GRAPES OF WRATH

BY BOYD CABLE

AUTHOR OF “BETWEEN THE LINES,” “ACTION FRONT,” AND “DOING THEIR BIT”

NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON & CO. 681 FIFTH AVENUE

Copyright, 1917, BY E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY

Printed in the United States of America

TO ALL RANKS OF THE NEW ARMIES

Men of the Old Country, Men of the Over­seas, and those good men among the Neutrals who put all else aside to join up and help us to Victory, this book is dedi­cated with pride and admiration by

THE AUTHOR

In the Field, 20th January, 1917

THE AUTHOR’S ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Acknowledgments are due to the Editors of The Cornhill Magazine, Land and Water, and Pearson’s Magazine for permission to reprint such portions of this book as have appeared in their pages.

BOYD CABLE—A PREFATORY NOTE

The readers of Boyd Cable’s “Between the Lines,” “Action Front,” and “Doing Their Bit,” have very naturally had their curiosity excited as to an author who, previously unheard of, has suddenly become the foremost word-painter of active fighting at the present day, and the greatest “literary discovery” of the War.

Boyd Cable is primarily a man of action; and for half of his not very long life he has been doing things instead of writing them. At the age of twenty he joined a corps of Scouts in the Boer War, and saw plenty of fighting in South Africa. After the close of that war, his life consisted largely of traveling in Great Britain and the principal countries of Europe and the Mediterranean, his choice always leading him from the beaten track. He also spent some time in Australia and in New Zealand, not only in the cities, but in the outposts of civilization, on the edge of the wilderness, both there and in the Philippines, Java, and other islands of the Pacific.

When he travels, Mr. Cable does not merely take a steamer-berth or a railway-ticket and write up his notes from an observation car or a saloon deck. He looks out after a job, and puts plenty of energy into it while he is at it; in fact, so many different things has he done, that he says himself that it is easier to mention the things he has not done than the ones he has. He has been an ordinary seaman, typewriter agent, a steamer-fireman, office-manager, hobo, farmhand, gold prospector, coach-driver, navvy, engine-driver, and many other things. And strangely enough, though he knows so much from practical experience, he has, until recently, never thought of writing down what he has seen.

Before this present War, he was on the staff of a London advertising agency. At the outbreak of hostilities, he offered his services and was accepted in 1914, being one of the first men not in the regular army to get a commission and be sent to the front.

It was his experience as “Forward Officer” (or observation officer in the artillery) that gave him the material which he began to use in “Between the Lines.”

In this dangerous and responsible position, his daily life of literally “hairbreadth” escapes afforded him experiences as thrilling as any he has described in his books. On one occasion, for instance, when his position had been “spotted” by enemy sharp-shooters, he got a bullet through his cap, one through his shoulder-strap, one through the inside of his sleeve close to his heart, and fifty-three others near enough for him to hear them pass—all in less than an hour.

After eighteen months of this death-defying work, without even a wound, Mr. Boyd Cable was naturally disgusted at being invalided home on account of stomach trouble; but it was only this enforced leisure that gave him really time to take up writing seriously. As may be remembered, the British Government selected him officially to make the rounds of the munition factories and write an account of what was being done in them, with the purpose of circulating it among the men at the front, to let them see that the workers at home were “doing their bit.”

The following letter has just been received from Mr. Boyd Cable by the publishers, and they venture to include it here, entirely without the writer’s consent (since that would be impossible to get within the necessary time), and fully realizing that the letter was not written with a view to publication. They feel that it will give the reader an intimate view of the author, such as no amount of description or explanation could do.

