Now It Can Be Told Part 41

I remember the noise of our guns as all our batteries took their parts in a vast orchestra of drumfire. The tumult of the fieldguns merged into thunderous waves. Behind me a fifteen-inch "Grandmother" fired single strokes, and each one was an enormous shock. Sh.e.l.ls were rushing through the air like droves of giant birds with beating wings and with strange wailings. The German lines were in eruption. Their earthworks were being tossed up, and fountains of earth sprang up between columns of smoke, black columns and white, which stood rigid for a few seconds and then sank into the banks of fog. Flames gushed up red and angry, rending those banks of mist with strokes of lightning. In their light I saw trees falling, branches tossed like twigs, black things hurtling through s.p.a.ce. In the night before the battle, when that bombardment had lasted several days and nights, the fury was intensified. Red flames darted hither and thither like little red devils as our trench mortars got to work. Above the slogging of the guns there were louder, earth-shaking noises, and volcanoes of earth and fire spouted as high as the clouds. One convulsion of this kind happened above Usna Hill, with a long, terrifying roar and a monstrous gush of flame.

"What is that?" asked some one.

"It must be the mine we charged at La Boisselle. The biggest that has ever been."

It was a good guess. When, later in the battle, I stood by the crater of that mine and looked into its gulf I wondered how many Germans had been hurled into eternity when the earth had opened. The grave was big enough for a battalion of men with horses and wagons, below the chalk of the crater's lips. Often on the way to Bapaume I stepped off the road to look into that white gulf, remembering the moment when I saw the gust of flame that rent the earth about it.

VII

There was the illusion of victory on that first day of the Somme battles, on the right of the line by Fricourt, and it was not until a day or two later that certain awful rumors I had heard from wounded men and officers who had attacked on the left up by Gommecourt, Thiepval, and Serre were confirmed by certain knowledge of tragic disaster on that side of the battle-line.

The illusion of victory, with all the price and pain of it, came to me when I saw the German rockets rising beyond the villages of Mametz and Montauban and our barrage fire lifting to a range beyond the first lines of German trenches, and our support troops moving forward in ma.s.ses to captured ground. We had broken through! By the heroic a.s.sault of our English and Scottish troops. West Yorks, Yorks and Lancs, Lincolns, Durhams, Northumberland Fusiliers, Norfolks and Berkshires, Liverpools, Manchesters, Gordons, and Royal Scots, all those splendid men I had seen marching to their lines. We had smashed through the ramparts of the German fortress, through that maze of earthworks and tunnels which had appalled me when I saw them on the maps, and over which I had gazed from time to time from our front-line trenches when those places seemed impregnable. I saw crowds of prisoners coming back under escort, fifteen hundred had been counted in the first day, and they had the look of a defeated army. Our lightly wounded men, thousands of them, were shouting and laughing as they came down behind the lines, wearing German caps and helmets. From Amiens civilians straggled out along the roads as far as they were allowed by military police, and waved hands and cheered those boys of ours. "Vive l'Angleterre!" cried old men, raising their hats. Old women wept at the sight of those gay wounded, the lightly touched, glad of escape, rejoicing in their luck and in the glory of life which was theirs still and cried out to them with shrill words of praise and exultation.

"Nous les aurons les sales Boches! Ah, ils sont foutus, ces bandits! C'est la victoire, grace a vous, pet.i.ts soldats anglais!"

Victory! The spirit of victory in the hearts of fighting men, and of women excited by the sight of those bandaged heads, those bare, brawny arms splashed with blood, those laughing heroes.

It looked like victory, in those days, as war correspondents, we were not so expert in balancing the profit and loss as afterward we became. When I went into Fricourt on the third day of battle, after the last Germans, who had clung on to its ruins, had been cleared out by the Yorkshires and Lincolns of the 21st Division, that division which had been so humiliated at Loos and now was wonderful in courage, and when the Manchesters and Gordons of the 30th Division had captured Montauban and repulsed fierce counter-attacks.

It looked like victory, because of the German dead that lay there in their battered trenches and the filth and stench of death over all that mangled ground, and the enormous destruction wrought by our guns, and the fury of fire which we were still pouring over the enemy's lines from batteries which had moved forward.

