CHAPTER IX

SAPPING AND MINING: THE “LUCKY COMPANY”

[In blowing up bridges, repairing the ravages of the enemy, in throwing pontoons over rivers, and in countless other ways, the Royal Engineers have contributed largely to the success of the British operations in the war. These splendid men, known a century ago as the Royal Sappers and Miners, have not only worked with the greatest energy since the war began, but they have also seen some hard fighting. This story of Sapper William Bell, 23rd Field Company, Royal Engineers, gives a picture of the many-sided operations of the magnificent corps whose mottoes are “Everywhere” and “Where right and glory lead.”]

Sheer hard work was the order of the day for our chaps from the time I landed in France from an old Irish cattle-boat till the day when I was packed off back to England suffering from rheumatic fever.

We worked excessively hard, and so did everybody else. Wherever there was an obstacle it had to go, and the infantry themselves time after time slaved away at digging and clearing, all of which was over and above the strain of the fighting and tremendous marching. It was a rare sight to see the Guards sweeping down the corn with their bayonets--sickles that reaped many a grim harvest then and later.

It was during the early stage of the war that bridges were blown up in wholesale fashion to check the German advance, and the work being particularly dangerous we had some very narrow escapes. A very near thing happened at Soissons.

We had been ordered to blow up a bridge, and during the day we charged it with gun-cotton, and were waiting to set the fuse until the last of our troops had crossed over. That was a long business, and exciting enough for anybody, because for hours the men of a whole division were passing, and all the time that great passing body of men, horses, guns, waggons and so on, was under a heavy artillery fire from the Germans.

At last the bridge was clear--it had served its purpose; the division was on the other side of the river, and all that remained to be done was to blow up the bridge. Three sections of our company retired, and the remaining section was left behind to attend to the fuse.

Very soon we heard a terrific report, and the same awful thought occurred to many of us--that there had been a premature explosion and that the section was lost. One of my chums, judging by the time of the fuse, said it was certain that the section was blown up, and indeed it was actually reported that an officer and a dozen men had been killed.

But, to our intense relief, we learned that the report was wrong; but we heard also how narrowly our fellows had escaped, and how much they owed to the presence of mind and coolness of the officer. It seems that as soon as the fuse was fired the lieutenant instinctively suspected that something was wrong, and instantly ordered the men to lie flat, with the result that they were uninjured by the tremendous upheaval of masonry, though they were a bit shaken when they caught us up on the road later. This incident gives a good idea of the sort of work and the danger that the Royal Engineers were constantly experiencing in the earlier stages of the war, so that one can easily understand what is happening now in the bitter winter-time.

An Engineer, like the referee in a football match, sees a lot of the game, and it was near a French village that we had a fine view of a famous affair.

We had been sent to the spot on special duty, and were resting on the crest of a hill, watching the effects of the enemy’s field-guns.

Suddenly in the distance we saw figures moving. At first we could not clearly make them out, but presently we saw that they were Algerian troops, and that there seemed to be hosts of them. They swarmed on swiftly, and took up a position in some trenches near us.

The Algerians, like our Indian troops, hate trench fighting, and long to come to grips with the enemy. We knew this well enough, but we realised the peril of leaving cover and advancing towards an enemy who was very close, and who was sweeping the ground with an uncommonly deadly fire.

Putting all fear aside, remembering only their intense desire to come to grips, giving no thought to what must happen to them, the Algerians with enthusiastic shouts sprang from the trenches and bounded, like the sons of the desert they are, across the shell-swept zone that separated them from the annihilating gunfire of the enemy.

What happened was truly terrible. The Algerians were literally mowed down, as they charged across the deadly zone, and for a piece of sheer recklessness I consider that this attack was as good--or as bad--as the charge of the Light Brigade.

The Algerians were cut to pieces in the mad attempt to reach the German batteries, and the handful of survivors were forced to retire. To their everlasting credit be it said that, in withdrawing under that terrible fire, they did their best to bring their wounded men away. They picked up as many of the fallen as they could and slung them across the shoulder, as the best way of carrying them out of danger.

I shall never forget the scene that met my eyes when we returned to the village. Women were weeping and wringing their hands as the survivors carried their wounded through the streets--for the French are deeply attached to their Colonial troops--and the men of the place were nearly as bad; even some of our chaps, who are not too easily moved, were upset.

