1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [297]
We were first in the open and although shrapnel and shells were flying they were not concentrated on our small area as they seemed to be an hour ago. Then about nine o’clock I was asked to hold a line of cottages as it was believed there was a gap in our line in front. No sooner had I got in position, digging in and fixing machine-guns, than I was told to go on to a small town and occupy that (Loos). We did so – not without casualties. It is really awful seeing dead and dying lying about and wounded being carried back. It really is Hell. None of us ever want any more of this attacking. That village or town was simply shelled till we had to leave it. I lay down and tried to sleep till orders came to get out into the open and I was to hold this field quite near. I am still holding it – quite calmly, rather hungrily, would give anything for a cup of tea. How and when it will end I can’t tell. They are driven back all along the line some four miles.
In the Headquarters chateau at Hinges telephones buzzed busily now, dispatch riders roared up at intervals and it was only now, in the long hours of the night that reports could be properly analysed and the position accurately assessed. The Staff were far from pessimistic, for although things had not gone as well as they had hoped in certain places, the line had been broken, Loos had been captured, almost everywhere the troops had progressed and, with a little more effort, the German defence would surely crumble. And if the subsidiary attacks had not gained much, at least they had achieved the objective of keeping the enemy occupied elsewhere and pinning down his reserves.
In the Ypres salient the turmoil of the day’s fighting was over and the night, by comparison, was quiet. An occasional shell came over and now and again a burst from a machine-gun or the crack of a rifle showed that the Germans were still on the alert and fearful that the British would attack by night before the arrival of the reinforcements, marching under cover of the darkness to the line. But there was no fight left in them. Alex Rule lay alone in a sandbagged shelter in Sanctuary Wood drifting in and out of consciousness as he waited to be carried out of the line. His left foot was shattered, he was weak from loss of blood and he had no idea what time it was.
U Company had been in the thick of the fight. Like the other ‘subsidiary attacks’ it began as night was ebbing towards dawn and the troops at Loos were still filing into position when the guns opened up on the Bellewaerde Ridge. It was still dark, and still raining when the bombers who were to lead the attack crawled into No Man’s Land to crouch doggo in shell-holes to wait for zero, and it was a long uncomfortable wait, for the shell-holes were inches thick in squelching mud. The bombers were not objects of envy to their comrades. Shaking hands with Alex Rule as he prepared to cross the parapet, casting a gloomy eye at the dozen bombs that hung in pockets of webbing about his person, Joe Reid remarked, ‘Well, cheerio. I dinna wish ye any ill-luck, mind ye, but if ye happen to get in the way of an explosive bullet with a’ they bombs around ye, ye’ll get blown to buggery.’ But waiting in the pouring rain the bombers’ thoughts were wholly concerned with keeping the muzzles of their rifles out of the mud and their brassards of thick emery paper from getting soaked. If that happened, and the brassards were too wet to ignite the fuses of their bombs when they were struck, the bombers knew they would be well and truly scuppered.
At zero hour two mines exploded with a roar beneath the German front line, the guns lifted and the bombing party dashed across ahead of the infantry. In the few weeks since the Germans had regained the ground round Hooge, as always they had taken pains to fortify their defences. A length of their front trench-line was devastated