PRIVATE HOLLOWAY, PROFESSOR OF HYGIENE
The following morning we wandered through the trenches listening to the
learned discourse of the genial professors of the Parapet-etic School,
storing up much useful information for future reference. I made a serious
blunder when I asked one of them a question about Ypres, for I pronounced
the name French fashion, which put me under suspicion as a "swanker."
"Don't try to come it, son," he said. "S'y 'Wipers.' That's wot we calls
it."
Henceforth it was "Wipers" for me, although I learned that "Eeps" and
"Yipps" are sanctioned by some trench authorities. I made no further
mistakes of this nature, and by keeping silent about the names of the
towns and villages along our front, I soon learned the accepted
pronunciation of all of them. Armentières is called "Armenteers";
Balleul, "Bally-all"; Hazebrouck, "Hazy-Brook"; and what more natural
than "Plug-Street," Atkinsese for Ploegsteert?
As was the case wherever I went, my accent betrayed my American birth;
and again, as an American Expeditionary Force of one, I was shown many
favors. Private Shorty Holloway, upon learning that I was a "Yank,"
offered to tell me "every bloomin' thing about the trenches that a bloke
needs to know." I was only too glad to place myself under his
instruction.
"Right you are!" said Shorty; "now, sit down 'ere w'ile I'm goin' over me
shirt, an' arsk me anything yer a mind to." I began immediately by asking
him what he meant by "going over" his shirt.
"Blimy! You are new to this game, mate! You mean to s'y you ain't got any
graybacks!"
I confessed shamefacedly that I had not. He stripped to the waist, turned
his shirt wrong side out, and laid it upon his knee.
"'Ave a look," he said proudly.
The less said about my discoveries the better for the fastidiously
minded. Suffice it to say that I made my first acquaintance with members
of a British Expeditionary Force which is not mentioned in official
_communiqués_.
"Trench pets," said Shorty. Then he told me that they were not all
graybacks. There is a great variety of species, but they all belong to
the same parasitical family, and wage a non-discriminating warfare upon
the soldiery on both sides of No-man's-Land. Germans, British, French,
Belgians alike were their victims.
"You'll soon 'ave plenty," he said reassuringly; "I give you about a week
to get covered with 'em. Now, wot you want to do is this: always 'ave an
extra shirt in yer pack. Don't be a bloomin' ass an' sell it fer a packet
o' fags like I did! An' the next time you writes to England, get some one
to send you out some Keatings"--he displayed a box of grayish-colored
powder. "It won't kill 'em, mind you! They ain't nothin' but fire that'll
kill 'em. But Keatings tykes all the ginger out o' 'em. They ain't near
so lively arter you strafe 'em with this 'ere powder."
I remembered Shorty's advice later when I became a reluctant host to a
prolific colony of graybacks. For nearly six months I was never without a
box of Keatings, and I was never without the need for it.
Barbed wire had a new and terrible significance for me from the first day
which we spent in the trenches. I could more readily understand why there
had been so long a deadlock on the western front. The entanglements in
front of the first line of trenches were from fifteen to twenty yards
wide, the wires being twisted from post to post in such a hopeless jumble
that no man could possibly get through them under fire. The posts were
set firmly in the ground, but there were movable segments, every fifty or
sixty yards, which could be put to one side in case an attack was to be
launched against the German lines.
At certain positions there were what appeared to be openings through the
wire, but these were nothing less than man-traps which have been found
serviceable in case of an enemy attack. In an assault men follow the line
of least resistance when they reach the barbed wire. These apparent
openings are V-shaped, with the open end toward the enemy. The attacking
troops think they see a clear passageway. They rush into the trap, and
when it is filled with struggling men, machine guns are turned upon them,
and, as Shorty said, "You got 'em cold."
That, at least, was the presumption. Practically, man-traps were not
always a success. The intensive bombardments which precede infantry
attacks play havoc with entanglements, but there is always a chance of
the destruction being incomplete, as upon one occasion farther north,
where, Shorty told me, a man-trap caught a whole platoon of Germans "dead
to rights."
"But this is wot gives you the pip," he said. "'Ere we got three lines of
trenches, all of 'em wired up so that a rat couldn't get through without
scratchin' hisself to death. Fritzie's got better wire than wot we 'ave,
an' more of it. An' 'e's got more machine guns, more artill'ry, more
shells. They ain't any little old man-killer ever invented wot they
'aven't got more of than we 'ave. An' at 'ome they're a-s'yin', 'W'y
don't they get on with it? W'y don't they smash through?' Let some of 'em
come out 'ere an' 'ave a try! That's all I got to s'y."
