But suddenly the gunners were aware of a strange and terrifying sound rising above the thunder-claps of their own guns, the diminishing whinny of their own departing shells, the long roll of gun-fire on their flanks, the sharp tearing crashes of the enemy shell-bursts—a sound that grew louder and louder, rose from the hissing rush of a fast-running river to a fiercer, harsher note, a screaming vibrating roar that seemed to fill the earth and air and sky, that drowned the senses and held the men staring in amazement and anticipation of they knew not what. Then when the wild whirlwind of sound had reached a pitch beyond which it seemed impossible for it to rise, it broke in a terrific rolling c-r-r-r-ash that set the solid earth rocking. One battery was hidden from the other two by a writhing pall of thick black smoke, out of which whirled clods of earth, stones, and a flying cloud of yellow straw. When the smoke dissolved, and the dust and straw and chaff had settled, the other two batteries could see a gun of the third overturned, the gunners rolling or limping or lying still about it, an odd man here and there staggering from the other guns—but all the rest of the gunners in their proper and appointed places, the five remaining guns firing one by one in turn as regularly as if on a peace practice. The Brigade had been introduced to something quite new to it, and that it certainly never expected to meet in open field of battle—a high-explosive shell from one of the heaviest German pieces. But unexpected as it was, more terrible than the gunners had ever imagined, there was no time now to think about such things. The German infantry attack was advancing under cover of their artillery, a crackling roll of rifle fire was breaking out from the infantry trenches, sharp orders were shouting along the lines of guns. There was a pause while fuses were set to new times, while fresh aim was taken and new ranges adjusted.
‘Target, infantry advancin’—open sights...!’ said one of the gun-layers in repetition of his orders. ‘But where’s the bloomin’ infantry to get my open sights on?’
‘Where?’ shouted his Number One, and pointed over the layer’s shoulder as he stood up to look over the gun shield for a wider view. ‘Can’t you see ’em there? ’Ave you gone blind?’
‘That?’ said the layer, staring hard. ‘Is that infantry?’ He had been looking for the scattered dots of advancing men that were all his experience had told him to see of an advancing line. He was quite unprepared for the solid grey mass that he actually did see.
‘That’s infantry,’ snapped his sergeant. ‘Did you think it was airyplanes? Get to it now.’
The layer got to it, and in a few seconds the whole of the Brigade was pouring shells on the advancing mass as fast as the guns could be served. The Battery commanders had a vague idea that the enemy infantry had made some terrible mistake, had in error exposed themselves in mass in the open. When the guns had brought swift retribution for the mistake the mass would vanish; but meantime here was the guns’ opportunity—opportunity such as no gunner there had ever hoped to have. But when the mass persisted and pushed on in the teeth of the fire that every one knew must be murderous beyond words, the rate of gun-fire was slowed down, and the batteries set themselves deliberately to wipe this audacious infantry out of existence.
But then suddenly it began to look as if it were to be the Brigade that would be wiped out. A number of German guns turned on it, battered it with heavy high-explosive, lashed it with shrapnel, rent and tore and disrupted it with a torrent of light and heavy shells, a scorching whirlwind of fire, with blasts of leaping flame, with storms of splinters and bullets. One after another guns of the Brigade were put out of action, with guns destroyed or overthrown, with ammunition waggons blown up, with gun detachments killed or wounded. Gun by gun the fighting strength of the Brigade waned; but as each gun went the others increased their rate of fire, strove to maintain the weight of shells that a Brigade should throw. The guns that were destroying them were themselves invisible. To the Brigade there was no movement of men, no tell-tale groups, no betraying flash even, to show where their destroyers were in action. It is true that the Brigade spent no time looking for them, would not have spent a round on them if it had seen them. Its particular job had been plainly indicated to it—to stop the advancing infantry—and it had no time or shells to spare for anything else.
But grimly and stoically though they took their punishment, gamely and desperately though they strove to fulfil their task, it was beyond them. The grey mass was checked and even stopped at times, but it came on again, and at the guns the ranges shortened and shortened, to a thousand yards, to eight, seven, six hundred. After that it was a hopeless fight, so far as this Brigade was concerned. Most of their guns were out of action, their ammunition was nearly all expended, they were under a rifle fire that scourged the guns with whips of steel and lead, that cut down any man who moved from the shelter of his gun’s shield. Such guns as were left, such men as could move, continued to fire as best they might at ranges that kept getting still shorter and shorter. No teams could bring up ammunition waggons, so the rounds were carried up by hand across the bullet-swept field, until there were no more rounds to bring.
Since they were useless there, an attempt was made to bring the guns out of action and back under cover. It failed when after a minute or two half the remaining men had been cut down by bullets, and the commanders saw that nothing could move and live in the open. Then the order was passed to leave the guns and retire the men as best they could. That was at high noon, and for the next two or three hours the gunners tried in ones and twos to run the gauntlet of the fire and get back to cover. Some tried to crawl or to lie prone and wriggle out on their bellies; others stripped off bandoliers and haversacks and water-bottles, some even their jackets and boots to ‘get set’ like runners in a hundred-yard dash, crouching in the shelter of the gun shield, leaping out and away in a desperate rush. But crawl or wriggle or run made little odds. Some men went half the distance to safety, a few went three-quarters, one or two to within bare places of cover; but none escaped, and most went down before they were well clear of the gun. The few that from the first refused sullenly to abandon their guns, that swore amongst themselves to stick it out till dark if necessary and then drag the crippled guns away, came off best in the end because they lay and crouched under the scanty cover the guns gave, and watched the others go out to their deaths. They lay there through the long dragging hours of the afternoon with the bullets hissing and whistling over and past them, with the shells still crumping and crashing down at intervals, with the gun shields and wheels and steel waggon covers ringing and smacking to the impact of bullet and splinter, with one man here and another there jerking convulsively to a fresh wound—his first or his twenty-first as the case might be—groaning or cursing through set teeth, writhing in pain, or lying silent and still with all pain past.
Late in the afternoon there came a lull in the firing and a lessening of the bullet storm, and the order—a very imperative order—was passed for every man who could move to retire from the guns. So the few whole men came away, helping the wounded out as best they could; and even then they would not come empty-handed, and since they could not bring their guns, and they knew it was a retirement from the position, they stayed to collect the gun fittings, crawling about amongst the disabled pieces and shattered carriages, with the bullets still hissing and snapping about their ears, throwing dust spurts amongst their feet, whisking and swishing through the scattered corn stooks. They brought away the sights and breech mechanisms and sight- and field-clinometers, and every other fitment they could carry and thought worth having (and in that they were even wiser than they knew, for in those days such things as dial-sights were precious beyond words, and once lost could scarcely be replaced). And laden down under the weight and unhandiness of these things—the breech fittings alone weigh some forty pounds, and make a most unpleasantly awkward thing to carry—the handful of men left in each battery doubled laboriously out across the field and into comparative safety. At the cost of persistent attempts and some more men a gun was also manhandled out.