CHAPTER III
THE NIGHT ATTACK
SNATCHING up their rifles the three men hurried from the dug-out,nearly colliding with the rest of their chums who were returning atthe first alarm to get their equipment. "Follow me," exclaimedPenfold. "Keep well down."
At the fifth or sixth step along the tortuous communication trenchSetley trod on something not so yielding as mud, but comparativelysoft. He stooped and felt the object with his hand. His fingers camein contact with a human face.
"There's a man lying here!" he called out to Penfold, who was a fewpaces in front.
"I know," replied his new chum. "He's been there for the last threehours. Our fellows haven't had time to bring him in yet. Don't worryabout that; you'll soon get used to it."
Setley hurried on, wondering whether he would ever get accustomed tothe horrors of the trenches. The seemingly stony indifference withwhich Penfold had spoken jarred on his sensitive nerves. Somehow therealization did not fit in with the anticipation of what war reallywas. He could not help asking himself why nations should set about todeliberately exterminate each other merely for the lust ofconquest--a wholesale slaughter by the most deadly scientificinstrument that human ingenuity could devise.
His disjointed reveries were interrupted by Penfold being hurledviolently backwards, his hunched shoulders striking Ralph violentlyin the chest. The two men staggered backwards, accompanied by showersof mud, stones, and displaced sand-bags, all silhouetted against theglare of an exploding shell. Three of the Wheatshires precedingPenfold were hurled bodily into the air, subsiding with sickeningthuds upon the soft ground. One writhed furiously, groaning dismallythe while; the others were mere lumps of clay fashioned in God's ownimage, but now hideously mangled.
"On!" exclaimed Penfold breathlessly. "Don't wait. Thestretcher-bearers will be along for that fellow in half a shake."
Across a gap in the sand-bagged wall the men hurried. They could hearthe hiss of the stream of bullets from a machine-gun. It seemed soclose that Setley and Alderhame flung themselves flat.
"What are you hanging back for?" shouted a sergeant. "How the deucecan the rest of the men get by when you're blocking the road? Pushalong, both of you!"
Thus abjured the twain, fearing the scathing words of the N.C.O. morethan the whistling bullets, slid over the mound of displacedsand-bags into the crater of the recently exploded shell, andscrambled up the other side.
Twenty paces more and Setley found himself in the front line trench.Almost mechanically he mounted the fire-step, rested the barrel ofhis rifle between two spaced sand-bags that formed a loophole, andwaited.
"Here they come!" shouted an excited voice.
Standing out clearly against the glare of half a dozen star-shellscame on dense masses of German infantry. The Huns advanced slowly,almost hesitatingly. There were no shouts of "Deutschland überalles!" that characterized the earlier attacks. The words were ahollow mockery--and the Huns knew it. They had now a wholesomerespect for the British Tommy. It was mainly fear of their officers,who kept at the heels of their men and held revolvers ready to shootdown any who refused to charge, that made the attack develop.
In front came two men, masked and bearing metal cylinders resemblingexaggerated packs upon their shoulders. In place of a rifle andbayonet they held a length of flexible hose. The Huns were about touse liquid fire in their attempt to oust the British from theirtrenches.
Supporting these perambulating torches were a dozen or more bombers,while close at their heels came men armed with rifles and bayonets.With the exception of the mud and numerous shell-craters there waslittle in the way of obstacles to impede their advance, for almostthe whole of the wire entanglements fronting the British parapet hadbeen blown away by shell-fire. Setley's impression at theunaccustomed sight was that the brunt of the attack was about to fallon his immediate front.
Suddenly the whole length of the British trench burst into a line ofcrackling flame as the Tommies commenced independent rapid fire. Somemaxims, skilfully concealed in sand-bagged emplacements, added to thedin with their quick pop-pop-pop.
The Huns, erroneously trusting that their heavy guns had battered theBritish trenches into shapeless mounds, and thinking that the Tommieshad been either blown to fragments by the terrific artillerybombardment or had been compelled to seek refuge in their dug-outs,were met by the full blast of the rifle and machine-gun fire.
