Pushed and the Return Push

Part 1

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+-----------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has | | been preserved. | | | | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For | | a complete list, please see the end of this document. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------+

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Pushed

AND

The Return Push

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Pushed

AND

The Return Push

QUEX

William Blackwood and Sons Edinburgh and London 1919

To the Memory of LIEUT.-COL. AUSTIN THORP, C.M.G., D.S.O., R.A., WHO COMMANDED THE 82ND BRIGADE, R.F.A., IN FRANCE, FROM DECEMBER 1915 TO OCTOBER 1918.

KILLED IN ACTION AT BEAUSIES ON OCTOBER 30, 1918.

CONTENTS.

PUSHED. PAGE I. BEFORE THE ATTACK 3

II. "THE BOCHE IS THROUGH!" 13

III. THE END OF A BATTERY 24

IV. THE NIGHT OF MARCH 21 35

V. A GUNNER'S V.C. 42

VI. BEHIND VILLEQUIER AUMONT 49

VII. STILL IN RETREAT 60

VIII. A LAST FIFTY ROUNDS 65

IX. FASTER AND FASTER 71

X. THE SCRAMBLE AT VARESNES 83

XI. THE G IN GAP 93

XII. OUT OF THE WAY 101

Part 2

THE RETURN PUSH.

I. THE DEFENCE OF AMIENS 111

II. THE RED-ROOFED HOUSE 119

III. AN AUSTRALIAN "HAND-OVER" 129

IV. HAPPY DAYS! 137

V. BEFORE THE GREAT ATTACK 146

VI. THE BATTLE OF AUGUST 8 153

VII. SHORT LEAVE TO PARIS 163

VIII. TRONES WOOD AGAIN 178

IX. DOWN THE ROAD TO COMBLES 188

X. A MASTERLY TURNING MOVEMENT 203

XI. ON THE HEELS OF THE BOCHE 211

XII. THE MAJOR'S LOST PIPE 221

XIII. NURLU AND LIERAMONT 227

XIV. THE FIGHT FOR RONSSOY 243

XV. "ERNEST" IS LOST 258

XVI. THE DECISIVE DAYS 274

XVII. WITH THE AMERICANS 283

XVIII. A LAST DAY AT THE O.P. 303

XIX. "THE COLONEL----" 326

PUSHED

I. BEFORE THE ATTACK.

By means of a lorry lift from railhead, and a horse borrowed from the Divisional Ammunition Column, I found Brigade Headquarters in a village that the Germans had occupied before their retreat in the spring of 1917.

The huge, red-faced, grey-haired adjutant, best of ex-ranker officers, welcomed me on the farmhouse steps with a hard handshake and a bellowing "Cheerio!" followed by, "Now that you're back, I can go on leave."

In the mess the colonel gave me kindly greeting, and told me something of the Brigade's ups and downs since I had left France in August 1917, wounded at Zillebeke: how all the old and well-tried battery commanders became casualties before 1917 was out, but how, under young, keen, and patiently selected leaders, the batteries were working up towards real efficiency again. Then old "Swiffy," the veterinary officer, came in, and the new American doctor, who appeared armed with two copies of the 'Saturday Evening Post.' It was all very pleasant; and the feeling that men who had got to know you properly in the filthy turmoil and strain of Flanders were genuinely pleased to see you again, produced a glow of real happiness. I had, of course, to go out and inspect the adjutant's new charger--a big rattling chestnut, conceded to him by an A.S.C. major. A mystery gift, if ever there was one: for he was a handsome beast, and chargers are getting very rare in France. "They say he bucks," explained the adjutant. "He'll go for weeks as quiet as a lamb, and then put it across you when you don't expect it. I'm going to put him under treatment."

"Where's my groom?" he roared. Following which there was elaborate preparation of a weighted saddle--not up to the adjutant's 15 stone 5, but enough to make the horse realise he was carrying something; then an improvised lunging-rope was fashioned, and for twenty minutes the new charger had to do a circus trot and canter, with the adjutant as a critical and hopeful ringmaster. In the end the adjutant mounted and rode off, shouting that he would be back in half an hour to report on the mystery horse's preliminary behaviour.

