"SITTING TIGHT"
I. LEMONS AND CRICKET BALLS
Throughout October we fulfilled the prophecy of the officer who told us
that "sitting tight" in the German trenches was to be our function. There
were nightly counter-attacks preceded by heavy artillery fire, when the
enemy made determined efforts to retake the lost territory. There were
needless alarms when nervous sentries "got the wind up," to use the
authentic trench expression, and contagious excitement set men to firing
like mad into blank darkness. In the daytime there were moments of calm
which we could not savor owing to that other warfare waged upon us by
increasing hordes of parasitic enemies. We moved from one position to
another through trenches where the tangled mass of telephone wires,
seemingly gifted with a kind of malignant humor, coiled themselves about
our feet or caught in the piling swivels of our rifles. There were orders
and counter-orders, alarums and excursions. Through them all Tommy kept
his balance and his air of cheery unconcern, but he wished that he might
be "struck pink" if he knew "wot we was a-doin' of anyw'y."
Our ideas of the tactical situation were decidedly vague. However, we did
know, in a general way, our position with reference to important military
landmarks, and the amateur strategists were busy at all times explaining
the situation to frankly ignorant comrades, and outlining plans for
definite action.
"Now, if I was General French, I'd make 'Ulluch me main objective. They
ain't no use tryin' to get by at this part o' the line till you got that
village."
"Don't talk so bloomin' ignorant! Ain't that just wot they been a-tryin'?
Wot we got to do is go 'round 'Ulluch. Tyke 'em in the rear an' from both
sides."
"W'y don't they get on with it? Wot to blazes are we a-doin' of, givin'
'em a chanct to get dug in again? 'Ere we all but got 'em on the run an'
the 'ole show stops!"
The continuation of the offensive was the chief topic of conversation.
The men dreaded it, but they were anxious to get through with the
business. They believed that now if ever there was the chance to push the
Germans out of France.
In the mean time the day's work was still the day's work. There were
nightly bombing affairs, some of them most desperate hand-to-hand
contests for the possession of small sectors of trench. One of these I
witnessed from a trench sixty yards away. The advantage lay with us. The
enemy held only the center of the line and were forced to meet attacks
from either end. However, they had a communication trench connecting with
their second line, through which carrying parties brought them a
limitless supply of bombs.
The game of pitch and toss over the barricades had continued for several
days without a decision. Then came orders for more decisive action. The
barricades were to be destroyed and the enemy bombed out. In underground
fighting of this kind the element of surprise is possible. If one
opponent can be suddenly overwhelmed with a heavy rain of bombs, the
chances of success for the attacking party are quite favorable.
The action took place at dusk. Shortly before the hour set, the bombers,
all of them boys in their early twenties, filed slowly along the trench,
the pockets of their grenade waistcoats bulging with "lemons" and
"cricket balls," as the two most effective kinds of bombs are called.
They went to their places with that spirit of stolid cheeriness which is
the wonder and admiration of every one who knows Tommy Atkins intimately.
Formerly, when I saw him in this mood, I would think, "He doesn't
realize. Men don't go out to meet death like this." But long association
with him had convinced me of the error of this opinion. These men knew
that death or terrible injury was in store for many of them; yet they
were talking in excited and gleeful undertones, as they might have passed
through the gates at a football match.
"Are we downhearted? Not likely, old son!"
"Tyke a feel o' this little puffball! Smack on old Fritzie's napper she
goes!"
"I'm a-go'n' to arsk fer a nice Blightey one! Four months in Brentford
'ospital an' me Christmas puddin' at 'ome!"
"Now, don't ferget, you blokes! County o' London War 'Ospital fer me if I
gets a knock! Write it on a piece o' pyper an' pin it to me tunic w'en
you sends me back to the ambulance."
The barricades were blown up and the fight was on. A two-hundred-piece
orchestra of blacksmiths, with sledgehammers, beating kettle-drums the
size of brewery vats, might have approximated, in quality and volume, the
sound of the battle. The spectacular effect was quite different from that
of a counter-attack across the open. Lurid flashes of light issued from
the ground as though a door to the infernal regions had been thrown
jarringly open. The cloud of thick smoke was shot through with red
gleams. Men ran along the parapet hurling bombs down into the trench. Now
they were hidden by the smoke, now silhouetted for an instant against a
glare of blinding light.
