Part 1 (2/2)
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 att.i.tude 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 pa.s.sed 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 sh.e.l.l-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 b.u.mpin' into?” shouted Biffer at an unfortunate who had side-slipped into him.
”b.u.mpin' 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. b.u.mping 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 h.e.l.l.... 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 antic.i.p.ation of forthcoming trouble. The C.R.E. in the morning would raise h.e.l.l 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. depot 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 a.s.sortment of tins, empty cartridge cases and odd bits of wood. Drenched to the very skin, s.h.i.+vering and sneezing with cold, they gave no heed to the rain tattooing on their faces or to the enemy sh.e.l.ls. Within the rickety shelters damp figures, huddled together for warmth, closed tired eyes and in utter weariness of limbs fell into a fitful sleep.
s.n.a.t.c.hes 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 refres.h.i.+ngly 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 sh.e.l.l 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, sh.e.l.led--but comparatively lightly--for the first day or two.
The first line over-attacked in the mud, swept over Poelcapelle and advanced on Pa.s.schendaele, 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 sh.e.l.l. Life was an unknown quant.i.ty--no man could gauge what moments were still left him. Streams of wounded ran, hobbled or limped painfully away from that sector of h.e.l.l. 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 sh.e.l.l-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 sh.e.l.ls ... 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 m.u.f.fled 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.
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