CHAPTER EIGHT
After the first dressing of my wound, I was sent to our transport station, a short distance behind the lines, being told that in a few days I would be fit for duty again. There was a farm here. By the time I reached the farm house the pain of my wound was terrific. It was like a toothache all over my head and down into my neck and shoulders. Nevertheless, I threw myself onto a pile of straw in the barn and, after tossing about a while, managed to fall asleep.
When I awoke it was daylight again, the entire night having passed. Leaning over me was a little French girl—she must have been about eight years old—with a pitcher of milk, which she held out toward me. In spite of the condition of my mouth, I managed to swallow the milk. I was almost starved and very weak. I tried to persuade the little girl to accept a franc for the milk, but she shook her head, and skipped off. Following her out of the barn, I met her mother to whom, also, I offered payment; she, too, refused it.
We could hear the rumbling of big guns; shells were exploding not far away; then came the noise of transport wagons approaching the farm. I turned back toward the barn and had not gone more than ten paces when there was a crash overhead. Splinters and shrapnel spattered into the farm yard. I ducked and hastened my pace. Then there was a thud behind me, as if a bag of potatoes had been dropped from a lorry. Almost simultaneously came a scream from the little girl.
I turned just in time to see the mother of the child fall, roll down out of the doorway in which the two were standing, and lie ominously still. The little girl stood gazing in terror at the fallen woman. Her little hands were raised shoulder high before her and she shrieked—hysterically and helplessly. As I hastened toward them the child seemed to realize the awful thing that had happened and threw herself upon her mother’s body, pressing her face against the dying woman’s. I felt the tears trickling down my cheek and smarting in my wound as I heard the child’s heartbroken exclamations—terms of endearment they seemed, and pitifully eloquent enough, though the tongue in which they were spoken was unknown to me.
A lad of ten, barefoot and in overalls, came running from the house. He knelt and stared into his mother’s face, then he turned a dumb, questioning glance at me. I could not meet his eyes. As I got my arms under the shoulders of the fallen woman and started to drag her body into the house, I could hear the little fellow sobbing softly but he didn’t speak. Hoping that it still might be of use, he helped with all his little strength to move his mother’s body. Inside the house, we pushed the tumbled hair back from her face. A shrapnel bullet had entered her forehead. It was useless to ask if human aid could serve her. Death had been almost instantaneous. Then I saw a sight that spoke a volume on the cruelty of war and the heroism of the sturdy French blood could I but tell it.
The little lad gathered his sister in his protecting arms and sat—speaking, manfully, words of comfort to her—beside the dead body of their mother, shells meanwhile bursting all about the home which had been their childhood haven of love and safety, and brick and plaster falling about them from its shattered roof. The children were in serious danger, but they steadfastly refused to leave their mother. I did not know enough French to reason with them, and it was not until some French muleteers sought shelter behind the building that I was able, through them, to persuade the boy and girl to go farther to the rear, with them.
After this experience, like one in a dream, I made my way back to the trenches, heedless of the shells whizzing overhead. The sight I had seen haunted me.
Upon reaching my trench, I was brought back to my senses by some of my “muckin’-in” pals, who threw all sorts of questions at me in a jesting fashion, such as:
“Hello, Reuter, been tae Blighty an’ back? Ye’re a better sprinter than Ah thocht”; “Hoo’s aw wi’ th’ fokes at hame? Did ye remember the fags?”
It was some time before I was sufficiently myself again to be able to answer them in the proper strain. My head looked like a cotton-and-bandage demonstration, and I was a sorry looking sight altogether. I lived for the next few days on bully beef biscuits, softened, and oxo cubes dissolved in water.
In a few days we were relieved by French troops, and we force-marched north to stem the German thrust at Calais.
After some stiff marching, we entrained “somewhere.” Our “camions” were coal trucks, which had been only partially unloaded. Some of my more hygienic mates who were under the impression that they did not have as much grime-caked mud sticking to them as the rest, suggested that our truck be cleaned out, but the general eagerness for a corner “doss” put this suggestion out of consideration at once. There was a scrambling match, and when our allotment got entirely in, the quartermaster was soundly “cussed.” It seemed as if the whole regiment had been detailed to this car. Even in these circumstances, the whimsical philosophy of the private soldier asserted itself. A little chap, jammed in a corner, said he wanted a place by the side door, so that he could “see the scenery”!