I didn't tell Shorty that I had been, not exactly an armchair critic, but
at least a barrack-room critic in England. I had wondered why British and
French troops had failed to smash through. A few weeks in the trenches
gave me a new viewpoint. I could only wonder at the magnificent fighting
qualities of soldiers who had held their own so effectively against
armies equipped and armed and munitioned as the Germans were.
After he had finished drugging his trench pets, Shorty and I made a tour
of the trenches. I was much surprised at seeing how clean and comfortable
they can be kept in pleasant summer weather. Men were busily at work
sweeping up the walks, collecting the rubbish, which was put into
sandbags hung on pegs at intervals along the fire trench. At night the
refuse was taken back of the trenches and buried. Most of this work
devolved upon the pioneers whose business it was to keep the trenches
sanitary.
The fire trench was built in much the same way as those which we had made
during our training in England. In pattern it was something like a
tesselated border. For the space of five yards it ran straight, then it
turned at right angles around a traverse of solid earth six feet square,
then straight again for another five yards, then around another traverse,
and so throughout the length of the line. Each five-yard segment, which
is called a "bay," offered firing room for five men. The traverses, of
course, were for the purpose of preventing enfilade fire. They also
limited the execution which might be done by one shell. Even so they were
not an unmixed blessing, for they were always in the way when you wanted
to get anywhere in a hurry.
"An' you _are_ in a 'urry w'en you sees a Minnie [_Minnenwerfer_] comin'
your w'y. But you gets trench legs arter a w'ile. It'll be a funny sight
to see blokes walkin' along the street in Lunnon w'en the war's over.
They'll be so used to dodgin' in an' out o' traverses they won't be able
to go in a straight line."
As we walked through the firing-line trenches, I could quite understand
the possibility of one's acquiring trench legs. Five paces forward, two
to the right, two to the left, two to the left again, then five to the
right, and so on to Switzerland. Shorty was of the opinion that one could
enter the trenches on the Channel coast and walk through to the Alps
without once coming out on top of the ground. I am not in a position
either to affirm or to question this statement. My own experience was
confined to that part of the British front which lies between Messines in
Belgium and Loos in France. There, certainly, one could walk for miles,
through an intricate maze of continuous underground passages.
But the firing-line trench was neither a traffic route nor a promenade.
The great bulk of inter-trench business passed through the traveling
trench, about fifteen yards in rear of the fire trench and running
parallel to it. The two were connected by many passageways, the chief
difference between them being that the fire trench was the business
district, while the traveling trench was primarily residential. Along the
latter were built most of the dugouts, lavatories, and trench kitchens.
The sleeping quarters for the men were not very elaborate. Recesses were
made in the wall of the trench about two feet above the floor. They were
not more than three feet high, so that one had to crawl in head first
when going to bed. They were partitioned in the middle, and were supposed
to offer accommodation for four men, two on each side. But, as Shorty
said, everything depended on the ration allowance. Two men who had eaten
to repletion could not hope to occupy the same apartment. One had a
choice of going to bed hungry or of eating heartily and sleeping outside
on the firing-bench.
"'Ere's a funny thing," he said. "W'y do you suppose they makes the
dugouts open at one end?"
I had no explanation to offer.
"Crawl inside an' I'll show you."
I stood my rifle against the side of the trench and crept in.
"Now, yer supposed to be asleep," said Shorty, and with that he gave me a
whack on the soles of my boots with his entrenching tool handle. I can
still feel the pain of the blow.
"Stand to! Wyke up 'ere! Stand to!" he shouted, and gave me another
resounding wallop.
I backed out in all haste.
"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
alleyways 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.
Realists and Romanticists lived side by side in the traveling trench. "My
Little Gray Home in the West" was the modest legend over one apartment.
The "Ritz Carlton" was next door to "The Rats' Retreat," with "Vermin
Villa" next door but one. "The Suicide Club" was the suburban residence
of some members of the bombing squad. I remarked that the bombers seemed
to take rather a pessimistic view of their profession, whereupon Shorty
told me that if there were any men slated for the Order of the Wooden
Cross, the bombers were those unfortunate ones. In an assault they were
first at the enemy's position. They had dangerous work to do even on the
quietest of days. But theirs was a post of honor, and no one of them but
was proud of his membership in the Suicide Club.
The officers' quarters were on a much more generous and elaborate scale
than those of the men. This I gathered from Shorty's description of them,
for I saw only the exteriors as we passed along the trench. Those for
platoon and company commanders were built along the traveling trench. The
colonel, major, and adjutant lived in a luxurious palace, about fifty
yards down a communication trench. Near it was the officers' mess, a café
de luxe with glass panels in the door, a cooking stove, a long wooden
table, chairs,--everything, in fact, but hot and cold running water.
