by Ruskin Bond
It was long past nine o’clock when the jingling gun-teams broke from the gloom behind the position and bore down upon us urgently. In a flurry of excitement at our release we hooked them in, working like mad at the swingle-trees of the limbers, grabbing telephones and equipment and running over our horses as soon as the guns were ready to pull out. I got mounted, looked around for Ross—ah, here he was, all aboard. The first of the guns was moving across the field now, and one by one the others dropped into line. We trotted ahead to our places. In a few minutes the whole battery was safely out on the road and headed in the direction of Jussy, moving along at a fast walk that for me, at least, was not fast enough. My strained ears had detected, in the last few moments on the position, a nearer rumbling than ever of unseen transport, a murmuring of vast columns on the move through the night.
We retired through Jussy, taking a last look at the old familiar scenes of the waggon-line as we rode past, at the huts, now wrecked by the storm of shell-fire of that morning, at the low horse-shelters behind them; and presently we were riding through the next village of Flavy-le-Martel.
Here on the outskirts of the place the Major turned his horse off the main road and steered left in a southerly direction. Ahead of us we could dimly make out the outline of a hill against the night sky, and we felt ourselves climbing a steady rise leading up to the summit of the hill, where we halted. Now we were on a sort of plateau, from which we could look down on the almost-side-by-side villages of Jussy and Flavy. It was nearly midnight. We had travelled a good way back and felt much safer up there by Faillouel on the hill. I began to think about getting some sleep now that we were clear of immediate danger, but stood around for a while to find out what the orders were. There were no buildings near where we could billet; the guns had been run into position behind a low ridge in the open field so that if we slept at all, it would be under the sky with all our clothes on. Then the order was passed round that we were staying there for the night. I found there was nothing for the signallers to do, so I spread my waterproof sheet under a waggon, wrapped myself in my shell-shocked coat and a blanket, and slept. I and the rest of the battery slept for five hours. I mention this because it was the longest sleep we had for ten days and nights following this first stand at Faillouel.
It was cold up there on that plateau. Very early in the morning I awoke half frozen and scrounged two more blankets that some one had left lying about. The guard was pacing back and fore in rear of the silent guns. Another hour or so passed before morning dragged us all out to see how the war was going on down in the valley, and the smell of breakfast was in the air. Evidently there was no danger just yet. No firing had been done during the night, but the guns were ready for any eventuality with a round in the breech.
Quite a number of gunners, I noticed, were furtively eating biscuits and small cakes, and one or two of the more gluttonous were spreading the biscuits with condensed milk. Cigarettes were also in evidence, large packets of twenties and fifties that I stared at enviously, at the same time reflecting how foolish I had been not to have remembered that canteen in Flavy. The parsons had of course left everything they could not carry with them for the especial benefit of the troops following after; I determined to be on the lookout for the next canteen. We opened fire on the approaching German infantry at ten o’clock that morning.
During the day we got shelled intermittently from the direction of Montescourt, doubtless in response to messages sent back by the scouting aeroplane which cruised cheekily over Faillouel and the battery, with no opposition from antiaircraft guns. Nothing came near enough to do any damage, however. All day the guns flashed and cracked from the plateau with a steadily decreasing range as the Fritzes came on through Jassy in the valley below us. The rate of advance was slower now. Evidently they were chary of penetrating farther into open country where our task of dropping high-explosive into them would be ever so much easier, preferring to hold on until their artillery could be brought to bear on the brigade that incessantly spoilt their crossing of the canal. A rumour spread that cavalry had been seen behind Jussy.
The short March afternoon waned, twilight fell, and still the guns kept up their barrage. Night found them lighting up the scrubby plateau with the six-fold flash of salvoes interspersed with successive rounds of gun-fire; no rest for the gunners and no friendly rolling of supporting artillery on either flank such as we were wont to hear in the line. In the small hours firing ceased for a while; then as soon as it was daylight somehow other information came through, which woke the guns again.
