by the 10th Company, and made our way back along the communication
trenches to our old positions. Here we remained until the third day,
standing by at night and passing two days without sleep. We were hardly
able to get our meals. From every side firing was going on, and shots came
plugging two metres deep into the ground. This was my baptism of fire. It
cannot be described as it really is—something like an earthquake, when the
big shells come at one and make holes in the ground large enough to hold
forty or fifty men comfortably. How easy and comfortable seemed our road
back to the huts.
We remained in the huts for three days, resting before we went up again to
“Hell Fire,” as they call the first line trenches in front of Ypres.
Then suddenly in the middle of the night an alarm. Our neighbors had
allowed themselves to be driven out of our hard-won position, and the 6th
Company, with the 8th and 5th, had to make good the lost ground. A hasty
march through the communication trenches up to the front, the night lit up
far and wide with searchlights and flares and ourselves in a long chain
lying on our bellies. Towards two in the morning the Englishmen came on,
1500 men strong. The battle may be imagined. About 200 returned to the
line they started from. Over 1300 dead and wounded lay on the ground. Six
machine guns and a quantity of rifles and equipment were taken back by us,
the 132d Regiment, and the old position was once more in our possession.
What our neighbors lost the 132d regained. There was free beer that
evening and a concert! At 11 P.M. once more we withdrew to the rear, our
2d, 4th and 10th Companies relieving us. We slept a whole day and night
like the dead.
On June 15th, we again went back to rest billets, but towards midday we
were once more sent up to the front line to reinforce our right wing,
which was attacked by French and English. Just as we got to our trenches
we were greeted by a heavy shell fire, the shells falling in front of our
parapets, making the sandbags totter. Seeing this, I sprang to the spot
and held the whole thing together till the others hurried up to my
assistance. Just as I was about to let go, I must have got my head too
high above the parapet, as I got shot in the scalp. In the excitement I
did not at once realize that I was wounded, until Gubbert said—“Hullo,
Musch! Why, you’re bleeding!” The stretcher-bearer tied me up, and I had
to go back to the dressing-station to be examined. Happily it was nothing
more than a mere scalp wound, and I was only obliged to remain on the
sick-list four days, having the place attended to.
June 24th. All quiet in the West, except for sniping. The weather is such
that no offensive can take place. The English will never have a better
excuse for inactivity than this—“It is raining.” Thank God for that! Less
dust to swallow to-day! Odd that here in Belgium we are delighted with the
rain, while in Germany they are watching it with anxiety.
To-day we shall probably be relieved. Then we go to Menin to rest. Ten
days without coming under fire. It is Paradise!
Sunday, June 27th. At nine o’clock clean up. At eleven roll-call. At three
o’clock went to the Cinema—very fine pictures. In the afternoon all the
men danced till seven, but we had to take each other for partners—no
girls.
July 2d. 11 P.M. Alarm. Three persons have been arrested who refused to
make sandbags. They were pulled out of bed and carried off. Eight o’clock
marched to drill. This lasts till 11. Then 1 to 4 rest. Six, physical
drill and games. I went to the Cinema in the evening.
July 6th. Inspection till eleven. Three hours standing in the sun—enough
to drive me silly. Twenty-three men fell out. Three horses also affected
by the heat. Eleven to one Parade march—in the sun. Thirty-six more men
reported sick. I was very nearly one of them.
July 9th. Preparation for departure. From seven to ten pack up kits.
Eleven, roll-call. One-thirty, march to light railway. At seven reached
firing trench. The English are firing intermittently over our heads;
otherwise, all is quiet. We are now on the celebrated,
much-bewritten-about “Hill 60.” Night passes without incident.
July 12th. At three in the morning the enemy makes a gas attack. We put on
respirators. Rifle in hand we leap from the trenches and assault. In front
of Hill 60 the enemy breaks, and we come into possession of a trench.
Rapid digging. Counter-attack repulsed. At nine o’clock all is quiet, only
the artillery still popping. This evening we are to be relieved. The 132d
Regiment is much beloved by the English! In a dugout we found two labels.
One of them had the following writing on it: “God strafe the 132d Regiment
(not ‘God strafe England’ this time). Sergeant Scott (?) Remington,
Sewster Wall (?).” On the other was, “I wish the Devil would take you, you
pigs.”