I went down flights of steps into German dugouts, astonished by their depth and strength. Our men did not build like this. This German industry was a rebuke to us, yet we had captured their work and the dead bodies of their laborers lay in those dark caverns, killed by our bombers, who had flung down handgrenades. I drew back from those fat corpses. They looked monstrous, lying there crumpled up, amid a foul litter of clothes, stickbombs, old boots, and bottles. Groups of dead lay in ditches which had once been trenches, flung into chaos by that bombardment I had seen. They had been bayoneted. I remember one man, an elderly fellow sitting up with his back to a bit of earth with his hands half raised. He was smiling a little, though he had been stabbed through the belly and was stone dead. Victory! some of the German dead were young boys, too young to be killed for old men's crimes, and others might have been old or young. One could not tell, because they had no faces, and were just ma.s.ses of raw flesh in rags and uniforms. Legs and arms lay separate, without any bodies thereabouts.

Outside Montauban there was a heap of our own dead. Young Gordons and Manchesters of the 30th Division, they had been caught by blasts of machinegun fire, but our dead seemed scarce in the places where I walked.

Victory? Well, we had gained some ground, and many prisoners, and here and there some guns. But as I stood by Montauban I saw that our line was a sharp salient looped round Mametz village and then dipping sharply southward to Fricourt. O G.o.d! had we only made another salient after all that monstrous effort? To the left there was fury at La Boisselle, where a few broken trees stood black on the skyline on a chalky ridge. Storms of German shrapnel were bursting there, and machineguns were firing in spasms. In Contalmaison, round a chateau which stood high above ruined houses, sh.e.l.ls were bursting with thunderclaps, our sh.e.l.ls. German gunners in invisible batteries were sweeping our lines with barrage fire, it roamed up and down this side of Montauban Wood, just ahead of me, and now and then sh.e.l.ls smashed among the houses and barns of Fricourt, and over Mametz there was suddenly a hurricane of "hate." Our men were working like ants in those muck heaps, a battalion moved up toward Boisselle. From a ridge above Fricourt, where once I had seen a tall crucifix between two trees, which our men called the "Poodles," a body of men came down and shrapnel burst among them and they fell and disappeared in tall gra.s.s. Stretcher bearers came slowly through Fricourt village with living burdens. Some of them were German soldiers carrying our wounded and their own. Walking wounded hobbled slowly with their arms round each other's shoulders, Germans and English together. A boy in a steel hat stopped me and held up a b.l.o.o.d.y hand. "A bit of luck!" he said. "I'm off, after eighteen months of it."

German prisoners came down with a few English soldiers as their escort. I saw distant groups of them, and a sh.e.l.l smashed into one group and scattered it. The living ran, leaving their dead. Ambulances driven by daring fellows drove to the far edge of Fricourt, not a healthy place, and loaded up with wounded from a dressing station in a tunnel there.

It was a wonderful picture of war in all its filth and shambles. But was it Victory? I knew then that it was only a breach in the German bastion, and that on the left, Gommecourt way, there had been black tragedy.

VIII

On the left, where the 8th and 10th Corps were directing operations, the a.s.sault had been delivered by the 4th, 29th, 36th, 49th, 32nd, 8th, and 56th Divisions.

The positions in front of them were Gommecourt and Beaumont Hamel on the left side of the River Ancre, and Thiepval Wood on the right side of the Ancre leading up to Thiepval Chateau on the crest of the cliff. These were the hardest positions to attack, because of the rising ground and the immense strength of the enemy's earthworks and tunneled defenses. But our generals were confident that the gun power at their disposal was sufficient to smash down that defensive system and make an easy way through for the infantry. They were wrong. In spite of that tornado of sh.e.l.l-fire which I had seen tearing up the earth, many tunnels were still unbroken, and out of them came ma.s.ses of German machine-gunners and riflemen, when our infantry rose from their own trenches on that morning of July 1st.

Our guns had shifted their barrage forward at that moment, farther ahead of the infantry than was afterward allowed, the men being trained to follow close to the lines of bursting sh.e.l.ls, trained to expect a number of casualties from their own guns-it needs some training-in order to secure the general safety gained by keeping the enemy below ground until our bayonets were round his dugouts.

