Although Pug and Kentucky were not allowed to go and look for their lost chum, and in fact did not know for long enough what had happened to him, the tale of that happening, I think, fits best in here. It is perhaps all the more worth the telling because it is a sample of scores of incidents that may never be heard of outside the few who participated in them, but are characteristic of one of the most amazing features of the New Armies—and that, mark you, is rather a big word, remembering we are speaking of something which itself is nothing but one huge amazing feature—the readiness and smoothness with which it has fallen into professional soldiering ways and the instinct for fighting which over and over again it has been proved to possess. And by fighting instinct I do not mean so much that animal instinct which every man has hidden somewhere in his make-up to look out for himself and kill the135 fellow who is trying to kill him, but rather that peculiar instinct which picks a certain corner of a trench as a key to a local position, which knows that if a certain bit of ground can be taken or held it will show much more than its face value, which senses the proper time to hang on and the right moment to risk a rush.
These, of course, are the instincts of leadership, and these are the instincts which the New Army has shown it possesses, not only in its officers and non-coms., but time and again—in innumerable little-known or unknown incidents of battle that have been lost in the bigger issues—in the rank and file, in privates who never were taught or expected to know anything about leadership, in men brought up to every possible trade, profession and occupation except war. One can only suppose it is an instinct deep rooted in the race that has lain dormant for generations, and only come to life again in the reviving heat of war.
It will be remembered that Larry became separated from his two friends in their rush on the German line, and just as they reached the remains of the barbed wire before the German trench. For the greater part the wire had been uprooted and swept away by the storm of British shells and136 mortar bombs, but here and there it still remained sufficiently intact to make a difficult and unpleasant obstacle.
Larry and Pug, deflected from their course by one or two yawning shell craters, ran into one of these undestroyed patches of wire, and while Pug turned to the left, Larry turned right and ran skirting along its edge in search of a place through. Several other men did the same, and by the time they had found an opening there were about a score of them to go streaming through the gap and plunging at the broken parapet. Half of them were shot down in that last dozen yards, and as they opened out and went clawing and scrambling at the parapet with rifles banging almost in their faces, hand grenades lobbed over to roll down amongst their feet and explode in showers of flying splinters. The few who for the moment escaped these dangers, knowing that every instant they remained in the open outside the trench carried almost a certainty of sudden death, flung desperately at its parapet, over and down into it among the German bayonets, without stopping to count or heed what the hand-to-hand odds might be.
Larry Arundel, at the lip of the trench, suddenly137 finding himself poised above a group of some four or five men, checked his downward leap from a first instinctive and absurd fear of hurting the men he would jump down upon, recovered himself, and swung his rifle forward and thrust and again thrust savagely down at the gray coats and helmets below him, saw the bright steel strike and pierce a full half its length with no other feeling than a faint surprise that he should sense so little check to its smooth swing, shortened the grip on his rifle, and, thrusting again as he jumped, leaped down into the space his bayonet had cleared. The last man he had stabbed at evaded the thrust, and like a flash stabbed back as Larry landed in the trench. But the two were too close for the point to be effective, and Larry’s hip and elbow turned the weapon aside. He found himself almost breast to breast with his enemy, and partly because there was no room to swing a bayonet, partly because that undefended face and point of the jaw awoke the boxer’s instinct, his clenched fist jerked in a fierce uppercut hard and true to its mark, and the German grunted once and dropped as if pole-axed.
But there Larry’s career would probably have cut short, because there were still a couple of138 men within arm’s length of him, and both were on the point of attacking, when another little batch of belated attackers arrived at the trench. Several of them struck in at the point where Larry was engaged with his opponents, and that particular scrimmage terminated with some abruptness.
Larry was a little dazed with the speed at which events of the past minute had happened and also to some extent by the rather stunning report of a rifle fired just past his ear by a somewhat hasty rescuer in settlement of the account of his nearest opponent.
“Wh-what’s happened?” he asked. “Have we got this trench all right?”
