To the Fore with the Tanks!

  CHAPTER VIII

  CUT OFF

  ENTERING the main room of the spacious dug-out Ralph and his comradesfound the place illuminated by a couple of candles that the Huns,with characteristic forethought, had lighted in anticipation of thefailure of the electric current.

  The place was a combined dormitory and living-room. Against threewalls were tiers of bed-boxes, showing that there was accommodationfor at least fifty men. Tables and chairs, looted from French houses,occupied most of the floor space. Even though intended for the Germanrank and file the dug-out, in the matter of comfort and security, wasfar more habitable and commodious than those of the British troops.It was constructed with a view of lasting, whereas the Britishdug-outs were of a temporary nature, pending the long-promised andeagerly awaited Great Advance. It was one of the numerous concreteworks that the Huns never expected to have to evacuate so long as thewar lasted. To their cost they found that British tenacity andcourage, backed by the powerful shells supplied by the munitionworkers at home, were more than a match for German ingenuity andmachine-like methods of waging modern war.

  Crowded into one corner of the dug-out were eleven Prussians, for themost part sullen and brutal in features and with the fear of death intheir bloodshot eyes. Some of them were wounded; all were caked fromhead to foot with mud and soot.

  Armed with a German rifle and bayonet stood Private Bartlett, asproud as a peacock.

  "Glad you came," he exclaimed. "I knew things were going all rightwhen these fellows came skeltering for shelter, and still more sowhen you flung a bomb down the stairs----"

  "We didn't," expostulated Alderhame jocularly. "We wouldn't do yousuch a dirty trick, Sidney. Blame your pal, Ginger."

  "He's all right, then?" asked the rescued man.

  "And so are you," added Ralph. "Good for promotion."

  "'Cause why?"

  "I heard you being cross-examined by the Prussian officer and yourreplies," continued Setley. "Simply had to report to the O.C., youknow. Well, what happened afterwards?"

  "They knocked me about a bit," declared Bartlett. "Thought I waskidding them, I suppose, but as it was the right way as far as theywere concerned they got a bit more civil. Finally, when thebombardment commenced they pushed me down this dug-out. Crikey! Ithought the roof was tumbling in every second, and fifty feet belowground at that. Then when the bomb was chucked down the stairs theHuns here knew the game was up. They nearly fell over themselvestrying to get me to take them prisoners--and there they are."

  "Any way out there?" asked Setley, pointing to a door at the remoteend of the underground room.

  "Don't know," said Bartlett. "I'll soon see."

  He came back with the information that it led only to a smaller room,evidently set apart for non-commissioned officers.

  "Good enough," declared Ralph. "We'll leave the prisoners here untilwe can send them to the advance-cages."

  "You our lives save?" enquired a Hun corporal anxiously.

  "Yes, if you behave yourselves," said Bartlett. "We won't drop a bombamongst you as we clear out. That's not the British way, you know."

  Collecting the captured rifles and side-arms, the three Wheatshiresreturned to the open air, where Ginger greeted his restored pal withgrim Cockney humour.

  "Wot, more of 'em dahn there?" he asked. "S'welp me. 'Ere goes."

  Like a terrier after a swarm of rats Anderson was about to plungedown the flight of steps when Bartlett arrested his movements.

  "It's no go," he said. "We've promised them quarter."

  "After they tried to do the dirty on us," grumbled Ginger, stillfumbling with the safety-pin of a bomb. "I'll give 'em quarter--not'arf."

  Sidney barred his way. Setley and Alderhame joined in an attempt tocheck the ferocious ardour of their comrade. How the dispute mighthave ended if allowed to continue must remain in doubt, for a heavyshell, landing in the bay of the captured trench, exploded and threwthe four men to the ground.

  Half buried with debris they extricated themselves, none the worseexcept for a severe shaking. All thoughts of the dispute wereforgotten.

  The Wheatshires were occupying the captured section of the trench,the men toiling strenuously to convert the parados into a parapet. Ahundred yards to the right the Huns still held their own. A traverse,heavily defended with machine-guns, had proved too great an obstacleto be rushed in a frontal attack. To the rear of the Wheatshires'position was the barbed wire entanglement that had held up theluckless Coalshires; in front the Germans were massing for a giganticcounter-attack, while on the right of the British battalion theBlankshires had been compelled to give ground. Added to this theGerman guns had got the exact range of the captured section oftrenches, while inexplicably the British artillery were putting up abarrage in front of a position where the Huns had made no seriouseffort to counter-attack.