At 7.20 Hill 60 is bombarded by artillery, and shakes thirty to fifty
metres, as if from an earthquake. Two English companies blown into the
air—a terrible picture. Dug-outs, arms, equipment—all blown to bits.
July 17th. Marched to new quarters. We have got a new captain. He wants to
see the company, so at 8 A.M. drill in pouring rain. Four times we have to
lie on our belly, and get wet through and through. All the men grumbling
and cursing. At eleven we are dismissed. I, with a bad cold and a
headache. I wish this soldiering were all over.
July 19th. At seven sharp we marched off to our position. Heavy
bombardment. At nine we were buried by a shell. I know no more. At eleven
I found myself lying in the Field Hospital. I have pains inside me over my
lungs; and headache, and burning in the joints.
July 20th. The M.O. has had a look at me. He says my stomach and left lung
are suffering from the pressure which was put on them. The principal
remedy is rest.
July 21st. Thirty-nine degrees of fever (temp. 100° Fahr.). Stay in bed
and sleep, and oh! how tired I am!
July 22d. I slept all day. Had milk and white bread to eat.
July 26th. Returned to duty with three days’ exemption, i.e., we do not
have any outdoor work.
July 28th and 29th. Still on exemption. Nothing to do but sleep and think
of home and of my dear wife and daughter. But dreaming does not bring
peace any sooner. How I would love an hour or two back home.
July 31st. In rest. Baths going. Duke of Württemberg passed through our
camp.
August 1st. Up to the trenches. Shrapnel flying like flies. A heavy
bombardment; bombardment of Hooge. Second Battalion, 132d Regiment, sent
up to reinforce 126th Regiment, which has already lost half its men.
August 4th. Heavy artillery fire the whole night. The English are
concentrating 50,000 Indians on our front to attack Hooge and Hill 60.
Just let them come, we shall stand firm. At three marched off to the
front. Watch beginning again. Five o’clock marched off to the Witches’
Cauldron, Hooge. A terrible night again. H.E. and shrapnel without number.
Oh, thrice-cursed Hooge! In one hour eleven killed and twenty-three
wounded and the fire unceasing. It is enough to drive one mad, and we have
to spend three days and three nights more. It is worse than an earthquake,
and any one who has not experienced it can have no idea what it is like.
The English fired a mine, a hole fifteen metres deep and fifty to sixty
broad, and this “cauldron” has to be occupied at night. At present it
isn’t too badly shelled. At every shot the dug-outs sway to and fro like a
weather-cock. This life we have to stick to for months. One needs nerves
of steel and iron. Now I must crawl into our hole, as trunks and branches
of trees fly in our trench like spray.
August 6th. To-night moved to the crater again, half running and half
crawling. At seven a sudden burst of fire from the whole of the artillery.
From about eleven yesterday fires as if possessed. This morning at four we
fall back. We find the 126th have no communication with the rear, as the
communication trenches have been completely blown in. The smoke and thirst
are enough to drive one mad. Our cooker doesn’t come up. The 126th gives
us bread and coffee from the little they have. If only it would stop! We
get direct hits one after another and lie in a sort of dead end, cut off
from all communication. If only it were night. What a feeling to be
thinking every second when I shall get it! ---- has just fallen, the third
man in our platoon. Since eight the fire has been unceasing; the earth
shakes and we with it. Will God ever bring us out of this fire? I have
said the Lord’s Prayer and am resigned.
-------------------------------------
To-day I saw the “Mound of Death” at Saint-Eloi; it has been mined a
number of times, and thousands of shells have beaten it into a disorderly
heap of earth; the trenches are twenty-five yards apart; all the grass and
vegetation has been blown away and never has had time to grow up again.
It’s all arranged for you, if there’s a bit of shell or a bullet with your
name on it you’ll get it, so you’ve nothing to worry about. You are a
soldier—then be one. This is the philosophy of the trenches.
-------------------------------------
[Illustration]
What’s The Use?
War is a great ager. Young men grow old quickly here. It can be seen in
their faces; they have lost all the irresponsibility of youth. I have met
many men who have been here since Mons; they all look weary and worn out
by the strain. Now new troops are coming forward and it is hoped that they
will be able to send some back for a rest.
