CHAPTER XIII Surrounded
"Let's count heads," said Bill, some hours after the German sentry was posted and when one of the watchers had reported that he still continued diligently at his post. "It's getting dark—things will be moving presently."
"And if we ain't by then, something unpleasant will be happening," remarked the big man with the hairy waistcoat as he ladled the contents of a steaming dixie out into the mess-tins of the men. "That there sentry, as I've squinted at this dozen times now, will be off the moment it gets dark and dusk's fallen. Give 'im ten minutes from that to shout hisself hoarse and call up some of 'is mates; after that——"
"After that," grinned one of the men, as though he rather enjoyed the statement and thought it a joke, "there'll be a swarming band of the blighters all round—there'll be bombs coming down most like. Say, boys, we'd better eat all the grub we've got and make the best of it. Pity to waste good things—eh?"
He laughed as he dug his teeth into a huge slice of bread-and-jam.
"But what about the heads? There's Jim and Bill and me—I counts us three first, boys, 'cos, you see, I knows me mates best," explained Larry. "Then there's Nobby here, our cook—and prime good stuff he turns out—that's four, and Simkins over there eating bread-and-jam—five; and, yes, there's five more, which makes us ten down below and one upstairs watching the Hun—eleven good boys—eh?"
"And ten hundred Huns outside," said Bill. "Yes, fair odds, Larry. Fighting won't do much for us; we've got to use a little artifice. Seems to me the first thing to do is to get out of the dug-out, for once the sentry does get off, or once we're discovered, it will become a trap. As to the sentry getting off, we could soon put a stop to that by dragging him down here. But is it worth it?"
"And what then?" demanded Nobby. "Young Bill, you are the boy to show us the ropes—eh?"
"Yep. You bet!" Larry interjected. "This here Bill's shown me and Jim and a whole lot of pals the ropes before now. This ain't the time to spout, but you can take it from me that he's a bit of a leader. Waal, Bill, what about it?"
"Aye, what about it?" they asked, gathering round the young Englishman, much to Bill's discomfort.
"Don't you get rattled," said Nobby, seeing him flush. For though the light was not very good down there the fluttering candle still showed sufficient light to make the men's faces easily visible, and Bill had flushed at Larry's words. "You sit yerself down and take another bite; there's just a tinful left at the bottom of my dixie. Then have a smoke—one o' these yeller perils. Yer don't know them! Yer don't smoke! Why, these 'ere things is the soldier's delight, and the orficers smoke 'em too; so they're good, you can guess. No, you won't eat any more, and yer won't smoke, but yer thinkin'. What is it?"
"Can't say," said Bill. "But I'm too young to lead you fellows."
"Too young!" exclaimed Nobby. "You don't 'come it' in that way, young Bill. I ain't been down 'ere these many days cookin' for our mess without learning things. My word, Larry ain't the one to talk much unless you've got 'im in a good mood—and seems to me he ain't always in a good mood—but he did talk at times, and—well—there's some of us as has heard o' that trawler. Boys, there ain't no officer 'ere; there's some of us what 'as got non-commissioned rank—but this is a fix what's likely to cost us our liberty. Who's to lead us?"
"Bill," came from many of them. "Bill," they cried.
"Sure—Bill. Didn't I tell you, boys," said Larry. "Then get in at it, youngster. What are we to do?"
"Do?—it's almost impossible to say," Bill answered them; for during the last few hours he had been hard at work considering the situation—only to meet with disappointment. How could he devise any plan when there was nothing to base his plans upon? If they stayed down in the dug-out they risked destruction and certainly imprisonment; if they went abroad, well, plans then depended entirely upon circumstances.
"Boys," he said, "I'll do what I can. Some of you fellows may be senior to me, but no matter; we're all in the show together, and if I can help, why, you can count on me. Now, as to what we're to do: I'm going aloft at once, and immediately it's dark enough I'm going to our German and I'll send him off down the lane double quick, with orders not to come back unless he wants a bullet in him. By then you chaps will have collected all the grub you've got, each one of you will have picked up his rifle, and you will see that every round of ammunition we're possessed of is carried on with you. Then we take a line that leads us west and south, and we'll make for the Somme River, for that's the direction, I think, in which our troops have retreated."
