and very slowly and silently we began to back away from that grim
parados. The sentry must have been half asleep, I fancy. My compass
showed me we must be forty or fifty yards left of the point in the
Boche line we wanted; so as soon as we were far enough back we worked
slowly up right, and then a bit in again. And then we found all we'd
hoped for. It was a regular redoubt the Boche was building, and he had
nearly a hundred men at work, including the long string we saw carrying
planks and posts. Some were just sitting round smoking. We could hear
every word spoken, almost every breath. And we could see there were
sixty or seventy men immediately round the redoubt.
That was good enough for me. All I wanted now was to get my men back
safely. I knew "the Peacemaker" had two machine-guns trained precisely
on the redoubt. All I wanted was to make sure their fire was all a
shade to the left, and every bullet would tell. We should be firing
fairly into the brown of 'em; because the little cross communication
trench which we had watched them working in was no more than
waist-deep; just a short-cut for convenience in night work only. We had
'em absolutely cold. The S.M. told me the men wanted to bomb 'em from
where we were. But that was not my game at all.
With the compass bearing I had, getting back was simple. I saw the
last man into our sap, and found the O.C. waiting there for me.
I'd no sooner given him my news than he was at the guns. We had
twenty or thirty rifles levelled on the same mark, too, and, at "the
Peacemaker's" signal, they all spoke at once. Gad! it was fine to see
the fire spouting from the M.G.'s mouth, and to know how its thunder
must be telling.
Four belts we gave 'em altogether, and then whipped the guns down into
cover, just as the Boche machine-guns began to answer from all along
their line. It was a "great do," as the S.M. said. The men were wildly
delighted. They had seen the target; lain and watched it, under orders
not to make a sound. And now the pressure was off. Listening now, the
Boche guns having ceased fire, our sentries could plainly hear groaning
and moaning opposite, and see the lights reflected on the Boche parados
moving to and fro as their stretcher-bearers went about their work. A
"great do," indeed. And so says your
"_Temporary Gentleman_."
IN BILLETS
You have asked me once or twice about billets, and I ought to have told
you more about them before; only there seems such a lot to pick and
choose from that when I do sit down to write I seldom get on to the
particular story I mean to tell.
And that reminds me, I didn't tell you of the odd thing that happened
the night we came out into billets this time. The Boche had finished
his customary evening Hymn of Hate, or we thought he had, and while the
men were filing into their different billets the C.S.M. proceeded to
post our Company guard outside Company Headquarters. He had just given
the sentry his instructions and turned away, when Boche broke out in a
fresh place--their battery commander's evening sauerkraut had disagreed
with him, or something--and half a dozen shells came whistling over the
village in quick succession. One landed in the roadway, a yard and a
half in front of the newly-posted sentry. Had it been a sound shell, it
would have "sent him West"; but it proved a dud, and merely dug itself
a neat hole in the macadam and lay there like a little man, having
first sent a spray of mud and a few bits of flint spurting over our
sentry and rattling against his box.
Now that sentry happened to be our friend Tommy Dodd; and Tommy was
about tired out. He'd been on a wiring party over the parapet three
parts of the night, taken his turn of sentry-go in the other part; and
all day long had been digging and mud-scooping, like the little hero he
is, to finish repairing an impassable bit of trench that master Boche
had blown in the evening before, to make it safe before we handed over
to the Company relieving. He was literally caked in clay from head to
foot; eyebrows, moustache, and all; he hadn't a dry stitch on him, and,
of course, had not had his supper. It was an oversight that he should
have been detailed for first sentry-go on our arrival in billets. I had
noticed him marching up from the trenches; he could hardly drag one
foot after another. What do you think the shell landing at his feet and
showering mud on him extorted from weary Tommy Dodd? I was standing
alongside at the time.
"'Ere, not so much of it, Mister Boche! You take it from me an' be a
bit more careful like. Silly blighter! Wotjer playin' at? Didn't yer
know I was on sentry? Chuckin' yer silly shells about like that! If yer
ain't more careful you'll be dirty'n me nice clean uniform nex', an'
gettin' me paraded over for bein' dirty on sentry-go!"
