NEW LODGINGS
I. MOVING IN
We were wet and tired and cold and hungry, for we had left the train
miles back of the firing-line and had been marching through the rain
since early morning; but, as the sergeant said, "A bloke standin' by the
side o' the road, watchin' this 'ere column pass, would think we was
a-go'n' to a Sunday-school picnic." The roads were filled with endless
processions of singing, shouting soldiers. Seen from a distance the long
columns gave the appearance of imposing strength. One thought of them as
battalions, brigades, divisions, cohesive parts of a great fighting
machine. But when our lines of march crossed, when we halted to make way
for each other, what an absorbing pageant of personality! Each rank was a
series of intimate pictures. Everywhere there was laughing, singing, a
merry minstrelsy of mouth-organs.
The jollity in my own part of the line was doubtless a picture in little
of what was happening elsewhere. We were anticipating the exciting times
just at hand. Mac, who was blown to pieces by a shell a few hours later,
was dancing in and out of the ranks singing,--
"Oh! Won't it be joyful!
Oh! Won't it be joyful!"
Preston, who was killed at the same time, threw his rifle in the air and
caught it again in sheer excess of animal spirits. Three rollicking lads,
all of whom we buried during the week in the same shell hole under the
same wooden cross, stumbled with an exaggerated show of utter weariness
singing,--
"We never knew till now how muddy mud is,
We never knew how muddy mud could be."
And little Charley Harrison, who had fibbed bravely about his age to the
recruiting officers, trudged contentedly along, his rifle slung jauntily
over his shoulder, and munched army biscuit with all the relish of an old
campaigner. Several days later he said good-bye to us, and made the
journey back the same road, this time in a motor ambulance; and as I
write, he is hobbling about a London hospital ward, one trouser leg
pathetically empty.
I remember that march in the light of our later experiences, in the light
of the official report of the total British casualties at Loos: sixty
thousand British lads killed, wounded, and missing. Marching four
abreast, a column of casualties miles in length. I see them plodding
light-heartedly through the mud as they did on that gray September day,
their faces wet with the rain, "an' a bloke standin' by the side of the
road would think they was a-go'n' to a Sunday-school picnic."
The sergeant was in a talkative mood.
"Lissen to them guns barkin'! We're in for it this time, straight!"
Then, turning to the men behind,--
"'Ave you got yer wills made out, you lads? You're a-go'n' to see a scrap
presently, an' it ain't a-go'n' to be no flea-bite, I give you _my_
word!"
"Right you are, sergeant! I'm leavin' me razor to 'is Majesty. 'Ope 'e'll
tyke the 'int."
"Strike me pink, sergeant! You gettin' cold feet?"
"Less sing 'im, 'I want to go 'ome.' Get 'im to cryin' like a baby."
"W'ere's yer mouth-organ, Ginger?"
"Right-O! Myke it weepy now! Slow march!"
"I--want to go 'ome!
I--want to go 'ome!
Jack-Johnsons, coal-boxes, and shrapnel, oh, Lor'!
I don't want to go in the trenches no more.
Send me across the sea
W'ere the Allemand can't shoot me.
Oh, my! I don't want to die!
I--want to go 'ome!"
It is one of the most plaintive and yearning of soldiers' songs.
Jack-Johnsons and coal-boxes are two greatly dreaded types of high
explosive shells which Tommy would much rather sing about than meet.
"Wite," the sergeant said, smiling grimly; "just wite till we reach the
end o' this 'ere march! You'll be a-singin' that song out o' the other
side o' yer faces."
We halted in the evening at a little mining village, and were billeted
for the night in houses, stables, and even in the water-soaked fields,
for there was not sufficient accommodation for all of us. With a dozen of
my comrades I slept on the floor in the kitchen of a miner's cottage, and
listened, far into the night, to the constant procession of motor
ambulances, the tramp of marching feet, the thunder of guns, the rattle
of windows, and the sound of breaking glass.
The following day we spent in cleaning our rifles, which were caked with
rust, and in washing our clothes. We had to put these, still wet, into
our packs, for at dusk we fell in, in column of route, along the village
street, when our officers told us what was before us. I remember how
vividly and honestly one of them described the situation.
