Heavens! how the minutes dragged. It seemed like a lifetime waiting there. My nerves were strung up to a high pitch; my heart was thumping like a steam-hammer. I gave a quick glance at an officer close by. He was mopping the perspiration from his brow, and clutching his stick, first in one hand then in the other--quite unconsciously, I am sure. He looked at his watch. Another three minutes went by.

Would nothing ever happen?

CHAPTER XIV

THE DAY AND THE HOUR

A Mighty Convulsion Signalises the Commencement of Operations--Then Our Boys "Go Over the Top"--A Fine Film Obtained whilst Sh.e.l.ls Rained Around Me--My Apparatus is Struck--But, Thank Goodness, the Camera is Safe--Arrival of the Wounded--"Am I in the Picture?" they ask.

Time: 7.19 a.m. My hand grasped the handle of the camera. I set my teeth. My whole mind was concentrated upon my work. Another thirty seconds pa.s.sed. I started turning the handle, two revolutions per second, no more, no less. I noticed how regular I was turning. (My object in exposing half a minute beforehand was to get the mine from the moment it broke ground.) I fixed my eyes on the Redoubt. Any second now.

Surely it was time. It seemed to me as if I had been turning for hours.

Great heavens! Surely it had not misfired.

Why doesn't it go up?

I looked at my exposure dial. I had used over a thousand feet. The horrible thought flashed through my mind, that my film might run out before the mine blew. Would it go up before I had time to reload? The thought brought beads of perspiration to my forehead. The agony was awful; indescribable. My hand began to shake. Another 250 feet exposed.

I had to keep on.

Then it happened.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OPENING OF THE GREAT BATTLE OF THE SOMME, JULY 1ST, 1916. AT 7.20 A. M. THIS HUGE MINE LOADED WITH 20 TONS OF AMINOL WHICH TOOK 7 MONTHS TO MAKE, WAS SPRUNG UNDER THE GERMAN TRENCHES AT BEAUMONT HAMEL]

The ground where I stood gave a mighty convulsion. It rocked and swayed.

I gripped hold of my tripod to steady myself. Then, for all the world like a gigantic sponge, the earth rose in the air to the height of hundreds of feet. Higher and higher it rose, and with a horrible, grinding roar the earth fell back upon itself, leaving in its place a mountain of smoke. From the moment the mine went up my feelings changed.

The crisis was over, and from that second I was cold, cool, and calculating. I looked upon all that followed from the purely pictorial point of view, and even felt annoyed if a sh.e.l.l burst outside the range of my camera. Why couldn't Bosche put that sh.e.l.l a little nearer? It would make a better picture. And so my thoughts ran on.

The earth was down. I swung my camera round on to our own parapets. The engineers were swarming over the top, and streaming along the sky-line.

Our guns redoubled their fire. The Germans then started H.E. Shrapnel began falling in the midst of our advancing men. I continued to turn the handle of my camera, viewing the whole attack through my view-finder, first swinging one way and then the other.

Then another signal rang out, and from the trenches immediately in front of me, our wonderful troops went over the top. What a picture it was!

They went over as one man. I could see while I was exposing, that numbers were shot down before they reached the top of the parapet; others just the other side. They went across the ground in swarms, and marvel upon marvels, still smoking cigarettes. One man actually stopped in the middle of "No Man's Land" to light up again.

The Germans had by now realised that the great attack had come. Shrapnel poured into our trenches with the object of keeping our supports from coming up. They had even got their "crumps" and high-explosive shrapnel into the middle of our boys before they were half-way across "No Man's Land." But still they kept on. At that moment my spool ran out. I hurriedly loaded up again, and putting the first priceless spool in my case, I gave it to my man in a dug-out to take care of, impressing upon him that he must not leave it under any circ.u.mstances. If anything unforeseen happened he was to take it back to Headquarters.

I rushed back to my machine again. Sh.e.l.ls were exploding quite close to me. At least I was told so afterwards by an officer. But I was so occupied with my work that I was quite unconscious of their proximity. I began filming once more. The first lot of men, or rather the remainder of them, had disappeared in the haze and smoke, punctured by bursting sh.e.l.ls. What was happening in the German lines I did not know. Other men were coming up and going over the top. The German machine-gun fire was not quite so deadly now, but our men suffered badly from sh.e.l.l-fire. On several occasions I noticed men run and take temporary cover in the sh.e.l.l-holes, but their ranks were being terribly thinned.

Still more went over, and still a stream of men were making for the mine crater; they then disappeared in the smoke. The noise was terrific. It was as if the earth were lifting bodily, and crashing against some immovable object. The very heavens seemed to be falling. Thousands of things were happening at the same moment. The mind could not begin to grasp the barest margin of it.

