Servants of the Guns

by Jeffery E. Jeffery

The major had been ordered to cut the wire entanglements between two given points and to stop firing at 4.30 a.m. precisely. He had no certain means of knowing whether he had completed his task or not. He only knew that his "lines of fire," his range, and his "height of burst" as previously registered in daylight were correct, that his layers could be depended upon, and that he had put about a thousand rounds of shrapnel into fifty yards of front. At 4.29 he rose and stood, watch in hand, in the doorway of his dug-out. A man with a megaphone waited at his elbow. The major, war-worn though he was, was still young enough in spirit to be thrilled by the mechanical regularity of his battery's fire. This perfection of drill was his work, the result of months and months of practice, of loving care, and of minute attention to detail.

Dawn was beginning to creep into the sky, and he could just distinguish the silhouettes of the two right-hand guns. The flash as one of them fired revealed momentarily the figures of the gunners grouped round the breech like demons round some spectral engine of destruction. Precisely five seconds afterwards a second flash denoted that the next gun had fired—and so on in sequence from right to left until it was the turn of Number One again.

"Stop!" said the major, when the minute hand of his watch was exactly over the half-hour.

"Stop!" roared the man with the megaphone.

It was as if the order had been heard all along the entire front. The bombardment ceased almost abruptly, and rifle and machine-gun fire became audible again. On a colossal scale the effect was that of the throttling down of a powerful motor-car whose engine had been allowed to race. Then, not many moments afterwards, from far away to the eastward there came faint, confused sounds of shouts and cheering. It was the infantry, the long-suffering, tenacious, wonderful infantry charging valiantly into the cold grey dawn along the avenues prepared by the guns.

For Pickersdyke it had been a night of pure joy, unspoilt by any qualms of conscience. He had been welcomed at the battery as a kind of returned wanderer and given a section of guns at once. The major—who feared no man's wrath, least of all that of a dug-out D.A.C. commander—had promised to back him up if awkward questions were asked. Pickersdyke had only one cause for disappointment—the whole thing had gone too smoothly. He was bursting with technical knowledge, he could have repaired almost any breakdown, and had kept a keen look-out for all ordinary mistakes. But nothing went wrong and no mistakes were made. In this battery the liability of human error had been reduced to a negligible minimum. Pickersdyke had had nothing further to do than to pass orders and see that they were duly received. Nevertheless he had loved every moment of it, for he had come into his own—he was back in the old troop, taking part in a "big show." As he observed to the major whilst they were drinking hot coffee in the dug-out afterwards—

"Even if I do get court-martialled for desertion, sir, that last little lot was worth it!"

And he grinned as does a man well pleased with the success of his schemes. To complete his satisfaction, Scupham appeared soon afterwards bringing up a large bundle of kit and a few luxuries in the way of food. It transpired that he had presented himself to the last-joined subaltern of the D.A.C. and had bluffed that perplexed and inexperienced officer into turning out a cart to drive him as far as the battery wagon line, whence he had come up on an ammunition wagon.

It was almost daylight when the battery opened fire again, taking its orders by telephone now from the F.O.O.,[15] who was in close touch with the infantry and could see what was happening. The rate of fire was slow at first; then it suddenly quickened, and the range was increased by a hundred yards. Some thirty shells went shrieking on their mission and then another fifty yards were added. The infantry was advancing steadily, and just as steadily, sixty or seventy yards in front of their line, the curtain of protecting shrapnel crept forward after the retiring enemy. At one point the attack was evidently held up for a while; the battery changed to high explosive and worked up to its maximum speed, causing Lorrison to telephone imploring messages for more and still more ammunition.

[15] Forward observing officer.