"Listen carefully, men. We are moving off in a few moments, to take over
captured German trenches on the left of Loos. No one knows yet just how
the land lies there. The reports we have had are confused and rather
conflicting. The boys you are going to relieve have been having a hard
time. The trenches are full of dead. Those who are left are worn out with
the strain, and they need sleep. They won't care to stop long after you
come in, so you must not expect much information from them. You will have
to find out things for yourselves. But I know you well enough to feel
certain that you will. From now on you'll not have it easy. You will have
to sit tight under a heavy fire from the German batteries. You will have
to repulse counter-attacks, for they will make every effort to retake
those trenches. But remember! You're British soldiers! Whatever happens
you've got to hang on!"
We marched down a road nearly a foot deep in mud. It had been churned to
a thick paste by thousands of feet and all the heavy wheel traffic
incident to the business of war. The rain was still coming down steadily,
and it was pitch dark, except for the reflected light, on the low-hanging
clouds, of the flashes from the guns of our batteries and those of the
bursting shells of the enemy. We halted frequently, to make way for long
files of ambulances which moved as rapidly as the darkness and the awful
condition of the roads would permit. I counted twenty of them during one
halt, and then stopped, thinking of the pain of the poor fellows inside,
their wounds wrenched and torn by the constant pitching and jolting. We
had vivid glimpses of them by the light from flashing guns, and of the
Red Cross attendants at the rear of the cars, steadying the upper tiers
of stretchers on either side. The heavy Garrison artillery was by this
time far behind us. The big shells went over with a hollow roar like the
sound of an express train heard at a distance. Field artillery was
concealed in the ruins of houses on every side. The guns were firing at a
tremendous rate, the shells exploding several miles away with a sound of
jarring thunder claps.
In addition to the ambulances there was a constant stream of outgoing
traffic of other kinds: dispatch riders on motor cycles, feeling their
way cautiously along the side of the road; ammunition supply and
battalion transport wagons, the horses rearing and plunging in the
darkness. We approached a crossroad and halted to make way for some
batteries of field pieces moving to new positions. They went by on a
slippery cobbled road, the horses at a dead gallop. In the red
lightenings of heavy-gun fire they looked like a series of splendid
sculptured groups.
We moved on and halted, moved on again, stumbled into ditches to get out
of the way of headquarters cars and motor lorries, jumped up and pushed
on. Every step through the thick mud was taken with an effort. We
frequently lost touch with the troops ahead of us and would have to march
at the double in order to catch up. I was fast getting into that
despondent, despairing frame of mind which often follows great physical
weariness, when I remembered a bit of wisdom out of a book by William
James which I had read several years before. He had said, in effect, that
men have layers of energy, reserves of nervous force, which they are
rarely called upon to use, but which are, nevertheless, assets of great
value in times of strain. I had occasion to test the truth of this
statement during that night march, and at intervals later, when I felt
that I had reached the end of my resources of strength. And I found it to
be practical wisdom which stood me in good stead on more than one
occasion.
We halted to wait for our trench guides at the village of Vermelles,
about three miles back of our lines. The men lay down thankfully in the
mud and many were soon asleep despite the terrific noise. Our batteries,
concealed in the ruins of houses, were keeping up a steady fire and the
German guns were replying almost as hotly. The weird flashes lit up the
shattered walls with a fascinating, bizarre effect. By their light, I saw
men lying with their heads thrown back over their pack-sacks, their
rifles leaning across their bodies; others standing in attitudes of
suspended animation. The noise was deafening. One was thrown entirely
upon his own resources for comfort and companionship, for it was
impossible to converse. While we were waiting for the order to move, a
homeless dog put his cold nose into my hand. I patted him and he crept up
close beside me. Every muscle in his body was quivering. I wanted to
console him in his own language. But I knew very little French, and I
should have had to shout into his ear at the top of my voice to have made
myself heard. When we marched on I lost him. And I never saw him again.
There was a further march of two and a half miles over open country, the
scene of the great battle. The ground was a maze of abandoned trenches
and was pitted with shell holes. The clay was so slippery and we were so
heavily loaded that we fell down at every step. Some of the boys told me
afterward that I cursed like blue blazes all the way up. I was not
conscious of this, but I can readily understand that it may have been
true. At any rate, as a result of that march, I lost what reputation I
had for being temperate in the use of profanity.