The German sh.e.l.ls were crashing all round me. Dirt was being flung in my face, cutting it like whipcord. My only thought was whether any of it had struck my lens and made it dirty, for this would have spoiled my film. I gave a quick glance at it. It was quite all right.

Fearful fighting was taking place in the German trenches. The heavy rattle of machine-guns, the terrible din of exploding bombs, could be heard above the pandemonium. Our men had ceased to flow from our trenches. I crept to the top of the parapet, and looked towards the left of the village of Beaumont Hamel. Our guns were bursting on the other side of the village, but I could distinguish nothing else as to how things were going.

I asked an officer who was standing close by.

"G.o.d knows," he replied. "Everything over there is so mixed up. The General said this was the hardest part of the line to get through, and my word it seems like it, to look at our poor lads."

I could see them strewn all over the ground, swept down by the accursed machine-gun fire.

A quick succession of sh.e.l.l-bursts attracted my attention. Back to my camera position. Another lot of our men were going over the top. I began exposing, keeping them in my camera view all the time, as they were crossing, by revolving my tripod head.

Sh.e.l.l after sh.e.l.l crashed in the middle of them, leaving ghastly gaps, but other men quickly filled them up, pa.s.sing through the smoke, and over the bodies of their comrades, as if there were no such thing as a sh.e.l.l in all the world. Another spool ran out, making the fourth since the attack started. I gave it in charge of my man, with the same instructions as before. I loaded again, and had just started exposing.

Something attracted my attention on the extreme left. What it was I don't know. I ceased turning, but still holding the handle, I veered round the front of my camera. The next moment, with a shriek and a flash, a sh.e.l.l fell and exploded before I had time to take shelter. It was only a few feet away. What happened after I hardly know. There was the grinding crash of a bursting sh.e.l.l; something struck my tripod, the whole thing, camera and all, was flung against me. I clutched it and staggered back, holding it in my arms. I dragged it into a shrapnel-proof shelter, sat down and looked for the damage. A piece of the sh.e.l.l had struck the tripod and cut the legs clean in half, on one side, carrying about six inches of it away. The camera, thank heaven, was untouched.

Calling my man, we hastily found some pieces of wood, old telephone wire and string, and within an hour had improvised legs, rigid enough to continue taking scenes.

I again set up my camera. Our gun-fire was still terrible, but the Germans had shortened their range and were evidently putting a barrage on our men, who had presumably reached the enemy's front trenches.

n.o.body knew anything definitely. Wounded men began to arrive. There was a rush for news.

"How are things going?" we asked.

"We have taken their first and second line," said one.

An officer pa.s.sed on a stretcher.

"How are things going?"

"G.o.d knows," he said. "I believe we have got through their first line and part of the village, but don't know whether we shall be able to hold out; we have been thinned shockingly."

"Have you been successful?" he asked me.

"Yes, I've got the whole of the attack."

"Good man," he said.

First one rumour then another came through. There was nothing definite.

The fighting over there was furious. I filmed various scenes of our wounded coming in over the parapet; then through the trenches. Lines of them were awaiting attention.

Scenes crowded upon me. Wounded and more wounded; men who a few hours before had leaped over the parapet full of life and vigour were now dribbling back. Some of them shattered and broken for life. But it was one of the most glorious charges ever made in the history of the world.

These men had done their bit.

"Hullo," I said to one pa.s.sing through on a stretcher, "got a 'blighty'?"

"Yes, sir," he said; "rather sure Blighty for me."

"And for me too," said another lad lying with him waiting attention, "I shan't be able to play footer any more. Look!" I followed the direction of his finger, and could see through the rough bandages that his foot had been taken completely off. Yet he was still cheerful, and smoking.

A great many asked me as they came through: "Was I in the picture, sir?"

I had to say "yes" to them all, which pleased them immensely.

Still no definite news. The heavy firing continued. I noticed several of our wounded men lying in sh.e.l.l-holes in "No Man's Land." They were calling for a.s.sistance. Every time a Red Cross man attempted to get near them, a hidden German machine-gun fired. Several were killed whilst trying to bring in the wounded. The cries of one poor fellow attracted the attention of a trench-mortar man. He asked for a volunteer to go with him, and bring the poor fellow in. A man stepped forward, and together they climbed the parapet, and threaded their way through the barbed wire very slowly. Nearer and nearer they crept. We stood watching with bated breath. Would they reach him? Yes. At last! Then hastily binding up the injured man's wounds they picked him up between them, and with a run made for our parapet. The swine of a German blazed away at them with his machine-gun. But marvellous to relate neither of them were touched.

I filmed the rescue from the start to the finish, until they pa.s.sed me in the trench, a ma.s.s of perspiration. Upon the back of one was the unconscious man he had rescued, but twenty minutes after these two had gone through h.e.l.l to rescue him, the poor fellow died.

During the day those two men rescued twenty men in this fashion under heavy fire.