And We Go On

by Will R Bird

  Men were gossiping as we went forward that night. An old hand just up from a Base job said that the war would be over next year. The German transport was giving out, and that was why we were pushing him back so far, and the Yanks were really fighting. They had long been a joke that left bad taste and were now seldom mentioned. For two-and-a-half years they had watched old England and France fighting the greatest war machine ever organized, and then had stepped in to lend a hand. A year later they had not done anything to help, and we forgot them; when remembered they were derided.

  We stopped in a field where gas hung heavy and saw dead men along the way. At one point a wrecked limber was overturned and I saw a British warm pinned under a wheel. The driver was dead, lying near. He had had the jacket beside him as the day was warm. I took it and prized it for the air was damp and chilly. The Student asked me curiously if I did not think I might incur bad luck by taking a dead man’s possessions, and I laughed at him, and went to a fat German who lay with his head back and almost under him. I rifled his pockets and found a few marks and some obscene postcards. “If there is such a thing as luck,” I said, “I can’t chance mine, for I’ve broken every rule the ordinary soldier respects. I’ll take the third light off a match any time and I never knock on wood.”

  Then I told him how so often I seemed to stand mentally outside myself and wonder at my actions, and of the way Steve came to me. He was intensely interested and we became close friends. In the morning we filed along a high embankment in a driving rain. Dead men of the Fourth Division were strewed along the way, the majority members of the 72nd and 85th Battalions. The Hun shelled us continually and there were a few casualties. We huddled by a cutting for hours and then when it was dark went up a sunken road and past a village. Gas clung to the low places and some men put on their masks. We reached a grain field and were told to rest as comfortably as possible, that we were to attack as soon as it was light.

  The grain was wet and the ground muddy. We scooped little hollows and curled in them and tried to sleep. I could not, but sat with the Student, and thought of all the vanished faces I had watched before other battles. He was in my section and I had seven others, Miller, a lanky lad who had been wounded at Vimy, Walton and Morris, Sambro and the old hand from the Base, and two new men of the last draft.

  Our officer was a good man, an ex-sergeant from the 73rd, and I was glad he was with us. Davies was with him, the first time in a long period that I had seen him at a jumping-off position. Dawn brought a light mist and we remained in hiding. Not one of us knew the area ahead but were told that a railway embankment and Hun lumber yard were on lower ground.

  At last the sun broke through in the east, a thin line as if made by a red pencil. The mist curled up, lifting like a gauzy drop curtain and revealed the slope as we rose and formed open formation. There were lumber piles near the railway, and a number of mounds or shelters. I saw the Germans scurry to different places, but what held my gaze was row upon row of long-barbed wire across our path.

  I was at the head of my section. Machine guns opened on us as well as shell fire and I turned up the collar of the British warm and started at a jog. The officer and Davies rushed to the centre of the first wave, shouting something about the wire. Before we had gone ten yards they were both down, wounded. A section from thirteen platoon was even with us. There was the shrill screech of a shell and I saw, in the fraction of a second, the figure of a man in the air, lifted bodily by the explosion. There were cries and yells for help as we rushed on.

  Someone behind me shouted. Machine gun bullets were snapping my ears, there seemed an awful din. I swung around and saw Miller on the ground, trying to rise. “Keep down,” I yelled. “Don’t make yourself a target. You’ll be all right.”

  He had half-raised again even as I called, and I saw him go down a second time, struck by another bullet. Straight ahead I saw a party of Germans frantically setting up a machine gun tripod and I raced at them with all speed. I never knew when I reached the wire and went over it. I had seen a mound that would shelter us and I had watched the Hun with the gun. Four of us reached the mound. Sambro and Tommy and the Student and I, and we opened fire as we plunged to earth. There came a wild whoop from alongside us and I saw Waterbottle, a great wild man in kilts, drive over the wire and at the Huns. They scuttled like rabbits, leaving half their number on the ground, victims of our shooting. Waterbottle dropped beside us and we opened fire on the nearest group by the railway embankment. Behind us and to the right I saw more men behind a mound, with Smaillie in charge. A dozen others were still struggling among the barbs and wooden stakes. Over on the left was a third group, with McPhee and his Lewis gun in their midst. No others seemed to have survived. On the left flank we saw another company charge at the lumber piles and saw a number of our men shot down like ninepins. Then all disappeared among the heaps in a wild flurry of fighting.

