We knew something of what these French people had already paid in defending that in which we were as much concerned. There was not a young man in the whole neighborhood, and it was the old grandfathers and grandmothers that worked the farms.
Our hearts had warmed to France, before we knew the lovable French people themselves, because she had borne the brunt in the first years of the war, and her soil had been ravaged, and her women so unspeakably maltreated. And it seemed that the French people took especial interest in us Australians who had come twelve thousand miles to join in this fight in defense of the world's liberty.
This war has done more to make known to each other the people of the world than any other event in history. Many of the French people had hardly heard of Australia, but hereafter they will never forget the name of the land whence came those stalwart boys who marched singing through their country; who went to war with laughter, and when out of the trenches were ever ready to give a hand with the crops.
To their poverty it seemed as if we Australians were all millionaires, and our ready cash was a godsend wherever we went. Although we did not receive on the field our full six shillings a day, we always had more money to spend than the "Tommies." In fact, frequently within a few hours after our arrival in a village we would buy out all of its stores. The temptation must have been great, yet I never knew a French farmer or storekeeper attempt to overcharge us. All we had, we spent, and though we grumbled enough that we were not able to draw our full pay, the French people thought that we were simply rolling in money.
The brigade did not go by train any of the distance, but marched the whole way to the trenches, taking two days. This part of the country was just on the edge of the Hun advance and, being only visited by some scouting-parties of Uhlans, had escaped most of war's ravages. We marched through beautiful woods, passed peaceful villages, and over sleepy canals that we saw not again in France in many long months--most of us, alas, never.
I do not know whether they wanted to show what Australians could do, but we did a forced march that day of eighteen miles with full packs up--eight of them without a "breather." This may not sound much, but our boys were as nearly physically perfect as it was possible for men to be, and yet when we arrived at camp we left a third of them on the road.
We went into billets at Sailly, within five miles of the firing-line, where we found the civilian population going about their avocations as though war were a thousand miles away. There were plenty of ruins and even great holes in the streets that showed the Hun had not only the power, but the will, to send these death-dealing missiles among the women and children still living there. I thought the boys were too tired from their march to want to look 'round the town, but after "hot tea" had been served out, they were like new men, and went out to explore the place, as though they merely had had a morning stroll. Hot tea is to the Australian what whiskey is to the Scotchman, his best "pick me up."
CHAPTER XIX
THE BATTLE OF FLEURBAIX ...
Next morning it was "going in" with a vengeance. We did not enter the same trenches where I had been a few days previously, but about a mile farther south. These trenches were our "home" for over three months, so let me try and describe how they were built and looked to us on that day of entry. In this part of the line, near the borders of Belgium, you cannot dig down, the soil is so marshy, so the trenches are what is known as _breastwork_. They are built _up_ about six feet from the level of the ground, a solid wall of sand-bags, ten to twenty feet thick. This will stand the hit of all but the heaviest shells, but is an unmistakable target if the enemy artillery have observation at all.
The support and front line trenches were divided every two hundred yards, by communication-trenches, built in the same way, except that the communication-trench had _two_ sides. These communication-trenches were distinguished by such names as "Pinney's Ave.," "V. C. Ave.,"
which latter was supposed to be built on the spot where Michael O'Leary won the first Victoria Cross of the war. Others were called "Bond Street," "Brompton Ave.," and "Mine Ave."
Later on my brigade held the length of trench that included all these, from Mine Ave. to Bond Street, over one thousand yards; but for the battle and the first ten days we only held about three hundred yards, using the three communication-trenches--Pinney's, Brompton, and V. C.
I had a good deal of apprehension as the brigade marched in, remembering the reception our reconnoitring party had received. If "Fritz" had spotted a score of us he could not well avoid noticing a thousand, though we were broken into little parties of six, that moved along the gutter in single file. But he must have been asleep this day, for the "change over" was completed with little attention from him in the way of shells.
Leading up to "Pinney's Ave.," there was a short length of communication-trench very appropriately called "Impertinence Sap," for it was merely a ditch, three feet deep, floored with "duck boards." I could never get the reason why this trench was built. It only afforded protection for one's legs, which is the part of the body one would rather be hit in if one must be hit at all. The goose-flesh always crept around my head when I walked along this sap, for, strange to say, my head seemed to be the most valuable part of me, and at night the machine-gun bullets used to whistle through the low hedge that ran alongside it and frequently struck sparks from the flints on the old road just a yard or two away. I suppose I used that sap two hundred times, always with misgivings, for I have seen more than a score of men punctured along its length.
[Illustration: "Us--Going In".]
All these parts were unhealthy. The _Rue de Bois_, the street that ran parallel to the firing-trench, about a thousand yards behind the front line, was always under indirect machine-gun fire, yet was, nevertheless, used regularly every night by our transports. It was surprising how few mules were killed. Many times have I skipped, as the bullets struck sparks around my feet.
