Mr. Standfast 21Part 2 · How an Exile Returned to His Own People
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Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Mr. Standfast 21
Part 2 · How an Exile Returned to His Own People
BuchanEnglish
Next morning I found the Army Commander on his way to Doullens.
“Take over the division?” he said. “Certainly. I’m afraid there isn’t much left of it. I’ll tell Carr to get through to the Corps Headquarters, when he can find them. You’ll have to nurse the remnants, for they can’t be pulled out yet—not for a day or two. Bless me, Hannay, there are parts of our line which we’re holding with a man and a boy. You’ve got to stick it out till the French take over. We’re not hanging on by our eyelids—it’s our eyelashes now.”
“What about positions to fall back on, sir?” I asked.
“We’re doing our best, but we haven’t enough men to prepare them.” He plucked open a map. “There we’re digging a line—and there. If we can hold that bit for two days we shall have a fair line resting on the river. But we mayn’t have time.”
Then I told him about Blenkiron, whom of course he had heard of. “He was one of the biggest engineers in the States, and he’s got a nailing fine eye for country. He’ll make good somehow if you let him help in the job.”
“The very fellow,” he said, and he wrote an order. “Take this to Jacks and he’ll fix up a temporary commission. Your man can find a uniform somewhere in Amiens.”
After that I went to the detail camp and found that Ivery had duly arrived.
“The prisoner has given no trouble, sirr,” Hamilton reported. “But he’s a wee thing peevish. They’re saying that the Gairmans is gettin’ on fine, and I was tellin’ him that he should be proud of his ain folk. But he wasn’t verra weel pleased.”
Three days had wrought a transformation in Ivery. That face, once so cool and capable, was now sharpened like a hunted beast’s. His imagination was preying on him and I could picture its torture. He, who had been always at the top directing the machine, was now only a cog in it. He had never in his life been anything but powerful; now he was impotent. He was in a hard, unfamiliar world, in the grip of something which he feared and didn’t understand, in the charge of men who were in no way amenable to his persuasiveness. It was like a proud and bullying manager suddenly forced to labour in a squad of navvies, and worse, for there was the gnawing physical fear of what was coming.
He made an appeal to me.
“Do the English torture their prisoners?” he asked. “You have beaten me. I own it, and I plead for mercy. I will go on my knees if you like. I am not afraid of death—in my own way.”
“Few people are afraid of death—in their own way.”
“Why do you degrade me? I am a gentleman.”
“Not as we define the thing,” I said.
His jaw dropped. “What are you going to do with me?” he quavered.
“You have been a soldier,” I said. “You are going to see a little fighting—from the ranks. There will be no brutality, you will be armed if you want to defend yourself, you will have the same chance of survival as the men around you. You may have heard that your countrymen are doing well. It is even possible that they may win the battle. What was your forecast to me? Amiens in two days, Abbeville in three. Well, you are a little behind scheduled time, but still you are prospering. You told me that you were the chief architect of all this, and you are going to be given the chance of seeing it, perhaps of sharing in it—from the other side. Does it not appeal to your sense of justice?”
He groaned and turned away. I had no more pity for him than I would have had for a black mamba that had killed my friend and was now caught to a cleft tree. Nor, oddly enough, had Wake. If we had shot Ivery outright at St Anton, I am certain that Wake would have called us murderers. Now he was in complete agreement. His passionate hatred of war made him rejoice that a chief contriver of war should be made to share in its terrors.
“He tried to talk me over this morning,” he told me. “Claimed he was on my side and said the kind of thing I used to say last year. It made me rather ashamed of some of my past performances to hear that scoundrel imitating them.... By the way, Hannay, what are you going to do with me?”
“You’re coming on my staff. You’re a stout fellow and I can’t do without you.”
“Remember I won’t fight.”
“You won’t be asked to. We’re trying to stem the tide which wants to roll to the sea. You know how the Boche behaves in occupied country, and Mary’s in Amiens.”
At that news he shut his lips.
“Still—” he began.
“Still,” I said. “I don’t ask you to forfeit one of your blessed principles. You needn’t fire a shot. But I want a man to carry orders for me, for we haven’t a line any more, only a lot of blobs like quicksilver. I want a clever man for the job and a brave one, and I know that you’re not afraid.”
“No,” he said. “I don’t think I am—much. Well. I’m content!”
