And We Go On (33 page)

We left the trench, simply getting out of it without hurry and extended in groups and hurried to where rifle pits had been dug on the hillside. A machine gun fired and there was considerable sniping but not nearly the reception we had expected. Down the slope in front of us we saw a roof slanting outward, that of a little shelter, and two Germans were just outside it. I rushed toward them and Tommy and Sparky followed. The Germans ducked from view, showed themselves on the other side, and then
five of them appeared and two had rifles. They fired at us. Sparky was running like a racer. I saw his body leap in the air, hurl itself, and then he was on the sod and rolling over and over. There was a look of horror and surprise in his eyes. His hands were clenched and his body jerked oddly. I asked him if he were hurt. He did not reply but caught at his middle as if suffering from cramps. His arms and legs made a few queer, stiff motions – and he was dead.

I fired at the Germans and Tommy or I winged one. The others yelled “Kamerad” and waited till we got up to them. It was a signallers' shelter and they were all bright young fellows. They saw Sparky lying where he had huddled and I saw fear in their eyes as we approached, but we pointed back toward our trench and told them to hustle. They went in a hurry, gladly, but two of them looked behind every few steps. I went into the shelter and pocketed a map that was there as well as a photo that was stuck on the wall. It was a snapshot of the shelter and three of the men in the picture were among our prisoners.

We crossed the hollow at the foot of the slope and started up the opposite side. It was a much longer slope and grain was blowing and rustling in a soft wind. On the left we saw mounds that indicated a trench and then the Wood began. We were apparently to go up on the right of it. The sniping continued but there was very little machine gun fire. When we reached the next stop, a series of shell holes, Batten was next to us in place with McPhee and big Barney, the Lewis gunner. Suddenly, as we halted there, he looked up and said, “What does it feel like to be hit?”

“You'll know when you get one,” said McPhee. “But would I know if I were?” he insisted. “Certainly you would,” McPhee retorted.

“Well, I never felt anything hit me,” he said, “but I can't feel from my waist down. I've lost the use of my legs and I'm queer all over.”

We looked at him. He was sitting there, quite pale, and with questioning large in his eyes. Suddenly, without another word, he tipped forward, dead. A moment before he had been speaking in normal tones, asking questions. We pulled him over and found that a bullet had gone through his heart. He had died as he spoke the last time.

Sambro came over and joined me and we rushed up the hill to a small hole. Suddenly a few shells dropped about us, throwing earth sky high. There were only about a dozen of them and no one was hit. Over near the Wood we saw a runner go towards a dark entrance we knew to be a
dugout. He stopped there in an instant, then ran over toward the trench. Presently an officer, one of the company commanders, walked that way with his batman. They went to the entrance and we counted eighteen Germans who came out of that dark hole with their hands above their heads.

The machine gun began barking again and we saw the platoon with the “wise guy” officer, he who had salvaged the latrine machine gun, at their head. He was leading his men toward a German trench at the beginning of the Wood. We saw several pot helmets appear and duck down again. Williams was over there, next the officer. A German captain stood up at the end of the trench and pointed his pistol at our officer and fired rapidly. Our man went down, wounded. Williams yelled and charged with his bayonet. The German fired at him three times, and sent a bullet into Williams' thigh, then put up his hands.

“You – squarehead,” we heard Williams yell. “You needn't put them up now.” He drove his bayonet into the captain with such force that both of them went into the trench among the Germans. But all the rest had surrendered. Hansen, one of our other Lewis gunners, had got to the edge of the Wood without being stopped, and he had a line on the trench, could have killed every man in it, so they did the “kamerad” act.

Fifteen platoon went into the Wood as soon as the prisoners were hustled away. A dozen of us kept well out and worked toward the field of grain. A maxim opened fierce fire from in front, its bullets whistled through the wheat. Jones and Mills had joined Sambro and Sykes and we made a rush that carried us to the crest of the grain field. To go further meant to show ourselves. As we lay there we heard the platoon on our left fighting with bombs in the Wood. Then, all at once, came a perfect downpour of rain, a shower that soaked us as we lay. We did not mind it the least. It was cooling, refreshing. The rain stopped as suddenly as it began and we rushed a distance before flopping again. While upright, Jones had spotted the gunners, and he fired at them. The Germans fled, but we did not know it until they were almost gone from sight. We got up and followed them.