We travelled all night, and on the following morning drew up at a junction where a body of recruits joined us. They regarded us with staring eyes, and I suppose we did look like a lot of cave men, being unshaven, long-haired, grimy, and black as sweeps with the coal dust. We did not mind this half so much as the recruits. At the junction, we got a sandwich and a canteen of coffee which had a most exquisite flavour of rum. This was so pronounced that some summoned their nerve sufficiently to go back for a “double attack,” but were met with “Napoo.”
Conditions have changed now, so that Tommy is able to keep himself shaved and personally neat, even in the mud of the trenches. It helps keep up our morale and shatter that of the boches. There is a distinct psychological effect on the enemy when clean-shaven, tidily-dressed men come up out of the earth and fall upon them.
Very soon we commenced our journey again. How long we were on the train I cannot recall, but finally we reached a large town where we got off. On our arrival we could hear the incessant rumbling of guns, and knew we were going to have another hot time of it. My face was better, but my beard! I had not had a shave since before Mons! While on the retreat, most of us, in order to lighten our loads, had thrown away the little items of our equipment that we did not urgently need. We kept only our greatcoats and such articles as we required for warmth.
We force-marched until early morning, when we halted for a rest, as the feet of many of our men were skinned and in bad shape. For myself, I was walking on my uppers, as the soles and heels of my shoes were completely worn out.
We resumed the march. We understood that we were in the vicinity of Ypres. We force-marched for all we were worth, and late in the afternoon we came to a village. Here we were billeted on the side nearest us. After getting rations, we needed no coaxing to sleep.
It was still dark when we got orders to fall in and march at top speed. The village was being shelled.
This seemed to have been a spot for concentrating for we met with other regiments there—one of them the King’s Royal Rifles. Beyond the far side of the village at a certain distance one could see trees scattered here and there, but farther on the country was flat. It was in this direction we marched.
Orders were whispered along the line that we were to maintain strict silence and no “fags” were to be lighted, as we were near the enemy, and were attempting to move without his knowledge. Our officers gave us the encouraging news that we were about to be up against some hard fighting—harder than we had so far experienced. Our commander, Major J. T. C. Murray, expressed the hope that we would keep the name of the “Black Watch” where our predecessors had placed it—in the foremost rank. And so we advanced in darkness, with our minds on serious things.
We were in two lines of skirmishing order, one pace apart. Our object was to reach the flat ground beyond the trees and dig ourselves in before dawn. We did this. The digging was an easy matter as the earth was marshy and our entrenching tools proved fit enough for the task. Shells were flying overhead continually, making an awful humming noise, and some of them passed so low that the air disturbances blew caps from off the heads of our men.
There was not a murmur or a word of complaint from our wearied and worn ranks. We had almost completed our shallow trenches when the boche opened fire at us with his field guns. It was hardly dawn. We kept on digging, crouching in all positions to keep under cover from the bombardment.
I suppose that every one under shell fire, at one time or another, in some manner, prays. I know that I often have done so, although not so ostentatiously as some of the men. I have seen them, when the shells were rocking the earth and splinters were whistling past our ears, drop to their knees and swear to their Maker that, if they were spared, when they returned home they would go to church regularly and be kinder to their wives and children.
Some of our men ceased digging after reaching what they thought a safe depth, and crouched against the parapet for safety. Others of us started making what are known to-day as dug-outs. Jock Hunter and I made one to hold both of us. We dug away under the parapet so that we could crawl in with only our feet sticking out. This not only sheltered us from the unceasing shrapnel, but from the rain also. Some of the boys lying in the trenches had been killed and some wounded from the shrapnel bursting overhead, so the officers gave orders that we were all to make these dug-outs.
A man from each company had been detailed for look-out duty, at which we all took turn of an hour each. It was noon before we heard any response from our artillery, but then it checked the German fire considerably.
