God as we see Him! And do we see Him? I think so, but not always
consciously. He moves among us in the forms of our brother men. We
see him most evidently when danger is most threatening and courage is
at its highest. We don't often recognise Him out loud. Our chaps don't
assert that they're His fellow-campaigners. They're too humble-minded
and inarticulate for that. They're where they are because they want to
do their “bit”--their duty. A carefully disguised instinct of honour
brought them there. “Doing their bit” in Bible language means, laying
down their lives for their friends. After all they're not so far from
Nazareth.
“_Doing their bit_!” That covers everything. Here's an example of how
God walks among us. In one of our attacks on the Somme, all the
observers up forward were uncertain as to what had happened. We didn't
know whether our infantry had captured their objective, failed, or
gone beyond it. The battlefield, as far as eye could reach, was a bath
of mud. It is extremely easy in the excitement of an offensive, when
all landmarks are blotted out, for our storming parties to lose their
direction. If this happens, a number of dangers may result. A
battalion may find itself “up in the air,” which means that it has
failed to connect with the battalions on its right and left; its
flanks are then exposed to the enemy. It may advance too far, and
start digging itself in at a point where it was previously arranged
that our artillery should place their protective wall of fire. We,
being up forward as artillery observers, are the eyes of the army. It
is our business to watch for such contingencies, to keep in touch with
the situation as it progresses and to send our information back as
quickly as possible. We were peering through our glasses from our
point of vantage when, far away in the thickest of the battle-smoke,
we saw a white flag wagging, sending back messages. The flag-wagging
was repeated desperately; it was evident that no one had replied, and
probable that no one had picked up the messages. A signaller who was
with us, read the language for us. A company of infantry had advanced
too far; they were most of them wounded, very many of them dead, and
they were in danger of being surrounded. They asked for our artillery
to place a curtain of fire in front of them, and for reinforcements to
be sent up.
We at once 'phoned the orders through to our artillery and notified
the infantry headquarters of the division that was holding that
front. But it was necessary to let those chaps know that we were aware
of their predicament. They'd hang on if they knew that; otherwise----.
Without orders our signaller was getting his flags ready. If he hopped
out of the trench onto the parapet, he didn't stand a fifty-fifty
chance. The Hun was familiar with our observation station and strafed
it with persistent regularity.
The signaller turned to the senior officer present, “What will I send
them, sir?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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