CHAPTER XXXII
THE FIFTEENTH OF JUNE, 1918
I happened to be the officer on duty in the Battery Command Post on the night of June 14th-15th. There had been a thick fog for several days and not much firing. No one expected anything unusual. The Battery was much below strength owing to the ravages of what the doctors in the mountains called "mountain fever" and the doctors on the plain called influenza. We had, if I remember rightly, about forty men in Hospital owing to this cause alone. I myself had a touch of it, but, thinking I could probably count on a quiet night, I refused the offer of a brother officer to take my place, coldly calculating that a few nights later, when it would be my turn to take his duty, I might have more to do. But my hopes of much sleep were soon dispersed.
Orders came in from Brigade for an elaborate counter-battery shoot with gas shell, in two parts, one between 11 p.m. and midnight, the other between 2 and 3 a.m. We had never fired gas shell from six-inch howitzers before, though we had been warned that we should soon be required to do so. We had no gas shell in the Battery, but we were informed by Brigade that a sufficient quantity would arrive by the time the shoot was to begin. In fact, however, the first consignment of gas shell was not delivered in time to enable us to take part in the first part of the bombardment, and I was told not to fire high explosive instead, as that would tend to disperse the gas which other Batteries would be simultaneously firing on the same targets. The method adopted on this and later occasions, when gas was used, was that a number of our own Batteries should concentrate for, say, five minutes at the fastest rate of fire possible on a particular enemy Battery, then all switch together to another enemy Battery, and so on, all coming back together on to the first enemy Battery after an interval sufficient to lull the human elements forming part of the target into a delusive sense of security and a return to slumber without their masks, or, alternatively, to make them wear their masks continously for prolonged hours of expectation, thus subjecting them to much discomfort, depriving them of sleep, lowering their morale, and making them likelier victims for fresh forms of devilment in the morning. War is a filthy thing, and must be stamped out ruthlessly. The facts of gas will have helped to drive this simple conviction into many a thick, egotistical, unsensitive head. But, as has been wisely said, you cannot half make a war of the modern sort, you cannot let a faint savour of regret hang about all your actions, and enervate your will. And, in plain, brutal truth, our employment of gas was a big factor in determining and hastening the end. Of the military efficiency of our gas tactics we had much evidence later on.
We joined in the second part of the gas bombardment in the early hours of the 15th of June, and, when this was nearly over, I got orders to fire at my leisure ten rounds of high explosive at "Archibald," which was our code name for a certain Austrian searchlight, which used to sweep round the country from the summit of Monte Mosciagh on the far side of the Plateau. So I fired the ten rounds, and the officer at one of the O.P.'s, whom I had previously warned of my intention, reported that Archibald had gone out after the fourth round, and that, judged by the flashes of their explosions, all the rounds had seemed pretty near. It was now nearly half-past three, and, conscious that I had a high and rising temperature, I determined to lie down and get a few hours' sleep. Some of the gas shell which had been intended for the first part of the bombardment, but had arrived about four hours too late, was still being unloaded from lorries on the road outside. But I asked a Corporal to look after this, and send the unloading party to bed as soon as they had finished.
I had just fallen asleep when the Corporal awakened me. Were the men, he asked, to go on unloading the shell? Still half asleep, I asked why not? He said that the road was being shelled. I pulled myself together and went to the door of the Command Post. Not only the road, but the whole Battery position and apparently the whole area for some distance round, was being bombarded very violently. So I ordered every one to take cover. It was just 3.45 a.m.
I thought for a moment that this was merely Austrian retaliation for our first use of gas and for the shots at Archibald. In fact, it was the beginning of the big Austrian offensive, which had long been prearranged. During the last few days the Austrians had brought up a large number of new guns to our sector, and had placed a number of them right out in the open. And owing to the thick fog our airmen had been able to see nothing. The bombardment continued with great fury for several hours, with guns of all calibres, but fortunately mostly small, with shrapnel, high explosive, and gas, chiefly lacrimatory, but mixed with a certain quantity of lethal. Luckily we had pretty good cover, mainly caverne blasted in the rock. The Command Post itself was proof against anything less than a direct hit from a pretty heavy shell. It was also supposed to be gas proof, but was not. I collected about half a dozen men in it who had nowhere else to go, including two A.S.C. lorry drivers.
