THE OLD CONTEMPTIBLES: AT ALL COSTS.

BY BOYD CABLE.

One might have supposed it impossible for the Colonel to have found a single favourable condition about the coming fight. His battalion had withered away to little more than half its strength; that remaining half was almost completely worn out with want of sleep, with constant cruel fighting, with forced marching; had scarcely been brought out of the water-logged trenches to rest before being marched up into them again, had the prospect before them now of a desperate fight against enormous odds with no cover but the inadequate scratches that in those days passed for trenches, and with even these battered and smashed by shell fire, swimming in water and liquid mud.

It might even be difficult to understand any reason for his ‘Well, thank Heaven the orders are plain and simple enough this time,’ since those orders were ‘to hold the position at all costs until relieved,’ the words ‘at all costs’ being heavily underlined, if one had not known the nightmare uncertainty that in the Retreat-Advance days worried the harassed commanding officers to a point of distraction. Usually the orders were full of instructions to do this if the Germans retired, to do that if they advanced in strength, to do something else if they attacked any one of a dozen points; to conform to the movements of a certain regiment, to support the advance or cover the retirement of another or another—to have, in fact, enough possibilities to consider and act promptly upon to have kept a dozen heads and a hundred eyes very fully occupied; and all, of course, in addition to the C.O.’s own paramount job of fighting his battalion.

So that after all there was some cause for his relief at the simplicity of the orders which this time bade him hold on ‘at all costs,’ even although it might well be that those orders were the death-warrant of himself and most of his remaining men. He had no doubts as to the nature of the struggle close ahead; indeed there was so little of a secret about it that every officer and man of the battalion was fully aware that the Germans had determined on an attack which was to break through the thin British line. There was to be no manœuvring, no feinting here and striking there, no cunning tactics about this attack. The Germans were going to strike straight and hard and heavy, and burst through by sheer hard fighting and weight of numbers—‘Leastways,’ as the brigade signaller put it in passing on this cheerful intelligence to the battalion signallers, ‘that’s what they think they’re goin’ to do.’

‘I like their bloomin’ cheek,’ said the signaller who took the message. ‘I wonder what they fancy we’ll be doin’ while they break through.’ The fact that a weak battalion of British infantry should consider itself fit to stem the advance of ten times their number of picked German troops did not appear to strike him in any way as being a piece of equally ‘bloomin’ cheek.’

The promised attack, however, did not develop for the next forty-eight hours, and during the whole of that time the battalion had to lie still and suffer such an inferno of bombardment, such a purgatory of bitter cold and driving rain, such a misery of knee-deep mud and crouching in painfully cramped positions, that at the end of the time they were openly praying for an attack, British or German, they did not care which, so long as it ended or even relieved the intolerable waiting.

‘I made up my mind a month ago that I was bound to be killed,’ said Sergeant Billy Ruff of ‘C’ Company disgustedly. ‘I’d sorter reconciled myself to bein’ blotted out by a bullet, or blasted off the earth by a Black Maria, or skewered on a bayonet; but blow me if I ever counted on bein’ drownded in a two-foot mud puddle as I looks like bein’ now.’

‘Why don’t the soors[1] come on an’ fight it out,’ said Corporal Smedley. ‘They bukked[2] enough about wot they was goin’ to do. Why don’t they hitherao[3] an’ do it. I’m about sick o’ this shellin’ game.’

‘The shellin’ is bad enough,’ agreed Sergeant Ruff, ‘but I’m sicker o’ this swimmin’ gymkhana. They ought to serve us out a cork jacket an’ a swimmin’ suit an’ a harpoon a-piece instead o’ a rifle, to play this game proper.’

He was certainly fairly entitled to call the shelling ‘bad enough.’ It was the worst they had known yet, and that, for men who had been in it from the first days of Mons, was saying a good deal. The Germans appeared to have selected their portion of the front for the heaviest concentration of their artillery, and a rain of shells fell without ceasing night or day on the battered trenches. The men kept what cover they could, but that was little use against monster shells which blew to fragments them and their cover together. The British artillery was completely overwhelmed, and although it had struggled gallantly to maintain the unequal contest, was unable to afford the slightest relief to the suffering infantry. The casualties in the battalion mounted steadily, and apparently it was merely a matter of time until it should be utterly destroyed; but the men, although they grumbled deep and loud about the weather and the wet and the mud, the slowness of the Germans to attack, the bully beef and the biscuits and the missing of a rum ration, uttered no single grumble about the fate that kept them there or the wounds and death that carried them off singly and in groups.

At dawn of the third day the shelling rose to its highest pitch of fury. The wet ground shook to the roaring blast of heavy high-explosive, the air pulsed and sang to the shriek of passing shells, the crack of bursting high-explosive ‘woolly bears,’ the rip and thud of their shrapnel showers. The noise was deafening, the smoke and reek of high-explosive fumes blinding and choking. The flank of the battalion rested on a road which ran through the British and German lines, and the trenches to both sides of this road appeared to have been selected for the heaviest share by far of the bombardment.

