on +the mangled remains of one whom I had valued so much as an N.C.O. and +grown to like so much as a man during the last ten months.</p> + +<p>Dark clouds were blowing over in an easterly direction; a cheerless +day added to the general gloom. We had a Company Officers' final +consultation on the plans for the morrow, after which I held an +inspection of my platoon, and gave out some further orders. On my +return to the billet <span class="nowrap">W——k</span> told me that the attack had been postponed +for two days owing to bad weather. Putting aside all thought of orders +for the time being, we issued out rum to the men, indulged in a few +"tots" <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>ourselves, and settled down to a pleasant evening.</p> + +<br /> +<hr style='width: 15%;' /> +<br /> + +<p>In a little courtyard on the evening of June 30 I called the old +platoon to attention for the last time, shook hands with the officers +left in reserve, marched off into the road, and made up a turning to +the left on to the Blue Track. We had done about a quarter of the +ground between Bayencourt and Sailly-au-Bois when a messenger hurried +up to tell me to halt, as several of the platoons of the <span class="nowrap">L——</span> <span class="nowrap">S——</span> +had to pass us. We sat down by a large shell-hole, and the men lit up +their pipes and cigarettes and shouted jokes to the men of the other +regiment as they passed by.</p> + +<p>It was a very peaceful <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>evening—remarkably peaceful, now that the +guns were at rest. A light breeze played eastward. I sat with my face +towards the sunset, wondering a little if this was the last time that +I should see it. One often reads of this sensation in second-rate +novels. I must say that I had always thought it greatly "overdone"; +but a great zest in the splendour of life swept over me as I sat there +in the glow of that setting sun, and also a great calmness that gave +me heart to do my uttermost on the morrow. My father had enclosed a +little card in his last letter to me with the words upon it of the +prayer of an old cavalier of the seventeenth century—Sir Jacob +Astley—before the battle of Newbury:—"Lord, I shall be very busy +this day. I may forget Thee, but do not Thou forget <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>me." A peculiar +old prayer, but I kept on repeating it to myself with great comfort +that evening. My men were rather quiet. Perhaps the general calmness +was affecting them with kindred thoughts, though an Englishman never +shows them. On the left stood the stumpy spire of Bayencourt Church +just left by us. On the right lay Sailly-au-Bois in its girdle of +trees. Along the side of the valley which ran out from behind +Sailly-au-Bois, arose numerous lazy pillars of smoke from the wood +fires and kitchens of an artillery encampment. An English aeroplane, +with a swarm of black puffs around it betokening German shells, was +gleaming in the setting sun. It purred monotonously, almost drowning +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>screech of occasional shells which were dropping by a distant +château. The calm before the storm sat brooding over everything.</p> + +<p>The kilted platoons having gone on their way, we resumed our journey, +dipping into the valley behind Sailly-au-Bois, and climbing the +farther side, as I passed the officers' mess hut belonging to an +anti-aircraft battery, which had taken up a position at the foot of +the valley, and whence came a pleasant sound of clinking glass, a wild +desire for permanent comfort affected me.</p> + +<p>Bounding the outskirts of Sailly-au-Bois, we arrived in the midst of +the battery positions nesting by the score in the level plain behind +Hébuterne. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>batteries soon let us know of their presence. Red +flashes broke out in the gathering darkness, followed by quick +reports.</p> + +<p>To the right one could discern the dim outlines of platoons moving up +steadily and at equal distances like ourselves. One could just catch +the distant noise of spade clinking on rifle. When I turned my gaze to +the front of these troops, I saw yellow-red flashes licking upon the +horizon, where our shells were finding their mark. Straight in front, +whither we were bound, the girdle of trees round Hébuterne shut out +these flashes from view, but by the noise that came from beyond those +trees one knew that the German trenches were receiving exactly the +same intensity of fire there. Every now and then this belt of trees +was being <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>thrown into sharp relief by German star-shells, which +rocketed into the sky one after the other like a display of fireworks, +while at times a burst of hostile shrapnel would throw a weird, red +light on the twinkling poplars which surrounded the cemetery.</p> + +<p>As we marched on towards the village (I do not mind saying it) I +experienced that unpleasant sensation of wondering whether I should be +lying out this time to-morrow—stiff and cold in that land beyond the +trees, where the red shrapnel burst and the star-shells flickered. I +remember hoping that, if the fates so decreed, I should not leave too +great a gap in my family, and, best hope of all, that I should instead +be speeding home in an ambulance on the road that stretched <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>along to +our left. I do not think that I am far wrong when I say that those +thoughts were occurring to every man in the silent platoon behind me. +Not that we were downhearted. If you had asked the question, you would +have been greeted by a cheery "No!" We were all full of determination +to do our best next day, but one cannot help enduring rather an +unusual "party feeling" before going into an attack.</p> + +<p>Suddenly a German shell came screaming towards us. It hurtled overhead +and fell behind us with muffled detonation in Sailly-au-Bois. Several +more screamed over us as we went along, and it was peculiar to hear +the shells of both sides echoing backwards and forwards in the sky at +the same time.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>We were about four hundred yards from the outskirts of Hébuterne, when +I was made aware of the fact that the platoon in front of me had +stopped. I immediately stopped my platoon. I sat the men down along a +bank, and we waited—a wait which was whiled away by various +incidents. I could hear a dog barking, and just see two gunner +officers who were walking unconcernedly about the battery positions +and whistling for it. The next thing that happened was a red flash in +the air about two hundred yards away, and a pinging noise as bits of +shrapnel shot into the ground round about. One of my men, <span class="nowrap">S——</span> (the +poor chap was killed next day), called to me: "Look at that fire in +Sailly, sir!" I turned round and saw a great yellow flare illuminating +the sky in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>the direction of Sailly, the fiery end of some barn or +farm-building, where a high explosive had found its billet.</p> + +<p>We remained in this spot for nearly a quarter of an hour, after which +<span class="nowrap">R——d's</span> platoon began to move on, and I followed at a good distance +with mine. We made our way to the clump of trees over which the +shrapnel had burst a few minutes before. Suddenly we found ourselves +floundering in a sunken road flooded with water knee-deep. This was +not exactly pleasant, especially when my guide informed me that he was +not quite certain as to our whereabouts. Luckily, we soon gained dry +ground again, turned off into a bit of trench which brought us into +the village, and made for the dump by the church, where we were to +pick up our <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>materials. When we reached the church—or, rather, its +ruins—the road was so filled with parties and platoons, and it was +becoming so dark, that it took us some time before we found the dump. +Fortunately, the first person whom I spotted was the Regimental +Sergeant-Major, and I handed over to him the carrying-party which I +had to detail, also despatching the rum and soup parties—the latter +to the company cooker.</p> + +<p>Leaving the platoon in charge of Sergeant <span class="nowrap">S——l</span>, I went with my guide +in search of the dump. In the general <i>mêlée</i> I bumped into W—-k. We +found the rabbit wire, barbed wire, and other material in a +shell-broken outhouse, and, grabbing hold of it, handed the stuff out +to the platoon.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>As we filed through the village the reflections of star-shells threw +weird lights on half-ruined houses; an occasional shell screamed +overhead, to burst with a dull, echoing sound within the shattered +walls of former cottages; and one could hear the rat-tat-tat of +machine-guns. These had a nasty habit of spraying the village with +indirect fire, and it was, as always, a relief to enter the recesses +of Wood Street without having any one hit. This communication trench +dipped into the earth at right angles to the "Boulevard" Street. We +clattered along the brick-floored trench, whose walls were overhung +with the dewy grass and flowers of the orchard—that wonderful orchard +whose aroma had survived the horror and desolation of a two years' +warfare, and seemed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>now only to be intensified to a softer fragrance +by the night air.</p> + +<p>Arriving at the belt of trees and hedge which marked the confines of +the orchard, we turned to the right into Cross Street, which cut along +behind the belt of trees into Woman Street.</p> + +<p>Turning to the left up Woman Street, and leaving the belt of trees +behind, we wound into the slightly undulating ground between Hébuterne +and Gommecourt Wood. "Crumps" were bursting round about the +communication trench, but at a distance, judging by their report, of +at least fifty yards. As we were passing Brigade Headquarters' +Dug-out, the Brigade-Major appeared and asked me the number of my +platoon. "Number 5," I replied; and he answered "Good," <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>with a touch +of relief in his voice—for we had been held up for some time on the +way, and my platoon was the first or second platoon of the company to +get into the line.</p> + +<p>It was shortly after this that "crumps" began to burst dangerously +near. There was suddenly a blinding flash and terrific report just to +our left. We kept on, with heads aching intolerably. Winding round a +curve, we came upon the effects of the shells. The sides of the trench +had been blown in, while in the middle of the <i>débris</i> lay a dead or +unconscious man, and farther on a man groaning faintly upon a +stretcher. We scrambled over them, passed a few more wounded and +stretcher-bearers, and arrived at the Reserve Line.</p> + +<p>Captain <span class="nowrap">W——t</span> was standing at the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>juncture of Woman Street and the +Reserve Line, cool and calm as usual. I asked him if New Woman Street +was blocked, but there was no need for a reply. A confused noise of +groans and stertorous breathing, and of some one sobbing, came to my +ears, and above it all,<span class="nowrap"> M——</span> <span class="nowrap">W——'s</span> voice saying to one of his men: +"It's all right, old chap. It's all over now." He told me afterwards +that a shell had landed practically in the trench, killing two men in +front of him and one behind, and wounding several others, but not +touching himself.</p> + +<p>It was quite obvious to me that it was impossible to proceed to the +support trench via New Woman Street, and at any rate my Company +Commander had given me orders to go over the top from the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>reserve to +the support line, so, shells or no shells, and leaving Sergeant <span class="nowrap">S——l</span> +to bring up the rear of the platoon, I scaled a ladder leaning on the +side of the trench and walked over the open for about two hundred +yards. My guide and I jumped into New Woman Street just before it +touched the support line, and we were soon joined by several other men +of the platoon. We had already suffered three casualties, and going +over the top in the darkness, the men had lost touch. The ration party +also had not arrived yet. I despatched the guide to bring up the +remainder, and proceeded to my destination with about six men. About +fifteen yards farther up the trench I found a series of shell-holes +threading their way off to the left. By the light of some German +star-shells I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>discerned an officer groping about these holes, and I +stumbled over mounds and hollows towards him.</p> + +<p>"Is this the support line?" I asked, rather foolishly.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he replied, "but there isn't much room in it." I saw that he +was an officer of the Royal Engineers.</p> + +<p>"I'm putting my smoke-bombers down here," he continued, "but you'll +find more room over towards the sunken road."</p> + +<p>He showed me along the trench—or the remains of it—and went off to +carry out his own plans. I stumbled along till I could just +distinguish the outlines of the sunken road. The trench in this +direction was blown in level with the ground. I returned to <span class="nowrap">W——k</span>, +whose headquarters were at the juncture of New Woman <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>Street and the +support line, telling him that the trench by the sunken road was +untenable, and that I proposed placing my platoon in a smaller length +of trench, and spreading them out fanwise when we started to advance. +To this he agreed, and putting his hand on my shoulder in his +characteristic fashion, informed me in a whisper that the attack was +to start at 7.30 <span class="sc">A.M.</span> As far as I can remember it was about +one o'clock by now, and more of my men had come up. I ensconced them +by sections. No. 1 section on the left and No. 4 on the right in +shell-holes and the remains of the trench along a distance of about +forty yards, roughly half the length of the trench that they were to +have occupied. At the same time I gave orders to my right-and +left-hand guides <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>to incline off to the right and left respectively +when the advance started. I was walking back to my headquarters, a bit +of trench behind a traverse, when a German searchlight, operating from +the direction of Serre Wood, turned itself almost dead on me. I was in +my trench in a second.</p> + +<p>Shortly afterwards Sergeant <span class="nowrap">S——r</span> arrived with No. 8 platoon. I +showed him one or two available portions of trench, but most of his +men had to crowd in with mine. The Lewis-gunners, who arrived last, +found only a ruined bit of trench next to my "headquarters," while +they deposited their guns and equipment in a shell-hole behind.</p> + +<p>It was somewhere about four or half-past when I made my last +inspection. I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>clambered over the back of the trench and stood still +for a moment or so. Everything was uncannily silent. There was just a +suspicion of whiteness creeping into the sky beyond the rising ground +opposite. Over towards the left rose the remains of Gommecourt Wood. +Half its trees had gone since the last time that I had seen it, and +the few that remained stood, looking like so many masts in a harbour, +gaunt and charred by our petrol shells.</p> + +<p>The men in the left fire-bay seemed quite comfortable. But, standing +and looking down the trench, it suddenly dawned upon me that I was +gazing right into a line of chalky German trenches, and consequently +that the enemy in those trenches could look straight into this trench. +I left instructions with the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>corporal in charge of that section to +build up a barricade in the gap before daybreak. As I went along the +rest of our frontage, Sergeant <span class="nowrap">S——l</span> doled out the rum.</p> + +<p>I retired to my "headquarters," but not so Sergeant <span class="nowrap">S——l</span>, who seemed +not to bother a bit about the increasing light and the bullets which +came phitting into the ground in rather an unpleasant quantity. I was +glad when I had finally got him down into the trench. <span class="nowrap">W——k</span> had also +told him to get in, for he remarked—</p> + +<p>"Captain <span class="nowrap">W——k</span>, 'e says to me, 'Get into the trench, <span class="nowrap">S——l</span>, you +<span class="nowrap">b——</span> fool!' so I've got in."</p> + +<p>He was just in time. A prelude of shrapnel screamed along, bursting +overhead, and there followed an hour's nerve-racking bombardment.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER III<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>ATTACK</h4> +<br /> + +<p>Dawn was breaking. The morning was cool after a chill night—a night +of waiting in blown-down trenches with not an inch to move to right or +left, of listening to the enemy's shells as they left the guns and +came tearing and shrieking towards you, knowing all the time that they +were aimed for your particular bit of trench and would land in it or +by it, of awaiting that sudden, ominous silence, and then the +crash—perhaps death.</p> + +<p>I, for my part, had spent most of the night sitting on a petrol tin, +wedged <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>between the two sides of the trench and two human beings—my +sergeant on the left and a corporal on the right. Like others, I had +slept for part of the time despite the noise and danger, awakened now +and then by the shattering crash of a shell or the hopeless cry for +stretcher-bearers.</p> + +<p>But morning was coming at last, and the bombardment had ceased. The +wind blew east, and a few fleecy clouds raced along the blue sky +overhead. The sun was infusing more warmth into the air. There was the +freshness and splendour of a summer morning over everything. In fact, +as one man said, it felt more as if we were going to start off for a +picnic than for a battle.</p> + +<p>"Pass it down to Sergeant <span class="nowrap">H——</span> that Sergeant <span class="nowrap">S——l</span> wishes him the +top o' the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>mornin'," said my sergeant. But Sergeant <span class="nowrap">H——,</span> who was in +charge of the company's Lewis-guns, and had been stationed in the next +fire-trench, was at present groping his way to safety with a lump of +shrapnel in his back.