From Bapaume to Passchendaele, 1917 Part 18

South of Hollebeke three little rivers run. One of them is the Rozebeek, and another is the Wambeek, and the third is the Blawepoortbeek, and there is a small ridge between each of them, and a copse between them. Two bodies of English troops of the 19th and 37th Divisions--Lancashires, Cheshires, Warwicks, Staffords and Wiltshires, Somersets, Bedfords, South Lancashires, and Royal Fusiliers--attacked these positions, those on the right making their a.s.sault four hours later than those on the left. They had already pushed out by small raids and rushes half-way to the copse before the attack, and when the signal to go forward came they made the rest of the way very quickly, so that the copse fell. The enemy here fought hard, and had cover in concrete emplacements, with underground entries. Beyond he held out stoutly under machine-gun and rifle barrage. Meanwhile, on the extreme right of attack were the Australians and New-Zealanders in the ground below Warneton. It was difficult country. The enemy had gone to great trouble to wire his hedges and camouflage the sh.e.l.l-holes with wire netting, below which he hid machine-guns and snipers. The village of La Ba.s.seville, like all the places we call villages, a mere huddle of broken bricks, had already been taken once and lost in a counter-attack. Now it was the New-Zealanders who took it. The same thing happened as at Hollebeke. The enemy refused to leave his dug-outs and was bombed to death in them.

"Can't make any use of the cellars," came a message through, "as they are choked with dead." Not far from La Ba.s.seville was the stump of an old windmill standing lonely on a knoll. Because of its observation it was important to get, and it was the Australians who captured it after hard fighting. At 9.30 in the morning the Germans came out in waves across the Warneton-Gapaard road and so encircled the windmill that the Australians had to draw back and leave it. But at midnight, after it had been sh.e.l.led for several hours, they went back, routed out the garrison, and now hold it again. At half-past three the same afternoon the New-Zealanders were counter-attacked at La Ba.s.seville, but the Germans were beaten back.

So the fortunes of the day were alternating, but at the end of it the position became clear. We had made and held all the ground that we intended. Then our men dug in, and the rain, which had begun on the afternoon of the battle, grew heavier. It has rained ever since. The ground is all a swamp and the sh.e.l.l-holes are ponds. The Army lies wet, and all the foulness of Flemish weather in winter is upon them in August. Through the mist the enemy's sh.e.l.l-fire never ceases, and our guns reply with long bombardments and steady barrages. The walking wounded come back over miles of churned-up ground, dodging the sh.e.l.ls, and when they get down to the clearing-stations they are caked with mud and very weary. War is not a blithe business, even when the sun is shining. In this gloom and filth it is more miserable.

The weather has been bad for flying men. Impossible, one would say, looking up at the low-lying storm-clouds. Yet on the day of battle our airmen went out and, baulked of artillery work, flew over the enemy's country and spread terror there. It was a flying terror which, when told in the barest words of these boys, is stranger than old mythical stories of flying horses and dragons on the wing. Imagine one of these winged engines swooping low over one as one walks along a road far from the lines, and above the roar of its engine the sharp crack of a revolver with a bullet meant for you. Imagine one of these birds hovering above one's cottage roof and firing machine-gun bullets down the chimneys, and then flying round to the front and squirting a stream of lead through the open door, and, after leaving death inside, soaring up into a rain-cloud. That, and much more, was done on July 31. These airmen of ours attacked the German troops on the march and scattered them, dropped bombs on their camps and aerodromes, flying so low that their wheels skirted the gra.s.s, and were seldom more than a few yards above the tree-tops. The narrative of one man begins with his flight over the enemy's country, crossing ca.n.a.ls and roads as low as thirty feet, until he came to a German aerodrome. The men there paid no attention, thinking this low flier was one of theirs, until a bomb fell on the first shed.

Then they ran in all directions panic-stricken. The English pilot skimmed round to the other side of the shed and played his machine-gun through the open doors, then soared a little and gave the second shed a bomb. He flew round and released a bomb for the third shed, but failed with the fourth, because the handle did not act quickly enough. So he spilt his bomb between the shed and a railway train standing still there. By this time a German machine-gun had got to work upon him, but he swooped right down upon it, scattering the gunners with a burst of bullets, and flew across the sheds again, firing into them at twenty feet. His ammunition drum was exhausted, and he went up to a cloud to change, and then came down actually to the ground, tripping across the gra.s.s on dancing wheels, and firing into the sheds where the mechanics were cowering. Then he tired of this aerodrome and flew off, overtaking two German officers on horses. He dived at them and the horses bolted.