“... Many thanks for all the trouble you have taken trying to place my stories in magazines. It certainly is odd that British in U. S. A. are not more interested in the war. I only hope the States won’t have one of its own to be interested in, but honestly I expect it within very few years. I am very glad you like “Grapes of Wrath” and hope the further chapters (which Smith, Elder & Company tell me they have sent you) will equally please. I may not tell you where I am or what I’m doing since the Censor forbids, but may just say that since I came out again I’ve seen plenty of the Somme “Push” and have been able to make “Grapes of Wrath” the more accurate and up to date in details. Now we’re all awaiting the Spring with full anticipations of going in for the last round and the knock-out to Germany. We’re all very confident she can’t stand the pace we’ve set for next year. We’re having some bitter weather—fierce cold and wet and snow, but we’re putting up with it, more or less cheered by the assurance that the

Huns are feeling it every bit as bad as we are and probably a bit worse. With all regards and every good wish for the coming year....”

It only remains to add that the importance of Mr. Boyd Cable’s work may be judged by the fact that of “Between the Lines” considerably over a hundred thousand copies have been printed in Great Britain alone.

THE PUBLISHERS.

AUTHOR’S FOREWORD

It is possible that this book may be taken for an actual account of the Somme battle, but I warn readers that although it is in the bulk based on the fighting there and is no doubt colored by the fact that the greater part of it was written in the Somme area or between visits to it, I make no claim for it as history or as an historical account. My ambition was the much lesser one of describing as well as I could what a Big Push is like from the point of view of an ordinary average infantry private, of showing how much he sees and knows and suffers in a great battle, of giving a glimpse perhaps of the spirit that animates the New Armies, the endurance that has made them more than a match for the Germans, the acceptance of appalling and impossible horrors as the work-a-day business and routine of battle, the discipline and training that has fused such a mixture of material into tempered fighting metal.

For the tale itself, I have tried to put into words merely the sort of story that might and could be told by thousands of our men to-day. I hope, in fact, I have so “told the tale” that such men as I have written of may be able to put this book in your hands and say: “This chapter just describes our crossing the open,” or “That is how we were shelled,” or “I felt the same about my Blighty one.”

It may be that before this book is complete in print another, a greater, a longer and bloodier, and a last battle may be begun, and I wish this book may indicate the kind of men who will be fighting it, the stout hearts they will bring to the fight, the manner of faith and assurance they will feel in Victory, complete and final to the gaining of such Peace terms as we may demand.

The Author.

In the Field 20th January, 1917.

15

CHAPTER I TOWARDS THE PUSH

The rank and file of the 5/6 Service Battalion of the Stonewalls knew that “there was another push on,” and that they were moving up somewhere into the push; but beyond that and the usual crop of wild and loose-running rumors they knew nothing. Some of the men had it on the most exact and positive authority that they were for the front line and “first over the parapet”; others on equally positive grounds knew that they were to be in reserve and not in the attack at all; that they were to be in support and follow the first line; that there was to be nothing more than an artillery demonstration and no infantry attack at all; that the French were taking over our line for the attack; that we were taking over the French line. The worst of it was that there were so many tales nobody could believe any of them,16 but, strangely enough, that did not lessen the eager interest with which each in turn was heard and discussed, or prevent each in turn securing a number of supporters and believers.

But all the rumors appeared to be agreed that up to now the push had not begun, so far as the infantry were concerned, and also that, as Larry Arundel put it, “judging by the row the guns are making it’s going to be some push when it does come.”

The Stonewalls had been marching up towards the front by easy stages for three days past, and each day as they marched, and, in fact, each hour of this last day, the uproar of artillery fire had grown steadily greater and greater, until now the air trembled to the violent concussions of the guns, the shriek and rumble of the shells, and occasionally to the more thrilling and heart-shaking shriek of an enemy shell, and the crash of its burst in our lines.

It was almost sunset when the Stonewalls swung off the road and halted in and about a little orchard. The lines of an encampment—which was intended for no more than a night’s bivouac—were laid out, and the men unbuckled their straps, laid off their packs, and sank thankfully17 to easeful positions of rest on the long grass, waiting until the traveling cookers, which on their journey along the road had been preparing the evening meal, were brought up and discharged of their savory contents. But before the meal was served there came an unpleasant interruption, which boded ill for the safety of the night’s camp. A heavy shell rushed overhead, dropped in the field about four hundred yards beyond the camp, burst with a crash and a gush of evil black smoke, a flying torrent of splinters and up-flung earth.

