The Pomp of Yesterday Part 16

Not that we had it all our own way, although our artillery was superior to that of the enemy. If we had located their positions, so had they located ours, and their sh.e.l.ls fell thick and fast along our lines, decimating our ranks.

How long we had waited, I don't know. We knew by the artillery preparations that the command for advance must soon come, and we crouched there, some quivering with excitement, others cracking jokes and telling stories, and most of the men smoking cigarettes, until the word of command should pa.s.s down the line. We knew what it meant. It was true our barrage would make it comparatively safe; but we knew, too, that many of the lads who were joking with each other, and telling stories of what they did in pre-war days, would never see England again, while many more, if they went back, would go back mutilated and maimed for life. Still, it was all in the day's work. The Boches had to be beaten, and whatever might happen to us we must finish our job.

The soldiers talked calmly about it, and even joked.

'Think your number's up, Bill?'

'I don't know. I've been home to Blighty twice. Perhaps I shan't have such good luck next time. But what's the odds? We're giving Fritz a rare old time.'

'Fritz ain't got no more fight in him.'

'Don't you be so sure of that, old c.o.c.k. Fritz is chained to his guns, that's what _he_ is.'

'Is it true the Kaiser and old Hindenburg have come up to see this job, I wonder? Wouldn't I just like to take 'em prisoners!'

And so on, minute after minute, while the heavens and the earth were full of the messengers of death.

The command to go over came at length, and I heard a cheer pa.s.s down the line. It sounded strangely amid the booming of the guns, and the voices of the men seemed small. All the same, it was hearty and confident. Many of them, I knew, would have a sense of relief at getting out into the open, and feel that they were no longer like rabbits in their burrows. Helter, skelter, we went across the open ground, some carelessly and indifferently, others with stern, set faces. Here one cracked a joke with his pal, while there another stopped suddenly, staggered, and fell.

The ground, I remember, was flat just there, and I could see a long way down the line, men struggling across the open s.p.a.ce. There was no suggestion of military precision, that is in the ordinary sense of the word, yet in another there was. Each man was ready, and each man had that strange light in his eyes which no pen can describe.

We took the first trench without difficulty. The few Germans who remained were dazed, bewildered, and eager to surrender. They came up out of their dug-outs, their arms uplifted, piteously crying for mercy.

'All right, Fritz, old c.o.c.k, we won't hurt you! You don't deserve it.

But there, I suppose you had to do what you was told.'

Now and then, however, no mercy was shown. Many of the machine-gunners held up one hand, and cried for mercy, while with the other they worked the guns. However, the first line of trenches was taken, a great many prisoners captured, and then came the more difficult and dangerous business. The second line must be taken as well as the first, and the second line was our objective.

By this time we did not know where we were, and we were so mixed up that we didn't know to what battalion or regiment we belonged. In the gigantic struggle, extending for miles, there was no possibility of keeping together. The one thing was to drive the Germans out of the second line of trenches, or better still to make them prisoners. But every inch of ground became more dangerous. German sh.e.l.ls were blowing up the ground around us, and decimating our advancing forces.

It was here that I thought my number was up. A sh.e.l.l exploded a few yards from me, shook the ground under my feet, threw me into the air, and half buried me in the _debris_. It was one of those moments when it seemed as though every man was for himself, and when, in the mad carnage, it was impossible to realize what had happened to each other.

I was stunned by the explosion, and how long I lay in that condition I don't know.

When I became conscious, I felt as though my head were going to burst, while a sense of helplessness possessed me. Then I realized that, while my legs were buried, my head was in the open. Painfully and with difficulty I extricated myself, and then, scarcely realizing what I was doing, I staggered along in the direction in which I thought my boys had gone.

Evening was now beginning to fall, and I had lost my whereabouts.

Meanwhile, there was no cessation in the roar of artillery. As I struggled along, I saw, not fifty yards away, a group of men. And then I heard, coming through the air, that awful note which cannot be described. It was a whine, a yell, a moan, a shriek, all in one.