An hour passed and there was no change in the situation.
"Fritzie's a tough old bird," said Tommy. "'E's a-go'n' to die game, you
got to give it to 'im."
The excitement was intense. Urgent calls for "More lemons! More cricket
balls!" were sent back constantly. Box after box, each containing a dozen
grenades, was passed up the line from hand to hand, and still the call
for "More bombs!" We couldn't send them up fast enough.
The wounded were coming back in twos and threes. One lad, his eyes
covered with a bloody bandage, was led by another with a shattered hand.
"Poor old Tich! She went off right in 'is face! But you did yer bit,
Tich! You ought to 'a' seen 'im, you blokes! Wasn't 'e a-lettin' 'em 'ave
it!"
Another man hobbled past on one foot, supporting himself against the side
of the trench.
"Got a Blightey one," he said gleefully. "So long you lads! I'll be with
you again arter the 'olidays."
Those who do not know the horrors of modern warfare cannot readily
understand the joy of the soldier at receiving a wound which is not
likely to prove serious. A bullet in the arm or the shoulder, even though
it shatters the bone, or a piece of shrapnel or shell casing in the leg,
was always a matter for congratulation. These were "Blightey wounds."
When Tommy received one of this kind, he was a candidate for hospital in
"Blightey," as England is affectionately called. For several months he
would be far away from the awful turmoil. His body would be clean; he
would be rid of the vermin and sleep comfortably in a bed at night. The
strain would be relaxed, and, who knows, the war might be over before he
was again fit for active service. And so the less seriously wounded made
their way painfully but cheerfully along the trench, on their way to the
field dressing-station, the motor ambulance, the hospital ship,
and--home! while their unwounded comrades gave them words of
encouragement and good cheer.
"Good luck to you, Sammy boy! If you sees my missus, tell 'er I'm as
right as rain!"
"Sammy, you _lucky_ blighter! W'en yer convalescin', 'ave a pint of ale
at the W'ite Lion fer me."
"An' a good feed o' fish an' chips fer _me_, Sammy. Mind yer foot!
There's a 'ole just 'ere!"
"'Ere comes old Sid! W'ere you caught it, mate?"
"In me bloomin' shoulder. It ain't _'arf_ givin' it to me!"
"Never you mind, Sid! Blightey fer you, boy!"
"Hi, Sid! Tell me old lady I'm still up an' comin', will you? You know
w'ere she lives, forty-six Bromley Road."
One lad, his nerve gone, pushed his way frantically down the trench. He
had "funked it." He was hysterical with fright and crying in a dry,
shaking voice,--
"It's too 'orrible! I can't stand it! Blow you to 'ell they do! Look at
me! I'm slathered in blood! I can't stand it! They ain't no man can stand
it!"
He met with scant courtesy. A trench during an attack is no place for the
faint-hearted. An unsympathetic Tommy kicked him savagely.
"Go 'ide yerself, you bloody little coward!"
"More lemons! More cricket balls!" and at last, Victory! Fritzie had
"chucked it," and men of the Royal Engineers, that wonderfully efficient
corps, were on the spot with picks and shovels and sandbags, clearing out
the wreckage, and building a new barricade at the farther end of the
communication trench.
It was only a minor affair, one of many which take place nightly in the
firing-line. Twoscore yards of trench were captured. The cost was,
perhaps, one man per yard; but as Tommy said,--
"It ain't the trench wot counts. It's the more-ale. Bucks the blokes up
to win, an' that's worth a 'ole bloomin' army corps."
II. "GO IT, THE NORFOLKS!"
Rumors of all degrees of absurdity reached us. The enemy was massing on
our right, on our left, on our immediate front. The division was to
attack at dawn under cover of a hundred bomb-dropping battle-planes.
