The Amateur Army Part 6

The order was obeyed in haste, the white disappeared rapidly as the arms of the culprit slid into sleeves, and the covering tunic hid his wrong from the eyes of man.

The night wore on. Now and again a clock in the town struck out the time with a dull, weary clang that died away in the darkness. On both sides I could see stretching out, like some gigantic and knotted rope, the row of bent workers, the voiceless toilers, busy with their labours. Picks rose into the air, remained poised a moment, then sank to tear the sluggish earth and pull it apart. The clay was thrown out to front and rear, and scattered evenly, so that the natural contour of the ground might show no signs of man's interference. And even as we worked the section commanders stole up and down behind us, urging the men to make as little sound as possible--our safety depended on our silence. But pick and shovel, like the rifle, will sing at their toil, and insistent and continuous, as if in threat, they rasped out the almost incoherent song of labour.

A man beside me suddenly laid down his shovel and battled with a cough that strove to break free and riot in the darkness. I could see his face go purple, his eyes stare out as if endeavouring to burst from their sockets. Presently he was victor, and as he bent to his shovel again I heard him whisper huskily, "'Twas a stiff go, that; it almost floored me."

Thrown from tongue to tongue as a ball is thrown in play, a message from the captain on the flank hurried along the living line. "Close in on the left," was the order, and we hastened to obey. Trenching tools were unhafted and returned to their carriers, equipments were donned again, belts tightened, and shoulder-straps b.u.t.toned. Singly, in pairs, and in files we hurried back to the point of a.s.sembly, to find a very angry captain awaiting us.

"I am very disappointed with to-night's work," he said. "I sent five messages out; two of them died on the way; a third reached its destination, but in such a muddled condition that it was impossible to recognise it as the one sent off. The order to cease work was the only one that seemed to hurry along. Out at the front, where all orders are pa.s.sed along the trenches in this manner, it is of the utmost importance that every word is repeated distinctly, and that no order miscarries. Even out there, it is found very difficult to send messages along."

The captain paused for a moment; then told a story. "It is said that an officer at the front gave out the following message to the men in the trenches: 'In the wood on the right a party of German cavalry,'

and when the message travelled half a mile it had changed to: 'German Navy defeated in the North Sea.' We don't know how much truth there is in the story, but I hope we will not make a mistake like that out there."

Lagging men were still stealing in as we took up our places in columns of fours. A clock struck out the hour of twelve, and the bird in the hedgerow was still singing as we marched out to the roadway, and followed our merry pipers home to town.

CHAPTER VII

DIVISIONAL EXERCISE AND MIMIC WARFARE

Divisional exercise is a great game of make-believe. All sorts of liberties are taken, the clock is put forward or back at the command of the general, a great enemy army is created in the twinkling of an eye, day is turned into night and a regular game of topsy-turvydom indulged in. On the occasion of which I write the whole division was out. The time was nine o'clock in the forenoon, and an imaginary forced march was nearly completed, and an imaginary day was at an end.

We were being hurried up as reinforcements to the main army, which was in touch with the enemy ahead and an engagement was developing. Our battalion came to a halt on the roadway, closing in to the left in order to give full play to the field telephone service in process of being laid.

Our officers went out in front to seek a position for a bivouac; the doctor accompanied them to examine the place chosen, see to the water supply, the drainage, and sanitation. In addition to this, our commanders had to find the battalion a resting-ground easy to defend and of merit as a tactical position.

At ten o'clock we lay down, battalion after battalion, just as we halted: equipment on, our packs unloosened but shoved up under our heads, and our rifles by our sides, muzzles towards the enemy. One word of command would bring twenty thousand men from their beds, ready in an instant, rifles loaded, bayonets at hips, quick to the route and ready for battle. We would rise, as we slept, in full marching order, and the s.p.a.ce of a moment would find us hurrying, fully armed, into battle, with the sleep of night still heavy in our eyes.

For miles around the soldiers lay down, each in his place and every place occupied. Hardly a word was spoken; commands were whispered, and our officers crept round explaining the work ahead. Two miles in front the enemy was a.s.sembled in great strength on a river, and by dawn, if all went well, we would enter the firing line. At present we had to lie still; no man was to move about, and sentries with fixed bayonets were stationed at front, flank, and rear, ready to give the alarm at the first sign of danger.

Behind us were the kitchen, horse-lines, and latrines. The position of these varies as the wind changes, and it is imperative that unhealthy odours are not blown across the bivouac. The battalion lay in two parallel squares, with a gangway, blocked up with baggage and various necessaries, between. On these squares no refuse was to be thrown down; the ground had to be kept clean; papers, sc.r.a.ps of meat, and pieces of bread, if not eaten, had to be buried.

Even as we lay, and while the officers were explaining the work in hand, the artillery took up its stand on several wooded knolls that rose behind us. What a splendid sight, the artillery going into action! Heavy guns, an endless line of them, swept over the greensward and rattled into place. Six horses strained at each gun, which was accompanied by two ammunition wagons with six horses to each wagon.

