Action Front Part 12

Everton a.s.sured him that he had not spoken too loud, that n.o.body appeared to have noticed anything, and that none were looking their way. He added a feeble question as to whether Halliday, if he felt so bad, could not report himself as sick or something and escape having to leave the trench.

Halliday's lips twisted in a bitter grin.

"That would be a pretty tale," he said. "No, boy, I'll try and pull through once more, and if my heart fails me--look here, I've often thought o' this, and some day, maybe, it will come to it."

He lifted his rifle and put the b.u.t.t down in the trench bottom, slipped his bayonet out, and holding the rifle near the muzzle with one hand, with the other placed the point of the bayonet to the trigger of the rifle. He removed it instantly and returned it to its place.

"There's always that," he said. "It can be done in a second, and no matter how a man's hand shakes, he can steady the point of the bayonet against the trigger-guard, push it down till the point pushes the trigger home."

"Do you mean," stammered Everton in amazement--"do you mean--shoot yourself?"

"Ssh! not so loud," cautioned Halliday. "Yes, it's better than being shot by my own officer, isn't it?"

Everton's mind was floundering hopelessly round this strange problem.

He could understand a man being afraid; he was not sure that he wasn't afraid himself; but that a man afraid that he could not face death could yet contemplate certain death by his own hand, was completely beyond him.

Halliday drew his breath in a deep sigh.

"We'll say no more about it," he said. "I feel better now; it's something to know I always have that to fall back on at the worst. I'll be all right now--until it comes the minute to climb over the parapet."

It was nearly nine o'clock, and word was pa.s.sed down the line for every man to get down as low as he could in the bottom of the trench. The trench they were about to attack was only forty or fifty yards away, and since the Heavies as well as the Field guns were to bombard, there was quite a large possibility of splinters and fragments being thrown by the lyddite back as far as the British trench. At nine, sharp to the tick of the clock, the _rush, rush, rush_ of a field battery's sh.e.l.ls pa.s.sed overhead. Because the target was so close, the pa.s.sing sh.e.l.ls seemed desperately near to the British parapet, as indeed they actually were. The rush of sh.e.l.ls and the crash of their explosion sounded in the forward trench before the boom of the guns which fired them traveled to the British trench. Before the first round of this opening battery had finished, another and another joined in, and then, in a deluge of noise, the intense bombardment commenced.

Crouching low in the bottom of the trench, half deafened by the uproar, the men waited for the word to move. The concentrated fire on this portion of front indicated clearly to the Germans that an attack was coming, and where it was to be expected. The obviously correct procedure for the gunners was of course to have bombarded many sections of front so that no certain clew would be given as to the point of the coming attack. But this was in the days when sh.e.l.ls were very, very precious things, and gunners had to grit their teeth helplessly, doling out round by round, while the German gun- and rifle-fire did its worst.

The Germans, then, could see now where the attack was concentrated, and promptly proceeded to break it up before it was launched. Sh.e.l.ls began to sweep the trench where the Hot.w.a.ter Guards lay, to batter at their parapet, and to prepare a curtain of fire along their front.

Everton lay and listened to the appalling clamor; but when the word was pa.s.sed round to get ready, he rose to his feet and climbed to the firing-step without any overpowering sense of fear. A sentence from the man on his left had done a good deal to hearten him.

"Gostrewth! 'ark at our guns!" he said. "They ain't 'arf pitchin' it in. W'y, this ain't goin' to be no charge; it's going to be a sort of merry picnic, a game of ''Ere we go gatherin' nuts in May.' There won't be any Germans left in them trenches, and we'll 'ave nothin' to do but collect the 'elmets and sooveneers and make ourselves at 'ome."

"Did you hear that!" Everton asked Halliday. "Is it anyways true, do you think?"

"A good bit," said Halliday. "I've never seen a bit of German front smothered up by our guns the way this seems to be now, though I've often enough seen it the other way. The trench in front should be smashed past any shape for stopping our charge if the gunners are making any straight shooting at all."

It was evident that the whole trench shared his opinion, and expressions of amazed delight ran up and down the length of the Hot.w.a.ters. When the order came to leave the trench, the men were up and out of it with a bound.

Everton was too busy with his own scramble put to pay much heed to Halliday; but as they worked out through their own barbed wire, he was relieved to find him at his side. He caught Everton's look, and although his teeth were gripped tight, he nodded cheerfully. Presently, when they were forming into line again beyond the wire, Halliday spoke.

"Not too bad," he said. "The guns has done it for us this time. Come on, now, and keep your wits when you get across."