  We routed the Hun post with our shooting but a party of them had worked to our right and enfiladed us, wounding Walton and Morris and the old hand from the Base. The two new men rose up in a bewildered way and were both killed. Sambro looked to the left of the mound and found there an entrance to an underground chamber and in a moment we were in it. It was a flare store, and only a big shell could dislodge us. From our shelter we waved to McPhee and he opened fire with his Lewis gun and cleared our attackers, killing the most of them. Then Smaillie’s crew came to us and on the way found another pit that contained a number of big shells. Just in front of it there had been a gun emplacement. All that afternoon we exchanged shots with Germans by the right of the embankment and the Lewis gun kept answering Maxims. Darkness found us in the same position, with considerable shelling in progress.

  I went out and found young Rees and another man in position between us and the other company. The lad had all kinds of pluck. As we came back someone called to us in the dark. It was Russell. He had been recommended for his work at Jigsaw Wood and was acting as a runner, and had lost his nerve completely. He had messages to carry and could not find his way. I had other work to do, and did not make offer to help him. He had always shouted his worth about the company and many far better lads had never been recognized. Young Rees, however, went with him, guiding him around, and at the worst places went with the messages alone. He was out most of the night with him.

  In the morning we got word that we were to attack again. The Hun had retired across the track to a position on a sunken road, and his batteries were shelling us. There had been many casualties. Tommy’s face set and he never spoke. “All right,” I said to the corporal who came. “We’ll go as soon as we get the signal.”

  McPhee and his crew got ready with us. Away we went. The machine gun fire opened promptly but only a new man and McPhee were hit. His second man grabbed the gun and we swung on. Looking back I saw that Smaillie and his crew had not joined us. Several big shells were dropping very near their dugout and they hesitated. As I looked back I saw a great spurt of black earth and debris, some sheets of iron in the air. A shell had gone in the entrance of their refuge and had exploded inside, blowing the roof sky high. There were only fragments of Smaillie and his crew.

  We had not reached a bank that was to give us cover before our own batteries opened a barrage on the sunken road. It was very well-aimed and soon the Huns were running in all directions. We sniped a dozen of them from where we lay and then were motioned on by an officer of the R.C.R.’s. When we stopped again we were at the crest of a long slope. Beyond lay a village and we could see the outskirts of Cambrai. The brigade had had fearful casualties. A few R.C.R.’s were with us and said that the survivors of their company would not make one platoon, and that not an officer was left. I saw a place where a man had started digging before going to carry a message, and thought I would take it. Hardly had I stepped down and started digging than I had a touch on the shoulder. No one was near me. I leaped from the hole but there was no cover around and so I stood undecided. The R.C.R. next to me looked up and asked if I were lea
ving where I had started. I said “Yes,” and he jumped down and seized the shovel.

  Blump! He fell backward heavily as his legs caught on the edge of the cavity. A single bullet, probably a stray, had caught him just above the heart. As soon as we had dragged him back out of the way I stepped into the place where he had been digging and worked as fast as I could. Bullets whined around us but not another man was hit until we were dug in, when a shell splinter wounded the R.C.R. non-com.

