From Bapaume to Passchendaele, 1917 Part 12

The scene of battle has changed during these last few days because spring has come at last, and warm sunshine. It has made a tremendous difference to the look of things, and to the sense of things. A week ago our men were marching through rain and sleet, through wild quagmire of old battlefields which stretch away behind our new front lines, through miles of sh.e.l.l-craters and dead woods and destroyed villages. They fought wet and fought cold, and their craving was for hot drink.

Yesterday, after a few days of warmth, our troops on the march were powdered white with dust, and they fought hot and fought thirsty, and the wounded cried for water to cool their burning throats. Men going up to the lines in lorries stared out through masks of dust which made then look like pierrots. Their steel helmets, upon which rain pattered a week ago, were like millers' hats. More frightful now, even than in the worst days of winter, is the way up to the Front. In all that broad stretch of desolation we have left behind us the sh.e.l.l-craters which were full of water, red water and green water, are now dried up, and are hard, deep pits, scooped out of powdered earth, from which all vitality has gone, so that spring brings no life to it. I thought perhaps some of these sh.e.l.l-slashed woods would put out new shoots when spring came, and watched them curiously for any sign of rebirth, but there is no sign, and their poor, mutilated limbs, their broken and tattered trunks, stand naked under the blue sky. Everything is dead with a white, ghastly look in the brilliant sunshine except where here and there in the litter of timber and brickwork which marks the site of a French village, a little bush is in bud, or flowers blossom in a sc.r.a.p-heap which was once a garden. All this is the background of our present battle, and through this vast stretch of barren country our battalions move slowly forward to take their part in the battle when their turn comes, resting a night or two among the ruins where other men who work always behind the lines, road-mending, wiring, on supply columns, at ammunition dumps, in casualty clearing-stations and rail-heads, have made their billets on the lee side of broken walls or in holes dug deep by the enemy and reported safe for use. Dead horses lie on the roadsides or in sh.e.l.l-craters. I pa.s.sed a row of these poor beasts as though all had fallen down and died together in a last comradeship. Dead Germans, or bits of dead Germans, lie in old trenches, and these fields are the graveyards of Youth.

Farther forward the earth is green again in strips. The bombardment has not yet torn it and pitted it, and the sh.e.l.l-craters are scarcer and their sloping sides are fresh. One gets to know the date of a crater, and its freshness is a warning sign that the enemy's guns dislike this patch of ground and anything that may live there. So it is that one gets close to the present fighting, and now under this first sunshine of the year there is a strange and terrible beauty in the battle-picture.

I watched our sh.e.l.ling of the Hindenburg line at Quant from the ground by Lagnicourt, where the Australians slaughtered the enemy in the recent counter-attack. White as fleecy clouds in the sky was the smoke of our shrapnel bursts, and there was the glinting and flashing of sh.e.l.ls above the enemy's trench, which wound like a tape on the slope of the rising ground above the village of Quant, and through the fringe of trees below. A storm of sh.e.l.ls broke over Bullecourt to the left, and the enemy was answering back with 59's, searching the valley which runs down from Noreuil, as I watched it while it was under fire. The Germans were barraging the crest of the hill, with their universal-sh.e.l.l bursting high with black oily clouds. One of our aeroplanes had fallen, and the enemy's gunners in the Hindenburg line tried to destroy it by long-range sniping. Our own guns were firing steadily, so that the sky was filled with invisible flights of sh.e.l.ls, and always there came down the humming song of our aeroplanes, and their wings were dazzling and diaphanous as they were caught by the sun's rays. That is the picture one sees now along any part of our line, but the adventure of the men inside the smoke-drifts is more human in its aspect.

It was a queer scene when the Australians went into Lagnicourt. Some Germans were still hiding in their dug-outs, and the Australian troops searched for them with fixed bayonets. In some of these hiding-places they found great stores of German beer, and it was a good find for men thirsty and glad of a smoke. So this mopping-up battalion, as it is called, mopped up the beer, which was very light and refreshing, and, with fat cigars between their teeth, a bottle of beer in one hand and a bayonet ready in the other, continued their hunt for prisoners. During the fighting hereabouts 200 German soldiers came across under the white flag as a sign of surrender, but they were seen by their own machine-gunners, who shot them down without mercy. So one gets comedy and tragedy hand-in-hand here, and, indeed, the whole tale of this fighting on the way to Quant is a mixture of gruesome horror and fantastic mirth, which makes men laugh grimly when telling the tale of it.