The rain came down heavily, flooding us out of our dug-outs, and we were obliged to stand in the trench like a lot of half-drowned rats, our greatcoats on and our waterproof sheets over them. At first we were standing on earth, but before long the muck had reached over our ankles.
There was at least one virtue in the rain—it softened our bully-beef biscuits, which we ate standing in the trenches, wet to the skin and with water dripping from our greatcoats and kilts.
Toward night the rain ceased. We had expected to be attacked at any minute that day, but for some reason or another we escaped it. We got a rum issue. Then volunteers were asked for, to go and fetch some hot “gunfire.” (It was hot when the ration party got it, but quite cold when it reached us.)
That night I was given orders to go on night reconnaissance. While I was away on this duty, the engineers came up and our fellows dug in again in advance of the old trenches. The engineers then constructed a barbed-wire entanglement in front of our position.
Wet and cold, and covered with mud, I went off on patrol duty, and many a shell hole I stumbled into to make me wetter. The enemy’s position was about seven hundred yards from ours.
When moving between the lines, I noticed the outline of a big man. I don’t know why I didn’t fall down upon seeing him. My instinct told me to go ahead to make sure who it was. We were making straight for each other; as we met we almost brushed sleeves; then, with no more than a glance at each other, we passed on; but you may be sure that I had my jackknife in the proper hand. I could not say even now whether or not he was a German.
I returned to our lines and, after reporting, helped to finish the trenches. I heard the following morning that one of our patrols had captured a German. I wondered if he might be the big fellow I had passed in the dark.
We received the order to “stand to” at dawn. Other troops had dug themselves in some distance behind us during the night. We got another rum issue just before “stand to”; it was highly appreciated.
At dawn, the Germans attacked in mass formation, but our rifle and artillery fire made big gaps as they advanced. They did not reach our trenches. They retired, leaving piles of dead. The nearest of their dead were not more than one hundred yards from us.
This time we had very few casualties in our battalion—largely on account of our having dug in ahead of our old position, the range of which the enemy had. Their fire constantly over-reached us.
After this attack was over, we heard the buzzing of airplanes, and although we had been instructed not to look up—the white of faces being very conspicuous from above—we ventured to do so, and saw a British plane smash headlong into a boche machine. Both went end over end to earth, and the pilots undoubtedly were killed. The Englishman, in giving his life, had saved perhaps hundreds of us in the trenches.
In the afternoon, after a heavy bombardment, which tore up some of our barbed wire, the enemy made another charge. This time they came over in wave formation. The order was passed along to “fix bayonets,” and, as soon as the Germans reached the barbed wire, to spring out and meet them. This we did.
We fought off line after line. The Black Watch suffered many casualties here, but not so many as the Germans. This crowd had less love for the bayonet than their brothers at the Aisne. Soon we were chasing them out beyond the barbed wire. We took many prisoners. If it had not been for the officer’s whistle to retire, I think we would have driven them to Berlin, the way we felt that day. However, back we had to come.
The enemy’s artillery fire began to pound on us as we were making for our trenches, and some of our fellows were bowled over as the result of it. As many of the wounded as we could bring, we brought back with us.
One fellow was lying about fifty yards away from the trench. Two of his mates volunteered to go out for him, but in the attempt they were wounded and forced to come back without him. Two others then went out; these managed to bring him in—but he was dead. He was a young lad—one of the latest to join our battalion. His equipment was practically new. I was given his shoes; they were much too big for me, but nevertheless I was grateful for them.
That night I helped to carry back more of the wounded, and, with the rest, assisted the engineers to fix up the barbed wire. This, coupled with the fighting of the day, well nigh exhausted me, but I didn’t get the rest which I so much desired and expected, as I was detailed as one of our company ration party, comprising six men and a non-commissioned officer.
Owing to occasional shell fire, we were obliged to crawl close to the ground while on our way to the supply station. When we were coming back, the boches used flare lights which made us visible to them. I had a box of biscuits on my head. It made a fine target, and when I reached our trenches I found that bullets had pierced it.