Units of the new armies to the number of five hundred thousand were
concentrating behind the line from La Bassée to Arras, and another
tremendous drive was to be made in conjunction with the French, (As a
matter of fact, we knew less of what was actually happening than did
people in England and America.) Most of these reports sprang, full grown,
from the fertile brains of officers' servants. Scraps of information
which they gathered while in attendance at the officers' mess dugout
were pieced together, and much new material of their own invention
added. The striving was for piquancy rather than plausibility. A wild
tale was always better than a dull one; furthermore the "batmen" were
our only sources of official information, and could always command a
hearing. When one of them came down the trench with that mysterious
"I-could-a-tale-unfold" air, he was certain to be halted by willingly
gullible comrades.
"Wot's up, Jerry? Anything new?"
"Nor 'arf! Now, keep this under yer 'ats, you blokes! My gov'nor was
a-talkin' to Major Bradley this mornin' w'ile I was a-mykin' 'is tea, an'
'_e_ says--"
Then followed the thrilling narrative, a disclosure of official secrets
while groups of war-worn Tommies listened with eager interest. "Spreading
the News" was a tragi-comedy enacted daily in the trenches.
But we were not entirely in the dark. The signs which preceded an
engagement were unmistakable, and toward the middle of October there was
general agreement that an important action was about to take place.
British aircraft had been patrolling our front ceaselessly for hours.
Several battalions (including our own which had just gone into reserve at
Vermelles) were placed on bomb-carrying fatigue. As we went up to the
firing-line with our first load, we found all of the support trenches
filled to overflowing with troops in fighting order.
We reached the first line as the preliminary bombardment started. Scores
of batteries were concentrating their fire on the enemy's trenches
directly opposite us. It is useless to attempt to depict what lay before
us as we looked over the parapet. The trenches were hidden from view in a
cloud of smoke and flame and dirt. The earth was like a muddy sea dashed
high in spray against hidden rocks.
The men who were to lead the attack were standing rifle in hand, waiting
for the sudden cessation of fire which would be the signal for them to
mount the parapet. Bombers and bayonet-men alternated in series of two.
The bombers wore their mediæval-looking shrapnel-proof helmets and heavy
canvas grenade coats with twelve pockets sagging with bombs. Their rifles
were slung on their backs to give them free use of their hands.
Every one was smoking--some calmly, some with short, nervous puffs. It
was interesting to watch the faces of the men. One could read, almost to
a certainty, what was going on in their minds. Some of them were thinking
of the terrible events so near at hand. They were imagining the horrors
of the attack in detail. Others were unconcernedly intent upon adjusting
straps of their equipment, or in rubbing their clips of ammunition with
an oily rag. Several men were singing to a mouth-organ accompaniment. I
saw their lips moving, but not a sound reached me above the din of the
guns, although I was standing only a few yards distant. It was like an
absurd pantomime.
As I watched them, the sense of the unreality of the whole thing swept
over me more strongly than ever before. "This can't be true," I thought;
"I have never been a soldier. There isn't any European war." I had the
curious feeling that my body and brain were functioning quite apart from
me. I was only a slow-witted, incredulous spectator looking on with a
stupid animal wonder. I have learned that this feeling is quite common
among men in the trenches. A part of the mind works normally, and another
part, which seems to be one's essential self, refuses to assimilate and
classify experiences so unusual, so different from anything in the
catalogue of memory.
For two hours and a half the roar of guns continued. Then it stopped as
suddenly as it had begun. An officer near me shouted, "Now, men! Follow
me!" and clambered over the parapet. There was no hesitation. In a moment
the trench was empty save for the bomb-carrying parties and an artillery
observation officer, who was jumping up and down on the firing-bench,
shouting--
"Go it, the Norfolks! _Go it, the Norfolks!_ My God! Isn't it fine!
Isn't it splendid!"
There you have the British officer true to type. He is a sportsman: next
to taking part in a fight he loves to see one--and he says "isn't" not
"ain't," even under stress of the greatest excitement.
The German artillery, which had been reserving fire, now poured forth a
deluge of shrapnel. The sound of rifle fire was scattered and ragged at
first, but it increased steadily in volume. Then came the "boiler-factory
chorus," the sharp rattle of dozens of machine guns. The bullets were
flying over our heads like swarms of angry wasps. A ration-box board
which I held above the parapet was struck almost immediately. Fortunately
for the artillery officer, a disrespectful N.C.O. pulled him down into
the trench.