</p> + +<p>An occasional shell sang one way or the other. Otherwise all was +quiet. We passed down the remains of the rum. Sergeant <span class="nowrap">S——l</span> pressed +me to take some out of a mess-tin lid. I drank a very little—the +first and last "tot" I took during the battle. It warmed me up. Some +time after this I looked at my watch and found it was a minute or two +before 6.25 <span class="sc">A.M.</span> I turned to the corporal, saying—</p> + +<p>"They'll just about start now."</p> + +<p>The words were not out of my mouth before the noise, which had +increased a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>trifle during the last twenty minutes, suddenly swelled +into a gigantic roar. Our guns had started. The din was so deafening +that one could not hear the crash of German shells exploding in our +own lines.</p> + +<p>Sergeant <span class="nowrap">S——l</span> was standing straight up in the trench and looking +over to see the effects of our shells. It was a brave thing to do, but +absolutely reckless. I pulled him down by the tail of his tunic. He +got up time and again, swearing that he would "take on the whole <span class="nowrap">b——</span> +German army." He gave us pleasing information of the effects of our +bombardment, but as I did not want him to lose his life prematurely, I +saw to it that we kept him down in the trench till the time came for a +display of bravery, in which he was not lacking.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>We had been told that the final bombardment that day would be the most +intense one since the beginning of the war. The attack was to encircle +what was almost generally considered the strongest German "fortress" +on the Western Front, the stronghold of Gommecourt Wood. There was +need of it, therefore.</p> + +<p>Just over the trenches, almost raising the hair on one's head (we were +helmeted, I must say, but that was the feeling), swished the smaller +shells from the French .75 and English 18-pounder batteries. They gave +one the sensation of being under a swiftly rushing stream. The larger +shells kept up a continuous shrieking overhead, falling on the enemy's +trenches with the roar of a cataract, while every now and then a noise +as of thunder <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>sounded above all when our trench-mortar shells fell +amongst the German wire, blowing it to bits, making holes like mine +craters, and throwing dirt and even bits of metal into our own +trenches.</p> + +<p>I have often tried to call to memory the intellectual, mental and +nervous activity through which I passed during that hour of hellish +bombardment and counter-bombardment, that last hour before we leapt +out of our trenches into No Man's Land. I give the vague recollection +of that ordeal for what it is worth. I had an excessive desire for the +time to come when I could go "over the top," when I should be free at +last from the noise of the bombardment, free from the prison of my +trench, free to walk across that patch of No Man's Land and opposing +trenches till <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>I got to my objective, or, if I did not go that far, to +have my fate decided for better or for worse. I experienced, too, +moments of intense fear during close bombardment. I felt that if I was +blown up it would be the end of all things so far as I was concerned. +The idea of after-life seemed ridiculous in the presence of such +frightful destructive force. Again the prayer of that old cavalier +kept coming to my mind. At any rate, one could but do one's best, and +I hoped that a higher power than all that which was around would not +overlook me or any other fellows on that day. At one time, not very +long before the moment of attack, I felt to its intensest depth the +truth of the proverb, "Carpe diem." What was time? I had another +twenty minutes in which to live in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>comparative safety. What was the +difference between twenty minutes and twenty years? Really and truly +what was the difference? I was living at present, and that was enough. +I am afraid that this working of mind will appear unintelligible. I +cannot explain it further. I think that others who have waited to "go +over" will realise its meaning. Above all, perhaps, and except when +shells falling near by brought one back to reality, the intense +cascade-like noise of our own shells rushing overhead numbed for the +most part of the time one's nervous and mental system. Listening to +this pandemonium, one felt like one of an audience at a theatre and +not in the least as if one was in any way associated with it oneself.</p> + +<p>Still, the activity of a man's nerves, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>though dulled to a great +extent inwardly, were bound to show externally. I turned to the +corporal. He was a brave fellow, and had gone through the Gallipoli +campaign, but he was shaking all over, and white as parchment. I +expect that I was just the same.</p> + +<p>"We must be giving them hell," I said. "I don't think they're sending +much back."</p> + +<p>"I don't think much, sir," he replied.</p> + +<p>I hardly think we believed each other. Looking up out of the trench +beyond him, I saw huge, black columns of smoke and <i>débris</i> rising up +from our communication trench. Then, suddenly, there was a blinding +"crash" just by us. We were covered in mud which flopped out of the +trench, and the evil-smelling fumes of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>lyddite. The cry for +stretcher-bearers was passed hurriedly up the line again. Followed +"crash" after "crash," and the pinging of shrapnel which flicked into +the top of the trench, the purring noise of flying nose-caps and soft +thudding sounds as they fell into the parapet.</p> + +<p>It was difficult to hear one another talking. Sergeant <span class="nowrap">S——l</span> was +still full of the "get at 'em" spirit. So were we all. The men were +behaving splendidly. I passed along the word to "Fix swords."</p> + +<p>We could not see properly over the top of the trench, but smoke was +going over. The attack was about to begin—it was beginning. I passed +word round the corner of the traverse, asking whether they could see +if the second wave was starting. It was just past 7.30 <span class="sc">A.M.</span> +The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>third wave, of which my platoon formed a part, was due to start +at 7.30 plus 45 seconds—at the same time as the second wave in my +part of the line. The corporal got up, so I realised that the second +wave was assembling on the top to go over. The ladders had been +smashed or used as stretchers long ago. Scrambling out of a battered +part of the trench, I arrived on top, looked down my line of men, +swung my rifle forward as a signal, and started off at the prearranged +walk.</p> + +<p>A continuous hissing noise all around one, like a railway engine +letting off steam, signified that the German machine-gunners had +become aware of our advance. I nearly trod on a motionless form. It +lay in a natural position, but the ashen face and fixed, fearful eyes +told me that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>the man had just fallen. I did not recognise him then. I +remember him now. He was one of my own platoon.</p> + +<p>To go back for a minute. The scene that met my eyes as I stood on the +parapet of our trench for that one second is almost indescribable. +Just in front the ground was pitted by innumerable shell-holes. More +holes opened suddenly every now and then. Here and there a few bodies +lay about. Farther away, before our front line and in No Man's Land, +lay more. In the smoke one could distinguish the second line +advancing. One man after another fell down in a seemingly natural +manner, and the wave melted away. In the background, where ran the +remains of the German lines and wire, there was a mass of smoke, the +red of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>shrapnel bursting amid it. Amongst it, I saw Captain <span class="nowrap">H——</span> +and his men attempting to enter the German front line. The Boches had +met them on the parapet with bombs. The whole scene reminded me of +battle pictures, at which in earlier years I had gazed with much +amazement. Only this scene, though it did not seem more real, was +infinitely more terrible. Everything stood still for a second, as a +panorama painted with three colours—the white of the smoke, the red +of the shrapnel and blood, the green of the grass.</p> + +<p>If I had felt nervous before, I did not feel so now, or at any rate +not in anything like the same degree. As I advanced, I felt as if I +was in a dream, but I had all my wits about me. We had been told to +walk. Our boys, however, rushed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>forward with splendid impetuosity to +help their comrades and smash the German resistance in the front line. +What happened to our materials for blocking the German communication +trench, when we got to our objective, I should not like to think. I +kept up a fast walking pace and tried to keep the line together. This +was impossible. When we had jumped clear of the remains of our front +line trench, my platoon slowly disappeared through the line stretching +out. For a long time, however, Sergeant <span class="nowrap">S——l</span>, Lance-corporal M——, +Rifleman <span class="nowrap">D——,</span> whom I remember being just in front of me, raising his +hand in the air and cheering, and myself kept together. Eventually +Lance-corporal <span class="nowrap">M——</span> was the only one of my platoon left near me, and +I shouted out to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>him, "Let's try and keep together." It was not long, +however, before we also parted company. One thing I remember very well +about this time, and that was that a hare jumped up and rushed towards +and past me through the dry, yellowish grass, its eyes bulging with +fear.</p> + +<p>We were dropping into a slight valley. The shell-holes were less few, +but bodies lay all over the ground, and a terrible groaning arose from +all sides. At one time we seemed to be advancing in little groups. I +was at the head of one for a moment or two, only to realise shortly +afterwards that I was alone.</p> + +<p>I came up to the German wire. Here one could hear men shouting to one +another and the wounded groaning above the explosions of shells and +bombs and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>the rattle of machine-guns. I found myself with <span class="nowrap">J——,</span> an +officer of "C" company, afterwards killed while charging a machine-gun +in the open. We looked round to see what our fourth line was doing. My +company's fourth line had no leader. Captain <span class="nowrap">W——k</span>, wounded twice, +had fallen into a shell-hole, while Sergeant <span class="nowrap">S——r</span> had been killed +during the preliminary bombardment. Men were kneeling and firing. I +started back to see if I could bring them up, but they were too far +away. I made a cup of my mouth and shouted, as <span class="nowrap">J——</span> was shouting. We +could not be heard. I turned round again and advanced to a gap in the +German wire. There was a pile of our wounded here on the German +parapet.</p> + +<p>Suddenly I cursed. I had been scalded <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>in the left hip. A shell, I +thought, had blown up in a water-logged crump-hole and sprayed me with +boiling water. Letting go of my rifle, I dropped forward full length +on the ground. My hip began to smart unpleasantly, and I left a +curious warmth stealing down my left leg. I thought it was the boiling +water that had scalded me. Certainly my breeches looked as if they +were saturated with water. I did not know that they were saturated +with blood.</p> + +<p>So I lay, waiting with the thought that I might recover my strength (I +could barely move) and try to crawl back. There was the greater +possibility of death, but there was also the possibility of life. I +looked around to see what was happening. In front lay some wounded; +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>on either side of them stakes and shreds of barbed wire twisted into +weird contortions by the explosions of our trench-mortar bombs. Beyond +this nothing but smoke, interspersed with the red of bursting bombs +and shrapnel.</p> + +<p>From out this ghastly chaos crawled a familiar figure. It was that of +Sergeant <span class="nowrap">K——,</span> bleeding from a wound in the chest. He came crawling +towards me.</p> + +<p>"Hallo, <span class="nowrap">K——,</span>" I shouted.</p> + +<p>"Are you hit, sir?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, old chap, I am," I replied.</p> + +<p>"You had better try and crawl back," he suggested.</p> + +<p>"I don't think I can move," I said.</p> + +<p>"I'll take off your equipment for you."</p> + +<p>He proceeded very gallantly to do this. I could not get to a kneeling +position <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>myself, and he had to get hold of me, and bring me to a +kneeling position, before undoing my belt and shoulder-straps. We +turned round and started crawling back together. I crawled very slowly +at first. Little holes opened in the ground on either side of me, and +I understood that I was under the fire of a machine-gun. In front +bullets were hitting the turf and throwing it four or five feet into +the air. Slowly but steadily I crawled on. Sergeant <span class="nowrap">K——</span> and I lost +sight of one another. I think that he crawled off to the right and I +to the left of a mass of barbed wire entanglements.</p> + +<p>I was now confronted by a danger from our own side. I saw a row of +several men kneeling on the ground and firing. It is probable that +they were trying to pick off <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>German machine-gunners, but it seemed +very much as if they would "pot" a few of the returning wounded into +the bargain.</p> + +<p>"For God's sake, stop firing," I shouted.</p> + +<p>Words were of no avail. I crawled through them. At last I got on my +feet and stumbled blindly along.</p> + +<p>I fell down into a sunken road with several other wounded, and crawled +up over the bank on the other side. The Germans had a machine-gun on +that road, and only a few of us got across. Some one faintly called my +name behind me. Looking round, I thought I recognised a man of "C" +company. Only a few days later did it come home to me that he was my +platoon observer. I had told him to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>stay with me whatever happened. +He had carried out his orders much more faithfully than I had ever +meant, for he had come to my assistance, wounded twice in the head +himself. He hastened forward to me, but, as I looked round waiting, +uncertain quite as to who he was, his rifle clattered on to the +ground, and he crumpled up and fell motionless just behind me. I felt +that there was nothing to be done for him. He died a hero, just as he +had always been in the trenches, full of self-control, never +complaining, a ready volunteer. Shortly afterwards I sighted the +remains of our front line trench and fell into them.</p> + +<p>At first I could not make certain as to my whereabouts. Coupled with +the fact that my notions in general were becoming <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>somewhat hazy, the +trenches themselves were entirely unrecognisable. They were filled +with earth, and about half their original depth. I decided, with that +quick, almost semi-conscious intuition that comes to one in moments of +peril, to proceed to the left (to one coming from the German lines). +As I crawled through holes and over mounds I could hear the vicious +spitting of machine-gun bullets. They seemed to skim just over my +helmet. The trench, opening out a little, began to assume its old +outline. I had reached the head of New Woman Street, though at the +time I did not know what communication trench it was—or trouble, for +that matter. The scene at the head of that communication trench is +stamped in a blurred but unforgettable way on my mind. In the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>remains +of a wrecked dug-out or emplacement a signaller sat, calmly +transmitting messages to Battalion Headquarters. A few bombers were +walking along the continuation of the front line. I could distinguish +the red grenades on their arms through the smoke. There were more of +them at the head of the communication trench. Shells were coming over +and blowing up round about.</p> + +<p>I asked one of the bombers to see what was wrong with my hip. He +started to get out my iodine tube and field dressing. The iodine tube +was smashed. I remembered that I had a second one, and we managed to +get that out after some time. Shells were coming over so incessantly +and close that the bomber advised that we should walk farther down the +trench <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>before commencing operations. This done, he opened my breeches +and disclosed a small hole in the front of the left hip. It was +bleeding fairly freely. He poured in the iodine, and put the bandage +round in the best manner possible. We set off down the communication +trench again, in company with several bombers, I holding the bandage +to my wound. We scrambled up mounds and jumped over craters (rather a +painful performance for one wounded in the leg); we halted at times in +almost open places, when machine-gun bullets swept unpleasantly near, +and one felt the wind of shells as they passed just over, blowing up a +few yards away. In my last stages across No Man's Land my chief +thought had been, "I must get home now for the sake of my people." +Now, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>for I still remember it distinctly, my thought was, "Will my +name appear in the casualty list under the head of 'Killed' or +'Wounded'?" and I summoned up a mental picture of the two alternatives +in black type.</p> + +<p>After many escapes we reached the Reserve Line, where a military +policeman stood at the head of Woman Street. He held up the men in +front of me and directed them to different places. Some one told him +that a wounded officer was following. This was, perhaps, as well, for +I was an indistinguishable mass of filth and gore. My helmet was +covered with mud, my tunic was cut about with shrapnel and bullets and +saturated with blood; my breeches had changed from a khaki to a purple +hue; my puttees were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>in tatters; my boots looked like a pair of very +muddy clogs.</p> + +<p>The military policeman consigned me to the care of some excellent +fellow, of what regiment I cannot remember. After walking, or rather +stumbling, a short way down Woman Street, my guide and I came upon a +gunner Colonel standing outside his dug-out and trying to watch the +progress of the battle through his field-glasses.</p> + +<p>"Good-morning," he said.</p> + +<p>"Good-morning, sir," I replied.