In the ensuing rush across the open, Everton was conscious of no sensation of fear. The guns had lifted their fire farther back as the Hot.w.a.ters emerged from their trench, and the rush and rumble of their sh.e.l.ls was still pa.s.sing overhead as the line advanced. The German artillery hardly dared drop their range to sweep the advance, because of its proximity to their own trench. A fairly heavy rifle-fire was coming from the flanks, but to a certain extent that was kept down by some of our batteries spreading their fire over those portions of the German trench which were not being attacked, and by a heavy rifle- and machine-gun fire which was pelted across from the opposite parts of the British line.

From the immediate front, which was the Hot.w.a.ters' objective, there was practically no attempt at resistance until the advance was half-way across the short distance between the trenches, and even then it was no more than a spasmodic attempt and the feeble resistance of a few rifles and a machine-gun. The Hot.w.a.ters reached the trench with comparatively slight loss, pushed into it, and over it, and pressed on to the next line, the object being to threaten the continuance of the attack, to take the next trench if the resistance was not too severe, and so to give time for the reorganization of the first captured trench to resist the German counter-attack.

Everton was one of the first to reach the forward trench. It had been roughly handled by the artillery fire, and the men in it made little show of resistance. The Hot.w.a.ters swarmed into the broken ditch, shooting and stabbing the few who fought back, disarming the prisoners who had surrendered with hands over their heads and quavering cries of "Kamerad." Everton rushed one man who appeared to be in two minds whether to surrender or not, fingering and half lifting his rifle and lowering it again, looking round over his shoulder, once more raising his rifle muzzle. Everton killed him with the bayonet. Afterwards he climbed out and ran on, after the line had pushed forward to the next trench. There was an awe, and a thrill of satisfaction in his heart as he looked at his stained bayonet, but, as he suddenly recognized with a tremendous joy, not the faintest sensation of being afraid. He looked round grinning to the man next him, and was on the point of shouting some jest to him, when he saw the man stumble and pitch heavily on his face. It flashed into Everton's mind that he had tripped over a hidden wire, and he was about to shout some chaffing remark, when he saw the back of the man's head as he lay face down. But even that unpleasant sight brought no fear to him.

There was a stout barricade of wire in front of the next trench, and an order was shouted along to halt and lie down in front of it. The line dropped, and while some lay p.r.o.ne and fired as fast as they could at any loophole or bobbing head they could see, others lit bombs and tossed them into the trench. This trench also had been badly mauled by the sh.e.l.ls, and the fire from it was feeble. Everton lay firing for a few minutes, casting side glances on an officer close in front of him, and on two or three men along the line who were coolly cutting through the barbed wire with heavy nippers. Everton saw the officer spin round and drop to his knees, his left hand nursing his hanging right arm.

Everton jumped up and went over to him.

"Let me go on with it, sir," he said eagerly, and without waiting for any consent stooped and picked up the fallen wire-cutters and set to work. He and the others, standing erect and working on the wire, naturally drew a heavy proportion of the aimed fire; but Everton was only conscious of an uplifting exhilaration, a delight that he should have had the chance at such a prominent position. Many bullets came very close to him, but none touched him, and he went on cutting wire after wire, quickly and methodically, grasping the strand well in the jaws of the nippers, gripping till the wire parted and the severed ends sprang loose, calmly fitting the nippers to the next strand.

Even when he had cut a clear path through, he went on working, widening the breach, cutting more wires, dragging the trailing ends clear. Then he ran back to the line and to the officer who had lain watching him.

"Your wire-nippers, sir," he said. "Shall I put them in your case for you?"

"Stick them in your pocket, Everton," said the youngster; "you've done good work with them. Now lie down here."

All this was a matter of no more than three or four minutes' work. When the other gaps were completed--the men in them being less fortunate than Everton and having several wounded during the task--the line rose, rushed streaming through the gaps and down into the trench. If anything, the damage done by the sh.e.l.ls was greater there than in the first line, mainly perhaps because the heavier guns had not hesitated to fire on the second line where the closeness of the first line to the British would have made risky shooting. There were a good many dead and wounded Germans in this second trench, and of the remainder many were hidden away in their dug-outs, their nerves shaken beyond the sticking-point of courage by the artillery fire first, and later by the close-quarter bombing and the rush of the cold steel.

The Hot.w.a.ters held that trench for some fifteen minutes. Then a weak counter-attack attempted to emerge from another line of trenches a good two hundred yards back, but was instantly fallen upon by our artillery and scourged by the accurate fire of the Hot.w.a.ters. The attack broke before it was well under way, and scrambled back under cover.