"It's no use throwin' yer life aw'y, sir. You won't 'elp 'em over by
barkin' at 'em."
He was up again almost at once, coolly watching the progress of the
troops from behind a small barricade of sandbags, and reporting upon it
to batteries several miles in rear. The temptation to look over the
parapet was not to be resisted. The artillery lengthened their ranges. I
saw the curtain of flame-shot smoke leap at a bound to the next line of
German trenches.
Within a few moments several lines of reserves filed into the front
trench and went over the parapet in support of the first line, advancing
with heads down like men bucking into the fury of a gale. We saw them
only for an instant as they jumped to their feet outside the trench and
rushed forward. Many were hit before they had passed through the gaps in
our barbed wire. Those who were able crept back and were helped into the
trench by comrades. One man was killed as he was about to reach a place
of safety. He lay on the parapet with his head and arms hanging down
inside the trench. His face was that of a boy of twenty-one or
twenty-two. I carry the memory of it with me to-day as vividly as when I
left the trenches in November.
Following the attacking infantry were those other soldiers whose work,
though less spectacular than that of the riflemen, was just as essential
and quite as dangerous. Royal Engineers, with picks and shovels and
sandbags, rushed forward to reverse the parapets of the captured
trenches, and to clear out the wreckage, while the riflemen waited for
the launching of the first counter-attack. They were preceded by men of
the Signaling Corps, who advanced swiftly and skillfully, unwinding
spools of insulated telephone wire as they went. Bomb-carriers,
stretcher-bearers, intent upon their widely divergent duties, followed.
The work of salvage and destruction went hand in hand.
The battle continued until evening, when we received orders to move up to
the firing-line. We started at five o'clock, and although we had less
than three miles to go, we did not reach the end of our journey until
four the next morning, owing to the fatigue parties and the long stream
of wounded which blocked the communication trenches. For more than an
hour we lay just outside of the trench looking down on a seemingly
endless procession of casualties. Some of the men were crying like
children, some groaning pitifully, some laughing despite their wounds. I
heard dialects peculiar to every part of England, and fragmentary
accounts of hairbreadth escapes and desperate fighting.
"They was a big Dutchman comin' at me from the other side. Lucky fer me
that I 'ad a round in me breach. He'd 'a' got me if it 'adn't 'a' been
fer that ca'tridge. I let 'im 'ave it an' 'e crumpled up like a wet
blanket."
"Seeven of them, an' that dazed like, they wasna good for onything. Mon,
it would ha' been fair murder to kill 'em! They wasna wantin' to fight."
Boys scarcely out of their 'teens talked with the air of old veterans.
Many of them had been given their first taste of real fighting, and they
were experiencing a very common and natural reaction. Their courage had
been put to the most severe test and had not given way. It was not
difficult to understand their elation, and one could forgive their
boastful talk of bloody deeds. One highly strung lad was dangerously near
to nervous breakdown. He had bayoneted his first German and could not
forget the experience. He told of it over and over as the line moved
slowly along.
"I couldn't get me bayonet out," he said. "Wen 'e fell 'e pulled me over
on top of 'im. I 'ad to put me foot against 'im an' pull, an' then it
came out with a jerk."
We met small groups of prisoners under escort of proud and happy Tommies
who gave us conflicting reports of the success of the attack. Some of
them said that two more lines of German trenches had been taken; others
declared that we had broken completely through and that the enemy were in
full retreat. Upon arriving at our position, we were convinced that at
least one trench had been captured; but when we mounted our guns and
peered cautiously over the parapet, the lights which we saw in the
distance were the flashes of German rifles, not the street lamps of
Berlin.
III. CHRISTIAN PRACTICE
Meanwhile, the inhumanity of a war without truces was being revealed to
us on every hand. Hundreds of bodies were lying between the opposing
lines of trenches and there was no chance to bury them. Fatigue parties
were sent out at night to dispose of those which were lying close to the
parapets, but the work was constantly delayed and interrupted by
persistent sniping and heavy shell fire. Others farther out lay where
they had fallen day after day and week after week. Many an anxious mother
in England was seeking news of a son whose body had become a part of that
Flemish landscape.
