While that was being done I climbed trees for an O.P., finding one eventually in a farm on a hill, but the mist hid everything. The Huns seemed to get their guns up as if by magic and already shells were smashing what remained of Flavy. It was impossible to shoot the guns in properly. The bursts couldn’t be seen so the line was checked and rechecked with compass and director, and we opened fire on targets ordered by Brigade, shooting off the map.
Riez de Cugny was a collection of cottages with a street running through and woods and fields all around and behind. The inhabitants had fled in what they stood up in. We found a chicken clucking hungrily in a coop and had it for dinner that night. We installed ourselves in a cottage and made new fighting maps, the Scots Captain and I—his battery was shooting not a hundred yards from mine—and had the stove lit with anything burnable that came handy, old chairs, meat rolling boards, boxes, drawers and shelves.
It seemed that the attack on the canal was more or less half-hearted. The bridges had been blown up by our sappers and the machine gunners made it too hot for the Hun. Meanwhile we had the gun limbers hidden near the guns, the teams harnessed. The wagon line itself was a couple of miles away, endeavouring to collect rations, forage and ammunition. The sergeant-major was a wonder. During the whole show he functioned alone and never at any time did he fail to come up to the scratch.
Even when I lost the wagon line for two days I knew that he was all right and would bring them through safely. Meanwhile aeroplanes soared over and drew smoke trails above the battery and after a significant pause five-nines began searching the fields for us. Our own planes didn’t seem to exist and the Hun explored at will. On the whole things seemed pretty quiet. Communication was maintained all the time with Brigade; we were quietly getting rid of a lot of ammunition on targets indicated by the infantry and the five-nines weren’t near enough to worry about. So the Scot and I went off in the afternoon and reconnoitred a way back by a cross-country trail to the wagon line,—a curious walk that, across sunny fields where birds darted in and out of hedges in utter disregard of nations which were stamping each other into the earth only a few hedges away. Tiny buds were on the trees, tingling in the warmth of the early sun. All nature was beginning the new year of life while we fools in our blind rage and folly dealt open-handedly with death, heeding not the promise of spring in our veins, with its colour and tenderness and infinite hope.
Just a brief pause it was, like a fleecy cloud disappearing from view, and then we were in the wagon lines, soldiers again, in a tight position, with detail trickling from our lips, and orders and arrangements. Dickie was well on his way to England now, lucky Dickie! And yet there was a fascination about it, an exhilaration that made one “fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run.” It was the real thing this, red war in a moving battle, and it took all one’s brain to compete with it. I wouldn’t have changed places with Dickie. A “Blighty” wound was the last thing that seemed desirable. Let us see the show through to the bitter end.
We got back to the guns and the cottage and in front of us Flavy was a perfect hell. Fires in all directions and shells spreading all round and over the area. Our wagons returned, having snatched ammunition from blazing dumps, like a new version of snapdragon, and with the falling darkness the sky flared up and down fitfully. That night we dished out rum all round to the gunners and turned half of them in to sleep beside the guns while the other half fought. Have you ever considered sleeping beside a firing eighteen-pounder? It’s easy—when you’ve fought it and carried shells for forty-eight hours.
We had dinner off that neglected fowl, both batteries in the cottage, and made absurd remarks about the photos left on the mantelpiece and fell asleep, laughing, on our chairs or two of us on a bed, booted and spurred still, taking turns to wake and dash out and fire a target, called by the liaison officer down there with the infantry, while the others never moved when the salvos rocked the cottage to its foundations, or five-nines dropped in the garden and splashed it into the street.
The Hun hadn’t crossed the canal. That was what mattered. The breakfast was very nearly cooked next morning about seven and we were shooting gun fire and salvos when the order came over the ’phone to retire immediately and rendezvous on the Villeselve-Beaumont crossroads. Fritz was over the canal in the fog. The Babe dashed round to warn the teams to hook in. They had been in cottages about two hundred yards from the guns, the horses harnessed but on a line, the drivers sleeping with them. The Stand-by doubled over to the guns and speeded up the rate of fire. No good leaving ammunition behind. The signallers disconnected telephones and packed them on gun limbers. Both gunners and drivers had breakfasted. We ate ours half cooked in our fingers while they were packing up.
The mist was like a wet blanket. At twenty yards objects lost their shape and within about twenty minutes of receiving the order the battery was ready. We had the other battery licked by five good minutes and pulled out of the field on to the road at a good walk. In the fog the whole country looked different. Direction was impossible. One prayed that one wasn’t marching towards Germany—and went on. At last I recognised the cross-country track with a sigh of relief. It was stiff going for the horses, but they did it and cut off a mile of road echoing with shouts and traffic in confusion, coming out eventually on an empty main road. We thought we were well ahead but all the wagon lines were well in front of us. We caught up their tail-ends just as we reached Beaumont, which was blocked with every kind of infantry, artillery and R.A.M.C. transport, mules, horses and motors. However there was a Headquarters in Beaumont with Generals buzzing about and signallers, so I told the Stand-by to take the battery along with the traffic to the crossroads and wait for me.
Our own General was in that room. I cleaved a passage to him and asked for orders. He told me that it was reported that the Hun was in Ham—right round our left flank. I was, therefore, to get into position at the crossroads and “Cover Ham.”