Servants Of The Guns Part 7

On the railway journey up to the concentration area, he slipped down in the truck several times and was trampled on by the other horses. The operation of extricating him was dangerous and lengthy. When we detrained he refused food and water, to our great concern. But he took his place in the team during the twenty-mile march that followed and was himself again in the evening.

Where everybody was acutely conscious of the serious nature of the business during the first day or so, it was something of a relief to watch the horses behaving exactly as they normally did at home. We, Heaven help us! knew little enough of what was in store for us, but they, poor brutes, knew nothing. Oats were plentiful--what else mattered? Bilfred rolled over and over on his broad back directly his harness was removed, just as he always did; he plunged his head deep into his water and pushed his muzzle to and fro was.h.i.+ng his mouth and nostrils; he raised his head when he had drunk, stretched his neck and yawned, staring vacantly into s.p.a.ce as was his wont. For him the world was still at peace. Of course it was--he knew no better. But we who did, we whose nerves were on edge with an excitement half-fearful, half-exultant, saw these things and were somehow soothed by them.

Bilfred's baptism of fire came early. A few rounds of shrapnel burst over the wagon-line on the very first occasion that we were in action.

Fortunately, the range was just too long and no damage was done. Some of the horses showed momentary signs of fear, but the drivers easily quieted them; and, besides, they were in a clover field--an opportunity too good to be wasted in worrying about strange noises. Bilfred, either because he despised the German artillery or because he imagined that the reports were those of his own guns, to which he was quite accustomed, never even raised his head. His curly tail flapped regularly from side to side, protecting him from a swarm of flies whilst he reached out as far as his harness would allow and tore up great mouthfuls of gra.s.s. He had always been a glutton, and it was as if he knew, sh.e.l.ls or no sh.e.l.ls, that this was to be his last chance for some time. It was; there followed four days of desperate strain for man and beast. Through clouds of powdery, choking dust, beneath a blazing August sun, parched with thirst, often hungry and always weary, Bilfred and his fellows pulled the two tons of steel and wood and complicated mechanism called a gun along those straight interminable roads of northern France. Thousands of horses in dozens of batteries were doing the same thing--and none knew why.

Then, on the fifth day, our turn came to act as rear-guard artillery.

The horses, tucked away behind a convenient wood when we came into action just before dawn, had an easy morning--and there were many, especially amongst the new-comers received on mobilisation, who were badly in need of it. Now the function of a rear-guard is to gain time, and this we did. But, when at last the order to withdraw was given, our casualties were numerous and the enemy was close. Moreover, his artillery had got our range. The teams issuing from the shelter of their wood had to face a heavy fire, and it was at this juncture that the seasoned horses, the real old stagers, who knew as much about limbering up as most drivers and more than some, set an example to the less experienced ones. Bilfred (and I take him as typical of the rest) seemed with a sudden flash of intuition to realise that his apprentices.h.i.+p and all his previous training had been arranged expressly that he might bear himself courageously in just such a situation as this. Somehow, in some quite inexplicable fas.h.i.+on, he knew that this was the supreme moment of his career. Regardless of bursting sh.e.l.ls and almost without guidance from his driver he galloped straight for his gun, with ears p.r.i.c.ked and nostrils dilated, the muscles rippling under his dark coat and his traces taut as bow-strings as he strained at his collar with every thundering stride. He wheeled with precision exactly over the trail eye, checked his pace at the right moment, and "squared off" so as to allow the wheelers to place the limber in position. It was his job, he knew what to do and he did it perfectly. B was the first gun to get away and the only one to do so without a casualty....

More marching, more fighting, day after day, night after night; men were killed and wounded; horses, dropping from utter exhaustion, were cut loose and left where they lay--old friends, some of them, that it tore one's heart to abandon thus. But there could be no tarrying, the enemy was too close to us for that.

Then came the day when the terrible retreat southwards ceased as abruptly and as unexpectedly as it had begun. Rejoicing in an advance which soon developed into a pursuit we forgot our weariness and all the trials and hards.h.i.+ps of the past. And I think we forgot, too, in our eagerness, that for the horses there was no difference between the advance and the retirement--the work was as hard, the loads as heavy.

For our hopes were high. We knew that the flood of invasion was stemmed at last. We believed that final victory was in sight. Reckless of everything we pushed on, faster and still faster, until our strength was nearly exhausted. It mattered not, we felt; the enemy retreating in disorder before us must be in far worse plight.

