Eyewitness by Garrie Hutchinson Read Free Book Online Page A

burst, dashing from cover to cover.
    A hundred men broke into a wild but futile charge, determined to strike, if possible, one blow, but enemies pressed their red-hot thumbpieces with blistered fingers, spraying death from the tortured muzzles. That hundred lay flat in the attitudes of sleep.
    It grew quiet again. A few wounded crawled in the grass, sniped at by riflemen. Then there was silence. Eighty came back that night.
    Two companies from the 58 th rose from the breastwork – the remainder were elsewhere carrying ammunition – and advanced by rushes, with covering fire. In banks of battle reek the sun went down, as red as blood.
    As darkness drew on, the 57 th went forward, but most were recalled almost before they left, for there was nothing to be gained by further loss of life. A few reached the creek.
    It was the Charge of the Light Brigade once more, but more terrible, more hopeless – magnificent, but not war – a valley of death filled by somebody’s blunder, or the horrid necessities of war.
    The handful in our trenches stood to arms all night, because the line was now dangerously weak, for there were no supports and no reserves, and many enemy elite forces were in front.
    The bays and traverses were jammed with dead and wounded lying head to foot for two miles, in a treble row, on the fire steps, beneath them, and behind the blockhouses. Wounded came crawling in, rolling over the parapet and sprawling to the bottom. A white-faced boy, naked to the waist, was being led along the trench, a hole in his side. He cracked some joke, then, ‘I think I’ll spell a minute; it’s all going dark.’ He sat down. An hour later someone shook him, but he was stiff and cold.
    A barrage chopped and pounded on the crammed line. The blockhouses were packed with dying men. Men shot through the stomach screamed for water. In mercy it was denied them. Some pleaded to be shot. High explosive crumped in the line; shrapnel crashed in the air.
    Out in front wounded were firing in a careless passion of rage, blazing at the inexorable parapet. This was stopped by a flurry of enemy fire. The interminable hours wore on. It was a night of horror and doubt.
    Parties went forth to rescue the wounded and to find whether any Australians were in the German trenches. Many more were hit. Wounded were calling for their mates. There was a pause in the shelling. One in delirium was singing a marching song far out in front –

    ‘My mother told me
    That she would buy me
    A rubber dollie,
    A rubber dollie,
    But when I told her
    I loved a – ’

    On the left bombing was occurring. We heard the fragments wailing like Banshees in the air, and listened, thinking it was the cry of the wounded. A machine-gun rattled somewhere, and suddenly stopped –

    ‘But when I told her
    I loved a soldier, – ’

    The voice rose an octave –

    ‘She would not buy me
    A rub – ’

    There was another burst of fire and the singing ceased.
    Someone cried continually, ‘Bill, Bill,’ all that night, but Bill did not answer. Between the salvos of shells we heard him again and again till dawn. Then that voice also was stilled.
    A few of the 57 th and 58 th were engaged in rushing ammunition to the front-line. All the rest were bringing in wounded. By dawn, in spite of strenuous labours, only half the wounded and a few of the dead had been brought in. For five nights this work was unremitting. Parties went out under fire in broad daylight. Some of the wounded were never found. A few crawled in three weeks later, with shattered limbs and maggoty wounds. They had hidden from our parties, fearful lest they might be Huns, swooning often, uncertain which was our trench and which the German, drinking putrid shell-hole water, foraging by night for food among the dead, lying low by day.
    All night the 8 th and 14 th Brigades were fighting for their lives, almost surrounded, up to their breasts in the water with which the enemy had flooded their trench. In the morning