I started Blenkiron off in a car for Corps Headquarters, and in the afternoon took the road myself. I knew every inch of the country—the lift of the hill east of Amiens, the Roman highway that ran straight as an arrow to St Quentin, the marshy lagoons of the Somme, and that broad strip of land wasted by battle between Dompierre and Peronne. I had come to Amiens through it in January, for I had been up to the line before I left for Paris, and then it had been a peaceful place, with peasants tilling their fields, and new buildings going up on the old battle-field, and carpenters busy at cottage roofs, and scarcely a transport waggon on the road to remind one of war. Now the main route was choked like the Albert road when the Somme battle first began—troops going up and troops coming down, the latter in the last stage of weariness; a ceaseless traffic of ambulances one way and ammunition waggons the other; busy staff cars trying to worm a way through the mass; strings of gun horses, oddments of cavalry, and here and there blue French uniforms. All that I had seen before; but one thing was new to me. Little country carts with sad-faced women and mystified children in them and piles of household plenishing were creeping westward, or stood waiting at village doors. Beside these tramped old men and boys, mostly in their Sunday best as if they were going to church. I had never seen the sight before, for I had never seen the British Army falling back. The dam which held up the waters had broken and the dwellers in the valley were trying to save their pitiful little treasures. And over everything, horse and man, cart and wheelbarrow, road and tillage, lay the white March dust, the sky was blue as June, small birds were busy in the copses, and in the corners of abandoned gardens I had a glimpse of the first violets.
Presently as we topped a rise we came within full noise of the guns. That, too, was new to me, for it was no ordinary bombardment. There was a special quality in the sound, something ragged, straggling, intermittent, which I had never heard before. It was the sign of open warfare and a moving battle.
At Peronne, from which the newly returned inhabitants had a second time fled, the battle seemed to be at the doors. There I had news of my division. It was farther south towards St Christ. We groped our way among bad roads to where its headquarters were believed to be, while the voice of the guns grew louder. They turned out to be those of another division, which was busy getting ready to cross the river. Then the dark fell, and while airplanes flew west into the sunset there was a redder sunset in the east, where the unceasing flashes of gunfire were pale against the angry glow of burning dumps. The sight of the bonnet-badge of a Scots Fusilier made me halt, and the man turned out to belong to my division. Half an hour later I was taking over from the much-relieved Masterton in the ruins of what had once been a sugar-beet factory.
There to my surprise I found Lefroy. The Boche had held him prisoner for precisely eight hours. During that time he had been so interested in watching the way the enemy handled an attack that he had forgotten the miseries of his position. He described with blasphemous admiration the endless wheel by which supplies and reserve troops move up, the silence, the smoothness, the perfect discipline. Then he had realised that he was a captive and unwounded, and had gone mad. Being a heavy-weight boxer of note, he had sent his two guards spinning into a ditch, dodged the ensuing shots, and found shelter in the lee of a blazing ammunition dump where his pursuers hesitated to follow. Then he had spent an anxious hour trying to get through an outpost line, which he thought was Boche. Only by overhearing an exchange of oaths in the accents of Dundee did he realise that it was our own.... It was a comfort to have Lefroy back, for he was both stout-hearted and resourceful. But I found that I had a division only on paper. It was about the strength of a brigade, the brigades battalions, and the battalions companies.
This is not the place to write the story of the week that followed. I could not write it even if I wanted to, for I don’t know it. There was a plan somewhere, which you will find in the history books, but with me it was blank chaos. Orders came, but long before they arrived the situation had changed, and I could no more obey them than fly to the moon. Often I had lost touch with the divisions on both flanks. Intelligence arrived erratically out of the void, and for the most part we worried along without it. I heard we were under the French—first it was said to be Foch, and then Fayolle, whom I had met in Paris. But the higher command seemed a million miles away, and we were left to use our mother wits. My problem was to give ground as slowly as possible and at the same time not to delay too long, for retreat we must, with the Boche sending in brand-new divisions each morning. It was a kind of war worlds distant from the old trench battles, and since I had been taught no other I had to invent rules as I went along. Looking back, it seems a miracle that any of us came out of it. Only the grace of God and the uncommon toughness of the British soldier bluffed the Hun and prevented him pouring through the breach to Abbeville and the sea. We were no better than a mosquito curtain stuck in a doorway to stop the advance of an angry bull.
The Army Commander was right; we were hanging on with our eyelashes. We must have been easily the weakest part of the whole front, for we were holding a line which was never less than two miles and was often, as I judged, nearer five, and there was nothing in reserve to us except some oddments of cavalry who chased about the whole battle-field under vague orders. Mercifully for us the Boche blundered. Perhaps he did not know our condition, for our airmen were magnificent and you never saw a Boche plane over our line by day, though they bombed us merrily by night. If he had called our bluff we should have been done, but he put his main strength to the north and the south of us. North he pressed hard on the Third Army, but he got well hammered by the Guards north of Bapaume and he could make no headway at Arras. South he drove at the Paris railway and down the Oise valley, but there Pétain’s reserves had arrived, and the French made a noble stand.
