Mr. Standfast
to the wood of La Bruyere, where we linked up with the division on our
right. Lefroy was in the first area, and Masterton in the second, and
for three hours it was as desperate a business as I have ever faced....
The improvised switch went, and more and more of the forward zone
disappeared. It was a hot, clear spring afternoon, and in the open
fighting the enemy came on like troops at manœuvres. On the left they
got into the battle-zone, and I can see yet Lefroy’s great figure
leading a counter-attack in person, his face all puddled with blood
from a scalp wound....
I would have given my soul to be in two places at once, but I had to
risk our left and keep close to Masterton, who needed me most. The wood
of La Bruyere was the maddest sight. Again and again the Boche was
almost through it. You never knew where he was, and most of the
fighting there was duels between machine-gun parties. Some of the enemy
got round behind us, and only a fine performance of a company of
Cheshires saved a complete breakthrough.
As for Lefroy, I don’t know how he stuck it out, and he doesn’t know
himself, for he was galled all the time by that accursed flanking fire.
I got a note about half past four saying that Wake had crossed the
river, but it was some weary hours after that before the fire
slackened. I tore back and forward between my wings, and every time I
went north I expected to find that Lefroy had broken. But by some
miracle he held. The Boches were in his battle-zone time and again, but
he always flung them out. I have a recollection of Blenkiron, stark
mad, encouraging his Americans with strange tongues. Once as I passed
him I saw that he had his left arm tied up. His blackened face grinned
at me. “This bit of landscape’s mighty unsafe for democracy,” he
croaked. “For the love of Mike get your guns on to those devils across
the river. They’re plaguing my boys too bad.”
It was about seven o’clock, I think, when the flanking fire slacked
off, but it was not because of our divisional guns. There was a short
and very furious burst of artillery fire on the north bank, and I knew
it was British. Then things began to happen. One of our planes—they had
been marvels all day, swinging down like hawks for machine-gun bouts
with the Boche infantry—reported that Mitchinson was attacking hard and
getting on well. That eased my mind, and I started off for Masterton,
who was in greater straits than ever, for the enemy seemed to be
weakening on the river bank and putting his main strength in against
our right.... But my G.S.O.2 stopped me on the road. “Wake,” he said.
“He wants to see you.”
“Not now,” I cried.
“He can’t live many minutes.”
I turned and followed him to the ruinous cowshed which was my
divisional headquarters. Wake, as I heard later, had swum the river
opposite to Mitchinson’s right, and reached the other shore safely,
though the current was whipped with bullets. But he had scarcely landed
before he was badly hit by shrapnel in the groin. Walking at first with
support and then carried on a stretcher, he managed to struggle on to
the divisional headquarters, where he gave my message and explained the
situation. He would not let his wound be looked to till his job was
done. Mitchinson told me afterwards that with a face grey from pain he
drew for him a sketch of our position and told him exactly how near we
were to our end.... After that he asked to be sent back to me, and they
got him down to Loisy in a crowded ambulance, and then up to us in a
returning empty. The M.O. who looked at his wound saw that the thing
was hopeless, and did not expect him to live beyond Loisy. He was
bleeding internally and no surgeon on earth could have saved him.
When he reached us he was almost pulseless, but he recovered for a
moment and asked for me.
I found him, with blue lips and a face drained of blood, lying on my
camp bed. His voice was very small and far away.
“How goes it?” he asked.
“Please God, we’ll pull through ... thanks to you, old man.”
“Good,” he said and his eyes shut.
He opened them once again.
“Funny thing life. A year ago I was preaching peace.... I’m still
preaching it.... I’m not sorry.”
I held his hand till two minutes later he died.
In the press of a fight one scarcely realises death, even the death of
a friend. It was up to me to make good my assurance to Wake, and
presently I was off to Masterton. There in that shambles of La Bruyere,
while the light faded, there was a desperate and most bloody struggle.
It was the last lap of the contest. Twelve hours now, I kept telling
myself, and the French will be here and we’ll have done our task. Alas!
how many of us would go back to rest?... Hardly able to totter, our
counter-attacking companies went in again. They had gone far beyond the
limits of mortal endurance, but the human spirit can defy all natural
laws. The balance trembled, hung, and then dropped the right way. The
enemy impetus weakened, stopped, and the ebb began.
I wanted to complete the job. Our artillery put up a sharp barrage, and
the little I had left comparatively fresh I sent in for a
counter-stroke. Most of the men were untrained, but there was that in
our ranks which dispensed with training, and we had caught the enemy at
the moment of lowest vitality. We pushed him out of La Bruyere, we
pushed him back to our old forward zone, we pushed him out of that zone
to the position from which he had begun the day.
But there was no rest for the weary. We had lost at least a third of
our strength, and we had to man the same long line. We consolidated it
as best we could, started to replace the wiring that had been
destroyed, found touch with the division on our right, and established
outposts. Then, after a conference with my brigadiers, I went back to
my headquarters, too tired to feel either satisfaction or anxiety. In
eight hours the French would be here. The words made a kind of litany
in my ears.
In the cowshed where Wake had lain, two figures awaited me. The
talc-enclosed candle revealed Hamilton and Amos, dirty beyond words,
smoke-blackened, blood-stained, and intricately bandaged. They stood
stiffly to attention.
