1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [105]
The Germans already suspected that something was up and they too were sapping and digging beneath their own line, listening and probing to find the British tunnels and blow them up, if they could, before the British succeeded in blowing up their own positions. There were many false alarms, there were many genuine heart-stopping scares and there was the constant fear of being emtombed if a lucky shell should demolish the entrance and cut off the way out. But the work went on.
As the tunnels drew near the German lines they splayed out in minor branches and six charges were laid. The worst job was bringing up the explosive, more than four tons of it packed in bags that weighed a hundred pounds apiece – half the weight of a hefty man. It took two men to lift a bag on to the shoulders of a third and every hundred yards they had to halt to change over. They were nightmare journeys, staggering by night across dark fields on a track of broken duckboards with bent knees quivering and muscles straining beneath the dead weight of the sacks. They moved as quietly as was humanly possible, praying for the next halt, praying that the enemy was not on the alert, that no flare would pierce the dark to give the show away, and hoping against hope that no shell would land nearby as they stumbled towards the mine shaft.
But at last the job was done. The charges were set, the mines were ready, and the plans were laid. The mines would be exploded at ten-second intervals, the guns were waiting to open the bombardment, and the infantry was standing by to go into the assault when Hill 60 went up.
It was seven o’clock in the evening of 19 April. Everything was quiet and the air was still warm at the end of a fine day. The mines were detonated precisely on time. The infantry watched transfixed and the ground shook beneath their feet as Hill 60 erupted like a volcano, throwing debris and the bodies of the German garrison high into the air. The shock waves were still rippling as the guns began to boom. The infantry sprang from the trenches and the gentle sky of the April evening died in a dense black pall of smoke and fumes. In less than fifteen minutes they were digging in beyond the reeking craters and consolidating their position on the battered crest of Hill 60.
Chapter 13
Jock Macleod had spent a happy day pottering in the garden of the fine house they called ‘Goldfish Chateau’ on the western outskirts of Ypres where the officers of the 2nd Camerons were billeted while the Battalion was at rest. It was hardly damaged by shell-fire, the garden was a blaze of spring flowers and even japonica and early roses were in bloom. In two days they would be returning to the trenches. There, encouraged by the fine weather over the last few days, a luxuriant display of cowslips had blossomed, and to continue the springtime theme Jock had carefully dug up some daffodils from the chateau garden. He packed them in a flower-pot, purloined from the conservatory, and when the battalion returned to the trenches, he proposed to plant them on the covering of soil that camouflaged the headquarters dug-out. Gardening was still in his mind after dinner, when he wrote his regular letter home, and he was struck by a happy thought: Please send me some penny packets of summer seeds to sow round the trenches – although I fully expect that we shall be well on our way to Berlin before they flower. Jock had good reason to be optimistic, for the roar of the mines going up at Hill 60 had been heard for miles and, fired by rumours,