PART FOURTEEN

ATTACK!

§ 1

Half past nine at night, Friday, September the 24th, 1915!

In the quiet roomy library of Doctor Baynet’s home in Harley Street, London, Patricia sat talking to her father.

“He says in this letter, that they aren’t in action yet.” The gold head lifted from the pencilled scrawl she had been studying: the dark eyes looked quietly towards the man at the littered desk.

“I’m glad of that, my dear,” said Heron Baynet; and went on with his work.

§ 2

Nine-thirty, “pip emma,” on the last day of the Loos bombardment.

Outside the little house at Annequin, cigar between his lips, Peter Jameson stood watching the show. All round the eastward horizon, gun-flashes winked and blazed, lighting up the sky. Far to southward, beat the continuous drum of French seventy-fives, firing _la rafale_. Every half-minute, from one or other of the pits below the shadowy trees in front of him, spurted a flash of orange, followed by the bark of an 18-pounder, the dwindled hiss of flighting shell, the faint thud of its alighting. In the pits themselves, laboured tired and grimy men, sleepless for three days and four nights;—an orderly labour, unhurried: shell to open breech, breech-block clanged home, eye to dial-sight, hand to range-dial: “_Set_,” “_Ready_,” eye to watch, fingers to ear-drums, “_Fire_,” roar of piece discharging, rocking carriage, stink of cordite, “_Repeat!_”

So men laboured, unhurried but unsleeping, at Vermelles and Noyelles-Les-Vermelles, at Cuinchy and Noeux-Les-Mines, northwards and southwards. The intermittent thunder of their labours came to Peter, standing alone in the moonlight: and with it came the jingle and clank of ammunition waggons, the far crackle of an occasional machine-gun, the sound of Scotch singing from shuttered houses in the village on his left.

He turned; went into the house.

In the gloomy Mess-room, sat Stark—pile of typewritten sheets at his elbow, marked map spread out on the table among the débris of dinner. Driver Nicholson crouched in the corner by the telephone.

“What’s it like outside?” asked the Weasel.

“Oh, pretty quiet, sir. The Boche don’t appear to be firing at all.”

“Any wind?”

“Not a breath. It’ll be bad for our gas.”

“Pity.” Stark bent to his map again. The telephone buzzed. “Mr. Purves, speaking from the dug-out, sir.” Peter stepped over, took up the instrument. “A battery report their No. 3 gun out of action.”

“What’s that?” asked Stark. “How did it happen?”

Peter got through to the battery, heard Lodden’s voice over the wire. “Yes. That infernal eighty-over-forty-four fuze with the new gaine. Blown about six inches off the muzzle. No. Nobody hurt. And my number two gun’s running-up very badly. Can you send Staff Sergeant Barrie down? . . . As soon as he comes in. Thanks.”

Peter gave the necessary orders to Purves; rejoined his Colonel over the attack-plans.

“Follow ’em?” asked Stark.

“Yes, sir. We’ve got five Divisions in the front line and supports. Forty-seventh; fifteenth; ninth; first and seventh. They’re to break the front; open out; and let the Cavalry through. _Our_ batteries don’t take part in anything except preliminary bombardment. After that, we stop where we are. But what I can’t understand, sir, is about the Reserves. We don’t seem to have any.”

Driver Nicholson, listening open-eared, was sent out of the room by Stark.

“Look here, P.J.”—the soldier voice dropped a tone—“between you and me, this show’s going to be another wash-out. Our Division and the Northdown ought to have been up last night. That’s why we were hustled out of England. They’re _supposed_ to be billeted on the line Beuvry-Noeux-les-Mines. As it is, our Infantry haven’t got as far as Béthune yet.”

“But, good God, sir—are these five Divisions going into action without any infantry Reserves at all?”

“They are, P.J. And you may well say ‘Good God.’ It isn’t our General’s fault either. I met his G.S.O.[9] One—your pal Starcross—in his car this afternoon.”

“And when _will_ the rest of our Division get here, sir?”

“They’re coming up by forced marches. Starcross reckons they’ll reach Béthune at daybreak. . . .”

“Just when we push off.”

“Exactly. And it’s six miles as the crow flies from Béthune to our present front line. . . .”

The two men stared first at each other; then at the map. Even to the amateur, the fault was obvious: “What will happen, sir?” he asked.

“Chaos,” said Stark succinctly. “And now you’d better be going to bed. You’ve got to be on that Fosse early tomorrow. Telephone down anything you see. I’ll be at the instrument myself. And mind you, P.J., what I’ve said tonight is between the two of us. . . .”