“Let's keep them going,” yelled Tommy. He had come up from behind and joined us. Tulloch and Thompson followed him. We hurried on at a jog trot, then I saw a great spread of camouflage – and Germans!

Not one hundred yards from us was a pile of wicker work cases. Beside them we made out a dark vent that was blocked by white faces. Germans!
All watching us. We were in an open field without a bit of cover. Was it a trap? “Come on,” I yelled, and put my bayonet level in front of me and charged in a manner that would have tickled the “canaries” at the “Bull Rings.”

We ran straight at the faces and as we neared them the Germans suddenly swarmed out of their underground place with their hands aloft. It was the emplacement of a big naval gun, a monster, with its pit the size of a house. All was concealed by a grass-carpet of camouflage spread across the cavity. A major headed the men and I ran at him and searched him. He eyed me sharply but made no move to protest as I took a beautiful gold watch and a pearl-handled Luger from his pockets. Then I plunged into the pit. Two machine guns were mounted by the entrance and if the crew had decided to fight they could easily have cut us down. Back of the big gun was a heap of hasty discards, Lugers, binoculars, those round cloth red-and-gray caps they wore, and a pile of newspapers. I had picked up a bomb bucket and I filled it with pistols and field glasses, then rushed up the entrance and told the boys that there were plenty of souvenirs about. They had searched all the prisoners and Tommy had found one chap wearing a revolver under his tunic. There were thirty-five in the crew and as I looked at them, one chap nodded to one side, indicating that he would like to see me there. I could not understand his signs but had my finger on my rifle trigger and let him come over to me. He at once began talking French so rapidly that I could not understand him at all, but some of the Germans did, and we had to shout at them and menace them in order to keep them back. I caught the word “spy” and at once hustled my lad back towards our second line who were coming towards us. I never saw the lad again or verified any of the rumours I heard but Tommy said that the man was a French spy who had been with the gun crew as a member and that he had maps of all that area concealed on him.

We rushed on again. Lofty caught up to us while we were handing over the prisoners to an escort. He saw my bag of souvenirs, and growled his displeasure, then asked me for the pistols I displayed. I told him that there were lots more souvenirs ahead and those who went first would get them, but he did not seem anxious to lead the way. It had been rumoured around the platoon that I had sold my lot I got at Parvillers for two hundred francs, and I had, to airmen who seemed so anxious to buy that I regretted I had not raised my price.

All at once the fighting in the Wood seemed to quieten and we hurried as fast as possible over the field back of the emplacement. We could just see, in the distance, that two lines of trenches crossed our way. Suddenly a machine gun fired at us. Two men, one a lance-corporal, from sixteen platoon, suddenly went down, shot through the legs. We did not stop but kept on, hoping to have the Huns surrender as the others had done. I looked around and saw most of those who had caught up with us slowing down. The sight of our easy capture had incited them to join us, but machine gun bullets made the proposition look different. A fat Lewis gunner went down, shot through the leg, and then a fourth man dropped, wounded the same way. We kept on. Not a man had been killed.

Sykes had got a revolver and had it in his hand. He was running alongside of me, and Jones and Mills were close behind us. Just back of them, in a straggling line, were Tulloch and Thompson and Sambro. As we neared the first trench the machine gun stopped shooting at us and we saw the gunners getting their weapon back to the second defenses. Away on the left another Maxim was shooting from a mound, a built-up emplacement, but the bullets did not come our way. An officer jumped up from the trench and shot at us with his pistol, emptied it and never touched us. We shot back at him as we ran, but apparently he was not hit and he ran toward the second trench. Just before he reached it Jones fired. He pitched headlong to earth and we supposed him dead.

