SOME SAMPLE EXCITEMENTS OF LIFE IN THE TRENCHES.
[Illustration: MY SKETCH BOOK.]
I don't think I'm a bit sentimental in the matter of souvenirs, and
anyway I can't need anything to remind me of the unforgettable, but all
the same there's one souvenir of my experiences in the trenches and the
firing line that I shall never part with--and that's the little notebook
(measuring 5-1/2 ins. by 3-1/2 ins., bought in Armentières) which I
carried with me through everything, and in which are the originals of
the sketches here collected, taken "under fire," either literally or in
the sense that they were taken within the zone of fire. In the nature of
things I might have been finished myself by shot or shell before I
could have finished any one of them. Sketched in circumstances that
certainly had their own disadvantages as well as their special
advantages, I present these drawings only for what they are. There were
many happenings--repulsions of sudden attacks, temporary retirements,
charges, and things of that sort--that would have made capital subjects,
but of which my notebook holds no "pictured presentment," because I was
taking part in them.
AT ARMENTIÈRES.
[Illustration: Map: La Bassée-St. Julien]
We reached Armentières (relieving the Leinster Regiment and the 9th
Lancers in the first line trenches, distant from the first line German
trenches 30 yards) at a critical time.
The effort in progress was to straighten out our line so as to get it
level with Ypres, and the whole position all around was a very perilous
one. We were short of men--very short--and had practically no reserves.
Almost every available man had to do the work and duty of three. For a
month or so almost all the heavy work fell upon the line regiments, we
doing the wiring, digging, and the usual work of the Royal Engineers,
the number of these being relatively scanty indeed.
There was also some shortage of shells and ammunition for guns and
rifles, while of trench mortars a division had but few. We had to make
our own bombs out of jam tins. These were charged and stuck down, a
detonator being inserted, and we crawled out with them at night and
heaved them into the German trenches. We had to time each heave with the
most extreme accuracy, for the fraction of a moment too late meant the
bursting of the bomb in our hands. The game we played with the Huns
(keeping up a continuous fire all night, for instance) was one of pure
bluff. They were massed in, we estimated, four army corps, and could
have walked through us--if they had only known.
As my illustrations do not follow all the movements of my detachment, I
will say here that from Armentières we were shifted to Houplines, about
4-1/2 to 5 miles north-east, where we made an advance of a hundred yards
or so to straighten up. From Houplines we were moved south to La Bassée,
and from La Bassée to Neuve Chapelle (where our 3rd Battalion was almost
wiped out in the indecisive victory that proved much and won little),
and then back to Armentières, whence we were sent north to St. Eloi,
after making a short advance in the vicinity of Messines. From St. Eloi
we were ordered to Hill 60, taking part in the now historic battle
there. After Hill 60, Ypres, where shrapnel and poison gas put an end to
my soldiering days--I am afraid for ever.
To come back to our first arrival at Armentières, our position was in
touch with a small village not marked on the map, in the direction of
Houplines. This village, which became almost wholly destroyed, had
been knocked about by the enemy fire, but the tall chimney of a
distillery had been spared, no doubt because the Germans wanted it
themselves, intact. However much they wished, and often and hard as they
tried, to take it--especially as from it could be conned not only our
lines but the lay of the surrounding country--they never did take it,
and it never fell, though it was hit in two places and cracked.
At 10.30 one morning I crawled over the parapet--that is, the
sandbags--of our trench to sketch the picture of which this distillery
shaft is the central feature. The trench also near the middle we had dug
overnight for communication purposes. The enemy were to the left of the
buildings shown, and our own men were occupying the position to the
right of the chimney at a range of 250 yards.
[Illustration: OUTSKIRTS OF A VILLAGE.]
Our boys in the trenches could never understand a bright light which in
daytime issued from the garden adjoining the farm-buildings on the
British side. But one day a spy, who did work disguised as a farmhand,
was discovered. He used a tin bowl as a reflector to send the enemy
signals. The rascal was duly attended to.
FETCHING WATER.
[Illustration: MY FIRST SNIPING PLACE.]
Here is a little view of the outskirts of the same village, made a few
days later, when I was told off with two others to go to the house on
the right of the sketch to get water from the pump, exposed to the
enemy's fire. While pencilling the sketch I saw the wide gap made in the
tree's branches, as shown by a shell passing through it, which burst on
the road some fifteen yards away from us. This was an indication the
enemy had spotted figures moving in the direction of the house. However,
having got the water, we all reached "home" safely, though we ran a
further risk in rummaging in the orchard, where we found some beds
of lettuces, of which welcome vegetables we brought back with us enough
to supply the whole section.
The house on the left of the shelled tree was the position from which I
and two others were ordered to snipe. We climbed the ricketty building
and fired from the eaves and from the cover of the chimney. The building
was in a state of almost total ruin, but we took our places on the
shaken beams and considered we made a quite successful bag, for we could
guarantee that at least five or six occupants of the enemy's trenches
would give us no more trouble. This in the course of one morning.