And then, on the Aisne, we ran up against a strong position, carefully prepared and held by fresh troops. Trench warfare began, batteries dug themselves in as never before, and the horses were taken far to the rear to rest. They had come through a terrible ordeal. Some were lame and some were galled; staring coats, hollow, wasted backs, and visible ribs told their own tale. A few, at least, were little more than skeletons for whom the month's respite that followed was a G.o.dsend. Good forage in plenty, some grazing and very light work did wonders, and when the moment came for the move round to Flanders the majority were ready for a renewed effort. Compared with what they had already done the march was easy work. They arrived on the Yser fit and healthy.

But the first battle of Ypres took its toll. Bringing up ammunition one dark night along a road which, though never safe, had perforce to be used for lack of any other, the teams were caught by a salvo of high explosive sh.e.l.l and suffered heavily. Four drivers and nine horses were killed, seven drivers and thirteen horses were wounded. Bilfred escaped unhurt, but he was the only one in his team who did. A direct hit on the limber brought instantaneous death to the wheelers and their beloved driver. A merciful revolver shot put an end to Binty's screaming agony.

Bruno and Bacchus were fortunate in only getting flesh wounds from splinters. It was a sad breaking up of the team which had held together through so many vicissitudes. It comforted us, though, to think that at least they had died in harness....

The winter brought hards.h.i.+p for horse as well as man. We built stables of hop-poles and sacking, but they were only a slight protection against the biting winds, and it was impossible to cope with the sea of slimy mud which was euphemistically termed the horse lines. In spite of all our precautions coughs and colds were rampant. About Christmas-time Bruno, always rather delicate, succ.u.mbed with several others to pneumonia, and a month later Bacchus strained himself so badly, when struggling to pull a wagon out of holding mud whilst the rest of the team (all new horses) jibbed, that he pa.s.sed out of our hands to a veterinary hospital and was never seen again. Bilfred alone remained, and Nature, determined to do her best for him, provided him with the most amazingly woolly coat ever seen upon a horse. The robustness of his const.i.tution made him impervious to climatic conditions, but the loss of Bacchus, his companion for so long, distressed him, and he was at pains to show his dislike of the subst.i.tute provided by biting him at all times except when in harness; then, and then only, was he Dignity personified.

The end came one day in early spring. The battery was in action in a part of the line where it was impossible to have the horses far away, for in those days we had to be prepared for any emergency. It so happened that the enemy, in the course of his usual morning "_strafe_,"

whether by luck or by intention, put an eight-inch howitzer sh.e.l.l into the middle of the secluded field where a few of our horses were sunning themselves in the warm air and picking at the scanty gra.s.s. Fortunately, they had been hobbled so that there was no stampede. The cloud of smoke and dust cleared away and we thought at first that no harm had been done. Then we noticed Bilfred lying on his side ten yards or so from the crater, his hind quarters twitching convulsively. As we went towards him, he lifted his head and tried to look at the gaping jagged wound in his flank and back. There was agony in his soft brown eyes, but he made no sound. He made a desperate effort to get up, but could only raise his forehand. He remained thus for a moment, swaying unsteadily and in terrible distress. Then he dropped back and lay still. A minute later he gave one long deep sigh--and it was over.

Our old farrier, who in his twenty years' service had seen many horses come and go, and who was not often given to sentiment, looked at him sadly.

"'E's gone," he said. "A good 'oss--won't see the like of him again in the batt'ry this trip, I reckon."

And Bilfred's driver, the man who had been with him from the start, ceased his futile efforts to stem the flow of blood with a dirty handkerchief.

"Oh! Gawd!" he muttered in a voice of despair, and turned his back upon us all to hide his grief.

We kept a hoof, to be mounted for the battery mess when peace comes, for he was the last of the old lot and his memory must not be allowed to fade. The fatigue party digging his grave did not grumble at their task.

He was an older member of the battery than them all and a comrade rather than a beast of burden.

I like to imagine that Bilfred had a soul--not such a soul as we try to conceive for ourselves perhaps--but still I like to picture him in some heaven suitable to his simple needs, dwelling in quiet peacefulness among the departed of his race. What a company would be his and what tales he would hear!--Tales of the chariots of a.s.syria and Rome, of the fleet Parthians and the ravaging hosts of Attila; stories of Charlemagne and King Arthur, of the lists and all the pomp of chivalry.

And so down through the centuries to the crossing of the Alps in 1800 and the grim tragedy of Moscow twelve years later. Would he stamp his feet and toss his head proudly when he heard of the Greys at Waterloo or the Light Brigade at Balaclava? But stories of the guns would delight him more, I think--Fuentes D'Onoro, Maiwand, Nery, and Le Cateau.