How many horses! How many guns! Out of nowhere in particular they came, and disappeared as if behind a curtain barely four hundred yards away. Thirty minutes afterwards I fancied as I looked in their direction that I could see black, ominous muzzles peering through the undergrowth. Probably I was mistaken. Anyhow, they were there, guarding us while we slept, our silent watchers!

About eleven o'clock an orderly stole in and spoke to the colonel, a hurried consultation in which all the officers took part was held, and the messenger departed. Again followed an interval of silence, only broken by the officers creeping round and giving us further information. The enemy was repulsed, they told us, and was now in retreat, but before moving off he had blown up all the bridges on the river. The artillery of our main army in front was sh.e.l.ling the fleeing foe, and our engineers had just set off to build three pontoon bridges, so that the now sleeping division could cross at dawn and follow the army in retreat.

Our dawn came at one o'clock in the afternoon; a whistle was blown somewhere near at hand, and the battalion sprang to life; every unit, with pack on back, cartridge pouches full, rifle at the order, was afoot and ready. Only two hours before had the engineers set out to build the bridges which the whole division, with its regiment after regiment, with its artillery, its guns, ammunition wagons and horses, its transport section, and vehicles of all descriptions, was now to cross. The landscape had changed utterly, the country was alive, and had found voice; the horse-lines were broken, and all the animals, from the colonel's charger to the humble pack horse, were on the move.

The little squares, dotted brown, had taken on new shape, and were transformed into companies of moving men in khaki. We were out on the heels of the retreating foe.

Two hours' forced marching brought us to the river, a real one, with three pontoon bridges, newly built and held firm on flat-bottomed boats moored in mid-stream. We took our way across, and bent to the hill on the other side. Half-way up, in a narrow lane, a wagon got stuck in the front of our battalion, and we were forced to come to a halt for a moment. Looking back, I could see immediately behind three lines of men straining to the hill; farther back the same lines were crossing the bridges and, away in the far distance, pencilled brown on the ploughed fields, the three lines of khaki crawled along like long threads endlessly unwinding from some invisible ball. Now and again I could see the artillery coming into sight, only to disappear again over a wooded knoll or into an almost invisible hollow.

Thus the division, the apparently limitless lines of men, horses, and guns crawled on the track of the fleeing enemy. As we stood there, held in check by the wagon, and as I looked back at the thousands of soldiers in the rear, I felt indeed that I was a minute mite amongst the many. And then a second thought struck me. The whole ma.s.s of men around me was a small thing in relation to the numbers engaged in the great war. Even I, Rifleman Something or Another, No. So-and-so, bulked larger in the division as one of its units than the division did in the war as a unit of the Allied Forces.

Even more interesting than divisional exercises is the mimic warfare that is heralded by a notice in battalion orders such as the following: "The battalion will take part in brigade exercise to-day.

Ten rounds of blank ammunition and haversack rations will be carried."

At eight o'clock in the morning whistles were blown at the bottom of the street in which my company is billeted, and the soldiers, rubbing the sleep from their eyes or munching the last mouthful of a hasty breakfast, came trooping out from the snug middle-cla.s.s houses in which they are quartered. The morning was bitterly cold, and the falling rain splashed soberly on the pavement, every drop coming slowly to ground as if selecting a spot to rest on. The colour-sergeant, standing at the end of the street, whistle in hand, was in a nasty temper.

"Hurry up, you heavy-footed beggars," he yelled to the men. "The parade takes place to-day, not to-morrow! And you, what's wrong with your understandings?" he called to a man who came along wearing carpet slippers.

"My boots are bad, colour," is the answer. "I cannot march in them."

"And are you goin' to march in them drorin'-room abominations?" roared the sergeant. "Get your boots mended and grease out of it."

At roll-call three of the company were found to be absent; two were sick, and one who had been found guilty of using bad language to a N.C.O. was confined to the guard-room. Those who answered their names were served out with packets of blank ammunition, one packet per man, and each containing ten cartridges wrapped in brown paper and tied with a blue string.

The captain read the following instructions: "The enemy is reported to be in strong force on X hill, and Battalions A and B are ordered to dislodge him from that position. A will form first line of attack, B will send up reserves and supports as needed." The rifles were examined by our young lieutenant, after which inspection the company joined the battalion, and presently a thousand men with rifles on shoulder, bayonets and haversacks on left hip, and ammunition in pouches, were marching through the rain along the muddy streets, out into the open country.

The day promised to be an interesting one from my point of view; I had never taken part in a mimic battle before, and the day's work was to be in many ways similar to operations on the real field of battle.

"Only n.o.body gets killed, of course," my mate told me. He had taken part in this kind of work before, and was wise in his superior knowledge.

"One-half of the brigade, two thousand men, is our enemy," he explained; "and we're going to fight them. The battalion that's helping us is on in front, and it will soon be fighting. When it's hard pressed we'll go up to help, for we're the supports. It won't be long till we hear the firing."

An hour's brisk march was followed by a halt, when we were ordered to draw well into the left of the road to let the company guns go by.

