And We Go On

by Will R Bird

  We slept a short while and then were roused. Williams and I were called again. He was to go to sixteen platoon and I to fifteen. Why we were to do so we could not find out, and the only satisfaction we got was that we would probably be needed before night. It was very hot, stifling hot in the old trench. The attack was not to take place until three, some said, but no one seemed to know definitely.

  The platoon I was with filed slowly into an old trench that branched off the one we had first entered. There was a network of them everywhere, in all directions, and each platoon was to go a different route and try to meet as they got across the first area. We halted at a place where some of the dead Borderers were still lying, and waited there. There was not a breath of air. We sat, perspiring in the burning sun. It was still, uncannily still, except for the buzzing of flies about the corpses. They were turning black and there was a stench that made us want to get on with our work.

  Then came word that there would not be any barrage. It seemed an odd thing to make a daylight attack without one but it was simply to be trench fighting, bombing and rushing. There would not be the usual deafening crescendo of drum fire to bewilder one, nor the whine and blast of five nines to unsettle the nerves.

  To my surprise I was told to remain in the rear of the platoon. Geordie was there, acting as company sergeant-major. We simply moved up the trench. Suddenly there came the clatter of machine gun fire. Rat-tat-tat-tat. It was everywhere. Bullets snapped and crackled over our heads and it seemed as if the guns were shooting from ahead, both sides, and the rear. We could not tell where the enemy was making his stand, or whether he was shooting at our lads or other platoons.

  Suddenly, I saw a dead man lying in the trench. We walked past him. It was Haldane, the big MacLean Kiltie, a fine-built man, and he had been shot just below the heart as he rushed in as bayonet man. The bombers were going first, and the bayonet men followed up the throwing of grenades, while our Lewis gunners were ready for an opening. Again we passed a dead Canadian, and still no German was seen. Then I saw, in a long stretch, the captain, up with the leaders. He was with the platoon and had been in charge of the attack, so far ahead that we were sure he would be spotted and killed. We came to where a trench branched left. It was a high-banked affair and no one was in it. Where did it lead? Did it cross the trenches taken by the others? We went by it and came to a second turn, again to the left. A halt was made and word came that I was to take a man with me and go to explore the first trench for some distance, then send back a report.

  As I hurried up the trench I saw that no one had been on it. The earth was not hardpacked and footprints showed. But I came to more turnings, three saps leading from the trench I followed, and I did not know which way to go first. I told the chap with me to go about fifty yards along the first sap, and then come back to me, while I watched the main trench. He had barely gone before I heard German voices almost beside me. I could not see a person but I sprang for cover. There was a V-shaped place that had evidently been an overland exit and I jumped into it and pulled a pin from a Mills bomb as I did so. The next instant three German officers appeared as if by magic. They came from the bowels of the earth, out of a dugout entrance I had not seen as it was almost obscured by overhanging weeds and grass. They were talking together, eagerly, excitedly, and never saw me as they started up the way I had been going. I released the lever, counted two, and tossed the bomb. It exploded shoulder-high behind them, and they went down like jackstraws. I was ready with my rifle but there was no need. No others popped out of the dugout and the three in the trench lay still. I examined them. Two were dead, one with part of his head blown away, but the third man was still breathing. He was wounded about the neck and the spine so that he could not possibly live. I ran back to the sap where my helper had gone but he was not in sight. I went up the trench a distance to meet him, but did not see him, then came back and peered into the dugout. The wounded man had recovered consciousness and he looked at me and spoke in good English. “You are Canadians,” he said.

  I said “yes,” curtly, and asked him how many more were in the dugout. He answered that there was not one, and that it was an underground place with a second opening. They had used it as a passage. He groaned then and twisted in agony. I stooped over him and took his Luger and also removed the weapons from the dead men. These I hid in the grass down the trench a distance and stuck a stick in the old parapet to mark the place.

