With Haig on the Somme

by D. H. Parry

"We'll have a go at it, Hawke," he said. "But we'd better have half a dozen." And as Hawke and Tiddler crawled back out of the firing-line, Dennis called four others by name, and beckoned them to follow him behind the ruins of an adjoining house.

"We're going to take that gun, boys," he said.

"There are two guns, sir," corrected one of the men.

"Then we're going to take both of them," said Dennis; and, stooping down on his hands and knees, he crawled through the ruined gardens, only pausing as they came to a gap where there was no cover, and darting across it to the shelter of the next heap.

Two such openings they negotiated successfully, but as they crossed the third a German bullet smashed the water bottle at Hawke's hip.

"My bloomin' luck!" he grinned. "And me wiv a thirst I wouldn't sell for 'arf a crown, 'cos it's honestly worth three-and-six. Look out, sir! We're coming level with the church now." And, glancing to their left as they lay flat, they saw a curl of smoke wreathing out of the embrasure, and another succession of little puffs above it, which told them that the second gun had been hoisted to the first floor of the ruined belfry.

Dennis raised himself on his hands and reconnoitred carefully. The air was full of sound. The rifle-fire behind them mingled with the continuous rattle of the guns they had planned to capture, and yet not an enemy was to be seen, although they knew that there were thousands of them hidden away in their immediate neighbourhood. Now all depended on their gaining the back of the church unseen.

Far away on the right they could hear an English cheer, and knew that the battalions on that flank of the brigade were making good, while their own portion of the line was held up.

In front of them lay a team of dead horses, attached to the fragments of a wagon, and the flies were buzzing about them. A little farther on was a German reservist on his back with his knees up, and the flies were busy with him too. The rest was an extraordinary wilderness of shattered homes and shell craters, which seemed of no possible value to anybody, but it had to be captured, and time was flying.

"You see that third heap in front of us?" said Dennis. "We'll make for that, and, if we reach it, then dash straight across the open for the back of the church, and leave the rest to chance. It's rotten work fighting broken bricks and mortar, but there it is; it's got to be done."