"Yes—heavy stuff, too."
"Be as hot as Hades round 'ere soon."
It was. Hun artillery were adepts at "shooting off the map" (e.g., calculating the angle of elevation for concentration on a certain spot by means of a map), and began to drop near the roadways and cross-roads a series of heavy calibre shells. Here and there, as his guns went searching across the town, a house crumbled under with a grinding, spluttering crash. Hun aeroplanes, also, made an unpleasant announcement of their presence above Marcoing, directing their artillery fire upon a number of points.
Our Brigade Headquarters were situated, of all unhealthy spots, in a house the last of a row culminating at a four-cross-road. Phew—and he dropped one on it and got five of us. Wilshire (Royal Fusiliers) came in for a fearful gash, ten or twelve inches long and three wide, right across the spine. Conscious, but paralysed, he looked round on us with a piteous, hopeless appeal for succour in his eyes and made wild, inarticulate sounds for water. One of the signals (R.E.) fell face downward on the floor in a widening pool of his own blood, one part of his face blown away. Poor laddies, full of youth, vim, life—cursed artillery from your far-off safety! Aye, hands clench; if ever OUR chance comes....
He played on Marcoing throughout the night, inflicted a few light casualties on the Normans, deprived a few more house of rafters, and ploughed an occasional portion of the road.
One wondered grimly on looking up at a thin slate roof what protection it would form against a "heavy," and into how many unrecognisable fragments your person would be dispersed should he land one direct on you. Close your eyes and sleep; then if he does plump one in, you won't worry much about it.
We seemed to have no 'planes of our own to interfere with Fritz's evening gambols, nor were there any Archie guns in the sector to give the Hun aviators something with which to amuse themselves.
Coloured cavarly had ridden in, out and around Marcoing throughout the day, but apparently were not going through. The advance was ended and there was every indication of establishing this new line for the quieter period of winter.
The Normans, with the 80th Brigade, moved in the evening dusk out from Marcoing to Masnières—a town that constituted almost the apex of the salient formed by the drive.
A strange march, although a mere couple of miles or so, in that throughout the entire line of companies there could be sensed some indefinable presentiment of a something to be feared. High above the direct line of march could be discerned the black puffs of enemy timed shrapnel bursting in the air. And you had to pass through it—it was inconceivable that everyone could get through unharmed. Again, it might not be you. The egotism of unconscious thought; the indisputable truth of Darwin's "Will to Life."