</p> + +<p>This opening of our little conversation was not meant to be in the +least ironical, I can assure you. It seemed quite natural at the time.</p> + +<p>"Where are you hit?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"In the thigh, sir. I don't think it's anything very bad."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>"Good. How are we getting on?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I really can't say much for certain, sir. But I got nearly to +their front line."</p> + +<p>Walking was now becoming exceedingly painful and we proceeded slowly. +I choked the groans that would rise to my lips and felt a cold +perspiration pouring freely from my face. It was easier to get along +by taking hold of the sides of the trench with my hands than by being +supported by my guide. A party of bombers or carriers of some +description passed us. We stood on one side to let them go by. In +those few seconds my wound became decidedly stiffer, and I wondered if +I would ever reach the end of the trenches on foot. At length the +communication trench passed through a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>belt of trees, and we found +ourselves in Cross Street.</p> + +<p>Here was a First Aid Post, and R.A.M.C. men were hard at work. I had +known those trenches for a month past, and I had never thought that +Cross Street could appear so homelike. Hardly a shell was falling and +the immediate din of battle had subsided. The sun was becoming hot, +but the trees threw refreshing shadows over the wide, shallow +brick-floored trenches built by the French two years before. The +R.A.M.C. orderlies were speaking pleasant words, and men not too badly +wounded were chatting gaily. I noticed a dresser at work on a man near +by, and was pleased to find that the man whose wounds were being +attended to was my servant <span class="nowrap">L——.</span> His <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>wound was in the hip, a nasty +hole drilled by a machine-gun bullet at close quarters. He showed me +his water-bottle, penetrated by another bullet, which had inflicted a +further, but slight, wound.</p> + +<p>There were many more serious cases than mine to be attended to. After +about five or ten minutes an orderly slit up my breeches.</p> + +<p>"The wound's in the front of the hip," I said.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but there's a larger wound where the bullets come out, sir."</p> + +<p>I looked and saw a gaping hole two inches in diameter.</p> + +<p>"I think that's a Blighty one, isn't it?" I remarked.</p> + +<p>"I should just think so, sir!" he replied.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>"Thank God! At last!" I murmured vehemently, conjuring up visions of +the good old homeland.</p> + +<p>The orderly painted the iodine round both wounds and put on a larger +bandage. At this moment <span class="nowrap">R——,</span> an officer of "D" company, came limping +into Cross Street.</p> + +<p>"Hallo, <span class="nowrap">L——</span>," he exclaimed, "we had better try and get down to +hospital together."</p> + +<p>We started in a cavalcade to walk down the remaining trenches into the +village, not before my servant, who had insisted on staying with me, +had remarked—</p> + +<p>"I think I should like to go up again now, sir," and to which proposal +I had answered very emphatically—</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>"You won't do anything of the sort, my friend!"</p> + +<p><span class="nowrap">R——</span> led the way, with a man to help him, next came my servant, then +two orderlies carrying a stretcher with a terribly wounded Scottish +private on it; another orderly and myself brought up the rear—and a +very slow one at that!</p> + +<p>Turning a corner, we found ourselves amidst troops of the battalion in +reserve to us, all of them eager for news. A subaltern, with whom I +had been at a Divisional School, asked how far we had got. I told him +that we were probably in their second line by now. This statement +caused disappointment. Every one appeared to believe that we had taken +the three lines in about ten minutes. I must confess that the night +before the attack I had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>entertained hopes that it would not take us +much longer than this. As a matter of fact my battalion, or the +remains of it, after three hours of splendid and severe fighting, +managed to penetrate into the third line trench.</p> + +<p>Loss of blood was beginning to tell, and my progress was getting +slower every minute. Each man, as I passed, put his arm forward to +help me along and said a cheery word of some kind or other. Down the +wide, brick-floored trench we went, past shattered trees and battered +cottages, through the rank grass and luxuriant wild flowers, through +the rich, unwarlike aroma of the orchard, till we emerged into the +village "boulevard."</p> + +<p>The orderly held me under the arms till I was put on a wheeled +stretcher and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>hurried along, past the "boulevard pool" with its +surrounding elms and willows, and, at the end of the "boulevard," up a +street to the left. A short way up this street on the right stood the +Advanced Dressing Station—a well-sandbagged house reached through the +usual archway and courtyard. A dug-out, supplied with electric light +and with an entrance of remarkable sandbag construction, had been +tunnelled out beneath the courtyard. This was being used for +operations.</p> + +<p>In front of the archway and in the road stood two "padrés" directing +the continuous flow of stretchers and walking wounded. They appeared +to be doing all the work of organisation, while the R.A.M.C. doctors +and surgeons had their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>hands full with dressings and operations. +These were the kind of directions:</p> + +<p>"Wounded Sergeant? Right. Abdominal wound? All right. Lift him +off—gently now. Take him through the archway into the dug-out."</p> + +<p>"Dead? Yes! Poor fellow, take him down to the Cemetery."</p> + +<p>"German? Dug-out No. 2, at the end of the road on the right."</p> + +<p>Under the superintendence of the R.C. "padré," a man whose sympathy +and kindness I shall never forget, my stretcher was lifted off the +carrier and I was placed in the archway. The "padré" loosened my +bandage and looked at the wound, when he drew in his breath and asked +if I was in much pain.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>"Not an enormous amount," I answered, but asked for something to +drink.</p> + +<p>"Are you quite sure it hasn't touched the stomach?" he questioned, +looking shrewdly at me.</p> + +<p>I emphatically denied that it had, and he brought a blood-stained mug +with a little tea at the bottom of it. I can honestly say that I never +enjoyed a drink so much as that one.</p> + +<p>Shells, high explosives and shrapnel, were coming over every now and +then. I kept my helmet well over my head. This also served as a shade +from the sun, for it was now about ten o'clock and a sultry day. I was +able to obtain a view of events round about fairly easily. From time +to time orderlies tramped through the archway, bearing stretcher-cases +to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>dug-out. Another officer had been brought in and placed on the +opposite side of the archway. The poor fellow, about nineteen, was +more or less unconscious. His head and both hands were covered in +bandages crimson with blood. So coated was he with mud and gore that I +did not at first recognise him as an officer. At the farther end of +the arch a young private of about eighteen was lying on his side, +groaning in the agony of a stomach wound and crying "Mother." The +sympathetic "padré" did the best he could to comfort him. Out in the +road the R.A.M.C. were dressing and bandaging the ever-increasing flow +of wounded. Amongst them a captive German R.A.M.C. man, in green +uniform, with a Red Cross round his sleeve, was visible, hard at +work. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>Everything seemed so different from the deadly strife a +thousand or so yards away. There, foe was inflicting wounds on foe; +here were our men attending to the German wounded and the Germans +attending to ours. Both sides were working so hard now to save life. +There was a human touch about that scene in the ruined village street +which filled one with a sense of mingled sadness and pleasure. Here +were both sides united in a common attempt to repair the ravages of +war. Humanity had at last asserted itself.</p> + +<p>It was about eleven o'clock, I suppose, when the "padré" came up again +to my stretcher and asked me if I should like to get on, as there was +a berth vacant in an ambulance. The stretcher was hoisted up and slid +into the bottom berth of the car. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>The berth above was occupied by an +unconscious man. On the other side of the ambulance were four sitting +cases—a private, a sergeant, a corporal, and a rifleman, the last +almost unconscious. Those of us who could talk were very pleased with +life, and I remember saying: "Thank God, we're out of that hell, +boys!"</p> + +<p>"What's wrong with him?" I asked the corporal, signifying the +unconscious man.</p> + +<p>"Hit in the lungs, sir. They've set him up on purpose."</p> + +<p>The corporal, pulling out his cigarette case, offered cigarettes all +round, and we started to smoke. The last scene that I saw in Hébuterne +was that of three men dressing a tall badly wounded Prussian officer +lying on the side of the road. The ambulance turned the corner out of +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>village. There followed three "crashes" and dust flew on to the +floor of the car.</p> + +<p>"Whizz-bangs," was the corporal's laconical remark.</p> + +<p>We had passed the German road barrage, and were on our way to peace +and safety.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span><br /> + +<h3>CHAPTER IV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h4>TOLL OF ATTACK</h4> +<br /> + +<p>We climbed the little white road which led through the battery +positions now almost silent, topped the crest, and dipped into +Sailly-au-Bois. The village had been very little shelled since the +night before, and appeared the same as ever, except that the intense +traffic, which had flowed into it for the past month, had ceased. +Limbers and lorries had done their work, and the only objects which +filled the shell-scarred streets were slow-moving ambulances, little +blood-stained groups of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>"walking wounded," and the troops of a new +division moving up into the line.</p> + +<p>Though we were all in some pain as the ambulance jolted along through +the ruts in the side of the road, we felt rather sorry for those poor +chaps as they peered inside the car. Our fate was decided, theirs +still hung in the balance. How often on the march one had looked back +oneself into a passing ambulance and wished, rather shamefully, for a +"Blighty" one. Sunburnt and healthy they looked as they shouted after +us: "Good luck, boys, give our love to Blighty."</p> + +<p>At the end of the village the ambulance swung off on a road leading to +the left. It must have crossed the track by which my platoon and I had +gone up the night before. About 11.30 <span class="sc">A.M.</span> we arrived at +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>Couin, the headquarters of the First Field Ambulance.</p> + +<p>A hum of conversation and joking arose from every side, and, with some +exceptions, you could not have found such a cheery gathering anywhere. +The immediate strain of battle had passed, and friends meeting friends +compared notes of their experiences in the "show." Here a man with a +bandaged arm was talking affectionately to a less fortunate "pal" on a +stretcher, and asking him if he could do anything for him; it is +extraordinary how suffering knits men together, and how much sympathy +is brought out in a man at the sight of a badly wounded comrade: +yonder by the huts an orderly assisted a "walking case," shot through +the lungs and vomiting blood freely.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>Near by I recognised <span class="nowrap">E——'s</span> servant of the L—— S——. When he had +finished giving some tea or water to a friend, I hailed him and asked +him if Mr. <span class="nowrap">E——</span> was hit. Mr. <span class="nowrap">E——,</span> he told me, had been laid up for +some days past, and had not taken part in the attack. He was, however, +going round and writing letters for the men. Would I like to see him? +We were fairly good acquaintances, so I said that I should. Presently +he arrived.</p> + +<p>"Bad luck, old chap. Where have you caught it?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"In the thigh," I replied.</p> + +<p>He wrote two post-cards home for me, one home and another to +relatives, and I did my best to sign them. I remember that on one of +them was inscribed: "This is to let you know that <span class="nowrap">E——</span> has been +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>caught bending," and wondering what my grandfather, a doctor, would +make out of that!</p> + +<p>The sun was beating down on us now, and since, after I had been duly +labelled "G.S.W. (gun-shot wound) Back," a Medical Staff Officer +advised that I should be transferred into the officers' hut, I entered +its cooler shades with much gladness.</p> + +<p>Captain <span class="nowrap">W——t</span> came in soon afterwards. In the second line German +trench he had looked over the parados to see if any opposition was +coming up from the third line trench, and had been hit by a +machine-gun bullet in the shoulder. In making his way home he had been +hit twice again in the shoulder. <span class="nowrap">H——</span> also put in an appearance with +a bullet wound in the arm. He had taken a party of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>"walking wounded" +up to Sailly-au-Bois, and got a car on. A doctor brought round the +familiar old beverage of tea, which in large quantities, and in +company with whisky, had helped us through many an unpleasant day in +the trenches. Captain <span class="nowrap">W——t</span> refused it, and insisted on having some +bread and jam. I took both with much relish, and, having appeased an +unusually large appetite, got an orderly to wash my face and hands, +which were coated with blood.</p> + +<p>"I dare say you feel as you was gettin' back to civilisation again, +sir," he said. Much refreshed, and quietly looking at a new number of +<i>The Tatler</i>, I certainly felt as if I was, though, in spite of an air +ring, the wound was feeling rather uncomfortable. At the end of the +hut two or <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>three poor fellows were dying of stomach wounds. It was a +peculiar contrast to hear two or three men chatting gaily just outside +my end of the hut. I could only catch fragments of the conversation, +which I give here.</p> + +<p>"When Mr. <span class="nowrap">A——</span> gave the order to advance, I went over like a bird."</p> + +<p>"The effect of the rum, laddie!"</p> + +<p>"Mr <span class="nowrap">A——</span> was going strong too."</p> + +<p>"What's happened to Mr. <span class="nowrap">A——</span>, do you know?"</p> + +<p>"Don't know. I didn't see 'im after that."</p> + +<p>"'E's all right. Saw him just now. Got a wound in the arm."</p> + +<p>"Good. Isn't the sun fine here? Couldn't want a better morning for an +attack, could you?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>The hut was filling rapidly, and the three stomach cases being quite +hopeless were removed outside. A doctor brought in an officer of the +<span class="nowrap">K——'s.</span> He was quite dazed, and sank full length on a bed, passing +his hand across his face and moaning. He was not wounded, but had been +blown up whilst engaged in cutting a communication trench across No +Man's Land, they told me. It was not long, however, before he +recovered his senses sufficiently enough to walk with help to an +ambulance. A "padré" entered, supporting a young officer of the <span class="nowrap">——,</span> a +far worse case of shell shock, and laid him out on the bed. He had no +control over himself, and was weeping hysterically.</p> + +<p>"For God's sake don't let me go back, don't send me back!" he cried.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>The "padré" tried to comfort him.</p> + +<p>"You'll soon be in a nice hospital at the Base, old chap, or probably +in England."</p> + +<p>He looked at the padré blankly, not understanding a word that he was +saying.</p> + +<p>A more extraordinary case of shell shock was that of an officer lying +about three beds down from me. In the usual course of events an +R.A.M.C. corporal asked him his name.</p> + +<p>"F——," he replied in a vague tone.</p> + +<p>The corporal thought that he had better make certain, so with as +polite a manner as possible looked at his identification disc.</p> + +<p>"It puts Lt. <span class="nowrap">B——</span> here," he said.</p> + +<p>There followed a lengthy argument, at the end of which the patient +said—</p> + +<p>"Well, it's no use. You had better give it up. I don't know what my +name is!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>A Fusilier officer was carried in on a stretcher and laid next to me. +After a time he said—</p> + +<p>"Is your name <span class="nowrap">L——?</span>"</p> + +<p>I replied affirmatively.</p> + +<p>"Don't you recognise me?" he questioned.</p> + +<p>I looked at him, but could not think where I had seen him before.</p> + +<p>"My name's <span class="nowrap">D——</span>. I was your Company Quartermaster-Sergeant in the +Second Battalion." Then I remembered him, though it had been hard to +recognise him in officer's uniform, blood-stained and tattered at +that. We compared notes of our experiences since I had left the second +line of my battalion in England nearly a year before, until, soon +afterwards, he was taken out to an ambulance.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>At the other end of the hut it was just possible to see an officer +tossing to and fro deliriously on a stretcher. I use the word +"deliriously," though he was probably another case of shell shock. He +was wounded also, judging by the bandages which swathed the middle +part of his body. The poor fellow thought that he was still fighting, +and every now and again broke out like this—</p> + +<p>"Keep 'em off, boys. Keep 'em off. Give me a bomb, sergeant. Get down! +My God! I'm hit. Put some more of those sandbags on the barricade. +These damned shells! Can I stand it any longer? Come on, boys. Come +along, sergeant! We must go for them. Oh! my God! I must stick it!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>After a time the cries became fainter, and the stretcher was taken +out.