Several days ago the adjutant of the Tenth Battalion Sherwood Foresters
came to me with this message which was sent through our lines:—
-------------------------------------
Arrest Officer Royal Engineers with orderly. Former, six feet, black
moustache, web equipment, revolver. Latter, short, carries rifle, canvas
bandolier. Please warn transports and all concerned.
-------------------------------------
Everybody kept a good lookout for these spies. One sentry surprised a real
R.E. officer named Perkins who was working out a drainage scheme. Seeming
to answer the above description, he stalked him,—“Come ’ere, you ----
----, you’re the ---- I’ve been looking for.” The officer, nonplussed,
commenced to stutter. “Sergeant, I’ve got ’im and he can’t speak a word of
English.” The sergeant collected him in and guarded him until another
engineer officer, known to the guard, came along. As soon as Perkins saw
him, he said, “F-r-r-ed, t-t-tell this d-d-damn fool wh-ho I am.” “Who the
hell are you calling Fred? I don’t know him; hold him, sergeant, he’s a
desperate one.” Scarcely able to contain his joy, Fred went back to the
Engineers’ Camp to tell the great news and Perkins spent three hours in
the sandbag dugout listening to a description of what the sergeant and his
guard would do to him if they only had their way.
The real spies, who did a great deal of damage, were finally rounded up
and shot in a listening post trying to regain their own lines.
-------------------------------------
Enemy snipers give us a great deal of trouble. It is very difficult to
locate them. One of our men tried out an original scheme. He put an empty
biscuit tin on the parapet. Immediately the sniper put a bullet through
it. Now thought the Genius, “If I look through the two holes it will give
me my direction,”—so getting up on the firestep he looked through, only to
roll over with the top of his head smashed off by a bullet. The sniper was
shooting his initials on the tin.
-------------------------------------
We are all used to dead bodies or pieces of men, so much so that we are
not troubled by the sight of them. There was a right hand sticking out of
the trench in the position of a man trying to shake hands with you, and as
the men filed out they would often grip it and say, “So long, old top,
we’ll be back again soon.” One man had the misfortune to be buried in such
a way that the bald part of the head showed. It had been there a long time
and was sun-dried. Tommy used him to strike his matches on. A corpse in a
trench is quite a feature, and is looked for when the men come back again
to the same trench.
We live mostly on bully beef and hard tack. The first is corned beef and
the second is a kind of dog biscuit. We always wondered why they were so
particular about a man’s teeth in the army. Now I know. It’s on account of
these biscuits. The chief ingredient is, I think, cement, and they taste
that way too. To break them it is necessary to use the handle of your
entrenching tool or a stone. We have fried, baked, mashed, boiled,
toasted, roasted, poached, hashed, devilled them alone and together with
bully beef, and we have still to find a way of making them into
interesting food.
However, the Boche likes our beef. He prefers the brand canned in Chicago
to his own, and will almost sit up and beg if we throw some over to him.
The method is as follows: Throw one over ... sounds of shuffling and
getting out of the way are heard in the enemy trench. Fritz thinks it’s
going to go off. Pause, and throw another. Fritz not so suspicious this
time. Keep on throwing until happy voices from enemy trenches shout,
“More! Give us more!” Then lob over as many hand grenades as you can pile
into that part of the trench and tell them to share those too.
It takes some time to distinguish whether shells are arrivals or
departures, but after a while you get into the way of telling their
direction and size by sound. Roads are constantly shelled, searching for
troops or supply columns. I was coming home to-day, up a road which ran
approximately at right angles to main fire trenches. At one place the road
was exposed for a matter of thirty or forty feet, and again farther up it
was necessary to go over the brow of a small hill. This was about three
hundred yards farther on and was exposed to the enemy’s view. Thinking
they wouldn’t bother about a single rider on a motor cycle, I went up past
the first exposed position. My carburetor was giving me some trouble and I
thought I would see if any rain had got into it, so I turned off the road
down a cross-road and dismounted when _crash_! a shell landed right in the
middle of the road as far up the exposed place as I was round the corner.
Then five more followed the first shell. Had I gone on I could not
possibly have missed collecting most of the fragments. The German gunners
had spotted me in the first position and decided that a lone man on a
motor cycle must be either an officer or despatch rider. So they tried to
get him. The shells were shrapnel and the time was calculated splendidly.
