_Somewhere in ----._
Active service is like oratory in that one of its biggest ideas is
action. Being ostensibly on active service ourselves we felt we ought
to see a little before going home; and now we have. We make no boast
about it. Like the simple English soldiers we are we merely state the
fact for what it is worth.
You ask, you who lead the sheltered life, what we felt like under fire;
how you swim from one trench to another; what we ate and drank; and
what a bayonet charge is really like. Let me answer your questions one
by one.
(1) We were such a long way under fire that some doubt existed as to
whether the Germans were merely trying to frighten us, or were engaged
in testing new rifles and fired high and in no particular direction
for fear of hitting somebody. We only had one casualty and he wanted
to walk across to the German trenches and insist on an apology and
a new pair of boots, the right heel being practically torn off. But
we convinced him that it was futile for an Englishman to argue with
Germans, especially when ignorant of their language. If a German has
made up his mind to be careless nothing will stop him. To return to the
question, we didn't feel under fire at all.
(2) You aren't allowed to leave a trench; and a man who was allowed to
and then went to another shouldn't be allowed out at all.
(3) The soldier is not particular about his "tack"--as he calls
his food. Bacon and eggs, sausages, chicken, washed down with hot
coffee, are good enough for him to fight on. Failing even such humble
comestibles he will, when pressed by hunger, open a tin of bully beef
and decide he is not hungry after all.
(4) Bayonet charges are getting rather cheap, so we didn't have one.
We were opposed to the flower of the German army, the KAISER'S beloved
Prussians. This we were told on our arrival. Next day we learned that a
prisoner taken turned out to be one of the KAISER'S beloved Bavarians.
We subsequently discovered--well, to save time you might just take a
map of the German Empire and pick where you like.
If anyone tells you that our heroes live in trenches like tessellated
boudoirs in an atmosphere of sybaritic luxury you might just put him
right. Our Edward had got hold of some such idea from diagrams in
the illustrated papers. When we reached the crumbling ruins we were
to defend, an officer was so impressed by Edward's air of woebegone
disgust that he observed brusquely that, in the trenches, comfort was a
matter of minor importance.
This assurance pulled Edward together for the moment; and he had just
settled down to a placid expectation of the evening meal when we
learned that our commissariat had stuck in the mud some miles back.
However, as a second officer cheerfully observed, in the trenches food
is a matter of minor importance. Edward, who had pinned all his faith
on the commissariat, relapsed into a resigned melancholy.
Just as he was making his poor but ingenious preparations for slumber
in a dug-out that looked like a badly drained pond a third officer
came along. A digging fatigue was wanted for the night. We were it.
Edward moaned, not mutinously, you understand, but expressively. The
third officer turned on him sharply. "In the trenches," he observed
epigrammatically, "sleep is a matter of minor importance."
Edward and I returned at 3 A.M. As he flopped wearily down I heard
him murmur judicially: "In the trenches soldiers are matters of minor
importance."
Edward never got really fond of the trenches.
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[Illustration: _Newly-made Lance-Corporal._ "ON THE COMMAND 'FIX' YOU
DON'T FIX. BUT WHEN I SEZ 'BAYNIT' YOU GRAB UN BY THE 'AND, WHIPS UN
OUT, AN' WOPS UN ON--AN' THERE YOU LETS UN BIDE AWHILE."]
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