  That night we held our line, ready to meet an attack at any time, and heard that the Pats had lost almost all their officers and half their men. In the morning we could see the Germans working hard at emplacements between us and the village on our left. Our Lewis guns fired at them and an answering fire wounded both Hansen and Ab, who was now a sergeant and who had been in charge of the trench. The R.C.R. officer had been wounded in the night and we were without anyone of higher rank than a corporal on the right of our line. Then headquarters men came pushing up and we saw our colonel, a big, soldierly man, watching both flanks with field glasses. A battalion came swarming over the sunken road in the rear, two battalions, Second Division men, and swept across our trench and over to the right. The Hun was charged so swiftly, despite casualties, that he had not time to retreat and all the garrison we had watched surrendered. In a few moments they were busy digging a new trench for their conquerors. On the left First Division men went over and into the village. We saw them engaged in fierce hand-to-hand fighting and then stragglers began to fall back toward us. Our colonel left the trench, revolver in hand, and went forward to meet them. It was an inspiring thing to see him, disregarding all bullets that sang and crackled around, all the stray shells that crashed near.

  He stopped the retreating men with harsh orders, halted them and reformed them, then he came our way and our remnant of “D” Company got out of the trench and we went over in an attack for the third time in three days. The village was carried again and the First Division men established their posts. Then we dug in in a link to the Second Division line and were shelled and sniped at all the afternoon. When it was dark we got out of our holes in which we had hidden and patrolled the gaps. A rumour came that at last we were to be relieved, but no one in authority carried the message. At last a runner came to me and said that an officer had been lost. He was another new man, and had been sent up to take command of our line.

  We could not find him. A German patrol was driven back with the usual bombing and shooting – I was now too weary to note details – and then Waterbottle and Tommy and I made a systematic search. We failed to unearth our man. Back a distance from us was a tank that had been stranded there in the autumn of ’17. We looked in it and found only a few bones, and now I suggested that we see if there were anyone under it. Waterbottle scouted the idea as he had called around it, but we went and explored and found a small hole just large enough to admit a man. We shouted down and no one answered, but Waterbottle used a match and saw boots. We held another covered light – and there was the officer and his batman, crouched in a three-foot space, white-faced, too scared to answer our calls.

  Waterbottle was not a talkative character but he used unmistakable English for a few minutes and Tommy seconded every emotion. The batman was yanked forth by the heels and the officer crept after him. He was shaking badly and in spite of our trouble I was sorry for him. He had not the physique a soldier needed and he was new to the front; no one had told him anything definite and he had simply stumbled his way in over dead Germans and Canadians. I told him he had charge of the relief and we rounded our men, taking another hour to do so, then wended back over the long slopes we had fought over. It was daylight when we reached shelters near BourIon Wood. Before I was asleep an officer sought me out, a man newly arrived, had said that on his way up he saw a wounded 85th man, my brother, who had asked him to tell me that he was headed for Blighty. He had severe wounds in his knee and light hurts in the arm and head. Then the lieutenant told me that he was proud to be with such men and asked if I knew that our battalion had lost seventeen officers in two days.

  For a week we lay about and rested. Never had I been so worn and Tommy was wan and had no appetite. We lay in our shelters only emerging to get our tea and rations. A new sergeant, promoted from another platoon, tried to get us on a parade; the officer wanted a little drill and rifle inspections. We ignored them and were not disturbed by other orders. I walked over the fields by myself, thinking. So many old friends had been killed – how much longer could I go on? Jimmy had fallen at last; Nauffts at headquarters, and Sedgewick, had gone with him. Scarce an “old man” remained. In all “D” Company there was not a man who had not missed more time than I since the Somme. The battalion had been three days in the Vimy fighting while I was away with mumps. I got back to them as they went up after the attack and had not missed anything since. My leave had been given while the battalion rested at Bourecq.

  Conscripts had reached the front and we heard that the First Division stragglers were such material and that the old men of the battalion had been heartbroken. A few came to us. We did not abuse them or use them differently than other new men. They were of average build and intelligence and should make soldiers. We moved to Queant finally and there we heard that Russell was to receive a second decoration for bravery. Tommy cursed for an hour and almost went to the captain in protest but I quieted him. Men like Earle and Barron and Murray and Lockerbie, and Tommy himself, had never received any consideration. It was a tragic farce sometimes, the awarding of medal ribbons.

