Part 5

When we got to the rendezvous there were no motor-buses and we had to wait. The nights were turning cold; however, not knowing when the next chance might come, most of the men prepared to sleep. In the rush to get off at the start, I had left my greatcoat with the transport and had only a Burberry and a woollen waistcoat with me. I undid my Burberry, unrolled it, pulled out the waistcoat and put both on. Then I lay down by the side of the road, taking care to have a stout tree between myself and any possible motor-cars--a very wise precaution if one is sleeping by the roadside anywhere near the Front--slipped my haversack under my head and went to sleep. A haversack makes quite a good pillow, and when one is tired any piece of ground, which enables one to lie on one's back and take the weight off one's feet, seems soft, and I was soon asleep. Not for long though, as after half an hour I woke with icy feet. I stamped about to warm them, but the thought of going to sleep again and waking up in another half-hour for the same reason was tiresome, so I cast my eye round in the night for some means of keeping warm. I saw what looked like a stack and going up found it was so. While I was busy pulling hay out of the side to make a bed, the motor-buses arrived, and we proceeded to embark. Having got all the men into my bus I was climbing up by the driver on his seat when he shook his head and pointed to the interior of the vehicle, which was a seething mass of Tommies. I shook my head over this and it looked like an _impasse_, as the other officers were all being made to get inside by the different drivers. However, a knowledge of French and of the ready response of the Frenchman to geniality saved me. For, while pretending to agree to go inside I stood talking with him while we waited to start, offered him a cigarette, and asked him about his wife and family, with the result that when we did set off he said, "_Montez, monsieur_," and made room for me on the seat beside him. He said that every night he was driving troops from one part of the line or another--French troops generally, and it was interesting to hear the way in which the French troops used the motor-buses. The warmth of the engine having reached my feet I fell asleep and nodded and lurched beside him on the seat blissfully unconscious for I don't know how many hours and miles. Once on the journey we halted for a quarter of an hour in a small village. The driver got off the bus and disappeared. Presently he came back and beckoned to me to come with him. I followed him into a cottage where he and several other drivers had had prepared against their arrival hot coffee and rolls of bread and butter. It was extremely kind of the man to have let me in for this feast, which was quite a private affair, and I have seldom enjoyed a cup of coffee more. On we went again and off I went to sleep once more. At last, as day broke, we came to the village where we were to halt, climbed off the buses, and sat down by the roadside watching them roll away the way we had come to get more troops.

As we sat by the roadside we soon saw we were nearing more lively parts, for streams of refugees poured by all the time, flying in front of the advancing Germans who were pouring down in strength after the fall of Antwerp. We sat watching the refugees in silence. So this, then, was the reason for our leaving the Aisne and our long secretive seven days move.

VII. NEARING THE FIRING-LINE

"We shall have a scrap to-day," said the Staff Captain.

"What makes you think so--heard anything?" I asked.

"No, but it is a Sunday, and a fresh batch of officers has arrived," he answered.

Up till then the worst fights in which the regiment had been engaged had always been on a Sunday or just after fresh officers had arrived with reinforcements. The regiment was, at the moment when the Staff Captain spoke to me, leading the brigade in column of route along a road which we knew ran in the direction of Germany. More than that we knew nothing. We had been on the move for the last few days. Where to or for what purpose we had no idea. All we knew was that in the middle of one night we had been roused from our billets where we were resting, and marched off in a northerly direction. We had marched by night and rested by day in different villages. Never once was any definite information given us as to what was on foot.

Now, at last, if the Staff Captain's words were true, the move was coming to an end, and we were going into action. Well, if it had to be it had to be, and I think every man was ready to do what was required of him. The officers and draft who had joined us fresh from England were eager for their chance, but the others who had already had a good measure of fighting, and some of whom had been at Mons and on the Marne and Aisne, had not been sorry for the respite which the past fortnight had given. It had been a rest to be away from the sound of gun and rifle fire and go to sleep knowing the enemy was nowhere near, and that one had anyhow the whole of the next day to live.

However, as we marched along there were certain signs which told us that now this state of peace was over. Refugees began to pass us on the road--old men, farmers, and their wives and serving women. They looked scared, and had few possessions with them. We gathered from them that the Germans were somewhere ahead, pressing forward in vast numbers. Though we did not know it then, it was one of the fierce thrusts for Calais we were being sent to meet.

Further along we were halted in the straggling street of a town. The halt lasted more than the regulation ten minutes, and as we were wondering what was the cause of the delay a troop of British cavalry clattered through. A subaltern rode at the head of the troop, map in hand, hat jauntily over one ear. Presently the remainder of a cavalry brigade came by, and we knew then that the enemy must be somewhere near and that the cavalry were being sent out to get in touch with them.