"Good for you!" said Larry.
"It sounds a likely sort of business, it do," said the big man with the hairy waistcoat—"leastways it's better'n nothing. Being cooped up here is worse than bein' blown to bits or taken prisoner out in the open. Well," he went on, swinging his arms wide, or as wide, we will say, as the dug-out permitted, and throwing his chest forward, "the open's the place for a man—eh, boys? Living down here like a rat or like a rabbit ain't what I asks for."
A glance at this gallant fellow was quite enough to show that he was an open-air man; he was indeed a typical example of your English countryman who lives the day long in the open, thrives on fresh air, and looks robust and sturdy. As to fear, he seemed to have no idea as to what it meant, and rather looked upon these new difficulties and dangers as something of a diversion. He at any rate would make a most excellent companion on the sort of adventure on which the party were now to step out. Bill glanced at him approvingly; Larry cocked an eye at this burly Englishman and smiled.
"Say, boy," he lisped, "ef you ain't just it—just the sort o' pard as Uncle Sam likes. I'm glad I've a chance of soldiering up alongside o' you. It does a man good what's come from the States, where we've been looking on at the fighting these last two or three years, to come in contact with British soldiers who've been fighting like tigers all this while. But we'll do the same, never you fear. America means business!"
Probably the huge Nobby had never had such a long speech addressed to him before, and in front of such an audience. He positively blushed—stuttered—grinned—and then brought an enormous paw down on Larry's attenuated shoulder.
"Don't you worry, chum," he said; "I'll look after you. If any blighted German tries to get at yer, just call to me."
It was hardly the kind of statement that Larry looked for—distinctly not the sort of thing he required, for, diminutive though he was, the American positively oozed courage and determination—that cool determination which seemed to suit him and his languid person so admirably. As for wanting anyone to take care of him, he was well able to do that for himself, and was about to tell Nobby so in unmistakable manner, when, on second thoughts, he realized that it was merely good comradeship which had prompted him to give vent to the statement.
"You're a chum," was all he said; "you'll look after me. And say, Nobby, ef ever you get into a tight corner, just sing out. I'm small but I'm handy—eh?"
He grinned as he turned in Jim's direction, and then winked at Bill, whereat Nobby glanced at the two of them to find Jim nodding violently.
"He's put the case fine," said the latter. "Larry's small—you'd think you could take him by the neck and shake the life out of him—but he's a vixenish little rat, I can tell you, and he'd dig his teeth into you before you could get a real good grip. And, Nobby boy, don't you ask him to start in with a gun; he'd flick the eyelid off of a weasel within ten yards, would Larry—it's part of his vixenish spirit. Oh yes, he's weak, he is! A tarnation little rat to deal with."
It was complimentary in half a sense, the reverse if viewed from another direction. But it pleased Larry immensely, and it appealed to the understanding of the British soldier. He glanced 'cutely at Larry, took far more notice of the various points of his person, and then patted him violently on the shoulder.
"I see! You're sort o' small and daring," he said, "and—and—pug—er—what's the word?"
"Pugnacious," Bill interjected.
"Aye, pugnacious—always wantin' a row, looking round for things to fight, like so many little people. And he can shoot—he can flick the eyelid off a weasel! Well, that'ud want doing at ten yards. But, to speak as you chaps do, I guess he can shoot. That's good. He'll want to know how in the next few hours, if we're to get through the Germans. Now, boys, up we go!"
They waited, however, in the dug-out whilst Bill clattered up the stairs and so to the curtain. Peering out, he discovered it was already dusk, though he could still see the German sentry. The man was trapesing up and down in less soldierly manner—he was slouching in fact—looking about him a great deal more than he had done before, and, if only Bill could have read his mind, was wondering how long it would be before the dusk was sufficiently deep to allow him to bolt away suddenly from his captors.
"Only, then there's the alternative," this hulking German was saying to himself. "I must return to our forces—I must continue fighting. Ah! that is terrible! I am tired of it—always it is fight on! fight on!—for victory! We Germans outnumber them by hundreds of thousands, and then, where is the victory? Not at Verdun—where I fought! Not at Ypres before it! Not since then anyway. And now in this great 'push' shall we attain it?"
