Great Britain at War Part 6

"A battery of heavies," said F.

Even as he spoke the four puffs burst forth again and upon exactly the same ground.

At this juncture a head appeared over the parapet behind us and after some talk with F., came one who tendered us a pair of binoculars, by whose aid I made out the British new line of trenches which had once been German. So I stood, dry-mouthed, to watch the burst of those huge sh.e.l.ls exploding upon our British line. Fascinated, I stared until F.'s hand on my arm aroused me, and returning the gla.s.ses with a hazy word of thanks I followed my companions, though often turning to watch the shooting which now I thought much too good.

And now we were traversing the great battlefield where, not long since, so many of our bravest had fallen that Britain might still be Britain. Even yet, upon its torn and trampled surface I could read something of the fight--here a broken shoulder belt, there a cartridge pouch, yonder a stained and tattered coat, while everywhere lay bombs, English and German.

"If you want to see La Boiselle properly we must hurry!" said F., and off he went at the double with K.'s long legs striding beside him, but, as for me, I must needs turn for one last look where those deadly smoke puffs came and went with such awful regularity.

The rain had stopped, but it was three damp and mud-spattered wretches who clambered back into the waiting car.

"K.," said I, as we removed our c.u.mbrous headgear, "about how much do you suppose these things weigh?"

"Fully a ton!" he answered, jerking his cap over his eyes and scowlingly accepting a cigarette.

Very soon the shattered village was far behind and we were threading a devious course between huge steam-tractors, guns, motor-lorries and more guns. We pa.s.sed soldiers a-horse and a-foot and long strings of ambulance cars; to right and left of the road were artillery parks and great camps, that stretched away into the distance. Here also were vast numbers of the ubiquitous motor-lorry with many three-wheeled tractors for the big guns. We sped past hundreds of horses picketed in long lines; past countless tents smeared crazily in various coloured paints; past huts little and huts big; past swamps knee-deep in mud where muddy men were taking down or setting up other tents. On we sped through all the confused order of a mighty army, until, chancing to raise my eyes aloft, I beheld a huge balloon, which, as I watched, mounted up and up into the air.

"One of our sausages!" said F., gloved hand waving. "Plenty of 'em round here; see, there's another in that cloud, and beyond it another."

So for a while I rode with my eyes turned upwards, and thus I presently saw far ahead many aeroplanes that flew in strange, zigzag fas.h.i.+on, now swooping low, now climbing high, now twisting and turning giddily.

"Some of our 'planes under fire!" said F., "you can see the shrapnel bursting all around 'em--there's the smoke--we call 'em woolly bears.

Won't see any Boche 'planes, though--rather not!"

Amidst all these wonders and marvels our fleet car sped on, jolting and lurching violently over ruts, pot-holes and the like until we came to a part of the road where many men were engaged with pick and shovel; and here, on either side of the highway, I noticed many grim-looking heaps and mounds--ugly, shapeless dumps, depressing in their very hideousness. Beside one such unlovely dump our car pulled up, and F., gloved finger pointing, announced:

"The Church of La Boiselle. That heap you see yonder was once the Mairie, and beyond, the schoolhouse. The others were houses and cottages. Oh, La Boiselle was quite a pretty place once. We get out here to visit the guns--this way."

Obediently I followed whither he led, nothing speaking, for surely here was matter beyond words. Leaving the road, we floundered over what seemed like ash heaps, but which had once been German trenches faced and reinforced by concrete and steel plates. Many of these last lay here and there, awfully bent and twisted, but of trenches I saw none save a few yards here and there half filled with indescribable debris. It was, indeed, a place of horror--a frightful desolation beyond all words. Everywhere about us were signs of dreadful death--they came to one in the very air, in lowering heaven and tortured earth. Far as the eye could reach the ground was pitted with great sh.e.l.l holes, so close that they broke into one another and formed horrid pools full of shapeless things within the slime.