[9] Senior Staff officer of a division.

§ 3

“Four o’clock, sir. Time to get up.” Peter awoke from undisturbed slumbers; saw Driver Garton standing, candle in one hand, steaming mug in the other, by his bedside. He pulled himself up from his valise; drank tea gratefully. In the opposite corner of the room, tossing uneasily in his sleep, lay Purves. Outside, all was still—not a gun firing. Peter dressed quickly, slipped sling of gas-helmet over his head; went downstairs.

The Mess-room, still shuttered, smelt dankly of stale smoke and human sleep. In one corner, telephone-receiver strapped round his ears, lay Driver Nicholson. “Don’t wake him,” whispered Peter, as his servant deposited breakfast on the table. “Go round to the dug-out, and tell them that Seabright’s to be ready in ten minutes. I shall want my field-glasses, my map-case, my compass, and a message-book.”

“And your cigar-case, sir?” smiled the young Yorkshireman. For answer, Peter tapped on his tunic-pocket; smiled back. Master and man knew each other fairly well.

The Adjutant disposed of two poached eggs, some greasy bacon, three slices of buttered toast and a large mug of black tea; lit a cigar; sauntered out of the house. A light appeared at one of the upper windows; some one called out: “That you, Jameson?”

“Yes, sir. I tried not to wake you.”

“You don’t catch weasels asleep. Mind you let me have plenty of information. And watch the signal station at G nine ack two seven—on the embankment.”

“I’ve got a note of that, sir.”

“Right. I’m going back to bed for an hour.”

Appeared from the shadows, Gunner Seabright (“Poluski number one”), a fat-faced little man, clean-shaven, perpetually at grin. He carried a telephone case in his hand, another over his shoulder, a coil of wire.

“Got any earth-pins?” asked Peter.

“Aye, aye, sir.” Seabright had at one time in his chequered career been in the Navy. “Two of them.”

“Come on then.”

They climbed the fence at the back of the garden; stumbled across the colliery tram-lines; followed a red wire up the gritty front of the huge slag-cone. Light was just breaking, a glimmer of dawn over cloudy skies. Not a breath of wind stirred anywhere. “Hot work, sir,” commented the telephonist.

“Damned hot,” said Peter.

They made a flat platform of slag running round the peak of the cone; followed it half way round. “Going to observe from outside, sir?” “Yes. This’ll do. Connect up, will you?”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Seabright opened his telephone case; drove the earth pin into the slag; connected it to his instrument; scraped the insulation from the red wire they had been following; screwed it home; began to buzz.

“··-· -··- -·· (F. X. D.)” buzzed Gunner Seabright “··-· -··- -·· (F. X. D.) Hallo there? Dugout? Is that you Pirbright? Then why the yell don’t you answer quicker?” As he had only called twice, the question was pure swank. Peter tested the line; wandered off round the Fosse.

Already it was alive. Officers everywhere, some ensconced at the end of deep burrows, peering out over the plain; some clambering up the pathways at the back; some standing about at the mouths of their caves; and at the very top, thirty feet above Peter’s head, among a perfect jumble of wires, two Frenchmen—operators for the heavy battery just visible on the plain below, gesticulating and shouting at their strange-looking telephone.

“_Mais non_,” Peter heard, “_mais non. On ne voit rien. Rien je vous dis. . . . Alors dans une demi-heure, mon Commandant._”

“Their Major’s evidently not in a hurry,” thought Peter.

He was accosted by a serious-eyed Captain of Sappers. “Who are you observing for?”

“First Corps.”

“Well, you can’t get inside. It’s full.”

“I know. My telephonist is just round the corner.”

“Good. We shan’t see much from here.”

“No.” Peter went back to his telephonist.

Now, the glimmer of dawn turned to a faint dark blue radiance. Nothing stirred on the plain below. Light grew; revealing the silent village street, the churchyard, the ruined chapel of “Our Lady of Consolation” battered among her poplars, the long tree-girt stretch of the Hulluch Road. Beyond, like a dun still sea streaked with unmoving foam, lay the trenches. Beyond them, mist.

Peter drew out his map; unslung his glasses; threw away the stump of his cigar.

The mist cleared, revealing the dark pylons of Loos, twin spidery towers, black against the gray, a tiny blurr of high houses that was City Saint Élie, the great wheeled pit-head of Fosse Eight. It still lacked half-an-hour to “zero”; Peter wandered round to the back of the Fosse. Men were stirring round the gun-pits below. A motor skirled the dust on the road where Beuvry towers stood out from the plain. . . .

