THE PARAPET-ETIC SCHOOL
"We're going in to-night."
The word was given out by the orderly sergeants at four in the afternoon.
At 4.03 every one in camp had heard the news. Scores of miniature hand
laundries, which were doing a thriving business down by the duck pond,
immediately shut up shop. Damp and doubtfully clean ration bags, towels,
and shirts which were draped along the fences, were hastily gathered
together and thrust into the capacious depths of pack-sacks. Members of
the battalion's sporting contingent broke up their games of tuppenny brag
without waiting for "just one more hand," an unprecedented thing. The
makers of war ballads, who were shouting choruses to the merry music of
the mouth-organ band, stopped in the midst of their latest composition,
and rushed off to get their marching order together. At 4.10 every one,
with the exception of the officers' servants, was ready to move off.
This, too, was unprecedented. Never before had we made haste more gladly
or less needfully, but never before had there been such an incentive to
haste. We were going into the trenches for the first time.
The officers' servants, commonly called "batmen," were unfortunate
rankers who, in moments of weakness, had sold themselves into slavery for
half a crown per week. The batman's duty is to make tea for his officer,
clean his boots, wash his clothes, tuck him into bed at night, and make
himself useful generally. The real test of a good batman, however, is his
carrying capacity. In addition to his own heavy burden he must carry
various articles belonging to his officer: enameled wash-basins, rubber
boots, bottles of Apollinaris water, service editions of the modern
English poets and novelists, spirit lamps, packages of food, boxes of
cigars and cigarettes,--in fact, all of his personal luggage which is in
excess of the allotted thirty-five pounds which is carried on the
battalion transport wagons.
On this epoch-marking day, even the officers' servants were punctual.
When the order, "Packs on! Fall in!" was given, not a man was missing.
Every one was in harness, standing silently, expectantly, in his place.
"Charge magazines!"
The bolts clicked open with the sound of one as we loaded our rifles with
ball ammunition. Five long shiny cartridges were slipped down the charger
guide into the magazine, and the cut-off closed.
"Move off in column of route, 'A' company leading!"
We swung into the country road in the gathering twilight, and turned
sharply to our left at the crossroad where the signboard read, "To the
Firing-Line. For the Use of the Military Only."
Coming into the trenches for the first time when the deadlock along the
western front had become seemingly unbreakable, we reaped the benefit of
the experience of the gallant little remnant of the first British
Expeditionary Force. After the retreat from Mons, they had dug themselves
in and were holding tenaciously on, awaiting the long-heralded arrival of
Kitchener's Mob. As the units of the new armies arrived in France, they
were sent into the trenches for twenty-four hours' instruction in trench
warfare, with a battalion of regulars. This one-day course in trench
fighting is preliminary to fitting new troops into their own particular
sectors along the front. The facetious subalterns called it "The
Parapet-etic School." Months later, we ourselves became members of the
faculty, but on this first occasion we were marching up as the meekest of
undergraduates.
It was quite dark when we entered the desolate belt of country known as
the "fire zone." Pipes and cigarettes were put out and talking ceased. We
extended to groups of platoons in fours, at one hundred paces interval,
each platoon keeping in touch with the one in front by means of
connecting files. We passed rows of ruined cottages where only the scent
of the roses in neglected little front gardens reminded one of the
home-loving people who had lived there in happier days. Dim lights
streamed through chinks and crannies in the walls. Now and then blanket
coverings would be lifted from apertures that had been windows or doors,
and we would see bright fires blazing in the middle of brick kitchen
floors, and groups of men sitting about them luxuriously sipping tea from
steaming canteens. They were laughing and talking and singing songs in
loud, boisterous voices which contrasted strangely with our timid
noiselessness. I was marching with one of the trench guides who had been
sent back to pilot us to our position. I asked him if the Tommies in the
houses were not in danger of being heard by the enemy. He laughed
uproariously at this, whereupon one of our officers, a little second
lieutenant, turned and hissed in melodramatic undertones, "Silence in the
ranks there! Where do you think you are!" Officers and men, we were new
to the game then, and we held rather exaggerated notions as to the amount
of care to be observed in moving up to the trenches.
"Blimy, son!" whispered the trench guide, "you might think we was only a
couple o' 'unnerd yards away from Fritzie's trenches! We're a good two
an' a 'arf miles back 'ere. All right to be careful arter you gets closer
up; but they's no use w'isperin' w'en you ain't even in rifle range."
