Bullets & Billets

CHAPTER XXX

RAIN AND MUD--A TRY­ING MARCH--IN THE THICK OF IT--A WOUND­ED OF­FI­CER--HEAVY SHELLING--I GET MY “QUI­ETUS!”

At a lit­tle af­ter mid­night we left the field, march­ing down the road which led to­wards the Yser Canal and the vil­lage of St. Jean. Our trans­port re­mained be­hind in a cer­tain field that had been se­lect­ed for the pur­pose. The whole brigade was on the road, our bat­tal­ion be­ing the last in the long col­umn. The road from the field in which we had been rest­ing to the vil­lage of St. Jean pass­es through the out­skirts of Ypres, and cross­es the Yser Canal on its way. I couldn't see the de­tails as it was a dark night, and the rain was get­ting worse as time went on. I knew what had been hap­pen­ing now in the last forty-​eight hours, and what we were go­ing to do. The Ger­mans had launched gas in the war for the first time, and, as ev­ery one knows now, had by this means suc­ceed­ed in break­ing the line on a wide front to the north of Ypres. The Ger­mans were di­rect­ing their sec­ond great ef­fort against the Salient.

The sec­ond bat­tle of Ypres had be­gun. We were mak­ing for the threat­ened spot, and were go­ing to at­tack them at four o'clock in the morn­ing.

Ypres, at this pe­ri­od, ought to have been seen to get an ac­cu­rate re­al­iza­tion of what it was like. All oth­er parts of the front fad­ed in­to a pleas­ing mem­ory; so it seemed to me as I marched along. I thought of our rest at the vil­lage, the bil­lets, the Curé, the bright sun­ny days of our coun­try life there, and then com­pared them with this wretched spot we were in now. A ghast­ly com­par­ison.

We were march­ing in pour­ing rain and dark­ness down a mud­dy, man­gled road, shat­tered poplar trees stick­ing up in black streaks on ei­ther side. Crash af­ter crash, shells were falling and ex­plod­ing all around us, and be­hind the burn­ing city. The road took a turn. We marched for a short time par­al­lel to now dis­tant Ypres. Through the charred skele­ton wrecks of hous­es one caught glimpses of the yel­low flames mount­ing to the sky. We passed over the Yser Canal, dirty, dark and stag­nant, re­flect­ing the yel­low glow of the flames. On our left was a church and grave­yard, both blown to a thou­sand pieces. Tomb­stones ly­ing about and stick­ing up at odd an­gles all over the torn-​up ground. I guid­ed my sec­tion a lit­tle to one side to avoid a dead horse ly­ing across the road. The noise of shrap­nel burst­ing about us on­ly ceased oc­ca­sion­al­ly, mak­ing way for ghast­ly, omi­nous si­lences. And the rain kept pour­ing down.

What a march! As we pro­ceed­ed, the road got rougher and nar­row­er: de­bris of all sorts, and hor­ri­ble to look up­on, lay about on ei­ther side. We halt­ed sud­den­ly, and were al­lowed to “fall out” for a few min­utes.

I and my sec­tion had drawn up op­po­site what had once been an es­taminet. I en­tered, and told them all to come in and stay there out of the rain. The roof still had a few tiles left on it, so the place was a lit­tle dri­er than the road out­side. The floor was strewn with bro­ken glass, chairs, and bot­tles. I got hold of a three-​legged chair, and by bal­anc­ing my­self against one of the walls, tried to do a bit of a doze. I was pre­cious near tired out now, from want of sleep and a sur­feit of march­ing. I told my sergeant to wake me when the or­der came along, and then and there slept on that chair for twen­ty min­utes, lulled off by the shrap­nel burst­ing along the road out­side. My sergeant woke me. “We are go­ing on again, sir!” “Right oh!” I said, and left my three-​legged chair. I shout­ed to the sec­tion to “fall in,” and fol­lowed on af­ter the bat­tal­ion up the road once more. Af­ter we had cov­ered an­oth­er hor­ri­ble half-​mile we halt­ed again, but this time no hous­es were near. How it rained! A per­fect del­uge. I was wear­ing a great­coat, and had all my equip­ment strapped on over the top. The men all had mac­in­tosh capes. We were all wet through and through, but no­body both­ered a rap about that. Any­one try­ing to find a fresh dis­com­fort for us now, that would make us wince, would have been hard put to it.

Peo­ple will scarce­ly cred­it it, but times like these don't di­lute the tenac­ity or light-​heart­ed­ness of our sol­diers. You can hear a joke on these oc­ca­sions, and hear the laugh­ter at it too.

In the shat­tered es­taminet we had just left, one of the men went be­hind the al­most un­rec­og­niz­able bar-​counter, and op­er­at­ing an imag­inary han­dle, asked a com­rade, “And what's yours, mate?”

Again we got the or­der to ad­vance, and on we went. We were now near­ing the vil­lage of Wieltj, about two miles from St. Jean, which we had passed. The ru­ined church we had seen was at St. Jean.