  My man did not return and I did not know what to do, so ran back and reported to the captain. He at once called for the “original” with whom I had gone on patrol, and told him to go with me and others up the trench I had been in, and to find a way to reach the other platoons on our left. The “others” were Peoples, Coleman, a Lewis gunner and his crew of three. When we got back to where the German officers lay I told the “original” how I had thrown the bomb but he made no response. The wounded man looked up at me and asked me for a drink. I had no water left, none of us had, and the others did not want to wait. But the German had beckoned me to bend down and listen.

  “In the dugout,” he said, weakly, “there is a spring of water that is very good. Go down the steps and turn to your left about sixteen paces. You will find it.”

  He gasped the words out painfully and I told the men what he said. Coleman warned me that it was likely a trap. The “original” said nothing. He pushed on up the trench and the others followed slowly. I got a bomb ready and went through the hanging weeds and down the dugout stairs. I had no light, no candles, no matches, but I wanted to give that German a drink; I felt that killing from behind as I had done was a ghastly thing no matter what the rules of war.

  I found the steps as he had said, turned left and went sixteen paces, put down my hand and touched cold water. I had often seen seepage in dugouts, but it was the only time I found a spring in an underground passage. I filled my water bottle and hurried up, and gave the German a drink. He had brown hair and brown eyes. One of the gunners and I bandaged him as best we could, but hurriedly, then moved him to a shady corner at the sap end. But it was fearfully warm; the sun blistered one. My head ached with the heat, and our steel helmets burned our necks if they touched the skin. Even our rifles were hot. And all about the area machine guns were crackling and bullets whining. There was a great deal of old wire strewn along the trench banks and there were continual ricochets from it.

  We followed the party down the trench. It was a narrow cutting, and too straight to be rushed. But we did not meet any Germans and finally reached a very deep and wide trench that crossed our way and made a sharp “T.” There we halted and the “original” seemed more nervous than the others. He asked Peeples and I to go to the left along the trench and explore for one hundred yards or so. He and the rest would cover our rear.

  We went slowly. The trench sides were three feet higher than my head, and weeds and thistles and poppies grew on the banks. We could see webs of black, long-barbed wire beyond them. The trench floor was slimed in places and the wooden posts at corners were covered with moldy fringes. As we passed a third traverse I heard the sound of German voices and cautioned Peeples to keep ready while I climbed the trench side to see where the enemy was hiding. I had found a queer periscope resting on the firestep. Its frame was like ribs of an umbrella and it held an unusually large glass. I put it up and had just spotted a few pot helmets a considerable distance away when I heard an exclamation beside me. I turned and witnessed a tableau that is stored in my memory. Peeples was six feet three inches tall, and he had not shaved for several days. He held his bayonet ready and his kilt was high hitched above his great, bony knees. In his hand, pressed against the rifle barrel, was a Mills bomb. The German facing him was a young, white-faced fellow. He had stopped as if paralyzed, open-mouthed, cringing, and he was not armed.

  Crack! Peeples, after sixty long seconds of gazing, pulled the trigger. He declared that he had not meant to, but his finger simply tightened. The muzzle was not six feet from the Hun and pointed at his stomach, and
the poor chap groaned frightfully as he collapsed. I never heard a worse sound. The unexpected report and the groan startled Peeples so that he jumped about, losing the bomb, and ran headlong down the trench. I fell from my perch on the trench side, dived at the bomb – but the pin had not been pulled. No other Germans were in sight but I could now hear them jabbering just around the corner so I got the grenade ready and made a lovely throw into their bay. Then I hustled after Peeples.