With lights, of course, it was a different matter altogether. Can't be
too careful about giving the enemy artillery an aiming mark. This was the
reason all the doors and windows of the ruined cottages were so carefully
blanketed.
"Let old Fritzie see a light,--''Ello!' 'e says, 'blokes in billets!' an'
over comes a 'arf-dozen shells knockin' you all to blazes."
As we came within the range of rifle fire, we again changed our
formation, and marched in single file along the edge of the road. The
sharp _crack! crack!= of small arms now sounded with vicious and ominous
distinctness. We heard the melancholy song of the ricochets and spent
bullets as they whirled in a wide arc, high over our heads, and
occasionally the less pleasing _phtt! phtt!_ of those speeding straight
from the muzzle of a German rifle. We breathed more freely when we
entered the communication trench in the center of a little thicket, a
mile or more back of the first-line trenches.
We wound in and out of what appeared in the darkness to be a hopeless
labyrinth of earthworks. Cross-streets and alleys led off in every
direction. All along the way we had glimpses of dugouts lighted by
candles, the doorways carefully concealed with blankets or pieces of old
sacking. Groups of Tommies, in comfortable nooks and corners, were
boiling tea or frying bacon over little stoves made of old iron buckets
or biscuit tins.
I marveled at the skill of our trench guide who went confidently on in
the darkness, with scarcely a pause. At length, after a winding, zigzag
journey, we arrived at our trench where we met the Gloucesters.
There isn't one of us who hasn't a warm spot in his heart for the
Gloucesters: they welcomed us so heartily and initiated us into all the
mysteries of trench etiquette and trench tradition. We were, at best, but
amateur Tommies. In them I recognized the lineal descendants of the line
Atkins; men whose grandfathers had fought in the Crimea, and whose
fathers in Indian mutinies. They were the fighting sons of fighting
sires, and they taught us more of life in the trenches, in twenty-four
hours, than we had learned during nine months of training in England. An
infantryman of my company has a very kindly feeling toward one of them
who probably saved his life before we had been in the trenches five
minutes. Our first question was, of course, "How far is it to the German
lines?" and in his eagerness to see, my fellow Tommy jumped up on the
firing-bench for a look, with a lighted cigarette in his mouth. He was
pulled down into the trench just as a rifle cracked and a bullet went
_zing-g-g_ from the parapet precisely where he had been standing. Then
the Gloucester gave him a friendly little lecture which none of us
afterward forgot.
"Now, look 'ere, son! Never get up for a squint at Fritz with a fag on!
'E's got every sandbag along this parapet numbered, same as we've got
'is. 'Is snipers is a-layin' fer us same as ours is a-layin' fer 'im."
Then, turning to the rest of us, "Now, we ain't arskin' to 'ave no burial
parties. But if any of you blokes wants to be the stiff, stand up w'ere
this guy lit the gas."
There weren't any takers, and a moment later another bullet struck a
sandbag in the same spot.
"See? 'E spotted you. 'E'll keep a-pottin' away at that place for an
hour, 'opin' to catch you lookin' over again. Less see if we can find
'im. Give us that biscuit tin, 'Enery."
Then we learned the biscuit-tin-finder trick for locating snipers. It's
only approximate, of course, but it gives a pretty good hint at the
direction from which the shots come. It doesn't work in the daytime, for
a sniper is too clever to fire at it. But a biscuit tin, set on the
parapet at night in a badly sniped position, is almost certain to be hit.
The angle from which the shots come is shown by the jagged edges of tin
around the bullet holes. Then, as the Gloucester said, "Give 'im a nice
little April shower out o' yer machine gun in that direction. You may
fetch 'im. But if you don't, 'e won't bother you no more fer an hour or
two."
We learned how orders are passed down the line, from sentry to sentry,
quietly, and with the speed of a man running. We learned how the sentries
are posted and their duties. We saw the intricate mazes of telephone
wires, and the men of the signaling corps at their posts in the trenches,
in communication with brigade, divisional, and army corps headquarters.
We learned how to "sleep" five men in a four-by-six dugout; and, when
there are no dugouts, how to hunch up on the firing-benches with our
waterproof sheets over our heads, and doze, with our knees for a pillow.
We learned the order of precedence for troops in the communication
trenches.
