- from ‘the War Illustrated’, 7th April, 1917
- 'The Patrol Sights the Foe'
- by Max Pemberton
Battle Pictures of the Great War
German and British infantry in hand-to-hand combat
A Scene from the German Retreat
"The enemy is in full retreat ! "
They are words which have come down to us from centuries of war. Again they are spoken in the supreme hour of Armageddon.
"The enemy is in full retreat! " But not as he went aforetime.
There is no sauve qui peut to be looked for nowadays ; no scattering of the broken squares, no wild cries of death and fury, no loosing of the Hussars — at least, not yet. This is no war of panoply, and the flashing sabre plays but little part in it. When our enemy retreats he goes stealthily, like a thief in the night. His guns and his baggage have preceded him. He "shoots the moon," and the astonished landlord upon the other side may not' discover the fact until dawn has come.
Something of this kind has been going on upon the western front latterly, and though it has lacked panoply, it has not wanted excitement. Ask "the Patrol" what he thinks. He will tell you that no gallop in Leicestershire is more stimulating ; no child's game of bogy more exciting; no football scrum a finer tonic. It is the game of and only the daring should embark upon it. Let a man have something of the "Deerslayer" in him, the spirit of those who singed the Spanish king's beard, and the daring of the old "sea-rovers," and he will do well at the job. But let him be self-conscious, prudent and thinking' of consequences, and surely he is better at home. :it is a man's work, and there is little like it in the war.
Consider the circumstance.
Revelations at Dawn
Men turned in last night as upon any common day of the winter. Before them was the. parapet of the trench, and beyond the parapet that dangerous No Man's Land — that Tom Tiddler's ground in which death stalked in anything but majesty. The witching hours brought the usual happenings. A few high explosives thumped upon the roofs of the dug-outs and asked the soldiers if they were there. Star-shells burst on high and revealed the wretchedness of the wilderness. But it was all in the business, and only in the hour before the dawn did anything unusual happen.
Then came revelations.
Men pricked their ears at arresting sounds. Why, in the name of Krupp, were the Huns loosing off so many rifles ? Whole volleys seemed to be fired from some of the trenches over yonder. And the big guns apparently were pegging away blindly, shell after shell, and with no thought to the clock. Rumour got upon her legs at this and stalked about our lines. The whisper of it became loud talk, and loud talk was lost in jubilation. The enemy had retired during the night. Released from the Trenches
Officers made no "bones" about it, but shared the secret with the men. All those positions we had coveted for so many weary months — it looked as though they were ours for the asking. The Hun had gone ! Planes droning in the sky above brought in the glad tidings with all the despatch excitement could afford. He was gone all right — old Hindenburg had "padded the hoof" at last.
So now the Patrol goes out. Chosen batches of men, platoons with a resolute officer, hasten forth to spy out the land. It is a dangerous job — yet what man will speak of danger ? The Hun has gone, but the Hun remains. Men think less of themselves than of the strange feeling of exaltation which comes to them when they climb out of the trench and stand upon the parapet. It would have been death yesterday to have done this — to-day it is victory and freedom.
With joyous shouts they hurry "across the stricken fields.. The vast shell-holes, into which they used to crawl at night as Indians upon a trail, are now but little lakes which they skirt fearlessly. No sound of firing greets their ears — not a funeral note. They see far away the smoke of burning stores, and as they go an ammunition dump blows up and the roar of the explosion drums upon their ears. But of the Boche himself there is no evidence yet, and seeking it, they draw near the first of the trenches, and down they go as one man when the volley rings out.
"A rearguard," thinks the lieutenant, and gives his orders accordingly. Just as Wellington said to Campbell that the Old Guard would not stand at Waterloo, so now does our splendid Reginald tell his men that all is well.
Rushing a Rearguard
"We will rush them !" he says. And rush them they do, with a wild whoop, bayonet and revolver in hand, and an elan which is irresistible. The Hun does not stand ; he never meant to. It is true that his officers left him there, to the number of twenty, with instructions to die where he stood ; but dying is not in his programme. He rattles off a drum according to instructions, and then up go his hands. "Kamerad !" he cries, and, like Oliver Twist, he asks for more — bread and meat and the billets of the British.
It is the first goal in the game, and the ball is kicked off again — but now upon a more dangerous journey. For the dug-outs are in the depths of the trench, and into the dug- outs our Patrol must go. Are there men there or are there not ? Who can depict the excitement of it ? The officer stands at the narrow doorway and peers into the black hole beyond. He calls to the Boche to come out. His pistol is poised — it is life or death for him. Often humble voices will answer him and cries for mercy be heard. At other times there will be a dead silence, and going down, that brave fellow will return no more.
