DURING the last two days I have seen the best bit of fighting of the entire war. As a rule an attack is a big sprawling affair, the whole of which no one can foresee, and the whole of which in all its details no single person can command. Everyone sets out with general instructions; but the variations in the methods by which those instructions are carried out depend on personal initiative and chance. For the first time I was in an attack every phase of which one could follow up and watch. If a moving-picture man had been there, he could have made his fortune. From first to last the entire performance was stage-set and capable of being focussed.

I was sent up forward to do liaison work with the battalion which was holding the line in front of Fouquescourt. Everything was quiet and no attack was contemplated, so Suzette had her way and was allowed to accompany me. I did not much relish having the responsibility of a girl with me in what was practically the Front-line, though nobody by looking at her could have guessed that she was a girl. Her appearance was that of a slightly built boy, who was probably two years below the military age; but there was nothing to arouse suspicion in that, for many of our Tommies have obviously increased their age in order to get themselves into the Army. She accompanied me ostensibly as a telephonist in my signalling party.

Battalion headquarters were situated in a deep trench, which crossed the road which runs between Fouquescourt and Fransart. This road was raked day and night by hostile fire. The trench itself was anything but a pleasant spot. The moment one poked his head up to look over the top a bullet would whizz by; Hun snipers were everywhere and quite close up. Suzette’s idea in accompanying me had been to get a glimpse of Fransart before it was flattened by shells; but apart from the snipers this was impossible, for the fields sloped up into a ridge which hid all but the tops of the village trees from the trench where we were. This being the case there was not much sense in allowing her to remain in a place of danger, so I made up my mind to send her back to the battery with the runner who would carry down my situation report at nightfall.

I had never had much talk with Suzette; that afternoon as I sat in the hot sun-baked trench I got a glimpse of her mind for the first time. The rest of my party were sprawled out on their backs, trying to make up for broken nights, so we were quite by ourselves.

“Suzette,” I said, “why do you follow us? It isn’t a happy sort of life. Surely somewhere you must have friends.”

She shrugged her shoulders ever so slightly, “My friends! Zay was all in Fransart. You are my friends now.”

I tried to get her to outline to me what had happened to her since the start of the war, but she wasn’t to be drawn out on that point. “Ze Germans, zay was not nice,” she said; “zay killed my mother over zare.” It appeared that her mother had kept pigeons in the loft of their cottage. When the Germans discovered that the birds had rings on their legs, they had suspected that they were intended for the carrying of messages, and her old mother had been led out and shot. She herself had escaped through their outposts and regained the unconquered territory. What had happened between the time of her escape and our finding her she passed over in a phrase, “Eet was cold and un’appy, and zen you were kind.”

I found that what she really preferred to talk about was her girlhood, before calamity had touched her; so let her talk on. It was over there in Hallu Wood, from which the sniping was coming, that she had gone each spring with the village children to gather primroses. It was through these fields, where corpses were now lying, that she used to walk with her pail at milking-time. She peopled the battlefield with ghosts, recreating all the peasant ways of life that the ferocity of war had terminated. She made me see the old priest in his rusty black skirt and round felt hat, going down the lanes between the little cottages. She made me see the pool in the brook where her mother used to kneel with the village women, singing and banging the linen white against the stones. But most of all she made me see herself—Suzette, with the gold-brown plaits, whom all the boys used to follow with their eyes, before there was any Bully Beef or any hint of catastrophe in the world.

The ‘phone tinkled, breaking the spell, and the telephonist on duty called to let me know that I was wanted by the Major.

“Hulloa, sir, I was going to have called you up. I’m sending Suzette back. There is nothing for her to see up here.”

“Don’t send her back—not yet.” The Major’s voice sounded abrupt and agitated.

“But why——?”

“Here’s why. Bully Beef is lost and we don’t want her to know until we’ve found him.”

“Lost, but——”

“Yes, lost. I know what you are going to say; that he can’t have gone far and must have been picked up by some other unit. The fact is, however, that he’s as completely vanished as if the ground had opened and swallowed him. Keep her with you until we’ve made a proper search. We may not have to tell her.”

That night instead of returning with the runner to the battery, Suzette stayed with us in the Front-line. When night had fallen and the snipers could no longer see her, she sat on the lip of the trench, staring out into the darkness towards Fransart. Once she pointed to a lone tree on the ridge, saying that she could see the village from there and asking me to allow her to go forward; but the enemy patrols were likely to be abroad, so I had to deny her. Several times I heard her sigh heavily and more than once I could have sworn that tears glistened in her eyes. She was realising all that she had lost. But how much she had lost even she did not know as yet, for every time I phoned back to the battery and questioned I received the same answer; there was no news of her child.

