''Over There'' with the Australians - R. Hugh Knyvett (read more books .TXT) 📗

"if he fired again we would turn the machine-guns on to them." I was sent back to make sure that he got the message. I took the precaution to take back with me one of his "duds" (unexploded shells) as evidence. At first he told me I was crazy—that we were getting German cross-fire, and that his shells were falling two hundred yards in front of us. I brought out my souvenir, and asked him if he had ever seen that before. He said: "For God's sake, bury it," but I told him it was going to divisional headquarters, and that his little mistake had already cost several lives. This battery did not belong to our division.

Our company commanders gathered us in small groups and carefully explained the plan of attack. We were to take the three lines of German trenches that were clearly discernible on the aeroplane photograph which was shown us; the first wave was to take the first trench, the second jumping over their heads and attacking the second German line, the third wave going on to the third German line. When all the Germans had been killed in the first trench, those left of the first wave were to follow to the third line. Unfortunately this photograph misled us, as one of the supposed trenches proved to be a ditch, and a great number of men were lost by going too far into enemy territory, seeking the supposed third line.

I have seen an actual photograph taken by an aeroplane during this battle, that shows a fight going on five miles behind the German lines. Many of the boys had sworn not to be taken prisoners, and though they knew they were cut off, they fought on until every last one of them was killed.

The Germans were thoroughly aware of our intentions to attack. Bad weather made a postponement for a couple of days advisable, and there had been so much artillery preparation that the enemy had time to get ready for us.

Considering the short time that our own artillery had been in their positions, and that they did not know a few days previously the range of the enemy's positions, their work was very thoroughly done. In most cases the wire had been well cut, and the enemy's front-line trenches were badly smashed about.

The Germans must have had some spies behind our lines, for they knew the actual moment of attack, and our feints failed to deceive them. Before the real attack the bombardment would cease for a moment or two, whistles being blown, orders shouted, and bayonets shown above the top of the parapet. The idea was that the Germans would then man their parapet to meet our attack, the artillery again opening fire on the trench. They failed to appear, however, until we actually went over the top, then the machine-guns and rifles swept a hail of bullets in our faces, like a veritable blizzard.

Nothing could exceed the bravery of those boys. The first wave went down like "wheat before the reaper." When the time came for the second wave to go over there was not a man standing of the first wave, yet not a lad faltered. Each gazed at his watch and on the arranged tick of the clock leaped over. In many cases they did not get any farther than the first wave. The last wave, though they knew each had to do the work of three, were in their places and started on their forlorn hope at the appointed moment.

This battle was a disaster. We failed to take the German trenches, but it was like two other failures, the defense of Belgium and the attack of the Dardanelles—a failure so glorious as to fill a man with pride that he was enabled to play a part in it. In this battle we so smashed five divisions of Bavarian guards that it was months before they got back into the trenches. Had they gone to Verdun at that time it might have meant its fall, as they were the flower of the German army.

In places both first and second German lines were taken, but in others we did not get across No Man's Land.

It was not that certain companies fought better than others, but here and there were unexpected obstacles. In one place No Man's Land was only fifty yards across, while elsewhere it was three hundred yards. There was a creek running diagonally across in one section, too wide to leap, too deep to ford, and the only place where it was bridged was so marked by the German machine-guns that the dead were piled in heaps about it.

Those who actually reached the German trenches were too few to consolidate, and the German artillery soon began to take a heavy toll of them, knowing the range of their own trenches to a yard. So these had to come back again, and when night fell we were back in our old trenches—rather a few of us were; most of our division lay out in No Man's Land.

All were not dead, but we had no men to help the wounded. We had no stretchers, and those that were alive, unwounded, were so fatigued as to be hardly able to stand upright. But we could not stand the thought of the fellows out there without help, and we crawled among them, taking the biscuits and water from the dead and giving them to the wounded. We could only reach a few of them, and we crawled back at daylight, cursing our impotence, and fearing what the day might bring to these our comrades, lying helpless in full view of the brutal enemy.

