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diff --git a/26713-8.txt b/26713-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..326af63 --- /dev/null +++ b/26713-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4381 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Norman Ten Hundred, by A. Stanley Blicq + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Norman Ten Hundred + A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry + + +Author: A. Stanley Blicq + + + +Release Date: September 27, 2008 [eBook #26713] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORMAN TEN HUNDRED*** + + +E-text prepared by Steven Gibbs and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 26713-h.htm or 26713-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/6/7/1/26713/26713-h/26713-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/6/7/1/26713/26713-h.zip) + + +Transcriber's note: + + A Table of Contents, not present in the original, was + added for the convenience of the reader. + + + + + +NORMAN TEN HUNDRED + +by + +A. STANLEY BLICQ. + +A Record of the ---- +1st (Service) Bn. +Royal Guernsey Light Infantry + + + + + + + +Guernsey: +Printed at The Guernsey Press Co., Ltd., +Smith Street and Le Marchant Street. +1920. + + + + + This modest work is dedicated to: + + Mrs. P. EREAUX, + + in appreciation of her genial personality, + strong moral courage and unhesitating + adherence to duty as she conceived it. + + And also to: + + GEORGE W. CLARKE, Esq., + + in memory of those Great Days when + we marched the Long Trail together; + shared the same sorrows, the same + mirth;--and now the same memories, far away, + indistinct; laughter merged with the + tears. + A. STANLEY BLICQ. + Guernsey, 1920. + + + + +NORMAN TEN HUNDRED. + +A BATTALION OF THE OLDEST AND SMALLEST +DEMOCRACY IN THE WORLD. + +Guernsey--named Sarnia by the Romans--one of the Channel Isles from +out the sun swathed romance of whose shores rallied a fierce band +of Norman warriors to the aid of their Duke, William of Normandy; +afterwards the Conqueror, at Hastings, 1066. In reward for their +valour William granted the Isles the independence they maintain to +this day. From Guernsey something approaching 7,000 men have gone +out into the Great Undertaking. The Norman Ten Hundred is the 1st +Royal Guernsey Light Infantry offered by the States of Guernsey for +active participation side by side with the Mother Country's troops +in any of the fighting areas. The narrative is authentic. + + + + +CONTENTS + + I SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER, 1917 + II SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER, 1917 HENDECOURT + III NOVEMBER, 1917 CAMBRAI REHEARSAL + IV MOVING UP + V NOVEMBER 20th, 1917 CAMBRAI OFFENSIVE + THE ADVANCE + VI MARCOING--MASNIERES + VII HOLDING THE LINE + MASNIERES + VIII NOVEMBER 30th-DECEMBER 1st, 1917 GERMAN ONSLAUGHT + IX DECEMBER-JANUARY, 1918 HOUVIN + X DECEMBER-JANUARY, 1918 FLERS--LE PARCQ--VERCHOCQ + XI DECEMBER-JANUARY, 1918 LEULENE--BRANDHOEK--YPRES + XII PASSCHENDAELE SECTOR + XIII PASSCHENDAELE SECTOR + POPERINGHE--STEENVOORDE + --BRANDHOEK + XIV MARCH-APRIL, 1918 IN THE LINE + XV APRIL 10-14, 1918 DOULIEU-ESTAIRES + + + + + +NORMAN + +TEN HUNDRED + +By A. Stanley Blicq + + + + +I + +SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER, 1917 + + +Fed up! Every man of the Ten Hundred was fed up. Thirty-six hours cooped +in cattle trucks, thirty or forty in a truck and inhaling an atmosphere +that would have disgusted a pig--enough to feed anyone up. + +The Belgian frontier was crossed at sunset and the fringe of war's +devastation penetrated. Little interest or casual comment was aroused, +although a reputable thirsty one remarked that he thought Jerry might +have spared the village pub. + +The long line of dirty trucks stopped with an abrupt jerk and noisy +jarring of impact. Then it came! Grumbles ceased as if by common +consent. There was something indefinable but pregnant, and in tense +silence ears were strained intently. Was it only the rumble of a distant +cart on hard cobbles or...? Faintly over the damp air came a long, +insistent murmur. Hearts beat faster.... Guns! + +Northward and then West the train panted up a slight grade, made a wide +curve and then abruptly shut off steam. Long white tapering lights +sprang up from nowhere, wavered and hesitated over the sky; caught in +their glare a silvery bird and followed it across the night. Without +warning an anti-aircraft gun launched with a deafening roar its whining +shell heavenwards. Boom! In the sudden uproar Le Page fell off the +train, jerking his tin of bully beef into Clarke's shaving water. The +Jerry airman circled higher, dived again--and dropped his bomb, missing +the train by hundreds of yards. He had spotted the smoke belching from +the engine. Again he spiralled higher, slipped the converging net of +searchlights and escaped ... ugh! The Ten Hundred breathed a sigh of +relief. + +Disembarkation from a train at a point a few miles in the rear of the +Front Line always tends to put the wind up you. The mental survey of a +thousand men en bloc conveys immediately to the mind what an obvious and +unmistakable target a battalion forms. Eyes apprehensively search the +sky for the danger that each one knows lurks somewhere up there in that +black pall, the darker by contrast with the brilliant spearheads of +light searching to and fro. + +And of course in such windy moments the order to march off is delayed. +Then when you ARE well on your way you wish you were not, for there is +an unutterable weariness in those marches to bivouacs amid dead silence +from end to end of the ranks; only ever present on the ear that +unceasing booming of heavies or the nearer and unpleasant kr-ru-up of a +not-far-distant German shell. Worn, sadly worn, beneath the staggering +weight of packs on aching shoulders, where chafed skin smarts under the +straps, head bent forward and downwards, one cared little for direction. +Onward, always onward, feet burning with heavy going in clogging Belgian +mud.... Sleep, one longs to lie down there and then to sleep, anyhow, +anywhere! + +Bivouacs are under the best of circumstances mere makeshifts. "Stoke +Camp"--CAMP! The irony of it--was on a par with the average. Here and +there a scattered tent, here and there a sheet or two of oilcloth, and +everywhere an abundance of water. + +Still it was a haven of rest. Men filed tiredly by in Companies, sorted +themselves out, and cast down packs; boots were jerked off anyhow, +rifles stacked. Each man wrapped around him that old and trusty +friend--his overcoat, heads rested on the hard packs ... doze and +dream.... + +Three headquarters scouts are turned out for guard! + +Two hours swinging up and down, then four hours sleep: and then ... the +mind of the overworn first sentry sickens. Again and again over the +muddy uneven strip, watching fascinated the weird, mad shadows cast in +gaunt trees from a perpetual red glow eastwards. From amid the bivouacs +a lad cries fitfully in his uneasy sleep; a hardy few can be seen by the +glow of cigarettes sitting beneath a solitary tarpaulin. + +From the distance something high in the heavens hummed softly the while +here and there far-off searchlights twinkled, one after another picking +up the trail until the whole sky was ablaze with wavering shafts of +light. The murmuring grew to a roar, accompanied by a deafening din of +an Archie (anti-aircraft) barrage and the unceasing rattle of machine +guns. + +The enemy 'plane became visible, its sinister cross plainly discernible, +and dived. The sentry heard something sizzle down and--a mighty flash +lit up the woods: the whole earth trembled violently beneath a fierce +concussion. The roar echoed and re-echoed, was followed by a continuous +shower of litter tearing or trickling down through the trees. Unnerving +cries rose from a score or more stampeding horses in the adjacent camp; +but the subtler human ear caught on the damp night breezes a sound that +froze the blood ... pitiful low sobs of men dying from the hot flying +shrapnel. + +The Guernseys slept on as if nothing had happened. Therein lies the +strange psychological mystery of the human mind.... The bomb failed to +disturb; but a solitary shot from the sentry would have roused half the +Battalion and sent them seeking half-consciously for their rifles. + +In the morning the news spread rapidly. In it they found occasion to +accentuate a grousing born of the damp, uncheering vista around them. + +"Bombed in the train, bombed first night up 'ere," said Ginger, "grub +late, no water to wash in; no baccy, no matches--only a blasted ole +rifle wot's gone too rusty to clean." + +Washing WAS a complex problem, involving choice between half-a-mile's +walk to a doubtful pool or a canteen full (about a pint and a half) of +water obtained from a muddy puddle in the roadway. The latter method +requiring a minimum of physical exertion was by far the more popular and +each tin of valued water underwent utilisation to its very extreme +limits, i.e., until reduced to something approaching a soup. + +There are always days when the Ten Hundred arouse within themselves by +their own exertions a shy, deep pride of their Regiment. It is a +characteristic happy knack of the boys to give their very best during +parades before the G.O.C., and that was undoubtedly a strong factor in +building up the Battalion's fame at Bourne Park. + +They visibly and agreeably impressed the G.O.C., 29th Division, at their +initial appearance before him. Whether the Guernsey's exceptional +steadiness solicits approval, or if the rapid rhythmical movements in +handling arms--quicker than is customary with other regiments--pleases +the Official Eye cannot be accurately gauged. It is a concrete +certainty, however, that the unit composes an efficient, compact body +comparing very favourably with its contemporaries. + +Fritz carried on his genial bombing expeditions night and day over the +surrounding district, thereby giving birth to defensive measures in the +form of an excavation inside each tent two feet in depth. Outside a wall +of similar height was constructed around the tent or bivouac--few have +the luxury of a tent. A degree of protection from flying shrapnel is +thereby obtained, unless, of course, Fritz registers a direct hit. + +Miniature dug-out were cut down into the wet soil by the more +enterprising, but proved ghastly failures, even in the dry hours ... if +anything out there could be termed "dry." I doubt it, excepting the +thirst of a few reputables. Twenty-four hours' rain gave the most +ambitious dug-out an opportunity to demonstrate its exceptional +capability of receiving and RETAINING water. The scene presented in the +morning was unique. + +A steel helmet sailed majestically behind an empty tin of bully, in turn +twirling by a pair of sunken boots. Clinging desperately to a few wet +sandbags, four marooned muddy individuals glared ferociously at the +interested onlookers and developed fearful vocal powers of emphasis that +shocked the genial enquirers who came in dozens to discover if: "A +rain-drop or two had trickled in." + +The peculiarity of being bombed is such that a sense of personal +security takes a long while to outlive the insistent curiosity that +compels one to stare fascinated at the death above. An up-stretched neck +and straddle-legged attitude predominated--so did neck-ache. + +White, during a raid, threw a stone upon Tubby's hat, causing the latter +to drop his mess-tin of dinner in hasty fright ... but the sight of the +stew sliding gracefully down White's blankets delighted the onlookers +and made "honours easy." + +The Ten Hundred, of course, attempted to bring a Jerry down. Sergeant +Russel nightly pointed the muzzle of his Lewis-gun in the air and pulled +the trigger, in the hope perhaps that Fritz might inadvertently sail +into the track of his bullets. Unfortunately firing at so perpendicular +an angle caused the lead to fall into the adjacent infantry lines and +they--they returned the compliment, although neither Battalion inflicted +any "Blighty's" on the other. + +Two Companies had to go up the line on a hazardous task. The twist of +the coin gave the honour to A. and D. And yet how forcible a factor was +that coin in deciding the unfathomable wherefore of existence. It was +thrown in the air; fell, wavered on edge, flattened out. And +implicitly, blindly obeying the indict conveyed from its face this or +that man passed from active, living phenomenon in the evolution of the +cosmic process to mere insensible matter. + +Life, then, is chance, luck; to which no guiding factors, laws, or +binding principles can be adduced. + +Before marching off from the bemudded "parade" ground we were fed up. +Constant rain had rendered an always muddy surface into a slimy +quagmire, in which every step forward was a conscious effort. There was +little singing in either Companies (A. and D.), during the short march +to the train conveying the party to near a shell-infested area where the +said party would partake of its outdoor picnic. "Party"--the ironical +humour of it! + +Each lad was tired, wet, and hungry. Tempers easily ruffled. "Wot the +'ell do yer think year bumpin' into?" shouted Biffer at an unfortunate +who had side-slipped into him. + +"Bumpin' into?" the other grunted, "nothing much by the look of it." +They glared at one another like fighting cats ... the contretemps +fizzled out; both were too tired to argue. + +Disembarkation during the night in a blinding storm of rain that had +materially increased to a torrential downpour materially helped to damp +spirits already none too high. Bumping wildly into this figure or that, +slipping full-length into inches of water and thereby saturating what +little dry clothing that had remained so, they peered vainly into the +all absorbing blanket of night for the tents, bivouacs or shelters that +were not there. We have all had our minds permeated with a strong fear +of Hell.... After that night many will thank their stars that this abode +of ill-omen is HOT and therefore apparently DRY. + +Each man was told to do the best for himself with a ground sheet. To +derive shelter in such a storm with a few feet of oilcloth, no props, no +light, is a task to which sweeping back the Atlantic with a toothbrush +is simple in comparison. + +But they were up against it ... grumbles ceased. Someone by an +extraordinary stroke of luck stumbled upon an R.E. dump from which +sundry articles essential to the construction of shelters could be +filched. Filched must be emphasised, for therein lay the ulterior reason +for transformation from "fed-upity" to a genial anticipation of +forthcoming trouble. The C.R.E. in the morning would raise Hell when he +discovered half his dump appropriated and scattered by the Guernseys +over a wide area. The O.C.'s of A and D Companies would be hauled over +the coals.... There was the nucleus of the farce. The men pinched and +the officers stood the racket. The very thought sent the whole ranks +chuckling and up soared the high spirit barometer. There was, too, in +these repeated silent visits to the dump a possibility of discovery that +appealed to that venturesome spirit so characteristically a trait of the +Ten Hundred. They chuckled gleefully at each nefarious trip, almost +wished some interfering N.C.O. would appear from an R.E. depôt and +originate by his unpleasantries something of a rough house. + +Shelters through which streams trickled were run up and the floors tiled +with a queer assortment of tins, empty cartridge cases and odd bits of +wood. Drenched to the very skin, shivering and sneezing with cold, they +gave no heed to the rain tattooing on their faces or to the enemy +shells. Within the rickety shelters damp figures, huddled together for +warmth, closed tired eyes and in utter weariness of limbs fell into a +fitful sleep. + +Snatches of song, bursts of laughter, echoed here and there in the +night. Laughter! What on earth was there to laugh at? The wretched +improvised shelters on and into which rain crept, lashed earthwards by a +howling wind? The cold, chilly feet, clinging clothes and wet skin? Or +is there anything refreshingly humorous in the knowledge that Death +groped about in the night for his own ... found them? Is there a +mirth-provoking element in the ten to one chance that YOU may not see +the morrow? + +All honour to you, Normans! From Valhalla, in his high seat with the +Anses, Rollo of old looked down on you with pride. + +Langemarck, grim, windswept and desolate. + +A few short weeks before it had by the flowing of British blood, by our +own Division, been wrenched from the German grasp. There is everywhere +about it an awesome sacredness. One hesitates to treat lightly over the +soil that belongs to those whose eyes were closed in the taking, and +whose warrior forms lie at rest beneath the pathetic white crosses +dotted over the gruesome waste. Those sad little emblems of Supreme +Sacrifice: "To the memory of a British Soldier." Simple but magnificent! +A farewell to some unknown--to some mother's son. + +The first shell that scatters you in all direction, secretly feeling +yourself doubtfully all over, abruptly disperses any sentimentality that +may cling to the mind. The two Companies found it so when they marched +still further up the line and commenced work on two different sectors, +shelled--but comparatively lightly--for the first day or two. + +The first line over-attacked in the mud, swept over Poelcapelle and +advanced on Passchendaele, pausing while the mobile artillery moved up +to support over roads that were daily filled in and rebuilt by fatigue +parties similar to the Guernseys. The German Headquarters concentrated +their guns upon the immediate British rear, with the intention of +hampering and impeding the movements of reinforcements and artillery. + +The Guernseys got the cream of it. Ground was churned up for yards and +bodies buried weeks before were blown from their resting places, +grinning white and hideous at the sky. Work on the roads was one +perpetually interrupted operation, men ducking every few minutes to the +whine of a shell. Life was an unknown quantity--no man could gauge what +moments were still left him. Streams of wounded ran, hobbled or limped +painfully away from that sector of Hell. Artillery galloped steaming +horses through, sighing with relief upon attaining the other end. + +There comes a time after his first baptism of fire, after his first view +of the shattered mutilated remnants of a shell-stricken body, that the +infantryman turns towards where invisible German guns from comparative +safety belch forth death, and shakes his impotent fist at this enemy. He +picks himself up, white and shaken, from where the concussion has thrown +him, and amid the cries of the dying, "Curse you," he sobs, "if ever the +chance comes----!" + +A battery of R.F.A. within a few hundred yards of the road opened +salvoes lasting throughout every morning until the ears throbbed with +each successive roar and the earth trembled violently beneath the +6-in.'s concussion. Jerry airmen endeavouring to spot the gun-positions +swooped down unheard, pumping lead in heavy showers from machine-guns +upon the Guernseys and scattering them broadcast. + +Pike stopped a "Blighty" with his foot, and Pleton, a shrapnel bullet +whistling clean through his chest, fell limply forward. Gas commenced, +coming over in shells ... in response to the alarm, respirators were +donned with an alacrity phenomenal in its hasty adjustment. De La Mare +discovered one of the eye-pieces missing. Holding his nose with one +hand, he spluttered: "Wa', wi' I do?" and instantly clapped his hand +over his mouth, jumping from one foot to another in apprehensive +uncertainty. From within every helmet choking bursts of laughter sounded +muffled on the air. The unfortunate lad held his breath until black in +the face, gasped in a frenzied intake of air, and gingerly felt himself. +Ultimately instructed to change into the P.H. helmet, he did so +nervously, succeeded, and sat down, inhaling deep breaths of relief. + +"All Clear" was sounded, but from the moment he removed his mask and for +days afterwards he was the recipient of sly solicitations from a +chuckling platoon. + +"I wonder why 'e was pullin' on 'is nose?" Le Page innocently inquired; +"ain't it long enough?" + +"Dunno," Ginger replied; "p'raps 'e 'as chronic catarrh!" + +Day followed day, bringing little change in the task. Casualties were +not exceptionally heavy, but the strenuous work and perpetual stress of +the nerves told on them. For there is no more nerve-shattering task than +to have to submit without active retaliation day after day to harassing +shell-fire. It is during this early initiating into a general +expectation of possible death that the young warrior has to conquer the +psychological instinct impressed with fear upon his imagination from +childhood that LIFE is his most valued asset, and must be safeguarded +before all things. And now his conception is revolutionised. He must +accept death as a daily possibility. + +It is patent that dusk found them weary and worn, plodding and wading +silently "homewards," shovel on shoulder, across four or five kilos of +desolate mud; falling and tripping over stagnant bodies, masses of +tangled wire, bricks and jagged wood-work everywhere impeding progress. +And yet a consciousness of good work done reacted on their spirits. They +reflected contentedly of the meal awaiting, of their pipes, their sleep. + +The inscrutable ways of Chance--Destiny, call it what you will--brought +about the greatest catastrophe that had so far obtained in the Guernsey +ranks. Major Davey moved his party over an area--at about 11 in the +morning of a warm, sunny Sunday--coming in for a spell of shelling +extraordinary in intensity. A labour unit retired because of the +exigencies of the precarious situation. Inflexible, the Normans carried +on, then--s-i-iz-z ... kr-rupp! + +The leading platoon caught it in their very midst, a ghastly heap of +mangled flesh and shattered limbs were scattered to right and left. Two +unhappy lads were blown to unrecognisable fragments. No words can convey +the heart-rending cries of those whose bodies cringe and writhe from the +hell-hot agony of searing shrapnel. There is an unmistakable appeal for +pity that stirs the depth of feeling until a wild frenzy to right +matters sends Berserk passion to the brain. Oh, you German gunners in +your serene safety, if ever my chance comes...! + +Thus the first of the Ten Hundred went over the Great Divide. + +An order to retire was quietly obeyed. They marched back, some shaken, +some bleeding from minor wounds: bearing the stretcher cases and dead +with them. Some gazed