IX
THE adventure has begun in earnest. All the monotony of being foot-sore and tired is forgotten in this new excitement. They can push us as hard as they like; we shall not fail until our strength gives out. It’s the game, the largeness and the splendour of it, that uplifts us. In the history of the world no fighting-men ever fought for such high stakes as those for which we are about to fight. Just as this war is out of all proportion titanic as compared with other wars which have been waged by men, so is this offensive, which we intend shall be the last and the decisive climax, out of all proportion titanic as compared with previous offensives. It doesn’t matter that we are physically inefficient for the task; we have been physically inefficient for other tasks, which we have nevertheless accomplished. We were sick, both men and horses, when we splashed our way furiously through the icy mud to those last attacks which won the battle of the Somme; none of us lay down on the job till we had been relieved in the line. The very day that we pulled out horses died in their tracks and men collapsed. We were like runners who had saved their last ounce for the final lap and had no strength left when they had broken the tape.
It will be like that again; stoutness of heart will carry us to success long after our bodies have backed down on us. From the first crack out of the box this is going to be a V. C. stunt for every man who takes part in it; that there won’t be enough V. C’s to go round doesn’t trouble us. To have been privileged to share in such an undertaking will be reward enough and a sufficient decoration. We’re going to bust the Hun Front so completely that it will never stand up again. We’re going to make a hole in his defences through which all the troops which are behind us can rush like a deluge. We’re going to achieve this end by the element of surprise and the devil-may-care ferocity of our attack. The effect will be like the breaking of a dam: we shall spread and spread till the military arrogance of Germany is flooded out of sight and only the steeples and roofs of the highest houses show up above the ruin’s surface to mark the spots where the ancient menace was trapped and drowned.
Last night we found our lorries waiting for us at a cross-roads; they were headed in the direction of the road which was marked To Amiens. The sun was sinking behind the uplands as we set out; the last sight we had as we looked back through the golden solitude was our brigade of artillery slowly winding like a black snake out of the wood and losing itself in a fold of the hills. The Colonel was silent; he gave us no information, save that we were going forward to choose battery positions and alternative routes for bringing in our guns and ammunition in case some of the routes were shelled. For the rest, we conjectured that the lorries were taking us past points where it would not be wise for the brigade to travel.
We had not been going long, when we began to pass Australian Infantry, first of all we met them in isolated groups, strolling down the lanes and through the wheat, two and two, with their arms about the waists of peasant-girls. Very often the girls had plucked wild-flowers for their lovers, and had stuck them in the button-holes of their tunics or had pinned them against the brims of their broad slouch-hats. One wondered with how many soldier-men these girls had walked since the war had started, and how many of their soldier-men still remained above ground to kiss the lips of a living girl. Without being told, there was something of false flippancy and yearning in their attitude which made us understand that these lovers for a moment were taking their last stroll together. Like the Canadians, they are storm-troops, and will be lost in the smoke of battle before many days are out.
At a turn in the road we came across a girl who had flung herself down beside the hedge and was sobbing with her face buried in her hands. Farther on, by a few hundred yards, we passed a boy-private, who kept halting and glancing back with trouble in his eyes, and then again making up his mind to go forward. Many a deserter has been shot not because he was a coward, but because he had grown too fond of a girl.
We entered a village where all was in commotion.
The dusk had fallen. In the windows lights glimmered. Trumpets were sounding. Across farmyards, and in and out of barns men hurried with lanterns. Infantry, in their full marching order, were tumbling out from houses and forming up, two deep, along the street. Rolls were being called and absentees searched for. Officers on horse-back fidgeted impatiently or went at the sharp trot, carrying messages. Bursts of laughter and song from the gardens behind the cottages, seemed to mock the atmosphere of military sternness. Behind the darkness there was the knowledge of stolen kisses. The storm-troops were saying “Good-bye” to life and moving one stage nearer to the slaughter. We won free from the village and were soon on a high road, doing our forty miles an hour.
In the dusk the sharp details of the country were blurred, but we saw enough to know that its aspect was changing. There were no more peasant-girls with their soldier-lovers: the fields were uncared for—all the civilian population had been pushed back. We came to villages full of deserted houses, with roofs smashed and walls gaping where bombs had been dropped. Under the protection of trees, in lanes and side-roads, motor and horse-transport was waiting for the sky to become sufficiently dark for it to be safe for them to advance. At every cross-road we were halted by military-police till our special order had been presented and examined. Ahead of us the cathedral spires and towers of Amiens grew up; like fire-flies flickering above them, though actually at a distance of miles behind them, the flares and rockets of the Hun Front commenced their maniac dance.
We crept into the city, slowing down to avoid gaping holes in the pavi. It was a city of the dead. No movement was allowed till night had grown completely dark.. Shutters sagged on their hinges. Doors stood wide, just as they had been left in the hurry of the exit. Windows stared blindly, with broken panes and curtains faded and flapping. On the pavement the dibris lay strewn of household furniture which had been carefully carried out, and then left in the mad stampede of the panic. One could picture it all as the terror had spread and the horror had been whispered from mouth to mouth, “He’s broken through—the Boche is coming.”