  He was telling the “original” all about it when I got to the trench corner, and was so excited that he hardly knew what he was saying. It was his first battle and his first kill. The “original” now suggested that Coleman and I go to the right and find where the Germans were. We went about one hundred yards and stopped at a traverse as we heard voices, then advanced very slowly. Perspiration was running down our faces. We had our tunics opened and our shirts rolled back. The “seam squirrels” were very busy and Coleman caught a very fine specimen and held him up to admire, saying that I could not match him. He was a very cool lad. There we were, away from the others, with the firing and sniping all around us, and voices ahead – and matching lice as if out at billets. I searched for one and secured a champion and was just holding him up when a party of Huns appeared about twenty yards away, coming around a traverse. I always had my rifle in position and it saved us. The Huns had their rifles up and the leader, a big man was taking aim as I simply slashed the trigger. The bullet caught his coal bucket helmet and struck the earth bank behind him in such a way as to scatter dust all over him and into the eyes of his mates. The German shot but his bullet struck the trench wall ahead of us, and as Coleman fired in turn he brought the big man down. I shot a second time, an easy kill, bringing down a short, fat goose-stepper. Then my rifle jammed. Coleman shot at a third German as he was running back and winged him in the arm. The man dropped his rifle and clutched the wound with his other hand and yelled wildly.

  We hurried back to our post and told the “original” what had happened. He decided that we had better go back up the trench a distance so the Huns could not come at us from both sides. It was a wise move. We had not got back fifty yards up the narrow trench before Peeples, using his height, saw pot helmets bobbing along the trench toward where we had been. At the same time he saw five Germans get up on the bank and start overland, so as to cut off the corner and rush us where we were. He was so excited that he climbed out of our trench to meet them and we, not knowing what was happening, followed him. The Lewis men jumped back in the trench as soon as they saw the five gray men, but Coleman and I stayed a moment with Peeples. We fired at the Germans and they shot at us. The range was not over seventy-five yards and yet the first exchange had no results. We tried a second time, just as the “original,” who had not left the trench, yelled for us to return, and both sides scored. Three of the Heinies “bit the dust,” and both Peeples and Coleman were hit. We jumped down and found that Coleman had a bullet through the arm and that Peeples had one eye shot out, a horrible wound. We tied him up and Coleman led him down the trench, as he had lost sight of his other eye. I had heard a queer snapping noise but did not notice anything until one of the gunners pointed at my steel hat. Its rim was punctured on both sides.

  The Germans pressed us. They stayed in the big, deep trench but they hurled potato masher bombs without stint, a regular barrage of them, while they sniped at us from all sides. We retreated until we had a good place to build a block and there put the gun in position. Then the “original” sent a man back to report to the captain and to ask for help. The captain himself returned with a small party, then sent a runner, my old friend, “Doggy,” and I, to look up three saps and locate the man who had first come with me, and to find where the saps ended. We went up the first sap and found it ended at, and butted, a road. The man we were looking for was lying there, dead, his badges gone, his pockets ransacked. He had been shot by some sniper lying in wait as he looked over the road.

  We went back and up the second sap and found a dugout entrance. Doggy had his pocket filled with bombs and he had a flashlight, so we went down to explore. There were several benches about the place, and an atmosphere that spoke of very recent occupation. It was a chamber of concrete walls and ceiling and very strongly built. In the centre was a table and on it were a big map and telephone, one of those funny, European “paper weight” kind. “Doggy” picked up the ear-piece and then grinned at me. German voices, harsh and heated, were clashing so that the wire almost curled. At the first lull Doggy put his mouth close to the speaking-tube and said slowly, “Get off the wire, you blasted squareheads. You’ve got the wrong number!”