“Looks like it,” said one of the others. “But blest if I know how much of it. There didn’t seem to be much of our line get in along to the right there to take their bit of front.”
“Let’s have a look,” said Larry, and scrambled up the broken side of the trench. He stood there a minute until half a dozen bullets whistling and zipping close past sent him ducking fast to cover.
“They’ve got the trench to our right safe enough,” he said, “and they seem to be advancing beyond it. I suppose we ought to go on, too.”
“Wot’s this fakement?” asked one of the men139 who had been poking round amongst the débris of the shattered trench. He held out a two-armed affair with glasses at the ends.
“That,” said Larry quickly, taking it and raising it above the edge of the trench—“that’s some sort of a periscope.” He looked out through it a moment and added: “And a dash good one it is, too.... I say, that line of ours advancing on the right is getting it in the neck.... Machine-gun fire it looks like.... They’ve stopped.... Most of ’em are down, and the rest running back to the trench.”
He was interrupted by an exclamation from one of the other men who had climbed up to look over the edge.
“Look out,” he said hurriedly. “Bomb over,” and he dropped back quickly into the trench.
A German stick grenade sailed over, fell on the trench parapet above them, rolled a little, and lay still, and in another second or two went off with a crash, half deafening and blinding them with the noise and smoke, but hurting no one. Some of the men swore, and one demanded angrily where the thing had come from, and “Who frew dat brick?” quoted another.
But there was little room for jests. One, two,140 three grenades came over in quick succession; one going over and missing the trench, another falling in it at the toe of a man who promptly and neatly kicked it clear round the corner of the traverse, where it exploded harmlessly; but the third falling fairly in the trench, where it burst, just as a man grabbed for it to throw it out, killing him instantly and slightly wounding one or two others.
“Who’s got those Mills?” said Larry hurriedly. “You, Harvey—chuck a couple over the traverse to the right. Must be some of them in there.”
Harvey drew the pins out of a couple of Mills’ grenades and tossed them over, but even as they burst another couple of German grenades came over, one bursting in the air and the other failing to explode.
“I’ve spotted them,” suddenly said Larry, who had been watching out through the periscope. “There’s some sort of trench running into this about a dozen yards along. They’re in there; I saw the grenades come over out of it.”
Some of the men with him had moved back out of section of trench under bombardment, and as more grenades began to lob over there was a mild stampede of the others round the traverse.141 Larry went with them, but pulled up at the corner and spoke sharply.
“See here, it’s no good letting them chase us out like this. They’ll only follow up and bomb us out traverse by traverse till there’s none of us left to bomb out. Let’s have some of those grenades, Harvey, and we’ll rush them out of it.”
Some of the men hesitated, and others demurred, muttering that there weren’t enough of them, didn’t know how many Germs there were, ought to find an officer and let him know.
It was just here that Larry took hold and saved what might have been an ugly situation. He saw instinctively what their temporary or partial retirement might mean. The advance on the right had been held up, had evidently secured that portion of the trench, but could only be holding it weakly. The trench from which the grenades had come was evidently a communicating trench. If the Germans were free to push down it in force they might re-secure a footing in the captured main trench, and there would be no knowing at what cost of time and men it would have to be retaken from them.
All this he saw, and he also saw the need for prompt action. No officer, no non-commissioned142 officer even, was with them, and by the time they had sent back word of the position the Germans might have secured their footing. Apparently there was no one else there willing or able to take command, so Larry took it.
He had never given a real order in his life—even his orders to the office boy or typist at home had always been in the form of “Will you please?” or “Do you mind?” He had no actual authority now to give commands, was the junior in years and in service to several there. But give orders he did, and, moreover, he gave them so clear and clean-cut, and with such an apparent conviction that they would be obeyed, that actually they were obeyed just as unhesitatingly and willingly as if he had been Colonel of the regiment.
In three minutes his dispositions were made and his directions given, in four minutes his little attack had been launched, in five minutes or little more it had succeeded, and he was “in possession of the objective.” He had about half a score of men wit............