II—A NIGHT MARCH IN THE RAIN
We did not leave the village until eight o'clock. It was now very dark and had begun to rain, not real rain, but a thin drizzle which mixed up with the flashes of guns, the glow of star-shells, the long tremulous glimmer of flashlights, the blood red blaze of haystacks afire near Givenchy, threw a sombre haze over our line of march. Even through the haze, star-shells showed brilliant in their many different colours, red, green, and electric white. The French send up a beautiful light which bursts into four different flames that burn standing high in mid-air for five minutes; another, a parachute star, holds the sky for three minutes, and almost blots its more remote sisters from the heavens. The English and the Germans are content to fling rockets across and observe one another's lines while these flare out their brief meteoric life. The firing-line was about five miles away; the star-lights seemed to rise and fall just beyond an adjacent spinney, so deceptive are they.
Part of our journey ran along the bank of a canal; there had been some heavy fighting the night previous, and the wounded were still coming down by barges, only those who are badly hurt come this way, the less serious cases go by motor ambulance from dressing station to hospital—those who are damaged slightly in arm or head generally walk. Here we encountered a party of men marching in single file with rifles, skeleton equipment, picks and shovels. In the dark it was impossible to distinguish the regimental badge.
"Oo are yer?" asked Bill, who, like a good many more of us, was smoking a cigarette contrary to orders.
"The Camberwell Gurkhas," came the answer. "Oo are yer?"
"The Chelesa Cherubs," said Bill. "Up workin'?"
"Doin' a bit between the lines," answered one of the working party. "Got bombed out and were sent back."
"Lucky dogs, goin' back for a kip (sleep)."
"'Ad two killed and seven wounded."
"Blimey!"
"Good luck, boys," said the disappearing file as the darkness swallowed up the working party.
The pace was a sharp one. Half a mile back from the firing-line we turned off to the left and took our way by a road running parallel to the trenches. We had put on our waterproof capes, our khaki overcoats had been given up a week before.
The rain dripped down our clothes, our faces and our necks, each successive star-light showed the water trickling down our rifle butts and dripping to the roadway. Stoner slept as he marched, his hand in Kore's. We often move along in this way, it is quite easy, there is lullaby in the monotonous step, and the slumbrous crunching of nailed boots on gravel.
We turned off the road where it runs through the rubble and scattered bricks, all that remains of the village of Givenchy, and took our way across a wide field. The field was under water in the wet season, and a brick pathway had been built across it. Along this path we took our way. A strong breeze had risen and was swishing our waterproofs about our bodies; the darkness was intense, I had to strain my eyes to see the man in front, Stoner. In the darkness he was a nebulous dark bulk that sprang into bold relief when the star-lights flared in front. When the flare died out we stumbled forward into pitch dark nothingness. The pathway was barely two feet across, a mere tight-rope in the wide waste, and on either side nothing stood out to give relief to the desolate scene; over us the clouds hung low, shapeless and gloomy, behind was the darkness, in front when the star-lights made the darkness visible they only increased the sense of solitude.
We stumbled and fell, rose and fell again, our capes spreading out like wings and our rifles falling in the mud. The sight of a man or woman falling always makes me laugh. I laughed as I fell, as Stoner fell, as Mervin, Goliath, Bill, or Pryor fell. Sometimes we fell singly, again in pairs, often we fell together a heap of rifles, khaki, and waterproof capes. We rose grumbling, spitting mud and laughing. Stoner was very unfortunate, a particle of dirt got into his eye, almost blinding him. Afterwards he crawled along, now and again getting to his feet, merely to fall back into his earthy position. A rifle fire opened on us from the front, and bullets whizzed past our ears, voices mingled with the ting of searching bullets.
"Anybody hurt?"
"No, all right so far."
"Stoner's down."
"He's up again."
"Blimey, it's a balmy."
"Mervin's crawling on his hands and knees."
"Nark the doin's,' ye're on my water proof. Let go!"
"Goliath's down."
"Are you struck, Goliath?"
"No, I wish to heaven I was," muttered the giant, bulking up in the flare of a searchlight, blood dripping from his face showed where he had been scratched as he stumbled.
We got safely into the trench and relieved the Highland Light Infantry. The place was very quiet, they assured us, it is always the same. It has become trench etiquette to tell the relieving battalion that it is taking over a cushy position. By this trench next morning we found six newly made graves, telling how six Highlanders had met their death, killed in action.