Hopes and Fears How Vain, page 24
“Have we any support, sir?”
“I am told so. There is a battery of eighteen pounders, I know. That has actually arrived behind us. We are promised a section or two of four point sevens, which are getting old and ain’t ideal but provide solid support from a fixed position. There may be French 75s, or there may not. I am absolutely assured of a brigade of hussars – absolutely bloody useless, but they will be there. If they could be dismounted then they would add a thousand rifles, which would be valuable. As it stands, they will gallop about, wave their swords in the air and get killed, apart from those who are wounded and monopolise our doctors who we need for our wounded.”
There was a near universal grunt of disgust. Cavalry were a menace.
“Is there any word of sepoys, sir?”
“None, officially, Griffin. I believe, but cannot say for sure, that a first division has reached Marseille and is on the railways north. That is from verbals, only. Many of the Australians are being held in Egypt, again according to rumour, to open up a front there if Turkey comes in against us, which seems very probable.”
“How likely is it Turkey will come in, sir?”
“Almost a certainty. The Navy made a complete cock-up, letting a German battlecruiser get into Constantinople in the first days of the war as well as stealing a pair of Turkish dreadnoughts being built for them in England. Caused great offence!”
“Bloody Navy has been useless so far in this war!”
“It was in the Crimea, too. Didn’t do much in South Africa, but there wasn’t much for it do, the Boers not having a coastline. They are sending Marines and bluejackets ashore with rifles, however. They might be useful. No artillery backing them, which is silly, considering how many guns the Navy has got tucked away doing nothing at Scapa Flow.”
They laughed and were not surprised. The Navy had talked much but done remarkably little in the previous half-century. The colonial wars, of which there had been no few, had fallen to the Army to deal with.
“Very well, gentlemen. Column of route in the morning, in the order you currently are. We shall follow our noses and march to the guns, essentially. You will be ready at all time to form line and advance into battle. I doubt we shall get a great deal of warning. German cavalry will be met by rifle fire and mgs, exclusively. English cavalry will be met with laughter.”
It was a good line to finish with.
“I say, John, what’s this ‘mg’ business?”
“The latest thing, Peter. Machinegun is too cumbersome a word – the abbreviation has become popular. The Colonel is adopting the new fad.”
“How very daring of the old boy! I presume he meant no presentation of the bayonet, none of this ‘meeting steel with steel’ nonsense.”
“Exactly. There are just a few of us who might regard that as the ‘proper’ thing to do.”
“Bloody fools!”
“Just that, brother.”
“Oh, yes. Good point, John.”
They waved goodbye to the terriers, who were digging furiously, linking a series of strongpoints to make a continuous line, and turned their heads due east, almost completely ignorant of what would come next.
Two hours, a bare five miles and the industrial area petered out, became cereal farms, their fields lately harvested, intermixed with small villages rather than isolated farmhouses as they would have expected in England.
“Bigger fields in these parts, John.”
“More like English size, Peter. Full-time farmers here, not industrial hands working their land at the weekend. Easier for us with the crops brought in. Better visibility, too.”
They brewed up and then dived flat as shellfire erupted around them.
“Take cover under the hedges!”
“Where are they?”
“Distant more than half a mile. Field guns. Something like our thirteen pounders. Limbering up and pulling out now!”
The German guns were gone before they could close to sensible rifle range.
“What’s the bill?”
“C Company lost at least forty casualties, sir. We took three, just the one shell hit us. Two dead, one walking wounded. Shrapnel exploding high, sir. Head wounds.”
Their soft helmets provided protection against rain and sun, not against shrapnel bullets.
“Might be an argument for steel helmets, sir? They won’t stop rifle bullets but would offer protection against splinter wounds from shellfire.”
“Worth thinking about, Peter. Can’t say I like the idea of these batteries of horse artillery dropping their trails, firing a dozen rounds then away again before we can get to them.”
“No. They’ll be back, for sure. Hide up behind walls or copses or whatever, out of sight until they open fire and then gone again. Forcing us into open order, and vulnerable to horse, quite possibly.”
“Keep an eye out. Send the snipers out on our north.”
They proceeded, keeping closer to the hedges and hoping to see the guns first. The alert was shouted down the column.
“Lancers ahead, sir. Along the line of a lane, it looks like. Forming up to come down on us. Companies to form lines, north south across the fields.”
They ran to position, heard the first burst of fire from A Company followed by the rattle of the machineguns.
“Breaking either side of the lines, sir!”
“One and Two Platoons to face right. Three and Four Platoons, left!”
The old professionals ran smoothly into place, rifles at the ready, each man knowing exactly where to set himself. Years of experience on butts and drill square allowed them to move without thinking, available to fire within seconds.
“Fire by sections! At will.”
The corporals and lance-corporals would take responsibility for their twelve or fifteen men, picking their targets, keeping the men together.