Beginning on a lower note, it rose higher and higher, then fell again, and suddenly a huge explosive dropped close where the men stood. A moment later, a great ma.s.s of stuff went up, forming a tremendous mushroom-shaped body of earth. When it subsided, a curly cloud of smoke filled the air. I was sick and bewildered by what I had pa.s.sed through, and could scarcely realize the purport of what I had just seen. But presently I saw a man digging, digging, as if for his life.

Half mad, and bewildered, I made my way towards him. In different stages of consciousness I saw several soldiers lying. When I arrived close to the spot, I recognized the digger. It was Paul Edgec.u.mbe.

Never did I see a man work as he worked. It seemed as though he possessed the strength of three, while all the energy of his being was devoted to the rescue of some one who lay beneath the heap of _debris_.

In a bewildered sort of way I realized the situation. Evidently the enemy had located it as an important spot, for sh.e.l.l after sh.e.l.l dropped near by, while the men who had so far recovered their senses as to be able to get away, crawled into the sh.e.l.l hole.

'Come in here, you madman!' one man said. 'You can't get him out, and you'll only get killed.'

But Paul Edgec.u.mbe kept on digging, heedless of flying bullets, heedless of death.

'He can't get him out,' said a soldier to me in a dazed sort of way; 'he's buried, that's what he is.'

'Who is it?' I asked.

'Captain Springfield,' replied the man. 'Come in here,' he shouted to Edgec.u.mbe, 'that fellow ain't worth it!'

Scarcely realizing what I was doing, and so weak that I could hardly walk, I crawled nearer to my friend.

'You have a hopeless task there,' I remember saying. 'Leave it, and get into the hole there.'

'Is that you, Lus...o...b..? I shall save him, I am sure I shall. I was buried once myself, so I know what it means. There, I have got him!'

He threw down the tool with which he was digging, and with his hands pulled away the stones and earth which lay over the body.

I don't quite recollect what took place after that. I have a confused remembrance of lying in the sh.e.l.l hole, while the tornado went on. I seemed to see, as in a dream, batches of soldiers pa.s.s by me in the near distance; some of them Germans, while others were our own men.

Everything was confused, unreal. Even now I could not swear to what took place,--what I thought I saw and heard may not be in fact a reality at all, but only phantoms of the mind. Flesh and blood, and nerves and brain were utterly exhausted, and although I was not wounded, I was more dead than alive.

I have an indistinct remembrance of a dark night, and of being led over ground seamed with deep furrows, and made hideous with dead bodies. I had a fancy, too, that the sky was lit up with star sh.e.l.ls, and that there was a continuous booming of guns. But this may have been the result of a disordered imagination.

When I came to consciousness, I was at a clearing-station, suffering, I was told, from sh.e.l.l shock.

'You're not a bad case,' said the M.O. to me, with a laugh, 'but evidently you've had a rough time. From what I can hear, too, you had a very great time.'

'A great time!' I said. 'I scarcely remember anything.'

'Some of your men do, anyhow. Yes, the second line was taken, and the village with it. Not that any village is left,' he added with a laugh.

'I hear that all that remains is one stump of a tree and one chimney.

However, the ground's ours. Five hundred prisoners were taken. There now, you feel better, don't you? It's a wonder you are alive, you know.'

'But I was in no danger.'

'Weren't you? One of your men, who couldn't move, poor chap, because of a smashed leg and a broken arm, watched you crawl out of a great heap of stuff. He said that only your head was visible at first; but the way you wormed yourself through the mud was as good as a play.'

'I knew very little about it,' I said.

'Very possibly. Corporal Wilkins watched you, and shouted after you, as you staggered away; but you took no notice, and then, I hear, although you were half dead, you did some rescuing work.'

'I did rescuing work!' I gasped.

'Why, of course you did, you know you did.'

'But I didn't,' I replied.

'All right then, you didn't,' and the doctor laughed again. 'There now, you're comfortable now, so be quiet. I'll tell some one to bring you some soup.'

'But I say, I--I want to know. Is Captain Springfield all right?'

The doctor laughed again. 'I thought you didn't do any rescuing work?'

'I didn't,' I replied, 'it was the other man who did that; but is Springfield all right?'

'He's very bad. He _may_ pull through, but I doubt it.'