1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [168]
Although by mid-afternoon the Germans had paused in their advance there was no possibility of a counter-attack because the fight had been taken up by their artillery and the British reserves could not hope to penetrate the curtain of deadly fire, but even in the teeth of the bombardment the five hundred men of the East Yorks and the King’s Own managed to advance as much as a thousand yards in an attempt to fill the gap. They were just half-way to the old broken line, but they could go no further. The advance had cost them dear, and still they were nowhere near the Germans. Behind their curtain of exploding shells the Germans were entrenching across the gap but mercifully on either side of it the flanks held. They did more than hold. East of Mousetrap Farm the Northumberland Fusiliers clung on, decimated by shelling, beating off attacks in front and on their open flank far into the evening. It was the Germans who gave up first.
Two miles away, the Patricias had every available man in the line – every signaller, every batman, every pioneer, every cook and every orderly. Earlier, with the help of the 4th Rifle Brigade, the left-hand company swung round at right-angles to their front, spread out in a thin line facing the gap, and attacked the enemy troops as they appeared. For the moment at least it seemed they had scared them off, and now help had arrived to extend the flank line further and to form a line of reserves at the Patricias’ backs. Even so, it was still touch and go and a determined attempt by the Germans to widen the gap further and ‘roll up the line’ would have been hard to withstand. But the Germans were still short of men and the one heartening piece of intelligence in an otherwise catastrophic day came from the Royal Flying Corps. Pilots, vigilantly patrolling the skies beyond the salient, could see no large-scale troop movements, no unusual number of trains rushing towards the German railhead and no fresh divisions making for the front. After their initial triumph the Germans seemed content to depend for the moment on the protection of their artillery while they dug in, re-grouped, and used the breathing space to bring up local reserves, to evacuate their casualties, and to marshal prisoners and send them tramping to the rear in long despondent columns.
Pte. H. J. Crask, MM.
We started back just before dusk and our own artillery gave us a parting shell or two which caused more than a little wind amongst us – at least Sergeant Hart of the Cheshires put in a certain amount of gymnastics after the style of the ostrich dance! I could not at all estimate the strength of the Germans. Zonnebeke was simply crammed with them and our own artillery seemed to be lost.
They made any amount of sarcastic cowardly remarks as we passed, calling us swines, etc. One sneering idiot called us ‘cousins from over the Channel’, telling us also that we were prisoners – we hardly knew that I suppose! – finishing up with a sneer and also spitting at us. We were halted again on the other side of Zonnebeke by some dirty little officer and made to carry the German guards’ packs. We had to leave behind our two badly wounded men, Corporal Pugh and Lance-Corporal Game, in two separate dug-outs – apparently dying and left entirely on their own, but with no stretchers they had to be left.
We halted several times before finally reaching our first night’s quarters and were questioned by any amount of officers trying to pump us. If they had not asked so many questions they would not have had so many untruths told to them! They thought we were all Kitchener’s men. We told them that they were still in England – and didn’t they look shocked! They had the impudence to tell us that our own Regular Army was absolutely wiped out during the latter part of 1914 and they were more surprised than ever when some of us showed them our pay books and told them that there were