We crossed what had been the first line of British trenches, which marked
the starting-point of the advance, and from there the ground was covered
with the bodies of our comrades, men who had "done their bit," as Tommy
says, and would never go home again. Some were huddled in pathetic little
groups of two or three as they might have crept together for
companionship before they died. Some were lying face downward just as
they had fallen. Others in attitudes revealing dreadful suffering. Many
were hanging upon the tangles of German barbed wire which the heaviest of
bombardments never completely destroys. We saw them only by the light of
distant trench rockets and stumbled on them and over them when the
darkness returned.
It is an unpleasant experience, marching under fire, on top of the
ground, even though it is dark and the enemy is shelling haphazardly. We
machine gunners were always heavily loaded. In addition to the usual
infantryman's burden, we had our machine guns to carry, and our
ammunition, water supply, tools and instruments. We were very eager to
get under cover, but we had to go slowly. By the time we reached our
trench we were nearly exhausted.
The men whom we were to relieve were packed up, ready to move out, when
we arrived. We threw our rifles and equipment on the parapet and stood
close to the side of the trench to allow them to pass. They were cased in
mud. Their faces, which I saw by the glow of matches or lighted
cigarettes, were haggard and worn. A week's growth of beard gave them a
wild and barbaric appearance. They talked eagerly. They were hysterically
cheerful; voluble from sheer nervous reaction. They had the prospect of
getting away for a little while from the sickening horrors: the sight of
maimed and shattered bodies, the deafening noise, the nauseating odor of
decaying flesh. As they moved out there were the usual conversations
which take place between incoming and outgoing troops.
"Wot sort of a week you 'ad, mate?"
"It ain't been a week, son; it's been a lifetime!"
"Lucky fer us you blokes come in just w'en you did. We've about reached
the limit."
"'Ow far we got to go fer water?"
"'Bout two miles. Awful journey! Tyke you all night to do it. You got to
stop every minute, they's so much traffic along that trench. Go down
Stanley Road about five 'unnerd yards, turn off to yer left on Essex
Alley, then yer first right. Brings you right out by the 'ouse w'ere the
pump is."
"'Ere's a straight tip! Send yer water fatigue down early in the mornin':
three o'clock at the latest. They's thousands usin' that well an' she
goes dry arter a little w'ile."
"You blokes want any souvenirs, all you got to do is pick 'em up:
'elmets, revolvers, rifles, German di'ries. You wite till mornin'. You'll
see plenty."
"Is this the last line o' Fritzie's trenches?"
"Can't tell you, mate. All we know is, we got 'ere some'ow an' we been
a-'oldin' on. My Gawd! It's been awful! They calmed down a bit to-night.
You blokes is lucky comin' in just w'en you did."
"I ain't got a pal left out o' my section. You'll see some of 'em. We
ain't 'ad time to bury 'em."
They were soon gone and we were left in ignorance of the situation. We
knew only approximately the direction of the living enemy and the dead
spoke to us only in dumb show, telling us unspeakable things about the
horrors of modern warfare.
Fortunately for us, the fire of the German batteries, during our first
night in captured trenches, was directed chiefly upon positions to our
right and left. The shells from our own batteries were exploding far in
advance of our sector of trench, and we judged from this that we were
holding what had been the enemy's last line, and that the British
artillery were shelling the line along which they would dig themselves in
anew. We felt more certain of this later in the night when working
parties were sent from the battalion to a point twelve hundred yards in
front of the trenches we were then holding. They were to dig a new line
there, to connect with intrenchments which had been pushed forward on
either side of us.
At daybreak we learned that we were slightly to the left of Hill 70.