At the Front men are missing very often for weeks before you find a trace of them. They stray into the enemy lines. They get wounded by a chance shell. Their nerve fails them at the moment when they have accomplished some heroic act and they desert. We had one man who brought in a wounded officer at the risk of his life and was recommended for a decoration. Then it was discovered that the man could not be found. When he was found, he was awarded the D. C. M. for valour and court-martialed for the cowardice of desertion. We never give up hope when a man goes missing until he is proved to be dead. But with a civilian it is different; there are no army records through which to trace and report them. Were Bully Beef found killed, it would be nobody’s business. At the Front one’s responsibility extends no further than to the men in khaki.

Next morning on enquiring across the ‘phone, I was told that they had picked up a rumour: a child had been seen on the road between the wagon-lines and Death Corner. If that were so, it would mean that Bully Beef had wandered out of the wagonlines in the direction of the battery in search of his mother. He had come up once or twice to the battery-position with the ammunition-wagons, and would have a vague idea of the way. Seeing that he had not arrived at the battery, it was likely that he had gone past it; in which case he must be somewhere in the wheatfields between Death Corner and Fourquescourt. A detail of men were out searching for him, led by Big Dan.

Then something arose which swung my thoughts clean away from this personal anxiety. To the south of us drum-fire had been pounding away all morning; we guessed that the French had been going after Noyon once again. At one o’clock we got a sudden intimation that within two hours we must capture Franeart and, if possible, the railroad which lay beyond. This left no time for the working out of the usual detailed plans for artillery co-operation. Moreover, we were too far forward to dare to send our instructions back by telephone; the Hun listening-machines would pick up our conversations and the enemy would be forewarned. We had to make out a rough barrage-table and run it back to the guns by messenger. When that was done it was necessary that I and my party should go forward to the jumping-off point with the infantry, since the ridge in front blocked the view of the area where the fighting was to take place. Suzette volunteered to accompany my party, and since I had far too few signallers for a show and no time to obtain more I was compelled to accept her. Leaving one man in the trench to watch for our messages, we struck out along the Fouquescourt-Fransart road and commenced to lay in wire to the point from which we proposed to observe the fight.

It was a brilliantly hot afternoon; all the parched landscape seemed to shift and quiver in the dancing haze. One’s clothes rasped the flesh like sand-paper and one’s eyes were blinded by perspiration. We made little progress with the laying of our wire, for every few minutes we had to go back to mend a break caused by shell-fire. At last we abandoned the idea of keeping in touch with the rear by telephone and determined to rely on visual signalling. We passed the ruined village of Fouquescourt on our right. It was seething in a cloud of smoke; the shriek of bursting shells was like the wild applause of waves breaking on a rock-bound coast. We abandoned the road and bore over towards the left, till we came to an old Hun trench, which ran straight up to Fransart and passed near to the lone tree on the ridge, from which we intended to signal back our messages. As we stole crouching between its shallow banks, we noted how our chaps had flung away the heavier part of their equipment; it was strewn with haversacks, Mill’s bombs and tins of bully. Then, when we almost thought that we had advanced too far, we came across them. They were kneeling close together, panting like over driven animals, their bayonets gleaming thirstily in the fierce sunshine. Many of them were reinforcements who had never been in battle before—men who had been sent to replace the heavy casualties of our encounters. Their faces were haggard with the struggle against terror and they trembled as they waited for our guns to open fire. One could pick out the veterans among them at a glance by their fatalistic carelessness. Having posted a signaller with flags and a lamp, I pushed forward to where the Company Commander was waiting to lead the advance. He was just on the crest, from where one could look down on the approaches to Fransart. The village itself was still hidden from sight, but one could see the little country road, running through fields straight and white as an arrow from Fouquescourt, and crossing the road a line of apple trees. It looked very sleepy and innocent. One would scarcely have been surprised to have seen blue-clad peasants rise out of the grass and commence to sharpen their scythes. There was no hint of murder and strife; the suspense of the crouching men behind us struck a false note of melodrama. The Company Commander consulted his wrist-watch, counting off the minutes.

He turned to me. “How many more do you make it?”

“Six minutes more to go,” I replied.

“What are you doing when the show has started?”

“I follow you up,” I said, “and keep you in sight. If you want to send any runners back, you’ll find some of my signallers in this trench.”

Then we again fell to watching the quiet country with a kind of wonder, counting off the minutes and the seconds.

There were only two minutes left when the infantry-officer jerked my elbow excitedly, “Good God, look at that!”

“At what?”

“Get your glasses out, man, they’re better than mine. That thing over there, moving towards the apple-trees down the road.”