The sight of our trenches that next morning is burned into my brain. Here and there a man could stand upright, but in most places if you did not wish to be exposed to a sniper's bullet you had to progress on your hands and knees. In places the parapet was repaired with bodies—bodies that but yesterday had housed the personality of a friend by whom we had warmed ourselves. If you had gathered the stock of a thousand butcher-shops, cut it into small pieces and strewn it about, it would give you a faint conception of the shambles those trenches were.

One did not ask the whereabouts of brother or chum. If we did not see him, then it were best to hope that he were of the dead.

It were folly to look over the parapet, for nearly every shell-hole contained a wounded man, and, poor fellow, he would wave to show his whereabouts; and though we could not help him, it would attract the attention of the Huns, who still had shells to spare—so that the wounded might not fight again.

I have found the Bavarian even worse than the Prussian, and this day, and the next, and again, did they sweep No Man's Land with machine-guns and shrapnel, so as to kill the wounded.

When darkness came the second night, we had organized parties of rescue, but we still had practically no stretchers, and the most of the men had to be carried in on our backs.

I went out to the bridge, and in between machine-gun bursts began to pull down that heap of dead. Not all were dead, for in some of the bodies that formed that pyramid life was breathing. Some were conscious but too weak to struggle from out that weight of flesh. Machine-guns were still playing on this spot, and after we had lost half of our rescuing party, we were forbidden to go here again, as live men were too scarce.

But the work of rescue did not cease. Two hundred men were carried in from a space less in area than an acre.

One lad, who looked about fifteen, called to me: "Don't leave me, sir." I said, "I will come back for you, sonny," as I had a man on my back at the time. In that waste of dead one wounded man was like a gem in sawdust—just as hard to find. Four trips I made before I found him, then it was as if I had found my own young brother. Both his legs were broken, and he was only a schoolboy, one of those overgrown lads who had added a couple of years in declaring his age to get into the army. But the circumstances brought out his youth, and he clung to me as though I were his father. Nothing I have ever done has given me the joy that the rescuing of that lad did, and I do not even know his name. He was the only one who did not say: "Take the other fellow first."

There were men who were forty-eight hours without food or drink, without having their wounds dressed, knowing that the best they had to hope for was a bullet. That the chances were they would die of starvation or exposure, and yet again and again would they refuse to be taken until we should look to see if there was not some one alive in a neighboring shell-hole. They would tell us to "look in the drain, or among those bushes over there." During the day they had heard a groan. A groan, mind you, and there were men there with legs off, and arms hanging by a skin, and men sightless, with half their face gone, with bowels exposed, and every kind of unmentionable wounds, yet some one had groaned. Why, some had gritted teeth on bayonets, others had stuffed their tunics in their mouths, lest they should groan. Some one had written of the Australian soldier in the early part of the war, "that they never groan," and these men who had read that would rather die than not live up to the reputation that some newspaper correspondent had given them.

I lay for half an hour with my arms around the neck of a boy within a few yards of a German "listening post," while the man who was with me went back to try and find a stretcher. He told me he had neither mother nor friend, was brought up in an orphanage, and that no one cared whether he lived or died. But our hearts rubbed as we lay there, and we vowed lifelong friendship. It does not take long to make a friend under those circumstances, but he died in my arms and I do not know his name.

There was another man who was anxious about his money-belt; perhaps it contained something more valuable than money. I went back for it, stuffing it in my pocket, and then forgot all about it. When I thought of it again the belt was gone, and the owner had gone off to hospital. I do not know who he was, and maybe he thinks I have his belt still.

One of the most self-forgetful actions ever performed was by Sergeant Ross. We found a man on the German barbed wire, who was so badly wounded that when we tried to pick him up, one by the shoulders and the other by the feet, it almost seemed that we would pull him apart. The blood was gushing from his mouth, where he had bitten through lips and tongue, so that he might not jeopardize, by groaning, the chances of some other man who was less badly wounded than he. He begged us to put him out of his misery, but we were determined we would get him his chance, though we did not expect him to live. But the sergeant threw himself down on the ground and made of his body a human sledge. Some others joined us, and we put the wounded man on his back and dragged them thus across two hundred yards of No Man's Land, through the broken barbed wire and shell-torn ground, where every few inches there was a piece of jagged shell, and in and out of the shell-holes. So anxious