LIFE IN THE TRENCHES
[The winter of the war was marked by an abnormal rainfall and
storms of uncommon severity: also by the extraordinary development
of trench warfare. The rain and storms, the frost and snow, made it
impossible to carry out the greater operations of campaigning, with
the result that both sides dug themselves in and fought from rival
trenches which in many cases were separated by only a few yards.
This story deals with life in the trenches, at La Bassée, and it
gives a wonderful understanding of the privations that have been
uncomplainingly borne by British soldiers. The teller is Private G.
Townsend, 2nd Battalion East Lancashire Regiment, who has had more
than six years’ service with the colours. These long-service men
have compelled the attention of even the Germans who despised the
“contemptible little army,” for they have admitted that the
seasoned British private soldier is the equal of a German
non-commissioned officer.]
When the rebellion broke out in South Africa we--the old “Lily
Whites”--were the only imperial regiment kept in that country. We were
sitting still and stiff for twenty days, till General Botha got his own
troops ready. During that time we were guarding Cape Town, and it took
us all we knew to hold in, because the big war was on, and we were about
seven thousand miles away from the seat of it. We had to wait till
General Botha was ready, and that was not for more than a month after
the British and the Germans met in Belgium.
We were eager to get away from South Africa, and at last we sailed--but
what a slow voyage it was! Almost a record, I should think. We were
thirty-two days getting to Southampton; but that was because we had
halts on the way and were convoyed by some of the British warships which
have worked such marvels in this war. We had with us a noble cruiser
which on a later day, though we thought her slow, knocked more speed out
of herself than the builders ever dreamed of, and that was when she
helped to sink the German warships off the Falkland Islands.
By the time we reached the south of England some big things had
happened, and we were keener than ever to get to the front. We had not
long to wait. We landed, and in less than a week we left England and
crossed over to France, where we went into billets for four days, to
settle down. From the billets we marched nearly seven miles and went
into trenches. For three full months, in the worst time of a very bad
year, I ate and drank, and slept and fought, in trenches, with intervals
in billets, sometimes up to the hips in water and often enough sleeping
on a thick couch of mud. I cannot go into too much detail, but I can say
that our officers always tried to go one better than the Germans, for
the sake of the men--and for the most part they succeeded. We have
picked up a lot from the Germans in this trench game. They have a main
trench and about four trenches behind that, the first of the four being
about twenty yards away; so that if you knock them out of one you knock
them into another.
That march to the trenches was a thing that can never be forgotten. It
was very dark and raining heavily, so that we were thoroughly soaked;
but we had no time to think of that, for we were bound for the firing
line, we were going to fight for the first time, and we wondered who
amongst us would be absent when the next roll was called. The trench to
which we were bound was in its little way famous. It had been the scene
of some terrible fighting. The Indian troops were holding it, but they
had been driven out by the Germans, who took possession and thought they
were going to hold it; but the Connaught Rangers made a desperate
charge, routed the Germans with the bayonet and retook the trenches. The
Connaughts won, but at a very heavy cost, and about 150 of the brave
fellows fell and were buried near the little bit of sodden, muddy ground
on which they had fought. It was to relieve the Connaughts that we went
into the trenches on La Bassée Road that stormy night.
It was not a very cheerful beginning, and as much unlike going into
action as anything you can imagine. But we felt queer, this being our
first taste of fighting, as we slipped into the trenches with our rifles
loaded and prepared to fire in the wild night at an enemy we could not
see. As soon as we went into the trenches we were ankle-deep in mud, and
we were in mud, day and night, for seventy-two hours without a break.
That was the beginning of three solid months of a sort of animal life in
trenches and dug-outs, with occasional breaks for the change and rest in
billets without which it would not be possible to live.
In a storm-swept trench--a barricade trench we called it--pointing my
rifle at an enemy I could not see, I fired my first shot in battle. My
section of thirteen men was in the trench which was nearest to the
Germans, and that meant that we were separated from them by only a very
few dozen yards. An officer of the Connaughts had given a descriptive
object to fire at, and this was a small white outhouse which could be
dimly made out in the darkness. The outhouse had the German trenches
just in front of it, and we made a target of the building in the hope of
potting the men in the trenches.
The order came, one man up and one man down, which meant that a man who
was firing was standing for two hours and the man who was down was
sitting or otherwise resting, or observing, as we call it.
