I GET INTO A WARM CORNER
Boxing Day--But No Pantomime--Life in the Trenches--A Sniper
at Work--Sinking a Mine Shaft--The Cheery Influence of an
Irish Padre--A Cemetery Behind the Lines--Pathetic
Inscriptions and Mementoes on Dead Heroes' Graves--I Get
Into a Pretty Warm Corner--And Have Some Difficulty in
Getting Out Again--But All's Well that Ends Well.
Boxing Day! But nothing out of the ordinary happened. I filmed the Royal
Welsh Fusiliers en route for the trenches. As usual, the weather was
impossible, and the troops came up in motor-buses. At the sound of a
whistle, they formed up in line and stopped, and the men scrambled out
and stood to attention by the roadside. They were going to the front
line. They gave me a parting cheer, and a smile that they knew would be
seen by the people in England--perchance by their own parents.
I went along the famous La Bassée Road--the most fiercely contested
stretch in that part of the country. It was literally lined with
shell-destroyed houses, large and small; châteaux and hovels. All had
been levelled to the ground by the Huns. I filmed various scenes of the
Coldstreams, the Irish and the Grenadier Guards. At the furthermost
point of the road to which cars are allowed shells started to fall
rather heavily, so, not wishing to argue the point with them, I took
cover. When the "strafing" ceased I filmed other interesting scenes, and
then returned to my headquarters.
The next day was very interesting, and rather exciting. I was to go to
the front trenches and get some scenes of the men at work under actual
conditions. Proceeding by the Road, I reached the Croix Rouge crossing,
which was heavily "strafed" the previous day. Hiding the car under cover
of a partly demolished house, and strapping the camera on my back, my
orderly carrying the tripod, I started out to walk the remaining
distance. I had not gone far when a sentry advised me not to proceed
further on the road, but to take to the trench lining it, as the
thoroughfare from this point was in full view of the German artillery
observers. Not wishing to be shelled unnecessarily, I did as he
suggested. "And don't forget to keep your head down, sir," was his last
remark. So bending nearly double, I proceeded. As a further precaution,
I kept my man behind me at a distance of about twenty yards. Several
times high explosives and shrapnel came unpleasantly near.
Presently I came upon a wooden tramway running at right angles to the
road. My instructions were to proceed along it until I came to "Signpost
Lane." Why it was so dubbed I was unable to discover, but one thing I
was certainly not kept in ignorance of for long, and that was that it
was perpetually under heavy shell-fire by the Germans. They were
evidently under the impression that it was the route taken by our relief
parties going to the trenches at appointed times during the day, and so
they fairly raked it with shell-fire.
Unfortunately I happened to arrive on one of these occasions, and I knew
it. Shells dropped all round us. Hardly a square yard of ground seemed
untouched. Under such conditions it was no good standing. I looked round
for cover, but there was none. The best thing to do under the
circumstances was to go straight on, trust to Providence, and make for
the communication trenches with all speed. I doubled like a hare over
the intervening ground, and I was glad when I reached the trenches, for
once there, unless a shell bursts directly overhead, or falls on top of
you, the chances of getting hit are very small.
I was now in the sniping zone, and could continually hear the crack of a
Hun rifle, and the resulting thud of a bullet striking the mud or the
sandbags, first one side then the other. The communication trenches
seemed interminable, and, as we neared the front line, the mud got
deeper and parts of the trench were quite water-logged.
Plod, plod, plod; section after section, traverse after traverse.
Suddenly I came upon a party of sappers mending the parapet top with
newly filled sandbags. At that particular section a shell had dropped
fairly near and destroyed it, and anyone walking past that gap stood a
very good chance of having the top of his head taken off. These men were
filling up the breach. "Keep your head well down, sir," shouted one, as
I came along. "They" (meaning the Germans) "have got this place marked."
Down went my head, and I passed the gap safely.
We were now well up in the firing trench. Fixing the camera, and the
rest of the apparatus, I began taking scenes of actual life and
conditions in the trenches--that mysterious land about which millions
have read but have never had the opportunity of seeing. No mere verbal
description would suffice to describe them. Every minute the murderous
crack of rifles and the whir of machine-guns rang out. Death hovered all
round. In front the German rifles, above the bursting shrapnel, each
shell scattering its four hundred odd leaden bullets far and wide,
killing or wounding any unfortunate man who happened to be in the way.
The trenches looked as if a giant cataclysm of Nature had taken place.
The whole earth had been upheaved, and in each of the mud-hills men had
burrowed innumerable paths, seven feet deep. It was hard to distinguish
men from mud. The former were literally caked from head to foot with the
latter. I filmed the men at work. There were several snipers calmly
smoking their cigarettes and taking careful aim at the enemy.
Crack--crack--crack--simultaneously.