While in this locality we had a very warm time of it, for we were continuously under artillery fire. We were in a remarkably good position for seeing the battle, some of our batteries being on our right, some on our left, and the German guns in front. It was really hot work, and when we were not hard at it carrying out our own duties, we took cover on the other side of a hill near the road; but some of our men got rather tired of cover, and found the position irksome; but if you so much as showed yourself you were practically done for. One day our trumpeter exposed himself, just for a moment; but it was enough. He was instantly struck and badly wounded.

At another time we were in our sleeping-quarters in a school-house, and had an escape that was truly miraculous. We had settled down and were feeling pretty comfortable, when the Germans suddenly started shelling us; suddenly, too, with a terrific crash, a shell dropped and burst in the very midst of us.

Theoretically, the lot of us in that school-house ought to have been wiped out by this particular shell, but the extraordinary fact is that though every one was badly shaken up, only one of our men was wounded--all the rest of us escaped. Luckily we had the hospital men at hand, and the poor chap who had been knocked over was taken away at once to the doctors.

We had had a very hard, hot time, and were glad when the French came and relieved us, and gave our division a bit of rest and change. The Germans in that particular part were thoroughly beaten, and a batch of 500 who were covering the retreat were captured by the French.

They had started for Paris, and were very near it when they were bagged. I dare say they got to Paris all right. So did we, for we entrained for the city, but stayed there less than an hour. I had a chance of seeing something of the thorough way in which Paris had been prepared for defence, and on my way to Ypres I noticed how extensively the bridges that were likely to be of any use to the Germans had been destroyed. The loss in bridges alone in this great war has been stupendous.

When we entered Ypres it was a beautiful old cathedral city; now it is a shapeless mass of ruins, a melancholy centre of the longest and deadliest battle that has ever been fought in the history of the world. We had a rousing reception from the British troops who were already in the city, and a specially warm greeting from our own R.E. men, who gave me a huge quantity of pipes, tobacco and cigarettes from home, to divide amongst our company.

We were soon in the thick of the fiercest and most eventful part of the fighting. We were put to work digging trenches for the infantry and fixing up wire entanglements. The wire was in coils half a mile

long, and what with that and the barbs and the weight, the carrying and dragging and fixing was a truly fearsome job.

And not only that, but it was extremely dangerous, because we were constantly under fire--sometimes we were fixing up wire within a few hundred yards of the German lines. Before getting to Ypres we had covering parties of infantry to protect us from snipers and sudden attacks; but at Ypres this protection was rarely given, because of the very heavy pressure on the firing line. We were ceaselessly sniped; but on the whole our casualties were remarkably few--but we were always known as the “Lucky Company.”

In addition to doing this hard and dangerous work, we were roughing it with a vengeance. Our sleeping-quarters were dug-outs in a wood, and were lined with straw, when we could get it. The enemy always make a special point of “searching” woods with shells, and we were so situated that we were pestered day and night by the German gunners, who were hoping to draw our artillery fire and so locate our own batteries. Anything like rest was utterly out of the question owing to these artillery duels, which were the bane of our life.

Silence was essential for our work, and we used muffled mauls--our big wooden mallets.

One moonlight night we were going to our usual duties when a shell flew past, exploding with terrific force within ten paces of us. We took it to be one of the Germans’ random shots, but after going a short distance we had more shells bursting about us, and bullets whizzing, telling us that the enemy’s snipers were at it again. Once more we justified our nickname of the “Lucky Company,” for we had only one man hit--a fine chap, whose fighting qualities were well known to us, so we grinned when he said to me, after being struck on the shoulder, “I should like to have a look at that German, Bill!”

In the moonlight we offered a first-rate target to the hidden German snipers, and they certainly ought to have done more with us than just hit one man; but compared with British soldiers, the Germans, with rare exceptions, are only “third-class” shots. I have mentioned this little affair chiefly by way of showing the constant danger to which field engineers are exposed.

The Germans at that time had their eyes on us properly, and the very next day they did their level best to make up for their sorry performance in the moonlight.

We had been told off to dig trenches for the infantry on our left, and we started out on the job. Rain had been falling heavily, the ground was like a quagmire, and we had to struggle through marshy ground and ploughed fields.

This was bad enough in all conscience, but to help to fill the cup of our misery the German snipers got at us, and gave us what was really a constant hail of bullets. We floundered on, doing our dead best to reach a certain wood. After floundering for some time, we were ordered to halt. By that time we had reached the wood, and the fire was truly awful.