It pleases me to think of him meeting Bacchus and Binty and the rest and arguing out the meaning of it all. Does he know now, I wonder, the colossal issues that were at stake during that terrible fortnight between Mons and the Marne, and does he forgive us our seeming cruelty?

I hope so. I like to think that Bilfred understands.

"THE PROGRESS OF PICKERSd.y.k.e"

I

Second Lieutenant William Pickersd.y.k.e, sometime quartermaster-sergeant of the ----th Battery, and now adjutant of a divisional ammunition column, stared out of the window of his billet and surveyed the muddy and uninteresting village street with eyes of gloom. His habitual optimism had for once failed him, and his confidence in the gospel of efficiency had been shaken. For Fate, in the portly guise of his fatuous old colonel, had intervened to balk the fulfilment of his most cherished desire. Pickersd.y.k.e had that morning applied for permission to be transferred to his old battery if a vacancy occurred, and the colonel had flatly declined to forward the application.

Now one of the few military axioms which have not so far been disproved in the course of this war is the one which lays down that second lieutenants must not argue with colonels. Pickersd.y.k.e had left his commanding officer without betraying the resentment which he felt, but in the privacy of his own room, however, he allowed himself the luxury of vituperation.

"Blooming old woman!" he said aloud. "Incompetent, rusty old dug-out!

Thinks he's going to keep me here running his bally column for ever, I suppose. Selfish, that's what 'e is--and lazy too."

In spite of the colonel's pompous reference to "the exigencies of the service," that useful phrase which covers a mult.i.tude of minor injustices, Pickersd.y.k.e had legitimate cause for grievance. Nine months previously, when he had been offered a commission, he had had to choose between Sentiment, which bade him refuse and stay with the battery to whose wellbeing he had devoted seven of the best years of his life, and Ambition, which urged him, as a man of energy and brains, to accept his just reward with a view to further advancement. Ambition, backed by his major's promise to have him as a subaltern later on, had vanquished.

Suppressing the inevitable feeling of nostalgia which rose in him, he had joined the divisional ammunition column, prepared to do his best in a position wholly distasteful to him.

In an army every unit depends for its efficiency upon the system of discipline inculcated by its commander, aided by the spirit of individual enthusiasm which pervades its members; the less the enthusiasm the sterner must be the discipline. Now a D.A.C., as it is familiarly called, is not, in the inner meaning of the phrase, a cohesive unit. In peace it exists only on paper; it is formed during mobilisation by the haphazard collection of a certain number of officers, mostly "dug-outs"; close upon 500 men, nearly all reservists; and about 700 horses, many of which are rejections from other and, in a sense, more important units. Its business, as its name indicates, is to supply a division with ammunition, and its duties in this connection are relatively simple. Its wagons transport sh.e.l.ls, cartridges, and bullets to the brigade ammunition columns, whence they return empty and begin again. It is obvious that the men engaged upon this work need not, in ordinary circ.u.mstances, be heroes; it is also obvious that their _role_, though fundamentally an important one, does not tend to foster an intense _esprit de corps_. A man can be thrilled at the idea of a charge or of saving guns under a hurricane of fire, but not with the monotonous job of loading wagons and then driving them a set number of miles daily along the same straight road. A stevedore or a carter has as much incentive to enthusiasm for his work.

The commander of a D.A.C., therefore, to ensure efficiency in his unit, must be a zealous disciplinarian with a strong personality. But Pickersd.y.k.e's new colonel was neither. The war had dragged him from a life of slothful ease to one of bustle and discomfort. Being elderly, stout, and const.i.tutionally idle, he had quickly allowed his early zeal to cool off, and now, after six months of the campaign, the state of his command was lamentable. To Pickersd.y.k.e, coming from a battery with proud traditions and a high reputation, whose members regarded its good name in the way that a son does that of his mother, it seemed little short of criminal that such laxity should be permitted. On taking over a section he "got down to it," as he said, at once, and became forthwith a most unpopular officer. But that, though he knew it well, did not deter him.

He made the lives of various sergeants and junior N.C.O.'s unbearable until they began to see that it was wiser "to smarten themselves up a bit" after his suggestion. In a month the difference between his section and the others was obvious. The horses were properly groomed and had begun to improve in their condition--before, they had been poor to a degree; the sergeant-major no longer grew a weekly beard nor smoked a pipe during stable hour; the number of the defaulters, which under the new _regime_ was at first large, had dwindled to a negligible quant.i.ty.

