"As far as I can see," said the Colonel, "this hill is a sort of salient in our line. The enemy are probably holding that ridge along there," pointing to the skyline. "Anyway, we will hold on to this hill until I have orders for a general attack."
The Subaltern walked down the hill to report what he had found out.
"All right," said the Captain; "you had better take your Platoon and all these men round about here, and help to hold on to the hill."
He called for his Section Commanders, explained what was to be done, and set off once more. As they were just about to cross the crest, he signalled to them to "get down," and at length they took up a sort of position along the edge of the wood on the other side.
The enemy had evidently not "spotted" them, and they were left in peace for an hour. Then their troubles began.
It seemed as though the hill suddenly became a place of vast importance. The Colonel arrived upon the scene, with reinforcements of over a hundred men, and they immediately set to work putting the hill into a state of defence. Then a battery of field guns were drawn up into position on the "safe" side of the hill, and began without delay to shell the enemy. Their arrival, however, was decidedly a mixed blessing. So far, the troops had held the hill quite successfully, and had been undisturbed by hostile artillery, for the simple reason that the enemy was unaware of their positions. Now the artillery had come and "given the whole show away," and no sooner did the enemy discover that the hill was held, than he began forthwith to bombard them.
It was obviously impossible to continue "digging in." The only thing to do was to squeeze one's self into the ground, and pray. It seemed as if the titanic thunderbolts, that had hitherto been hurled aimlessly about, were suddenly concentrated on that one spot. It seemed as if all the gods in Olympus were hurling their rage upon it, determined to obliterate it from the face of the earth. The most gigantic guns that had ever been used in war were concentrating their fire upon it, and the result was awful. Nothing they had experienced before was comparable to it. It seemed as if the ground were being thrashed with whips of a thousand leaden-loaded thongs. The smell of the lyddite was nauseating, the uproar stupefying. Dust rose in the air; trees crashed to the ground.
Hell was let loose: Hell and Death were dashing around, converting that normal sky and that sane earth into a Pandemonium. The wonder was that a human life was spared. The Subaltern had a fleeting feeling that every one except himself must be dead. When the storm seemed for a moment to have abated, he looked around him and was surprised to see that very little damage had been done to the men. An inexperienced eye would possibly not have detected any casualties at all. From a Kipling point of view, the scene was an artistic failure. Not a man was shrieking; not a man "clawing up the ground." Here and there men had rolled over on their sides, and were groaning quite softly to themselves. Here and there a purple patch in the dusty khaki....
The instinct of men, like animals, is to crawl quietly away from their fellows, and die in solitude.
The Colonel, very little perturbed by the bombardment, had sat throughout with his back resting against a tree, writing messages, or glaring at the map. Once, a large piece of shell casing had buried itself in the ground a few inches from his leg. The jagged piece was hot and heavy.