“Sirr, the prisoner,” said Hamilton. “I have to report that the
prisoner is deid.”
I stared at them, for I had forgotten Ivery. He seemed a creature of a
world that had passed away.
“Sirr, it was like this. Ever sin’ this mornin’, the prisoner seemed to
wake up. Ye’ll mind that he was in a kind of dream all week. But he got
some new notion in his heid, and when the battle began he exheebited
signs of restlessness. Whiles he wad lie doun in the trench, and whiles
he was wantin’ back to the dug-out. Accordin’ to instructions I
provided him wi’ a rifle, but he didna seem to ken how to handle it. It
was your orders, sirr, that he was to have means to defend hisself if
the enemy cam on, so Amos gie’d him a trench knife. But verra soon he
looked as if he was ettlin’ to cut his throat, so I deprived him of
it.”
Hamilton stopped for breath. He spoke as if he were reciting a lesson,
with no stops between the sentences.
“I jaloused, sirr, that he wadna last oot the day, and Amos here was of
the same opinion. The end came at twenty minutes past three—I ken the
time, for I had just compared my watch with Amos. Ye’ll mind that the
Gairmans were beginning a big attack. We were in the front trench of
what they ca’ the battle-zone, and Amos and me was keepin’ oor eyes on
the enemy, who could be obsairved dribblin’ ower the open. Just then
the prisoner catches sight of the enemy and jumps up on the top. Amos
tried to hold him, but he kicked him in the face. The next we kenned he
was runnin’ verra fast towards the enemy, holdin’ his hands ower his
heid and crying out loud in a foreign langwidge.”
“It was German,” said the scholarly Amos through his broken teeth.
“It was Gairman,” continued Hamilton. “It seemed as if he was appealin’
to the enemy to help him. But they paid no attention, and he cam under
the fire of their machine-guns. We watched him spin round like a
teetotum and kenned that he was bye with it.”
“You are sure he was killed?” I asked.
“Yes, sirr. When we counter-attacked we fund his body.”
There is a grave close by the farm of Gavrelle, and a wooden cross at
its head bears the name of the Graf von Schwabing and the date of his
death. The Germans took Gavrelle a little later. I am glad to think
that they read that inscription.
CHAPTER XXII
The Summons Comes for Mr Standfast
I slept for one and three-quarter hours that night, and when I awoke I
seemed to emerge from deeps of slumber which had lasted for days. That
happens sometimes after heavy fatigue and great mental strain. Even a
short sleep sets up a barrier between past and present which has to be
elaborately broken down before you can link on with what has happened
before. As my wits groped at the job some drops of rain splashed on my
face through the broken roof. That hurried me out-of-doors. It was just
after dawn and the sky was piled with thick clouds, while a wet wind
blew up from the southwest. The long-prayed-for break in the weather
seemed to have come at last. A deluge of rain was what I wanted,
something to soak the earth and turn the roads into water-courses and
clog the enemy transport, something above all to blind the enemy’s
eyes.... For I remembered what a preposterous bluff it all had been,
and what a piteous broken handful stood between the Germans and their
goal. If they knew, if they only knew, they would brush us aside like
flies.
As I shaved I looked back on the events of yesterday as on something
that had happened long ago. I seemed to judge them impersonally, and I
concluded that it had been a pretty good fight. A scratch force, half
of it dog-tired and half of it untrained, had held up at least a couple
of fresh divisions.... But we couldn’t do it again, and there were
still some hours before us of desperate peril. When had the Corps said
that the French would arrive?... I was on the point of shouting for
Hamilton to get Wake to ring up Corps Headquarters, when I remembered
that Wake was dead. I had liked him and greatly admired him, but the
recollection gave me scarcely a pang. We were all dying, and he had
only gone on a stage ahead.
There was no morning _strafe_, such as had been our usual fortune in
the past week. I went out-of-doors and found a noiseless world under
the lowering sky. The rain had stopped falling, the wind of dawn had
lessened, and I feared that the storm would be delayed. I wanted it at
once to help us through the next hours of tension. Was it in six hours
that the French were coming? No, it must be four. It couldn’t be more
than four, unless somebody had made an infernal muddle. I wondered why
everything was so quiet. It would be breakfast time on both sides, but
there seemed no stir of man’s presence in that ugly strip half a mile
off. Only far back in the German hinterland I seemed to hear the rumour
of traffic.
An unslept and unshaven figure stood beside me which revealed itself as
Archie Roylance.
“Been up all night,” he said cheerfully, lighting a cigarette. “No, I
haven’t had breakfast. The skipper thought we’d better get another
anti-aircraft battery up this way, and I was superintendin’ the job.
He’s afraid of the Hun gettin’ over your lines and spying out the
nakedness of the land. For, you know, we’re uncommon naked, sir. Also,”
and Archie’s face became grave, “the Hun’s pourin’ divisions down on
this sector. As I judge, he’s blowin’ up for a thunderin’ big drive on
both sides of the river. Our lads yesterday said all the country back
of Peronne was lousy with new troops. And he’s gettin’ his big guns
forward, too. You haven’t been troubled with them yet, but he has got