Death in the Labyrinth
"Our officer went in," says a trooper in a recent affair and immediately cried back, “They have done for me, sergeant." His groans were heard by the others ; he had a bayonet through his heart. Who can depict the rage of those who followed him ? "The bombs — in with them — i blow the place to blazes. They have killed our officer !"
Many a devilish fight has been the Patrol's lot in the blackness of these labyrinths. Consider the task of men who must wander alone in fearsome tunnels ; through caves and cellars, at any turn of which the enemy may be waiting. It is a task to set the hair a- bristling, the heart beating wildly with the excitement of it. Yet men go to it gladly, and when the prisoners are seized and dragged out to the light of day, rich is the reward of the adventurers. Now they may pass on through the rain or the sunlight to the wood and the village, the open fields and that Elysium which still boasts of trees.
We speak of new money where the War Loan is concerned, and in like manner there is virgin ground for the soldier. For months — nay years — he has looked upon the wilderness which has no match in ail the story of desolation ; has seen nothing but vast shell-holes and the dead lying about them, and the dust of villages and the tangle of matted wire. Now he comes suddenly upon El Dorado. Here are meadows and pastures, a village eccentric enough- to possess houses and a street, a church wherein the living may pray for the dead.
True, the tower of the church has gone, but it stood yesterday when, from our own lines, the glass showed us the time by the ancient clock. This very morning the Germans blew it up as they passed by, and now there will be none in the village but those they have left behind to check us. Dangerous as were - the dug-outs the Patrol has just searched, the peril of this village street will be more real. Every wall may harbour a machine-gun and its party. There will be riflemen. at the windows of the ruined house, rude barriers of waggons flung across the street, snipers innumerable whom we approach in extended order.
Men crouch, rifle in hand, stealing from house to house, here beating down a door and rushing wildly to the heights — there going for a low wall with a cheer and leaping it to bayonet the enemy beyond.
I 'oath will be busy, of course, and many will fall. We lift our hats, but the Patrol has no time to think of aught but his task. "Forward !" is his cry. "The enemy is in full retreat !"
The village is won at last, and all kinds of strange discoveries are reported. Here, for instance, in the .depths of a cellar is an old Frenchwoman who has lived there since the war broke out. God knows why the Huns left her in the place ; but perhaps she could cook. They may have regarded her as a standing jest — but here she is, and out she comes with her cheeks still rosy, while she cries "Vive la France !" regardless of the nationality of the intruders. "Vive la France !" they answer her, and go on to other houses.
Evidently the Hun had gone out in a hurry, for here is the officer's breakfast still ready upon the table, and yonder is part of the officer's kit; and downstairs in the back room lies all that the men could not carry when the order came to march.
Testimony of the Guns
More encouraging is the relic of a great gun set on the little height at the end of the village street, and blown to pieces by young Hollweg Hindenburg before he flitted. Of ammunition for the gun there is little, for clearly he blazed it all away before setting out for Tipperary. But the gun, and others later on, are facts to set the Patrol shouting ; and now he knows that this is assuredly a retreat indeed.
"Get in touch with the enemy," were the orders of the CO. “We must leave the village, the bottles upon the table, the rank bread which was uneaten, the sausages and the coffee, and the portraits of the Kaiser in forty-two hats, and get upon our way. Beyond the village lies the wood, and the wood is the abode of terrors. Here you fight from tree to tree for it is a respectable wood and knows its business.
Every kind of obstacle will meet you in these once sylvan glades. Pits have been dug, and if you tread in them you fire mines below. Helmets lie scattered on the grass — beware of them, for each shelters a bomb, and if you lift it there is another obituary in the "Times."
They call them "booby traps," and the Patrol must meet many by the way. A ease of wine bottles — let him drink at his peril! A valise tossed into the straw — look out. it is fooling thee. Even bombs lie in the vicinity of the dead, so that he who goes to discover life may fall among the corpses.
Sighting the Enemy
The Patrol knows all this, for his officer is wise. His concern is wholly with the living — the sniper who is in both senses "up a tree," the machine-gun in the thicket, the groups of Huns, hidden like the Babes by garlands of leaves. We fight from tree to tree here, arid enjoy the human battue.
Let a head be shown and a man is down. The rush is often the only remedy — all together with a dash which is irresistible ; the charge of the forwards who know how to pass; the domination of the brave fellows who fear nothing on God's earth and the Hun least of all. He in turn knows it, and at the psychological moment his hands will go up. Die for the Fatherland — not much when there is sausage over yonder !
We emerge from the wood, and away over the wide green plain the Patrol sights the enemy at last. He is there, on that high ridge of ground we had seen hitherto but on the maps. Yon can even espy him at work upon the new trenches. The smoke of his fires goes up; his great guns are beginning to belch the barrage which should forbid pursuit.
Here the Patrol will end his day — not as the chanticleer who crows proudly upon the eminence, but with the satisfaction of the man who knows, and who will return at his leisure to tell a familiar story.