Not that he didn’t fight hard in the centre where we were, but he hadn’t his best troops, and after we got west of the bend of the Somme he was outrunning his heavy guns. Still, it was a desperate enough business, for our flanks were all the time falling back, and we had to conform to movements we could only guess at. After all, we were on the direct route to Amiens, and it was up to us to yield slowly so as to give Haig and Pétain time to get up supports. I was a miser about every yard of ground, for every yard and every minute were precious. We alone stood between the enemy and the city, and in the city was Mary.
If you ask me about our plans I can’t tell you. I had a new one every hour. I got instructions from the Corps, but, as I have said, they were usually out of date before they arrived, and most of my tactics I had to invent myself. I had a plain task, and to fulfil it I had to use what methods the Almighty allowed me. I hardly slept, I ate little, I was on the move day and night, but I never felt so strong in my life. It seemed as if I couldn’t tire, and, oddly enough, I was happy. If a man’s whole being is focused on one aim, he has no time to worry.... I remember we were all very gentle and soft-spoken those days. Lefroy, whose tongue was famous for its edge, now cooed like a dove. The troops were on their uppers, but as steady as rocks. We were against the end of the world, and that stiffens a man....
Day after day saw the same performance. I held my wavering front with an outpost line which delayed each new attack till I could take its bearings. I had special companies for counter-attack at selected points, when I wanted time to retire the rest of the division. I think we must have fought more than a dozen of such little battles. We lost men all the time, but the enemy made no big scoop, though he was always on the edge of one. Looking back, it seems like a succession of miracles. Often I was in one end of a village when the Boche was in the other. Our batteries were always on the move, and the work of the gunners was past praising. Sometimes we faced east, sometimes north, and once at a most critical moment due south, for our front waved and blew like a flag at a masthead.... Thank God, the enemy was getting away from his big engine, and his ordinary troops were fagged and poor in quality. It was when his fresh shock battalions came on that I held my breath.... He had a heathenish amount of machine-guns and he used them beautifully. Oh, I take my hat off to the Boche performance. He was doing what we had tried to do at the Somme and the Aisne and Arras and Ypres, and he was more or less succeeding. And the reason was that he was going bald-headed for victory.
The men, as I have said, were wonderfully steady and patient under the fiercest trial that soldiers can endure. I had all kinds in the division—old army, new army, Territorials—and you couldn’t pick and choose between them. They fought like Trojans, and, dirty, weary, and hungry, found still some salt of humour in their sufferings. It was a proof of the rock-bottom sanity of human nature. But we had one man with us who was hardly sane....
In the hustle of those days I now and then caught sight of Ivery. I had to be everywhere at all hours, and often visited that remnant of Scots Fusiliers into which the subtlest brain in Europe had been drafted. He and his keepers were never on outpost duty or in any counter-attack. They were part of the mass whose only business was to retire discreetly. This was child’s play to Hamilton, who had been out since Mons; and Amos, after taking a day to get used to it, wrapped himself in his grim philosophy and rather enjoyed it. You couldn’t surprise Amos any more than a Turk. But the man with them, whom they never left—that was another matter.
“For the first wee bit,” Hamilton reported, “we thocht he was gaun daft. Every shell that came near he jumped like a young horse. And the gas! We had to tie on his mask for him, for his hands were fushionless. There was whiles when he wadna be hindered from standin’ up and talkin’ to hisself, though the bullets was spittin’. He was what ye call demoralised.... Syne he got as though he didna hear or see onything. He did what we tell’t him, and when we let him be he sat down and grat. He’s aye greetin’.... Queer thing, sirr, but the Gairmans canna hit him. I’m aye shakin’ bullets out o’ my claes, and I’ve got a hole in my shoulder, and Andra took a bash on his tin that wad hae felled onybody that hadna a heid like a stot. But, sirr, the prisoner taks no scaith. Our boys are feared of him. There was an Irishman says to me that he had the evil eye, and ye can see for yerself that he’s no canny.”
I saw that his skin had become like parchment and that his eyes were glassy. I don’t think he recognised me.
“Does he take his meals?” I asked.
“He doesna eat muckle. But he has an unco thirst. Ye canna keep him off the men’s water-bottles.”
He was learning very fast the meaning of that war he had so confidently played with. I believe I am a merciful man, but as I looked at him I felt no vestige of pity. He was dreeing the weird he had prepared for others. I thought of Scudder, of the thousand friends I had lost, of the great seas of blood and the mountains of sorrow this man and his like had made for the world. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the long ridges above Combles and Longueval which the salt of the earth had fallen to win, and which were again under the hoof of the Boche. I thought of the distracted city behind us and what it meant to me, and the weak, the pitifully weak screen which was all its defence. I thought of the foul deeds which had made the German name to stink by land and sea, foulness of which he was the arch-begetter. And then I was amazed at our forbearance. He would go mad, and madness for him was more decent than sanity.
