"AND OUT OF EVIL THERE SHALL COME THAT WHICH IS GOOD"
The worst days of this war are over. The worst days were those through
which we came in the winter of 1914-15. The war may last ten years; the war
may be over inside of a few months. Neither contingency would surprise me.
We might lose twice as many in killed and wounded as we did through that
winter; every white man, British, French, American, of military age, might
pay the supreme price, and yet the worst days are gone by.
The worst days of the war passed when the chance of the Hun defeating us
was lost. Though all the flower of our manhood were crippled or dead,
though our old men and our boys were called to the field, though women had
to gird on sword and buckler, none of these things could be worse than to
be licked--licked is the word--by a dastardly and cowardly foe.
And if the German Army at the zenith of its strength could not lick one
thin line of English, of French and Canadians, how can they lick us when we
have Uncle Sam in the balance?
A question to daunt even the scientific brain of a Kaiser, of a Hindenburg,
of a Von Bernstorff.
The folks back home are always wondering and inquiring how it is possible
to feed the troops under such terrible and awful conditions. The folks back
home are the only ones who worry. We do not. Tommy Atkins is much more sure
of getting his rations to-morrow than he is of living until to-morrow to
eat them.
Right here I would pay a sincere tribute to two departments of our British
Army. The Commissary Department which supplies every want of the soldier,
from a high explosive shell to a button. It is as near to the one hundred
per cent. mark of efficiency as it is possible for a human organization to
become. It is not too much to say that it is perfect.
The other department is that of the Medical Corps, the R.A.M.C., or the Red
Cross. It is all the same. It is all run with the precision of clockwork.
Its whole aim for the comfort and succor of Tommy. Of this department I
speak in a later chapter.
The food for the millions of men in France is concentrated at what we may
call the Great Base, and from there it is distributed to the different army
corps. In each army corps there are two or more divisions. In a division
there are three infantry and three artillery brigades, three field
companies of engineers, three field ambulances and details. In each
infantry brigade are four battalions and in each artillery four batteries.
To one company are four platoons, and about seventy men to a platoon.
Each body of men as I have named them is really a separate and distinct
unit in itself, but cooperating with all others. The food from the base is
brought to the army corps by rail, and is distributed to the divisional
headquarters by divisional transports which are operated by the Army
Service Corps or the Mechanical Transport. From the divisional headquarters
the next step is to the brigades, and brigade transports collect the food
and take it another few miles nearer to the boys.
Battalion transport wagons then bring the food and other supplies down to
battalion headquarters. At these headquarters are the quartermaster
sergeants of each company, and they, with their staff, during the daytime
pack up and get ready for distribution supplies for each separate platoon.
At night the company wagons, already packed, are drawn up as close to the
trenches as conditions will permit. If the country is too torn with shells
to permit the use of horses, men will drag them.
I have seen these wagons sometimes within five hundred yards of the front
line trenches, and again ration parties may have to crawl back a mile
before meeting them. It all depends on a number of circumstances. On a
moonlight night it is not possible to come so close as on a dark night. In
rain the wagons may sink into mud-holes, or in badly shelled areas there is
danger of their turning over into a hole. Everything depends on conditions
and the good judgment of the man in charge.
[Illustration: ©_Famous Players--Lasky Corporation. Scene from the
Photo-Play_
THE HUN COMES TO TOWN.]
Each evening from each section, and there are four sections to a platoon,
the corporal or sergeant in command will detail a couple of men for ration
party. Ration party is no pleasant job; as Tommy terms it, it is "one of
the rottenest ever."
[Illustration: ©_Famous Players--Lasky Corporation. Scene from the
Photo-Play_
"WHO'S THE GIRL, PEAT?"]
The two unhappy boys will crawl out as soon as it is dark. They reach the
supply wagon, or it may be only a dump of goods. There they will find the
quartermaster in charge, in all likelihood. To him they tell their platoon
number--Number Sixteen Platoon, Section Four, perhaps--and the
quartermaster will hand them the rations. One man will get half a dozen
parcels, maybe more. His comrade never offers to relieve him of any--to the
comrade there is designated a higher duty. The quartermaster takes up with
care and hands with tenderness to the second man a jar, or possibly a jug.
