Next morning I found the Army Commander on his way to Doullens.
‘Take over the division?’ he said. ‘Certainly. I’m afraid there isn’t
much left of it. I’ll tell Carr to get through to the Corps
Headquarters, when he can find them. You’ll have to nurse the
remnants, for they can’t be pulled out yet—not for a day or two.
Bless me, Hannay, there are parts of our line which we’re holding with
a man and a boy. You’ve got to stick it out till the French take over.
We’re not hanging on by our eyelids—it’s our eyelashes now.’
‘What about positions to fall back on, sir?’ I asked.
‘We’re doing our best, but we haven’t enough men to prepare them.’ He
plucked open a map. ‘There we’re digging a line—and there. If we can
hold that bit for two days we shall have a fair line resting on the
river. But we mayn’t have time.’
Then I told him about Blenkiron, whom of course he had heard of. ‘He
was one of the biggest engineers in the States, and he’s got a nailing
fine eye for country. He’ll make good somehow if you let him help in
the job.’
‘The very fellow,’ he said, and he wrote an order. ‘Take this to Jacks
and he’ll fix up a temporary commission. Your man can find a uniform
somewhere in Amiens.’
After that I went to the detail camp and found that Ivery had duly
arrived.
‘The prisoner has given no trouble, sirr,’ Hamilton reported. ‘But
he’s a wee thing peevish. They’re saying that the Gairmans is gettin’
on fine, and I was tellin’ him that he should be proud of his ain
folk. But he wasn’t verra weel pleased.’
Three days had wrought a transformation in Ivery. That face, once so
cool and capable, was now sharpened like a hunted beast’s. His
imagination was preying on him and I could picture its torture. He,
who had been always at the top directing the machine, was now only a
cog in it. He had never in his life been anything but powerful; now he
was impotent. He was in a hard, unfamiliar world, in the grip of
something which he feared and didn’t understand, in the charge of men
who were in no way amenable to his persuasiveness. It was like a proud
and bullying manager suddenly forced to labour in a squad of navvies,
and worse, for there was the gnawing physical fear of what was coming.
He made an appeal to me.
‘Do the English torture their prisoners?’ he asked. ‘You have beaten
me. I own it, and I plead for mercy. I will go on my knees if you
like. I am not afraid of death—in my own way.’
‘Few people are afraid of death—in their own way.’
‘Why do you degrade me? I am a gentleman.’
‘Not as we define the thing,’ I said.
His jaw dropped. ‘What are you going to do with me?’ he quavered.
‘You have been a soldier,’ I said. ‘You are going to see a little
fighting—from the ranks. There will be no brutality, you will be
armed if you want to defend yourself, you will have the same chance of
survival as the men around you. You may have heard that your
countrymen are doing well. It is even possible that they may win the
battle. What was your forecast to me? Amiens in two days, Abbeville in
three. Well, you are a little behind scheduled time, but still you are
prospering. You told me that you were the chief architect of all this,
and you are going to be given the chance of seeing it, perhaps of
sharing in it—from the other side. Does it not appeal to your sense
of justice?’
He groaned and turned away. I had no more pity for him than I would
have had for a black mamba that had killed my friend and was now
caught to a cleft tree. Nor, oddly enough, had Wake. If we had shot
Ivery outright at St Anton, I am certain that Wake would have called
us murderers. Now he was in complete agreement. His passionate hatred
of war made him rejoice that a chief contriver of war should be made
to share in its terrors.
‘He tried to talk me over this morning,’ he told me. ‘Claimed he was
on my side and said the kind of thing I used to say last year. It made
me rather ashamed of some of my past performances to hear that
scoundrel imitating them . . . By the way, Hannay, what are you going to
do with me?’
‘You’re coming on my staff. You’re a stout fellow and I can’t do
without you.’
‘Remember I won’t fight.’
‘You won’t be asked to. We’re trying to stem the tide which wants to
roll to the sea. You know how the Boche behaves in occupied country,
and Mary’s in Amiens.’
At that news he shut his lips.
‘Still——’ he began.
‘Still,’ I said. ‘I don’t ask you to forfeit one of your blessed
principles. You needn’t fire a shot. But I want a man to carry orders
for me, for we haven’t a line any more, only a lot of blobs like
quicksilver. I want a clever man for the job and a brave one, and I
know that you’re not afraid.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I am—much. Well, I’m content!’
