Part 9 (1/2)
There is something about the rough-and-tumble of battle that lifts one above one's self. One's legs and arms are not the same listless limbs that were crying for rest only a short hour ago. One is envigoured; the excitement stimulates. One feels great, magnanimous, superb. The difficulty lies not in forcing oneself to be brave, but in curbing ridiculous impulses, and in forcing the brain to work slowly and smoothly. The smallest natures rise to great heights. An ordinary self-centred creature performs acts of dazzling generosity towards fellows he does not even know--with everything to lose and nothing to gain. He will rescue a wounded man under heavy fire, to whom an hour previously he would have refused to lend sixpence.
Why is it?
If the enemy were a roaring brazen beast, such as the knights of the fairy tales used to fight, one could understand it. But he is not. You cannot even see him. Three-quarters of a mile ahead there is a dark brown line, and that is all. Whence comes the love of battle? Is it roused by the little messengers of death that whizz invisibly by? No one can say; the whole feeling is most probably the result of imagination and desire to do great things.
On they swept. The leading Platoon was now covering the ground at such a pace that it was impossible to catch up with them. As the ground was open the whole line could be seen sweeping forward to engulf the enemy.
The long dotted lines of brown advanced steadily and inexorably. Line upon line of them breasted the crest, and followed in the wake of the leading wave. It was scarcely a spectacular sight, yet it was the vindication of the British methods of attack.
The wild firing of the Germans had little effect. Curiously enough, the line that suffered least was the first, and even in the others the casualties were negligible. And all the time they were nearing the railway bank.
But the end was in sight, and the enemy realised that further resistance would be useless. They were caught. About half a dozen men sprang on to the railway bank and began furiously to wag white sheets of paper or rag--anything white. They must have been brave men to do such a thing.
The British gunners either did not see their signs, or perhaps refused to accept them on account of various ”jokes” that the enemy had at other times played with the white flag. Anyway the firing continued with unabated fury. They stood there to the end without flinching, and when they fell other men took their places. It is mean and untruthful to say that the Germans are cowards. Certain it was that their pathetic bravery--there is always something sad about bravery--so touched the British that they accepted the surrender without reserve or suspicion.
Even the artillery ceased fire.
At this point the leading Platoon broke clean away. They could not be held in. The orderly advance degenerated into a wild dash. Men bent double and rushed. Determination was written on each flushed face. The Germans must have been terrified; it looked as if they were to be bayoneted as they stood, with their arms raised in surrender. It must have been a very trying moment for them, indeed, as the British raced towards them up the incline. The leading men were soon clambering up the embankment. What would happen? Was a disgraceful and b.l.o.o.d.y ma.s.sacre about to begin? The excitement was intense. The Subaltern ran on harder than ever, with some vague idea of ”stopping a scene,” but he need not have bothered. The men were not out for blood or scalps. All they wanted was souvenirs or helmets! They got them with such success that there was little left for the other platoons.
When the Subaltern came up the ”show” was over. There were a great many dead Germans lying, as they had died, behind the embankment. The thought of taking something which they had worn never occurred to him. If it had been he would have dismissed it on the grounds that there was no means of sending such things home, while to add to the weight and worry of his kit by carrying a ”Pickelhaube” about, indefinitely, for the rest of the campaign, was, of course, unthinkable.
Then the ”rally” sounded, and the companies that had taken part in the attack began to re-form. There was a considerable delay before two of the platoons appeared at the rallying point. The men did not come in a body but by driblets. He began to get nervous about the other two Subalterns, and in a few minutes went to see what had happened to them.
”Lord bless you, sir, 'e's all right,” said a man in answer to the Subaltern's inquiry. ”We wouldn't let no harm come to '_im_.” The man who spoke was an old soldier whom he knew well, tall, wiry, commanding--the sort of man that a young officer leans upon, and who, reciprocally, relies on his officer. In the old Peace days, if any special job that required intelligence or reliance were going, he always saw that this man got it. He had made a sort of pet of him; and now he was openly, frankly displaying a state of mind akin to wors.h.i.+p towards another officer. It was defection, rank desertion. A ridiculous feeling of jealousy surged up in the Subaltern's mind, as he turned back towards the Company.
As he regained the road, many stretchers pa.s.sed. They were no longer things of tragedy, to be pa.s.sed by with a shudder and averted eyes--he was getting used to horror.
CHAPTER XX
DEFENCE
It was now midday, and the Officers of the two companies that had been deployed gathered round the mess-cart. The remaining companies, who had been kept in local reserve during the fight, were sent out to bury the dead. The rain began to fall in torrents, and somehow the memory of crouching under the mess-cart to get shelter has left a far more definite and indelible impression upon the Subaltern's mind than the actual moments of danger and excitement.
A large band of prisoners had been captured by our troops that day.
Small detachments had from time to time been captured ever since the turn at Chaumes, but this was different. There were long lines of them, standing bolt upright, and weaponless. The Subaltern looked at them curiously. They struck him as on the whole taller than the English, and their faces were not brown, but grey. He admired their coats, there was a martial air in the long sweep of them. And he confessed that one looked far more of a soldier in a helmet. There is a ferocity about the things, a grimness well suited to a soldier.... Not that clothes make the man.
He sternly refused himself the pleasure of going to get a closer sight of them. He wanted very badly to see them, perhaps to talk French with them, but a feeling that it was perhaps _infra dignitatem_ debarred him.
The men, however, had no such scruples. They crowded round their captives, and slowly and silently surveyed them. They looked at them with the same sort of interest that one displays towards an animal in the Zoo, and the Germans paid just as much attention to their regard as Zoo animals do. Considering that only a short hour ago they had been trying to take each other's lives, there seemed to be an appalling lack of emotion in either party. Fully half an hour the Tommies inspected them thus. Then, with infinite deliberation, one man produced a packet of ”Caporal” cigarettes and offered one, with an impa.s.sive countenance, to a German. As far as the Subaltern could see, not a single word was exchanged nor a gesture made. They did not move away until it was time to fall in.
The advance was continued until it was dark, and intermittent firing was heard throughout the afternoon on either flank. The German retreat, which had in its first stages been conducted with such masterly skill, was rapidly developing into a hurried and ill-conducted movement, that bade fair to lead to disaster. Reports of large quant.i.ties of prisoners were coming in more frequently than ever.
It was at this time that the Subaltern first heard the now notorious story of the German who had been at the Savoy, and who gave himself up to the Officer whom he recognised as an old habitue. One of the Officers in the Regiment said that this had happened to him, and was believed--for the moment. Later on, Officers out of every corps solemnly related similar experiences, with occasional variations in the name of the hotel. Usually it was the Savoy or the Ritz; less often the Carlton, or even the Cecil, but the ”Pic” or the ”Troc” were absolutely barred.
The story multiplied so exceedingly that one began to suspect that the entire German corps in front was exclusively composed of ex-waiters of smart London hotels.
Another sign that the Germans were beginning to be thrust back more quickly than they liked was the frequent abandonment of transport. Whole trains of motor lorries that had been hastily burned and left by the roadside, and all sorts of vehicles with broken wheels, were constantly being pa.s.sed. The Subaltern remembers seeing a governess cart, and wondering what use the Germans had found for it. Perhaps a German colonel had been driven gravely in it, at the head of his men. He wondered whether the solemn Huns would have been capable of seeing the humour of such a situation.