I had another man who wasn’t what you might call normal, and that was Wake. He was the opposite of shell-shocked, if you understand me. He had never been properly under fire before, but he didn’t give a straw for it. I had known the same thing with other men, and they generally ended by crumpling up, for it isn’t natural that five or six feet of human flesh shouldn’t be afraid of what can torture and destroy it. The natural thing is to be always a little scared, like me, but by an effort of the will and attention to work to contrive to forget it. But Wake apparently never gave it a thought. He wasn’t foolhardy, only indifferent. He used to go about with a smile on his face, a smile of contentment. Even the horrors—and we had plenty of them—didn’t affect him. His eyes, which used to be hot, had now a curious open innocence like Peter’s. I would have been happier if he had been a little rattled.
One night, after we had had a bad day of anxiety, I talked to him as we smoked in what had once been a French dug-out. He was an extra right arm to me, and I told him so. “This must be a queer experience for you,” I said.
“Yes,” he replied, “it is very wonderful. I did not think a man could go through it and keep his reason. But I know many things I did not know before. I know that the soul can be reborn without leaving the body.”
I stared at him, and he went on without looking at me.
“You’re not a classical scholar, Hannay? There was a strange cult in the ancient world, the worship of Magna Mater—the Great Mother. To enter into her mysteries the votary passed through a bath of blood——I think I am passing through that bath. I think that like the initiate I shall be renatus in aeternum—reborn into the eternal.”
I advised him to have a drink, for that talk frightened me. It looked as if he were becoming what the Scots call “fey”. Lefroy noticed the same thing and was always speaking about it. He was as brave as a bull himself, and with very much the same kind of courage; but Wake’s gallantry perturbed him. “I can’t make the chap out,” he told me. “He behaves as if his mind was too full of better things to give a damn for Boche guns. He doesn’t take foolish risks—I don’t mean that, but he behaves as if risks didn’t signify. It’s positively eerie to see him making notes with a steady hand when shells are dropping like hailstones and we’re all thinking every minute’s our last. You’ve got to be careful with him, sir. He’s a long sight too valuable for us to spare.”
Lefroy was right about that, for I don’t know what I should have done without him. The worst part of our job was to keep touch with our flanks, and that was what I used Wake for. He covered country like a moss-trooper, sometimes on a rusty bicycle, oftener on foot, and you couldn’t tire him. I wonder what other divisions thought of the grimy private who was our chief means of communication. He knew nothing of military affairs before, but he got the hang of this rough-and-tumble fighting as if he had been born for it. He never fired a shot; he carried no arms; the only weapons he used were his brains. And they were the best conceivable. I never met a staff officer who was so quick at getting a point or at sizing up a situation. He had put his back into the business, and first-class talent is not common anywhere. One day a G. S. O. from a neighbouring division came to see me.
“Where on earth did you pick up that man Wake?” he asked.
“He’s a conscientious objector and a non-combatant,” I said.
“Then I wish to Heaven we had a few more conscientious objectors in this show. He’s the only fellow who seems to know anything about this blessed battle. My general’s sending you a chit about him.”
“No need,” I said, laughing. “I know his value. He’s an old friend of mine.”
I used Wake as my link with Corps Headquarters, and especially with Blenkiron. For about the sixth day of the show I was beginning to get rather desperate. This kind of thing couldn’t go on for ever. We were miles back now, behind the old line of ’17, and, as we rested one flank on the river, the immediate situation was a little easier. But I had lost a lot of men, and those that were left were blind with fatigue. The big bulges of the enemy to north and south had added to the length of the total front, and I found I had to fan out my thin ranks. The Boche was still pressing on, though his impetus was slacker. If he knew how little there was to stop him in my section he might make a push which would carry him to Amiens. Only the magnificent work of our airmen had prevented him getting that knowledge, but we couldn’t keep the secrecy up for ever. Some day an enemy plane would get over, and it only needed the drive of a fresh storm-battalion or two to scatter us. I wanted a good prepared position, with sound trenches and decent wiring. Above all I wanted reserves—reserves. The word was on my lips all day and it haunted my dreams. I was told that the French were to relieve us, but when—when? My reports to Corps Headquarters were one long wail for more troops. I knew there was a position prepared behind us, but I needed men to hold it.
