CHAPTER III
THE NIGHT ATTACK
"Snatching up their rifles the three men hurried from the dug-out, nearly colliding with the rest of their chums who were returning at the first alarm to get their equipment. "Follow me," exclaimed Penfold. "Keep well down."
At the fifth or sixth step along the tortuous communication trench Setley trod on something not so yielding as mud, but comparatively soft. He stooped and felt the object with his hand. His fingers came in contact with a human face.
"There's a man lying here!" he called out to Penfold, who was a few paces in front.
"I know," replied his new chum. "He's been there for the last three hours. Our fellows haven't had time to bring him in yet. Don't worry about that; you'll soon get used to it."
Setley hurried on, wondering whether he would ever get accustomed to the horrors of the trenches. The seemingly stony indifference with which Penfold had spoken jarred on his sensitive nerves. Somehow the realization did not fit in with the anticipation of what war really was. He could not help asking himself why nations should set about to deliberately exterminate each other merely for the lust of conquest—a wholesale slaughter by the most deadly scientific instrument that human ingenuity could devise.
His disjointed reveries were interrupted by Penfold being hurled violently backwards, his hunched shoulders striking Ralph violently in the chest. The two men staggered backwards, accompanied by showers of mud, stones, and displaced sand-bags, all silhouetted against the glare of an exploding shell. Three of the Wheatshires preceding Penfold were hurled bodily into the air, subsiding with sickening thuds upon the soft ground. One writhed furiously, groaning dismally the while; the others were mere lumps of clay fashioned in God's own image, but now hideously mangled.
"On!" exclaimed Penfold breathlessly. "Don't wait. The stretcher-bearers will be along for that fellow in half a shake."
Across a gap in the sand-bagged wall the men hurried. They could hear the hiss of the stream of bullets from a machine-gun. It seemed so close that Setley and Alderhame flung themselves flat.
"What are you hanging back for?" shouted a sergeant. "How the deuce can the rest of the men get by when you're blocking the road? Push along, both of you!"
Thus abjured the twain, fearing the scathing words of the N.C.O. more than the whistling bullets, slid over the mound of displaced sand-bags into the crater of the recently exploded shell, and scrambled up the other side.
Twenty paces more and Setley found himself in the front line trench. Almost mechanically he mounted the fire-step, rested the barrel of his rifle between two spaced sand-bags that formed a loophole, and waited.
"Here they come!" shouted an excited voice.
Standing out clearly against the glare of half a dozen star-shells came on dense masses of German infantry. The Huns advanced slowly, almost hesitatingly. There were no shouts of "Deutschland über alles!" that characterized the earlier attacks. The words were a hollow mockery—and the Huns knew it. They had now a wholesome respect for the British Tommy. It was mainly fear of their officers, who kept at the heels of their men and held revolvers ready to shoot down any who refused to charge, that made the attack develop.
In front came two men, masked and bearing metal cylinders resembling exaggerated packs upon their shoulders. In place of a rifle and bayonet they held a length of flexible hose. The Huns were about to use liquid fire in their attempt to oust the British from their trenches.
Supporting these perambulating torches were a dozen or more bombers, while close at their heels came men armed with rifles and bayonets. With the exception of the mud and numerous shell-craters there was little in the way of obstacles to impede their advance, for almost the whole of the wire entanglements fronting the British parapet had been blown away by shell-fire. Setley's impression at the unaccustomed sight was that the brunt of the attack was about to fall on his immediate front.
Suddenly the whole length of the British trench burst into a line of crackling flame as the Tommies commenced independent rapid fire. Some maxims, skilfully concealed in sand-bagged emplacements, added to the din with their quick pop-pop-pop.
The Huns, erroneously trusting that their heavy guns had battered the British trenches into shapeless mounds, and thinking that the Tommies had been either blown to fragments by the terrific artillery bombardment or had been compelled to seek refuge in their dug-outs, were met by the full blast of the rifle and machine-gun fire.
Ralph was soon surprised to find that he was slipping another clip of cartridges into the magazine of his rifle. He was now as cool as a cucumber. The months of infantry training had not been thrown away. With a visible enemy facing him he realized that the time had come when he could strike a blow for King and Country, instead of being subjected to shell-fire from a distant and unseen foe without being able to raise a hand in self-defence. The attack was doomed to failure from the start. One of the men bearing the liquid fire apparatus was on his face, his head and shoulders buried in mud, while his diabolical contrivance, which had evidently been perforated by a bullet, had taken fire and was blazing furiously. The bombers hurled their missiles prematurely, most of the bombs falling short; while the infantry, mown down in heaps, wavered, the survivors beginning to give way.
Above the rattle of musketry a whistle rang out loud and clear.
"Come on, boys!" shouted an officer, leaping on to the parapet, to topple backwards with a bullet through his brain.
Undeterred, the Wheatshires poured over the shattered breastwork of sand-bags. With an inspiring British cheer the infantry surged ver the top like a huge, irresistible breaker.
The opportune moment for delivering a counter-attack had arrived.
Well spent had been those months of active training. The Wheatshires, every man a passable athlete, literally swarmed over the parapet. With their bayonets gleaming in the ruddy glare and preceded by the regimental bombers the khaki-clad troops, dexterously threading their way through the gaps in the barbed wire, charged irresistibly against the already broken enemy.
A wave of thrilling enthusiasm swept over Private Setley. The chance of actually doing something, of getting clear of the imprisoning walls of slimy mire and coming to grips with the Hun had come. The studiously polite and law-abiding bank-clerk was transformed into a fighting Tommy. The lust of primeval combat was upon him. He saw red. Of what happened during the next two minutes Setley had but a faint and hazy notion. Bombs hurled by the retreating Huns fell around him. Once the blast from an exploding missile lifted his steel helmet from his head. He remembered putting it straight with his left hand and noticing that the fingers were covered with a dark, moist, warm fluid.