While the men were still watching the slow dispersal of the shell smoke, and passing comments upon how near to them was the line it had taken, another and another shell whooped over them in a prolonged line on the fields beyond. “We seem,” said Larry Arundel, “to have chosen a mighty unhealthy position for to-night’s rest.”

“If the C.O. has any sense,” retorted his mate, Billy Simson, “he’ll up and off it somewheres out to the flank. We’re in the direct line of those crumps, and if one drops short, it is going to knock the stuffin’ out of a whole heap of us.”

While they were talking an artillery subaltern was seen crossing the road and hurrying towards18 them. “Where is your C.O.?” he asked, when he came to the nearest group.

“Over in the orchard, sir,” said Billy Simson. “I’ll show you if you like.”

The officer accepted his pilotage, urging him to hurry, and the two hastened to the orchard, and to a broken-down building in the corner of it, where the officers of the battalion were installing a more or less open-air mess.

Billy Simson lingered long enough to hear the Subaltern introduce himself as from a battery in a position across the road amongst some farm buildings, and to say that his Major had sent him over to warn the infantry that the field they were occupying was in a direct line “regularly strafed” by a heavy German battery every few hours.

“My Major said I was to tell you,” went on the Subaltern, “that there are one or two old barns and outbuildings on the farm where we have the battery, and that you might find some sort of shelter for a good few of your men in them; and that we can find room to give you and some of the officers a place to shake down for the night.”

Simson heard no more than this, but he soon had evidence that the invitation had been accepted. The battalion was warned to “stand by” for a19 move across the road, and the Colonel and Adjutant, with the Sergeant-Major and a couple of Sergeants, left the orchard and disappeared among the farm buildings, in the company of the gunner Subaltern.

Billy Simson repeated to his particular chums the conversation he had overheard; and the resulting high expectations of a move from the unhealthy locality under the German guns’ line of fire, and of a roof over their heads for the night, were presently fulfilled by an order for the battalion to move company by company. “C” Company presently found itself installed in a commodious barn, with ventilation plentifully provided by a huge hole, obviously broken out by a shell burst, in the one corner, and a roof with tiles liberally smashed and perforated by shrapnel fire. But on the whole the men were well content with the change, partly perhaps because being come of a long generation of house-dwellers they had never become accustomed to the real pleasure of sleeping in the open air, and partly because of that curious and instinctive and wholly misplaced confidence inspired by four walls and a roof as a protection against shell fire.

Somewhere outside and very close to them a20 field battery was in action, and for a whole hour before darkness fell the air pulsed and the crazy buildings about them shook to an unceasing thump and bang from the firing guns, while the intervals were filled with the slightly more distant but equally constant thud and boom of other batteries’ fire.

While they were waiting for the evening meal to be served some of the men wandered out and took up a position where they could view closely the guns and gunners at their work. The guns were planted at intervals along a high hedge; the muzzles poked through the leafy screen, and a shelter of leaves and boughs was rigged over each, so as to screen the battery from air observation.

Billy Simson and his three particular chums were amongst the interested spectators. The four men, who were drawn from classes that in pre-war days would have made any idea of friendship or even intercourse most unlikely, if not impossible, had, after a fashion so common in our democratic New Armies, become fast friends and intimates.

Larry Arundel, aged twenty, was a man of good family, who in civilian days had occupied a seat in his father’s office in London, with the certain prospect before him of a partnership in the firm. Billy21 Simson was a year or two older, had been educated in a provincial board school, and from the age of fourteen had served successively as errand boy and counter hand in a little suburban “emporium.” The third man, Ben Sneath, age unknown, but probably somewhere about twenty-one to twenty-five, was frankly of the “lower orders”; had picked up a living from the time he was able to walk, in the thousand and one ways that a London street boy finds to his hand. On the roll of “C” Company he was Private Sneath, B, but to the whole of the company—and, in fact, to the whole of the battalion—he was known briefly, but descriptively, as “Pug.” Jefferson Lee, the fourth of the quartette, was an unusual and somewhat singular figure in a British battalion, because, always openly proud of his birthplace, he was seldom called by anything but it—“Kentucky,”

