LOST TO THE WIDE
There's a rum jar in the dug-out and a parcel in the post--
Fol ol the diddle ol the dee!
And I couldn't be much colder were I handcuffed to a ghost--
Fol ol the diddle ol the dee!
There's a quartermaster-sergeant and the dug-out's his abode--
Fol ol the diddle ol the dee!
And a shell has hit the mail-bag and it's scattered on the road--
Fol ol the diddle ol the dee!
(_From "The Strafed Mail-bag."_)
It was past eight o'clock of a January evening and the soldiers in "Home
Sweet Home" dug-out sat down late to tea. The dug-out was situated at
the bottom of a chalk-pit near Vimy Ridge and was occupied by officers'
servants, company runners, signallers and others who generally kept in
close touch with battalion headquarters. The chalk pit was more or less
immune from shell fire, for, being narrow and deep, it was difficult for
a shell to reach the bottom, round which a ring of spacious dug-outs
circled. Over the top and five hundred yards eastwards ran the
communication trench which wound its way discreetly up to the British
front line.
Lights gleamed in the dug-outs and sounds of laughter and singing could
be heard from "Home Sweet Home." It was a capacious shelter, originally
fashioned by the French, and capable of holding thirty men. At the
present moment it contained some fifteen British soldiers engaged in the
pleasant task of eating a substantial meal. Rations as well as the post
had just come up from the railhead, rum was issued, and the parcels from
home had been bulky. The meal was proceeding merrily. Some of the men
were laughing and chatting, sitting on the ground, their knees crossed
and mess-tins of steaming tea in their hands. Two or three were stripped
and their wet clothes were hung over the fire in the brazier. All were
so cool and happy that it was difficult to believe that the German
shells were just dropping outside the door.... Suddenly the waterproof
sheet that covered the door was raised and a newcomer entered. He stood
for a moment looking round, then he approached an up-ended ammunition
box which stood in the centre of the dug-out and sat down on it.
"Oh, it's old Fitzgerald," exclaimed Flanagan, now of the signalling
section, who was endeavouring, with the aid of a bayonet, to draw the
cork from a rum jar. "How are things going on up at Vimy?" he asked.
"Not so bad," Fitzgerald answered. "There's plenty of shells flying
across, and now and again we get a Minnie, saucy devil. We do get more
than is good for our health. Vimy is not the most pleasant place on our
front. I've helped to take a prisoner down."
"A prisoner?" Flanagan exclaimed, handing Fitzgerald a drop of rum in a
mess-tin. "A German?"
"Yes, a youngster," Fitzgerald answered, lifting the rum reverently to
his lips and rolling it round in his mouth. "He was caught on a
listening patrol. Wounded and unconscious. I've got to wait here until
he recovers, hear what he has to say, and report back to Captain Thorley
with any information. You know we fear a mine going up at the sap, for
all day and night we can hear tapping under the ground."
Fitzgerald held out his mess-tin again and received another tot of rum.
Then he lit a cigarette.
"There's nothing like a drop of rum," he remarked. "It's 'health to the
navel and marrow to the bones,' as the Scripture has it."
The hut laughed.
"What about a song, Fitz?" Flanagan asked.
"An old Irish one; a come-all-you."
"Nell Flaherty's Drake?" said Fitz in a tone of enquiry. The rum had put
him in gay good humour.
"Spit it out," Flanagan yelled.
Fitzgerald commenced the song.
"My name it is Nell, the truth for to tell,
I live near Coothill, which I'll never deny,
I had a fine drake, the truth for to spake,
Which my grandmother left me before she did die.
"He was wholesome and sound and could weigh forty pound,
The wide world round I would roam for his sake,
But bad luck to the robber be he drunk or sober,
Who murdered Nell Flaherty's beautiful drake.
"May his temples wear horns and all his toes corns,
May he always be fed on lobcourse and fish-oil,
May he ne'er go to bed till the moment he's dead,
May his cow never milk, may his kettle never boil."
"That's the supreme curse, I think," Fitzgerald remarked, smiling
lazily. "'May his kettle never boil'! Think of that--in Ireland, where
the teapot's as greedy as the grave."
"Is that the end of the song?" a soldier asked from the corner.