Throughout that long night we kept up fire from the trenches, all
anxious for the day to break, so that we could see what sort of a place
we were in and what we were doing; but when the melancholy morning broke
there was nothing to see in front of us except the portholes of the
German trenches.
We had got through the first night of battle safely and had given the
Germans good-morning with what we came to call the “awaking fire,”
though it sent many a man to sleep for the last time--and we were
settling down to make some tea. That was shortly after midday of our
first day in the trenches. I was working “partners” with my left-hand
man, Private Smith, who said, “I’ll just have a look to see what’s going
on.”
He popped his head over the top of the trench and almost instantly he
fell into my arms, for he had been shot--there must have been a sniper
waiting for him--and had received what proved to be a most extraordinary
wound. A bullet had struck him on the side of the head, just below the
ear, and gone clean through and out at the other side, leaving a hole
on each side.
“I’m hit!” said Smith, as he fell--that was all.
I was badly upset, as this was the first man I had seen shot, and being
my special chum it came home to me; but I didn’t let that prevent me
from doing my best for him. Smith was quite conscious, and a plucky
chap, and he knew that there was nothing for it but to see it through
till night came. We bandaged him up as best we could and he had to lie
there, in the mud and water and misery, till it was dark, then he was
able to walk away from the trench to the nearest first-aid station,
where the doctor complimented him on his courage and told him what an
extraordinary case it was and what a miraculous escape he had had. Later
on Smith was invalided home.
During the whole of that first spell in trenches we had no water to
drink except what we fetched from a natural trench half-a-mile away. Men
volunteered for this duty, which was very dangerous, as it meant
hurrying over open ground, and the man who was fetching the water was
under fire all the time, both going and coming, if the Germans saw him.
This job was usually carried out a little before daybreak, when there
was just light enough for the man to see, and not enough for the Germans
to spot him; and a chap was always thankful when he was safely back in
the trench and under cover.
At the end of the seventy-two hours we left the trenches. We came out at
ten o’clock at night, expecting to be out for three days. We marched to
an old barn which had been pretty well blown to pieces by shells, and
into it we went; but it was no better than the trenches. The rain
poured on to us through the shattered roof and it was bitterly cold, so
that I could not sleep. We had everything on, so as to be ready for a
call instantly, and without so much as a blanket I was thoroughly
miserable. Instead of having three days off we were ordered to go into a
fresh lot of trenches, and next afternoon we marched into them and there
we stayed for six weeks, coming out seven or eight times. In these
trenches we were in dug-outs, so that we got a change from standing
sometimes hip-deep in mud and water by getting into the dug-out and
resting there. A dug-out was simply a hole made in the side of the
trench, high enough to be fairly dry and comfortable.
During the whole of these six weeks it meant practically death to show
yourself, and so merciless was the fire that for the whole of the time a
dead German soldier was lying on the ground about a hundred yards away
from us. He was there when we went and was still there when we left. We
could not send out a party to bury him and the Germans themselves never
troubled about the poor beggar. One day a chum of mine, named Tobin, was
on the look-out when his rifle suddenly cracked, and he turned round and
said, “I’ve hit one.” And so he had, for he had knocked a German over
not far away and no doubt killed him.
What with the weather and the mud and the constant firing we had a very
bad time. Each night we had four hours’ digging, which was excessively
hard work, and if we were not digging we were fetching rations in for
the company. These rations had to be fetched at night from carts
three-quarters of a mile away, which was the nearest the drivers dare
bring them. These expeditions were always interesting, because we never
knew what we were going to get--sometimes it would be a fifty-pound tin
of biscuits and sometimes a bag of letters or a lot of cigarettes, but
whatever it was we took it to our dug-outs, just as animals take food to
their holes, and the things were issued next morning.
One way and another we had between fifty and sixty men wounded in our
own particular trenches, mostly by rifle fire, though occasionally a
shell would burst near us and do a lot of mischief; and what was
happening in our own trenches was taking place all around La Bassée. We
should have suffered much more heavily if we had not been provided with
periscopes, which have saved many a precious life and limb.