Behind our tool-carts we usually fasten a big biscuit-tin, which is a big metal case, and as the sniping became particularly furious, four of our men bolted for shelter behind the biscuit-tin. I don’t know what it is in the British soldier that makes him see the humour of even a fatal situation, but it happened that the rest of us were so tickled at the sight of our comrades scuttling that we burst out laughing.

But we didn’t laugh long, for shells as well as bullets came, and we saw that the Germans were concentrating their fire upon us. They were going for all they were worth at the wood, and our only chance of safety lay in securing cover. We made a dash for the trees, and I sheltered behind one.

Then an extraordinary thing happened. A shell came and literally chopped down the tree. The shell spared my life, but the tumbling tree nearly got me. Luckily I skipped aside, and just escaped from being crushed to death by the crashing timber.

The firing was kept up for a long time after that, but we went on with our work and finished it, and then we were ordered to occupy the trenches we had just dug. We were glad to get into them, and it was pleasant music to listen to our own infantry, who had come into action, and were settling the accounts of some of the German snipers.

Later on we were told to get to a farmhouse, and we did, and held it for some hours, suffering greatly from thirst and hunger, in consequence of having missed our meals since the early morning. Some of our tool-carts had been taken back by the infantry, and this was a far more perilous task than some people might think, for the carts are usually filled with detonators, containing high explosives like gun-cotton, and an exploding shell hitting a cart would cause devastation.

The farmhouse was ranked as a “safe place,” and we reckoned that we were lucky to get inside it; but it proved anything but lucky, and I grieve to say that it was here that my particular chum, an old schoolmate, met his death. We had scarcely reached the “safe place” when the cursed shells began to burst again, and I said to myself that we were bound to get some souvenirs. And we did.

My comrades had brought their tea to a hut, and I went there to get my canteen to take to the cookhouse. No sooner had I left the hut than I heard a fearful explosion. One gets used to these awful noises, and I took no notice of it at the time; but shortly afterwards I was told that my chum had been hit, and I rushed back to the hut. Terrible was the sight that met me. Eight of our men were lying wounded, amongst them my friend. With a heavy heart I picked him up, and he died in my arms soon afterwards. Two other men died before their injuries could be attended to--and this single shell also killed two officers’ chargers.

It was soon after this that I went through what was perhaps my most thrilling experience. Again it was night, and we were engaged in our usual work, when suddenly we heard the sound of heavy rifle fire. Throwing down our tools, we grabbed our rifles. We had not the slightest idea of what was happening, but looking cautiously over the parapet of the trench which we were working on, we could dimly see dark figures in front, and took them to be Germans.

We were ordered to fire, the word being passed from man to man to take careful aim; but owing to the darkness this was not an easy thing to do. We fired, and instantly we were greeted with terrific shouting, and we knew that the Germans were charging. Not an instant was lost. With fixed bayonets, out from the trench we jumped, the infantry on our right and left doing the same.

Carrying out a bayonet charge is an experience I shall never forget. One loses all sense of fear, and thinks of nothing but going for and settling the enemy. For my own part I distinctly recollect plunging my bayonet into a big, heavy German, and almost instantly afterwards clubbing another with the butt of my rifle. It was only a short fight, but a very fierce one. The Germans gave way, leaving their dead and wounded behind them.

When the charge was over we went back to our trenches, taking our wounded with us. Our company’s casualties numbered about a dozen, the majority of the men suffering from more or less serious wounds; but we were pretty well satisfied, and felt that we had earned our sleep that night.

The next day I had another close shave, a shell bursting very near me and killing twelve horses belonging to the 15th Hussars, who were on patrol duty.

After seven weeks of this famous and awful fighting at Ypres, I was taken ill with rheumatic fever--and no wonder, after such work, and sleeping in such places as we were forced to occupy. After a spell in the hospital at Ypres, I was moved on from place to place, till I made the final stage of the journey to England.

A remarkable thing happened during one of the heavy bombardments that we endured. A shell came and fell plump in the midst of us, and it really seemed as if we were all doomed. But the shell did not explode, and on examining the cap, it was found to bear the number “23.” That, you will remember, is the number of my own company, so you can understand that we felt more justified than ever in calling ourselves the “Lucky Company.”