With my regiment

by Arthur Mills

It was then decided to move the Uhlan to an empty house opposite, where he died by himself, and was found on his knees, with his head contorted between them in a last effort to rise, in the morning.

XIV. IN FRONT OF LA BASSÉE

At daybreak the order came to advance. A and C Companies were to form the firing-line, B and D Companies were to be in support. We formed the right of the brigade, and had to get in touch with the Westshires, who were on the left of the —th Brigade, on our right. The initiative of the attack rested with A and C Companies; our task was to follow behind over the ground they had gained and be ready to come up into line with them should they lose many men or find themselves hard pressed. The enemy we knew to be holding a group of houses about 700 yards away. The ground sloped gently back from these houses to the outskirts of the town. My company, B Company, under Goyle, had been extended during the night, in a field to the right of the road, and had thrown up a low earthwork parapet. We now lay behind this while A and C Companies pushed through us to the front. The parapet proved none too high, for as soon as the men in front showed themselves a brisk fire came from the enemy in the houses. We all lay flat on the ground, and the bullets came phzz-phzz over us, missing us, as it seemed, by an inch or two. There is an old military adage that the man who thinks each bullet he hears is going to hit him is making active service a torture to himself. Now, it is all very well to preach the value of being philosophical in warfare and to recommend the man under fire not to think about being hit, but that peculiar sharp little whistle which a bullet makes as it passes one's ear takes a good deal of getting used to, and one's first instinct as one hears it is to slide as deep and far into the ground as possible. We all lay there with our noses flat in the earth, wondering how the fellows in front were getting on and when it would be our turn to get up. The opportunity came pretty soon, for, as the company in front seemed to be held up by the enemy in the houses, Goyle decided to send round a flanking party, and sent off No. 7 and 8 platoons to work their way round on the right. This plan proved successful, and A Company was able to get ahead. Goyle now signalled for the two platoons, which had remained with him, to advance. We rose and moved forward in extended order for 300 yards and then lay down again.

After a few minutes Goyle exclaimed:

"Hullo!—our fellows have reached the houses." Looking through my glasses, I saw some of our men in the gardens of the houses, and as there was no fighting going on the Germans had evidently withdrawn. Goyle decided that we would push on, and told Evans and me to join up by the houses with two platoons which had gone round by the flank. We were to search the houses thoroughly, and take up a line on the other side of them. On our way forward we came on the results of some work we had heard going on during the night. Just before we reached the houses we found three men from the Westshires in a ditch. One was dead, the others too badly hit to crawl. It appears they had been sent out on patrol the night before, and, coming on the German lines, had got shot down. As I had been out on patrol myself on the other side of the road the same night, I reflected that my patrol had been lucky to escape the same fate.

The two wounded men had been lying there for some time, and were very glad to be found. The worst side of patrol work is the risk of not being found or it not being possible to bring wounded men in. We sent the two wounded men back to the ambulance, and asked for a party to be sent up to bury the other. I took the dead man's rifle myself. It was very bloody and nasty, but I felt it would be a good companion, as apart from a rifle and bayonet being twice as useful as a revolver and sword (no one carries the latter), a rifle is also a very good disguise for an officer. If he is holding his rifle, as the men always do, at the trail in an advance, he is indistinguishable to the enemy. Especially was this the case at one time, when the enemy had got used to looking out for a gentleman with a revolver in one hand, a walking-stick in the other, and a pair of field-glasses slung round his neck, advancing slightly ahead of the line of men, and waving instructions to them with the stick. Nowadays the wise officer keeps well in a line with his men, and gives as few indications by hand signals to halt or advance, etc., as possible.

I got most of the blood off the rifle with some grass, and, armed with it and the bayonet, I felt much more secure as we made our way through the houses. The Germans had evidently spent a day or two round the houses, for just behind we found a straw-lined ditch, which they had slept in and partially converted to a trench. We lined this ditch, which gave good cover against stray bullets, and waited for further orders. While we were waiting, Edwards, who had charge of the flanking party, pushed out to the right to get in touch with the Westshires, and Evans and I went back to have a look at the houses and see if the enemy had left any souvenirs behind. One of the buildings was the village wine shop, and a party of German officers had evidently used it as their headquarters for the night. They appeared to have had a rare time in the place. Half-emptied glasses of wine had been left on the bar counter and on the table; bottles and glasses lay smashed on the floor; every bottle from the shelves behind the bar had been taken down and either drunk or broken and the contents spilt over the floor. Two chairs lay broken, and all the pictures were smashed, presumably by cockshies with bottles and glasses. From the look of things the officers must have all been extremely drunk.

While we were in the wine shop the order came for us to close up on A Company, who had pushed some distance forward. The ground at this point sloped up to some more cottages and farm buildings which lay at the top of the rise. A and C Companies had worked their way through the cottages and lined out beyond them facing the outskirts of the town. They were unable to go any farther, as the ground in front was a dead flat stretch of root crops, which the Germans could sweep with rifle and machine-gun fire. The cottages in front to a certain extent covered the advance up to this point, but not completely, as Mulligan, in charge of the right platoon of the next supporting company, discovered to his cost. We were advancing in extended order up the rise, my company being well protected by the cottages, but Mulligan had a gap in the buildings in front of him. About half-way across the field he evidently came into range of a German machine-gun. The gun opened a brisk fire, and in as many seconds twenty of his men were down, Mulligan himself getting a bullet through the shoulder, and his servant, who was beside him, being killed. From an infantryman's point of view a Maxim is like water to a mad dog. It will stop him when nothing else will. There is something particularly deterring about the sound of a Maxim, with its ping-ping-ping-ping as it sweeps down a line of advancing troops, spurting lead like a hose-pipe. The great art from an infantryman's point of view is to locate these guns, and avoid going over ground they cover. It is, humanly speaking, hopeless to try to advance straight against them. Word soon goes along a line, "They've got a Maxim along that road," or "Machine-guns are on that corner of the field or gap in the hedge," and the road, or corner of the field, or gap in the hedge is avoided like a plague spot accordingly.

After we had lain behind the cottages on the rise for a little while, the commander of A Company sent back to say he would like a platoon from the supports sent up to him. Goyle told me to take up No. 6. Hutson, who was commanding A Company, was a capital fellow to work under, and was moving about behind his trenches giving directions to the men as coolly as if he had been on manœuvres instead of only separated by a root field from the first line of the German army. He showed me the bit of trench he wanted my platoon to occupy, gave some instructions about putting out an advanced post, and said the officers of A Company were having a stew cooked in the kitchen of one of the cottages, if I would care to come in when it was dark and all was straight for the night. He said he did not think we should try to advance any farther that night, but hold on where we were.

I lined my men out along the section of trench I was to occupy, which had mostly still to be made, and got them to work. It was growing dusk, and buildings along the outskirts of the town were standing out clearly against the sky-line. Just in front of us was what appeared to be a large factory. As I watched I saw a shell crash against the roof of the factory, followed by another and another. Soon flames sprang from a corner of the building, but still the shells were sent against it, and in ten minutes the whole building was ablaze.