Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1222 page)

The whole situation turned on holding the reverse of the ridge, since, if the enemy really meant business, it was always open to him to blow us off the top of it, and come down the gentle descent from the crest at his ease. So they concentrated on the front posts and a strong, well-wired reserve line, half-way down the slope. Luckily there was a trench-tramway in the sector, running from the Sappers’ dump on the Frégicourt road to close up to the charnel-house-ex-dressingstation. The regular trains, eight trucks pushed by two men each, were the 5, 7, and 9 P.M., but on misty days a 3 P.M. might also be run, and of course trains could run in the night. This saved them immense backaches. (“But, mark you, the easier the dam’ stuff gets up to the front the more there is of it, and so the worse ‘tis for the poor devils of wiring-parties that has to lay it out after dark. Then Jerry whizz-bangs ye the rest of the long night. All this fine labour-saving means the devil for the Micks.”)

The Germans certainly whizz-banged the working-parties generously, but the flights as a rule buried themselves harmlessly in the soft ground. We on our side made no more trouble than could be avoided, but worked on the wire double tides. In the heat of the job, on the night of the 11th January, the Brigadier came round and the C.O. took him out to see Captain Alexander’s party wiring their posts. It was the worst possible moment for a valuable brigadier to wander round front lines. The moon lit up the snow and they beheld a party of Germans advancing in open order, who presently lay down and were joined by more. At eighty yards or so they halted, and after a short while crawled away. “We did not provoke battle, as we would probably have hurt no one, and we wanted to get on with our wiring.” But had the Brigadier been wasted in a mere front-line bicker, the C.O., not to mention Captain Alexander, would have heard of it.

By the time that the 1st Coldstream relieved them on the 14th January, the Battalion had fenced their private No Man’s Land and about six hundred yards of the line outside the posts, all under the come-and-go of shell-fire; had duckboarded tracks connecting some of the posts; systematised their ration- and water-supply, and captured a multitude of army socks whereby companies coming down from their turn could change and be dry. Dull as all such detail sounds, it is beyond question that the arrangement and prevision of domestic works appeals to certain temperaments, not only among the officers but men. They positively relish the handling and disposition of stores, the fitting of one job into the next, the race against time, the devising of tricks and gadgets for their own poor comforts, and all the mixture of housemaking and keeping (in which, whatever may be said, the male animal excels) on the edge of war.

For the moment, things were absurdly peaceful on their little front, and when they came back to work after three still days at Maurepas, infantry “fighting” had become a farce. The opposing big guns hammered away zealously at camps and back-areas, but along that line facing the desolate woods of St. Pierre Vaast there was mutual toleration, due to the fact that no post could be relieved on either side except by the courtesy of their opponents who lay, naked as themselves, from two hundred to thirty yards away. Thus men walked about, and worked in flagrant violation of all the rules of warfare, beneath the arch of the droning shells overhead. The Irish realised this state of affairs gradually — their trenches were not so close to the enemy; but on the right Battalion’s front, where both sides lived in each others’ pockets, men reported “life in the most advanced posts was a perfect idyll.” So it was decided, now that every one might be presumed to know the ground, and be ready for play, that the weary game should begin again. But observe the procedure! “It was obvious it would be unfair, after availing ourselves of an unwritten agreement, to start killing people without warning.” Accordingly, notices were issued by the Brigade — in English — which read: “
Warning. Any German who exposes himself after daylight to-morrow January 19 will be shot. By order.
” Battalions were told to get these into the enemy lines, if possible, between 5 and 7 A.M. They anticipated a little difficulty in communicating their kind intentions, but two heralds, with three rifles to cover them, were sent out and told to stick the warnings up on the German wire in the dusk of the dawn. Now, one of these men was No. 10609 Private King, who, in civil life, had once been policeman in the Straits Settlements. He saw a German looking over the parapet while the notice was being affixed, and, policeman-like, waved to him to come out. The German beckoned to King to come in, but did not quit the trench. King then warned the other men to stand by him, and entered into genial talk. Other Germans gathered round the first, who, after hesitating somewhat, walked to his side of the wire. He could talk no English, and King, though he tried his best, in Chinese and the kitchen-Malay of Singapore, could not convey the situation to him either. At last he handed the German the notice and told him to give it to his officer. The man seemed to understand. He was an elderly person, with his regimental number in plain sight on his collar. He saw King looking at this, and desired King to lift the edge of his leather jerkin so that he in turn might get our number. King naturally refused and, to emphasise what was in store for careless enemies, repeated with proper pantomime: “Shoot! Shoot! Pom! Pom!” This ended the palaver. They let him get back quite unmolested, and when the mirth had ceased, King reported that they all seemed to be “oldish men, over yonder, and thoroughly fed up.” Next dawn saw no more unbuttoned ease or “idyllic” promenades along that line.

