Part 4

Slowly, from the august sources wherein the strategy of armies has its birth, the true intentions of the Allies percolated. Looking back now, it seems that too much was allowed to be known from the first. Documents containing detailed programmes of the proposed operations were circulated in some cases as much as a fortnight before the selected day, and in the field it is impossible to prevent the contents of such documents becoming common knowledge within an incredibly short time, which is practically equivalent to sending the originals across to the enemy with one's compliments. It was subsequently established by the examination of prisoners that the German General Staff had full knowledge of our plans many days before the attack took place, and had, indeed, made dispositions to meet it. It is undoubtedly essential to circulate beforehand exact instructions as to the part that each unit is to perform in contemplated operations, but it is extremely doubtful if it is expedient to do so until the last possible moment. Apart from the danger of leakage to the enemy, it is always found, as indeed in this case, that the interval that elapses between the receipt of instructions and their execution is filled with a storm of amplifications, contradictions and amendments, poured out by intermediate commanders, until the unfortunate commander of a unit is faced, when called upon to act, by an accumulation of mutually incompatible orders. If a strong man, he throws them all indiscriminately into the fire, and, acting by the light of his own commonsense and initiative, stands a fair chance of succeeding; if a weak man, he endeavours to act upon them all, and, with deadly certainty, fails.

The ultimate intention of the General Staff will not be revealed until long after the end of the war, if even then, nor need we concern ourselves with anything but the general instructions issued to the Fourth Corps, the southernmost portion of the First British Army, the army that held the line from the canal southward to the junction with the French. Briefly, these were to seize Loos, Hill 70, which is merely the eastern slope of the valley behind Loos, and to establish themselves on this slope in such a position as to command Lens from the north. It was understood that the French were to make a simultaneous attack from the direction of Souchez, occupy the Vimy ridge, and similarly threaten Lens from the south.

In order to attain these objects, a four days' bombardment of the enemy's position was to be undertaken, to be immediately followed by an assault upon the fifth day. Of the actual details of the targets to be engaged by each battery it is unnecessary to speak in a sketch of this nature. Our own battery, in common with the rest, was allotted targets to be engaged at different periods of each of the four days, these days being not specified, but described as days V, W, X, and Y. Throughout a breathless week we elaborated our plans, each day bringing as a rule some modification of our original instructions. We spent our daylight hours peering out of our observation slits, and our evenings measuring ever new angles and ranges on our maps, until each one of us knew every stone in the country that lay in front of us by some pet name, and our maps developed strange diagrams in every possible combination of coloured chalks, for all the world like the diagram of the London Tubes. Thus we possessed our souls in a greater or less degree of impatience, till at last the message came: "To-morrow is day V," and on the night of September 20 I at least sought the genial warmth of my valise feeling that the curtain was about to rise upon the finest spectacle that the world had ever seen.

That night was the lull before the storm. All along our line the restless field guns woke but fitfully, as a watch-dog to bark at the moon, and then fell off to sleep again. Even the incomparable French _soixante-quinzes_ on our right, whose voices are hushed neither by day nor night, seemed restless, impatient, restrained, keeping long silences, until in sheer desperation they burst into uncontrollable passion, ceasing again as suddenly as they began, as though appalled by their own act. Only the vivid lights soared brilliantly as ever above the trenches, failing, however, to evoke the usual salutation from their unsleeping wardens. So the morning dawned, unheralded by the noisy "morning hate" with which the opposing armies invariably greeted one another, the still air seeming to cower silently, awaiting the shocks that were to come.

The spirit of expectancy had penetrated into the battery itself. The gun detachments stood to their guns, polishing and oiling for the twentieth time each smallest detail. The men off duty stood about in groups, talking in hushed voices, broken suddenly now and then by a loud laugh quickly checked, as men will when something is expected to happen. In the telephone dug-out sat the officers, silent save for spasmodic efforts at general conversation, starting nervously at each note of the buzzer. At last a sudden stiffening of the telephonist on duty, "Yes, I'm battery, yes--battery action, sir!" and the tension ceased. Instantly the battery leapt into life. "Right section, lyddite, full charge, load! Switch angle four degrees right----" Strings of order pour from the section commanders, echoed by the "numbers one" in the gun-pits, dying away to silence again. Then the voice of the senior subaltern, "Report battery ready to fire!" a breathless minute, seemingly interminable; at last a faint buzz from the telephone, the sharp cry "Fire No. 1 gun!" and before the last sound of the order dies away the flash and roar of the howitzer proclaim that for us, at least, the Battle of Loos has begun.

