Albert is all but abandoned by civilians but somehow manages to continue to exist here so close to the fighting. Some of our artillery is behind the village. Troops move through in both directions by day and night and sleep is almost impossible due to the noise of their tramping, the clomp of horses’ hooves, and the cursing of men tugging large guns through the mud. My hospital mates here are all officers and I understand from Sister Paul Marie’s comments that this place is only for those too seriously injured to travel toward Amiens and home, or for those injured so slightly that they will soon return to the Front. I count myself unlucky to be listed in the latter category.
There are about a dozen men in my ward, several of them officers from the Rifle Brigade. Most are dying. One chap, a captain, has had both legs blown off and the stench of gangrene fills the ward at all times. Another fellow, a lieutenant such as myself, was shot through the brain and talks incessantly, wooing the poor nun as if she were his lover. An older man, a major, returns to the surgical tent every day to have a bit more of his leg sawed off. He also has the smell of gangrene and death around him, but he never complains, but merely lies on his bed and stares fixedly at the ceiling.
Sister Paul Marie tells me that Colonel Pretor-Pinney is receiving special care in the field hospital next door, still too badly wounded to be sent down the rail line to hospital. She said that his left arm had been shredded by machine-gun bullets. I knew that. I saw it happen.
Almost all of the officers in our Battalion have been killed, including all four company commanders. I also saw them die. Most of the other platoon commanders were also killed. I understand that Lieutenant Fitzgibbon was a fellow survivor, but he was so badly wounded that he was sent immediately home to Blighty. Most of our sergeants were cut down—including Cross and Monckton—but there is hope that some survived. There is much confusion after a battle.
I seem to be the only “slightly wounded” in the ward, suffering as I am from what is described as “concussion paralysis” and a case of pneumonia from the two nights lying in the shell hole. The pneumonia is bothersome, especially as they come in to drain my lungs every day with a needle literally the size of a bicycle pump—they hold me in place while they insert the needle through my back—but much worse than that is the terrible pain of feeling finally returning to my numbed legs. It is as if they have been asleep for four or five days, and the pins-and-needles sensation of their awakening may well drive me mad.
The young officer with no legs has just died. First they put a screen around his bed, then men come in with a stretcher to remove his body. Covered as he is, the form under the blanket looks much too small to have ever been a man.
The lieutenant who is shot through the skull continues to call for his nurse/nun/lover in a voice that grows increasingly wild. I suspect that he will not last the night.
I think of this place as the vestibule of Hell. Obviously some other literate soul has had similar thoughts, for written in charcoal on the wall near the window through which I can see the Golden Virgin are the words “PER ME SI VA NE LA CITTA DOLENTE, PER ME SI VA NE L’ETTERNO DOLORE, PER ME SI VA TRA LA PERDUTA GENTE.” Sister Paul Marie tells me that the nuns leave it there because the officer who scribbled it told them that it was a poem attesting to the gentleness of care at this place. Obviously none of the nuns know neither Italian nor their Dante.
The quote is from the Inferno, of course, and reads—“THROUGH ME THE WAY INTO THE SUFFERING CITY, THROUGH ME THE WAY TO THE ETERNAL PAIN, THROUGH ME THE WAY THAT RUNS AMONG THE LOST.”
The doctors are coming with their accursed needle. I will write later.
Saturday, 15 July, almost midnight—
The guns are very loud. I can see the Virgin and Child backlighted by the gunflashes as light from the incessant bombardment falls across the whitewashed floorboards like the flickering from some unseen fireplace.
The only other person in the ward who seems to be awake is the victim of phosgene gas who lies across the aisle from me. The noise he makes is a terrible thing. I try not to look at him, but every few seconds I steal a glance.
…the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every holt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues…5
Each breath the poor devil takes extorts a terrible price in pain and effort. I can not imagine he can live until morning, or even through ten more of such terrible breaths…but I have counted ten even while I waited to write this. Perhaps he will be doomed to live until morning and even beyond, although why such pain is inflicted on any living thing is quite beyond me. It makes Christ’s so-called agony on the cross a petty thing.
