Fighting with French: A Tale of the New Army Page 18

  CHAPTER XVIII

  USES OF A TRANSPORT LORRY

  The Rutlands had a somewhat longer spell in billets than usual. Theywere awaiting a draft from the base to make good their losses. Theofficers and kind friends at home had provided books and games as arelief from the constant mental strain to which modern warfare subjectsa man, and with these and impromptu smoking concerts they beguiled thetedium of inaction.

  Monsieur Obernai was very active in effort on their behalf. SpeakingEnglish with only a trace of foreign accent, he went freely about amongthe men, conversing with them about their experiences, retailingreminiscences of Alsace, making liberal presents of cigarettes. He wasvery affable with the officers billeted in his house, and sometimesjoined them in their mess-room. On one of these occasions he remarkedwith a smile that but for the incessant booming of the guns he wouldhardly have known that war was going on, so little did they talk aboutit.

  "Anything but that, monsieur," replied Captain Adams. "'Deeds, notwords,' is our motto. The whole thing is so frightful that we try toforget all about it at off times."

  "It is so different in our army," said Monsieur Obernai. "Our officersare not capable of such detachment."

  "'A still tongue makes a wise head,' monsieur," said the captain.

  Monsieur Obernai looked puzzled, but smiled amiably. He had a pleasantsmile.

  One day the battalion was suddenly paraded. A few minutes afterwards amotor car drove up, and the men recognised with a thrill that thecommander-in-chief had come to inspect them. Sir John French passed upand down the lines, addressing a man here and there, then made a littlespeech to the battalion as a whole, complimenting them on the work theyhad done and promising them stiff work in the future and ultimatevictory. After visiting a few slightly injured men who remained in thevillage, the field-marshal drove away amid ringing cheers.

  The battalion had only just been dismissed when the whirr of anaeroplane was heard, and a few seconds later a Taube flew over theplace.

  "Look out!" cried somebody.

  Some of the men scuttled for cover, others looked up nonchalantly intothe sky. The aeroplane was out of range. Suddenly there was a terrificexplosion. A column of earth and smoke shot up from a field a fewhundred yards west of the village. The Taube was seen flying back,chased by a couple of English aeroplanes.

  "It almost looks as if they knew the chief was to be here," remarkedColonel Appleton, watching the chase among his officers.

  "And we only knew it ourselves twenty minutes before he arrived," saidCaptain Adams.

  "Well, I knew it last night, but I kept it to myself. Got word bytelephone. They may have tapped the wire. The spies aren't allscotched yet, Adams."

  "The deuce!" exclaimed the captain. "I'd like to catch some of them."

  "The Germans have very little for their money, though. Look! ourfellows have brought the Taube down."

  Behind the German lines the aeroplane was whirling in precipitousdescent from an immense height.

  "Two more good men lost!" said the colonel. "And the spies will go onspying."

  Next night the Rutlands were ordered back to the hill village. Theenemy was to be turned out at all costs. Regiments were coming up insupport, and as soon as a sufficient reserve was collected the attackwas to be driven home. The men were fired with grim resolution. Newshad just come in of the employment of poisonous gas at Ypres, miles awayto the north, and as they cleaned their bayonets they vowed to avengetheir fallen comrades from Canada.

  The upper part of the hill had been held against repeated assaults bythe Germans. The opposing lines crossed the main street, about ninetyyards apart. Between them the houses had been demolished by one side orthe other. The houses above the British trenches, and those below theGerman, were occupied by snipers. The British snipers had an advantagein being above the enemy; on the other hand they were more exposed toartillery fire, and their positions had been a good deal knocked about.To protect themselves from the fire of these snipers the Germans hadmade the parapets of their trenches unusually high. This handicappedthem to some extent in replying to rifle fire; but they had compensatedthemselves by installing a large number of machine guns, which werecertain to take a heavy toll of the attackers when they charged down thehill.

  Soon after the Rutlands reached their position at the top of the hill,in the dusk, a lorry came up from the rear with supplies for the nextday. Owing to the rearward slope the vehicle could be brought to withina few yards of the trenches without being seen by the enemy, and sincehorses were employed as less noisy than a motor engine, supplies hadbeen regularly brought up in this way without the knowledge of theGermans.

  Kenneth and Ginger, with other men, were unloading the lorry when asecond lorry appeared near the foot of the hill on the British side. Itwas heavily laden, and the slope proved to be too much for the twohorses drawing it.

  "Old cab horses, they are," said the driver of the lorry that was beingunloaded. "Not fit for this job. I'll have to go down and lend a hand."