"You know," said Shorty, "the officers thinks they 'as to rough it, but
they got it soft, I'm tellin' you! Wooden bunks to sleep in, batmen to
bring 'em 'ot water fer shavin' in the mornin', all the fags they
wants,--Blimy, I wonder wot they calls livin' 'igh?"
I agreed that in so far as living quarters are concerned, they were
roughing it under very pleasant circumstances. However, they were not
always so fortunate, as later experience proved. Here there had been
little serious fighting for months and the trenches were at their best.
Elsewhere the officers' dugouts were often but little better than those
of the men.
The first-line trenches were connected with two lines of support or
reserve trenches built in precisely the same fashion, and each heavily
wired. The communication trenches which joined them were from seven to
eight feet deep and wide enough to permit the convenient passage of
incoming and outgoing troops, and the transport of the wounded back to
the field dressing stations. From the last reserve line they wound on
backward through the fields until troops might leave them well out of
range of rifle fire. Under Shorty's guidance I saw the field dressing
stations, the dugouts for the reserve ammunition supply and the stores of
bombs and hand grenades, battalion and brigade trench headquarters. We
wandered from one part of the line to another through trenches, all of
which were kept amazingly neat and clean. The walls were stayed with
fine-mesh wire to hold the earth in place. The floors were covered with
board walks carefully laid over the drains, which ran along the center of
the trench and emptied into deep wells, built in recesses in the walls. I
felt very much encouraged when I saw the careful provisions for
sanitation and drainage. On a fine June morning it seemed probable that
living in ditches was not to be so unpleasant as I had imagined it.
Shorty listened to my comments with a smile.
"Don't pat yerself on the back yet a w'ile, mate," he said. "They looks
right enough now, but wite till you've seen 'em arter a 'eavy rain."
I had this opportunity many times during the summer and autumn. A more
wretched existence than that of soldiering in wet weather could hardly be
imagined. The walls of the trenches caved in in great masses. The drains
filled to overflowing, and the trench walks were covered deep in mud.
After a few hours of rain, dry and comfortable trenches became a
quagmire, and we were kept busy for days afterward repairing the damage.
As a machine gunner I was particularly interested in the construction of
the machine-gun emplacements. The covered battle positions were very
solidly built. The roofs were supported with immense logs or steel
girders covered over with many layers of sandbags. There were two
carefully concealed loopholes looking out to a flank, but none for
frontal fire, as this dangerous little weapon best enjoys catching troops
in enfilade owing to the rapidity and the narrow cone of its fire. Its
own front is protected by the guns on its right and left. At each
emplacement there was a range chart giving the ranges to all parts of the
enemy's trenches, and to every prominent object both in front of and
behind them, within its field of fire. When not in use the gun was kept
mounted and ready for action in the battle position.
"But remember this," said Shorty, "you never fires from your battle
position except in case of attack. W'en you goes out at night to 'ave a
little go at Fritzie, you always tykes yer gun sommers else. If you
don't, you'll 'ave Minnie an' Busy Bertha an' all the rest o' the Krupp
childern comin' over to see w'ere you live."
This was a wise precaution, as we were soon to learn from experience.
Machine guns are objects of special interest to the artillery, and the
locality from which they are fired becomes very unhealthy for some little
time thereafter.
We stopped for a moment at "The Mud Larks' Hairdressing Parlor," a very
important institution if one might judge by its patronage. It was housed
in a recess in the wall of the traveling trench, and was open to the sky.
There I saw the latest fashion in "oversea" hair cuts. The victims sat on
a ration box while the barber mowed great swaths through tangled thatch
with a pair of close-cutting clippers. But instead of making a complete
job of it, a thick fringe of hair which resembled a misplaced scalping
tuft was left for decorative purposes, just above the forehead. The
effect was so grotesque that I had to invent an excuse for laughing. It
was a lame one, I fear, for Shorty looked at me warningly. When we had
gone on a little way he said:--
"Ain't it a proper beauty parlor? But you got to be careful about
larfin'. Some o' the blokes thinks that 'edge-row is a regular ornament."
I had supposed that a daily shave was out of the question on the
firing-line; but the British Tommy is nothing if not resourceful.
Although water is scarce and fuel even more so, the self-respecting
soldier easily surmounts difficulties, and the Gloucesters were all nice
in matters pertaining to the toilet. Instead of draining their canteens
of tea, they saved a few drops for shaving purposes.