We paid very little attention to the German shell fire, and as for the
“Jack Johnsons” we took them as much as a matter of course as we took
our breakfast. Some of the German artillery fire actually amused us, and
this was when they got their mortars to work. We could see the shot
coming and often enough could dodge it, though frequently the great fat
thing would drive into the ground and smother us with mud. For some of
the German artillery fire we were really very thankful, because in their
rage they were smashing up some farm buildings not far away from us. The
cause of our gratitude was that this shelling saved us the trouble of
cutting down and chopping firewood for warmth and cooking in the
trenches. When night came we simply went to the farmhouse, and the
firewood, in the shape of shattered doors and beams and furniture, was
waiting for us. The farm people had left, so we were able to help
ourselves to chickens, which we did, and a glorious change they were on
the everlasting bully beef. A chicken doesn’t go very far with hungry
soldiers, and on one occasion we had a chicken apiece, and remarkably
good they were too, roasted in the trenches. Another great time was when
we caught a little pig at the farm and killed it and took it to the
trenches, where we cooked it.
When we had finished with the second lot of trenches we went into a
third set, and I was there till I was wounded and sent home. These
trenches were only about a hundred and twenty yards from the second lot,
so that the whole of the three months I spent in trenches was passed in
a very little area of ground, an experience which is so totally
different from that of so many of our soldiers who were out at the war
at the very beginning, and covered such great distances in marching from
place to place and battle to battle. These chaps were lucky, because
they got the change of scene and the excitement of big fighting, but the
only change we had was in going out of one trench into another.
It was now the middle of December and bitter weather, but we were
cheered up by the thought of Christmas, and found that things were
getting much more lively than they had been. One night a splendid act
was performed by Lieutenant Seckham, one of our platoon officers, and
two of our privates, Cunningham and Harris.
An officer of the Royal Engineers had gone out to fix up some barbed
wire entanglements in front of our trenches. The Germans were firing
heavily at the time, and they must have either seen or heard the
officer at work. They went for him and struck him down and there he lay
in the open. To leave the trenches was a most perilous thing to do, but
Mr. Seckham and the two men got out and on to the open ground, and bit
by bit they made their way to the Engineer officer, got hold of him, and
under a furious fire brought him right along and into our trench, and we
gave a cheer which rang out in the night above the firing and told the
Germans that their frantic efforts had failed. Mr. Seckham was a
splendid officer in every way and we were greatly grieved when, not long
afterwards, he was killed. Another of our fine young platoon officers,
Lieutenant Townsend, has been killed since I came home.
We were so near the Germans at times that we could throw things at them
and they could hurl things at us, and we both did, the things being
little bombs, after the style of the old hand-grenade. We got up a
bomb-throwing class and hurled our bombs; but it was not possible to
throw them very far--only twenty-five yards or so. The West Yorkshires,
who were near us, got a great many of these missiles thrown at them, but
they did not all explode. One day a sergeant of ours--Jarvis--was out
getting wood when he saw one of them lying on the ground. He picked it
up and looked at it, then threw it down and instantly it exploded, and
he had no fewer than forty-three wounds, mostly cuts, caused by the
flying fragments, so that the bomb made a proper mess of him.
Our own bombs were made of ordinary pound jam tins, filled with
explosive and so on, like a little shell, which, as the case of the
sergeant showed, was not anything like as sweet a thing to get as jam.
The
[Illustration:
[_To face p. 102._
“WE WERE SO NEAR THE GERMANS THAT THEY COULD HURL BOMBS AT US.”]
Germans were very fond of flinging these hand-bombs and seemed to have a
great idea of their value in attacks and defence.
Christmas Eve was with us, Christmas Day was soon to dawn--and what a
strange and terrible Christmas it was to be!
On Christmas Eve itself we plainly heard the Germans shouting.
“A merry Christmas to you!” they said, and there was no mistaking the
German voices that came to us in our trenches out of the darkness.
“A merry Christmas to you!”
Again the Germans greeted us, though we could not see them, and there
was something pathetic in the words, which were shouted in a lull in the
fighting. Some of our men answered the wish, but I did not--I had no
heart to do so, when I knew that the message meant so little.
It may have been a matter of sentiment, because this was the time of
peace on earth and goodwill towards men, or it may not; but at any rate
the order came that if the Germans did not fire we were not to fire. But
Christmas or no Christmas, and in spite of their greetings, the Germans
went on firing, and we were forced to do the same, so throughout the
night of Christmas Eve we had our rifles going and did not stop till it
was daylight.