The road was now per­fect­ly straight, bor­dered on ei­ther side by bro­ken poplar trees, be­yond which large flat fields lay un­der the mys­te­ri­ous dark­ness. As we went on we could see a faint, red glow ahead. This turned out to be Wieltj. All that was left of it, a smoul­der­ing ru­in. Here and there the bod­ies of dead men lay about the road. At in­ter­vals I could dis­cern the stiff­ened shapes of corpses in the ditch­es which bor­dered the road. We went through Wieltj with­out stop­ping. Pass­ing out at the oth­er side we pro­ceed­ed up this aw­ful, shell-​torn road, to­wards a slight hill, at the base of which we stopped. Now came my fi­nal or­ders. “Come on at once, fol­low up the bat­tal­ion, who, with the brigade, are about to at­tack.”

“Now we're for it,” I said to my­self, and gave the or­der to un­lim­ber the guns. One lim­ber had been held up some lit­tle way back I found, by get­ting jammed in a shell-​hole in the road. I couldn't wait for it to come up, so sent my sergeant back with some men to get hold of the guns and tack­le in it, and fol­low on as soon as they could. I got out the rest of the things that were there with us and pre­pared to start on af­ter the bat­tal­ion. “I'll go to the left, and you'd bet­ter go to the right,” I shout­ed to my sergeant. “Here, Smith, let's have your ri­fle,” I said, turn­ing to my ser­vant. I had de­cid­ed that he had best stay and look af­ter the lim­bers. I seized his ri­fle, and slip­ping on a cou­ple of ban­doliers of car­tridges, led on up the slight hill, fol­lowed by my sec­tion car­ry­ing the ma­chine guns. I felt that a ri­fle was go­ing to be of more use to me in this busi­ness than a re­volver, and, any­way, it was just as well to have both.

It was now just about four o'clock in the morn­ing. A faint light was creep­ing in­to the sky. The rain was abat­ing a bit, thank good­ness!

We topped the rise, and rushed on down the road as fast as was pos­si­ble un­der the cir­cum­stances. Now we were in it! Bul­lets were fly­ing through the air in all di­rec­tions. Ahead, in the se­mi-​dark­ness, I could just see the forms of men run­ning out in­to the fields on ei­ther side of the road in ex­tend­ed or­der, and be­yond them a con­tin­uous heavy crack­ling of ri­fle-​fire showed me the main di­rec­tion of the at­tack. A few men had gone down al­ready, and no won­der--the air was thick with bul­lets. The ma­chine-​gun of­fi­cer of one of the oth­er reg­iments in the brigade was shot right through the head as he went over the brow of the hill. I found one of his ma­chine-​gun sec­tions a short time lat­er, and ap­pro­pri­at­ed them for our own use. Af­ter we had gone down the road for about two hun­dred yards I thought that my best plan was to get away over to the left a bit, as the great­est noise seemed to come from there. “Come on, you chaps,” I shout­ed, “we'll cross this field, and get to that hedge over there.” We dashed across, in­ter­min­gled with a crowd of High­landers, who were al­so mak­ing to the left. Through a cloud of bul­lets, fly­ing like rice at a wed­ding, we reached the oth­er side of the field. On­ly one ca­su­al­ty--one man with a shot in the knee.

Couldn't get a good view of the en­emy from the hedge, so I de­cid­ed to creep along fur­ther to the left still, to a spot I saw on the left front of a large farm which stood about two hun­dred yards be­hind us. The Ger­man ma­chine guns were now busy, and sent sprays of bul­lets flick­ing up the ground all round us. Ly­ing be­hind a slight fold in the ground we saw them whisk­ing through the grass, three or four inch­es over our heads. We slow­ly worked our way across to the left, past an old, wide ditch full of stag­nant wa­ter, and in­to a shal­low gul­ly be­yond. Dawn had come now, and in the cold grey light I saw our men out in front of me ad­vanc­ing in short rush­es to­wards a large wood in front. The Ger­mans were fir­ing star shells in­to the air in pret­ty large num­bers, why, I couldn't make out, as there was quite enough light now to see by. I or­dered the sec­tion out of the gul­ly, and ran across the open to a bit of old trench I saw in the field. This was the on­ly suit­able spot I could see for bring­ing our guns to bear on the en­emy, and as­sist in the at­tack. We fixed up a cou­ple of ma­chine guns, and await­ed a favourable op­por­tu­ni­ty. I could see a lot of Ger­mans run­ning along in front of the wood to­wards one end of it. We laid our aim on the wood, which seemed to me the chief spot to go for. One or two of my men had not man­aged to get up to the gun po­si­tion as yet. They were am­mu­ni­tion car­ri­ers, and had had a pret­ty hard job with it. I left the guns to run back and hur­ry them on. The ri­fle-​fire kept up an in­ces­sant rat­tle the whole time, and now the Ger­man gun­ners start­ed shelling the farm be­hind us. Shell af­ter shell burst be­yond, in front of, and on ei­ther side of the farm. Hav­ing got up the am­mu­ni­tion, I ran back to­wards the guns past the farm. In front of me an of­fi­cer was hur­ry­ing along with a mes­sage to­wards a trench which was on the left of our new-​found gun po­si­tion. He ran across the open to­wards it. When about forty yards from me I saw him throw up his hands and col­lapse on the ground. I hur­ried across to him, and lift­ed his head on to my knee. He couldn't speak and was rapid­ly turn­ing a death­ly pal­lor. I un­did his equip­ment and the but­tons of his tu­nic as fast as I could, to find out where he had been shot. Right through the chest, I saw. The left side of his shirt, near his heart, was stained deep with blood. A cap­tain in the Cana­di­ans, I no­ticed. The mes­sage he had been car­ry­ing lay near him. I didn't know quite what to do. I turned in the di­rec­tion of my gun sec­tion with­out dis­turb­ing his head, and called out to them to throw me over a wa­ter-​bot­tle. A man named Mills ran across with one, and took charge of the cap­tain, whilst I went through his pock­ets to try and dis­cov­er his name. I found it in his pock­et-​book. His iden­ti­ty disc had ap­par­ent­ly been lost.

