The position we were looking for was in the neighbourhood of a crossroads, unpropitiously marked “Death Corner” on the map. It was at the entrance to a village which our infantry were rumoured to have captured at dawn; whether they had captured it or, having captured it, had been able to hold it, we did not know for certain.
Some parts of our journey we had to go at the walk on account of the roughness of the ground, but most of the way we went at the trot. As the sun grew stronger, our horses broke into a foam of sweat. Men and animals were wildly excited. This-was soldiering as depicted by battle-artists and recruiting posters—a very different job from the tedious, wakeful misery of night-marches. All the officers and mounted N. C. O’s had picked up swords from the fallen cavalry. A good many of the men had armed themselves with revolvers which they had salvaged from the dead. We didn’t know how close we were going to get to the enemy, but we had hopes.
What struck us most forcibly, especially as we drew nearer to the thunder of the guns, was the lightness with which our line was held. One saw no supporting troops; it seemed as though we had thrown every last man into the actual fighting. We began to apprehend why we had to keep on attacking: the Hun was falling back on his reserves; if we let him halt to regain his breath he would take the offensive. Were that to happen, our retreat might prove just as precipitate as our advance.
We were riding now through the batteries which had leap-frogged us yesterday. They were firing away like mad. The air was shaken with rapid concussions. It was impossible to make oneself heard; all our commands had to be given by signals. On ahead things looked pretty hot; the ground kept spouting up in fountains of dust and flame. Increasingly the enemy retaliation was finding us out. We clapped spurs to our horses and broke into a gallop.
Out of the cloud of drifting smoke our little Major emerged, signalling to us to follow him. He led us on clear beyond the other batteries, till we were almost treading on the heels of our infantry. We had scarcely downed trail, when he gave us our aiming-point and directions, and had us tearing off four rounds a minute. I looked at my wrist-watch. Pretty work! We had arrived just in time and had got into action on the second. As our teams trotted back to our temporary wagon-lines, a hail of shells came over, wounding several of the men and horses.
There was precious little information as to what had happened or was happening. Our infantry had captured the town immediately in front of us and were preparing to go forward behind our barrage to capture the next town which lay ahead. Everybody said that we had insufficient tanks for the task and that the enemy was making a determined stand. How much of this was conjecture and how much fact, nobody could assert positively. There was a feeling of tension and anxiety. No one was quite certain what he was expected to accomplish. Our own fear was that in firing without more exact information we might be killing our own men. The Major himself determined to go forward to ascertain the true condition of affairs. While he was gone, Heming returned from the wagon-lines, bringing with him two Hun field-guns he had found, so making us into an eight-gun battery.
We had been firing for about half an hour when a mounted signaller, sent back by the Major, rode up. He reported that the attack had been only partially successful, owing to the tremendous concentration of enemy machine-guns, which lay hidden in the wheat-fields between the two towns. Another attack was to take place within the hour; it was necessary that the battery should move up in order that our support might be more immediate and effective. The signaller added that the Major was at Death Corner, in full sight of the enemy and that his groom had been killed within five minutes of his arrival there.
We hooked in and started off by a mud-track. The mud-track was strewn on either side by men and horses, newly dead. Some of them we recognised as people who had passed us while we had been in action. The enemy shells were sweeping the track for all the world as though a gigantic hose were playing down its length. Now they would spray this part of it, then lift a hundred yards and spray that. Ahead of us stretched a billowy level of wheat-fields; to the right lay Rouvroy, the town which we had captured; at right angles to the track and passing in front of Rouvroy ran a road, which was clearly indicated above the wheat by a straight line of splintered trees. The point where the track met the road was Death Corner. It looked as unhealthy a spot as one could well imagine; everything was rocking in a whirlwind of explosions. Three hundred yards short of the corner we swung off to the left and came into action. Over the short distance which separated the battery from the Major we ran in a telephone wire. From where he was and indeed from any point on the high road, the entire battle-field lay exposed and, on its furthest edge, the entrenched town of Fouquescourt which it was essential we should possess.
The Major had arranged with the infantry that, at a given signal, we would at once open at an intense rate of fire and that behind our shells the advance against the town should commence. We had been firing for, perhaps, five minutes, when we received orders from our brigade headquarters, which were well in rear of us, to stop. The Major, watching from his point of vantage, saw that all of a sudden our advancing riflemen were left unprotected. He called to to know what was the matter and at once ordered us to go on. For the next two hours we purposely let our line to brigade go down so that we might be out of touch and left unhampered to do our work.
And what a two hours those next two hours were! The Hun was putting up the fight of his life. All through the three thousand yards of wheat-fields which separated Rouvroy from Fouquescourt wire-entanglements and machine-gun nests had been constructed. You could not see them for the grain, and did not know they were there until you were upon them. In the first advance which had failed, our men had walked straight into the traps and most of their officers had been shot down. In the second, which we had come up close to support, our men had wriggled their way forward and reached Fouquescourt, only to find that they were cut off and had left the enemy in the wheat behind them. In losing time we were giving the enemy his chance. He was bringing his guns up and getting them into better positions; every hour his artillery fire was becoming better directed and growing more intense. His airmen were regaining their courage, flying in leaps and bounds like great grasshoppers just above our heads, and picking off our men with machine-gun fire. We had to keep two Lewis guns mounted on the flanks of our battery to drive them off.