During the week following the commencement of the offensive, the wounded
were brought back in twos and threes from the contested area over which
attacks and counter-attacks were taking place. One plucky Englishman was
discovered about fifty yards in front of our trenches. He was waving a
handkerchief tied to the handle of his intrenching tool.
Stretcher-bearers ran out under fire and brought him in. He had been
wounded in the foot when his company were advancing up the slope fifteen
hundred yards away. When it was found necessary to retire, he had been
left with many dead and wounded comrades, far from the possibility of
help by friends. He had bandaged his wound with his first-aid field
dressing, and started crawling back, a few yards at a time. He secured
food from the haversacks of dead comrades, and at length, after a week of
painful creeping, reached our lines.
Another of our comrades was discovered by a listening patrol, six days
after he had been wounded. He, too, had been struck down close to the
enemy's second line. Two kind-hearted German sentries, to whom he had
signaled, crept out at night and gave him hot coffee to drink. He begged
them to carry him in, but they told him they were forbidden to take any
wounded prisoners. As he was unable to crawl, he must have died had it
not been for the keen ears of the men of the listening patrol. A third
victim whom I saw was brought in at daybreak by a working party. He had
been shot in the jaw and lay unattended through at least five wet October
days and nights. His eyes were swollen shut. Blood-poisoning had set in
from a wound which would certainly not have been fatal could it have
received early attention.
We knew that there must be many wounded still alive in the tall grass
between our lines. We knew that many were dying who might be saved. The
Red Cross Corps made nightly searches for them, but the difficulties to
be overcome were great. The volume of fire increased tremendously at
night. Furthermore, there was a wide area to be searched, and in the
darkness men lying unconscious, or too weak from the loss of blood to
groan or shout, were discovered only by accident.
Tommy Atkins isn't an advocate of "peace at any price," but the sight of
awful and needless suffering invariably moved him to declare himself
emphatically against the inhuman practices in war of so-called Christian
nations.
"Christian nations!" he would say scornfully. "If this 'ere is a sample
o' Christianity, I'll tyke me charnces down below w'en I gets knocked
out." His comrades greeted such outbursts with hearty approval.
"I'm with you there, mate! 'Ell won't be such a dusty old place if all
the Christians go upstairs."
"They ain't no God 'avin' anything to do with this war, I'm telling you!
All the religious blokes in England an' France an' Germany ain't a-go'n'
to pray 'Im into it!"
I am not in a position to speak for Hans and Fritz, who faced us from the
other side of No-Man's-Land; but as for Tommy, it seemed to me that he
had a higher opinion of the Deity than many of his better-educated
countrymen at home.
IV. TOMMY
By the end of the month we had seen more of suffering and death than it
is good for men to see in a lifetime. There were attacks and
counter-attacks, hand-to-hand fights in communication trenches with bombs
and bayonets, heavy bombardments, nightly burial parties. Tommy Atkins
looked like a beast. His clothing was a hardened-mud casing; his body was
the color of the sticky Flanders clay in which he lived; but his soul was
clean and fine. I saw him rescuing wounded comrades, tending them in the
trenches, encouraging them and heartening them when he himself was
discouraged and sick at heart.
"You're a-go'n' 'ome, 'Arry! Blimy! think o' that! Back to old Blightey
w'ile the rest of us 'as got to stick it out 'ere! Don't I wish I was
you! Not 'arf!"
"You ain't bad 'urt! Strike me pink! You'll be as keen as a w'istle in a
couple o' months. An' 'ere! Christmas in Blightey, son! S'y! I'll tyke
yer busted shoulder if you'll give me the chanct!"
"They ain't nothin' they can't do fer you back at the base 'ospital.
'Member 'ow they fixed old Ginger up? You ain't caught it 'arf as bad!"