At midday there was more shelling and this time with more accuracy of aim, which was not to be wondered at now that they could look straight up at the battery-smoke on our plateau. Some of us scattered out of the way right over to the end of the field from where we found it was possible to see a wide stretch of what lay in front; and by dint of keeping careful watch I saw for the first time real live Germans on the warpath against us. They were a good way off, but the helmets were unmistakable.
Towards one o’clock came the disheartening sight of small detachments of our own infantry retiring on both sides of us. They came back in little knots of twos and threes, scattered wide apart. Seeing them made us more anxious than ever to get out to the crossroads before our way of escape was quite cut off. But right up to the last we were kept at it, firing now with the gun-teams hooked in alongside and the whole battery in a growing state of anticipation. From the smoke-covered position itself the actual front could not be seen, the banks of the lane obstructing our view, and our consequent ignorance of the movements of the enemy added to our alarm.
Then all of a sudden the gun stopped firing. I looked round. A messenger was galloping off to the other batteries, his horse’s hoofs strumming across the plateau. There was a yell of ‘Limber up!’, and in a moment the guns were hidden by the swift-wheeling teams manoeuvring for the hook-in. Sharp orders rattled out. The position was now a confusion of horses, guns and men, a confusion that straightened itself out as the first team drew clear and made for the gate. I leapt into the saddle, beckoned to Ross, and struck off after them before the next team should come through and perhaps get stuck in the difficult gateway. The first gun had managed it all right and was out in the lane waiting for the others, perhaps two hundred yards away from the gate. We rode to the head of them, dismounted for fear of observation up there on horseback, and hung about consumed with impatience at the time the rest of the battery were taking to follow us. At painfully slow intervals the teams struggled through and joined the column. Now there remained only one gun in the field. Anxiously we waited for its appearance, saw the heads of the leaders showing in the gateway, and then realized with a sharp fear that they were stuck. Over-eagerness and the psychological effect on the drivers of being last out had resulted in their ‘trying to take the gate with them’. The Major was there, directing the efforts of sweating inners and steadying the frantic horses expected to see coal-scuttle helmets coming round the corner of the crossroads.
I kept a sharp watch on the end of the lane. Should they come now, I would be their first capture, then Ross and then the whole line of guns. We stood close against hope that somehow gun would come through. And then on top of everything came the whining scream of shells, one after the other, pounding on the plateau behind us and making the horses snort in fright. In the midst of all this I became aware that someone was scrambling down the bank towards me. I whirled round to find myself confronted by a young infantry officer with two privates in attendance. He, and they, had evidently been having a rough time somewhere. His face was dirty and bloodstreaked, his uniform nearly in tatters. I realized with a shock that he was mad.
‘Who are you?’ he snarled, his eyes glaring, ‘and where are you going?’
‘A Battery, 2—th Brigade, sir, preparing to retire.’ ‘Retire?’ he said, ‘Retire?’ A wan smile flickered over his face as I answered him. ‘Retire?’ he repeated dreamily. ‘But you can’t retire. Don’t you know that the German
army is advancing up this slope?’
I knew only too well. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, damn you, you must stop them!’
The glare returned. I felt very uncomfortable, and wished the Major would come along. I didn’t like the way the stranger clapped the bolt of his rifle as he spoke.
‘Now, come along all of you,’ he continued. ‘Get those rifles off the guns and climb up on the bank with my two hussars and hold the enemy. Get a move on, damn you!’
The drivers stared open-mouthed as Ross and I obeyed his orders and began slowly to unfasten the straps that held the rifles on the gun-limber. The two hussars had now posted themselves on top of the bank, but the officer stood there in the road muttering to himself. In desperation I called to him, ‘What about all these guns, sir?’
His only answer was to raise his rifle till he had me covered, and I really thought he would shoot. I went on unstrapping, and had got one rifle loose when I heard the urgent gallop of hoofs and the Major’s voice: ‘Walk! March!’