It's a pretty good spirit, isn't it? And I can assure you it runs right
through; warranted fast colour; and as for standing the wash--well,
Tommy Dodd had been up to his middle in muddy water most of the day.
The Kaiser may have a pretty big military organisation, but, believe
me, Germany and Austria together don't contain anything strong enough
to dull, let alone break the spirit of the men of the New Army. The
Army's new enough; but the tradition and the spirit are from the same
old bin. It isn't altered; and there's nothing better; not anywhere in
the world.
And I'm supposed to be telling you about billets!
Well, I told you before, how we took over from another Company; and
the same holds good of how the other Company takes over from us in
the trenches; and when it's over our fellows file out down the long
communication trench, by platoons, with a goodish interval between
men, so as to minimise the effect of chance bullets and shells; every
man carrying all his own mud-caked goods and chattels, and all in good
spirits at the prospects of a little change. Nothing Tommy welcomes so
much as change--unless it's the chance of a scrap.
We cannot very well form up and march properly directly we get out of
trenches at Ambulance Corner, because Fritz is so fond of directing his
field-gun practice there; so we rather straggle over the next quarter
of a mile, by platoons, till we come to the little river. It's a jolly
little stream, with a regular mill-race of a current, and a nice
clear shallow reach close to the bridge, with clean grass alongside.
We wade right in and wash boots. Everyone is wearing "boots, trench,
gum, thigh," so he just steps into the river and washes the mud off.
Then he gets back to the bank, and off with the gum-boots and on with
the ordinary marching boots, which have been carried slung round the
neck by their laces. The trench boots, clean and shiny now, are handed
into store at Brigade Headquarters, ready for our next turn in, for
anyone else who wants 'em. In store, they are hung up to dry, you
know, for, though no wet from outside will ever leak into these boots
(unless they're cut), yet, being water-and air-tight, they get pretty
wet inside after a week's turn in trenches, from condensation and the
moisture of one's own limbs which has no chance of evaporation. It's
the same with the much-vaunted trench-coats, of course; a few hours'
wear makes 'em pretty damp inside.
After handing in the boots, we form up properly for marching into the
village. Our Company Quartermaster-Sergeant, with a N.C.O. from each
platoon, has been ahead a few hours before us, to take over billets
from the Q.M.S. of the Company that relieved us; and so each platoon
has a guide to meet it, just as in taking over a line of trenches.
Either in or close to every billet, there are cellars marked up outside
for so many men. These are our bolt-holes, to which every man is
instructed to run and take shelter the instant a bombardment begins.
"Abri 50 hommes"; or "Cellar for 30 men"; these are the legends you see
daubed outside the cellars. And chalked on the gates of the house-yards
throughout the village you will see such lines as "30 Men, 'A' Coy.";
or "2 Off.'s, 30 Men, 'B' Coy."; and, perhaps, the initials of the
regiment.
But when I mention billets you mustn't think of the style in which you
billeted those four recruits last spring, you know. By Jove, no! It is
laid down that billets in France mean the provision of shelter from the
elements. Sometimes it's complete shelter, and sometimes it isn't; but
it's always the best the folk can give. In this village, for instance,
there are hardly any inhabitants left. Ninety per cent. of the houses
are empty, and a good many have been pretty badly knocked about by
shells. I have often laughed in remembering your careful anxiety about
providing ash-trays and comfortable chairs for your recruits last year;
and the trouble you took about cocoa last thing at night, and having
the evening meal really hot, even though the times of arrival with your
lodgers might be a bit irregular. It's not _quite_ like that behind the
firing line, you know.
In some places the men's billets are all barns, granaries, sheds and
stables, cow-houses, and the like. Here, they are nearly all rooms in
empty houses. As for their condition, that, like our cocoa of a night,
and cooking generally, is our own affair. In our Division, discipline
is very strict about billets. They are carefully inspected once or
twice during each turnout by the Commanding Officer, and every day
by the O.C. Company and the Platoon Commanders. We have no brooms,
brushes, or dusters, except what we can make. But the billets have to
be very carefully cleaned out twice a day, and there must be no dirt
or crumbs or dust about when they are inspected. Even the mire of the
yards outside has to be scraped and cleared away, and kept clear; and
any kind of destruction, like breaking down doors or anything of that
sort, is a serious crime, to be dealt with very severely. The men
thoroughly understand all this now, and the reason of it; and they are
awfully good. They leave every place cleaner and better than they found
it.