In England, before I knew him for the man he is, I said, "How am I to
endure living with him?" And now I am thinking, how am I to endure living
without him; without the inspiration of his splendid courage; without the
visible example of his unselfish devotion to his fellows? There were a
few cowards and shirkers who failed to live up to the standard set by
their comrades. I remember the man of thirty-five or forty who lay
whimpering in the trench when there was unpleasant work to be done, while
boys half his age kicked him in a vain attempt to waken him to a sense of
duty; but instances of this kind were rare. There were not enough of them
to serve as a foil to the shining deeds which were of daily and hourly
occurrence.
Tommy is sick of the war--dead sick of it. He is weary of the
interminable procession of comfortless nights and days. He is weary of
the sight of maimed and bleeding men--of the awful suspense of waiting
for death. In the words of his pathetic little song, he does "want to go
'ome." But there is that within him which says, "Hold on!" He is a
compound of cheery optimism and grim tenacity which makes him an
incomparable fighting man.
The intimate picture of him which lingers most willingly in my mind is
that which I carried with me from the trenches on the dreary November
evening shortly before I bade him good-bye. It had been raining and
sleeting for a week. The trenches were knee-deep in water, in some places
waist-deep, for the ground was as level as a floor and there was no
possibility of drainage. We were wet through and our legs were numb with
the cold. Near our gun position there was a hole in the floor of the
trench where the water had collected in a deep pool. A bridge of boards
had been built around one side of this, but in the darkness a passer-by
slipped and fell into the icy water nearly up to his arm-pits.
"Now, then, matey!" said an exasperating voice, "bathin' in our private
pool without a permit?"
And another, "'Ere, son! This ain't a swimmin' bawth! That's our tea
water yer a-standin' in!"
The Tommy in the pool must have been nearly frozen, but for a moment he
made no attempt to get out.
"One o' you fetch me a bit o' soap, will you?'" he said coaxingly. "You
ain't a-go'n' to talk about tea water to a bloke wot ain't 'ad a bawth in
seven weeks?"
It is men of this stamp who have the fortunes of England in their
keeping. And they are called, "The Boys of the Bulldog Breed."
THE END
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_America and the War_
THE CHALLENGE OF THE FUTURE
ROLAND G. USHER
The
Diplomatic "The most cogent analysis of national prospects and
Aspects possibilities any student of world politics has yet
written."--_Boston Herald._ $1.75 net.
ARE WE READY?
H. D. WHEELER
The
Military A sane constructive study of our unpreparedness for war.
Aspects "You have performed a real service to the American
people."--Henry T. Stimson, Former Secretary of
War. $1.50 net.
THE ROAD TOWARD PEACE
CHARLES W. ELIOT
"Few writers have discussed the way and means of establishing
peace and friendly relations among nations with more
sanity and far-reaching estimate of values."--_Detroit Free
Press._ $1.00 net.
GERMANY VERSUS CIVILIZATION
The Moral WILLIAM ROSCOE THAYER
Aspects
A biting indictment of Prussianism and an analysis of the
meaning of the war to America. $1.00 net.
COUNTER-CURRENTS
AGNES REPPLIER
Dealing mainly with issues arising from the war, these
essays will take their place among the most brilliant of
contemporary comment. $1.25 net.
_Miscellaneous_
THE FIELD OF HONOUR
H. FIELDING-HALL
Fiction
Short stories dealing with the spirit of England at war.
"Admirably written without one superfluous word to mar the
directness of their appeal."--_New York Times._ $1.50 net.
A SONG OF THE GUNS
GILBERT FRANKAU
Poetry
Vivid, powerful verse written to the roar of guns on the
western front, by a son of Frank Danby, the novelist.
KITCHENER, ORGANIZER OF VICTORY
HAROLD BEGBIE
Biography
The first full and satisfactory account of the life and
deeds of England's great War Minister. _Suppressed in
England for its frankness._ Illustrated. $1.25.
IS WAR DIMINISHING?
FREDERICK ADAMS WOOD, M.D., AND ALEXANDER BALTZLEY
History
The first complete and authoritative study of the question
of whether warfare has increased or diminished in the last
five centuries. $1.00 net.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON AND NEW YORK