With Haig on the Somme Part 21

CHAPTER XVI

The Silencing of the Guns

The German guns were flinging a terrific barrage fire behind us in a vain attempt to prevent our reserves coming up, and Dennis found that the spot at which they had emerged was close to the entrance of the village, if one could dignify those shapeless heaps of brick and mortar by such a name.

Oddly enough, above his head towered a gilded Calvary, untouched by our previous bombardment or the rain of bullets that sang through the air.

He found the rest of his company lining a low bank on which flowers were growing, and replying to some hot fire from the other side of the street, at the entrance to which a company of the kilted battalion which had gone over on their left was re-forming after suffering severely.

A good score of them were lying face downwards between what had been the first houses of the village, and he recognised the regiment by the green-and-yellow tartan.

There was no need to ask the reason of their pause, for eye and ear told him that machine-guns were trained along the street, into which no man might pa.s.s and live.

Somebody gave a tug at the skirt of Dennis's tunic as he knelt on one knee, looking sharply about him, and he saw that it was Private Harry Hawke, lying p.r.o.ne on his stomach, in the act of recharging his magazine, and there was an odd grin on the little c.o.c.kney's face.

"I know what you're thinkin' abart, sir," he said. "Them guns is yonder in the church. I got 'em set the moment we took cover 'ere. You and me and Tiddler could do it on our own, if you'd only say the word!"

Dennis had followed the directions of Hawke's dirty finger, and he smiled, for the thing had been in his own mind before the private spoke.

Sixty yards up the village street the ways forked, pa.s.sing to right and left round what had once been a white-walled church with a square tower, and it was easy to see that, although our guns had played havoc with the sacred edifice and reduced it to a shapeless ma.s.s of rubbish, with the mere stump of the tower remaining, the enemy had turned it into a point of vantage.

The door at the foot of the tower had been built up by a great pile of sandbags, leaving a narrow embrasure in the corner--a mere slit like that of an exaggerated slot in a pillar box.

But that slit commanded the street, and from it came that continuous stream of lead which had stayed the Highlanders' attack. It was an isolated fortress, and, so far, none of our troops had reached it; but a few resolute men might accomplish much, and Dennis bent down.

"We'll have a go at it, Hawke," he said. "But we'd better have half a dozen." And as Hawke and Tiddler crawled back out of the firing-line, Dennis called four others by name, and beckoned them to follow him behind the ruins of an adjoining house.

"We're going to take that gun, boys," he said.

"There are two guns, sir," corrected one of the men.

"Then we're going to take both of them," said Dennis; and, stooping down on his hands and knees, he crawled through the ruined gardens, only pausing as they came to a gap where there was no cover, and darting across it to the shelter of the next heap.

Two such openings they negotiated successfully, but as they crossed the third a German bullet smashed the water bottle at Hawke's hip.

"My bloomin' luck!" he grinned. "And me wiv a thirst I wouldn't sell for 'arf a crown, 'cos it's honestly worth three-and-six. Look out, sir!

We're coming level with the church now." And, glancing to their left as they lay flat, they saw a curl of smoke wreathing out of the embrasure, and another succession of little puffs above it, which told them that the second gun had been hoisted to the first floor of the ruined belfry.

Dennis raised himself on his hands and reconnoitred carefully. The air was full of sound. The rifle-fire behind them mingled with the continuous rattle of the guns they had planned to capture, and yet not an enemy was to be seen, although they knew that there were thousands of them hidden away in their immediate neighbourhood. Now all depended on their gaining the back of the church unseen.

Far away on the right they could hear an English cheer, and knew that the battalions on that flank of the brigade were making good, while their own portion of the line was held up.

In front of them lay a team of dead horses, attached to the fragments of a wagon, and the flies were buzzing about them. A little farther on was a German reservist on his back with his knees up, and the flies were busy with him too. The rest was an extraordinary wilderness of shattered homes and sh.e.l.l craters, which seemed of no possible value to anybody, but it had to be captured, and time was flying.

