Norman Ten Hundred Part 7

A minor operation, of no importance to Official Report!

In a field near Brigade Headquarters an unfortunate cow had investigated the explosive powers of a 9.2, with the result that it no longer had to waste its days chewing the cud. We cut away steaks by bringing the bayonet into service, but had no fat in which to fry the savoury article. The more tender portions were eaten raw--we were hungry--and the remainder fried with water and a tot of rum. A rum steak--it was "rum," inflicted us with gumboils for a week.

Some of the cheese now being issued found its way up without a ration party and upon approaching Brigade caused a false alarm of gas to be sounded. It has been found effective in poisoning lice. This little adherent is now in dozens upon every other fellow. Folk at home have a peculiar tendency for sending out powders, for the entertainment of these pests, upon which they wax fat: dying sometimes of constipation.

The mail had arrived on the Thursday night (November 28th) that the Ten Hundred came out of the line for the last time. The Division will move, out on the morrow after nearly two weeks' marching and fighting.

Casualties had increased: the Lanes, and Royal Fusiliers numbering but little over 500 men. (They entered the action about 700 strong.)

The Normans had lost between forty and fifty, inclusive of several Supreme Sacrifices. Muray had one eye blown out by shrapnel from a trench mortar without losing consciousness.

A draft should have joined the Battalion, but halted for the night in Rue Vertes, coming in for a bout of sh.e.l.ling that put the wind up the entire party, with inflicting much bodily harm.

A strange non-appearance of British 'planes has caused comment, nor did there appear to be any heavy guns remaining on the sector apart from such artillery that forms a Brigade complement. Fritz, on the other hand, maintained uncomfortable concentration upon the towns and roads with a large number of guns brought up from somewhere (Lille--where an Army Corps had been awaiting transfer to Italy). The number of gas sh.e.l.ls indicates that his supply in this direction is unlimited, for this type comes over regularly day and night. He concentrated, too, upon the ca.n.a.l lock in the probable vague hope of flooding the district. His sh.e.l.ls fell by the scores around, above, short of and beyond the objective, everywhere except, by extraordinary bad luck, upon it.

VIII

NOVEMBER 30th-DECEMBER 1st, 1917

GERMAN ONSLAUGHT

4.30 a.m., Friday, November 30th.--Quiet, comparative quiet everywhere.

Gas sh.e.l.ls came over with an ever increasing frequency, but men slept on without masks. A sh.e.l.l, heavy, unmistakably from a huge howitzer, crashed with a mighty uproar into a small house and demolished it at a stroke. Then another, and another, and still another ... phew, what was he "searching" for? From the doorway of Brigade Headquarters I looked into the night and listened to the whistle of sh.e.l.ls pa.s.sing overhead from eastward into our lines. Our own artillery was silent. No sound came from our near infantry lines, not the crack of a rifle, not the splutter of a machine-gun.

Again the dull drone of the heavy stuff--the practised ear could gauge its fall, and I retreated a few yards into the pa.s.sage. The courtyard outside caught it, and the entire chateau trembled violently at the concussion. But why, why these big guns? Another landed in the yard, followed by an unearthly tinkle of falling gla.s.s. Someone ran in from the gateway with a headlong rush, gained the pa.s.sage and paused.

"Phew," excitedly, "what the devil is Fritz up to? Heaviest sh.e.l.ls on this front."

"Yes. Might be coming over."

"Hardly."

"Why these heavies?"

"Dunno. He's sh.e.l.ling along the whole line--good G.o.d," in a shout, "look at that chap there ... it, oh, my G.o.d, it's got him ... did you, did you, see THAT?" A heavy had whined into the yard just as a runner essayed a blind rush. Nothing was left. Nausea, a slight dizziness enveloped us.

"What," he asked hoa.r.s.ely, "what is this place?"

"86th Brigade."

"I want the Guernseys."

"In the Catacombs. The road up on the right." He walked out on to the steps, stared intently into the night--in a flash we both sensed Death.

He ran down the flight:

"Good-night." He was a death casualty that night, and we HAD BOTH KNOWN IT.

Presentiment of looming danger was pregnant, became accentuated with the increase of heavy sh.e.l.ling falling from three angles: from directly overhead, from the right rear flank and left rear.