As the days lengthened arctic cold set in. The tracks between the posts became smears of black ice, and shells burst brilliantly on ground that was as pave-stones to the iron screw-stakes of the wiring. One shell caught a carrying-party on the night of the 20th January, slightly wounding Lieutenant Hanbury who chanced to be passing at the time, and wounding Sergeant Roddy and two men. The heavies behind them used the morning of the 21st to register on their left and away to the north. By some accident (the Battalion did not conceive their sector involved) a big shell landed in the German trench opposite one of their posts, and some thirty Huns broke cover and fled back over the rise. One of them, lagging behind the covey, deliberately turned and trudged across the snow to give himself up to us. Outside one of our posts he as deliberately knelt down, covered his face with his hands and prayed for several minutes. Whereupon our men instead of shooting shouted that he should come in. He was a Pole from Posen and the east front; very, very sick of warfare. This gave one Russian, one Englishman, and a Pole as salvage for six weeks. An attempt at a night-raid on our part over the crackling snow was spoiled because the divisional stores did not run to the necessary “six white night-shirts” indented for, but only long canvas coats of a whitey-brown which in the glare of Very lights showed up hideously.

A month of mixed fatigues followed ere they saw that sector again. They cleaned up at Morval on the 22nd, and spent a few days at the Briquetterie near Bernafay Corner, where three of the companies worked at a narrow-gauge line just outside Morval, under sporadic long-range shell-fire, and the fourth went to Ville in divisional reserve. The winter cold ranged from ten to twenty degrees of frost in the Nissen huts. Whereby hangs this tale. The mess stove was like Falstaff, “old, cold, and of intolerable entrails,” going out on the least provocation. Only a few experts knew how to conciliate the sensitive creature, and Father Knapp, the R.C. chaplain, was not one of them. Indeed, he had been explicitly warned on no account whatever to attempt to stoke it. One bitter morning, however, he found himself alone in the mess with the stove just warming up, and a sand-bag, stuffed with what felt like lumps of heaven-sent coal, lying on the floor. Naturally, he tipped it all in. But it was the mess Perrier water, which had been thus swaddled to save it from freezing — as the priest and the exploding stove found out together. There were no casualties, though roof and walls were cut with glass, but the stove never rightly recovered from the shock, nor did Father Knapp hear the last of it for some time.

From the close of the month till the 19th of February they were in divisional reserve, all together at Ville in unbroken frost. While there (February 1), Lieutenant F. St. L. Greer, one of the best of officers and the most popular of comrades, was wounded in a bombing accident and died the next day. In a battalion as closely knit together as the 2nd Irish Guards all losses hit hard.

Just as the thaw was breaking, they were sent up to Priez Farm, a camp of elephant huts, dug-outs and shelters where the men were rejoiced to get up a real “frowst” in the confined quarters. Warriors do not love scientific ventilation. From the 16th to the 25th February, the mud being in full possession of the world again, they were at Billon, which has no good name, and on the 25th back at St. Pierre Vaast, on the same sector they had left a month before. Nothing much had been done to the works; for the German host — always at its own time and in its own methodical way — was giving way to the British pressure, and the Battalion was warned that their business would be to keep touch with any local withdrawal by means of patrols (
Anglice
, small parties playing blind-man’s buff with machine-gun posts), and possibly to do a raid or two. But it is interesting to see that since their departure from that sector all the ten posts which they had dug and perspired over, and learned to know by their numbers, which automatically come back to a man’s memory on his return, had been re-numbered by the authorities. It was a small thing, but good men have been killed by just such care.

They watched and waited. The air was full of rumours of the Germans’ shifting — the home papers called it “cracking” — but facts and news do not go together even in peace. (“What annoyed us were the newspaper reports of how we were getting on when we weren’t getting on at all.”)

The Twenty-ninth Division on their left were due to put in a two-Battalion attack from Sailly-Saillisel on the dawn of the 28th February, while the battalion in the front line was to send up a smoke-screen to distract the enemy and draw some of his barrages on to themselves. So front-line posts were thinned out as much as possible, and front companies sent out patrols to see that the Hun in front of them was working happily, and that he had not repaired a certain gap in his wire which our guns had made and were keeping open for future use. All went well till the wind shifted and the smoke was ordered “off,” and when the Twenty-ninth Division attacked, the tail of the enemy barrage caught the Battalion unscreened but did no harm. A heavy fog then shut down sarcastically on the whole battle, which was no success to speak of. Through it all the Battalion kept guard over their own mouseholes and the gap in the wire. Sudden activities of our guns or the enemies’ worried them at times and bred rumours, all fathered on the staff, of fantastic victories somewhere down the line. They saw a battalion of Germans march by platoons into St. Pierre Vaast Wood, warned the nearest artillery group, and watched the heavies searching the wood; heard a riot of bombing away on their left, which they put down to the situation at Sailly-Saillisel (this was on the 1st of March), and got ready for possible developments; and when it all died out again, duly sent forth the patrols, who reported the “enemy laughing, talking, and working.” There was no sign of any withdrawal there.

