CHAPTER XIII
THE BEGINNING OF THE GREATER PUSH
""Haig has occupied Bapaume and Péronne, encountering little opposition."
Such was the news that greeted second-lieutenant Ralph Setley on disembarking at Boulogne. Bapaume and Péronne—places that for months and months had been practically within sight of the British trenches, and yet seemed as far remote as Peru. Miles and miles of deep concrete reinforced earthworks, hundreds of machine-guns, acres of formidable barbed wire, and the pick of the Kaiser's legions, had been in front of those two towns; and yet the Huns had gone—retreated.
"A voluntary retirement, according to our plans." Ralph smiled when he read the mendacious German official report. Can any sane individual imagine a voluntary retirement in these circumstances. After two years of hard work, fortifying and defending those deep-dug trenches, would any belligerent voluntarily abandon ground gained and maintained at such a cost of blood and treasure?
At a certain place, well behind the lines, Ralph was put through a hurried yet comprehensive "course" in Tank work. In company with half a dozen other young subalterns, he was under instruction from morning to night, with only brief intervals for meals. It would be difficult to find a squad more eager to grasp the intricacies of their future commands. They were, one and all, as "keen as mustard." Technical and practical work, intermixed with lectures on motors, machine-guns and quickfirers, hints on strategy and tactics, map-reading and dynamics—all were drummed into the active brains of the probationers, regardless of the adage, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing."
"Dangerous for the Boches, let's hope," remarked Danvers, a young second-lieutenant recently transferred from the Air Service, owing to a wound that rendered him unfit to fly, although his capacity in other directions was unimpaired. He had chummed up with Setley, and the two got on admirably. In private life Danvers had been a civil engineer, until the call of the sword took him from the plane-table and theodolite to the sterner profession of war.
"I want to impress upon you fellows," said the major—who acted as instructor—"that you must not run away with the idea that landships are invulnerable."
The class nodded their heads sagely. Considering most of them had seen derelict Tanks—in many cases showing huge rents in their armoured sides, caused by the impact of heavy shells—this announcement seemed superfluous.
"However useful the Tanks have been and are," continued the major, "they have their limitations. They are not perfect. Perfection means finality—and the end is not yet. Landships are a means to an end, nothing more. So don't run away with the idea that you can do anything when in charge of a Tank. It will do a lot. As an adjunct to an infantry attack it is most efficient. When first brought into action landships scored heavily, owing to their novel characteristics. The Huns have now found certain means to counter their offensive, and these means must in turn be negatived. So in the attack exercise discretion until you are astride the enemy trenches. Then you can go for all you're worth. Self-sacrifice is commendable in certain circumstances, but little is gained if you blunder into a pitfall through sheer impetuosity."
Instructor No. 2 adopted a different line.
"Tanks attacking in company," he declared, "should advance straight for their objective and at their maximum speed. Preferably the formation should be en échelon; then, should the leading landship be 'bogged,' the others will have a chance to avoid the pitfall."
Then came the actual practice. Across ground gradually increasing in difficulty the instruction Tanks were taken, first with a qualified hand in charge of each and then with one of the new hands in command. At the end of a few days Ralph was "passed out" as being competent to take a landship into action.
It took two days to bring his command up to the Front. Too heavy and unwieldy to be conveyed by rail the landship squadron lumbered towards the Arras sector, in company with hundreds of guns of all calibres, enormous lorries crammed with shells, and transport of all descriptions laden with munitions and food. Dense columns of marching infantry, regiments in motor waggons, individual units, were swarming everywhere, the Tommies marching with elastic gait and resolute mien, confident that once more the German arms were about to suffer defeat.
"It's Easter Day," observed Danvers, when the Tanks were "parked" for the night and concealed from the prying eyes of a chance hostile airman—the Hun fliers were very chary of late of venturing over the British lines—by means of futurist-painted canvas. "Rummiest Easter I've ever spent. Wonder if the Huns use a similar form of service to ours. Can you imagine the Germans making use of the words of the Litany: 'To have pity upon all prisoners and captives'?"
