He galloped off to the head of the column. Then I noticed that someone was running to catch up behind. For a moment I thought it was a gunner of the detachments; then I recognised Suzette. They went at the walk across the valley; as they neared the top of the crest on the other side, shells began to burst. They were now a target for the enemy, and broke into first the trot and then the gallop. In a cloud of dust and smoke they disappeared from sight. Ten minutes later the centre section went forward. About fifteen minutes after that I pulled out taking with me the remaining section. I glanced back at my men. We’d been in tight corners before together. I would take a bet on how they would behave. Among them all there was only one query-mark—Driver Trottrot. He was riding lead of one of the first-line wagons. If he’d got over his fear of shell-fire, within the next hour he would have his chance to prove it.
There was only one road by which to climb the crest; it had been well advertised by the other batteries. As we reached the top, we were skeletoned against the sky-line and hell broke loose about us. Setting spurs to our horses, we went off at the wild tear. With the vehicles swaying and thundering behind us, we passed over the first line of resistance, which our infantry had captured that morning. The air was heavy with the smell of gas, but worse than the gas were the incendiary shells, which sent up showers of liquid fire where they struck, maddening the horses.
On account of the trench-systems it was impossible to go across the open country, so we had to bear to the right and come down on to the Cambrai-Arras road. It was crowded with transport—tanks, pontoons and lorries full of engineers, being rushed up to bridge and hold the canals in the belief that the attack was still going ahead. We had to slow down to the crawl in places. The road was a sure target for the enemy; he knew that it was our one means of advance and, consequently, gave it constant attention. One vehicle struck caused a block in the traffic for half a mile; men worked furiously among the falling shells to drag the cripples to one side. In the ditches, where they had fallen that morning, dead horses and men, both the enemy’s and ours, lay crushed and crumpled. No one wished to pay heed to them; we did our utmost to ignore them as though they were utterly negligible. But they seemed to cry out to us, appealing for our pity; then, when we shuddered, threatening us with the same terrifying, uncared-for Nemesis. When we let our eyes rest on them they were lying harmless and quiet, but we had the feeling that behind our backs they sat up with their wounds gaping, and gnawed their fists at us. Our animals shied at the corpses, breaking into a sweat and becoming unmanageable, If the dead were not a sufficient warning of what war could do to us, there was always the crimson returning tide of battered men, washing grievously past us back to Arras like a stream of blood.
Patriotism and glory! They sounded empty words compared with life. There was only one word that was an incentive to keep us steady—pride. We might survive; we did not wish to live with selves who would have to hang their heads. Yes, and there was another incentive—duty: the thought of comrades still further forward, to whom the roar of our eighteen-pounders would be happy as a peal of bells.
Crawling, hailing, trotting for brief spells, we had travelled about four thousand yards when we saw the windmill on the rise, from which the Major was observing, and in front of the windmill the Hindenburg Line which we were supposed to have smashed. In the plain which stretched behind the mill, our sacrifice batteries were strong out, belching fire. Across the plain our supporting infantry were trickling up in Indian file, winding their way about the batteries in action and side-stepping to avoid the bursting shells.
Suddenly we understood, as though the meaning of what for four years we had been doing were being revealed to us for the first time. In a flash we saw war’s glory, its wickedness, magnanimity, challenge and the amazing fortitude it begets in men. It taught unbrave, ordinary chaps how to try and go on trying, long after hope seemed at an end. Each one of those batteries out there in the plain was like a “Little Revenge,” surrounded and dragged down by weight of numbers; but out or sheer self-respecting stubbornness it never ceased spurting fire. Everyone of those infantry, plodding stolidly forward, was quaking at the thought of the Judgment Day up front; but each one of them would rather die a thousand deaths than shew the white-feather. The sight was blinding, maddening, intoxicating. If those chaps didn’t mind dying, why should we hang on to life?
Leaving the first-line wagons parked by the roadside, we set off at the gallop with the guns and firing-battery wagons to where we saw Heming’s four guns blazing away in the sunshine. The infantry stood aside to give us passage. They waved their caps and shouted. We could not hear a word of what they said; we only saw their lips moving. The pounding of our going drowned all other sounds.
We swung into line on Heming’s right, flinging our horses back on their haunches. Before we had had time to unhook, a shell had burst directly under the centre team of A. Sub’s gun; men and horses were rolling. We dragged our drivers out and had to shoot the horses before we could get the gun into action. Then Bedlam broke loose.
Whether it was that the enemy had seen the heads of our horsemen above the rise and had got the line on us over open sights, or whether he had seen the flash of Heming’s firing before we had come up, we could not tell. In any case he was upon us now. All along the line of guns his hurricane of shells began to burst. They fell on top and plus and minus of us. shutting us off from help. From our wagon-lines on the roadside our peril had been sized up and teams were coming at the gallop to drag us out. They never got as far as us. Two hundred yards short, as though he had been potting at them with a rifle, the enemy caught them, and they crashed and sank in a cloud of dust. No sooner were they down than fresh teams dashed out. By his riding I recognised the lead-driver of the foremost team as Trottrot. At last his opportunity had come. He was winning his spurs and proving to all the watching world that he was not yellow He would never reach us. He was riding towards certain and useless death. He was almost in the storm-centre, when I ran out and signalled him back.
In the middle of the battery, as cool and collected as if nothing were happening, Heming sat, his map-board on his knees. Suzette knelt beside him, doing his pencilling and listening through the ‘phone to the directions of the Major from up front. Now and then he looked up to give his orders for new ranges and angles; the expression on his face was triumphant. Every so often he left his map-board and walked among the men, encouraging them, “Stick to it, boys. We’ve got to blow the enemy out of the wire. It won’t take much longer now.”