In the same way it has been strictly laid down that in their attitude
towards the inhabitants the men must be scrupulous. And, by Jove, they
are! Wherever our troops are you will find men in khaki helping the
women with their washing, drawing water, feeding stock, bringing in
cows, getting in wood, and all such matters; and if our fellows haven't
much French, I can assure you they are chattering in some sort of a
language most of the time. And if all this is incomprehensible to the
good Frenchwomen, how is it that the latter respond with so lively a
chatter, and why are they always smiling and laughing the while--even
when one sees that in their eyes which tells more plainly than the
mourning they wear of sacrifices they have made in the service of
France? Come to think of it, do you know, that sums up the attitude of
all the French women I have met, and of the old men of France, too;
and it's an attitude which compels respect, while it elicits sympathy.
They smile with their lips, and in the brave hearts of them they smile,
too; even though they cannot altogether hide either the wearing anxiety
of waiting, or, where bereavement has come, the grief of mourning for
brave men lost, which shows in their eyes.
In the first convenient archway handy to our billets you will find the
Company's field cooker. You have seen them trailing across the Plain
down Salisbury way on field days--the same old cookers. The rations
come there each day, from the Battalion Q.M. store, three miles away;
and there the men draw them in their cooked form at meal-times. In
every village there is a canteen where men buy stuff like chocolate,
condensed milk, tinned café-au-lait, biscuits, cake, and so forth.
In the day-time, when there are no carrying fatigues, we have frequent
inspections, and once the first day out of trenches is past, every
man's equipment has to be just so, and himself clean-shaven and smart.
We have a bath-house down near the river, where everyone soaks in huge
tubs of hot water; and in the yard of every billet you will find socks,
shirts, and the like hanging out to dry after washing. By 8.30 at night
all men not engaged in carrying fatigues have turned in. During the
week out of trenches we get all the sleep we can. There are football
matches most afternoons, and sing-songs in the early evenings. And all
and every one of these things are subject to one other thing--strafe;
which, according to its nature, may send us to our cellars, or to the
manning of support trenches and bridge-head defences.
With regard to the officers, our batmen cook our grub, moderately well
or atrociously badly, according to their capacity. But, gradually, they
are all acquiring the soldierly faculty of knocking together a decent
meal out of any rough elements of food there may be available. More
often than not we do quite well. Our days are pretty much filled up in
looking after the men, and in the evenings, after supper, we have their
letters to censor, our own to write, if we are energetic enough, and a
yarn and a smoke round whatever fire there may be before turning in;
after which the Boche artillery is powerless to keep us awake. At this
present moment I doubt whether there's another soul in "A" Company,
besides myself, who's awake, except the sentry outside headquarters.
And I shall be asleep in about as long as it takes me to sign myself
your
"_Temporary Gentleman_."
BOMBARDMENT
The day before we came back into trenches I meant to have written you,
but the chance didn't arise. Now we have been in just twenty-four
hours, and though the time has gone like lightning, because one has
been on the jump all the while, yet, looking back, it seems ever so
long since we were in billets. A good deal has happened.
For the first time since we've been out here we took over in broad
daylight yesterday afternoon, and I've never known Fritz so quiet as he
was. Not only were there no shells, but very few bullets were flying
while we were taking over, and the ----s were clearing out for their
week in billets. We had everything in apple-pie order and the night's
duties mapped out, stores checked, and ammunition dished out--the extra
night supply I mean--before tea, and were just thinking how remarkably
well-behaved the Boche was and what a great improvement it was to take
over by daylight. And then the band played!
I had been counting the supply of bombs in the Company grenade store,
and was in the act of setting my watch by Taffy's, standing there in
the trench at a quarter to five, when, with a roar, shells landed in
six different parts of our line; not in the trench, you know, but
somewhere mighty close handy. Of course, you might say there was
nothing very startling about half a dozen shells landing near us,
especially as nobody was hit. And that's true. But there was something
queer about it, all the same. We both felt it. Taffy looked at me, and
I looked at him, and "Oho!" said Taffy. And I entirely agreed.