eastwards, faces transfigured with impotent rage, +a few white faced boys stared hypnotised before them; but the remainder, +heads erect, looked grimly ahead ... they would not forget! + +A day or so later the Normans came out. Cookie, black and grimy from +head to foot--the only condition in which he really felt at +home--prepared the removal of his cookers. + +"I didn't 'alf 'ave the wind up," he confided me afterwards, "about that +there last dinner; becos, you see, a Jerry shell wot burst close chucked +a great chunk of mud into one of them cockers. Wot was I to do? Couldn't +throw away the grub ... didn't 'ave no more, so I just stirred it all +up. Anyhow," reflectively, "it made it thicker, and they sez it was +'tray bun.'" + +And so they came away with out farewell glance across that tragic +countryside, lonely and desolate as if God-forsaken in its very +devastation. The eye took in the reflected light in a myriad pools, the +white crosses, sinister wire treking right away to where a few solitary +tree stumps stood up madly against the skyline. They thought with a pang +of those who slept the long last sleep in the clinging wet soil, whose +footsteps would no longer ring on the hard road in rythmic chorus with +the old Ten Hundred, whose voices would ne'er again swell the +Battalion's marching rallies.... + +Following a brief rest the 29th Division trained, from Poperinghe +southwards. The same weary cooping in cattle-trucks, same monotonous +crawl. And yet during a halt at Hazebrucke arose one of those moments +that live long in memory, when patriotism rises high in the breast. The +station was crowded with soldiers and civilians as the Guernseys' train +drew up in the cool, dusky evening light. Someone played a cornet: "The +long, long trail." From end to end of the train the Ten Hundred caught +it up and sang low in their soft southern accent. A hush fell on the +chattering onlookers, they turned and stared. The harmony enveloped +them, stirred them ... and we, ah, how the blood stirs even now. But the +memory saddens--for the voices of many are for ever still. + + + + +II + +SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER, 1917 + +HENDECOURT + + +The mad rattle of strife in Belgium had throbbed on the ear-drums +incessantly day and night, but on the frontage beyond Hendecourt and +Arras little more than an occasional "Verey" light from the Fritz line +played hesitatingly on the grotesque landscape. Even the guns were +silent: the crack of a rifle-shot or far-off splutters from machine-guns +were the only sounds to mingle with the harsh jumbled tread of the Royal +Guernseys marching over cobbles and bad roads to the encampment of iron +huts. + +The going from Beaumetz, through shell-shattered villages, by roads +twisting up and down long hills, commenced to tell on the men long +before the first halt was due. Breathing became, in many cases, long and +heavy; some stumbled blindly forward with heads strained down, and +others impotently cursed at the Higher Command for not calling a halt. +Sweat trickled over dust-begrimed countenances, feet were aching, the +tongue clove parched to the mouth, the pack ... oh, the utter hell of +it. And yet on the morrow you forgot! + +On territory recaptured (during March, 1917) from Fritz and within a few +hundred yards of his original reserve line, still intact and heavily +protected with barbed wire, was the conglomeration of huts that formed +for nearly three weeks the home of the Ten Hundred. + +The Infantryman sees far more of the trenches than of Rest Camps, and +therefore what precious days of absence from the joys of water-logged +dug-outs comes his way are seized upon and lived to the very full. The +Normans had not experienced very much--but they had had quite enough. +Ginger Le Ray, basking his fair unshaven features in the sun and +lovingly watching Lomar pulling at a fat (and dubious) cigar, aired the +Battalion's sentiments with: "This is orlright. Anything except +Paschendaele or my ole woman." + +A Battalion offers widely divergent contrasts in the psychology of men +composing its ranks, and it is with the intention of bringing the reader +into intimate and personal touch with all these types of men that this +chapter is penned. Nick names are as common as daisies in the Army and +by this medium a large number of characters will be portrayed and the +fate awaiting each one later recorded. To those who imagine that Death +has set laws for claiming this or that type there will be ample +argumentative data--but this is a factor upon which no scientific +grounds can be used as a base for theories. Life is chance! + +There are good, indifferent, and bad soldiers among the Normans. The +first can be disposed of briefly: They are never adrift, never for +Company Orders, always spotless and first on parade; perpetually shining +and exhibiting glistening buttons before the Company-Sergeant-Major in +vague hope of promotion. A detestable type, fortunately in the minority. +Of "indifferent" in the above sense but inordinately proud of their +Battalion on parade and who gave of their best when demanded, 80 per +cent. of the Norman element was formed. + +And the bad! Dare devils and schemers of the deepest dye, ever on the +qui vive to dodge fatigues, caring not a brass button for the C.O. +himself. Martel, Leman, White, Evans. Good fellows all. Afraid of +nothing except hard work, shining-up and guards. Nebo, whose ankle when +its owner was nabbed for a working party, would twist beneath him and +features twisted in pain would murmur: "Can't--can't carry on." The Duo +(Blicq and Clarke), imperturbable and calm, had strong aversion to +exertion in any form. The appearance of a N.C.O. requiring "Four men for +fatigue." sent the two flying headlong for the doorway with a great show +of towels and soap. Always in trouble, they always wriggled out. Stumpy, +also, too tired to slip away, too tired to be anything but a hindrance +when they did put him on a job, but never too weary to eat a dinner not +his own. But to them all, good, indifferent or bad, the Battalion's name +and record came FIRST. To no unit, however famed, would they acknowledge +superiority and every General who reviewed them was unable to repress +appreciation of the outcome of this latent esprit de corps. + +They tackled every Regiment in the Brigade at football and defeated one +and all, fought their way by sheer tenacity into the Brigade Cup +Final--and lost with good spirit. + +Parades were few and light, sport compulsory. Moral and health were +excellent although the genial company of the leech-like post of active +service--lice--began to irritate some few and to send creepy sensations +down the spine of those who were still unblessed. The Duo scrubbed each +other daily in--a biscuit tin of water. + +There were baths of course! You marched down in twenties to where a +"room" was screened from the eyes of those who were not there to see by +a bordering of sacking--this served also to "keep out" a shrieking cold +wind that played up and down your bare body with icy persistence, and +finally with a spiteful gust whisked away your solitary towel to the +skies and caused you to ponder how Adam warmed himself in a snowstorm. +To pass from this elaborate dressing-room to the actual torture-chamber +necessitated a short walk OUTSIDE--ugh! Once inside the twenty Spartans +waited for the water to be turned on them from the long spray pipes. +Sometimes this water froze your marrow, but generally it scorched away +the hair that should have been shaved off that morning. However, +splashing and blindly soaping each other you would be half-way through +the operations when steam was shut off with the order "clear out"--to +make way for another twenty animals. Thus, eyes clenched tight to omit +soap-suds, into the open again, a slip in the mud, and, forgetting, +abrupt opening of the eyes--how wonderfully expressive and voluminous is +our English tongue. Although I have heard a no more efficient flow of +useful blasphemy than Duport's vitriolic patois. + +Rations were certainly plentiful--with the exception of bread, of which +one man's issue would not choke a winkle. + +Breakfast was usually bacon or cheese and chah (tea)--the beverage +slightly tainted with sugar; although there is on record one memorable +occasion of exceptional sweetness of the drink--attributed to the fact +that cookie was startled by the shout of "Raid on," and in went the +whole bag--minus the quarter placed inside for himse--er, emergency. + +Dinner, to-day, stew. To-morrow, stew, and the day after--stew! An awful +white concoction called rice went with it. Tea finds jam on the menu--on +your clothes too, because of a struggle with someone over disputed +possession of a pot that did not rightly belong to either. A 1 lb. jar +is shared among six--when it is not sixteen. Quantity and quality differ +frequently. The variety (Apple and Plum) NEVER. Supper, rice. Less +said.... + +Hendecourt proved a posh camp; memories of it and of the men who laughed +the heavy days away are pleasant. The Army, despite the grousings that +rise steadily to Tommy's lips, is a fine institution, and those who have +emerged safely from the Great Undertaking cannot but look back with +regretful pleasure upon those great days of the open, of bonne +camaraderie, of willing sacrifice. + +Nightly the 29th Divisional troupe performed before an over-crowded +house of the most appreciative audience in the world. A cinema also +threw its ardent cowboy lovers and pig-tailed heroines upon a screen +whose far distant days may have been spotless and white. Tubby awaited +outside the "stage-door" for an hour to interview Tootsie (of the +Troupe) after the first night and found "she" wore Army boots, trousers, +and chewed plug. + +Old theatre house of memory! There on Sunday row on row of mute khaki +forms bowed together in unspoken player or sang with quiet, earnest +harmony the hymn that tells home every time on the rough warriors' +heart: "Holy Father, in Thy keeping ... hear our anxious prayer," etc. +God, how they sang it! Some knew, perhaps, what awaited. + +The short November days sent the mud-clogged lads into their huts with +the last pale glimmer of a weakly sun. Constructed of sloping corrugated +iron, in which no outlet for fire-smoke had been cut, these huts were +lined at the top with some substance of felt and through which the rain +trickled into puddles and miniature lakes on the ground floor. Clarke +had adjusted a tin like a sword of Damocles over his bed to catch the +drops--and it certainly conveyed, after falling twice when full upon +Stumpy, an apprehension akin to that wrought by the weapon. Over one of +these puddles near--TOO near--his bed Ginger was wont to sit with +melancholy mien, a rifle held out before him and from the muzzle a +string hanging over the water with a mess-tin attached. + +"Wot's doin', Gin?" + +"Fishin'." + +"What for?" + +"Me ticket!" (Discharge). + +Braziers were rampant in every Company, swelling and overflowing +throughout the entire hutments in belching clouds of noxious smoke that +permeated an atmosphere impenetrable by human eyes with an odour of +smouldering wood, empty milk-tins and tobacco. Those nights! + +Those nights of song and laughter, of anticipations, hope, and the +yearning for LIFE: of long-drawn-out confabs over the glowing embers of +a red-hot brazier, the crimson glow shining upon faces that showed so +little of aches, fears, longings, masked behind the curling smoke from +screening pipes. Silence fall oft-times upon the khaki figures clustered +round the genial warmth. Each man to his own dire thoughts ... home, +wife, or girl. + +Tucked within blankets, heads propped on hands, pipes and cigarettes +going, they peered with unseeing eyes into the mad crackle of burning +timber. Softly would the melody of a song be hummed, caught up by chorus +and wafted out into the indigo mystery of the night. Quiet for a few +minutes, an occasional snore and then sure as fate a last parting shot +from the Duo. + +No. 1: "No one knows." + +No. 2: "No--and the impossibility--" + +No. 1: "Yes. Yet they must. If not, how do they exist?" + +Pause and a soft chuckle. + +No. 2: "Of course they have. Yet the agony--." + +Curiosity overcoming the remainder a series of questions popped up. +"What is impossible?", "Why must who?", "What agony?" + +No. 1: "You see, no one knows?" + +Exasperated chorus: "Knows what?" + +No. 1: "Why, if flies have toothache." + +And then oblivion claims into its own soundless peace the outstretched +forms of rough warriors and removes them from grim reality into the +passing realms of a fantastic dream--Arcadia. + +Mail days are pleasant. Excited anticipation for your name as each +parcel or letter is read out, dull disappointment if your issue is +napoo. + +Parcels. Oxo cubes, of course. Utilised because of adhesive qualities +for throwing at a target as darts. Café au lait, a useful preparation +for spreading on bread in lieu of posie (jam) that has mysteriously +evaporated. A pair of silk socks, purple with gold spots. Will come in +useful as a rifle rag. A long, wide woolly article resembling a cross +between a scarf and a blanket ... do as a pillow. A large cake, two +packets of chocolate and fifty fags. Hum, won't go far among ten. A pot +of jam--go fine on the cake or may tackle it with a spoon. And a brief +note hidden away at the bottom--"For my boy." + +God, how it hurt. What surging memories of a mother's love, of a +mother's eternal tender care, swarmed up mistily before the eyes. +Secretly, half-ashamedly, are such missives carefully put away. The mind +vividly pictures the animated packing by willing hands in the humble +homestead--a lump forces its way into the throat. But WAR is WAR and in +it sentiment has no place. + + + + +III + +CAMBRAI REHEARSALS + +NOVEMBER, 1917 + + +Uproar was rampant in one of D. Company's huts. Mingled laughter and +arguments formed the base of a volume of sound materially assisted in +high note effect by the banging of spoons on mess tins. + +"An' now listen agin," said Tich, commanding and obtaining silence by +turning over his "Press", "some more exemptions. Just listen to this +'ere summary. Six months' renewable. Six months 'ere again. An''ere's a +poor blighter wots only got three months. Wot ARE the Tribunals doin' to +give 'im so short a time before 'e goes to the cruel wars?" He paused to +join in the ironical outburst that ensued and continued at the top of +his lungs: "There are twenty cases 'ere an' eighteen of 'em 'as some +more extensions. I ask you, boys, are they playin' fair to us at 'ome?" + +"No! No! No!" in mighty chorus. + +"But do we want them chaps out 'ere?" + +"No!" + +"They would disgrace the Bat.?" + +"Yes!" + +"Becos they ain't got any guts in 'em?" + +"No!" + +One of the two Guernsey scouts from Headquarters pushed open the door +and in the general pause said: + +"Heard the latest?" + +"Now, no funny games," Tich ejaculated. + +"Not at all. We're going up the line again." + +"Oh, 'ell," said Nabo, "wot for?" + +"Stunt. Another Big Push." + +"Oh, 'ell," repeated Nabo; "'ere, scout, goin' back to H.Q.?" + +"Yes." + +"Then tell 'em I'm indisposed--ain't 'ad a long enough rest yet. An', +'ere, lets 'ave a fag. Wot with that there news and my bad 'eart for +war...." + +Nothing is left to chance in the offensive movements undertaken by that +unparalleled fighting mechanism disposed of in two words: British Army. +In following out the general scheme of perfecting every minor detail, +the Cambrai attack had more than its share of elaborate preparation. +Beyond the fact that a "Push" was to be inaugurated upon an entirely new +and experimental form of advance, nothing was disclosed even to the men. +The utter importance of maintaining absolute secrecy of this meagre +information was earnestly reiterated. The slightest inkling of the +impending intentions escaping to Fritz would have cast upon the troops +engaged a disaster perhaps unequalled in the annuals of even this +Armaggedon. + +Following customary procedure the offensive was rehearsed mile for mile +even as in the actual undertaking; aeroplanes being allotted to +Divisions for scouting and observation. + +The whole cycle of operations outlined by the G.H.Q. can be briefly +summarised as follows: The entire movement of troops, guns, and tanks by +NIGHT and to remain under cover from enemy 'planes during daylight. An +abrupt massing on a nine-mile front of the engaging force during the +night prior to launching of tanks and infantry. A furious bombardment +would be opened by artillery at daybreak. Three tanks per Battalion +moving forward would crush gaps in the enemy barbed wire through which +advancing lines of infantry would pour into the Fritz trenches. The +forward movement throughout the day to be carried on in relays of three +Divisions, the final Division attaining and digging in as its objective. +The Ten Hundred, forming the place of honour on the left flank of the +29th Division had to carry an objective situated, of all difficult +places, on the crest of a long rise in the ground--Nine Wood. + +At Brigade Headquarters a huge map was built on the ground complete to +the most minute of details. From aero photographs the entire area, +confined to the activities of the 86th was plainly portrayed for +inspection and explanation to the Platoons. Fritz trenches, wire, +observation posts, lines of support and communication; the rise and fall +of the ground; villages; were all emphasised upon until Tommy became to +a certain degree familiar with the ground over which Fritz had to be +bundled back five miles in one day. Points where, possibly, a stubborn +resistance might be offered were indicated and the advisability of +AVOIDING open breaks in enemy wire constantly reiterated. (Obviously, if +openings are voluntarily left here and there in the second line of wire, +to one cogent factor only can such procedure be attributed, i.e., men +will for preference make in a body for a clear passage and machine guns +trained from the rear into these breaches would account for a hundred or +so casualties before the men realised a trap.) + +To merely undertake an offensive "on paper" only would be fatuous. +Actual rehearsal over country as similar as possible to the original has +to be carried out; villages and towns having to be "imagined" on the +training area in the very position they filled on the actual territory. + +Tanks were to be used on a scale calculated to put the wind up whatever +enemy units held that sector. Approximately three hundred of these +cumbersome but doughty caterpillars were to line up on a nine-mile +frontage. They would be "first over the top"--in itself a life-saving +factor that, had it been adopted earlier in the war, would have by a +large percentage reduced the British casualty roll. + +The manner in which they would precede the infantry from zero (the hour +at which the advance is timed to begin) was practised over an old +stretch of trenches and wiring; infantry partaking in the manoeuvre. + +Throughout the Norman camp a stir of suppressed excitement and slightly +apprehensive anticipation was apparent during the three days' training, +in conjunction with the remainder of the 86th Brigade, for the big +stunt. They rapidly grasped, after a hitch during the first day, what +was required of them, attaining on the completion of the rehearsals a +strong confidence in their powers to carry through their schedule. + +They became conscious of an eagerness to try their mettle, to do +something "off their own bat." At the end of each day the Ten Hundred +swung in a long swaying column behind their band along the pavé roads +homewards. Company after company sending up defiant echoes with the +marching rallies peculiar to the Normans, they splashed noisily through +the almost interconnected line of puddles. Upright, fine, free fellows: +the very cream of Guernsey's manhood. + +At night they were well content, after a late dinner, to crouch around +the glowing brazier and talk, while Biffer surreptiously was wont to fry +the bacon he had commandeered. His arch enemy--N.C.O.'s--invariably +endeavoured to trap him. + +"Ere, you, where'd you get that bacon?" + +"Bacon?" Biffer looked up with baby-like innocence. "'Ad it sent--ain't +'alf got a scent, too." + +"Oh, an' that piece yesterday was sent, too, I s'pose?" + +"Yes, same animal. 'E's got pink eyes." + +"Wot, the pig?" + +"Course--think you get bacon off a canary? Want a bit?" + +"Well (mollified), only fat left, I s'pose?" + +"No--only rind. 