IN TRENCHES.
_December 18th, 1914._
We are at present apparently preparing for some adventure or other!
One never knows how these affairs will turn out. This is indeed the
most trying of wars; our life is one of incessant fighting. My
experience of last night will illustrate the sort of thing that goes
on. I wanted to go round my trenches, but a party of recruits came in
just at that time; one was hit on the road half a mile back. He, poor
fellow! was taken to hospital, and will probably be in England within
ten days of leaving it. So I saw them away, and started to follow them
up. I then dived down into a ditch and staggered along, my boots
covered with foul mud and water, whilst a sniper commenced to try and
take the trench I was in; enfilade it, they call it. Well, I went
farther on up the ditch, getting worse and worse into the mire right
over my knees. The mud actually worked its way through my leggings to
my skin. I wandered on, heavy sniping hissing over my head or into the
parapet, covering me with clay occasionally. Of course, everyone who
lives in these particular trenches has wet feet day and night. Having
been round and talked to everybody and done my best to cheer them up,
I met and had a word with Capt. Rodney. He remarked: "Do not stay
where you are, sir, I beg of you, for my servant was shot and killed
just on that spot, and another man was wounded by the same bullet." It
went clean through a book that the unfortunate man was reading. So I
discreetly toddled, or rather waded, home about midnight. This morning
one of my men was shot through the lungs, not far from our room, and
he died at once. This just shows you what a time we go through here,
always having to keep our eyes open! Poor Capt. Whelan was killed, I
saw in yesterday's paper. He had been lent to the Royal Irish
Regiment. Well, good-bye....
IN TRENCHES.
_December 19th, 1914._
This morning your kind present of ginger cake, plum pudding, and
mittens, also soap, arrived, for all of which many thanks. You will be
interested to hear what was going on last night, which I did not like
to tell you at the time I was writing. We had been summoned in the
morning to receive the General's order for an attack on a trench by
the Rifle Brigade. The real attack, however, was to be made by someone
else on quite another part of the line. We were to demonstrate. Well,
if you ever heard Hell let loose, it was whilst I was writing that
letter. Probably over fifty guns took part in it, and the firing was
quite close overhead. It may have been 100 guns really--some very
heavy ones. Then about 10 miles of trenches were blazing away at the
Germans, and they were blazing back at us. Bullets were racing through
our roof, and there I sat in a little room, shivering with cold for we
could light no fire. I was not allowed to go into my firing line, but
sat near the two telephones connecting me with the Artillery and with
my own Regiment. A reinforcement of some Territorials was sent to help
us. We finished up by capturing the trenches and also some prisoners,
while the Rifle Brigade then went off to the trench that they visit
occasionally, and there found a German who had been dead for about a
fortnight. This was the net result of the little engagement; but it
was very long drawn out at the time. In the morning, when the troops
returned, the Germans caught the company moving with shell, and only
that Major Baker and myself flew for our lives and hurried people
about, we should have lost a lot. I have seldom used worse language!
It had its comic side, too, for several of the men got so frightened
that they fell into a cesspit in trying to take cover, and two were
knocked over and wounded. It is very nasty having shell whistling over
your head and bursting all around. At the present moment our batteries
have opened again, but nothing like the business of last night. Two
more of my fellows were badly hit at the same time, and I had to send
a man to give them morphia while awaiting the doctor. Another near
squeak was a bullet striking beside me from a glancing shot where I
was standing, as I thought, in absolute safety. I am enclosing you a
letter from Mrs. Allgood; she is a plucky woman. I had a very nice
letter from Sir J---- R---- The bombardment of Scarborough was a cruel
affair. Now the country will have to see it through....
[Illustration: The C.O's House at.... 19.12.14]