I started Blenkiron off in a car for Corps Headquarters, and in the
afternoon took the road myself. I knew every inch of the country—the
lift of the hill east of Amiens, the Roman highway that ran straight
as an arrow to St Quentin, the marshy lagoons of the Somme, and that
broad strip of land wasted by battle between Dompierre and Peronne. I
had come to Amiens through it in January, for I had been up to the
line before I left for Paris, and then it had been a peaceful place,
with peasants tilling their fields, and new buildings going up on the
old battle-field, and carpenters busy at cottage roofs, and scarcely a
transport waggon on the road to remind one of war. Now the main route
was choked like the Albert road when the Somme battle first
began—troops going up and troops coming down, the latter in the last
stage of weariness; a ceaseless traffic of ambulances one way and
ammunition waggons the other; busy staff cars trying to worm a way
through the mass; strings of gun horses, oddments of cavalry, and here
and there blue French uniforms. All that I had seen before; but one
thing was new to me. Little country carts with sad-faced women and
mystified children in them and piles of household plenishing were
creeping westward, or stood waiting at village doors. Beside these
tramped old men and boys, mostly in their Sunday best as if they were
going to church. I had never seen the sight before, for I had never
seen the British Army falling back. The dam which held up the waters
had broken and the dwellers in the valley were trying to save their
pitiful little treasures. And over everything, horse and man, cart and
wheelbarrow, road and tillage, lay the white March dust, the sky was
blue as June, small birds were busy in the copses, and in the corners
of abandoned gardens I had a glimpse of the first violets.
Presently as we topped a rise we came within full noise of the guns.
That, too, was new to me, for it was no ordinary bombardment. There
was a special quality in the sound, something ragged, straggling,
intermittent, which I had never heard before. It was the sign of open
warfare and a moving battle.
At Peronne, from which the newly returned inhabitants had a second
time fled, the battle seemed to be at the doors. There I had news of
my division. It was farther south towards St Christ. We groped our way
among bad roads to where its headquarters were believed to be, while
the voice of the guns grew louder. They turned out to be those of
another division, which was busy getting ready to cross the river.
Then the dark fell, and while airplanes flew west into the sunset
there was a redder sunset in the east, where the unceasing flashes of
gunfire were pale against the angry glow of burning dumps. The sight
of the bonnet-badge of a Scots Fusilier made me halt, and the man
turned out to belong to my division. Half an hour later I was taking
over from the much-relieved Masterton in the ruins of what had once
been a sugar-beet factory.
There to my surprise I found Lefroy. The Boche had held him prisoner
for precisely eight hours. During that time he had been so interested
in watching the way the enemy handled an attack that he had forgotten
the miseries of his position. He described with blasphemous admiration
the endless wheel by which supplies and reserve troops move up, the
silence, the smoothness, the perfect discipline. Then he had realized
that he was a captive and unwounded, and had gone mad. Being a
heavy-weight boxer of note, he had sent his two guards spinning into a
ditch, dodged the ensuing shots, and found shelter in the lee of a
blazing ammunition dump where his pursuers hesitated to follow. Then
he had spent an anxious hour trying to get through an outpost line,
which he thought was Boche. Only by overhearing an exchange of oaths
in the accents of Dundee did he realize that it was our own . . . It was
a comfort to have Lefroy back, for he was both stout-hearted and
resourceful. But I found that I had a division only on paper. It was
about the strength of a brigade, the brigades battalions, and the
battalions companies.
This is not the place to write the story of the week that followed. I
could not write it even if I wanted to, for I don’t know it. There was
a plan somewhere, which you will find in the history books, but with
me it was blank chaos. Orders came, but long before they arrived the
situation had changed, and I could no more obey them than fly to the
moon. Often I had lost touch with the divisions on both flanks.
Intelligence arrived erratically out of the void, and for the most
part we worried along without it. I heard we were under the
French—first it was said to be Foch, and then Fayolle, whom I had met
in Paris. But the higher command seemed a million miles away, and we
were left to use our mother wits. My problem was to give ground as
slowly as possible and at the same time not to delay too long, for
retreat we must, with the Boche sending in brand-new divisions each
morning. It was a kind of war worlds distant from the old trench
battles, and since I had been taught no other I had to invent rules as
I went along. Looking back, it seems a miracle that any of us came out
of it. Only the grace of God and the uncommon toughness of the British
soldier bluffed the Hun and prevented him pouring through the breach
to Abbeville and the sea. We were no better than a mosquito curtain
stuck in a doorway to stop the advance of an angry bull.
The Army Commander was right; we were hanging on with our eyelashes.
We must have been easily the weakest part of the whole front, for we
were holding a line which was never less than two miles and was often,
as I judged, nearer five, and there was nothing in reserve to us
except some oddments of cavalry who chased about the whole
battle-field under vague orders. Mercifully for us the Boche
blundered. Perhaps he did not know our condition, for our airmen were
magnificent and you never saw a Boche plane over our line by day,
though they bombed us merrily by night. If he had called our bluff we
should have been done, but he put his main strength to the north and
the south of us. North he pressed hard on the Third Army, but he got
well hammered by the Guards north of Bapaume and he could make no
headway at Arras. South he drove at the Paris railway and down the
Oise valley, but there Petain’s reserves had arrived, and the French
made a noble stand.
Not that he didn’t fight hard in the centre where we were, but he
hadn’t his best troops, and after we got west of the bend of the Somme
he was outrunning his heavy guns. Still, it was a desperate enough
business, for our flanks were all the time falling back, and we had to
conform to movements we could only guess at. After all, we were on the
direct route to Amiens, and it was up to us to yield slowly so as to
give Haig and Petain time to get up supports. I was a miser about
every yard of ground, for every yard and every minute were precious.