He came upon a column of 200 troops on the march, and swooped above their heads with a stream of bullets until they ran into hedges and ditches. He was using a lot of ammunition, and went up into a cloud to fix another drum. Two German aeroplanes came up to search for him, and he flew to meet them and drove one down so that it crashed to earth.

German soldiers gathered round it, and our fellow came down to them and fired into their crowd. A little later he flew over a pa.s.senger train and pattered bullets through its windows, and then, having no more ammunition, went home.

There was a boy of eighteen in one of our aerodromes the night before the battle, and he was very glum because he was not allowed to go across the German lines next day on account of his age and inexperience. After many pleadings he came to his squadron commander at night in his pyjamas and said, "Look here, sir, can't I go?" So he was allowed to go, and set out in company with another pilot in another machine. But he soon was alone, because he missed the other man in a rain-storm. His first adventure was with a German motor-car with two officers. He gave chase, saw it turn into side roads, and followed. Then he came low and used his machine-gun. One of the officers fired an automatic pistol at him, so our boy thought that a good challenge and, leaving go of his machine-gun, pulled out his own revolver, and there was the strangest duel between a boy in the air and a man in a car. The aeroplane was fifty feet high then, but dropped to twenty just as the car pulled up outside a house. The young pilot shot past, but turned and saw the body of one officer being dragged indoors. He swooped over the house and fired his machine-gun into it, and then sent a Very-light into the car, hoping to set it on fire. Presently he was attacked by a bombardment from machine-guns, "Archies," and light rockets, so he rose high and took cover in the clouds. But it was not the last episode of his day out. He saw some infantry crossing a wooden bridge and dived at them with rapid bursts of machine-gun fire. They ran like rabbits from a shot-gun, and when he came round again he saw four or five dead lying on the bridge. From the ditches men fired at him with rifles, so he stooped low and strafed them, and then went home quite pleased with himself.

There were scores of flying men who did these things. The pilots of two units alone flew an aggregate of 396 hours 25 minutes, and fired 11,258 rounds of machine-gun bullets at ground targets, to say nothing of Very-lights. Those machines were not out in France for exhibition purposes, as gentlemen now abed in England are pleased to think. All this sounds romantic, and certainly there is the romance of youthful courage and fearless spirit. But apart from human courage, the ugliness and foulness of war grow greater month by month, and if anybody speaks to me of war's romance I will tell him of things I have seen to-day and yesterday and make his blood run cold. For the sum of human agony is high.

III

THE BEGINNING OF THE RAINS

AUGUST 1

A violent rain-storm began yesterday afternoon after our advance across the enemy's lines to the Pilkem Ridge and the northern curve of the Ypres salient, and it now veils all the battlefield in a dense mist. It impedes the work of our airmen and makes our artillery co-operation with the infantry more difficult, and adds to the inevitable hardships of our men out there in the new lines where the ground has been cratered by our sh.e.l.l-fire into one wild quagmire of pits. To the enemy it is not altogether a blessing. His airmen get no observation of our movements, and his gunners do not find their targets, while his poor, wretched infantry, lying out in open ground or in woods where they get no cover from our fire, must be in a frightful condition, unable to get food because of our barrages behind them, and wet to the skin.

The enemy's command has been unable to organize any effective counter-attacks, and so far has sent forward small bodies of storm troops moving vaguely to uncertain objectives and smashed by our fire before they have reached our lines. There were many of these attacks yesterday. Against the Lancashire regiments of the 15th and the Scots of the 55th Division they were repeated all through the day, beginning at three o'clock in the afternoon, and coming again at eleven o'clock, 1.45, and 7.15 this morning.

The Lehr Regiment, whom the Kaiser called his brave Coburgers during the battles of the Somme, were very severely mauled yesterday and suffered heavy losses. Both the 235th Division and the Third Guards Division, engaged by our men on the Steenbeek line, have been shattered. So great has been the alarm of the enemy at the menace to his line that he has been rushing up reserves by omnibuses and light railways to the firing-line over tracks which are sh.e.l.led by us day and night. The suffering of all the German troops, huddled together in exposed places, must be as hideous as anything in the agony of mankind, slashed to bits by storms of sh.e.l.ls and urged forward to counter-attacks which they know will be their death.