"Sure, sir," remarked one burly Irish Guardsman, "and he'll never bob
his ---- head up any more. It's him I've been afther this several
hours!" And as coolly as if he had been at a rifle range at home, the
man discharged the empty cartridge-case and stood with his rifle,
motionless as a rock, his eyes like those of an eagle.
All this time it was raining hard. I worked my way along the
never-ending traverses. Coming upon a mount of sandbags, I enquired of
an officer present the nature and cause of its formation. He bade me
follow him. At one corner a narrow, downward path came into view.
Trudging after him, I entered this strange shelter. Inside it was quite
dark, but in a few seconds, when my eyes had got used to the conditions,
I observed a hole in the centre of the floor about five feet square.
Peering over the edge, I saw that the shaft was about _twenty-five feet
deep_, and that there was a light at the bottom. It then dawned upon me
what it really was. It was a mine-shaft. At the bottom, men worked at
their deadly occupation, burrowing at right angles under our own
trenches (under "No Man's Land") and under the German lines. They laid
their mines, and at the appointed time exploded them, thus causing a
great amount of damage to the enemy's parapets and trenches, and killing
large numbers of the occupants.
Retracing my steps, I fixed the camera up and filmed the men entering
the mines and others bringing up the excavated earth in sandbags and
placing them on the outside of the barricade. Then I paused to film the
men at work upon a trench road. Thinking I could obtain a better view
from a point in the distance, I started off for it, bent nearly double,
when a warning shout from an officer bade me be careful. I reached the
point. Although about fifty yards behind the firing trench, I was under
the impression that I was still sheltered by the parapet. Evidently I
had raised my head too high while fixing up the tripod, for with a
murderous whistle two bullets "zipped" by overhead. I must be more
careful if I wanted to get away with a whole skin; so bending low, I
filmed the scene, and then returned.
While proceeding along the line, I filmed the regimental padre of the
Irish Guards wading through the mud and exchanging a cheery word with
every man he passed. What a figure he was! Tall and upright, with a long
dark beard, and a voice that seemed kind and cheery enough to influence
even the dead. He inspired confidence wherever he went. He stayed awhile
to talk to several men who were sitting in their dug-outs pumping the
water out before they could enter. His words seemed to make the men work
with redoubled vigour. Then he passed on.
Along this section, at the back of the dug-outs, were innumerable white
crosses, leaning at all angles, in the mud. They were the last
resting-place of our dead heroes. On each cross a comrade had written a
short inscription, and some of these, though simple, and at times badly
spelt, revealed a pathos and a feeling that almost brought tears to the
eyes. For all its slime and mud it was the most beautiful cemetery I
have ever seen. On some of the graves were a few wildflowers. No
wreaths; no marble headstones; no elaborate ornamentation; but in their
place a battered cap, a rusty rifle or a mud-covered haversack, the
treasured belongings of the dead.
I had barely finished filming this scene when with a shriek several
shells came hurtling overhead from the German guns and burst about a
hundred yards behind our firing line. Quickly adjusting the camera, I
covered the section with my lens. In a few seconds more shells came
over, and turning the handle I filmed them as they burst, throwing up
enormous quantities of earth. The Huns were evidently firing at
something. What that something was I soon found out. An enemy observer
had seen a small working party crossing an open space. The guns
immediately opened fire. Whether they inflicted any casualties I do not
know, but a few minutes later the same party of men passed me as though
nothing had happened.
The rain was still falling, and the mist getting heavy, so I decided to
make my way back to headquarters. Packing up, and bidding adieu to the
officers, I started on the return journey through the communication
trenches. One officer told me to go back the same way, via "Signpost
Lane." "You will manage to get through before their evening 'strafing,'"
he called out. After wearily trudging through nearly a mile of trenches,
I came out at "Signpost Lane," and I am never likely to forget it.
We had left the shelter of the trench, and were hurrying, nearly
doubled, across a field, when a German observer spotted us. The next
minute "whizz-bangs" started falling around us like rain. No matter
which way I turned, the tarnation things seemed to follow and burst with
a deafening crash. At last, I reached the crossing, and was making my
way down the trench lining the road, when a shell dropped and exploded
not thirty feet ahead. But on I went, for a miss is as good as a mile.
About a hundred yards further on was the battered shell of a farm-house.
When almost up to it a couple of shells dropped fairly in the middle of
it and showered the bricks all round. A fairly warm spot!
I had just reached the corner of the building when I heard the shriek of
a shell coming nearer. I guessed it was pretty close, and without a
moment's hesitation dropped in the mud and water of a small ditch, and
not a moment too soon for with a dull thud the shell struck and burst
hardly seven feet from me. Had I not fallen down these lines would never
have been written. Picking myself up, I hurried on. Still the shells
continued to drop, but fortunately at a greater distance. When I reached
Croix Rouge, I was literally encased in mud. Our progress along the road
had been anxiously watched by the sentries and by my chauffeur.
"Well, sir," said the latter, with a sigh of relief, "I certainly
thought they had you that time."