Читать книгу S.O.S. Stand to! - Reginald Grant - Страница 6

It was the fourth day of the second battle of Ypres. I was in charge of my subsection at the guns and the men wanted water. I volunteered and went to a farmhouse 150 yards off, got the water and had started back for the guns. I had just stepped outside the door of the farmhouse when Kr-kr-kr-p! a huge shell came over and blew the gun and gun crew into kingdom come. A French captain was standing twenty feet from the door and, following the report, I started for our gun. I had just taken a step or two when another monster of death came hurtling through the air, straight for me, as I thought, but, instead, it was a message for the French soldier; it got him squarely, leaving not a fragment of his body to be seen.

Immediately after the death of our gun crew and the French captain our gun position was moved, and that same evening after supper, consisting of the usual bread, jam and tea, Walter Hope and I were on our way to the dugout. When half-way there a sudden emptiness entered into my life and the next thing I knew I was being lifted on to a stretcher. I rebelled and got to my feet. What had happened was this, as told me by one of the boys who was standing a short distance off—a shell had come and exploded almost at my feet, throwing me in the air for a distance, as he said, of fully twenty feet. It is impossible for me to personally make an estimate of the distance, as I was unconscious when I went up and when I came down.

When I recovered my senses, Hope was hopping around holding his right hand with his left and exclaiming like a madman. His hand had been almost severed by a fragment from the shell and was hanging to the wrist by a shred. He ran to the cookhouse and the cook advised him to go at once to the dressing station, as he couldn't do anything for him; instead, in his frenzy, he ran to the gun pits, going from one to the other, looking for help. Every man there wanted to help him, but he wouldn't and couldn't stand still; the concussion of the shell had affected his brain and this accounted for his ungovernableness. Then a few of us grabbed him and I bandaged it as best I could, walked over to the road with him and started him on his way to the dressing station; I could go no further, as we had commenced firing, and he made his way alone. When nearing the station his senses completely left him for the time and he plucked off his hanging hand and threw it from him. The poor lad was then taken into the station, properly attended to and sent to England.

Thankful am I to tell that he came through all right and is now working in Toronto earning his living by writing with his left hand, which he has learned to manipulate with practically the same agility the lost member possessed. We were deeply regretful at the loss of Hope from the crowd—fearless Hope, as he was known, and, sometimes, hopeless Hope—because never in all my experience have I seen a man who was so utterly regardless of danger; he would expose himself to what seemed certain death, and, as luck would have it, he got his blighty at a place that ordinarily would be considered about as safe from harm as could be found.

On the fifth day of the second battle of Ypres, April 25, 1915, McKay, an orderly, came up the line with ammunition for the guns as our supply was exhausted. As soon as the shells were delivered it was his duty to report at once to the Captain for further orders. The poor fellow was starving for something to eat and he thought he would steal the time to slip up to the cookhouse and get a bite of grub. He rode his horse across and was in the act of leaning over to get a couple of hardtacks the cook was handing him, when a splinter of a shell that had exploded at his horse's feet, struck him in the neck, killing him instantly, slightly wounding his horse and destroying the rations and vessels in the cookhouse. The Captain yelled, "Ammunition orderly wanted," and I volunteered. I jumped on the horse, galloped him as well as his limping leg would permit, and weathered the storm of shells through the fire zone, making my way to the wagon lines, where I gave the Quartermaster the order.

Then I had the pleasure of witnessing for the first time the admirable celerity and effectiveness with which an order of this kind is carried out.

"Ten loads of ammunition wanted at once, sir; ammunition pretty nearly exhausted at the guns," was the message I delivered. The Quartermaster blew his whistle—"Stand to! ammunition up!" he yelled. The Sergeant then carried on; the men were standing easy by their horses waiting for the word. In these days, when a battle is on, the men are always ready for the word at a moment's notice, with their horses fully harnessed, nothing being removed from the animals except the bit to enable them to take their feed from the bag, and in no case is an ammunition wagon left without its guard; at night when the guard would lie down to snatch an hour's sleep, another one was there ready to carry on. "Prepare to mount! Mount! Walk—march! Trot!" yelled the Sergeant in quick succession, each command being executed with clock-like exactness, and they trotted from under cover of the trees where they were concealed from the airplanes and proceeded rapidly up the road under shell fire, bumping and stumbling along.