They made a brave sight, those cavalrymen, clattering out to pave the way for the infantry, and I could not help envying them the excitement and uncertainty of their job.

By the time we advanced the enemy's position would be known and we should be just pawns pushed out at the will of a general to be taken or take.

When the cavalry had gone by we continued our march until we reached a point which was evidently as far as we were to go that evening. Here the Colonel sent for officers commanding companies and told them that his orders were to put out two companies on outpost duty along the banks of a canal and keep two in reserve with him in a farm building. It was the lot of my company to be one of the two on outpost duty.

Going out on outpost duty in the middle of a march is one of the hardest lots that can fall on an infantryman. It means that instead of being able to take his boots off, soap his feet (if they are sore), change his socks, have a dinner of hot stew and a good cup of strong tea, he has to spend the night out in the cold watching over the safety of those who are doing these delightful things. He may get a bit of sleep if he is not on group sentry, but it won't be with the same sense of security, and he must lie down in his heavy equipment and have his rifle under his arm.

Off we started with a regretful glance at the farm and others going to billet there in a cosy barn and cook themselves dinner at the kitchen fire. We soon came to the canal which was to form our outpost line. It lay about half a mile away and looked a very good object to have between ourselves and the enemy. There was one bridge, at which Goyle placed his Maxim. The men he lined along a bank about ten feet high which ran above the tow-path on our side of the canal. This bank proved a blessing in many ways. It saved the men the trouble of entrenching--one of the most irksome items of outpost duty after a long day's march--and provided cover behind which they could walk about, and even enabled them with great care to light small fires to cook tea over until darkness set in. But the bank might also--as Goyle, who had had experience of canal banks at Mons, pointed out--prove a death-trap in the morning, for it would provide a fine mark for the enemy's guns should they get on to it. He therefore insisted on each man scraping himself out a small bomb-proof shelter from under the bank.

By great good fortune, just behind the section for which my platoon was responsible, there was a cottage. The owners, an old man and his wife, came to the door when I knocked. Like so many of the French peasants they preferred to remain in their home in spite of the proximity of war. They were quite pleased to see Evans, my fellow-subaltern, and myself, and the old woman made us some most delicious coffee, boiled us four eggs, and gave us a loaf of bread. She was delighted with the five francs we were able to scrape up, and promised to get us breakfast in the morning.

It was dark when we had finished, and after a look along the lines, I rolled myself up in a quilt, which I had borrowed from the cottage, and with some straw under me went sound asleep on top of the bank. Not a shot was fired during the night or at dawn to disturb us, so that that night on outpost duty was one of unusual peace and comfort.

In the morning we packed up and continued our march. As we marched in fours along the road, I gathered that my suspicion that there had been really nothing in front of us was correct. A mile or two from the canal a regiment of Spahis passed us. Incredible as it may seem, these fine little fellows go to war in the scarlet cloaks in which they are dressed in time of peace. They are the most picturesque troops I have ever seen, with their mettlesome Arab horses, turbans, and sweeping scarlet cloaks fastened across the breast high up to the chin.

Farther on we passed a more forceful sight of war. It was a tiny cavalry ambulance convoy. Just one hooded Red Cross wagon, driven by a blue-coated cavalryman and followed by a cuirassier with bandaged head, riding one horse and leading another with an empty saddle. What a picture that little convoy would have made if some artist could have caught it--the pathetic little wagon with its hidden load of pain, the charger and empty saddle, and the splendid cuirassier with the bandaged head sitting his horse for all the world to see, proud as a lover who has fought for his mistress.

A mile more and our march was done. We were halted by a wayside inn and told to eat our rations. I went into the inn to see if there was any prospect of a drink, but they were sold out of everything except coffee. That day was probably the briskest day's trade the little inn ever did, and looking at it now it seems odd that the landlady and her daughter should have been bustling about intent solely on business within what proved to be actually half a mile of the firing-line. Two hours later our guns were opening fire in a field by the inn on some Germans in the next village.

As we sat there we now saw two regiments of Cuirassiers retiring over the open ground towards us. They were part of a French cavalry division which had been lent to co-operate with the British. Magnificent-looking fellows they were, too, with their breastplates and long black plumes; the officers actually had their breastplates burnished, and looked just like our Life Guards at Whitehall.

When we had eaten our rations we fell in again and moved off, and a few hundred yards down the road came on our cavalry, dismounted behind some buildings. From them we learnt that the enemy had been located about half a mile farther down the road. We were told from this point to leave the road and move in sections across country, and in this formation passed on beyond the cavalry. They had done their job and found the enemy, and it was now for us to come and take up the line.