I picked up the object with my naked eye when he pointed. It was a mere speck, creeping very slowly. It might have been a man crawling, only it was hardly big enough. Our riflemen already had their sights trained on it and their angers on the triggers, awaiting the order to fire. I raised my glasses. What I saw was a child, with chubby legs, short skirts and long hair to the middle of his back like a girl’s. His face was streaky with crying, and he kept digging his knuckles into his eyes. Through the glasses he looked so near that I could have touched him by reaching out my hand. It was horrible to see him out there, where in little over a minute our own shells would be falling. Our little Bully Beef, going in search of his mother! There wasn’t one of us who wouldn’t have given up his life to restore him to her, and we were powerless to draw him back. The rifles were lowered as the word was whispered round; we watched his progress in fascinated suspense.

Suddenly, rising out of a ditch behind him, came another figure—Big Dan’s. Big Dan, who had promised to take care of him in his mother’s absence! He leapt up and ran towards the enemy lines down the ribbon of white road. He must have called to Bully Beef, for we saw the child turn and fling out his arms at recognising him. Dan picked him up, holding him tight against his breast, and stood there hesitating, waiting for the enemy to take their revenge. I could almost hear him singing defiantly, in his deep base voice,

Old soldiers never die,

They simply fade away.

Then a hundred yards in front, out of the apparent emptiness a Hun stood up waving a handkerchief; beside the Hun were a dozen rifles all pointing in Dan’s direction. He moved forward, with the child’s face looking back across his shoulder. As the first of our shells fell, he stepped down and was lost to sight in the German trench. Like a squall at sea our barrage descended and everything was blotted out.

I turned to the signaller who was nearest to me, “Where is Suzette?”

“Behind the next traverse, sir.”

“She did not see? She does not know?”

“She doesn’t know, sir.”

“Then until it is all over we must not tell her.” It took five minutes for the enemy retaliation to come back. It burst like a hurricane along the ridge and along the shallow hiding place in which we were. No man could hide there for long. The only safety was to get either in front of it or behind it. The Company-Commander gave the signal to advance. With the men running and crouching low, the river of bayonets streamed past me. Like a trickling stream, I watched their silver gleaming grow more distant above the tall rank grass which lined the lip of the trench. God knows to what fate they were going or how many of those splendidly fashioned men would remain unbroken by sunset. For myself. I had other things to think about.

My job was to keep the attack in sight and to be sure that my chain of signallers was in touch with the rear, so that I could get my orders through for the directing of fire. To keep the attack in sight it was necessary to push on nearer to Fransart, so I took Suzette and one man with me, leaving the rest of my party strung out behind. Where the apple-trees crossed the road, I saw our men leap out of the trench and start at the run across the open. Instantly a withering fire was brought to bear on them from a little village in advance and over to the right, which we had been informed had been in our hands since morning. They began to go down like nine-pins, pitching forward into the dust and rolling over on their sides. We stood up to signal back the news of what was happening, but the first flapping of the flags brought about our heads a storm of bullets. Our only chance was to run the message back through the enemy’s barrage. The signaller started off down the trench. We waited for his return, but we waited in vain. A runner reached us from the Company Commander, asking for guns to be brought to bear upon a machine-gun nest which was holding up the advance. I had only Suzette left, so she took the message and vanished into the enemy barrage behind me. Shortly after she had gone on her errand another infantry-runner met me, with the message that our chaps had got through Fransart and were in sight of the railroad on the other side, but that the enemy machine-guns, which they thought they had demolished, were firing in their backs. None of my men had returned. I thought I knew why, for the ridge was boiling. There was no one left to send, so I set off to run the information back myself.

I have read in history of men who were never afraid, but I have not met their like at the front. All the men out here have been afraid and will be afraid again tomorrow. They acknowledge their fear, and conquer and despise it. The difference between the brave man and the coward is that, whereas the coward gives way to his imagination, the brave man carries on as if he were untouched by terror. That day I was frankly afraid. As I entered the barrage every nerve in my body went on strike. Shells were exploding on the very lip of the trench; the shock of their concussion was like a blow aimed against my knee-joints. I felt blinded and faint. The smart of fumes was in my eyes; the reek in my throat was choking. I glanced across my shoulder to find that, where I had been standing a few seconds before, the trench had been blown up.

On in front across the part that I had to traverse, the grass was scorched and smoking. It was like being pummelled by a mob of invisible assassins. I staggered, and ran, and crawled, and panted; my heart was filled with hatred for the enemy miles behind at their guns, who bided their time and killed us at their leisure. Round each fresh traverse I expected to stumble across one of my men lying broken and sprawled out. Thinking that they might be in hiding I called their names again and again as I ran. I might just as well have called to the clouds in a storm at sea from a row-boat. I was mortally afraid that I should die alone. But beyond my terror was the sense of my obligation to those men up front, cut off from hope by the machine-guns firing in their backs: at any and every cost they must be helped.