"It's a bit sticky," said Shorty, "but it's 'ot, an' not 'arf bad w'en
you gets used to it. Now, another thing you don't want to ferget is this:
W'en yer movin' up fer yer week in the first line, always bring a bundle
o' firewood with you. They ain't so much as a match-stick left in the
trenches. Then you wants to be savin' of it. Don't go an' use it all the
first d'y or you'll 'ave to do without yer tea the rest o' the week."
I remembered his emphasis upon this point afterward when I saw men
risking their lives in order to procure firewood. Without his tea Tommy
was a wretched being. I do not remember a day, no matter how serious the
fighting, when he did not find both the time and the means for making it.
Shorty was a Ph.D. in every subject in the curriculum, including domestic
science. In preparing breakfast he gave me a practical demonstration of
the art of conserving a limited resource of fuel, bringing our two
canteens to a boil with a very meager handful of sticks; and while doing
so he delivered an oral thesis on the best methods of food preparation.
For example, there was the item of corned beef--familiarly called
"bully." It was the _pièce de résistance_ at every meal with the possible
exception of breakfast, when there was usually a strip of bacon. Now,
one's appetite for "bully" becomes jaded in the course of a few weeks or
months. To use the German expression one doesn't eat it _gern_. But it
is not a question of liking it. One must eat it or go hungry. Therefore,
said Shorty, save carefully all of your bacon grease, and instead of
eating your "bully" cold out of the tin, mix it with bread crumbs and
grated cheese and fry it in the grease. He prepared some in this way, and
I thought it a most delectable dish. Another way of stimulating the
palate was to boil the beef in a solution of bacon grease and water, and
then, while eating it, "kid yerself that it's Irish stew." This second
method of taking away the curse did not appeal to me very strongly, and
Shorty admitted that he practiced such self-deception with very
indifferent success; for after all "bully" was "bully" in whatever form
you ate it.
In addition to this staple, the daily rations consisted of bacon, bread,
cheese, jam, army biscuits, tea, and sugar. Sometimes they received a
tinned meat and vegetable ration, already cooked, and at welcome
intervals fresh meat and potatoes were substituted for corned beef. Each
man had a very generous allowance of food, a great deal more, I thought,
than he could possibly eat. Shorty explained this by saying that
allowance was made for the amount which would be consumed by the rats and
the blue-bottle flies.
There were, in fact, millions of flies. They settled in great swarms
along the walls of the trenches, which were filled to the brim with warm
light as soon as the sun had climbed a little way up the sky. Empty
tin-lined ammunition boxes were used as cupboards for food. But of what
avail were cupboards to a jam-loving and jam-fed British army living in
open ditches in the summer time? Flytraps made of empty jam tins were set
along the top of the parapet. As soon as one was filled, another was set
in its place. But it was an unequal war against an expeditionary force of
countless numbers.
"They ain't nothin' you can do," said Shorty. "They steal the jam right
off yer bread."
As for the rats, speaking in the light of later experience, I can say
that an army corps of pied pipers would not have sufficed to entice away
the hordes of them that infested the trenches, living like house pets on
our rations. They were great lazy animals, almost as large as cats, and
so gorged with food that they could hardly move. They ran over us in the
dugouts at night, and filched cheese and crackers right through the heavy
waterproofed covering of our haversacks. They squealed and fought among
themselves at all hours. I think it possible that they were carrion
eaters, but never, to my knowledge, did they attack living men. While
they were unpleasant bedfellows, we became so accustomed to them that we
were not greatly concerned about our very intimate associations.
Our course of instruction at the Parapet-etic School was brought to a
close late in the evening when we shouldered our packs, bade good-bye to
our friends the Gloucesters, and marched back in the moonlight to our
billets. I had gained an entirely new conception of trench life, of the
difficulties involved in trench building, and the immense amount of
material and labor needed for the work.
Americans who are interested in learning of these things at first hand
will do well to make the grand tour of the trenches when the war is
finished. Perhaps the thrifty continentals will seek to commercialize
such advantage as misfortune has brought them, in providing favorable
opportunities. Perhaps the Touring Club of France will lay out a new
route, following the windings of the firing line from the Channel coast
across the level fields of Flanders, over the Vosges Mountains to the
borders of Switzerland. Pedestrians may wish to make the journey on foot,
cooking their supper over Tommy's rusty biscuit-tin stoves, sleeping at
night in the dugouts where he lay shivering with cold during the winter
nights of 1914 and 1915. If there are enthusiasts who will be satisfied
with only the most intimate personal view of the trenches, if there are
those who would try to understand the hardships and discomforts of trench
life by living it during a summer vacation, I would suggest that they
remember Private Shorty Holloway's parting injunction to me:--
"Now, don't ferget, Jamie!" he said as we shook hands, "always 'ave a box
o' Keatings 'andy, an' 'ang on to yer extra shirt!"