</p> + +<p>About three o'clock I managed to get a doctor to inject me with +anti-tetanus. I confess that I was rather anxious about getting this +done, for in crawling back across No Man's Land my wound had been +covered with mud and dirt. The orderly, who put on the iodine, told me +that the German artillery was sending shrapnel over the ridge. This +was rather disconcerting, but, accustomed as I had become to shrapnel +at close quarters, the sounds seemed so distant that I did not bother +more about them.</p> + +<p>It must have been about four o'clock when my stretcher was picked up +and I passed once again into the warm sunlight. Outside an orderly +relieved me of my steel <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>and gas helmets, in much the same way as the +collector takes your ticket when you pass through the gates of a +London terminus in a taxi. Once more the stretcher was slid into an +ambulance, and I found myself in company with a young subaltern of the +<span class="nowrap">K——'s</span>. He was very cheery, and continued to assert that we should +all be in "Blighty" in a day or two's time. When the A.S.C. driver +appeared at the entrance of the car and confirmed our friend's +opinion, I began to entertain the most glorious visions of the +morrow—visions which I need hardly say did not come true.</p> + +<p>"How were you hit?" I asked the officer of the <span class="nowrap">K——'s.</span></p> + +<p>"I got a machine-gun bullet in the pit of the stomach while digging +that communication trench into No Man's Land. It's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>been pretty bad, +but the pain's going now, and I think I shall be all right."</p> + +<p>Then he recognised the man on the stretcher above me.</p> + +<p>"Hullo, laddie," he said. "What have they done to you?"</p> + +<p>"I've been hit in the left wrist and the leg, sir. I hope you aren't +very bad."</p> + +<p>The engine started, and we set off on our journey to the Casualty +Clearing Station. For the last time we passed the villages, which we +had come to know so intimately in the past two months during rest from +the trenches. There was Souastre, where one had spent pleasant +evenings at the Divisional Theatre; St. Amand with its open square in +front of the church, the meeting-place of the villagers, now deserted +save for two or three soldiers; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>Gaudiempré, the headquarters of an +Army Service Corps park, with its lines of roughly made stables. At +one part of the journey a 15-inch gun let fly just over the road. We +had endured quite enough noise for that day, and I was glad that it +did not occur again. From a rather tortuous course through bye-lanes +we turned into the main Arras to Doullens road—that long, straight, +typical French highway with its avenue of poplars. Shortly afterwards +the ambulance drew up outside the Casualty Clearing Station.</p> + +<p>The Casualty Clearing Station was situated in the grounds of a +château. I believe that the château itself was used as a hospital for +those cases which were too bad to be moved farther. We were taken into +a long cement-floored building, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>laid down in a line of stretchers +which ran almost from the doorway up to a screen at the end of the +room, behind which dressings and operations were taking place. On my +right was the officer of the <span class="nowrap">K——'s,</span> still fairly cheery, though in a +certain amount of pain; on my left lay a rifleman hit in the chest, +and very grey about the face; I remember that, as I looked at him, I +compared the colour of his face with that of the stomach cases I had +seen. A stomach case, as far as I can remember, has an ashen pallor +about the face; a lung case has a haggard grey look. Next to him a boy +of about eighteen was sitting on his stretcher; he was hit in the jaw, +the arms, and the hands, but he calmly took out his pipe, placed it in +his blood-stained mouth, and started smoking. I was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>talking to the +officer of the <span class="nowrap">K——'s,</span> when he suddenly fell to groaning, and rolled +over on to my stretcher. I tried to comfort him, but words were of no +avail. A doctor came along, asked a few questions, and examined the +wound, just a small hole in the pit of the stomach; but he looked +serious enough about it. The stretcher was lifted up and its tortured +occupant borne away behind the screen for an operation. That was the +last I saw of a very plucky young fellow. I ate some bread and jam, +and drank some tea doled out liberally all down the two lines of +stretchers, for another line had formed by now.</p> + +<p>My turn came at last, and I was carried off to a table behind the +screen, where the wound was probed, dressed, and bandaged tightly, and +I had a foretaste of the less <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>pleasant side of hospital life. There +were two Army nurses at work on a case next to mine—the first English +women I had seen since I returned from leave six months before. My +wound having been dressed, I was almost immediately taken out and put +into a motor-lorry. There must have been about nine of us, three rows +of three, on the floor of that lorry. I did not find it comfortable, +though the best had been done under the circumstances to make it so; +neither did the others, many of whom were worse wounded than myself, +judging by the groans which arose at every jolt.</p> + +<p>We turned down a road leading to the station. Groups of peasants were +standing in the village street and crying after us: "Ah! les pauvres +blessés! les pauvres Anglais blessés!" These were the last <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>words of +gratitude and sympathy that the kind peasants could give us. We drew +up behind other cars alongside the hospital train, and the +engine-driver looked round from polishing his engine and watched us +with the wistful gaze of one to whom hospital train work was no longer +a novelty. Walking wounded came dribbling up by ones and twos into the +station yard, and were directed into sitting compartments.</p> + +<p>The sun was in my eyes, and I felt as if my face was being scorched. I +asked an R.A.M.C.N.C.O., standing at the end of the wagon, to get me +something to shade my eyes. Then occurred what I felt was an extremely +thoughtful act on the part of a wounded man. A badly wounded +lance-corporal, on the other side of the lorry, took out his +handkerchief and stretched it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>over to me. When I asked him if he was +sure that he did not want it, he insisted on my taking it. It was +dirty and blood-stained, but saved me much discomfort, and I thanked +him profusely. After about ten minutes our stretchers were hauled out +of the lorry. I was borne up to the officers' carriage at the far end +of the train. It was a splendidly equipped compartment; and when I +found myself between the sheets of my berth, with plenty of pillows +under me, I felt as if I had definitely got a stage nearer to England. +Some one behind me called my name, and, looking round, I saw my old +friend <span class="nowrap">M——</span> <span class="nowrap">W——,</span> whose party I had nearly run into the night before +in that never-to-be-forgotten communication <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>trench, Woman Street. He +told me that he had been hit in the wrist and leg. Judging by his +flushed appearance, he had something of a temperature.</p> + +<p>More wounded were brought or helped in—men as well as officers—till +the white walls of the carriage were lined with blood-stained, +mud-covered khaki figures, lying, sitting, and propped up in various +positions.</p> + +<p>The Medical Officer in charge of the train came round and asked us +what we should like to drink for dinner.</p> + +<p>"Would you like whisky-and-soda, or beer, or lemonade?" he questioned +me. This sounded pleasant to my ears, but I only asked for a lemonade.</p> + +<p>As the train drew out of the station, one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>caught a last glimpse of +warfare—an aeroplane, wheeling round in the evening sky amongst a +swarm of tell-tale smoke-puffs, the explosions of "Archie" shells.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</h4> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<div class="tr2"> +<p class="noin">The following pages contain advertisements of a few of +the Macmillan books on kindred subjects.</p> +</div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h2>Ambulance 464: Encore des Blesses</h2> + +<h3><span class="sc">By</span> JULIEN H. BRYAN</h3> + +<div class="block"><p class="right"><i>Illustrated. Cloth, 12mo.</i></p> + +<p>Here we have the story of the experiences of a Princeton +Junior—a boy of seventeen, who went to the war and drove an +ambulance car in the Verdun and Champagne sectors. He tells +exactly what he saw and heard in the American Ambulance +Corps, bringing his story down to August, 1917. His accounts +are modest, interesting, sometimes amusing—always vivid.</p> + +<p>War books by soldiers are very popular these days. The +author-fighter has contributed some of the most informing +volumes that have been issued on the great conflict. Of all +of those who have been to the front and have returned to +write about it, no one, perhaps, has had more unusual +experiences than fell to the lot of this youth. He has +written a book in which he tells what happened to him and his +immediate associates; a book that is remarkable for the +thrilling character of its narrative, the spirit of good +humor, of adventure and excitement which runs through it.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bryan had his kodak with him and his text is illustrated +with many altogether unusual pictures, giving a new and clear +idea as to the war and its method of prosecution.</p></div> + +<br /> + +<h4>THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br /> +Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York</h4> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4><i>MASEFIELD'S NEW WAR BOOK</i></h4> + +<h2>The Old Front Line</h2> + +<h3><span class="sc">By</span> JOHN MASEFIELD</h3> + +<div class="block"><p class="right"><i>Illustrated. Cloth, 12mo. $1.00</i></p> + +<p>What Mr. Masefield did for the Gallipoli Campaign, he now +does for the Campaign in France. His subject is the old front +line as it was when the battle of the Somme began. His +account is vivid and gripping—a huge conflict seen through +the eyes of a great poet, this is the book.</p> + +<p>Of the importance of the battle, Mr. Masefield writes:</p> + +<div class="block2"><p>"The old front line was the base from which the battle +proceeded. It was the starting place. The thing began there. +It was the biggest battle in which our people were ever +engaged, and so far it has led to bigger results than any +battle of this war since the Battle of the Marne. It caused a +great falling back of the enemy armies. It freed a great +tract of France, seventy miles long, by from ten to +twenty-five miles broad. It first gave the enemy the +knowledge that he was beaten."</p></div> +</div> + +<br /> + +<h4>THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br /> +Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York</h4> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h2>A War Nurse's Diary</h2> + +<div class="block"><p class="right"><i>Illustrated, Cloth, $1.25</i></p> + +<p>High courage, deep sympathy without sentimentality, and an +all-saving sense of humor amid dreadful and depressing +conditions are the salient features of this little book. The +author, who preserves her anonymity, has been "over the top" +in the fullest sense. She has faced bombardments and aerial +raids, she has calmly removed her charges under fire, she has +tended the wounded and dying amid scenes of carnage and +confusion, and she has created order and comfort where but a +short time before all was chaos and suffering. And all the +while she marvels at the uncomplaining fortitude of others, +never counting her own. Many unusual experiences have +befallen this "war nurse" and she writes of them all in a +gripping, vivid fashion.</p></div> + + +<br /> + +<h4>THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br /> +Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York</h4> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h2>Victor Chapman's Letters from France</h2> + +<div class="block"><p class="right"><i>Illustrated, $2.00</i></p> + +<p>Victor Chapman was studying architecture in Paris when the +war broke out and at once he joined the French Foreign +Legion. A year later he was transferred to the Aviation Corps +and went to the front as pilot in the American Escadrille. +This volume comprises his letters written to his family, +covering the full period of his service from September, 1914, +to a few days before his death. "They are," says the <i>New +York Times</i> in commenting on them, "graphic letters that show +imaginative feeling and unusual faculty for literary +expression and they are filled with details of his daily life +and duties and reflect the keen satisfaction he was taking in +his experiences. He knew many of those Americans who have won +distinction, and some of them death, in the Legion and the +Aviation Service, and there is frequent reference to one or +another of them.... In few of the memorials to those who have +laid down their lives in this war is it possible to find +quite such a sense of a life not only fulfilled but crowned +by its sacrifice, notwithstanding its youthfulness, as one +gets from this tribute to Victor Chapman."</p></div> + +<br /> + +<h4>THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br /> +Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York</h4> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<div class="tr"> +<p class="cen"><a name="TN" id="TN"></a>Typographical errors corrected in text:</p> +<br /> +Page 36: Bazencourt replaced with Bayencourt<br /> +Page 45: fraggrance replaced with fragrance<br /> +</div> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Attack, by Edward G. D. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Attack + An Infantry Subaltern's Impression of July 1st, 1916 + +Author: Edward G. D. Liveing + +Release Date: February 20, 2009 [EBook #28145] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATTACK *** + + + + +Produced by Jeannie Howse and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + + * * * * * + + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For | + | a complete list, please see the end of this document. | + | | + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + + * * * * * + + + + + ATTACK + + + + + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + NEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICAGO . DALLAS + ATLANTA . SAN FRANCISCO + + MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED + LONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA + MELBOURNE + + THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. + TORONTO + + + + + ATTACK + + AN INFANTRY SUBALTERN'S IMPRESSIONS + OF JULY 1ST, 1916 + + BY + EDWARD G.D. LIVEING + + + WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY + JOHN MASEFIELD + + + New York + + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + 1918 + + _All rights reserved_ + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1918 + BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + + Set up and electrotyped. Published, April, 1918 + + + + + TO + + THE N.C.O.s + + AND + + MEN OF No. 5 PLATOON + + Of a Battalion of the County of London + Regiment, whom I had the good + fortune to command in France + during 1915-1916, and in + particular to the + memory of + RFN. C.N. DENNISON + My Platoon Observer, who fell in action + July 1st, 1916, in an attempt + to save my life + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +The attack on the fortified village of Gommecourt, which Mr. Liveing +describes in these pages with such power and colour, was a part of the +first great allied attack on July 1, 1916, which began the battle of +the Somme. That battle, so far as it concerns our own troops, may be +divided into two sectors: one, to the south of the Ancre River, a +sector of advance, the other, to the north of the Ancre River, a +containing sector, in which no advance was possible. Gommecourt +itself, which made a slight but important salient in the enemy line in +the containing sector, was the most northern point attacked in that +first day's fighting. + +Though the Gommecourt position is not impressive to look at, most of +our soldiers are agreed that it was one of the very strongest points +in the enemy's fortified line on the Western Front. French and Russian +officers, who have seen it since the enemy left it, have described it +as "terrible" and as "the very devil." There can be no doubt that it +was all that they say. + +The country in that part is high-lying chalk downland, something like +the downland of Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, though generally barer +of trees, and less bold in its valleys. Before the war it was +cultivated, hedgeless land, under corn and sugar-beet. The chalk is +usually well-covered, as in Buckinghamshire, with a fat clay. As the +French social tendency is all to the community, there are few lonely +farms in that countryside as there would be with us. The inhabitants +live in many compact villages, each with a church, a market-place, a +watering-place for stock, and sometimes a chateau and park. Most of +the villages are built of red brick, and the churches are of stone, +not (as in the chalk countries with us) of dressed flint. Nearly all +the villages are planted about with orchards; some have copses of +timber trees. In general, from any distance, the villages stand out +upon the downland as clumps of woodland. Nearly everywhere near the +battlefield a clump of orchard, with an occasional dark fir in it, is +the mark of some small village. In time of peace the Picardy farming +community numbered some two or three hundred souls. Gommecourt and +Hebuterne were of the larger kind of village. + +A traveller coming towards Gommecourt as Mr. Liveing came to it, from +the west, sees nothing of the Gommecourt position till he reaches +Hebuterne. It is hidden from him by the tilt of the high-lying chalk +plateau, and by the woodland and orchards round Hebuterne village. +Passing through this village, which is now deserted, save for a few +cats, one comes to a fringe of orchard, now deep in grass, and of +exquisite beauty. From the hedge of this fringe of orchard one sees +the Gommecourt position straight in front, with the Gommecourt salient +curving round on slightly rising ground, so as to enclose the left +flank. + +At first sight the position is not remarkable. One sees, to the