I saw this morning large numbers of prisoners taken during the past twenty-four hours and just brought in. They had the look of men who have been through h.e.l.l. They were drenched with rain, which poured down their big steel helmets. Their top-boots were full of water, which squelched out at every step, and their sunken eyes stared out of ash-grey faces with the look of sick and hunted animals. Many of them had cramp in the stomach through long exposure and hunger before being captured, and they groaned loudly and piteously. Many of them wept while being interrogated, protesting bitterly that they hated the war and wanted nothing but peace. They have no hope of victory for their country. An advance into Russia fills them with no new illusions, but seems to them only a lengthening of the general misery. They do not hide the sufferings of their people at home, and say that in the towns there is bitter want, and only in the rural districts is there enough to eat. In the field they are filled with gloomy forebodings, and live in terror of our tremendous gun-fire. The older men, non-commissioned officers who have come back after wounds, and other soldiers of long training, say that the boys of the young cla.s.ses who are now filling up the ranks have no staying power under sh.e.l.l-fire and no fighting spirit. Among the prisoners I saw to-day I think about a quarter of them, or perhaps a little less, were these young boys, anmic-looking lads, with terror in their eyes. The others were more hardy-looking men, though pale and worn. It is certain that they made no great fight yesterday when our men were near them, except when they still had cover in concrete emplacements. And it is no wonder that all fight has gone out of them.

Some even of our own men were startled and stunned by the terrific blast of our gun-fire. Some of these men have told me that when they went forward to get into line before the attack, they had to pa.s.s through mile after mile of our batteries, the heavy guns behind, and gradually reaching the lighter batteries forward, until they arrived at the field-guns, so thickly placed that at some points they were actually wheel to wheel. The night was dark, but there was no darkness among these batteries. Their flashes lit up their neighbourhood with lurid torches, blinding the eyes of the troops on the march, and all about the air rocked with the blast of their fire and the noise was so great that men were deafened. As the troops went forward for five or six miles to the a.s.sembly-lines flights of sh.e.l.ls pa.s.sed over their heads in a great rush through s.p.a.ce, and it was terrifying even to men like one of those I met to-day, who has become familiar with the noise of gun-fire since the early days of Ypres and the fury of the Somme. But the worst came when the field-guns began their rapid fire before yesterday's dawn. It was like the fire of machine-guns in its savage sweep, but instead of machine-gun bullets they were 18-pounder sh.e.l.ls, and each report from thousands of guns was a sharp, ear-splitting crack.

An Irish fellow who described his own adventures to me as he lay wounded and told his tale as vividly as a great orator, because of the perfect truth and simplicity of each phrase, said that he and all his comrades hurried to get away from their own lines when the signal of attack came in order to escape from the awful noise. They preferred the greater quietude of the enemy's positions. They went across blasted ground. It had been harrowed by the sweep of fire. Trenches had disappeared, concrete emplacements had been overturned, breastworks had been flung like straws to the wind. The only men who lived were those who were huddled in sections of trench which were between the barrage-lines of our fire. Our men had no fear of what the enemy could do to them. They went forward to find creatures eager to escape from this blazing h.e.l.l.

It was only in redoubts like the Frezenberg Redoubt which had escaped destruction that the German machine-gunners still fought and gave trouble. Many of the enemy must have been buried alive with machine-guns and trench-mortars and bomb stores. But there were other dead not touched by sh.e.l.l-fire, nor by any bullet. They had been killed by our gas attack which had gone before the battle. Rows of them lay clasping their gas-masks, and had not been quick enough before the vapour of death reached them. But others, with their gas-masks on, were dead. One of our men tells me that he came across the bodies of a group of German officers. They belonged to a brigade staff, and they were all masked, with tin beast-like nozzles, and they were all stone dead. It is the vengeance of the G.o.ds for that gas, foul and d.a.m.nable, which they used against us first in the second battle of Ypres and ever since. It is the worst weapon of modern warfare, and has added the blackest terror to all this slaughter of men.