It was a question which many another German was asking himself at that moment—many indeed of the High Command. For Germany was staking everything—her very existence—upon this enormous and sudden offensive, which she had launched against the British Third and Fifth Armies. We have already recapitulated the facts of the case, and will only remind the reader that on March 21st, when this assault was opened, Germany's eastern front facing Russia had been almost completely depleted of German troops. The railways across Germany from Russia into France were almost worn out with the constant transit of battalions; and here they were—they and those guns—those guns manufactured by Britain for Russia and treacherously handed over to the Germans. Here they all were—thrown pell mell at the British—and already the line had bulged back, thanks to this enormous mass of fighting material and to a favouring mist; and the line was to go still farther back. Indeed the Fifth Army was to experience on this day, and for almost ten days following, as severe fighting as ever troops took part in on the Western Front. Nothing but swift retreat, fighting every inch of the way, could save the British line; nothing but constant pressure, giving here and there as German masses became overwhelming—constant pressure, with retreat at the psychological moment, and taking advantage of every coign and vantage-point—that and only that, with British valour behind it, could save the line and hold up this gigantic massed attack on the part of the enemy.
We may advance the story a little with advantage. The Fifth British Army, which by all the canons of warfare should have been annihilated, considering its inferior strength and the enormous advantage the mist gave the enemy—that army retreated rapidly at first, but maintained cohesion between its various units. It fought night and day, it fought for every foot of the road from Peronne and back to the valley of the Somme. It held up the German advance here and there and everywhere, and melted away from it as huge German reinforcements were brought up. It smote the enemy battalions, it laid thousands of them in the dirt, and finally, after days and nights of an ordeal which would have tried the best of troops, it passed the line at Albert, running north and south, where the British and French trench line had rested from 1914 onwards to the summer of 1916, until, indeed, the Somme battles were fought. There it settled down firmly like a rock, holding up further advance on the part of the enemy.
During these strenuous days the Third British Army, on the left of the Fifth, also fell back as respects its right flank, inflicting very severe casualties on the enemy, while French reserves and American troops were poured in the direction of Albert and Montdidier, where soon the Germans were beating against the Franco-American-British line ineffectually, fighting desperately to continue an advance and to force the British into a rout.
That retreat will, when its details are better known, be viewed as of as great historical importance as that from Mons to the south-east of Paris in 1914. Indeed, in a measure and in its own particular way, it will demand closer attention and perhaps greater admiration on the part of a future generation. For, whereas the retreat from Mons was performed by the British Expeditionary Force when small in numbers as compared with the enemy, the fighting was less strenuous, manœuvre warfare had only just commenced and that at the very commencement of hostilities. The retreat from Peronne to the Somme and across it was, on the contrary, manœuvre warfare following a long period of close trench warfare. In it the utmost use was made of mechanical means of killing people. No cavalry screens could hold the enemy off as our fine cavalry did on the road to the south-east of Paris. It was a case of machine-guns and trench mortars in front firing into the British, and British machine-guns and rifles attempting to hold up the advance of a horde of men armed to the teeth, behind whom were masses of guns constantly being hurried forward.
This retreat, however, is analogous to that from Mons in one respect, in that our very gallant French ally fought shoulder to shoulder with us. It marks as well a stage absolutely apart, a new era in this gigantic war in that at this moment American troops appeared, to fight shoulder to shoulder with us. Not yet had American troops appeared in force. There were some hundreds of thousands of them already in France, but the bulk—the millions that America can and will place in the field if need be—were still in America, five thousand miles distant, and time and ships were needed to convey such armies and the material essential for them. Those American troops, let us add—forerunners of the vast army above referred to—acquitted themselves like men. Though only a few of the number then in France were flung into this battle they did wonderful work, so that Larry and Jim and Bill had every reason to be proud of them.
Mention of the last brings us back to our friends. Bill, emerging from the dug-out entrance, gripped the German sentry.
"See that?" he said, pointing down the lane, now hardly distinguishable. "Move on. Don't turn to right or to left—and look out—we shall be following you. If you try to communicate with your pals—well, there'll be trouble."