Across this h.e.l.lish waste I went cautiously by reason of torn and twisted tangles of German barbed wire, of hand grenades and huge sh.e.l.ls, of broken and rusty iron and steel that once were deadly machine guns. As I picked my way among all this flotsam, I turned to take up a bayonet, slipped in the slime and sank to my waist in a sh.e.l.l hole--even then I didn't touch bottom, but scrambled out, all grey mud from waist down--but I had the bayonet.

It was in this woeful state that I shook hands with the Major of the battery. And as we stood upon that awful waste, he chattered, I remember, of books. Then, side by side, we came to the battery--four mighty howitzers, that crashed and roared and shook the very earth with each discharge, and whose sh.e.l.ls roared through the air with the rush of a dozen express trains.

Following the Major's directing finger, I fixed my gaze some distance above the muzzle of the nearest gun and, marvel of marvels, beheld that dire messenger of death and destruction rush forth, soaring, upon its way, up and up, until it was lost in cloud. Time after time I saw the huge sh.e.l.ls leap skywards and vanish on their long journey, and stood thus lost in wonder, and as I watched I could not but remark on the speed and dexterity with which the crews handled these monstrous engines.

"Yes," nodded the Major, "strange thing is that a year ago they _weren't_, you know--guns weren't in existence and the men weren't gunners--clerks an' all that sort of thing, you know--civilians, what?"

"They're pretty good gunners now--judging by effect!" said I, nodding towards the abomination of desolation that had once been a village.

"Rather!" nodded the Major, cheerily, "used to think it took three long years to make a gunner once--do it in six short months now!

Pretty good going for old England, what? How about a cup of tea in my dugout?"

But evening was approaching, and having far to go we had perforce to refuse his hospitality and bid him a reluctant good-by.

"Don't forget to take a peep at the mine craters," said he, and waving a cheery adieu, vanished into his dugout.

Ten minutes' walk, along the road, and before us rose a jagged mount, and beyond it another, uncanny hills, seared and cracked and sinister, up whose steep slopes I scrambled and into whose yawning depths I gazed in awestruck wonder; so deep, so wide and huge of circ.u.mference, it seemed rather the result of some t.i.tanic convulsion of nature than the handiwork of man.

I could imagine the cataclysmic roar of the explosion, the smoke and flame of the mighty upheaval and war found for me yet another horror as I turned and descended the precipitous slope. Now, as I went, I stumbled over a small mound, then halted all at once, for at one end of this was a very small cross, rudely constructed and painted white, and tacked to this a strip of lettered tin, bearing a name and number, and beneath these the words, "One of the best." So I took off my hat and stood awhile beside that lonely mound of muddy earth ere I went my way.

Slowly our car lurched onward through the waste, and presently on either side the way I saw other such mounds and crosses, by twos and threes, by fifties, by hundreds, in long rows beyond count. And looking around me on this dreary desolation I knew that one day (since nothing dies) upon this place of horror gra.s.s would grow and flowers bloom again; along this now desolate and deserted road people would come by the thousand; these humble crosses and mounds of muddy earth would become to all Britons a holy place where so many of our best and bravest lie, who, undismayed, have pa.s.sed through the portals of Death into the fuller, greater, n.o.bler living.

Full of such thoughts I turned for one last look, and then I saw that the setting sun had turned each one of these humble little crosses into things of s.h.i.+ning glory.

IX

A TRAINING CAMP

The great training camp lay, a rain-lashed wilderness of windy levels and bleak, sandy hills, range upon range, far as the eye could see, with never a living thing to break the monotony. But presently, as our car lurched and splashed upon its way, there rose a sound that grew and grew, the awesome sound of countless marching feet.

On they came, these marching men, until we could see them by the hundred, by the thousand, their serried ranks stretching away and away until they were lost in distance. Scots were here, Lowland and Highland; English and Irish were here, with bronzed New Zealanders, adventurous Canadians and hardy Australians; men, these, who had come joyfully across half the world to fight, and, if need be, die for those ideals which have made the Empire a.s.suredly the greatest and mightiest this world has ever known. And as I listened to the rhythmic tramp of these countless feet, it seemed like the voice of this vast Empire proclaiming to the world that Wrong and Injustice must cease among the nations; that man, after all, despite all the "Frightfulness" that warped intelligence may conceive, is yet faithful to the highest in him, faithful to that deathless, purposeful determination that Right shall endure, the abiding belief of which has brought him through the dark ages, through blood and misery and shame, on his progress ever upward.

