And We Go On (19 page)

CHAPTER V

Thou Shalt Not Kill

The shelling abated somewhat as we ventured into the no man's land that lay beyond our battered line. The officer was nervous and plunged through the mud so blindly that he lost his direction and it took me some time to get him convinced of his mistake. Then we swung and went forward and whizz bangs began dropping quite near. The officer jumped at each explosion, and yelled something at me. I paid no attention for I had just located the old stub we were to use as a guide. As I made the tape fast to it I looked up and saw my man racing away like a wild thing. Fear had mastered him. He had hurled the tape from him and was gone before I could do anything, leaving me there alone in the dark and the shelling, and with the company moving up in a few minutes. I snatched up my rifle and fired at him, forgetting in my rage that I might shoot some of my own fellows, forgetting everything, but before I could press the trigger a second time a quiet voice spoke to me so clearly that I could hear it above the din. I jumped around and there was the captain.

He had come out there alone and he calmly helped me with the tape as though it were his usual work. We had it in place as the men arrived and he did not threaten me nor reprimand me for what I had done. We dug in as swiftly as we could but there were wild cries in the dark and I rushed out with Tommy to find Christensen over a wounded man trying to bind his hurts. The fellow had become frenzied and would not lie still and we had to hold him by force until he was bandaged, then tie him on the stretcher. All the while Christensen never hurried or ducked as bullets snapped by. I never saw him flinch from a shell. He was the only real fatalist I knew. “When my time comes I'll go,” was his creed, and he lived up to
it. He had been shipwrecked twice and almost drowned, and several times he had had narrow escapes from shells. But he never showed fear. I have seen sergeants order him to stay in the trench as he passed to another part of the sector, and several times he had walked overland. He never ducked or hurried in exposed places, claiming that it was of no use. “My time is set,” he would say. “When it comes I'll get mine wherever I am, and until that time I won't be hit.”

A runner came through the murk and said we were to go with the battalion beside us in an attack on a pillbox. Corporal Hughes was at a place farther along and when I found him he knew nothing of such orders. Then we saw men advancing near us. There was no time to look further for verification and so Tommy and Mickey, Gordon and Sambro and I scrambled out of our trench and followed them. Three more men came after us. The rest did not come. We had heard names mentioned, Virtue Farm and Vocation, but did not know our front at all and so simply followed the others. All at once the strong point loomed through the murk and a Lewis gun hammered its rat-tat-tat-tat. Others joined in and cries of “kamerad” were shrill above the noise.

We plunged through the mud excitedly and found that a relief was on. The first attackers had reached the spot just as all the old garrison was outside their concrete fort, and before the new garrison could get in. Both garrisons were laden with full packs and practically helpless, and in five minutes those not killed had surrendered and we were in possession. The new Germans had thermos bottles filled with hot coffee and never did a warm drink taste as good as it. Tommy and I each got a bottle. No one seemed to know where we were to go and so we went back to our trench. Tommy and I were flanked on one side by a tall lad called Murray and his chum, Babson; on the other side were Bunty and Mickey. Farther to the right was a Lewis gun post, and Hughes and Gordon were beyond it. Then there was a stretch of twenty yards without a person in it, a short trench with men of another platoon, Sambro with them, and a small ruin with a roof over one end. On the left there was no one for fifty yards, and then another Lewis gun post. Barney, a big man, was in charge and his crew were “Red,” who was red-haired; McPhee, a cheerful, always-grinning lad and an eighteen-year-old Newfoundland boy named Russell. On the other side of them was another gap in the line, then a battalion of Camerons.

At daylight a thick, clinging mist obscured everything. Not an officer had come near us and we had no orders. The only sergeant in the trench did not know any more than we did, and we had had no rations and were ravenous. I peered around and made out a hillocky sea of mud in the rear, and crawled out among the mounds and hollows, finding a number of dead South Wales Borderers in full pack. I looked into their mess-tins until I found a tin of MacConachie rations, a tin of jam, and, in a pack, a loaf of bread. It was green with mold but we cut away the outside and ate the centre. We had “tommy cookers” with us and boiled tea and heated the meat rations. While we did so Babson saw, in front of the trench, a dead officer who had on high boots of splendid workmanship. He went out to get them and Bunty begged him not to, saying that robbing the dead would bring disaster. Babson went and tugged the corpse about in the mud until the boots were released; then he calmly stripped his own feet and put them on.