"You see that third heap in front of us?" said Dennis. "We'll make for that, and, if we reach it, then dash straight across the open for the back of the church, and leave the rest to chance. It's rotten work fighting broken bricks and mortar, but there it is; it's got to be done."

He jumped up suddenly and ran forward, his companions streaming out behind him, everyone bending double, for bullets were flying in every direction, some from their own battalion, and some no doubt from hidden snipers, who would have to be reckoned with later on.

"Are we all here?" said the lad, as they reached the third heap, which had been an estaminet before a British 9.2 had brought it down like a house of cards. "Now for it!" And they bolted across the open square, and gained their goal at last.

Only the skeleton of the church walls remained, and the sun slanted in through the ruined windows on to a scene of indescribable wreckage.

Where the roof had fallen in the debris formed a barrier across the aisle, and the eastern end of the ruin had evidently been used as a dressing-station. Several stretchers lay on the floor there, and on one of them was a dead man with a tourniquet still clamped on his thigh.

The saw on the ground, and the ugly contents of the bowl beside it, told of an interrupted amputation--perhaps the other man huddled up in the corner had been the surgeon himself!

But they had no time to waste on idle speculation, for beyond the pile of beams and tiles, red bricks and plaster, the machine-guns were still firing; and, motioning his companions to caution, Dennis crept round a broken pillar.

Under what remained of the belfry tower behind the rampart of sandbags the grey-painted 77 mm. showed its square s.h.i.+eld, and a crew of five men were busy about it.

Somewhere above them in the bell chamber another and a lighter gun was in full blast, and Dennis made a quick sign to Harry Hawke.

The crack shot of No. 2 Platoon raised his rifle, and the sergeant on the seat behind the gun-s.h.i.+eld reeled round and dropped, Hawke's second bullet sending the man who was feeding the breech two feet into the air.

"Charge, boys, charge!" shouted Dennis. And before the three Germans who remained realised what was happening, there was an ugly bit of bayonet work, and the gun was silenced!

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Before the Germans realised what was happening, there was an ugly bit of bayonet work"]

Then Tiddler jumped back with a shout, as the head and shoulders of another German appeared like a Jack-in-the-box from a hole in the floor of the church.

From the box he carried in his arms it was evident that the ammunition supply was stored below; and as the man fell backwards from Tiddler's bayonet with a scream of agony, an answering shout came up from the depths beneath.

"Bombs, quick!" cried Tiddler. But Dennis seized Hawke's arms as he already drew a deadly missile from his bag.

"Do you want to blow us all to smithereens?" shouted his officer. "Close the trap, and haul the gun over it. That will keep them quiet down there until we want them." And everyone lending a hand, as the trap-door shut down with a dull boom, they dragged the gun back until the end of the trail rested upon the covering and effectually secured it.

"Now for those chaps up there," said Dennis, with a thrill of exultation. And they bolted for a little door in the thickness of the tower wall.

A man named Rogerson was the first to enter, and he went pounding up the winding stone steps in his heavy hobnailed boots, followed by Tiddler, Dennis having to content himself with third place.

But their shout, the two rifle shots, and the sudden lull in the firing of the 77 mm. had not been lost upon those above. The boarded floor of the bell chamber was full of cracks and fissures, and through one of them a sharp voice cried in German: "What's going on down there?"

"Wait and see!" retorted Dennis at random; and his men laughed at the familiar catchword.

There was a great stamping of feet overhead, and Harry Hawke, who chanced to be the last to reach the little door, cast his eyes upward as he was about to enter.

A man's head was looking down, and Hawke fired at it.

The head remained where it was, but the marksman chuckled, knowing his own powers; and as he stepped inside the doorway something splashed on to the pavement where he had stood, something wet that shone very red in the suns.h.i.+ne.

Their haversacks and water bottles brushed against the narrow sides of the winding stairway; and as Rogerson reached the last step a revolver cracked out, and he threw up his arms.

Tiddler immediately behind him caught the falling body on his head and shoulder, and pa.s.sed his rifle to Dennis.

"Poor old Jim!" muttered Tiddler, as he gripped the dead weight in both hands, and, using the body as a s.h.i.+eld, staggered into the bell chamber.