III
WE started off at 9 A. m. feeling like a pair of generals, Tubby and I with our brace of eighteen-pounders, our ammunition-wagons and our men. We were setting out practically as free-lances, to discover our own chances of glory. The only senior officer to whom we had to report was the battalion-colonel; there was no one in the rear with whom we had to keep in touch, who would have the power to hold us back. How much fighting we would see before dusk fell depended entirely upon our own initiative. We intended to see a lot.
We had been given maps, which would carry us about fifteen miles into what had been the enemy’s country. We had been given rations to last one meal for the men and horses, the usual twenty-four hours’ allowance for the battery not having arrived when we made our start. The Major promised to follow us up with provisions later, if that were possible; if it were not, we would have to forage for ourselves. In view of the extremely meagre breakfast we had had, this shortness of supplies was the one small cloud on our otherwise bright horizon. The last sight we had as we pulled out on our journey was the tragically covetous faces of the companions from whom we were parting. “Goodbye, old things,” they shouted. “Win a V. C. apiece. If you don’t, you’re not worth your salt.”
The road down to Domart was by this time heavily crowded with transport moving in both directions. The traffic moving forward consisted for the most part of tanks and lorries, carrying up infantry and ammunition. The returning traffic was made up almost solely of prisoners, walking wounded and motor-transport bringing bark our casualties. At first it was necessary to proceed at the walk in a crawling procession, which often halted. As Tubby rode beside me at the head of our column, we planned our individual campaign together. We arranged that I would lead the guns, while he rode ahead with mounted signallers and sent me back my targets. We weren’t going to miss a trick; we were going to take everything. Wherever there was a machine-gun to be knocked out, we’d be there to do it.
Through the stench and reek of battle the sun was shining valiantly. With the melting of the fog, our sense of tension had vanished. We felt tremendously sporting, as though we were riding out to a day of hunting. To keep our thoughts from growing serious, we made up poker hands out of the Army numbers on the ambulances that we passed.
Presently Tubby said, “Did you ever think that the thing might happen to you that has happened to those chaps?”
I followed his glance and saw that he was looking at three of our infantry sprawled out by the roadside; they had evidently all three been caught by the one shell. I nodded. “Oh yes, I’ve thought of that. I expect we all have.”
“But I don’t mean simply thinking of it,” he insisted. “What I mean is have you ever known in your bones that you weren’t going to last—that you were going to look exactly as those chaps look before the war is ended?”