In two months that section was for all practical purposes a model one, and Pickersd.y.k.e was able to regard the results of his unstinted efforts with satisfaction.

The colonel, who was not blind where his own interests were concerned, sent for Pickersd.y.k.e one day and said--

"You've done very well with your section; it's quite the best in the column now."

Pickersd.y.k.e was pleased; he was as modest as most men, but he appreciated recognition of his merits. Moreover, for his own ends, he was anxious to impress his commanding officer. He was less pleased when the latter continued--

"I'm going to post you to No. 3 Section now, and I hope you'll do the same with that."

No. 3 Section was notorious. Pickersd.y.k.e, if he had been a man of Biblical knowledge (which he was not), would have compared himself to Jacob, who waited seven years for Rachel and then was tricked into taking Leah. The vision of his four days' leave--long overdue--faded away. He foresaw a further and still more difficult period of uncongenial work in front of him. But, having no choice, he was obliged to acquiesce.

Once again he began at the beginning, instilling into unruly minds the elementary notions that orders are given to be obeyed, that the first duty of a mounted man is to his horses, and that personal cleanliness and smartness in appearance are military virtues not beneath notice.

This time the drudgery was even worse, and he was considerably hampered by the touchiness and jealousy of the real section commander, who was a dug-out captain of conspicuous inability. There was much unpleasantness, there was at one time very nearly a mutiny, and there were not a few court-martials. It was three months and a half before that section found, so to speak, its military soul.

And then the colonel, satisfied that the two remaining sections were well enough commanded to s.h.i.+ft for themselves if properly guided, seized his chance and made Pickersd.y.k.e his adjutant. Here was a man, he felt, endowed with an astonis.h.i.+ng energy and considerable powers of organisation, the very person, in fact, to save his commanding officer trouble and to relieve him of all real responsibility.

This occurred about the middle of July. From then until well on into September, Pickersd.y.k.e remained a fixture in a small French village on the lines of communication, miles from the front, out of all touch with his old comrades, with no distractions and no outlet for his energies except work of a purely routine character.

"It might be peace-time and me a bloomin' clerk" was how he expressed his disgust. But he still hoped, for he believed that to the efficient the rewards of efficiency come in due course and are never long delayed.

Without being conceited, he was perhaps more aware of his own possibilities than of his limitations. In the old days in his battery he had been the major's right-hand man and the familiar (but always respectful) friend of the subalterns. In the early days of the war he had succeeded amazingly where others in his position had certainly failed. His management of affairs "behind the scenes" had been unsurpa.s.sed. Never once, from the moment when his unit left Havre till a month later it arrived upon the Aisne, had its men been short of food or its horses of forage. He had replaced deficiencies from some apparently inexhaustible store of "spares"; he had provided the best billets, the safest wagon lines, the freshest bread with a consistency that was almost uncanny. In the darkest days of the retreat he had remained imperturbed, "pinching" freely when blandishments failed, distributing the comforts as well as the necessities of life with a lavish hand and an optimistic smile. His wits and his resource had been tested to the utmost. He had enjoyed the contest (it was his nature to do that), and he had come through triumphant and still smiling.

During the stationary period on the Aisne, and later in Flanders, he had managed the wagon line--that other half of a battery which consists of almost everything except the guns and their complement of officers and men--practically unaided. On more than one occasion he had brought up ammunition along a very dangerous route at critical moments.

He received his commission late in December, at a time when his battery was out of action, "resting." He dined in the officers' mess, receiving their congratulations with becoming modesty and their drink without unnecessary reserve. It was on this occasion that he had induced his major to promise to get him back. Then he departed, sorrowful in spite of all his pride in being an officer, to join the column. There, in the seclusion of his billet, he studied army lists and watched the name of the senior subaltern of the battery creep towards the head of the roll.

When that officer was promoted captain there would be a vacancy, and that vacancy would be Pickersd.y.k.e's chance. Meanwhile, to fit himself for what he hoped to become, he spent whole evenings poring over manuals of telephony and gun-drill; he learnt by heart abstruse pa.s.sages of Field Artillery Training; he ordered the latest treatises on gunnery, both practical and theoretical, to be sent out to him from England; and he even battled valiantly with logarithms and a slide-rule....

From all the foregoing it will be understood how bitter was his disappointment when his application to be transferred was refused. His colonel's att.i.tude astonished him. He had expected recognition of that industry and usefulness of which he had given unchallengeable proof. But the colonel, instead of saying--

"You have done well; I will not stand in your way, much as I should like to keep you," merely observed--

"I'm sorry, but you cannot be spared."