Fighting with French: A Tale of the New Army

by Herbert Strang

  CHAPTER XIII

  THE FIGHT FOR THE VILLAGE

  In the darkest hours before the dawn the trenches were buzzing withexcitement. Word had been passed along that next morning the Rutlandswere to attack. The long, trying period of inaction was over. Sir JohnFrench had ordered the capture of the village within the German lines.The hill on which it stood commanded a wide stretch of open country, andits possession was an essential preliminary to the general advance whichwould take place when the weather improved and the reserves ofammunition were completed.

  During these last hours of the night sleepy men trudged along the roadand across the sodden fields towards the firing line. Fresh troops, someof whom had never been under continuous fire, crowded into the trenches.Some of the men tried to prepare breakfast in the constricted space; themost of them were too much excited to feel any inclination to eat. Thebustle which Kenneth had noticed in the village was explained. Batteriesof heavy artillery had been brought up and placed all along the rear ofthe British lines. The men listened eagerly for the boom that wouldannounce the great doings of the day, and they gazed up into the inkysky, longing for the dawn.

  Sitting, sprawling, packed tight in the trenches, they waited. Wouldmorning never come? The darkness thinned; the blackness gradually wastransformed into ashen grey, streaked here and there with silvery light.A gun boomed miles in the rear. The men stifled a cheer. Rifle fireburst from the German trenches. Bullets pinged across the breastworks,and some of the newcomers involuntarily ducked. Captain Adams passedalong the simple orders of the day. "The battalion will advance in lineof platoons at 7 o'clock." Another hour to wait!

  The men took off their equipment and stowed their coats in their packs.Some munched sticks of chocolate, others lighted cigarettes but forgotto smoke them. Boom, boom! The British guns were in full play. TheGerman guns were answering. Shells screamed across the trenches in bothdirections. The din increased moment by moment. The air quivered withthe thunderous crashes, and sang with the perpetual _phwit, phwit_ ofbullets. Not a man dared to lift his head. Clouds of earth rose intothe air before and behind, showering pellets upon the waiting soldiers.

  Boom and roar and crash! Presently the stream of shells from theGermans diminished. It almost ceased.

  "Platoons, get ready!"

  "Fix bayonets!"

  The men began to swarm up the parapet. There was no enemy to be seen.The wire stretched across their front had been battered down in manyplaces.

  All at once there was a great stillness. The artillery had finished itswork.

  "Now, men!" shouted Kennedy, commander of the leading platoon.

  With a cheer the men rushed forward, Kenneth on the right, Harry on theleft. On either side other regiments had already deployed and wereadvancing. They came to the first of the German trenches--empty, exceptfor prone and huddled forms in grey, and a litter of rifles, helmets,water-bottles, mess-tins, equipment of all kinds. Kenneth sprang intothe communication trench beside the pond, and splashed through the waterat the bottom, the rest of the platoon after him. Where were theGermans?

  They came to the second line of trenches, floundered through what seemedan endless series of mysterious zigzag passages, waded through two orthree feet of greenish water, scrambled up the embankment beyond, andraced across the open field, as fast as men could race with packs ontheir backs, full haversacks, and rifle and bayonet, over ground pittedwith holes, heaped with earth and stones, scattered with the bodies ofmen, strands of barbed wire, fragments of shells and all the dreadfulapparatus of warfare. Still there were no Germans to be seen, butbullets spat and sang among the advancing men; here a man fell with agroan, there one tumbled upon his face without even a murmur, scarcelynoticed by his comrades pressing on and on with shouts and cheers.

  Kennedy's platoon reached the ruined church which Kenneth and Harry hadpassed on their memorable night expedition. With shaking limbs andpanting lungs they flung themselves down behind the wall of thechurchyard for a brief rest. The next rush towards the village would beacross two hundred and fifty yards of open ground, bare of cover untilthey came to the gardens at the back of the cottages.

  The modern battle makes greater demands on individual effort andresource than the old-time battles on less extensive fields, where allthe operations were conducted under the eye of the commander-in-chief.Kennedy's men knew nothing of what was going on on their left and right.They heard the insistent crackle of rifles, the rapid clack-clack ofmachine guns, the whistling of shrapnel. They saw the white and yellowpuffs, with now and then a burst of inky blackness, in the sky. Boomand crash, rattle and crack; pale flashes of fire; the ground tremblingas with an earthquake; all the work of deadly destructive machines,operated by some unseen agency. And in a momentary lull there cameraining down from somewhere in the blue the liquid notes of a lark'ssong.