On going back to the trenches a thoughtless sentry may halt the ration
party. I have seen it done. I have heard the conversation. I dare not write
it. There goes one of the boys, both arms hugging a miscellaneous
assortment of packages. He slips and struggles and swears and falls, then
picks himself up and gathers together the scattered bundles. But what of
the other? A jug held tightly in both hands, he chooses his steps as would
a dainty Coryphee. He dare not trip. He dare not fall. He MUST not spill
one drop. Jugs are hard to replace in France; in fact, it is much easier to
get a jug in Nebraska than in France.
The boys finally reach the trench in safety, and next morning the rations
are issued at "stand-to." "Stand-to" is the name given to the sunrise hour,
and again that hour at night when every man stands to the parapet in full
equipment and with fixed bayonet. After morning stand-to bayonets are
unfixed, for if the sunlight should glint upon the polished steel our
position might be disclosed to some sniper.
To my mind stand-to is more or less a relic of the early days of the war,
when these two hours were those most favored by the Germans for attack, and
so it has become a custom to be in readiness.
A day's rations in the trenches consists of quite a variety of commodities.
First thing in the winter morning we have that controversial blind, rum. We
get a "tot" which is about equal to a tablespoonful. It is not compulsory,
and no man need take it unless he wishes. This is not the time or place to
discuss the temperance question, but our commanders and the army surgeons
believe that rum as a medicine, as a stimulant, is necessary to the health
of the soldier, therefore the rum is issued.
We take this ration as a prescription. We gulp it down when half frozen,
and nearly paralyzed after standing a night in mud and blood and ice, often
to the waistline, rarely below the ankle, and it revives us as tea, cocoa
or coffee could never do. We are not made drunkards by our rum ration. The
great majority of us have never tasted medicinal rum before reaching the
trenches; there is a rare chance that any of us will ever taste it, or want
to taste it, again after leaving the trenches.
The arguments against rum make Mr. Tommy Atkins tired, and I may say in
passing that I have never yet seen a chaplain refuse his ration. And of the
salt of the good God's earth are the chaplains. There was Major the
Reverend John Pringle, of Yukon fame, whose only son Jack was killed in
action after he had walked two hundred miles to enlist. No cant, no smug
psalm-singing, mourners'-bench stuff for him. He believed in his
Christianity like a man; he was ready to fight for his belief like a man;
he cared for us like a father, and stood beside us in the mornings as we
drank our stimulant. Again, I repeat if a man is found drunk while on
active service, he is liable to court martial and death. A few years'
training of this kind will make the biggest pre-war drunkard come back home
a sober man.
Each soldier carries into the trenches with him sufficient coke and wood to
last for his four days in. Upon the brazier he cooks his own meals. For the
first few months we were unable to place our braziers on the ground; they
would have sunk into the mud. If we attempted to cook anything we would
stick a bayonet into a sandbag and hang the brazier on it, then cook in our
mess tins over that.
To-day there are dugouts, trench platforms and other conveniences which
simplify the domestic arrangements of the trenches to a marvelous degree.
A soldier is at liberty to cook his own rations by himself, but as a rule
we all chum in together. We may all take a hand in the cooking, or we may
appoint a section cook for a day or for a week, according to his especial
facility.
After the rum ration we receive some tea and sugar, lots of bully beef and
biscuits. The bully beef is corned beef and has its origin, mysterious to
us, in Chicago, Illinois, or so we believe. It is quite good. But you can
get too much of a good thing once too often. So sometimes we eat it, and
sometimes we use the unopened tins as bricks and line the trenches with
them. Good solid bricks, too! We get soup powders and yet more soup
powders. We get cheese that is not cream cheese, and we get a slice of raw
bacon. Often we eat the bacon at once, sometimes we save it up to have a
"good feed" at one time. One can plan one's own menu just as fancy
dictates.
Then we get jam. The inevitable, haunting, horrific "plum and apple." This
is made by Ticklers', Limited, of London, England, and after the tins are
empty we use them to manufacture hand grenades. In those days our supply of
hand bombs was like our supply of shells, problematic to say the least.
After a time, back of the line, instruction schools were opened in bomb
making and bomb throwing. One or two out of a platoon would go back and
learn "how," and then instruct the rest of us to fill the tins with spent
pieces of shrapnel, old scraps of iron, anything which came handy, insert
the fuse, cotton and so forth, and thus form an effective weapon for close
fighting.