When our meal was ready Murray and Babson and I sat together on the firestep I had made. We were just finishing our tea when I heard the unmistakable report of a high velocity gun. An instant later the world seemed to come to an end. There had not been a sound of shell but I was hurled against the back of the trench and buried under an avalanche of mud and debris. In that heartbeat all sound of gunfire was deadened and all I could sense was a vague thumping. Then I heard voices. I had been pitched so that my head was beside our rifles, which had been together leaning against the trench wall. They formed a sort of vent up through the piled earth and I could get air. I heard Bunty's voice, high-pitched, telling the sergeant that he had to help get me out, and I wondered why he did not mention Babson or Murray.

Then came sounds of digging, spades thrust frantically, and I suffered an agony of apprehension, fearful that a shovel would slice my jugular as my head was twisted around. Fortunately for him, Murray was buried least of any, and he was soon uncovered. He was shell-shocked by the concussion and was sent down the line, never to return. While getting him out they saw my legs and unearthed me without doing damage. I had been buried four feet deep but was not hurt beyond a severe shaking-up. When they reached Babson it was too late. He was buried deepest of any. Bunty looked at the long boots on his legs and shook his head. “Just what I told him,” he croaked.

Another of those high velocity shells came and wiped out the Lewis gun crew to the right, and also shattered the gun. The mist cleared and showed us how thinly our line was held. Gordon saw the ruin and declared he was going to have a sleep in it. Water had seeped in where he had dug so that he had no place to lie down or even sit. Tommy and Hughes took the machine gun post, pulling the dead men to one side, and Bunty and Mickey and I remained in the centre of our trench. More shells came, and more of our trench was blown in. A wounded man on the right, blinded by blood and crazed by his hurts, got out of his place into the open and German snipers began shooting at him. Tommy and Hughes squirmed overland to get him, but were forced to take cover and the fellow was shot in the head.

Gordon had got in the ruin and possibly had lain down when there came another of the high velocity missiles. It exploded inside the wrecked building. Gordon would never know what happened. All the rest of day we sat there with the dead men beside us, the dead officer in front of us, and dead men lying in the mud at the rear. In my head was a queer little singing noise that the din of the shelling augmented. But I minded most the stench that dominated everything. It seemed to penetrate one's inmost being, that awful stench of death, a foul thing, a filthy thing, its reek was sickening. Mickey became ill and we persuaded him to work his way to the right and to try and reach some shelter where he could sleep.

As the dark came, early and foreboding, only Bunty and I remained in that bit of line that fourteen platoon had held. All at once I roused. I had seen something moving directly in front of where we were. We watched and made out a German patrol of ten or twelve men. They would remain a considerable time in one place and when they moved seemed uncertain of direction. We examined our rifles, and they were clogged with mud so that we could not use them. Every bomb had been buried. We could depend only on our bayonets.

For an hour Bunty and I watched them and then as they crawled far over on the left Barney's Lewis gun chattered and they came back our way. I looked about, standing up in the wrecked part, and could not see any of our men, then spotted a file of blurred figures coming in from behind us, over the boggy ground where the dead Welshmen were sprawled. They came directly to us and the officer in the lead was a young fellow. I told him of the Germans crawling towards us and he gave quick order to his
men, telling them to get into the trench. Bunty dragged himself away towards the right. He was too all in to want to linger.

The officer told me he belonged to the Black Watch and that they were to relieve the Camerons. I pointed the way he should go but he asked me to go with him and help rout the Germans. It was a weird mix-up. The Huns seemed bewildered, apparently thinking that we were their own men for they did not start up until we were almost beside them. Then they fought sullenly. The mud was deep and the Scots could not rush them very well, though four or five men seemed very anxious to get at them with bayonets. The officer shouted to the Germans, telling them to surrender, and he shot their leader with his revolver. Two bombs changed the situation, though only one German fell, and then I made my first and only kill with cold steel.