  Placing a brick under one of the wheels, he unharnessed his horses andled them down the hill. Kenneth and Ginger were carrying a box betweenthem to the communication trench running downwards from the crest when ashell came whizzing over from the German side and exploded near thelorry they had just left, bespattering them with earth, felling one ortwo of their comrades, and sending the rest scampering into the trench.The shock of the explosion caused Kenneth to drop his end of the box:both he and Ginger were dazed for a few seconds. When they looked round,they were aghast to see the lorry moving backward down the hill. Onlyhalf its load had been removed, and though its motion was at presentslow, it would gather speed and, unless it could be checked, would crashinto the second lorry to which the driver was now yoking his horses.For a moment they were paralysed by realisation of the frightful danger.Men, horses, stores would all be hurled and crushed in hideous wreck.The heavy vehicle was already rolling on more quickly when with mutualdecision they left the box and sprinted after it. The case wasdesperate. Neither of them had any idea how the catastrophe could beaverted. It would scarcely be possible to loose the skid and throw itinto position while the lorry was running, faster every moment.

  More fleet of foot than Ginger, Kenneth rushed ahead, overtook thelorry, and, a thought striking him, seized the pole, and exerting allthe force of which he was capable while running at speed, twisted it tothe left. The lorry swerved, appeared to hesitate, then ran into ashallow ditch at the side of the road and turned over. The pole,striking against a tree, snapped off, flinging Kenneth to the ground.

  "Whew!" gasped Ginger, running down. "That was a near thing."

  "Twenty yards," said Kenneth, rising and rubbing his elbow.

  "George! that was a near 'un!" panted the driver, who had hastened up.His face was very pale. "I owe you one, mate. Nothing else would havesaved us. Hope you ain't hurt."

  "Nothing to speak of. The lorry has come off the worst."

  "George! you're right! It's what you may call snookered. Done for,that's what it is. We'll have to shove it out of the way before I canbring my horses up, and leave it. What you say, Bill?"

  "Can't do nothing with it," said the driver of the second lorry.

  "Take my tip, and put the skid on when you get yourn up, mate. George!it give me a fright and no mistake."

  They drove the second lorry to the summit, leaving Kenneth and Ginger tocarry up the spilled load.

  "The lorry isn't so badly damaged as he thinks," said Kenneth. "Thebrake is bent, and a good deal of wood is chipped off, but the thingwill run all right."

  He so informed the driver when he met him.

  "All the same, you don't catch me driving it back to-night," said theman. "It's nearly dark, the road's bad enough when you're too complay,as the Frenchies say. I'll leave it to the morning at any rate."

  It was dark when Kenneth and Ginger had finished their task. They tookth
eir places with their platoon in the firing trench.

  "Think they'll have any gas for us to-morrow?" said Ginger.

  "It's not very likely," said Kenneth. "The gas the Germans have beenusing lies low; it would be more useful to us."

  "Well, why shouldn't we use it too? What's the odds whether you'rekilled with gas or shrapnel? Gas don't hurt, I expect, and it's a dealcleaner."

  "Upon my word I don't know," Kenneth replied. "There's no logic in it.But somehow it goes against the grain. You poison dogs with gas, notmen."

  "Besides, it's taking an unfair advantage," said Harry. "It depends onthe wind--and there's no crossing over at half-time."

  The notes of a flute came along the trench from the left.

  "Stoneway's at it again," said Ginger.

  "The fellow can play," remarked Harry. "Good stuff, too. He doesn'tconfine himself to the trumpery tunes of the musical comedies. That's abit of Mozart."

  "I've heard that tune somewhere," said Ginger reflectively. "I haven'tgot much of an ear for music, but I know them twiddles. Why, hang me, Iheard 'em when I was in that cellar. Somebody was playing 'emupstairs."

  "It's a concerto every flautist knows," said Harry. "The Germanscertainly lick us in music."

  "A pity they're not satisfied with that," said Kenneth.

  They listened in silence till the conclusion of the piece, and joined inthe general applause. After a short interval the performer began again,now, however, playing detached notes that had neither time nor tune.

  "Those exercises, again!" said Ginger. "That's the worst of music. Mylittle Sally is learning the pianner, and she makes me mad sometimeswith what she calls the five-finger exercises. 'For mercy's sake playus a tune,' says I. 'I've got to practise this, Dad,' says she.'What's the good of it?' says I. 'Teacher says it's to get my fingersin order,' says she. Anybody'd think her fingers weren't the same asother people's; they're all right; a very pretty hand she's got....He's stopped, thank goodness! Pass up the word for 'Dolly Grey,' mates."

  Silence presently reigned. The men reclined, dozing.

  "I say, Harry," said Kenneth.

  "What is it?" replied Harry sleepily.

  "I've been thinking. We might make good use of that lorry."

  "How?"

  "Let it loose on the Germans."

  "Send it down-hill, you mean?"

  "Yes."

