MY BAPTISM OF FIRE
On the morning before we set out for the trenches we were inspected
by Sir John French and other well-known leaders of the British Army.
That night the guns roared, Maxims barked and rifles kept up an
incessant fire all night. We began to have a very heartfelt idea of
what we were in for and the tightening up of the faces of the men was
distinctly perceptible, accompanied with ejaculations from some of
the English Tommies in our battalion, such as "Gawd blime me, but
it's gettin' close now."
Next day at about twelve o'clock we fell in, joined the remainder of
the battalion in Hazebrouck, and the march to Armentieres commenced.
This march will long be remembered by all who survived. Everyone was
in great spirits, and songs and jokes were the order. Along the
cobbled roads we swung in full marching order, and the first part of
the journey was accomplished with ease. But those awful cobbled
roads began to tell their tale. They are paved with rough, uneven
cobbles, and when a little rain has fallen a man goes slipping and
sliding all over the place. A thin layer of mud makes it ten times
worse; so by the time we had done fifteen miles, men began to lag.
On and on we went, until at last the officers were obliged to halt
the men.
As is usual, toward evening we felt better, and lustily informed the
natives that, "The Gang's All Here;" "Here We Are Again;" and various
choruses of a like nature were roared by us as we swung like one man
into Armentieres. Here we received vociferous welcome from those
fearless fighting men, the boys of the British regular army. Their
welcome was a royal as well as a noisy one, because they shoved
refreshing drinks and cigarettes into our hands, which were eagerly
taken.
"What in blazes do you call this stuff?" I asked of a burly Tommy who
had thrust a bottle of liquid at me.
"Wy, that, don't you know? That's beer, French beer."
"The devil, you say!"
"'Pon my soul, it is."
"Is the French fightin' man anything like his beer?" I asked.
"Oh no, Gawd forbid," said he, "for this damn stuff is as much like
beer as kissin' your own sister."
And I thoroughly agreed with him, because although it looked like
beer and smelt like beer, it was no more like beer than the kiss of a
man's sister would be when compared to the kiss of his sweetheart.
Our long march ended and we were billeted in the best billets I ever
remember while abroad. It was the luck of our platoon to be billeted
at an _estaminet_, or inn. The owner of this was somewhat of a
naturalist, the walls of his house being hung with all kinds of
valuable skins, cases of butterflies, etc. The people here were the
acme of kindness. You may guess how we slept that night.
During our stay in this billet I was always very conscious of a
curious frightened feeling, and as I looked at the carefree faces of
my comrades, I often wondered if they felt as I did. Sometimes a
dull, menacing boom, making the air vibrate, would cause a silence to
fall and a far-away look in the eyes told me more emphatically than
any words could that the rest of the boys were "thinking it over,"
probably just as hard as I was doing.
Next morning we had a grand breakfast, due to the kindness of Major,
then Captain Hopkins. Before actually going into the trenches we
were taken some thousand yards to the back of the first line and
started to work at filling sandbags and generally improving the
condition of the rear of our lines. Mile after mile at the back of
the firing line, trenches are being improved in case of retirement.
The Germans are doing the same, but they make theirs of concrete, so
when grumbling at the slow progress of the Allies, just think for a
moment of the tremendous task in front of them.
An occasional bullet would whistle over our heads as we worked, while
some would imbed themselves in the mud around us. No one was hit and
just at dusk we were marched back to our billets for one more night's
rest before taking our places in the first line.
Engaged in conversation that night with the good Monsieur Prevot, the
worthy host of the _estaminet_, was a man who looked the typical
Tommy of the British Army. Of medium height, thickset, dark hair and
dark moustache, he was about the last person one would suspect of
being anything but the soldier he proclaimed himself to be. Soon he
was hobnobbing with the boys, playing cards and telling them stories
of the earlier days of the war.
He had been spending some little time there, but unlike all British
soldiers he showed a strange neglect of his rifle, scarcely ever
looking at it and much less cleaning it. This aroused the suspicion
of Sergeant-major Demaille and the latter, coming into the
_estaminet_ one day and finding him there, began to question him.
The man's replies only heightened the S-M's suspicions and he was
placed under arrest. That was the last we ever saw of him, but his
was a short shrift. He paid the price for his daring.
To many people the work of a spy carries with it an odium that is
unspeakably disgusting; his activities are associated with everything
that is dirty, sneaking and contemptible. This, in my opinion, is
true of all shades of spies except the man who operates in the battle
lines. In this case he knows there is absolutely no shadow of a
chance for his life if caught, and it requires a nerve that is brave
indeed to engage in that type of the work. Spying, a soldier
detests, but, while detesting, he is full of admiration for the
courage of the spy.