So as the day passes on we fall into our usual routine. The battery is seemingly uninhabited but for the strident section commanders standing between their hidden guns, except when reliefs descend into the pits as into Avernus, out of which presently appear a knot of men dusty, grimy and incredibly thirsty. Sometimes an officer comes up to the section commander, stands reading his notebook over his shoulder for a few seconds, nods as he receives a terse word or so as to rate of fire, takes over the notebook, pencil and megaphone and carries on the ceaseless clamour. All the time, at regular intervals, the guns fire and the orders pass. Sometimes a keener note is heard, "Left section, cease loading! Fresh target----" and a new string of orders, soon followed by a resumption of the periodic roaring, as of a thunderstorm controlled by an angel with a stop-watch. Or perhaps "Fire No. 3 gun!" and no instant report. "What's the matter, No. 3?" "Missfire, sir!" "All right, look sharp!" "All ready, sir!" "Fire No. 3, then!" and the rhythm commences again. After a time it all has a strangely soothing effect on the senses. First one loses the din of the surrounding batteries, then fails to notice the report of one's own guns a few feet away, giving orders mechanically notwithstanding. Perhaps a stifled yawn and a glance at the watch--is that infernal fellow never coming to relieve me? Then the warning voice of the telephonist, "Fresh target coming through, sir!" and the wandering attention leaps into watchfulness again.

Up at the observation post things are very different. There the observing officer sits, watching the black and yellow smoke clouds of the bursting high explosive, or the cotton-wool-like puffs of the shrapnel. "No. 1 fired, sir!" The words of the telephonists seem to come as from some other world. Here she comes, far away behind, the whistle of the shell shrieking louder as she passes right overhead--splendid! in the very trench itself; see the black smoke spread out and rise slowly from a long section of trench, whilst the green vegetation grows white with the falling chalk. No correction can be made to that, "No. 1, repeat!" "No. 2 fired, sir!" Here she comes, ah, a little to the right--"No. 2, ten minutes more left, fire!" So it goes on, until this particular section of trench has practically disappeared, leaving only a white scar. Then a change of target and a repetition of the destruction. A fascinating business this on so fine an autumn day, so fascinating that all sense of time is lost, all conjecture as to whether the enemy will take it into his head to select our observation post as a target is forgotten. The only thing in the world is the measured fall of the shell and the swift framing of the consequent order, the only pleasure the deep satisfaction of a well-placed round, the only despair the haunting memory of a shot wasted that might have been saved by a different procedure.

During those four days of ceaseless bombardment, the enemy made very little reply except at certain points; we subsequently discovered why. He made no attempt to distribute his fire along our front line, nor did he make a systematic search for our observation posts, the vital organ of every battery and its most vulnerable one. Certain spots he selected, and with magnificent gunnery rendered them utterly untenable. Shell after shell fell with mathematical accuracy into Vermelles, Le Rutoire, Quality Street, but when once we had learnt these favoured spots, our casualties were very few, being avoided by the simple expedient of removing to places that appeared to be more suitable in the capacity of health-resorts, or, where that was impossible, taking to the cellars and remaining there.

Through four long days, from early in the morning until it became too dark to observe the fall of the rounds, the pitiless shelling continued, nor was the enemy allowed any respite at night. In the batteries we were then busy replenishing ammunition and overhauling every detail of the equipment, but still one gun per battery at least fired steadily throughout the hours of darkness, not now on the enemy's positions, but on his billets and on certain places through which his reinforcements must pass on their way to the firing line. A few rounds per hour only, sufficient to keep men crouching huddled in cellars wherein was no possibility of sleep, or to shake the _morale_ of working parties faced with the necessity of running the gauntlet of that steady rain. The moral effect upon troops already shaken by bombardment is enormous, as we ourselves have had bitter cause to know in the earlier months of the war. The effect of these days and nights upon the enemy is vividly shown in the diary of a private in the Second Reserve Infantry Regiment (Prussian) which fell into our hands later. A few extracts will suffice. On the 21st he writes: "Towards mid-day the trenches had already fallen in in many places. Dug-outs were completely overwhelmed ... most of them fled, leaving rifles and ammunition behind ... the air was becoming heated from so many explosions." On the 22nd: "Shells and shrapnel (_granatschuss_) are bursting all round ... in places where the trench had disappeared I crawled on my hands and knees amid a hail of bullets." On the 23rd: "Our look-out post was completely destroyed, and my comrades killed in it ... even the strongest man may lose his brain and nerves in a time like this." On the 24th: "The fourth day of this terrible bombardment.... I am sorry to say that there is no reply from our artillery."

