“What’s this?” I asked, peeping over the parados to the road
in our rear. "My God! There's a transport wagon going along the road!”
“Blimey! You're sprucing,” said Bill, peeping over; then his
eye fell on a wagon drawn by two mules going along the highway. “Oh, the damned
fools, goin' up that way. They'll not get far.”
The enemy occupied a rise on our right, and a machine gun
hidden somewhere near the trench swept that road all night. The gun was quiet
all day long; no one ventured along there before dusk. A driver sat in front of
the wagon, leaning back a little, a whip in his hand. Beside him sat another
soldier. . . . Both were going to their death, the road at a little distance
ahead crossed the enemy's trench.
“They have come the wrong way,” I said. “They were going to
Loos, I suppose, and took the wrong turning at the Valle Cross-roads. Poor
devils!”
A machine gun barked from the rise; we saw the driver of the
wagon straighten himself and look round. His companion pointed a finger at the
enemy's trench. . . .
“For Christ's sake get off!” Bill shouted at them; but they
couldn't hear him, the wagon was more than a quarter of a mile away from our
trench.
“Damn it!” exclaimed Bill; “they'll both be killed. There!”
The vehicle halted; the near-side wheeler shook its head,
then dropped sideways on the road, and kicked out with its hind legs; the other
animal fell on top of it. The driver's whip went flying from his hands, and the
man lurched forward and fell on top of the mules. For a moment he lay there,
then with a hurried movement he slipped across to the other side of the far
animal and disappeared. Our eyes sought the other soldier, but he was gone from
sight, probably he had been shot off his seat.
“The damned fools! “I muttered. 'What brought them up that
way? “
“Wot's that ? “Bill suddenly exclaimed.
“See, comin' across the fields behind the road! A man, an officer.
. . . Another damned fool, and he’ll get a bullet in 'im.”
Bill pointed with his finger, and we looked. Across the
fields behind that stretched from the road to the ruined village of Maroc we
saw for the moment a man running towards the wagon. We only had a momentary glimpse
then. The runner suddenly fell flat into a shell-hole and disappeared from
view.
"He's hit,” said Pryor. “There, the beastly machine gun
is going again. Who is he? “
We stared tensely at the shell-hole. No sign of movement. .
. .
“'E's done in,” said Bill.
Even as he spoke the man who had fallen rose and raced
forward for a distance of fifty yards and flung himself flat again. The machine
gun barked viciously. . . .
Then followed a tense moment, and again the officer (we now
saw that he was an officer) rushed forward for several yards and precipitated
himself into a shell-crater. He was drawing nearer the disabled wagon at every
rush. The machine gun did not remain silent for a moment now; it spat
incessantly at the fields.
“He's trying to reach the wagon,” I said. “I don't envy him
his job, but, my God, what pluck! “
“'Oo is 'e?” asked Bill. “'E's not ‘arf a brick, 'ooever 'e
is! “
“I think I know who it is,” said Pryor. “It's the Roman Catholic
chaplain, Father Lane-Fox. He's a splendid man. He came over with us in the
charge, and he helped to carry out the wounded till every man was in. Last
night when we went for our rations he was helping the sanitary squad to bury
the dead; and the enemy were shelling all the time. He is the pluckiest man in
Loos.”
“He wanted to come across in the charge,” I said, “but the
Brigadier would not allow him. An hour after we crossed the top I saw him in
the second German trench. . . . There he is, up again! “
The chaplain covered a hundred yards in the next spurt; then
he flung himself to earth about fifty yards from the wagon. The next lap was
the last; he reached the wagon and disappeared. We saw nothing more of him that
day. At night when I went down to the dressing-station at Maroc, I was told how
the chaplain had brought a wounded transport driver down to the dressing-station
after dusk. The driver had got three bullets through his arm, one in his shoulder,
one in his foot, and two in the calf of his leg. The driver's mate had been
killed; a bullet pierced his brain.
The London Irish love Father Lane-Fox; he visited the men in
the trenches daily, and all felt the better for his coming. Often at night the
sentry on watch can see a dark form between the lines working with a shovel and
spade burying the dead. The bullets whistle by, hissing of death and terror;
now and then a bomb whirls in air and bursts loudly; a shell screeches like a
bird of prey; the hounds of war rend the earth with frenzied fangs; but
indifferent to all the clamour and tumult the solitary digger bends over his
work burying the dead.
“It's old Father Lane- Fox,” the sentry will mutter. “He'll
be killed one of these fine days."
Taken from 'The Great Push' by London Irish Rifleman Patrick MacGill, wounded at Loos in 1915