After a while we got to know that "Fritz" had a regular cut-and-dried system in the shelling of these trenches. He always took Mine Ave., Brompton Ave., and Pinney's Ave. alternately, and we later on saved a number of lives by having a sentry at the entrance to these communication-trenches to give warning to use the other trench while this one was being shelled. Weeks later I worked out the enemy's bombardment system more thoroughly, and had such notices as this posted: "Pinney's Ave. dangerous on Mondays, 2 to 6 P. M.," "V. C.
unhealthy Tuesday afternoons," and so on. I know I saved my own life several times by watching "Fritz's" _times and seasons_. I am quite sure that each battery "over yonder" had a book that laid down a certain number of rounds to be fired at a certain range on Mondays, and so on for every day in the week. And every relieving battery would take over this "book of instructions." Of course there were times when "Fritz" "got the wind up" (lost his nerve), and then he would shell anything indiscriminately. The god of the German is _Method_, and his goddess _System_, and it hurt his gunners sorely when we tried something new, and made him depart from some long-predevised plan.
However, these were discoveries of a later date than the battle which wiped out about 70 per cent of our strength.
We had not been two days in the trenches before we knew that we were destined for an attack on the trenches opposite, and we had not had time even to know the way about our own lines. Few of us had even had a glimpse of No Man's Land, or sight of the fellow across the street whom we were to fight.
Our guns immediately began to get busy. In fact, too busy for our liking, for they had not yet got the correct range. This was before the days of total aeroplane supremacy, and the battery commander in those days had not an observer flying above where his shells were falling, informing him of the slightest error.
At any rate, we soon began to discover that the shells that were bursting among us were many of them coming from behind. This made us very uncomfortable, for we were not protected against our own artillery-fire; and accidents will sometimes happen, do what you can to avoid them. Our first message over the 'phone was very polite. "We preferred to be killed by the Germans, thank you," was all we said to the battery commander. But as his remarks continued to come to us through the air, accompanied by a charge of explosive, and two of our officers being killed, our next message was worded very differently, and we told him that "if he fired again we would turn the machine-guns on to them." I was sent back to make sure that he got the message. I took the precaution to take back with me one of his "duds" (unexploded shells) as evidence. At first he told me I was crazy--that we were getting German cross-fire, and that his shells were falling two hundred yards in front of us. I brought out my souvenir, and asked him if he had ever seen that before. He said: "For God's sake, bury it," but I told him it was going to divisional headquarters, and that his little mistake had already cost several lives. This battery did not belong to our division.
Our company commanders gathered us in small groups and carefully explained the plan of attack. We were to take the three lines of German trenches that were clearly discernible on the aeroplane photograph which was shown us; the first wave was to take the first trench, the second jumping over their heads and attacking the second German line, the third wave going on to the third German line. When all the Germans had been killed in the first trench, those left of the first wave were to follow to the third line. Unfortunately this photograph misled us, as one of the supposed trenches proved to be a ditch, and a great number of men were lost by going too far into enemy territory, seeking the supposed third line.
I have seen an actual photograph taken by an aeroplane during this battle, that shows a fight going on five miles behind the German lines.
Many of the boys had sworn not to be taken prisoners, and though they knew they were cut off, they fought on until every last one of them was killed.
The Germans were thoroughly aware of our intentions to attack. Bad weather made a postponement for a couple of days advisable, and there had been so much artillery preparation that the enemy had time to get ready for us.
Considering the short time that our own artillery had been in their positions, and that they did not know a few days previously the range of the enemy's positions, their work was very thoroughly done. In most cases the wire had been well cut, and the enemy's front-line trenches were badly smashed about.
The Germans must have had some spies behind our lines, for they knew the actual moment of attack, and our _feints_ failed to deceive them.
Before the real attack the bombardment would cease for a moment or two, whistles being blown, orders shouted, and bayonets shown above the top of the parapet. The _idea_ was that the Germans would then man their parapet to meet our attack, the artillery again opening fire on the trench. They failed to appear, however, until we actually went over the top, then the machine-guns and rifles swept a hail of bullets in our faces, like a veritable blizzard.
Nothing could exceed the bravery of those boys. The first wave went down like "wheat before the reaper." When the time came for the second wave to go over there was not a man standing of the first wave, yet not a lad faltered. Each gazed at his watch and on the arranged tick of the clock leaped over. In many cases they did not get any farther than the first wave. The last wave, though they knew each had to do the work of three, were in their places and started on their forlorn hope at the appointed moment.
This battle was a disaster. We failed to take the German trenches, but it was like two other failures, the defense of Belgium and the attack of the Dardanelles--a failure so glorious as to fill a man with pride that he was enabled to play a part in it. In this battle we so smashed five divisions of Bavarian guards that it was months before they got back into the trenches. Had they gone to Verdun at that time it might have meant its fall, as they were the flower of the German army.
