by Will R Bird
Just as we rose to go up the embankment a German machine gun opened fire, sweeping the road with a perfect hail of bullets making it impossible to cross, and at the same time shells began to fall in the stretch of open ground between us and the nearest houses. They were quite near and bits of earth fell about us and shrapnel whined and sang. A small outbuilding was just a few yards from us and we hurried to it but found the door fastened. A plank lay there and Jones and I picked it up and rammed the entrance. An old barrel on its side was by the door, and there was nothing else of importance in the shed. Jones sat on the barrel as I said we would wait for a lull in the firing of either machine gun or battery. The Mills brothers were at the rear of the building. Johnson was outside, just in front of me. “Old Bill” stood at my shoulder and I was framed in the doorway, looking back over the way we had come.
Wheeee-crash! A smashing explosion. A shell had dropped right in front of the shed and exploded in the air. Johnson was knocked over by the concussion. I was driven back against “Old Bill” so that we both fell. We scrambled up. The smoke and fumes were stifling. I looked at Jones. “That was too close,” I said.
He never answered. He was still seated as he had had been, his chin in his hands, but blood was pouring from a hole in his temple; he had been instantly killed. There was a cry just behind me. I turned in time to see Mills tumbling into the arms of his brother. He was ghastly white. “I’m hit,” he said and tried to hold out his arm. His wrist was almost severed and I also saw that he had a dreadful wound in his stomach. His brother, who had been transferred to be with him, lowered him to the floor but the boy was dead before we could do a thing.
The brother would not believe it. He sobbed and fumbled with field dressings and begged us to get a stretcher bearer. I was sure that Mills was dead but I could not stand the pleading, and I ran across the field to a stretcher bearer of another platoon. I told him what had happened and he refused to go back with me. “You’ll get hit by some of them shells,” he said, “and you can’t do anything for a dead man.”
I ran back again. When I started out from Jemappes I had had for the first time a sickening sense of fear. All the long endless months of fighting I had been spared the feeling, so clinging to my thoughts of Steve and depending on his touch that I was never greatly worried. Now it was different. I felt that I had glimpsed safety and had been snatched back again; and I was now more determined than ever to carry on.
The brother was still trying to get the others to help him when I reached the shed. “Old Bill” had tried in vain to soothe him. I told him that the stretcher bearer could not come and that we would have to get on with the fighting as machine guns were firing fiercely. Then I thought of a test I had seen applied and took my steel mirror from my pocket. “If there’s a breath on this he’s still alive,” I said. “If there isn’t, he’s dead. Watch.”
I held it over Mill’s nostrils and there was not a trace of breath. The brother got up, sobbed again, and followed us out and over the field. We had narrow escapes as the shells were falling fast and then we had reached the first houses. We entered the cellar of the nearest and found it filled with frightened Belgians. Men and women and children were crowded in the narrow space and near the door a young fellow sat with a girl on his knee. An old man caught my arm and pointed at them. “They’re just married,” he said. “Just married.”
I tore away from him. Just married! I hated them. Jones, seated on that barrel, stiff in death, almost within sight of home, was all I could think of. We made a wild dash across the road. Snipers and machine guns shot too late. On the other side we found that we could work through gardens. Sambro and Kennedy were there and told me that the officer had been caught by the machine gun and had gone back wounded. A sergeant called us to keep low, that the Germans were hiding in the houses and that there was to be no further advance until dark.
For a time we stayed in a cellar and then I saw a man from thirteen platoon with rifle grenades in his belt. I waved to him to come and gave him my rifle in exchange for his. Then I went into the gardens and worked forward. A Belgian beckoned to me from a cellar door and whispered in his fright, saying that one of the machine gun posts that had been holding us up was just ahead and near a house, but he begged me not to peer from his doors or windows as the Germans would kill him afterwards.