'Ere you are." + + + + +IV + +MOVING UP + + +Ten Hundred men stood faintly outlined in the purple pall of a starless +night. Stripped to the very essentials of a battle--"Fighting Order" but +carrying the valise on the shoulders and the haversack by the side. +Steel helmets, gas masks and one hundred and seventy rounds of +ammunition per man; no overcoats; no blankets; simply the rough, furry +wolf-skin jacket for protection o' nights. Hoarse orders broke +grotesquely on the damp air. + +"Move to the right in fours ... right----!" By Companies the Normans +moved away; glancing for the last time upon the dark bulk of old +Hendecourt. + +The Undertaking had begun. + +They halted a few hours later in the semi-darkness of a siding where a +great conglomeration of every corps stood leaning on rifles, awaiting +instructions to board one of the grinding, jarring lines of trains that, +shunting to and fro, emitted ghostly columns of white smoke high into +the darkened heavens. + +The Normans boarded their train, tumbling clumsily one into another over +the dirty, evil-smelling floors of the cattle-trucks. Striking of +matches and smoking were forbidden ... a babel of confusion and curses +ensued while they sorted themselves out. It was impossible to wreak +vengeance on the man who inadvertently placed his boot in your eye ... +to turn abruptly in his direction would bring some other lad's rifle in +your teeth. Sit tight and hold tight! + +The Duo, with the scouts from other Battalions, attached Brigade +Headquarters, succeeded in forcing their way into a genuine railway +carriage--trust them! Almost immediately they were up to mischief. +Having scrounged a tin of pork and beans they wanted to cook it. And +cook it they did, despite orders re lights. A foot of rag was wrapped +around a candle stump, placed in a tin (this paraphernalia they carried +everywhere) and lit. For twenty minutes the "maconichie" boiled, and +they then blew out the smouldering grease-saturated rag. The carriage +was fitted with FASTENED windows and a icor of smouldering candle-rag +with no outlet! The occupants were literally gassed. Coughing, +spluttering, they almost choked. + +"Phew," gasped Clarke, waving at the fumes, "it's aw-aw-awful." The +other partner of the Duo could stand it no longer. Grasping his rifle he +pushed it through the window. Crash! Then he laughed. + +"Anybody want, want any beans?" he chuckled. + +"Eat it, phew, yer bloomin' self." + +"Ugh, not now after that--er--aroma." He threw the tin through the +broken pane and added piously, "hope it hits someone." + +PERONNE! To march after detraining during the morning along its deserted +streets, to gaze on the devastation of its large buildings, sent the +mind wandering over the past. Peronne: this was the town from which +Fritz had retreated "according to plan"; this was the goal towards which +the British had gazed undismayed through the black months of slow +progress, infinite hardship, and fast-flowing blood. But to-day the +khaki tread rang firm on its roads. They who had gone before had made +easy the way, and you, who were carrying it on eastwards, ever eastward. +The knowledge stirred something within you and you were glad. + +The Ten Hundred swung out of the "suburbs" up the long incline of Mount +St. Quentin, travelled a few hundred yards along the crest and came to +a halt near a line of tents. At no point in the sky was there any +indication of enemy airmen, nor from the line did much rattle of distant +guns disturb the quiet of the day. From the concussion of some far-off +muffled explosion the earth trembled slightly; but these visitations, at +lengthy intervals, caused little comment. From 12 to 4.30 p.m. sleep was +compulsory. No man or N.C.O. was permitted to be seen outside his tent +or hut until dusk fell, and with it the command to fall in for the long +march northward to Equancourt. + +Along one perpetual straight road, lined on either side with endless +rows of weird, sighing trees whose tops converged in faint outline +against the sky at an ever distant point; along one continual rough +surface of hard, slippery cobble paving an almost tail-less column of +marching troops, rumbling artillery and jingling transport crawled on +through the darkness. It went hard with the Normans that night. Night +and the silence, the mystery. Only the ring of many feet and the neigh +of a startled horse. On, ever onward to the Unknown that awaits. Aye. +Tommy, worn, rugged, rough Tommy, straining forward beneath the burden +that was yours--how little others know how staunch and true beat that +sturdy heart throbbing under its hard exterior. Step by step; left, +right, left; rigid and mechanical, controlled by a mind that ceased to +act and fell prey to wild fancies. You could hear them: the cooling +whispers of a sea upon your Sarnia's shore ... dear little country! +God's own Isle! Mental anguish and physical pain. And yet you came +up--smiling. + +Monday passed quietly at Equancourt, although one or two Fritzy shells +bursting some few miles away with the unmistakeable kru-ump of his +heavies set the brain working and conjured up memories. + +B. Company, without the customary O.C. (Captain Hutchinson, one of the +most popular officers among the men) of Company-Sergeant-Major "Tug" +Wilson (another splendid fellow) were temporarily under the command of a +Buff officer (Chapman). A., C. and D. commands were unchanged. +13 Platoon, so fictitiously unlucky(?), was probably the most "pally" +combination in the Battalion; both N.C.O.'s and men were on excellent +terms--especially with Sergt. T. Allez, one of the finest and most +courageous men in the Ten Hundred. Lieut. F. Arnold was in +command--another good fellow. This Platoon emerged with a very small +percentage of casualties. + +Equancourt was disliked from the moment the Ten Hundred made the +disagreeable discovery that fatigues were rampant. Men began +to vanish in all directions. Mahy, doing the glide from one +Quarter-Master-Sergeant (the Q.M.S. is an individual who allots ten of +you to a one lb. loaf, and who endeavours to convince you that your +clothing issue must last for ever, and that you are far better rationed +than you deserve. P.S.--We are officially informed that there are no +Q.M.S.'s among the angels!)--to resume, Mahy did the gaby from one +exasperated Q.M.S. right into the yawning arms of another. An enormous +box was instantaneously bundled on to his shoulders, nearly bending him +double. + +"You'd better be careful with that little lot," the N.C.O. advised. + +"Why?" with a gasp. + +"Becos (drily) it's full of bombs." The hair crinkled upwards into the +lad's steel helmet and he carried that box to its destination with all +the lavish care and tenderness of a mother for her babe. Placing it +gingerly down and unable to overcome the strong trait of inquisitiveness +latent in all soldiers, he forced up the lid and peeped upon--two heavy +sets of large transport waggon implements! + +The march from Equancourt up to the "jumping off" point of the advance +was neither so long nor arduous as on the two previous nights. As mile +after mile was reeled off the incessant thunder of guns ten or twelve +miles northward became more and more distinct, but on the sector of the +line towards which the miles of marching columns were heading not a +sound disturbed the night from hour to hour. The rumble of that distant +artillery mingled with the jingle of unseen harness and the pad, pad, of +countless feet. Hazy starlight faintly lit up row upon row of men, +glinted dimly on brighter portions of the equipment and distinctly +silhouetted each breath on the damp night air. A tense, silent march: +nerves highly strung. A march to live long in memory. + +Within five minutes of leaving the road for the downs there enveloped +you that indefinable sense that a fighting area has been entered. +Nothing could be seen, heard or felt, yet the proximity of trenches and +wire was frequently "scented," like the first approaches of a sea after +a long march inland. + +Brigade Headquarters marched on--and with it the Duo--to where a long +line of duck-boards led into a line of wide trenches. The Ten Hundred +came to a halt in the immediate rear, received the order to lie +down--and waited. + +A night of wondrous calm and quiet. Within one mile of a watchful foe +and not a sound. Once or twice a machine gun awoke wild echoes with +brief spluttering bursts ... in silence more acute for the interruption +hearts beat faster, hands tightened involuntarily about rifles. + +Thus the young, full-blooded Normans awaited their first fray. Even as +the mighty Ragnar Lodbrok and his fierce men in mail launched merciless +onslaught with the breaking of day, so did Sarnia's young warriors look +eastward for the Dawn. + + + + +V + +CAMBRAI OFFENSIVE + +NOVEMBER 20th, 1917 + +THE ADVANCE + + +It was just after six in the morning of November 20, 1917, and the dew +lay thick on the soil. Men were quietly roused, rifles slung, and with +fast tattooing pulse paused for orders. First wave "over" stamped feet +impatiently in those interminable hours of waiting blended in what was +only a few short minutes; an almost frenzy of anxiety to get through the +waiting possessed them. Then the tanks, faintly outlined forms in the +grey light, moved ponderously forward. + +A nerve-straining silence held momentary sway. + +From point to point at a few yards' interval a milliard blinding flashes +of dull crimson flames leapt from out the gloom like one gigantic +sunset, casting sinister glares in ceaseless succession upon the heavy +mist. Roar upon roar, blending, echoing and re-echoing like unto the +roll of countless mighty drums, throbbed in one great deafening +crescendo. It was futile to count explosions: they all merged one into +another. But words are fatuously inadequate and convey little. + +"Stand by." Your pipe is in your mouth, unlit, empty. You don't want to +smoke, really, but still ... the eye glances along the line of strained +white faces. Someone MUST go under; still, it might not be you. Anyhow, +if it is, funk will make no difference, so--one wild scramble over +the top, an almost imperceptible pause and then forward. A cry, a fall +here or there, and then on again. As in a dream you find yourself still +carrying on unhurt ... it's not so bad. + +The Undertaking had commenced. + +The Ten Hundred moved forward grouped in artillery formation, C., D., +and B. Companies moving onward in that line from right to left; A. +Company and Battalion Headquarters followed in reserve. + +The staggering surprise of the British attack completely shattered the +morale of what German elements were holding the sector. They surrendered +in twenties to the oncoming tanks and rapidly advancing lines of +infantry. Hun artillery started into frenzied action by this phenomenal +development commenced to hastily lob over an erratic series of shells. + +The Normans, crossing a sunken road in column, fell again into correct +formation on the higher ground, progressed a few hundred yards beyond +what had an hour before constituted the Fritz front line, and halted. +Four light shells burst around and about the reserve Company; no one +stopped anything. One piece of iron crashed into a boulder near Le +Page's foot. He sprang a yard into the air and nearly put two men out of +mess with his bayonet. In the hot argument that ensued they almost +forgot that there was a war on and that the advance was moving on +without them. + +A lad with half a leg hanging and placed by two bearers on a stretcher, +rose from a lying posture as the Royal Guernseys passed. + +"'Ere, Guernseys," he hailed, "I was with you at Canterbury--Buffs. Jus' +got in the way of a Blighty. Anybody got a fag?" It was supplied and the +party moved on. About to descend into the sunken road the bearers +ducked to that fatal shell whine ... too late. Three blood-soaked +figures were visible through the lifting-smoke stretched inert on the +ground. + +"If only 'e 'adn't stopped," muttered several hoarsely. Life is chance! + +The first great onslaught of artillery fire slackened towards mid-day, +sharper crack of rifles and wicked splutter of machine guns becoming for +the first time noticeable. Enemy shells became fewer and fewer, his +power of resistance--weak from the opening--deteriorated to little more +than a rout. The prisoners were swelling an already long roll ... nine +or ten thousand on the nine-mile front. + +Ribecourt, on the Normans' front, had fallen after a brief skirmish, the +German last line of defence reached and artillery support was still far +to the rear when the Ten Hundred, passing through the Division ahead, +took upon their own shoulders the responsibility to carry the Push +through its last two miles and to force the capitulation of Nine Wood, +now plainly visible at the top of the next long incline. + +They went for it, hell for leather, in a long line of skirmishers. Their +rifles cracked with the rapidity that tells the marksmen--and they COULD +shoot. But Fritz would not have any. They did not like (those who had +time to look back on their record sprint) the nasty gleam of those +Norman bayonets. It was a soft thing; they moved onwards unchecked even +as during the rehearsal. Tanks ahead reached the hill-crest and stood +black and ugly against the sky; further to the right one was burning +with high leaping flames. The Normans panted up the slope, poured into +the two quarries in one bloodthirsty rush to find "nothing doing," +scrambled out again, and reaching the Wood's edge calmly pushed their +way through with all the phlegm of veterans to their objective some +thirty yards beyond the last row of trees and commenced to dig in. +Someone spotted a sniper post, coolly stretched himself out on the +ground, muttered: "Three hundred yards," and squinted along the sights. +Ping, ping ... two bodies fell limp from a platform--up a leafy tree. +The Private slowly cut two notches on his rifle-butt. + +Two black, charred figures grinned hideously from out of the smouldering +remains of a British aeroplane as the two Guernsey Brigade Scouts +hastened back to their Headquarters, to report the objective carried +with ONLY TEN CASUALTIES. Away by the narrow bridge above Marcoing one +living and three dead machine gunners were lying in a mangled heap. +Still further back a shattered lad, unable to move, stretched out right +in the track of an oncoming tank, shrieked frenziedly for succour ... +then abrupt silence as of a whistle shut off even while the eyes were +rivetted fascinated on the inexorable crushing machine. A ghastly heap +of tangled, mutilated bodies, unrecognisable as such except by the grey +German uniform, were lying beneath a tank blown in by a shell--the crew +huddled inside in a gruesome mass. + +At the bottom of a hollow a grey-cloaked figure was bunched in that +strange posture bearing the hall-mark of fast approaching death. His +dull eyes filled with terror at the sound of my footsteps ... strange +ingrained knowledge of the Hunnish method of dealing with similar cases +pervaded his mind. + +"It is--finish," he whispered pitifully in bad English. + +"Where are you hit?" He shook his head slowly. + +"It is finish," he reiterated weakly. + +"Want anything--any water?" + +"No." A battery of artillery rumbled noisily down the adjacent roadway. +His eyes brightened. + +"You never win," he muttered, defiance strong in his tone. But one +glance took in those stoic mounted Britishers, five miles deep in the +enemy lines, yet unexcited, unmoved. Thus would they fall back thirty +leagues if need be, phlegmatic and unconcerned--knowing not when +defeated and therefore never beaten. + +"I think we will if--"; but life had passed from out the other's tired +body. A rush of pity surged over one on looking into the pale boyish +face: eighteen, perhaps nineteen. Little grey, bloodstained German +warrior in the first flush of Youth: honour to you for the life you gave +your Fatherland; for the staunch patriotism so high in your breast. May +the Dawn into which you were ushered while a foe watched your passing +have great compensation. + +Near the unscarred Crucifix a diminutive khaki figure, an inch or so +shorter than his rifle with bayonet fixed, stood peering haughtily from +beneath a steel helmet, several sizes too large, balanced on his ears. + +"'Allo, Guernsey," he greeted, "what price my tame outangs?" indicating +a dozen grubby prisoners, "this one yere swallowed 'is false teeth wiv +fright an' this porker yere 'as got 'is knees out of joint wiv shaking." + +"Why are they holding up their----?" + +"Oh, becos I cut the braces. Even a prisoner won't run away if his +trousers are COMING DOWN. Nar then, Jerry--march. No comprene? Pushey +alongay roadie pour tootsie--see?" He, fag-end in mouth, helmet far on +the back of his head, rifle slung and hands in pocket, swaggered along +behind his "outangs" on their journey to the cages. + +In Marcoing we of Brigade established comfortable Quarters with the +plentiful material Fritz had good naturedly (?) left behind for the +purpose. His blankets when you have none of your own are a decided +advantage. His jam, butter and potatoes were excellent eating, his +spring beds utilised especially for two German Staff Officers--made a +delightful sofa for two dirty, unshaven and grinning Tommies. + +But his BREAD! Ye saints, the nightmare of that one rancid mouthful, not +three times the customary ration of rum could rinse out the flavour: +Martin, however, was of the opinion that another pint would do much to +save his life, and on being refused sadly observed that he could not +believe anyone could be so heartless.... + + * * * * * + +Drizzle, light during the afternoon, increased to a moderate downpour as +the Normans were digging, not the elaborate sandbagged trenches so very +familiar at home (and but little elsewhere), but mere shallow +excavations providing just sufficient cover for the body. An interesting +operation provided with a little mild excitement in the form of enemy +snipers, who, however, greatly assisted in the rapid and hurried +completion of the work. (N.B.--This undertaking in training required +half a morning!) Stumpy crawled up and down the line for a yard or two +in the vague hope that someone might have made a hole too large; nothing +doing, he started on one himself, grumbling audibly. + +"That's it ... poor Tommy. Making a 'ole," pessimistically, "diggin' a +grave for his bloomin' self." + +Normans gaze westward where the vague grey earth meets the overcast sky. +Five miles deep in less than twelve hours. The thrill of it--and what +you have you will HOLD. + +With the coming of the night came the reaction. Wild excitement and vim +of victorious advance gave way for calm reflection and with it the +certain knowledge of counter-attack. They realised abruptly that they +were physically and mentally worn, the body clamoured madly for food and +drink, the mind for rest and sleep. Rain trickled incessantly down each +man's face and glistened in dusty beads upon foreheads, clothing at last +gave way to complete saturation, and water, collecting in pools until +over ankle deep, oozed slushily in and out of the eyelet holes. + +Cold rapidly fastened its grip; dull agony pervaded the entire being +until nothing more than a mechanical row of figures staring tiredly out +upon No Man's Land, grasping rust-flaked rifles in numb, stiff hands. +Thinking not, caring not, moving not--only that uncertain stare into the +void. And over all the night, the wild shrieking of lost spirits in the +trees, the sharp crack of an occasional rifle or fitful bursts from the +poorly-timed enemy shrapnel. + +Patrols were sent out into No Man's Land, groped blindly to and fro for +two hours and returned in the very last stage of complete exhaustion to +report "All Clear." Simple, is it not, to go on patrol from a line you +cannot see towards another line you also cannot see ... sometimes you +lost touch with the others and gazed round into the blackness with that +primordial fear of the unknown inspired by the night. Lost! God, it +nearly unmans you. With fast-thumping heart you hear the approach of +guttural Hun voices ... DOWN and QUIET. At last calm thinking points out +that yon burning house is in your own lines. Make for it and all is +well. Aye. Scouts, does the pulse quicken even now? + +What is the thin veneer of a mere nine hundred years semi-civilisation? +Two thousand years before the Conquest the fierce warrior Northmen lived +by the might of the halbert, fighters one and all from the days when the +war-inspired mother croned of the battle-axe to her babe. And in the +Normans was that Norse spirit dormant; but one night of such hardship as +yet undreamt of had sufficed for an awakening. + +In the dawn they looked out with nearly bloodshot eyes towards the +German front. He would counter-attack, would he? Let him come! + +He came! They poured one long volley into the long-coated line. It +wavered, broke, thinned. At the junction with the Middlesex an +Englishman gazed in unfeigned astonishment at the ugly, set features of +his Norman companion. + +"But," he said, "they might have wanted to be prisoners." + +"Oh." Ozanne grunted, "don't want none," and squinting down the sights +let loose another trio. "This," he added, "is the Great Undertaking." + +"Yes, well?" + +"I am the undertaker. For my job ... must 'ave bodies ... and I," +grimly, "I'm getting 'em." + +The other shuddered slightly. War is war, but these wild unkempt men of +a strange tongue were something he could not quite grasp. Anyhow, they +knew how to fight. That is all that matters. + +Duggie Le Page went into No-Man's Land and pluckily brought in a wounded +N.C.O. from one of the mounted regiments, but too late to save a life +fast nearing its ebb. + +A weakly sun crept up from amid thick grey clouds and shone wanly on the +mud-spattered creatures lying each in his own water-logged trough. Hour +followed hour without further sign of hostile movement from the +enemy--nothing could be seen of him, and had the cavalry got through the +attack could have been continued and Cambrai taken. + +Casualties (the supreme sacrifice in two instances) began to trickle +away from the Norman ranks, the majority from the attention of a sniper +in the long grass who held on alone with plucky audacity. Unfortunately +for his own welfare he was over-confident, exposed himself too long; and +ten rifles cracked spitefully--all who fired hotly claiming the right to +a notch. + +Before mid-day it became apparent that Fritz had neither the heart nor +the troops for launching a counter-attack on a scale large enough to +make a definite impression on the newly-won area. His "strafing" was +fitful, poorly sighted, and of small calibre. Here and there he still +had the use of a machine gun or two and had concentrated a number of men +at Noyelles. This village was attacked by a company of the Royal +Fusiliers; fought for desperately in one brief, mad mêlée, during which +blood ran freely, but remaining in the hands of the British, formed the +nearest point in the Line to Cambrai. + +At Nine Wood all was quiet--except for the unearthly sounds emanating +from the nostrils of one Tich sleeping in the reserve troughs with one +side of his features buried in an inch of brown mud. Desultory +conversation came down from the wide trough "Old man Casey" had dug and +had adorned with an empty whisky bottle found in the grass. He was +looking at it lovingly where it stood mouth downwards: for the obvious +reason, he observed, that its spirits were like his own--all run out. + +The Ten Hundred were tired, dead-beat. Marching all Sunday night, +fatigue for hours on Monday, again marching in the night. Finally the +attack and its holding ... eyes were heavy with ache for sleep. + +Between eight and nine they were relieved, stumbled away from the wood +until feet rang noisily on the rough surface of a sunken road winding +Marcoing-wards. + +Near a side road a number of houses were used as billet--Marcoing was +untouched by shells on that date--and into these buildings Ten Hundred +unshaven, unwashed, worn-out Normans entered slowly, found corners for +the long-wished-for rest and threw down equipment and packs. Some jerked +off boots, some faked up pillows, but the majority turned on one side, +head on valise, and fell straightway into an oblivion that nothing could +disturb. + +Lying across a doorway, his boots and equipment still on, a veritable +boy breathed regularly in the same attitude into which he had sunk the +moment he had passed inside. His pale, tired face was dimly visible in +the hazy starlight and one wondered at the peaceful serenity. + +The last boot clattered loudly on the floor, the last rattle of a rifle +placed by the owner's side, the last long-drawn sigh of relief ... +Silence. Above them all Woden wove the magic spell Oblivion, the Rest of +the war-worn warrior. + +Daybreak had long since passed and still no sound of movement from the +rows of tangled sleeping MEN. Tangle! They were lying in all directions +and at every angle; it was impossible to define whose feet were whose +or what had become of the chest and head of a pair of long legs leading +from a jumbled heap. Duport had his feet fast in the heel of someone +untraceable further than the knee--the first-named had munchers of the +star-like (removable) variety. No. 2, unfortunately, struck out in his +sleep, awakening the other to the fact that his teeth were promenading +about at the top of his throat. He struggled to a sitting posture with a +gasp, felt frenziedly for his "adjustables" and looked round upon the +mixture of dirty, frowsy figures. He stirred Nobby into wakefulness by +the simple expedient of tickling him beneath the chin with a grimy big +toe protruding from a rent in an obsolete and far from odourless sock. + +"'Ere," he said, "got any change." + +"Any wha'," sleepily, "any, phew, wot a bloomin' niff. Put them blessed +feet of your out of the winder. Change, wot of?" + +"This yere trouser button." + +"Funny, ain't it, like your face? 