In places both first and second German lines were taken, but in others we did not get across No Man's Land.
It was not that certain companies fought better than others, but here and there were unexpected obstacles. In one place No Man's Land was only fifty yards across, while elsewhere it was three hundred yards.
There was a creek running diagonally across in one section, too wide to leap, too deep to ford, and the only place where it was bridged was so _marked_ by the German machine-guns that the dead were piled in heaps about it.
Those who actually reached the German trenches were too few to consolidate, and the German artillery soon began to take a heavy toll of them, knowing the range of their own trenches to a yard. So these had to come back again, and when night fell we were back in our old trenches--rather a few of us were; most of our division lay out in No Man's Land.
All were not dead, but we had no men to help the wounded. We had no stretchers, and those that were alive, unwounded, were so fatigued as to be hardly able to stand upright. But we could not stand the thought of the fellows out there without help, and we crawled among them, taking the biscuits and water from the dead and giving them to the wounded. We could only reach a few of them, and we crawled back at daylight, cursing our impotence, and fearing what the day might bring to these our comrades, lying helpless in full view of the brutal enemy.
The sight of our trenches that next morning is burned into my brain.
Here and there a man could stand upright, but in most places if you did not wish to be exposed to a sniper's bullet you had to progress on your hands and knees. In places the parapet was repaired with bodies--bodies that but yesterday had housed the personality of a friend by whom we had warmed ourselves. If you had gathered the stock of a thousand butcher-shops, cut it into small pieces and strewn it about, it would give you a faint conception of the shambles those trenches were.
One did not ask the whereabouts of brother or chum. If we did not see him, then it were best to hope that he were of the dead.
It were folly to look over the parapet, for nearly every shell-hole contained a wounded man, and, poor fellow, he would wave to show his whereabouts; and though we could not help him, it would attract the attention of the Huns, who still had shells to spare--so that the wounded might not fight again.
I have found the Bavarian even worse than the Prussian, and this day, and the next, and again, did they sweep No Man's Land with machine-guns and shrapnel, so as to kill the wounded.
When darkness came the second night, we had organized parties of rescue, but we still had practically no stretchers, and the most of the men had to be carried in on our backs.
I went out to the bridge, and in between machine-gun bursts began to pull down that heap of dead. Not all were dead, for in some of the bodies that formed that pyramid life was breathing. Some were conscious but too weak to struggle from out that weight of flesh.
Machine-guns were still playing on this spot, and after we had lost half of our rescuing party, we were forbidden to go here again, as live men were too scarce.
But the work of rescue did not cease. Two hundred men were carried in from a space less in area than an acre.
One lad, who looked about fifteen, called to me: "Don't leave me, sir."
I said, "I will come back for you, sonny," as I had a man on my back at the time. In that waste of dead one wounded man was like a gem in sawdust--just as hard to find. Four trips I made before I found him, then it was as if I had found my own young brother. Both his legs were broken, and he was only a schoolboy, one of those overgrown lads who had added a couple of years in declaring his age to get into the army.
But the circumstances brought out his youth, and he clung to me as though I were his father. Nothing I have ever done has given me the joy that the rescuing of that lad did, and I do not even know his name.
He was the only one who did not say: "Take the other fellow first."
There were men who were forty-eight hours without food or drink, without having their wounds dressed, knowing that the best they had to hope for was a bullet. That the chances were they would die of starvation or exposure, and yet again and again would they refuse to be taken until we should look to see if there was not some one alive in a neighboring shell-hole. They would tell us to "look in the drain, or among those bushes over there." During the day they had heard a groan.
A groan, mind you, and there were men there with legs off, and arms hanging by a skin, and men sightless, with half their face gone, with bowels exposed, and every kind of unmentionable wounds, yet some one had groaned. Why, some had gritted teeth on bayonets, others had stuffed their tunics in their mouths, lest they should groan. Some one had written of the Australian soldier in the early part of the war, "_that they never groan_," and these men who had read that would rather die than not live up to the reputation that some newspaper correspondent had given them.
I lay for half an hour with my arms around the neck of a boy within a few yards of a German "listening post," while the man who was with me went back to try and find a stretcher. He told me he had neither mother nor friend, was brought up in an orphanage, and that no one cared whether he lived or died. But our hearts _rubbed_ as we lay there, and we vowed lifelong friendship. It does not take long to make a friend under those circumstances, but he died in my arms and I do not know _his_ name.
There was another man who was anxious about his money-belt; perhaps it contained something more valuable than money. I went back for it, stuffing it in my pocket, and then forgot all about it. When I thought of it again the belt was gone, and the owner had gone off to hospital.
I do not know who he was, and maybe he thinks I have his belt still.