"Never forget that! Outgoin' troops 'as the right o' way. They ain't 'ad
no rest, an' they're all slathered in mud, likely, an' dead beat fer
sleep. Incomin' troops is fresh, an' they stands to one side to let the
others pass."
We saw the listening patrols go out at night, through the underground
passage which leads to the far side of the barbed-wire entanglements.
From there they creep far out between the opposing lines of trenches, to
keep watch upon the movements of the enemy, and to report the presence of
his working parties or patrols. This is dangerous, nerve-trying work, for
the men sent out upon it are exposed not only to the shots of the enemy,
but to the wild shots of their own comrades as well. I saw one patrol
come in just before dawn. One of the men brought with him a piece of
barbed wire, clipped from the German entanglements two hundred and fifty
yards away.
"Taffy, 'ave a look at this 'ere. Three-ply stuff wot you can 'ardly get
yer nippers through. 'Ad to saw an' saw, an' w'en I all but 'ad it,
lummy! if they didn't send up a rocket wot bleedin' near 'it me in the
'ead!"
"Tyke it to Captain Stevens. I 'eard 'im s'y 'e's wantin' a bit to show
to one of the artill'ry blokes. 'E's got a bet on with 'im that it's
three-ply wire. Now, don't forget, Bobby! Touch 'im fer a couple o'
packets o' fags!"
I was tremendously interested. At that time it seemed incredible to me
that men crawled over to the German lines in this manner and clipped
pieces of German wire for souvenirs.
"Did you hear anything?" I asked him.
"'Eard a flute some Fritzie was a-playin' of. An' you ought to 'ave 'eard
'em a-singin'! Doleful as 'ell!"
Several men were killed and wounded during the night. One of them was a
sentry with whom I had been talking only a few moments before. He was
standing on the firing-bench looking out into the darkness, when he fell
back into the trench without a cry. It was a terrible wound. I would not
have believed that a bullet could so horribly disfigure one. He was given
first aid by the light of a candle; but it was useless. Silently his
comrades removed his identification disk and wrapped him in a blanket.
"Poor old Walt!" they said. An hour later he was buried in a shell hole
at the back of the trench.
One thing we learned during our first night in the trenches was of the
very first importance. And that was, respect for our enemies. We came
from England full of absurd newspaper tales about the German soldier's
inferiority as a fighting man. We had read that he was a wretched
marksman: he would not stand up to the bayonet: whenever opportunity
offered he crept over and gave himself up: he was poorly fed and clothed
and was so weary of the war that his officers had to drive him to fight,
at the muzzles of their revolvers. We thought him almost beneath
contempt. We were convinced in a night that we had greatly underestimated
his abilities as a marksman. As for his all-round inferiority as a
fighting man, one of the Gloucesters put it rather well:--
"'Ere! If the Germans is so bloomin' rotten, 'ow is it we ain't
a-fightin' 'em sommers along the Rhine, or in Austry-Hungry? No, they
ain't a-firin' wild, I give you my word! Not around this part o' France
they ain't! Wot do you s'y, Jerry?"
Jerry made a most illuminating contribution to the discussion of Fritz as
a fighting man:--
"I'll tell you wot! If ever I gets through this 'ere war; if I 'as the
luck to go 'ome again, with me eyesight, I'll never feel syfe w'en I sees
a Fritzie, unless I'm a-lookin' at 'im through me periscope from be'ind a
bit o' cover."
* * * * * *
How am I to give a really vivid picture of trench life as I saw it for
the first time, how make it live for others, when I remember that the
many descriptive accounts I had read of it in England did not in the
least visualize it for me? I watched the rockets rising from the German
lines, watched them burst into points of light, over the devastated strip
of country called "No-Man's-Land" and drift slowly down. And I watched
the charitable shadows rush back like the very wind of darkness. The
desolate landscape emerged from the gloom and receded again, like a
series of pictures thrown upon a screen. All of this was so new, so
terrible, I doubted its reality. Indeed, I doubted my own identity, as
one does at times when brought face to face with some experiences which
cannot be compared with past experiences or even measured by them. I
groped darkly, for some new truth which was flickering just beyond the
border of consciousness. But I was so blinded by the glamour of the
adventure that it did not come to me then. Later I understood. It was my
first glimmering realization of the tremendous sadness, the awful
futility of war.