"From all accounts they are badly using our men who have had the ill-luck to fall into their hands," said Setley. "A platoon of the Chalkshires got cut off, I hear. The men are kept in the German reserve trenches."
"Yes," added another subaltern. "And our fellows are mad about it. The Huns will feel sorry for themselves when the infantry go over the top and get to work with the bayonet. Hullo! the great strafe is commencing."
The artillery fire, constant for the last twenty-four hours, was increasing in violence. The guns of all sizes, from the giant twelve-inch to the fifteen-pounders, were belching forth their hail of devastating projectiles upon the enemy trenches. Vainly the German guns attempted to reply. Literally pulverized by an immensely superior weight of metal, their efforts were hardly of consequence.
"Does a fellow good to see that," observed a grey-haired major, as he watched the incessant glare of the shells bursting in the Hun trenches. "We're top-dog now. I remembered at Ypres we were battered for a week or more and hardly able to reply. Now the boot is on the other foot, and, you fellows, wait till the morning. We've a nice little surprise for Fritz."
There was no sleep that night for the officers and men of the Tanks. All inclination to rest was dispelled by the stupendous violence of the bombardment. The night was rendered as light as day by the incessant flashes, the din was indescribable, while the earth trembled with the crash of the guns.
Rapidly the "dump" diminished, but as fast as the reserve of stacked shells was exhausted more were brought up. The dragon's teeth of ancient Greek mythology were not in it: the projectiles at the disposal of the hardworked but enthusiastic gunners were greater in number as the hours sped. Thanks to the splendid organization of the munition workers at home, the artillery was not in danger of being starved.
"There won't be any work left for us to do," remarked Danvers. "The German trenches must be flattened out by this time."
"You'll soon see," rejoined a lieutenant, consulting his watch. "It's now close on five. The infantry go over the top at the half-hour. Hullo! here's the C.O. It's about time we started."
Already the men had stripped the canvas coverings from the massive mobile fortresses. The roar of the exhausts almost drowned the thunder of the guns. The air reeked with petrol vapour, mingled with the acrid, pungent fumes from the cordite charges from the nearest batteries.
"All correct, sir," replied Ralph's sergeant, as the subaltern scrambled through the narrow armoured door in the afterside of the sponson and gained the complicated interior of the Tank.
Setley gave the word and the mammoth ambled off, fifty yards in the wake of another Tank, three others following at regular intervals. It was still night. Dawn was close at hand, but any indications of the break of day were concealed by the huge clouds of smoke that hung in impenetrable curtains over the German lines. It was snowing. Frozen flakes were whirling through the smoke-laden air. In places the ground was covered to a depth of four or five inches, although everywhere the pure white mantle was rapidly churned into brownish slush by the constant movement of vehicles and men.
Half-past five. To the second the British guns lifted, raining their hail of projectiles on the hostile support trenches and putting up such a tremendous barrage that no living thing could endure in that sector of bursting shells. To those of the high explosive type were added others of a terrible but totally different character. Fritz was being paid back in his own coin and with compound interest. Oft-times the cultured Huns had made use of liquid fire—a hideous barbaric means of attack. Retaliations had been reluctantly decided upon by the British authorities. At last the time-honoured maxim, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," was being put into force.
Splendid in their terrible work, the liquid fire shells burst with admirable precision over the crowded reserve trenches. Unable to retreat owing to the barrage, reluctant to face the bombs and bayonets of the British infantry as they kept pace with the lifting artillery fire, the Germans were trapped.
Almost without meeting any resistance the Tommies swarmed over the hostile trenches, and soon a steady, ever-increasing stream of prisoners—men dazed with the horror of the bombardment, hungry, dirty, and devoid of spirit—set in towards the advance cages.
"We're out of it this trip," thought Ralph. "There's nothing for the Tanks to do. By Jove, there is, though! A viper's nest wants flattening out."