It all culminated before dawn into a barrage on our lines, sh.e.l.ls raining in on every acre by the dozens. From the top of the chateau (it was built on a hill) with the coming of day, wave upon wave of grey-coated infantry could be discerned through the gla.s.ses. It was impossible to estimate their number, line followed line in such rapid sequence that the eye was bewildered.

They were up against the 29th. The Division wiped out, not partially but completely, row after row. Rifles and machine-guns mingled in hasty chorus, incessant, rapid, accurate. Fritz fell back.

The gla.s.ses swept over to the right: the heart gave one wild leap of anxiety. The Division on the right had to face an advance it was unable to stem, a first line had fallen and a bunch of khaki figures were being hurried away into the German rear. Beneath pressure too heavy the line gave, retired rapidly, and the 29th's flank was exposed at a mere HALF-MILE'S distance.

A call was given for a Guernsey scout ... from the pa.s.sage an inferno of sh.e.l.ls were visible bursting every few yards, instantaneously the mind formed: "Impossible to go through alive." One wild frenzied run across the vibrating yard, hearing everywhere the thunderous bursts, fumes fouling the nostrils, breath coming and going in gasps; running like Hades, bent almost double: any second the singing pieces of shrapnel flying past will get you. Into the Brigade Headquarters with a wild laugh! You're through, but you have got to get BACK.

In response to that message the Ten Hundred turned out.

They swung out into Masnieres' cobbled hill, rifles slung, and marched with all the nonchalance in the world towards the bridge, cigarettes and pipes going, laughing and joking--thus have I a hundred times watched them go on parade.

That march, a cla.s.sic; let it go down into history as an emblem of the old Ten Hundred. Their last march together, their last foot chorus on the long trails. Square of shoulder, upright, I see even now those figures that have long since been still. Every yard a man crumpled up, any yard it might be YOU. And they laughed and smoked, went forth to call "Halt!" to those waves of grey, advancing some hundred yards away, as if they had a hundred lives to give. Let coming generations marvel.

The Farewell March of the First Ten Hundred. Before the sun had reached its noon many had crossed the Groat Divide and pa.s.sed the portals of Valhalla to swell the throng of their Viking forefathers.

The enemy advance had continued with remarkable rapidity towards Rues Vertes and Marcoing. Rear Brigade Headquarters, in Rues Vertes, or at least above that village, had been seized, and the R.E.'s, a portion of the N.C.O. staff, all rations and ammunition captured. A dressing station filled with R.A.M.C. and wounded was taken, but Frit acted honourably, placed a sentry over the entrance and allowed the Red Cross men to carry on with their work.

From Marcoing the 88th Brigade formed a line running towards Masnieres, and with the dull, wicked bayonet went out to meet the grey forces. Here and there bayonet met bayonet. Again it was the 29th. Blood poured into pools on the gra.s.s, Hun after Hun clasped his weakening grip upon the British bayonet rasping through his chest. He fell and with a foot on the body for leverage a red, dipping blade was withdrawn. On again, crack! crack!! Lunge, until the ribs snapped like dry sticks beneath each thrust. Stoic British, unmoved, unexcited ... well might you Germans call the 29th the Iron Division. Aye, the Cult of the Bayonet!

The enemy sickened ... ran.

Lining the roads above and below the broken Masnieres bridges, with its half sunk tank, the Ten Hundred pumped an annhilating shower or lead into the lines of enemy creeping along the ca.n.a.l bank. He turned and retreated, but a swarm of grey figures had taken Rues Vertes and were consolidating their positions in what const.i.tuted a direct menace to both the 88th Brigade at Marcoing and the other two (89th and 87th) holding on against the onslaught on a line stretching from Masnieres to Nine Wood. In this village the enemy held a pivot from which a turning movement, if supported with sufficient troops and guns, could be enforced. He had both these essentials and his aeroplanes grasped in a moment that an advance from here would, if successful, bring the Hun infantry into the direct REAR of those British lines still intact, cut the only line of retreat and force the capitulation of the Divisions at the apex of the salient.

Fritz 'planes were up in scores flying in formation, and, having no opposition, were frequently at an alt.i.tude of a mere sixty or eighty feet. The scouts, peering down on the situation at Masnieres, took in at a glance the wide area that had to be covered by the solitary Norman Battalion without support of any kind. This information was communicated to the German Command. Inroad from Rues Vertes was prepared with certain confidence; but they had not calculated with the Normans and before the Command could move a finger THEY HAD LOST RUES VERTES!