A man, keeping pace with him, suddenly dropped his rifle and fell on his face. Setley leapt over the slightly inclined bayonet and held on, the desire to stop and assist a fallen comrade being hardly existent. For the time being his sole desire was to overtake one of those field-grey forms showing dimly through the smoke.
The enemy first-line trenches at last—and the Huns were making a stand. A machine-gun, one of many, was pumping out nickel almost on Setley's immediate front. Hostile bombers were redoubling their efforts. In cold blood the lad would have thought twice, perhaps many times, before facing that deadly menace, but carried away in the mad rush he pressed forward, scarce noticing the weight of his rifle and bayonet.
A severed, coiled strand of barbed wire caught the puttee of his left foot. With a vicious jerk he freed himself from the encumbrance, leaving half a yard of mud-plastered cloth upon the sharp barb. Two yards in front of him was a burly German bomber with a bomb poised ready to hurl.
Regardless of the fact that the explosion of the missile would to an almost certainty annihilate him, the Hun threw the bomb. Setley caught it on the flat blade of his bayonet and threw it aside, where it burst ten yards to the right under a tall, bearded Prussian.
The next instant the thrower received six inches of cold steel right in the centre of his chest. Setley had made a mistake. It was a matter of considerable difficulty to withdraw the blade. He remembered too late the warning of the drill-instructors—when delivering a body thrust aim below the ribs.
Before he could disengage the steel another German commenced a furious blow with the butt-end of his rifle. In the midst of the swing of the weapon a shot rang out within a few inches of Setley's ear, and the Hun, with a curious look of surprise on his sullen features, staggered forward. The descending rifle-butt struck Setley's helmet a glancing blow and, missing his left shoulder, sank deeply into the mud.
"So much for Buckingham: off with his head," yelled Alderhame, as he ejected the still smoking cartridge-case from the breach of his rifle. "How's that, my festive?"
"Thanks," replied Setley briefly; then over the hostile parapet the two comrades surged, bending low as they crouched behind their ready bayonets.
The deep and narrow German trench was crowded with men—dead, wounded, and living. Some of the latter were putting up a stiff fight, like wild animals at bay. Others, with the dismal and monotonous whine of "Mercy, Kamerad!" were holding their hands high above their heads, the bombs taking toll of brave men and cowards alike.
Following at the heels of two of the Wheatshires' bombers, Setley, Alderhame, George Anderson, and two others, made their way along a traverse, the riflemen firing at the side of the bombers. At intervals the latter stopped to hurl their deadly missiles down the steep and steeply shelving entrances to the German dug-outs.
Rounding a sand-bagged traverse the party entered a bay in which was a machine-gun, with its crew of dead and dying lying around the silent weapon. A few paces further on a tall, bearded Hun barred the way.
"Hands up!" yelled Ginger.
The man threw down his rifle and complied. As the Tommies surged past Anderson took possession of the discarded weapon and tossed it over the parapet.
"Keep 'em up!" he continued, addressing his prisoner. "A little of that'll do you no 'arm. You bide 'ere till you're told to shift."
A shot rang out, and one of the British bombers dropped. His companion hurled a bomb, while Setley and Alderhame pushed forward towards a temporary barrier of sand-bags hastily piled on the floor of the trench. Beyond were three Huns, one of whom had just fired the fatal shot; but the avenging bomb had already done its work.
Standing on the parados was a captain of the Wheatshires.
"Back, men!" he ordered. "Don't get out of touch with the rest of the company. Secure your prisoners and retire."
"Retire, be hanged!" muttered George. "Wot's to prevent us going on to Berlin? Eh, you treacherous swine, wot's the game?"
He clapped his hand to his ear. One portion of the lobe was missing. The man he had taken prisoner had drawn a small revolver from his pocket and had fired at five paces at his captor while the latter's back was turned.
With a yell Ginger rushed at the recreant Hun. Once more the man's hands were raised above his head, and again the dolorous "Mercy, Kamerad; me haf wife and six children!"
"Liar!" shouted the now furious Tommy, giving the treacherous Boche a generous amount of cold steel. "You've a widow an' six orphans!"
Reluctantly, the Wheatshires quitted the hostile trenches and made their way back across No Man's Land. In many cases their officers had to push them towards their own lines. Having made good their footing in the German defences, the Tommies did not relish the idea of abandoning the ground. It did not occur to them that the captured trench would form a dangerous salient, liable to be enfiladed and levelled flat with hostile shells before it could be properly consolidated.
"How about grub?" enquired Penfold, as the men regained the safety of their own lines. "There's no barrage now? Why can't they bring our tommy up to us?"
"Could do with a good meal myself," said Sefton. "Fortunately, we were served out with bully-beef before we arrived. You can have some of mine."
"Thanks, awfully," replied his new chum. "I'll accept; but, remember, it's bad policy. Generosity is all very well, but here it's each man for himself in the grub line. You can't blame a half-starving fellow sneaking any food that he finds lying about, you know."
"How is it that you're short of rations?" asked Alderhame.
"Goodness only knows. The Huns were going it pretty hot all day and during the earlier part of this evening. Perhaps our ration party copped it. Everything has to be brought up by hand in this section of the line," replied Penfold. "Well, let's foot it, before the guns start again. The Boches will be pretty wild after this little affair."
Mingled with a jostling throng of exultant Tommies and dejected prisoners, the three made their way along the communication trench to their dug-out.
"What luck!" ejaculated Penfold, stopping short at a heap of disordered sand-bags and splintered timber that marked the site of their temporary abode. "Our dug-out has been properly strafed. We would have all gone West by this time if we'd been inside. But I say, you fellows; what price grub, now?"