"Get the idea? That's 'ow they wykes you up at stand-to, or w'en your
turn comes fer sentry. Not bad, wot?"
I said that it all depended on whether one was doing the waking or the
sleeping, and that, for my part, when sleeping, I would lie with my
head out.
"You wouldn't if you belonged to our lot. They'd give it to you on the
napper just as quick as 'it you on the feet. You ain't on to the game,
that's all. Let me show you suthin'."
He crept inside and drew his knees up to his chest so that his feet
were well out of reach. At his suggestion I tried to use the active
service alarm clock on him, but there was not room enough in which to
wield it. My feet were tingling from the effect of his blows, and I
felt that the reputation for resourcefulness of Kitchener's Mob was at
stake. In a moment of inspiration I seized my rifle, gave him a dig in
the shins with the butt, and shouted, "Stand to, Shorty!" He came out
rubbing his leg ruefully.
"You got the idea, mate," he said. "That's just wot they does w'en you
tries to double-cross 'em by pullin' yer feet in. I ain't sure w'ere I
likes it best, on the shins or on the feet."
This explanation of the reason for building three-sided dugouts,
while not, of course, the true one, was none the less interesting.
And certainly, the task of arousing sleeping men for sentry duty was
greatly facilitated with rows of protruding boot soles "simply arskin'
to be 'it," as Shorty put it.
All of the dugouts for privates and N.C.O.s were of equal size and
built on the same model, the reason being that the walls and floors,
which were made of wood, and the roofs, which were of corrugated
iron, were put together in sections at the headquarters of the Royal
Engineers, who superintended all the work of trench construction. The
material was brought up at night ready to be fitted into excavations.
Furthermore, with thousands of men to house within a very limited
area, space was a most important consideration. There was no room for
indulging individual tastes in dugout architecture. The roofs were
covered with from three to four feet of earth, which made them proof
against shrapnel or shell splinters. In case of a heavy bombardment
with high explosives, the men took shelter in deep and narrow "slip
trenches." These were blind alley-ways leading off from the traveling
trench, with room for from ten to fifteen men in each. At this part of
the line there were none of the very deep shell-proof shelters, from
fifteen to twenty feet below the surface of the ground, of which I had
read. Most of the men seemed to be glad of this. They preferred taking
their chances in an open trench during heavy shell fire.