'It ole Wiffles there over the 'ead +wid your rifle an' tell 'im breakfus' is up." This kindly action having +succeeded, the victim looked around. + +"Breakfus', where? What is it?" + +"Oh, tin of Brasso; what d'you expect, 'am an' eggs or a filleted +sausage." + + + + +VI + +MARCOING--MASNIERES + + +The Ten Hundred awoke, gazed about and laughed until the echoes rang +from rafter to rafter as the eye took in each black-featured, bearded +and grubby individual. Stumpy was requested to "leave that foot of +fungus on his face, as it hid what for weeks had been an infliction," +and to which he cuttingly replied that the other gentleman had features +that would make a bomb burst. + +But there could be detected in these rallies an undercurrent of strong +mutual respect, of which they had all hitherto had no cognisance. They +were each one intensely proud of what had been so efficiently carried +out; although very little WAR was spoken they were keenly alive to the +fact that personally and collectively the Ten Hundred had opened the +innings with an abundance of "runs" as far as the enemy was concerned. + +Rations came up fairly regularly in the advanced areas unless the +ration-party becomes lost, drops a portion or makes an appointment with +a 9.2. There is a constant daily issue of hard-wearing substance +camouflaged as "biscuit," intended originally for the heel of concrete +ships and for bomb-proof blockhouses. It can be further utilised as a +body-shield, for paving roadways, or with the aid of a hammer and three +chisels (why three? In case the first two break) this "biscuit" could +be, and was, eaten. + +Tea and sugar, enclosed in one tin, were soaked in water: boiled over a +small round tin of a form of solidified paraffin, set alight beneath the +mess tin. + +Then bacon--Your issue might be red--and it might NOT. Perhaps the +faintest suspicion of lean fringed it or you might moodily survey a +square inch of fat--if there was not a buckshee inch of rind. The +flowing locks of hair with which this bacon was sometimes adorned has +convinced one that a number of farmers fatten their porkers on +"Thatcho"--it could be combed with a fork! + +Bully Beef is, ugh! IT was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall +be ... NEVER AGAIN. + +Bread! + + + "Something attempted, someone done, + A one-pound loaf among twenty-one." + + +Had the biscuit been again as hard the famished Ten Hundred would have +got their teeth deep into it. Hunger. A mad craving for food that cannot +be swallowed, because of a dry stickiness in the mouth a tongue that +somehow would not function; a moisture that would not come. + +That tea! warm, refreshing, life-inspiring liquid. Drink, to drink long +and thirstily ... the relief, the new vitality. Food vanishes with +abnormal rapidity, every crumb, however minute, is carefully searched +for, gathered into the hand and eaten. + +And afterwards you are still hungry, still thirsty. + +The "schemers" slipped away quietly from the billets, crossed into the +main thoroughfare and commenced a scrounging expedition for grub. +("Scrounging," an exciting operation whereby the required article is +obtained by any means otherwise than legal.) + +Winterflood, Mace and the Duo found their way by instinct born of +experience to an advanced dressing station where buckshee tea was being +doled out. Cups were not to be had, a milk can having to deputise in +three instances while the fourth dug his features deep into a foot long +tin with a quarter-inch layer of tea. Then Fritz dropped a shell, +kru-ump, clean into the centre of the courtyard. The jar caused a pint +of the tea to run caressingly down two tunics then again the genial +enemy sent over another. Si-izz-krump! One of the four scroungers +grunted. + +"Boo--want, want any more tea?"--chuckling. They didn't! A third, a +fourth, and a fifth followed. Men looked significantly at each other. + +"Bringin' his guns up." + +"Yes--heavy stuff, too." + +"Be as hot as Hades round 'ere soon." + +It was. Hun artillery were adepts at "shooting off the map" (e.g., +calculating the angle of elevation for concentration on a certain spot +by means of a map), and began to drop near the roadways and cross-roads +a series of heavy calibre shells. Here and there, as his guns went +searching across the town, a house crumbled under with a grinding, +spluttering crash. Hun aeroplanes, also, made an unpleasant announcement +of their presence above Marcoing, directing their artillery fire upon a +number of points. + +Our Brigade Headquarters were situated, of all unhealthy spots, in a +house the last of a row culminating at a four-cross-road. Phew--and he +dropped one on it and got five of us. Wilshire (Royal Fusiliers) came in +for a fearful gash, ten or twelve inches long and three wide, right +across the spine. Conscious, but paralysed, he looked round on us with a +piteous, hopeless appeal for succour in his eyes and made wild, +inarticulate sounds for water. One of the signals (R.E.) fell face +downward on the floor in a widening pool of his own blood, one part of +his face blown away. Poor laddies, full of youth, vim, life--cursed +artillery from your far-off safety! Aye, hands clench; if ever OUR +chance comes.... + +He played on Marcoing throughout the night, inflicted a few light +casualties on the Normans, deprived a few more house of rafters, and +ploughed an occasional portion of the road. + +One wondered grimly on looking up at a thin slate roof what protection +it would form against a "heavy," and into how many unrecognisable +fragments your person would be dispersed should he land one direct on +you. Close your eyes and sleep; then if he does plump one in, you won't +worry much about it. + +We seemed to have no 'planes of our own to interfere with Fritz's +evening gambols, nor were there any Archie guns in the sector to give +the Hun aviators something with which to amuse themselves. + +Coloured cavarly had ridden in, out and around Marcoing throughout the +day, but apparently were not going through. The advance was ended and +there was every indication of establishing this new line for the quieter +period of winter. + +The Normans, with the 80th Brigade, moved in the evening dusk out from +Marcoing to Masnières--a town that constituted almost the apex of the +salient formed by the drive. + +A strange march, although a mere couple of miles or so, in that +throughout the entire line of companies there could be sensed some +indefinable presentiment of a something to be feared. High above the +direct line of march could be discerned the black puffs of enemy timed +shrapnel bursting in the air. And you had to pass through it--it was +inconceivable that everyone could get through unharmed. Again, it might +not be you. The egotism of unconscious thought; the indisputable truth +of Darwin's "Will to Life." + +At Rues Vertes the Battalion halted. The nerves were highly strung, men +gazed about with slight shudders as one is wont to do in the midst of +weird ghost stories when someone comes softly, unexpectedly down the +darkened stairs. + +What was the unshakeable phenomenon? Was it the moaning of a lost wind +in the dark woods that reacted so upon that rudimentary, instinctive +Fear of the Unknown, the Night; inherited from the primitive man who +watched trembling throughout the wakeful hours when Fear was his sole +companion? + +"I--I don't fancy this," Tich whispered hoarsely, "it puts a feelin' of +death on me." Fatal prophecy! + +The Ten Hundred carried on, crossed a swampy field, and moving up nearer +the line, filed once again into the dismal occupation of trenches newly +dug, affording inadequate cover and protected by wire that would have to +be raised by their own efforts. + +Winter was already getting a grip on the land, nights were cruelly cold +and days but little better. And this first night at Masnières was +frequented with that sensation of ill-omen pervading the minds of many +who felt--as Tich had said--somehow that their days were drawing to a +close. They would lie unmoving for an hour obsessed by their thoughts; +the brain flying with its lightning rapidity from picture to picture +resurrected from a happy past. In words would some communicate their +apprehensions. + +"I feel--rotten to-night. Something's got on my nerves...." + +But the rum ration soon soared the depressed spirits. Man is prey to his +inherited instincts. Even Tich recovered his nerve. + +"I only felt like that once before," he said, "that's when I was +spliced." + +"Wot, frightened of something?" + +"Yes, and," gloomily in abrupt relapse, "it came right, too." The +cherubic tones of Stumpy emanated from somewhere. + +"Wot I say is, respect a man's principles. Any teetotalers about yere +wot wants to find a 'appy 'ome for their rum ration? Wot I say is, +respe--yes, yere I am, old son, pass the sinful liquor over." + +Half an hour later he warbled a jumbled melody: + +"In Ari--Arizona. It's there a girl in Ari--Ari...." + + + + +VII + +HOLDING THE LINE + +MASNIERES + + +The night was far more lively than any preceding. Fritz trench mortar +batteries sending over a series of particularly nastily ranged shells. +This is a type of shell that can be heard coming from far in the air and +its flight, by an acute observer, can be gauged to within a dozen yards +or so of the point of impact with the earth. Situated right up in the +forward line this dangerous little weapon, at a range of one thousand or +less (according to distance between opposing lines) yards, is fired at +an almost perpendicular elevation and therefore descends again in +approximately a direct line into the trenches: this factor naturally +increases its probability of getting INTO the narrow excavation where a +long-range shell at a more acute angle would merely dig itself into the +parapet. And the havoc among human bodies confined within a small area +that this small shell creates is conceivable only by those who have been +of a party devastated by such a visitation. It must be borne in mind +that three men can be almost obliterated by an explosion while the +fourth may pick himself up dazedly, white and shaken, but unscathed. +Take it as a concrete fact that any man, however courageous, who comes +close enough into contact with a shell to be conscious of its hot breath +on his face and to be violently thrown by its concussion, will regain +his feet with shaken nerves to a degree necessitating half-hour or more +before restoration to normal. Some few never recover--hence the term +"shell shock." + +There are tales of iron men who are unaffected by a dozen such +experiences--perhaps! The writer was blown clean through an open door in +Marcoing and had difficulty in keeping his hand steady afterwards to +light a pipe--but he does not consider himself particularly brave. Quite +the reverse. I could get round a corner with more rapidity than any man +in the Battalion if a shell came my way. + +Masnières, if external and internal appearances of buildings is a +criterion of financial status, must have been peopled by a moderately +wealthy class. In fairness to Fritz it must be granted that in three +years' occupation he had not purloined to any large extent from the +larger houses--with the exception perhaps of a few dozen clocks, a piano +or two, and a few similar articles. + +Tho cause of this may, of course, be found in the knowledge that right +up and during the British attack all these towns--Marcoing, Noyelles and +Masnières--unvisited by shell fire, were still occupied by their owners. +Coming up from where they had hidden trembling in their cellars during +our advance, they were immediately advised to go "down the line," and in +accordance treked away from their old homes with what few personal +belongings they could take with them. The road from Masnières to +Marcoing was strewn with the pitiful remnants of lost bundles, which, +unable to carry further, sobbing women had cast down by the wayside. + +They had crowded in tearful, grateful groups around a few of the +Guernsey and other battalions. Young and old. Old! Bent of shoulder, +white-haired old dames; from whose kindly care-lined faces grateful +tears were fast flowing, poured out volumes of thanks to the Normans in +their mother tongue. Upon old backs that had long since earned repose +were bundles, sad little bundles, tied up in red handkerchiefs. +Ambulances were used for the conveyance of the old and spent to safety +zones. Rough, big Britishers picked up the frail old frames in muscular +arms, carried them with infinite gentleness to the ambulance and +esconsed them securely there. + +"'Ow's that, mother. A bit of all right, eh?" And the ready tears would +course again down the old withered cheeks; words would not come; she +could only grasp tightly on the firm young hand. How that lump WOULD +rise in the throat; how one fought to appear unconcerned. + +Big, awkward phlegmatic Britishers; unhappy beneath all this +honouring--it makes a man feel such a bally goat. + +Thus the people returned to France, while on the ground near by the +still figures smiled serenely at the sky. Perhaps they knew! Renouf, a +plucky, good-humoured Private, walked down just afterwards with the +blood dripping from his side. + +The ensuing week, during which the Ten Hundred partook in wiring off the +sector, completion of the poorly-dug trench system, and kindred work, +was ardous not only in the physical sense, but from the constantly +increasing attention of Hun airmen, artillery, and machine guns. +Casualties increased, and of them Death claimed a singularly high +proportion, one unfortunate Lewis-gun team coming in for a welter that +shattered practically every man and ended two young lives in a fearful +state of dismemberment. + +Wiring constitutes in itself an operation of fatal possibilities. It has +to be constructed at night, without sound; but posts have to be driven +into the earth; someone will inevitably slip, accompanied by a loud +clatter. Then--ping, ping, ping!!! A hundred rounds fly whining through +the night from a Fritz machine-gun. + +The utter wretchedness of that wiring; the sickening knowledge that any +moment a trail of bullets may spring without warning at you--and if ONE +machine-gun shot gets you, another FIVE will be somewhere in your body +before you reach the turf. It appears an impossibility to carry on alive +in such an undertaking from night to night; but still you DO IT. It is +funny--afterwards. + +Robin hated it, after falling and introducing twenty barbs to that +portion of him utilised usually in a chair; he had to reline a little +to one side for a couple of days. Then blood poisoning set in, he +reported "sick," and was sent down the line as a casualty. + +"Of all bloomin' luck." Stumpy growled; "'ere's me wots fallen down two +shell 'oles and nearly twisted me bloomin' neck, been knocked over by a +shell wot capsized all my rum issue--an' not a sign of a Blighty one." + +"It's a pity you didn't," Le Huray observed. + +"Wot?" + +"Twist yer bloomin' neck." + +"Look 'ere, my lad, if I comes over there I'll twist yer tongue and tie +it up behind yer 'ead, an' it wont be a Blighty yer'll 'ave--no, it'll +be a blooming' corfin." + +"Shut yer row, the two of you," Casey shouted, "yer like a couple wots +been married a year, chewin' each others 'ead orf. Come yere an' give me +a 'and, Stumpy." And he turned again to the task of clearing a layer of +mud from his rifle bolt with a grimy piece of rag an inch square. + +There is a refreshing originality (sic) in the al fresco meals partaken +of in the fresh open air, in a comfortable trench--so comfortable that +legs are twelve inches too long, knees in the way of your chin, and +somebody's boots making doormats of your tiny bit of cheese. Water and +tea--when you get it--has a most uncommon flavour of petrol due to being +transported in petrol cans. Stumpy was of the opinion that the War +Office should be advised to utilise rum jars instead. + +Fritz has a gentlemanly knack of dropping a shell near you and +depositing a mighty chunk of black filth in the very midst of your grub. +Resultant language unprintable. + +Slight falls of snow began to take place, the wind increased and nights +in the trenches became one long vista of drawn-out agony. Hands and feet +froze; maintain circulation was an absolute physical impossibility: but +it had to be faced through the long, over long, hours of waiting, and +there was no alternative, no remedy. You suffered, Royal Guernseys, men +of a warm, sunny isle, who had not hitherto known the harsh winter of +miles inland spots. But you stuck it well, rifle grasped in a hand gone +stiff, face cut and blistered from the fierce wind; feet aching with +inconceivable agony. + +Gas, sent over in shells, made an unpleasant addition to the already +numerous "attractions" of the picnic. There is in this form of gas two +factors that materially assist in bringing about casualties. Firstly, +this type of shell cannot usually be distinguished from a "dud" and +therefore alarm is rarely given until three or four of these shells have +landed, by which time, if the wind is in your direction, the gas is on +you. Secondly, men are careless: "Oh, the wind won't blow it this +way ... might only be a 'dud,' too." + +Men regard and withstand all this hardship with varying moral. There are +a few who sadly collapse before the onslaught of adverse circumstances, +who give way without a fight to nervous prostration, and who are subject +at times to wild spasms of uncontrolable trembling, finally going down +the line with a form of shell-shock altogether distinct to shock from +violent concussion. + +Some are stoic, hanging on doggedly; characteristic of the quiet man +from tiny Sark, who, failing to understand the why and wherefore of +their presence in this Hell and yet individually conscious of a sacred +duty to carry on, gave a constant example of philosophic acceptance of +life as it was that indicated no lack of courage. Of very similar +psychological tendency were the men from Alderney--a fine, physically, +body of lads, if short--and from the more remote portions of Guernsey. + +The town men were adept growlers, found something funny in everything +and calmly palmed off all the arduous tasks upon the good-natured but +less sly countrymen. It should be recalled, however, that a large +percentage of these men were "old soldiers," had seen service at +Guillemont with the Royal Irish, and were therefore au courant with +every form of deep scheming. + +The greater portion of the remnants of Guernsey's volunteer companies in +the Royal Irish had after their first casualty been drafted into the Ten +Hundred, a large proportion receiving--and rightly--promotion. They were +fine types, born fighters, born soldiers, and, some of them, born +schemers. + +It would be futile to endeavour to convey that nowhere in the Ten +Hundred were found men in whom a white streak was obviously apparent. +White of face and faint of heart; the first to avoid any undertaking +where their skin was endangered: crouched far below the parapet, and who +at the least indication of enemy activity gazed frenziedly rearward at +the nearest line for a headlong retreat. One in perhaps every hundred. + +Fear, the instinct to guard life; the warning of danger; the +all-absorbing sense of primitive ancestors who have handed down an +almost uncontrollable Fear of the Unknown, indelibly imprinted upon the +brain and imbibed into the very blood from centuries of fearful watch +upon the Death that came out of the Darkness. + +The fear of death overcome, there grasps the young warrior in a sudden +frenzy the revelation that in some critical moment he "might funk it." +There lies the crux of it. Afraid that he might BE AFRAID and bring upon +him from the lips of those whose opinions he values most the fatal slur +"Coward." For death is far better than that those men who have placed +upon you--and you upon them--the implicit reliance of MAN for MAN, +should find you wanting in the test and pass sentence upon you that a +lifetime regret could not one whit abate. + +Two hundred, perhaps three hundred, yards from the Front Line a Fritz +blockhouse (a concrete, more or less shell-proof fortress, impervious to +rifle and machine gun fire, utilised on a large scale by the Germans and +garrisoned with machine guns) held an advantageous position bearing on +the lines of communication leading up from Masnières, thereby playing +pretty havoc upon ration parties and all movement within focus of the +enemy machine-gunners. + +It HAD to be taken, without artillery support. The Ten Hundred were +nearly let in for the job, but owing to alteration of date the +Lancashire Fusiliers had the onus upon them. + +Surprise was the great deciding factor. + +It failed! Creeping over through the night one half of the journey was +accomplished ... in one piercing whine of spiteful machine-gun fire +Fritz almost wiped out the first wave. For an hour the British tried +again and again with constantly refilling gaps, while upon them was +turned every German machine gun in the area. From half a mile away the +creeping line of advance could be gauged by the tone of firing. Higher, +higher, in one mad high-pitched shriek, ten thousand shots in one minute +from twenty or more enemy machine-guns sang and hummed in the inky pall. +The high key lowered; the mind pictured the khaki line retreating, +reforming--forward again. Then up again the shrill staccato; line +drawing nearer. Higher, faster, louder the Satanic scream of lead. +Higher, still higher! The head throbbed, beads glistened on the +brow--surely the climax was reached. And then it lowered--failed again. + + +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 shelling 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 +shells indicates that his supply in this direction is unlimited, for +this type comes over regularly day and night. He concentrated, too, upon +the canal lock in the probable vague hope of flooding the district. His +shells 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 shells came over with an ever increasing frequency, but men slept on +without masks. A shell, 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 shells passing 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 passage. 