Ralph was soon surprised to find that he was slipping another clip ofcartridges into the magazine of his rifle. He was now as cool as acucumber. The months of infantry training had not been thrown away.With a visible enemy facing him he realized that the time had comewhen he could strike a blow for King and Country, instead of beingsubjected to shell-fire from a distant and unseen foe without beingable to raise a hand in self-defence. The attack was doomed tofailure from the start. One of the men bearing the liquid fireapparatus was on his face, his head and shoulders buried in mud,while his diabolical contrivance, which had evidently been perforatedby a bullet, had taken fire and was blazing furiously. The bombershurled their missiles prematurely, most of the bombs falling short;while the infantry, mown down in heaps, wavered, the survivorsbeginning to give way.
Above the rattle of musketry a whistle rang out loud and clear.
"Come on, boys!" shouted an officer, leaping on to the parapet, totopple backwards with a bullet through his brain.
Undeterred, the Wheatshires poured over the shattered breastwork ofsand-bags. With an inspiring British cheer the infantry surged verthe top like a huge, irresistible breaker.
The opportune moment for delivering a counter-attack had arrived.
Well spent had been those months of active training. The Wheatshires,every man a passable athlete, literally swarmed over the parapet.With their bayonets gleaming in the ruddy glare and preceded by theregimental bombers the khaki-clad troops, dexterously threading theirway through the gaps in the barbed wire, charged irresistibly againstthe already broken enemy.
A wave of thrilling enthusiasm swept over Private Setley. The chanceof actually doing something, of getting clear of the imprisoningwalls of slimy mire and coming to grips with the Hun had come. Thestudiously polite and law-abiding bank-clerk was transformed into afighting Tommy. The lust of primeval combat was upon him. He saw red.Of what happened during the next two minutes Setley had but a faintand hazy notion. Bombs hurled by the retreating Huns fell around him.Once the blast from an exploding missile lifted his steel helmet fromhis head. He remembered putting it straight with his left hand andnoticing that the fingers were covered with a dark, moist, warmfluid.
A man, keeping pace with him, suddenly dropped his rifle and fell onhis face. Setley leapt over the slightly inclined bayonet and heldon, the desire to stop and assist a fallen comrade being hardlyexistent. For the time being his sole desire was to overtake one ofthose field-grey forms showing dimly through the smoke.
The enemy first-line trenches at last--and the Huns were making astand. A machine-gun, one of many, was pumping out nickel almost onSetley's immediate front. Hostile bombers were redoubling theirefforts. In cold blood the lad would have thought twice, perhaps manytimes, before facing that deadly menace, but carried away in the madrush he pressed forward, scarce noticing the weight of his rifle andbayonet.
A severed, coiled strand of barbed wire caught the puttee of his leftfoot. With a vicious jerk he freed himself from the encumbrance,leaving half a yard of mud-plastered cloth upon the sharp barb. Twoyards in front of him was a burly German bomber with a bomb poisedready to hurl.
Regardless of the fact that the explosion of the missile would to analmost certainty annihilate him, the Hun threw the bomb. Setleycaught it on the flat blade of his bayonet and threw it aside, whereit burst ten yards to the right under a tall, bearded Prussian.
The next instant the thrower received six inches of cold steel rightin the centre of his chest. Setley had made a mistake. It was amatter of considerable difficulty to withdraw the blade. Heremembered too late the
warning of the drill-instructors--whendelivering a body thrust aim below the ribs.
Before he could disengage the steel another German commenced afurious blow with the butt-end of his rifle. In the midst of theswing of the weapon a shot rang out within a few inches of Setley'sear, and the Hun, with a curious look of surprise on his sullenfeatures, staggered forward. The descending rifle-butt struckSetley's helmet a glancing blow and, missing his left shoulder, sankdeeply into the mud.
"So much for Buckingham: off with his head," yelled Alderhame, as heejected the still smoking cartridge-case from the breach of hisrifle. "How's that, my festive?"