But the rifle fire was not the only sound of warfare that was
heard--there was the sharp booming of artillery. The field batteries
were hard at it and we knew they must be doing fearful mischief amongst
the Germans. The night became truly awful; but how dreadful we did not
know till Christmas Day itself, then, the firing having ceased, we saw
that the ground in front of us, not very far away, was littered with
the German dead.
A Merry Christmas!
The very men who had sent the greeting to us were lying dead within our
sight, for the Germans had started to change their position and the
British shells had shattered them. Something like two hundred and fifty
of the Germans were lying dead upon the field, and sorry indeed must the
dawn of Christmas Day have been to those who were left.
Peace on earth! There _was_ peace of a sort, for as we looked on the
German dead from our trenches we saw two Germans appear in full view,
holding up their hands, to show us that they were unarmed.
You can imagine what a solemn spectacle that was--what a Christmas Day
it was which dawned upon us in the trenches. We knew instinctively what
was wanted--the ground was littered with the German dead and the Germans
wanted an armistice so that they could bury them.
One of our officers went out and talked with the two Germans who were
holding up their hands--covered by British rifles. He soon learned what
they wanted, and the armistice was granted.
It was about three o’clock in the afternoon of Christmas Day when the
Germans set to work to bury their dead, and as they did so we left our
trenches and stood on the open ground and watched them. We saw them
perfectly clearly, because the main German trench was not more than 120
yards away, and the burial took place a few yards behind this.
I have seen a photograph of British and German soldiers fraternising on
Christmas Day; but there was nothing of this sort with us. The only
incident I witnessed was a British officer shaking hands with a German
officer. That was all. I did not shake hands with them--and I had not
the least wish to do so, though I bore them no ill-will on that sad
Christmas Day.
I was thankful when Christmas was over and we had settled down to
ordinary routine work, killing and being killed, for it is astonishing
how soon you get accustomed to the business of firing on and being fired
at.
The trenches had got from bad to worse. When I first went into them
there was eighteen inches of water and five inches of mud; but now it
was a matter of standing almost up to the waist in water. They became so
bad that instead of using the communication trenches, which you might
almost call tunnels, it was decided that we should cross the open
country to get to our fighting-place, the main trench--indeed, we had no
option, because the communication trench was almost impassable.
On a mid-January night, and very bad at that, we began the journey to
the trenches. If there had been just ordinary honest darkness we should
have been all right and quite satisfied; but though there was darkness
enough there was plenty of light--the uncanny brightness which came from
the star-shells.
Star-shells were going up all along the line and bursting. They are a
sort of firework, giving a brilliant light, and as they exploded they
showed us up almost as clearly as if we had been in daylight.
We had only a very short distance to go, but the star-lights made the
journey to the trenches a desperate undertaking.
In single file, a little bunch of ten of us, crouching down, holding our
loaded rifles and carrying all we possessed--we went along, losing no
time.
From the stealthy way in which we started on our little trip you might
have thought that we were burglars or villains bent on some fearsome
job, instead of ordinary British soldiers getting back to their
trenches.
We went with caution, and had not covered more than ten yards when what
I take to be machine-gun fire was opened on us.
All at once, without the slightest warning, a real hail of bullets
struck us, and of the ten men of us who were advancing in single file
three were killed and four were wounded. The three who were shot down in
the ghastly glare of the star-shells were ahead of me.
When that happened we were ordered to keep well apart and open out, but
there was not much chance for those of us who were left; at any rate, no
sooner had we obeyed and were making a little headway than I was struck
myself on the head.
For half-an-hour or so I was unconscious; then I recovered and picked
myself up and found that I was all alone. I crawled a few yards to a
trench and got into it; but finding it full of water I thought I might
as well be killed as drowned, so I got out, and not caring in the least
for the German bullets or the star-shells, I made my way as best I could
to the nearest dressing-station, and received attention. After that I
found myself in a motor-car, and later at a clearing-station and on the
boat for home.
You can see the scar of the wound here; but I don’t bother about that. I
suffer terribly from sleeplessness--and too often I see again the German
soldiers who had wished us a merry Christmas--and were buried at the
back of their trenches on the gloomy afternoon of Christmas Day.