Boyd Cable

“ Private Copple was busy one morning helping to carry back some of the casualties. A hot “strafe” was on, the way back led through lines and clumped batches of batteries all in hot action, the roar of gun-fire rose long and unbroken and deafeningly, and every now and then through the roar of their reports and the diminishing wails of their departing shells there came the rising shriek and rush of a German shell, the crump and crash of its burst, the whistle and hum of flying splinters. ”

“ It is hard to convey to anyone who has not seen such a place the horrible difficulty of the task the Corporal had set himself. The wood had been shelled for weeks, until almost every tree in it had been smashed and knocked down and lay in a wild tangle of trunks, tops, and branches on the ground. The ground itself was pitted with big and little shell-holes, seamed with deep trenches, littered with whole and broken arms and equipments, German and British grenades and bombs, scattered thick with British and German dead who had lain there for any time from hours to weeks. ”

“ Over the open No Man’s Land the infantry pressed rapidly as the broken ground would allow, pressed on in silence, crouching and dodging over and amongst the shell-holes and craters. Four German “crumps” roared down and past, bursting with shattering roars behind them. A group of light “Whizz-bang” shells rushed and smashed overhead, and somewhere out on the flank an enemy machine-gun burst into a rapid stutter of fire, and its bullets sang whistling and whipping about the advancing line. ”

“ Some ducked and crouched close to earth, and both shells passed just over and fell in leaping gusts of flame and ground-shaking crashes beyond the teams. Again the fragments hissed and whistled past and lumps of earth and mud fell spattering and splashing and thumping over men and guns and teams. A driver yelped suddenly, the horses in another team [235] snorted and plunged, and then out of the thick darkness that seemed to shut down after the searing light of the shell-burst flames came sounds of more plunging hoofs, a driver’s voice cursing angrily, thrashings and splashings and stamping. ”

“ The two officers, in full view of the watchers, were shot down as they stood, the rifle muzzles touching their backs. The Germans round the trench edge tossed bombs down on the men penned below. Before the spurting smoke came billowing up out of the trench, Teddy Silsey leaped to his feet with a scream, and flung himself scrambling up the trench wall. But the sergeant, with a gust of bitter oaths, gripped and held him. “Get to it there,” he snarled savagely at the men about the gun. “D’you want a better target?” The gun muzzle twitched and steadied and ripped out a stream of bullets. ”

“ Men gulped in their throats or drew long breaths of apprehension that this was the beginning of discovery of their presence in the open, the first of the storm they knew would quickly follow. But there were no more shells for the moment, and the rattle of machine-gun fire diminished and the bullets piped thinner and more distant as the gun muzzle swept round. The infantry hurried on, thankful for every yard made in safety, knowing that every such yard improved their chance of reaching the opposing trench, of the raid being successfully accomplished. ”

“ As a gun fired there flamed out in front of the battery a blinding sheet of light that threw up every detail of men and guns and patch of wet ground in glaring hot light or hard black silhouette. On the instant, the light vanished and darkness clapped down on the tired eyes, to lift and leap again on the following instant from the next gun’s spurt of vivid sheeting flame. ”

“ From somewhere close behind the German line a rocket soared high and burst in a shower of sparks. There was a pause while the advancing men hurried on, stumbling forward in silence. Another rocket leaped, and before its sparks broke downward the German guns burst into a deluge of fire. They swept not only the open ground and trenches where the raiders were attacking, but far up and down the line. Rocket after rocket whizzed up, and to right and left the guns answered with a fire barrage on the British front trench and open ground. ”

“ Union is strength—if it be the union of the workshops and the Front; Labour does conquer all—if Labour, Back and Front, pull together. There was no need to ask the question of Black Harry and Joe Hullish and the rest, because they themselves were the answer, lying in their shallow graves that shook and trembled about them to the roar and rumble of the traffic, the guns and limbers and ammunition waggons pouring up the road which they had helped to make. ”

