Four o'clock... a summer dawn... his first morning in the
trenches.
Claude had just been along the line to see that the gun teams
were in position. This hour, when the light was changing, was a
favourite time for attack. He had come in late last night, and
had everything to learn. Mounting the firestep, he peeped over
the parapet between the sandbags, into the low, twisting mist.
Just then he could see nothing but the wire entanglement, with
birds hopping along the top wire, singing and chirping as they
did on the wire fences at home. Clear and flute-like they sounded
in the heavy air,--and they were the only sounds. A little breeze
came up, slowly clearing the mist away. Streaks of green showed
through the moving banks of vapour. The birds became more
agitated. That dull stretch of grey and green was No Man's Land.
Those low, zigzag mounds, like giant molehills protected by wire
hurdles, were the Hun trenches; five or six lines of them. He
could easily follow the communication trenches without a glass.
At one point their front line could not be more than eighty yards
away, at another it must be all of three hundred. Here and there
thin columns of smoke began to rise; the Hun was getting
breakfast; everything was comfortable and natural. Behind the
enemy's position the country rose gradually for several miles,
with ravines and little woods, where, according to his map, they
had masked artillery. Back on the hills were ruined farmhouses
and broken trees, but nowhere a living creature in sight. It was
a dead, nerveless countryside, sunk in quiet and dejection. Yet
everywhere the ground was full of men. Their own trenches, from
the other side, must look quite as dead. Life was a secret, these
days.
It was amazing how simply things could be done. His battalion had
marched in quietly at midnight, and the line they came to relieve
had set out as silently for the rear. It all took place in utter
darkness. Just as B Company slid down an incline into the shallow
rear trenches, the country was lit for a moment by two star
shells, there was a rattling of machine guns, German Maxims,--a
sporadic crackle that was not followed up. Filing along the
communication trenches, they listened anxiously; artillery fire
would have made it bad for the other men who were marching to the
rear. But nothing happened. They had a quiet night, and this
morning, here they were!
The sky flamed up saffron and silver. Claude looked at his watch,
but he could not bear to go just yet. How long it took a Wheeler
to get round to anything! Four years on the way; now that he was
here, he would enjoy the scenery a bit, he guessed. He wished his
mother could know how he felt this morning. But perhaps she did
know. At any rate, she would not have him anywhere else. Five
years ago, when he was sitting on the steps of the Denver State
House and knew that nothing unexpected could ever happen to him...
suppose he could have seen, in a flash, where he would be
today? He cast a long look at the reddening, lengthening
landscape, and dropped down on the duckboard.
Claude made his way back to the dugout into which he and Gerhardt
had thrown their effects last night. The former occupants had
left it clean. There were two bunks nailed against the side
walls,--wooden frames with wire netting over them, covered with
dry sandbags. Between the two bunks was a soap-box table, with a
candle stuck in a green bottle, an alcohol stove, a bainmarie,
and two tin cups. On the wall were coloured pictures from Jugend,
taken out of some Hun trench.
He found Gerhardt still asleep on his bed, and shook him until he
sat up.
"How long have you been out, Claude? Didn't you sleep?"
"A little. I wasn't very tired. I suppose we could heat shaving
water on this stove; they've left us half a bottle of alcohol.
It's quite a comfortable little hole, isn't it?"
"It will doubtless serve its purpose," David remarked dryly. "So
sensitive to any criticism of this war! Why, it's not your
affair; you've only just arrived."
"I know," Claude replied meekly, as he began to fold his
blankets. "But it's likely the only one I'll ever be in, so I may
as well take an interest."
The next afternoon four young men, all more or less naked, were
busy about a shell-hole full of opaque brown water. Sergeant Hicks
and his chum, Dell Able, had hunted through half the blazing hot
morning to find a hole not too scummy, conveniently, and even
picturesquely situated, and had reported it to the Lieutenants.
Captain Maxey, Hicks said, could send his own orderly to find his
own shell-hole, and could take his bath in private. "He'd never
wash himself with anybody else," the Sergeant added. "Afraid of
exposing his dignity!"
Bruger and Hammond, the two second Lieutenants, were already out
of their bath, and reclined on what might almost be termed a
grassy slope, examining various portions of their body with
interest. They hadn't had all their clothes off for some time,
and four days of marching in hot weather made a man anxious to
look at himself.
"You wait till winter," Gerhardt told them. He was still
splashing in the hole, up to his armpits in muddy water. "You
won't get a wash once in three months then. Some of the Tommies
told me that when they got their first bath after Vimy, their
skins peeled off like a snake's. What are you doing with my
trousers, Bruger?"
"Hunting for your knife. I dropped mine yesterday, when that
shell exploded in the cut-off. I darned near dropped my old nut!"
"Shucks, that wasn't anything. Don't keep blowing about it--shows
you're a greenhorn."
Claude stripped off his shirt and slid into the pool beside
Gerhardt. "Gee, I hit something sharp down there! Why didn't you
fellows pull out the splinters?"
He shut his eyes, disappeared for a moment, and came up
sputtering, throwing on the ground a round metal object, coated
with rust and full of slime. "German helmet, isn't it? Phew!" He
wiped his face and looked about suspiciously.
"Phew is right!" Bruger turned the object over with a stick. "Why
in hell didn't you bring up the rest of him? You've spoiled my
bath. I hope you enjoy it."
Gerhardt scrambled up the side. "Get out, Wheeler! Look at that,"
he pointed to big sleepy bubbles, bursting up through the thick
water. "You've stirred up trouble, all right! Something's going
very bad down there."
Claude got out after him, looking back at the activity in the
water. "I don't see how pulling out one helmet could stir the
bottom up so. I should think the water would keep the smell
down."
"Ever study chemistry?" Bruger asked scornfully. "You just opened
up a graveyard, and now we get the exhaust. If you swallowed any
of that German cologne--Oh, you should worry!"
Lieutenant Hammond, still barelegged, with his shirt tied over
his shoulders, was scratching in his notebook. Before they left
he put up a placard on a split stick.