‘They’ll charge across the open and down the road,’ said Sergeant Billy Ruff. ‘You see now if I’m not right.’

‘I don’t care a two-anna-bit how or where they charges,’ answered the private he spoke to, ‘if so be they’d only be jildi[4] an’ get on wi’ the drill.’

‘Here they come,’ said the sergeant hurriedly. ‘Dekko[5] the road. Wot did I tell you? ’Strewth, an’ there ain’t ’arf a mob of ’em, I don’t think.’

‘Hold your fire, men,’ called one of the officers. ‘Wait till they get well in the open. Pass the word—hold your fire;’ and down the line of the wrecked trench ran the order from man to man, ‘Hold your fire—pass the word—hold your fire.’

So they held their fire, although on the other side of the road the trenches had already opened at the longer range. Deceived apparently by the silence into believing that the battalion had retired or been annihilated by the storm of shell-fire, the Germans poured out into the open and swarmed down in solid mass. They sang in a deep chorus as they came running heavily and waving their rifles over their heads.

‘Blimey, ’ark at ’em singing,’ said Sergeant Billy Ruff. ‘Come on, my bloomin’ canaries, you’ll get somethin’ to sing about presently.’

And they did ‘get something.’ When they were within two hundred yards of the trench an officer’s whistle shrilled, a line of heads and rifle barrels appeared above the parapet, and in one long rolling crash the rifles broke out in the ‘mad minute’ of fire. Now, in the training of the old Regular Army the ‘mad minute’ was a firing practice to which a good deal of time and attention was devoted, and a remarkable proficiency attained in the two essential respects of speed in firing and accuracy of aim. Since it was a practice in which this particular battalion had acquired a notable reputation at a target and range immeasurably more difficult than was now presented to it, the effect on the dense mass of the attack may be imagined. The front rank was simply swept away in the first five seconds of the minute, and for another full fifty-five seconds the bullets beat down on the block of men, chopped up and cut away the advancing face of it, exactly as a chaff-cutter slices to fragments the straw bundle pushed under its destroying knives. At the end of the minute the mass had come to a standstill; at the end of another it had broken and shredded away and was swirling back to cover with the relentless bullets still hailing after it and tearing through and through it.

‘Funny thing,’ said Sergeant Ruff grimly, ‘I don’t seem to ’ave ’eard no singin’ lately. P’raps them Prussians ’as found out they come to the wrong room for the smokin’ concert.’

The respite was very short. Another mass of Germans swarmed out from their trenches and came on at a hard run, and again the British rifles broke out in a devastating whirlwind of fire. The attack was pushed harder and closer this time, till the defenders of the trench could simply point their rifles and fire without putting eye to sights and yet not miss because of the nearness and size of the target. Again the attack broke, or rather it was withered and burnt away as it came and came into the face of the furnace-blast of fire; but this time the battalion did not cease to work bolt and trigger at top speed, because on their flank across the road the rush had come further and was already in places pouring in and down over the trenches. The regiment there had to give up the bullet for the bayonet and fight now for their bare lives; but the weight of numbers was too much for them, and gradually, still fighting fiercely, they were overborne, pressed back, thrust from the trenches yard by yard, killed where they stood in the parts where they still clung stubbornly and refused to budge. The regiment was practically annihilated, and their trenches were in the hands of the enemy.

‘Now,’ said Sergeant Ruff, ‘this is where we gets ready to hang out the “House Full” sign.’

‘Going to be a regular Guest Night in Mess, eh, sergeant? and every prospect of a full table,’ said a youthful lieutenant, grinning—and fell forward in the sergeant’s arms with the laugh still on his lips and a bullet through his heart.

The Colonel had been killed by a shell the first day, and before he went he passed the word to the next senior, ‘Don’t forget, Major ... simple orders ... hold on at all costs.’

The Major was not long in command before he was out of action with a shattered thigh, and following him acting C.O. after C.O. was killed or wounded, until now the command was in the hands of the only captain left in the battalion. And each C.O. in turn received or knew his simple orders—‘Hold on at all costs,’ and no C.O. of them all had any doubt as to how they were to be carried out.

So it was that when the trenches on their flank went, and the immediate prospect before the battalion was of out-and-out annihilation, the Captain made his way round the trenches, splashing through muddy pools streaked and tinted with crimson, stumbling over the dead, stepping as carefully as might be over the men too sorely wounded to move aside, and repeated to his few remaining officers and senior N.C.O.’s the clear instructions, ‘Hold on at all costs.’

‘Not much doubt, sir, of how much the cost will be,’ one very junior lieutenant answered him.

‘No,’ said the Captain gravely; ‘but we’ve done our job so far, and that’s always something. Now we’ve only to make a good finish to it.’