Early on, a young Bombardier was hit rather badly in the leg just outside. We brought him into the Command Post, bandaged his wound and laid him on the camp bed, on which I had been hoping to get some sleep, and there left him till the shelling should abate and it should be reasonably safe to carry him to the dressing-station a quarter of a mile away. He lay there, I remember, looking like a little tired cherub, and another Bombardier sat beside him and tried to persuade him to go to sleep. They were very great friends, those two boys, both signallers, and inseparable both on and off duty. The one who was not wounded went out that same morning and spent hours repairing telephone lines under very heavy fire, for which act he won the Military Medal. The other, months later, when his wound was healed and he had returned to the Battery, also won the Military Medal for gallantry on the Piave.
The conduct of the two lorry drivers afforded a strong contrast in psychology. One, a man of middle age, was superbly cheerful. "They can't keep this up much longer," he said several times with a placid smile, "they haven't the stuff to do it." The other, though younger, was a bunch of visible nerves. A shell exploded just behind the Command Post and violently shook the whole structure and a storm of stones hit the log framework. He collapsed on the floor, and was convinced for a couple of minutes that he had been hit, and for some time after that he was suffering from shell shock.
Such illusions come easily at such times. A gas shell made a direct hit on one of our smaller dug-outs. A Sergeant inside was badly gassed. They put him for the moment in a gas-proof shelter, higher up the hill, and several hours later I saw him being carried away on a stretcher, apparently lifeless. But he finally pulled through. A gunner who was with him in the dug-out came running into the Command Post crying out that he also was gassed. I made him lie flat on the floor, and told him to keep as quiet as he could. And then I watched his breathing. It was clear after a minute or two that, if he had had a breath of gas at all, it was only of the slightest. But, when I told him this, he was very unwilling to believe me. Another man was hit just outside, and lay on the ground screaming like an animal in pain. Him, too, we carried into the Command Post, and, later, on a stretcher to the dressing station.
Meanwhile all the telephone lines had gone owing to the shelling, cutting us off from Brigade, other Batteries and O.P.'s. But intermittent communication was maintained by runners, and signallers were out, hour after hour, mending breaks in the line and showing their invariable gallantry. Till about six o'clock our orders were to lie low, to keep under cover and not to open fire. The rain of shells continued without slackening. We were wonderfully lucky to get off as lightly as we did. It is one of the most extraordinary phenomena of war, how many shells can fall in a position of no great size, and yet do very little damage. It was estimated, and I think quite soberly, that at least two thousand rounds were pumped into our Battery position that morning.
It was soon after six that we got orders, passed along from the next Battery up the road, to open fire on our "counter-preparation target." This was a sign that the advance of the Austrian Infantry had either begun, or was thought to be imminent. They attacked, in fact, about a quarter to seven on our sector. Their synchronising was faulty, as between the different sectors attacked. Some went forward earlier and others later than had been intended. They were all newly equipped and were carrying full packs and blankets on their backs. They had been told by their officers that this was to be the last great offensive of the war, that they were going to drive us headlong down the mountain side, that after two days they would be in Verona, and after ten days in Rome. They were not told that they had British troops in front of them. They came forward bravely and with great determination, in five successive waves.
On the British left Divisional Front, to the west of us, they gained a large initial success, and pushed us back well behind our first line of guns. Here for some time the situation looked serious. But next day strong counter-attacks by British and Italian troops restored the line, our lost guns were retaken and the retreating Austrians suffered great slaughter and demoralisation.
On the British right Divisional Front, in support of which our Brigade was operating, the British 23rd Division fought a fight worthy of their high reputation. Forced back for a while from their front line trenches, after a prolonged and intense bombardment and by an overwhelming superiority of numbers, they never even fell back to their support line. But, turning on the enemy who was advancing along and astride the San Sisto road, they drove him back and re-established their own front line within six hours of the first attack. It was here that a boy Colonel, a Sherwood Forester scarcely twenty-one years old, won the V.C. and fell severely wounded. When things looked black, he had organised the defence and the subsequent counter-attack, collecting together British Infantrymen of several Battalions, together with British Artillerymen and Italian Machine-Gunners and Engineers, welding them into a coherent force and making swift, yet well thought out, dispositions which did much to save the situation.
