Down in their trenches the isolated cluster of men set about
strengthening their defences with new heart, made with a new hope
preparations to withstand the next attacks. It was not long before they
had help--a help that the guns, knowing now exactly where they were
although they could not see, could send in advance of the rescuing
attack. A barrage of shells began to pound down beyond them, out to
their right and left, and even behind them. "Silver Wings" had dropped
her message, and the shells brought the answer plain to the cut-off
party. They knew that they were located, that the guns would help out
their defence, that rescue would come to them as speedily as might be.
The actual rescue came presently in the shape of an attack over the
ground they had covered the day before. Before it came they had to
beat off one or two more enemy rushes, but this time the help of those
barraging shells stood them in good stead, the sweeping shrapnel
prevented the enemy creeping in to occupy in comparative safety the
shell-holes round the position, the steady fall of high explosives
broke down the enemy trenches and checked free movement in them. The
Germans were badly pounded on that portion of front, so that when the
rescuing attack was made, it fought its way rapidly forward, and the
isolated party were able to do something to help it merely by hanging
to their position, by rear and flanking fire on the Germans who held
the ground between them and the attacking line. The attack resulted in
the whole line being pushed forward to the ridge behind the separated
party, holding it, and thrusting forward a little salient which took in
the ground the party had hung to so stoutly, consolidated, and held it
firm.
The rescued men were passed back to their lines, and--most of them--to
the casualty clearing stations. And when the lieutenant brought the
remnant of his company back to the battalion, he told the Battalion
Commander his end of the story, and heard in return how the message of
their whereabouts had been brought back and how it had directed the
movement that had got them out. The lieutenant wanted to send a word
of thanks to "Silver Wings" and her pilot, but this the C.O. told him
he could not do. "The pilot was lifted out of his machine and taken
straight to the C.C.S.,[1]" he said. "He was wounded by rifle-fire from
the ground when he first dived to help you beat off that attack. No,
not seriously, I'm glad to say, but he'd lost a lot of blood, and he
got rather knocked about landing and broke his machine a bit I believe."
[1] Casualty Clearing Station.
"Wounded," said the lieutenant slowly, "and at that time. So he kept on
diving his machine about and fighting after he was wounded; and went
through that air fight with his wound, and shot the Hun down, and then
came on back and gave his message----" "Dropped a note straight into
the signallers at Brigade Headquarters," said the C.O.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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