A Lively Bit of the Front: A Tale of the New Zealand Rifles on the Western Front

by Percy F. Westerman

  CHAPTER XVII

  Over the Top

  "Wing him!" exclaimed Malcolm, unslinging his rifle, opening thecut-off, and springing upon the fire-step. Selwyn followed hisexample, and with levelled rifles the two chums awaited the firstsound that might betray the progress of the spy.

  "What are you fellows up to?" enquired a sergeant. "Don't you knowthe order? No individual firing until further orders."

  "A man has just leapt over the parapet. He's a spy," said Malcolm.

  "In a N.Z. rifleman's uniform," added Selwyn.

  The Sergeant snorted incredulously.

  "You've been seeing things," he remarked, but to satisfy hiscuriosity he raised his head above the parapet and peered into thegloom just then a star-shell burst overhead, its glare throwingevery object on the immediate front into strong relief. Thecrater-pitted No Man's Land showed no sign If any movement. A scoreor more silent forms in field-grey uniform lay upon the ground--theyhad been there for the last three days. Not a trace Of a man inkhaki was to be discovered.

  "Come out of it, you chaps," continued the Sergeant. "You've made amistake. Hop it!"

  Malcolm and Selwyn obeyed promptly, and alighting upon the floor ofthe trench the latter cannoned into a passing soldier.

  "Here, what the deuce do you think you're doing?" asked a well-knownvoice, despite its tone of plaintive asperity.

  "By gum, Fortescue," ejaculated Selwyn, "this is lucky! We've beenlooking for you."

  "And so your search is rewarded," rejoined Fortescue. "What's theidea?"

  "We thought we'd hang together when the stunt comes off," explainedMalcolm. "But there's another thing. Our Muizenburg pal was here afew minutes ago."

  "What?" exclaimed Fortescue incredulously.

  "Fact!" confirmed his informant. "We asked if you were anywhereabout, and the fellow we addressed happened to be Konrad vonWhat's-his-name. He recognized us, for he _impshied_ like a wildcolt. I was----"

  "Sergeant Fortescue here?"

  "Yes, sir," replied Fortescue, standing to attention and saluting ashe recognized Captain Nicholson the S.I.N. of the old _Awarua_ daysand his lieutenancy a thing of the past.

  "You've warned the men to nip over smartly?" asked the Captain.

  "Yes, sir, I've seen to that. There is another matter on which Ishould like to speak."

  Briefly Fortescue related the incident of the spy's flight as toldhim by his two comrades. Captain Nicholson's face lengthened.

  "By Jove, this is a serious matter! What was the fellow doing?"

  "Assisting in fixing ladders, sir."

  "Then pass the word for the sergeant in charge of his party."

  The non-com. was soon on the spot. He was the sergeant who haddoubted the veracity of Malcolm's statement, and still had the sameopinion on the matter as before.

  But when the roll-call was taken one of the men wasmissing--Rifleman Scrooch.

  "Know anything about him, Sergeant?" enquired Captain Nicholson.

  "Not much, sir," was the reply, "except that he came in with thelast draft from Etaps."

  Captain Nicholson consulted his watch.

  "He won't get far," he remarked grimly. "In another fifteenminutes----"

  "Let's get back," suggested Fortescue as his officer disappeared."The bombers will be falling in here in half a tick. We're in thefirst supports. Fritz is pretty sleepy to-night; I wonder if heknows what's in store for him."

  The bomb-throwers, heavily laden with canvas bags filled with theirdeath-dealing missiles, filed into the front trench, together withtheir supporting riflemen. A sharp, decisive order was passed fromone officer to another, and the sinister clicking sound of bayonetsbeing fixed to rifles rippled along the line of trenches as the verypick of New Zealand's manhood prepared for the coming ordeal.

  Every man of the brigade knew what was to be expected of him.Messines Ridge was to be carried at the point of the bayonet, andthe knowledge that the hostile wire was practically uncut and thatthe heights bristled with machine-guns was common property.Stupendous though the task was, not a man flinched, although severalgroused at the lack of consideration on the part of the Staff tosend them against a prepared position in a practically-unbrokenstate; which showed that the troops were generally ignorant of themeasures taken to safeguard them.

  "Five minutes more!"

  The officers bunched together to compare watches. They had done so adozen times that evening, but perhaps it was excusable. Everythingdepended upon the operations being carried out with the precision ofreliable clockwork. A second or two out either way would meanthrowing away scores, perhaps hundreds, of valuable lives, forFritz, although fairly quiet, was on the alert.

  The British artillery was now almost silent. In previous stunts theposition to be attacked was subjected to hours of terrificbombardment, but now hardly a shell fell upon the Hun defences. Asfor the protecting "barrage", the waiting troops looked for it invain.

  "Keep together!" whispered Malcolm tersely, as he nervously felt thetip of his quivering bayonet.

  "Right, old man!" replied Selwyn in a low-pitched, unnatural voice.