"Thanks," replied Setley briefly; then over the hostile parapet thetwo comrades surged, bending low as they crouched behind their readybayonets.
The deep and narrow German trench was crowded with men--dead,wounded, and living. Some of the latter were putting up a stifffight, like wild animals at bay. Others, with the dismal andmonotonous whine of "Mercy, Kamerad!" were holding their hands highabove their heads, the bombs taking toll of brave men and cowardsalike.
Following at the heels of two of the Wheatshires' bombers, Setley,Alderhame, George Anderson, and two others, made their way along atraverse, the riflemen firing at the side of the bombers. Atintervals the latter stopped to hurl their deadly missiles down thesteep and steeply shelving entrances to the German dug-outs.
Rounding a sand-bagged traverse the party entered a bay in which wasa machine-gun, with its crew of dead and dying lying around thesilent weapon. A few paces further on a tall, bearded Hun barred theway.
"Hands up!" yelled Ginger.
The man threw down his rifle and complied. As the Tommies surged pastAnderson took possession of the discarded weapon and tossed it overthe parapet.
"Keep 'em up!" he continued, addressing his prisoner. "A little ofthat'll do you no 'arm. You bide 'ere till you're told to shift."
A shot rang out, and one of the British bombers dropped. Hiscompanion hurled a bomb, while Setley and Alderhame pushed forwardtowards a temporary barrier of sand-bags hastily piled on the floorof the trench. Beyond were three Huns, one of whom had just fired thefatal shot; but the avenging bomb had already done its work.
Standing on the parados was a captain of the Wheatshires.
"Back, men!" he ordered. "Don't get out of touch with the rest of thecompany. Secure your prisoners and retire."
"Retire, be hanged!" muttered George. "Wot's to prevent us going onto Berlin? Eh, you treacherous swine, wot's the game?"
He clapped his hand to his ear. One portion of the lobe was missing.The man he had taken prisoner had drawn a small revolver from hispocket and had fired at five paces at his captor while the latter'sback was turned.
With a yell Ginger rushed at the recreant Hun. Once more the man'shands were raised above his head, and again the dolorous "Mercy,Kamerad; me haf wife and six children!"
"Liar!" shouted the now furious Tommy, giving the treacherous Boche agenerous amount of cold steel. "You've a widow an' six orphans!"
Reluctantly, the Wheatshires quitted the hostile trenches and madetheir way back across No Man's Land. In many cases their officers hadto push them towards their own lines. Having made good their footingin the German defences, the Tommies did not relish the idea ofabandoning the ground. It did not occur to them that the capturedtrench would form a dangerous salient, liable to be enfiladed andlevelled flat with hostile shells before it could be properlyconsolidated.
"How about grub?" enquired Penfold, as the men regained the safety oftheir own lines. "There's no barrage now? Why can't they bring ourtommy up to us?"
"Could do with a good meal myself," said Sefton. "Fortunately, wewere served out with bully-beef before we arrived. You can have someof mine."
"Thanks, awfully," replied his new chum. "I'll accept; but, remember,it's bad policy. Generosity is all very well, but here it's each manfor himself in the grub line. You can't blame a half-starving fellowsneaking any food that he finds lying about, you know."
"How is it that you're short of rations?" asked Alderhame.
"Goodness only knows. The Huns were going it pretty hot all day andduring the earlier part of this evening. Perhaps our ration partycopped it. Everything has to be brought up by hand in this section ofthe line," replied Penfold. "Well, let's foot it, before the gunsstart again. The Boches will be pretty wild after this littleaffair."
Mingled with a jostling throng of exultant Tommies and dejectedprisoners, the three made their way along the communication trench totheir dug-out.
"What luck!" ejaculated Penfold, stopping short at a heap ofdisordered sand-bags and splintered timber that marked the site oftheir temporary abode. "Our dug-out has been properly strafed. Wewould have all gone West by this time if we'd been inside. But I say,you fellows; what price grub, now?"