We alone stood between the enemy and the city, and in the city was
Mary.
If you ask me about our plans I can’t tell you. I had a new one every
hour. I got instructions from the Corps, but, as I have said, they
were usually out of date before they arrived, and most of my tactics I
had to invent myself. I had a plain task, and to fulfil it I had to
use what methods the Almighty allowed me. I hardly slept, I ate
little, I was on the move day and night, but I never felt so strong in
my life. It seemed as if I couldn’t tire, and, oddly enough, I was
happy. If a man’s whole being is focused on one aim, he has no time to
worry . . . I remember we were all very gentle and soft-spoken those
days. Lefroy, whose tongue was famous for its edge, now cooed like a
dove. The troops were on their uppers, but as steady as rocks. We were
against the end of the world, and that stiffens a man . . .
Day after day saw the same performance. I held my wavering front with
an outpost line which delayed each new attack till I could take its
bearings. I had special companies for counter-attack at selected
points, when I wanted time to retire the rest of the division. I think
we must have fought more than a dozen of such little battles. We lost
men all the time, but the enemy made no big scoop, though he was
always on the edge of one. Looking back, it seems like a succession of
miracles. Often I was in one end of a village when the Boche was in
the other. Our batteries were always on the move, and the work of the
gunners was past praising. Sometimes we faced east, sometimes north,
and once at a most critical moment due south, for our front waved and
blew like a flag at a masthead . . . Thank God, the enemy was getting
away from his big engine, and his ordinary troops were fagged and poor
in quality. It was when his fresh shock battalions came on that I held
my breath . . . He had a heathenish amount of machine-guns and he used
them beautifully. Oh, I take my hat off to the Boche performance. He
was doing what we had tried to do at the Somme and the Aisne and Arras
and Ypres, and he was more or less succeeding. And the reason was that
he was going bald-headed for victory.
The men, as I have said, were wonderfully steady and patient under the
fiercest trial that soldiers can endure. I had all kinds in the
division—old army, new army, Territorials—and you couldn’t pick and
choose between them. They fought like Trojans, and, dirty, weary, and
hungry, found still some salt of humour in their sufferings. It was a
proof of the rock-bottom sanity of human nature. But we had one man
with us who was hardly sane. . . .
In the hustle of those days I now and then caught sight of Ivery. I
had to be everywhere at all hours, and often visited that remnant of
Scots Fusiliers into which the subtlest brain in Europe had been
drafted. He and his keepers were never on outpost duty or in any
counter-attack. They were part of the mass whose only business was to
retire discreetly. This was child’s play to Hamilton, who had been out
since Mons; and Amos, after taking a day to get used to it, wrapped
himself in his grim philosophy and rather enjoyed it. You couldn’t
surprise Amos any more than a Turk. But the man with them, whom they
never left—that was another matter.
‘For the first wee bit,’ Hamilton reported, ‘we thocht he was gaun
daft. Every shell that came near he jumped like a young horse. And the
gas! We had to tie on his mask for him, for his hands were
fushionless. There was whiles when he wadna be hindered from standin’
up and talkin’ to hisself, though the bullets was spittin’. He was
what ye call de-moralized . . . Syne he got as though he didna hear or
see onything. He did what we tell’t him, and when we let him be he sat
down and grat. He’s aye greetin’ . . . Queer thing, sirr, but the
Gairmans canna hit him. I’m aye shakin’ bullets out o’ my claes, and
I’ve got a hole in my shoulder, and Andra took a bash on his tin that
wad hae felled onybody that hadna a heid like a stot. But, sirr, the
prisoner taks no scaith. Our boys are feared of him. There was an
Irishman says to me that he had the evil eye, and ye can see for
yerself that he’s no canny.’
I saw that his skin had become like parchment and that his eyes were
glassy. I don’t think he recognized me.
‘Does he take his meals?’ I asked.
‘He doesna eat muckle. But he has an unco thirst. Ye canna keep him
off the men’s water-bottles.’
He was learning very fast the meaning of that war he had so
confidently played with. I believe I am a merciful man, but as I
looked at him I felt no vestige of pity. He was dreeing the weird he
had prepared for others. I thought of Scudder, of the thousand friends
I had lost, of the great seas of blood and the mountains of sorrow
this man and his like had made for the world. Out of the corner of my
eye I could see the long ridges above Combles and Longueval which the
salt of the earth had fallen to win, and which were again under the
hoof of the Boche. I thought of the distracted city behind us and what
it meant to me, and the weak, the pitifully weak screen which was all
its defence. I thought of the foul deeds which had made the German
name to stink by land and sea, foulness of which he was the
arch-begetter. And then I was amazed at our forbearance. He would go
mad, and madness for him was more decent than sanity.
