I wonder if the chap who first thought out this shell business realized
the extraordinary inconvenience it would cause to gentlemen at rest
during what the Photographic Press alludes to as "a lull in the
fighting."
Once upon a time billets were billets. You came into such, and
thereafter for a spell of days forgot about the War unless you got an
odd shell into the kitchen. But now--well, about noon on the first day's
rest, seventy odd batteries of our 12, 16, and 24 inch guns set about
their daily task of touching up a selected target, say a sap-head or
something new from Unter den Linden in spring barbed-wirings which has
been puzzling a patrol. This is all right in its way; but the Hun still
owns one or two guns opposite us. And by 12.5 all is unquiet on the
Western Front. This is all right in its way; but about 3 P.M. the Hun is
roused to the depths of his savage nature, and one wakes up to find
Hildebrand and Hoffelbuster, the two guns told off to attend to our
liberty area, scattering missiles far and wide, but mostly wide, and a
covey of aeroplanes bombing the local cabbageries. This again is all
right in its way, but in the meantime the mutual noise further up the
line has become so loud that Someone very far back and high up catches
the echo of it, and a bare hour later we receive the order to stand-to
at once, ready to move off twenty minutes ago.
Within three minutes of our first stand-to I was up with the company,
hastily but adequately mobilized with my servant's rifle, five smoke
helmets, (I took all I could see; this is _camaraderie_), a biscuit, the
Indispensable Military Pocket Book (8 in. by 10 in.), a revolver
(disqualified for military uses owing to absence of ammunition), Russian
Picture Tales, and a tooth-brush. I find a general opinion prevalent in
the company that "if Fritz knew _we_ was standing-to 'e'd pack in." Word
must have come through to Fritz somehow, for he shortly packs in--say
about 1 A.M.--and we follow suit after the news has spent a couple or
hours or so flashing round the wires in search of us. And we go to sleep
until to-morrow midday, when the day's play begins again.
When we had been thus "rested" for some days we went and took over a
nice new line, with lots of funny bits in it. The front line had three
bits.
_Left sector_--Mine (exploded; possibly held by Bosch on far side).
_Central sector_--Mine? (unexploded; not held by Bosch anywhere).
_Right sector_--Mine (exploded; possibly held by Bosch on far side).
Our position seemed a little problematical. The left and right we
satisfied ourselves about at once, but the centre was in a class by
itself. We demanded an investigator, somebody with wide mine-sweeping
experience preferred.
About 2 A.M. on our first day in, a figure loomed up through a
snow-storm from the back of the central trench and asked forlornly if
there might be any mines hereabouts. We admitted there might be, or
again there might not. He questioned us precisely where it was
suspected, and we told him "underneath." He scratched his head and
announced that he was sent to look for it. His qualifications consisted
apparently in his having coal-mined. But he seemed confident of
detecting the quicker combustion sort, until he asked for necessary
impedimenta. It seems that no good collier can detect an H.E. or any
sort of mine without a pail of water, and a hole about 2,000 feet deep,
and a pulley, and a rope ladder and a bratting-slat.
It's true we had some good holes in parts of the trench, where you
probably go down 2,000 feet if you step off the footboards, and the rest
of the stuff we might have contrived to improvise. But for the moment we
had somehow run clean out of bratting-slats.
So we had to return the poor fellow with a request that all experts
should be completed with bratting-slats before being sent to the front
line. This request only produced the senseless interrogation, "What _is_
a bratting-slat?" to which we have not yet bothered to reply. In the
meantime if we are really sitting on a mine it seems quite a tame one.
It hasn't as much as barked yet.
Just in our bit we aren't very well off for dug-outs; it isn't really
what you'd call a representative sector from any point of view. But
during a blizzard the other night a messenger who had mislaid himself
took us for a serious trench. He made his way along, looking to right
and left for some seat of authority until he came to a hole in the
parados, two feet by one, where some fortunate fellow had ejected an
ammunition box and was attempting to boil water on a night-light. The
messenger bent low and asked huskily--
"Is this 'ere comp'ny edquarters?"
The water-boiler looked up. "No," he replied, "it ain't. It's G.H.Q.,
but DUGGIE 'AIG ain't at 'ome to no one this evenin'."
* * * * *
[Illustration: _First Tommy_. "The C.O.'s recommended you for a V.C"
_Second Tommy_ (_half asleep and thinking of C.B._). "Oh lumme! What
'ave I done now?"]
* * * * *
"GERMANS' TERRIBLE LOSSES.