CHAPTER XXX
THE LAST FIGHT
Midnight; we were sleeping in an orchard about a mile back of the lines; I was awakened by a sergeant and told to "Fall in." We did so, and the captain told us what we had to do.
"Boys, you are going to try and take Redoubt B; the artillery, what we have of it, will shell their first line for half an hour, and then will lift and play on their second line. While they are doing this you will go over. There's a lot of us who are not going to come back, but the job must be done and I know you will do it."
While he was speaking, thoughts of mother, father and home surged more vividly through my mind than at any other time, but moments for reflection were few. We swung out of the orchard on to the road and nothing could be heard except the dull sound of trudging feet. Flares would shoot up into the sky, to hang suspended for a moment, and die away leaving everything in gloom once more. Every now and then a muffled shriek or a coughing gurgle would tell of the passing or wounding of some gallant lad.
By that corner of hell we trudged silently, every man busy with his own thoughts. At last we turned up the death trap to our left, on the famous Z—— road. Over its ghastly piles of dead we filed on for many yards without touching solid ground, so thickly lay the dead.
At this time we were sighted by the Huns and treated to a fusillade of machine guns and rifle fire. We were now almost to shelter and the men made their way, as only men under fire can, to the safety of a well-constructed trench.
A short rest, then on again, this time up a shallow communication trench and then out behind a low-lying parapet. Three or four huge Bavarians lay with faces to the stars; they had been hurriedly laid to one side by our leading files.
The fitful light of the flares intensified the mute horror of the fallen jaw and the unspeakable terror of the dead faces. Still, such sights now failed to move us, and with but a perfunctory glance we passed on.
Here we waited in silence for the word. What an hour of mental agony. The steady hammer, hammer of the light guns, the monotonous bass muttering of the heavies, the shrill, hysterical crackle of machine gun and rifle and the shrieking and cracking of bursting shells seemed to sing hell's requiem to us poor mortals waiting. My God! that waiting. At such a time man's trivial thoughts sink into utter oblivion and the naked soul shows bare.