I went on, and saw the bomber following at a distance. Sambro was out in the garden to the left as a sort of outpost, and Kennedy was with him. I squirmed under a gate and got to a corner of wall that protected me. Rising, bareheaded, I got a glimpse of two Germans in a yard near the street. They had their machine gun there. I set the rifle as carefully as I had in the old crater line at Vimy, and fired. It was a perfect aim and I saw the boots of one German, as his legs were on the cobble, beating, drumming on the stones; then he quieted. I sent another grenade in the same direction, at an angle that allowed a higher burst, and then ran along the wall, keeping stooped, until I was near an open space. I hoped to be able to get a look into the street from there and see if I had cleared the way. Instead, I almost bumped into a German who had evidently been reconnoitering the gardens. He was watching the other way as he hurried and never saw me.
I stared at the windows and brick walls of the house beside me but saw no faces and worked forward on the path the German had used. Just ahead, by a post and tree, a machine gun was mounted, and the Hun who passed me was standing there with his back to me, talking to two gunners. In a moment I had my rifle adjusted and for the second time that afternoon made a beautiful aim. The grenade exploded just at the height of their heads and two of the Germans were killed. The third man staggered and then dodged from view; the machine gun was knocked to the road stones.
I had no more grenades and did not know how far I had come. Going back to a cellar I found it full of Belgians, all talking together and preparing for the night. It was getting dusk. The sergeant in charge of our platoon came and told me that we would have to get out and get moving. I simply looked at him, never telling him of what had happened or where I had been. When he had gone I went out and found Sambro and Kennedy, and the three of us located an officer in a bigger house that was nicely furnished. He made a slight flurry and pretense of getting ready for action, but was alone and too drunk to talk straight, so we slipped away and went on. Suddenly, as we were near a bridge, we saw a dark group of figures in kilts. Hurrying over we found the captain leading a party he had gathered; we were glad to join it.
We reached the big station of Mons and were greeted by a spray of bullets that hummed and sang down the wide way, the last salute of fleeing gunners, then shortly we were on our own, in sections, scouting up the streets and lanes. We were in Mons.
CHAPTER XII
And We Go On
Sambro and Kennedy and I kept together. We went down a side street where we saw Belgians peering from their doorways, and asked them where the Germans were. They pointed in different directions and shrugged their shoulders. A woman brought us hot coffee, and another brought wine. We heard shouting and saw a soldier who called that he had seen two Huns but they had escaped him. A dignified Belgian in a frock coat and top hat guided us to a building and into its cellar. It had been a German billet and many tumbled beds were there; the enemy, however, had flown out one of the windows.
We went on up the street. Women and children cried welcomes as we passed and a group of them corraled Sambro and Kennedy. I went on alone, then at last entered a home to accept more coffee, for I was utterly weary. I had seen “Old Bill” with the Mills brother, trying to console him, for the fellow was half-crazed by grief and swearing vengeance on the first “brass hats” he saw, blaming them for the order to fight again.
The old lady who gave me coffee suddenly jabbered something and pointed excitedly. I looked out the window. A German soldier was escaping out of a house further up the street. He was unarmed and was watching some officers who were coming toward him, probably meaning to surrender to them. He had to pass a big gate t
o get outside the yard and as he did a burly Belgian rose from where he had been waiting and struck with a sledge, crashing the German’s head like an eggshell. No one rebuked him or went near the body.
When I left the house I went to the Square where many of our boys were resting. The new men were talking loudly and a photographer was there taking pictures. I left and went away back to the little building where Jones and Mills were lying. A sergeant was there, with others helping to get the bodies from the shed. “Know them?” he asked me.
“I was with them when they were killed,” I answered curtly.
“Phew!” he said. “Close enough. Well, considering everything, we got off light. And now she’s ended. They’re going to give these boys a bang-up funeral and …”
“What good’ll that do?” I snarled. Something seethed within me.
The sergeant looked at me. “The best thing you can do,” he said, “is to get some liquor and find a bed somewhere. The brass hats are coming into town as soon as it’s safe and there’ll be all kinds of ceremony and all that.”
“I’d like to shoot every blasted one of them,” I grated, and left him.
I walked on and on, thinking of Jones, his kissing the little girl, drinking that mocking toast … had he known? Away on the outskirts an old man hailed me from a little cottage and I went in. He and his wife could not speak English and they were very deaf, but they wanted to do something for me. I told them I was very tired and they offered me a bed. I had a good wash and then promised I would go back to them if possible, after I had seen the orders of the day.