Then the regimental sergeant-major manoeuvred me towards the horse lines to look at the newly made-up telephone cart team.

"You remember the doctor's fat mare, sir--the wheeler, you used to call her? Well, she is a wheeler now, and a splendid worker too. We got the hand-wheeler from B Battery, and they make a perfect pair. And you remember the little horse who strayed into our lines at Thiepval--'Punch' we used to call him--as fat as butter, and didn't like his head touched? Well, he's in the lead; and another bay, a twin to him, that the adjutant got from the --th Division. Changed 'Rabbits' for him. You remember 'Rabbits,' sir?--nice-looking horse, but inclined to stumble. All bays now, and not a better-looking telephone team in France."

Part 3

And then an anxious moment. Nearest the wall in the shed which sheltered the officers' horses stood my own horse--dear old Silvertail, always a gentleman among horses, but marked in his likes and dislikes. Would he know me after my six months' absence? The grey ears went back as I approached, but my voice seemed to awake recognition. Before long a silver-grey nose was nozzling in the old confiding way from the fourth button towards the jacket pocket where the biscuits used to be kept. All was well with the world.

A rataplan on a side-drum feebly played in the street outside!--the village crier announcing that a calf had committed hari-kari on one of the flag-poles put up to warn horsemen that they mustn't take short cuts over sown land. The aged crier, in the brown velveteen and the stained white corduroys, took a fresh breath and went on to warn the half-dozen villagers who had come to their doorways that uprooting the red flags would be in defiance of the express orders of Monsieur le Maire (who owned many fields in the neighbourhood). The veal resulting from the accident would be shared out among the villagers that evening.

My camp-bed was put up in a room occupied by the adjutant; and during and after dinner there was much talk about the programme of intensive training with which the Brigade was going to occupy itself while out at rest. For the morrow the colonel had arranged a scheme--defence and counter-attack--which meant that skeleton batteries would have to be brought up to upset and demolish the remorseless plans of an imaginary German host; and there was diligent studying of F.A.T. and the latest pamphlets on Battery Staff Training, and other points of knowledge rusted by too much trench warfare.

It was exactly 2 P.M. on the morrow. We were mounted and moving off to participate in this theoretical battle, when the "chug-chug-chug" of a motor-cycle caused us to look towards the hill at the end of the village street: a despatch-rider, wearing the blue-and-white band of the Signal Service. The envelope he drew from his leather wallet was marked "urgent."

"It's real war, gentlemen," said the colonel quietly, having read the contents; "we move at once. Corps say that the enemy are massing for an attack."

Then he gave quick, very definite orders in the alert confident manner so well known to all his officers and men.

"Send a cycle orderly to stop Fentiman bringing up his teams! You can be ready to march by 3 P.M. ... Stone. Townsend, you'd better send off your groom to warn your battery! Times and order of march will be sent out by the adjutant within a quarter of an hour! One hundred yards' distance between every six vehicles on the march! No motor-lorries for us this time, so all extra kit and things you can't carry will have to be dumped, and a guard left behind!"

A clatter of horsemen spreading the news followed.

I stood at the door of the village's one cafe and watched two of our batteries pass. The good woman who kept it asked if I thought the Germans would come there again. "They took my husband with them a prisoner when they went a year ago," she said slowly. My trust in our strength as I had seen it six months before helped me to reassure her; but to change the subject, I turned to the penny-in-the-slot music machine inside, the biggest, most gaudily painted musical box I've ever seen. "Did the Boches ever try this?" I asked. "No, only once," she replied, brightening. "They had a mess in the next room, and never came in here."

"Well, I'll have a pen'orth for luck," said I, and avoiding "Norma" and "Poet and Peasant," moved the pointer towards a chansonette, something about a good time coming. Such a monstrous wheezing and gurgling, such a deafening clang of cracked cymbals, such a Puck-like concatenation of flat notes and sudden thuds that told of broken strings! And so much of it for a ten-centime piece. When the tumult began a third time I made off. No wonder the Germans only tried the instrument once!

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