A FIELD OF BATTLE
The men who stand to their rifles
See all the dead on the plain
Rise at the hour of midnight
To fight their battles again.
Each to his place in the combat,
All to the parts they played,
With bayonet brisk to its purpose,
With rifle and hand-grenade.
Shadow races with shadow,
Steel comes quick on steel,
Swords that are deadly silent,
And shadows that do not feel.
And shades recoil and recover,
And fade away as they fall
In the space between the trenches,
And the watchers see it all.
I lay down in the trench and was just dropping off to sleep when a
message came along the trench.
"Any volunteers to help to carry out wounded?" was the call.
Four of us volunteered and a guide conducted us along to the firing
line. He was a soldier of the 23rd London, the regiment which had made
the charge the night before; he limped a little, a dejected look (p. 201)
was in his face and his whole appearance betokened great weariness.
"How did you get on last night?" I asked him.
"My God! my God!" he muttered, and seemed to be gasping for breath. "I
suppose there are some of us left yet, but they'll be very few."
"Did you capture the trench?"
"They say we did," he answered, and it seemed as if he were speaking
of an incident in which he had taken no part. "But what does it
matter? There's few of us left."
We entered the main communication trench, one just like the others,
narrow and curving round buttresses at every two or three yards. The
floor was covered with blood, not an inch of it was free from the dark
reddish tint.
"My God, my God," said the 23rd man, and he seemed to be repeating the
phrase without knowing what he said. "The wounded have been going down
all night, all morning and they're only beginning to come."
A youth of nineteen or twenty sat in a niche in the trench, naked to
the waist save where a bandaged-arm rested in a long arm-sling.
"How goes it, matey?" I asked.
"Not at all bad, chummie," he replied bravely; then as a spasm of (p. 202)
pain shot through him he muttered under his breath, "Oh! oh!"
A little distance along we met another; he was ambling painfully down
the trench, supporting himself by resting his arms on the shoulders of
a comrade.
"Not so quick, matey," I heard him say, "Go quiet like and mind the
stones. When you hit one of them it's a bit thick you know. I'm sorry
to trouble you."
"It's all right, old man," said the soldier in front. "I'll try and be
as easy as I can."
We stood against the wall of the trench to let them go by. Opposite us
they came to a dead stop. The wounded man was stripped to the waist,
and a bandage, white at one time but now red with blood, was tied
round his shoulder. His face was white and drawn except over his cheek
bones. There the flesh, tightly drawn, glowed crimson as poppies.
"Have you any water to spare, chummy?" he asked.
"We've been told not to give water to wounded men," I said.
"I know that," he answered. "But just a drop to rinse out my mouth!
I've lain out between the lines all night. Just to rinse my mouth, (p. 203)
chummy!"
I drew the cork from my water bottle and held it to his lips, he took
a mouthful, paused irresolutely for a moment and a greedy light shone
in his eyes. Then he spat the water on the floor of the trench.
"Thank you, chummy, thank you," he said, and the sorrowful journey was
resumed.
Where the road from the village is cut through by the trench we came
on a stretcher lying on the floor. On it lay a man, or rather, part of
a man, for both his arms had been blown off near the shoulders. A
waterproof ground sheet, covered with mud lay across him, the two
stumps stuck out towards the stretcher-poles. One was swathed in
bandages, the other had come bare, and a white bone protruded over a
red rag which I took to be a first field dressing. Two men who had
been busy helping the wounded all morning and the night before carried
the stretcher to here, through the tortuous cutting. One had now
dropped out, utterly exhausted. He lay in the trench, covered with
blood from head to foot and gasping. His mate smoked a cigarette
leaning against the revêtement.
"Reliefs?" he asked, and we nodded assent. (p. 204)
"These are the devil's own trenches," he said. "The stretcher must be
carried at arms length over the head all the way, even an empty
stretcher cannot be carried through here."
"Can we go out on the road?" asked one of my mates; an Irishman
belonging to another section.
"It'll be a damned sorry road for you if you go out. They're always
shelling it."
"Who is he?" I asked pointing to the figure on the stretcher. He was
unconscious; morphia, that gift of Heaven, had temporarily relieved
him of his pain.
"He's an N.C.O., we found him lying out between the trenches," said
the stretcher-bearer. "He never lost consciousness. When we tried to
raise him, he got up to his feet and ran away, yelling. The pain must
have been awful."
"Has the trench been captured?"
"Of course it has," said the stretcher-bearer, an ironical smile
hovering around his eyes. "It has been a grand victory. Trench taken
by Territorials, you'll see in the papers. And there'll be pictures
too, of the gallant charge. Heavens! they should see between the (p. 205)
trenches where the men are blown to little pieces."
The cigarette which he held between his blood-stained fingers dropped
to the ground; he did not seem to notice it fall.
We carried the wounded man out to the road and took our way down
towards Givenchy. The route was very quiet; now and then a rifle
bullet flew by; but apart from that there was absolute peace. We
turned in on the Brick Pathway and had got half way down when a shell
burst fifty yards behind us. There was a moment's pause, a shower of
splinters flew round and above us, the stretcher sank towards the
ground and almost touched. Then as if all of us had become suddenly
ashamed of some intended action, we straightened our backs and walked
on. We placed the stretcher on a table in the dressing-room and turned
back. Two days later the armless man died in hospital.
The wounded were still coming out; we met another party comprised of
our own men. The wounded soldier who lay on the stretcher had both
legs broken and held in place with a rifle splint; he also had a
bayonet tourniquet round the thick of his arm. The poor fellow was (p. 206)
in great agony. The broken bones were touching one another at every
move. Now and again he spoke and his question was always the same:
"Are we near the dressing station yet?"
That night I slept in the trench, slept heavily. I put my equipment
under me, that kept the damp away from my bones. In the morning Stoner
told an amusing story. During the night he wanted to see Bill, but did
not know where the Cockney slept.
"Where's Bill?" he said.
"Bill," I replied, speaking though asleep.
"Bill, yes," said Stoner.
"Bill," I muttered turning on my side, seeking a more comfortable
position.
"Do you know where Bill is?" shouted Stoner.
"Bill!" I repeated again.
"Yes, Bill!" he said, "Bill. B-i-double l, Bill. Where is here?"
"He's here," I said getting to my feet and holding out my water
bottle. "In here." And I pulled out the cork.
I was twitted about this all day. I remembered nothing of the incident
of the water bottle although in some vague way I recollected (p. 207)
Stoner asking me about Bill.
On the following day I had a chance of visiting the scene of the
conflict. All the wounded were now carried away, only the dead
remained, as yet unburied.
The men were busy in the trench which lay on the summit of a slope;
the ground dipped in the front and rear. The field I came across was
practically "dead ground" as far as rifle fire was concerned. Only one
place, the wire front of the original German trench, was dangerous.
This was "taped out" as our boys say, by some hidden sniper. Already
the parados was lined with newly-made firing positions, that gave the
sentry view of the German trench some forty or fifty yards in front.
All there was very quiet now but our men were making every preparation
for a counter attack. The Engineers had already placed some barbed
wire down; they had been hard at it the night before; I could see the
hastily driven piles, the loosely flung intricate lines of wire flung
down anyhow. The whole work was part of what is known as
"consolidation of our position."
Many long hours of labour had yet to be expended on the trench (p. 208)
before a soldier could sleep at ease in it. Now that the fighting had
ceased for a moment the men had to bend their backs to interminable
fatigues. The war, as far as I have seen it is waged for the most part
with big guns and picks and shovels. The history of the war is a
history of sandbags and shells.