left, +a slight rise or swelling in the chalk, covered thickly with the +remains and stumps of noble trees, now mostly killed by shell-fire. +This swelling, which is covered with the remains of Gommecourt Park, +is the salient of the enemy position. The enemy trenches here jut out +into a narrow pointing finger to enclose and defend this slight rise. + +Further to the right, this rise becomes a low, gentle heave in the +chalk, which stretches away to the south for some miles, becoming +lower and gentler in its slope as it proceeds. The battered woodland +which covers its higher end contains the few stumps and heaps of brick +that were once Gommecourt village. The lower end is without trees or +buildings. + +This slight wooded rise and low, gentle heave in the chalk make up the +position of Gommecourt. It is nothing but a gentle rise above a gentle +valley. From a mile or two to the south of Gommecourt, this valley +appearance becomes more marked. If one looks northward from this point +the English lines seem to follow a slight rise parallel with the +other. The valley between the two heaves of chalk make the No Man's +Land or space between the enemy trenches and our own. The salient +shuts in the end of the valley and enfilades it. + +The position has changed little since the attack of July 1. Then, as +now, Gommecourt was in ruins, and the trees of the wood were mostly +killed. Then, as now, the position looked terrible, even though its +slopes were gentle and its beauty not quite destroyed, even after two +years of war. + +The position is immensely strong in itself, with a perfect glacis and +field of fire. Every invention of modern defensive war helped to make +it stronger. In front of it was the usual system of barbed wire, +stretched on iron supports, over a width of fifty yards. Behind the +wire was the system of the First Enemy Main Line, from which many +communication-trenches ran to the central fortress of the salient, +known as the Kern Redoubt, and to the Support or Guard Line. This +First Main Line, even now, after countless bombardments and nine +months of neglect, is a great and deep trench of immense strength. It +is from twelve to fifteen feet deep, very strongly revetted with +timberings and stout wicker-work. At intervals it is strengthened with +small forts or sentry-boxes of concrete, built into the parapet. Great +and deep dug-outs lie below it, and though many of these have now been +destroyed, the shafts of most of them can still be seen. At the mouths +of some of these shafts one may still see giant-legged periscopes by +which men sheltered in the dug-out shafts could watch for the coming +of an attack. When the attack began and the barrage lifted, these +watchers called up the bombers and machine-gunners from their +underground barracks, and had them in action within a few seconds. + +Though the wire was formidable and the trench immense, the real +defences of the position were artillery and machine-guns. The +machine-guns were the chief danger. One machine-gun with ample +ammunition has concentrated in itself the defensive power of a +battalion. The enemy had not less than a dozen machine-guns in and in +front of the Kern Redoubt. Some of these were cunningly hidden in +pits, tunnels and shelters in (or even outside) the obstacle of the +wire at the salient, so that they could enfilade the No Man's Land, or +shoot an attacking party in the back after it had passed. The sites of +these machine-gun nests were well hidden from all observation, and +were frequently changed. Besides the machine-guns outside and in the +front line, there were others, mounted in the trees and in the higher +ground above the front line, in such position that they, too, could +play upon the No Man's Land and the English front line. The artillery +concentrated behind Gommecourt was of all calibres. It was a greater +concentration than the enemy could then usually afford to defend any +one sector, but the number of guns in it is not known. On July 1 it +developed a more intense artillery fire upon Hebuterne, and the +English line outside it, than upon any part of the English attack +throughout the battlefield. + +In the attack of July 1, Gommecourt was assaulted simultaneously from +the north (from the direction of Fonquevillers) and from the south +(from the direction of Hebuterne). Mr. Liveing took part in the +southern assault, and must have "gone in" near the Hebuterne-Bucquoy +Road. The tactical intention of these simultaneous attacks from north +and south was to "pinch off" and secure the salient. The attack to the +north, though gallantly pushed, was unsuccessful. The attack to the +south got across the first-line trench and into the enemy position +past Gommecourt Cemetery almost to the Kern Redoubt. What it faced in +getting so far may be read in Mr. Liveing's account. Before our men +left the trenches outside Hebuterne they were in a heavy barrage, and +the open valley of the No Man's Land hissed, as Mr. Liveing says, like +an engine, with machine-gun bullets. Nevertheless, our men reached +the third line of enemy trenches and began to secure the ground which +they had captured. + +During the afternoon the enemy counter-attacked from the south, and, +later in the day, from the north as well. Our men had not enough bombs +to hold back the attackers, and were gradually driven back, after very +severe hand-to-hand fighting in the trenches, to an evil little bend +in the front line directly to the south of Gommecourt Cemetery. At +about 11 P.M., after sixteen hours of intense and bitter fighting, +they were driven back from this point to their own lines. + +Mr. Liveing's story is very well told. It is a simple and most vivid +account of a modern battle. No better account has been written in +England since the war began. I hope that so rare a talent for +narrative may be recognised. I hope, too, that Mr. Liveing may soon be +able to give us more stories as full of life as this. + + JOHN MASEFIELD. + + +The Author wishes to thank Messrs. Blackwood and Sons for their kind +permission to republish this article, which appeared in _Blackwood's +Magazine_, December, 1917, under the title of "Battle." + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I. GATHERING FOR ATTACK 23 + + II. EVE OF ATTACK 28 + +III. ATTACK 54 + + IV. TOLL OF ATTACK 93 + + + + +ATTACK + +CHAPTER I + +GATHERING FOR ATTACK + + +The roads were packed with traffic. Column after column of lorries +came pounding along, bearing their freight of shells, trench-mortar +bombs, wire, stakes, sandbags, pipes, and a thousand other articles +essential for the offensive, so that great dumps of explosives and +other material arose in the green wayside places. Staff cars and +signallers on motor-bikes went busily on their way. Ambulances hurried +backwards and forwards between the line and the Casualty Clearing +Station, for the days of June were hard days for the infantry who dug +the "leaping-off" trenches, and manned them afterwards through rain +and raid and bombardment. Horse transport and new batteries hurried to +their destinations. "Caterpillars" rumbled up, towing the heavier +guns. Infantrymen and sappers marched to their tasks round and about +the line. + +Roads were repaired, telephone wires placed deep in the ground, trees +felled for dug-outs and gun emplacements, water-pipes laid up to the +trenches ready to be extended across conquered territory, while +small-gauge and large-gauge railways seemed to spring to being in the +night. + +Then came days of terror for the enemy. Slowly our guns broke forth +upon them in a tumult of rage. The Germans in retaliation sprayed our +nearer batteries with shrapnel, and threw a barrage of whizz-bangs +across the little white road leading into the village of Hebuterne. +This feeble retaliation was swallowed up and overpowered by the +torrent of metal that now poured incessantly into their territory. +Shells from the 18-pounders and trench-mortars cut their wire and +demoralised their sentries. Guns of all calibres pounded their system +of trenches till it looked for all the world like nothing more than a +ploughed field. The sky was filled with our aeroplanes wheeling about +and directing the work of batteries, and with the black and white +bursts of anti-aircraft shells. Shells from the 9.2 howitzers crashed +into strong points and gun emplacements and hurled them skywards. +Petrol shells licked up the few remaining green-leaved trees in +Gommecourt Wood, where observers watched and snipers nested: 15-inch +naval guns, under the vigilant guidance of observation balloons, +wrought deadly havoc in Bapaume and other villages and billets behind +their lines. + +Thrice were the enemy enveloped in gas and smoke, and, as they +stood-to in expectation of attack, were mown down by a torrent of +shells. + +The bombardment grew and swelled and brought down showers of rain. Yet +the ground remained comparatively dry and columns of dust arose from +the roads as hoof and wheel crushed their broken surfaces and +battalions of infantry, with songs and jests, marched up to billets +and bivouacs just behind the line, ready to give battle. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +EVE OF ATTACK + + +Boom! Absolute silence for a minute. Boom! followed quickly by a more +distant report from a fellow-gun. At each bellowing roar from the 9.2 +near by, bits of the ceiling clattered on to the floor of the billet +and the wall-plaster trickled down on to one's valise, making a sound +like soot coming down a chimney. + +It was about three o'clock in the morning. I did not look at my watch, +as its luminous facings had faded away months before and I did not +wish to disturb my companions by lighting a match. A sigh or a groan +came from one part of the room or another, showing that our +bombardment was troublesome even to the sleepers, and a rasping noise +occasionally occurred when W----k, my Company Commander, turned round +uneasily on his bed of wood and rabbit-wire. + +I plunged farther down into the recesses of my flea-bag, though its +linings had broken down and my feet stuck out at the bottom. Then I +pulled my British Warm over me and muffled my head and ears in it to +escape the regularly-repeated roar of the 9.2. Though the whole house +seemed to be shaking to bits at every minute, the noise was muffled to +a less ear-splitting fury and I gradually sank into a semi-sleep. + +About six o'clock I awoke finally, and after an interval the battery +stopped its work. At half-past seven I hauled myself out of my valise +and sallied forth into the courtyard, clad in a British Warm, pyjamas, +and gum-boots, to make my toilet. I blinked as I came into the light +and felt very sleepy. The next moment I was on my hands and knees, +with every nerve of my brain working like a mill-stone. A vicious +"swish" had sounded over my head, and knowing its meaning I had turned +for the nearest door and slipped upon the cobbled stones of the yard. +I picked myself up and fled for that door just as the inevitable +"crash" came. This happened to be the door to the servants' quarters, +and they were vastly amused. We looked out of the window at the +_debris_ which was rising into the air. Two more "crumps" came +whirling over the house, and with shattering explosions lifted more +_debris_ into the air beyond the farther side of the courtyard. +Followed a burst of shrapnel and one more "crump," and the enemy's +retaliation on the 9.2 and its crew had ceased. The latter, however, +had descended into their dug-out, while the gun remained unscathed. +Not so some of our own men. + +We were examining the nose-cap of a shell which had hit the wall of +our billet, when a corporal came up, who said hurriedly to W----k, +"Corporal G----'s been killed and four men wounded." + +The whole tragedy had happened so swiftly, and this sudden +announcement of the death of one of our best N.C.O.s had come as such +a shock, that all we did was to stare at each other with the words: + +"My God! Corporal G---- gone! It's impossible." + +One expects shells and death in the line, but three or four miles +behind it one grows accustomed, so to speak, to live in a fool's +paradise. We went round to see our casualties, and I found two of my +platoon, bandaged in the leg and arm, sitting in a group of their +pals, who were congratulating them on having got "soft Blighty ones." +The Company Quartermaster-Sergeant showed me a helmet, which was lying +outside the billet when the shells came over, with a triangular gash +in it, into which one could almost place one's fist. At the body of +Corporal G---- I could not bring myself to look. The poor fellow had +been terribly hit in the back and neck, and, I confess it openly, I +had not the courage, and felt that it would be a sacrilege, to gaze on +the mangled remains of one whom I had valued so much as an N.C.O. and +grown to like so much as a man during the last ten months. + +Dark clouds were blowing over in an easterly direction; a cheerless +day added to the general gloom. We had a Company Officers' final +consultation on the plans for the morrow, after which I held an +inspection of my platoon, and gave out some further orders. On my +return to the billet W----k told me that the attack had been postponed +for two days owing to bad weather. Putting aside all thought of orders +for the time being, we issued out rum to the men, indulged in a few +"tots" ourselves, and settled down to a pleasant evening. + + * * * * * + +In a little courtyard on the evening of June 30 I called the old +platoon to attention for the last time, shook hands with the officers +left in reserve, marched off into the road, and made up a turning to +the left on to the Blue Track. We had done about a quarter of the +ground between Bayencourt and Sailly-au-Bois when a messenger hurried +up to tell me to halt, as several of the platoons of the L---- +S---- had to pass us. We sat down by a large shell-hole, and the men +lit up their pipes and cigarettes and shouted jokes to the men of the +other regiment as they passed by. + +It was a very peaceful evening--remarkably peaceful, now that the +guns were at rest. A light breeze played eastward. I sat with my face +towards the sunset, wondering a little if this was the last time that +I should see it. One often reads of this sensation in second-rate +novels. I must say that I had always thought it greatly "overdone"; +but a great zest in the splendour of life swept over me as I sat there +in the glow of that setting sun, and also a great calmness that gave +me heart to do my uttermost on the morrow. My father had enclosed a +little card in his last letter to me with the words upon it of the +prayer of an old cavalier of the seventeenth century--Sir Jacob +Astley--before the battle of Newbury:--"Lord, I shall be very busy +this day. I may forget Thee, but do not Thou forget me." A peculiar +old prayer, but I kept on repeating it to myself with great comfort +that evening. My men were rather quiet. Perhaps the general calmness +was affecting them with kindred thoughts, though an Englishman never +shows them. On the left stood the stumpy spire of Bayencourt Church +just left by us. On the right lay Sailly-au-Bois in its girdle of +trees. Along the side of the valley which ran out from behind +Sailly-au-Bois, arose numerous lazy pillars of smoke from the wood +fires and kitchens of an artillery encampment. An English aeroplane, +with a swarm of black puffs around it betokening German shells, was +gleaming in the setting sun. It purred monotonously, almost drowning +the screech of occasional shells which were dropping by a distant +chateau. The calm before the storm sat brooding over everything. + +The kilted platoons having gone on their way, we resumed our journey, +dipping into the valley behind Sailly-au-Bois, and climbing the +farther side, as I passed the officers' mess hut belonging to an +anti-aircraft battery, which had taken up a position at the foot of +the valley, and whence came a pleasant sound of clinking glass, a wild +desire for permanent comfort affected me. + +Bounding the outskirts of Sailly-au-Bois, we arrived in the midst of +the battery positions nesting by the score in the level plain behind +Hebuterne. The batteries soon let us know of their presence. Red +flashes broke out in the gathering darkness, followed by quick +reports. + +To the right one could discern the dim outlines of platoons moving up +steadily and at equal distances like ourselves. One could just catch +the distant noise of spade clinking on rifle. When I turned my gaze to +the front of these troops, I saw yellow-red flashes licking upon the +horizon, where our shells were finding their mark. Straight in front, +whither we were bound, the girdle of trees round Hebuterne shut out +these flashes from view, but by the noise that came from beyond those +trees one knew that the German trenches were receiving exactly the +same intensity of fire there. Every now and then this belt of trees +was being thrown into sharp relief by German star-shells, which +rocketed into the sky one after the other like a display of fireworks, +while at times a burst of hostile shrapnel would throw a weird, red +light on the twinkling poplars which surrounded the cemetery. + +As we marched on towards the village (I do not mind saying it) I +experienced that unpleasant sensation of wondering whether I should be +lying out this time to-morrow--stiff and cold in that land beyond the +trees, where the red shrapnel burst and the star-shells flickered. I +remember hoping that, if the fates so decreed, I should not leave too +great a gap in my family, and, best hope of all, that I should instead +be speeding home in an ambulance on the road that stretched along to +our left. I do not think that I am far wrong when I say that those +thoughts were occurring to every man in the silent platoon behind me. +Not that we were downhearted. If you had asked the question, you would +have been greeted by a cheery "No!" We were all full of determination +to do our best next day, but one cannot help enduring rather an +unusual "party feeling" before going into an attack. + +Suddenly a German shell came screaming towards us. It hurtled overhead +and fell behind us with muffled detonation in Sailly-au-Bois. Several +more screamed over us as we went along, and it was peculiar to hear +the shells of both sides echoing backwards and forwards in the sky at +the same time. + +We were about four hundred yards from the outskirts of Hebuterne, when +I was made aware of the fact that the platoon in front of me had +stopped. I immediately stopped my platoon. I sat the men down along a +bank, and we waited--a wait which was whiled away by various +incidents. I could hear a dog barking, and just see two gunner +officers who were walking unconcernedly about the battery positions +and whistling for it. The next thing that happened was a red flash in +the air about two hundred yards away, and a pinging noise as bits of +shrapnel shot into the ground round