Finally the enemy saw us and we had to vacate our position, as both the
building and the barricade across the road were being rapidly hit.
CAPTURE OF A GERMAN TRENCH.
[Illustration: CAPTURED GERMAN TRENCH.]
Without their coveted observation post the German gunners got the range
of the town beyond the village so completely that one day they poured a
continuous stream of shells over our heads from 4.30 in the morning
till mid-day. It was, I remember, at day-break next morning that under
cover of our own artillery, we made an advance and took the trench here
depicted just as it was left by the turned-out. So hurried was their
exit when faced by British bayonets that they left behind them in the
trench quite a number of articles most useful to us--such as saws,
sniper's rifles mounted on tripod stands, haversacks, and a quantity of
other equipment, also a very fine selection of cigars, which came as
quite a godsend to us. Personally, I clicked on a pair of German jack
boots, which, as the weather was wet and the ground soft and muddy, as
usual, came in very handy. I also came across a forage cap and a pocket
knife, and picked up a photograph--that of a typical Fraulein, probably
the sweetheart of Heinrich, Fritz or Karl.
A NIGHT RELIEF.
Duty in the trenches and rest and sleep in our billets in their rear
alternated with something like regularity, but it was a regularity
always liable to interruptions, such as were necessitated by not
infrequent exigencies.
For instance, we had just got back to the latter one night, at exactly
10.30, after seven consecutive days in the trenches of our most advanced
position, and were thinking that now we should get a few hours' quiet
repose--subject, of course, to the disturbance of shelling--when a
sudden order was given to fall in. We turned out, were numbered, "right
turned," and marched off, singing and whistling merrily. After
proceeding in this fashion for half a mile, word was passed down to form
Indian file, seven paces apart. We moved thus for about a quarter of a
mile, and then word was again passed down--"no smoking, whistling, or
talking." The night was pitch dark, foggy, and a drizzle was beating in
our faces.
We were now within range of the enemy's rifle fire and heard spent
bullets as they pinged and spluttered into the mud. We crossed a railway
line, and marched or crawled the best way we could along the ditch
parallel with it--truth to tell, cursing and swearing. We passed an old
signal station, now just a pile of bricks, with one side wall still
erect and one glass window intact. We had come to know well that wall
and that window and the strewn bricks around, for we had passed the spot
so often in our little excursions from trench to billet and billet to
trench. A little further along the whistle of the bullets grew louder
and more continuous--their sound something like the sound of soft
notes whistled by a boy. Machine guns--"motor bikes" in our
nomenclature--rattled our left and right, our position being that of
the far apex of a triangle, exposed to inflated fire all the way up.
Arriving within a few yards of the opening of the trench we were to
occupy in relief of the North Staffords, the first section of whom were
moving along the ditch, a star shell burst above as the searchlight was
turned on, and every man stood stock still till all was dark again.
Between men of the incoming and outgoing battalions such casual
greetings were exchanged as: "Wot's it like up here, matie?"; "'Ow are
yer goin', son?"; "Yer want to keep your 'ead well down in this
part--it's a bit 'ot"; "So long, sonnie." Sprawling, ducking and diving,
we got in, and "safe" behind the sandbags. Just as my chum and I had
entered the dug-out, and were preparing to make ourselves comfortable,
as our turn for sentry-go would not be for two hours, the sergeant
shoved his head in and shouted that we were wanted for a ration party.
RATION PARTIES.
A ration party consists of fourteen men--fewer sometimes, but fourteen
if possible, as the proper full complement. The small carts in use are
generally of rude and primitive construction. As everybody knows by now,
rations comprise bully beef Spratt's biscuits--very large and rather
hard--loaves of bread packed in sacks, bacon, jam, marmalade,
Maconochies in tins, and, when possible, kegs of water. Let not the rum
be forgotten. No soldier is more grateful for anything than for his
tablespoonful of rum at half-past six in the evening and half-past four
in the morning. His "tot" has saved many a man from a chill, and kept
him going during long and dreary hours of wet and press. As to bread, by
the bye, it is highly probable that one small loaf, about half the size
of an ordinary loaf, will be divided between seven men. With the good
things already enumerated, a plentiful supply of charcoal and coke is
usually to be expected. The horse transports with these provisions never
get nearer than, at the closest, say half-a-mile of the front trench
itself, when the men in charge dump their loads down and get away back
to their stores and billets as quickly as possible. There is a lot to
risk, for as a rule the enemy have the road well set, and the shelling
is often very severe.
It is the duty of a ration party to bring up the loads from where they
have been left. On regaining the opening to the trench, they take the
rations to the quartermaster-sergeant's hut or dug-out. The sergeants of
each platoon come to this hut or dug-out, and to them the things are
delivered in quantities proportionate with the number of men in the
section each represents. The sergeants then send along two men to carry
the whacks to the respective traverses in the trench. This goes on night
after night. So on the occasion I am recalling we were very late--and
the distance we had to go was as much as a mile and three-quarters.