‘We’ll do that all right,’ said the lieutenant confidently. ‘We’ll be cornered soon, but there’s enough of us left to make them feel our teeth. And anyhow, we’ve made them pay a pretty full price already for this patch of ground,’ and he motioned with his hand out towards where the open out in front of their trench was carpeted thick with the German dead.

An orderly, stooping low, splashed along the trench to them. ‘The wire’s through again, sir,’ he said, ‘and Brigade wishes to speak to you if you can spare a minute.’ He said nothing of how the wire had been got through, or of how its repairing had cost another good half-dozen casualties—which in itself is another tale well worth the telling. The Captain went to the telephone dug-out and crawled into the shallow, wet-dripping cave and called the Brigade and spoke with them there for five minutes. The Adjutant who was at the other end was an old personal friend of the Captain’s, but chiefly because neither knew the instant the wire might be cut again they first talked strict business and left personal affairs out of it.

‘Brigadier says to ask what chance have you,’ asked the Adjutant abruptly. ‘How much longer can you hold on?’

‘Ten minutes after they attack in force,’ said the Captain with equal brevity; ‘fifteen with luck; twenty at the outside. Trenches across the road are gone, you know, and we’re getting cut up badly with enfilade fire now. There’s nothing to stop them getting round behind us, so I expect to be attacked front, rear, and flank. We can’t stand that off long.’

‘They’ve managed to spare us a few companies of supports,’ said the Adjutant quickly. ‘They’re occupying the line behind you now, and the moment they’re ready they’ll be pushed up to help hold your trenches and retake the ones on your flank.’

‘If they don’t hurry,’ said the Captain, ‘they’ll have the job of retaking both lots. By the sound of the firing I fancy the attack is coming now. I must get along and see.’

‘All right. Good luck, Jacky.’

‘Good-bye,’ said the Captain. ‘You know the messages I’d like sent if.... And tell the General we held on to the end. Good-bye.’

He was gone, and at the other end the Adjutant sat for some minutes listening to the empty singing of the wire. That cut off suddenly to the flat deadness that means a broken connection, and the Adjutant dropped the useless instrument and hurried out to try to catch a glimpse of the last act. It was little enough he could see, for a driving misty rain obscured the view again; but from that little and from the fragments that he gathered after from the handful of wounded brought in, it was easy enough to piece out the finish.

The attack developed, as the Captain had predicted, on front, rear, and flank. Under cover of a storm of frontal and enfilade fire the Germans swarmed up along the rear of the battalion’s trenches. A score or two of men were faced about to try to beat back this rear attack, but their bullets were as powerless to stop it as pebbles flung in the face of a breaking wave. The rear attack secured a footing in the trenches and began to spread slowly along them. Their progress was disputed furiously, but in the end the remnants of the battalion were beaten back to a point where a couple of shallow communication trenches ran back to the supporting trench on the one side, and another branched off forward to the ruins of the front-line trench. Even then a few score men might have saved themselves by taking the road to the rear. None did, but to the last man turned frontward and joined the handful of their fellows. In the end the remains of the battalion clung together to a few yards of battered trench that twisted about the telephone dug-out, and finished out the fight there.

Few as they were, it took some minutes to come at them, and before the last hand-to-hand scrimmage had finished there came from the mist to rearward a clatter of rifle fire, the rush of a charging line. The Germans had been so occupied with their task of clearing out the last of the defence that the fresh attack took them by surprise. The rescuing companies were in on them before they could face about to meet the charge, so that the charge went crashing home, swept the trenches clear in a wild five minutes’ work, pushed the Germans across the road, and drove into the trenches there after them. At this critical moment another two companies charged in from the rear—companies in those days, remember, were given, and cheerfully accepted, the work of battalions, just as platoons took and did the work of companies; and the Germans, taken in flank and rear, were accounted for to the last man in killed, wounded, and prisoners.

The Captain was picked up in that last patch of trenches the battalion had held. He carried wounds enough to have killed a dozen, and his last word again was, ‘I’m glad we were able to hold on—till we were relieved.’

They found Sergeant Billy Ruff, too, with no more than a few flesh wounds and a smashed leg. The Adjutant, in the piecing out of the end of the story, sat by him and asked questions while the sergeant’s wounds were being dressed and he sucked hard on a damp cigarette. ‘At all costs, the orders was,’ said the sergeant at the finish. ‘An’ that patch o’ duck-pond trenches has just cost me seven-an’-six that was owed me by my corporal that’s killed, a cock-eyed leg, an’ a carcase full o’ rheumatics for the rest o’ my days; an’ it’s cost the army the finest set of officers that ever stepped, an’ the best battalion o’ fightin’ men it owned.’

‘Amen to all of that,’ said the Adjutant. ‘But—you held on.’

‘Course we held on,’ said Sergeant Billy Ruff, his voice showing just a shade of surprise at the comment. ‘Y’see we was ordered to hold on.’

Press Bureau: Passed for Publication.

FOOTNOTES