"Only the first three verses," Fitzgerald replied. "There are forty
verses in the song, but I forget the rest. My memory!" he exclaimed,
rising to his feet. "Good God! I forget everything, my memory is my
curse.... Who has got a cigarette to spare?"
At that moment an orderly came to the door and shouted out: "D Company
runner."
"I'm D Company runner," Fitzgerald remarked.
"Report to headquarters immediately," said the orderly. "Also Rifleman
Flanagan to report. Two men must take the message."
"I'm there," said Fitzgerald, turning to Flanagan and asking: "Can I
have another cigarette before we go?"
He got another cigarette, placed it in his cap and accompanied by
Flanagan went out into the open and across to headquarters dug-out. The
adjutant was inside sitting at a table, a cup of tea and a box of
cigarettes in front of him. He knew Fitzgerald very well, having met him
in civil life.
"I want you to go to the Ridge as quickly as you know how," said the
adjutant, fixing his eyes on the runner. "The young German has regained
consciousness and he tells us that the enemy are going to blow up three
mines under our front to-morrow morning at six. The men must withdraw to
the second trench until further orders. I've tried to 'phone up, but can
get no answer to my calls. The wire must be broken. Hand the message
over to Captain Thorley or any other officer whom you may encounter. You
do the same, Flanagan, and both report back here when you've done
this...."
He handed a sealed envelope to Fitzgerald and the runner went out into
the night, the final words of the adjutant ringing in his ears.
"Very important, remember; very important."
Fitzgerald clambered up the side of the pit with difficulty, the chalk
was frittering away and the man had very insecure purchase of his feet.
Flanagan followed keeping a hundred yards to rear. At headquarters
another runner was receiving a similar message. One would certainly
deliver it safely.
When Fitzgerald crossed the rim of the chalk pit he could see the line
of battle, the starshells flaring in the heavens and the lurid flames of
bursting explosives lighting up the darkness. In front a spinney where
the trees were riven and shattered took on strange shapes, the lifeless
ruined branches stretched outwards, as it were, in reproach and despair;
the fallen trees lay on the ground like rotting corpses.
War's earthquake had rent the whole country. Dark, sepulchral chasms
yawned in the ground and the whole earth seemed to have been gutted to
its core. A little red-brick cottage was smashed to smithereens; the
machinery of a mill stood suspended over nothing, and shapeless walls,
jagged and lacerated, quivered in air, ready to fall at the first gust
of wind. Where the pits were dug in the earth, shapeless heaps of white
chalk were flung up, and beside one of these heaps lay a battery of
field guns jumbled in inextricable confusion. The rusty steel muzzles of
the guns looked grotesque and distorted; the ruined dug-out in which the
gunners once lived, breathed tragedy from every broken beam and torn
sandbag. Dead men lay all over the place, shamelessly exposed in the
most unlikely situations. On the field of war Death is denied its
privileged privacy.
Fitzgerald entered the communication trench and hurried along, panting
as he ran. Two shells swooped over his head, bursting with a vicious
clatter on the field behind him. Others followed, pounding at the
parapet like drunken gods. He could hear the splinters hitting the
parados with a dull thud to the accompaniment of a thousand rifle
bullets which tore at the suffering sandbags.
Fitzgerald passed through one trench crossing, then another. "I'll do it
in five minutes now," he said, changing his rifle from one shoulder to
the other. "I hope the mine doesn't go up before I get there. Five
minutes," he muttered, "I'll be there in five minutes."
But Fitzgerald miscalculated. At the end of five minutes he found
himself in a deserted trench, all alone, and then decided that it was
time to turn back. Probably he had taken the wrong trench at the last
crossing. He went back for a short distance and came to a junction.
Several trenches crossed at this point, but the locality seemed new to
him. He had not been there before.
"Well, I'm damned," he said, and then added, "I'm lost as well." He
realised the danger of his plight and felt uncomfortable. Stories were
often told over braziers in the dim trench traverse, and many of these
stories spoke of men who went astray in the trenches and never returned.
Sometimes the lost soldiers found themselves in the enemy's lines, and
on other occasions they wandered up to their home parapets to fall a
victim to the rifle of a nervous sentry. Fitzgerald had heard many of
these stories and he recollected them now.
Much fighting had recently taken place on Vimy Ridge and the English and
German trenches criss-crossed in several localities; in some places both
parties occupied the same trenches.