Hulluch, a small village still in possession of the Germans, was to our
left front. Midway between Hill 70 and Hulluch and immediately to the
front of our position, there was a long stretch of open country which
sloped gently forward for six or eight hundred yards, and then rose
gradually toward the sky-line. In the first assault the British troops
had pushed on past the trenches we were holding and had advanced up the
opposite slope, nearly a mile farther on. There they started to dig
themselves in, but an unfortunate delay in getting forward had given the
enemy time to collect a strong force of local reserves behind his second
line, which was several hundred yards beyond. So heavy a fire had been
concentrated upon them that the British troops had been forced to retire
to the line we were then occupying. They had met with heavy losses both
in advancing and retiring, and the ground in front of us for nearly a
mile was strewn with bodies. We did not learn all of this at once. We
knew nothing of our exact position during the first night, but as there
appeared to be no enemy within striking distance of our immediate front,
we stood on the firing-benches vainly trying to get our bearings. About
one o'clock, we witnessed the fascinating spectacle of a counter-attack
at night.
It came with the dramatic suddenness, the striking spectacular display,
of a motion-picture battle. The pictorial effect seemed extravagantly
overdrawn.
There was a sudden hurricane of rifle and machine-gun fire, and in an
instant all the desolate landscape was revealed under the light of
innumerable trench rockets. We saw the enemy advancing in irregular lines
to the attack. They were exposed to a pitiless infantry fire. I could
follow the curve of our trenches on the left by the almost solid sheet of
flame issuing from the rifles of our comrades against whom the assault
was launched. The artillery ranged upon the advancing lines at once, and
the air was filled with the roar of bursting shells and the melancholy
_whing-g-g-g_ of flying shrapnel.
I did not believe that any one could cross that fire-swept area alive,
but before many moments we heard the staccato of bursting bombs and hand
grenades which meant that some of the enemy, at least, were within
striking distance. There was a sharp crescendo of deafening sound, then,
gradually, the firing ceased, and word came down the line,
"Counter-attack against the ---- Guards; and jolly well beaten off too."
Another was attempted before daybreak, and again the same torrent of
lead, the same hideous uproar, the same sickening smell of lyddite, the
same ghastly noon-day effect, the same gradual silence, and the same
result.
II. DAMAGED TRENCHES
The brief respite which we enjoyed during our first night soon came to an
end. We were given time, however, to make our trenches tenable. Early the
following morning we set to work removing the wreckage of human bodies.
Never before had death revealed itself so terribly to us. Many of the men
had been literally blown to pieces, and it was necessary to gather the
fragments in blankets. For weeks afterward we had to eat and sleep and
work and think among such awful sights. We became hardened to them
finally. It was absolutely essential that we should.
The trenches and dugouts had been battered to pieces by the British
artillery fire before the infantry assault, and since their capture the
work of destruction had been carried on by the German gunners. Even in
their wrecked condition we could see how skillfully they had been
constructed. No labor had been spared in making them as nearly
shell-proof and as comfortable for living quarters as it is possible for
such earthworks to be. The ground here was unusually favorable. Under a
clayish surface soil, there was a stratum of solid chalk. Advantage of
this had been taken by the German engineers who must have planned and
supervised the work. Many of the shell-proof dugouts were fifteen and
even twenty feet below the surface of the ground. Entrance to these was
made in the front wall of the trench on a level with the floor. Stairways
just large enough to permit the passage of a man's body led down to them.
The roofs were reinforced with heavy timbers. They were so strongly built
throughout that most of them were intact, although the passageways
leading up to the trench were choked with loose earth.
There were larger surface dugouts with floors but slightly lower than
that of the trench. These were evidently built for living quarters in
times of comparative quiet. Many of them were six feet wide and from
twenty to thirty feet long, and quite palaces compared to the wretched
little "funk-holes" to which we had been accustomed. They were roofed
with logs a foot or more in diameter placed close together and one on top
of the other in tiers of three, with a covering of earth three or four
feet thick. But although they were solidly built they had not been proof
against the rain of high explosives. Many of them were in ruins, the logs
splintered like kindling wood and strewn far and wide over the ground.
We found several dugouts, evidently officers' quarters, which were almost
luxuriously furnished. There were rugs for the wooden floors and pictures
and mirrors for the walls; and in each of them there was the jolliest
little stove with a removable lid. We discovered one of these underground
palaces at the end of a blind alley leading off from the main trench. It
was at least fifteen feet underground, with two stairways leading down to
it, so that if escape was cut off in one direction, it was still possible
to get out on the other side. We immediately took possession, built a
roaring fire, and were soon passing canteens of hot tea around the
circle. Life was worth while again. We all agreed that there were less
comfortable places in which to have breakfast on rainy autumn mornings
than German officers' dug-outs.