  It was useless to disguise the fact. Both had "the wind up" verybadly. Malcolm could hear his heart thumping violently under histunic; he was fully conscious of an empty, nauseating sensation inthe pit of his stomach. He doubted whether he could stir up courageat the critical moment to leap over the parapet into the impendingtornado of machine-gun bullets and pulverizing, bursting shells.

  "WING HIM!" EXCLAIMED MALCOLM]

  Others had done the same. Why not he? Vainly he tried to argue withhimself that he was differently constituted from other men. He wastoo young to die. He had not drunk deeply of the joys of manhood.Why had he been such a fool as to underrate his age when he joinedup? If----

  The shrill blast of a whistle pierced the strained silence. With aloud yell the men leapt upon the scaling-ladders. His fears thrownto the wind, and the exhilarating sensation of unfettered actionsurging through his veins, Malcolm found himself scrambling oversand-bags and leaping into the pitted No Man's Land.

  Even as he took the leap a seven-fold lurid flash burst from thedominating ridge of Messines. The ground trembled and swayed beneathhis feet. Sand-bags and tons of earth subsided into the trenches sorecently vacated by the troops, while a deafening, dumbfounding roarbeat upon the lad's ears.

  Almost mechanically Malcolm broke into a run. In front and on eitherside other men were surging onwards, their bayonet-tips describingerratic curves as they lurched over the still-trembling ground.Showers of dust beat upon their faces. Farther ahead masses of solidrock and earth were falling with a succession of thuds, while, whereMessines Ridge had been, was a riven mound of disintegrated Soil,over which a dense cloud of black smoke rolled sullenly in thesultry night air.

  One of the greatest engineering feats of the Great War--in fact, thegreatest mining operation in the history of the world's battles--hadbeen successfully carried out, a task compared with which the greatmine of Beaumont Hamel paled into insignificance. With aconcentrated roar, the concussion of which was distinctly felt overthe greater part of south-eastern England, the explosive contents ofa series of mine-chambers were fired simultaneously.

  In the fraction of a second the whole of Messines Ridge underwent astartling change. German dug-outs, trenches, machine-gunemplacements, and an unknown but vast number of troops went up inthe terrific blast.

  Months of diligent and stupendous labour had not been spent in vain.At one stroke the culminating moment had done more than hours ofintensive bombardment. With little risk the British troops were ableto sweep the position that for two years had defied their efforts.

  Yet the New Zealanders were not to have a "walk over". From theheavy guns, well behind the pulverized ridge, shells were burstingin front and behind the trenches. Hostile machine-guns that hadalmost inexplicably escaped the general carnage were spittingvenomously, while in the front German trenches, which were oncomparatively level ground to the east of the
Messines Ridge, a hotbut erratic rifle-fire was directed upon the khaki-clad stormers.

  On and on Malcolm ran, his face turned towards the two lines ofsand-bags beyond which the Huns were still putting up a fight.Whether Fortescue and Selwyn were with him he knew not. Theresolution he had made to keep with his chums was gone. His soledesire was to reach the hostile trenches and battle with thefield-grey enemy.

  Men were running in front of him. Swift of foot though he was, therewere others who surpassed in the maddening rush. More than once hehad to leap over the writhing bodies of gallant Anzacs who had gonedown in the charge. He was dimly conscious of khaki-clad formscrashing heavily to the ground on either side, of a whizz of flyingmetal that sent his steel helmet spinning, of a sharp, burning painin his left wrist, and of a dozen other mental and physicalsensations.

  In the midst of a regular mob of panting, yelling, and shouting men,and preceded by a terrific fusillade of Mills's bombs, Malcolm foundhimself struggling through masses of partly-severed barbed wire andup on the hostile parapet.

  The ruddy glare from the exploding missiles revealed a line ofcowed, terrified men, some with "pill-box" caps, others with thetypical "Dolly Varden" steel helmets. With uplifted hands andtremulous cries of "Kamerad!" they bowed to the inevitable, andalmost contemptuously were sent through the crowd of New Zealandersto the British lines.

  Other Huns were made of sterner stuff, and offered a stubbornresistance. With rifle-shots, bayonets, clubbed weapons, and bombsthey contested their ground. Machine-gunners used their deadlyweapons with desperate energy, until they were stretched out by thesides of their now silent charges. The air was heavy withsuffocating smoke; fragments of shell were flying with completeimpartiality; shouts, oaths, and curses punctuated the crash ofsteel and the rattle of musketry, as men in their blind ferocityclutched at each other's throats and rolled in mortal combat uponthe ground.

  Presently Rifleman Malcolm Carr found himself confronted by a tall,bearded Prussian, whose head-dress consisted of a steel helmet, witha visor completely covering the upper part of his face as far as hismouth. Even in the heat of combat Malcolm could not help noticingthe incongruity of the bristling whiskers flowing beyond thefellow's face-armour. It was one of those transitory yetindelibly-stamped impressions that are frequently formed in times ofimminent danger.

