1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [71]
Lt. C. Tennant.
Just at this time the Germans got the range of our trench exactly and did some damage with high explosive and shrapnel. On seeing No. 1 Company move forward I ran across to get final instructions from Major Cuthbert, who was now in command. He was sitting in a shell hole with the adjutant, Macmillan and Sergeant Ross of the machine-gun team. Just after I had got there two shrapnel bursts clanged close beside us. Poor Macmillan got a terrible wound right across the forehead, and Cuthbert fell forward with the blood streaming from his head. I could see it was only a flesh wound and, as soon as I had put a field dressing on, the bleeding stopped, but Macmillan was in a bad state – so bad that the adjutant thought he was dying. I saw that his lungs and heart were still working, though part of his brain was laid bare, and I was going to put a field dressing on him too, when the adjutant said that as No. 1 Company had started off some time before, I should go on at once. So I got out and, having got hold of Jim, we gave a yell to the platoon and started off hell for leather across the open.
We took breath under cover of the Smith-Dorrien trench, fifty yards in front, before starting off on the hottest bit of our advance – the hundred and fifty yards of open ground, sloping slightly towards the front, between the Smith-Dorrien trench and the Gurkha trench which we were reinforcing. About twenty yards before we got to it the ground was practically dead and there we flung ourselves down and crawled the rest of the way up to the trench. With my head well down in the mud and my pack in front of it I had a look round to see how the boys were getting on and I only realised when I saw how many of them had been stopped on the way what a hot fire we had come through. A nice cheerful Londoner, Appleton, was blown to pieces by a shell just as he was getting out of the trench, handsome Macdonald, the piper, was killed stone dead by a bullet through the heart, and Speer through the head, and a dozen or more, including my jolly little batman Simpson, were wounded.
Jim had been close to me during the advance and we settled down together in a cramped but safe corner of the Gurkha trench to take stock of the position and to pull ourselves – literally – together. Both our kilt aprons had been practically torn off and I had lost my watch bracelet. Luckily I saw it lying only a yard or two back, so I rolled out at the back of the parapet and recovered it. Jim had a bullet right through his pack (there was hardly a man in the company who had not got a hole through him somewhere) and, generally speaking, it looked anything but tidy.
I naturally expected that as soon as we had brought up supports the Gurkhas would go ahead but their colonel, after discussing the matter with Cuthbert, reported to Brigade HQ and was ordered not to advance further until the people on our left came up.
This time it was Brigadier Jacob himself who made his way, fuming and incredulous, to confront Colonel Stephens in his cellar. What had caused the hold-up? Why had his troops been left out on a limb? Why had the 8th Division not advanced? The Brigadier was quivering with fury and frustration and when Stephens produced the order – the order that forbade him under any circumstances to attack – Jacobs read it, and then re-read it, hardly able to believe the evidence of his eyes. There was no more to be said. The Brigadier returned to his Headquarters and, angry, perplexed, and none the wiser, he called off his attack.
But the 8th Division had advanced – or, at least, some of them had.
It was almost a quarter to three when the orders for the attack reached Brigadier General Carter at 24th