  "Now, men," cried Kennedy, "the last rush. No good stopping or lyingdown. On to the village. Stick it, Rutlands!"

  The men sprang through the gaps in the wall, rushed across thechurchyard and into the open fields. From the houses a little abovethem on the hillside broke a withering fire. They pressed on doggedly,stumbling in holes and shell pits, scrambling up and moving on again,bullets spattering and whistling among them, their ears deafened by themerciless scream and boom. On, ever on, the gaps in their extendedorder widening as the fatal missiles found their mark. There was nofaltering. A mist seemed to hide the houses from view, but they weredrawing nearer moment by moment. Suddenly there was a tremendousdetonation in their front; a vast column of smoke, earth and brick dustrose in the air, and where cottages had been there were now only heapsof ruins. "I hope our own gunners won't shell us," thought Kenneth onthe extreme right, as he dashed towards the side street in which theexplosion had taken place.

  And now at last the enemy were seen, some on the ground, some fleeinghelter skelter from the ravaged spot. The Rutlands yelled. From thefurther end of the village came answering British cheers. Working roundthe shoulder of the hill another company had forced the defences, andthe village was won.

  With scarcely a moment's delay the men set to work to prepare for theinevitable counter-attack. Lieutenant Kennedy was not to be seen.Sergeant Colpus took command of his platoon, diminished by nearly ahalf. Kenneth and Harry, bearing no marks of the fight except dirt, hadtime for only a word of mutual congratulation before they rushed off toplace machine guns at the salient angles of the village. Others threwup new entrenchments and barricades, utilising the debris of houses andfurniture. And meanwhile, on the shell-scarred field behind, theambulances and Red Cross men were busy.

  The village consisted of one principal street, with a few streetsspringing from it on either side; crooked and irregular, following thecontour of the hill. For a couple of hours the men toiled to strengthenthe position they had carried; then warning of the impending attack wasgiven by a shell from a German battery miles away to the east. It burstsome fifty yards in front of the village. A minute or two later fourshells plunged among the houses almost at the same instant. The warninghad given the Rutlands just time enough to evacuate the houses and takewhat shelter was possible. An aeroplane soared high over the positiontowards the German lines. Shrapnel burst around it, but it sailed onunperturbed for several minutes, then swept round and returned. Novisible signal had been observed, but almost immediately shells began toscream over the village: the British artillery had been given the rangeand had opened fire. For half an hour the German bombardment continued,gradually slackening as gun after gun was put out of action by theBritish shells from far away. Finally the German batteries weresilenced, but the enemy had not relinquished his design of acounter-attack. In the distance, over a wide front, column after columnof grey-clad infantry was seen advancing in the dense formation that hadcost countless lives in the early months of the war, but which hadsucceeded many times in crushing the defence, even though temporarily,by sheer weight
of numbers.

  The Rutlands manned the houses, the ruins, the garden fences, thebreastworks hastily thrown up. Other battalions occupied the Germanreserve trenches running close beside the church in the rear. Theadvancing Germans were met with rapid fire from rifles and machine guns.Great gaps were cut in their ranks, but they were instantly filled up.Time after time they were brought to a halt and showed signs ofwavering; but in a few minutes their lines were steadied and they cameon again with indomitable courage. It was soon apparent that the Germancommander was hurling immense masses forward with the intention ofrecapturing the village at all costs. As they approached they spreadout to right and left, attacking the village on three sides. TheRutlands and the one company from another regiment which held it couldlook for no support, for the men in the trenches also were hard besetand unable to leave their positions because of the enfilading fire ofthe numerous German machine guns.

  Kenneth and Harry, with the other survivors of their platoon, occupiedtwo or three small houses on the southern slope of the hill. A dozenmen held a detached cottage some forty yards beyond. It was on thiscottage that the huge German wave first broke. Two or three times itwas swept back; then Captain Adams, recognising the hopelessness ofattempting to retain this isolated outpost, ran into one of the nearesthouses and called for a volunteer to carry the order for its evacuation.Harry sprang forward among the group that instantly responded.