I have not been able to sleep because I wait for the Lady’s visit. Traces of her violet perfume remain on my own wrist and pajama sleeve and I raise these to my face when the stench from the gangrene becomes too bad.
I was sure that she would return tonight.
I think that I will write about the attack while I wait. Perhaps if I write about it, I will not dream about it again.
We went up and over at 8.45. I knew that at places in front of us, the Jerries’ line was a third of a mile or so away, but our objective was a bit of enemy trench only a couple of hundred yards in front of us. I convinced myself that this was a definite advantage for our chaps, and then I clambered up the side of the trench and was out.
My first impression upon leaving the trench was a sort of light-headedness at being able to walk above ground. Then I thought giddily, There are bees up here. The air was absolutely filled with a zzzp-zzzp sound, precisely like the time when I was a boy and had disturbed a large hive of bees in Mr. Alknut’s garden. When I saw the tufts of dirt leaping up ahead of and to the side of me, I realized that the noise was nothing less than bullets. I almost stopped then, so terrible was my fear of a steel-jacketed bullet striking me square in the face, but I squinted until my eyes were almost closed, leaned forward a bit, and forced myself to move forward with the lads.
All up and down the line, our men were moving forward into this murderous fire—first the officers and NCOs, then the riflemen with bayonets fixed, and then the Lewis gunners and their ammunition carriers struggling under loads. I noticed then that everyone out there—myself included—walked into the enemy fire in a sort of a diagonal crouch, as if we were all leaning into a strong wind or rain. Sergeants continued shouting at members of their platoons to keep apart and not to bunch up. Men began to fall as I watched through squinted eyes.
It was strange, actually. Men just fell over, almost casually, as if they were children playing at war. I thought at first that some of this was pure funk…but there was no more cover where they fell, and even as I watched more bullets struck their bodies, causing them to jerk only slightly. The sound of bullets striking flesh was almost exactly like the pat-thud of bullets striking the sandbags which we had all heard from the trenches. And everywhere the air continued to be filled with the zzzp-zzzp.
My fear was so terrible at this point that it was everything I could do to stay upright and balanced as I advanced, stepping carefully over shell holes and rotting corpses. The earth leaped up in front of me and behind. Somehow, my mind stayed quite detached.
I had begun the walk with a dozen or more of the lads from my platoon, but one by one they had fallen away. I stopped by one lying prone and asked, “Are you hurt?”
“What the fuck do you think I’m doing down here, you bleeding toff bastard?” the rude fellow shouted at me. “Picking fucking daisies?” Then a machine-gun bullet struck the precise center of the man’s helmet, he vomited brains, and I moved on.
Finally only a man whom I vaguely recognized as Corporal Woodlock from No. 11 Platoon, and I, were left. We were less than fifty yards from the enemy wire when Corporal Woodlock began laughing. “Jesus Christ,
Sir!” he shouted, as giddy as a schoolboy.
“Jesus Christ, Sir, I think we’re the only ones who’re going to get through this bloody lot!” He giggled. “Jesus Christ, Sir…” he began again just as several bullets tore the khaki above his chest into maroon shreds. He fell sideways into a shallow crater and I put my notebook into my blouse pocket, checked my watch, and ambled forward.
There was only a single gap in the wire in front of us and No. 8 Platoon, which had preceded us, made for it. I thought then that they looked a bit like lambs filling up a chute to the slaughter. The German machine guns opened up from fifty feet away and every member of that platoon went down in a bloody heap.
My eyes almost closed, I thought of women I had known and seduced. I visualized their skin, their lips, the color of their eyes, and their sweet smell. I imagined their touch.
Shells started falling. Bits of Corporal Woodlock erupted from his shell hole, mixed with the fragments of corpses which had been there since the Big Push of July first. The Corporal’s head, helmet still firmly affixed and chin strap tightened, landed at my feet and rolled.