“Colonel to speak to you, sir,” announced Seabright, appearing suddenly at his elbow. Peter ran back to the telephone.

“How’s the light?”

“Middling, sir. And no wind yet.”

Peter lit another cigar; looked at his watch. A quarter of an hour yet. He was not in the least excited. It all seemed dull—dull beyond belief. . . . Ten minutes. . . . Still, it would be a show worth watching. . . . Seven. . . . What was the colour of Seventh’s Division’s flag—red and blue—diagonal. . . . Five minutes more. . . . His pulse quickened a beat. . . . Two minutes. . . . Decidedly, a show not to miss. . . . One minute. . . . He knelt down to be near the telephone. . . .

Cr-rack! Looking down, Peter saw a blue flash, a smoke puff among the trees round “Our Lady of Consolation.” Simultaneously the whole plain erupted. Here, there, everywhere, yellow and blue, the hidden pits flamed and screamed. Thin smoke rose from them; drifted _back_ in a faint breeze. (“Hope to God, we’re not going to use our gas,” thought Peter.) Behind him, he heard the sharp clang of French heavies; the deep note of Granny, the huge howitzer in Sailly La Bourse.

He looked towards the trenches; saw single shrapnel bursting orange to fleecy puffs. The puffs blended to a sea of white, flooding out the trenches. It was as though some invisible hand had poured an enormous wave of milk across the near horizon. And out of the wave spouted great heaving whorls of rusty smoke; staining it. And beyond, he could see huge shells striking at the foot of the spidery towers; at the reeling pit-head; at the high houses of City Saint Élie. Smoke pillars lifted to the sky, quartering the landscape. . . .

And always the voice of the guns grew hoarser in the plain below; always the scream of their flighting shells wailed across the sky. . . .

“Colonel to speak to you, sir.”

Eyes on the plain, Peter took the receiver.

“Are the Boche replying?”

“No, sir. Unless they’re shelling our front line. I can’t see much except smoke.”

“Naturally. They lift in ten minutes.”

Still it went on below. Bark of eighteen pounder. Sharp double crack of four-point-seven. Screech and clang of French heavies. Deep boom of Granny far away in rear. Peter swept the sky with his glasses; saw the pit-head tottering above the smoke. Why didn’t they knock it out? Short! Short again! . . . He looked down towards the trenches. The white wave had turned gray. . . .

Sombrely the dawn increased. In another minute, the infantry would go over.

He fixed his glasses on the gray wave; saw it recede; saw line after line of tiny black figures, ant-like, swarm out of the ground; vanish into the grayness.

“Tell the Colonel. Infantry gone over.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Below, noise lessened. He peered into the smoke-pall. Further it rolled; and further. In it, nothing moved. Out of it, emerged house-tops. And suddenly he saw the black specks again, little bunches of them. Peter studied his map; took out his protractor.

“Call up the Colonel. Is that you, sir? Infantry retiring from the direction of City Saint Élie.”

“Are you quite certain? We’ve had a rumour that City Saint Élie’s fallen.”

“Quite certain, sir. True bearing from here is 100 degrees.”

“Thanks. I’ll report to Division.”

And that was all our Mr. Jameson saw of the fifty thousand very gallant gentlemen who stormed forward _through our own gas_, dribbling foot-balls, tooting hunting-horns, skirling bag-pipes and blowing mouth-organs—on the morning of September the 25th, nineteen-hundred and fifteen!

Gradually, the gun-fire died away; smoke cleared from the plain. Bare and silent, the dun sea stretched to the sky-line. From very far away, came a faint chattering of machine guns. A German balloon rose up; peered at things; went down again. Down the Hulluch road, a toy battery trotted noiselessly. Only the French “heavies” behind the Fosse, still clanged unceasing.

But the great slag-cone itself seethed with excited men.

Out from their burrows they came; down from their eyries; maps in their hands, telescopes under arm, binoculars dangling from their shoulders. Rumour hundred-wired, ran among them. Loos had fallen,—said rumour—Hulluch was ours, City Saint Élie, Haisnes, Douvrin!

“By God, we’ve broken them,” roared a fierce little Major of Garrison Artillery, “by God, we’ve broken them at last!” And he danced up there, on the gritty slag, none heeding.

“Look,” shouted the Captain of Sappers, “look! The Cavalry!” And moisture brimmed into his eyes, watching the squadrons wheeling into line on the grass-fields just below.