Because there was not great fighting with infantry yesterday, it must not be thought that our men had an easy time. The enemy was quick to put down his barrage, and although it was not anything like our annihilating fire, it was bad enough, as any sh.e.l.l-fire is. I met some young Scots of the Gordons and Camerons to-day, who had been through an episode of a thrilling kind, which was horrible while it lasted. When the signal for attack came yesterday, they were a little mad, like some of their comrades, because they said they saw the Germans running away on the other side of our wall of sh.e.l.ls. Without waiting for the barrage to creep forward, these Scots ran forward right among our own sh.e.l.ls, and, by some miracle, many of them escaped being hit, and went forward in pursuit. A party of about a hundred went right beyond their goal and found themselves isolated and out of touch with the main body. They were heavily sh.e.l.led and attacked by bombing parties. They sent runners back asking for reinforcements, but none came because of their far-flung position. They tried to signal for an artillery barrage to protect them, but this call was not seen. They ran out of ammunition, and saw that death was coming close to them. It touched some men with great chunks of hot sh.e.l.l, and they fell dead in their sh.e.l.l-craters. Other men were buried by the bursts of 59's. These boys of the 8/10th Gordons were proud. They did not want to retire, though they knew they had gone too far, but at last, when all their officers had been killed but one, the order was given to this little remnant of men to save their lives and get back if they could. They went back through heavy fire, and I talked with two of them this morning, happy to find themselves alive and bright-eyed fellows still. It is extraordinary what escapes many of them have had. A group of them in the farthest line of advance lay down in craters under a rapid sweep of machine-gun fire from a redoubt in front of them. They watched over the edge of their craters how two Tanks came up, heaving and lurching over the tossed earth, until they were within gun-range of the redoubt. Then they opened fire. But the enemy's gunners had seen them, and tried to get them with direct hits. Most of the sh.e.l.ls fell short all around those English lads hiding in the craters.

Some of these were buried and some killed. But the others held on to their ground, which is still in our hands.

The stretcher-bearers were magnificent, and worked all day and night searching out the wounded and carrying them back under fire. Many of the German prisoners gladly lent a hand in this work on their way back. At the dressing-stations to-day I saw them giving pickaback to men--ours--who were wounded about the legs and feet. They prefer this work to fighting.

After yesterday's battle our line includes the whole of the Pilkem Ridge and the ground in the valley beyond to the line of the Steenbeek river, and southwards in a curve that slices off the old Ypres salient.

It has been a heavy blow to the enemy. Now it is all rain and mud and blood and beastliness.

IV

PILL-BOXES AND MACHINE-GUNS

AUGUST 3

The weather is still frightful. It is difficult to believe that we are in August. Rather it is like the foulest weather of a Flemish winter, and all the conditions which we knew through so many dreary months during three winters of war up here in the Ypres salient are with us again. The fields are quagmires, and in sh.e.l.l-crater land, which is miles deep round Ypres, the pits have filled with water. The woods loom vaguely through a wet mist, and road traffic labours through rivers of slime. It is hard luck for our fighting men. But in spite of repeated efforts the enemy has not succeeded in his counter-attacks, after our line withdrew somewhat at the end of the first day south and south-east of St.-Julien. In my first accounts of the battle I did not give full measure to the hardness of the fighting in which some of our troops were engaged, nor to the stubbornness of the enemy's resistance. It is now certain that, whereas many of the German infantry, terror-stricken by our bombardment, surrendered easily enough, others made good use of strong defences not annihilated by our fire, and put up a desperate defence. Fresh troops, like the 221st Division, were flung in by the German command in the afternoon of the first day and made repeated attacks, under cover of the mist, against our men, who were tired after twenty-four hours in the zone of fire, who in some sectors had suffered heavily, but who fought still with a courage which defied defeat. A commanding officer of a Lancashire battalion went to meet some of his men coming back yesterday. They were wet and caked with mud and unshaven and dead-beat, and they had lost many comrades, but they had the spirit to pull themselves up and smile with a light in their eyes when the commanding officer said he was proud of them, because they had done all that men could, and one of them called out cheerily, "When shall we go on again, sir?" An officer who was left last out of his battalion to hold out in an advanced position said to the padre, who has just visited him in hospital, "I hope the General was not disappointed with us." The General, I am sure, was not disappointed with these men of the 55th Division. No one could think of them without enthusiasm and tenderness, marvelling at their spirit and at the fight they made in tragic hours.

Because it was a tragedy to them that after gaining ground they had been asked to take, and not easily nor without losses, they should have to fall back and fight severe rear-guard actions to cover a necessary withdrawal.