I had another man who wasn’t what you might call normal, and that was
Wake. He was the opposite of shell-shocked, if you understand me. He
had never been properly under fire before, but he didn’t give a straw
for it. I had known the same thing with other men, and they generally
ended by crumpling up, for it isn’t natural that five or six feet of
human flesh shouldn’t be afraid of what can torture and destroy it.
The natural thing is to be always a little scared, like me, but by an
effort of the will and attention to work to contrive to forget it. But
Wake apparently never gave it a thought. He wasn’t foolhardy, only
indifferent. He used to go about with a smile on his face, a smile of
contentment. Even the horrors—and we had plenty of them—didn’t
affect him. His eyes, which used to be hot, had now a curious open
innocence like Peter’s. I would have been happier if he had been a
little rattled.
One night, after we had had a bad day of anxiety, I talked to him as
we smoked in what had once been a French dug-out. He was an extra
right arm to me, and I told him so. ‘This must be a queer experience
for you,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘it is very wonderful. I did not think a man could
go through it and keep his reason. But I know many things I did not
know before. I know that the soul can be reborn without leaving the
body.’
I stared at him, and he went on without looking at me.
‘You’re not a classical scholar, Hannay? There was a strange cult in
the ancient world, the worship of Magna Mater—the Great Mother. To
enter into her mysteries the votary passed through a bath of
blood. . . . I think I am passing through that bath. I think that like
the initiate I shall be renatus in aeternum—reborn into the
eternal.’
I advised him to have a drink, for that talk frightened me. It looked
as if he were becoming what the Scots call ‘fey’. Lefroy noticed the
same thing and was always speaking about it. He was as brave as a bull
himself, and with very much the same kind of courage; but Wake’s
gallantry perturbed him. ‘I can’t make the chap out,’ he told me. ‘He
behaves as if his mind was too full of better things to give a damn
for Boche guns. He doesn’t take foolish risks—I don’t mean that, but
he behaves as if risks didn’t signify. It’s positively eerie to see
him making notes with a steady hand when shells are dropping like
hailstones and we’re all thinking every minute’s our last. You’ve got
to be careful with him, sir. He’s a long sight too valuable for us to
spare.’
Lefroy was right about that, for I don’t know what I should have done
without him. The worst part of our job was to keep touch with our
flanks, and that was what I used Wake for. He covered country like a
moss-trooper, sometimes on a rusty bicycle, oftener on foot, and you
couldn’t tire him. I wonder what other divisions thought of the grimy
private who was our chief means of communication. He knew nothing of
military affairs before, but he got the hang of this rough-and-tumble
fighting as if he had been born for it. He never fired a shot; he
carried no arms; the only weapons he used were his brains. And they
were the best conceivable. I never met a staff officer who was so
quick at getting a point or at sizing up a situation. He had put his
back into the business, and first-class talent is not common anywhere.
One day a G.S.O.1 from a neighbouring division came to see me.
‘Where on earth did you pick up that man Wake?’ he asked.
‘He’s a conscientious objector and a non-combatant,’ I said.
‘Then I wish to Heaven we had a few more conscientious objectors in
this show. He’s the only fellow who seems to know anything about this
blessed battle. My general’s sending you a chit about him.’
‘No need,’ I said, laughing. ‘I know his value. He’s an old friend of
mine.’
I used Wake as my link with Corps Headquarters, and especially with
Blenkiron. For about the sixth day of the show I was beginning to get
rather desperate. This kind of thing couldn’t go on for ever. We were
miles back now, behind the old line of ’17, and, as we rested one
flank on the river, the immediate situation was a little easier. But I
had lost a lot of men, and those that were left were blind with
fatigue. The big bulges of the enemy to north and south had added to
the length of the total front, and I found I had to fan out my thin
ranks. The Boche was still pressing on, though his impetus was
slacker. If he knew how little there was to stop him in my section he
might make a push which would carry him to Amiens. Only the
magnificent work of our airmen had prevented him getting that
knowledge, but we couldn’t keep the secrecy up for ever. Some day an
enemy plane would get over, and it only needed the drive of a fresh
storm-battalion or two to scatter us. I wanted a good prepared
position, with sound trenches and decent wiring. Above all I wanted
reserves—reserves. The word was on my lips all day and it haunted my
dreams. I was told that the French were to relieve us, but when—when?
My reports to Corps Headquarters were one long wail for more troops. I
knew there was a position prepared behind us, but I needed men to hold
it.
Wake brought in a message from Blenkiron. ‘We’re waiting for you,
Dick,’ he wrote, ‘and we’ve gotten quite a nice little home ready for
you. This old man hasn’t hustled so hard since he struck copper in
Montana in ’92. We’ve dug three lines of trenches and made a heap of
pretty redoubts, and I guess they’re well laid out, for the Army staff
has supervised them and they’re no slouches at this brand of
engineering. You would have laughed to see the labour we employed. We
had all breeds of Dago and Chinaman, and some of your own South
African blacks, and they got so busy on the job they forgot about
bedtime. I used to be reckoned a bit of a slave driver, but my special
talents weren’t needed with this push. I’m going to put a lot of money
into foreign missions henceforward.’