The fire commands came one after another as squadrons of lancers appeared, all of them ragged, showing gaps where a lot of men had already fallen. They wheeled about, attempting to make their charge, took fire from ahead and both flanks, dropped almost to the last trooper, a very few managing to spur away.
Shellfire came in and men fell.
“Take cover!”
The lines broke up, but there were no horsemen to take advantage, to cut down the running men. They hid under the hedges and brought themselves back into order, men finding their sections and shouting to their sergeants as they called the roll of the platoons. The officers walked the hedges, taking the reports, congratulating the men on a job well done. There was occasional fire as they shot horses in the head where they could.
“Poor bloody animals! Ain’t right they should suffer!”
There was a general anger that the cavalrymen could be so cruel to their mounts, that they could treat them with such casual contempt.
“Machinegun fire north, sir! Engine noises as well!”
Peter stood with his field glasses, getting as high as he could along the hedge.
“Armoured cars! They are into the battery of field guns! At least eight of them, big Rolls Royces with Vickers in their back! They must have gunners with them – they are taking out their breech blocks so they cannot fire again. That is clever!”
The armoured cars left at speed, all in line down the country lane. There was a series of explosions behind them.
“They left charges in the limbers, John! They have blown them up!”
There was general admiration of the wild men. That was what modern cavalry should look like!
“What do we do with the wounded, Colonel?”
“Bring them together under cover here. Orderlies and walking wounded to take care of them. There should be troops coming in to hold the line behind us but they may be a day or two looking after themselves. I can do no better for them. We march.”
‘Them today. Us tomorrow.’ There was a general acceptance they could do no better.
A few minutes and they heard the sound of a pitched battle to their front.
Chapter Fifteen
“Open ground, sir. A bit like the South Downs back home. Not so high, maybe.”
They had climbed a low escarpment, a rise of less than a hundred feet and had reached pastureland rather than the heavily cropped lower arable. Colonel Caine was leading the battalion almost due north, possibly crossing the line of march of the German column.
“The Boche are not moving so fast, surely, sir.”
Peter was using a proper formality in front of Hepburn and Colbourne, thinking it to be good for them.
“I suspect they are physically and mentally tired, Peter. They have pressed hard for nearly two months, pushing themselves every day. While they were winning the war, they could make demands of the men, and the conscripts would respond with all they had. But now, it must be obvious to them that the great Plan has not worked. It was a gamble that has not paid off. It is not so easy to make that additional effort, to give the last ounce. The columns have been pushing up to twenty-five miles a day, ten miles more than is to be reasonably demanded of infantry. They must be so very tired!”
“You sound almost sympathetic, sir!”
“I am, Hepburn. Conscript youngsters, called up to serve their country and offered the prospect of a great, stunning victory if only they gave their all. Now, they have given of their utmost, and must be coming to realise that it has not worked. They have not achieved that victory. Now, they are being pushed simply to take a few more miles of French soil, and very likely they could not really care. Their feet hurt. They have seen too many of their friends die. They have pushed hard and fought cruel battles, and had it all to do again next day. I much suspect, it is all too much for them, poor lads!”
“But they are the Hun, sir!”
“So they are, and we shall fight them into the ground. They are still human beings. Theirs is the country of Beethoven and Goethe. They are not ravening wild savages, despite all you may hear from certain newspapers. They are people. We shall kill them as necessary, but we can regret that necessity.”
That was a little too civilised, Alfred feared. It was easier for the young men to fight barbarians than human beings like themselves.
“Distant a mile or so, sir. Cavalry!”
“To your platoons, gentlemen.”
Colonel Caine’s runner came by, calling company commanders to him.
“We have a battalion of terriers to our direct south, gentlemen. They are under orders to dig in and to extend a trenchline from whoever is to their south. We are to hold here until they are dug in. We may then, or may not, ourselves dig in. We are to prevent any incursion by horse. I do not consider it likely. There is a squadron of lancers visible to our east and they seem to be watching solely. We have four of four point sevens just in process of being brought uphill and expected to be emplaced immediately to our rear within a few hours. It seems very probable to me that we will be ordered to hold where we are.”
“Hold in the sense of dig a redoubt, sir?”
“Not quite, Ruddick. More by way of extending our line of trenches. To join with the battalion to our south. I think the Field Marshal has it in mind to establish a stalemate as a basis from which it will become possible for the politicians to start talking again. It seems clear that the war is not about to result in a clearcut victory and as such, it will be wiser to bring the war to an early end.”
That was obviously sensible. Even Ruddick could understand the logic involved.
“So, gentlemen. Hold and dig. We must not be pushed back, we need not make any effort to advance to the east. I believe we shall see another regular battalion to our northern flank and we shall dig across to join them when the time is ripe.”
“There was word of our own cavalry, sir?”
“They can keep out of our way. Under no circumstances will we infill our trenches to allow them to pass through our lines.”