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 glass. Someone ran in from +the gateway with a headlong rush, gained the passage and paused. + +"Phew," excitedly, "what the devil is Fritz up to? Heaviest shells on +this front." + +"Yes. Might be coming over." + +"Hardly." + +"Why these heavies?" + +"Dunno. He's shelling along the whole line--good God," in a shout, "look +at that chap there ... it, oh, my God, 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 hoarsely, "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 shelling 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, shells +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 glasses. 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 glasses 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 passage an inferno of +shells 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 Masnières' 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 classic; 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 passed 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 Masnières, +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 grass, 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 Masnières bridges, with its +half sunk tank, the Ten Hundred pumped an annhilating shower or lead +into the lines of enemy creeping along the canal bank. He turned and +retreated, but a swarm of grey figures had taken Rues Vertes and were +consolidating their positions in what constituted 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 Masnières 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 altitude of a mere sixty or eighty +feet. The scouts, peering down on the situation at Masnières, 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 circumstance 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 mass due to the involuntary retreat. No more +adequate simile can convey the picture of the fast-falling figures than +that of grass beneath the scythe. Five minutes, perhaps ten, and it was +over. Bodies lay thick everywhere, and upon this area of wounded and +dying shells were casting square feet of flesh yards into the air. + +German 'planes, viewing this massacre 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 +Lièvre 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 shell, gas, and +shrapnel over every yard of ground. For a period the Normans fell in +dozens everywhere. The canal 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 Middlesex crossing a clearing in the trees was wiped out by +machine-gun fire and toppled over into the canal. + +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 +shell. 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 Masnières, 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 hell with that +Artillery while the chance lasts. + +They stare wildly about in a frenzy. Crack, crack, crack! They have had +enough and retreat a few hundred yards further south. Still, there lies +a dozen or more who will not again pour into the quivering flesh +shrapnel's hell-hot agony. + +A glance along the Norman ranks during the late afternoon showed +appreciably by the many gaps separating man from man how many casualties +had already obtained. Shells claimed a large toll of victims even among +the more or less screened rows of figures lying along the eastern edge +of the canal. Le Poidevin and Le Page, lighting cigarettes from the same +match, caught one in the right and the other the left leg, two flying +pieces of shrapnel from a shell bursting over one hundred yards distant; +fell and stared at each other in painful astonishment ... hobbled +laboriously on the long journey (for a wounded man) into Marcoing. + +Stumpy, secure behind a small mound, had gazed with black pessimism on +life from the moment Tich had given ALL. + +"Gawd," he observed generally, "ain't it orful. What with shells, an' +dead, an' gas! An' I ain't 'ad any rum since last night. Wot a pore +Tommy has got ter put up with." + +Night. A night when men crouched over their rifle waiting to kill, when +the owl had gone far from the slaughter and even not the fitful flutter +of a bat sped through the dark pall. Only man: savage, primitive man, +glared at where each remained hidden. The blood lust to kill, always to +kill. Animal ferocity and passion: man's inheritance. + +From No Man's Land came the sobbing call of wounded for succour. Far, +far across the void sounded those despairing frenzied shrieks. Hoarse, +appealing, incessant, until they weakened and nothing reached the ear +but the smothered sobs of men whose life's sands were running out for +want of that aid, so near, but which they were unable to reach. + +Verey lights from Fritz's lines rose and fell with monotonous certainty, +throwing faint glows on the huddled heaps lying in all directions +between the two fronts. A gleam would catch reflection in the glassy +eyes of a stiff form, fade and leave you staring hypnotised into the +night. Was it distorted fancy ... then you would see it again, and +again, until in its very frequency you noticed--nothing. + +Shelling slackened. Now and again a pause when the stillness could be +"heard." From the woods in intermittent intervals the one solitary gun +still intact in an entire battery belched forth a lone shell into the +enemy lines. In the fantastic flash of each explosion three +shirt-sleeved forms showed a ruddy silhouette of blackened hands and +features. A tearing, splintering crash awoke echoes as some great bough +was shattered in impact with a "heavy" and crackled its cumbersome way +past smaller branches to where it splashed into the canal. + +Into an advanced dressing station about Rues Vertes one of the Duo +stumbled, bleeding profusely from several wounds, dripping with slimy +mud and water, features covered with the grey black dust that comes from +close contact with a shell. Ozanne stared at him. + +"Gawd," he said, "'ow'd you get that?" + +"Scrap--with a Fritz outpost--got a stretcher?" He bent down in a +half-faint, was carried to a stretcher and his wounds in body and arm +bound. Fag in mouth he dozed, was startled into wakefulness by a call +from the Padre. + +"Boys," he was saying, "this village will be evacuated shortly--can't +possibly hold on. Those wounded who can had better walk to Marcoing." + +To Marcoing! Two and a half miles. The Norman moved dizzily out of his +stretcher, stood up, and tottered to the entrance. + +"Here, kid," a Corporal (R.A.M.C.) advised, "You can't do it." + +"I can." + +"You'll peg out on the way." + +"Sooner that than--be--a prisoner. But I can--do it." He did! + +Dawn! And with it an intensity of shelling over the whole area. Earth, +limbs, trees were constantly somewhere in the air. Bodies of yesterday +were torn asunder again and the wounded who had lasted out the night +shrank and writhed in the fiery hail of shrapnel. Fritz came over again. +He is a courageous warrior, not afraid of his own skin, but is at best +when fighting in numbers. A lone fight, back to the wall, is not his +métier; he, if at all threatened, retreats. + +Rues Vertes fell. + +It was a physical impossibility for the Ten Hundred to hold on. The +casualties already exceeded three hundred, every man was utterly worn, +hungry, had existed for twenty-four hours in a state of the highest +nerve tension. Not one was there who had not missed death a dozen times +by the merest of escapes. They had for ten or eleven days been engaged +in an offensive and what meagre rest had been theirs was woefully +insufficient to counteract the heavy demands made upon the stamina. + +Out-numbered by twenty to one, completely out-gunned. No reserves, no +supports, and only one small line of retreat. No aerial observation, no +adequate cover, and an enemy who was aware that a mere shattered +Battalion stood between them and the capitulation of one or more +Divisions. They were half famished, tired out ... his troops were fresh. +He had no doubts as to the result. + +Again the 29th Division repelled an attack on its original front line. +Fritz tried the flank, came on in waves stretching far over the hill +crest. A fire stopped him--COULD there be only ONE corps before him. He +rallied, swept on again, swarming over the canal banks and close up into +the outer Masnières' defences; but on his lines hailed a rapid fire from +the Normans, the like of which he had never deemed possible. Savident +ran alone into the centre of a roadway with his Lewis-gun and poured +every solitary shot by him in one long sweep up and down the wavering +lines. Rifles cracked with the rapid reloading action of marksmen until +the barrels burned hot in the hand. The Germans fell back. The Normans +went forward in that reckless rush. + +Rues Vertes was retaken! + +In the outskirts of this village a number of the draft were isolated, +became tangled in one great bloody mêlée with the angrily retreating +enemy. There was nothing for it but a fight to the death. + +Through the glasses they could be seen to hold off the Hun for a few +brief minutes, met him in a ghastly lunging of bayonets, from which +beads of blood were dropping ... but they went under one by one, until +one thick-set lad remained, seized two Huns one after the other by the +neck, twisted them with his own hands and went over the Divide, a +bayonet through his heart. + +But their example put the fear of death into the enemy and for an hour +the thinning line of Normans had no attack. + +He reformed, sent a large number of machine-guns with his first wave, +concentrated a fearful artillery fire on the villages, and swept +forward. The same fire met him, again the lines wavered, but that hail +of lead was more than the men could withstand. They went back--many of +the gunners without their machine-guns, not back a hundred yards or so +but almost out of RIFLE RANGE. + +The artillery fire had created havoc among the Normans. Twenty figures +writhed in agony in so many feet, a stream of blood-soaked lads were +moving slowly away towards Marcoing. One Lewis-gun team was lying about +in all directions, forms distorted, limbs missing and great bare +stretches of red flesh showing with sickening brilliancy of colour--and +the gun itself was UNTOUCHED. Irony of fate. + +On the sloping grass seven inert khaki forms could be counted, on the +lower levels another five: stretched across the mound to the east of the +canal a dozen or more were visible at intervals of eight or so yards. +All from ONE spot without moving the head. + +The casualties were more than the untouched. + +Weary Normans, knowing that YOUR turn would not be long acoming--and you +would not be sorry when it did--knowing, too, that behind was no relief +force. You had to HOLD, there was no alternative. And each face lifted +earnestly in the light was set of jaw. God grant them life and they +would hold until the Hun himself called "Halt!" + +Ammunition had come up ... therefore was there only one factor by which +they might fail--no men to use the rifles. They spoke sometimes in the +pauses. + +"Wonder wot they'll say at 'ome about all these yere dead?" + +"Dunno." + +"Anyhow, we ain't done bad work." + +"No; an' we'll hang on yere like 'ell, even if they brings the ole +bloomin' German army." + +"Sure. If Jerry thinks 'e can show us 'ow to shoot 'e has made a 'ell of +a outer." + +"D'you know," shyly, "we 'ave done somethin' big!" + +"Yes; I s'pose we 'ave." + +The very men who had fought on and made good in face of odds that no man +in his senses would have bet on at a thousand to one chance, opined that +they had "done something big," or at least they "s'posed so." + +No Regiment in the Empire, or out of it, could have done more. They had +to "hang on" at any cost. They did: simply, doggedly. + +The Guards--rushed up to the southern portion of the sector and launched +against the German advance--with a determination and tenacity of purpose +against which the offered opposition was futile, turned the enemy flank +and forced them back in the direction of their original (November 30th) +line through Cambrai. + +A strong detachment fell back on the Masnières-Rumilly sector, thereby +enforcing on the small Norman remnant a further infliction of bloody +fighting and casualties. The Guards swept back the waves of grey upon +the Guernseys, who could not retreat--for a few hundred yards behind +them the rest of the Brigade were holding up a further enemy element. + +Our own artillery, harassing the Fritz retreat, sent over a number of +shells into Masnières. Fritz batteries, in response to the urgency of +the situation, hailed down shrapnel on a scale only equalled on the +morning of their onslaught. The Normans came in for the thick of it. + +The men holding the far end of the little town found themselves swamped +down in the overwhelming rush of an entire retreating Battalion. They +were prisoners before the abrupt alteration in the direction of the +German movement had dawned on them. + +Above Rues Vertes the spiteful fire of the remaining scattered units of +the Ten Hundred impressed upon the Hun mind a fear of those riflers that +was pregnant enough to force him to rapidly verge away from the spot to +a safer distance of a mile or so. + +The little village near the Crucifix was withdrawn from at dusk with no +molestation. Shelling slackened to a mere initial salvo from Rumilly. +The lull followed in which enemy reinforcement were being brought up to +be thrown in large forces upon those stubborn British regiments who were +clinging tenaciously, with unshaken obstinacy, to shattered trenches. + +Lieut. Stone (afterwards M.C.) led a bombing raid under cover of night +into Rues Vertes, originating there an uproar that startled every Fritz +within a mile into a bad degree of "windy" apprehension. He fired into +the air a frenzied array of Verey lights in hope of discovering the +extent of the raid. Had the Ten Hundred been less war-worn they would +have chuckled delightedly over this successful bluff, but they hardly +commented upon it, stared wearily and disinterestedly at the flashes of +bursting grenades, turned away and banged arms and hands noisily on +thighs to enforce some little circulation into those cold, clammy limbs. + +So utterly exhausted were a few of the youngsters that they had fallen +into unsettled sleep across their rifles, startled now and again into +fearful wakedness by a mind that had for days been awaiting something +that would inevitably come. + +Men were little more than mechanical figures, but the brain ran rampant +and uncontrolled until the wild memories of furious German attacks +earlier in the day surged up with acute pregnancy and the victim fell +prey to poignant hallucination. The endless rows of grey figures would +advance yard by yard ... five hundred range, four hundred, three +hundred. God, we can't stop him. The crackle of rifles and machine-guns +shrieked higher ... two hundred; one hundred. Breath comes and goes in +sobs--in one minute he will be on you. Then he wavers. Now is the time; +pump the lead into him ... he turns. + +And the lad regaining control of his distorted imagination discovers +that his rifle barrel is hot and that he has let fly a dozen rounds into +the void ... a shaky hand passes slowly over a sweat-covered brow. + +The Higher Command, realising that the holding of Masnières with the +small remnants of troops in the sector was impossible, ordered the +withdrawal to a support line of the old Hindenburg system, and thus +straightening out or at least modifying the British frontage. + +What remaining elements of the Ten Hundred still survived were allotted +the last task of covering the Brigade's withdrawal. They stood their +ground to the final stages of the movement and they only evacuated +because ORDERED TO DO SO. + +Middlesex, Lancs. Fusiliers, Royal Fusiliers, each Battalion badly cut +up, moved away while the Normans held on, pumping lead in whining chorus +to convey to the German mind that troops were plentiful and to +camouflage the fact that a withdrawal was taking place. + +Then they stumbled to their feet, weak from exhaustion, exposure and +hunger. The wind moaned in trees in company with their uncertain +footsteps, the still forms of brother Normans smiled up to the stars and +bade them mute farewell as they came away from that sacred ground, +sodden with their blood. The Germans in the morning would find +everywhere the honoured dead and would place them in their last resting +place in the damp soil for which they had willingly given of their LIVES +to hold. + +Because no one would be there to resist him he would walk their +treasured strip of soil; but his footsteps would never have defiled it +while ONE NORMAN had remained. + +Hands clenched in agony ... he would take it ... they had failed to +uphold those who had gone before. To leave it after all they had done, +to give it without a shot. Why, why----? + +The Passing of the Old Ten Hundred. + +A few over three hundred men marched without sound to where a train +awaited. Silent, haggard, worn! + +The remnants of the Normans. Six or seven hundred casualties in two +days--they were aptly "remnants." + +The train pulled out. The Cambrai Offensive was merely history. + +The following letter was sent to the Bailiff of Guernsey by the C.O. of +the 29th Division shortly after the Cambrai battle, which the Bailiff +read at a sitting of the Royal Court:-- + + + "I want to convey to the Guernsey authorities my very high + appreciation of the valuable services rendered by the Royal + Guernsey Light Infantry in the Battle of Cambrai. Their's was a + wonderful performance. + + "Their first action was on November 20th. and though their task of + that day was not severe, they carried out all they were asked to do + with a completeness that pleased me much. The C.O., De La + Condamine, was then invalided, and I placed my most experienced + C.O. in command. This was Lieut.-Colonel Hart-Synot, nephew of Sir + Reginald Hart. + + "On November 30th, when the Germans, in their heavy surprise + attack, pierced our line to the south of my sector, the enemy + entered the village of Les Rues Vertes, a suburb of Masnières, + which town was my right flank. It was the Guernsey Light Infantry + which recovered this village twice by counter-attacks, and which + maintained the southern defences of Masnières for two days against + seven German attacks with superior forces and very superior + artillery. When we were ordered to evacuate Masnières on the night + of December 1st, it being a dangerous salient, with the enemy on + three sides, it was the Royal Guernsey Light Infantry which covered + the withdrawal. Guernsey has every reason to feel the greatest + pride in her sons, and I am proud to have them under me fighting + alongside my staunch veterans of three years' fighting experience. + + "Many officers and men greatly distinguished themselves, among whom + I may first mention Le Bas, and after him Stranger, Stone and + Sangster. + + "I enclose a copy of Special Order, and feel that Guernsey should + participate in the pride we all feel in having done our duty. I + regret the casualties of the Battalion were heavy, a further proof, + if any were needed, that they fought magnificently." + + + + + +IX + +DECEMBER-JANUARY, 1918 + +HOUVIN + + +Detraining at a railroad the small force of Normans swung away upon a +long march to billets in Houvin, partaking at last of the rest that had +for so long been their dire need. + +The plentitude of food, ample sleep, clean clothing, and the wholesome +cleanliness of pure water in which the body could be purified of a war's +protracted stagnations, acted visibly upon the spirits. They had had +access to papers portraying to the full how much had depended upon their +stand in those critical days, and now it was over they marvelled at how +they had done it. + +From their connection with the 29th Division, in the previous September, +there had been borne upon them from friendly contact with brother +Battalions, the subtle esprit de corps permeating a Division who had won +fame at Gallipoli, who inspired when transferred to France a fear of +their arms in the Hun mind, and won from the recalcitrant foe eulogy in +the form of "The Iron Division." + +A strong mutual respect was apparent between them and the remaining +regiments of the 86th Brigade. Each felt that reliance could at any time +be placed upon the other: had they not already put their mettle to the +test and come through with honours? + +The old humour re-asserted itself among the wild, careless fellows who +had come through. Tich, one of the Duo, Birfer, and Ginger were no +longer there to plot out their daily round of "schemes." Clarke, Martel, +Stumpy, and Old Casey were left to carry on--and they were quite capable +of doing so. + +Stumpy formed a friendship with another of his diminutive height and +large waistband in the Middlesex, and the two were frequently hobnobbing +together in each others' billets. + +"We lost a lot of good fellows," Stumpy sighed heavily over his pipe, +"wot we couldn't spare. There was three wot never drank rum and who all +got 'it." A roar of laughter interrupted him. "Yes, all got 'it. And +there was pore old Jack who got a dose in the arm an' 'ad to walk a 'ell +of a way to the dressin' station. 