And, remember, the British trenches were not those of later days round Ypres. They had all been hastily dug in extremely hard and difficult ground, so that there were none of the niceties of snug dug-outs and bomb-proof shelters. In many places it was just a matter of scratching up the soil behind a hump of shale and cramming oneself in as far as one could go. To imagine, as one is led to do by some writers, that our men sat snugly in deep trenches through all that shell fire waiting calmly for the infantry attack is to get a hopelessly wrong idea. And if this was so on the first day when the men started in fresh, the conditions during the days which followed may be vaguely guessed.
Think for a moment of the splendid work the R.A.M.C. were doing all this time. I wonder how many V.C.'s were earned by that self-sacrificing corps during the week. It is easy enough to do what people call a gallant deed with arms in your hands when the blood is up, to pick up a live bomb and hurl it away—little trifles of the moment which no one thinks twice about,—but the courage demanded in walking quietly into a hail of lead to bandage and carry out a wounded man, a feat which the R.A.M.C. men in the firing lines do a dozen times a day, that is worth talking about.
On our right the fight does not go well for us, and the suspicion that some mistake has been made becomes a certainty. If it is only a matter of two German corps and a Cavalry division in front of our position where on earth have all those guns come from?
Still the British guns out towards Binche go pounding gallantly on, hopelessly outmatched though they are. It's pretty shooting, for our 18-prs. can get in six or seven shots a minute more than the German field-guns, but we cannot compete against their heavier metal. And, just as in a naval fight, it is the heavier metal which tells.
The fighting on the right where General Lomax has the 1st Division has not slackened for a moment, but steadily becomes more intense. Now, for the first time, the enemy is really seen. And as his infantry begin an advance the German shell-fire redoubles in intensity. Every house where British can be concealed, every possible observation post, every foot of trench, every hill-crest and 400 yards behind it is swept and devastated by the tornado.
What communication between units is possible in such a storm? Now battalions and batteries find themselves cut off from their neighbours, each fighting and carrying on by itself.
Chetwode's Cavalry Brigade is caught in the thick of it. The Guards are out there and they hold on almost by their teeth. The 1st Irish are in action for the first time since their formation. They'll see the Germans in hell before they're going to quit. The Munsters are in the hottest corner, if indeed you can see any degrees of difference.
The cavalry have to go; and the Munsters and Black Watch lose horribly as they cover the retirement. No finer fighting regiments in the world than these on the right, but nothing human can stay there and live. The little town of Binche is abandoned; the first enemy success that day. The First Corps has had to swing back its outer flank.
But if you think that the Black Watch, or the Guards, or any of them, have been sitting there quietly to be shot at when there's an enemy in sight, you know little of those regiments. And you don't imagine that the Scots Greys, or Lancers, or Hussars, with such a reputation behind them, are going to sneak out of Binche by a back way without first getting a little of their own back.
No, if the Germans have got to have Binche they must bring up a great many more men than that to take it. There has been much talk of a repetition of that famous charge of the Greys, with the Black Watch hanging on to the stirrup-leathers. If indeed it was repeated that August then this must have been the moment. I am sorry to say that I have never been able to obtain any real confirmation of the story, so I shall not set it down.