“ But, with the rest of the line, they at once set to work to consolidate, to dig in, to fill the sandbags each man carried, and to line the lip of a shell crater with them. Every man there knew that a counter-attack on their position was practically a certainty. They had not a great many bombs or very much ammunition left; they had been struggling through a wilderness of sticky mud and shell-churned mire all day, moving for all the world like flies across a half-dry fly-paper; they had been without food since dawn, when they had consumed the bully and biscuit of their iron “ration” ”

“ In every detail, so far as [279] the men were concerned, an attack was in full swing; but there was no yell and crash of falling shells, no piping whistle and sharp crack of bullets, no deafening, shaking thunder of artillery (except that steady boom-boom) , no shell-scorched strip of battered ground. The warm sun shone on trim green fields, on long twisting lines of flags and tapes strung on sticks, on ranks of perspiring men in khaki with rifles and bombs and machine-guns and ammunition and stretchers and all the other accoutrements of battle. ”

“ A spatter of rifle-fire sounded from somewhere out in the mist, and a few bullets whispered high overhead. Then came the distant thud, thud, thud of half a dozen guns firing. One shell wailed distantly over, another passed closer with a savage rush, a third burst twenty yards away with a glaring flash that penetrated even the thick fog. The two had a quick glimpse of a line of Germans in long coats ducking their “coal-scuttle” helmets and throwing themselves to ground. They were not more than thirty feet away, and there were at least a score of them. ”

“ So there were during the day a good many casualties amongst the ambulance men, and so at the end Private Copple was caught. He had hesitated a moment too long in dropping himself into the cover of the shell crater where he had just lowered the “walking wounded” he was supporting back. The shell whirled down in a crescendo of howling, roaring noise, and, just as Copple flung himself down, burst with an earth-shaking crash a score or so of yards away. Copple felt a tremendous blow on his side. ”

“ The drivers sat, motionless blotches of shadow against the flickering sky, while the gunners strained and heaved on wheels and drag-ropes to bring the trails close enough to slip on the hooks. A shell dropped with a crash about fifty yards short of the battery and the pieces flew whining and whistling over the heads of the men and horses. Two more swooped down out of the sky with a rising wail-rush-roar of sound that appeared to be bringing the shells straight down on top of the workers’ heads. ”

“ The meal was interrupted by a motor-cyclist, who had to leave his cycle on the roadside and plough on foot through the sticky mud to the Hotstuff’s anchorage, with a written message. The Skipper read the message, initialled the envelope as a receipt, and, meditatively chewing on a dry prune, carefully consulted a squared map criss-crossed and wriggled over by a maze of heavy red lines that marked the German trenches, and pricked off a course to where a closer-packed maze of lines was named as a Redoubt. ”

“ The Australian line closed in, pouring a storm of rifle fire on them. Some tried to tear a way through, or over, or under the impenetrable thicket of their own wire; others ran wildly up and down looking for an opening, for any escape from those pelting bullets; others again held their hands high and ran towards the crackling rifles shrieking “Kamerad” surrenders that were drowned in the drumming roll of rifle fire; and some few threw themselves down and tried to take cover and fire back into the teeth of the storm that beat upon them. ”

“ The sheer physical labour was cruelly exhausting—the carrying and handling of the shells, the effort to improvise sandbag and broken timber “platforms” under the gun wheels to keep them from sinking in the soft ground, even the mere walking or moving about ankle deep in the sea of sticky mud that surrounded the guns and clung in heavy clogging lumps to feet and legs. But the mental strain must have been even worse in the past six days and nights of constant heavy firing, and of suffering under fire. ”

“ They ceased to take cover or even to stop and crouch from the warning yells of approaching shells; they flung off the gas-masks, hooked at the “Alert” high on their chests, to give freer play to their arms; they wallowed in mud and slime, and cursed and laughed in turn at it, and the road, and the job, and the Army, and the war. But they finished to time, and actually at 5 o’clock they drove the last spikes while the first teams were scrabbling over the last dozen loose planks. ”