Other prisoners, on being interrogated, testified to the awful effects of our fire. Upon one in particular, an artillery officer, was found an order that revealed the secret of the ineffectiveness of the enemy's reply. After briefly setting out the measures to be taken in case of a British offensive, it goes on as follows: "Owing to the fact that the preponderance of hostile artillery in this sector is probably more than two to one, and owing to the vital necessity of economy in ammunition, battery commanders will confine their fire to targets whose importance is known to them, and upon which they can count on producing a good effect. They will under no circumstances allow themselves to be drawn into anything approaching to an artillery duel." It was also stated by many captured officers that during the night September 23-24 a deserter from our line had conveyed to the German Staff the time and date of the coming assault, and that to this fact they owed much of the effectiveness of the measures taken to resist it. Yet another captured document was of somewhat disconcerting interest to us gunners, namely, a map upon which was very accurately shown the position of every allied battery, with only two exceptions, in the whole of our sector. It seems fairly certain that this was due to the most efficient espionage, and not to aerial observation.

The material effect of such a bombardment is harder to judge, for it must be remembered that, despite the high science of modern gunnery, the percentage of direct hits upon a given objective is still comparatively small. When, however, a heavy shell detonates under favourable conditions, its destructive power is enormous. For instance, on the third day I saw a direct hit by one of our largest howitzers upon the boiler-house of Puits XVI. The shell penetrated the roof and burst inside the building, sending up an enormous cloud of black smoke tinged with the pink of pulverized brick, that hung for several minutes. When it cleared, nothing but a gaunt and twisted framework of steel girders remained, a heap of rubbish alone showing where the walls had stood. A smaller howitzer was ordered to fell a brick wall, some thirty feet high and many courses thick. The shell burst in regular sequence at its foot, at roughly ten yards interval, each round bringing down an equivalent section of the wall, until nothing remained but a long pile of smoking rubble. And, more impressive, perhaps, than all is the sight of a medium lyddite shell bursting in a narrow trench. Out of the centre of a vivid flash fly heavy timbers, sandbags, revetments, all that once formed the trench, sometimes the mangled fragments of its occupants, whilst to right and left rolls the choking smoke, driving its way into the deepest dug-outs, overcoming men many yards away from the point of impact, spreading death in every form. Is it to be wondered at that when our infantry reached these trenches they found a few survivors, living indeed still, but struggling and raving as the inmates of some ghastly Bedlam?

V

THE DAY OF ASSAULT

(September 25, 1915)

During the night of September 24-25, infantry patrols left the trenches to explore the condition of the enemy's wire entanglements, upon the destruction of which our field batteries had been engaged during the previous day. Artillery fire was therefore reduced as much as could be done with safety, and was chiefly directed upon reserves and billets, in order to make the chance of rounds falling short injuring the patrols as small as possible. During the evening the batteries opposed to us had shown far greater liveliness than they had hitherto. Possibly the enemy had got information as to where the decisive attack was to be made, as it seems to be the fact that owing to the four days' bombardment having taken place along the whole of the British front, they had hitherto hesitated to reinforce any particular sector, but had kept their reserves in a state of immediate readiness at their various railway centres. If this was the case, it is very probable that during the 23rd and 24th fresh batteries were placed in position between Vendin-le-Vieil and Lens, and that these came into action on the afternoon and evening of the 24th. This supposition is borne out by the fact of the enemy's ability to bring a terrific fire to bear on Loos as soon as we entered it.

Until the light failed, we had been busily engaged dropping shell along the Double Crassier, upon whose grim black crest the enemy were suspected of having mounted a number of machine guns. I had been in the observation post nearly the whole day--it is, by the way, worthy of remark as showing the immunity from retaliation that we had enjoyed in our sector, that we used to walk to and from our O.P. at all hours of the day through country literally covered with batteries, none of whom up till now had suffered any casualties--but at about seven o'clock duty recalled me to the battery. So absorbed had I been in the difficult business of observing in the failing light, that although I was conscious that shells were bursting all round, I had no idea that anything out of the ordinary was taking place until one of our telephonists, who had been out repairing the line, returned somewhat shaken, having been blown off his feet and thrown some distance by a high-explosive detonating close to him. His only complaint, I may say, was that he had lost a pair of wire-cutters in the adventure!