The hole in the wire ahead of me was clogged three high with the bodies of the men of No. 8 Platoon, so I turned left and began making for a stretch of No Man’s Land where I could see men of the Rifle Brigade still standing, still advancing. I knew from the maps that somewhere ahead of me was the so-called “chalk pit,” a small quarry which the enemy had fortified.
At this point I glanced to my right to see the 25th Division which was supposed to have been supporting us on that flank. No one was there. I looked far to the left to see the 23rd Division who were supposed to be attacking on our left. The field was empty. I turned around, hearing the zzzzp-zzzzp past my ears, to see if the 13th Fusiliers had come out in the second wave as planned. There was no second wave.
“Get down, man!” It was Colonel Pretor-Pinney crouching in a shell hole. I stepped down into it with him.
“Jimmy,” he gasped. “I don’t believe we can…” A runner stumbled into the hole and thrust a message into the Colonel’s hands.
“Attack canceled, Sir,” panted the boy.
The Colonel stared unbelievingly at the message. “That explains the lack of bombardment. The reason the 23rd and 25th did not come out.” He crumpled the message. “It was canceled before we shoved off, Jimmy. This just did not get to us in time.” He leveraged himself up over the front edge of the hole. More 5.9s and whizz-bangs were falling near us now.
“Jimmy,” he said, “the chaps from Thirteen Platoon have already made it into the Boche trenches. Someone will have to go forward and tell them…”
“I will, Sir!” said the young runner.
Colonel Pretor-Pinney nodded and the boy leapt out of the shell hole with the speed and courage of the very young who know that they are immortal. The machine guns caught him less than ten yards out and almost tore him in half.
The Colonel looked at me. “Well, there’s nothing for it then, Jimmy.” We clambered out of the trench and moved forward together, leaning into the noise as if breasting a strong wind.
Some men were still alive in shell holes. Most had rid themselves of pack and rifles, clutching themselves into small spheres of fear. I saw the Colonel look left, and there in one hole were all four of our company commanders and several of their aides, crouching and pointing in different directions.
“Break that up, you bloody fools!” shouted Colonel Pretor-Pinney and then an explosion absolutely filled the crater with dust and shrapnel. When the smoke cleared, only bits of men remained.
We had almost reached the bit of fortified road near the chalk pit when the Colonel spun and went down heavily. I crouched next to him for a moment. The twin bones of his forearm were clearly visible through the mangled flesh. His lips formed words but I was quite deaf to them. I knew that this was my only opportunity to live; to pick up the Colonel and carry him back to the trenches. I might even receive a medal.
Squinting even more fiercely, I turned away and walked toward the enemy trenches.
I do not remember reaching the German lines, nor dropping into their trenches, but I clearly remember the German sergeant who came around the corner of a zigzag and shouted something at me. I am not sure which of us was more startled. I remember thinking The man is wearing his wool greatcoat…in July! He must be mad. And then the heavyset sergeant stopped shouting and began fumbling for the rifle that was—inexplicably in such a context—slung over his shoulder.
One of our lads had fallen here, his face in the mud, his Lee Enfield lying just beyond the reach of his outflung hand. Without thinking, I lifted the heavy rifle and marched forward at double time, letting my father’s watch dangle from the chain I had wrapped twice around my wrist somewhere between the crater where the Colonel had fallen and here.
The German had just got his own weapon to port arms when I drove the bayonet under his guard and into his chest just below his sternum. The bayonet was twenty-one inches long. It slid into the thick wool of the man’s great coat and out of sight so easily that it seemed as if he and I were conspiring together in some amateur magic act. I felt the sharpened-steel tip strike the mud of the trench behind the sergeant.