“ They tramped down the long street of a ruined village—a street that was no more than a cleared strip of cobblestones bordered down its length on both sides by the piled or scattered heaps of rubble and brick that had once been rows of houses—with a mad chorus of guns roaring and cracking and banging in numberless scores about them, passed over the open behind the trenches to find more guns ranged battery after battery, and all with sheeting walls of flame jumping and flashing along their fronts. ”

“ On their own immediate front the attack slackened, and died away, but along the line a little the Sergeant’s group could see a swarm of men charging in. The Sergeant immediately ordered the machine-gun and every rifle to take the attackers in enfilade. For the next few minutes every man shot as fast as he could load and pull trigger, and the captured machine-gun banged and spat a steady stream of fire. The Sergeant helped until he saw the attack dying out again, its remnants fading into the smoke haze. ”

“ Another Australian counter-attack, this time much better organised and more solidly built, was launched headlong on their confusion. They gave ground a little in some places, tried to push on in others, halted and strove to secure [107] positions and grip the trenches in others. The Australians, savagely angry at being so caught and losing so much ground, drove in on them, bombing, shooting, and bayoneting; while over the heads of the front-rank fighters the guns poured a furious tempest of shrapnel and high explosive on the masses that sifted and eddied behind. ”

“ The main German trench was spouting dust and debris, flying clouds of leaves, flashing white slivers of bark and wood, under the torrent of shells that poured on it once more. The machine-guns below him ceased, and the Corporal concluded that their target had gone for the moment. But that intense bombardment of the trench almost certainly meant the launching of another British attack, and then the machine-guns would find their target struggling again across their sights and under their streaming fire. They had a good “field of fire,” too, as the Corporal could see. ”

“ But the Australians there will always remember that fight for the big killing, for those murderer Huns pinned against their own wire, for the burning hot barrels of the rifles, for the scattered groups of their own [116] dead—their murdered-prisoner dead—and for the two thousand-odd German bodies counted where they fell or hung limp in the tangles of their barbed wire.
And next day Teddy Silsey volunteered for the Bombing Company, the Suicide Club, as they call themselves. He wanted close-up work, he explained. With a rifle you could never be sure you got your own man. ”

“ Were there Germans crouching in the trench bottom? But they must risk that, risk everything in a dash across and over the parapet. A puff of wind stirred and set the mist eddying and lifting a moment. They dare wait no longer. If the wind came the mist would go, and with it would go their chance of crossing the No Man’s Land. He whispered a moment to Studd, sat up, twisted his [96] legs round to the edge of the trench, slid his trench dagger from its sheath and settled his fingers to a firm grip on the handle, took a deep breath, and slid over feet foremost into the trench. ”

“ The ground was veiled in smoke and drifting haze, and stretched as far as he could see in a dreary perspective of shiny wet earth and ragged holes. He felt that he’d never cover it, never get clear of these cursed—what were they—shells, bogies, demons [153] screaming and howling for his life. He plunged into a patch of low-lying ground, sticky swamp that sank him knee deep at every step, that clutched and clung about his feet and held each foot gripped as he dragged it sucking out and swung it forward. ”

“ It may be that one grows one-sided in ideas after more than three [x] years’ soldiering, but can you blame us if we feel contempt for pitiful grumblers and complainers who have a good roof overhead, a warm room and fire, a dry bed, and no real lack of food, if we feel anger against men who have all these things and yet go on strike, knowing that we must pay the penalty? And let me flatly deny the claim which some strikers and agitators still make that in these upheavals and checks on war industry they are “fighting for the rights of their mates in the trenches.” ”

“ The waggons continued to roll in, to fill up, and pull out again; the pile of ammunition boxes to dwindle, the heap of empty boxes to grow. Vickers scurried round, keeping an eye on smooth working, trying at intervals to press some of his stock of gas-shells on any battery that would take them. “I’ve fair got wind up about them,” he confided to one waggon-line officer. “If a shell hits them it will stop the whole blessed dump working. Then where will your guns be for shell?” ”