The following day we fell in about four-thirty in the afternoon and
started for, as we thought, the trenches. To stiffen our backs, as
it were, we were ordered to fall in immediately beside the graveyard
at Armentieres, where scores of little wooden crosses marked the
resting places of the numberless children who were killed in the
bombardment. We were allowed to talk and smoke until we had gone
some distance, then strict silence was kept. By and by we were
halted and split up into sections, to minimize the effect of shell
fire. The road was pitted with shell holes, these being full of
water. The night being very dark, except when a flare would light up
the country with its weird color for a moment, the men now and then
would trip and fall with a muttered curse.
It was all quiet in front, but occasionally a burst of fire would
wake the echoes and bullets would whiz over our heads. A few of them
fell around us, but no one was hurt. It is a peculiar sensation to
find yourself under fire for the first time. A man feels utterly
helpless and at first he will duck his head at every whiz he hears.
Of course ducking is useless, because if you hear the whiz of the
pill, or the report of the rifle, you are still untouched, but every
man who has ever experienced this will tell you that he could not
help ducking even knowing how useless it was. I went so far as to
put up my shoulders to cover my jaws, as if in a boxing stunt.
One of the British Tommies gave me a bit of brief but sound
philosophy on ducking: "If you 'ear them, they won't 'urt you; if you
don't 'ear them, you're dead." A little later on a bit of Irish
humor was tragically mingled with ducking. A shell was coming, as an
Irish soldier thought, straight for him, and he ducked, and the shell
swept away the head of the man behind him. Said Paddy, "Shure it
always pays to be polite." By and by we were halted and lead through
a kind of tunnel into a barn. Here were a bunch of British, most of
them having taken part in the Mons retirement. We found we were to
act as a reserve with these men, that is, in case of attack we would
make our way to the front line as quickly as possible. A trench led
from both sides of this barn, but it was so skilfully concealed that
no one would have dreamt of its being there. In this barn the
Tommies had made themselves very comfortable, having straw to lie on,
and fires with which to boil tea. We soon were great friends with
the regulars, who gave us many valuable tips for active service.
We stayed here for twenty-four hours, the only excitement being a
German shell dropped in the separator of an antiquated threshing
machine, some two hundred yards to our rear, and the way those
thresher men bolted makes me think that they are probably running yet.
The natives at that time farmed away, just about five hundred yards
from the firing line, as if nothing was out of the ordinary. I saw
them finishing land in one part of a small field, while shrapnel was
spraying the other part, and at that time a family was living in
every house around there. Since then, however, both they and the
town of Armentieres are just dust heaps, being shelled to a finish at
about the same time as the great bombardment of Ypres.
At nightfall we trudged silently from the barn and without any
casualties succeeded in reaching our hospitable _estaminet_. The
good lady of the house, after counting us over, prepared hot coffee
for us.
In this town is the French and Belgian burial ground and at that time
it was full of statuary; even the humblest grave had its own little
shrine above it. The monuments were very fine, particularly a huge
marble one which had been erected by the sons of Armentieres for
those who had died for _La Patrie_, at Quatre Bras, Algiers, the
Crimea and the war of 1870. It was a beautiful monument, some thirty
feet high, and could not possibly be of any advantage to either side,
yet the Germans, a few weeks afterwards, shelled this graveyard,
utterly destroying all the beautiful monuments and exhuming piecemeal
dozens of bodies.
A crucifix, with the figure of the Savior, was in the most
conspicuous place in that burial ground; it was easily twenty feet
high; yet it remained untouched throughout the whole bombardment. In
not one single instance (and I think all returned soldiers will say
the same) have I seen the figure of the Savior anything but intact,
no matter how destructive the shelling has been. The cross itself
has been smashed to dust, but the figure has never been hit. This is
very remarkable, but a fact.
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[Illustration: INSTRUMENTS OF WAR AND PEACE WORKING SIDE BY SIDE.]
The reaping machine is harvesting the grain. The monster gun is also
reaping--but the harvest is death. A German shell is exploding on
the right.
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The next afternoon at four-thirty came the order, "Fall in," and we
knew we were booked now for the real thing. Rifles were examined,
ammunition inspected, and as night was falling we swung through the
town and across the bridge, temporarily erected by the engineers, the
Germans having destroyed the original one in their retreat. The
townspeople turned out _en masse_ apparently none the worse for a few
shells that had been flying among them a few hours before. _Bon
chance_ was shouted from all sides, to which we replied in English.
