The Black Watch Part 9

We must have been out for over two hours, before we neared the German position. At last we could hear an occasional mumbling of hushed voices, and make out the dim outline of wire entanglements. The German position seemed to be on a little plateau.

While we were lying on our bellies, my partner could turn his face and look at me, but neither of us dared utter a word.

Fifteen minutes seemed like a century. I was more used to it than my partner, but even at that I must admit that I was as nervous as a man that is about to have a death sentence p.r.o.nounced on him. It is the feeling that possesses every man that patrols "No Man's Land."

I motioned to Lawson, and we crawled away like worms that had been overlooked by a hungry crow. We reached our trenches quickly after getting into the broken ground; it was not until we had actually entered them that he opened his mouth. Then, approaching his friend, Donald, he demanded his f.a.gs. In a whisper, he triumphantly announced that we had been near enough to hear the Germans talking in their trenches.

I went to our officer and reported.

It was in the morning after "stand down," when our rum issue had been pa.s.sed, that we learned what the racket had been the previous night. The Germans had tried a night attack on the King's Royal Rifles.

The morning was cold and misty. It was easy to see that we were about six hundred yards from Fritz's trenches, and that his, like ours, were on slightly higher ground than that which lay between the lines. There was a farm house here and there, behind us.

I could see a line of trenches on either flank but the one on the right was most easily perceptible. There was an open s.p.a.ce at the end of our battalion line on the right flank, and our left flank was bent back slightly. We also learned that we had moved into this position without the Huns knowing that we were near. I could see the boche balloons some distance behind the enemy lines.

CHAPTER TEN

It was still morning when it was reported by one of our look-out men, who had been scanning the boche lines with a pair of field gla.s.ses (only his head showing above the top of the trench made for observation purposes), that the Germans were walking about the tops of their trenches in a careless fashion.

Naturally some of the last batch of men to join us wanted to have a pop at them, but our officers said no--to let sleeping dogs lie. Most of us peeped over and saw them. Doing so, my eye caught a large number that had concentrated behind a mound to our right front--directly in advance of the English troops that held a section of trenches on our right flank. I should judge that there were about a hundred of the enemy,--some holding up white handkerchiefs in the lead, and a ma.s.s of them a little distance behind. My heart was in my throat, and I wondered whether the K. R. R.'s were aware of their presence. I had heard stories of Germans with flags of truce. But so, evidently, had the commanders of the Rifles, for soon there was enacted before me a tragedy which I shall never forget.

About one hundred of the Rifles went forward to bring in this batch of Germans who were advancing apparently to surrender. They advanced very slowly and cautiously. Just when they were within short range, the Germans in front, bearing white flags but no arms, threw themselves onto the ground, machine guns began firing over their heads and those with rifles began firing point blank into the ranks of the British.

The K. R. R.'s were ready for them. They opened up like a fan, their machine guns and rifles began crashing and the Huns were thrown into confusion. They dropped like clay pipes in a shooting gallery. The crews of the boche machine guns were picked off by the riflemen, and the K. R.

R.'s machine guns kept on pouring lead into the ma.s.s. It was dreadful! I saw piles of Huns, dead and wounded, the latter waving like a shock of hay with some one underneath it trying to get out. Their officers, in the rear, shot down man after man who tried to run. They drove them forward like bullocks to the slaughter, for many of the Germans were too confused to shoot and scores had thrown away their rifles. Suddenly the K. R. R.'s machine guns became silent. For a few seconds the rifle fire became faster and more furious. Then it stopped. Steel bayonets glinted as the K. R.

R.'s charged. There was no mercy shown. There were no prisoners taken. Of the five thousand Germans, who had gone out to do murder in cold blood, I do not believe five hundred got away. They were practically annihilated.

The bayonets finished the work that the machine guns and rifles had started. What would you have? Men would not spare a nest of venomous snakes. It was a just retribution, but my stomach turned at it. None who had not seen it could even picture the sight.

For the next few days we had it "cushy," except for boche shrapnel showering our trenches at intervals, daily.

