At Neuve Chapelle our trenches presented a salient[52] which could be swept by fire on both sides, and the Seaforths, who occupied some of them, were much exposed, and suffered heavily. The 47th Sikhs, the 9th Bhopal Infantry, and the 20th and 21st Companies of the 1st Sappers and Miners were now ordered to advance. They dashed forward with great spirit, and though they were under artillery fire for the first time, showed great indifference to the bursting shells. It was noticed that after the first few had exploded near them they hardly troubled to look around.
The fighting was of the most desperate and confused character, and the Germans flung their dead from their trenches to make cover, under which they advanced. No sooner had the British won a hundred yards of trench than they were driven back by a counter-attack. The line swayed to and fro, now in front of the ruins of what had been Neuve Chapelle, now behind them. Trenches were dug in the streets, and sometimes were only a few yards apart. Part of Neuve Chapelle was won, but the whole of it could not be recovered.
Next day there was a terrible fight at Festubert, a village less than two miles to the north-west of La Bassée. Ever since the 18th of October the German guns had been pounding the little place, which was held by the thin line of the 2nd Manchesters. In the early dawn of the 29th the Germans swarmed out of their trenches and swept down in dense masses on the British infantry, who were driven back to their supporting trench. Here they rallied, and thrust back the Germans who followed them. One of the lost trenches was recaptured by two men—Lieutenant James Leach and Sergeant Hogan, who were afterwards awarded the Victoria Cross, as you will hear later.
More Indians now arrived, and the defence of the La Bassée gate was entrusted to them, to two and a half British brigades, and most of the Second Corps artillery. Amongst the Indian infantry were the 8th Gurkha Rifles. You will remember that the Gurkhas are little men. The trenches which they took over had been dug for taller white men, and they found that they could not see out of them. The German machine guns enfiladed[53] the Gurkhas, and most of their white officers fell. Little wonder that, so placed and so strange to this new kind of warfare, they were forced back. Wandering in the dark, they managed by good luck to stumble on the trenches of the 1st Seaforths, a regiment to whom they are blood brothers.
For the next two days there was a heavy bombardment all along our position, and especially against the left wing behind Neuve Chapelle. On 2nd November the Germans again pierced the British line in one place, but a desperate charge of the 2nd Gurkhas, the famous regiment which had fought so bravely on the ridge at Delhi,[54] saved the situation.
For the next three weeks the troops in this section were engaged in beating off German attacks, which gradually grew less and less violent as the Germans concentrated their forces farther north for a great assault on Ypres. Our line was forced back till it ran from Givenchy, to which we stubbornly clung, north by Festubert, and onwards towards Estaires. After an unsuccessful attack on Givenchy (7th November) there was a fortnight's lull, during which the contest was little more than an artillery duel.
CHAPTER XI.
THE INDIANS IN THE TRENCHES.
Every boy and girl has heard of the wonderful valour and daring of the Sikhs and Gurkhas. Many people in this country fully believed that they would prove invincible on European battlefields. Too much was, perhaps, expected of them: they found themselves waging an entirely new kind of warfare in a cold, clammy land, which numbed their limbs and broke down their stamina. It was all so strange and new—the awful roar of the great howitzer shells, the fighting from holes in the ground, the endless stream of shrapnel, the bitter cold, and the absence of those fierce, furious charges in which they delight. At first their nerve was shaken, but they quickly recovered, and it must be remembered that when they broke they dashed forward just as frequently as they retired. Nevertheless, their splendid courage was not in doubt for a moment, and before long the enemy went in terror of them, as the following letter, published in a German newspaper, plainly shows:—