They had taken into consideration the speed of my motor cycle. Cross-roads
are particularly attended to, for there is a double chance of hitting
something, and in consequence it is always unhealthy to linger on a
crossroad.
-------------------------------------
Dugouts are often made very comfortable with windows, tiled floors and
furniture taken from neighboring shattered chateaux. I have even seen them
with flowers growing in window-boxes over the entrance. They all have
names. Some I saw yesterday were called “Anti-Krupp Cottage,” “Pleasant
View,” and “Little Grey Home in the West.” There was one very homey site,
well equipped and fitted, which had been dubbed the “Nut,”—the colonel
lived there.
My old corps brought an aeroplane down with a machine gun last night. They
were in a shell hole between the main and support trenches.
For the last few days I have been “up” looking for gun positions.
The lice are getting to be a torment. You have no idea how bad they are.
Everybody up here is infested with them. I have tried smearing myself with
kerosene, but that does not seem to trouble them at all. Silk underwear is
supposed to keep them down. I suppose their feet slip on the shiny
surface.
The food lately has taken on a wonderful flavor and I now know how
dissolved German tastes. The cook, instead of sending back two miles for
water to cook with, has been using water from the moat in which a Boche
had been slowly disintegrating.
To-day I was able to see what a German seventeen-inch shell could do; one
had made a crater fifty feet across and twenty feet deep in the middle of
the road. The top of the road was paved—think it over—and pieces kill at a
thousand yards. Thirty horses were buried in another hole.
-------------------------------------
I have been given a special job by the general to enfilade a wood over the
Mound. I have my section now in the second-line trenches waiting till it
is dark before making a move. We have to make a machine-gun emplacement in
a piece of ground which is decidedly unhealthy to visit during daylight. I
have been there in daylight, but I had to creep out of it. On the map it
is called a farm, but the highest wall is only three feet six inches high.
-------------------------------------
Arrived home about two o’clock this morning. We crawled to the place we
have to take up, and I put some men filling sandbags in the ruins and
others even digging a dugout. The enemy had “the wind up” and were using a
great number of star shells. When one goes up we all “freeze,” remain
motionless, or lie still. They send them up to see across their front, and
if they locate a working party, then they start playing a tune with their
machine guns. Bullets and shells whistled through the trees all the time.
They seemed to come from all directions. The men didn’t like it at all. I
wasn’t altogether comfortable myself, but an officer must keep going. I
walked about and joked and laughed with them. The range-taker said, “Some
of us are getting the didley-i-dums, Sir.” I don’t know what that is, but
I had a feeling that I had them too.
Of course, to start with, everybody thinks every single shell and bullet
is coming straight for him. Then you find out how much space there is
around you. One man came to tell me that two men were firing at him with
his own rifle from the ruins of the alleged farmhouse, ten yards away from
the dugout we are making. Just then a field mouse squeaked, and he jumped
up in the air and said, “There’s another.” I told the men to fill sandbags
from the ruins; they all crowded behind this three-foot-six wall for
protection; they dug up a French needle bayonet—that was all right, but
they afterwards dug up a rifle and I noticed a suspicious smell, so I
moved them.
We came home very tired. We are attacking Hooge, a counter-attack, to take
back trenches lost in the liquid fire attack—you will hear what we did
from the papers, probably in three months’ time.
-------------------------------------
I’m writing this in a new home, this time a splinter-proof dugout. The
Huns are again strafing us—last shell burst fifty yards away a few minutes
ago. Several times since I started writing I have had to shake off the
dust and debris thrown by shell bursts on to these pages. I was again
sniped at with shrapnel this morning on my machine while reconnoitering
the roads—they all missed, but they’re not nice. I’m filthy, alive, and
covered with huge mosquito bites; you get sort of used to the incessant
din in time. Even the forty-two centimeter shells, which make a row like
freight trains with loose couplings going through the air, are not so
terrible now.
Through a hole in my dugout I can see the Huns’ shells Kulturing a
chateau. It was once a very beautiful place with a moat, bridges, and
splendid gardens. Now it’s useless except that the timber and the
furniture come in useful for our dugouts and the making of “duck walks,”
the grated walks which line the bottom of the trenches.