'E was bleedin' bad an' asked me ter +take orf 'is pack, which I did, an' his water-bottle as well, becos it +was full of rum and--an' rum is 'eavy." + +"Rum, full of rum," his little pal looked up at him with dry lip, +"you--you ain't got any left?" + +"No, becos I put it aside, an' some scrounger pinched it. All I 'opes is +that it bloomin' well choked 'im." Someone bawled from the doorway that +"supper was up." + +Billets are a form of barracking troops in a number of barns and stables +spread over as small an area as possible. The one salient advantage of +these shelters is fresh air; it comes in with icy gusts through these +apertures made for the purpose and whistles through cracks in the +door--if there is a door--and gaps where once glass had kept it out. For +those to whom the sky on a star-lit night provides an hour's ecstacy a +hole or two in the roof is a blessing, but to the common mortal is a +damnation by which the winter wind tints the nose o' nights a soft shade +of deep purple or gives passage to a gentle flow of rain that forms +lakes and pools on your overcoat and blanket and which at the slightest +movement runs like a small river down your chest until you wake with a +shivering gasp. + +Rats and mice make their way interestedly in and out of sleeping forms, +investigate with deliberate intent the contents of your pack, or +perchance make a tentative nibble at an odd toe or so. If anything +digestible is found in an overcoat pocket the exasperating rodents do +not enter by the obvious pocket-flap, but CHEW their way in from the +outside. + +The weary old monotony of daily routine common to the Army set in, +parades and inspections forced their unpleasant encroachments upon each +day. Men whom a few weeks before had been forced to face the heaviest +fighting they had ever experienced, now made the abrupt discovery that +they were again liable to fall foul of the miles of red-tapeism that is +everywhere rampant in Regulations respecting innumerable minor offences. + +This perpetual inspection by an officer sickens. His minute survey of +every inch of the uncouth, Army-rigged mortals, peppered with +injunctions in relation to an absence of polish on boots or equipment, +was never favorably received. There was a grain of humour in the actions +of subalterns who were wont to jab up and down the bolt of a rifle with +the air of an expert and solemnly inform the owner (who had fired +several hundred rounds through it at tight moments) that he must "... be +careful to oil the bolt--most important." + +Much new clothing had to be issued to replace the battle-scared remnants +of the Cambrai stunt. Thrown to the men in the happy haphazard Army +method--there were created a new series of Parisian modes for draping +the figure. Army-rig! There was no lack of space or originality in the +cut of Le Huray's enormous wide trousers (the leg would comfortably have +encircled his waist), turned up when worn without puttees two and +one-half inches at the bottom; the top if hitched well up had manifest +advantages as a muffler. Issued on the same logical lines, Mahy received +a tiny pair of nether garments for his loner legs and a little tunic +that hung limply like an undersized Eton-jacket six inches short of +where it should have reached. Some lads were lost in shirts with sleeves +generally associated with Chinese or other Eastern gentlemen, others +moodily surveyed themselves in small shrunken garments that with only +superhuman effort could be forced to meet the waistband without emiting +a warning rip. Duport found it so. + +"Look 'ere," he growled, "trousers won't reach me waist upwards; shirt +won't either, downwards. Leavin' a bloomin' two inches orl round of bare +flesh." + +"Camouflage it." + +"'Ow d'you mean?" + +"Paint the space brown an' pretend it's a belt." + +The Quarter-Master Sergeant and his assistant found an avalanche of new +material and old on their hands. (The Q.M.S.'s are those individuals who +keep ALL the new clothing in store and by only the wiliest of Tommies +can such material be wangled.) The Q.M.S. of the Ten Hundred was not +exactly popular among the ranks. N.B.--Neither Q.M.S.'s nor C.Q.M.S.'s +are acquainted as a rule with the gentle solitude of the first line +trenches. Their duty it is to receive and issue the "plum and apple," +the "road-paving" biscuit and the weekly change of under-garments. + +In the Field no man has actual possession of shirt, sock, or +under-garments. These are all given in at each visitation to the baths +and others issued in return. Your shirt thrown over to you by the +C.Q.M.S. might be somewhat decrepit and holey or might have some +resemblance to a new one. You might have two odd socks or (if you were +among the bevy of schemers) two or three pairs would be in your +possession--illegally. + +Parades were detestable. They had imagined that England was the training +camp for these operations. In France they had expectation of fighting +and resting, NOT marching up and down with occasional halts, while the +Platoon Officer furtively asks his sergeant what order he must give +next. + +The pivot round which all parades manoeuvre is always with the +Regimental Sergeant-Major (the main function of all R.S.M.'s is to walk +round with a big stick). He, an old Regular, despite the iron discipline +so candidly hated, was withall a staunch supporter of fair play for the +ranker, a tartar on parade, and feared more by the junior N.C.O.'s than +the very inhabitor of lower regions. + +An N.C.O. (Non-Commissioned Officer) is an individual whose main talent +lies in the ability to bawl out orders at men one yard distant in a +voice having a hundred yards range. The possessors of some subtle +superiority not descernible by ordinary individuals, they are for this +reason forbidden to converse or walk with the men when "off parade." + +These stringent regulations never materialise in actual practice, but it +conveys a hint of the tinge of "Hindenburgism" with which the Army is +tainted--excepting Dominion forces, wherein the negligible gulf between +officers and men is easily bridged. + +There will always, however, be a sneaking regard in the hearts of the +few Normans who rested there; for Houvin. It was there that men could +sleep far from the haunting spectre of anticipated death or devastation: +there, too, life could be enjoyed to the full in the happy knowledge +that no shells would pitch near by, no machine-gun turn its whining +trail of bullets across your path. And it was at first difficult to +realise that danger to limb was past, that movement to and fro was free +from the hovering shrapnel that had so long dogged their steps and +penetrated the mind with its presence until accepted as an everyday +visitation such as the sun. + +Parcels and mail arrived with a glad regularity. There is no more +pregnant a "reviver" of downheartedness than letters from the old +people, nor is anything more liable to inspire the "pip" than the +absence of such personal touches with familiar scenes. Papers can never +replace the badly penned and still more badly worded missives despatched +from some humble cottage. Those two pages of scrawled information go far +nearer to the receiver's heart than twenty columns of polished well +written print. The letter is almost a living link with all that in which +he has the strongest interest ... he is far more delighted at the news +of Tilly's overthrow of Jim for Jack than a mere possible fall of the +British Cabinet which might be pending. + +"Besides," Stumpy pointed out with unconscious irony, "you opens a paper +an' you knows there ain't nothin' in it, while the ole woman might 'ave +put ten bob in yer letter." + +Tommy has never sufficient a supply of cash. Everywhere a few miles +behind the Line a canteen or Y.M.C.A. had been pushed forward and in +these places the five francs a lad receives about once a fortnight does +not go very far or last long. Nor does its purchasing value cover more +than a meagre supply of such commodities as cake, chocolate, tobacco and +beer. With regard to the latter, stress must be laid on the fact that +Tommy is far less often in a state of drunkenness than the average +civilian and that he is far more prone to derive humour out of it than +to drink it. + + + + +X + +DECEMBER-JANUARY, 1918 + +FLERS--LE PARCQ--VERCHOCQ + + +Snow had fallen and sprinkled the countryside with a semi-transparent +white mantle. Roads due to freezing o' nights were hard and slippery, +making the going for men labouring beneath the burden of full pack +irksome and heavy. The Normans had no eyes for the countryside (there is +no beauty in the finest masterpieces of Nature if physical conditions +are not in harmony) but had the surface before them fixedly under focus +in the interest of the neck's safety. + +Eighteen or so kilos (approximately 11-1/4 miles) over the long straight +levels common to France and which, although of course the shortest route +between two points is viewed by the marching columns as far longer than +it actually is because of the distant visibility. And Tommy would prefer +a more winding journey even if the distance covered is greater. + +The night's rest at Flers in the midst of heavy falls of snow put the +wind up the men at the knowledge of a longer march on the morrow, but +the alarm was false and a trek of four kilos materialised--hard going +the whole way--to Le Parcq, a town situated on the top of a hill, the +discovery of a short cut causing the break from schedule. The "cut" was +made up a steep incline that proved a severe obstacle to the wildly +struggling horses of transport waggons on the vile surface. Several +lorries with the all-essential stores, blankets, etc., found the "glass" +road utterly impassable. + +This unfortunate set-back reacted on the men, who, because of the +blanket shortage were doomed to but ONE per man throughout the winter +night of fierce cold, against which the shivering, suffering lads had as +protection billets without roofs and in some instances with mere relics +of sides. The pain was acute, sleep difficult. Some unable to withstand +the torture paced up and down the whole night through, banging arms +heavily across bodies to stimulate some semblance of warmth. + +At the first indications of dawn they were started on what proved to be +one of the longest marches in their experience. The weather was harsher +than on any of the preceding days and the frozen snow surface of the +roads presented in itself a factor that materially magnified the heavy +labouring beneath full pack, arduous to a degree under the easiest of +conditions. Before mid-day the constant vigilance and care necessary if +a hard fall was to be avoided began to tell on the nerves, irritability +forced its grip, and they glared savagely at one another at every +sideslip--inevitable in a long trek over such roads. + +After twenty or so kilos had been reeled off physical exhaustion invaded +man after man, growling ceased, heads bent forward and the eyes watched +unseeing the heels of the man ahead. Mechanical rigidity of monotonous, +torturous march again held sway, the old dryness of tongue and aching of +burning feet grew more and more acute at each heavy step forward. + +An hour passed in painful silence, and another, but ever onward along +the long trail of miles--left, right, left. At each step you muttered it +softly--left right--or counted them one by one until the mind rambled on +confused in tens of thousands. A stage had been attained when one felt +nothing, knew nothing, but just the unending chorus of padding feet +guided by the mere instinct of a mind in a condition of peculiar coma. +The ten minute halts were taken at each hour with no comment. Men threw +themselves prone on the road, closed eyes, stood up unthinking at the +order and fell again into the harsh rigidity of movement. + +Just before dusk the "machine" halted at Verchocq, after a march of +thirty-three kilos. They were tired, worn, hungry.... + +No lorries or cookers turned up that night! + +Followed that abrupt revival of spirits that cannot but remain a +pyschological mystery. No cookers--no grub. They threw aside without an +effort complete exhaustion, the outcome of an entire day's strenuous +bodily exertion, sallied forth with remarkable sangfroid and certainty +in Verchocq, there conversing with the inhabitants, made themselves +thoroughly at home and gratefully partook of the hot fare hospitably +provided them--the fierce inroads upon food that only the utterly +famished can readily appreciate, and which indelibly impressed upon the +intellect of their hosts a certainty that British troops could never +have their appetite satiated. + +They returned to billets in varying moods and conditions, one or two +ignoring a straight walk and zig-zagging an uncertain course across the +roads. Stumpy, who had received a generous welcome from a misguided +patriot, sat down with smug complacency, holding one hand lovingly over +an abdomen over-filled with good fare. + +"Weren't 'alf orl right," he said "lawd, wot with five eggs an' 'am an' +bread; but there weren't any beer, only," with a shudder, "a 'ome-made +lemonade." + +"Yus," Duquemin agreed, "dam good-hic-sort these French people. Fine +lil' daughter wi' blue-hic-eyes. 'Eld my 'and, and she hic-said was +brave-hic soldier. Ver' proud ... 'allo wot-hic-doing'." + +A lad was kneeling in his corner, hands clasped in prayer. (He did so +night after night unmolested.) The crowd watched curiously--but had +anyone dare to scoff they, as Mahieu said, "would a' knocked the b---- +scoffer's 'ead orf." + +Strange ingrained instinctive assertion of fair play predominant in the +attitude of those wild, uncouth mortals. Few of them had thought of +outward expression of God--a fierce resentment world galvanise into life +at the slightest sneer upon the unprotected back of those who HAD the +pluck. From his couch in a solitary blanket the agnostic grunted. + +"Fetish," he observed quietly, "the warrior appealing to his oracle of +Delphi like a savage to his moon. Passing gods of a passing +generation...." + +"Yesh," Duquemin agreed sagely. "Passin' gen'ral rashon--no +rashon-hic-pore-Guernseys. Oonly wot people gi'...." + +The friendship originated during the Normans' first night at Vorchocq +with the French grew as the days progressed, accentuated by the Norman +knowledge of the people's mother-tongue. + +They made the utmost of their time, lived life to the very full, +inspired by the knowledge that the draft of four hundred Staffords and +two hundred or so Guernseymen (the ten per cent. who had not +participated at Cambrai) who were to become absorbed into the Ten +Hundred were auguries of an approaching further acquaintance with the +Front Line. + +Christmas Day provided an ample fare in addition to the ordinary +rations, small parties engaging rooms in estaminets and farms, +purchasing the very limit of eatables obtainable with what financial +lengths were at their disposal, obtained bottles of port and gave vent +to an unbounded vein of hilarious humour and uproarious chorus in +celebration of a Christmas that many knew would be their last. + +In a quiet room four of the ascetic rankers (Clarke, Martel, Lomar and +White) passed an evening that will long remain a pleasant memory, +tempered with pain for the one who soon afterwards paid the Supreme +Sacrifice. + +Everywhere uproar was rampant. Light, laughter, and good cheer +maintained undisputed sway upon all. Rose-cheeked daughters of France +were toasted again and again, taken into muscular arms and kissed times +without number. + +The old marching rallies of the Ten Hundred were roared out from every +tiny house ablaze with light, echoed out into the inscrutable pall of +black and wafted far away into the shadows. + +And they toasted the "Old Battalion," the warriors who were lying in the +damp Masnières soil; the Future; and God's own Isle--their little +motherland. It hurt, how it hurt! How the tiny green island rose mistily +before the eyes in all its sun-bathed romance and mystery! How the sweet +aroma of its gold, furze-crowned cliffs, the laughter of blue waters, +the lowing of cattle, came flooding with glad memories on the mind ... +and YOU may not ever again scent that furze or glimpse those waters! + +They laughed memory back into its dim past. WHAT of the future? Live +only for the present! + +Bunny was happy. Reclining gracefully in the gutter he sang a jumbled +lullaby of melodies. + + + "There's maggots in the cheese, + You can 'ear the beggars sneeze--" + + +He struggled manfully to his feet, fell into a helpless fit of laughter +and collapsed again into the roadway with a heavy grunt. An N.C.O. found +him there a few minutes later. + +"'Ere," he demanded, "wot are you doin' there?" + +"Doin'," Bunny chuckled helplessly: "wot think I'm doin ... plantin' +daisies or diggin' for gold?" + +"Look 'ere, me lad, if you're lookin' for trouble--!" + +"Lookin' for trouble?--not lookin' for anything. Just 'avin' a rest by +the wayside an' gazin' at stars." + +"Well, get up or I'll 'old you up, an' you'll SEE 'em then." + +"Or-righ'. Want, want, lil' drop toddy?" + +"Got much? Pass it over." + +"Ain't got none. Only asked if you WANT a-a drop...." He moved away and +from far down the street his dirge carried faintly: + + + "There's whiskers on the pork + We curl 'em with a fork--." + + +In unhappy contract to Christmas. New Year proved to be a day of short +rations, bully beef and a rehearsal of an attack in the snow. The bread +ration dwindled down to Winkleian proportions. + +A move up the line was pending in the near future and rumours that of +all hellish sectors they were going up the Passchendaele-Ypres areas, +were received with continuous outbursts of growling. + +The young Staffords who had not the gruesome knowledge of Belgian +desolation were satisfied with a front anywhere near the magic Ypres. +They wanted to see the place where, as one of them was perpertually +saying. "A couple of Blighty regiments made a bloomin' 'ell of a mess of +the whole blooming' Jerry army." + +There was everywhere a mutual recognition of a possible, a probable, +German attack on a scale to date unparalleled. Every battalion in the +Brigade was thoroughly cognisant that at some time during the next few +months they would be called upon to make another Cambrai stand. There +was a general feeling that he would attempt to crush the British Army at +a blow, seize the Channel ports, and thus isolate what armies had +escaped the first onslaught. + + + + +XI + +DECEMBER-JANUARY, 1918 + +LEULENE--BRANDHOEK--YPRES + + +January 3.--Snow had, after three weeks on the ground beneath the +hardening influence of a temperature several degrees below zero, evolved +into a surface upon which a constant steady balance demanded no little +skill. Marching encumbered with a full pack, clumsy Army-shod feet, one +arm only free for a much hampered swing, increased the difficulties of +maintaining a secure foothold. + +(Full pack: A conglomeration of articles intended in normal ages to be +transported by two mules, but under the influence of advanced +civilisation strapped on the back of one man, in addition to a rifle, +half a dozen Mills' bombs, a Lewis-gun, spade or shovel, sheet of +corrugated iron, or any other article that can be somewhere hung upon +him). + +Weariness, fed-upity, after many miles had been laboriously reeled off, +was a factor in slackening vigilance on the semi-ice, many painful falls +resulting--to fall with a pack produces a situation resembling a beetle +on its back. + +Stumpy pulled someone out of a snowdrift--then he fell into one himself, +unnoticed. He caught the Battalion up at the halt. + +"Oh, 'ell," he shouted indignantly, "I might a' died for all you +bloomin' well cared." + +"Why, wot's up?" + +"Up? I fell into a bloomin' drift." + +"Oh, an' wot the 'ell d'you do that for?" + +"Do it for. Why, why...!" The crowd about him grinned. + +"P'raps 'e saw 'is ole woman comin 'along the road." + +"'E saw the bloomin' captain drop a 'skate' (fag-end) down an' went +after it." + +"That's the way 'e 'as 'is weekly wash." + +"He was playin' snowballs with 'is bloomin' self." + +The command to "fall in" dropped the curtain. + +In the grey of dusk the shadowy column marched into Leulene. + +The Ten Hundred, after an eleven days' "rest" in the icy grip of a +winter's wind that clung to Leulene unabating throughout the period, +marched away and entrained upon their first portion of journey +front-linewards. + +Cattle-trucks provide ample novelty, aroma and draughts. Refuse covering +the floor is swept by the occupants into a corner heap, but someone has +to sleep on it. An open space between a sliding door can comfortably +accommodate two with legs dangling over, but invariably has four or more +hunched-up, jumbled khaki figures. + +These trains never hurry: always twist and turn and double back +half-a-dozen times in journeyings from one point to another. Jolting and +jarring is unnoticed--you are past noticing anything after the first +hour! + +Officers have usually the luxury of railway carriages, but the private-- + +Privates: Individuals who form the large proportion of a Battalion. +Their salient duties embrace shining buttons, carrying up officers' +rations, dodging parades, scrubbing out sergeants' and officers' mess, +squad drill, guards, and C.B., picking up paper near the billets, +grousing and growing thin on short rations--during spare moments they +are used for fighting. + +Detraining at Brandhoek, the Ten Hundred marched to Brake Camp, a +rambling collection of huts built in a wood near the main road running +between Poperinghe and Ypres, within a short distance of Vlamertynghe. + +It was "Pop!" Unchanged, grim and grey, visited day and night by bomb +and shell with the ceaseless activity of that Belgian area. A battalion +of Worcesters, whom the Normans were relieving, painted a merry picture +of the sodden sector. + +"Fritz ain't 'alf playin' 'ell wi' the front line. Washed out two +blasted regiments in less than a week...." + +"No bloomm' trenches up there. Only shell 'oles an' hundreds of bodies. +Ration parties can't get up wi' the grub...." + +"Jerry shells like 'ell orl night an' sends over gas in shells and cloud +orl day. Three 'undred casualties last week an' I 'eard that alf of 'em +kicked the bucket...." + +"Old Jerry 'as a million troops from Russia waitin' to come over next +month for his offensive...." + +"Yus, Sir Daggie 'Aig sez 'e must sacrifice 'is First Lines. An', wots +more, yer up to the neck in water...." + +The Normans slept that night haunted by nightmare visitations created by +minds pervaded with strong "wind-upity." Stumpy succumbed to a. fit of +depression from which nothing could rouse him. Evans (a Stafford) gave +him a fag. + +"Cheer up," he said. + +"Can't? Bloomin' water up to yer neck an' they don't issue lifebelts an' +I can't swim." + +"Garn. That's only wot they SEZ." + +"Gas an' shells an' troops." + +"Only bloomin' rumours." + +"An' no ration parties can got up--oh gawd!" + +"Wot about it?" + +"No ration parties means no grub an' NO rum. Wot a pore Tommy 'as got +ter put up with." + +The following day marching through Ypres they moved further up the Line +to a camp situated near St. Jean and from whence they would make their +final preparations and march towards the duckboard (a series of boards +resembling actual duck-boards and raised to a height above the ground +varying in accordance to the depth of water) track winding up the +wasted shell-torn soil to the communication trenches. + +The "atmosphere" of the place was painfully reminiscent to the survivors +from the previous September of the nerve-wrecking task that had been +their unfortunate lot during that Baptism of Fire. The grim devastation +of the flat, water-covered countryside enforced upon the spirits +something of its own desolation. Everywhere the gaunt, shell-shattered +trees, through which o' nights the incessant red glow eastward +penetrated just as it had four months before. Day and night the +perpetual roar of artillery, the heavy shock of falling bombs, the +familiar KR-UMP! + +And the knowledge that the brief security of life had passed. Again, +already, none knew who might not glimpse the dawn; again the hell-hot +shrapnel and the writhing human flesh. To-morrow that arm may be a +shattered, jagged hanging "thing" ... how firm, fine, and white it +looks: smooth, strong.... + +You look curiously along the line of adjacent faces. Can ALL come +through--impossible. Who will go under first ... will it be YOU? Wonder +what it is like to die? Men had often fallen limply near by, a small +round hole in the forehead and a trickle of blood. They seemed calm +enough ... wonder where they went ... did they KNOW they were dead? Do +you feel the bullet whistling through your brain ... do you have one +last lightning thought cut short, "This is Death!"