CHAPTER XIX

THE SOMME

There's a shell as 'as fell in the mud, A bloomin' big shell in the mud, A bloomin' big shell, An' it might give us 'ell. As it would if it wasn't a dud.

I was watching and saw where it goed, Exactly the spot where it goed, In a sweat o' a funk, I watched where it sunk, And I'm thankful it didn't explode.

(_From "The Dud."_)

The trench was quite a good one for the Somme, about six foot deep with here and there a few dug-outs where men could sleep and eat.

There, on a certain autumn morning, we find the men of the London Irish again, waiting to cross No Man's Land and attack the Germans. A month has passed since they left Gorre and during that time they have seen much fighting in which they have earned great renown.

"We're too well known," Bubb often remarked bitterly, but beneath all his grumbling it could be seen that he was more than a little proud of his regiment. "We're too well known that's wot it is," he would continue. "If there's anything to be done oo's to do it? Us. We're always in the thick o' it. If the 'eads 'ear that there's a stiff job to be done and it wants an army corps to do it, wot do the 'eads say. They say: 'Put the London Irish, the footballers of Loos on the job. They'll soon do it.'"

On this morning Bubb was preparing breakfast in a dug-out while Bowdy Benners was sleeping in a corner and Flanagan was out on the parapet watching for Tanks. These monsters were going to cross presently, but as yet they were not to be seen. In front, the self-sown crops were waving in the breeze, and the barbed wire entanglements showed red and rusty over the meadows. Nothing of the German wires remained; they had been blown to bits. The German trenches could be seen in front, dipping out of sight into a natural valley on the left and losing all outline amongst the tree stumps on the right. The stumps were all that remained of the well-known High Wood; the locality was pitted with shell-holes and littered with dead, friend and foe, who lay together in silent communion. The Germans still held the wood.

Bubb, having prepared breakfast, went to the door and called Flanagan in, then he turned round and kicked Bowdy on the shins.

"Git out 't," he said. "Ye're not going to fight on an empty tummy, are yer?"

Flanagan came into the dug-out. "That smells A.1." he remarked. "But the Tanks," he said. "I can't see them yet. I hope they're not late."

"I hope they're not," Bowdy replied, and yawned. The arrival of the Tanks did not interest him apparently. He reached out his hand for the mess-tin of tea and drank.

"We're givin' them 'ell wiv our guns," said Bubb. "Blowin' the place to 'ell.... That's a good drop o' tea, ain't it?"

"Indeed, it's damned good," Flanagan replied. "I'm out for a V.C. this time, anyhow.... Where's Snogger?"

"He's outside, somewhere," said Bowdy. "He thinks that he'll not come through this scrap. He is quite nervy."

"I wouldn't mind 'avin' a job at these 'ere tanks," said Bubb. "It'd be damn good sport.... 'Ave another piece of bacon, Bowdy?"

"Thank you," Bowdy replied, taking the half rasher which Bubb handed to him. "I'm damned hungry.... Here, did you see Captain Thorley this morning. He was giving cigarettes away. Turkish they were; must have cost a penny apiece. Fat ones, like a cigar almost."

"'E's a good bloke, old Thorley," said Bubb.

"I wonder if the tanks are in sight yet," said Flanagan. "They're goin' to make a clean sweep of all the High Wood.... What's the time now?"

"A quarter to seven," Bowdy replied, looking at his wrist watch. "It'll all be over at ten o'clock one way or the other The Guards and Northumberland Fusiliers are round one side of the wood and it's almost closed in."

Having finished their breakfast, the men went outside into the trench. The shells could be heard bursting on the German lines, and the enemy were replying. The machine guns were going pit-pit, and bullets were ripping the English sandbags.

"There, look!" shouted Bowdy Benners, pointing at the sky overhead. His two mates looked up to see an aeroplane making its way across to the enemy's lines. It was followed by two, three, half-a-dozen, flying low.

"There, the tanks!" somebody shouted, and a line of faces peeped over the sandbags. One man in Benners' bay got hit through the head and fell to the floor of the trench. The remainder drew back discreetly and kept their heads under cover. Sergeant Snogger appeared suddenly, smoking a cigarette and paring his nails with a clasp-knife. He leant his back against the parados and looked at the trio.