Wake brought in a message from Blenkiron. “We’re waiting for you, Dick,” he wrote, “and we’ve gotten quite a nice little home ready for you. This old man hasn’t hustled so hard since he struck copper in Montana in ’92. We’ve dug three lines of trenches and made a heap of pretty redoubts, and I guess they’re well laid out, for the Army staff has supervised them and they’re no slouches at this brand of engineering. You would have laughed to see the labour we employed. We had all breeds of Dago and Chinaman, and some of your own South African blacks, and they got so busy on the job they forgot about bedtime. I used to be reckoned a bit of a slave driver, but my special talents weren’t needed with this push. I’m going to put a lot of money into foreign missions henceforward.”
I wrote back: “Your trenches are no good without men. For God’s sake get something that can hold a rifle. My lot are done to the world.”
Then I left Lefroy with the division and went down on the back of an ambulance to see for myself. I found Blenkiron, some of the Army engineers, and a staff officer from Corps Headquarters, and I found Archie Roylance.
They had dug a mighty good line and wired it nobly. It ran from the river to the wood of La Bruyere on the little hill above the Ablain stream. It was desperately long, but I saw at once it couldn’t well be shorter, for the division on the south of us had its hands full with the fringe of the big thrust against the French.
“It’s no good blinking the facts,” I told them. “I haven’t a thousand men, and what I have are at the end of their tether. If you put ’em in these trenches they’ll go to sleep on their feet. When can the French take over?”
I was told that it had been arranged for next morning, but that it had now been put off twenty-four hours. It was only a temporary measure, pending the arrival of British divisions from the north.
Archie looked grave. “The Boche is pushin’ up new troops in this sector. We got the news before I left squadron headquarters. It looks as if it would be a near thing, sir.”
“It won’t be a near thing. It’s an absolute black certainty. My fellows can’t carry on as they are another day. Great God, they’ve had a fortnight in hell! Find me more men or we buckle up at the next push.” My temper was coming very near its limits.
“We’ve raked the country with a small-tooth comb, sir,” said one of the staff officers. “And we’ve raised a scratch pack. Best part of two thousand. Good men, but most of them know nothing about infantry fighting. We’ve put them into platoons, and done our best to give them some kind of training. There’s one thing may cheer you. We’ve plenty of machine-guns. There’s a machine-gun school near by and we got all the men who were taking the course and all the plant.”
I don’t suppose there was ever such a force put into the field before. It was a wilder medley than Moussy’s camp-followers at First Ypres. There was every kind of detail in the shape of men returning from leave, representing most of the regiments in the army. There were the men from the machine-gun school. There were Corps troops—sappers and A.S.C., and a handful of Corps cavalry. Above all, there was a batch of American engineers, fathered by Blenkiron. I inspected them where they were drilling and liked the look of them. “Forty-eight hours,” I said to myself. “With luck we may just pull it off.”
Then I borrowed a bicycle and went back to the division. But before I left I had a word with Archie. “This is one big game of bluff, and it’s you fellows alone that enable us to play it. Tell your people that everything depends on them. They mustn’t stint the planes in this sector, for if the Boche once suspicions how little he’s got before him the game’s up. He’s not a fool and he knows that this is the short road to Amiens, but he imagines we’re holding it in strength. If we keep up the fiction for another two days the thing’s done. You say he’s pushing up troops?”
“Yes, and he’s sendin’ forward his tanks.”
“Well, that’ll take time. He’s slower now than a week ago and he’s got a deuce of a country to march over. There’s still an outside chance we may win through. You go home and tell the R.F.C. what I’ve told you.”
He nodded. “By the way, sir, Pienaar’s with the squadron. He would like to come up and see you.”
“Archie,” I said solemnly, “be a good chap and do me a favour. If I think Peter’s anywhere near the line I’ll go off my head with worry. This is no place for a man with a bad leg. He should have been in England days ago. Can’t you get him off—to Amiens, anyhow?”
“We scarcely like to. You see, we’re all desperately sorry for him, his fun gone and his career over and all that. He likes bein’ with us and listenin’ to our yarns. He has been up once or twice too. The Shark-Gladas. He swears it’s a great make, and certainly he knows how to handle the little devil.”
“Then for Heaven’s sake don’t let him do it again. I look to you, Archie, remember. Promise.”
“Funny thing, but he’s always worryin’ about you. He has a map on which he marks every day the changes in the position, and he’d hobble a mile to pump any of our fellows who have been up your way.”
That night under cover of darkness I drew back the division to the newly prepared lines. We got away easily, for the enemy was busy with his own affairs. I suspected a relief by fresh troops.