There was not in that first storming of the village the desperate hand-to-hand fighting that would inevitably have ensued had the Hun made a stand. The Normans scampered wildly into the one narrow road in the stop-at-nothing rush that came naturally to them; some slipped down the fields with Lewis-guns, and Fritz aware that his left flank was falling back before the grim counter-attack of the 88th, retired with abrupt haste. The Lewis-guns (a machine gun firing 700, or slightly over, shots a minute--in theory, 500 in actual practice) in the fields found that the German retreating line was by force of circ.u.mstance brought into that most-deadly fire, enfilade (e.g., firing across a line from a point of vantage at the flank). The guns opened without warning on the three waves, more or less in ma.s.s due to the involuntary retreat. No more adequate simile can convey the picture of the fast-falling figures than that of gra.s.s beneath the scythe. Five minutes, perhaps ten, and it was over. Bodies lay thick everywhere, and upon this area of wounded and dying sh.e.l.ls were casting square feet of flesh yards into the air.

German 'planes, viewing this ma.s.sacre from above, swept down in swift retribution, and flying low turned their machine-guns upon the unprotected Normans. An aeroplane travels at anything from eighty to one hundred miles an hour, and this very speed restricted a lengthy concentration on any one spot, but many a Norman fell forward on his face, a dozen leaden bullets in his skull and chest.

Duquemin, conscious and moaning piteously in agony, was lying crosswise over his rifle, one leg smeared with blood, and the other reclining grotesquely against the hedge twenty yards away. Doubled up on a hedge top, rifle still levelled at the foe, a figure lay and upon its shoulders a ghastly mess of brains and blood crushed flat in the steel helmet. Duval stumbled blindly towards the dressing station, the flesh gleaming red down one side of his face and an eye almost protruding. Le Lievre limped away in the direction of Marcoing and walked for five hours before succour came his way. Tich was lying face earthwards near the Crucifix, a rifle shot in the very centre of his head. Rob, quiet, gentle-natured Rob, fell forward against the semi-trench.

"I--I've got in--the head," he said weakly "I--I'm going, go--." He collapsed ... life ebbed away and he was still.

BUT THE NORMANS HELD RUES VERTES.

The Germans launched a heavy offensive, for the retaking, wave after wave, line after line, moving ponderously forward. The Norman rifles and machine-guns shrieked out lead in a high staccato until the advance, slackened, wavered and fell back. Hun artillery showered sh.e.l.l, gas, and shrapnel over every yard of ground. For a period the Normans fell in dozens everywhere. The ca.n.a.l in places was stained red, and Norman bodies drifted twirling away on its fast-running waters before sinking.

AMMUNITION WAS SHORT. Scouts from Headquarters tried to get into Marcoing with the information. Clarke moving along the road found himself unable to return or to move because of a Fritz advanced post.

One of the Middles.e.x crossing a clearing in the trees was wiped out by machine-gun fire and toppled over into the ca.n.a.l.

Mighty trees, a yard radius, bordered those waters, but at every few paces forward the eye took in one of these monsters split open by a sh.e.l.l. The pulse quickened; if it did that to a tree what would be left of you--anyhow you wouldn't know much about it. Approaching Marcoing the hum of an aeroplane, flying low sounded--in a second I feigned casualty, but he got home on the other scout ahead. Phew, wind up!

The very streets of Marcoing were almost obliterated by the jumbled heap of stone, wood-work and bricks lying across them. Bodies in every inconceivable state of partial or whole dismemberment made a ghastly array in the bleak sunlight, blood from man and animal formed dark pools in the hollow sections of the shattered roadway. Progress could only be made by moving apprehensively close up to what walls were still standing, and to sprint wildly over the open. Wounded were streaming in hundreds towards the dressing station in the square ... many failed to reach there alive.

From the top of the Chateau in Masnieres, Corporal Cochrane (the finest little N.C.O. in the Battalion) and a few others were sniping at Hun ARTILLERY some four hundred yards distant. AT LAST had the infantryman his chance.

A steady glance down the sights. Crack! Miss! Crack! Got him but only slightly. Crack, crack! The unholy glee of it. You could see by the way he fell that it had gone home fatally. Crack--another five rounds are rammed into the magazine ... pump it into them, play h.e.l.l with that Artillery while the chance lasts.