Fitzgerald, alone and astray, had no definite idea of his position; he
only knew that he was lost at the cross-trenches and did not know which
trench led to safety. Perhaps he had passed beyond the British front. He
peered over the top. The night was quiet, scarcely a rifle spoke, though
many star shells were ablaze in the heavens and dropping petals of flame
to the dark earth.... Right in front of Fitzgerald was a ghastly heap,
jumbled and confused, a heap of dead men. And round this heap lay other
dead things, rejected from the more composite and bulky distortion of
war. The solitary figures lay--some face downwards, arms spread out,
others curled up like sleeping dogs.
"Well, where am I?" asked Fitzgerald. "Whose starshell is that, ours or
theirs?... Where's our line?"
He looked at a dead thing near him and shuddered. Then, shouldering his
rifle, he made his way up the trench on his right.
"This is all right!" he muttered, passing a projecting beam of a fallen
dug-out. "I passed this a minute ago ... but not this."
He detached himself awkwardly from the heap of limp bodies into which he
had fallen and hurriedly retraced his steps to the junction where the
dark trenches opened up to unknown mysteries.
Fitzgerald leant wearily against the wall and puzzled over many things.
"If I go over the top, what happens?" he asked himself. "Run into a
German patrol, maybe, or into one of our own covering parties and
they'll shoot me on sight. If I go along a trench, I'll probably get
into the German lines. That won't do, either. I'm like a rat in a
trap.... But I must get out of it. Yes, I must get out of it.... But
how?"
The question caused a queer sensation to run down the innermost parts of
his body and the sensation was one of fear. He mumbled many things to
himself in a thick, quick undertone. Then, without realising the risks
he ran, Fitzgerald crawled over the parapet and went out into the open,
taking his rifle with him.
It was a man lying face downwards on the ground that attracted his
attention first. He could have sworn that the man moved and brought a
rifle to bear upon him. Fitzgerald stood upright and fired at the man
twice, only to find that he was riddling a corpse with bullets. He flung
himself flat to avoid the machine gun that opened fire and waited till
it ceased its play. A galaxy of starshells lit up the heavens and a big
shell of another pattern whirled across the open and burst with a dizzy
clatter. In the distance could be heard the transports of war clattering
along the roads, the clank of rails unleaded at some far-off railway
siding, and gleaming luridly against the darkness could be seen the
flames of a building on fire some dozen miles away. Near Fitzgerald lay
a dead man, further off another, looking like an empty sack flung on the
ground.
The maxim fire stammered into silence and the youth got to his feet,
looked round and listened with strained ears. Somewhere near he could
hear the sound of hammers and the creaking of shovels and he concluded
that a working party was busy at its toil. It was impossible to
determine to what side the party belonged. It might be German. The lines
of trenches were very confused and salients projected out like ducks'
bills in places, and at other points they receded some five hundred
yards from the opposite front. No man was ever more solitary than poor,
mud-stained Rifleman Fitzgerald at that moment.
And the night was full of mysterious whispers, sounds, creakings and
rustlings. Spirits seemed to lurk on the vacant face of the earth and
uncanny spirits hovered over the world. In the near distance all objects
took on strange, undefined shapes, well in keeping with the grotesque
fantasy of war.... Suddenly Fitzgerald fancied that he heard somewhere
near him the sharp snap of a rifle bolt. He turned round and scurried
back to the trench which he had just left. It seemed quite a distance to
traverse and he slipped over the parapet and flopped down into the mud.
But not a soul was to be seen, the trench was deserted. Neither was it
the trench which he had left. Here the slush reached his hips. "Well,
I'm damned!" he said, and leant against the parapet. "What am I going to
do? I'm going to stick here, stick well in."
Shadow and silence brooded over the place, he had descended into the
stagnation of the tomb. The clammy slush ran down his top boots and
settled round his heels. He advanced one step, then another, touching
both walls of the alley with his outstretched hands. He looked up and
saw that the walls were very steep. It was impossible to climb up; the
clay was too soft, it came away in the hands, and his feet were so
weighty. Besides now he was sticking. Every time he moved the mud
gripped him with greater vehemence. It seemed as if his feet were
slipping down the throat of a voracious monster which was endeavouring
to swallow him. The floor of the trench was a treacherous quicksand, as
greedy as the grave. For a moment, Fitzgerald fought madly against the
embrace of this soft, elusive terror, he gripped at the walls, the mud
came away in his hands, he pulled one foot out, the other sank deeper.