Perhaps it was partly the unusual quietness that had come before.
Anyhow, we both started at the double for Company Headquarters, and I
know we both had the same idea--to see whether "the Peacemaker" wanted
the word passed for everyone to take cover in such artillery shelters
as we have now in this sector; and, mind you, they're miles better than
they were when we first took over.
But, bless your heart! we needn't have bothered getting word about
it from the O.C. Before we got near the Company dug-out the men were
seeing to that for themselves, as they have been taught to do, and
the trenches were empty except, of course, for the sentries and their
reliefs, who, with the observation officer, would remain at their posts
even if the bottom fell out of the world.
Such a raging frenzy of fire as there was when we met "the Peacemaker,"
outside the signallers' cabin, you never could imagine in your life,
not if I wrote about it all night. One knows now that, on the average,
there were not more than ninety projectiles per minute coming over us.
But at the time, I assure you, it seemed there must be about ten a
second, and that shells must be literally jostling each other in the
air. Apart from anything else, the air was full of falling earth, wood,
and barbed wire. It was clear they had begun by ranging on our parapet
and entanglements. The oddest things were falling apparently from the
sky--bits of trench boots, bully beef tins, shovel handles, stakes six
feet long, lengths of wire, crumpled sheets of iron, and all kinds of
stuff.
I yelled to the O.C. that I would take observation duty, and Taffy
wanted to take it with me. But "the Peacemaker" very properly insisted
on his going to ground. We had to shout right in each other's ears.
The O.C. told me our telephone wires were cut to ribbons already. "But
Headquarters will know as much about this as we could tell 'em by now,"
he yelled. But he had sent off a chit by runner, just to let the C.O.
know that our fellows had all taken cover, and that the heavy stuff
seemed to be mostly landing on our front and the communication trenches
immediately in rear. The O.C. made a cup of his hands and shouted in my
ear as we crouched in the bottom of the trench:
"What you've got to do is to watch for the lifting of the curtain to
our rear. Must have every man on the fire-step then. They must surely
mean to come across after this."
"I hope so. 'A' Company 'll eat 'em if they do."
"That's if we can keep cover now without too many casualties. Keep as
good a look-out as you can. You'll find me here, by the signallers."
So I left him, and made my way along to a little observing shelter
we had made near the centre of our bit of firing line. But, when I
got there, I found that shelter was just a heap of yeasty mud and
rubbish. Fritz was pounding that bit out of all recognition. By this
time, you know, one could hardly see six paces ahead anywhere. The
smoke hung low, so that every shell in bursting made long sheets of
red flame along the smoke. And just then I got my first whiff of gas
in the smoke: not a gas cloud, you know, but the burst of gas shells:
lachrymatory shells some of 'em were. So I went hurrying along the line
then, ordering all gas helmets on. I found most of the men had seen to
this without being told.
By the way, I ought to say that, so far as I can tell, bombardment
doesn't affect one's mind much. You don't feel the slightest bit
afraid. Only a lot more alert than usual, and rather keyed up, as you
might be if you were listening to a fine orchestra playing something
very stirring. It's rather a pleasant feeling, like the exhilaration
you get from drinking champagne, or hearing a great speech on some big
occasion when there are thousands of people listening and all pretty
well worked up. As I scrambled along the fire trench I laughed once,
because I found I was talking away nineteen to the dozen. I listened,
as though it were to someone else, and I heard myself saying:
"Let her rip! Let her rip, you blighters! You can't smash us, you
sauer-krauters. You're only wasting the ammunition you'll be praying
for presently. Wait till our heavies get to work on you, you beauties.
You'll wish you hadn't spoken. Let her rip! Another dud! That was a
rotten one. Why, you haven't got the range right even now, you rotters!"
Wasn't it queer, jawing away like that, while they were hammering the
stuffing out of our line? By the way, though I couldn't tell it then,
our artillery was blazing away at them all the time. The fire was
so tremendous that we positively had no idea our guns were in it at
all. But, as a matter of fact, they were lambasting Old Harry out of
the Boche support lines and communications, and the countless shells
roaring over our heads were, half of them, our own.
