Part 6

_Oct. 6._ Orders from the C.R.E. that we shall probably move again to-morrow and all ranks are to have as much rest as possible. Worked all morning on the road and packed pontoons, etc., during the afternoon.

_Oct. 7._ Two sections moved at 7 a.m. to work again on the avoiding road, and two sections moved across country towards the Menin road. At 9 a.m. I took the transport across in front of Ypres and picked up Cooper with the pontoons in the afternoon. We made a horse-lines there, as it was the only patch of dry earth available, but before getting in we had to shift about fifteen dead mules which had been killed the night before by a bomb.

Billeted the sections in an area containing one dug-out, just off the Ypres-Menin road—a piece of ground probably more fiercely fought over than any other during the war. The solitary dug-out was unusable owing to prevalence of dead Bosche—as Mark Twain would say, “Fixed, so that they could outvote us.” We couldn’t find a level piece of ground large enough to take one tent without a lot of digging. The sergeants found a very good place for their tent, but a dead Hun was in possession of the freehold. They decided to bury him, and deepened a shell-hole accordingly; then the problem, how to get him into it? The Sergeant-Major took his boots and the Farrier very gingerly took his sleeves; they lifted, but his arms came out in the Farrier’s hands. They withdrew to windward and talked; it was growing dusk, the tent must go up. Finally the Farrier put his gas mask on and literally buried him in shovelfuls. _Pro patria——?_

The only way to stop war is to tell these facts in the school history books and cut out the rot about the gallant charges, the victorious returns, and the blushing damsels who scatter roses under the conquering heroes’ feet. Every soldier knows that a re-writing of the history books would stop war more effectively than the most elaborately covenanted league which tired politico-legal minds can conceive.

_Oct. 8._ Working all day on the roads. It is a dreary job in this blighted, featureless country.

_Oct. 9._ Received orders to report again at Artillery Brigade H.Q., so there is obviously another stunt in the wind. In the meantime we are still mud-slinging.

_Oct. 10._ Went forward into the outposts to reconnoitre tracks and ways forward for the guns. We were in absolutely virgin country, and it was a new experience to think of death lurking behind these green hedges and quiet farm buildings.

At night took the section up and did a lot of work—filled in several ditches, cleared a ride through a wood, and chopped down several trees with which we made a small bridge—took the floor out of the farm kitchen to cover it with.

_Oct. 11._ Out reconnoitring again all morning, and at night took a company of Pioneers up to work on a second track. Had a very unpleasant time on the Menin road, where we were heavily shelled—some artillery transport suffered badly, but we got through without casualties.

The weather continues fine, and everything points to another show about the 15th. The Huns have put up a lot of wire, but the field guns have been shooting this down steadily for three days now, and the heavies are coming into position. This morning when I was up, our shells were falling dead in the belts of wire and cutting broad lanes through it.

Sent in two recommendations for Military Medals for work in the last show:—

MOUNTED CORPORAL.—For great gallantry and devotion to duty in bringing up transport and supplies under heavy shell-fire and at great personal risk. His action greatly contributed to the success of the section in its work of helping forward the guns.

A SAPPER.—For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty when repairing a bridge under heavy shell-fire for the advance of the artillery. He set a fine example to his comrades, and persevered with his work until it was completed, regardless of great personal danger.

It was hard to write the above, knowing that every man equally deserves those medals—the whole institution of awards ought to be abolished; except, perhaps, the V.C.

_Oct. 12._ Skipper returned from leave. Company still carrying on with roads. No. 2 Section out with me all night widening a bridge. It was a miserable night with heavy rain and howling wind, but the men worked cheerfully and a lot of work was done. So far as we are concerned all is now ready for the next attack.

_Oct. 13._ The attack is to start early on the morning of the 14th, and will be general along the Army front. The company received orders to move forward to-day, but I had to go on to Brigade before they started or before I knew exactly where they were going. I left Brigade shortly after dusk and returned to find two companies of Pioneers who were detailed to work under me to-morrow. I knew they were somewhere in the morass near the Menin road, but I blundered about for two hours before I found them. It required all my will power to keep me going, and when finally I saw their tents I was in the last stages of exhaustion—several times I must have been very near to them, but it was impossible to see more than 20 yards, and I had passed away again, going round and round in circles. I was so weak towards the end that I used to lie still in the mud for several minutes every time I fell, aching in every muscle, and wondering how many more times I could fall without dropping off to sleep.

It was after 1 a.m. when I left the Pioneers and there was a four-mile walk to where I thought the company would be. I wandered from battery to battery asking for news of them, but no one could tell me where they were. It was absolutely vital that I should find them before dawn, but at last my legs failed completely and I collapsed in the middle of the road. I crawled into a hole in the bank but, tired as I was, couldn’t sleep because of the cold. I was tormented with fears as to what would happen in the morning as I was the only officer who knew the gun tracks and almost everything depended on the clearing of those.