The cold, however, had increased enough to cause much discomfort. It was always cold, and especially so when there was a fierce wind and the rain drenched us. It was the common thing for the men to be up to their knees in water and slush.

We had been almost two weeks in this position when we noticed queer happenings in a farm house a few hundred yards behind our lines. The watchfulness of our officers revealed the significance of some apparently trifling things.

In the daytime, the shade on a window facing the German line would frequently be moved. Sometimes it would be drawn the full length of the window; then, if the German artillery had been pounding away at our right flank, immediately it would switch in the direction of our batteries.

Sometimes the shade would be only half way down. More than once I saw a woman at this same window; and sometimes she would be leading a cow about some distance behind our lines. At night a light would be seen now and again moving past the window.

Agents of the British Intelligence Department, summoned to the front by our officers, discovered that a complete system of signalling was carried on between the people in the isolated farm house and the Germans. Three men and a woman were marched out of the house and taken away. After that, our concealed batteries, in new positions, hadn't a single casualty for days, whereas, previously, they had been almost constantly under heavy and accurate fire!

During the few days following the "white flag" affair, when the boches'

sh.e.l.ling was not quite so steady, we pa.s.sed our time playing cards.

Occasionally one of the fellows, who had split a piece of wood at one end, would insert a card in it and hold it over the parapet. Nine times out of ten a German sniper--there were many of them in the vicinity--would put a hole in it with a bullet.

These snipers caused us a great deal of trouble, particularly when we wanted water, which was procurable only at a little brook on our left flank. To get it was such a risky proposition that there were no "detail parties" formed in the daytime, and any one who went in quest of it, did so at his own risk. Many a one who did so venture paid for his daring with his life. The snipers were always busy, even at night, and seemed to have a line on this spot.

A few of the fellows, rather than risk going to the brook, filled their water bottles from a duck pond--full of a dirty, green, slimy liquid--situated behind our line. The result was sickness to most of those that drank it and nearly all had to be sent to hospital.

Late one afternoon our section (thirteen men) was all together. Four of us were playing cards in an effort at distraction, for we were nearly insane from the lack of drinking water. For two days we had had to eat our bully beef and biscuits dry. We made it up that we should play a game of "phat"

(a common card game among the Tommies), and that the one with the lowest count would have to take the section's water bottles and fill them at the brook. This--to use a Yankee expression--was a "cinch" for me, or at least I thought so at the beginning of the game; and so did the others, who, because of my record as a winner at the game were of the opinion that I couldn't lose.

However, toward the middle of the game I became nervous. So far I had taken only two tricks. Things got worse as the playing progressed, and it wound up with me the loser.

Without a word, they collected the thirteen bottles and hung them on my left shoulder like decorations on a Christmas tree.

Silently I made off. I reached the brook without mishap.

I had almost half of the bottles filled when--zip--a bullet struck very close to me. I tumbled into the water, pulling the bottles with me, and, in a lying position, continued filling them. This was not what one might call a comfortable or a convenient position in which to fill water bottles. They filled very slowly indeed.

As soon as they were full, I placed them on my shoulders; rose, dripping, from the water; and made for our line. I had not gone more than twenty paces when a bullet struck close at my heels. I jumped and looked upward, hoping to fool the sniper into thinking he was firing too high, causing him to set his sight for a shorter range. The next shot fell shorter still. I looked up again and hastened my pace. A third shot visibly struck a rock and enabled the sniper to correct his range.

Almost immediately after came another bullet, which I knew had got something about me. Instantly I flopped down and lay still. There was more scattered firing from the German lines and I was trembling with "nerves."

At last, I could not stand it longer. I was afraid the sniper would fire at me again--not an uncommon practice with the boche sniper, who, when he drops his man, usually sends over a make-sure shot. So I sprang to my feet and rushed for the trenches, arriving there in safety.

When I got into our section I found my pals sitting around and looking very gloomy. Upon seeing me they greeted me with:

"Ye've been a h---- o' a time awa'. We were juist beginnin' tae think we'd lost our watter bottles."