Down on the Square I met Tommy. It was the first time I had seen him since the previous morning. “Where have you been?” I blurted.
He looked at me oddly, and flushed. “I’ll tell you the straight truth, Bill,” he said. “I steered clear of you. Did you ever stop to think about all the fellows who’ve been killed alongside you? Every time it’s the other chap who gets it. I’ve thought about it and this time I wasn’t taking any chances.”
We looked at each other a moment, then grinned in a confused way, and I went on. “They want to watch that Mills don’t plug some of them gilded guys,” he called after me. “He’s in the humour to do it.”
Everywhere there was wild celebration. The new men were drinking and laughing and shouting with the Belgians. Officers were posing in the public places. The older hands were conspicuous by their absence. Mostly they had found places to sleep and were sleeping, indifferent to everything. Other soldiers were crowding into the city, riotous, loquacious, wine-mettled fellows, and were shouting things about the Kaiser and the German navy. “Nothing ahead but home now, Jock,” one shouted at me, and I wanted to hit him.
An inexplicable bitterness had seized me, gripped me. I hurried away from them, walked the streets until I found my way back to the little cottage. There I went into the room the old Belgians had given me, kicked off my boots and sat on the bed, thinking, thinking. I was needing sleep more than anything else, and yet I did not lie down. My mind was a turmoil of visions, vivid pictures. I was back again on the Ridge that first winter, with Mickey and Melville and MacMillan, shooting rifle grenades, seeing Burke sitting in the mud, trying to form fours in a rain of gas shells to please a small-brained major. I crawled again on my first patrols and felt the muddy ooze under my knees, wet grass and weeds against my face, saw red-eyed rats creeping away from nameless things among the slimy craters. The pictures would not fade nor remain definite. They swung to a long line of snaky trenches with chalk parapets, to old ruins, shell-battered villages, gaunt ribs of shattered roofs, the sunlight catching bits of glass that remained whole. What sensations! Thrills! Horrors! Chills! Dreads!
I saw undergrounds, dugouts, tunnels, stinking, rat-ridden places; an existence among mud and rusting wire; mud and rain, mud and sodden sandbags, mud and mire, always mud … war! Brick dust and ashes and broken timbers, and twisted iron and gateways into houses that were not there; gaping cellars, bedding and toys and clocks and cradles in a chaos of destruction; a lone crucifix at a crossroads where all else was ruin. War! A plot of white crosses sandwiched among heaps of rubble, and a sign board saying “Dangerous Corner.” War! Hollow, reverberating sounds, the steady, measured tramp of marching feet, the dazzling floating whiteness of a flare, twisted long-barbed black wire, gray sandbagged trench walls, a desolation that seemed increased, that seemed peopled with grisly spectres when the Very lights became fewer just before dawn. War – I hated it, despised it, loathed it – and yet felt I was a part of it. I saw Mickey’s white face close up to mine, felt him in my arms. “And we – go – on.” What a hopeless, gasping surrender his had been! And Melville going steadily forward, set, composed, ready, Ira beside him; Sparky’s sudden tremors, the questioning in his staring eyes; Eddie coming and saying “good bye”; Siddall in that old foul Somme trench, murmuring, “Stay close beside me, Bill – till I go – to sleep.” I could see …
“Kamerad!”
I sprang to my feet. A closet door I had not noticed was suddenly ajar. I jumped to it, flung it open. There, blinking in the lamp light, cringing, white-faced, stood a German!
He was a young fellow, and his eyes held the fright of a hurt animal. “Kamerad!” he said again, in a whisper.
Still I did not speak. All that day I had burned with rage and bitterness. Why did they stay and shoot till they had killed Jones? Why did they keep on fighting if they had decided to stop? The German, watching my face, huddled, gasped “Kamerad,” and offered me his red and gray cloth cap. “Souvenir – Kamerad.” I motioned him to put it on again.
All at once there were ribald shouts in the street, the sound of many feet on the cobbles, a rollicking song.
I’m out to catch a Hun, a Hun,
I’m out to get the son of a gun;
And when I do I’ll bet he’ll rue
The day he left the Rhineland.
The German, listening, whimpered with fear and stood watching me, dry-lipped, wide-eyed, terror-stricken.