I was guide for the party. We passed through Breeland, but could not make the best kind of speed as the traffic was terribly congested. On the left hand side of the road long lines of ambulances bearing wounded men were going down, stretcher bearers were carrying their suffering burdens and wounded men who were able to walk were making their way around and through the wagons as best they could, among them being men from every branch of the Imperial service, together with French and Algerians; on the other side of the road supply wagons of all descriptions were going forward. In the course of our journey the harness of one of the horses rubbed the animal until he was lame, stopping up the wagon. Immediately the Sergeant who was riding alongside ordered the wagon to one side, removed the horse, installed his own, jumped on the wagon and caught up with the others. The speed with which he did the trick almost made me gasp with astonishment; in all my life I never saw work of the kind handled so smoothly and swiftly. A dash of the picturesque was added to the scene by the Algerian ration-bearers winding their way in and out of the wagons, carrying trays of hot food on their heads and shoulders. It was nothing short of marvelous, the skillful manner in which they carried their precious burden of food, for never did they have a spill unless killed or wounded.

One of the funniest sights a man can see was the way my chums of the ammunition wagons defied the explicit and peremptory order, "No smoking on the road at or around Ypres." There is something in the rise and fall of the lighted cigarette when being smoked that attracts the attention at long distances and many a man has had to pay the penalty, which was most severe—28 days field punishment, which means 28 days without pay and breaking your back at fatigue duty around the camp, the cookhouse and the wagon lines, in addition to four hours extra drill each day. The temptation to smoke is so compelling that the punishment does not deter most men and they take the chance. By taking the collar of their coat and tucking it around their faces, lighting the match under their coat next to their ribs, burying their faces in their coat, they get a light without much danger of detection. In puffing it a man will hold the fag in his closed fist to his mouth, take the inhale, and, if there should happen to be a provo or other suspicious guardian of the rules in sight, down into his stomach would go the smoke. I don't know why it is but it has always seemed to me that the more stringent the rules are against the forbidden luxury, the more chances men will take to get their smoke.

We made the run to Ypres Square in an hour and a half. As soon as we entered I noticed a woman clinging tightly to a little girl and hugging the wall of the Nunshouse, a building standing immediately opposite the town hall in the square. The square itself was a large open place in the city about 350 feet long by 150 wide. I jumped off my horse, gave it to the driver and went over. In broken English I learned they wanted to cross, but on account of the fire continually bursting the woman would not, so I picked up the child and carried her across to a cellar about five doors out of the square. A chunk had been blown out of the building and there was no difficulty in getting into the cellar, and as soon as I got to this place the child murmured, "Bon! bon!" and indicated she would go in there. I set her down and she turned her pretty little face to me for a kiss. She then caught my arm as I was about to go and slipping off a tiny locket from her little neck, handed it to me, indicating that she wanted me to keep it. I have it to this day and I prize it tenderly. It has a small picture of the patron saint of France, Joan of Arc.

I ran back to her mother, pointed out where the child was, but she still seemed afraid to venture across. Although my little adventure did not occupy over three minutes, I could wait no longer, and jumped on my horse and the train of wagons trotted sharply out of the square. As the last wagon was leaving, I heard a sound like a train leaving a depot—choo! choo! choo! choo! growing louder each instant, and as the tail-end of the last wagon was trotting out of the square a shell, the largest ever employed by the German command and called the Ypres Express, landed full in the square, killing every living thing there and destroying ambulances and wagons of every kind, catching our rear wagon and blowing it up, wounding the driver and destroying the magnificent Cloth Hall, the last vestige of this most beautiful piece of architecture being destroyed by the resulting fire. That shell was from one of two guns that were expressly manufactured for the purpose of destroying the city of Ypres, a couple of months being taken to build cement platforms in which to set the ordnance, and the death-dealing monsters started on their mission of destruction from Dixmude, about 22 miles distant.

British Battery in Action

Not long after, an airplane located these monsters and succeeded in destroying one by a downpour of explosives he dropped on it, and the other one, a couple of days following, when being fired by its crew, the shell exploded in the gun itself, tearing it from its cement foundation and destroying itself and crew. These were the only guns of that caliber that have ever been used, so far as is known. The passage through the air of those missiles of death, heralded by their choo! choo! sent a shiver of dread up and down the lines as far as the sound would reach, and deep and lasting was the satisfaction of all ranks when the last of these mammoths of destruction wended its final flight.