We got into the trench, a long shallow affair with numerous low-roofed shelters. I dived into the one where the officer had been and found his kit, taking from it an Iron Cross and his “housewife,” coloured thread and needles and folding scissors, as well as a dictionary of German and English. We moved along the trench to the left, Jones had taken the lead and was after the machine gunner who was still shooting at our lads near the Wood. Sykes and Tommy and I were looking in all the shelters for souvenirs. In every place there were packs and gas masks and greatcoats and blankets. Suddenly the Germans began sniping at us from the second trench, which was about one hundred yards away. We shot back at them but it got to be dangerous to show our heads. Jones worked over to the left and got in position to snipe at the gunners in their emplacement. One man left it and ran almost to the second trench before he fell. The other chap started out and ducked back again. The rest of the company were rushing in during the lull and Thompson was wounded as he looked over
the trench bank. Hansen, the Lewis gunner, and Lofty came tumbling in. Meanwhile a few men were coming from the Wood and it was necessary to prevent the machine gun from getting into action. Jones rushed along the trench and although the snipers shot at him they missed him. We saw the gunner bolt and then Sykes and Mills and I hurried after Jones. We came to a covered-in part and both Mills and I went under it on our hands and knees. Sykes waited a moment, then leaped outside and ran around and jumped in the trench again on the far side of the covered part. I had just emerged there and he fell at my feet. I heard a queer, bubbling sound and dropped beside him. His jugular had been cut by a sniper's bullet. He was dead before Mills got through the tunnel.

With the machine gun out of action, men came with a rush. One big shelter in the centre of the trench was a sort of headquarters, and there Geordie and Flighty rested. Tulloch went into it with another man just as a barrage opened. The Hun strafed us with whizz bangs and there were many bursts very near the trench. We spread out as much as possible and Sambro and I occupied one bivvy. There came a cry for stretcher-bearers and word came that Lofty had been wounded badly in the stomach. Shortly after we saw his stretcher being pushed out at the back and then he was carried away. I could see that “Old Bill” was one of his carriers.

Wham! There came a very sharp explosion, very close. We saw smoke and dust in a cloud. The big shelter had been blown in, a shell exploding on its roof. We rushed to the wreckage and found one man dead; Tulloch with a leg shredded; Flighty wounded and Geordie with his third Blighty, a very painful wound. We got him on a stretcher and Sambro and I helped lift him out. Then came a call for me and I was ordered to take a man with me and go back to meet our relieving battalion and guide a company to our position.

Sambro offered to go with me, and as men were needed in the trench we helped carry Geordie as we went. A new man was teamed at one end with Sambro and I had a German prisoner as my partner. It was a long journey back over the field we had covered in the afternoon and had got dark. We reached the trench we had left in the morning and went through a part the R.C.R.'s had captured. There we stopped to rest and I saw several dead Canadians nearby. Something urged me to go over and look at them, and there lay old Peter, his rifle still gripped in his hands, his body smashed by shrapnel. Near him were two men I knew well from my home town.

We went on and Geordie suffered much pain. At length we reached battalion headquarters and there found a party of prisoners squatted about a dugout entrance. Tulloch arrived on a stretcher just as we left to meet our relieving company.

It was almost dawn by the time we had gone back once more over the same route and completed the relief. Again we walked down the slope and into the hollow where Batten lay in his crater. On again by old Peter, killed in fighting out in front, as he wished. Then we reached the big dugout again. Flighty was lying there on a stretcher and Geordie was still there. I went to see Tulloch – and he was dead! Sambro and I had given him a cigarette and talked with him as we had left on the way up, and he was talking about his “jake blighty.” He didn't mind losing one leg, he said.

Morning came and we kept on down toward Arras. It seemed a long, long way and the men began falling out. Sambro sat down to rest but I kept on and on and at last staggered into the barracks we were to use, almost asleep on my feet. Ab was there to meet the stragglers and he grinned at me sheepishly. I had never been left out of any scrap but I knew I would hate to wait there and meet the survivors.

We slept all the rest of that day and all that night. Next morning I went out to the “Y” canteen and sold one pistol and a pair of field glasses, getting one hundred and fifty francs. I now felt rich and as the rations were poor and we had not had parcels for a time, resolved that I would get a good feed for all our crew. I fell in line in a queue and when I reached the counter asked for a dozen tins of cherries and the same of peaches. The clerk looked at me pityingly. “Don't you know,” he said, “that you can only have one of anything.”