CHAPTER XXX
THE LAST FIGHT
Midnight; we were sleeping in an orchard about a mile back of the lines; I was awakened by a sergeant and told to "Fall in." We did so, and the captain told us what we had to do.
"Boys, you are going to try and take Redoubt B; the artillery, what we have of it, will shell their first line for half an hour, and then will lift and play on their second line. While they are doing this you will go over. There's a lot of us who are not going to come back, but the job must be done and I know you will do it."
While he was speaking, thoughts of mother, father and home surged more vividly through my mind than at any other time, but moments for reflection were few. We swung out of the orchard on to the road and nothing could be heard except the dull sound of trudging feet. Flares would shoot up into the sky, to hang suspended for a moment, and die away leaving everything in gloom once more. Every now and then a muffled shriek or a coughing gurgle would tell of the passing or wounding of some gallant lad.
By that corner of hell we trudged silently, every man busy with his own thoughts. At last we turned up the death trap to our left, on the famous Z---- road. Over its ghastly piles of dead we filed on for many yards without touching solid ground, so thickly lay the dead.
At this time we were sighted by the Huns and treated to a fusillade of machine guns and rifle fire. We were now almost to shelter and the men made their way, as only men under fire can, to the safety of a well-constructed trench.
A short rest, then on again, this time up a shallow communication trench and then out behind a low-lying parapet. Three or four huge Bavarians lay with faces to the stars; they had been hurriedly laid to one side by our leading files.
The fitful light of the flares intensified the mute horror of the fallen jaw and the unspeakable terror of the dead faces. Still, such sights now failed to move us, and with but a perfunctory glance we passed on.
Here we waited in silence for the word. What an hour of mental agony. The steady hammer, hammer of the light guns, the monotonous bass muttering of the heavies, the shrill, hysterical crackle of machine gun and rifle and the shrieking and cracking of bursting shells seemed to sing hell's requiem to us poor mortals waiting. My God! that waiting. At such a time man's trivial thoughts sink into utter oblivion and the naked soul shows bare.
Apparently calm and indifferent, yet filled with a fear, the like of which no one except those who have waited as we waited can understand, we listened for the word.
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[Illustration: READY FOR A RAID ON THE ENEMY'S TRENCHES. THE RAIDING PARTY GOING TO "GIVE 'EM HELL."]
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"Over and at them," and the next thing I remember I was plunging forward through the mud of No Man's Land. On each side of me men were falling, cursing, praying and gasping, but unscathed I went on, two things mingling queerly in my head: One was the words of a doggerel song we sang on the march,
Wash me in the water that you wash the dixies in And I shall be whiter than the whitewash on the wall,
and the other, a dull wonder why I was not killed. After an "eternity" of plunging forward, we, a pitiful few, reached our objective, the Huns hurriedly leaving, that is those of them who had not joined their comrades in hell. Still our work was not yet done. The ground had been won, but to take it is one thing, to hold it another, and with all our officers gone and sixty per cent of the men, we must work to consolidate.
Just as I seized a sandbag full of earth to place in front of me, I felt a stinging smack on my ankle, as though I had been kicked. I turned to curse the man who I thought had kicked me and then I fell over with a scream of pain. My left foot was smashed completely by a soft-nosed bullet.
I had merely commenced to feel the sting of the pain when the Huns rushed us again and it was hand to hand. A Bavarian lunged toward me with rifle clubbed; I closed my eyes, as I was utterly helpless and waited for my skull to be smashed. The blow did not fall. I opened my eyes just in time to see our sergeant-major plunge his bayonet through the Bavarian's neck. Down flopped the Hun on all fours, with his hands one on each side convulsively clutching the bayonet, and he sat immediately opposite me, just a bare few yards intervening, during all the hours I was there, with a hellish grin on his face. When the pain of the wound would subside and I would doze away for a few minutes I would awaken with a shudder, as I thought the dead Hun was moving his face closer and closer toward mine.
At this time I had an undying instance of the devotion of my chum, Morgan. He also was wounded, not so badly as I was, but time and again, at a terrible risk to himself, he would crawl over and help me regain a more comfortable position, all the time suffering intensely from his own wound, which was very painful.
Nothing could be done for any of the wounded, so serious was the position of the remnant of the boys. Their business was to hold what they had won and the wounded must do the best they could. The remnant, however, were of the Fifth and they held until relieved and reinforcements arrived twenty-four hours later.