  We were shocked one morning to hear that General Lipsett had been killed. We had often seen him; he seemed nearer to us than other brass hat, was often in the trenches, and I had never heard a man speak against him. His funeral was most impressive, a special firing party from his old battalion, the celebrated Little Black Devils, attending. We saw the Prince of Wales for the first time, a clean-looking, boyish sort of fellow.

  All through the Cambrai fighting the Student had held his place in the platoon. He was not a blood-thirsty fighter, but he kept pace with those next him and never flinched or took cover before they did. When he helped bandage a boy who was bleeding to death and when he had to help drag dead Germans from a post we wanted to use, I saw him go white and tremble, but he never shirked in either case. He had grit that spells control.

  The battalion joined in the general pursuit of the fleeing “goose steppers” and we marched through villages with inhabitants almost delirious. They shouted at us and the children ran alongside yelling “Bon Canadaw.” Here and there we saw things that whitened the faces of the new men and made Tommy’s jaws set grimmer. At one place an old peasant beckoned to us to watch him. He hurried to an outbuilding and worked with a long-handled rake until he pulled from under the floor the badly-hacked body of a German officer. The Frenchman stamped on the battered face with his boots until we spoke sharply to him and walked away. Again we saw a more pitiful sight, escaped prisoners, who had lain hidden for two days in a Wood. It was hard to recognize them as British soldiers. They were walking skeletons, with matted hair and beards, rags on their feet in lieu of boots, their tattered clothing crawling with vermin. Haggard, weak-voiced, piteous, it made one see red as he thought of those well-fed, well-housed, comfortable German prisoners seen about the farms in northern parts of England.

  We saw refugees with great, sweat-dried Percherons drawing farm carts heaped with mattresses and furniture, with lean cows tethered to the rear, and old men following with barrows and push carts piled with other possessions, nearly everyone dressed in his or her Sunday best, usually black, and very tired, foot sore and pathetic. Some hissed their hatred in vitriolic language, some were dull and would not talk, poor creatures too beaten by life’s ironies for even the joy of deliverance. At one place a pig was eating a dead horse by the roadside and was driven away with shrill cries as women attacked the carcass with knives and stripped every shred of meat for their own consumption. We gave most of our rations to children, and to mot
hers in whose eyes one read the story of the long paralysis of the Hun. One night as we were going past the outskirts of a village a Red Cross sergeant called me to a building, a door-less stable that had sheltered a few of the fugitives. Shells were dropping near, the village had been strafed all the afternoon, and all the rest had fled and left him with a woman who lay on blankets in one corner.

  “Help me, corporal,” he said. “I’m alone for the time but my men will soon be here with an ambulance. This woman has been deserted by everybody and is going to have a child.”

  He had only a lantern he had salvaged and a pair of sheets taken from a farmhouse. The house was a wreck as a shell had hit it but the stove was still in order and I made a fire in it to heat water. I worked there with the sergeant, a man with three years at a medical college, until the ambulance came and took away the mother and baby, both, the sergeant said, doing far better than he had expected.

  The company was at the other end of the village when I reached them and I found Tommy and Sambra and Kennedy and the Student in a house with a fire going. “There’s all kinds of stuff in the garden,” said Sambro, “if only we don’t have to do picket or anything we’ll have a feed.”

  We filled a big black kettle with vegetables and water and set it on the stove. Overhead, beans were tied in bunches, drying. We shelled them and put them in the pot, then clamped on the cover. A bed was in the second room and after hanging blankets over the windows and barring the doors we all lay crossways the mattress and went to sleep. I was wakened by the Student. The room was filled with steam and smells. We lighted a candle and found that the beans had swelled and overflowed on the hot stove. We got the covers cleared by sweeping all to the floor and found that our dinner was soft enough to eat. A half-tin of margarine was dumped into the boiled peas and carrots and potatoes and all was jammed into a batter. We served it on mess-tin tops and plates and enjoyed the meal as much as a hotel dinner. Then came a report that set all the company swearing. A Dane who came with the MacLean men had been given the Victoria Cross for work at Parvillers!