Part 26

Almost into the objective before they saw him. Grey-coated forms swarmed for miles in relay upon relay of everincreasing rows, advanced with deadly certainty, and supported by an astonishing mass of machine-guns.

The grim old spirit came to the fore. They rained in on the approaching waves a mad fire from smoking rifles and Lewis guns. His pace slackened not one jot ... again the Normans pumped in the lead until the hands blistered from hot rifles. Futile! They had not the men to stop one-tenth of the foe moving in thousands over fields and hedges upon them. Teeth clenched in agony. "Curse you," they sobbed, "curse your numbers...."

His machine-guns whined over into their ranks ten or twelve thousand rounds a minute along the frontage. Men fell in huddled heaps across one another. The machine-gun barrage swept backwards and forwards over the first and second lines, sweeping and intercrossing in one mighty net ... the Normans were ordered to fall back, make liaison with battalion relieving on either flank and dig in on a new line.

Again through the night they watched the pall before them, and again Jerry made no sign. Orders were given just after daybreak for a further retirement ... they marched back four or five kilos with heavy hearts. Why not have fought to a standstill where they had first sighted him? They shrugged shoulders wearily, and turned to the task of digging in. He opened his machine-guns upon the thin row of khaki figures, a figure here and there fell forward upon the little spade into a grave he had prepared for himself. Two young Staffords collapsed side by side upon the turf and smiled fixedly up into the sky, six or eight holes perforating each chest.

The bullets whined and whistled everywhere, conveying to the mind a huge swarm of bees. He tried a long sweep of low shots, just skirting the tops of the semi-completed excavations ... got home every twenty yards or so, clean through the neck or forehead.

The Normans settled down, opened fire steadily and played havoc amongst the advanced enemy machine-guns. His progress stopped, the opposing lines sniped at each other. The Normans were in their element--they knew how to shoot.

"'Olding 'im up now."

"Yes. 'E can't shoot with 'is rifles."

"No--seems to 'ave all bloomin' machine-guns."

For two hours, they kept him pinned down to one position, wiped out his one brief rush and inspired within him an unholy fear or their rifles. They watched with fierce cunning the movements of fifty or so snipers and "light" machine-gunners creeping upon them under cover of long grasses ... a bloody fire was opened for ten minutes on the figures--the grass stained red. Not one returned.

A Battalion on the Norman right fell back under the weight of enemy forces, thereby exposing a Guernsey flank.... Another retirement and again a wild scramble across fields interlaced by row after row of irrigation canals conveying water in this wide net-like system over a large area from one main source of supply. To avoid the larger excavations men were wont to crowd into the roadways, make in a body for ready gateways and openings. Upon these obvious points Jerry concentrated a continuous stream of machine-gun fire; the casualties here were heaped up hideously in small masses and the blood from one man trickled over another.

Troops from half-a-dozen regiments, scattered confusedly in all directions, moved rearwards side by side. It was almost an impossibility to rejoin Battalions--Battalions!--a mere couple of hundred men and a few officers formed what after two days of fighting constituted a Battalion. But they had to DO the work of a full Battalion--and they DID!

Wounded fell despairingly, gazed with appealing eyes at the lines of ever distancing khaki, placed their rifles to one side and awaited the onrushing enemy tide. Some few with what futile strength could be mustered by superhuman effort tottered and staggered uncertainly in the direction they dimly imagined their comrades had taken. One by one fell prey to exhaustion, dropped with a last frenzied sob unto the earth; some lay still and quiet, peppered by a second stream of lead. Others, writhing in agony, dazed, mad, waited the Jerry approach and picked off man after man until a bayonet thrust put finis to their last impotent struggles.

In secluded corners a few bled slowly undiscovered, unthought of ... there for days they remained until the bodies--lockjaw, gangrene, loss of blood--were rolled together into one great hole or perchance buried apart, and for tombstone the late owner's rifle stuck into the earth and inscribed thereon that only too frequent epitath--an unknown British soldier!

Back, ever back! The disheartening realisation that he CANNOT be stayed for any lengthy period, that his reserves are undiminished and constantly moving up to fill the gaps made in his ranks, cast a heavy shadow of pessimism over the ragged, weary figures for ever moving westward. At lengthy intervals no sign of the grey figures anywhere met the eye, but the inevitable order to retreat was obeyed--grumbling, cursing.

"Wot the 'ell are we goin' back again for? There ain't any sign of Jerry."

"No, but 'e 'as got through too far to the south."

"Yes--an' we're moving back north-west now."

"Why?"

"Dunno. 'E's got round some'ow to the south."

An hour or undisturbed quiet. Nothing could be seen, no shells (his artillery was unable to keep pace with the rapidity of advance), no gas. Then through the silence, from nowhere it seemed, a half-spent bullet whistled and buried itself with a spiteful "phut." After a pause ... a whine, accompanied by others, falling short. In the distance his machine-gunners and advanced screen of scouts appeared ... the whining merged into a constant buzzing, men coughed furiously and bent forward, fell awkwardly ... straightened out. Here and there a khaki figure clutched fiercely at tufts of grass, writhed feverishly in one last desperate fight for breath, looked a sad farewell at their living comrades--a glance that went straight to the heart--and went their way into the warrior's hall in Valhalla.

From far down the flank a further movement rearward could be noticed spreading yard by yard until once more, weary of spirit, worn, hungry, you stood up somewhere in the stream of lead and retired.

At nightfall he would be out of view. By morning his advanced posts would be sniping at the thin khaki line. Night ... an ebony pall pierced by a score of brilliant burning houses. Fantastic, grotesque. Crimson glows upon which tired eyes rested unthinking, uncaring, the mind worn under the ceaseless repetition: "When will we stop? Why don't they let us fight it out? God, we'd make a mess of him anyhow." Then someone would address no one in particular:

"Wonder 'ow many we 'ave left?"

"Gawd knows. About a 'undred an' fifty."

"See 'im toppling our lads out at Verbequie?"

"Yes. An' by that meadow gate. It makes me blood boil to think they won't let us 'ave a go at 'im."

"Ah, well. I s'pose it will be my turn to-morrow."