These Lancashire men, with many men of the Liverpool battalions, had to attack from Wieltje through successive systems of trenches. This ground is just to the right of St.-Julien and to the left of Frezenberg, below the Gravenstafel Spur, Zonnebeke, and Langemarck. The way lay past a number of German strong points--Beck House, Plum Farm, Pound Farm, and Square Farm--once small farmsteads, long blown to bits, but fortified by concrete strongholds with walls of concrete two yards thick. Our gun-fire wrecked all the ground about them and toppled over a few of these places, but left a number untouched, and that was the cause of the trouble. Each one had to be taken by a separate action led by our young platoon commanders, and it was a costly series of small engagements--costly to officers, especially, as always happens at such times. These young subalterns of ours handled their men not only gallantly, but skilfully, and the men followed their lead with cunning as well as pluck, and got round the concrete works by rifle-fire and bombing until they could rush them at close quarters. In this way two strongly held farms were taken, while from the right the Lancashire men were swept by enfilade fire from a third farm until its garrison was routed out and 160 of them captured. There was hard fighting farther on for a line of trenches where some of the wire was still uncut, with machine-gun fire rattling from the left flank.

But the fiercest fighting came after that against another series of those concrete forts, among them the Pommern Redoubt, where separate actions had again to be made by little groups of men under platoon commanders. The enemy's machine-gunners served their weapons to the last. In this ground, too were five batteries of German field-guns, who fired upon our men until they were within 500 yards. The gunners had to be shot down, and our men streamed past the guns in perfect order just as they had rehea.r.s.ed the attack beforehand, sending back reports, carrying through the whole operation as though on a field-day behind the lines. Yet by that time their strength had been ebbing away, and many of them had fallen. They reached the extreme limit of their advance with outposts at two more fortified farms--Wurst and Aviatik Farms--from which two days later a delayed report came back from the last remaining officer of the party that he had reached this high ground in front of Wurst Farm, and that his battalion was badly depleted. That was an heroic little message, but a few hours later that ground was no longer in our hands. The troops of the 39th Division on the left of the Lancashire men had found some trouble with uncut wire, and the enemy developed a strong counter-attack from the north, taking advantage of that exposed flank. They prepared for attack by a heavy artillery barrage, controlled by low-flying aeroplanes and co-operating with the infantry. At the same time another counter-attack came down from the high ground on the right to strike between the Lancashire men of the 55th Division and the Scottish troops of the 15th on their right. It was decided to withdraw to a better defensive line, and 160 Lancashire Fusiliers got into Schuler Farm, and held it against heavy odds in order to cover this movement. They stayed there, using machine-guns and rifles until only thirty of them were left standing, and all around them were dead and dying. Their work was done, for they had held out long enough to protect the withdrawing lines, and the thirty survivors decided to fight their way back through an enemy fast closing in upon them. So they left the farm, and of the thirty ten reached the new line. Since then the enemy has made repeated attacks from the high ground on the right, and especially against the Pommern Redoubt, but every time he has been cut up by the fire of our guns and rifles. I hear that this afternoon he is again ma.s.sing for another attempt, according to the orders given to the German troops that they must get back all the ground they have lost, and at all costs, by August 3, which is to-day.

I have already told in a general way in previous dispatches how the Scots of the 15th Division farther south than the Lancashire men fought their way up to the Frezenberg Redoubt, coming under a blast of machine-gun fire from a neighbouring farm until they captured its garrison, and then going on to two other enemy redoubts. They had the same trouble as the Lancashire men with these concrete forts, but attacked them with stubborn courage, and put them out of action. One of my good friends was wounded in front of one of these emplacements in command of his battalion of 8/1Oth Gordons, and it was by an odd chance that I saw him as he lay wounded in a casualty clearing-station a few hours later. "I hear my men have done well," he said. They did as well as they have always done in many great battles, and not only well, but wonderfully, and they went as far as they were allowed to go, and held on in their old grim way when things were at their worst. The whole line of the Scottish troops below the Langemarck-Zonnebeke road was attacked at two in the afternoon, or thereabouts, and their advanced line gradually withdrew under a fierce fire. At six o'clock the enemy slightly penetrated the advance line, driving the Gordons back a hundred yards, but the Camerons drove them out and away. This was on a front to the east of St.-Julien and south of Zonnebeke.