I went about three days ago over the battlefield with a young Australian officer, a gallant man and a quick walker, who was the first to get news of the enemy's attack. He was at headquarters, awake but sleepy, in the small hours of morning.

Presently the telephone bell tinkled. "Hallo," said the Australian officer, and yawned. A small voice spoke: "The enemy has broken through.

He has got to Lagnicourt."

"What's that?" said the officer at the 'phone. It seemed a silly joke at such an hour. The message was repeated, and my friend was very wide awake, and what happened afterwards was very rapid.

The Australian Gunner-General gave orders to stop up the gaps in the German wire through which the enemy had come. They were closed by sh.e.l.l-fire. The attacking column, having failed in time to destroy the field-guns, tried to escape, but found their retreat cut off. Three thousand of them suffered appalling casualties, and I saw some of their dead bodies lying on the ground three days ago, though most have now been buried.

On another part of the line held by the English troops a queer bird was captured the other day. It was a blue bird in the form of a German officer wearing a gay uniform, with a big cloak and spurs, brought down by one of our airmen. He seemed sleepy when caught, and yawned politely behind a closed hand, and explained the cause of his unfortunate appearance behind our lines. It appears that the commanding officer of his air squadron at Cambrai went on leave, and his officers and other friends consoled themselves by drinking good red wine. In the morning, after a late night, they decided to go out on reconnaissance; and the officer in the sky-blue cloak agreed that he also would make a flight, and so perform his duty to the Fatherland. A pilot took him up; but, instead of making a reconnaissance, he fell fast asleep and saw nothing of a British aeroplane swooping upon him from a high cloud. A bullet in the petrol-tank drove down the German machine, and the officer in the sky-blue cloak stepped out, saluted, surrendered, and a little later fell asleep again.

An air prisoner is always more noticeable than the batches of infantry who come back to our lines after one of our attacks, but there was something unusual in the sight of seventy-three Germans led by a young English soldier from the zone of fire in this latest fighting. Our man was a young private of Suffolks, chubby-faced and small in body, though of a high spirit.

"What are you doing with those men?" asked an officer. "Why isn't there a proper escort?"

"They are my prisoners," said the boy; "they have just surrendered to me, and I'm taking them back to our camp."

During attacks near Monchy one of our young officers was lying in a sh.e.l.l-hole with a thin line of men, mostly wounded. Presently a Tank crawled up, and a voice spoke from it: "That's a hot spot of yours. You had better come inside for a bit."

"How shall I get in?" said the young infantry officer. A voice from the Tank said: "Come round to this side." The young officer climbed in through a hole, and said "Thanks very much" to the Tank officer, who drove him close to the enemy's line, enabled him to see the position, and then brought him back to his sh.e.l.l-hole.

These things are happening on the field of battle, and there are many of our officers and men who have such fantastic experiences, and tell them as though they were normal adventures of life.

IX

HOW THE SCOTS TOOK GUMAPPE

MAY 1

Birds are singing their spring songs on this May Day in the woods very close to where men are fighting, and the fields on the edge of the sh.e.l.l-crater country are yellow with cowslips, so that war seems more hateful than ever, when the earth is so good, and all the colour and scent of it. But the work of war goes on whatever the weather. To-day, as well as yesterday, the enemy's chief targets were Arleux, captured by the Canadians, and Gumappe, which fell to Scottish troops, both of which places he has tried to take back by repeated and violent counter-attacks. He is still in a trench on the east side of Gumappe, running down to a bit of ruin called Cavalry Farm, where there has been close fighting for several days since the great battle on April 23, when Gumappe was taken by the Scots of the 15th Division.