I wrote back: ‘Your trenches are no good without men. For God’s sake
get something that can hold a rifle. My lot are done to the world.’
Then I left Lefroy with the division and went down on the back of an
ambulance to see for myself. I found Blenkiron, some of the Army
engineers, and a staff officer from Corps Headquarters, and I found
Archie Roylance.
They had dug a mighty good line and wired it nobly. It ran from the
river to the wood of La Bruyere on the little hill above the Ablain
stream. It was desperately long, but I saw at once it couldn’t well be
shorter, for the division on the south of us had its hands full with
the fringe of the big thrust against the French.
‘It’s no good blinking the facts,’ I told them. ‘I haven’t a thousand
men, and what I have are at the end of their tether. If you put ’em in
these trenches they’ll go to sleep on their feet. When can the French
take over?’
I was told that it had been arranged for next morning, but that it had
now been put off twenty-four hours. It was only a temporary measure,
pending the arrival of British divisions from the north.
Archie looked grave. ‘The Boche is pushin’ up new troops in this
sector. We got the news before I left squadron headquarters. It looks
as if it would be a near thing, sir.’
‘It won’t be a near thing. It’s an absolute black certainty. My
fellows can’t carry on as they are another day. Great God, they’ve had
a fortnight in hell! Find me more men or we buckle up at the next
push.’ My temper was coming very near its limits.
‘We’ve raked the country with a small-tooth comb, sir,’ said one of
the staff officers. ‘And we’ve raised a scratch pack. Best part of two
thousand. Good men, but most of them know nothing about infantry
fighting. We’ve put them into platoons, and done our best to give them
some kind of training. There’s one thing may cheer you. We’ve plenty
of machine-guns. There’s a machine-gun school near by and we got all
the men who were taking the course and all the plant.’
I don’t suppose there was ever such a force put into the field before.
It was a wilder medley than Moussy’s camp-followers at First Ypres.
There was every kind of detail in the shape of men returning from
leave, representing most of the regiments in the army. There were the
men from the machine-gun school. There were Corps troops—sappers and
A.S.C., and a handful of Corps cavalry. Above all, there was a batch
of American engineers, fathered by Blenkiron. I inspected them where
they were drilling and liked the look of them. ‘Forty-eight hours,’ I
said to myself. ‘With luck we may just pull it off.’
Then I borrowed a bicycle and went back to the division. But before I
left I had a word with Archie. ‘This is one big game of bluff, and
it’s you fellows alone that enable us to play it. Tell your people
that everything depends on them. They mustn’t stint the planes in this
sector, for if the Boche once suspicions how little he’s got before
him the game’s up. He’s not a fool and he knows that this is the short
road to Amiens, but he imagines we’re holding it in strength. If we
keep up the fiction for another two days the thing’s done. You say
he’s pushing up troops?’
‘Yes, and he’s sendin’ forward his tanks.’
‘Well, that’ll take time. He’s slower now than a week ago and he’s got
a deuce of a country to march over. There’s still an outside chance we
may win through. You go home and tell the R.F.C. what I’ve told you.’
He nodded. ‘By the way, sir, Pienaar’s with the squadron. He would
like to come up and see you.’
‘Archie,’ I said solemnly, ‘be a good chap and do me a favour. If I
think Peter’s anywhere near the line I’ll go off my head with worry.
This is no place for a man with a bad leg. He should have been in
England days ago. Can’t you get him off—to Amiens, anyhow?’
‘We scarcely like to. You see, we’re all desperately sorry for him,
his fun gone and his career over and all that. He likes bein’ with us
and listenin’ to our yarns. He has been up once or twice too. The
Shark-Gladas. He swears it’s a great make, and certainly he knows how
to handle the little devil.’
‘Then for Heaven’s sake don’t let him do it again. I look to you,
Archie, remember. Promise.’
‘Funny thing, but he’s always worryin’ about you. He has a map on
which he marks every day the changes in the position, and he’d hobble
a mile to pump any of our fellows who have been up your way.’
That night under cover of darkness I drew back the division to the
newly prepared lines. We got away easily, for the enemy was busy with
his own affairs. I suspected a relief by fresh troops.
There was no time to lose, and I can tell you I toiled to get things
straight before dawn. I would have liked to send my own fellows back
to rest, but I couldn’t spare them yet. I wanted them to stiffen the
fresh lot, for they were veterans. The new position was arranged on
the same principles as the old front which had been broken on March
21st. There was our forward zone, consisting of an outpost line and
redoubts, very cleverly sited, and a line of resistance. Well behind
it were the trenches which formed the battle-zone. Both zones were
heavily wired, and we had plenty of machine-guns; I wish I could say
we had plenty of men who knew how to use them. The outposts were
merely to give the alarm and fall back to the line of resistance which
was to hold out to the last. In the forward zone I put the freshest of
my own men, the units being brought up to something like strength by
the details returning from leave that the Corps had commandeered. With
them I put the American engineers, partly in the redoubts and partly
in companies for counter-attack. Blenkiron had reported that they
could shoot like Dan’l Boone, and were simply spoiling for a fight.