On the right of the British, the French Infantry, though furiously assaulted, never, I believe, budged an inch. On the right of the French, the Italians were momentarily driven from Col Valbella, Col del Rosso and Col d'Echele, which they had won in January, but retook all three a few days later.
But we in the Battery knew nothing of all this at the time. We knew only that we had to open fire on our counter-preparation target. The gunpit of our No. 1 gun near the cross-roads was in low-lying ground, now so full of gas that one could hardly see one's hand before one's face. Fortunately we could achieve the rate of fire required by using three guns only, so we left No. 1 out of action for the time. The enemy's bombardment, as far as we were concerned, was beginning to slacken a little, but was still heavy. The Major, out on the road with a signaller mending wire, was hit in the face with shrapnel. It turned out, happily, not a serious wound, but at the time it looked less hopeful. He went down the mountains in the same Field Ambulance with the young Colonel of the Sherwood Foresters, of whom I have already spoken.
There was an abandoned Field Ambulance in the road, half in the ditch, with the engine still running. The driver had found the shelling too hot to stay. There was no one inside it, but we got a couple of stretchers from it. And we had need of them. No. 4 gun, my own gun, which was nearest to the road, suffered most severely. Seven of the detachment on this gun were hit, not all at once but, what is apt to be much more demoralising, at intervals of a few minutes. A Bombardier was in charge of the gun that day, no senior N.C.O.'s being available. He showed a very wonderful coolness and courage. Shells were bursting all round the gunpit, and sometimes in the gunpit itself. But the rate of fire never slackened. Every now and again the cry was heard "another casualty on No. 4!" and stretcher bearers would start down the road from the Command Post. But, each time, almost before they had started, came the deep report of another round fired. No casualties and no shelling could silence her. At one time this Bombardier had only two other men to help him work the gun. And both of them were as undismayed as he. He won the Military Medal for his gallantry that day, and I was very proud of him and of No. 4.
The Brigade Chaplain appeared in the course of the morning and gave a hand in carrying the wounded away on stretchers. It was outside his official work and I give him all credit and respect for the help he gave us. But one N.C.O. in the Battery, with the plain speaking that comes naturally in the face of common danger, said to him, "Well, Sir, we never thought much of you before, either as a man or as a preacher, but we're glad to see you here to-day doing your bit."
The Austrian gunners had a fine sense of discrimination in their targets. The wooden hut, in which I and two of my brother officers used to sleep, had been hit two or three times that day, and much of our kit had been destroyed. So had both volumes of Morley's Rousseau, which were on a shelf over my bed, leaving behind only a few torn and scattered pages. Much damage had also been done to a collection of Pompeian photographs of great historical interest. But Baedeker's Northern Italy, which lay alongside, had not been touched!
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The God of Battles also discriminates delicately. He takes the best and leaves the worst behind. There died that day, struck by a shell at the foot of our tree O.P. on Cima del Taglio, one of the finest personalities in the Battery, a signalling Bombardier who had worked for some years on a railway in America and, just before the war, as a railway clerk in the Midlands. He was the father of a young family, thoughtful and capable, and loyal without subservience to those of higher military rank, in so far as he judged them to be worthy of his loyalty. I remember one night at the beginning of the year, when we were keeping watch together among the snows at Col d'Astiago, with the sky cold and clear and full of stars, and when he and I talked in complete understanding and agreement of the waste of war and the deeper purposes of life and the need to build up a better world. Now he is buried in the beautiful Baerenthal Valley, along which runs the road from Pria dell' Acqua to San Sisto and Asiago.
As that day ended, which the Italians always afterwards spoke of as "il giorno quindici" (the fifteenth day), the firing on both sides in our sector slackened, though our guns were seldom silent for more than an hour at a time, and the Austrians still carried out sudden bursts of vicious fire in our neighbourhood. But that night, and the next day and the next, we began to get through information of what had been happening all along the line. And when, a week later, the whole tale could be told, it was evident that no great offensive on any Front during this war, prepared with so great elaboration and carried out with so great resources, had ever quite so blankly failed, as the great Austrian offensive from the Astico to the Sea. And the effect upon the self-confidence and morale of the Italian Army and of the Allied contingents was correspondingly great. For, to speak frankly, this offensive had been awaited with much apprehension and anxiety, with the memory of Caporetto not yet faded and in view of the success of the German offensive in France.