_Oct. 14._ Dawn came at last, cold, clear, and very beautiful, and at 5.35 the barrage came to spoil it. I set off towards the batteries in the hope of picking the men up there and found the Pioneers. I gave them work to go on with and turned to try to find my own fellows. The din from our own guns was terrific and the German retaliation seemed unusually heavy. The hard, persistent rattle of machine-gun fire in front seemed to indicate that we had stuck and a lot of wounded seemed to be coming back—some shells exploded very near me and I dropped into a ditch. I was cold, hungry, and tired, and at that moment would have sold my soul to have been out of it all. Above me the sky was serenely blue and peaceful, but eastwards it was shot with balls of multi-coloured smoke, just as if an invisible artist were dabbing splotches of colour on to a blue canvas.

Why, oh! why should I walk into that blazing inferno and die on a morning like this? These thoughts were actually in my mind when I saw Cooper coming down the road with the section—they thought I had been killed. I shall always remember standing there in the road and chewing ravenously at a hunk of bully which I held in my muddy fingers. It was my first meal for seventeen hours, and I never enjoyed one better.

Then we went forward, and I began to get hold of myself again as the work engaged my attention. I shall never forget one sight. A big highlander with the lower part of his face blown off walking down the railway with a prisoner in front of him—his right hand on the back of the German’s neck and his left hand holding his face together with the blood pouring through his fingers. Men coming back say the Huns stuck hard at first, but we are going well forward now.

To-day’s programme was roughly as follows:—

The Army Corps is to form bridgeheads across the River Lys for a defensive flank. One R.E. company takes all the Divisional pontoons and stands by to bridge when the infantry get to the river. One section of this to dash forward with Lewis guns and try to prevent destruction of existing bridges.

The second company and two of our own sections are working on roads with special instructions to search for and destroy land mines. One of our remaining sections reporting on German dumps, and generally gathering information, and the last section arranging temporary water supplies.

We went forward very well during the morning as there was practically no shell-fire after the first two hours. The losses seem to have been fairly heavy in forcing the first trenches, and there were a lot of bodies lying crumpled up among the German wire. All that we saw were the veriest youngsters, and they looked so out of place lying there dead in the green fields on this beautiful autumn morning. Shortly after noon we arrived at a large farm and found ourselves mixed up with the front line infantry, who were held up. We lay behind a hedge and got a few shots into a feeble German counter-attack, and after this the line went forward again.

We remained at the farm and about two o’clock were heavily shelled by German field guns. Several machine-gunners were hit and the Brigade Commander, who had just arrived, had his leg blown off. For a few minutes the place was in chaos, but two 18–pounders galloped up and silenced the Hun battery with their first few shots. After these years of trench warfare it is wonderful to see field guns galloping into action and engaging the enemy over open sights.

Beyond the farm the roads were in perfect condition, so we returned to the company and found them in tents on a hill about three miles behind. I thought at one time the men would have to carry me back, I had never felt so tired. Bad news awaited us—Cooper had been killed early in the morning, about half an hour after the attack started—later in the day the Sergeant-Major was wounded, and there were eleven casualties among the men.

The passing of an old friend makes a big impression in a small mess, and we were very silent at night as we sat and smoked after supper. The town of Menin was burning fiercely and many other places farther to the east.

_Oct. 15._ Buried Cooper fairly decently in some old sacking at a Belgian cemetery. No orders came through, and we had a day of welcome rest.

_Oct. 16._ Company moved forward at 10.30 a.m. to battle areas and took over billets from a company of our left Division.

There are no signs of war here, and almost every man in the company has a bed to sleep in—splendid grazing for the horses and lots of vegetables in the fields for ourselves. It is all like fairyland, and we walked out solemnly this afternoon to look at a large green field without a single shell-hole in it.

Reports state that we have taken Courtrai, and streams of refugees coming back along the roads indicate that it may be true. Unfortunately, they are all of the very lowest classes, and as they only speak Flemish we were unable to get any information out of them.

It is a heartbreaking sight to see them trudging through the rain—old men, women, and the tiniest of children.

Sometimes they wheel a barrow containing a few of their goods, but most of them are without anything except the miserable rags they stand in.

_Oct. 17._ Had the company out all day doing road drainage. The tedium of the work was relieved by a ghastly incident, showing how low these poor refugees have sunk. A party of them were trudging listlessly along the road when the leaders noticed a dead horse lying in the ditch. In a few seconds the men and women had taken their knives and were fighting like animals on the distended carcass, chattering and shrieking like a crowd of hungry jackals. As they worked they threw the chunks of bleeding meat into the road, where the children fought for them and stowed them in the barrows. In a few minutes the horse was stripped to his bones, the noise subsided, and the ghouls trudged on their way.