Dark-nosed and cold, they wheeled past, the horses sweating as they strained at the carriage shafts; the drivers, by deft handling, pulling the steeds clear of the ruts; out in front they swung, and the battalion closed up and resumed its march behind.

The rain ceased and a cold sun shot feeble rays over the sullen December landscape. Again a halt was called; the brigadier-general, followed by two officers and several orderlies, galloped up, and a hurried consultation with our colonel took place. In a moment the battalion moved ahead only to come to a dead stop again after ten minutes' slow marching, and find a company detailed off to guard the rear. The other companies, led by their officers, turned off the road and moved in sections across the newly furrowed and soggy fields. A level sweep of December England broken only by leafless hedgerows and wire fencing stretched out in front towards a wooded hillock, that stood up black against the sky-line two miles away. The enemy held this wood; we could hear his guns booming and now considered ourselves under sh.e.l.l fire. Each squad of sixteen men marched in the rear or on the flank of its neighbour; this method of progression minimises the dangers of bursting shrapnel, for a sh.e.l.l falling in the midst of one body of men and causing considerable damage will do no harm to the adjacent party.

Somewhere near us our gunners were answering the enemy's fire; but so well hidden were the guns that I could not locate them. We still crept slowly forward; section after section crawled across the black, ploughed fields, now rising up like giant caterpillars to the crest of a mound, and again dropping out of sight in the hollow land like corks on a comber. On our heels the ambulance corps followed with its stretchers, and in front the enemy was firing vigorously; over the belt of trees that lined the summit of the hillock little wisps of smoke could be seen rising and fading in the air.

Suddenly we came into line with our guns hidden in a deep narrow cart-track, their dark muzzles trained on the enemy, and the gunners, knee-deep in the mire of the lane, sweating at their work. "We're under covering fire now," our young lieutenant explained, as we trudged forward, lifting enormous ma.s.ses of clay on our boots at every step. "One battalion is engaged already; hear the shots."

The rifles were barking on the left front; in a moment the reports from that quarter died away, and the right found voice. The men of the first line were in the trenches dug by us a fortnight earlier, and there they would remain, we knew, until their supports came to their aid. Already we pa.s.sed several of them, who were detailed off on the antic.i.p.ated casualty list in the morning. These wore white labels in their b.u.t.tonholes, telling of the nature of their wounds. One label bore the words: "Shot in right shoulder; wound not dangerous." Another read: "Leg blown off," and a third ran: "Flesh wounds in arm and leg."

These men would be taken into the care of the ambulance party when it arrived.

When within fifteen hundred yards of the enemy, the command for extended order advance was given, and the section spread out in one long line, fronting the knoll, with five pace intervals between the men. We were now under rifle-fire, and all further movements forward were made in short sharp rushes, punctuated by halts, during which we lay flat on the ground, our bodies deep in the soft earth, and the rain, which again commenced to fall, wetting us to the skin.

Six hundred yards from the enemy's front we tumbled into the trenches already in possession of Battalion B, and I found myself ankle-deep in mire, beside a unit of another regiment who was enjoying a cigarette and blowing rings of smoke into the air. Although no enemy was visible we got the order to fire, and I discharged three rounds in rapid succession.

"Don't fire, you fool!" said the man who was blowing the smoke rings.

"Them blanks dirty 'orrible, and when you've clean't the clay from your clothes t'night you'll not want to muck about with your rifle.

There's a price for copper, and I always sell my cartridge cases. The first time I came out I fired, but never since."

Several rushes forward followed, and the penultimate hundred yards were covered with fixed bayonets. In this manner we were prepared for any surprise. The enemy replied fitfully to our fire, and we could now see several khaki-clad figures with white hat-bands--the differential symbols--moving backwards and forwards amidst the trees. Presently they disappeared as we worked nearer to their lines. We were now rushing forward, lying down to fire, rising and running only to drop down again and discharge another round. Within fifty yards of the coppice the order to charge was given. A yell, almost fiendish in its intensity, issued from a thousand throats; antic.i.p.ation of the real work which is to be done some day, lent spirit to our rush. In an instant we were in the wood, smashing the branches with our bayonets, thrusting at imaginary enemies, roaring at the top of our voices, and capping a novel fight with a triumphant final.

And our enemies? Having finished their day's work they were now fifteen minutes' march ahead of us on the way back to their rest and rations.

CHAPTER VIII

THE GENERAL INSPECTION AND THE EVERLASTING WAITING

One of our greatest trials is the general inspection, which takes place every month, and once Lord Kitchener inspected the battalion, in company with the division quartered in our town. But that was before I joined. It involves much labour in the way of preparation. On one occasion, midnight the night before, a Friday, found us still busy with our work. My cot-mate was in difficulties with his rifle--the cloth of the pull-through stuck in the barrel, and he could not move it, although he broke a bamboo cane and bent a poker in the attempt.

"It's a case for the armoury," he remarked gloomily. "What a nuisance that ramrods are done away with! We've been at it since eight o'clock, and getting along A1. Now that beastly pull-through!"