A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire Part 5

CHAPTER IX.

GERMAN BEASTS IN A FRENCH CONVENT.

It is fitting that my sketch of a French Convent, as the abode of holy women whose innocent lives were dedicated and devoted to the service of the Prince of Peace, should stand by itself, apart from any drawings suggesting less faintly the devilry of war. The nunnery had been in the possession of the Germans for some short time before we arrived on the scene, and bore traces of their customary depredations and violations.

The stories related by the nuns themselves were not of a description to bear retailing in the public Press. I would to G.o.d that they could be told to every coward of a shirker at home, to every skunk of a "conscientious objector," to every rat of a "stop-the-war"

"pacificist." They would stir to boiling indignation the dregs of their manhood--if they have any dregs. They would make them sick--even them; and I should like them all to be sick--sick unto death. There are not many of them, all told, but they are noisy as well as noisome. The good sisters hailed the British as deliverers, and gave us a welcome I can neither describe nor forget.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A VIOLATED CONVENT.]

The enemy had abstained from destroying the building, probably from a subtle motive. They had retired to a wood in the rear. We made a sharp attack upon them to the right of this wood the next day; caught them at night completely unawares, and, after a very stiff fight, routed them, and they left 150 dead on the ground.

There was a pond in the Convent grounds, and while getting water for our transport teams we came across some tin cases hidden away by the enemy--a great find, for on getting them out we found they contained many thousands of rounds of the enemy's ammunition. It was perfectly dry, as the cases were watertight; so we made a big haul of most useful supplies.

CHAPTER X.

ANOTHER SCENE OF BOCHE BRUTALITY.

The accompanying sketch is of the Market Square of Armentieres, the building shown in the centre being the Town Hall. The cobble stones of the roadway and the lattice-shuttered windows are of the style which has lasted for generations. This quaint and picturesque town was devastated and almost totally destroyed; in fact, the bit of it I show was the only portion the enemy left uninjured. We captured the place, taking four machine guns, several horses, a quant.i.ty of equipment and ammunition.

Two of the machine guns were mounted in the clock tower, a position commanding the range of the street. It is revolting to recall the stories we were told here, and carefully verified, of the shameless atrocities of the Huns. The populace were still in occupation of the buildings when we were driving the Germans back from the barricades. Of course they were greatly terrified, and we did our best to pacify them and soothe their nerves as we came in contact with them. How different was the treatment they received from the enemy. Take the house on the left of the picture. Here Germans walked their horses through the door shown, along the pa.s.sage into the yard in the rear, as a mere piece of bravado--an incident scarcely worth mentioning in view of the crimes they proceeded to commit. The householder, with his wife and two daughters, was sitting eating his dinner when the party arrived.

The cowardly brutes shot this man on sight--in full view of his family--carried his body out and later on buried it in the chicken run.

Meanwhile, they came back and ate the dinner. The various members of the family were tied up to beds and subjected to the grossest of infamies and greatest of cruelties.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WHERE GERMANS RAPED AND MURDERED.]

I repeat that we verified the stories of these horrors, as we had verified elsewhere other such stories before, and as we verified elsewhere other such stories afterwards.

Naturally, our men fought their hardest, and by four o'clock in the afternoon of the day we advanced we drove the Boches at the point of the bayonet.

CHAPTER XI.

THE TRICK THAT DIDN'T TRICK US.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE BLACK HOLE."]

Returning to the "group system," the three following sketches in juxtaposition relate to one and the same happening--our taking of a distillery (on the outskirts of Armentieres) of which the Germans had been in possession for about three weeks, and within the boundaries of which they set a big trap that didn't catch us. The air was poisoned with the stench of dead animals as we arrived within smell of the block of buildings I show first--and, with thoughts in the minds of some of us of what we had read of the ill-savour of the Black Hole of Calcutta, "the Black Hole" was an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n before it was a designation. The enemy occupied the portion of yard shown in the foreground and used the front of the buildings and the gateway for cover. The British advanced to a position within twenty yards of the gateway in front of it, and, after several nights' work, erected a barricade of twigs, gra.s.s, and earth, rapidly collected and thrown into place. By one of their clever tricks the Germans had made the buildings look as though entirely deserted. They had been careful not to sh.e.l.l them when they took them from the French, and it was their intention to draw us on into the yard unsuspectingly and so get us at their mercy. For the surrounding buildings contained machine guns, though we did not then know the fact, and so quiet was everything that I was able to make my sketches undisturbed. The yard could have accommodated quite 3,000 of our men, who, if the enemy had had their way, would have been riddled with shot. However, we naturally proceeded with military caution. Scouts advanced first, and were somewhat deceived because the Germans had artfully left a caretaker and his wife in the building seen adjoining the central arch. These people, doubtless under orders, pa.s.sed out milk through the window to the scouts at night to give the idea that the buildings were still peacefully occupied, though, as a matter of fact, they contained, not only the enemy soldiers, but their machine guns as well. Really we might have been drawn into the trap but for one lucky incident. The enemy were foolish enough to do some secret signalling with a light at night from the tower above the gateway. This was immediately observed by the scouts, and the game was up.

"JAM-TIN ARTILLERY PARTY."