The haste with which the Germans abandoned their trenches was evidenced
by the amount of war material which they left behind. We found two
machine guns and a great deal of small-arms ammunition in our own limited
sector of frontage. Rifles, intrenching tools, haversacks, canteens,
greatcoats, bayonets were scattered everywhere. All of this material was
of the very best. Canteens, water-bottles, and small frying-pans were
made of aluminum and most ingeniously fashioned to make them less bulky
for carrying. Some of the bayonets were saw-edged. We found three of
these needlessly cruel weapons in a dugout which bore the following
inscription over the door:--
"_Gott tret' herein. Bring' glück herein._"
It was an interesting commentary on German character. Tommy Atkins never
writes inscriptions of a religious nature over the doorway of his
splinter-roof shelter. Neither does he file a saw edge on his bayonet.
We found many letters, picture post-cards, and newspapers; among the
latter, one called the "Krieg-Zeitung," published at Lille for the
soldiers in the field, and filled with glowing accounts of battles fought
by the ever victorious German armies.
Death comes swiftly in war. One's life hangs by a thread. The most
trivial circumstance saves or destroys. Mac came into the half-ruined
dugout where the off-duty machine gunners were making tea over a fire of
splintered logs.
"Jamie," he said, "take my place at sentry for a few minutes, will you?
I've lost my water-bottle. It's 'ere in the dugout somew'ere. I'll be
only a minute."
I went out to the gun position a few yards away, and immediately
afterward the Germans began a bombardment of our line. One's ear becomes
exact in distinguishing the size of shells by the sound which they make
in traveling through the air; and it is possible to judge the direction
and the probable place of their fall. Two of us stood by the machine gun.
We heard at the same time the sound which we knew meant danger, possibly
death. It was the awful whistling roar of a high explosive. We dropped to
the floor of the trench at once. The explosion blackened our faces with
lyddite and half-blinded us. The dugout which I had left less than a
moment ago was a mass of wreckage. Seven of our comrades were inside.
One of them crawled out, pulling himself along with one arm. The other
arm was terribly crushed and one leg was hanging by a tendon and a few
shreds of flesh.
"My God, boys! Look wot they did to me!"
He kept saying it over and over while we cut the cords from our
bandoliers, tied them about his leg and arm and twisted them up to stop
the flow of blood. He was a fine, healthy lad. A moment before he had
been telling us what he was going to do when we went home on furlough.
Now his face was the color of ashes, his voice grew weaker and weaker,
and he died while we were working over him.
High explosive shells were bursting all along the line. Great masses of
earth and chalk were blown in on top of men seeking protection where
there was none. The ground rocked like so much pasteboard. I heard
frantic cries for "Picks and shovels!" "Stretcher-bearers!
Stretcher-bearers this way, for God's sake!" The voices sounded as weak
and futile as the squeaking of rats in a thunderstorm.
When the bombardment began, all off-duty men were ordered into the
deepest of the shell-proof dugouts, where they were really quite safe.
But those English lads were not cowards. Orders or no orders, they came
out to the rescue of their comrades. They worked without a thought of
their own danger. I felt actually happy, for I was witnessing splendid
heroic things. It was an experience which gave one a new and unshakable
faith in his fellows.
The sergeant and I rushed into the ruins of our machine-gun dugout. The
roof still held in one place. There we found Mac, his head split in two
as though it had been done with an axe. Gardner's head was blown
completely off, and his body was so terribly mangled that we did not know
until later who he was. Preston was lying on his back with a great
jagged, blood-stained hole through his tunic. Bert Powel was so badly
hurt that we exhausted our supply of field dressings in bandaging him. We
found little Charlie Harrison lying close to the side of the wall, gazing
at his crushed foot with a look of incredulity and horror pitiful to see.
One of the men gave him first aid with all the deftness and tenderness of
a woman.
The rest of us dug hurriedly into a great heap of earth at the other end
of the shelter. We quickly uncovered Walter, a lad who had kept us
laughing at his drollery on many a rainy night. The earth had been heaped
loosely on him and he was still conscious.