...? + +Anyhow, what of it ... others have done it. If they could, you could! + +Before going up into the icy-cold of water-logged semi-trenches the feet +were treated with special attention to counteract the action of +continual wet and frost upon the flesh. If the utmost care is not taken, +and the dreaded "trench feet" fastens its fierce grip upon the victim, +there lies before him many weeks of agony in hospital, haunted daily by +a chance of losing one or both feet. All this without the glad +consolation of a WOUND! + +Washed in warm water, the feet are greased and powdered and new socks +placed carefully over before setting out on the trudge Linewards. + +Trench equipment is issued, two days' rations served out, and a start is +made in the night. Stumpy lost his "grub" by misadventure, but found +somebody else's, withstood a fierce argument for ten minutes and finally +pacified his opponent by "finding" still another issue. + +Hoarse orders sent men probing about for their rifles and assortment of +equipment. + +The Ten Hundred filed out. + + + + +XII + +PASSCHENDAELE SECTOR + + +Eyes gazing eastward at the rising and falling Verey Lights in Jerry's +lines, the Ten Hundred trudged wearily along a sodden plank "road" +winding into a stretch of muddy track strewn on all sides with the +gruesome conglomeration of war's jetsam. + +The way had to be carefully chosen past shell-holes full of water, with +here and there a slowly twirling body, a white face shining hideously in +the damp night air. To the south a wavering mass of searchlights flitted +over the sky. Archie guns were raising a fierce distant clamour, the +white puffs from their bursting shrapnel showing like gigantic snowballs +in the glare, but no trace of the Fritz airmen was visible. A series of +violent concussions and the faint high-up throb of aero engines were the +only indications of his gambols. + +Then silent filing along a poor system of filthy trenches ... the other +battalion was relieving. Posting of men, reliefs.... + +To stand there in the night, suffering acutely from the cold, unmoving, +staring fascinated across the little stretch of desolation between the +lines and to watch fanciful shadows until the mind falls prey to +apprehensive imagination construing the posts and wiring into great +fantastic grey-cloaked figures. Then at the turn of the head--WHAT is +that? In one frenzied movement the rifle is levelled across the parapet, +first pressure of the trigger taken and the shadowy bulk watched. Five +long minutes of intense scrutiny--it MOVED, or was it mere fancy? There +again--crack!! And the figure has not fallen ... so through the +darkness, until day reveals a shrivelled form tangled up on the wire +where it died days ago. + +Parts of the area were simply connected shell-holes, outposts, the +occupants of which might for hours at a stretch be completely isolated +from the remainder of their battalion, and, receiving no visit from +anyone, have not the merest inkling of what was going on outside of what +lies before their own limited vision. + +The failure of water supply reaching these outposts increased an already +severe existence. Someone would go "over the top," crawl to and fill +water-bottles up at the nearest shell-hole. A body or limb might be at +the bottom--who cares! The water is rank, putrid, evil-smelling; but the +fierce, mad craving for drink is not to be denied. + +A shell found one of the small advanced posts, killed a few outright and +gashed a long tear into the abdomen of the one survivor. He languished +there alone with the dead for eight hours--they had been "lost." He was +found, removed, died before reaching a Casualty Clearing Station. +Inexorable law of Chance. + +Fritz sent over gas shells night and day, hampering rationing parties, +and enforcing prolonged agony inside the hot respirators. Gas, heavier +than air, hangs low over the ground, follows inundations up and down, +and slinks across water: hanging for days over damp soil, and permeating +water with a sickly colour--an obvious danger to troops drinking this +liquid. + +Where the country was flooded duck-boards were raised to a height +sufficient to stand above the water and presented at night (all +movements are generally done at nightfall) an alluring task of +maintaining balance on a narrow planking (couple of feat or so) adorned +with no handrails or supports and invisible five feet away. When Fritz +sends over gas and respirators have to be donned during the intricate +negotiation of this "pathway"----! + +Clarke and Bennet, moving gingerly beneath two heavy ration issues, +paused abruptly to duck to a whining shell. The latter slipped, fell off +into the miniature ocean, clambered out. + +"Oh, 'ell, bloomin' bread too--LOOK OUT!" + +"That's the second dud." + +"Yes, must be gas." Respirators on they were unable to peer a foot +either way, sat down uncomfortably on the boards and waited for the +attack to move away. But when they did stand up and gazed about them ... +WHICH WAY WAS WHICH? + +The absence in places of any line or wiring (posts would not stand up in +the watery soil) permitted men o' nights to wander unawares towards the +Fritz trenches. A crack, a fall--for weeks the body would lie outside +the enemy lines until it rotted and fell apart. And someone was posted +"Missing." + +Trench feet began to find its victims among the young Staffords--they +trekked away in agony, but withal glad to get out of it. With the +puzzling rapidity of trench casualties the daily roll increased without +anyone quite grasping how or when this or that man went. He would be +with you this morning, to-morrow you would miss him; inquire and learn +that he had stopped a Blighty. + +Evans, an adherent of the occult, vowed that he had been visited by some +eternal being of the spirit world. Stumpy was profoundly interested. + +"Wot'd 'e say?" + +"Nothing much. Only that somethin' would portend for me to-morrow." + +"Oh, did 'e want a drink?" + +"Course not." + +"If 'e 'ad asked you for your rum ration, would you," anxiously, "'ave +given it to 'im." + +"Couldn't: 'adn't any left." + +"Wot woz 'e like?" + +"Tall, shadowy." + +"An' you really believes it?" + +"Yus. I 'ave proof--" + +"I see. I, I s'pose 'e could give you anything you asked 'im for?" + +"Within reason." + +"Then," whispered ironically, "ask 'im next time to give me a soft +Blighty an' a drop of toddy, an', oh, some bloomin' fags." + +"Can't be done, for something will 'appen to me to-morrow." + +He was wrong; decided that the spook had altered for his own good +reasons the daily course of his life and eagerly awaited a visit that +never materialised. Stumpy was disgusted. + +"All me eye. I know it wasn't a bloomin' spook when I 'eard 'e 'adn't +asked for a drink. Wot on earth would anyone visit these yere bloomin' +trenches for unless he smelt rum?" + +"You don't understand." + +"No, an' bloomin' well don't want to. A spook wot rejoins 'is ole +friends on earth an' don't even offer 'em a drink is unnatural--that's +wot I say." + +The large, dry and roomy dug-out beloved by the armchair artist, very, +very rarely offers its cosy hospitality to the warrior dwelling in the +Front Line--even if there is anything bearing a faint resemblance to +such an elaboration it is immediately seized by Company Headquarters. +The inter-connecting series of holes occupied by the Normans and +flattered with the term "trenches" had cut here and there into the wet +soil a number of side excavations of smart proportions that served the +purpose of shelter from the elements and shells alike--a heavy barrage +from a pea-shooter would have blown in the muddy roofs of these +water-logged death traps. + +To reach the rear lines movement could only be made ON THE TOP and fully +exposed to enemy snipers, who, suffering badly from forced inactivity +and ennui, delighted to exercise their shooting powers by a few minutes' +pleasant concentration upon your helpless figure. + +Mud and water, upon which floated an interesting conglomeration of +filthy rubbish, flowed saucily around your ankles, sometimes your +knees, and when you fell off a high duckboard, your neck. + +The humour of it--afterwards! The acute misery and suffering of those +long, long nights standing in water; cold, hungry and weary. Body aching +from the fierce winter's blast and the fingers gone stiff, immovable, +almost unfeeling ... with no hope for the future, but always the +ceaseless watch and wait until the great Peace of Death overtakes the +tired body and a troubled soul leaves its burden to be carried on by +those who follow after. + +Rain lashed stinging into the face, dripping in rivulets from off the +steel helmet and forcing its way into the neck ... the shrieking of an +unnerving wind ... the blast of mighty shell ... the gas ... death was +NOT the worst alternative. + +Fritz played heavily on the back areas; we returned shell for shell, but +no infantry action took place on either side during the eight days of +Norman occupation. The enemy was concentrating his man-power for a Push +with the opening of finer days, and we did not have an excess of men to +waste after the heavy toll of the Cambrai stunt. + +The Ten Hundred were relieved for a brief rest. + + + + +XIII + +PASSCHENDAELE SECTOR + +POPERINGHE--STEENVOORDE--BRANDHOEK + + +The Ten Hundred had revelled in the luxury of a hot bath. "Casey," who +had found and hurriedly slipped into his trouser pocket a full packet of +"fags" inadvertently left behind by some individual with an unbalanced +mind, portrayed his bare arm for general admiration of the four small +scars thereon. + +"Waccinated," he said, "by good ole Kinnersley." (Dr.--Captain +Kinnersley, undoubtedly the one man who held the softest corner in the +hearts of all the old Normans, and whose friendly hand-shakes as from +man to man were never forgotten by the "boys" of the original 1st +Battalion). + +"Wots the good?" Le Page demanded. + +"Good--wot a question. Why, it stops fever, an' smallpox, an' almost +everythin'." + +"Any good fer toothache?" The crowd chuckled noisily. + +"Would it stop a clock?" + +"Any good for a bloomin' non-stop thirst?" + +"P'raps it might stop the war?" + +"Ever tried it on yer ole woman's tongue, Casey?--but it wouldn't stop +that!" + +They were interrupted by a command from the Company Officer to "get a +move on." Company Officer controls a Company. Main functions to dole out +pay (when he's not stopping it), C.B., and rum. + +C.B. (Confined to Barracks) and similar punishments are usually granted +you by the genial administrator as an adequate reward for such crimes as +too little razor, too much beer, too weak a polish, or too strong a +language, late on fatigue or early OFF it.... + +Some men are always in trouble, but provided with a programme of glib +excuses and prepared at a moment's notice to call witnesses (false), +always escape punishment. Some do not care if punished or not and who +boast that they had full value for their "two days C.B." Heaume had a +cute dodge of replying to an officer's angry expostulation that he +(Heaume) had already been "up" twenty times with: "No, sir,--only +sixteen so far." + +Seven or eight days at Brake Camp were followed by a week at English +Camp, from whence working parties daily moved up the Line by rail to the +vicinity of Merrythought Station. The Ten Hundred were put through the +mill as never before. "Out fer a rest," a Stafford summed up, "be 'anged +fer a yarn ... called the last place Brake ... breaking us in fer this." + +Poperinghe made up for it. A week without one Jerry aeroplane dropping +an experimental bomb or two, without the unpleasant company of Jerry +shells and free from apprehensive hours of uncertainty following a gas +alarm from forward areas in an unfavourable wind. + +To be able to purchase from the inhabitants almost every conceivable +necessity dear to the heart of the soldier, to mingle freely with +"civies," to walk on hard, firm roads, theatres, cinemas, and to mingle +nightly with other regiments compensated somewhat for what had passed. + +They were shyly proud of their Cambrai record, said little of their +deeds before other men, but withal treasured up every meagre speech of +candid appreciation emanating spontaneously from those who had heard of, +but hitherto had not met the 1st Royal Guernsey. Stumpy, assisted by +his diminutive Middlesex pal, unofficially appointed himself an +authority on Normans and their place in European history. + +"It was like this yere," he informed a crowd of Essex in the Church Army +Canteen one quiet evening, "we 'elped to make a 'ell of a mess of +England an' the chap wot we fought for made us, us----" + +"Granted you democratic self-government." + +"Eh, yes, wot you said." + +"But you don't play games--football, cricket--in Guernsey." + +"Why don't we?' + +"You 'aven't any room ... you'd kick the ball over the side into the +sea." The Englishmen grinned. + +"Wot do they wear--clothes or just a belt?" + +"Don't s'pose they eat each other?" + +"Wonder if any of 'em's black?" + +"Wot do they live in--wigwams or caves?" + +Stumpy, conscious of somehow saying the wrong thing and hurt by the +shower of friendly sarcasm, shrugged his shoulders. + +"Orl right," he said, "take the bloomin' advantage of the tiny +isle--any'ow we 'ad the guts to come out yere." + +"That's right, kid," someone offered him a fag, "you were a democracy, a +free country, long before England was ENGLAND at all, before the British +Empire was dreamed of. You were the first elements of that Empire...." + +"'Ere," said Stumpy, grinning with delight, "'ave a bloomin' drink." + +"Your Battalion saved a whole Division at Cambrai--." + +"Ave a bloomin' nother!" + +Even during this "rest" in Pop., working parties were daily sent up on +missions varying in detail but never in hardship or risk. They groused +and growled, maintained that their physical condition was becoming worn +down by the excess of work, insisted angrily that a rest should be a +REST and not a camouflaged existence of heavy fatigues, pointed out that +if Jerry came over he would find them too utterly washed out to jab a +bayonet into an ounce of butter, much less a man, and finally demanded +in disgust "if they were the only available Battalion in the Army and +whether they had to clean up the whole bloomin' Front?" + +Once within the hospitable walls of Talbot House (can any Tommy ever +look back upon that oasis in war's grim desert without pangs of pleasant +memories) and ensconced deep down in armchairs they forget working +parties and fatigues. + +From there they penned their difficult missives home-bound, there they +read and re-read what few lines of intimate information could be eagerly +cleaned from those brief treasured letters from home over the waters to +them. + +There was something almost tragic in the downcast look of those who +turned their day's mail aimlessly over with anxious hands and at last +shamefacedly requested some sunny-natured fellow to read out what was +writ thereon. The awful reaping of ignorance, the great void of their +apathetic existence! + +What pregnant apprehension of drawing blank pervaded the mind as the eye +expectantly watched the fast dwindling mail in the hands of the N.C.O. +bawling out each name. The exhilarating thrill of glad delight with +which you realised YOUR name and number had been called almost at the +end of the file ... the sense of lonely desolation when there has been +nothing for two days ... back to that torn copy of a magazine that has +been read, re-read, and re-read again and again. But you can't settle +down. They have forgotten you. You don't mind the hell of existence out +here, but their letter was due yesterday and now----"Bah!" bitterly, +"let them bloomin' well forget." + +The Ten Hundred moved into Steenvoorde and found themselves entangled in +the intricacies of rehearsals for, and then later actual parade of +Ceremonial Reviews. Here also they had the opportunity of indulging in +that salient portion of training that appealed to them as nothing +else--"firing." Undamaged by shell, cosy, they would have appreciated a +lengthy spell with little to do, but rumours of an avalanche of troops +that were manoeuvring behind the enemy lines became the predominant +topic of discussion and lead to preparations for further movements. + +All material (by ceaseless working parties) had been withdrawn from +forward areas. Troops moving out to rest were maintained at points +within a few miles of the Line, and could be rushed up without +appreciable delay into any gap that Jerry might by pure weight of +numbers force in the British lines--nothing was left to chance. + +It was pointed out that he would never attempt Flanders mud after the +British experience in the Passchendaele-Poelcapelle stunts of +September-October, 1917. This was countered by that pivot of sentimental +strategy--Ypres. He wanted it--therefore.... + +He would not GET IT, anyhow! + +In the midst of all these conflicting rumours and views the Normans +marched to Godewaersvelde and entrained there for a return to Brandhoek. +At Red Rose Camp they prepared for another lengthy period in the Line, +about the second week in March moved up to another camp in a shelled +area. + +Jerry's offensive was expected at any moment; everybody was nervy: and +each Battalion as it came out of the Line thanked its lucky stars that +they had escaped the first onslaught. To even the ignorant strategist it +was patent that either side could, by a preconceived attack, penetrate a +mile or so into any chosen sector of a few miles frontage: but such a +salient had little absolute value in a scheme of operations having the +turning or breaking of a portion of front as objectives. A break had to +be made of twenty or thirty miles and ten or twelve deep, at a stroke, +otherwise with the wonderful elasticity of modern warfare the smashed-in +line would reform, the gap be lost temporarily and by slight withdrawal +of flanks the entire front straighten out and become once more a +concrete whole. + +Jerry knew it--and we knew he knew it. + + + + +XIV + +MARCH-APRIL, 1918 + +IN THE LINE + + +California Camp, the Normans' jumping off point for their IN and OUT +occupation of the trenches and working parties when not in the former, +was composed of a collection of tiny huts constructed on similar lines +to the Nissen. The attractions peculiar to this obnoxious assortment of +pygmy habitations were two: could not lie down straight in them, +absolutely impossible to stand up. Circular of roof, mode of entrance +was an enforced elegant attitude on hands and knees wherein a decided +advantage could be derived by going in lobster-wise--backwards, for +there was NOT an ample space in which to turn about. + +Jerry artillery had fitful moods of strafing. Days of wild "searching" +with a disgusting series of violent heavies bursting in all directions, +blowing out candles with the concussion and in the darkness bringing +about language-provoking situations that culminated in clumsy searches +for matches ... light would reveal your watery rice careering smugly +about in a boot and half a dozen fags floating sadly in the remnant of +your mess tin of tea! + +Bitter cold of night increased. Boots, however soft and pliable when +taken off, however well oiled, would be frozen hard and stiff in the +morning as if cut in steel. To force these essential protections on +called for painful, struggling efforts.... The only remedy was to sleep +with the boots next the body. Placing beneath a pillow was fatuously +inadequate. + +They went into the line on a frontage beyond the actual Passchendaele +village and on the far side of the ridge looking down on Jerry trenches. +Watery mud again everywhere ... a further protection of sandbags around +the legs was not a success; trench feet became more and more prevalent +and the germs of trench fever placed Martel, Robin and a long roll on +the casualty list. + +Eight days of it, followed by arduous fatigues and working parties in +the reserve lines. Trenches upon trenches in relays were with difficulty +cut into a spongy soil, having apparently one fixed intention, e.g., to +clog on to the spade in gummy lumps. Redoubts were constructed under +directions from R.E.'s and a series of strong points run up at brief +intervals. + +When Jerry decided to come over he would have an ample reception. The +weather had developed a finer, milder tone, enabling the occupants of +enemy observation balloons to peer down on the mass of men engaged in +rapid construction of several reserve lines of defence. At times the fit +would take him to play on these exposed areas with his artillery, +raining on the troops a brief fierce barrage, blowing men, horses and +waggons to fragments in all directions, and playing mad havoc amongst +partially-completed earthworks ... but the work went on. + +Another eight days in! Night raids, patrols--casualties. Jerry came over +once in the early morning--he went back! + +A party of R.E.'s moving up from the south-ard brought with them tidings +of what had occurred near St. Quentin. + +"Jerry started 'is little game. Came over in thousands," The speaker was +overwhelmed with eager inquiries. + +"Anythin' doin'?", "Did we wash 'im out?", "Wot 'appened?" + +"One at a time. Smashed in our line on a fifty mile front." + +"WOT!" shouted in chorus. + +"Yus. St. Quentin fallen. Fifth Army fair smashed up." + +"Good Gawd!" + +"Ten miles into our lines." + +"Oh, 'ell!" + +"Took thirty thousand prisoners--Gawd knows 'ow many guns." + +"WOT!" + +"Thousands of casualties." + +"And 'ave we stopped 'im?" + +"No--still fallin' back." + +Pessimism, something akin to consternation, found a hold upon the mental +outlook of the troops in the sector. They had held an extraordinary +unshakeable faith in the might of the Army, in its absolute certainty of +holding impregnable what had been theirs from 1916, and upon which all +enemy attempts had realised no concrete success. + +And now, at one mighty knock-out blow, the Army was in retreat on a +fifty mile front! + +They glanced back upon Ypres. He would try for it ... take it? Day after +day the black budget of "falling back", "prisoners", "using up our +man-power," put the wind up them to such an extent that they began to +curse at their own impotency and helplessness; to fret angrily at a +forced comparative inactivity. + +Why were they kept up there while "nothing was doing"? Why were they not +sent south to give a hand to the lads who were daily fighting a stubborn +retreat against avalanches of German reserves? + +The Passchendaele sector remained unusually quiet; little strafing +occurred from either artillery, with the exception of a sunset +entertainment organised daily for the benefit of ration parties and +reliefs. + +Aeroplanes, after prolonged reconnaissances far into Jerry's territory, +returned and the observers reported no movement or massing of enemy +troops, guns or transport were taking place on a scale beyond the +customary. No advance upon Ypres was at the moment anticipated unless he +still farther stretched out an already extended, far-flung battle zone. + +The working parties put their backs into the work with every intention +of making a line upon which some thousands of Huns would be rendered +casualties before it capitulated. Jerry, watching them do it, with +ironical humour left them alone as if their labour were in vain, and +long before the trenches would be required the British Army would be cut +in two. Perhaps! + +Fritz adopted a nasty habit in the form of lobbing over from fifteen +miles away a new type of heavy shell, apparently under experimental +observation. One fell among the Guernsey cookers, tearing a chunk cut of +Sergt. Le Lacheur (he had been waiting for a Blighty for months), +wounding several and mauling a few into fearsome masses of red flesh. + +Grouser--he had not been with the Battalion long--found vent for his +feelings. "Ain't got any blarsted sense, them Germans aint. War--it +ain't war to smash up the bloomin' cookers ... 