When the scouts gave the warning that the enemy were in the buildings, volunteers were called for to make up a bombing party to blow up the tower where the signalling had been observed. We had no idea how many Germans the tower contained, but later found traces of only one. There were evidences that he had been there for some time, and he had stores of milk and food for a longer stay; they were not wasted, but he had no part in their consumption. The volunteers were known as the "Jam-tin Artillery Party," from the fact that their bombs were made of jam-tins filled with gun-cotton, cordite, etc. The party had to do all the "sticky work," and this was a very sticky job. The plan was to lay a trail with a fuse to bombs, which we placed under the floor at the top of the stairs leading to the upper storey of this old and disused gateway. We crept up these stairs silently for three nights running before we were successful. One hitch and the whole show would have been given away. However, we managed to place the bombs, light the fuse, blow up the floor, and blow off the top of the tower as well, the German signaller being blown up with it. Then we waited. Still the enemy showed no sign of moving, and word was sent back to our artillery to sh.e.l.l the building, which it did to great effect. We were then ordered to advance with fixed bayonets, in platoons, to take various buildings. The place when we captured it was found to be fitted up like a fortress inside, with machine guns trained on the yard to mow our men down as they came through the gate, if the enemy's plan had succeeded; but it entirely failed. We found but little resistance. Inside were a number of dead Germans killed by our artillery fire, a very scientific signalling apparatus, and a complete telephone system to the army corps which was intended to have wiped us out. It was solely due to our scouts and the "Jam-tin Artillery Party" that we were not all killed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BLACK TOWER.]

The sketch ent.i.tled "The Black Tower" exhibits the other side of the gateway, and shows the road with the caretaker's house, and our barricades to the right.

DILAPIDATED QUARTERS.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WHERE THE TRAP WAS SET.]

The part of the distillery buildings standing in its yard interior, where we blew up the tower and the spy, and into which the enemy had hoped to entice us to our destruction, was very old, very dirty, and very dilapidated--in fact, had apparently not been used for years. We had to sleep in it for several nights, and made the acquaintance of thousands of rats and other pests. There was only one staircase, by which some hundreds of troops had to find access and egress. A curious fact was that the fumes of the spirit had eaten so into the woodwork, which was generally worm-eaten and rotten, that to strike a light near it was to incur the danger of igniting it and burning the building down.

But our boys found a walled-in yard in the background covered by a tarred roof which had no windows, and this they converted into a smoke-room. Roominess and a covering offered a welcome change from the mud, dirt, and rain of the trenches, and Tommy's spirits kept up, in spite of all shortcomings. Our musical evenings continued as before, and we thoroughly enjoyed being able to stretch our legs. In fact, we had become quite reconciled as well as quite used to our surroundings by the time we were called away. Afterwards we looked back with pleasure to our stay in the distillery, for we were much worse off in the next place at which we were stationed. We were moved from here into one of the most dangerous positions in the line at Ypres.

CHAPTER XII.

THE BARRED ROAD TO CALAIS.

Almost on the last page of my Sketch Book I come on the last sketch I took "under fire."

"GOLGOTHA."

It shows the most advanced positions taken by the British in the course of one of the biggest battles of the war--at St. Julien. The trench, which was a very rough one, was originally dug by the Germans and captured by our forces in our advance. The fighting was so intense at this spot that the casualties went far into five figures on both sides, the losses of the enemy being admittedly much higher than our own.

Appropriately enough was it called "Golgotha."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "GOLGOTHA."]

To the left of the picture will be seen the remains of a building which was all that was left of what once was a magnificent chateau. The avenue of trees outlined the road to this chateau. Several trees, it will be noticed, had been either cut in two or broken off by the enemy's sh.e.l.ling; by-and-by there was not one left standing. On the right of the picture the ruined building was what was left of a large farm which had a moat around it. The ruined walls of the farm were found very useful cover for our men to take whilst sniping the enemy, and by the road, at a much lower level, ran the stream which fed the lake in the grounds of the chateau. The elevation of the road giving us fair protection from the enemy's shots, we were able, by stringing a number of boards together and making rafts, to indulge in bathing; until the water became so dirty from the earth dislodged from its banks by the sh.e.l.ls that it was repugnant for us to indulge in ablutions in it any longer--none of us having been ordered mud bath treatment by the medical officer.

On the third day of the second grand attempt of the Germans to break through to the road to Calais I was bowled over by shrapnel and poison gas. Gas in cylinders and gas in all manner of sh.e.l.ls was used against us--and our regiment had no respirators then.

Before I dropped I had the satisfaction of knowing that the Royal Fusiliers, supported by the Hampshires and the Durhams, had taken five lines of the enemy's trenches in counter-attack; and afterwards I had the satisfaction of learning in hospital that the German casualties for the day amounted to 60,000 against British casualties of 20,000. Mine was one of about 500 gas cases--perhaps more.

IN HOSPITAL.

My hospital itinerary was from the field to the dressing station at Bailleul, thence to Boulogne; from Boulogne to Rouen, and from Rouen to Southampton and Brighton.

I like to remember that the day on which I finished my little bit for the Empire--or rather the day on which it was finished for me--was an "Empire Day": Monday, May 24th, 1915--a day on which Britons of every clime salute the symbol of their unity and the pledge of their emergence from every peril; that dear flag under which I did what I could.

"Good banner! scarred by hurtling war, But never in dishonour furled; And destined still to shine, a star Above an awed and wondering world."