The poor mad officer turned to meet him. I slipped the rifle back in its place, dived between the wheel and centre horses and ran round to get my own mount, with Ross close at my heels. As we moved off I turned to watch developments. The Colonel had arrived now and was glaring at the forlorn figure in his path. I felt terribly sorry for the infantry officer, but he seemed past all reasoning with, and I had a last glimpse of him going to meet his end at the side of his two hussars on the top of the bank.
He vanished from my mind as we approached the crossroads and heard continuous whinings of bullets over our heads. We kept low on our horses. As long as the bank sheltered us it was not so bad, but at the turn there lay an open expanse in the centre of which was the crossroads. We began to trot. Behind us the ground quivered to the successive shocks of shells that smothered the plateau in black explosions.
‘Trot out!’
At a fast trot that threatened to break into a gallop we rode into full view of the German armoured car that was stuck there on the road up from Flavy with its machine gun spitting and cracking at the unexpected target that had so suddenly presented itself. Faster and faster grew the pace; the noise of the guns and vehicles behind us increased to a sustained roar, and round we went with our heads down alongside the necks of our horses and the air full of eerie whistlings.
A mile down the road we eased up and finally settled down to a brisk walkout, now that the immediate danger was past. A little farther along we saw a sergeant of our B battery riding back to meet us. I thought B were through all right, but the next day I heard that they had been left behind to deal with the cavalry and that one of their gun-teams had been disabled at the crossroads by the machine gun. The sergeant had volunteered to go back and get the gun.
Very much pleased with ourselves at having got safely out of such a tight corner, we rode at ease through open, untouched country where the road wound gently around low wooded hills and dipped into pleasant valleys, wondering now and again where the Fritzes might be and how much farther we were to retire. There was no general flight on the part of the army which was in the line, or at least their flight was not visible. It was true that many bedraggled parties of infantrymen had passed through our positions that day, but apart from them we saw no great bodies of troops on the move. The reason for this I discovered later was the fact that the line had been so thinly held that when the retirement started there was hardly any one left to retire. Our own division, the Fourteenth, to which we had been attached for the last few months, seemed to be lost altogether. For the first three days of the great retreat of the Fifth Army we had seen no other artillery at all, nor had we heard any.
We were still retreating in a southerly direction, which was bringing us more and more into the French army area. As yet we had seen no French troops, but a strong rumour spread that one of their army corps was hurrying to our support and would come along at any moment. We discovered some days afterwards that they were hurrying in a totally different direction.
At four o’clock in the afternoon the brigade dropped into action in open country with the guns elevated to fire over a range of thickly wooded hills. I did not know where the enemy were, and even now I do not know. A brisk rate of firing were kept up all the evening and till long past midnight. Sleep was again denied to us; during the night we were shelled with light stuff which indicated that the enemy field batteries were not very far behind their infantry. All sorts of wild rumours were current. It was said that we were entirely surrounded and that the enemy was now in our rear and slowly closing in. We lost the desire for sleep, fidgeting about aimlessly round the guns and hoping the next move was not far off. But it was ten o’clock in the morning when the order arrived.
This time we did not travel very far back. Just over the next range of hills, descending slowly on the other side, we saw a level plain spread out before us, a plain that bore no sign of activity. It seemed that the brigade were the sole survivors of the Fifth Army in this part of the line. No help showed itself on either hand; there was just the brigade vainly trying to steady things up and escaping by the skin of its teeth from the rapidly advancing enemy, a rolling expanse of deserted country greeting us as we deployed into action again, and a sense of unreality hanging over everything.
We opened fire again on our unseen target at three o’clock in the afternoon, but not for long. Nerves were getting frayed. In the absence of information it was suicidal to delay our retirement. Cavalry might be sweeping round on the flanks. And the French had not come yet.
