Pug glanced round at the heap flung at his elbow. “Wha’s th’ good o’ them?” he snapped. “F’r Gawd’ sake rather gimme a rifle that’ll shoot.”
“Rifle?” said one of the men; “there’s plenty spare rifles about”; and he stooped and picked one from the trench bottom, dropped it beside Pug, and pushed on. Pug emptied his magazine, dropped his rifle, snatched up the other one, and resumed shooting. But he was swearing again before he had fired off the one clip, and that done, flung the rifle from him and grabbed his own. “Rotten thing,” he growled. “It don’t fit, don’t set to a man’s shoulder; an’ it kicks like a crazy mule.”
Both he and Kentucky had jerked out their sentences between shots, delaying their shooting no fraction of a second. It was only, and even then reluctantly, when there was no longer a visible target before their sights that they slowed up and stopped. And then both stayed still, with rifles pointing over the parapet, peering into the smoke ahead. Kentucky drew a long breath. “They’ve quit; and small blame to them.”
“Got a bit more’n they bargained for, that time,” said Pug exultantly, and then “Ouch!” in a sharp exclamation of pain. “What’s the matter?” said Kentucky. “You feeling that arm?” “No, no,” said Pug hastily, “just my elbow feelin’ a bit cramped an’ stiffish wi’ leanin’ on it.”
The rifle fire was slackening and dying along the line, but the shells still whooped and rushed overhead and burst flaming and rolling out balls of white smoke over the ground in front. “Wish them guns’d knock orf a bit till we see what sorter damage we’ve done,” said Pug. But along to the right with a rolling crash the rifles burst out into full blast again. “Look out,” said Kentucky quickly, “here they come again,” and he tossed muzzle over the parapet and commenced to pump bullets at the gray bulk that had become visible looming through the smoke clouds again. He was filled with eagerness to make the most of each second, to get off the utmost possible number of rounds, to score the most possible hits. He had just the same feeling, only much more intensified, that a man has at the butts when the birds are coming over fast and free. Indeed, the feeling was so nearly akin to that, the whole thing was so like shooting into driven and helpless game, the idea was so strong that the Germans were there as a target to be shot at, and he there as a shooter, that it gave him a momentary shock of utter astonishment when a bullet hit the parapet close to him and threw a spurt of mud in his face, and almost at the same instant another hit glancing on the top of his helmet, jolting it back on his head and spinning it round until the chin-strap stopped it with an unpleasant jerk on his throat. He realized suddenly, what for the moment he had completely forgotten, that he was being shot at as well as shooting, that he was as liable to be killed as one of those men out there he was pelting bullets into. Actually, of course, his risk was not one-tenth of the attackers’. He was in cover and the men advancing against the trench were doing little shooting as they came. They on the other hand were in the open, exposed full length and height, were in a solid mass through and into which the sleeting bullets drove and poured in a continuous stream. Machine-gun and rifle fire beat fiercely upon its face, while from above a deluge of high-explosive shells and tearing gusts of shrapnel fell upon it, rending and shattering and destroying. And in spite of the tempest of fire which smote it the mass still advanced. It was cut down almost as fast as it could come on, but yet not quite as fast, and the men in the trench could see the front line constantly breaking and melting away, with ragged, shifting gaps opening and closing quickly along its length, with huge mouthfuls torn out of it by the devouring shells, with whole slices and wedges cut away by the scything bullets, but still filling in the gaps, closing up the broken ranks, pressing doggedly and desperately on and in on their destroyers.
But at last the attack broke down. It had covered perhaps a hundred yards, at an appalling cost of lives, when it checked, gave slowly, and then broke and vanished. Most of the men left on their feet turned and ran heavily, but there were still some who walked, and still others who even then either refused to yield the ground they had taken or preferred the chance of shelter and safety a prone position offered rather than the heavy risk of being cut down by the bullets as they retreated. These men dropped into shell holes and craters, behind the heaps of dead, flat on the bare ground; and there some of them lay motionless, and a few, a very few, others thrust out their rifles and dared to shoot.
A heavy shell screamed over and burst just behind the Stonewalls’ trench. Another and another followed in quick succession, and then, as if this had been a signal to the German guns, a tornado of shells swept roaring down upon the British line. It was the heaviest and most destructive fire the Stonewalls had yet been called upon to face. The shells were of every weight and description. The coming of each of the huge high explosives was heralded by a most appalling and nerve-shaking, long-drawn, rising torrent of noise that for the moment drowned out all the other noises of battle, and was only exceeded in its terror-inspiring volume by the rending, bellowing crash of its burst; their lesser brethren, the 5-in. and 6-in. H.E., were small by comparison, but against that their numbers were far greater, and they fell in one long pitiless succession of hammer-blows up and down the whole length of trench, filling the air with dirty black foul-smelling smoke and the sinister, vicious, and ugly sounding drone and whurr and whistle of flying splinters; and in still larger numbers the lighter shells, the shrapnel and H.E. of the field guns, the “Whizz-Bangs” and “Pip-Squeaks,” swept the trench with a regular fusillade of their savage “rush-crash” explosions. The air grew dense and choking with the billowing clouds of smoke that curled and drifted about the trench, thickened and darkened until the men could hardly see a dozen yards from them.
Pug, crouched low in the bottom of the trench beside Kentucky, coughed and spluttered, “Bad’s a real old Lunnon Partickler,” he said, and spat vigorously.
An officer, followed by three men, crawled along the trench towards them. “Here you are, Corporal,” said the officer, halting and looking over his shoulder; “this will do for you two. Get over here and out about fifty yards. Come on, the other man. We’ll go over a bit further along,” and he crawled off, followed by the one man.
“Wot’s the game, Corp’ril?” asked Pug, as the two began to creep over the top of the parapet. “List’nin’ post,” said the Corporal briefly. “Goin’ to lie out there a bit, in case they makes a rush through the smoke,” and he and his companion vanished squirming over the shell-torn ground in front.