Most of the townsfolk had begun their flight late on the previous evening, but a good many still remained. Had they only known the fate in store for them, the invaders would have found an empty town. But, at least in this case, vengeance was swift, as you shall hear.
The Brigade, then, took up its new position, and the men were able to make themselves fairly snug before the enemy had finished with the town. Fortunately, too, many of our wounded were got away from the hospital, for the Germans had begun to shell that some time before. But it was a very trying business, as there were not enough ambulances for the very large number of casualties, and many had to be carried on the already overloaded regimental transport.
Now, it must be remembered that General Smith-Dorrien had absolutely no reserves on which to draw if any part of his line began to bend back. The usual plan is, of course, to keep certain fresh regiments concentrated at given spots to move up in support as and when required. But now, if the Inniskillings were getting badly cut up and a gap was being made, the G.O.C. could only call upon the Cheshires, say, a mile off, who were not being so strongly attacked, to send a company or so to the help of their comrades.
Another thing. I have hinted in a previous chapter that the threads of communication with the ammunition supply were badly stretched to breaking-point, owing to the astonishing speed at which the British had to retire. Normally, the ammunition parks (motor transport) draw the ammunition supplies from railhead, and carry it up to the divisional ammunition columns. These, in turn, distribute to brigade columns, and the actual units draw upon the last named. Thus there are several links between railhead and the firing-line, and the motor-lorries should not come within about eight miles of the line.
But on this Wednesday and the two or three following days all this arrangement literally went to pieces. How could it be otherwise? And that is how the A.S.C. drivers came to do their bit with all the rest. Speed was vital, and the lorries could cover the distance in a third of the time taken by the horse transport. In fact, the horse transport was ignored or forgotten, although there were exceptions. One saw the divisional columns aimlessly trekking about the country, at one moment under orders to go to a certain village, only to find on arrival that the enemy were just a mile off; back they would come again as hard as the tired horses could do it.
Time and again an urgent message would go back from a battery for more 18-pr. or howitzer, and the dispatch-rider would have instructions to get the stuff wherever he could lay hands on it. He generally managed to find a few lorries of a "park," and so off the bus drivers would start with their three-ton vehicles, little dreaming that they were going under fire.
"Gor blimey, sir," said one of them next day to his officer, "I tell yer it wos a fair beano! We'd gone abaht a couple o' miles, when the sergeant wot wos along o' me on the box 'e sez: 'Stevens,' sez 'e, 'can yer knock anything more aht of 'er? 'Cos they're firing acrost the road.' Lor lumme, I nearly put 'er in the ditch at the turn 'e giv me! Yer see, sir, I didn't enlist to get knocked aht by no b—— German. I'm a peaceable man, I am, wot likes my grub and pint o' bitter reg'lar like, and the missus the same. But, as I wos a-sayin', I turned to the sergeant an' I sez: 'Yer don't fink there's no danger, do yer?' An' the sergeant, 'e sez, sarkastic-like: 'Ho no, they're only bustin' the shells on the road, an' we've got a few tons of fireworks be'ind wot's bahnd to bust too if we gits 'it!' S'welp me pink, sir, I turned that cold you could 'ave 'eard my teeth going louder nor the enjin.
"'E 'adn't 'ardly spoke when there was the 'ell of a bang somewheres just be'ind, and—well, you can bet your life, sir, we did a guy for all we wos worth. Lord, 'ow we 'opped it dahn that road! I tell yer, sir, we knocked forty-five miles an hour aht o' that ole bus, and she come up to it like as we wos knockin' spots orf of a pirit bus dahn Piccadilly.
"The sergeant, 'e jammed 'is 'eel dahn on the accelerator, an' I just 'eld on to the wheel wiv bofe 'ands. It wos a fair old Brock's benifit we wos in. But we got frew orl right, and wen we got to the place where we wos to drop the stuff, there weren't no guns wot wanted it. An', as old G. R. Sims sez, 'hit wos the unkindest cut of orl.' Well, I wasn't coming back agin frew that pyrriteknikle show not for the ole bus full o' suvrins, an' so we come 'ome rahnd by a place I forgit the name of, and that's 'ow we're late; but it was worf the hextra thirty miles rahnd, an' I 'ope, sir, yer won't mind this time."
There was another occasion on this day when three of these lorries went forward under the charge of an officer. He was quite unaware that the village whence the call for howitzer shell had come had been captured by the Germans half an hour after the message had been sent. On the way he picked up another officer who was lost.