“Kamerad?” he whimpered. I shook my head, motioned him to be still. No use to put him out on the street for that crazed bunch of celebrators. Even the Belgians would kill him. I made him sit down beside me on the bed and we waited. He lost some of his fright. I did not like the stale smell of his dirty gray uniform or admire the cut of his bulging trousers, but his face was clean and boyish and he might have looked well in a kilt.
Finally the town grew quiet, the long day of rejoicing had taken its toll. I got up and looked into the closet where the German had hidden; probably he had ducked in there during a mad flight and had not been heard by the old couple. The place was partly filled with old clothing. I searched among it and found a long blue coat and a limp cloth cap, and handed them to him.
The German’s eyes lightened. He understood, and slipped the coat over his tunic. It fitted well and he put on the cloth cap. The change was effective. He appeared a young Belgian and would never draw a second glance. It was only a short distance to the open and beyond that the outposts would be relaxed, scattered, easy to avoid.
I opened the door of my room and saw that the old man and his wife had retired. Outside, the way seemed clear. The German stepped out hastily, then hesitated, turned and held out his hand. I gripped it with a warm pressure.
“Kamerad,” he said with a soft accent.
“Good luck to you,” I answered, and he was gone.
When I fell asleep it was to dream so wildly that I woke a dozen times, sweating, starting up, talking with Jones. In the morning the old lady came with hot coffee. I got up and went to the barracks where the sergeant-major met me. “You,” he said, “are orderly sergeant. Get busy and round up the men. A lot of them are absent.”
Many of the fellows had had too much liquor, but some of the officers were no better, and it was night before all was in order. We were in good quarters with plenty of room. The big soup boilers in the kitchen were still filled with the dinner the Germans had forsaken. Tommy came an
d said there were enough brass hats to load a box car coming to the funeral the next day, and that there had been grand speeches in the Square and grand posings of the beribboned staff heroes. Mills, he said, had regained control of himself.
The Belgians made a fine service for the dead, a room in the City Hall being decorated for them. The divisional padre conducted the funeral. I did not go near it, and I felt sure that Jones would understand my feelings. One striking feature I did witness. A group of the veterans of 1870 attended the service, old men in faded uniforms, with decorations on their breasts. And we go on – how such things made one remember!
The R.S.M. was very strict. As I watched a band of officers wend their way into the gayly-lighted city places for a night of hilarity he came and gave me gruff orders that all the “other ranks” were to be tucked in their beds by nine-thirty. I said nothing to him, but back in the barracks I helped the boys arrange a plank out one window to the top of the wall surrounding the big building. They could go out on it and down to the ground by means of a short ladder, and could come in by the same means. We hid both plank and ladder in the daytime. Each night I reported my company “all present and correct sir,” and heard the other orderly sergeants telling of eight, ten, even more, “absent, sir.” They would be crimed for having a good time, for daring to wish for pleasures that were arrayed for men no better than they who happened to be wearing a Sam Browne.
Each evening, when I had finished reporting, I went out myself. I had my room with the old couple and I slept there every night, in a clean, sweet bed, and each morning had hot coffee and fried eggs and chips. Always the old lady got me out in time to reach the gate before reveille, and no sentry ever reported my going in.
Tommy was silent, brooding, sombre; he did not even quell the newcomers who shouted around his bunk at night. As for myself, I was no better. A seething unrest swelled and burned within me so that I could scarcely bend myself to discipline or give civil answers to those in authority. The Belgians wanted to talk to me, to point out houses where the Kaiser and Hindenburg and Ludendorff had lodged, to tell me of the time in ’14 when the boche had come, Von Kluck’s army, and how our Dragoon Guards had routed the Uhlans. I listened at times, but mostly I could not. I tramped the streets, going all around the city and far out on the roads into the country. War – war – war. My head was filled with memories, with all the poignant scenes I had witnessed. I was soured, morose, cynical, and could not rest. Gradually Tommy and I found solace in each other’s company. He seemed dreadfully changed. “Bill,” he said, “While it lasted I didn’t want to get mine. I sweat buckets when I was in it those last few weeks, but now I wish – oh how I wish – that I was under one of them white crosses. I don’t want to go back and leave the boys.”