The Colonel’s indignation was shared by them all – they had fought while the cavalry had postured. They were not about to give the horse boys anything
Alfred tried to make sense of the briefing. He waited for elucidation. It might be more obvious to the old professionals.
“Dig for ourselves initially, sir.”
Ruddick seemed to be offering plain sense, as might be expected of him.
“Will that be asking too much of our men, Captain Ruddick? They must be tired.”
“Not too tired to dig a pit that might save their lives, sir.”
“Good enough. Do so. No more than dugouts, but positioned so that it will be possible to dig a trench if we stay here.”
The war of movement was coming to an end, temporarily at least.
There was a sigh of relief. They had marched far enough, could look forward to sitting in a trench for a while.
“Four point sevens are emplaced and will be registering. They will use the Uhlans as an initial target.”
The runner trotted off to tell Ruddick as well. Alfred passed the word, noticed Sergeant Warner to bring the men to readiness, entrenching tools down, rifles to hand.
“Might be them lancers runs this way to get away from the shells, sir. Firing now, sir.”
The first four shells dropped midway between the Kents and the Uhlans, disconcerting both. A minute and a second salvo fell far closer to the horsemen, causing them to about turn and make speed towards their column. The third set of shells landed precisely on a troop, the gunners having fired overs and the cavalry run into them.
“Very tidy, sir!”
“It looks messy from here.”
“Big guns, them four point sevens, sir. Make a thorough job where they hit. That’s not to say they hit a lot, sir, but when they do, it’s impressive.”
“They make a big bang, that’s for sure.”
The shellbursts pushed clouds of smoke high, clearly visible at half a mile.
“Keeps the men happy, knowing we ain’t on our own, sir. What happens if we dig in here, sir, and the Boche go backwards? Might be they decide they don’t like the ground and choose to dig in on their own hillside a few miles back?”
“Damned if I know, Warner! Leave that up to the senior men to decide. It looks like they are setting up batteries of their own, over east of us.”
Smaller guns, something like a three inch firing shrapnel and more effective on the open ground. Half an hour while the guns found their aim and they began to inflict a slow trickle of casualties, little shells but many of them.
“Every man digging, gentlemen! The three officers can stand sentry. Every other man to be throwing up earth!”
Hepburn fell within minutes, his chest full of splinters from a HE shell. Colbourne followed later in the afternoon, a shrapnel round bursting within twenty feet of him. Alfred noticed and stood in his proper place, refusing to take cover, scanning the ground in front of him, field glasses in use, sweeping from north to south.
“How many so far, Sergeant Warner?”
“Two officers, one sergeant, one corporal and forty men dead or seriously wounded, sir. Walking wounded, another twenty, thereabouts. Starting to hurt, sir.”
Almost a third of the company in two hours of shellfire. They could not survive such a rate of casualties.
“Most of the men are in dugouts now, sir. Fairly much under cover. Won’t lose so many from now on.”
“Brew up and get something to eat into them, then carry on digging. Turn the dugouts into trenches, as it is possible.”
The noise of shellfire increased but Alfred could see no greater number of explosions.
“Ours, sir! That’s an eighteen pounder battery opened up. Counter-battery fire. Ought to be able to shut their smaller guns down. Firing line of sight while the four point sevens are indirect. Should be more accurate.”
An hour and the bombardment had ceased, possibly because the German batteries had expended the contents of their limbers, perhaps because they had been driven away. Alfred drank a mug of tea and then set about a circuit of the company, inspecting the dugouts and talking to the men, showing himself.
“Joined up across to D Company, sir. Not deep enough yet, but got a scrape to take cover in at need. They say they’ve got the terrier battalion in sight to their right.”
Word came down from A Company that they had made contact with a battalion of the Hampshires, that the line was quickly extending all the way from Ypres towards the Belgians. It was not fully solid, there were gaps, but it would be increasingly difficult for the Boche to force a way through.
"Sergeant Warner! One platoon awake at all times through the night. Organise it, please."
"Yes, sir. Both young officers dead, sir. Word just come up neither made it back to a doctor."
"Pity. They might have been useful before too long."
"Could be, sir. The four Spandaus, sir, are set up in their own dugouts between us and B Company. Colonel is about a half mile back in a bit of a chalk pit giving its own cover. Saves any need to have men dig him in.”
“Sensible. Morning stand-to half an hour before dawn?”
“Will do, sir. Try to get something to eat ready. Not much chance of it, but they can have a mug of hot char at least.”
“Good. They have to hit us hard in the morning, Warner. We are going to dig more every day and be harder and harder to get through. If they don’t do the job tomorrow, they will have it to do next day and taking more losses each time. Warn them all to expect it to come hot and thick in the morning.”
“Like they had a dozen pints of Shepherd Neame’s the night before, sir.”
Alfred did not know the brewer, was told it was local to East Kent and an acquired taste.
“Though, sir, a gallon and more of that and it’s more like to be hot and thin going through you in the morning!”