about. One of my men, S---- (the +poor chap was killed next day), called to me: "Look at that fire in +Sailly, sir!" I turned round and saw a great yellow flare illuminating +the sky in the direction of Sailly, the fiery end of some barn or +farm-building, where a high explosive had found its billet. + +We remained in this spot for nearly a quarter of an hour, after which +R----d's platoon began to move on, and I followed at a good distance +with mine. We made our way to the clump of trees over which the +shrapnel had burst a few minutes before. Suddenly we found ourselves +floundering in a sunken road flooded with water knee-deep. This was +not exactly pleasant, especially when my guide informed me that he was +not quite certain as to our whereabouts. Luckily, we soon gained dry +ground again, turned off into a bit of trench which brought us into +the village, and made for the dump by the church, where we were to +pick up our materials. When we reached the church--or, rather, its +ruins--the road was so filled with parties and platoons, and it was +becoming so dark, that it took us some time before we found the dump. +Fortunately, the first person whom I spotted was the Regimental +Sergeant-Major, and I handed over to him the carrying-party which I +had to detail, also despatching the rum and soup parties--the latter +to the company cooker. + +Leaving the platoon in charge of Sergeant S----l, I went with my guide +in search of the dump. In the general _melee_ I bumped into W----k. We +found the rabbit wire, barbed wire, and other material in a +shell-broken outhouse, and, grabbing hold of it, handed the stuff out +to the platoon. + +As we filed through the village the reflections of star-shells threw +weird lights on half-ruined houses; an occasional shell screamed +overhead, to burst with a dull, echoing sound within the shattered +walls of former cottages; and one could hear the rat-tat-tat of +machine-guns. These had a nasty habit of spraying the village with +indirect fire, and it was, as always, a relief to enter the recesses +of Wood Street without having any one hit. This communication trench +dipped into the earth at right angles to the "Boulevard" Street. We +clattered along the brick-floored trench, whose walls were overhung +with the dewy grass and flowers of the orchard--that wonderful orchard +whose aroma had survived the horror and desolation of a two years' +warfare, and seemed now only to be intensified to a softer fragrance +by the night air. + +Arriving at the belt of trees and hedge which marked the confines of +the orchard, we turned to the right into Cross Street, which cut along +behind the belt of trees into Woman Street. + +Turning to the left up Woman Street, and leaving the belt of trees +behind, we wound into the slightly undulating ground between Hebuterne +and Gommecourt Wood. "Crumps" were bursting round about the +communication trench, but at a distance, judging by their report, of +at least fifty yards. As we were passing Brigade Headquarters' +Dug-out, the Brigade-Major appeared and asked me the number of my +platoon. "Number 5," I replied; and he answered "Good," with a touch +of relief in his voice--for we had been held up for some time on the +way, and my platoon was the first or second platoon of the company to +get into the line. + +It was shortly after this that "crumps" began to burst dangerously +near. There was suddenly a blinding flash and terrific report just to +our left. We kept on, with heads aching intolerably. Winding round a +curve, we came upon the effects of the shells. The sides of the trench +had been blown in, while in the middle of the _debris_ lay a dead or +unconscious man, and farther on a man groaning faintly upon a +stretcher. We scrambled over them, passed a few more wounded and +stretcher-bearers, and arrived at the Reserve Line. + +Captain W----t was standing at the juncture of Woman Street and the +Reserve Line, cool and calm as usual. I asked him if New Woman Street +was blocked, but there was no need for a reply. A confused noise of +groans and stertorous breathing, and of some one sobbing, came to my +ears, and above it all, M---- W----'s voice saying to one of his men: +"It's all right, old chap. It's all over now." He told me afterwards +that a shell had landed practically in the trench, killing two men in +front of him and one behind, and wounding several others, but not +touching himself. + +It was quite obvious to me that it was impossible to proceed to the +support trench via New Woman Street, and at any rate my Company +Commander had given me orders to go over the top from the reserve to +the support line, so, shells or no shells, and leaving Sergeant S----l +to bring up the rear of the platoon, I scaled a ladder leaning on the +side of the trench and walked over the open for about two hundred +yards. My guide and I jumped into New Woman Street just before it +touched the support line, and we were soon joined by several other men +of the platoon. We had already suffered three casualties, and going +over the top in the darkness, the men had lost touch. The ration party +also had not arrived yet. I despatched the guide to bring up the +remainder, and proceeded to my destination with about six men. About +fifteen yards farther up the trench I found a series of shell-holes +threading their way off to the left. By the light of some German +star-shells I discerned an officer groping about these holes, and I +stumbled over mounds and hollows towards him. + +"Is this the support line?" I asked, rather foolishly. + +"Yes," he replied, "but there isn't much room in it." I saw that he +was an officer of the Royal Engineers. + +"I'm putting my smoke-bombers down here," he continued, "but you'll +find more room over towards the sunken road." + +He showed me along the trench--or the remains of it--and went off to +carry out his own plans. I stumbled along till I could just +distinguish the outlines of the sunken road. The trench in this +direction was blown in level with the ground. I returned to W----k, +whose headquarters were at the juncture of New Woman Street and the +support line, telling him that the trench by the sunken road was +untenable, and that I proposed placing my platoon in a smaller length +of trench, and spreading them out fanwise when we started to advance. +To this he agreed, and putting his hand on my shoulder in his +characteristic fashion, informed me in a whisper that the attack was +to start at 7.30 A.M. As far as I can remember it was about one +o'clock by now, and more of my men had come up. I ensconced them by +sections. No. 1 section on the left and No. 4 on the right in +shell-holes and the remains of the trench along a distance of about +forty yards, roughly half the length of the trench that they were to +have occupied. At the same time I gave orders to my right-and +left-hand guides to incline off to the right and left respectively +when the advance started. I was walking back to my headquarters, a bit +of trench behind a traverse, when a German searchlight, operating from +the direction of Serre Wood, turned itself almost dead on me. I was in +my trench in a second. + +Shortly afterwards Sergeant S----r arrived with No. 8 platoon. I +showed him one or two available portions of trench, but most of his +men had to crowd in with mine. The Lewis-gunners, who arrived last, +found only a ruined bit of trench next to my "headquarters," while +they deposited their guns and equipment in a shell-hole behind. + +It was somewhere about four or half-past when I made my last +inspection. I clambered over the back of the trench and stood still +for a moment or so. Everything was uncannily silent. There was just a +suspicion of whiteness creeping into the sky beyond the rising ground +opposite. Over towards the left rose the remains of Gommecourt Wood. +Half its trees had gone since the last time that I had seen it, and +the few that remained stood, looking like so many masts in a harbour, +gaunt and charred by our petrol shells. + +The men in the left fire-bay seemed quite comfortable. But, standing +and looking down the trench, it suddenly dawned upon me that I was +gazing right into a line of chalky German trenches, and consequently +that the enemy in those trenches could look straight into this trench. +I left instructions with the corporal in charge of that section to +build up a barricade in the gap before daybreak. As I went along the +rest of our frontage, Sergeant S----l doled out the rum. + +I retired to my "headquarters," but not so Sergeant S----l, who seemed +not to bother a bit about the increasing light and the bullets which +came phitting into the ground in rather an unpleasant quantity. I was +glad when I had finally got him down into the trench. W----k had also +told him to get in, for he remarked-- + +"Captain W----k, 'e says to me, 'Get into the trench, S----l, you +b---- fool!' so I've got in." + +He was just in time. A prelude of shrapnel screamed along, bursting +overhead, and there followed an hour's nerve-racking bombardment. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +ATTACK + + +Dawn was breaking. The morning was cool after a chill night--a night +of waiting in blown-down trenches with not an inch to move to right or +left, of listening to the enemy's shells as they left the guns and +came tearing and shrieking towards you, knowing all the time that they +were aimed for your particular bit of trench and would land in it or +by it, of awaiting that sudden, ominous silence, and then the +crash--perhaps death. + +I, for my part, had spent most of the night sitting on a petrol tin, +wedged between the two sides of the trench and two human beings--my +sergeant on the left and a corporal on the right. Like others, I had +slept for part of the time despite the noise and danger, awakened now +and then by the shattering crash of a shell or the hopeless cry for +stretcher-bearers. + +But morning was coming at last, and the bombardment had ceased. The +wind blew east, and a few fleecy clouds raced along the blue sky +overhead. The sun was infusing more warmth into the air. There was the +freshness and splendour of a summer morning over everything. In fact, +as one man said, it felt more as if we were going to start off for a +picnic than for a battle. + +"Pass it down to Sergeant H---- that Sergeant S----l wishes him the +top o' the mornin'," said my sergeant. But Sergeant H----, who was in +charge of the company's Lewis-guns, and had been stationed in the next +fire-trench, was at present groping his way to safety with a lump of +shrapnel in his back. + +An occasional shell sang one way or the other. Otherwise all was +quiet. We passed down the remains of the rum. Sergeant S----l pressed +me to take some out of a mess-tin lid. I drank a very little--the +first and last "tot" I took during the battle. It warmed me up. Some +time after this I looked at my watch and found it was a minute or two +before 6.25 A.M. I turned to the corporal, saying-- + +"They'll just about start now." + +The words were not out of my mouth before the noise, which had +increased a trifle during the last twenty minutes, suddenly swelled +into a gigantic roar. Our guns had started. The din was so deafening +that one could not hear the crash of German shells exploding in our +own lines. + +Sergeant S----l was standing straight up in the trench and looking +over to see the effects of our shells. It was a brave thing to do, but +absolutely reckless. I pulled him down by the tail of his tunic. He +got up time and again, swearing that he would "take on the whole +b----German army." He gave us pleasing information of the effects of +our bombardment, but as I did not want him to lose his life +prematurely, I saw to it that we kept him down in the trench till the +time came for a display of bravery, in which he was not lacking. + +We had been told that the final bombardment that day would be the most +intense one since the beginning of the war. The attack was to encircle +what was almost generally considered the strongest German "fortress" +on the Western Front, the stronghold of Gommecourt Wood. There was +need of it, therefore. + +Just over the trenches, almost raising the hair on one's head (we were +helmeted, I must say, but that was the feeling), swished the smaller +shells from the French .75 and English 18-pounder batteries. They gave +one the sensation of being under a swiftly rushing stream. The larger +shells kept up a continuous shrieking overhead, falling on the enemy's +trenches with the roar of a cataract, while every now and then a noise +as of thunder sounded above all when our trench-mortar shells fell +amongst the German wire, blowing it to bits, making holes like mine +craters, and throwing dirt and even bits of metal into our own +trenches. + +I have often tried to call to memory the intellectual, mental and +nervous activity through which I passed during that hour of hellish +bombardment and counter-bombardment, that last hour before we leapt +out of our trenches into No Man's Land. I give the vague recollection +of that ordeal for what it is worth. I had an excessive desire for the +time to come when I could go "over the top," when I should be free at +last from the noise of the bombardment, free from the prison of my +trench, free to walk across that patch of No Man's Land and opposing +trenches till I got to my objective, or, if I did not go that far, to +have my fate decided for better or for worse. I experienced, too, +moments of intense fear during close bombardment. I felt that if I was +blown up it would be the end of all things so far as I was concerned. +The idea of after-life seemed ridiculous in the presence of such +frightful destructive force. Again the prayer of that old cavalier +kept coming to my mind. At any rate, one could but do one's best, and +I hoped that a higher power than all that which was around would not +overlook me or any other fellows on that day. At one time, not very +long before the moment of attack, I felt to its intensest depth the +truth of the proverb, "Carpe diem." What was time? I had another +twenty minutes in which to live in comparative safety. What was the +difference between twenty minutes and twenty years? Really and truly +what was the difference? I was living at present, and that was enough. +I am afraid that this working of mind will appear unintelligible. I +cannot explain it further. I think that others who have waited to "go +over" will realise its meaning. Above all, perhaps, and except when +shells falling near by brought one back to reality, the intense +cascade-like noise of our own shells rushing overhead numbed for the +most part of the time one's nervous and mental system. Listening to +this pandemonium, one felt like one of an audience at a theatre and +not in the least as if one was in any way associated with it oneself. + +Still, the activity of a man's nerves, though dulled to a great +extent inwardly, were bound to show externally. I turned to the +corporal. He was a brave fellow, and had gone through the Gallipoli +campaign, but he was shaking all over, and white as parchment. I +expect that I was just the same. + +"We must be giving them hell," I said. "I don't think they're sending +much back." + +"I don't think much, sir," he replied. + +I hardly think we believed each other. Looking up out of the trench +beyond him, I saw huge, black columns of smoke and _debris_ rising up +from our communication trench. Then, suddenly, there was a blinding +"crash" just by us. We were covered in mud which flopped out of the +trench, and the evil-smelling fumes of lyddite. The cry for +stretcher-bearers was passed hurriedly up the line again. Followed +"crash" after "crash," and the pinging of shrapnel which flicked into +the top of the trench, the purring noise of flying nose-caps and soft +thudding sounds as they fell into the parapet. + +It was difficult to hear one another talking. Sergeant S----l was +still full of the "get at 'em" spirit. So were we all. The men were +behaving splendidly. I passed along the word to "Fix swords." + +We could not see properly over the top of the trench, but smoke was +going over. The attack was about to begin--it was beginning. I passed +word round the corner of the traverse, asking whether they could see +if the second wave was starting. It was just past 7.30 A.M. The third +wave, of which my platoon formed a part, was due to start at 7.30 plus +45 seconds--at the same time as the second wave in my part of the +line. The corporal got up, so I realised that the second wave was +assembling on the top to go over. The ladders had been smashed or used +as stretchers long ago. Scrambling out of a battered part of the +trench, I arrived on top, looked down my line of men, swung my rifle +forward as a signal, and started off at the prearranged walk. + +A continuous hissing noise all around one, like a railway engine +letting off steam, signified that the German machine-gunners had +become aware of our advance. I nearly trod on a motionless form. It +lay in a natural position, but the ashen face and fixed, fearful eyes +told me that the man had just fallen. I did not recognise him then. I +remember him now. He was one of my own platoon. + +To go back for a minute. The scene that met my eyes as I stood on the +parapet of our trench for that one second is almost indescribable. +Just in front the ground was pitted by innumerable shell-holes. More +holes opened suddenly every now and then. Here and there a few bodies +lay about. Farther away, before our front line and in No Man's Land, +lay more. In the smoke one could distinguish the second line +advancing. One man after another fell down in a seemingly natural +manner, and the wave melted away. In the background, where ran the +remains of the German lines and wire, there was a mass of smoke, the +red of the shrapnel bursting amid it. Amongst it, I saw Captain +H----and his men attempting to enter the German front line. The Boches +had met them on the parapet with bombs. The whole scene reminded me of +battle pictures, at which in earlier years I had gazed with much +amazement. Only this scene, though it did not seem more real, was +infinitely more terrible. Everything stood still for a second, as a +panorama painted with three colours--the white of the smoke, the red +of the shrapnel and blood, the green of the grass. + +If I had felt nervous before, I did not feel so now, or at any rate +not in anything like the same degree. As I advanced, I felt as if I +was in a dream, but I had all my wits about me. We had been told to +walk. Our boys, however, rushed forward with splendid impetuosity to +help their comrades and smash the German resistance in the front line. +What happened to our materials for blocking the German communication +trench, when we got to our objective, I should not like to think. I +kept up a fast walking pace and tried to keep the line together. This +was impossible. When we had jumped clear of the remains of our front +line trench, my platoon slowly