The general position remains the same. The weather remains the same, and the mud and the discomfort of men living under incessant rain and abominable sh.e.l.l-fire do not decrease: nevertheless, they have smashed up attack after attack, and their spirit is unbreakable. The enemy is suffering from the same evil conditions, and his only advantage is that perhaps he has better cover in which to a.s.semble his men, and that, owing to his defeat, he is nearer to his base, so that they have not so far to tramp through the swamps in order to get up supplies of food for guns and men. As usual, we have behind us a wide stretch of sh.e.l.l-broken ground, which, in foul weather like this, becomes a slough.

AUGUST 5

For the first time for four days and nights the rain has stopped, and there is even a pale gleam of sunshine, though the sky is still heavy with rain-clouds. Oh, foul weather! What a curse it has been to our men!

But the guns have never ceased their fire because of the rain and the mist, and all last night again and to-day there has been tremendous gunning. Our gunners have been working at high tension for several weeks, and the admiration of the infantry goes out to these men who, though they do not go over the top, are under heavy fire from German counter-battery work and bombed by German aeroplanes and strained by the enormous responsibility of protecting the infantry and keeping up barrage-fire without rest. In this battle the gunners have done marvellously, to the very limit of human endurance. As for the infantry, words are not good enough to describe the grit of them all. Apart from all the inevitable beastliness of battle, they have had to fight in this filthy weather, and it has made it a thousand times worse. In August men don't expect to get drowned in sh.e.l.l-holes, nor to get stuck to the armpits in mud before they reach the first German line. It was not as bad as that everywhere, but exactly that in parts of the line even before the heavy rains came on. The men of the 8th and 30th Divisions who attacked over ground like this east of Zillebeke went through abominable adventures. It was almost pitch-dark when they went forward, and the first thing that happened was that battalions became hopelessly mixed because of the darkness and the nature of the ground; and the second thing that the barrage went ahead of them so that they had to struggle behind in the mora.s.s unsupported by its fire, and shot at by Germans on their flanks.

Two lines of trenches known to our men as Jackdaw Support and Jackdaw Reserve were captured without much difficulty as far as the enemy was concerned, about eighty prisoners being taken in them, but with enormous difficulty on account of the boggy ground. Imagine these men, loaded up with packs and rifles and sand-bags and shovels, slipping and falling among the sh.e.l.l-pits, which were full of mud, water, and wire. Fellows stopped to pull out their comrades and were dragged in after them. It took them three-quarters of an hour to get over two lines of undefended trenches, whole platoons getting bogged in them and slipping back when they tried to climb out. It was a trying time for the officers who saw the barrage of our guns getting away ahead. Beyond them was high ground, from which German machine-gun and rifle fire swept them, and not far away German snipers potted our men, and especially our officers, as they climbed in and out of sh.e.l.l-craters. Two officers of the Manchesters had been killed by one of these fellows when a private crept out alone on his flank, stole round him very quietly, pounced and killed him. It took two and a half hours to get to Jackdaw Reserve Trench in Sanctuary Wood, and the enemy's riflemen who had been firing at close range then ran back, or as our men say, "hopped it." The Menin road from Ypres runs through the high ground just here, and it was about here that the hardest time came for the 30th Division, because of the fierce machine-gun fire. It was here, also, that many gallant deeds were done by men who had lost their officers, and by the officers who had lost their men but collected stragglers and groups from mixed units to get on with the attack. A young private soldier of a machine-gun company advanced with his Lewis gun and by rapid fire put a German machine-gun out of action, so that a bombing party could get on. A lance-corporal of the Manchesters rallied up stragglers, organized groups, and rushed some of the German strong points. A captain behaved throughout the battle with the most fearless gallantry, and when his men wavered and fell back before the blast of machine-gun bullets that drove across the Menin road, rallied them and gathered up lads from other units, and captured two strong points with these storming parties. He was wounded in this action, but paid no heed to that, and continued to lead his men. It was here that the great tunnel ran across the Menin road, from which forty-one Germans were taken. To the right of the road this side of Inverness Copse and the Dumbarton Lakes stood Stirling Castle on the high ground of a semi-circular ridge surrounded by deep sh.e.l.l-pits. The "castle" itself was just a heap of broken bricks on this commanding ground, and behind those bricks were German machine-gunners, who served their weapons until our men were close to them. Then they "hopped it"

again, but stayed on the other side of the ridge, firing at any men who showed themselves over the crest. Our men fought round the castle for hours, heavily sh.e.l.led as soon as the enemy's gunners knew it was in our hands, and meeting counter-attacks which developed later.

