1705039837

1705039838 The Twenty-ninth Division went forward under these conditions on the 6th of May. They dashed on, or crawled, for a few yards at a time, then dropped for a few instants before squirming on again. In such an advance men do not see the battlefield. They see the world as the rabbit sees it, crouching on the ground, just their own little patch. On broken ground like that, full of dips and rises, men may be able to see nothing but perhaps the ridge of a bank ten feet ahead, with the dust flying in spouts all along it, as bullets hit it, some thousand a minute, and looking back or to their flanks they may see no one but perhaps a few men of their own platoon lying tense but expectant, ready for the sign to advance while the bullets pipe over them in a never-ending birdlike croon. They may be shut off by some all-important foot of ground from seeing how they are fronting, from all knowledge of what the next platoon is doing or suffering. It may be quite certain death to peep over that foot of ground in order to find out, and while they wait for a few instants shells may burst in their midst and destroy a half of them. Then the rest nerving themselves, rush up the ridge, and fall in a line dead under machine-gun fire. The supports come up, creeping over their corpses, get past the ridge, into scrub which some shell has set on fire. Men fall wounded in the fire, and the cartridges in their bandoliers explode and slowly kill them. The survivors crawl through the scrub, half-choked, and come out on a field full of flowers tangled three feet high with strong barbed wire. They wait for a while, to try to make out where the enemy is. They may see nothing but the slope of the field running up to a sky line, and a flash of distant sea on a flank, but no sign of any enemy, only the crash of guns and the pipe and croon and spurt of bullets. Gathering themselves together their brave men dash out to cut the wire and are killed; others take their places and are killed; others step out with too great a pride even to stoop, and pull up the supports of the wires and fling them down, and fall dead on top of them, having perhaps cleared a couple of yards. Then a couple of machine guns open on the survivors and kill them all in thirty seconds, with the concentrated fire of a battalion.

1705039839

1705039840 The supports come up, and hear about the wire from some wounded man who has crawled back through the scrub. They send back word, “Held up by wire,” and in time the message comes to the telephone which has just been blown to pieces by a shell. Presently when the telephone is repaired, the message reaches the gunners, who fire high-explosive shells on to the wire, and on to the slopes where the machine guns may be hidden. Then the supports go on over the flowers and are met midway by a concentrated fire of shells, shrapnel, machine guns, and rifles. Those who are not killed lie down among the flowers and begin to scrape little heaps of earth with their hands to give protection to their heads. In the light sandy marl this does not take long, though many are blown to pieces or hit in the back as they scrape. As before, they cannot see how the rest of the attack is faring, nor even where the other platoons of the battalion are; they lie scraping in the roots of daffodils and lilies, while bullets sing and shriek a foot or two over their heads. A man peering from his place in the flowers may make out that the man next to him, some three yards away, is dead, and that the man beyond is praying, the man beyond him cursing, and the man beyond him out of his mind from nerves or thirst.

1705039841

1705039842 Long hours pass, but the air above them never ceases to cry like a live thing with bullets flying. Men are killed or maimed, and the wounded cry for water. Men get up to give them water and are killed. Shells fall at regular intervals along the field. The waiting men count the seconds between the shells to check the precision of the battery’s fire. Some of the bursts fling the blossoms and bulbs of flowers into the bodies of men, where they are found long afterwards by the X rays. Bursts and roars of fire on either flank tell of some intense moment in other parts of the line. Every feeling of terror and mental anguish and anxiety goes through the mind of each man there, and is put down by resolve.

1705039843

1705039844 The supports come up, they rise with a cheer, and get out of the accursed flowers into a gulley where some men of their regiment are already lying dead. There is a little wood to their front; they make for that, and suddenly come upon a deep and narrow Turk trench full of men. This is their first sight of the enemy. They leap down into the trench and fight hand to hand, kill and are killed, in the long grave already dug. They take the trench, but opening from the trench are saps, which the Turks still hold. Men are shot dead at these saps by Turk sharpshooters cunningly screened within them. Bullets fall in particular places in the trench from snipers hidden in the trees of the wood. The men send back for bombs, others try to find out where the rest of the battalion lies, or send word that from the noise of the fire there must be a battery of machine guns beyond the wood, if the guns would shell it.