disappeared through the line stretching +out. For a long time, however, Sergeant S----l, Lance-corporal M----, +Rifleman D----, whom I remember being just in front of me, raising his +hand in the air and cheering, and myself kept together. Eventually +Lance-corporal M---- was the only one of my platoon left near me, and +I shouted out to him, "Let's try and keep together." It was not long, +however, before we also parted company. One thing I remember very well +about this time, and that was that a hare jumped up and rushed towards +and past me through the dry, yellowish grass, its eyes bulging with +fear. + +We were dropping into a slight valley. The shell-holes were less few, +but bodies lay all over the ground, and a terrible groaning arose from +all sides. At one time we seemed to be advancing in little groups. I +was at the head of one for a moment or two, only to realise shortly +afterwards that I was alone. + +I came up to the German wire. Here one could hear men shouting to one +another and the wounded groaning above the explosions of shells and +bombs and the rattle of machine-guns. I found myself with J----, an +officer of "C" company, afterwards killed while charging a machine-gun +in the open. We looked round to see what our fourth line was doing. My +company's fourth line had no leader. Captain W----k, wounded twice, +had fallen into a shell-hole, while Sergeant S----r had been killed +during the preliminary bombardment. Men were kneeling and firing. I +started back to see if I could bring them up, but they were too far +away. I made a cup of my mouth and shouted, as J---- was shouting. We +could not be heard. I turned round again and advanced to a gap in the +German wire. There was a pile of our wounded here on the German +parapet. + +Suddenly I cursed. I had been scalded in the left hip. A shell, I +thought, had blown up in a water-logged crump-hole and sprayed me with +boiling water. Letting go of my rifle, I dropped forward full length +on the ground. My hip began to smart unpleasantly, and I left a +curious warmth stealing down my left leg. I thought it was the boiling +water that had scalded me. Certainly my breeches looked as if they +were saturated with water. I did not know that they were saturated +with blood. + +So I lay, waiting with the thought that I might recover my strength (I +could barely move) and try to crawl back. There was the greater +possibility of death, but there was also the possibility of life. I +looked around to see what was happening. In front lay some wounded; +on either side of them stakes and shreds of barbed wire twisted into +weird contortions by the explosions of our trench-mortar bombs. Beyond +this nothing but smoke, interspersed with the red of bursting bombs +and shrapnel. + +From out this ghastly chaos crawled a familiar figure. It was that of +Sergeant K----, bleeding from a wound in the chest. He came crawling +towards me. + +"Hallo, K----," I shouted. + +"Are you hit, sir?" he asked. + +"Yes, old chap, I am," I replied. + +"You had better try and crawl back," he suggested. + +"I don't think I can move," I said. + +"I'll take off your equipment for you." + +He proceeded very gallantly to do this. I could not get to a kneeling +position myself, and he had to get hold of me, and bring me to a +kneeling position, before undoing my belt and shoulder-straps. We +turned round and started crawling back together. I crawled very slowly +at first. Little holes opened in the ground on either side of me, and +I understood that I was under the fire of a machine-gun. In front +bullets were hitting the turf and throwing it four or five feet into +the air. Slowly but steadily I crawled on. Sergeant K---- and I lost +sight of one another. I think that he crawled off to the right and I +to the left of a mass of barbed wire entanglements. + +I was now confronted by a danger from our own side. I saw a row of +several men kneeling on the ground and firing. It is probable that +they were trying to pick off German machine-gunners, but it seemed +very much as if they would "pot" a few of the returning wounded into +the bargain. + +"For God's sake, stop firing," I shouted. + +Words were of no avail. I crawled through them. At last I got on my +feet and stumbled blindly along. + +I fell down into a sunken road with several other wounded, and crawled +up over the bank on the other side. The Germans had a machine-gun on +that road, and only a few of us got across. Some one faintly called my +name behind me. Looking round, I thought I recognised a man of "C" +company. Only a few days later did it come home to me that he was my +platoon observer. I had told him to stay with me whatever happened. +He had carried out his orders much more faithfully than I had ever +meant, for he had come to my assistance, wounded twice in the head +himself. He hastened forward to me, but, as I looked round waiting, +uncertain quite as to who he was, his rifle clattered on to the +ground, and he crumpled up and fell motionless just behind me. I felt +that there was nothing to be done for him. He died a hero, just as he +had always been in the trenches, full of self-control, never +complaining, a ready volunteer. Shortly afterwards I sighted the +remains of our front line trench and fell into them. + +At first I could not make certain as to my whereabouts. Coupled with +the fact that my notions in general were becoming somewhat hazy, the +trenches themselves were entirely unrecognisable. They were filled +with earth, and about half their original depth. I decided, with that +quick, almost semi-conscious intuition that comes to one in moments of +peril, to proceed to the left (to one coming from the German lines). +As I crawled through holes and over mounds I could hear the vicious +spitting of machine-gun bullets. They seemed to skim just over my +helmet. The trench, opening out a little, began to assume its old +outline. I had reached the head of New Woman Street, though at the +time I did not know what communication trench it was--or trouble, for +that matter. The scene at the head of that communication trench is +stamped in a blurred but unforgettable way on my mind. In the remains +of a wrecked dug-out or emplacement a signaller sat, calmly +transmitting messages to Battalion Headquarters. A few bombers were +walking along the continuation of the front line. I could distinguish +the red grenades on their arms through the smoke. There were more of +them at the head of the communication trench. Shells were coming over +and blowing up round about. + +I asked one of the bombers to see what was wrong with my hip. He +started to get out my iodine tube and field dressing. The iodine tube +was smashed. I remembered that I had a second one, and we managed to +get that out after some time. Shells were coming over so incessantly +and close that the bomber advised that we should walk farther down the +trench before commencing operations. This done, he opened my breeches +and disclosed a small hole in the front of the left hip. It was +bleeding fairly freely. He poured in the iodine, and put the bandage +round in the best manner possible. We set off down the communication +trench again, in company with several bombers, I holding the bandage +to my wound. We scrambled up mounds and jumped over craters (rather a +painful performance for one wounded in the leg); we halted at times in +almost open places, when machine-gun bullets swept unpleasantly near, +and one felt the wind of shells as they passed just over, blowing up a +few yards away. In my last stages across No Man's Land my chief +thought had been, "I must get home now for the sake of my people." +Now, for I still remember it distinctly, my thought was, "Will my +name appear in the casualty list under the head of 'Killed' or +'Wounded'?" and I summoned up a mental picture of the two alternatives +in black type. + +After many escapes we reached the Reserve Line, where a military +policeman stood at the head of Woman Street. He held up the men in +front of me and directed them to different places. Some one told him +that a wounded officer was following. This was, perhaps, as well, for +I was an indistinguishable mass of filth and gore. My helmet was +covered with mud, my tunic was cut about with shrapnel and bullets and +saturated with blood; my breeches had changed from a khaki to a purple +hue; my puttees were in tatters; my boots looked like a pair of very +muddy clogs. + +The military policeman consigned me to the care of some excellent +fellow, of what regiment I cannot remember. After walking, or rather +stumbling, a short way down Woman Street, my guide and I came upon a +gunner Colonel standing outside his dug-out and trying to watch the +progress of the battle through his field-glasses. + +"Good-morning," he said. + +"Good-morning, sir," I replied. + +This opening of our little conversation was not meant to be in the +least ironical, I can assure you. It seemed quite natural at the time. + +"Where are you hit?" he asked. + +"In the thigh, sir. I don't think it's anything very bad." + +"Good. How are we getting on?" + +"Well, I really can't say much for certain, sir. But I got nearly to +their front line." + +Walking was now becoming exceedingly painful and we proceeded slowly. +I choked the groans that would rise to my lips and felt a cold +perspiration pouring freely from my face. It was easier to get along +by taking hold of the sides of the trench with my hands than by being +supported by my guide. A party of bombers or carriers of some +description passed us. We stood on one side to let them go by. In +those few seconds my wound became decidedly stiffer, and I wondered if +I would ever reach the end of the trenches on foot. At length the +communication trench passed through a belt of trees, and we found +ourselves in Cross Street. + +Here was a First Aid Post, and R.A.M.C. men were hard at work. I had +known those trenches for a month past, and I had never thought that +Cross Street could appear so homelike. Hardly a shell was falling and +the immediate din of battle had subsided. The sun was becoming hot, +but the trees threw refreshing shadows over the wide, shallow +brick-floored trenches built by the French two years before. The +R.A.M.C. orderlies were speaking pleasant words, and men not too badly +wounded were chatting gaily. I noticed a dresser at work on a man near +by, and was pleased to find that the man whose wounds were being +attended to was my servant L----. His wound was in the hip, a nasty +hole drilled by a machine-gun bullet at close quarters. He showed me +his water-bottle, penetrated by another bullet, which had inflicted a +further, but slight, wound. + +There were many more serious cases than mine to be attended to. After +about five or ten minutes an orderly slit up my breeches. + +"The wound's in the front of the hip," I said. + +"Yes, but there's a larger wound where the bullets come out, sir." + +I looked and saw a gaping hole two inches in diameter. + +"I think that's a Blighty one, isn't it?" I remarked. + +"I should just think so, sir!" he replied. + +"Thank God! At last!" I murmured vehemently, conjuring up visions of +the good old homeland. + +The orderly painted the iodine round both wounds and put on a larger +bandage. At this moment R----, an officer of "D" company, came limping +into Cross Street. + +"Hallo, L----," he exclaimed, "we had better try and get down to +hospital together." + +We started in a cavalcade to walk down the remaining trenches into the +village, not before my servant, who had insisted on staying with me, +had remarked-- + +"I think I should like to go up again now, sir," and to which proposal +I had answered very emphatically-- + +"You won't do anything of the sort, my friend!" + +R---- led the way, with a man to help him, next came my servant, then +two orderlies carrying a stretcher with a terribly wounded Scottish +private on it; another orderly and myself brought up the rear--and a +very slow one at that! + +Turning a corner, we found ourselves amidst troops of the battalion in +reserve to us, all of them eager for news. A subaltern, with whom I +had been at a Divisional School, asked how far we had got. I told him +that we were probably in their second line by now. This statement +caused disappointment. Every one appeared to believe that we had taken +the three lines in about ten minutes. I must confess that the night +before the attack I had entertained hopes that it would not take us +much longer than this. As a matter of fact my battalion, or the +remains of it, after three hours of splendid and severe fighting, +managed to penetrate into the third line trench. + +Loss of blood was beginning to tell, and my progress was getting +slower every minute. Each man, as I passed, put his arm forward to +help me along and said a cheery word of some kind or other. Down the +wide, brick-floored trench we went, past shattered trees and battered +cottages, through the rank grass and luxuriant wild flowers, through +the rich, unwarlike aroma of the orchard, till we emerged into the +village "boulevard." + +The orderly held me under the arms till I was put on a wheeled +stretcher and hurried along, past the "boulevard pool" with its +surrounding elms and willows, and, at the end of the "boulevard," up a +street to the left. A short way up this street on the right stood the +Advanced Dressing Station--a well-sandbagged house reached through the +usual archway and courtyard. A dug-out, supplied with electric light +and with an entrance of remarkable sandbag construction, had been +tunnelled out beneath the courtyard. This was being used for +operations. + +In front of the archway and in the road stood two "padres" directing +the continuous flow of stretchers and walking wounded. They appeared +to be doing all the work of organisation, while the R.A.M.C. doctors +and surgeons had their hands full with dressings and operations. +These were the kind of directions: + +"Wounded Sergeant? Right. Abdominal wound? All right. Lift him +off--gently now. Take him through the archway into the dug-out." + +"Dead? Yes! Poor fellow, take him down to the Cemetery." + +"German? Dug-out No. 2, at the end of the road on the right." + +Under the superintendence of the R.C. "padre," a man whose sympathy +and kindness I shall never forget, my stretcher was lifted off the +carrier and I was placed in the archway. The "padre" loosened my +bandage and looked at the wound, when he drew in his breath and asked +if I was in much pain. + +"Not an enormous amount," I answered, but asked for something to +drink. + +"Are you quite sure it hasn't touched the stomach?" he questioned, +looking shrewdly at me. + +I emphatically denied that it had, and he brought a blood-stained mug +with a little tea at the bottom of it. I can honestly say that I never +enjoyed a drink so much as that one. + +Shells, high explosives and shrapnel, were coming over every now and +then. I kept my helmet well over my head. This also served as a shade +from the sun, for it was now about ten o'clock and a sultry day. I was +able to obtain a view of events round about fairly easily. From time +to time orderlies tramped through the archway, bearing stretcher-cases +to the dug-out. Another officer had been brought in and placed on the +opposite side of the archway. The poor fellow, about nineteen, was +more or less unconscious. His head and both hands were covered in +bandages crimson with blood. So coated was he with mud and gore that I +did not at first recognise him as an officer. At the farther end of +the arch a young private of about eighteen was lying on his side, +groaning in the agony of a stomach wound and crying "Mother." The +sympathetic "padre" did the best he could to comfort him. Out in the +road the R.A.M.C. were dressing and bandaging the ever-increasing flow +of wounded. Amongst them a captive German R.A.M.C. man, in green +uniform, with a Red Cross round his sleeve, was visible, hard at +work. Everything seemed so different from the deadly strife a +thousand or so yards away. There, foe was inflicting wounds on foe; +here were our men attending to the German wounded and the Germans +attending to ours. Both sides were working so hard now to save life. +There was a human touch about that scene in the ruined village street +which filled one with a sense of mingled sadness and pleasure. Here +were both sides united in a common attempt to repair the ravages of +war. Humanity had at last asserted itself. + +It was about eleven o'clock, I suppose, when the "padre" came up again +to my stretcher and asked me if I should like to get on, as there was +a berth vacant in an ambulance. The stretcher was hoisted up and slid +into the bottom berth of the car. The berth above was occupied by an +unconscious man. On the other side of the ambulance were four sitting +cases--a private, a sergeant, a corporal, and a rifleman, the last +almost unconscious. Those of us who could talk were very pleased with +life, and I remember saying: "Thank God, we're out of that hell, +boys!" + +"What's wrong with him?" I asked the corporal, signifying the +unconscious man. + +"Hit in the lungs, sir. They've set him up on purpose." + +The corporal, pulling out his cigarette case, offered cigarettes all +round, and we started to smoke. The last scene that I saw in Hebuterne +was that of three men dressing a tall badly wounded Prussian officer +lying on the side of the road. The ambulance turned the corner out of +the village. There followed three "crashes" and dust flew on to the +floor of the car. + +"Whizz-bangs," was the corporal's laconical remark. + +We had passed the German road barrage, and were on our way to peace +and safety. