And so on, minute after minute, while the heavens and the earth were full of the messengers of death.
The command to go over came at length, and I heard a cheer pass down the line. It sounded strangely amid the booming of the guns, and the voices of the men seemed small. All the same, it was hearty and confident. Many of them, I knew, would have a sense of relief at getting out into the open, and feel that they were no longer like rabbits in their burrows. Helter, skelter, we went across the open ground, some carelessly and indifferently, others with stern, set faces. Here one cracked a joke with his pal, while there another stopped suddenly, staggered, and fell.
The ground, I remember, was flat just there, and I could see a long way down the line, men struggling across the open space. There was no suggestion of military precision, that is in the ordinary sense of the word, yet in another there was. Each man was ready, and each man had that strange light in his eyes which no pen can describe.
We took the first trench without difficulty. The few Germans who remained were dazed, bewildered, and eager to surrender. They came up out of their dug-outs, their arms uplifted, piteously crying for mercy.
'All right, Fritz, old cock, we won't hurt you! You don't deserve it.
But there, I suppose you had to do what you was told.'
Now and then, however, no mercy was shown. Many of the machine-gunners held up one hand, and cried for mercy, while with the other they worked the guns. However, the first line of trenches was taken, a great many prisoners captured, and then came the more difficult and dangerous business. The second line must be taken as well as the first, and the second line was our objective.
By this time we did not know where we were, and we were so mixed up that we didn't know to what battalion or regiment we belonged. In the gigantic struggle, extending for miles, there was no possibility of keeping together. The one thing was to drive the Germans out of the second line of trenches, or better still to make them prisoners. But every inch of ground became more dangerous. German shells were blowing up the ground around us, and decimating our advancing forces.
It was here that I thought my number was up. A shell exploded a few yards from me, shook the ground under my feet, threw me into the air, and half buried me in the débris. It was one of those moments when it seemed as though every man was for himself, and when, in the mad carnage, it was impossible to realize what had happened to each other. I was stunned by the explosion, and how long I lay in that condition I don't know.
When I became conscious, I felt as though my head were going to burst, while a sense of helplessness possessed me. Then I realized that, while my legs were buried, my head was in the open. Painfully and with difficulty I extricated myself, and then, scarcely realizing what I was doing, I staggered along in the direction in which I thought my boys had gone.
Evening was now beginning to fall, and I had lost my whereabouts. Meanwhile, there was no cessation in the roar of artillery. As I struggled along, I saw, not fifty yards away, a group of men. And then I heard, coming through the air, that awful note which cannot be described. It was a whine, a yell, a moan, a shriek, all in one. Beginning on a lower note, it rose higher and higher, then fell again, and suddenly a huge explosive dropped close where the men stood. A moment later, a great mass of stuff went up, forming a tremendous mushroom-shaped body of earth. When it subsided, a curly cloud of smoke filled the air. I was sick and bewildered by what I had passed through, and could scarcely realize the purport of what I had just seen. But presently I saw a man digging, digging, as if for his life.