"Good old boys," he said weakly; "I was about done for."
In our haste we dislodged another heap of earth which completely buried
him again, and it seemed a lifetime before we were able to remove it. I
have never seen a finer display of pure grit than Walter's.
"Easy now!" he said. "Can't feel anything below me waist. I think I'm
'urt down there."
We worked as swiftly and as carefully as we could. We knew that he was
badly wounded, for the earth was soaked with blood; but when we saw, we
turned away sick with horror. Fortunately, he lost consciousness while we
were trying to disentangle him from the fallen timbers, and he died on
the way to the field dressing-station. Of the seven lads in the dugout,
three were killed outright, three died within half an hour, and one
escaped with a crushed foot which had to be amputated at the field
hospital.
What had happened to our little group was happening to others along the
entire line. Americans may have read of the bombardment which took place
that autumn morning. The dispatches, I believe, described it with the
usual official brevity, giving all the information really necessary from
the point of view of the general public.
"Along the Loos-La Bassée sector there was a lively artillery action. We
demolished some earthworks in the vicinity of Hulluch. Some of our
trenches near Hill 70 were damaged."
"Damaged!" It was a guarded admission. Our line was a shambles of loose
earth and splintered logs. At some places it was difficult to see just
where the trench had been. Had the Germans launched a counter-attack
immediately after the bombardment, we should have had difficulty in
holding the position. But it was only what Tommy called "a big 'ap'orth
o' 'ate." No attempt was made to follow up the advantage, and we at once
set to work rebuilding. The loose earth had to be put into sandbags, the
parapets mended, the holes, blasted out by shells, filled in.
The worst of it was that we could not get away from the sight of the
mangled bodies of our comrades. Arms and legs stuck out of the wreckage,
and on every side we saw distorted human faces, the faces of men we had
known, with whom we had lived and shared hardships and dangers for months
past. Those who have never lived through experiences of this sort cannot
possibly know the horror of them. It is not in the heat of battle that
men lose their reason. Battle frenzy is, perhaps, a temporary madness.
The real danger comes when the strain is relaxed. Men look about them and
see the bodies of their comrades torn to pieces as though they had been
hacked and butchered by fiends. One thinks of the human body as
inviolate, a beautiful and sacred thing. The sight of it dismembered or
disemboweled, trampled in the bottom of a trench, smeared with blood and
filth, is so revolting as to be hardly endurable.
And yet, we had to endure it. We could not escape it. Whichever way we
looked, there were the dead. Worse even than the sight of dead men were
the groans and entreaties of those lying wounded in the trenches waiting
to be taken back to the dressing-stations.
"I'm shot through the stomach, matey! Can't you get me back to the
ambulance? Ain't they _some_ way you can get me back out o' this?"
"Stick it, old lad! You won't 'ave long to wite. They'll be some of the
Red Cross along 'ere in a jiffy now."
"Give me a lift, boys, can't you? Look at my leg! Do you think it'll 'ave
to come off? Maybe they could save it if I could get to 'ospital in time!
Won't some of you give me a lift? I can 'obble along with a little 'elp."
"Don't you fret, sonny! You're a-go'n' to ride back in a stretcher
presently. Keep yer courage up a little w'ile longer."
Some of the men, in their suffering, forgot every one but themselves, and
it was not strange that they should. Others, with more iron in their
natures, endured fearful agony in silence. During memorable half-hours,
filled with danger and death, many of my gross misjudgments of character
were made clear to me. Men whom no one had credited with heroic qualities
revealed them. Others failed rather pitiably to live up to one's
expectations. It seemed to me that there was strength or weakness in men,
quite apart from their real selves, for which they were in no way
responsible; but doubtless it had always been there, waiting to be called
forth at just such crucial times.
During the afternoon I heard for the first time the hysterical cry of a
man whose nerve had given way. He picked up an arm and threw it far out
in front of the trenches, shouting as he did so in a way that made one's
blood run cold. Then he sat down and started crying and moaning. He was
taken back to the rear, one of the saddest of casualties in a war of
inconceivable horrors. I heard of many instances of nervous breakdown,
but I witnessed surprisingly few of them. Men were often badly shaken and
trembled from head to foot. Usually they pulled themselves together under
the taunts of their less susceptible comrades.