He saw the lumbering German go plodding off down the lane, his rifle still over his shoulder, and waited until he disappeared into the gloom. Then he shouted down the stairway:
"Come up, boys, all clear!"
One by one the men filed up from below, each carrying his rifle and ammunition as well as a haversack filled with provisions, while the majority also had water-bottles, and all wore steel helmets. Presently they stood outside the entrance in the gathering dusk, a forlorn little band, fully conscious of the fact that they stood as it were alone in this veritable "No-Man's-Land", surrounded by a host of Germans. Indeed, as they stood there waiting for the order to move, they could hear voices here and there—the guttural tones of the Kaiser's soldiers—while from their right, in a south-westerly direction, there came the continuous rattle of machine-guns, the rolling sounds of volleys and of independent rifle-firing, and, smothering all these sounds at times, the racket of a heavy cannonade. Far away sounds seemed to be echoing—the sounds of British guns and British rifles and other weapons.
"And then?" asked Nobby, his tin hat a little on one side, his hairy person standing out conspicuous from amongst the others in spite of the semi-darkness. "Over there," and he jerked a thumb towards the fighting-line, "there's ructions, and round about there's Huns, and there'll be Fritzes here and there and everywhere between us and the battle-line. Young Bill, you've got somethin' to face! What's the word?"
"Aye, what's the word?" others asked.
"March! Not a sound! Let no one answer if they challenge. But wait, we'll form up into column of twos, and I'll post a man on either flank of the column whose job it will be to tackle any inquisitive German. No shots to be fired, boys! Butt-ends!"
"Ah! butt-ends! I'll butt-end Fritz if he comes near me!" growled Nobby, his grin gone for a moment, looking, what indeed he was, a formidable fellow, as he swung his rifle-butt forward from the sling which was over his shoulder. "If Fritz comes between me and liberty—well, it'll be Fritz's fault. I've done 'em in before now, young Bill, and I'll do in a few more before this journey's finished."
"March!" Bill put himself at the head of the little column and trudged forward, first a few steps down the lane and then out through a gap which led from it towards the south-west. Right away, far on their right, he could distinguish a huge dull mass, which common sense and his knowledge of the geography of those parts told him must be the Butte of Warlencourt. Farther along, a little to the right of it, would lie the Albert-Bapaume road, the road which led to safety, and along that again, in the direction of Albert, on either side, a country decimated and torn to shreds by the fighting in 1916. There the Somme battles were bitterly contested, and for miles on either hand, where once had been a fair land dotted with pleasant villages, was now, as he knew from frequent observation, a blasted, battered rolling plain of mud and grass, and grass and mud and shell-holes interspersed with fragments of smashed villages. Here and there, perhaps as much as four feet of a wall remaining, elsewhere the base of some ancient church, a factory in another part crumbling to dust, its machinery rusting—rotten with exposure.
There would be derelict British tanks, too, turned on their sides, burst by interior explosion, and far and wide, here and there in groups—as in the case of the graves of those gallant Australians who captured Pozières—stood pathetic little crosses, beneath which rested all that remained of men who had gallantly fought for the empire. You who live secure in old England, and find it almost impossible to imagine such conditions, take the word of those who have seen. Conjure up in your mind's eye this blasted country, and recollect that there, on the fields they conquered, lie men who died for you, that you and England might survive the tyranny of Prussia.
But enough of such things. Bill knew every step of the way, for he had driven it and walked it on many an occasion.
"March!" he exclaimed; "we'll make straight for the Butte and then for the road. Look out for Germans! A few German overcoats would give us fine cover, and this mist also should help us far on our way. Step out—the faster we go the better!"
They went off through the gathering gloom, through the wet mist which was already cloaking the earth, and presently swung past the western end of the Butte of Warlencourt, which marked the limit of advance of the British army in 1916. Then their feet gained the Albert-Bapaume road, and presently they were speeding along it and getting every half-hour nearer to the sounds of battle. But though they marched nearer and nearer to their friends, what chance had they? Would they ever break through that line of Germans which undoubtedly extended far and wide and cut them adrift from the Allied armies?