  This error was the result of one of those elements of chance thatoften win or lose battles. The telephone wires from the observer'spost to the battery had been severed, and already three devotedlinesmen had lost their lives in heroic efforts to repair the meansof communication. A signaller mounted the parapet and attempted toconvey the much-needed information to the gunners, but he fell almostimmediately, pierced by a dozen machine-gun bullets.

  However well the advance was faring elsewhere the grim fact waspatent that the Wheatshires were cut off.

  The men knew it. They were literally fighting with their backs to thewall--and it is said that a Briton never fights better than in such aposition.

  "Stick it, men!" shouted the colonel.

  The Wheatshires responded with a cheer.

  "Reminds a fellow of the winning goal at Yatton Park," remarkedAlderhame, as he shoved a fresh clip of cartridges into the magazineof his rifle. "It's getting a bit of a hot corner."

  "Garn! It don't beat my old woman on Saturday night," retorted Gingercontemptuously.

  The hurricane of hostile shells continued without intermission forthe space of nearly ten minutes. The hastily constructed parapet ofsand-bags disappeared in clouds of dust and noxious smoke. The men,gasping for breath, clung tenaciously to the side of the trench,except on the left flank where British and German bombers werehurling their missiles with deadly ferocity. Not only in the capturedsection of the trench, but along the outer lip of the hugemine-crater, the Wheatshires and their supporting battalion doggedlyheld their ground, despite the pounding of huge shells that severaltimes blew half a dozen men into a state of unrecognizability.

  "What the deuce are our guns doing?" was the oft-repeated question,for, although the gigantic messengers of death were still hurtlingthrough the air, the shells were not directed upon the dense columnsof German infantry who were slowly following up the barrage set up bytheir guns.

  Then the crash of the exploding shells from the Hun batteries ceased.Only the distant roar of the artillery duel and the sharp bark of thebombs broke the silence. Compared with the titanic thunder of thebombardment the residue of sound was hardly noticeable. It was thesignal for the Wheatshires to pull themselves together to withstandthe counter-attack.

  In dense serried masses the columns of Bavarian infantry advanced.They came on without hesitation, yet in comparative silence,confident that their guns had so pulverized the trenches theirPrussian comrades had lost that the charge would be little more thana "walk-over."

  "Five hundred yards! Fire!"

  From Maxims and Lewis guns, hastily mounted on the battered parapets,from scores, nay, hundreds, of rifles the hail of nickel from theWheatshires smote the ranks of their opponents. Like a giantreceiving a knock-out blow betwixt the eyes, the field-grey massesrecoiled, wavered and broke, in spite of the efforts of theirofficers to check the rout as the men rushed past them.

  Ironical cheers greeted the discomfiture of the Bavarians, then theWheatshires settled down to undergo the renewal of their punishment,for certain it was that the German gunners, exasperated at the checkof the infantry, would renew the bombardment with increased violence.

>   What seemed worse was the fact that several regiments of the enemyhad succeeded in working round both flanks. On the left the Huns,still in possession of part of the same trench as the Wheatshiresheld, were strongly reinforced. The British infantry were now in adangerous salient, but still they had not given an inch of ground.Nor could reserves be rushed up to strengthen the advanced position,for the comparatively level stretch of ground was completely exposedto machine-gun fire, to say nothing of the formidable barbed wirethat the British guns had failed to demolish earlier in the day.

  An aeroplane droned overhead at an altitude of less than a thousandfeet. By the red, white, and blue concentrated rings on the planes itwas recognized as a British machine. In spite of a warm greeting fromthe anti-aircraft guns, for mushrooms of white smoke was bursting allaround it, the biplane circled serenely. Its object was soonapparent, for, like a whirlwind, shells from the British gunscommenced to put up a barrage behind the Huns holding the section oftrenches on the Wheatshires' left flank.

  Simultaneously four indistinct shapes, resembling gigantic tortoises,appeared in view, ambling leisurely towards the uncut wire.

  "That's the sort!" commented Ginger Anderson. He could now reasonablyrisk drinking the remainder of the contents of his water-bottle."'Ere come the bloomin' Tanks."