A thousand and more acts of courage were done in those hours by men who knew that their comrades' lives and their own depended upon "getting on with the job," as they call it. It was necessary to get reports back to brigade headquarters at all costs, so that supplies and supports might be sent up, and to get into touch with battalion and company commanders from the advanced line. It was not easy either to write or to send down these messages. Wires were cut and runners killed. But it had to be done. A company sergeant-major, though lightly wounded first and then badly wounded after leading his men up under a sweep of machine-gun bullets, sat down in the mud and scribbled out his report. There was a young Irish private in these Manchesters who did wonderful work as a runner with these messages. He volunteered whenever there was a dangerous bit of work to do, exposing himself over and over again, and gathering up stragglers to fill up gaps in the line of defence. A sergeant acted as runner when two of his own had been killed, and got through under intense fire. And one of these runners had a great adventure all to himself on his journey under fire. This young private was going up with a message when he saw something move outside a dug-out. He went forward cautiously, and saw a German soldier disappear into the dark entry. The Manchester lad was all alone, but he followed the German into the hole, down a flight of mud stairs and into an underground cave. He stood face to face with eighteen men. One of them was a non-commissioned officer. They stared back at him with brooding eyes, as though wondering whether they should kill him. He shouted at them, "Now then, come out, and look sharp about it," and made a sign to the door. They put their hands up and said, "Kamerad." "Well, then, get out," said the boy. They filed out past him, and he waited till the last had gone. Then he went up the mud stairs to open ground again, and saw that the eighteen men had scattered, finding that he was all alone. He shouted to them and fired his rifle over their heads, so that they thought twice of escape, and then came back to him meekly. So he formed them up, and marched behind them down to the prisoners' cage, where he took his receipt for eighteen prisoners.

There was now great sh.e.l.ling, and the enemy was ma.s.sing for a counter-attack. Through this fire a young Irish officer in the machine-gun section brought up nine out of his twelve guns in order to meet the attack, and without that great courage of his the position would have been very bad. A sergeant of machine-gunners stood in a bit of a trench with his team when a sh.e.l.l burst, killing two men and wounding others. He stood there, splashed with blood and in great danger of death, without losing his nerve or his spirit, and after helping the wounded he "carried on" and kept his guns in action.

Meanwhile, down at brigade headquarters the situation was very obscure; so obscure that the brigadier sent up a young captain, his brigade major, to find out the situation and report on it. Not a safe and easy job to do at such a time; but this officer, whom I met to-day, went up to Stirling Castle, where he found mixed units still under heavy machine-gun fire, and only one or two officers without knowledge of the general situation owing to the difficulty of getting communications. The brigade major reorganized the situation with a cool head and a fine courage, collected parties of mixed riflemen, and took them to the high ground, where there was a good field of fire, and then, with his orderly, moved across the Menin road, which was at that time unprotected. He organized the support of this, and on the way came across the entrance to the tunnel under the road. He stopped and listened. It seemed to him that he could hear movements and voices. He went into the tunnel, and heard and saw a German there. He covered him with a revolver, and the man put his hands up. But the German was not alone. There was a shuffling of feet farther down, and the German said, "There are four of us farther in the tunnel." The brigade major went farther down, with his revolver ready, and met the four men and told them in French and English that he would kill them if they moved a step.

They surrendered, two of them speaking good English, and the brigade major's orderly took one of their rifles, not being armed himself, and with that weapon escorted them back. They were men of the 238th Regiment, and had only been in that line twenty-four hours. It was the brigade major's report that cleared up the situation from his headquarters and made it more easy of control.

Some Scottish troops who fought alongside the Manchesters at Stirling Castle behaved with equal valour. They endured long and intense sh.e.l.ling, while through the murk and smoke enemy aeroplanes flew very low, firing their machine-guns at the troops, batteries, and mule convoys, with a good imitation of our own air pilots. What I have told so far covers only a small section of the Front, but I have now given a broad picture of all the length of battle, and these episodes I have just described will give a closer idea of the way in which all our soldiers have been fighting in this country around Ypres, and of all they have suffered in the foulest weather I have ever seen in summer.