However, as soon as I started my walk homewards along the "Harrow Road," I found things still fairly lively. Several houses had been destroyed since the morning, and some very fine examples of shell-holes in the middle of the road added to the joys of the transport drivers, whose wagons of all descriptions were now beginning to pour along it. At one point a medium shell burst about twenty yards away from me--I had heard it coming and found friendly refuge in the ditch--and before the smoke had fairly cleared an armoured car and a motor cyclist orderly drove simultaneously into it from opposite directions. Nobody was hurt, but the road was most effectively obstructed, and the effect produced was exactly like that of a block in Piccadilly, including the language. I reached the battery safely, to find that the shelling had not reached so far back, but that another form of excitement had supervened. We had received orders to be ready to move at the shortest possible notice, in case a general advance upon the morrow should render a change in our position necessary. Of course, we had been prepared for this for days, but even so this official pronouncement of our hopes sent a thrill through every one of us. This was, then, the decisive struggle, the Waterloo of the campaign at last!

Moving a battery of heavy guns is, however, no small matter, and one that involves a vast amount of labour, not to be lightly undertaken. A story is told of a certain major, distinguished alike for his capability and his piety, who, knowing from bitter experience the difficulties that attended a change of position of his battery, added on this night to his usual formula of prayer these heart-felt words, "O Lord, grant us victory in the coming struggle--_but not in my sector_!"

I think that despite the fact that the guns were silent for the first time since the beginning of the bombardment, very few of us slept much that night. Our schemes were perfect, certainly, every detail of our actions of the morrow had been long worked out, each phase starting a definite time after an empiric zero, which we now learnt was fixed for 5.50 a.m. But--would the enemy consent to fall in with those schemes? Suppose they anticipated our offensive by an attack of their own? The wire in front of their trenches was already destroyed, even now our infantry were busy cutting wide passages through our own. How strong were they in reality? Was their passive endurance of our fire only a blind to lull us into security? These and a thousand other conjectures troubled our minds all night, and it was with a deep feeling of relief that we stood in the battery, no untoward incident having marred our plans, at 5.30 a.m. on the 25th--the eagerly awaited Day Z!

Then were the scenes at the opening of the bombardment repeated. Along our line all was again quiet, only from our right came the distant echoes of the fighting round Souchez and the Labyrinth, a deep roar that had now been continuous for over a week. Again we sit in the telephone dug-out, tense and expectant. "Official time coming, sir!" Watches are taken out in readiness. "Five thirty-five--now!" Quarter of an hour to go! One by one we creep out to see for the last time that all is ready. One minute more--"Hook your lanyards!" slowly the hand ticks round--time zero--"Fire!" This was no deliberate bombardment, every gun must in the short interval allowed it work to its utmost capacity, every man sweating in the dust-laden pits must toil as he never toiled before to feed it; into the luckless trenches in front of us must pour such a blasting hurricane of fire that the resistance prepared for our attack shall wither away in its deadly breath. But soon our own troops will be pouring out of their trenches, charging over the dividing ground to hurl themselves upon the trenches into which our wrath is now being poured, and then our fire must be lifted lest we do more harm than good. All is arranged for in the time-table. At forty minutes past zero, or 6.30 a.m., every battery lifts its fire from the front line to the second line, and still the furious fire continues. But now we know that the blow is being struck--what would we all not give to be in action in the open as in old days so that we could see the assault, watch the joining of the battle? Unprofitable thoughts! let us rather devote every fibre of our beings to the only task by which we can help, the task of pouring an ever-increasing weight of shell upon the defenders. That morning dawned grey and dull. From the observing post it was hardly possible to see further than the front line trenches at half-past five, and until the moment of the assault visibility did not greatly increase. However, this was to be the battlefield, we knew, at all events in the first stages of the struggle. The expectancy of viewing the greatest battle in history was to our little party in the O.P. strangely _banal_; I, for one, could not grasp the reality of it; I felt as though I were in a box waiting for the actors to come upon a stage before which the curtain had risen prematurely. There was no sign of battle, no movement that the eye could detect over the whole of the wide prospect before us. And then suddenly came time zero, bringing with it a scene that could never be forgotten. From the whole length of our front trench, as far as the eye could reach, rose, vertically at first, a grey cloud of smoke and gas, that, impelled by a gentle wind, spread slowly towards the enemy's trenches, very soon enveloping the whole of our range of vision in its opaque veil. This was our view of the assault, this dismal vapour the aura that was to surround a thousand sacrifices, the cloak that was to hide a thousand gallant deeds, the winding-sheet that was to enwrap so many a hero. Modern war holds no dramatic spectacles to enchant the brush of a Meisonnier, no drama is wrought upon a lime-lit stage to arrest the pulses of the watching nations. Yet none the less is its fascination omnipotent; its magnetic attraction, that draws into its vortex every man that owns a soul to plague him, is none the less irresistible; its influence still has the power to weld a chain of heroes out of a dirty, blasphemous, footsore crowd of sinners. War tends to the uplifting of the race, not to its debasement, let him who has faced it deny it if he can!