On the 6th March, in snow and frost, they took over from the 1st Coldstream a new and unappetising piece of front on the left which the Coldstream had taken over from the Twenty-ninth Division. It consisted of a line of “about twelve so-called posts which were practically little more than shell-holes.” The Coldstream had worked like beavers to get them into some sort of shape, but their predecessors had given the local snipers far too much their head; and the long, flat-topped ridge where, under an almost full moon, every moving man offended the sky-line, was as unwholesome as could be desired. The Coldstream had lost six men sniped the night before their relief, and it was impossible to reach two of the posts at all. Another post was practically untenable, as the enemy had direct observation on to it, and one sniper who specialised in this neighbourhood had accounted for fourteen men in one tour. The Battalion settled down, therefore, to fire generously at anything that fired. It was noisy and, maybe, wasteful, but it kept the snipers’ heads down.

On the 7th March it was clear that the troops in front of them had been replaced by a more cautious and aggressive enemy. So the Battalion turned a couple of their most untenable posts into listening-posts, occupied by night only, and some one suggested that the new artillery which had just come in behind them might put down a creeping barrage for the greater discouragement of snipers. They cleared out a post or two first, in anticipation of stray shots, and lost one man killed and one wounded; but when the barrage arrived it was weak and inaccurate. Guns need time to learn to work in well with their brethren ahead, and the latter are apt to be impatient when they think they are being experimented on.

THE GERMAN WITHDRAWAL

Not till towards mid-March did the much-written-of German “crack” affect their chilly world. The C.O.’s of the battalions conferred at Brigade Headquarters on the 13th to discuss the eventuality, and in the middle of it the Major-General came in and announced there was good reason to think that the retirement in front of them would begin that night. In which case, so soon as scouts had reported that the enemy trenches were held very lightly or had been abandoned (“But Jerry never abandoned his dam’ machine-guns till we was on top of ‘em!”), two patrols from each company in the front line, of an officer and twelve men apiece, would go forward on schedule time and occupy. They would be followed by the two front companies, who would make good the enemy’s old front and support lines. With two battalions in the front line to draw from, this made a force of four companies, all of whom were to be under the command of the Senior Lieut.-Colonel in the battalions engaged. He would be known as “O.C. Situation Centre,” and would issue all orders, acting as in command of an advanced guard. But the two reserve companies of the battalions in line would be with the main body of the brigade and would not move without the Brigadier’s direct orders. In other words, no one was to be drawn into anything like a vulgar brawl. And on the 14th March, from a hill near by, a vast fire could be seen far off, which was Peronne a-burning. That same afternoon the enemy began shelling their own front line along the western edge of St. Pierre Vaast Wood. The situation betrayed itself. An officer’s patrol out from the 1st Scots Guards reported the enemy gone from in front. Whereupon the battalions in the line, the 2nd Irish Guards and the 1st Coldstream, moved out cautiously at dusk and established themselves partly in the first of the enemies’ abandoned trenches, with supports, more or less, in our old front line. When their relief came it was a pitch-black night, and the Coldstream had pushed out some patrols into bits of the German trench beyond the chaos of No Man’s Land, who, naturally, did not even themselves know where in France they might be, but had to be discovered and relieved just the same, which took the relieving battalion till two o’clock in the morning. At three o’clock the C.O. of the 2nd Irish Guards-Colonel E. B. Greer — was warned that “Situation Centre” — the two advanced companies who were to beat out hidden snipers — would be formed at 7 A.M. By the accident of Lieut.-Colonel Godman of the Scots Guards being sick, it fell to Greer to command that advanced force. Captain Alexander took our two forward companies, and Captain Sir Ian Colquhoun the two companies of the Scots Guards. The general advance was to begin all along the divisional front at 10 A.M. By that hour the German shelling was intense. They used 5.9’s and larger, as they were firing from a long way back. The trouble for the 2nd Irish Guards companies developed almost at once on their left, where their patrol was fired at by machine-guns from a German trench on the edge of the wood. Their own 1st Battalion, trying to push out of Sailly-Saillisel, was hung up, too — they heard and saw it for the same reason. The Division could have driven through at the cost of fairly heavy casualties, but nothing was to be gained by wasting men in rushes on hidden machine-guns that can lay out thirty good lives in two minutes. The Scots Guards got on into the wood without much trouble at first, till they, too, ran on snipers between tree-stumps and up and down the defaced trenches, or opened some single machine-gun slinking from cover to cover. It was all slow “feeling,” with alternating advances at walking pace, and long checks — ”something like drawing a gorse for wolves instead of foxes.” The shelling through the day was heavy, but ineffective. With such a broken line as ours advancing, the enemy could not tell where any portion was in strength. The force lay up where they happened to stop, and before dawn on the 16th March were told to feel ahead, while the Scots Guards on their right got into touch with the Eighth Division. Progress was slow as the day before, under heavy shelling — sometimes considered and dealt out with intention — at others evidently from a battery using up ammunition before going back. As they worked their way more into St. Pierre Vaast Wood came the sensation, which there was no mistaking, that they were being played with by the Hun, and losing touch as he intended them to do. Certain vital trenches would be controlled by a few snipers and machine-guns; a sunk road offering shelter would be plastered with heavies, and a full company would be held in it, digging for more cover, by dead accurate long-range fire; while far and far behind the orderly German withdrawal of the main body continued in peace.