IN THE WATCHES OF THE NIGHT
"What do you do with your rifle, son?" I clean it every day,
And rub it with an oily rag to keep the rust away;
I slope, present and port the thing when sweating on parade.
I strop my razor on the sling; the bayonet stand is made
For me to hang my mirror on. I often use it, too,
As handle for the dixie, sir, and lug around the stew.
"But did you ever fire it, son?" Just once, but never more.
I fired it at a German trench, and when my work was o'er
The sergeant down the barrel glanced, and looked at me and said,
"Your hipe is dirty, sloppy Jim; an extra hour's parade!"
The hour was midnight. Over me and about me was the wonderful French
summer night; the darkness, blue and transparent, splashed with
star-shells, hung around me and gathered itself into a dark streak on
the floor of the trench beneath the banquette on which I stood. Away
on my right were the Hills of Lorette, Souchez, and the Labyrinth
where big guns eternally spoke, and where the searchlights now touched
the heights with long tremulous white arms. To my left the star-shells
rose and fell in brilliant riot above the battle-line that (p. 293)
disfigured the green meadows between my trench and Ypres, and out on
my front a thousand yards away were the German trenches with the dead
wasting to clay amid the poppy-flowers in the spaces between. The
dug-out, in which my mates rested and dreamt, lay silent in the dun
shadows of the parados.
Suddenly a candle was lit inside the door, and I could see our
corporal throw aside the overcoat that served as blanket and place the
tip of a cigarette against the spluttering flame. Bill slept beside
the corporal's bed, his head on a bully beef tin, and one naked arm,
sunned and soiled to a khaki tint, lying slack along the earthen
floor. The corporal came out puffing little curls of smoke into the
night air.
"Quiet?" he asked.
"Dull enough, here," I answered. "But there's no peace up by Souchez."
"So I can hear," he answered, flicking the ash from his cigarette and
gazing towards the hills where the artillery duel was raging. "Have
the working parties come up yet?" he asked.
"Not yet," I answered, "but I think I hear men coming now."
They came along the trench, about two hundred strong, engineers (p. 294)
and infantry, men carrying rifles, spades, coils of barbed wire,
wooden supports, &c. They were going out digging on a new sap and
putting up fresh wire entanglements. This work, when finished, would
bring our fire trench three hundred yards nearer the enemy. Needless
to say, the Germans were engaged on similar work, and they were
digging out towards our lines.
The working party came to a halt; and one of them sat down on the
banquette at my feet, asked for a match and lit a cigarette.
"You're in the village at the rear?" I said.
"We're reserves there," he answered. "It's always working-parties; at
night and at day. Sweeping gutters and picking papers and bits of stew
from the street. Is it quiet here?"
"Very quiet," I answered. "We've only had five killed and nine wounded
in six days. How is your regiment getting along?"
"Oh, not so bad," said the man; "some go west at times, but it's what
one has to expect out here."
The working party were edging off, and some of the men were clambering
over the parapet.
"Hi! Ginger!" someone said in a loud whisper, "Ginger Weeson; (p. 295)
come along at once!"
The man on the banquette got to his feet, put out his cigarette and
placed the fag-end in his cartridge pouch. He would smoke this when he
returned, on the neutral ground between the lines a lighted cigarette
would mean death to the smoker. I gave Ginger Weeson a leg over the
parapet and handed him his spade when he got to the other side. My
hour on sentry-go was now up and I went into my dug-out and was
immediately asleep.
I was called again at one, three-quarters of an hour later.
"What's up?" I asked the corporal who wakened me.
"Oh, there's a party going down to the rear for rations," I was told.
"So you've got to take up sentry-go till stand-to; that'll be for an
hour or so. You're better out in the air now for its beginning to
stink everywhere, but the dug-out is the worst place of all."
So saying, the corporal entered the dug-out and stretched himself on
the floor; he was going to have a sleep despite his mean opinion of
the shelter.
The stench gathers itself in the early morning, in that chill (p. 296)
hour which precedes the dawn one can almost see the smell ooze from
the earth of the firing line. It is penetrating, sharp, and well-nigh
tangible, the odour of herbs, flowers, and the dawn mixed with the
stench of rotting meat and of the dead. You can taste it as it enters
your mouth and nostrils, it comes in slowly, you feel it crawl up your
nose and sink with a nauseous slowness down the back of the throat
through the windpipe and into the stomach.
I leant my arms on the sandbags and looked across the field; I fancied
I could see men moving in the darkness, but when the star-shells went
up there was no sign of movement out by the web of barbed-wire
entanglements. The new sap with its bags of earth stretched out chalky
white towards the enemy; the sap was not more than three feet deep
yet, it afforded very little protection from fire. Suddenly rising
eerie from the space between the lines, I heard a cry. A harrowing
"Oh!" wrung from a tortured soul, then a second "Oh!" ear-splitting,
deafening. Something must have happened, one of the working party was
hit I knew. A third "Oh!" followed, weak it was and infantile, then
intense silence wrapped up everything as in a cloak. But only for (p. 297)
a moment. The enemy must have heard the cry for a dozen star-shells
shot towards us and frittered away in sparks by our barbed-wire
entanglements. There followed a second of darkness and then an
explosion right over the sap. The enemy were firing shrapnel shells on
the working party. Three, four shells exploded simultaneously out in
front. I saw dark forms rise up and come rushing into shelter. There
was a crunching, a stumbling and a gasping as if for air. Boots struck
against the barbed entanglements, and like trodden mice, the wires
squeaked in protest. I saw a man, outlined in black against the glow
of a star-shell, struggling madly as he endeavoured to loose his
clothing from the barbs on which it caught. There was a ripping and
tearing of tunics and trousers.... A shell burst over the men again
and I saw two fall; one got up and clung to the arm of a mate, the
other man crawled on his belly towards the parapet.
In their haste they fell over the parapet into the trench, several of
them. Many had gone back by the sap, I could see them racing along
crouching as they ran. Out in front several forms were bending over
the ground attending to the wounded. From my left the message (p. 298)
came "Stretcher-bearers at the double." And I passed it along.
Two men who had scrambled over the parapet were sitting on my
banquette, one with a scratched forehead, the other with a bleeding
finger. Their mates were attending to them binding up the wounds.
"Many hurt?" I asked.
"A lot 'ave copped a packet," said the man with the bleeding finger.
"We never 'eard the blurry things come, did we?" he asked his mates.
"Never 'eard nothin', we didn't till the thing burst over us," said a
voice from the trench. "I was busy with Ginger----"
"Ginger Weeson?" I enquired.
"That's 'im," was the reply. "Did yer 'ear 'im yell? Course yer did;
ye'd 'ave 'eard 'im over at La Bassée."
"What happened to him?" I asked.
"A bullet through 'is belly," said the voice. "When 'e roared I put my
'and on 'is mouth and 'e gave me such a punch. I was nearly angry, and
'im in orful pain. Pore Ginger! Not many get better from a wound like
his one."
Their wounds dressed, the men went away; others came by carrying (p. 299)
out the stricken; many had fractured limbs, one was struck on the
shoulder, another in the leg and one I noticed had several teeth
knocked away.
The working-party had one killed and fifty-nine wounded in the
morning's work; some of the wounded, amongst them, Ginger Weeson, died
in hospital.
The ration-party came back at two o'clock jubilant. The post arrived
when the men were in the village and many bulky parcels came in for
us. Meals are a treat when parcels are bulky. We would have a fine
breakfast.