It was just after six in the morning of November 20, 1917, and the dew lay thick on the soil. Men were quietly roused, rifles slung, and with fast tattooing pulse paused for orders. First wave "over" stamped feet impatiently in those interminable hours of waiting blended in what was only a few short minutes; an almost frenzy of anxiety to get through the waiting possessed them. Then the tanks, faintly outlined forms in the grey light, moved ponderously forward.
A nerve-straining silence held momentary sway.
From point to point at a few yards' interval a milliard blinding flashes of dull crimson flames leapt from out the gloom like one gigantic sunset, casting sinister glares in ceaseless succession upon the heavy mist. Roar upon roar, blending, echoing and re-echoing like unto the roll of countless mighty drums, throbbed in one great deafening crescendo. It was futile to count explosions: they all merged one into another. But words are fatuously inadequate and convey little.
"Stand by." Your pipe is in your mouth, unlit, empty. You don't want to smoke, really, but still ... the eye glances along the line of strained white faces. Someone MUST go under; still, it might not be you. Anyhow, if it is, funk will make no difference, so—one wild scramble over the top, an almost imperceptible pause and then forward. A cry, a fall here or there, and then on again. As in a dream you find yourself still carrying on unhurt ... it's not so bad.
The Undertaking had commenced.
The Ten Hundred moved forward grouped in artillery formation, C., D., and B. Companies moving onward in that line from right to left; A. Company and Battalion Headquarters followed in reserve.
The staggering surprise of the British attack completely shattered the morale of what German elements were holding the sector. They surrendered in twenties to the oncoming tanks and rapidly advancing lines of infantry. Hun artillery started into frenzied action by this phenomenal development commenced to hastily lob over an erratic series of shells.
The Normans, crossing a sunken road in column, fell again into correct formation on the higher ground, progressed a few hundred yards beyond what had an hour before constituted the Fritz front line, and halted. Four light shells burst around and about the reserve Company; no one stopped anything. One piece of iron crashed into a boulder near Le Page's foot. He sprang a yard into the air and nearly put two men out of mess with his bayonet. In the hot argument that ensued they almost forgot that there was a war on and that the advance was moving on without them.
A lad with half a leg hanging and placed by two bearers on a stretcher, rose from a lying posture as the Royal Guernseys passed.
"'Ere, Guernseys," he hailed, "I was with you at Canterbury—Buffs. Jus' got in the way of a Blighty. Anybody got a fag?" It was supplied and the party moved on. About to descend into the sunken road the bearers ducked to that fatal shell whine ... too late. Three blood-soaked figures were visible through the lifting-smoke stretched inert on the ground.