  The Prussian lunged with his bayonet. Malcolm promptly turned itaside and countered. His bayonet, darting above the other's belatedguard, caught the Hun fairly in the lower part of his chest.

  With a disconcerting jar that wellnigh dislocated his wrist, andsent a numbing pain through his right arm, the lad realized that hewas up against great odds. The Prussian was wearing a steelbreastplate underneath his tunic. Malcolm could imagine the grin ofsupercilious triumph under the Hun's mask. He shortened his graspand thrust again, this time at the Fritz's shoulder. The man,despite the handicap of wearing heavy steel plates, ducked agilely,and, reversing his rifle, prodded the New Zealander with the butt ofhis weapon. Stepping backwards to avoid the blow, Malcolm trippedover some obstacle and fell heavily into a still-intact emplacement.

  For some seconds he lay still. A few inches above his head came thedeafening tick-tock of a German machine-gun. He had fallen in frontof the weapon, and was pressed down by a heavy weight that still hadthe power of movement.

  Groping, his fingers came in contact with human hair--the beard ofhis antagonist. The Prussian was lying face downwards upon the NewZealander's body.

  "My festive," mentally ejaculated Rifleman Carr, "you didn't playthe game with your body-armour; I'll do the reprisal dodge."

  Fiercely he tugged at the Prussian's beard. With a yell of pain thefellow bent his knees and reared his body, only to fall inertly uponthe half-suffocated Digger. In rising he had intercepted a dozen ormore bullets from the machine-gun. So close was the muzzle, that hisclothes smouldered in the blast of the weapon. Not that it matteredvery much to him, for he was stone dead.

  With a frantic effort Malcolm rolled himself clear of the body ofhis late foe; then, resisting the temptation to regain his feet, hecrouched in a corner of the emplacement and took stock of hisimmediate front.

  He could easily have touched the cooling-jacket of the weapon as themachine-gun continued its death-dealing work. He could discern thesullen, determined features of the two men who alone remained of themachine-gun's crew.

  Vainly Malcolm groped for his rifle. The violent impact had sent theweapon yards away. Nor could he find the rifle of his lateadversary. The man had been a bomber; perhaps some of his stock ofhand-propelled missiles yet remained?

  Very cautiously the New Zealander felt for the canvas pocketssuspended from the Hun's neck. Every one was empty.

  "Rough luck!" he soliloquized. "Don't know so much about it, though;if he had had any left when we scrapped he might have chucked one atmy head."

  The machine-gun ceased firing. For a moment Malcolm was seized withthe haunting fear that the gunners had spotted him. Out of thecorner of his eye he saw that they were fitting another belt ofammunition.

  Presently Rifleman Carr's hand came in contact with a hard substanceprotruding from the Prussian's pocket. By the feel of it he wasassured that he had found a revolver. Stealthily he withdrew theweapon and examined it. The pistol was evidently smaller than thoseused in the opposing armies. Belgian made, it had probably beenobtained from a looted shop. Although officially unsanctioned,raiding parties, British, French, and German, frequently carriedsmall revolvers when engaged in paying uninvited and unwelcomevisits to the hostile lines.

  The weapon was loaded in five chambers. Whether it was sufficientlypowerful for the work Malcolm proposed to do the lad could notdefinitely form an opinion. It was like riding an untried steed.Failure on the part of the cheap mechanism meant death;nevertheless, for the sake of his comrades who were exposed to thebrisk fire of the machine-gun, he was determined to take the risk.

  A gentle pressure on the trigger revealed the pleasing fact that therevolver was of a self-acting type. So far so good. The nextquestion was--are the cartridges reliable?

  Deliberately Malcolm, steadying the barrel on the neck of the deadHun, aimed between the eyes of the fellow holding the firing-handleof the machine-gun.

  Two shots rang out in quick succession. Giving a yelp of mingledpain and surprise, Fritz doubled up across the gun, his feet beatinga tattoo against an ammunition-box. His companion, partly deafenedby the double report almost under his nose, and taken aback by thecollapse of the gunner, crouched irresolute. Before he could decidewhether to snatch up his rifle or to raise his hands and shout"Kamerad" a bullet from Malcolm's revolver struck him fairly in thecentre of his low forehead.

  Wriggling from underneath the dead Prussian, Rifleman Carr regainedhis feet. The wave of New Zealanders forming the firststorming-party had swept beyond the now silent machine-gun. Thesupports were doubling up, their numbers no longer lessened by therain of bullets from the hitherto overlooked emplacement. Betweenthe two lines of attackers khaki-clad figures littered the ground,while numbers of wounded, both New Zealanders and Huns, trickledtowards the British trenches.

  "My capture!" exclaimed Malcolm. "I'll put a tally on the beauty."

  Searching, he found his rifle and bayonet. Unfixing the latter, hescratched upon the field-grey paint of the machine-gun the words:"99,109, Carr, No. 3 Platoon, C Company".

  "If I go under, the boys will know I've done something towards mybit," he muttered. "I wonder where my pals are?"