And always, high up, like monkeys among the telephone-posts, the three Frenchmen jabbered to their clanging guns—“_Bon. Bon. Bien tiré. Magnifique. On les a, je vous dis. Oui. Oui. Oui. On les a!_”

But Chips Bradley’s grandson, peering out over the empty plain, peering back towards Béthune—waiting, waiting, waiting, for the dust cloud on the road, the dust cloud that never came—thought of the words his Colonel had spoken the night before. And the heart in him was heavy, even in those early hours, with forebodings of disaster!

§ 4

Light grew and grew. Fitful gleams of sunshine danced across the plain. More cavalry came, squadron after squadron, wheeling into line on the fields just below. But they made no movement forward, those wheeling squadrons. Peter saw them through his glasses—dismounting, loosening girths, fume of their cigarettes blue in the air.

Came _one_ English aeroplane, drifting aimlessly across the sky.

Walking wounded came, trudging painfully across the fields, singly and two by two, arms dangling, heads bandaged. (There were no steel helmets in those early days.)

Came a gray company of prisoners, capless, weaponless; fell out; squatted on their hunkers among the root-fields. Came a dozen peasant-children, sprung somehow to life; wrenched up roots from the field; pelted the captives as they squatted. The company fell in again; trudged off towards Béthune; followed by the spitting, cursing children. (And there were many “gentlemen” in England still abed that morning!)

Came, towards noon, down the road from Sailly, long brown columns of infantry, guns and horses; marching towards Noyelles. The Northdown Division! Gun-range away behind the grimy remnants who were even then bombing out the cellars in Loos village beyond the skyline. . . . But from Beuvry to Annequin the roads were bare. And on the left of the attack, round the Hohenzollern Redoubt, in the Chalk Quarries, at the foot of Fosse Eight, men fought unsupported, died cursing the chance that was never taken, the help that never came.

“The situation with regard to the Southdown Division is still obscure at the time of drawing up my report,” reads official history of a fortnight later.

§ 5

Peter, relieved by Purves, stumbled down from his eyrie at about two o’clock; found Colonel Stark and Doctor Carson sitting over the débris of lunch.

“Very sad,” the Irishman was saying.

“What is?” asked Peter, slipping off his gas-satchel, sitting down to cold beef.

“Poor Halliday’s been killed,” answered the Weasel. “Doc’s just been up to Vermelles on a push-bike.”

“They nearly got me too. Bromley’s crowd have been having a pretty rotten time.”

The casualty, first among their officers, cast a gloom over the three men. Soon, the Doctor went back to his impromptu surgery—a tiny room off the hall where his batman had set out from their wicker cases, bandages, shining instruments, bottles of disinfectants, boxes of tabloids.

“Sportsman, the doctor,” commented Stark.

The telephone on the shelf began buzzing; Peter went to it; picked up the receiver. “Seventh Don Ack . . . Adjutant fourth Southdown Brigade . . . Brigade Major wishes to speak to you, sir . . . Right . . .” A pause . . . “That you, Jameson? Look here, we want your batteries to open fire again. . . .” Followed map-references which Peter repeated. . . . “Yes. The loophole plates. But go slow with your ammunition.”

Stark glanced at the big marked map on the wall; saw that the targets were the same as those for the previous day. “Infantry held up, I suppose,” he said. “What was that about ammunition? . . . Very well, tell the batteries to fire a round a minute. H.E.,[10] of course. You might go down and see how they’re getting on. Tell Mr. Black I want to see him; and send in a telephonist as you pass the dug-out.”

“Now I wonder,” thought the Weasel, as he sat alone over his map, “what is going to happen. Better be prepared for the worst, I suppose.”

The little Regimental Sergeant Major came bounding in; saluted; stood to attention.

“Got your note-book, Mr. Black?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then take this down please. ‘O.C. Waggon-lines, A and B batteries. On receipt of this, you will harness-up and be prepared to move forward at a minute’s notice. Acknowledge by bearer.’ Got that, Sergeant Major?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Repeat it to Mr. Murphy at the Ammunition Column.” Mr. Black stretched out the scribbled messages. Stark signed them. “Have them both sent by cyclist orderly, at once, please. Tell the orderlies they’ll be put under arrest if they’re not back in an hour and a half. Make them report to you personally, please.”

“And Headquarters, sir?”

“Same instructions, Mr. Black. The Adjutant’s horses and mine to be waiting saddled-up at the back of the Fosse; the rest, ready to move off with the batteries. Have the servants pack up everything except the Mess-box at once. Do you quite understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Rations all right?”

“Yes, sir. Two days’ supply.”

“Very good. Send Bombardier Michael to me, please. . . .”