That battle round Gumappe is a great episode in the history of the Scottish troops in France. It was fighting which lasted for nearly a week after the hour of attack in the first daylight of April 23. At that hour long waves of the Seaforths, Black Watch, and Camerons left the trenches they had dug under sh.e.l.l-fire, and went forward towards Gumappe. They were faced at once by blasts of machine-gun fire, and although our artillery barrage crashed across the field some of the German strong points were still held in force. At one, about which I know most, there was a gap between the Seaforths and Camerons owing to the feeble light of the dawn, in which men could only dimly see, but this was filled up by some companies of the Black Watch. For nearly three hours the Scots were held up by the fire of German machine-guns and artillery, and suffered many casualties, but they fought on, each little group of men acting with separate initiative, and it is to their honour as soldiers that they destroyed every machine-gun post in front of them. One sergeant of the Black Watch fought his way down a bit of trench alone and knocked out the gun-crew so that the line could advance. Two hundred prisoners were taken in that first forward sweep, when the Seaforths advanced in long lines and went through and beyond the village of Gumappe with loud shouts and cheers. They were checked again by machine-gun fire from many different directions, and immediately from the ruin called Cavalry Farm ahead of them. This was afterwards cleared, and many Germans lie dead there. Then between eleven and twelve in the morning the enemy developed his first counter-attack.

He ma.s.sed ma.s.ses of men in the valley below Gumappe, flung a storm of sh.e.l.ls on to the village, and then sent forward his troops to work round the spur on which the Highlanders held their line. It was then that the Camerons and Black Watch showed their fierce and stubborn fighting spirit. They tore rents in the lines of advancing Bavarians with Lewis-gun and rifle-grenade fire, and the enemy's losses were great, so that the supporting troops pa.s.sed over lines of dead comrades. But the attack was pressed by strong bodies of men, and the thin lines of the Scots, exhausted by long hours of fighting, were forced to swing back.

We now know that first reports were wrong, when it was said that the enemy retook Gumappe for a time. He never set foot in it again, though the Scottish line fell back. Little groups of Highland officers and men refused to retreat. Some of them held the cemetery and defended it against all attacks. A captain of the Black Watch with seventy men remained in the north of the village for four hours, though they had no protection on either flank. One officer and twelve men of the Camerons at another spot refused to leave during the retirement, and were found still holding out when their comrades renewed their attack and regained the ground. Another officer of the Camerons lost all the men of his machine-gun team, but brought up the gun himself and worked it with another officer already wounded. Afterwards, to save ammunition, he sniped the enemy with their own rifles which they had dropped on the field. Later the village of Gumappe was isolated, for our artillery bombardment prevented all approach by the enemy. Then another brigade of Scots streamed round by the north of the village, and the whole line of Highland troops swept back the enemy. By that time the Bavarian troops had no more fight in them, and knew they were beaten. They retired in great disorder, leaving great numbers of dead and wounded.

For a day and a half the Scots were able to rest a little, though always under sh.e.l.l-fire; but afterwards there was fierce patrol fighting round Cavalry Farm and in outposts near by. The enemy's fire was intense, and he commanded this position from the high ground to the north, but small parties of Scots held on doggedly outside the ruins of the farm until, after five days, they were withdrawn.

I have told all this briefly; but, even so, I hope it may reveal a little of the stubborn courage with which those men refused to give way, and when forced back for a few hours after great losses, regained the ground they had captured with a spirit which belongs to the history of their fighting clans.

X

THE OPPY LINE

MAY 2

There have been no strong infantry attacks along our front to-day, none of any kind as far as I know. It has been a day for the guns alone, and as my ears could bear witness, and every nerve in my body, they have made the most of it under the blue sky. All our batteries were hard at work, heavy howitzers with broad blunt snouts, long-muzzled long-ranged 60-pounders, and farther forward, on the landscape of the battlefield, field-guns drumming out salvos with staccato knocks above the full deep blasts of the monsters behind them.

Somehow in this bright sunlight, flooding all the countryside with a golden haze and painting the fields with vivid colour--yellow where the new sh.e.l.l-holes had dug deep pits, red-brown where it had lain quiet since the war, emerald-green where strips of gra.s.s grew between the plots of barbed wire and a tangle of old trenches--on such a day as this, with a light wind driving fleecy clouds through the sky, and wild flowers like little stars at one's feet, and larks singing with a high ecstasy, war and blood and death seemed abominably out of place. Yet they were there all three, round about Oppy and Gavrelle, and on the ground below Bailleul, thrust before one's eyes, rising to one's nostrils, making hideous noises about one. It would have been so much better in such a May as this to stroll on the way to Oppy, in this first sunshine of the year, without a thought of what men might be watching.

But when, standing on the crest above, I showed half my body above a bit of earth, an officer who lives below the earth said, "It's better to keep down. The blighters can see us all right."

