The subalterns were already out, running down to the guns as I snatched the map and followed after, to hear the battery open fire as I left the hut.
The greater significance of this S.O.S. came to me before I’d left the hut. At that range our shells would fall just the other side of Essigny, still a vague blur in the mist. What had happened to the infantry three thousand yards beyond? What had become of the gunners? There were no signs of our people coming back. The country, as far as one could see in the fog, was empty save for the bursting shells which were spread about between Essigny and the railway, with the battery in the barrage. The noise was still so universal that it was impossible to know if any of our guns farther forward were still in action. They couldn’t be if we were firing. It meant—God knew what it meant!
The subalterns went on to the guns while I stopped in the control dug into the side of the railway and shed my coat, sweating after the quarter-mile run. Five-nines and pip-squeaks were bursting on the railway and it seemed as if they had the battery taped.
To get off my coat was a matter of less than half a minute. It had only just dropped to the ground when the signaller held me the instrument. “Will you speak here, sir?”
I took it.
“Is that the Major?”
“Yes.”
“Will you come, sir? Mr. B.’s badly wounded. Sergeant —— has lost an eye and there’s no one here to——”
“Go on firing. I’m coming over.” Badly wounded?
I leaped up out of the dugout and ran. There was no shell with my name on it that morning. The ground went up a yard away from me half a dozen times but I reached the guns and dived under the camouflage into the trench almost on top of poor old B. who was lying motionless, one arm almost smashed off, blood everywhere. It was he who had said “She’s off!” and lit the candle with a laugh. A man was endeavouring to tie him up. Behind him knelt a sergeant with his face in his hands. As I jumped down into the trench he raised it. “I’m blind, sir,” he said. His right eye was shot away.