There was no time to lose, and I can tell you I toiled to get things straight before dawn. I would have liked to send my own fellows back to rest, but I couldn’t spare them yet. I wanted them to stiffen the fresh lot, for they were veterans. The new position was arranged on the same principles as the old front which had been broken on March 21st. There was our forward zone, consisting of an outpost line and redoubts, very cleverly sited, and a line of resistance. Well behind it were the trenches which formed the battle-zone. Both zones were heavily wired, and we had plenty of machine-guns; I wish I could say we had plenty of men who knew how to use them. The outposts were merely to give the alarm and fall back to the line of resistance which was to hold out to the last. In the forward zone I put the freshest of my own men, the units being brought up to something like strength by the details returning from leave that the Corps had commandeered. With them I put the American engineers, partly in the redoubts and partly in companies for counter-attack. Blenkiron had reported that they could shoot like Dan’l Boone, and were simply spoiling for a fight. The rest of the force was in the battle-zone, which was our last hope. If that went the Boche had a clear walk to Amiens. Some additional field batteries had been brought up to support our very weak divisional artillery. The front was so long that I had to put all three of my emaciated brigades in the line, so I had nothing to speak of in reserve. It was a most almighty gamble.
We had found shelter just in time. At 6.30 next day—for a change it was a clear morning with clouds beginning to bank up from the west—the Boche let us know he was alive. He gave us a good drenching with gas shells which didn’t do much harm, and then messed up our forward zone with his trench mortars. At 7.20 his men began to come on, first little bunches with machine-guns and then the infantry in waves. It was clear they were fresh troops, and we learned afterwards from prisoners that they were Bavarians—6th or 7th, I forget which, but the division that hung us up at Monchy. At the same time there was the sound of a tremendous bombardment across the river. It looked as if the main battle had swung from Albert and Montdidier to a direct push for Amiens. I have often tried to write down the events of that day. I tried it in my report to the Corps; I tried it in my own diary; I tried it because Mary wanted it; but I have never been able to make any story that hung together. Perhaps I was too tired for my mind to retain clear impressions, though at the time I was not conscious of special fatigue. More likely it is because the fight itself was so confused, for nothing happened according to the books and the orderly soul of the Boche must have been scarified.... At first it went as I expected. The outpost line was pushed in, but the fire from the redoubts broke up the advance, and enabled the line of resistance in the forward zone to give a good account of itself. There was a check, and then another big wave, assisted by a barrage from field-guns brought far forward. This time the line of resistance gave at several points, and Lefroy flung in the Americans in a counter-attack. That was a mighty performance. The engineers, yelling like dervishes, went at it with the bayonet, and those that preferred swung their rifles as clubs. It was terribly costly fighting and all wrong, but it succeeded. They cleared the Boche out of a ruined farm he had rushed, and a little wood, and re-established our front. Blenkiron, who saw it all, for he went with them and got the tip of an ear picked off by a machine-gun bullet, hadn’t any words wherewith to speak of it. “And I once said those boys looked puffy,” he moaned.
The next phase, which came about midday, was the tanks. I had never seen the German variety, but had heard that it was speedier and heavier than ours, but unwieldy. We did not see much of their speed, but we found out all about their clumsiness. Had the things been properly handled they should have gone through us like rotten wood. But the whole outfit was bungled. It looked good enough country for the use of them, but the men who made our position had had an eye to this possibility. The great monsters, mounting a field-gun besides other contrivances, wanted something like a highroad to be happy in. They were useless over anything like difficult ground. The ones that came down the main road got on well enough at the start, but Blenkiron very sensibly had mined the highway, and we blew a hole like a diamond pit. One lay helpless at the foot of it, and we took the crew prisoner; another stuck its nose over and remained there till our field-guns got the range and knocked it silly. As for the rest—there is a marshy lagoon called the Patte d’Oie beside the farm of Gavrelle, which runs all the way north to the river, though in most places it only seems like a soft patch in the meadows. This the tanks had to cross to reach our line, and they never made it. Most got bogged, and made pretty targets for our gunners; one or two returned; and one the Americans, creeping forward under cover of a little stream, blew up with a time fuse.
By the middle of the afternoon I was feeling happier. I knew the big attack was still to come, but I had my forward zone intact and I hoped for the best. I remember I was talking to Wake, who had been going between the two zones, when I got the first warning of a new and unexpected peril. A dud shell plumped down a few yards from me.
“Those fools across the river are firing short and badly off the straight,” I said.
Wake examined the shell. “No, it’s a German one,” he said.
Then came others, and there could be no mistake about the direction—followed by a burst of machine-gun fire from the same quarter. We ran in cover to a point from which we could see the north bank of the river, and I got my glass on it. There was a lift of land from behind which the fire was coming. We looked at each other, and the same conviction stood in both faces. The Boche had pushed down the northern bank, and we were no longer in line with our neighbours. The enemy was in a situation to catch us with his fire on our flank and left rear. We couldn’t retire to conform, for to retire meant giving up our prepared position.
It was the last straw to all our anxieties, and for a moment I was at the end of my wits. I turned to Wake, and his calm eyes pulled me together.
