No Man's Land Part 8

"It is well," remarked the Sapper, returning the empty mug to the soldier servant. "Personally I like it burnt at night, with a noggin of port. You put it in a mug, add three spoonfuls of sugar, set light to it, and let it burn for seven minutes. Then add some port, and drink hot. Man, you can lead an army corps . . ." His voice died away as the two officers departed on their three-mile squelch to the front line, and the unshaven Jones gazed after them admiringly.

"A hartist!" he murmured admiringly, "a plurry hartist. Personally, the rasberry juice, any old 'ow for me." He disappeared from view, and further disclosures would be tactless. . . .

And so we lift the curtain on the dawn of the 21st. Doubtless the setting is frivolous, but it has served to introduce two of the supers who go to make up the final scene. In the portion of the front line for which they were bound there lay the battalion which was cast for the princ.i.p.al part, and it is the prerogative of stars to have their entrance led up to. . . .

The mist hung thick over the sh.e.l.l-torn ground as the two officers walked on. In places stretches of half-demolished wire and blown-in trenches showed where the Germans had put up a fight. Stray graves, ours and theirs, were dotted about promiscuously, and little heaps of dirty and caked equipment showed that salvage work was in progress.

Away to the left a few crumbling walls and shattered trees marked a one-time prosperous agricultural village, from which with great regularity there came the sighing drone of a German crump followed by a column of black smoke and a shower of bricks and _debris_. But the place was dead; its inhabitants gone--G.o.d knows where. And soldiers: well, soldiers have a rooted dislike to dead villages near the trenches.

A strange squat object loomed suddenly into sight--a well-known landmark to those who wandered daily behind the lines. Derelict, motionless, it lay on a sunken road, completely blocking it; and the sunken road was heavy with the stench of death. It is not good for the Hun to take liberties with a tank, even if it is temporarily _hors-de-combat_.

A man limping wearily, his head bandaged, his face unshaved, his khaki coated with half-dry mud, plodded heavily towards them.

"Can you tell me the way to the dressing-station, sir?" He had stopped and, swaying slightly, stood in front of the two officers.

"Straight on, lad. You'll find it somewhere back there." The machine-gun officer pointed vaguely into the mist. "About half a mile."

"You ain't got a drop of water, 'ave you, sir? The water party got lost last night, and we've only had about a teacupful this last twenty-four hours."

But when going up to visit the trenches water-bottles are a useless enc.u.mbrance, and, with a tired sigh, the wounded Tommy resumed his thirsty way in the direction of the dressing-station.

"Cooked, poor devil," remarked the Sapper, as he disappeared. "Pretty nearly finished."

"But he'll be his mother's own bright boy again when he gets his nose inside that aid post. We go left here, I think."

They paused for a moment to get their bearings--a matter of some importance and no little difficulty.

It may seem an easy thing to walk up to the trenches. One goes on, and ultimately one arrives, the casual reader will surmise. And with luck the casual reader will be right. But there are certain small points which may have escaped his ken and which render the task of reaching the front line a trifle harder than walking to the club for lunch.

In the first place the aspect of the ground is not of that cheerful and varied type which has inspired so many gifted landscape painters. No trees and little rivers, no cottages and flowering paths delight one's eye. It is impossible to say: "Take the turn to the left after pa.s.sing the cactus bush, and keep straight on till you come to the asparagus bed; and then you'll see the front trench on your right."

The local cactus bush or its equivalent is hurled into s.p.a.ce twice daily, thereby largely interfering with its use as a landmark. The local asparagus bed or its equivalent differs only from the remainder of the ground in the fact that a mule pa.s.sed peacefully away on it some weeks previously. And one day even that difference vanished. The mule pa.s.sed away again--in small fragments.

Even the front trenches where they exist have a variegated career. At certain periods quite a large proportion of them are in the air at the same time, in company with the village just behind; and when they come down again it is more than likely their position will change to the next row of damp and unpleasant holes.

That is the trouble: the whole ground is one huge hole. Holes are the only features of the landscape: big holes, little holes, damp ones, smelly ones; holes occupied and holes to let; holes you fall into and holes you don't--but, holes. Everywhere holes. The cactus bush is a hole; the asparagus bed is a hole; the trenches are holes. The whole country looks like a disease. A large amount of the wandering must perforce be done at night; and should the casual reader still doubt the difficulty of finding one's way, let him imagine three voluntary descents, and as many compulsory ones, into the wet brand of hole; let him further imagine a steady downpour of rain, no sign of a star, and a shrewd suspicion that if he's walked as far as he thinks he has in the right direction he ought to be in the front line; and then let him imagine--holes. Whenever he moves he either negotiates or fails to negotiate--holes. Having, in scrambling out of holes turned round twice he doesn't know which way he's facing; he only knows there are--holes. Toc--toc--toc; the slow tapping of a German machine-gun sounds from the direction he had fondly imagined Battalion Head-quarters to be; the swish of bullets come nearer as the Hun sweeps the ground; a flare goes up, showing--holes. Another compulsory descent; a phut! as a bullet pa.s.ses over his head, and the swishing pa.s.ses on. Shortly that swishing will come back, and in the meantime are there not--holes? But as for the front trench, whither he is bound, the contest is unequal. No man can fight--holes.

