CHAPTER XVI
BEFORE VIMY
In the course of ten days we arrived at Bully-Grenay, situated in the very heart of the mining district, three mines being located in the town itself. We were still working on the Vimy Ridge proposition. At no time in France were our quarters more comfortable than here; each gun of my battery was stationed in the cellar of a private house on the outskirts of the town from which the civilians had been shelled, and at night in the midst of a game of cards, or engaged in our letter writing, or reading, when we got the "S.O.S." signal, the lanyard was at my hand and I had only to pull the rope. Our quarters were heated by coal purchased direct from the mine and furnished to us at ten cents per bag. Every mine in this place was worked only at night, the smoke of the industry indicating to Fritz where to plant his shells; therefore, the entire coal mining was done during the hours of sleep.
The Huns were making a most determined effort to get possession of Bully-Grenay and these most valuable coal mines, and they were anxiously looking forward to the time when they could attack successfully, and knowing how vital to us it was to get out this coal, they concentrated their efforts through the daytime on the mine shafts in an effort to destroy them; but having no smoke signals to guide their fire, their efforts generally were futile.
A notable instance of the spirit controlling our ideas of warfare was splendidly illustrated in this particular sector. Among the captured French mines that the Germans were working was one in close proximity to a church, of whose existence they took particular pains to let us know; and the church, in addition to being used as a protection for the mine, was also used as a camouflage for one of their batteries, the guns being placed immediately in front of it. It is repugnant to the very soul of a British soldier to level his gun at a church, so Fritz was able to get away with his camouflage.
On the morning of the third day of our visit here we were treated to another superb example of kultur. The school children were playing in the school yard and Fritz dropped a shell in their midst, killing and wounding several, following it up by two others that smashed the schoolhouse. A panic followed among the teachers and children, and the only thing we could do at the time was to stand there and watch the devilishness. Some of the men of an infantry battalion who were billeted on the outskirts of the town, rushed to the school and carried out the wounded and dead. If Fritz could have seen and heard the maddened fury of those rescuers as they carried out the maimed and bleeding little ones, his first thought would have been to have given them as wide a berth as possible; but when they did meet,—God help them!
At 1:00 o'clock in the morning Fritz opened up with gas shells, smothering the civilian population, and the people who were running out of the town, choking and suffocating, brought to my mind a most vivid recollection of the city of Ypres. How can I describe the agony, the despair on the faces of the inoffending citizens who were having their homes blasted to bits, their lungs choked with suffocation, separated from their loved ones in the wild scramble of the night for shelter and safety! Any place, anywhere but there!
Donning our helmets we got to our guns and waited for orders, which we presently received. I never worked with more love and energy than I did that night, and never did I spit more liberally on each individual shell as it was shoved into place for departure. Inside of twenty minutes Fritzie decided that the pastime of shelling Bully-Grenay with gas shells was not as funny as it was cracked up to be; he broke off short and quick.
In the two weeks following we were at Estari Chic, another Vimy Ridge position. Here we were stationed at the horse lines. While there, an order was issued that we could not buy bread from the civilian population for the reason that our military authorities considered the rations we were getting were sufficient for all our needs. The shop-keepers were quite willing to sell any soldier, however, and we were more than anxious to get his bread if we could safely do so. The manner in which we disobeyed orders was as follows: The bake-shop was about half-a-mile from our billet and we had to pass several policemen on the way down; two fellows would stand outside the building while I went inside and purchased the bread, and if policemen were seen coming, the man nearest to the officer would give the signal and I would duck off into an alley-way and up the back streets into the billet, and it would not be long before my outpost would join me; then the jam would be produced and in short order the delicious French bread and jam would be winding its way down into our voracious stomachs.
We left this point for Camblain-le-Abbeau for another nip at the ridge from that angle, pulled into the wagon lines for two days and then got into action on the Lens-Arras road. We laid the guns on the side of the road, camouflaging them in the usual fashion. We were the first battalion to arrive, but within four days 100 or more batteries were there. Our work here was to cut the wire in preparation for one of the usual raids, to blind Fritz and keep him guessing where the drive was to be launched. We performed our work flawlessly, the boys of the infantry going over through the gaps we had made and capturing several machine guns and prisoners.
On the second day following, the Captain asked me to go into the trenches to assist him in observation work. We found after inspection that the point we wanted to get our data upon could not be obtained from the low-lying trenches, and the Captain, wondering where we had best go, happened to get his fancy settled on a mine shaft. "We will go up there, Grant," he said, and together we made our way to the spot. The climb to the top was no easy matter, and when we got there we set about making ourselves as comfortable as possible. As soon as we had our apparatus working, the Captain commenced registering the cemetery, the tombstones of which were being carried away by Fritz to place around his dugouts. The Captain flashed the necessary information and in ten minutes they were pretty thoroughly shot up.