The Germans had been trained, too, to an act of amazing courage. Their discipline, that immense power of discipline which dominates men in the ma.s.s, was strong enough to make them obey the order to rush through that barrage of ours, that advancing wall of explosion and, if they lived through it, to face our men in the open with ma.s.sed machine-gun fire. So they did; and as English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh battalions of our a.s.saulting divisions trudged forward over what had been No Man's Land, machine-gun bullets sprayed upon them, and they fell like gra.s.s to the scythe. Line after line of men followed them, and each line crumpled, and only small groups and single figures, seeking comradeship, hurried forward. German machine-gunners were bayoneted as their thumbs were still pressed to their triggers. In German front-line trenches at the bottom of Thiepval Wood, outside Beaumont Hamel and on the edge of Gommecourt Park, the field-gray men who came out of their dugouts fought fiercely with stick-bombs and rifles, and our officers and men, in places where they had strength enough, clubbed them to death, stuck them with bayonets, and blew their brains out with revolvers at short range. Then those English and Irish and Scottish troops, grievously weak because of all the dead and wounded behind them, struggled through to the second German line, from which there came a still fiercer rattle of machine-gun and rifle-fire. Some of them broke through that line, too, and went ahead in isolated parties across the wild crater land, over chasms and ditches and fallen trees, toward the highest ground, which had been their goal. Nothing was seen of them. They disappeared into clouds of smoke and flame. Gunner observers saw rockets go up in far places-our rockets-showing that outposts had penetrated into the German lines. Runners came back-survivors of many predecessors who had fallen on the way-with scribbled messages from company officers. One came from the Ess.e.x and King's Own of the 4th Division, at a place called Pendant Copse, southeast of Serre. "For G.o.d's sake send us bombs." It was impossible to send them bombs. No men could get to them through the deep barrage of sh.e.l.l-fire which was between them and our supporting troops. Many tried and died.

The Ulster men went forward toward Beaumont Hamel with a grim valor which was reckless of their losses. Beaumont Hamel was a German fortress. Machine-gun fire raked every yard of the Ulster way. Hundreds of the Irish fell. I met hundreds of them wounded-tall, strong, powerful men, from Queen's Island and Belfast factories, and Tyneside Irish and Tyneside Scots.

"They gave us no chance," said one of them-a sergeant-major. "They just murdered us."

But bunches of them went right into the heart of the German positions, and then found behind them crowds of Germans who had come up out of their tunnels and flung bombs at them. Only a few came back alive in the darkness.

Into Thiepval Wood men of ours smashed their way through the German trenches, not counting those who fell, and killing any German who stood in their way. Inside that wood of dead trees and charred branches they reformed, astonished at the fewness of their numbers. Germans coming up from holes in the earth attacked them, and they held firm and took two hundred prisoners. Other Germans came closing in like wolves, in packs, and to a German officer who said, "Surrender!" our men shouted, "No surrender!" and fought in Thiepval Wood until most were dead and only a few wounded crawled out to tell that tale.

The Londoners of the 56th Division had no luck at all. Theirs was the worst luck because, by a desperate courage in a.s.sault, they did break through the German lines at Gommecourt. Their left was held by the London Rifle Brigade. The Rangers and the Queen Victoria Rifles-the old "Vics "-formed their center. Their right was made up by the London Scottish, and behind came the Queen's Westminsters and the Kensingtons, who were to advance through their comrades to a farther objective. Across a wide No Man's Land they suffered from the bursting of heavy crumps, and many fell. But they escaped annihilation by machine-gun fire and stormed through the upheaved earth into Gommecourt Park, killing many Germans and sending back batches of prisoners. They had done what they had been asked to do, and started building up barricades of earth and sand-bags, and then found they were in a death-trap. There were no troops on their right or left. They had thrust out into a salient, which presently the enemy saw. The German gunners, with deadly skill, boxed it round with sh.e.l.l-fire, so that the Londoners were inclosed by explosive walls, and then very slowly and carefully drew a line of bursting sh.e.l.ls up and down, up and down that captured ground, ravaging its earth anew and smashing the life that crouched there-London life.

I have written elsewhere (in The Battles of the Somme) how young officers and small bodies of these London men held the barricades against German attacks while others tried to break a way back through that murderous sh.e.l.l-fire, and how groups of lads who set out on that adventure to their old lines were shattered so that only a few from each group crawled back alive, wounded or unwounded.

At the end of the day the Germans acted with chivalry, which I was not allowed to tell at the time. The general of the London Division (Philip Howell) told me that the enemy sent over a message by a low-flying airplane, proposing a truce while the stretcher-bearers worked, and offering the service of their own men in that work of mercy. This offer was accepted without reference to G.H.Q., and German stretcher-bearers helped to carry our wounded to a point where they could be reached.

Many, in spite of that, remained lying out in No Man's Land, some for three or four days and nights. I met one man who lay out there wounded, with a group of comrades more badly hurt than he was, until July 6th. At night he crawled over to the bodies of the dead and took their water-bottles and "iron" rations, and so brought drink and food to his stricken friends. Then at last he made his way through roving sh.e.l.ls to our lines and even then asked to lead the stretcher-bearers who volunteered on a search-party for his "pals."

"Physical courage was very common in the war," said a friend of mine who saw nothing of war. "It is proved that physical courage is the commonest quality of mankind, as moral courage is the rarest." But that soldier's courage was spiritual, and there were many like him in the battles of the Somme and in other later battles as tragic as those.