With the mes­sage I ran back to the farm, and, as luck would have it, came across a colonel in the Cana­di­ans. I told him about the cap­tain who had been car­ry­ing the mes­sage, and said if there was a stretch­er about I could get him in. All move­ment in the at­tack had now ceased, but the ri­fle and shell fire was on as strong as ev­er. My cor­po­ral was with the two guns, and had or­ders to fire as soon as an op­por­tu­ni­ty arose, so I thought my best plan was to see to get­ting this of­fi­cer in while there was a chance. I got hold of an­oth­er sub­al­tern in the farm, and to­geth­er we ran back with a stretch­er to the spot where I had left Mills and the cap­tain. We lift­ed him on to the stretch­er. He seemed a bit bet­ter, but his breath­ing was very dif­fi­cult. How I man­aged to hold up that stretch­er I don't know; I was just verg­ing on com­plete ex­haus­tion by this time. I had to take a pause about twen­ty yards from the farm and lie flat out on the ground for a mo­ment or two to re­cu­per­ate suf­fi­cient­ly to fin­ish the jour­ney. We got him in and put him down in an out­build­ing which had been turned in­to a tem­po­rary dress­ing sta­tion. Shells were crash­ing in­to the roof of the farm and ex­plod­ing round it in great pro­fu­sion. Ev­ery minute one heard the swirling rush over­head, the mo­men­tary pause, saw the cloud of red dust, then “Crumph!” That farm was go­ing to be ex­tin­guished, I could plain­ly see. I went along the edge of the dried-​up moat at the back, to­wards my guns. I couldn't stand up any longer. I lay down on the side of the moat for five min­utes. Twen­ty yards away the shells burst round and in the farm, but I didn't care, rest was all I want­ed. “What about my sergeant and those oth­er guns?” I thought, as I lay there. I rose, and cut across the open space again to the two guns.

“You know what to do here, Cor­po­ral?” I said. “I am go­ing round the farm over to the right to see what's hap­pened to the oth­ers.”

I left him, and went across to­wards the farm. As I went I heard the enor­mous pon­der­ous, gur­gling, ro­tat­ing sound of large shells com­ing. I looked to my left. Four columns of black smoke and earth shot up a hun­dred feet in­to the air, not eighty yards away. Then four mighty re­ver­ber­at­ing ex­plo­sions that rent the air. A row of four “Jack John­sons” had land­ed not a hun­dred yards away, right amongst the lines of men, ly­ing out fir­ing in ex­tend­ed or­der. I went on, and had near­ly reached the farm when an­oth­er four came over and land­ed fifty yards fur­ther up the field to­wards us.

“They'll have our guns and sec­tion,” I thought rapid­ly, and hur­ried on to find out what had be­come of my sergeant. The shelling of the farm con­tin­ued; I ran past it be­tween two ex­plo­sions and raced along the old gul­ley we had first come up. Shells have a way of miss­ing a build­ing, and get­ting some­thing else near by. As I was on the slop­ing bank of the gul­ly I heard a colos­sal rush­ing swish in the air, and then didn't hear the re­sul­tant crash....

All seemed dull and fog­gy; a sort of si­lence, worse than all the shelling, sur­round­ed me. I lay in a filthy stag­nant ditch cov­ered with mud and slime from head to foot. I sud­den­ly start­ed to trem­ble all over. I couldn't grasp where I was. I lay and trem­bled ... I had been blown up by a shell.

* * * * *

I lay there some lit­tle time, I imag­ine, with a most pe­cu­liar sen­sa­tion. All fear of shells and ex­plo­sions had left me. I still heard them drop­ping about and ex­plod­ing, but I lis­tened to them and watched them as calm­ly as one would watch an ap­ple fall off a tree. I couldn't make my­self out. Was I all right or all wrong? I tried to get up, and then I knew. The spell was bro­ken. I shook all over, and had to lie still, with tears pour­ing down my face.

* * * * *

I could see my part in this bat­tle was over.