  "Good, Randall!" said the captain. "Bring them back at once. Look outfor cover."

  Harry left the house, ran along for a few yards sheltered by a brickwall, then with lowered head sprinted along the open road towards thecottage. He entered it from the back. Of the dozen men who held it,only four or five were now in action. Two were dead; the rest, amongwhom was Stoneway, were wounded. On receiving the captain's order, themen who were unhurt carried out those of their comrades who wereincapable of movement, and began to withdraw. The moment they lefttheir loopholes the Germans they had held at bay swarmed up the slope.Laden as they were, they could hardly escape without assistance.

  "Come on, boys!" shouted Kenneth.

  Followed by several of his companions he dashed out of the house. Atthe wall they stopped to fire one volley, then with a ringing cheercharged with the bayonet. At the sight of cold steel the Germansrecoiled, and their pause, short as it was, gave Harry time to bring theretiring men under cover of the wall. Then the Germans came on again insuch numbers that Kenneth and his party had to fall back, firing as theywent, and rejoin the men in the house.

  For ten minutes more they held their position, hurling the grey massback by the rapidity of their fire. Their rifles were hot to the touch.Still the Germans pressed forward, some of them flinging hand grenades,which set fire to the houses. To remain longer was to court certaindestruction. Dashing out at the back, the men rushed from garden togarden towards the main street, only to find that the enemy had alreadyforced their way into that, and were pressing hard upon the remnants oftwo platoons that were falling back, disputing every yard.

  Kenneth glanced round among the men who had accompanied him from thehouses. Neither Sergeant Colpus nor any other non-commissioned officerwas with them.

  "We'll give them a charge, boys," he cried.

  Several files of Germans had already passed the end of the lane that ranalong the rear of the gardens into the main street. Forming his littleparty in fours, Kenneth led them along the lane. They swept upon theflank of the enemy, their sudden onset cutting the column in two. Theeastern portion recoiled: the western, caught between these newassailants and the Rutlands stubbornly retreating up the street, werecut to pieces.

  "Well done!" cried Captain Adams, rushing up at the head of the men uponwhom the pressure had been relieved, "Dash down those walls there."

  He pointed to a house that was already tottering through the effects ofthe bombardment. Taking advantage of the enemy's confusion, theRutlands completed the demolition of the walls, hurling bricks, plaster,rafters, furniture across the street, and hastily raising a barricade.When the Germans returned to the charge, they found themselves faced bya formidable breastwork, from behind which the Rutlands met their rushwith rifles and machine guns. They were thrown back again and again, andduring every interval the defenders ripped up the pave and workedenergetically at sinking a trench across the whole breadth of thestreet.

  "They are checked for the moment," said the captain. "But they'll bringup field guns, and splinter the barricade. We'll hold the houses oneach side. I've already sent word to the colonel; if we can manage tohold our ground for the rest of the day we shall get support to-morrow."

  It was clear that the attack had been checked all along the line. TheGermans immediately in front of the village established themselves atthe foot of the hill facing the street, no doubt with the intention ofrenewing the attack after another bombardment. During the day theRutlands were not further molested. Early next morning the village washeavily shelled by the German batteries, but British artillery had beenmoved up in anticipation of this onslaught, and after a hot duel thatlasted for nearly an hour the Germans were again silenced. Theirinfantry was observed to be entrenching themselves in the fields half amile away, and a certain amount of spasmodic rifle fire and sniping wenton between the two forces.

  The Rutlands were worn out with fatigue and hunger. It had beenimpossible to bring up supplies, and they had only their emergencyrations and what food they could find in the village. But in theevening two fresh battalions came up to relieve them, and they wereordered back to their original billets. There the brigadier himselfcomplimented them on their success, and promised them a well-earnedrest.

  When the roll was called, it was found that the success had been won ata heavy cost. Half the officers and thirty per cent. of the men werekilled or wounded. Colonel Appleton was slightly injured by a splinter,Lieutenant Kennedy had narrowly escaped death: a bullet had shatteredthe wire-nippers in his breast pocket, causing lacerations of the flesh.Stoneway's wound turned out to be very slight; and some of the men whohad been with him in the cottage were rather aggrieved that he hadwithdrawn from the firing line though not incapacitated. Captain Adams,Kenneth and Harry were among those who had come through unscathed.