The enemy still held the fort. All through the night a terrific bombardment had been maintained, and even when the first grey line of dawn began to creep across the downs the insistent fury of the guns increased rather than diminished. Major Wardlaw estimated that during the last twelve hours over eleven thousand shots had been fired from the big guns of Fort Warden, while thousands of shrapnel hurled against its fortifications from the various encircling field batteries manned by British gunners were beyond all definite calculation. At the height of the bombardment not less than 80 per minute must have been directed by way of return against the British batteries, and in this onslaught the great guns (of which there were seven at work in Fort Warden) contributed the most overwhelming and terrible results. This deafening and incessant rain of fire was directed mainly against the Castle and Fort Burgoyne, but, incidentally, it had wrought ruin and convulsion on every side. Shells falling into the town of Dover had already reduced it to heaps of tumbled masonry. Here and there great volumes of smoke rose from the wreckage of shops and houses. The Town Hall—the ancient Maison Dieu, founded by Hugh de Burgh, Constable of Dover, in the reign of John—having escaped destruction during the night, caught fire about daybreak, the flames, rushing upward in the morning air, watched by thousands from the western heights, to which the terrified inhabitants had fled for safety. [Pg 115]
On the Castle Hill the bluish haze caused by the ceaseless bursting of shells and shrapnel in some measure veiled the central scene of conflict; and this haze, spreading far and wide over the landscape, presently assumed the most delicate and beautiful colours as the sun rose up and threw its shafts of light on hill and dale. When the light grew stronger, cloud after cloud of smoke was seen to rush aloft from the contending forts, and every moment the sun, with growing glory, painted these rolling billows with glorious hues of burnished gold or bronze. Here and there, while the people watched, columns of earth and chalk rose high into the air, as shot and shell ploughed deep into the soil, while flashes of fire from the bursting shells, the pale smoke rushing like steam from the shrapnels, and the leaping fountains of soil, all combined to give the beholder the impression of some terrific convulsion of nature. So extraordinary and ghastly was the general effect produced that many of the spectators believed they were witnessing a volcanic eruption allied in some way with the seismic disturbances reported to have occurred at Bath and other inland watering-places.
Yet towards the awful crater of this man-made volcano, British troops were now advancing. It had been fondly hoped by the British staff that the tremendous bombardment from the big howitzers, maintained ceaselessly during the night, would have disabled Fort Warden to such an extent that an infantry attack in the morning would meet with but feeble resistance. Very few of the officers, however, had any true conception of the enormous strength and staying power with which Wardlaw had endowed his military master-piece.
Yet the onslaught had to be made. To the High[Pg 116]landers—brought over from Shorncliffe—was entrusted the honour of leading the attack on one side, while the Royal Marines, from Chatham; were simultaneously to advance on the other. The hour of trial came. Firing not a shot, but with heads bent low, creeping forward, and taking advantage of every inequality in the ground for cover, the attacking force approached the flaming portals that confronted them. It was but a short distance, for during the night the saps had been carried close to the first circle of wire entanglements. Some of the wires, moreover, had been destroyed, leaving gaps through which the Highlanders were ordered to drag light scaling ladders and approach the moat, while others pushed sandbags before them to take the invaders' fire.
Suddenly the word of command broke hoarsely on their ears. As it came from the Commanding Officer, a bullet struck him in the heart. He fell with a groan that was hardly audible. At the last word of their beloved Commander the Highlanders sprang up, and with an angry yell rushed headlong towards the moat. But narrow though the space they had to cross, the withering fire from the machine guns made it impossible to traverse it. The leading ranks, officers and men alike, were beaten down by lead as hail beats down a field of waving corn. The rest wavered, turned, and in a moment the ill-starred regiment, all that was left of it, rushed down the hill in desperate flight. Attempts to rally them were futile. Neither man nor devil could, or would, stand against that awful overwhelming hail of shot and shell.
On the other side of the fort, the Marines had approached somewhat nearer to success. Here the gaps in the wire entanglements seen at close quarters afforded some encouragement. With an inspiring[Pg 117] cheer, the men dashed forward, their bayonets fixed; but suddenly, as if from the earth itself, sprang up an opposing line of bayonets. The gaps in the entanglement were filled with German soldiers, and in an instant the combatants were engaged, man to man, in a furious hand-to-hand encounter. Deep groans and screaming blasphemies blended with the tumult of the guns. Here and there in the mêlée, men whose bayonets were broken off clubbed their rifles and savagely battered at each other's faces; but still more ghastly than the injuries thus exchanged was the hellish work effected by the hand grenades, of which the Fort contained large quantities. These explosives, now used for the first time on English soil, blew men literally to pieces. Neither skill nor courage could avert these horrible results. The methods of the anarchist had been allowed to find scope in the warfare of civilized peoples. The bombs, wherever they struck, made mincemeat of humanity.
The Marines, like the Highlanders, had been driven back, and there came a ghastly interlude when the Germans sought to rescue their wounded and distinguish and carry in the dead. Those who had been butchered by the hand grenades had to be hastily shovelled into sacks and baskets before their remains could be removed. No pen could dare describe in detail all the revolting sights which this small battle-field in a few brief moments had revealed. Severed heads rolled down the hill, the eyes wide open, the features fixed in horror. In one spot from ten to fifteen corpses, friends and foes together, involved and twisted in a shapeless mass, were suddenly discovered in a hollow. In many instances the force of the explosions had torn the clothing from the bodies of the soldiers. Arms and legs had been[Pg 118] wrenched from their trunks and blown away. From pyramidal heaps of mutilat............