IX

I have told how, before "The Big Push," as we called the beginning of these battles, little towns of tents were built under the sign of the Red Cross. For a time they were inhabited only by medical officers, nurses, and orderlies, busily getting ready for a sudden invasion, and spending their surplus energy, which seemed inexhaustible, on the decoration of their camps by chalk-lined paths, red crosses painted on canvas or built up in red and white chalk on leveled earth, and flowers planted outside the tents-all very pretty and picturesque in the sunshine and the breezes over the valley of the Somme.

On the morning of battle the doctors, nurses, and orderlies waited for their patients and said, "Now we shan't be long!" They were merry and bright with that wonderful cheerfulness which enabled them to face the tragedy of mangled manhood without horror, and almost, it seemed, without pity, because it was their work, and they were there to heal what might be healed. It was with a rush that their first cases came, and the M.O.'s whistled and said, "Ye G.o.ds! how many more?" Many more. The tide did not slacken. It became a spate brought down by waves of ambulances. Three thousand wounded came to Daours on the Somme, three thousand to Corbie, thousands to Dernancourt, Heilly, Puchevillers, Toutencourt, and many other "clearing stations."

At Daours the tents were filled to overflowing, until there was no more room. The wounded were laid down on the gra.s.s to wait their turn for the surgeon's knife. Some of them crawled over to hayc.o.c.ks and covered themselves with hay and went to sleep, as I saw them sleeping there, like dead men. Here and there sh.e.l.l-shocked boys sat weeping or moaning, and shaking with an ague. Most of the wounded were quiet and did not give any groan or moan. The lightly wounded sat in groups, telling their adventures, cursing the German machine-gunners. Young officers spoke in a different way, and with that sporting spirit which they had learned in public schools praised their enemy.

"The machine-gunners are wonderful fellows-topping. Fight until they're killed. They gave us h.e.l.l."

Each man among those thousands of wounded had escaped death a dozen times or more by the merest flukes of luck. It was this luck of theirs which they hugged with a kind of laughing excitement.

"It's a marvel I'm here! That sh.e.l.l burst all round me. Killed six of my pals. I've got through with a blighty wound. No bones broken... G.o.d! What luck!"

The death of other men did not grieve them. They could not waste this sense of luck in pity. The escape of their own individuality, this possession of life, was a glorious thought. They were alive! What luck! What luck!

We called the hospital at Corbie the "Butcher's Shop." It was in a pretty spot in that little town with a big church whose tall white towers looked down a broad sweep of the Somme, so that for miles they were a landmark behind the battlefields. Behind the lines during those first battles, but later, in 1918, when the enemy came nearly to the gates of Amiens, a stronghold of the Australians, who garrisoned it and sniped pigeons for their pots off the top of the towers, and took no great notice of "whizz-bangs" which broke through the roofs of cottages and barns. It was a safe, snug place in July of '16, but that Butcher's Shop at a corner of the square was not a pretty spot. After a visit there I had to wipe cold sweat from my forehead, and found myself trembling in a queer way. It was the medical officer-a colonel-who called it that name. "This is our Butcher's Shop," he said, cheerily. "Come and have a look at my cases. They're the worst possible; stomach wounds, compound fractures, and all that. We lop off limbs here all day long, and all night. You've no idea!"

I had no idea, but I did not wish to see its reality. The M.O. could not understand my reluctance to see his show. He put it down to my desire to save his time-and explained that he was going the rounds and would take it as a favor if I would walk with him. I yielded weakly, and cursed myself for not taking to flight. Yet, I argued, what men are brave enough to suffer I ought to have the courage to see... I saw and sickened.

These were the victims of "Victory" and the red fruit of war's harvest-fields. A new batch of "cases" had just arrived. More were being brought in on stretchers. They were laid down in rows on the floor-boards. The colonel bent down to some of them and drew their blankets back, and now and then felt a man's pulse. Most of them were unconscious, breathing with the hard snuffle of dying men. Their skin was already darkening to the death-tint, which is not white. They were all plastered with a gray clay and this mud on their faces was, in some cases, mixed with thick clots of blood, making a hard incrustation from scalp to chin.

"That fellow won't last long," said the M. O., rising from a stretcher. "Hardly a heart-beat left in him. Sure to die on the operating-table if he gets as far as that... Step back against the wall a minute, will you?"

We flattened ourselves against the pa.s.sage wall while ambulance-men brought in a line of stretchers. No sound came from most of those bundles under the blankets, but from one came a long, agonizing wail, the cry of an animal in torture.

"Come through the wards," said the colonel. "They're pretty bright, though we could do with more s.p.a.ce and light."