These things are happening on the field of battle, and there are many of our officers and men who have such fantastic experiences, and tell them as though they were normal adventures of life.
IX
HOW THE SCOTS TOOK GUÉMAPPE
May 1
Birds are singing their spring songs on this May Day in the woods very close to where men are fighting, and the fields on the edge of the shell-crater country are yellow with cowslips, so that war seems more hateful than ever, when the earth is so good, and all the colour and scent of it. But the work of war goes on whatever the weather. To-day, as well as yesterday, the enemy's chief targets were Arleux, captured by the Canadians, and Guémappe, which fell to Scottish troops, both of which places he has tried to take back by repeated and violent counter-attacks. He is still in a trench on the east side of Guémappe, running down to a bit of ruin called Cavalry Farm, where there has been close fighting for several days since the great battle on April 23, when Guémappe was taken by the Scots of the 15th Division.
That battle round Guémappe is a great episode in the history of the Scottish troops in France. It was fighting which lasted for nearly a week after the hour of attack in the first daylight of April 23. At that hour long waves of the Seaforths, Black Watch, and Camerons left the trenches they had dug under shell-fire, and went forward towards Guémappe. They were faced at once by blasts of machine-gun fire, and although our artillery barrage crashed across the field some of the German strong points were still held in force. At one, about which I know most, there was a gap between the Seaforths and Camerons owing to the feeble light of the dawn, in which men could only dimly see, but this was filled up by some companies of the Black Watch. For nearly three hours the Scots were held up by the fire of German machine-guns and artillery, and suffered many casualties, but they fought on, each little group of men acting with separate initiative, and it is to their honour as soldiers that they destroyed every machine-gun post in front of them. One sergeant of the Black Watch fought his way down a bit of trench alone and knocked out the gun-crew so that the line could advance. Two hundred prisoners were taken in that first forward sweep, when the Seaforths advanced in long lines and went through and beyond the village of Guémappe with loud shouts and cheers. They were checked again by machine-gun fire from many different directions, and immediately from the ruin called Cavalry Farm ahead of them. This was afterwards cleared, and many Germans lie dead there. Then between eleven and twelve in the morning the enemy developed his first counter-attack. He massed masses of men in the valley below Guémappe, flung a storm of shells on to the village, and then sent forward his troops to work round the spur on which the Highlanders held their line. It was then that the Camerons and Black Watch showed their fierce and stubborn fighting spirit. They tore rents in the lines of advancing Bavarians with Lewis-gun and rifle-grenade fire, and the enemy's losses were great, so that the supporting troops passed over lines of dead comrades. But the attack was pressed by strong bodies of men, and the thin lines of the Scots, exhausted by long hours of fighting, were forced to swing back.
We now know that first reports were wrong, when it was said that the enemy retook Guémappe for a time. He never set foot in it again, though the Scottish line fell back. Little groups of Highland officers and men refused to retreat. Some of them held the cemetery and defended it against all attacks. A captain of the Black Watch with seventy men remained in the north of the village for four hours, though they had no protection on either flank. One officer and twelve men of the Camerons at another spot refused to leave during the retirement, and were found still holding out when their comrades renewed their attack and regained the ground. Another officer of the Camerons lost all the men of his machine-gun team, but brought up the gun himself and worked it with another officer already wounded. Afterwards, to save ammunition, he sniped the enemy with their own rifles which they had dropped on the field. Later the village of Guémappe was isolated, for our artillery bombardment prevented all approach by the enemy. Then another brigade of Scots streamed round by the north of the village, and the whole line of Highland troops swept back the enemy. By that time the Bavarian troops had no more fight in them, and knew they were beaten. They retired in great disorder, leaving great numbers of dead and wounded.
For a day and a half the Scots were able to rest a little, though always under shell-fire; but afterwards there was fierce patrol fighting round Cavalry Farm and in outposts near by. The enemy's fire was intense, and he commanded this position from the high ground to the north, but small parties of Scots held on doggedly outside the ruins of the farm until, after five days, they were withdrawn.
I have told all this briefly; but, even so, I hope it may reveal a little of the stubborn courage with which those men refused to give way, and when forced back for a few hours after great losses, regained the ground they had captured with a spirit which belongs to the history of their fighting clans.