CHAPTER XX
THE FALL OF THE VON DER GOLZ REDOUBT
"On clearing the other end of the captured village of Néancourt Ralph was able to form a fairly comprehensive idea of the present state of operations.
The Von der Golz Redoubt, one of the strongest positions in the boasted Wotan Line, was still held by the Huns. The British guns were thundering furiously against it. The marvel was that the men could stand such a gruelling, but the Huns did, keeping to the shelter of their deep dug-outs and manning the defences the moment the guns "lifted." Hundreds of Prussians must at that moment be entombed in those dug-outs, of which the entrances had caved in under the terrific power of the H.E. shells, yet hundreds more were available to hold the redoubt "at all costs."
During the lull between the cessation of the bombardment and the numerous but hitherto fruitless infantry assaults British airmen had flown over the redoubt, bombing the defences and even employing machine-gun fire against the tenacious grey-coats. The airmen were in turn attacked by Hun machines, and during the progress of the fighting on land combats in the "vasty air" were taking place unheeded by the grimly contesting troops in and around the Von der Golz Redoubt.
Deftly picking her way betwixt the scores—nay, hundreds—of bodies of dead and wounded that littered the ground, Setley's Tank approached the closely grouped Tommies who, hugging the earth to avoid the ubiquitous machine-guns, were awaiting the order to advance.
Of the other Tanks the tops of three could be discerned showing above a rise in the terrain. Two more had just advanced against the formidable defences, and both had failed gloriously.
"The guns are lifting, sir," reported Sergeant Alderhame.
"Good business!" muttered Ralph. "I'm fed up with this inaction. Another ten minutes will decide whether we are booked or not."
Crunching her way over the shallow trenches held by the British stormers, the Tank floundered through the vast shell-craters that up to a few minutes before had been torn up by the British guns. Quite recently there had been a system of trenches there—those deep, concrete-reinforced, scientifically constructed ones that had taken the Huns months to perfect. Every trace of their earthworks had been obliterated.
Beyond lay a triple line of barbed wire. By one of those freakish circumstances the entanglements had escaped the devastating hail of shells. A few posts had been shattered, some strands of wire cut through, but, generally, this defence work was as efficacious as ever, as the crowd of bodies in khaki and field-grey that were "hung up" on the tenacious barbs testified.
A bomb dropped from a hostile machine fell within ten yards of the Tank. In spite of her bulk and weight, the huge fabric trembled under the concussion.
"Beastly mean trick!" thought Ralph. "That Hun airman knows that we cannot see him, and that we don't carry antis. Wonder what our fliers are doing to let him amuse himself in this manner?"
With a sickening crash a biplane came to earth, right in the path of the moving Tank. A glance at the twisted wreckage showed that the infamous Black Cross was painted on the planes. Ralph had a smart answer to his question. Our airmen had been busy up aloft.
Setley did not trouble to turn aside his command. Right over the debris of the German biplane she waddled, crushing metal and wood into an unrecognizable pulp, and then thrust her blunt nose into the outer line of barbed wire.
Like a rhinoceros tearing up jungle grass with its formidable horns the Tank set about to destroy the entanglements. Posts snapped off like carrots, coils of wire suddenly released from tension quivered in the air until borne down and buried deep in the earth by the broad traction bands of the landship. The while machine-gun bullets rattled harmlessly against her armoured hide, bombs exploded on, against, and underneath the terrible war-machine. The car of Juggernaut would cut a very poor show compared with this motor-propelled fortress.
Other Tanks were engaged in similar operations, keeping parallel to the line of direction of the hostile trenches and methodically uprooting the entanglements in as many minutes as it had taken the Germans days to set up in position. Having completed this part of the programme the Tanks made for the sand-bagged parapet at the raised end of the glacis, while simultaneously with this movement the whistles went, and the British infantry rushed forward with an irresistible élan.
Their attention divided between the terrifying landships, that were crunching over emplacements and trenches, and the glittering array of bayonets, the German machine-gunners, unfortunately for them, did not take into account a couple of British biplanes, Cleaving through the dense eddying clouds of smoke and recklessly disregarding the bursting shells the intrepid airmen descended to within a hundred feet of the Von der Golz Redoubt and the adjacent trenches. A hail of bullets from the airmen's Lewis guns—death-dealing hornets—caught the Huns unawares, creating havoc in the dense masses of grey-coated infantry.
Poison gas shells added to the horror of the desperate struggle. Aerial torpedoes, missiles from trench mortars, and the deadly shells from the Stokes' guns, rained upon the enemy position. It was a wonder that the Huns stood it as they did; yet, with their back to the wall and unable to retreat or even to take shelter in their deep dug-outs, they fought with a courage that could only be described as fanatical.
Ploughing her way through the mazes of barbed wire Setley's Tank came astride a deep trench that flanked one side of the redoubt to where the glacis terminated in what was a few hours before an elaborately constructed covered way bristling with loopholes, each one of which showed the muzzle of a machine-gun. Now there was little left but a crumbling mound of earth and disrupted sand-bags, in which half-buried Germans still maintained a furious but erratic rifle-fire.
Almost before he was aware of it Ralph found himself within the once considered impregnable redoubt. There was practically nothing to mark its position. It was only when he found himself confronted by a landship strongly resembling his own that he realized that he had gained his objective, for the oncoming Tank was not, as he at first imagined, one of German workmanship, but a British machine that had entered the redoubt on the opposite side.
Narrower and narrower grew the encircling ring of khaki. With bomb and bayonet the British infantry swept the flattened earthwork, until the surviving Huns, finding further resistance useless, threw down their arms and raised shouts of "Kamerad." Greatly to their surprise they found that, contrary to the statements of their officers, the British Tommy is a generous victor. As if by magic the heat of combat gave place to a light-hearted, almost considerate, treatment of the remnant of the garrison of the redoubt, and it was by no means an uncommon sight to see a British soldier bind up the wounds he had inflicted on a German only a few minutes previously.
The paucity of prisoners testified to the stubbornness of the enemy resistance. Quickly the captives were formed up and marched to the advance cages—a task not without great peril, since the German gunners, according to their customary indifference to their ill-fated comrades, were putting up a barrage behind the captured position.
With the clearing of the remnants of the garrison the victorious Tommies began to put the shell-tortured ground into a state of defence. They were now well astride the vaunted Hindenburg Line, and it was pretty certain that the Huns would make a strong and determined counter-attack in order to attempt to wrest the position from the victors. The attack would be soon—before the British heavy guns could be moved forward, and already the railway corps were placing sections of rails in position to enable the twelve- and fourteen-inch monsters to be sent forward. Once they were in position the Von der Golz was lost for good and all to the Huns, and they knew it.
There was no rest for the Tanks that had escaped being placed hors de combat. Orders were given for the landships to push ahead and hold the counter-attacking force in check.
"Independent action, you know," remarked the commanding officer of the Landship Section. "So out you go, and the very best of luck."
Ralph knew what that meant. It was one of the most hazardous enterprises that a Tank could be called upon to perform. With a quickening of his pulses he gave the word for the motors to be started once more and steered his armoured mobile fortress in the direction of the unknown territory that for the last two years or more had been firmly held by the Huns.
"By Jove! Alderhame," he exclaimed, "we're on a big thing this time. Wouldn't miss it for worlds."
"Let's hope we won't," added Sergeant Alderhame grimly. "The present world is quite good enough for me for a long time to come, Boches notwithstanding."