“If they can’t retake that ground, we’re fairly carted,” I said.
“We are. Therefore they must retake it.”
“I must get on to Mitchinson.” But as I spoke I realised the futility of a telephone message to a man who was pretty hard up against it himself. Only an urgent appeal could effect anything.... I must go myself.... No, that was impossible. I must send Lefroy.... But he couldn’t be spared. And all my staff officers were up to their necks in the battle. Besides, none of them knew the position as I knew it.... And how to get there? It was a long way round by the bridge at Loisy.
Suddenly I was aware of Wake’s voice. “You had better send me,” he was saying. “There’s only one way—to swim the river a little lower down.”
“That’s too damnably dangerous. I won’t send any man to certain death.”
“But I volunteer,” he said. “That, I believe, is always allowed in war.”
“But you’ll be killed before you can cross.”
“Send a man with me to watch. If I get over, you may be sure I’ll get to General Mitchinson. If not, send somebody else by Loisy. There’s desperate need for hurry, and you see yourself it’s the only way.”
The time was past for argument. I scribbled a line to Mitchinson as his credentials. No more was needed, for Wake knew the position as well as I did. I sent an orderly to accompany him to his starting-place on the bank.
“Goodbye,” he said, as we shook hands. “You’ll see, I’ll come back all right.” His face, I remember, looked singularly happy. Five minutes later the Boche guns opened for the final attack.
I believe I kept a cool head; at least so Lefroy and the others reported. They said I went about all afternoon grinning as if I liked it, and that I never raised my voice once. (It’s rather a fault of mine that I bellow in a scrap.) But I know I was feeling anything but calm, for the problem was ghastly. It all depended on Wake and Mitchinson. The flanking fire was so bad that I had to give up the left of the forward zone, which caught it fairly, and retire the men there to the battle-zone. The latter was better protected, for between it and the river was a small wood and the bank rose into a bluff which sloped inwards towards us. This withdrawal meant a switch, and a switch isn’t a pretty thing when it has to be improvised in the middle of a battle.
The Boche had counted on that flanking fire. His plan was to break our two wings—the old Boche plan which crops up in every fight. He left our centre at first pretty well alone, and thrust along the river bank and to the wood of La Bruyere, where we linked up with the division on our right. Lefroy was in the first area, and Masterton in the second, and for three hours it was as desperate a business as I have ever faced.... The improvised switch went, and more and more of the forward zone disappeared. It was a hot, clear spring afternoon, and in the open fighting the enemy came on like troops at manœuvres. On the left they got into the battle-zone, and I can see yet Lefroy’s great figure leading a counter-attack in person, his face all puddled with blood from a scalp wound....
I would have given my soul to be in two places at once, but I had to risk our left and keep close to Masterton, who needed me most. The wood of La Bruyere was the maddest sight. Again and again the Boche was almost through it. You never knew where he was, and most of the fighting there was duels between machine-gun parties. Some of the enemy got round behind us, and only a fine performance of a company of Cheshires saved a complete breakthrough.
As for Lefroy, I don’t know how he stuck it out, and he doesn’t know himself, for he was galled all the time by that accursed flanking fire. I got a note about half past four saying that Wake had crossed the river, but it was some weary hours after that before the fire slackened. I tore back and forward between my wings, and every time I went north I expected to find that Lefroy had broken. But by some miracle he held. The Boches were in his battle-zone time and again, but he always flung them out. I have a recollection of Blenkiron, stark mad, encouraging his Americans with strange tongues. Once as I passed him I saw that he had his left arm tied up. His blackened face grinned at me. “This bit of landscape’s mighty unsafe for democracy,” he croaked. “For the love of Mike get your guns on to those devils across the river. They’re plaguing my boys too bad.”
It was about seven o’clock, I think, when the flanking fire slacked off, but it was not because of our divisional guns. There was a short and very furious burst of artillery fire on the north bank, and I knew it was British. Then things began to happen. One of our planes—they had been marvels all day, swinging down like hawks for machine-gun bouts with the Boche infantry—reported that Mitchinson was attacking hard and getting on well. That eased my mind, and I started off for Masterton, who was in greater straits than ever, for the enemy seemed to be weakening on the river bank and putting his main strength in against our right.... But my G.S.O.2 stopped me on the road. “Wake,” he said. “He wants to see you.”
“Not now,” I cried.
“He can’t live many minutes.”