It had been all like a bad dream to me. I was too sick of the mud and dead men and lack of sleep hardly to realize what I was doing, and I had kept with the officer. He, seemingly, expected the Germans to put up their hands when he spoke, and when one lunged for him he was taken off guard and only escaped the thrust by falling to one side. Between his assailant and myself was the body of the feld-webel killed by the pistol shot, and as, half-dazed by the bomb explosions, I flourished my bayonet, intending only to bluff the German into surrender – for I had always a dread of such fighting – the fellow drove headlong at me. He tripped over his comrade as he came, but I seemed paralyzed. I could not move to avoid him. I tried to ward his weapon and then instead of tearing steel in my own flesh I felt my bayonet steady as if guided, and was jolted as it brought up on solid bone. My grip tightened as my rifle was twisted by a sudden squirming, as if I had speared a huge fish. Then I tugged it free and saw that the other men had killed two more Germans and the rest had surrendered.

I was weak with the shock of excitement, and could hardly answer the officer as he asked me questions. I had pointed out to him the gap that would exist if we left and he told me he would look after it, but wanted my name and regimental number. He seemed to think that I had saved his life and said that he would recommend me for a D.C.M. It meant nothing to me then, I was so utterly weary that I only wanted to get away. I had not meant to kill the German, had not wanted to do anything, and I was glad when I got over on the company front and saw that our relieving battalion was arriving.

I did not stop there as all the rest were leaving, but went with Mickey and Hughes, whom I found back of the ruin. Mickey was ghastly white, and the corporal was tired. We floundered through mud to a pillbox that served as a dressing station, and I saw Bunty there, sitting on two dead men covered with a rubber sheet. He told me that he was not going to hurry and that he wanted a shot of rum before he went on. Out on the road we met incoming men going to other points, and as we stumbled and waded past each other there came a deluge of shell fire. In an instant all was confusion. Men blundered into each other, knocked each other down. There were stunning, smashing explosions, gusts of concussion, terrible cries. Wounded men fell in the mud and were tramped down to join the old dead. The others in their panic stepped on them, did anything but stop. It was death to do so.

I had Hughes by the arm and fairly dragged him through the mire. Twice I slipped on dead bodies, and then came to a ruin where a man sat a fragment of wall. I went to him and asked if he had water. Both Mickey and Hughes were begging for a drink. The man did not answer. He was not dead, or even wounded, but so absolutely all in that he did not nod or speak, and I took his water bottle from his equipment, took it to Mickey and Hughes in turn, and brought it back and replaced it. I thanked the fellow then, and still he never changed expression. We went on down the road and there came another salvo. As the last of the crashing, soul-tearing smashes rang in my ears I saw Mickey spin and fall. I let go of Hughes and jumped to him. He had been hit in several places and could not possibly live.

“Mickey – Mickey!” I called his name and raised him up and he nestled to me like a child, his white face upturned to mine.

“At last,” he murmured, “I'm through.” Then his whisper was shrill and harsh. “I never had a white tunic or a red one,” he said. “I didn't want – to kill people. I hate war – and everything. Why did they do it – why – did – they?”

He seemed delirious and I tried to soothe him, but he would not listen. He talked about what we had read in my little guide book, the way boys trained for fighting, the soldiers killed in France and Belgium, the other wars that had been fought, the futility of the endless repetition. “And we just go on and on,” he finished. “Doing things because – because – ”

His voice sank so low I could not hear but his lips still moved. Little white-faced Mickey! I held him there, held him tight, and tried to comfort
him as he grew weaker and weaker. Then he twisted, strained in my arms, “… and we go on – on – on – on,” he shrilled, and stiffened.

I laid him there by the roadside with his rifle upright at his head, and took his belongings from his pockets. Hughes stood all the time, wavering, watching, yet never stepping from where I had left him and I suddenly knew he was in a worse condition than I had supposed, for he had thought the world of Mickey. “Come on,” I said roughly, and led him away and he never spoke.