The rest of the force was in the battle-zone, which was our last hope.
If that went the Boche had a clear walk to Amiens. Some additional
field batteries had been brought up to support our very weak
divisional artillery. The front was so long that I had to put all
three of my emaciated brigades in the line, so I had nothing to speak
of in reserve. It was a most almighty gamble.
We had found shelter just in time. At 6.30 next day—for a change it
was a clear morning with clouds beginning to bank up from the
west—the Boche let us know he was alive. He gave us a good drenching
with gas shells which didn’t do much harm, and then messed up our
forward zone with his trench mortars. At 7.20 his men began to come
on, first little bunches with machine-guns and then the infantry in
waves. It was clear they were fresh troops, and we learned afterwards
from prisoners that they were Bavarians—6th or 7th, I forget which,
but the division that hung us up at Monchy. At the same time there was
the sound of a tremendous bombardment across the river. It looked as
if the main battle had swung from Albert and Montdidier to a direct
push for Amiens.
I have often tried to write down the events of that
day. I tried it in my report to the Corps; I tried it in my own diary;
I tried it because Mary wanted it; but I have never been able to make
any story that hung together. Perhaps I was too tired for my mind to
retain clear impressions, though at the time I was not conscious of
special fatigue. More likely it is because the fight itself was so
confused, for nothing happened according to the books and the orderly
soul of the Boche must have been scarified . . .
At first it went as I expected. The outpost line was pushed in, but the fire from the
redoubts broke up the advance, and enabled the line of resistance in
the forward zone to give a good account of itself. There was a check,
and then another big wave, assisted by a barrage from field-guns
brought far forward. This time the line of resistance gave at several
points, and Lefroy flung in the Americans in a counter-attack. That
was a mighty performance. The engineers, yelling like dervishes, went
at it with the bayonet, and those that preferred swung their rifles as
clubs. It was terribly costly fighting and all wrong, but it
succeeded. They cleared the Boche out of a ruined farm he had rushed,
and a little wood, and re-established our front. Blenkiron, who saw it
all, for he went with them and got the tip of an ear picked off by a
machine-gun bullet, hadn’t any words wherewith to speak of it. ‘And I
once said those boys looked puffy,’ he moaned.
The next phase, which came about midday, was the tanks. I had never
seen the German variety, but had heard that it was speedier and
heavier than ours, but unwieldy. We did not see much of their speed,
but we found out all about their clumsiness. Had the things been
properly handled they should have gone through us like rotten wood.
But the whole outfit was bungled. It looked good enough country for
the use of them, but the men who made our position had had an eye to
this possibility. The great monsters, mounting a field-gun besides
other contrivances, wanted something like a highroad to be happy in.
They were useless over anything like difficult ground. The ones that
came down the main road got on well enough at the start, but Blenkiron
very sensibly had mined the highway, and we blew a hole like a diamond
pit. One lay helpless at the foot of it, and we took the crew
prisoner; another stuck its nose over and remained there till our
field-guns got the range and knocked it silly. As for the rest—there
is a marshy lagoon called the Patte d’Oie beside the farm of Gavrelle,
which runs all the way north to the river, though in most places it
only seems like a soft patch in the meadows. This the tanks had to
cross to reach our line, and they never made it. Most got bogged, and
made pretty targets for our gunners; one or two returned; and one the
Americans, creeping forward under cover of a little stream, blew up
with a time fuse.
By the middle of the afternoon I was feeling happier. I knew the big
attack was still to come, but I had my forward zone intact and I hoped
for the best. I remember I was talking to Wake, who had been going
between the two zones, when I got the first warning of a new and
unexpected peril. A dud shell plumped down a few yards from me.
‘Those fools across the river are firing short and badly off the
straight,’ I said.
Wake examined the shell. ‘No, it’s a German one,’ he said.
Then came others, and there could be no mistake about the
direction—followed by a burst of machine-gun fire from the same
quarter. We ran in cover to a point from which we could see the north
bank of the river, and I got my glass on it. There was a lift of land
from behind which the fire was coming. We looked at each other, and
the same conviction stood in both faces. The Boche had pushed down the
northern bank, and we were no longer in line with our neighbours. The
enemy was in a situation to catch us with his fire on our flank and
left rear. We couldn’t retire to conform, for to retire meant giving
up our prepared position.
It was the last straw to all our anxieties, and for a moment I was at
the end of my wits. I turned to Wake, and his calm eyes pulled me
together.
‘If they can’t retake that ground, we’re fairly carted,’ I said.
‘We are. Therefore they must retake it.’