Last night I was sitting in the Medical Officer’s dugout when a man I knew
came in. He was an officer in the Second Gordons. “I feel pretty bad,
doc.” He explained his symptoms. “Trench fever; you go down the line.”
“No, fix me up for tonight and maybe I won’t need anything else.” He
didn’t! All that is left of him is being buried now, less than a hundred
yards from where I write this.
-------------------------------------
Before I came here I had to go to another part of the line, in which the
“Princess Pats” distinguished themselves. We have been hanging on ever
since, and a mighty stiff proposition it is. The O.C. to-day told me that
he had not slept for fifty-six hours. The Germans in one place are only
twenty-five yards away—so close that conversation is carried on in a
whisper.
In one place they had stuck up a board with “Warsaw Captured” on it.
My section worked until two o’clock and then the sandbags gave out, so we
had to come home. This was a disappointment to me. I wanted to get the job
finished. My men went on filling sandbags from the same place last night
and discovered the remains of the late owner of the sword bayonet. He has
now been decently buried, with a little wooden cross marked—
TO AN UNKNOWN FRENCH SOLDIER
R.I.P.
When you read in the newspapers, that a trench was lost or taken, just
think what it means. Think what happens to the men in the trenches; that’s
the part of it we see. Stretchers pass by all day. Since I have been here
the cemetery has grown—a new mound—a simple wooden cross. Nobody talks
about it, but everybody wonders who’s next. The men here are splendid, the
best in the world, and the officers are gentlemen.
[Illustration]
A French Soldier.
-------------------------------------
We have moved to the famous Langhof Chateau on the Lille road. This is
supposed to have belonged to Hennessey of “Three Star” fame, but the
Germans had been through the wine cellars. We looked very, very carefully,
but only found empties. My batman has made me comfortable. I’m writing
this on a washstand; in front of me I have a bunch of roses in a broken
vase. My trench coat is hanging on a nail from a coat-hanger. A large
piece of broken wardrobe mirror has been nailed up to a beam for my use.
One of the men just came in to ask if a trousers press would be of any
use. We have a fine little bureau cupboard of carved oak; we use this for
the rations. A pump, repaired with the leather from a German helmet, has
been persuaded to work and has been busy ever since. The roof of my cellar
is arched brick and has a few tons of fallen debris on the floor upstairs.
That strengthens it. It is shored up from inside with rafters. This makes
the roof shell-proof, except for big shells, and the enemy always use big
shells. The cellar floors are concrete.
It is very strange the lightness with which serious things are taken by
men here, and it took me some time to understand it. I met a young captain
of the Royal Marine Artillery who was in charge of a battery of trench
mortars. He was telling me of how one of his mortars and the crew were
wiped out by a direct hit. He referred to it as though he had just missed
his train.
Two days later I went up with the Machine-Gun Officer of the Second
Gordons to look at a piece of ground. To get there we had to crawl on our
hands and knees. In one part of our journey we came to a sunken road. The
day was fine, so we lay there. He asked me about Canada. He wanted to know
something about the settler’s grant. He said: “Of course you know after a
chap has been out here in the open, it will be impossible to go back again
to office life.” I boosted Canada and suddenly the irony of the situation
occurred to me. Here we were lying down in a road quite close to the
German lines, so close that it would be suicide to even stand up, and yet
here we were calmly discussing the merits of Canadian emigration. I
commented on this and he replied: “My dear fellow, when you have been out
as long as I have, you will come to realize that being at the front is a
period of intense boredom punctuated by periods of intense fear, and that
if you allow yourself to be carried away by depression it will be your
finish.” He had been out since just after Mons.
I remembered this and I found that the nonchalant and care-free attitude
of the average British officer was really a mask and simulated to keep his
mind off the whole beastly business: this great big dirty job which white
people must do.
I was sitting one afternoon by the side of the canal bank about two
hundred yards in front of my chateau having tea with the officers of the
East Yorks when suddenly the chateau-smashing started again. To go back
was dangerous and useless. My men were under cover, resting, so that they
would be ready for the night work. The shelling was intermittent. One
shell went over and presently I heard _crack_,—_crack_,—_boom_, _crack_,
_crack_,—_crack_; my heart was in my boots and I was unable to move.