The man looked at me quizzically, lifted his own rifle a bit so that he could see the point of entry where my bayonet disappeared into the wet wool over his belly, and then he sighed softly and leaned back against the trench wall. I could feel a vibration coming from the point where my steel had severed his spine. The sergeant opened his mouth as if he were about to say something, but smiled instead. When he fell more heavily against the trench wall, I dropped my rifle as if it had grown suddenly hot to my touch. The butt of it wedged in the mud and held the corpse almost upright, the rifle and his two splayed legs making a sort of tripod, his dead hands still clutching the rifle. The man’s greatcoat hung in folds like a shroud.
I turned and walked back down the trench to find 13 Platoon to tell them that the attack had been canceled.
It was while coming back that the bad thing happened.
I had found the remnants of the Rifle Brigade fighting in captured trenches, unaware that the attack had been canceled or that it had been a mistake in the first place. The Germans had reinforced both the sunken road and their lines near the chalk pit so that the place was a viper’s nest of concrete emplacements, machine-gun revetments, dugouts as deep as thirty feet, and a maze of duckboards and tunnels. Our lads had cleaned them out of a long stretch of this line and were holding their own against disorganized counterattacks.
Trench fighting is terrible in the best of circumstances, and in this warren, with the Battalion depleted and low on ammunition, it was worse than terrible. By early afternoon the Rifle Brigade had used up their Mills grenades and were perilously low on rounds for rifles and their two remaining Lewis guns. All of the telephone lines brought across No Man’s Land at such a cost of life had been cut almost immediately by shellfire and attempts to communicate with our trenches via semaphore flasher or flags brought fire down on the signaler without fail.
I conferred with the one officer I could find, Captain Revere, and we decided to try to make our way back as soon as it was dusk.
True twilight did not deepen in this part of France until almost ten o’clock, and as soon as we thought it was dark enough to start back without drawing the attention of the Boche, Captain Revere ordered the men out of the trenches they had spilled so much blood to capture and defend through the long, hot day. They left in groups of three or four, fading away into the shadows of No Man’s Land. The German machine-gunners seemed to take pity on us. Or perhaps they were as exhausted as we were.
I had shaken hands with Captain Revere and was finding my own way across when the barrage opened up. I knew immediately from the sound that they were eighteen-inchers and that they were our own guns firing on us.
The fierce and terrible bombardment which had been promised us for the attack that morning had never arrived…until now. The ent
ire field of No Man’s Land that separated us from our own forward lines—about a thousand yards at this point—suddenly erupted in a solid sheet of flame and shrapnel. Once again I was squinting and leaning forward as the very atmosphere filled with metal. This time the fragments screamed by with a noise like wwhhhiiit.…the final consonant added when the shrapnel embedded itself in something. Many of the blasts were airbursts, which we all feared most deeply since the head was usually struck first and anything short of a dugout with a solid roof offered no cover whatsoever.
Behind us, the German machine guns opened up. The Boche had obviously already counterattacked and retaken the trenches we had just abandoned. There was no going forward. There was no going back. I felt like giggling as Corporal Woodlock had in his final seconds.
From what I have heard yesterday and today, I think that the 13th Rifle Brigade ceased to exist as a fighting unit about this time. Thinking that it was the Germans counterattacking from Contalmaison, our own artillery tore us to shreds.
As for me, I found myself running aimlessly from shell hole to shell hole, ducking when the larger explosions came near, running through dirt and smoke when they seemed to be landing further away. I realized that my father’s watch was still gripped tightly in my left hand, the chain still wound around my wrist.
This insanity could not continue forever and it did not. One minute I was running toward what I thought were friendly lines still some hundreds of yards away, and the next instant I felt a great blast behind me and I was literally flying, looking down on the battlefield as if from a great height. I thought at that second that I had been killed and that my soul had fled my body.
Then I landed and tumbled into a deep shell crater, my legs splashing into a pool of foetid green water in the bottom. I was unconscious for a while and when I awoke it was full dark and the bombardment was continuing. I had no doubt that another shell would find me at any moment, but I was beyond caring for the time being.