VIII. GETTING INTO ACTION

After the cavalry had withdrawn my regiment was lined out along a road running at right angles to the road down which we had advanced. From this time onwards for the next ten days I only knew what the companies on my left and right were doing, and not always that. As a platoon commander, I was responsible for the fifty men under me, and all the information it was necessary for me to have was included in the orders which Goyle, my company commander, gave for the movements of my platoon. Therefore, for general knowledge of the battle, I had to rely on such deductions as I could make from sound of firing on my right and left and any gossip I could pick up when I went back to regimental headquarters.

Advancing to attack in these days of modern warfare is a very slow business. It is essential that platoons, companies, and regiments should move forward together in one line and not allow gaps to come between them, and what with one regiment waiting for another to advance, and each waiting for orders from their respective colonels, who in turn are waiting for the word from the Brigadier, there is often considerable delay. This delay is to a certain extent mitigated by the general policy of junior officers of pushing forward on their own initiative until they are stopped.

As a platoon commander one works with the platoon commander on one's left or right, leaving the platoon sergeant to keep in touch with the platoon on the other flank. To have a fellow subaltern to talk to as one lies in a ditch being shelled is a great comfort.

However, we were kept along the road we had first lined for about an hour before any further move was made, and most of the officers of the regiment congregated in a little group while we were waiting for orders. I was much interested in watching the doings of some gunner officers who had come up. Two of them were surveying the ground in front through field-glasses. From where we were we could see nothing, and as there had not been a shot fired that day we did not know how many of the enemy there were in front of us or where they were. However, the gunners were able to see something, for, after a bit, they conferred with the battery commander. Acting on their information he sent back a message for the guns to come up, and up they dashed, wheeled into line in the field, and unlimbered.

I happened to be standing near the battery commander, and ventured to ask him what he was going to do.

"I'm going to shell ----ville," he replied.

He was a squat, stumpy little major, who looked as though he had just made a capital breakfast, and he spoke of his intentions with as much complacency as if he was going out for a morning's partridge-shooting. Two minutes later he had given a crisp order, and the six businesslike grey nozzles had barked in sharp succession, and sent six shells screaming over the quiet countryside. Poor ----ville! Many shells have since crashed into the pretty little French village, but I shall never forget seeing its baptism of fire or the complacent way in which the tubby little major announced that he was going to shell the place.

Soon after this orders came for the infantry to advance, and Goyle sent for his four platoon commanders and gave his orders. Our company was responsible for keeping touch with the Dorchester Regiment on our left; No. 5 platoon, under Evans, was immediately responsible for this, with No 6 (mine) next, and 7 (under Edwards), and 8 (under Mayne), on the right. This was to be the first day's fighting for Edwards and Mayne, as they had only come out from England with reinforcements two days before. Edwards had been a Sandhurst cadet a month ago, but Mayne was a retired officer who had fought in South Africa; however, there was nothing to choose in composure between the boy and the man.

Goyle took us to a point where we could see the ground we were to move over, and showed us a ditch which he wished us to crawl along until we reached another ditch at right angles to it which we were to line. In this way we should be able to do the first part of the advance without being seen at all. Evans took his platoon out first, and when he had got a good start I followed with mine. He reached the ditch without mishap, but here we had to remain some while, as the Dorchester Regiment on our left had not got up in line with us. Verbal messages then passed between Evans and the subaltern in command of the right platoon of the Dorchester Regiment. Evans wanted to know why the Dorchesters were not in line with him, and the subaltern of the Dorchester's why he, Evans, had advanced so far. Up till now our guns behind had been firing steadily over our heads, and not a sound or sign had come from the enemy, but now suddenly, in the middle of the argument between Evans and the Dorchester subaltern, there was a different whistle in the air, a crash, and a white puff of smoke just behind us.

"Hullo!" Evans looked round and slid quickly to the bottom of the ditch.

The enemy's first shell was followed by two others, which burst about the same place, and then by three which fell farther over us.

"They are after our guns," said Evans.

This was my first taste of hostile shell-fire, but the shells passed so harmlessly overhead that it hardly seemed as though we were under fire at all. After a while orders came for us to continue our advance. This time my platoon had to lead the way and advance up a ditch to another parallel ditch about three hundred yards away. We gained the ditch without incident, but it was a queer experience, pushing forward over the empty fields, never knowing when we were coming on the enemy or what lay ahead of us. When my platoon and the platoon under Evans were safely in the ditch, No. 7 was told to follow. To reach our line No. 7 had to cross over some open ground, and this proved their undoing, for midway across a shell burst just in front of them, followed by another and another.