Shortly afterwards the first captured trench having been put into some shape for defense, the advance line of the Hot.w.a.ters retired. A small covering party stayed and kept up a rapid fire till most of the others had gone, and then climbed through the trench and doubled back after them.

The officer, whose wire-cutters Everton had used, had been hit rather badly in the arm. He had made light of the wound, and remained in the trench with the covering party; but when he came to retire, he found that the pain and loss of blood had left him shaky and dizzy. Everton helped him to climb from the trench; but as they ran back he saw from the corner of his eye that the officer had slowed to a walk. He turned back and, ignoring the officer's advice to push on, urged him to lean on him. It ended up by Everton and the officer being the last men in, Everton half supporting, half carrying the other. Once more he felt a childish pleasure at this opportunity to distinguish himself. He was half intoxicated with the heady wine of excitement and success, he asked only for other and greater and riskier opportunities. "Risk," he thought contemptuously, "is only a pleasant excitement, danger the spice to the risk." He asked his sergeant to be allowed to go out and help the stretcher-bearers who were clearing the wounded from the ground over which the first advance had been made.

"No," said the Sergeant shortly. "The stretcher-bearers have their job, and they've got to do it. Your job is here, and you can stop and do that. You've done enough for one day." Then, conscious perhaps that he had spoken with unnecessary sharpness, he added a word. "You've made a good beginning, lad, and done good work for your first show; don't spoil it with rank gallery play."

But now that the German gunners knew the British line had advanced and held the captured trench, they pelted it, the open ground behind it, and the trench that had been the British front line, with a storm of sh.e.l.l-fire. The rifle-fire was hotter, too, and the rallied defense was pouring in whistling stream of bullets. But the captured trench, which it will be remembered was a recaptured British one, ran back and joined up with the British lines. It was possible therefore to bring up plenty of ammunition, sandbags, and reinforcements, and by now the defense had been sufficiently made good to have every prospect of resisting any counter-attack and of withstanding the bombardment to which it was being subjected. But the heavy fire drove the stretcher-bearers off the open ground, while there still remained some dead and wounded to be brought in.

Everton had missed Halliday, and his anxious inquiries failed to find him or any word of him, until at last one man said he believed Halliday had been dropped in the rush on the first trench. Everton stood up and peered back over the ground behind them. Thirty yards away he saw a man lying p.r.o.ne and busily at work with his trenching-tool, endeavoring to build up a scanty cover. Everton shouted at the pitch of his voice, "Halliday!" The digging figure paused, lifted the trenching-tool and waved it, and then fell to work again. Everton pressed along the crowded trench to the sergeant.

"Sergeant," he said breathlessly, "Halliday's lying out there wounded, he's a good pal o' mine and I'd like to fetch him in."

The Sergeant was rather doubtful. He made Everton point out the digging figure, and was calculating the distance from the nearest point of the trench, and the bullets that drummed between.

"It's almost a cert you get hit," he said, "even if you crawl out. He's got a bit of cover and he's making more, fast. I think--"

A voice behind interrupted, and Everton and the Sergeant turned to find the Captain looking up at them.

"What's this?" he repeated, and the Sergeant explained the position.

"Go ahead!" said the Captain. "Get him in if you can, and good luck to you."

Everton wanted no more. Two minutes later he was out of the trench and racing back across the open.

"Come on, Halliday," he said. "I'll give you a hoist in. Where are you hit?"

"Leg and arm," said Halliday briefly; and then, rather ungraciously, "You're a fool to be out here; but I suppose now you're here, you might as well give me a hand in."

But he spoke differently after Everton had given him a hand, had lifted him and carried him, and so brought him back to the trench and lowered him into waiting hands. His wounds were bandaged and, before he was carried off, he spoke to Everton.

"Good-by, Toffee," he said and held out his left hand, "I owe you a heap. And look here---" He hesitated a moment and then spoke in tones so low that Everton had to bend over the stretcher to hear him. "My leg's smashed bad, and I'm done for the Front and the old Hot.w.a.ters. I wouldn't like it to get about--I don't want the others to think--to know about me feeling--well, like I told you back there before the charge."

Toffee grabbed the uninjured-hand hard. "You old frost!" he said gayly, "there's no need to keep it up any longer now; but I don't mind telling you, old man, you fairly hoaxed me that time, and actually I believed what you were saying. 'Course, I know better now; but I'll punch the head off any man that ever whispers a word against you."

Halliday looked at him queerly. "Good-by, Toffee," he said again, "and thank ye."