And to stroll into Oppy one must have many machine-guns with one, and be preceded by a storm of heavy sh.e.l.ls, making a steel wall before one. One day soon, I suppose, our men will go in again like that, to find a litter of men's bodies, some living men trembling in cellars, and another little bit of h.e.l.l. We were making a h.e.l.l of it to-day for any young Germans there. Our guns made good target practice of it, flinging up rosy clouds of dust from its ruins of red brick. But one house still stands in Oppy Wood. It is a big white chteau, which is clearly visible with empty windows and broken roofs through a thin fringe of dead trees.

A sinister ghostly place, even at broad noonday, and no man alive would sit alone there in its big salon unless he had gone mad with sh.e.l.l-shock, for that white house is another target for guns, and while I watched our sh.e.l.ls crashed through the trees about it.

Below Oppy, where our men fought a few days ago, is Gavrelle, which is ours, above Greenland Hill, where there is a broken village among the trees, from which we can look down across the River Scarpe. To the left of Oppy is Arleux-en-Goh.e.l.le, recently captured by Canadians, who fought through its streets, and to the southern side of it is the ruin of a sugar factory, 500 yards or so from the outskirts of Bailleul, an old grey place, with broken walls and roofs, and a railway station with a deep embankment. These places were targets for the German guns, especially Arleux and Bailleul railway station, and heavy crumps came whining and then crashing, and flinging up clouds of black smoke--as black and as big as the evil genii that came from the bottle and played the devil.

The enemy's guns were very active to-day, as our communiqu would say.

But one of our forward observing officers, a young man in a dusty ditch, with a telescope and a telephone, and a steel hat which is only a faith cure for heavy sh.e.l.l-fire, was chuckling over this morning's business.

"It was very funny," he said. "The Boche started counter-battery work, but we answered back too quick, and knocked out one of his batteries smack in the eye. That group has kept quiet since then."

He pointed to some broken things lying about the field outside Oppy, and said: "The aeroplanes have been dropping about a good deal. There has been some very hot work in this part of the sky." The sky above us then was full of the throb and hum of aeroplanes, and to the tune of them birds went on singing, but other birds, invisible, sang louder than the larks, with high, shrill, whistling cries which make one feel cold and crouch low if they sing too close overhead. So the battle of guns went on, and troops, marching over dusty ground pock-marked with sh.e.l.l-craters, all white and barren, between belts of rusty wire, paid no heed to bursting crumps, and in the new-made craters or in old trenches, or in special holes just dug for shelter, sat down out of the wind and cooked their food, and slept so much like other bodies who will never wake, that once or twice I thought they were dead, these single figures sprawling in the dust, with sand-bags for their pillows. Away on the skyline were a few dim towers faintly pencilled against the golden haze, and one taller than the others standing apart.

"Douai," said a gunner officer. Yes; it was Douai, old in history and full of ancient buildings, which hold many memories of faith and scholarship and peace. The tall, lone tower which I saw was the great belfry of Douai. It seemed very far away, with the German lines on this side of it; but I remember how I used to see the clock-tower of Bapaume (no longer standing, alas!) as far and dim as this, so that it seemed as though we should never fight our way to it. But one day I walked into Bapaume with the Australian troops, who had entered it that morning. And so one day we may walk into Douai, if luck is with us.

XI

THE BATTLE OF MAY 3

MAY 3

Another day of close, fierce, difficult fighting is now in progress, having begun early this morning in the darkness and going on down a long front in hot sunshine and dust and the smoke of innumerable sh.e.l.ls.

Among the battalions engaged were the Royal Scots, East Yorks, Shropshire Light Infantry, the Norfolks, Suffolks, East Kents and West Kents, Royal Fusiliers, East Surreys, Worcesters, Hampshires, King's Own Scottish Borderers, East Lancs and South Lancs, Gloucesters, Argylls, Seaforths and Black Watch, and the Middles.e.x and London Regiments. They belonged to the 3rd, 12th, 37th, 29th, 17th, 15th, and 56th Divisions.

At many points our troops have succeeded in getting forward in spite of great resistance from fresh German regiments and intense artillery-fire.

The most important gains of the day are in the direction of the village of Chrisy, where ground has been won by English battalions, and round Bullecourt by the Australians with Devons and Gordons on their left.