  "What's the good? They'd hear it coming and clear out of the way. Itmight break their wire and a bit of the parapet--hardly enough damage tobe worth the fag."

  Kenneth was silent for a little. Then he roused Harry again. Thereensued a long conversation between them, at the conclusion of whichKenneth crept along the trench to find Captain Adams. It was some timebefore he returned.

  "The colonel agrees," he said in some excitement. "There's no time tolose. We've got to attack at four o'clock. Wake up, Ginger."

  Ginger having been informed of what was intended, he and Kenneth stolefrom the trench, up the communication trench, and set off at a trottowards their billets. Two hours later they returned in a motor car,which halted at the eastern foot of the hill. They carried up a largerectangular object, and at a second journey a number of bolts and aheavy hammer. Soon the men in the trenches heard the clank ofhammering, and Harry suggested that the lorry was being repaired.

  His comrades were in fact at work on the lorry. The object which theyhad brought up consisted of several sheets of corrugated zinc whichGinger, a skilled mechanic, had bolted together in the village. This hewas now fixing upright over the rear axle of the lorry, so that itoverlapped the body of the vehicle on each side. With the assistance ofKenneth and the driver of the car he was turning the lorry into anarmoured car, of unusual form, it is true, but likely, they thought, toserve its purpose. When the zinc was in position, they filled up thespace between the sheets with sand, and so completed a bullet-proofscreen about nine feet wide. Then, going into one of the half-ruinedhouses, they brought out a number of planks and carried them to thecentre of the firing trench. There, over a space of about ten feet, theparapet was quickly demolished, and the planks were laid across side byside, forming a bridge. The men of the platoon had meanwhile been takeninto their confidence, and when Captain Adams called for volunteers tocut the wire immediately in front, several men crawled out and did thework without being detected.

  These preparations having been completed, half a dozen men quicklypushed the lorry over the crest of the hill to within a few yards of thetrench. Favoured by pitch darkness, and moving with the utmostquietness, they had everything in readiness by three o'clock, withoutthe knowledge of the Germans, and even of the more distant platoons oftheir own battalion.

  The orders of the day were already known along the British line. Theywere to attack just before dawn. The hill was to be cleared of Germans.It was a task for rifles, bayonets, and hand grenades. They couldexpect no help from artillery, so narrow was the space dividing thelines.

  At the appointed moment, twenty men of the 1st platoon formed up in filebehind the lorry, each carrying a hand grenade in addition to his rifle.The word was given. They pushed the lorry off; on each side the othermen scrambled out of the trenches; some crawled forward and cut the wireon either side. Then, without uttering a sound, they charged down thehill.

  The lorry rumbled slowly over the plank bridge, on to the road, andgathered way as it bumped and jolted down towards the German trenches,the twenty men running behind it. When it had covered a dozen yards itwas greeted with rapid rifle fire from the German sentries. There wereshouts from below, but before the enemy realised the manoeuvre, a showerof hand grenades fell among them, the lorry crashed through the wireentanglement, broke through the parapet, and turned a somersault overthe trench.

  Then a yell burst from the throats of the Rutlands, and the air was rentby the crackle of rifles all along the line except at the spot where thelorry had fallen. There Kenneth and his companions sprang into thetrench, and pushing along to right and left, cleared it with thebayonet, the panic-stricken Germans fleeing before them or flinging uptheir hands in token of surrender. Confusion spread along the wholeline. The British arrangements had been thoroughly made. While theRutlands charged down the main street, other regiments were sweepingthrough the streets and alleys on either side, raking them with firefrom machine guns, flinging bombs into the occupied houses, chasing theGermans at the point of the bayonet. Here and there were furious handto hand encounters; at one point a mass of the enemy's reserves surgedforward and gained ground, only to be borne back in turn by theirresistible dash of British supports. In half an hour the streets werecleared, and while some of the British blocked up the captured trenchesagainst counter-attack, others rushed the houses to which the enemystill clung, and stormed them one after another.

  All this had happened in the grey chill dawn. By the time the sun's rimappeared over the distant horizon the position was completely won, atcomparatively slight cost. More than two hundred prisoners remained inBritish hands, and among them Ginger, who had escaped with a fewbruises, recognised the lieutenant to whom he had been indebted for auniform.

  When the roll was called, it was found that of the twenty men who hadfollowed the lorry only one had been wounded.

  "A capital idea of yours, Amory," said Captain Adams. "It's a pity wecan't always be going down-hill behind screens. There's a fortuneawaiting the man who invents a bullet-proof protection for infantry inthe field."

  "Wouldn't that result in stale-mate, sir?"

  "Well, if it put an end to warfare by machinery it would give us achance for our fists! Men will fight, I suppose, to the crack of doom.It would be much healthier if we could fight out our quarrels withoutkilling one another."