"By Jove," said Evans, "Edward's lot has been spotted."

We watched. Edwards, as soon as he came under fire, had halted his men beneath a bit of bank, and from where we were we could see no sign of a man above the surface of the ground. But the enemy battery had evidently found their mark, for they plastered the little bank with shrapnel. I watched, able to do nothing and sorry in my heart. It was a very fierce baptism of fire for a Sandhurst cadet, and I wondered how the boy was faring.

It was now well on towards dusk, and as the light failed the firing stopped. Slowly, what was left of the exposed platoon began to creep up to our ditch, and much to my delight Edwards himself came up unhurt with the first man. He said he had had ten men hit, a man sitting beside him killed, and a tree just above blown in half. The boy seemed none the worse for his experience, and only a little anxious lest he had exposed his men unnecessarily to fire.

It now looked as though we were to spend the night where we were. I posted a patrol out in some bushes ahead and told the men to get to work with their entrenching tools to improve their cover. As it grew darker, the strain of looking out into the night for an enemy who never appeared became oppressive. Evans reported from the left that he could see no sign of the Dorchester Regiment, and we appeared to be in rather an isolated position. Much to my relief Goyle came up soon and said he intended to withdraw the company to the place whence we had started. It was a great relief to be able to lie down close to our own guns and near the Colonel and regimental headquarters. As soon as the men were settled I went back to the first-line transport to get the officers' rations for the next day. Goyle had given me the job of feeding the five officers in the company, leaving it to me to make arrangements for cooking where possible, and, when not, to see that each had a parcel of food to last him through the day. I found the regimental quartermaster-sergeant busy issuing rations to the different company orderly corporals. The work was being done in a barn by the light of a guttering candle. In a corner of the barn five of Edwards's platoon, who had come under the shrapnel fire, lay stretched out stiff and cold.

The quartermaster-sergeant saluted me cheerily and packed my ration-box with our rations, giving me a piece of bacon to divide between us, a wedge of cheese, fifteen army biscuits, a tin of jam, and three small tins of bully beef. With the box under one arm I started back for the company. On the way, having learnt from a sentry where regimental headquarters were, I just peeped in to see what was going on. After the day's work, there is often something to be picked up at regimental headquarters in the way of a tot of whisky from a bottle sent down by the Brigadier, or a helping from a dixie of soup sent up by the master-cook. Young subalterns are not supposed to hang about waiting for these delicacies, but if they do push a hungry face round the door and hastily withdraw it a kindly colonel or adjutant will often ask them in. Having therefore located regimental headquarters as being in the kitchen of a farm, I tapped on the door and asked if anyone had seen Goyle.

"Yes, here he is", said the Colonel, and I saw my company commander's nose emerge from a steaming cup of coffee. Round the fire were the Colonel, Adjutant, scout and machine-gun officers, the doctor, Goyle, and two other company commanders. These little informal gatherings are held by most regiments when the day's work is done and the night is not going to be busy, and a great relief it is, too, to be able to laugh and see the funny side of things after the strain of an anxious day. At the first sound of firing they melt.

I was given a cup of coffee and wheedled a cigarette out of a scout officer, who had just had some sent out from England. After warming myself for a quarter of an hour I said good-night and returned to the company across the field, taking with me a bundle of straw from the farmyard, which made a capital bed.

IX. AN ATTACK AT DAWN

I had not been sleeping long when I was awakened by a foot gently feeling the small of my back.

Looking up, I saw Evans standing over me.

"Goyle wants you," he said; "he is just down there." Evans pointed to a dark corner of the ditch in which the company was spending the night.

I got up from the pile of straw on which I was lying and followed him. Goyle was squatting on the ground with a map and an electric torch which he was shading under his greatcoat. He had just come back from battalion headquarters, where he had been to receive orders.

"We are going to attack at dawn," he began, as soon as his four platoon commanders were settled round him. "We are to gain the line ----," he indicated the points on the map which marked the position we were to capture. "The Dorchesters have orders to take ----ville"--he pointed to a village on our left--"and the --th Brigade are to take ----"--he pointed to another village marked on the right. "The attack begins as soon as it is light, which will be 5 A.M. I want you to see now that the platoons return their tools" (we had been digging earlier in the night), "that each man has his rations, and that twenty-five bandoliers of spare ammunition are carried per platoon. The mist will cover the first part of our advance, and there must be no firing until the order is given by me."

We went off to carry out the instructions given, and then lay down to wait for the dawn.