We have been occupying trenches, off and on, for a matter of two
months, and have settled down to an unexhilarating but salutary
routine. Each dawn we "stand to arms," and peer morosely over the
parapet, watching the grey grass turn slowly to green, while snipers'
bullets buzz over our heads. Each forenoon we cleanse our dew-rusted
weapons, and build up with sandbags what the persevering Teuton
has thrown down. Each afternoon we creep unostentatiously into
subterranean burrows, while our respective gunners, from a safe
position in the rear, indulge in what they humorously describe as "an
artillery duel." The humour arises from the fact that they fire, not
at one another, but at us. It is as if two big boys, having declared
a vendetta, were to assuage their hatred and satisfy their honour by
going out every afternoon and throwing stones at one another's little
brothers. Each evening we go on sentry duty; or go out with patrols,
or working parties, or ration parties. Our losses in killed and
wounded are not heavy, but they are regular. We would not grudge the
lives thus spent if only we could advance, even a little. But there is
nothing doing. Sometimes a trench is rushed here, or recaptured there,
but the net result is--stalemate.
The campaign upon which we find ourselves at present embarked offers
few opportunities for brilliancy. One wonders how Napoleon would have
handled it. His favourite device, we remember, was to dash rapidly
about the chessboard, insert himself between two hostile armies, and
defeat them severally. But how can you insert yourself between two
armies when you are faced by only one army--an army stretching from
Ostend to the Alps?
One of the first elements of successful strategy is surprise. In the
old days, a general of genius could outflank his foe by a forced
march, or lay some ingenious trap or ambush. But how can you outflank
a foe who has no flanks? How can you lay an ambush for the modern
Intelligence Department, with its aeroplane reconnaissance and
telephonic nervous system? Do you mass half a million men at a chosen
point in the enemy's line? Straightway the enemy knows all about it,
and does likewise. Each morning General Headquarters of each side
finds upon its breakfast-table a concise summary of the movements of
all hostile troops, the disposition of railway rolling-stock--yea,
even aeroplane photographs of it all. What could Napoleon himself have
done under the circumstances? One is inclined to suspect that that
volcanic megalomaniac would have perished of spontaneous combustion of
the brain.
However, trench life has its alleviations. There is The Day's Work,
for instance. Each of us has his own particular "stunt," in which he
takes that personal and rather egotistical pride which only increasing
proficiency can bestow.
The happiest--or at least, the busiest--people just now are the
"Specialists." If you are engaged in ordinary Company work, your
energies are limited to keeping watch, dodging shells, and improving
trenches. But if you are what is invidiously termed an "employed" man,
life is full of variety.
Do you observe that young officer sitting on a ration-box at his
dug-out door, with his head tied up in a bandage? That is Second
Lieutenant Lochgair, whom I hope to make better known to you in time.
He is a chieftain of high renown in his own inaccessible but extensive
fastness; but out here, where every man stands on his own legs, and
not his grandfather's, he is known simply as "Othello." This is due to
the fact that Major Kemp once likened him to the earnest young actor
of tradition, who blacked himself all over to ensure proficiency in
the playing of that part. For he is above all things an enthusiast in
his profession. Last night he volunteered to go out and "listen" for a
suspected mine some fifty yards from the German trenches. He set out
as soon as darkness fell, taking with him a biscuit-tin full of water.
A circular from Headquarters--one of those circulars which no one but
Othello would have treated with proper reverence--had suggested this
device. The idea was that, since liquids convey sound better than air,
the listener should place his tin of water on the ground, lie down
beside it, immerse one ear therein, and so draw secrets from the
earth. Othello failed to locate the mine, but kept his head in the
biscuit-tin long enough to contract a severe attack of earache.
But he is not discouraged. At present he is meditating a design for
painting himself grass-green and climbing a tree--thence to take a
comprehensive and unobserved survey of the enemy's dispositions. He
will do it, too, if he gets a chance!
The machine-gunners, also, contrive to chase monotony by methods
of their own. Listen to Ayling, concocting his diurnal scheme
of frightfulness with a colleague. Unrolled upon his knee is a
large-scale map.
"I think we might touch up those cross-roads to-night," he says,
laying the point of his dividers upon a spot situated some hundreds of
yards in rear of the German trenches.
"I expect they'll have lots of transport there about ration-time--eh?"
"Sound scheme," assents his coadjutor, a bloodthirsty stripling named
Ainslie. "Got the bearings?"
"Hand me that protractor. Seventy-one, nineteen, true. That
comes to"--Ayling performs a mental calculation--"almost exactly
eighty-five, magnetic. We'll go out about nine, with two guns, to the
corner of this dry ditch here--the range is two thousand five hundred,
exactly"--
"Our lightning calculator!" murmurs his admiring colleague. "No
elastic up the sleeve, or anything! All done by simple ledger-de-mang?
Proceed!"
--"And loose off a belt or two. What say?"
"Application forwarded, and strongly recommended," announced Ainslie.
He examined the map. "Cross-roads--eh? That means at least one
estaminet. One estaminet, with Bosches inside, complete! Think of our
little bullets all popping in through the open door, five hundred a
minute! Think of the rush to crawl under the counter! It might be a
Headquarters? We might get Von Kluck or Rupy of Bavaria, splitting
a half litre together. We shall earn Military Crosses over this, my
boy," concluded the imaginative youth. "Wow, wow!"
"The worst of indirect fire," mused the less gifted Ayling, "is that
you never can tell whether you have hit your target or not. In fact,
you can't even tell whether there was a target there to hit."
"Never mind; we'll chance it," replied Ainslie. "And if the Bosche
artillery suddenly wakes up and begins retaliating on the wrong spot
with whizz-bangs--well, we shall know we've tickled up _somebody_,
anyhow! Nine o'clock, you say?"