It seemed pretty clear to me that this bombardment was on a very
narrow front, much less than our Company front even. It didn't seem
to be much more than a platoon front. So I hurried along to the
signals and let the O.C. know this. As I had expected, he told me
to concentrate all the men, except sentries, on the flanks of the
bombardment sector, all with smoke helmets on, rifles fully charged,
bayonets fixed, and everything ready for instant action. He had already
got our Lewis guns ready in the trench on both flanks. As a fact, "the
Peacemaker" was doing as much observing as I was, and I made bold to
tell him I thought it wasn't the thing for him to expose himself as
much as he did.
"That's all right, old man," he shouted. "I'm looking out. I'll be
careful, and you do the same. Here, stick your pipe in your mouth! It
helps with the men."
I'd had to tell him that in the centre and on the extreme left we had
had a few casualties. The stretcher-bearers were doing their best for
them.
Not many minutes afterwards the curtain of fire appeared to be shifting
back. The row was just as great, or greater. The smoke was just as
dense, and there was a deal more gas in it. But it seemed to me there
were very few shells actually landing along our front, and I could see
the flashes of them bursting continuously a little in our rear.
As I got to the left flank of the bombarded sector I found Taffy
directing the fire of a machine-gun diagonally across the front. The
men were all out there, and you could see them itching for the word to
get over the parapet. Their faces were quite changed. Upon my word, I'd
hardly have known some of 'em. They had the killing look, and nearly
every man was fiddling with his bayonet, making sure he had the good
steel ready for Fritz. Seeing they were all serene, I made my way along
to the other flank. I hardly thought about it, but just went, and that
shows there's something shapes our ends, doesn't it? I should have been
pretty sick afterwards if I hadn't made that way when I did.
The first thing I saw on that flank was a couple of men lifting poor
R----'s body from the bottom of the trench. The Infant had been killed
instantaneously. His head was absolutely smashed. He had been the most
popular officer in our mess since we came out.
There was no time to think, but the sight of the Infant, lying there
dead, sent a kind of sudden heat through me from inside; as I felt it
on patrol that night. I hurried on, with Corporal Slade close on my
heels. The gassy smoke was very dense. Round the next traverse was the
little bay from which the other machine-gun had been firing. It wasn't
firing now. Two men were lying dead close beside it, and another badly
wounded; and half across the parapet was Sergeant T----, who'd been in
charge of the gun, being hauled out by his arms by two Boches, while
two other Boches stood by, one holding his rifle with bayonet fixed,
in the thrust position, as if inclined to run T---- through. The other
Boches were shouting something in German. They wanted to make T----
prisoner. There was blood on one side of his neck. The insolence of the
thing made me quite mad for the minute, and I screamed at those Boches
like a maniac.
It seems rum, but they turned and bolted into the smoke; I after them
as hard as I could pelt. I shot one in the back with my revolver. He
fell and, as I came up with him, I snatched his rifle from the ground
beside him. I was like a lunatic. Then, just as suddenly, I came to my
senses. The other Boches were out of sight in the smoke. I jumped back
into the trench and put Corporal Slade on to the machine-gun, telling
him to keep traversing that front. I ran farther down the trench to
discover what had happened. The fire trench dipped there into a wooded
hollow. The pounding of it had levelled the whole place till you could
hardly make out the trench line.
Here I found the bulk of my own platoon furiously scrapping with
thirty or forty Boches over the parapet. It was splendid. I can't
describe the feeling, as one rushed into it. But it was absolutely
glorious. And it gave me my first taste of bayonet work in
earnest--with a Boche bayonet in my hand, mark you. Made me quite glad
of the bayonet practice we had at home with Sergeant W----, after he'd
had the course at Aldershot. No. 1 Platoon had never let the beggars
get as far as our trench, but met 'em outside. To give them their due,
those Boches didn't try any of their "Kamerade" business. They did
fight--until they saw half their number stuck and down; and then they
turned and bolted for it into the dense smoke over No Man's Land.
They were most of 'em bayoneted in the back before I could get my
fellows to turn. I didn't want them to go far in that dense fog of
gassy smoke, and there was hardly any daylight left. I didn't want them
tumbling into any ambush. On the way back we gathered up a score of
Boche knives, a lot of their caps, two or three rifles, and a whole box
of their hand grenades, with not one missing.