"Cheero, sarg," said Bubb. "Fancy yer chance?"

"Not 'arf," said Snogger. "It'll be a walk-over."

"Pass the word along for Sergeant Snogger," came the message up the trench.

The sergeant closed his knife, put it in his pocket and rushed round the traverse.

"I didn't see the tanks," said Bubb. "There are none 's far as I could see."

"I saw one," Bowdy said. "Over on the right."

"There were two," said Flanagan. "Crawlin' along as if they were pickin' up worms. Big, ugly lookin' brutes they were. God! they'll make the Germans sit up.... You have yer helmet twisted round, Bubb."

Bubb adjusted his helmet, lit a cigarette, pulled his rifle towards him, cleaned a speck of dirt from his bayonet, then put his rifle back to its original place. Bowdy and Flanagan followed the movement with intent eyes. From their look it might seem as if their very existence depended on the job which Bubb had done.

"Yes, it's some strafing," said Bowdy. "The Germans are getting enough to go on with, anyway. Phew!"

The three men crouched to avoid the fragments from a shell which burst on the parapet to the left. Somebody called out for stretcher-bearers and the message sped along the trench.

"It'll be quite easy getting across here," said Bowdy. "One whistle and up you go and the best of luck. Here, I haven't got a cigarette.... Oh, yes, I have, here they are, I put them into the wrong pocket. Have one, Flanagan--one Bubb?"

Bubb took the cigarette, placed it behind his ear and continued smoking the one which he had in his mouth. "I'll keep this'n to smoke when we get across there," he said.

"It's about time to move now," said Bowdy, and he raised his head cautiously and looked over.

"There!" he said. "They're making head-way. No damned stopping them. Bravo! the tanks! Good old tanks!"

"Bravo!" said Bubb, sticking his head over. But he pulled it back quickly, for a bullet ripped a sandbag beside him, and a handful of clay and chalk was slapped into his face.

"Gawd, that's a bloomin' poultice," he muttered, ducking down and wiping the grit from his eyes. "It 'asn't knocked my 'ead off, but I feels as if it 'as.... I'm not goin' to look over again till the whistle's blown."

Bowdy Benners placed a mirror on a bayonet and held it over the trench. Looking in it he could see the field in front, the barbed wire entanglements, the shell-holes, the German trench on which the shells were falling, gouging out the occupants. And the tanks. Yes, he could see them crossing, mammoths moving forward with irrevocable decision, serious minded leviathans which knew their business and went about it in a deliberate manner. Bullets rattled on their hides, struck sparks out of their scaly armour, but had no effect on the air of detachment with which the great monsters in steel pursued their inexorable way. Nosing complacently forward, they crawled down into shell-craters, hiccoughed up again, straightened themselves out, and stealthily pursued their way towards the enemy trench.

"They're getting on," said Bowdy. "We'll soon be over, too." He detached the mirror from its rest and placed it in his pocket. "I never knew a better one for shaving; it's so handy."

Sergeant Snogger came into the bay again frantic with anger.

"I would like to know oo sent that bloody message up," he thundered. "Gawd, I'll find out, and then someone will be damned unlucky."

He stopped, then gave an inarticulate cry and collapsed in a heap. Bubb's jaw dropped and he stared at Snogger with dilated eyes. The sergeant lay silent and motionless, death was instantaneous for a shrapnel bullet had smashed his spine.

Bowdy and Flanagan lifted the dead man in their arms and placed him on the firestep.

"I never seed anybody knocked out so sudden," said Bubb in a nervous voice. "One minute speakin' and then...."

"Don't think of it," said Flanagan. "The tanks are well on now. What a funny thing--tanks. They are as old as the hills. Montaigne speaks about them. He calls them coaches. Listen."