AUGUST 4

The Tanks have justified themselves again, and won their spurs--spurs as big as gridirons--in the battle of Flanders. They had plenty of chance to show what they could do.

As I described yesterday, the way of our advance was hindered by a number of little concrete forts built in the ruin of farmsteads which had withstood our gun-fire. At Plum Farm and Apple Villa, and in stronger, more elaborate, fortified points, like the Frezenberg and Pommern Castle and Pommern Redoubt, the enemy's machine-gunners held out when everything about them was chaos and death, and played a barrage of bullets on our advancing men. Platoons and half-platoons attacked them in detail at a great cost of life, and it was in such places that the Tanks were of most advantage. It was at Pommern Castle, east of St.-Julien, that one of the Tanks did best. Don't imagine the castle as a kind of Windsor, with big walls and portcullis and high turrets, but as slabs of concrete in a huddle of sand-bags above a nest of deep dug-outs. On the other side of it was Pommern Redoubt, the same in style of defence. Our men were fighting hard for the castle, and having a bad time under its fire. The Tank came to help them, and advanced under a swish of bullets to the German emplacement, lurching up the piled bags over the heaped-up earth, and squatting on top like a grotesque creature playing the old game of "I'm the King of the Castle; get down, you dirty rascals." The dirty rascals, who were German soldiers, unshaven and covered in wet mud, did not like the look of their visitor, which was firing with great ferocity. They fled to the cover of Pommern Redoubt beyond. Then the Tank moved back to let the infantry get on, but as soon as it had turned its back the Germans, with renewed pluck, took possession of the castle again. The men who were fighting round about again gave a signal to the Tank to get busy. So it came back, and with the infantry on its flanks made another a.s.sault, so that the enemy fled again. Pommern Redoubt was attacked in the same way with good help from the Tank.

The Frezenberg Redoubt was another place where the Tanks were helpful, and they did good work at Westhoek, the remnant of a village to the right of that. One of them attacked and helped to capture a strong point west of St.-Julien, from which a good many Germans came out to surrender, and afterwards some Tanks went through the village, but had to get out again in a hurry to escape capture in the German counter-attacks. It was not easy to get back in a hurry, as by that hour in the afternoon the rain had turned the ground to swamp, and the Tanks sank deep in it, with wet mud half-way up their flanks, and slipped and slithered back when they tried to struggle out. Many of the officers and crews had to get out of their steel forts, risking heavy sh.e.l.ling and machine-gun fire to dig out their way, and in the neighbourhood of St.-Julien they worked for two hours in the open to de-bog their Tank while German gunners tried to destroy them by direct hits. In a farm somewhere in this neighbourhood no fewer than sixty Germans came out with their hands up in surrender as soon as the Tank was at close quarters, and a story is told, though I haven't the exact details, that in another place the mere threat of a Tank's approach was enough to decide a party of eight to give in. It is certain beyond all doubt that the enemy's infantry has a great fear of these machines, and does not see any kind of humour in them. In this battle there is not a single case of an attack upon a Tank by infantry, though we know that they have been given special training behind their lines with dummy Tanks according to definite rules laid down by the German Command.

One fight did take place with a Tank, and it is surely the most fantastic duel that has ever happened in war. It was queer enough, as I described a day or two ago, when one of our airmen flew over a motor-car, and engaged in a revolver duel with a German officer, but even that strange picture is less weird than when a German aeroplane flew low over a Tank, and tried to put out its eyes by bursts of machine-gun bullets. Imagine the scene--that muddy monster crawling through the slime, with sharp stabs of fire coming from its flanks, and above an engine, with wings, swooping round and about it like an angry albatross, and spattering its armour with bullets. It was an unequal fight, for the Tank just ignored that waspish machine-gun fire, and went on its way with only a scratch or two. The Tanks were in action around the marshes and woodlands by Shrewsbury Forest. Here, as I have already said, there was very severe infantry fighting, in which the Leicesters, Northamptons, and above all the Middles.e.x Regiment had desperate engagements, and the enemy made many counter-attacks, so that the progress of our men was slow and difficult. The Tanks helped them as best they could.

So goes the tale of the Tanks on the first day of the battle of Flanders. It will be seen from what I have written that they gave good help to the troops. The pilots and crews behaved with splendid gallantry, and not only took great risks, but endured to the last extremity of fatigue in that narrow, hot s.p.a.ce where they work their engines and their guns.