* * * * *
Here, again, is a bombing party, prepared to steal out under cover of
night. They are in charge of one Simson, recently promoted to Captain,
supported by that hoary fire-eater, Sergeant Carfrae. The party
numbers seven all told, the only other member thereof with whom we are
personally acquainted being Lance-Corporal M'Snape, the ex-Boy Scout.
Every man wears a broad canvas belt full of pockets: each pocket
contains a bomb.
Simson briefly outlines the situation. Our fire-trench here runs round
the angle of an orchard, which brings it uncomfortably close to the
Germans. The Germans are quite as uncomfortable about the fact as we
are--some of us are rather inclined to overlook this important feature
of the case--and they have run a sap out towards the nearest point of
the Orchard Trench (so our aeroplane observers report), in order to
supervise our movements more closely.
"It may only be a listening-post," explains Simson to his bombers,
"with one or two men in it. On the other hand, they may be collecting
a party to rush us. There are some big shell-craters there, and they
may be using one of them as a saphead. Anyhow, our orders are to go
out to-night and see. If we find the sap, with any Germans in it, we
are to bomb them out of it, and break up the sap as far as possible.
Advance, and follow me."
The party steals out. The night is very still, and a young and
inexperienced moon is making a somewhat premature appearance
behind the Bosche trenches. The ground is covered with weedy
grass--disappointed hay--which makes silent progress a fairly simple
matter. The bombers move forward in extended order searching for the
saphead. Simson, in the centre, pauses occasionally to listen, and his
well-drilled line pauses with him. Sergeant Carfrae calls stertorously
upon the left. Out on the right is young M'Snape, tingling.
They are half-way across now, and the moon is marking time behind a
cloud.
Suddenly there steals to the ears of M'Snape--apparently from the
recesses of the earth just in front of him--a deep, hollow sound,
the sound of men talking in some cavernous space. He stops dead, and
signals to his companions to do likewise. Then he listens again. Yes,
he can distinctly hear guttural voices, and an occasional _clink,
clink_. The saphead has been reached, and digging operations are in
progress.
A whispered order comes down the line that M'Snape is to
"investigate." He wriggles forward until his progress is arrested by a
stunted bush. Very stealthily he rises to his knees and peers over. As
he does so, a chance star-shell bursts squarely over him, and comes
sizzling officiously down almost on to his back. His head drops like
a stone into the bush, but not before the ghostly magnesium flare has
shown him what he came out to see--a deep shell-crater. The crater is
full of Germans. They look like grey beetles in a trap, and are busy
with pick and shovel, apparently "improving" the crater and connecting
it with their own fire-trenches. They have no sentry out. _Dormitat
Homerus._
M'Snape worms his way back, and reports. Then, in accordance with an
oft-rehearsed scheme, the bombing party forms itself into an arc of a
circle at a radius of some twenty yards from the stunted bush. (Not
the least of the arts of bomb-throwing is to keep out of range of your
own bombs.) Every man's hand steals to his pocketed belt. Next moment
Simson flings the first bomb. It flies fairly into the middle of the
crater.
Half a dozen more go swirling after it. There is a shattering roar; a
cloud of smoke; a muffled rush, of feet; silence; some groans.
Almost simultaneously the German trenches are in an uproar. A dozen
star-shells leap to the sky; there is a hurried outburst of rifle
fire; a machine-gun begins to patter out a stuttering malediction.
Meanwhile our friends, who have exhibited no pedantic anxiety to
remain and behold the result of their labours, are lying upon their
stomachs in a convenient fold in the ground, waiting patiently until
such time as it shall be feasible to complete their homeward journey.
Half an hour later they do so, and roll one by one over the parapet
into the trench. Casualties are slight. Private Nimmo has a
bullet-wound in the calf of his leg, and Sergeant Carfrae, whom Nature
does not permit to lie as flat as the others, will require some
repairs to the pleats of his kilt.
"All present?" inquires Simson.
It is discovered that M'Snape has not returned. Anxious eyes peer over
the parapet. The moon is stronger now, but it is barely possible to
distinguish objects clearly for more than a few yards.
A star-shell bursts, and heads sink below the parapet. A German bullet
passes overhead, with a sound exactly like the crack of a whip.
Silence and comparative darkness return. The heads go up again.
"I'll give him five minutes more, and then go and look for him," says
Simson. "Hallo!"
A small bush, growing just outside the barbed wire, rises suddenly
to its feet; and, picking its way with incredible skill through the
nearest opening, runs at full speed for the parapet. Next moment it
tumbles over into the trench.
Willing hands extracted M'Snape from his arboreal envelope--he could
probably have got home quite well without it, but once a Boy Scout,
always a Boy Scout--and he made his report.
"I went back to have a look-see into the crater, sirr."
"Well?"
"It's fair blown in, sirr, and a good piece of the sap too. I tried
could I find a prisoner to bring in"--our Colonel has promised a
reward of fifty francs to the man who can round up a whole live
Bosche--"but there were nane. They had got their wounded away, I
doubt."
"Never mind," says Simson. "Sergeant, see these men get some sleep
now. Stand-to at two-thirty, as usual. I must go and pitch in a
report, and I shall say you all did splendidly. Good-night!"
This morning, the official Intelligence Summary of our
Division--published daily and known to the unregenerate as "Comic
Cuts"--announced, with solemn relish, among other items of news:--
_Last night a small party bombed a suspected saphead at_--here
followed the exact bearings of the crater on the large-scale map.
_Loud groans were heard, so it is probable that the bombs took
effect_.
For the moment, life has nothing more to offer to our seven friends.