The day's work in trenches begins about nine o'clock the night
before. Darkness having fallen, various parties steal out into the
no-man's-land beyond the parapet. There are numerous things to be
done. The barbed wire has been broken up by shrapnel, and must be
repaired. The whole position in front of the wire must be patrolled,
to prevent the enemy from creeping forward in the dark. The corn has
grown to an uncomfortable height in places, so a fatigue party is told
off to cut it--surely the strangest species of harvesting that the
annals of agriculture can record. On the left front the muffled
clinking of picks and shovels announces that a "sap" is in course of
construction: those incorrigible night-birds, the Royal Engineers, are
making it for the machine-gunners, who in the fulness of time will
convey their voluble weapon to its forward extremity, and "loose off
a belt or two" in the direction of a rather dangerous hollow midway
between the trenches, from which of late mysterious sounds of digging
and guttural talking have been detected by the officer who lies in
the listening-post, in front of our barbed-wire entanglement, drawing
secrets from the bowels of the earth by means of a microphone.
Behind the firing trench even greater activity prevails. Damage
done to the parapet by shell fire is being repaired. Positions and
emplacements are being constantly improved, communication trenches
widened or made more secure. Down these trenches fatigue parties are
filing, to draw rations and water and ammunition from the limbered
waggons which are waiting in the shadow of a wood, perhaps a mile
back. It is at this hour, too, that the wounded, who have been lying
pathetically cheerful and patient in the dressing-station in the
reserve trench, are smuggled to the Field Ambulance--probably to find
themselves safe in a London hospital within twenty-four hours. Lastly,
under the kindly cloak of night, we bury our dead.
Meanwhile, within various stifling dug-outs, in the firing trench or
support-trench, overheated company commanders are dictating reports
or filling in returns. (Even now the Round Game Department is not
entirely shaken off.) There is the casualty return, and a report on
the doings of the enemy, and another report of one's own doings, and a
report on the direction of the wind, and so on. Then there are various
indents to fill up--scrawled on a wobbly writing-block with a blunt
indelible pencil by the light of a guttering candle--for ammunition,
and sandbags, and revetting material.
All this literature has to be sent to Battalion Headquarters by
one A.M., either by orderly or telephone. There it is collated and
condensed, and forwarded to the Brigade, which submits it to the
same process and sends it on, to be served up piping hot and easily
digestible at the breakfast-table of the Division, five miles away, at
eight o'clock.
You must not imagine, however, that all this night-work is
performed in gross darkness. On the contrary. There is abundance of
illumination; and by a pretty thought, each side illuminates the
other. We perform our nocturnal tasks, in front of and behind the
firing trench, amid a perfect hail of star-shells and magnesium
lights, topped up at times by a searchlight--all supplied by our
obliging friend the Hun. We, on our part, do our best to return these
graceful compliments.
The curious and uncanny part of it all is that there is no firing.
During these brief hours there exists an informal truce, founded on
the principle of live and let live. It would be an easy business to
wipe out that working-party, over there by the barbed wire, with a
machine-gun. It would be child's play to shell the road behind the
enemy's trenches, crowded as it must be with ration-waggons and
water-carts, into a blood-stained wilderness. But so long as each side
confines itself to purely defensive and recuperative work, there is
little or no interference. That slave of duty, Zacchaeus, keeps on
pegging away; and occasionally, if a hostile patrol shows itself too
boldly, there is a little exuberance from a machine-gun; but on the
whole there is silence. After all, if you prevent your enemy from
drawing his rations, his remedy is simple: he will prevent you from
drawing yours. Then both parties will have to fight on empty stomachs,
and neither of them, tactically, will be a penny the better. So,
unless some elaborate scheme of attack is brewing, the early hours
of the night are comparatively peaceful. But what is that sudden
disturbance in the front-line trench? A British rifle rings out, then
another, and another, until there is an agitated fusilade from end
to end of the section. Instantly the sleepless host across the way
replies, and for three minutes or so a hurricane rages. The working
parties out in front lie flat on their faces, cursing patiently.
Suddenly the storm dies away, and perfect silence reigns once more.
It was a false alarm. Some watchman, deceived by the whispers of the
night breeze, or merely a prey to nerves, has discerned a phantom army
approaching through the gloom, and has opened fire thereon. This often
occurs when troops are new to trench-work.
It is during these hours, too, that regiments relieve one another in
the trenches. The outgoing regiment cannot leave its post until the
incoming regiment has "taken over." Consequently you have, for a brief
space, two thousand troops packed into a trench calculated to hold one
thousand. Then it is that strong men swear themselves faint, and the
Rugby football player has reason to be thankful for his previous
training in the art of "getting through the scrum." However perfect
your organisation may be, congestion is bound to occur here and there;
and it is no little consolation to us to feel, as we surge and sway
in the darkness, that over there in the German lines a Saxon and
a Prussian private, irretrievably jammed together in a narrow
communication trench, are consigning one another to perdition in just
the same husky whisper as that employed by Private Mucklewame and his
"opposite number" in the regiment which has come to relieve him.
These "reliefs" take place every four or five nights. There was a
time, not so long ago, when a regiment was relieved, not when it was
weary, but when another regiment could be found to replace it. Our own
first battalion once remained in the trenches, unrelieved and only
securing its supplies with difficulty, for five weeks and three days.
During all that time they were subject to most pressing attentions on
the part of the Bosches, but they never lost a yard of trench. They
received word from Headquarters that to detach another regiment
for their relief would seriously weaken other and most important
dispositions. The Commander-in-Chief would therefore be greatly
obliged if they could hold on. So they held on.
At last they came out, and staggered back to billets. Their old
quarters, naturally, had long been appropriated by other troops, and
the officers had some difficulty in recovering their kits.
"I don't mind being kept in trenches for several weeks," remarked
their commander to the staff officer who received him when he
reported, "and I can put up with losing my sleeping-bag; but I do
object to having my last box of cigars looted by the blackguards who
took over our billets!"
The staff officer expressed sympathy, and the subject dropped. But
not many days later, while the battalion were still resting, their
commander was roused in the middle of the night from the profound
slumber which only the experience of many nights of anxious vigil can
induce, by the ominous message:--
"An orderly to see you, from General Headquarters, sir!"
The colonel rolled stoically out of bed, and commanded that the
orderly should be brought before him.
The man entered, carrying, not a despatch, but a package, which he
proffered with a salute.
"With the Commander-in-Chief's compliments, sir!" he announced.
The package was a box of cigars!