He fumbled in his haversack, brought out a dilapidated volume--Florio's translation of Montaigne and read:--

"Were my memory sufficiently informed of them I would not think my time lost, heere to set down the infinite variety which histories present to us of the use of coaches in the service of warre: divers according to the nations and different according to the ages: to my seeming of great effect and necessity.... Even lately in our fathers' time, the Hungarians did very availefully bring them into fashion and profitably set them a work against the Turks; every one of them containing a Targattier and a Muskettier, with a certain number of harquebuses or calivers, ready charged; and so ranged that they might make good use of them: and all over covered with a pavesado, after the manner of a Galliotte. They made the front of their battaile with three thousand such coaches: and after the Canon had playd, caused them to discharge and shoote of a volie of small shott upon their enemies, before they should know or feel, what the rest of the forces could doe: which was no small advancement; or if not this, they mainely drove those coaches amidde the thickest of their enemies' squadrons, with purpose to breake, disroute and make waie through them. Besides the benefit and helpe they might make of them, in any suspicious or dangerous place to flanke their troupe marching from place to place: or in hast to encompasse, to embarricade, to cover or fortifie any lodgment or quarter."

Captain Thorley appeared round the corner, his hand bandaged. A splinter of shell had caught him a few minutes before.

"Getting ready, boys?" he asked. "You'll have no difficulty in crossing here.... Another two minutes.... Snogger dead?... What a pity!"

He disappeared.

"I wish we did get across," said Bubb. "I'm fed up wiv this waitin': I want to get at 'em."

Then a whistle was blown; another. The men scrambled up the parapet and tumbled out on to the levels.

The bombardment seemed to increase; the German trenches were hidden by smoke, flying dirt and logs. Their dug-outs were going sky-high. Over it all, two aeroplanes glided gracefully through the air. The tanks were still going forward. A platoon on the right had started too soon and the men were half-way across. Bowdy Benners and Bubb walked abreast, chatting leisurely. Flanagan had disappeared.

The air was alive with bullets, men were falling all round, groaning and screaming. In front the tanks had both stopped, one in a shell-crater, the other in a sap. The artillery lengthened its range and the shells were falling behind the first line and the High Wood. But the enemy machine guns had not been silenced, the High Wood was yet as venomous as a wasps' nest.

"Forward!" The men advanced at a steady pace, their bayonets in air. One man had his entrenching tool fastened over his stomach as a bullet shield. Bowdy saw him get hit in the head.... The machine gun fire was deadly; dozens fell and lay writhing. A tall youngster with a long neck came to a dead stop, dropped his bayonet to the ground, put his hand inside the waist of his trousers and groped around as if trying to catch a flea. "I've copped a packet this time," he said and lay down.

The flanks of the marching line converged on the centre despite the orders of the officers to the men. "Keep your distance!" "Spread out a bit there!" etc. But the men felt inclined to huddle together, like frightened children.... The machine guns seemed to intensify their fire, the bullets struck the earth in a steady and incessant stream. On the left a party of men advanced steadily. A shell dropped in the middle of them....

Captain Thorley, who was leading his platoon, turned round.

"Under cover," he shouted. "It's no good going ahead yet. It's murder."

The men disappeared into adjacent shell-holes, others brought in the wounded. The machine-guns swept the field with insistent vehemence.

Bowdy and Bubb joined themselves together in a deep crater.

"Couldn't 'ave a more swagger shell-'ole than this'n," said Spudhole. "We're in luck's way. Flanagan got 'it," he continued. "I saw 'im cop it. Right froo the 'ead. 'E didn't say nuffin', just fell and stiffened."

He placed his back against the sloping wall of the swagger shell-hole and drawing his cigarette from his mouth with a graceful swan-like motion of the arm, he turned to Bowdy Benners.

"Blimey, I don't feel 'arf a swell 'ere," he said. "Wouldn't mind stickin' it in this 'ere place for duration.... Eh, wot's that, Bowdy?"

A German shell came out from the unknown humming like a gigantic beetle. Nearer it came and nearer.

"It's going to fall wide," said Bowdy, although he instinctively guessed that it would fall very near.

It swept over the two men's heads with a vicious swish and dived into the opposite wall of the shell-hole. Bowdy went red in the face, Bubb's jaw dropped, his eyes protruded as if they were going to spring out of his head. The shock paralysed the two boys for a second; they were so unnerved that the feeling of fear was momentarily denied them. They stared blankly at the shell which had only entered about a foot into the ground. The base of the projectile was showing, it might explode at any moment. They were in a position similar to that of a patient to whose body a local anæsthetic is applied and who sees the surgeon at work but does not feel the knife. Bowdy was the first to recover his composure.