‘I must get on to Mitchinson.’ But as I spoke I realized the futility
of a telephone message to a man who was pretty hard up against it
himself. Only an urgent appeal could effect anything . . . I must go
myself . . . No, that was impossible. I must send Lefroy . . . But he
couldn’t be spared. And all my staff officers were up to their necks
in the battle. Besides, none of them knew the position as I knew it
. . . And how to get there? It was a long way round by the bridge at
Loisy.
Suddenly I was aware of Wake’s voice. ‘You had better send me,’ he was
saying. ‘There’s only one way—to swim the river a little lower down.’
‘That’s too damnably dangerous. I won’t send any man to certain
death.’
‘But I volunteer,’ he said. ‘That, I believe, is always allowed in
war.’
‘But you’ll be killed before you can cross.’
‘Send a man with me to watch. If I get over, you may be sure I’ll get
to General Mitchinson. If not, send somebody else by Loisy. There’s
desperate need for hurry, and you see yourself it’s the only way.’
The time was past for argument. I scribbled a line to Mitchinson as
his credentials. No more was needed, for Wake knew the position as
well as I did. I sent an orderly to accompany him to his starting-
place on the bank.
‘Good-bye,’ he said, as we shook hands. ‘You’ll see, I’ll come back all
right.’ His face, I remember, looked singularly happy. Five minutes
later the Boche guns opened for the final attack.
I believe I kept a cool head; at least so Lefroy and the others
reported. They said I went about all afternoon grinning as if I liked
it, and that I never raised my voice once. (It’s rather a fault of
mine that I bellow in a scrap.) But I know I was feeling anything but
calm, for the problem was ghastly. It all depended on Wake and
Mitchinson. The flanking fire was so bad that I had to give up the
left of the forward zone, which caught it fairly, and retire the men
there to the battle-zone. The latter was better protected, for between
it and the river was a small wood and the bank rose into a bluff which
sloped inwards towards us. This withdrawal meant a switch, and a
switch isn’t a pretty thing when it has to be improvised in the middle
of a battle.
The Boche had counted on that flanking fire. His plan was to break our
two wings—the old Boche plan which crops up in every fight. He left
our centre at first pretty well alone, and thrust along the river bank
and to the wood of La Bruyère, where we linked up with the division on
our right. Lefroy was in the first area, and Masterton in the second,
and for three hours it was as desperate a business as I have ever
faced . . . The improvised switch went, and more and more of the forward
zone disappeared. It was a hot, clear spring afternoon, and in the
open fighting the enemy came on like troops at manoeuvres. On the left
they got into the battle-zone, and I can see yet Lefroy’s great figure
leading a counter-attack in person, his face all puddled with blood
from a scalp wound . . .
I would have given my soul to be in two places at once, but I had to
risk our left and keep close to Masterton, who needed me most. The
wood of La Bruyère was the maddest sight. Again and again the Boche
was almost through it. You never knew where he was, and most of the
fighting there was duels between machine-gun parties. Some of the
enemy got round behind us, and only a fine performance of a company of
Cheshires saved a complete breakthrough.
As for Lefroy, I don’t know how he stuck it out, and he doesn’t know
himself, for he was galled all the time by that accursed flanking
fire. I got a note about half past four saying that Wake had crossed
the river, but it was some weary hours after that before the fire
slackened. I tore back and forward between my wings, and every time I
went north I expected to find that Lefroy had broken. But by some
miracle he held. The Boches were in his battle-zone time and again,
but he always flung them out. I have a recollection of Blenkiron,
stark mad, encouraging his Americans with strange tongues. Once as I
passed him I saw that he had his left arm tied up. His blackened face
grinned at me. ‘This bit of landscape’s mighty unsafe for democracy,’
he croaked. ‘For the love of Mike get your guns on to those devils
across the river. They’re plaguing my boys too bad.’
It was about seven o’clock, I think, when the flanking fire slacked
off, but it was not because of our divisional guns. There was a short
and very furious burst of artillery fire on the north bank, and I knew
it was British. Then things began to happen. One of our planes—they
had been marvels all day, swinging down like hawks for machine-gun
bouts with the Boche infantry—reported that Mitchinson was attacking
hard and getting on well. That eased my mind, and I started off for
Masterton, who was in greater straits than ever, for the enemy seemed
to be weakening on the river bank and putting his main strength in
against our right . . . But my G.S.O.2 stopped me on the road. ‘Wake,’
he said. ‘He wants to see you.’
‘Not now,’ I cried.
‘He can’t live many minutes.’
I turned and followed him to the ruinous cowshed which was my
divisional headquarters. Wake, as I heard later, had swum the river
opposite to Mitchinson’s right, and reached the other shore safely,
though the current was whipped with bullets. But he had scarcely
landed before he was badly hit by shrapnel in the groin. Walking at
first with support and then carried on a stretcher, he managed to
struggle on to the divisional headquarters, where he gave my message
and explained the situation. He would not let his wound be looked to
till his job was done. Mitchinson told me afterwards that with a face
grey from pain he drew for him a sketch of our position and told him
exactly how near we were to our end . . . After that he asked to be sent
back to me, and they got him down to Loisy in a crowded ambulance, and
then up to us in a returning empty. The M.O. who looked at his wound
saw that the thing was hopeless, and did not expect him to live beyond
Loisy. He was bleeding internally and no surgeon on earth could have
saved him.
