Towards dusk a scribbled note came back from the Battery Commander at the new position to the officer left in charge with the guns, and the officer sent the orderly straight on down with it to the Sergeant-Major with a message to send word back for the teams to move up.
“All ready here,” said the Battery Commander’s note. “Bring up the guns and firing battery waggons as soon as you can. I’ll meet you on the way.”
The Sergeant-Major glanced through the note and shouted for the Numbers One, the sergeants in charge of each gun. He had already arranged with the officer exactly what was to be done when the order came, and now he merely repeated his orders rapidly to the sergeants and told them to “get on with it.” When the Lieutenant came along five minutes after, muffled to the ears in a wet mackintosh, he found the gunners hard at work.
“I started in to pull the sandbags clear, sir,” reported the Sergeant-Major. “Right you are,” said the Lieutenant. “Then you’d better put the double detachments on to pull one gun out and then the other. We must man-handle ’em back clear of the trench ready for the teams to hook in when they come along.”
For the next hour every man, from the Lieutenant and Sergeant-Major down, sweated and hauled and slid and floundered in slippery mud and water, dragging gun after gun out of its pit and back a half-dozen yards clear. It was quite dark when they were ready, and the teams splashed up and swung round their guns. A fairly heavy bombardment was carrying steadily on along the line, the sky winked and blinked and flamed in distant and near flashes of gun fire, and the air trembled to the vibrating roar and sudden thunder-claps of their discharge, the whine and moan and shriek of the flying shells. No shells had fallen near the battery position for some little time, but, unfortunately, just after the teams had arrived, a German battery chose to put over a series of five-point-nines unpleasantly close. The drivers sat, motionless blotches of shadow against the flickering sky, while the gunners strained and heaved on wheels and drag-ropes to bring the trails close enough to slip on the hooks. A shell dropped with a crash about fifty yards short of the battery and the pieces flew whining and whistling over the heads of the men and horses. Two more swooped down out of the sky with a rising wail-rush-roar of sound that appeared to be bringing the shells straight down on top of the workers’ heads. Some ducked and crouched close to earth, and both shells passed just over and fell in leaping gusts of flame and ground-shaking crashes beyond the teams. Again the fragments hissed and whistled past and lumps of earth and mud fell spattering and splashing and thumping over men and guns and teams. A driver yelped suddenly, the horses in another team snorted and plunged, and then out of the thick darkness that seemed to shut down after the searing light of the shell-burst flames came sounds of more plunging hoofs, a driver’s voice cursing angrily, thrashings and splashings and stamping. “Horse down here ... bring a light ... whoa, steady, boy ... where’s that light?”
Three minutes later: “Horse killed, driver wounded in the arm, sir,” reported the Sergeant-Major. “Riding leader Number Two gun, and centre driver of its waggon.”
“Those spare horses near?” said the Lieutenant quickly. “Right. Call up a pair; put ’em in lead; put the odd driver waggon centre.”
Before the change was completed and the dead horse dragged clear, the first gun was reported hooked on and ready to move, and was given the order to “Walk march” and pull out on the wrecked remnant of a road that ran behind the position. Another group of five-nines came over before the others were ready, and still the drivers and teams waited motionless for the clash that told of the trail-eye dropping on the hook.
“Get to it, gunners,” urged the Sergeant-Major, as he saw some of the men instinctively stop and crouch to the yell of the approaching shell. “Time we were out of this.”
“Hear, bloomin’ hear,” drawled one of the shadowy drivers. “An’ if you wants to go to bed, Lanky”—to one of the crouching gunners—“just lemme get this gun away fust, an’ then you can curl up in that blanky shell-’ole.”