"Clear out of it, Spudhole!" he yelled, and both clambered across the rim of the crater into the open.

They lay out there for a few minutes and as the shell did not go off they went back again. Outside the machine-gun bullets were ripping up the ground. The two men lay down quietly without speaking a word. Bubb put the stump of his cigarette back in his mouth and relit it.

"There! See the aeroplanes?" said Bowdy. "They're flying damned low over the enemy trench. Hear their horns going? Signalling to the artillery, I suppose."

"S'pose so," said Bubb, flattening out in the bottom of the shell-crater and drawing his cigarette from behind his ear. He put it in his mouth and lit it. "I knew it would be wanted," he said.

Ten minutes passed. The tanks were still stuck and showed no sign of movement. The English artillery opened on the High Wood again. All guns within range had apparently chosen it for their objective now. The oft-lacerated tree-stumps were broken like glass, they were dragged out by the roots and hurled broadcast; the wood was disgorging its entrails. The unfortunate wretches who held it were in a ghastly situation. To remain in their dug-outs was death. Their manner of dying was left to their choice. They could come out into the hurricane and be blown to bits, they could stay in their lairs and be buried alive. They were confronted by two evils, one as bad as the other. The machine-guns were silent now; probably they were all out of action.

Bowdy put up his head and looked across towards the German lines.

"God, they're getting it!" he said. "And the tanks are still stuck.... There! There're hundreds of the Germans coming across with their hands up.... One batch is unlucky; a shell has dropped in the middle of them."

"Far as I can see, we'll 'ave nuffink to do when this strafin' is over, bar go over an' take the trenches," said Bubb, who was looking at the nerve-shaken Germans as they came rushing towards the craters. "I 'ope we get relieved to-night after we've finished."

"'Course we'll get relieved," said Bowdy. "We've been in four days now.... Here, what the devil's wrong with you?"

A wild-eyed German, armed with a rifle and bayonet, came to the rim of the crater and lunged at Bubb. The Cockney, elusive as an eel, slipped out of reach, seized his own rifle and fired at the man. The German fell forward, dead, the bullet had gone through his neck and pierced the jugular vein.

"Funny bloke, that feller," said Bubb.

"I think he had gone mad," said Bowdy, changing his position and getting clear of the prostrate form which had fallen into the crater.

At this moment the artillery fire ceased ravaging the German front line, the range was lengthened and the guns devoted their attention to the enemy's support trenches.

A whistle was blown....

The men went forward, Captain Thorley leading. The bandage on his hand was very dirty now.... The enemy trenches were very quiet, not a rifle spoke. Parties of Germans came out with their hands in air, muttering "Kamerad! Kamerad!" They were taken prisoners.

"It's a damned tame endin'," said Bubb. "After all that strafing."

"It's like a grand overture without a performance following," said Captain Thorley who overheard Bubb's remark.

"Yes, sir," Bubb replied. "'Ave yer a match to spare, sir. I forgot mine. Left them in the last dug-out, sir."

Every move augmented the number of prisoners, they rose from the ground and from shell-holes and gave themselves up. Now and again an apparently dead German was tickled with the point of a bayonet and he came to life with startling suddenness. Bubb discovered a helmet, put it on and put up his hands in imitation of the Germans who were surrendering.... Bowdy discovered a box of cigars somewhere and lit up, then he handed the box round.

"Have a smoke, boys," said Captain Thorley. "Just to celebrate the taking of the High Wood...."

At that moment a shrapnel shell burst over the captain's head and he fell to the ground mortally wounded. A bullet had hit him on the temple. A few men rushed in to his assistance, Bubb leading. But nothing could be done. His brains were oozing out.... Consciousness was lost, death would come in a few moments. A stretcher-bearer appeared, then another, and they carried the captain away. He died before reaching the dressing-station.

The London Irish now set about consolidating their position and spent long hours of spade-work on the job. Next night the men were relieved.