1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [170]
They had fought like lions to the limit of their endurance and far beyond it. They were drained and exhausted, and it was time to go. The guns rumbled on but the fire was thinner now for the Germans had relaxed their efforts, as worn out as their opponents by the fearful day.
A young moon rose in the hazy sky above the battlefield. On both sides of the line they were carrying out the wounded and relieving the men who had survived the worst of the onslaught.
When the Patricias’ turn came in the early hours of the morning they dragged themselves thankfully back to assemble behind the trench. In the light of the first streaks of dawn Lieutenant Niven formed them up and placed himself at the head of the column. He was carrying Princess Patricia’s colours. They had not escaped entirely unscathed and the rich red of the banner was smudged and streaked and slightly torn. But the Princess’s colours had stayed in the line throughout the battle and now the colours led the survivors of her Regiment out. They marched down the track that led past Bellewaerde Lake, down the hill through Railway Wood and round to the Menin Road. In the shallow-scraped trenches reserve troops of their own 80th Brigade stood up to cheer them as they passed and some called out, ‘Well done the Pats!’ They were too weary just then to savour either the moment or the accolade, but it soon passed into Regimental history.
Chapter 21
Less than twenty miles to the south where the troops were assembled for the start of the ‘big show’ on which the French and British Commands had pinned their hopes the night was clear and starry. From the Aubers Ridge, a thin pencil line against the luminous sky, past the black-etched slag heaps of the Loos coal fields, across the chalky foothills of Artois to the ancient towers of Arras at the limit of the French attack, the French and British armies were poised and waiting for the morning. They had assembled by stealth, but it was an open secret, for the preparations for battle and the movement of tens of thousands of men could hardly be concealed and only yesterday the Germans had erected a taunting notice in their trenches in front of Aubers Ridge that was clearly meant to rile the British a hundred yards away: ‘Attack postponed until tomorrow.’ The implication that the enemy was ready and waiting was clear and the snipers had relieved their feelings by firing at the notice and reducing it to matchwood.
In a front-line trench on what was once the road that led from Sailly to Fromelles Charlie Burrows was sound asleep for, like all old soldiers, he had learned the lesson of resting when he could. Charlie had been in it from the start, he had landed with the 7th Division at Antwerp, he had fought through the first Battle of Ypres, and he had been fighting ever since, but as a gunner this was his first experience of being in the front line with the infantry. It was hardly surprising that he was exhausted for they had moved up earlier in the evening, man-handling the guns into positions that had been secretly prepared for them close up to the German trenches. The wheels were fitted with rubber tyres to reduce the noise as far as possible, but it was nerve-racking heavy work to drag them in under the very noses of the enemy. But every man was a volunteer and nobody had grumbled. Now, there was nothing to do but wait. They had been left in no doubt of the part they were to play and they were well prepared for it.
Gnr. C. Β. Burrows, 104th Bty., 22nd Brig., RFA.
They’d pulled us out of the line on 28 April to somewhere about three kilometres north-west of Merville and we stayed