March 29, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
The Attack 
By Centurion 
15 
HE belonged to the bombing party of No. i 
Platoon, Company A, of "the Springers." You 
will not find them under that name in the Army 
List, but in the Sergeants' Mess, where oral 
tradition dies hard, the long-service N.C.O.'s never caU 
the regiment anything else — and thereby keep ahve the 
memory of a great day in the Peninsula when the regi- 
ment cleared a six-foot wall in a bayonet charge. No 
one ever " writes up " the Springers, for they do not wear 
kilts and are not as the " tin-belhes " who sit mounted 
at street-comers, spreading broad their pipe-clayed 
phylacteries. They are merely one of those unobtrusive 
Una regiments who go on from generation to generation 
a.dding fresh laurels to their colours and saying very 
httle about it, for they are men of few words and they 
speak a dialect which is uninteUigible to anyone except 
a West -countryman. They have " Peninsula," " Feroze- 
shah," " Sobraon," on their colours, and they can now 
add the most coveted name in mihtary annals, for they 
were at Mons. They have their own libretto for the 
bugle-calls ; and when they talk of Defaulters' Roll 
Call they speak of " Angels' Whisper." Also they have a 
feud with a certain Irish regiment dating from the day 
when they arrived in DubUn and lowered its colours at 
■' footer." Their homespim speech is pure Anglo-Saxon, 
the same speech as their fathers spake when they broke 
the Danes at Ethandune. It is a soft speech, like honey 
in the mouth ; those who speak it are slow to anger and 
of great kindness. But they are very unpleasant when 
they are roused, and though they can give quarter they 
never take it. 
John Knighton had kept sheep on a hillside, one of 
those bold escarpments of the North Downs where the 
chalk breaks into greensand, falhng away into the great 
dairy-farming plains of coral rag. When the war came 
Uke a thief in the night his mental horizon was as bounded 
as his physical environment ; he knew a great deal 
about sheep-dip and could tell you all about the healing 
virtues of the rest-harrow, but France was for him merely 
a geographical expression, recalhng painful hours over 
a primer in the village school. But he knew many 
things that a town-bred teacher did not know ; he 
could tell the seasons and the time of night by the stars, 
and when he looked at Orion he needed not the Pole Star 
to tell him where the true North was. He knew where — 
and in what season — to look for the bat's- wings of Cassio- 
peia and the great square of Pegasus. But he would have 
been incredulous if you had told him that the same stars 
looked down upon the fields of France. 
One day in May 1915, when the lambing season was 
over, John Knighton walked into the nearest recniiting 
office with a few chattels tied up in a red handkerchief 
with large white spots and announced his wish to enlist. If 
you had asked him his reason for this momentous decision 
he would have given you every reason but the true one, 
which was that Major S , late of the Springers, now 
on half-pay, but still a foster-father to the regiment, had 
come to John Knighton's village one day, and at a 
recruiting-meeting in the village school-room, with the 
squire in the chair, had told them things which set 
John Knighton's teeth on edge. 
In his lonely night-watches on the downs he had 
pondered deeply on these things, and though he could 
not have told you where Belgium was upon the map, he 
knew that there or thereabouts evil stalked upon the 
earth. And thinking upon these things it seemed to 
him that he, John Knighton, must go forth to combat 
it. He was a hkely-looking man, tall and deep-chested, 
with the terra-cotta skin of perfect health, and the 
M.O., as he watched him jump the form, and hop round 
che room on his left foot, and then on his right, felt that 
he could dispense with the usual tattoo upon his chest- 
bones. The mazes of platoon-drill troubled him at 
first, but at observation he had nothing to learn, and on 
the range, he soon turned out a first-class shot. He was 
even as giod with the bayonet— pitching hay is quite 
a good apprenticeship— and there were few who could 
show better form on the assault-course. Thus it was. 
that after a few lessons in bombing, he found himself 
No. I bayonet-man in the bombing-party of his platoon. 
And one day the company orderly sergeant read out his 
name from the nominal roU and he found himself 
warned for an overseas draft. 
II. 
" It hain't comin' off, I do think," said John Knighton, 
as he " stood to " one rosy morning in Jime in a chalk 
trench upon the Somme. He had come there after 
months of duty in the trenches in Flanders, followed by a 
stimulating interlude in carrjdng " spit-locked " trenches 
at a kind of dress-rehearsal of an attack behind G.H.Q. 
fie liked the rolling hills of the Somme, for they reminded 
him of his native downs. But he chafed at a delay the 
reasons for which were wholly obscure to him, and 
although every time they were reheved he saw behind 
the lines an increasing accumulation of " dumps " and 
timber and hobbled horses and a mighty concentration 
of guns and Umbers, his incredulity grew upon him. 
" Thic year, next year, zumtime, never," said his 
comrade Jacob Winterboume, as he blew upon imaginary 
oetals. " It'll be about hay-making time zoon, in 
Broad Hint on, John. Wonder whether any on us 'ull 
ever see the wold place again ? " He wiped his mouth 
with the back of his hand as he finished his rum ration. 
But at that John Knighton said nothing. 
The colonel of " the Springers " had his own opinion 
as to the date of the opening performance for which 
there had been so many rehearsals, but he kept his own 
counsel. He had attended a seven days' course of 
lectures at the Army School about a week earUer, 
hearing many things which he already knew and a few 
which he did not. And four days later he had attended 
a Divisional Conference of Battahon O.C.'s and 
Brigadiers, while a major-general from " Operations " 
at G.H.Q. had talked intimately with a pointer in his 
hand before an enormous map. The " I." summaries 
had also been more than usually explicit of late as to 
the strength and location of the German units opposite 
the line, their enquiries being assisted by a large collection! 
of shoulder-straps, a mild inquisition of the " third 
degree," and a collection of belles-lettres, the trophies oi 
some carefully-organised raids. The A.D.M.S. had also 
been mobilising his field ambulances, and an order had 
gone down to the Base to evacuate and prepare many thou-J 
sands of beds. Also the Directorates of Supplies, and 
Transport, and Water, and Railways, had been doing heavy 
night shifts, and their caravans covered the face of theearth. 
And the Divisional P.M. had doubled his examining-posts 
and worked out a scheme of positions for " battle police.'' 
These things were talked over in whispers by staff-j 
officers with blue, and red, and parti-coloured brassards 
at Brigade and Divisional and Corps Headquarters, untij 
one night at the end of June the A.A.G. at the Corp^ 
H.Q., after looking behind him to see that the messf 
sergeant had closed the door, turned to the Camp Comf- 
mandant and whispered something in his ear. i 
" Damn it ! " said the Camp Commandant, " and to 
think we're here right at the back of the dress-circle. 
I wish I'd been able to pull the leg of my last Board!. 
But they wouldn't pass me for anything but light duty. 
And to thiixk my old regiment's up there. Well, here'te 
luck ! " ; 
III. I 
It was ten o'clock. The men had been numbered off 
from the left and one in three posted for look-out duty. 
The night was calm, but the air drowsy as though thunder 
were brooding over the earth , and the illusion was height- 
ened by sheets of flame which flickered incessantly in the 
sky. A battalion runner arrived from Brigade Head- 
quarters with a message for the Colonel in his dug-out. 
He opened the sheaf of papers and saw the words " Opera- 
tion Orders." He took one glance at them and then 
sent an orderly to summon the major and the company 
commanders. Meanwhile he took out a map and spread it 
