Part 14 (2/2)
”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 Pa.s.schendaele 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 ma.s.sing of enemy troops, guns or transport were taking place on a scale beyond the customary. No advance upon Ypres was at the moment antic.i.p.ated 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 sh.e.l.l, 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 ma.s.ses 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 sh.e.l.l.”
”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?”
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