or “Kentuck.” His speech, even in the wild jumble of accents and dialects common throughout a mixed battalion, was striking and noticeable for its peculiar softness and slurring intonations, its smooth gentleness, its quiet, drawling level. Being an American, born of many generations of Americans, with no single tie or known relation outside America, he was, in his stained22 khaki and his place in the fighting ranks of a British regiment, a personal violation of the neutrality of the United States. But the reasons that had brought him from Kentucky to England, with the clear and expressed purpose of enlisting for the war, were very simply explained by him.

“Some of us,” he said gently, “never really agreed with the sinking of liners and the murder of women and children. Some of us were a trifle ashamed to be standing out of this squabble, and when the President told the world that we were ‘too proud to fight,’ I just simply had to prove that it was a statement which did not agree with the traditions of an old Kentucky family. So I came over and enlisted in your army.”

The attitude of the four men now as they watched the gunners at work was almost characteristic of each. Larry, who had relatives or friends in most branches of the Service, was able to tell the others something of the methods of modern artillery, and delivered almost a lecturette upon the subject. Billy Simson was frankly bored by this side of the subject, but intensely interested in the noise and the spectacular blinding flash that appeared to leap forth in a twenty-foot wall of flame on the discharge of each gun. Pug found23 a subject for mirth and quick, bantering jests in the attitudes of the gunners and their movements about the gun, and the stentorian shoutings through a megaphone of the Sergeant-Major from the entrance to a dug-out in the rear of the guns. Lee sat down, leisurely rolled and lit a cigarette, watched the proceedings with interest, and made only a very occasional soft drawled reply to the remarks of the others.

“Do you mean to tell me,” said Pug incredulously, breaking in on Arundel’s lecture, “that them fellows is shootin’ off all them shells without ever seein’ what they’re firin’ at? If that is true, I calls it bloomin’ waste.”

“They do not see their target,” said Arundel, “but they are hitting it every time. You see they aim at something else, and they’re told how much to the right or left of it to shoot, and the range they are to shoot at—it is a bit too complicated to explain properly, but it gets the target all right.”

“Wot’s the bloke with the tin trumpet whisperin’ about?” asked Pug. “Looks to me as if he was goin’ to be a casualty with a broke blood-vessel.”

“Passing orders and corrections of fire to the guns,” explained Arundel. “There’s a telephone24 wire from that dug-out up to somewhere in front, where somebody can see the shells falling, and ’phone back to tell them whether they are over or short, right or left.”

“It’s pretty near as good as a Brock’s benefit night,” said Billy Simson; “but I’d want cotton wool plugs in my ears, if I was takin’ up lodgin’s in this street.”

The light was beginning to fade by now, but the guns continued to fire in swift rotation, from one end of the battery to the other. They could hear the sharp orders, “One, fire; Two, fire; Three, fire,” could see the gunner on his seat beside each piece jerk back the lever. Instantly the gun flamed a sheet of vivid fire, the piece recoiled violently to the rear between the gunners seated to each side of it, and as the breech moved smoothly back to its position, the hand of one gunner swooped rapidly in after it, grabbed the handle and wrenched open the breech, flinging out the shining brass cartridge case, to fall with a clash and jangle on to the trail of the gun and the other empty cases lying round it. The instant the breech was back in place, another man shot in a fresh shell, the breech swung shut with a sharp, metallic clang, the layer, with his eye pressed close to his25 sight, juggled for a moment with his hands on shiny brass wheels, lifted one hand to drop it again on the lever, shouted “Ready,” and sat waiting the order to fire. The motions and the

action at one gun were exactly and in detail the motions of all. From end to end of the line the flaming wall leaped in turn from each muzzle, the piece jarred backwards, the empty brass case jerked out and fell tinkling; and before it ceased to roll another shell was in place, the breech clanged home, and the gun was ready again.

Billy Simson spoke to a gunner who was moving past them towards the billets.