This ration carrying, the final stage of ration transport, is an even
more dangerous and risky job than the preceding stage, and, as usual,
snipers got busy on us, hitting three men, though none was killed. The
rattle of bullets from machine guns on the ricketty sides of the old
cart added to the programme of the night's entertainment, and there were
frequent intervals, not for refreshments, but for getting flat and
waiting.
GATHERING IN OUR FIREWOOD.
Chopping up firewood was regarded not so much as work as it was regarded
as one of our recreations in the trenches--of which I shall have a
little to say presently. But it often happened that there was no
recreation, but only the excitement of danger in the night-time job of
bringing in the firewood for day-time chopping. It would happen that a
man had spotted in some shelled house or fallen farm-building a beam,
plank, door, or something else wooden and burnable, that he couldn't
carry without assistance, or that he couldn't stop to bring away at the
time. It must be fetched, for fire we must have. It might be only a few
score yards away measured by distance, but an hour measured by
time--"thou art so near and yet so far" sort of thing. Fetchers might
get hit at any moment, and had to creep and wriggle very cautiously over
open ground all the way. By some strange twist of mental association,
whenever I was a fetcher in these circumstances I found myself mentally
quoting Longfellow's line in "Hiawatha"--"He is gathering in his
firewood"!
[Illustration: THE WOODCUTTER'S HUT.]
Our champion at the game was a Private Hyatt--quite a youngster, but
of fine physique and fearless daring. His dug-out was called "The
Woodcutter's Hut." He made a regular hobby of wood-getting. He was an
expert, a specialist. On certain occasions he even went out after wood
in the daylight, slithering along on all fours towards his objective,
and would be fired at until recalled by one of his own officers. On one
occasion when he had crawled out and into a building to collect wood, as
he crawled back through the doorway we saw little clouds of dust rising
from the brick-work surrounding him, which showed that the enemy's
snipers had spotted him, and we shouted to him from the trench to "keep
down." He took refuge behind the wall of the doorway, and lay there
three-quarters of an hour, and then returned, bringing with him the much
prized plank of which he had gone in search, and which, when chopped up,
supplied our section with sufficient firewood for a whole day and night.
In the sketch it will be observed he is reading a letter. This he had
received just after the above incident, and sat down on his valise quite
unaware that I was sketching him. Later on I gave him a copy of the
sketch, and he enclosed it in his affectionate reply to his folk at
home.
"STAND TO."
The most anxious time a soldier can know is the time, be it long or
short, that follows the command to stand to. Many a time we had to stand
to the whole night--the entire battalion, from evening twilight till the
full dawn of day--as an attack was expected. Everyone was at his firing
position, with bayonet fixed and his rifle loaded--and in tip-top
working condition, the daily rifle inspection having taken place at
dusk. Sometimes our artillery would presently open fire for the enemy's
first line, perhaps for five or six minutes--it might be more, it might
be less. Then a wait of six or seven minutes, when the enemy returned
the fire, and we all got well down. It was as well to keep as hard up
against the parapet as possible, and to keep out of all dug-outs, for
into them the forward impetus of bursting shrapnel was likely to throw a
lot of splinters. Again silence, comrades and pals passing a few remarks
in anticipation of what everybody knew was coming. The officers with us
were one with us, and at their words, "Well, come on, lads," there was
never a laggard in getting "over the tops" (in our own phraseology). As
soon as we put our hands on the sandbags to clamber over the top of the
parapet a hailstorm of bullets pelted us. It is impossible--at all
events for me--to describe a charge. Speaking for myself, always my
brain seemed to snap. It was simply a rush in a mad line--or as much of
a line as could be kept--towards the enemy's barbed wire entanglements,
which our guns had blown to smithereens in preparation for the assault.
We scrambled on to their parapet, each getting at the first man he
could touch. When we had taken their position (we didn't always) we
might have to wait some time till our artillery had shelled the second
line, but there was a lot of work to be done at once. The parapet had to
be reversed.
After an attack there was generally a roll call--from which there were
many absentees.
More trying--more wearing and tearing to the nerves--than anything
that in my experience ever followed it was the stand to itself. The
moments, minutes, even hours, that followed that old familiar order,
"stand to," were the worst I ever went through. As every eventide comes
on I still feel just a little--just a very little--of what I felt then.
Even now: and I fear me I always shall till death bids me stand to.
I see I have written so much with only one illustration, that perhaps it
won't be amiss if I place here a few typical heads and a couple of
typical full figures, the original sketches of which I pencilled in
spare places in my notebook at odd times. If they be really typical they
need no labelling.
[Illustration: TYPICAL FIGURES AND FIGURE-HEADS.]