_Oct. 18._ Working on the road all day in heavy rain, but were called out again at night to form a bridgehead across the river in front of us. We are in possession of half the town on the near side of the river, but the Germans have destroyed all the bridges and hold the eastern half of the town.

The main road bridge in the centre of the town lay across the bed of the river in a maze of twisted steel-work—we were required to make a foot bridge across these ruins for the infantry to get across. Day climbed across with three men and a Lewis gun on the ruins of the old bridge and cleared a German machine-gun party out of the farther bank. After this we started work and made fair progress considering the vile conditions. With the river sucking and swirling below them and the cold rain numbing their fingers, it was anything but an easy task for the men to keep their foothold on the slippery, twisted girders. In addition we were shelled persistently through the night, and seven men were down when the first infantry went across about 4 a.m.

_Oct. 19._ An hour after our return to billets orders came through for us to move forward again. The other companies got two pontoon bridges across the river during the day and we billeted near at hand, to provide maintenance parties. I was very tired and turned into bed early, looking forward to a long night’s sleep.

Just as I was dozing off the orderly corporal came in with a message from the bridge patrol asking me to go out as numerous things were going wrong. There is no worse torture for a really tired man than to allow him to get into a warm, comfortable bed for a few minutes and then turn him out into a stormy night. And I had been living all day on the strength of the night’s sleep that I was going to get!

Arrived at the bridges I had no time for regrets—the river was rising, the traffic was absolutely continuous, and everything that could go wrong was doing so.

However, we kept them going all night long with the exception of a twenty-minute stopping of one bridge, and Day relieved me at 6 a.m. I was relieved in more senses than one, for two or three times during the night I felt things getting too much for me, things that I would have enjoyed three years ago. Wild, angry thoughts went running through my mind as we struggled with that creaking, groaning bridge, and nursed it through the weary hours—and worst of all, the bitter thought that so long as we succeeded none of the sleeping millions at home would ever hear of the work we did. And thousands of men all over France were doing just the same

“That the Sons of Mary may overcome it, Pleasantly sleeping and unaware.”

Why should I be alone there in the dark with that nerve-racking responsibility, and why should we splash in that freezing water, heaving anchors, tightening trestle chains, and baling the leaky pontoons?—and all unknown!

These are bitter thoughts, but I am worn out—for months I have been living on my will power, but my body and my nerves were exhausted a year ago. I find it cynically amusing to wonder what the idealistic, rugby-playing self of 1913 would think of this introspective, nerve-shattered crock. He would have sniffed and turned away—as the world will do when we return.

_Oct. 20._ Standing to all day under one hour’s notice to move as the forward Division are attacking the ridge which overlooks the Scheldt. In the evening we heard that the attack was held up and failed, and we are to try our luck to-morrow. At 9.30 p.m. I rode forward with No. 2 Section with orders to join the Fusiliers before dawn. It was abnormally dark, raining persistently, and I had the greatest difficulty in finding our way—worst of all, I had to conquer an evergrowing feeling that I didn’t care whether I found it or not—even that little responsibility was too much for me. I wanted to be alone to cry. After two hours I fell into a coma and then dismounted and walked to prevent myself giving way altogether.

We found the Brigade at 3 a.m., and I put the men into a barn for two hours’ rest. I gave orders to be called at five, and turned into an arm-chair in the farm-house kitchen.

For the first time since I came to France my nerves gave way completely and I was tormented with fears of the morrow. I had just been told that we were to go forward with the Fusiliers against the banks of a canal and help them across as well as we could—there would be machine-gun fire and no cover. Those were the facts. We have done infinitely worse a thousand times and thought nothing of it.

But I lay in that chair for two hours actually shivering with fear and apprehension. My crazy mind wouldn’t rest, and I saw myself killed in a dozen different ways as we rushed for the canal bank—at one time I had the wildest impulse to run away and hide until the attack was over. I knew that was impossible, and then I thought I would report sick and pretend to faint. I was ready to do anything except face machine-gun fire again—once we got so close that I could see a German’s face leering behind his gun and the familiar death rattle was as loud as thunder in my ears. I sat and watched my hand shaking on the edge of the chair and had no more control over it than if it had belonged to some one else.

Somehow I pulled together when the orderly corporal came, paraded the section, mechanically inspected the tools, and then marched off. In ten minutes I was myself again and at 6.30 we reached the Fusiliers. At 7 the advance commenced in drizzling rain and we moved forward over the sodden fields.