When I unloaded my cargo I found that two of the bottles had been pierced by a bullet. Each man of the section made a thirsty effort to lay hands on his own bottle. I was left with the two damaged ones besides my own. Then they told me how a sh.e.l.l had exploded and killed two of the card players--the owners of the damaged bottles. The water that was left in these was distributed among the others.

Patrol work, mostly at night, continued to be my chief duty. On one occasion I lost my bearings, and presently found myself almost upon one of the boche listening posts.

"So long as I have come thus far, I will edge in and take a chance," I said to myself.

I knew it would be almost as dangerous to go back as to go forward, for at any moment a man might crane his neck above the parapet, see me moving, and fire. Then there was the momentary chance that a star bomb would light the heavens and all the earth between the lines, in which case a thousand rifles would begin sputtering at everything that moved or seemed to be alive. Each second I expected it to come. My nerves felt as if they were drawn taut--taut as the barbed wire which the boches string so tight that if it is cut in the night it will tw.a.n.g like the string of a violin. But the quick shot in the night did not come, and I wriggled forward through the wire.

I was almost at the edge of the parapet of the listening post. I heard voices whispering in German. Some one was scrambling up over the parapet.

How was I to get away? I could not, so I lay on my belly and buried my face in the earth--the earth which should be wholesome and life giving, but which stunk with unspeakable things.

Three heads appeared above the parapet. Shoulders followed, and cautiously a patrol of three men wriggled out from the listening post and then separated. One of them, in getting out, slipped, and I could hear him "strafing" under his breath, as he vanished into the night. Another head thrust itself above the parapet. I was sure a pair of eyes were staring at me, though I could not see them in the dark.

Once more I lay as if dead. "What's the difference?" I thought; in a few moments, probably, I would be, and then I should not mind the sight or the odour of what was around me.

The man in the listening post reached down for something at his feet. I was sure that he was going to hurl a grenade in my direction. Something came hurtling through the air. I sunk my teeth into my lip to keep from crying out, and wondered how the explosion would feel--whether there was any anguish in being torn to bits instantaneously. The dark object plumped onto the ground at my side and b.u.mped against my ribs. How long it took for it to explode! Then I knew it was only a stone. I continued to lie as still as one dead.

Another stone struck my shoulders. The sentry did not wish to rouse the whole line and start a wastage of ammunition by causing a thousand rounds or so to be fired uselessly into the night, as would probably be the case should he discharge his rifle or throw a grenade. He crawled up over the parapet and wriggled toward me. I tried to prepare myself to spring up when the time came, but I dared not so much as move a foot to get a better grip on the ground. He himself did not dare to rise. He knew that his silhouette would draw fire from the trenches. It would be like a battle between snakes, both of us on the ground there, fighting each other on our bellies.

I saw the dull gleam of his bayonet. Still I did not dare to let him know I was alive. He was only inches from me. I could hear his deep breathing.

He was not sure whether or not I was a corpse, but he was going to take no chances. He lunged with the steel. I managed to jam the b.u.t.t of my rifle against his head. It disconcerted him, but there was not enough force behind the blow, struck from my awkward position, to stun him. He rolled upon me. I felt for his throat. He was a big, greasy boche and my fingers could scarcely encircle his neck, but I squeezed and squeezed, for my life depended upon my eight fingers and my two thumbs. If I did not throttle him, he would kill me.

He was getting weaker. I felt his muscles relax. I could see his eyes. I do not think I shall ever forget them. They bulged from their sockets and it seemed that they would pop from his head and strike me in the face. It sickened me, but it was his life or mine. He was clawing frantically but weakly. Now he was still. It was brutal, but war is brutal.

After emptying his pockets I crawled to the edge of the dugout listening post. Inside were three men, two lying in the bottom of the hole, the third sitting with his back against the wall of the excavation. The boche I had just left probably had disobeyed orders in crawling out without awakening one of them. The error cost him his life and saved mine.

For a second as I peered over the edge of the hole I had thoughts of a daring deed, but it was better to get back to our lines with the contents of the first man's pockets, which no doubt afforded information for our staff, and so I returned--battered and torn and exhausted.