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +TOLL OF ATTACK + + +We climbed the little white road which led through the battery +positions now almost silent, topped the crest, and dipped into +Sailly-au-Bois. The village had been very little shelled since the +night before, and appeared the same as ever, except that the intense +traffic, which had flowed into it for the past month, had ceased. +Limbers and lorries had done their work, and the only objects which +filled the shell-scarred streets were slow-moving ambulances, little +blood-stained groups of "walking wounded," and the troops of a new +division moving up into the line. + +Though we were all in some pain as the ambulance jolted along through +the ruts in the side of the road, we felt rather sorry for those poor +chaps as they peered inside the car. Our fate was decided, theirs +still hung in the balance. How often on the march one had looked back +oneself into a passing ambulance and wished, rather shamefully, for a +"Blighty" one. Sunburnt and healthy they looked as they shouted after +us: "Good luck, boys, give our love to Blighty." + +At the end of the village the ambulance swung off on a road leading to +the left. It must have crossed the track by which my platoon and I had +gone up the night before. About 11.30 A.M. we arrived at Couin, the +headquarters of the First Field Ambulance. + +A hum of conversation and joking arose from every side, and, with some +exceptions, you could not have found such a cheery gathering anywhere. +The immediate strain of battle had passed, and friends meeting friends +compared notes of their experiences in the "show." Here a man with a +bandaged arm was talking affectionately to a less fortunate "pal" on a +stretcher, and asking him if he could do anything for him; it is +extraordinary how suffering knits men together, and how much sympathy +is brought out in a man at the sight of a badly wounded comrade: +yonder by the huts an orderly assisted a "walking case," shot through +the lungs and vomiting blood freely. + +Near by I recognised E----'s servant of the L---- S----. When he had +finished giving some tea or water to a friend, I hailed him and asked +him if Mr. E---- was hit. Mr. E----, he told me, had been laid up for +some days past, and had not taken part in the attack. He was, however, +going round and writing letters for the men. Would I like to see him? +We were fairly good acquaintances, so I said that I should. Presently +he arrived. + +"Bad luck, old chap. Where have you caught it?" he asked. + +"In the thigh," I replied. + +He wrote two post-cards home for me, one home and another to +relatives, and I did my best to sign them. I remember that on one of +them was inscribed: "This is to let you know that E---- has been +caught bending," and wondering what my grandfather, a doctor, would +make out of that! + +The sun was beating down on us now, and since, after I had been duly +labelled "G.S.W. (gun-shot wound) Back," a Medical Staff Officer +advised that I should be transferred into the officers' hut, I entered +its cooler shades with much gladness. + +Captain W----t came in soon afterwards. In the second line German +trench he had looked over the parados to see if any opposition was +coming up from the third line trench, and had been hit by a +machine-gun bullet in the shoulder. In making his way home he had been +hit twice again in the shoulder. H---- also put in an appearance with +a bullet wound in the arm. He had taken a party of "walking wounded" +up to Sailly-au-Bois, and got a car on. A doctor brought round the +familiar old beverage of tea, which in large quantities, and in +company with whisky, had helped us through many an unpleasant day in +the trenches. Captain W----t refused it, and insisted on having some +bread and jam. I took both with much relish, and, having appeased an +unusually large appetite, got an orderly to wash my face and hands, +which were coated with blood. + +"I dare say you feel as you was gettin' back to civilisation again, +sir," he said. Much refreshed, and quietly looking at a new number of +_The Tatler_, I certainly felt as if I was, though, in spite of an air +ring, the wound was feeling rather uncomfortable. At the end of the +hut two or three poor fellows were dying of stomach wounds. It was a +peculiar contrast to hear two or three men chatting gaily just outside +my end of the hut. I could only catch fragments of the conversation, +which I give here. + +"When Mr. A---- gave the order to advance, I went over like a bird." + +"The effect of the rum, laddie!" + +"Mr A---- was going strong too." + +"What's happened to Mr. A----, do you know?" + +"Don't know. I didn't see 'im after that." + +"'E's all right. Saw him just now. Got a wound in the arm." + +"Good. Isn't the sun fine here? Couldn't want a better morning for an +attack, could you?" + +The hut was filling rapidly, and the three stomach cases being quite +hopeless were removed outside. A doctor brought in an officer of the +K----'s. He was quite dazed, and sank full length on a bed, passing +his hand across his face and moaning. He was not wounded, but had been +blown up whilst engaged in cutting a communication trench across No +Man's Land, they told me. It was not long, however, before he +recovered his senses sufficiently enough to walk with help to an +ambulance. A "padre" entered, supporting a young officer of the ----, +a far worse case of shell shock, and laid him out on the bed. He had +no control over himself, and was weeping hysterically. + +"For God's sake don't let me go back, don't send me back!" he cried. + +The "padre" tried to comfort him. + +"You'll soon be in a nice hospital at the Base, old chap, or probably +in England." + +He looked at the padre blankly, not understanding a word that he was +saying. + +A more extraordinary case of shell shock was that of an officer lying +about three beds down from me. In the usual course of events an +R.A.M.C. corporal asked him his name. + +"F----," he replied in a vague tone. + +The corporal thought that he had better make certain, so with as +polite a manner as possible looked at his identification disc. + +"It puts Lt. B---- here," he said. + +There followed a lengthy argument, at the end of which the patient +said-- + +"Well, it's no use. You had better give it up. I don't know what my +name is!" + +A Fusilier officer was carried in on a stretcher and laid next to me. +After a time he said-- + +"Is your name L----?" + +I replied affirmatively. + +"Don't you recognise me?" he questioned. + +I looked at him, but could not think where I had seen him before. + +"My name's D----. I was your Company Quartermaster-Sergeant in the +Second Battalion." Then I remembered him, though it had been hard to +recognise him in officer's uniform, blood-stained and tattered at +that. We compared notes of our experiences since I had left the second +line of my battalion in England nearly a year before, until, soon +afterwards, he was taken out to an ambulance. + +At the other end of the hut it was just possible to see an officer +tossing to and fro deliriously on a stretcher. I use the word +"deliriously," though he was probably another case of shell shock. He +was wounded also, judging by the bandages which swathed the middle +part of his body. The poor fellow thought that he was still fighting, +and every now and again broke out like this-- + +"Keep 'em off, boys. Keep 'em off. Give me a bomb, sergeant. Get down! +My God! I'm hit. Put some more of those sandbags on the barricade. +These damned shells! Can I stand it any longer? Come on, boys. Come +along, sergeant! We must go for them. Oh! my God! I must stick it!" + +After a time the cries became fainter, and the stretcher was taken +out. + +About three o'clock I managed to get a doctor to inject me with +anti-tetanus. I confess that I was rather anxious about getting this +done, for in crawling back across No Man's Land my wound had been +covered with mud and dirt. The orderly, who put on the iodine, told me +that the German artillery was sending shrapnel over the ridge. This +was rather disconcerting, but, accustomed as I had become to shrapnel +at close quarters, the sounds seemed so distant that I did not bother +more about them. + +It must have been about four o'clock when my stretcher was picked up +and I passed once again into the warm sunlight. Outside an orderly +relieved me of my steel and gas helmets, in much the same way as the +collector takes your ticket when you pass through the gates of a +London terminus in a taxi. Once more the stretcher was slid into an +ambulance, and I found myself in company with a young subaltern of the +K----'s. He was very cheery, and continued to assert that we should +all be in "Blighty" in a day or two's time. When the A.S.C. driver +appeared at the entrance of the car and confirmed our friend's +opinion, I began to entertain the most glorious visions of the +morrow--visions which I need hardly say did not come true. + +"How were you hit?" I asked the officer of the K----'s. + +"I got a machine-gun bullet in the pit of the stomach while digging +that communication trench into No Man's Land. It's been pretty bad, +but the pain's going now, and I think I shall be all right." + +Then he recognised the man on the stretcher above me. + +"Hullo, laddie," he said. "What have they done to you?" + +"I've been hit in the left wrist and the leg, sir. I hope you aren't +very bad." + +The engine started, and we set off on our journey to the Casualty +Clearing Station. For the last time we passed the villages, which we +had come to know so intimately in the past two months during rest from +the trenches. There was Souastre, where one had spent pleasant +evenings at the Divisional Theatre; St. Amand with its open square in +front of the church, the meeting-place of the villagers, now deserted +save for two or three soldiers; Gaudiempre, the headquarters of an +Army Service Corps park, with its lines of roughly made stables. At +one part of the journey a 15-inch gun let fly just over the road. We +had endured quite enough noise for that day, and I was glad that it +did not occur again. From a rather tortuous course through bye-lanes +we turned into the main Arras to Doullens road--that long, straight, +typical French highway with its avenue of poplars. Shortly afterwards +the ambulance drew up outside the Casualty Clearing Station. + +The Casualty Clearing Station was situated in the grounds of a +chateau. I believe that the chateau itself was used as a hospital for +those cases which were too bad to be moved farther. We were taken into +a long cement-floored building, and laid down in a line of stretchers +which ran almost from the doorway up to a screen at the end of the +room, behind which dressings and operations were taking place. On my +right was the officer of the K----'s, still fairly cheery, though in a +certain amount of pain; on my left lay a rifleman hit in the chest, +and very grey about the face; I remember that, as I looked at him, I +compared the colour of his face with that of the stomach cases I had +seen. A stomach case, as far as I can remember, has an ashen pallor +about the face; a lung case has a haggard grey look. Next to him a boy +of about eighteen was sitting on his stretcher; he was hit in the jaw, +the arms, and the hands, but he calmly took out his pipe, placed it in +his blood-stained mouth, and started smoking. I was talking to the +officer of the K----'s, when he suddenly fell to groaning, and rolled +over on to my stretcher. I tried to comfort him, but words were of no +avail. A doctor came along, asked a few questions, and examined the +wound, just a small hole in the pit of the stomach; but he looked +serious enough about it. The stretcher was lifted up and its tortured +occupant borne away behind the screen for an operation. That was the +last I saw of a very plucky young fellow. I ate some bread and jam, +and drank some tea doled out liberally all down the two lines of +stretchers, for another line had formed by now. + +My turn came at last, and I was carried off to a table behind the +screen, where the wound was probed, dressed, and bandaged tightly, and +I had a foretaste of the less pleasant side of hospital life. There +were two Army nurses at work on a case next to mine--the first English +women I had seen since I returned from leave six months before. My +wound having been dressed, I was almost immediately taken out and put +into a motor-lorry. There must have been about nine of us, three rows +of three, on the floor of that lorry. I did not find it comfortable, +though the best had been done under the circumstances to make it so; +neither did the others, many of whom were worse wounded than myself, +judging by the groans which arose at every jolt. + +We turned down a road leading to the station. Groups of peasants were +standing in the village street and crying after us: "Ah! les pauvres +blesses! les pauvres Anglais blesses!" These were the last words of +gratitude and sympathy that the kind peasants could give us. We drew +up behind other cars alongside the hospital train, and the +engine-driver looked round from polishing his engine and watched us +with the wistful gaze of one to whom hospital train work was no longer +a novelty. Walking wounded came dribbling up by ones and twos into the +station yard, and were directed into sitting compartments. + +The sun was in my eyes, and I felt as if my face was being scorched. I +asked an R.A.M.C.N.C.O., standing at the end of the wagon, to get me +something to shade my eyes. Then occurred what I felt was an extremely +thoughtful act on the part of a wounded man. A badly wounded +lance-corporal, on the other side of the lorry, took out his +handkerchief and stretched it over to me. When I asked him if he was +sure that he did not want it, he insisted on my taking it. It was +dirty and blood-stained, but saved me much discomfort, and I thanked +him profusely. After about ten minutes our stretchers were hauled out +of the lorry. I was borne up to the officers' carriage at the far end +of the train. It was a splendidly equipped compartment; and when I +found myself between the sheets of my berth, with plenty of pillows +under me, I felt as if I had definitely got a stage nearer to England. +Some one behind me called my name, and, looking round, I saw my old +friend M---- W----, whose party I had nearly run into the night before +in that never-to-be-forgotten communication trench, Woman Street. He +told me that he had been hit in the wrist and leg. Judging by his +flushed appearance, he had something of a temperature. + +More wounded were brought or helped in--men as well as officers--till +the white walls of the carriage were lined with blood-stained, +mud-covered khaki figures, lying, sitting, and propped up in various +positions. + +The Medical Officer in charge of the train came round and asked us +what we should like to drink for dinner. + +"Would you like whisky-and-soda, or beer, or lemonade?" he questioned +me. This sounded pleasant to my ears, but I only asked for a lemonade. + +As the train drew out of the station, one caught a last glimpse of +warfare--an aeroplane, wheeling round in the evening sky amongst a +swarm of tell-tale smoke-puffs, the explosions of "Archie" shells. + + + + + * * * * * + +PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + * * * * * + + + + +The following pages contain advertisements of a few of +the Macmillan books on kindred subjects. + + + + +Ambulance 464: Encore des Blesses + +BY JULIEN H. BRYAN + + _Illustrated. Cloth, 12mo._ + + Here we have the story of the experiences of a Princeton + Junior--a boy of seventeen, who went to the war and drove an + ambulance car in the Verdun and Champagne sectors. He tells + exactly what he saw and heard in the American Ambulance + Corps, bringing his story down to August, 1917. His accounts + are modest, interesting, sometimes amusing--always vivid. + + War books by soldiers are very popular these days. The + author-fighter has contributed some of the most informing + volumes that have been issued on the great conflict. Of all + of those who have been to the front and have returned to + write about it, no one, perhaps, has had more unusual + experiences than fell to the lot of this youth. He has + written a book in which he tells what happened to him and his + immediate associates; a book that is remarkable for the + thrilling character of its narrative, the spirit of good + humor, of adventure and excitement which runs through it. + + Mr. Bryan had his kodak with him and his text is illustrated + with many altogether unusual pictures, giving a new and clear + idea as to the war and its method of prosecution. + + + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + + + +_MASEFIELD'S NEW WAR BOOK_ + +The Old Front Line + +BY JOHN MASEFIELD + + _Illustrated. Cloth, 12mo. $1.00_ + + What Mr. Masefield did for the Gallipoli Campaign, he now + does for the Campaign in France. His subject is the old front + line as it was when the battle of the Somme began. His + account is vivid and gripping--a huge conflict seen through + the eyes of a great poet, this is the book. + + Of the importance of the battle, Mr. Masefield writes: + + "The old front line was the base from which the battle + proceeded. It was the starting place. The thing began there. + It was the biggest battle in which our people were ever + engaged, and so far it has led to bigger results than any + battle of this war since the Battle of the Marne. It caused a + great falling back of the enemy armies. It freed a great + tract of France, seventy miles long, by from ten to + twenty-five miles broad. It first gave the enemy the + knowledge that he was beaten." + + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + + + +A War Nurse's Diary + + _Illustrated, Cloth, $1.25_ + + High courage, deep sympathy without sentimentality, and an + all-saving sense of humor amid dreadful and depressing + conditions are the salient features of this little book. The + author, who preserves her anonymity, has been "over the top" + in the fullest sense. She has faced bombardments and aerial + raids, she has calmly removed her charges under fire, she has + tended the wounded and dying amid scenes of carnage and + confusion, and she has created order and comfort where but a + short time before all was chaos and suffering. And all the + while she marvels at the uncomplaining fortitude of others, + never counting her own. Many unusual experiences have + befallen this "war nurse" and she writes of them all in a + gripping, vivid fashion. + + + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + + + +Victor Chapman's Letters from France + + _Illustrated, $2.00_ + + Victor Chapman was studying architecture in Paris when the + war broke out and at once he joined the French Foreign + Legion. A year later he was transferred to the Aviation Corps + and went to the front as pilot in the American Escadrille. + This volume comprises his letters written to his family, + covering the full period of his service from September, 1914, + to a few days before his death. "They are," says the _New + York Times_ in commenting on them, "graphic letters that show + imaginative feeling and unusual faculty for literary + expression and they are filled with details of his daily life + and duties and reflect the keen satisfaction he was taking in + his experiences. He knew many of those Americans who have won + distinction, and some of them death, in the Legion and the + Aviation Service, and there is frequent reference to one or + another of them.... In few of the memorials to those who have + laid down their lives in this war is it possible to find + quite such a sense of a life not only fulfilled but crowned + by its sacrifice, notwithstanding its youthfulness, as one + gets from this tribute to Victor Chapman." + + + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + + * * * * * + + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + | Typographical errors corrected in text: | + | | + | Page 36: Bazencourt replaced with Bayencourt | + | Page 45: fraggrance replaced with fragrance | + | | + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + + * * * * * + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Attack, by Edward G. D. 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