Being very much on the short side and all the more conspicuous by the
majority of the boys being very much on the tall side, I came in for
much chaff from the people who christened me _le picannin_. It
became a great joke among my chums and I had to submit to a lot of
chaff. At last we came to the hospital and the order was passed down
the line for silence. Again splitting into small sections we trudged
silently along, now and again stumbling into the shell craters.
Once we were placed at the side of the road to let the casualties go
by. Nothing is so weird as to meet those stretcher bearers on a
quiet night at the back of the line. Not a word is spoken, the
bearers stepping as one man. Up in the air goes a flare and the
faces of everyone take on a ghastly green tint, accentuating the
expression of suffering. It is a wonderful experience, and only a
soldier can realize the heroic stoicism of a wounded comrade. Racked
with pain they may be, but with the inevitable smoke between their
lips, they will grin at you as they pass.
If you want to imagine what a bullet wound feels like try and think
that you have got it and then imagine what it is to be carried over
the bumpy road, dumped down time after time, so that your bearers may
drop on the ground and live to carry you out. The Huns fire on
everything that moves, and every time a flare rises, down your
bearers must drop or run the certainty of being sniped. Sometimes in
a big action men will lie for days, some with desperate wounds,
sniped at if they show the slightest movement, and then comes the
journey from the dressing station along a road raked with shell fire.
Just try and imagine it, and if you see a soldier back from hell
kicking over the traces, and going a little bit wild, just think of
what he has been in and endured.
In my case the sight of these casualties caused me to shiver, for
there I was in perfect health and strength, yet how long before I
would be like one of these boys!
However, we were not given much time for thinking. "Keep absolutely
quiet and no talking," was the whispered command that was passed
among us. The blackness of the night made seeing anything clearly
absolutely impossible. No smoking was permitted and if a machine gun
opened on the road we were to throw ourselves flat. This was most
encouraging as the road had a beautiful layer of nice clinging mud,
while pools of water, from two to ten feet deep, were scattered
everywhere. We were all green troops and when the "plut-plut-ping"
began over our heads, the ducking would have done credit to Jim
Corbett.
By and by we steadied up, especially as we heard some British
Tommies, who were returning from their spell in front, enjoying a
quiet laugh at our expense. However, as one of them put it, "The'll
get used tew it lad, we were as bad at start. Goot neet." "Silence
there!" from our Old Man. I had a kind of "home and mother" feeling
in my stomach and I expected every minute to hear the machine guns
begin to bark. We had been told that a strip of railway about two
hundred yards from the trenches was a veritable death trap, the
Allemands peppering it about every hour. It was on the road to our
trenches, so we were obliged to go over it. When we came to the spot
I fancied that that strip of land was about a mile across instead of
about ten yards.
Judge of our astonishment, when the door of a house opened and a
woman came out and stood calmly watching us pass, mind you, only two
hundred yards from our own front lines and three hundred yards from
the Germans. And there I was trying to make myself as small as a
midget, and she standing calmly erect as if butterflies instead of
bullets were flying around. Thought I, "If that woman can stand like
that, surely I can at least walk erect." I did so, but it was a
terrible effort.
A guide from the Tommies took us in hand and the pace he set was a
caution. He was used to it, but we were on strange ground, and it
was as dark as pitch. We carried our rifles at the trail as a guide
to the man behind. Now and then our worthy guide would stop to get
over or through some obstacle, causing a momentary halt. Bang! goes
the rifle of the man in front of me, the butt catching me plumb in
the stomach. Swearing came from all around as some of the boys would
run their noses onto a pair of boots or something equally hard in the
valises of the men in front, or the muzzle of a rifle prodded someone
in the back.
The upshot of it all was that Fritz grew suspicious and up went a
flare, but we were not spotted except by a few snipers who sent over
a few souvenirs, which luckily none of us accepted. The pain in my
tummie obliged me to stay behind for a time, and when I felt able to
go on, the boys were disappearing in front. The man who dug his
rifle butt into my stomach was named "Slaughter" and he gave me solid
proof that he earned his name that night, for my tummie was sore for
weeks.
I was afraid I was going to get lost, so I mustered up all my
strength to try and run after the boys, and after covering a few
yards, over I went into a Jack Johnson hole (crater made by 16 inch
shell, often fifteen to thirty feet wide and as deep). There wasn't
much water in the hole, but lots of mud; my rifle was absolutely
choked with it and I was in an awful mess. I managed to flounder
out, and on going a short distance I was challenged and found I had
come right into the trench we were to occupy.