"Shell grazed him at Mons? Shell hell! It was a pan o' hot dough that fell on his leg in the bake-shop, and I'll never forget his yell tae my dyin' day."
Like the last star of dawn the only remaining shred of poor Scotty's valor faded away and was gone.
CHAPTER XII
BEHEMOTH
The Somme district is composed of chalk pits; wherever the ground was dug up it showed white. This afforded an excellent opportunity for the enemy birds to spot any work we were doing. While in this section every man in the ranks looked very much like a white-wash artist—white dust everywhere, filling our eyes, ears, noses, mouths. Lord! when I think of that chalk dust!
For five days after the first advance of the tanks they were lying, six of them, immediately at the right of our battery on the edge of the road; no one seemed to know what they were doing there or what was contemplated. Then they moved up four miles to the edge of Pozières Woods, where they believed they would be safer from view, and for the further reason that they would not have so far to travel when the next drive was pulled off. They waddled in there at night, but the following morning Fritz's keen eye searched them out, wirelessed the necessary directions to their heaviest battery, and in almost less time than it takes to write it tremendous shells came smashing around, damaging one of them pretty severely, and the other five immediately waddled back to a safer place in the rear.
That same night canvas dummies were drawn up by mules and set up in the same place. Again the keen-eyed birds of the air spotted them, flashed their range back to their heaviest mouthpieces, and for the better part of the day the entire batteries of their heaviest caliber, expended their energies and their shells on the dummies; there was no kind or character of explosive shell that did not land on the frauds.
Late in the afternoon two of the air birds wanted to get down a little closer, undoubtedly to satisfy themselves as to how the work of destruction had progressed, and one of our little observation planes gave battle to the visitors, engaging the nearest one first. His companion bird made for ours, but before he could get underneath to do anything, the first German bird had been winged and downed. Our anti-aircraft guns now made it so warm for the other bird that he beat it. The visit, however, must have had beneficial results for Fritz, for immediately after the plane returned to their lines, he ceased paying any attention whatever to the dummies. That night we put the real tanks behind the dummies and the day following not a single shell broke over or near them, and that same night they crept down into Pozières Valley under shelter of a bombardment made to prevent the keen ear of Fritz detecting the throbbing of their engines.
By this time batteries had been and were being installed everywhere at Pozières where there was room to place a gun: like beavers the men were working as busily as men could work, although they were constantly subjected to the severest strafing; but on the Somme it seemed that nobody minded. For my part I had the firm conviction that death would come when it would come and not till then, and I went about my work absolutely careless of any possible hurt. And I can positively testify to the same state of mind in each one of my comrades,—not one of whom seemed to think of his personal safety in any way whatsoever when there was work to be done.
Here the British soldier's fatalism was exemplified in the superbest manner!