The lorries began to arrive just after sunset, rumbling up the main road and swinging off in batches as there was room for them in the curved crescent of track that ran through the dump and back to the main road. As quickly as they were brought into position the dump working party jerked off the tail-boards and fell to hauling the boxes of shell out and piling them in neat stacks along a low platform which ran by the edge of the dump track. The dump was a distributing centre mainly for field artillery, so that the shells were 18-pounder and 4·5 howitzer, in boxes just comfortably large enough for a man to lift and heave about. As the light failed and the darkness crept down, candle lamps began to appear, flitting about amongst the piled boxes, dodging in and out between the lorries, swinging down the track to guide the drivers and show them the way in one by one. Vickers and the Army Service Corps officer in charge of the M.T. lorries stood on a stack of boxes mid-way round the curve, or moved about amongst the workers directing and hastening the work.
But about an hour after dark there came some hasteners a good deal more urgent and effective than the officers. All afternoon and early evening a number of shells had been coming over and falling somewhere out from the dump, but the faintness of their whistle and sigh, and the dull thump of their burst, told that they were far enough off not to be worth worrying about. But now there came the ominous shriek, rising into a louder but a fuller and deeper note, that told of a shell dropping dangerously near the listeners. As the shriek rose to a bellowing, vibrating roar, the workers amongst the boxes ducked and ran in to crouch beside or under the lorries, or flatten themselves close up against the piles of ammunition. At the last second, when every man was holding his breath, and it seemed that the shell was on the point of falling fairly on top of them, they heard the deafening roar change and diminish ever so slightly, and next instant the shell fell with an earth-shaking crash just beyond the dump and the main road. Some of the splinters sang and hummed overhead, and the workers were just straightening from their crouched positions and turning to remark to one another, when again there came to them the same rising whistle and shriek of an approaching shell. But this time, before they could duck back, the voice of the “O.C. Dump,” magnified grotesquely through a megaphone, bellowed at them, “Gas masks at alert position every man. Sharp now.”
A good many of the men had stripped off gas masks and coats, because the masks swinging and bobbing about them were awkward to work in, and the night was close and heavy enough to call for as little hampering clothing as possible in the job of heaving and hauling heavy boxes about.
A word from Vickers to the A.S.C. officer explained his shout. “If one of those shells splashes down on top of that stack of gas-shells of ours, this won’t be a healthy locality without a mask on.” The men must have understood or remembered the possibility, because, heedless of the roar of the approaching shell, they grabbed hastily for their masks and hitched them close and high on their chests, or ran to where they had hung them with their discarded tunics, and slung them hastily over shoulder, and ready.
The second shell fell short of the dump with another thunderous bang and following shrieks of flying splinters. Close after it came the voice of Vickers through his megaphone shouting at the workers to get a move on, get on with the job. And partly because of his order, and partly, perhaps, because they could see him in the faint light of the lantern he carried standing man-high and exposed on top of the highest stack of boxes, and so absorbed some of that mysterious confidence which passes from the apparent ease of an officer to his men in time of danger, they fell to work again energetically, hauling out and stacking the boxes. Another half-dozen shells fell at regular intervals, and although all were uncomfortably close, none actually touched the dump. One man, an A.S.C. motor-driver, was wounded by a flying splinter, and was half-led, half-carried out from the dump streaming with blood.
“Ain’t you glad, Bill,” said another A.S.C. driver, as the group passed his lorry, “that we’re in this Army Safety Corps?”[3]
“Not ’arf,” said Bill. “There’s sich a fat lot o’ safety about it. Hark at that.... Here she comes again.”
This time the shell found its mark. The crash of its fall was blended with and followed by the rending and splintering of wood, a scream and a yell, and a turmoil of shouting voices. The dump officer bent down and shouted to the A.S.C. officer below him: “In the road ... amongst your lorries, I fancy. You’d better go’n look to it. I’ll keep ’em moving here.”
The A.S.C. man went off at the double without a word. He found that the shell had fallen just beside one of the loaded lorries which waited their turn to pull in to the dump, splitting and splintering it to pieces, lifting and hurling it almost clear of the road. Some of the ammunition boxes had been flung off. The officer collected some of his M.T. drivers and a few spare men, emptied the smashed lorry, and picked up the scattered boxes and slung them aboard other lorries; and then, without giving the men time to pause, set them at work heaving and hauling and levering the broken lorry clear of the road, and down a little six-foot sloping bank at the roadside. Another shell came down while they worked, but at their instinctive check the officer sprang to help, shouting at them, and urging them on. “Get to it. Come along. D’you want to be here all night? We have to off-load all this lot before we pull out. I don’t want to wait here having my lorries smashed up, if you do. Come along now—all together.” The men laughed a little amongst themselves, and came “all together,” and laughed again and gave little ironical cheers as the wrecked lorry slid and swayed and rolled lurching over the bank and clear of the road. The officer was running back to the dump when he heard the officer there bellowing for another six lorries to pull in. He climbed to the step of one as it rolled in, dropped off as it halted, and hurried over to the officer in charge.
“Hark at ’em,” said Vickers, as another shell howled over, and burst noisily a hundred yards clear. “They’re laying for us all right this trip. Pray the Lord they don’t lob one into this pile—the gas-shells especially. That would fairly hang up the job; and there are Heaven knows how many batteries waiting to send in their waggons for the stuff now.”