[10] High explosive.

§ 6

“Damn,” said Torrington, “I thought we were going to get a little rest. The men are pretty well all in. Straker’s up at the O. Pip,[11] but he won’t see much. One round a minute, you say.”

They were standing under the trees, just outside the command post—a vast hollow mound of chalk, shored with timber, top covered with new-cut branches.

“Come in, won’t you? We’re just going to have some tea.”

Peter crouched through the timbered doorway; sat down on a ration-box. “I’ll just get on to Straker.” Torrington buzzed on the ’phone above his untidy bunk. “Give me the O. Pip, please. What’s that? You wanted H.Q. Well, the Adjutant’s here.” He handed the receiver to Peter.

Straker’s voice came stuttering down the wire: “I thought you’d like to know that one of our Infantry Brigades is coming up the road. The 2nd, I think. They’re just marching round the Fosse now.”

“Thanks,” said Peter calmly. “Don’t go away. Torrington wants to speak to you.” . . . And to Torrington, “I don’t think I’ll stay for tea, thanks. You might pass the order on to Lodden. . . .”

Peter picked his way diagonally across the field towards the ruined house at the cross-roads. In it, a fire burned. His own men stood about, smoking, gossiping, drinking tea from enamelled mugs. A wounded man limped by, eyes on the ground.

And suddenly, riding round the battered wall at the foot of the Fosse, he saw Colonel Andrews. On either side of him rode Slattery and Simcox. Peter saluted; the Colonel acknowledged; said “Hallo, Jameson”; rode on. Behind him, came the Chalkshires!

“My God,” thought Peter, “my God!”

Were these the lusty singing men he had known at Worthing, the cheery officers he had dined with at Shoreham—these dust-stained weary fellows, plodding two by two either side of the road? Hardly a sound came from their parched throats. Packs dragged at their shoulders; rifles dragged at their hands. Their faces were lined as the faces of old men. Sweat dripped from them. . . . A Company straggled by. Came his old company, Arkwright at their head.

“Hallo, Arkwright.”

“Hallo, P.J.”; and Arkwright rode on. Long Longstaffe and Private Haddock, trudging at his horse’s tail, looked up at the known name.

“Gawd,” said the little man, “if it ain’t our old P.J. ’Aven’t got anyfink to eat about yer, I suppose, sir?”

Others took up the cry: “P.J.! Gawblimey, it’s our old P.J. Ask P.J. ’E’ll give us somefink to eat. Somefink to eat, sir. For the love of Gawd. Somefink to eat. We can’t fight with nuffink in our stomachs, sir. . . .”

Peter ran forward; clutched Arkwright’s bridle. “What the Hell’s happened, Arkwright?”

The schoolmaster looked down from his horse. “I don’t know,” he said wearily, “I don’t know. We’ve been marching like this for three days. And the rations haven’t come. That’s all.”

Behind them, rose the heart-breaking voices: “P.J.! Yes, P.J., I tell yer. ’E’ll get us somefink to eat. Gawd! look at them ruddy gunners. They’ve got their rations, they have. ’Ere, mate, for the love of Gawd, just a bit of that bread.”

Some of the gunners ran out of the ruined house; proffered a crust or two. The men snatched at them; tore them with their teeth as they marched.

“I can’t do anything for them,” whispered Peter. “When did they eat last?”

“Yesterday evening. We were hustled out of Béthune just as they were starting breakfast. . . . Where are we going? . . . God knows, I don’t. The maps haven’t been served out. You’d better get out of this, P.J. It’s only giving the boys false hopes.”

Peter stepped back; and the company plodded by. As they passed him, sweating heads turned, dusty lips murmured. “Can’t you do nuffink for us, sir? Just a bite, sir. Anyfink’ll do, sir.” They looked like faithful dogs whose masters had betrayed them.

“Cheer up, lads,” said Peter, “cheer up!”

“We’ll do our best, sir. Bit ’ard though, our first time in action, ain’t it, sir? . . .”

The files trudged past him in the dust. Behind them, came other files, thousands of them. All dust-stained. All sleepless. All hungry. “Food!” they cried as they marched. “Food!”

_But not a man of them fell out!_

[11] Observation Post.

§ 7

They sat at tea in the bare Mess-room—the Colonel, Purves, Doctor Carson, Morency, Peter. Outside, it darkled. Rain had begun to fall.

“What’s happened to your appetite, P.J.?” chaffed the jovial Irishman.

“Somehow, I don’t feel hungry, Doc,” said our Mr. Jameson.