We called those bombers "Ticklers' Artillery Brigade," and they tickled
many a German with Ticklers' empty jam tins.
A stock of weak tea, some sugar, salt, some bully beef, biscuits crumbled
down, the whole well stirred and brought to a boil, then thickened by
several soup powders, is a recipe for a stew which, as the Irishman said,
is "filling and feeding." Of its appearance I say nothing.
Regardless of any, we are the best fed troops in the field. While in the
trenches the food may be rough and monotonous, but there is plenty of it,
and it is of the best quality of its kind. No man need ever be hungry in
the trenches. It is his own fault if he is.
We grouse at our rations, of course, and make jokes and laugh, but we never
run short of supplies.
Behind the lines, when we go back for a rest and are in billets, we are
supplied with well-cooked and comfortable meals. Three good squares a day.
We have here our field kitchens and our regular cooks, and Mulligan (stew)
is not the daily portion, but variations of roast beef, mutton and so
forth.
It is good food, and I have heard men exclaim that it was better than
anything they had had at home. After investigation I usually found that the
men who dilated thus on the gastronomic delights of billets were married
men!
The authorities are just as careful about sending up a soldier's letters,
his parcels and small gifts from home, as they are about the food and
clothing supplies. They recognize that Tommy Atkins naturally and rightly
wants to keep in touch with the home folks, and every effort is made to get
communications up on time. But war is war, and there are days and even
weeks when no letters reach the front line. Those are the days that try the
mettle of the men. We do not tell our thoughts to one another. The soldier
of to-day is rough of exterior, rough of speech and rough of bearing, but
underneath he has a heart of gold and a spirit of untold gentleness.
We play poker, and we play with the sky the limit. Why not? Active service
allowance is thirty francs a month--five dollars. Why put on any limit? You
may owe a man a hundred, or even two hundred dollars, but what's the
difference?--a shell may put an end to you, him and the poker board any old
minute. There is no knowing.
Weeks pass and no letters. We play more wildly, squatting down in the mud
with the board before us. I have sometimes seen a full house, a straight,
three of a kind, or probably four big ones. "I raise you five," says Bill.
Bang!--a whiz bang explodes twenty yards away. "I raise you ten." Bang!--a
wee willie takes the top off the parapet. "There's your ten, and ten
better." Crash!--and several bits of shrapnel probably go through the
board. "You're called. Gee, but that was a close one! Deal 'em out, Peat."
Suddenly down the trench will pass the word that the officer and sergeant
are coming with letters and parcels. We kick the poker board high above the
trench, cards and chips flying in all directions. No one cares, even though
he's had a hand full of aces. The letters are in, and every man is dead
sure there will be one for him.
We crowd around the officer with shining eyes like so many schoolboys.
Parcels are handed out first, but we throw these aside to be opened later,
and snatch for the letters. But luck is not always good to all of us, and
possibly it will be old Bill who has to turn away empty-handed and alone.
No letter. Are they all well, or--no letter.
But Bill is not left alone very long. A pal will notice him, notice him
before he himself has had more than a glimpse of the heading of his own
precious letter, and going over to Bill, will slap him a hearty blow on the
shoulder and say: "Say, Bill, old boy, I've got a letter. Listen to this--"
And then, no matter how sacred the letter may be, he will read it aloud
before he has a chance to glance at it himself. If it is from the girl, old
Bill will be laughing before it is finished--girls write such amusing
stuff; but, no matter whom it is from, it is all the same. It is a pleasure
shared, and Bill forgets his trouble in the happiness of another.
Kindness, unselfishness and sympathy are all engendered by trench life.
There is no school on earth to equal the school of generous thoughtfulness
which is found on the battle-fields of Europe to-day. There we men are
finding ourselves in that we are finding true sympathy with our brother
man. We have everything in common. We have the hardship of the trench, and
the nearness of death. The man of title, the Bachelor of Arts, the
bootblack, the lumberjack and the millionaire's son meet on common ground.
We wear the same uniform, we think the same thoughts, we do not remember
what we were, we only know what we are--soldiers fighting in the same great
cause.