A further point which is worthy of remark _en pa.s.sant_ may possibly escape the notice of the uninitiated. It is a well-known fact, and will be vouched for by all who have experienced the Somme, that that part of the ground which is not hole is carried, like the unexpended portion of the day's rations, on the person. Acres of soil have been removed from their original abode and have been carried laboriously to other acres. They have then been brought back again; not by boot only, but by hand, and face, by hair and teeth. It is reported--though I will not vouch for the accuracy of the statement--that on one occasion a relieving battalion completely defeated a small German counter-attack by standing on the parapet and kicking viciously towards the advancing Huns. The enormous ma.s.s of soil thus propelled not only crushed the hated foe but effectually buried him. However, that is by the way. We are digressing far from the Sapper and the machine-gun officer who stood by a derelict tank in the damp mist of an October dawn and cogitated on the direction of their particular piece of front line.

"It is amazing," said a voice behind them, "that man can have descended to such a state of congenital idiocy as to do all this to an inoffensive carrot field."

The Brigade-Major, followed by the Brigadier, joined the two officers.

Behind them the signal officer plucked France from his face. And then of a sudden five officers disappeared. A droning roar rose with extreme rapidity to that pitch of loudness that denotes undesirable closeness; a ma.s.s of black fumes and flying mud shot up twenty odd yards away; a flight of c.o.c.kchafers seemed to pa.s.s into the distance as the jagged fragments whizzed overhead--and five faces appeared as suddenly from the ground. Holes have their uses at times.

"This sunken road is always hairy," remarked the signal officer--known to his intimates as Sigs--giving the General a hand-up from his particular lair. "It were unwise to linger, sir."

"Another quarter-mile and we hit Ess.e.x Trench," remarked the Brigade-Major. "Sally's head-quarters are there." The five officers pa.s.sed on, squelching loudly, and once again peace and silence reigned in the sunken road. . . .

And now we come to the princ.i.p.al actors in the drama. Crowded in Ess.e.x Trench, damp with mist, were the men of the South Loamshires. A few were scribbling notes, and an all-pervading smell of frying bacon permeated the air. One or two, wrapped in great-coats, with a mackintosh sheet over them, still slept peacefully--but the whole regiment was stirring into life. The morning of the day had come. To many it was a new experience; to others it was stale--going over the top. But, new or old, not a man but realised that by evening the roll of the regiment would have many gaps; new or old, not a man but realised that his name might be one of those gaps. Just the luck of the game; perhaps nothing, perhaps a Blighty, perhaps . . .

It is well without doubt that the lower the intelligence the less the imagination. To ninety per cent. of these men the situation lost much of its edge; to the remaining ten the edge was sharpened. What is to be is to be, in war as elsewhere. Fatalism as regards one's own prospects is inevitable; essential. But fatalism is an unsatisfying creed; the word "Why?" is apt to creep into the back of a man's mind, and the word "Why?" when the intelligence is low, is a dangerous one.

For the word "Why?" can only be satisfactorily answered by the realisation of the bigness of the issue; by the knowledge that individual effort is imperative if collective success is to be obtained; by the absolute conviction that no man can be a law unto himself. To the ten per cent. these facts were clear; but then, to the ten per cent. the "Why?" was louder. The factor of their composition which said to them "Why?"--clearly and insistently--even as they lay motionless under their coats or outwardly wrangled for bacon and tea--that very factor supplied the answer.

To the thinkers and dreamers there comes at such times the greater knowledge: the knowledge which lifts them above self and the trivialities of their own lives; the knowledge that is almost Divine.

They appreciate the futility--but they realise the necessity. And in their hearts they laugh sardonically as the shadow of Dream's End clouds the sky. The utter futility of it all--the utter necessity now that futility has caught the world. Then they realise the bacon is cold--and curse.

To the ninety per cent. it is not so. Not theirs to reason so acutely, not theirs to care so much; to them the two dominant features of this war--death and boredom--appeal with far less force. For both depend so utterly on imagination in their effect on the individual. Death is only awful in antic.i.p.ation; boredom only an affliction to the keen-witted. So to the ninety, perhaps, the "Why?" does not sound insistently. It is as well, for if the answer is not forthcoming there is danger, as I have said. And one wonders sometimes which cla.s.s produces the best results for the business in hand--the business of slaughtering Huns. . . . The small one that rises to great heights and sinks to great depths, or the big one, the plodders.

But I have digressed again. It is easy to wander into by-paths when the main road is prosaic, and the study of a body of men before an attack--the men who fear and don't show it, the men who fear and try not to show it, the men who don't care a hang what happens--cannot but grip the observer who has eyes to see. Almost does he forget his own allotted part in the drama; the psychology of the thing is too absorbing. And it can only be realised when seen first hand.