  The silence that followed was more eloquent than any reply could have been. We rushed back up the stairs and ran along looking for another dugout, but found none and reached the same road that headed the other sap. Doggy jumped up on it and ran up it a distance. I shouted to him to keep low but he waved to me to come and pointed out the end of the third sap. We jumped down into it to search for more underground places – and bumped headlong into three Germans. They had telephones and equipment and were without rifles, though each man had stick bombs and the leader had a Luger. He shot at Doggy from about a ten-foot range and missed him. Then that shaggy-headed, big-footed tumbler coolly reached back and seized my rifle. I had sense enough to let him have it and we made an exchange with a speed long practice could not have exceeded, I getting his revolver. Doggy hated pistols worse than poison, could not shoot straight with them, he had seen another runner get a wrist shattered through accidentally slipping the safety release off a Colt. From the time the Hun shot first until Doggy lunged at him would not be three counted seconds and his bayonet point spoiled the German’s second try. Then Doggy was in on him, in an awkward but effectual fashion. He did not thrust in the orthodox manner but made a queer, overhead drive and the steel struck the Hun in the cheek, tearing flesh to the bone and ripping one nostril open. The German staggered back and dropped his pistol, trying to surrender but pawing at the air in a mad way. Blood gushed over his face and he breathed with a hard snuffle.

  Doggy did not drive at him but found the trigger and shot the man. “You tried to plug me,” he yelled, “there’s yours.”

  While this was happening I had been shooting. I aimed at the second Hun who had dropped his load at his feet and snatched at the stick bombs hanging to his belt. He had one unhooked as the wounded man stumbled back against the trench side and he threw it high in order to avoid him. It exploded on the bank beside us, showering us with dust and chalky bits. I fired again as he threw a second, and the other German started to run. Once more the potato masher burst on the bank. I shot a third time and the man went down just as Doggy dropped his adversary.

  Wham! The trench was going around in circles and there was a tremendous roaring in my ears. That third Hun had hurled a stick bomb from his vantage point beyond and it had exploded between Doggy and I. Though I was the nearest to it I recovered the quickest. Doggy was slumped as if wounded and luckily for us the German tried to get away, dropping two more bombs in the trench as he ran. I recovered sufficiently to send a shot after him and by good luck drilled him fairly. He went down like a baseball player sliding to home plate.

  Doggy was not hurt, only stunned. He shook himself and presently the ringing in our ears stopped. We looked at the second German and found that I had hit him every time. He had three bullets through him and all near the heart, yet had thrown three bombs after being hit the first time. We pushed the paraphernalia they had been carrying to one side and went into the dugout they had left. The entrance was not twenty feet from where we met them and we were sure that we had heard one of them speaking in the place on the next sap. There was nothing in the dugout except rations on the table and a few bottles of soda water. We opened two of them at once and Doggy tried to eat some black bread, but failed. We sat there on a bench and listened to the staccato shooting all around us. My hands were trembling a little and my clothes stuck to me. We were grimy with the dust
that had plastered us from the bomb bursts and a small gravel stone had cut Doggy’s cheek enough to make it bleed. It was cool down there and we sat long enough to empty a second bottle of the stuff. It helped our thirst but seemed to bloat one.

  When we went up to the trench again Doggy ran back to the road at the end and stepped up on it in order to look around. He ducked down in a moment and beckoned to me. I got up beside him and saw about a dozen Germans filing hastily overland away ahead on one flank. They seemed to be in a maze of wire so that we knew they were near the trenches. As we looked a Lewis gun rattled from some point and two of the Huns pitched down at the first burst. The others promptly took cover, and then we saw a man rise up near where we had left the “original” and captain. He had an enormous rifle, and a second man scrambled out of a trench and helped him carry it. It was an “anti-tank” gun, the first I had seen, and I fired at the carriers until they dropped it and ran. Doggy declared I hit one man but I was not sure. As I watched to see them re-appear I felt a light tap on the shoulder. I wheeled instantly. No one was there! “Come,” I shouted, and jumped into the trench.

  Doggy thought I had seen something and dived after me. As he did a Maxim opened fire from somewhere ahead and clipped weeds like a scythe in the very place where we had been crouched. We had been seen and would have been filled with bullets had I not had that touch in time.

  When we reported there was not much shooting. It was nearly dusk and the firing had stopped, making the sector a weird place. Everyone was watching in all directions as we did not know where we were, where the other platoons were, or where the Germans might pop into view from some underground place. Two more dugouts had been found on the trench where I had killed the officers and they were connected by a passage.