Another hour of the road, then action again. Six o’clock now on the 24th of March. Strung out across the low-lying fields were the silent guns, eighteen of them in a line together, with wider spaces between marking off the batteries, trained carefully on a dip in the wooded skyline in front of them. Through this small defile the enemy would most certainly appear, and the first sight of field-grey against the trees would jerk the firing-levers of the whole brigade. We stared at the distant woods, and waited.
Then suddenly from behind us, from the quiet countryside, rode forth at the gallop a magnificent line of French cavalry. We thrilled to their approach. Straight for the line they rode, passing on the right of the guns with pennons flying from erect lances and urging their horses to greater speed as they took the slope leading up to the woods ahead. They breasted the rise in open formation, drawn apart from each other somewhat but in perfect line as the fringe of the trees was reached. Now we took our gaze off them and looked behind us again, this time full expecting to see the landscape hidden by the moving masses of horizon-blue uniforms, which we had so long awaited. But there was nothing to be seen. Keenly disappointed we returned to the more hopeful sight of the single line of horsemen on the hillside. We still felt sure that they must be the advance guard of the legions to come. But even this picture had taken on a different aspect now, and the last vestiges of hope died in our hearts as we saw them turn tail at the approach to the defile and come flying back down the slope at a much greater speed than they had gone up it. We concluded sadly that they had only been retreating the wrong way and had discovered their mistake in time. Somewhere at the end of the line of guns there sounded a faint, ironic cheer as the Cuirassiers or Chasseurs or whatever they were disappeared the way they had come.
Darkness came on without the slightest sign of the enemy’s appearance in the defile so carefully covered by the guns. And once it was dark it was no use waiting any longer; so about nine o’clock we took to the road again.
Through the night we rode, strangers in a strange land of great mysterious woods and silent, deserted hamlets. There was not a soul left in the villages on our line of march, the population of the countryside having abandoned everything and fled twenty-four hours before the retreating armies came rough. What they could not carry with them they had left behind, and there were whole rows and streets of cottages with furniture in them and curtains still up at the windows, all ready to be plundered and perhaps burnt by the Jerri
es in a few hours’ time. It seemed only right we could in order that it should not fall enemy, but strict orders were issued against looting. When darkness fell, however, we did a bit of foraging in one village, and several bottles of wine made their appearance; moreover, when we pulled into Crissolles to billet for the night, I was sure I could smell roast chicken somewhere.
Billet for the night was the order. Already it was twelve o’clock. We were not to undress but to lie down in the nearby barns with all our clothes on and the harness on the horses’ backs. Our barn-load debated whether we should take off just a few of our things, and, very stupidly in view of the circumstances, we decided to undress and put our handy so that we could slip them on at once if necessary.
It became necessary at one o’clock, after we had slept like logs for a short hour. Some one burst in through the door of the barn, waking us up with excited shouts: ‘Come on out of it! Jerry’s in the end of the village!’ A mad scramble ensued; we fought for our boots and puttees and tunics in pitch darkness, no one stopping to light a candle, then we fell over each other in our haste to be going. The battery was moving off already; our subsection sergeant was yelling himself hoarse for us to get our horses and follow; we got mounted in a hurry, with bandoliers hanging round our necks, and trotted out of the field down to the road. Everything and everybody seemed to be on the move; columns of vehicles were retiring through the village at a brisk trot, while our brigade waited to collect its stragglers and follow suit. Then we too made off in the direction of supposed safety, clearing the outskirts of Crissolles at the same time as the field-greys cautiously advanced through its streets and burnt a barn here and there to give themselves light.
Away on the right a red glow shone against the night sky; another village was being fired, perhaps a town. To the left was the blackness of great forests; everything was shrouded in silence, and the air seemed charged with suspense and uncertainty. For all we knew we were running right into their hands as the gloomy woods closed in over the road. We listened for the noises of German cavalry galloping to head us off, but the silence held.