1705039845

1705039846 Presently, before the bombs come, bombs begin to drop among them from the Turks. Creeping up, the men catch them in their hands before they explode and fling them back so that they burst among the Turks. Some have their hands blown off, other their heads, in doing this, but the bloody game of catch goes on till no Turks are left in the sap, only a few wounded groaning men who slowly bleed to death there. After long hours, the supports come up and a storm of high explosives searches the little wood, and then with a cheer the remnant goes forward out of the trench into the darkness of the pines. Fire opens on them from snipers in the trees and from machine guns everywhere; they drop and die, and the survivors see no enemy, only their friends falling and a place where no living thing can pass. Men find themselves suddenly alone, with all their friends dead, and no enemy in sight, but the rush of bullets filling the air. They go back to the trench, not afraid, but in a kind of maze, and as they take stock and count their strength there comes the roar of the Turkish war cry, the drumlike proclamation of the faith, and the Turks come at them with the bayonet. Then that lonely remnant of a platoon stands to it with rapid fire, and the machine gun rattles like a motor cycle, and some ribald or silly song goes up, and the Turks fail to get home, but die or waver and retreat and are themselves charged as they turn. It is evening now; the day has passed in long hours of deep experience, and the men have made two hundred yards. They send back for supports and orders, link up, if they are lucky, with some other part of their battalion, whose adventures, fifty yards away, have been as intense, but wholly different, and prepare the Turk trench for the night. Presently word reaches them from some far-away H. Q. （some dugout five hundred yards back, in what seems, by comparison, like peaceful England） that there are no supports, and that the orders are to hold the line at all costs and prepare for a fresh advance on the morrow. Darkness falls, and ammunition and water come up, and the stretcher bearers hunt for the wounded by the groans, while the Turks search the entire field with shell to kill the supports which are not there. Some of the men in the trench creep out to their front, and are killed there as they fix a wire entanglement. The survivors make ready for the Turk attack, certain soon to come. There is no thought of sleep; it is too cold for sleep; the men shiver as they stare into the night;they take the coats of the dead, and try to get a little warmth. There is no moon and the rain begins. The marl at the bottom of the trench is soon a sticky mud, and the one dry patch is continually being sniped. A few exhausted ones fall not into sleep but into nervous dreams, full of twitches and cries, like dogs’ nightmares, and away at sea some ship opens with her great guns at an unseen target up the hill. The terrific crashes shake the air; someone sees a movement in the grass and fires;others start up and fire. The whole irregular line starts up and fires, the machine guns rattle, the officers curse, and the guns behind, expecting an attack, send shells into the woods. Then slowly the fire drops and dies, and stray Turks, creeping up, fling bombs into the trench.

1705039847

1705039848 Notes

1705039849

1705039850 gorse-thyme-and-scrub-covered, covered by gorse, thyme, and scrub. Gorse is a spiny, thorny evergreen shrub of the bean family with yellow flowers. Its scientific name is Ulex europæus ;it is common in Europe;it is also called furze and whin . Thyme is any of a genus （Thymus ）of menthaceous plants, especially the common garden species （Thymus vulgaris ）, with pungent, aromatic leaves, or a wild creeping species （Thymus serpyllum ）. Scrub refers to vegetation consisting chiefly of dwarf or stunted shrubs, often thick and impenetrable.

1705039851

1705039852 “a spiked yellow flower with a whitish leaf,” the gorse flower.

1705039853

1705039854 folds or dips, the uneven ground.

1705039855

1705039856 tactical objective, the point that the military unit must reach; the destination towards which military maneuvers are directed.

1705039857

1705039858 Levantine, pertaining to the Levant, the countries washed by the eastern part of the Mediterranean and its contiguous waters.

1705039859

1705039860 Scotch pine, also known as the Scotch fir, is the pine of northern Europe, where it is extensively used for building purposes.

1705039861

1705039862 parched, dry and hot.

1705039863

1705039864 lousy, infested with lice.

1705039865

1705039866 heavy boxes of ammunition.

1705039867

1705039868 wedge, a piece of wood or metal tapering to a thin edge, used in splitting wood, rocks, and in raising heavy bodies.

1705039869

1705039870 dismembered, torn from limb to limb; torn or cut into pieces.

1705039871

1705039872 drowned, while trying to land from the transports.

1705039873

1705039874 sniped, to be shot at individually, especially at long range or from cover. A sniper is a soldier who does such shooting, or sniping.

1705039875

1705039876 stalker, a soldier on the other side who is approaching stealthily or under cover; a sniper.

1705039877

1705039878 sap, the covered trench or tunnel, or, more frequently, the narrow trench used by one side to approach the enemy’s trenches.

1705039879

1705039880 dynamite in a beef tin, the explosive dynamite, made of nitroglycerin absorbed in a porous material, and packed in a small beef can or container, to increase its explosive effect.

1705039881

1705039882 caked, formed or hardened into a cake or mass.

1705039883

1705039884 dwindling, becoming less; decreasing; becoming smaller and smaller.rot, decompose; decay.

1705039885

1705039886 identification disk, the disk or small flat circular plate, on which is stamped the soldier’s name, sometimes only a number, to serve the purpose of identification. The disk is usually worn around the neck of the soldier.

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