'ow the 'ell does 'e +think we'll do about grub now?" + +"Complain. Grouser, ole son, to the C.O." (C.O.: Commanding Officer--the +colonel.--Draws the best paying winner in the Battalion Stakes and also +the softest job). He was let in for a baiting. + +"Send Jerry a bar of chocolate in exchange for a new cooker." + +"Ask 'em to confer the O.B.E. on the Jerry wot fired the shell." + +"You needn't worry about the grub. Grouser--you can live on nuts." + +"Plenty of hay with the transport." + +"Oh," Grouser turned abruptly, "plenty of hay.... You found yer bloomin' +natural fodder, eh! Aye, ye're every bit such a donkey as ye look." + +"Look 'ere, wot d'you take me for?" + +"Take you for? Wouldn't take you fer a bloomin' gift. We used to have +one like you with our organ--'ad it on a chain." + +The Ten Hundred prepared after a last night in the line to move back +during the first week in April for the long rest upon which their +anticipations had been longingly concentrated for weeks. + +No Battalion moved more than a few miles behind the sectors owing to the +uncertainty of future enemy developments. His line of attack had been +lengthened from both original flanks until at the lull in his scheme of +offensive a length of over seventy miles had been attained. + +He was preparing for a second wild onslaught, again to the far south of +Passchendaele ... of the result everyone felt a little uncertain. It was +obvious that sooner or later he would attempt a headlong rush upon those +lines of communication with the Home Country--Channel Ports--so vital a +factor in the efficient maintenance of the B.E.F. + +The Normans came out. D Company was sent on in the direction of Proven, +attained within a kilo of the town and was intercepted by a despatch +rider, who carried with him orders for their immediate return. A stir of +apprehensive uncertainty spread through the ranks. What had happened? +Surely they were not going to be rushed into the line somewhere ... they +had only just come out. + +They turned, encountered the Battalion at Brandhoek. A fleet of lorries +was awaiting them. + +Something was ON. + +A thunderstorm turned its lashing rain upon their unprotected forms, +drenched them utterly and damped their spirits. A sense of some +indefinable presentiment of future dimmer crept over the mind, that +subtle consciousness of approaching death forced its black pessimism +upon their thoughts. They watched the heavy grey clouds scuttling +overhead, watched the rain dropping from off each man's steel helmet, +and gazed across the long desolate stretch of watery earth, tangled +debris and shattered cottages. + +Shivering with the cold, wet, hungry and weary. An hour before, marching +elated in the knowledge of a few days' freedom from the haunting +knowledge of Life's uncertainty--now they were in for something they all +pregnantly felt would involve them in a slaughter that might place Finis +to the Battalion. The Cambrai survivors stared sadly into the closing +gloom ... they had gone through Rues Vertes--COULD their luck hold +twice! + +The lorries moved away ... the Norman Ten Hundred went out again to +hang-on or fall, to uphold the traditions dearly bought by those who had +gone over the Divide a few months before. + +If they could DO IT then, they could do it NOW. + + + + +XV + +APRIL 10-14, 1918 + +DOULIEU-ESTAIRES + + +The Ten Hundred slept in their lorries at Berquin before moving into +billets. No sign of enemy activity presented itself apart from the +incessant rumble of distant guns. A Jerry 'plane came over on +reconnaissance, taking little precaution and not flying high. They had +unpleasant recollections of enemy 'planes, turned their rifles on him, +and between C and D Companies brought him down--they took the occupants +prisoners. + +At five o'clock received orders to move up in the direction of Doulieu +in reserve. They dug in with the inadequate implement carried in all +equipment, accompanied only by an unnatural quiet. No troops were +falling back on them, no hurried retreat or artillery, and no fierce +strafing from enemy guns. + +Throughout the night they stared far away into the East watching for the +enemy who was coming. The silence was still undisturbed, they waited +with fast-beating pulse for the long rows of onward, sweeping grey.... + +Dawn! And with it orders to move forward to Doulieu itself and there +fill in the gap. + +Almost into the objective before they saw him. Grey-coated forms swarmed +for miles in relay upon relay of everincreasing rows, advanced with +deadly certainty, and supported by an astonishing mass of machine-guns. + +The grim old spirit came to the fore. They rained in on the approaching +waves a mad fire from smoking rifles and Lewis guns. His pace slackened +not one jot ... again the Normans pumped in the lead until the hands +blistered from hot rifles. Futile! They had not the men to stop +one-tenth of the foe moving in thousands over fields and hedges upon +them. Teeth clenched in agony. "Curse you," they sobbed, "curse your +numbers...." + +His machine-guns whined over into their ranks ten or twelve thousand +rounds a minute along the frontage. Men fell in huddled heaps across one +another. The machine-gun barrage swept backwards and forwards over the +first and second lines, sweeping and intercrossing in one mighty net ... +the Normans were ordered to fall back, make liaison with battalion +relieving on either flank and dig in on a new line. + +Again through the night they watched the pall before them, and again +Jerry made no sign. Orders were given just after daybreak for a further +retirement ... they marched back four or five kilos with heavy hearts. +Why not have fought to a standstill where they had first sighted him? +They shrugged shoulders wearily, and turned to the task of digging in. +He opened his machine-guns upon the thin row of khaki figures, a figure +here and there fell forward upon the little spade into a grave he had +prepared for himself. Two young Staffords collapsed side by side upon +the turf and smiled fixedly up into the sky, six or eight holes +perforating each chest. + +The bullets whined and whistled everywhere, conveying to the mind a huge +swarm of bees. He tried a long sweep of low shots, just skirting the +tops of the semi-completed excavations ... got home every twenty yards +or so, clean through the neck or forehead. + +The Normans settled down, opened fire steadily and played havoc amongst +the advanced enemy machine-guns. His progress stopped, the opposing +lines sniped at each other. The Normans were in their element--they knew +how to shoot. + +"'Olding 'im up now." + +"Yes. 'E can't shoot with 'is rifles." + +"No--seems to 'ave all bloomin' machine-guns." + +For two hours, they kept him pinned down to one position, wiped out his +one brief rush and inspired within him an unholy fear or their rifles. +They watched with fierce cunning the movements of fifty or so snipers +and "light" machine-gunners creeping upon them under cover of long +grasses ... a bloody fire was opened for ten minutes on the figures--the +grass stained red. Not one returned. + +A Battalion on the Norman right fell back under the weight of enemy +forces, thereby exposing a Guernsey flank.... Another retirement and +again a wild scramble across fields interlaced by row after row of +irrigation canals conveying water in this wide net-like system over a +large area from one main source of supply. To avoid the larger +excavations men were wont to crowd into the roadways, make in a body for +ready gateways and openings. Upon these obvious points Jerry +concentrated a continuous stream of machine-gun fire; the casualties +here were heaped up hideously in small masses and the blood from one man +trickled over another. + +Troops from half-a-dozen regiments, scattered confusedly in all +directions, moved rearwards side by side. It was almost an impossibility +to rejoin Battalions--Battalions!--a mere couple of hundred men and a +few officers formed what after two days of fighting constituted a +Battalion. But they had to DO the work of a full Battalion--and they +DID! + +Wounded fell despairingly, gazed with appealing eyes at the lines of +ever distancing khaki, placed their rifles to one side and awaited the +onrushing enemy tide. Some few with what futile strength could be +mustered by superhuman effort tottered and staggered uncertainly in the +direction they dimly imagined their comrades had taken. One by one fell +prey to exhaustion, dropped with a last frenzied sob unto the earth; +some lay still and quiet, peppered by a second stream of lead. Others, +writhing in agony, dazed, mad, waited the Jerry approach and picked off +man after man until a bayonet thrust put finis to their last impotent +struggles. + +In secluded corners a few bled slowly undiscovered, unthought of ... +there for days they remained until the bodies--lockjaw, gangrene, loss +of blood--were rolled together into one great hole or perchance buried +apart, and for tombstone the late owner's rifle stuck into the earth and +inscribed thereon that only too frequent epitath--an unknown British +soldier! + +Back, ever back! The disheartening realisation that he CANNOT be stayed +for any lengthy period, that his reserves are undiminished and +constantly moving up to fill the gaps made in his ranks, cast a heavy +shadow of pessimism over the ragged, weary figures for ever moving +westward. At lengthy intervals no sign of the grey figures anywhere met +the eye, but the inevitable order to retreat was obeyed--grumbling, +cursing. + +"Wot the 'ell are we goin' back again for? There ain't any sign of +Jerry." + +"No, but 'e 'as got through too far to the south." + +"Yes--an' we're moving back north-west now." + +"Why?" + +"Dunno. 'E's got round some'ow to the south." + +An hour or undisturbed quiet. Nothing could be seen, no shells (his +artillery was unable to keep pace with the rapidity of advance), no gas. +Then through the silence, from nowhere it seemed, a half-spent bullet +whistled and buried itself with a spiteful "phut." After a pause ... a +whine, accompanied by others, falling short. In the distance his +machine-gunners and advanced screen of scouts appeared ... the whining +merged into a constant buzzing, men coughed furiously and bent forward, +fell awkwardly ... straightened out. Here and there a khaki figure +clutched fiercely at tufts of grass, writhed feverishly in one last +desperate fight for breath, looked a sad farewell at their living +comrades--a glance that went straight to the heart--and went their way +into the warrior's hall in Valhalla. + +From far down the flank a further movement rearward could be noticed +spreading yard by yard until once more, weary of spirit, worn, hungry, +you stood up somewhere in the stream of lead and retired. + +At nightfall he would be out of view. By morning his advanced posts +would be sniping at the thin khaki line. Night ... an ebony pall pierced +by a score of brilliant burning houses. Fantastic, grotesque. Crimson +glows upon which tired eyes rested unthinking, uncaring, the mind worn +under the ceaseless repetition: "When will we stop? Why don't they let +us fight it out? God, we'd make a mess of him anyhow." Then someone +would address no one in particular: + +"Wonder 'ow many we 'ave left?" + +"Gawd knows. About a 'undred an' fifty." + +"See 'im toppling our lads out at Verbequie?" + +"Yes. An' by that meadow gate. It makes me blood boil to think they +won't let us 'ave a go at 'im." + +"Ah, well. I s'pose it will be my turn to-morrow." + +That is the crux of it: Your turn to-morrow? Who can tell ... what does +it matter ... what is life after all? But the all-pervading ardour of +youth's "Will of Life" whispers with a bitter realisation of what death +really means that you WANT to live. Never before has existence been so +full of future possibilities, the wish for life so poignant! + +His overwhelming numerical superiority gave no evidence of slackening, +his pressure on the gaping line of khaki continued unabated. No +reserves, or hope of relief, were apparent. There was no alternative but +to carry on day after day in continuous fighting retreat with very small +numbers spread over a wide area. + +Over the fields and meadows roamed farm cattle, some bleeding and +running wildly about bellowing with fear. Cows moaned in agony for the +dire need of milking, but who was there to do it? In the farms were +styes full of half-starved pigs, grunting and groaning with hideous +effect. They were turned loose to fend for themselves, ran rampant over +the carefully sown ground and growing potatoes--the sad results of +months of painstaking effort. Fowls fluttered and screamed with wild +flapping wings, men seized the eggs and drank them down in a fierce +famished hunger. + +Along all the roads for miles streamed a piteous spectacle of old women, +children and dogs. Before them a plaintive little barrow of belongings, +on the backs of the men small red bundles tied hastily together. +Wrinkled old men limped laboriously along on heavy sticks ... sometimes +by the wayside a white-faced, white-haired old dame sat exhausted, +crouching in fear over a poor little bundle; alone, trembling, deserted. +The whine of the bullets crept nearer and troops began to pass. + +"'Ere, mother, can't you get on?" Not comprehending the words but fully +grasping the meaning, the unhappy old head was shaken. A passing +ambulance was stopped and the frail old form gently placed in with the +wounded--sometimes. There was not always an ambulance. Many a wrinkled, +bent old man or woman, shrinking in fear by the roadside, were left in +dire desolation to the mercy of their foe. + +Some few old folks stood by their homes to the last, until the khaki +rows were far across the fields away, and shot whistling about the eaves +of the old thatched roof farm ... dotted here and there on their grass +land a still Britisher kept them company until the Germans passed over +and onward, collected the bodies, buried them. + +Unshaven, tattered and unwashed, Stumpy, lamed in the left foot, potted +shot after shot at each retirement, aiming at no one target, but, as he +observed. "Even if I don't 'it 'im, I might puncture 'is bloomin' rum +ration." + +"But wot are you aimin' at?" + +"Nothin'. Just 'igh in the air. Like--that there. Who knows: why it +might just ketch ole Kaiser Bill in the bloomin' belly if 'e came up +close 'nough." + +Uncouth, uncultured, rough of manner, of speech. Good-natured, full of +courage, humour. Stumpy ... short, fat and clumsy. Withal a man, a +warrior. Before mid-day blood was spouting from out five vital wounds +and in a few seconds faintness began to spread over him. His eyes filled +with tears. + +"I feels bad," he said, "can't, can't the bleedin' be stopped? I don't +want to go under ... think they can get me away before Jerry comes? +Things some'ow ain't over clear: everything foggy." Casey came over to +him, white-faced and half-crying himself. + +"You're orl right, ole pal," he said, "not bleedin' much now." + +"No. But it's cloudy. D'you find it cloudy?" + +"Yes. A 'ell of a mist creepin' up. Want any water?" + +"No, but," with a faint grin, "got any rum?" + +"'Ere you," an N.C.O. ran up and touched Casey, "Captain wants a runner. +Get a move on." + +"But poor ole Stumpy yere----" + +"D'you 'ear wot I said. Go on, 'op it, or I'll--well, put lead in +yer." + +"Orl right. So long, ole pal." + +"So long." Stumpy tried hard to see him through the mistiness before his +eyes, "but you'll get me away before Jerry comes...." Casualty list two +weeks later: "Pte.----." Missing. April 12th. He is still unheard of, +forgotten. His grave is undisturbed somewhere in peaceful loneliness. + +Estaires and Doulieu were several miles in the enemy lines, the Normans +entangled with Staffords and Middlesex converged back past Bleu, moving +as far as any one direction could be determined, approximately +north-west. + +There seemed to be no officers left, few over fifty Royal Guernsey ranks +could be counted. Company Headquarters were no more, the scattered few +had no means of access to their C.O., joined in and formed fighting +blocks with mutual consent and without actual leaders, and carried on +the hourly withdrawal. From out this remnant Lance-Corporal Hamel +scrambled away to a dressing station, two ominous trickles of blood +streaming down his legs. Winter Gregg (M.M.), too, got away in a +semi-conscious condition. + +One of the few trench mortar shells burst within a yard of a tall +youngster. Unscathed, blackened, he turned with a piercing scream. + +"God, oh my God! Where is the sun? The light 'as gone out. Someone, his +voice rose to a mad shriek, 'someone come 'ere. I can't see. I'm blind, +I'm blind, oh I'm blind." He threw himself on the earth and sobbed in +fearful agony. They helped him to his feet, led him away, but there +echoed back his remorseful wail; "I'm blind, blind!" + +That gets you. Blind! Better death.... + +The hours sped. Men fell with none to replace them, and in the knowledge +that the enemy had fresh troops, was well supplied, and in his rear a +great artillery straining forward to take part in the slaughter, +aeroplanes above, the tail-end of a few decimated Battalions fought on +against the hopeless odds before them. As long as a man had life in his +body, rifle and shot, he used them to advantage. The next Britisher +might be forty yards away or more, but until he was ordered to retire he +would ... "'ang on like 'ell to that there strip." + +The Staffords after three days of it, through the whole of which period +they had stuck doggedly, pluckily, to their task, had dwindled down to a +scattered few on the nightfall of the 15th April. Forty, perhaps fifty, +completely exhausted, filthy and tattered Normans still clung about +their C.O. on a frontage a few miles south of Merris. The very +mechanical stupor that at last commenced to give way beneath unceasing +hardship. Nature demanded sleep. Not the brief, wakeful moments snatched +at intervals in the night, but sleep, long, quiet, undisturbed. + +From an observation balloon high in the air above its motor trolley +Jerry observers reported on the shattered remnant still holding out. He +pressed home his advantage upon the tired troops ... rifles grew hot. +The few Normans were again forced back. + +Relief by Australians was effected near Merris. The tiny, devastated +string of Normans (53) came out. But in a situation of acute urgency +they were still used to construct trenches upon which withdrawal by the +newly engaged Divisions could be made. + +The Brigadier. G.O.C., 80th Brigade, a few weeks later bade farewell to +the little force in a speech that sent a wild thrill of pride throughout +the small Battalion. + +In their honour the Divisional band played them on their march to a +station ("Ebblingham"), from which they entrained for G.H.Q., where they +were to take over duties from the H.A.C. + +And thus the Passing from the Great Undertaking! + +Farewell, Norman warriors who this night in Valhalla sing of mighty +deeds of valour from high with the Anses. + +Farewell, a sad farewell, to for ever lost echoes to ten hundred voiced +raised in rallying chorus to the swing of square shoulders and the ring +of manly feet. + +The "old order changeth." Away from the strong fray ... free life ... +laughter, glamour, song ... the Great Open ... the MEN.... + +Back to the little world, its little things, to ITS LITTLE LIFE. + + + See ye Masnières canal a flood + And where yon green graves lay? + There Norman warriors fled to their God + Ne'er more to glimpse the day. + But writ there, first, a name in blood-- + Norman Ten Hundred. + + At Doulieu, the night birds flits + Across yon blue-gray water. + And in dusk ghost warriors sit-- + Wraiths of a fearsome slaughter. + There too in blood the name is writ-- + Norman Ten Hundred. + + And thus there the battle's flame + Laid men out fast and low, + So Young Sarnia died, but Fame + Cast o'er their graves its glow, + And honours wove about the name + Norman Ten Hundred. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORMAN TEN HUNDRED*** + + +******* This file should be named 26713-8.txt or 26713-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/6/7/1/26713 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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