When he reached us he was almost pulseless, but he recovered for a
moment and asked for me.
I found him, with blue lips and a face drained of blood, lying on my
camp bed. His voice was very small and far away.
‘How goes it?’ he asked.
‘Please God, we’ll pull through . . . thanks to you, old man.’
‘Good,’ he said and his eyes shut.
He opened them once again.
‘Funny thing life. A year ago I was preaching peace . . . I’m still
preaching it . . . I’m not sorry.’
I held his hand till two minutes later he died.
In the press of a fight one scarcely realizes death, even the death of
a friend. It was up to me to make good my assurance to Wake, and
presently I was off to Masterton. There in that shambles of La
Bruyère, while the light faded, there was a desperate and most bloody
struggle. It was the last lap of the contest. Twelve hours now, I kept
telling myself, and the French will be here and we’ll have done our
task. Alas! how many of us would go back to rest? . . . Hardly able to
totter, our counter-attacking companies went in again. They had gone
far beyond the limits of mortal endurance, but the human spirit can
defy all natural laws. The balance trembled, hung, and then dropped
the right way. The enemy impetus weakened, stopped, and the ebb began.
I wanted to complete the job. Our artillery put up a sharp barrage,
and the little I had left comparatively fresh I sent in for a counter-
stroke. Most of the men were untrained, but there was that in our
ranks which dispensed with training, and we had caught the enemy at
the moment of lowest vitality. We pushed him out of La Bruyère, we
pushed him back to our old forward zone, we pushed him out of that
zone to the position from which he had begun the day.
But there was no rest for the weary. We had lost at least a third of
our strength, and we had to man the same long line. We consolidated it
as best we could, started to replace the wiring that had been
destroyed, found touch with the division on our right, and established
outposts. Then, after a conference with my brigadiers, I went back to
my headquarters, too tired to feel either satisfaction or anxiety. In
eight hours the French would be here. The words made a kind of litany
in my ears.
In the cowshed where Wake had lain, two figures awaited me. The
talc-enclosed candle revealed Hamilton and Amos, dirty beyond words,
smoke-blackened, blood-stained, and intricately bandaged. They stood
stiffly to attention.
‘Sirr, the prisoner,’ said Hamilton. ‘I have to report that the
prisoner is deid.’
I stared at them, for I had forgotten Ivery. He seemed a creature of a
world that had passed away.
‘Sirr, it was like this. Ever sin’ this mornin’, the prisoner seemed
to wake up. Ye’ll mind that he was in a kind of dream all week. But he
got some new notion in his heid, and when the battle began he
exheebited signs of restlessness. Whiles he wad lie doun in the
trench, and whiles he was wantin’ back to the dug-out. Accordin’ to
instructions I provided him wi’ a rifle, but he didna seem to ken how
to handle it. It was your orders, sirr, that he was to have means to
defend hisself if the enemy cam on, so Amos gie’d him a trench knife.
But verra soon he looked as if he was ettlin’ to cut his throat, so I
deprived him of it.’
Hamilton stopped for breath. He spoke as if he were reciting a lesson,
with no stops between the sentences.
‘I jaloused, sirr, that he wadna last oot the day, and Amos here was
of the same opinion. The end came at twenty minutes past three—I ken
the time, for I had just compared my watch with Amos. Ye’ll mind that
the Gairmans were beginning a big attack. We were in the front trench
of what they ca’ the battle-zone, and Amos and me was keepin’ oor eyes
on the enemy, who could be obsairved dribblin’ ower the open. Just
then the prisoner catches sight of the enemy and jumps up on the top.
Amos tried to hold him, but he kicked him in the face. The next we
kenned he was runnin’ verra fast towards the enemy, holdin’ his hands
ower his heid and crying out loud in a foreign langwidge.’
‘It was German,’ said the scholarly Amos through his broken teeth.
‘It was Gairman,’ continued Hamilton. ‘It seemed as if he was
appealin’ to the enemy to help him. But they paid no attention, and he
cam under the fire of their machine-guns. We watched him spin round
like a teetotum and kenned that he was bye with it.’
‘You are sure he was killed?’ I asked.
‘Yes, sirr. When we counter-attacked we fund his body.’
•••••
There is a grave close by the farm of Gavrelle, and a wooden cross at
its head bears the name of the Graf von Schwabing and the date of his
death. The Germans took Gavrelle a little later. I am glad to think
that they read that inscription.
Nguồn: Wikisource English — Mr Standfast/Chapter 21. Văn bản được nhập và định dạng lại; CC BY-SA 4.0, có thể áp dụng điều khoản bổ sung của tác phẩm.