To move was ghastly, to remain still was deadly.
"I must move," he muttered. "If I don't I'll die; if I make a struggle,
my fate will rest on the knees of the gods and they may save me."
The mud was reaching his waist. To pull out one leg he had to reach
forward until his face touched the mucky floor, raise his hind foot
clear, bring it round with a circular motion and place it down in the
slush again. The same operation had to be performed at each remove.
Once, he placed his hands in the muck and tried to crawl. But the effort
was futile; his hands sunk in to the shoulder and the earth rose
greedily, as if wanting to clutch him.
Fitzgerald came to a halt and looked hopelessly round. Nothing was to be
seen but the darkness; the night was a cavern in which he had got lost.
He gripped at the wall of the trench with furious fingers and part of
the parapet came away in his hands, almost burying him.
"It's no good. I'm going to peg out here," he said, as he tried to shake
himself clear. "If I only had a starshell over my head I'd look for a
spot to die. I would select a better spot than this, anyway, if I had
choice. But they've stopped sending up starshells now.... And I should
have a parcel by the post to-night," he muttered. "And another drop of
rum will be going round now I think.... But is that all I've to think
about?..."
He shouted at the top of his voice, but there was no reply. He yelled
again and then became silent. "What's the good of it?" he asked himself
in a whisper. "I don't know where I am. Maybe I'm near the German
trenches. If they find me here what will they do? Tread me in,
probably.... And the mine, what about it? I've still got the message in
my pocket. I wish this had happened after I had delivered the thing. But
I'll go on a bit. I'll get to somewhere."
He moved forward. The first step was difficult, the next was easier, the
subsoil had lost its birdlime tenacity and the slush was not as dense. A
few steps further and Fitzgerald breathed. He was going up an incline,
getting out of it his head was almost parallel with the rim of the
trench. He burst into song:
"Four stick standers,
Four lilly wanders,
A hooker
And a crooker
And a swing about.
Three sheep sharahan,
Owned by Eamon Garahan,
A ribag
And a thonag
And a coat of bawnagh brockagh."
The song suddenly stopped. A heavy shell swept over his head and burst
very near. Another followed and another and Fitzgerald noticed that he
had reached a junction where a number of trenches criss-crossed.
"Another damned labyrinth," he muttered. "Out you get, on to the top,
Rifleman Fitzgerald," he ordered, apostrophising himself. And out he did
get. It was now he discovered that his rifle had vanished, "Oh, I
suppose it's in the mud," he muttered. "Lucky I'm not."
A trench showed some distance away. He made for it, slipped over the
parapet and landed on something soft which moved.
"Gawd Orlmighty! Wot the ---- are yer ---- up ter," said a soldier,
rising from the mud.
"They're shelling us," said Fitzgerald. "You'd better rouse up. What
trench is this?"
"The support," said the man, "We're waitin' for a mine to go up or
somefing."
The rest of the men were standing at their posts, alert and ready. The
enemy had become nasty and were using an exceptionally heavy shell on
the sector, but as yet it was bursting wide.
"A nine-point-two," somebody remarked to Fitzgerald, adding: "And Gawd!
it doesn't 'arf send the dirt flyin' about. They'll attack, maybe."
"Any officers near here, Spudhole?" Fitzgerald asked, for he had
recognised the voice of his comrade Bubb.
"'Orficers," said Spudhole. "Yes, Cap'n Thorley was about 'ere a minute
ago; 'e.... Gor blimey, there's the shell again!"
Fitzgerald listened and heard "her" coming, crooning out the unknown. It
was the big shell. Gathering volume it approached, an inevitable terror,
a messenger of death. There was a hurried stampede to a near dug-out and
Fitzgerald found himself in the crush and carried forward into the dark
recess of a deep shelter. In the next few moments he was conscious of
many things, of a sudden fall to the soft, muddy floor, of a choking
sensation in the throat, a monstrously futile effort to drag himself
clear of the man who fell on top of him, of nervous laughter and fierce
imprecations. Then he sank into forgetfulness. The shell had blown the
dug-out in on its occupants.