"If only we had a gun able to bear upon that mob, sir," exclaimed Sergeant Alderhame, "we could enfilade the whole crowd."
It was a vain wish, for in falling the muzzles of the quickfirers had been held up by the brickwork, with the result that they had been wrenched from their mountings, while the mound of rubble was a few inches too high to enable the maxims to be depressed sufficiently to bear upon the Huns in the street.
None of the enemy paid any attention to the stranded Tank. Perhaps the imminent danger of the attacking infantry exercised the prior claim. At any rate, the crew of the landship were passive spectators of the combat, unable to bring a gun to bear upon their foes yet in a position to see most of what was taking place at the commencement of the village street.
Despite machine-gun fire and an incessant fusillade of bombs the storming party gained the gap in the barricade. Two companies of different regiments were the first to get to grips with the enemy. One was a Highland battalion, the other was comprised of men of Ralph's old regiment—the redoubtable Wheatshires.
Both the Jocks and the Tommies were yelling furiously. Amid the babel of voices could be heard the ominous shout of "No Quarter!" The men were up against the Prussian Guard, and there were old scores to pay off. Both the Wheatshires and the Highlanders had cause to remember a certain incident earlier in the war, when under pressure of overwhelming numbers the men had to give ground. Every wounded Briton left on the field was mercilessly bombed or bayoneted, and the perpetrators of this cruel and unnecessary act were Huns of the Prussian Guard. No wonder, then, that it was now a case of te quoque.
Magnificently the khaki-clad men came on. Numbers fell, but still the forward movement was maintained. Up and over they swarmed. Bombs met bombs, bayonet crossed bayonet, rifle-butts descended with sickening thuds on heads. Men badly wounded grappled madly on the ground, regardless of those who trampled on them, their one object being to "do in" their immediate antagonists. Shells from German light field guns were dropping into the pack of friend and foe, till the air rained blood.
In the fury of the fight the combatants were scornful of the dangers. To Ralph, temporarily a mere onlooker, the ghastliness of the whole business was apparent. The hollow mockery of modern civilization stood unmasked. Was it merely to satisfy the insensate craving for glory on the part of that megalomaniac Emperor that millions of Huns and their vassals poured out their blood like water, and more equal numbers of Britons and their Allies freely risked their lives to thwart the sanguinary ambitions of militant Prussianism?
The Kaiser had sown the wind and was now reaping the whirlwind. Whether the present war would be the last, and the sword finally beaten into a ploughshare, still remained to be proved. In calmer moments would the Great Powers grasp the full significance of the devastating and murderous effect of modern war, or is the primeval instinct so deeply rooted in mankind that as long as the world exists international disputes must be settled by the arbitrament of the sword?
The sight of the frenzied mob of hale, active men, most of whom had until a few months before been engaged in eminently peaceful commercial and agricultural pursuits and had been almost entirely ignorant of the use of the rifle, seemed to prove otherwise. Beneath the veneer of civilization the fighting instinct, controlled by centuries of law-governed authority, there still remained the pugnacious instinct. And now, to quote a well-known critic, "the lid of hell was off," with a vengeance.
For a futile ten minutes pandemonium reigned. Mingled with the rattle of machine-guns, the sharp reports of rifle-shots, and the crash of steel, were shouts of vengeful triumph and the cries of the wounded. Through the eddying clouds of dust and smoke tiles and bricks from the shelled houses flew in showers. Occasionally whole buildings would collapse like a pack of cards, burying the German machine gunners in the ruins. Fires, too, were breaking out to add to the horrors of the scene, while with typical indifference the German artillery were dropping shrapnel and gas-shells in the midst of the pack of swaying and struggling combatants.