_Oct. 21._ It was very misty at first, and the whole affair reminded me of a Laffan’s Plain manœuvre—the scattered groups of men worked steadily forward over the open fields and occasionally a nervous civilian would take a peep at us from a farm-house window—there was no sign of war except, perhaps, an unnatural stillness which seemed to hang over the countryside like a mist. It gave one an uncanny feeling, this blundering forward in the mist across an unknown country—the only certainty, that Death was in front and that we must walk on until He declared Himself.

By eleven we were within a thousand yards of the canal and could dimly see the general line of the banks in front of us. Here, at least, we knew that there would be resistance, but as yet there came no sound from the rising ground in front. The ground between us and the canal was very open, so we rested some minutes behind the last thick hedges and took the opportunity of reorganising the units. Then we went forward again, a long straggling line of crouching figures who cursed and panted as they toiled over the swampy ground.

At last the storm broke, heavy machine-gun fire but at rather long range. The line flopped down into the mud, and groups of men began to work forward in short rushes to a ditch in front which seemed to offer cover. We reached this with very few casualties, but the fire was too hot for further progress. Sniping continued all day, and in places we pushed two or three hundred yards nearer to the canal. No. 2 Section took refuge in a farm-house and awaited developments.

After dusk I crawled forward with Jennings of the Fusiliers and got through on to the canal towpath—there were a lot of Huns round the canal and their outposts were fully 300 yards on our side of it. After some difficulty we got within about 50 yards of the bridge and I noticed that the Huns could still crawl across, although it was badly damaged—allowing for further demolitions I didn’t think we should have much trouble in getting a foot-bridge across the ruins—we were nearly caught once, and lay between the water and the towpath while a party of about ten Huns walked along the path not ten feet away. Got back safely in the small hours and had a short rest in soaking clothes on the farm-house floor.

I am too exhausted to feel tired.

_Oct. 22._ Apparently some of our people have got across the canal farther to the north, and at 9 a.m. the attack was resumed on that side with a view to forcing the Huns out of their position. Our orders were to co-operate by means of a demonstration against the canal, but the machine-gun fire was too heavy and we could do nothing except waste a lot of ammunition. I only remember seeing a German once during the whole day, and yet the slightest exposure on our part was answered by an immediate burst of fire—they stuck it very well, because the fighting on their right flank was very heavy and they would all have been taken if we had got through. For several hours during the morning the rifle and machine-gun fire on our left was very heavy, and the 18–pounders were continuously in action. Towards noon a battery of 68–pounders came into action and also some howitzers—several fires broke out in the houses, but the shells had no effect on the concealed gunners in the canal banks, and we waited in vain for the blue rocket that was to signal us forward. About two o’clock an intelligence officer came round and we learnt that the Germans stuck very hard this morning—we made practically no progress as a result of the battle, and our losses have been heavy.

At 4.30 the attack on our left was resumed, and the Queens made a very gallant advance which brought them down almost as far as our left flank on the canal—unfortunately, there was no support, and before dusk the weary men had to retreat to their original positions.

On our immediate right there was very little opposition, and the Durhams are firmly established across the canal. Farther south, however, our right Division repeated the performance of the Queens on a larger scale and had to abandon a hardly-won bridgehead across the river after a day of strenuous fighting.

At 8 p.m. I was informed by Brigade that owing to the retirement of the Queens I was covering a half-mile gap, and “should take steps accordingly.” I mounted a piquet with the Lewis gun a few hundred yards forward of the farm, and sent out patrols every half-hour, but the night passed off without incident. I took out two patrols myself but could find neither our own people nor Huns.

We have had a bad day to-day—hard fighting, heavy losses, and no progress—people at home seem to think that we are chasing a beaten army which runs so fast that we cannot keep in touch with them. Would that it were true; but we have been badly mauled to-day and there is precious little offensive spirit in our nineteen-year-olds.

I saw a boy of the Middlesex coming back with a finger shot away—they had run against a farm-house with three Huns and a machine-gun and had lost four men in taking it. He said that the bloody “die-hards” had lived up to their name again—four casualties!

And yet there was a day on Zandvoorde Ridge when twenty-three men, left out of 800, lay behind the piled-up bodies of their dead and held the line against the flower of the Pomeranian Guard—and they didn’t talk of “die hards.”

_Oct. 23._ The Brigade was taken out of the line this morning and at noon we had rejoined our transport. We were under orders to move almost at once and dragged ourselves wearily on to the road, the men singing a doleful dirge, “I’m sure we can’t stick it no longer.” For the sake of example I hobbled too, but would have sold my soul to get on Rosie’s back—to kill the temptation I loaded four men’s packs across her.