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Page 21
"I tell you, I'm jolly glad to be away from headquarters. We've got old
Rusty in charge of us. He's been a bit of a worry-guts about having
cleaned boots and buttons ever since he got his second pip, but he's
quite a decent old stick taking him all round. He gets drunk every
evening, so that he's generally too far gone to trouble about lights
out. He doesn't make a fuss over our letters either--I believe he can
only read a very plain hand and has to skip the longer words. A good
job, too, for that's one thing I absolutely cannot stick, the way all
our letters are read....
"I hear you've had some excitement? It put my wind up a bit when I heard
about it. Still, I'm glad in a way--the monotony of our lives was
becoming unbearable. I'd rather have shell-bursts than blasts of the
S.M.'s whistle. Have many been dropping in the town recently?"
"A good few--I daresay you'll have some to-night if you're lucky. Yes,
the S.M.'s whistle got on my nerves too. I was longing for a change and
frightfully keen on seeing a bit of the war. I confess I wasn't
particularly scared by the shells we had--of course, none of them came
very near. But I don't want to have any more, not after seeing those
wounded carried along on stretchers to-day. You're right in the town
here and it's quite likely that you'll make a closer acquaintance with
high-explosive shells than I've been able to make...."
I had hardly spoken when there was a faint muffled boom in the distance
and a long, deepening howl, and then a loud explosion that shook the
building.
A few minutes after a second shell passed overhead and exploded
somewhere in the town.
Then, without the usual warning, there was a roar that seemed to split
our heads and an impact that sent us reeling backwards against the wall.
The room was filled with dense, pungent smoke and dust that choked and
blinded us. Above the violent droning in our ears we could hear the
clatter of falling bits of plaster and masonry. A whistle blew and there
was a shout of "Clear Billet." We thronged the doorway and poured down
the stairs, panic stricken, but before we had left the building there
was another reverberating crash and once again we were enveloped by
smoke and dust while the bits of plaster showered down upon us from the
ceiling. I bowed my head and held my arm up to protect my face.
Something whizzed closely by, and a man dropped heavily with a groan in
front of me. He lay on his face with one arm doubled up underneath,
quite motionless. Two men went up to him and crossed their hands under
his chest to raise him. His blood was gushing out and forming a pool on
the floor. As we dashed out into the road I saw an artilleryman standing
alone on the cobbles and looking around in a scared fashion. There was
another deafening explosion and dense clouds of smoke issued from a
building forty or fifty yards away. Suddenly the artilleryman clutched
his face with his hand. The blood began to stream through his fingers
and down his wrist into his sleeve. He hurried away with staggering
steps.
We left the town behind us and waited near a barn in the open fields. We
were joined by the two men who had remained behind to help our wounded
fellow soldier.
"Is it serious?" we asked.
"Serious?--He's done for, poor chap! A big bit of shell caught him right
in the chest--it didn't half make a hole. We carried him away from the
billet and sat him up against a wall. We couldn't stop the blood from
flowing. He came to for a few seconds though, and moaned, 'O my poor
mother! O my poor mother!' enough to break your heart. And then he
seemed to lose consciousness again. The ambulance arrived and we laid
him on a stretcher. I expect he died before he got to the hospital."
"Anybody else hit?"
"Two of our fellows--one of them pretty seriously. They could both walk
though. A lot of men from other units have been killed. The last shell
dropped into a mess-room and laid out a dozen or more, and just as we
were coming along we saw an artilleryman lying in the road with a big
hole right in the middle of his face. He was still warm but his heart
had stopped beating. It's a bloody awful feeling to lose one of your
mates, though."
"I can't make it out, some'ow. 'E was talkin' an' jokin' to me only a
few minutes back, an' now 'e's dead. The way 'e said 'O me poor mother!'
nearly set me cryin'. Poor old chap, 'e was one o' the best--it's allus
the best as gets killed an' the rotters left alive."
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