So, while these men of the Empire tramped past through blinding rain and wind, our car stopped before a row of low-lying wooden buildings, whence presently issued a tall man in rain-sodden trench cap and burberry, who looked at me with a pair of very dark, bright eyes and gripped my hand in hearty clasp.

He was apologetic because of the rain, since, as he informed us, he had just ordered all men to their quarters, and thus I should see nothing doing in the training line; nevertheless he cheerfully offered to show us over the camp, despite mud and wind and rain, and to explain things as fully as he could; whereupon we as cheerfully accepted.

The wind whistled about us, the rain pelted us, but the Major heeded it nothing--neither did I--while K. loudly congratulated himself on having come in waders and waterproof hat, as, through mud and mire, through puddles and clogging sand, we followed the Major's long boots, crossing bare plateaux, climbing precipitous slopes, leaping trenches, slipping and stumbling, while ever the Major talked, wherefore I heeded not wind or rain, for the Major talked well.

He descanted on the new and horribly vicious methods of bayonet fighting--the quick thrust and lightning recovery; struggling with me upon a sandy, rain-swept height, he showed me how, in wrestling for your opponent's rifle, the bayonet is the thing. He halted us before devilish contrivances of barbed wire, each different from the other, but each just as ugly. He made us peep through loopholes, each and every different from the other, yet each and every skilfully hidden from an enemy's observation. We stood beside trenches of every shape and kind while he pointed out their good and bad points; he brought us to a place where dummy figures had been set up, their rags a-flutter, forlorn objects in the rain.

"Here," said he, "is where we teach 'em to throw live bombs--you can see where they've been exploding; dummies look a bit off-colour, don't they?" And he pointed to the ragged scarecrows with his whip.

"You know, I suppose," he continued, "that a Mills' bomb is quite safe until you take out the pin, and then it is quite safe as long as you hold it, but the moment it is loosed the lever flies off, which releases the firing lever and in a few seconds it explodes. It is surprising how men vary; some are born bombers, some soon learn, but some couldn't be bombers if they tried--not that they're cowards, it's just a case of mentality. I've seen men take hold of a bomb, pull out the pin, and then stand with the thing clutched in their fingers, absolutely unable to move! And there they'd stand till Lord knows when if the Sergeant didn't take it from them. I remember a queer case once. We were saving the pins to rig up dummy bombs, and the order was: 'Take the bomb in your right hand, remove the pin, put the pin in your pocket, and at the word of command, throw the bomb.'

Well, this particular fellow was so wrought up that he threw away the pin and put the bomb in his pocket!"

"Was he killed?" I asked.

"No. The sergeant just had time to dig the thing out of the man's pocket and throw it away. Bomb exploded in the air and knocked 'em both flat."

"Did the sergeant get the V.C. or M.C. or anything?" I enquired.

The Major smiled and shook his head.

"I have a good many sergeants here and they can't all have 'em! Now come and see my lecture theatres."

Presently, looming through the rain, I saw huge circular structures that I could make nothing of, until, entering the larger of the two, I stopped in surprise, for I looked down into a huge, circular amphitheatre, with circular rows of seats descending tier below tier to a circular floor of sand, very firm and hard.

"All made out of empty oil cans!" said the Major, tapping the nearest can with his whip. "I have 'em filled with sand and stacked as you see!--good many thousands of 'em here. Find it good for sound too--shout and try! This place holds about five thousand men--"

"Whose wonderful idea was this?"

"Oh, just a little wheeze of my own. Now, how about the poison gas; feel like going through it?"

I glanced at K., K. glanced at me. I nodded, so did K.