Let us leave them there for the time--that battalion of the South Loamshires. Sally--as the C.O. is generally known--has talked with the Brigadier and the Brigade-Major. He knows that zero hour is 11.30 a.m.; he knows his objective--Suffolk Trench; he knows the strong point at its northern end which the sappers are going to consolidate. The Sapper has found his section subaltern and his section nursing coils of barbed wire and shovels, and has been informed with much blasphemy that the guide had lost his way, and the party had been wandering all night.

The machine-gun officer has delivered words of wisdom to various guns'

crews--both Lewis and otherwise--who came under his eagle eye at intervals along the trench. Just the prosaic main road; the details are tedious; the actual orders uninteresting. The attack would either succeed or it would fail; the strong point would either be consolidated or it would not. The orders--the details--are necessary adjuncts to the operation; of no more interest than the arrangements for pulling up the fire curtain. Only if the fire curtain sticks, the play is robbed of much of its natural charm to the onlooker.

"Bring me some more breakfast. That walk gives one the devil of a hunger." The Brigadier was back once more in his dug-out, while, outside, the mist had lifted and the autumn sun shone down on a world of mud.

The Brigade-Major was shaving; the Staff Captain--a non-starter in the morning's walk--was demanding corrugated iron from the unmoved Sapper.

"I tell you this roof is a disgrace. Cascades of water pour through into the soup at dinner. Why don't you do something?"

"What do you propose I should do, brave heart? Sit on the roof and catch it?"

The subject was a complicated one, touching deep problems of supply and demand, to say nothing of carrying parties; so let us leave them to their warfare.

The signal officer was looking wise over something that boomed and buzzed alternately; the machine-gun officer may, or may not, have been enjoying another toothful.

In short, the supers, the stage-managers had departed. The last directions had been given, and the play was due to start in an hour and a quarter. All that could be done for its success had been done by those who were behind; now it was up to the men who sat and sprawled in the mud-holes in front, with the blue smoke of their cigarettes curling upwards and their equipment and rifles stacked beside them.

A desultory bombardment on each side droned stolidly on, while away to the front three British aeroplanes, seemingly come from nowhere, tumbled and looped round two Germans like mosquitoes over a pool. A row of sausage balloons like a barber's rash adorned the sky as far as the eye could see. Just an everyday scene on the Somme, and meanwhile the actors waited.

"Come up to the top. There's ten minutes to go." The Staff Captain and the Sapper--their dispute settled--strolled amicably to the top of the hill behind the dug-out and produced their field-gla.s.ses. Away in front Ess.e.x Trench could be seen, and the men inside it, standing to.

For them the period of suspense was nearly over--the curtain was just going up.

"One minute." The Sapper snapped his watch to and focussed his gla.s.ses. "They're on."

Suddenly from all around, as if touched by a spring, an ear-splitting din leaped into life. In the valley behind them it seemed as if hundreds of tongues of flame were darting and quivering, sprouting from what a moment before was barren ground. The acrid smell of cordite drifted over them, while without cessation there came the solemn boom--boom--boom of the heavier guns way back. Like the _motif_ of an opera, the field-guns and light howitzers cracked and snorted, permeating everything with one continuous blast of sound; while the sonorous roar and rumble of the giant pieces behind--slower, as befitted them--completed the mighty orchestra. Neither man could hear the other speak; but then, they were both watching too intently for that.

Hardly had h.e.l.l been let loose when a line of men arose from Ess.e.x Trench and walked steadily to their front. Just ahead of them great clouds of smoke rose belching from the ground: clouds into which they vanished at times, only to reappear a moment later. They were advancing behind a creeping barrage, and advancing with the steadiness of automatic machines.

"Good lads! Good lads!" The Staff Captain's lips framed the words; his voice was inaudible.

Every now and then a man pitched forward and lay still; or muttered a curse as he felt the sting of something in his arm. A section on the left dropped suddenly, only to worm on again by ones and twos, trying to avoid the dreaded toc-toc--slow and menacing--of a German machine-gun. Then the bombers were there. Crouching back, a man would pull the pin out of his bomb, run forward, and hurl it into the trench where the Germans were huddled in groups. And away behind the South Loamshires, on the sh.e.l.l-pocked ground that now boiled and heaved like some monstrous sulphur spring, with thick black and yellow fumes drifting slowly across it, there lay the first fruits of the harvest: a few of the gaps in the evening's roll-call.

On the flank a machine-gun was going, taking them in enfilade. In front, Germans--numbers of Germans--glared snarling at them out of the trench, or whimpered in a corner with arms upraised, as was the nature of the beasts. A non-commissioned officer picked up a bomb and hurled it at the advancing platoon sergeant; only to cry "_Kamerad_" when it failed to explode. . . .

And so the South Loamshires, or such as were left of them, came to their objective; the first part of the play was over. The machine-gunner who had enfiladed them pa.s.sed in his checks, fighting to the end, brained with the b.u.t.t of a rifle.

Occasionally a wounded man crawled into the trench; a German officer sat sullenly in a corner stanching a gaping hole in his leg. Behind them, towards the Ess.e.x Trench, the air was now clearer; the bombardment had moved over the line they had won, and thundered down on the German communications.