The Last Lady from Hell (42 page)

“I intend to have the regiment exit the St. John’s eastern wall and march up to the enemy lines,” Winsted barked.

“That’s suicide,” Terry spat.

“Careful piper! That’s insubordination! I shall report you after the battle!” Winsted said shrilly.

“Beg your pardon sir, but there is no cover – it’s open field. We’ll be sitting ducks for their gunners,” Terry pleaded.

“I have received a signal that requires my regiment to act, and act we shall! Form up now, men! In waves, to maintain fifty paces spacing! That is an order!”

The men, being good and well trained soldiers formed up in eight lines of one hundred. The pipers couldn’t believe what they were seeing. This fool was about to break the cardinal rule of trench warfare and he was going to commit the entire regiment to this madness. It was inconceivable, but it was happening nonetheless.

“Pipers ready!” Winsted commanded, waving his imaginary crop as he spoke. “Men ready! Follow me – on to victory!” He scrambled up the side of the St. John’s trench with the 1st Newfoundland Regiment on his heels.

George and Terry started playing “Scotland the Brave,” and attempted to climb at the same time, but with limited success. Once over the top, the men formed orderly lines fifty paces apart and marched toward the front lines across open land. Remarkably, there was no resistance, the regiment moved forward at a steady pace and not a man had fallen. They just kept moving with their emboldened leader holding his invisible crop high in the air.

THE GERMAN 119TH RESERVE REGIMENT

T
hree hundred meters away from the St. John’s trench, the German 119th Reserve Regiment was well dug in. After a week of living in bunkers, it felt good to get out, even if it was to do battle. They had withstood the best pounding the British could muster and now had a renewed sense of determination in their fighting.

Hartwig Bier was the lead in one of the machine gun nests that covered the forward position between the Front and Beaumont Hamel. He was senior man in his sector, with five nests spread out over four hundred meters of Front. Each nest was equipped with two Maxim 08 guns, and they all seemed to be performing well.

Bier had his men paying particular attention to the cooling of the guns. The water levels had to be meticulously maintained to prevent the possibility of overheating. He had never asked so much of these fine machines and knew he was pushing them to the limit.

Each gun had a team of four men: the gunner, the feeder, a cooler, and a shoveler. At five hundred rounds per minute, times two guns per nest, one could quickly become buried in the spent 7.9 milimeter casings if not for the shovelers. In typical German fashion, everything was well thought out, the guns were placed at thirty-degree angles to one another, and the nests were positioned to maximized their advantage with relation to topography. The Germans had created
a wall of death and the point of triangulation was around the area known as the danger tree.

Bier’s teams were blanketing the British advance trenches with fire and completely stopping the British from making any headway toward their lines. The system was working extraordinarily well.

One of his men slapped him on his back. Hartwig turned to see what he wanted. The noise levels in these nests were so high that verbal conversation was not possible. And, as a protective measure the men had cotton stuffed in their ears but, the noise was still loud enough to be painful, so they had to communicate through hand gestures. His team member pointed at his eyes and then pointed out toward the front where there was open sloping terrain. Biers looked in the direction his man was pointing and shook his head in disbelief.

“Was ist los?” – what’s going on – Biers asked disbelieving, mouthing words that couldn’t be heard.

They could see what appeared to be a regiment marching in formation down the gentle slope. Perhaps as many as eight hundred men, Biers estimated. He looked left and then right scanning the battle area and assessing the situation. It could be some kind of diversion to draw attention away from the real attack. It made no sense.

He looked at the fellow who had brought it to his attention, they exchanged puzzled looks and shrugged their shoulders. He leaned forward to get a better look and noticed the kilted pipers in the front. He scowled. Hartwig hated the instrument and the god-awful noise it produced. “I shall shoot you two first,” he said.

He turned to alert the other gunners in his nest. He had a job to do and it involved killing British, so he needed to focus his men on this new threat. He turned his gun toward the nest to his left and spat out a short burst at the earth in front of it. Dirt and mud flew up in front of the gunners and they looked to their right to see what the matter was.

As the other soldier had done, now Hartwig pointed first to his eyes, then to the advancing 1st Newfoundland Regiment. The gunner shot back a questioning look. Hartwig held up one finger, he
then pointed at the sitting ducks and repeated the gesture pointing at the British front lines. One gun was to train on the regiment and one on the British forward lines.

The gunner relayed the message to the next nest, and a total of five Maxims prepared to unload a brutal amount of firepower on the Newfoundland men. That amounted to twenty five hundred rounds per minute that were readying to decimate the brave young soldiers of the 1st Newfoundland Regiment – wholesale slaughter.

As the men marched down the slope toward the battlefield, they moved at double-time, and soon four rows had passed George and Terry who had to keep a more modest pace.

The lack of resistance was about to abruptly change. The sounds of the battlefield were now changing. A gun gives off a different sound when it is aimed and fired at you. It’s inexplicable, but very recognizable.

The unending rattle of the German machine guns took on that different pitch and the 1st row of men began to fall. A gray haze of bullets formed in the air, spraying everything in the vicinity of the men. It sounded like heavy raindrops hitting the ground in a downpour and the second row went down. The men marched past their fallen comrades and leaned into the onslaught as if it were merely a driving rain. The third row went down.

Hartwig Bier looked out above the crosshairs of his Maxim. “Dummkopfs!” he shouted over the deafening sound of his guns. He was frustrated, as he watched hundreds of men dying under his nest’s relentless fire. “Why don’t you turn and run or look for cover? Are your lives so worthless?” He shook his head. Why were they making him slaughter them this way?

Terry and Doc could no longer advance. The bodies strewn about made it near impossible to march over them. Yet, the well-trained men of the 1st kept moving toward the enemy lines.

After seven rows of the regiment had been wiped out, the last row broke formation and began to retreat. The men were not running because of fear – they knew it was over before it had started – they were retiring in an effort to save their fallen comrades. Men were carrying and dragging the wounded in an attempt to salvage anything from this massacre and still the Maxims punished them.

As the seventh row of men fell, Terry and George realized they had somehow come through untouched. There was no point in piping anymore so they began helping injured men back to the St. John’s trench, then went back for more.

Major Winsted was yelling orders and waving his arms around, but there were few left to hear his commands. He had moved back to the seventh row and, as his men dropped around him in a hail of bullets, he, too, lurched backward in a spasmodic dance of death. Bullets ripped through his body, putting an end to his mad charge and quest for glory.

The advance had been a complete disaster of unthinkable proportion – a tragedy of uncommon courage and unprecedented folly. The regiment had been wiped out with its men dead or dying before they even reached the British advanced trenches. The slaughter took less than fifteen minutes.

Hartwig Bier took his finger off of the trigger of his gun, and the 08 lurched to a stop. His feeder looked at him questioningly, but Hartwig looked straight ahead. He shook his head as he looked at
the horrific carnage before him – the result of his efforts. They were all destroyed and for what purpose?

“Lions lead by donkeys,” he muttered, and turned his Maxim back toward the advanced trenches of the British to resume his duties with a profound feeling of disgust.