I turned and followed him to the ruinous cowshed which was my divisional headquarters. Wake, as I heard later, had swum the river opposite to Mitchinson’s right, and reached the other shore safely, though the current was whipped with bullets. But he had scarcely landed before he was badly hit by shrapnel in the groin. Walking at first with support and then carried on a stretcher, he managed to struggle on to the divisional headquarters, where he gave my message and explained the situation. He would not let his wound be looked to till his job was done. Mitchinson told me afterwards that with a face grey from pain he drew for him a sketch of our position and told him exactly how near we were to our end.... After that he asked to be sent back to me, and they got him down to Loisy in a crowded ambulance, and then up to us in a returning empty. The M.O. who looked at his wound saw that the thing was hopeless, and did not expect him to live beyond Loisy. He was bleeding internally and no surgeon on earth could have saved him.
When he reached us he was almost pulseless, but he recovered for a moment and asked for me.
I found him, with blue lips and a face drained of blood, lying on my camp bed. His voice was very small and far away.
“How goes it?” he asked.
“Please God, we’ll pull through ... thanks to you, old man.”
“Good,” he said and his eyes shut.
He opened them once again.
“Funny thing life. A year ago I was preaching peace.... I’m still preaching it.... I’m not sorry.”
I held his hand till two minutes later he died.
In the press of a fight one scarcely realises death, even the death of a friend. It was up to me to make good my assurance to Wake, and presently I was off to Masterton. There in that shambles of La Bruyere, while the light faded, there was a desperate and most bloody struggle. It was the last lap of the contest. Twelve hours now, I kept telling myself, and the French will be here and we’ll have done our task. Alas! how many of us would go back to rest?... Hardly able to totter, our counter-attacking companies went in again. They had gone far beyond the limits of mortal endurance, but the human spirit can defy all natural laws. The balance trembled, hung, and then dropped the right way. The enemy impetus weakened, stopped, and the ebb began.
I wanted to complete the job. Our artillery put up a sharp barrage, and the little I had left comparatively fresh I sent in for a counter-stroke. Most of the men were untrained, but there was that in our ranks which dispensed with training, and we had caught the enemy at the moment of lowest vitality. We pushed him out of La Bruyere, we pushed him back to our old forward zone, we pushed him out of that zone to the position from which he had begun the day.
But there was no rest for the weary. We had lost at least a third of our strength, and we had to man the same long line. We consolidated it as best we could, started to replace the wiring that had been destroyed, found touch with the division on our right, and established outposts. Then, after a conference with my brigadiers, I went back to my headquarters, too tired to feel either satisfaction or anxiety. In eight hours the French would be here. The words made a kind of litany in my ears.
In the cowshed where Wake had lain, two figures awaited me. The talc-enclosed candle revealed Hamilton and Amos, dirty beyond words, smoke-blackened, blood-stained, and intricately bandaged. They stood stiffly to attention.
“Sirr, the prisoner,” said Hamilton. “I have to report that the prisoner is deid.”
I stared at them, for I had forgotten Ivery. He seemed a creature of a world that had passed away.
“Sirr, it was like this. Ever sin’ this mornin’, the prisoner seemed to wake up. Ye’ll mind that he was in a kind of dream all week. But he got some new notion in his heid, and when the battle began he exheebited signs of restlessness. Whiles he wad lie doun in the trench, and whiles he was wantin’ back to the dug-out. Accordin’ to instructions I provided him wi’ a rifle, but he didna seem to ken how to handle it. It was your orders, sirr, that he was to have means to defend hisself if the enemy cam on, so Amos gie’d him a trench knife. But verra soon he looked as if he was ettlin’ to cut his throat, so I deprived him of it.”
Hamilton stopped for breath. He spoke as if he were reciting a lesson, with no stops between the sentences.
“I jaloused, sirr, that he wadna last oot the day, and Amos here was of the same opinion. The end came at twenty minutes past three—I ken the time, for I had just compared my watch with Amos. Ye’ll mind that the Gairmans were beginning a big attack. We were in the front trench of what they ca’ the battle-zone, and Amos and me was keepin’ oor eyes on the enemy, who could be obsairved dribblin’ ower the open. Just then the prisoner catches sight of the enemy and jumps up on the top. Amos tried to hold him, but he kicked him in the face. The next we kenned he was runnin’ verra fast towards the enemy, holdin’ his hands ower his heid and crying out loud in a foreign langwidge.”
“It was German,” said the scholarly Amos through his broken teeth.
“It was Gairman,” continued Hamilton. “It seemed as if he was appealin’ to the enemy to help him. But they paid no attention, and he cam under the fire of their machine-guns. We watched him spin round like a teetotum and kenned that he was bye with it.”
“You are sure he was killed?” I asked.
“Yes, sirr. When we counter-attacked we fund his body.”
There is a grave close by the farm of Gavrelle, and a wooden cross at its head bears the name of the Graf von Schwabing and the date of his death. The Germans took Gavrelle a little later. I am glad to think that they read that inscription.