III. RISSOLES AND A REQUIEM
At the close of a gloomy October day, six unshaven, mud-encrusted machine
gunners, the surviving members of two teams, were gathered at the C
Company gun emplacement. D Company's gun had been destroyed by a shell,
and so we had joined forces here in front of the wrecked dugout, and were
waiting for night when we could bury our dead comrades. A fine drenching
rain was falling. We sat with our waterproof sheets thrown over our
shoulders and our knees drawn up to our chins, that we might conserve the
damp warmth of our bodies. No one spoke. No reference was made to our
dead comrades who were lying there so close that we could almost touch
them from where we sat. Nevertheless, I believe that we were all thinking
of them, however unwillingly. I tried to see them as they were only a few
hours before. I tried to remember the sound of their voices, how they had
laughed; but I could think only of the appearance of their mutilated
bodies.
On a dreary autumn evening one's thoughts often take a melancholy turn,
even though one is indoors, sitting before a pleasant fire, and hearing
but faintly the sighing of the wind and the sound of the rain beating
against the window. It is hardly to be wondered at that soldiers in
trenches become discouraged at times, and on this occasion, when an
unquenchably cheerful voice shouted over an adjoining traverse,--
"Wot che'r, lads! Are we downhearted?"--a growling chorus answered with
an unmistakable,--
"YES!"
We were in an open ditch. The rain was beating down on our faces. We were
waiting for darkness when we could go to our unpleasant work of
grave-digging. To-morrow there would be more dead bodies and more graves
to dig, and the day after, the same duty, and the day after that, the
same. Week after week we should be living like this, killing and being
killed, binding up terrible wounds, digging graves, always doing the same
work with not one bright or pleasant thing to look forward to.
These were my thoughts as I sat on the firing-bench with my head drawn
down between my knees watching the water dripping from the edges of my
puttees. But I had forgotten one important item in the daily routine:
supper. And I had forgotten Private Lemley, our cook, or, to give him his
due, our _chef_. He was not the man to waste his time in gloomy
reflection. With a dozen mouldy potatoes which he had procured Heaven
knows where, four tins of corned beef, and a canteen lid filled with
bacon grease for raw materials, he had set to work with the enthusiasm of
the born artist, the result being rissoles, brown, crisp, and piping hot.
It is a pleasure to think of that meal. Private Lemley was one of the
rare souls of earth, one of the Mark Tapleys who never lost his courage
or his good spirits. I remember how our spirits rose at the sound of his
voice, and how gladly and quickly we responded to his summons.
"'Ere you are, me lads! Bully beef rissoles an' 'ot tea, an' it ain't
'arf bad fer the trenches if I do s'y it."
I can only wonder now at the keenness of our appetites in the midst of
the most gruesome surroundings. Dead men were lying about us, both in the
trenches and outside of them. And yet our rissoles were not a whit the
less enjoyable on that account.
It was quite dark when we had finished. The sergeant jumped to his feet.
"Let's get at it, boys," he said.
Half an hour later we erected a wooden cross in Tommy's grave-strewn
garden. It bore the following inscription written in pencil:
Pte. # 4326 MacDonald.
Pte. # 7864 Gardner.
Pte. # 9851 Preston.
Pte. # 6940 Allen.
Royal Fusiliers.
"They did their bit."
Quietly we slipped back into the trench and piled our picks and shovels
on the parados.
"Got yer mouth-organ 'andy, Nobby?" some one asked.
"She's always 'andy. Wot'll you 'ave, lads?"
"Give us 'Silk 'At Nat Tony.' That's a proper funeral 'ymn."
"Right you are! Sing up, now!"
And then we sang Tommy's favorite kind of requiem:--
"I'm Silk Hat Nat Tony,
I'm down and I'm stony:
I'm not only broke, but I'm bent.
The fringe of my trousers
Keeps lashing the houses,
But still I am gay and content.
I stroll the West gayly,
You'll see me there daily,
From Burlington Arcade
Up to the Old Bailey.
I'm stony! I'm Tony!
But that makes no diff'rence, you see.
Though I haven't a fraction,
I've this satisfaction,
They built Piccadilly for me."