You must not imagine, however, that all this nightwork is performed in
gross darkness. On the contrary. There is abundance of illumination;
and by a pretty thought, each side illuminates the other. We perform
our nocturnal tasks, in front of and behind the firing trench, amid a
perfect hail of star-shells and magnesium lights, topped up at times by
a searchlight--all supplied by our obliging friend the Hun. We, on our
part, do our best to return these graceful compliments.
The curious and uncanny part of it all is that there is no firing.
During these brief hours there exists an informal truce, founded on
the principle of live and let live. It would be an easy business to
wipe out that working-party, over there by the barbed wire, with
a machine-gun. It would be child's play to shell the road behind
the enemy's trenches, crowded as it must be with ration-wagons and
water-carts, into a blood-stained wilderness. But so long as each
side confines itself to purely defensive and recuperative work, there
is little or no interference. That slave of duty, Zacchæus, keeps on
pegging away; and occasionally, if a hostile patrol shows itself too
boldly, there is a little exuberance from a machine-gun; but on the
whole there is silence. After all, if you prevent your enemy from
drawing his rations, his remedy is simple: he will prevent you from
drawing yours. Then both parties will have to fight on empty stomachs,
and neither of them, tacitally, will be a penny the better. So, unless
some elaborate scheme of attack is brewing, the early hours of the
night are comparatively peaceful. But what is that sudden disturbance
in the front-line trench? A British rifle rings out, then another,
and another, until there is an agitated fusilade from end to end of
the section. Instantly the sleepless host across the way replies, and
for three minutes or so a hurricane rages. The working parties out in
front lie flat on their faces, cursing patiently. Suddenly the storm
dies away, and perfect silence reigns once more. It was a false alarm.
Some watchman, deceived by the whispers of the night breeze, or merely
a prey to nerves, has discerned a phantom army approaching through the
gloom, and has opened fire thereon. This often occurs when troops are
new to trench-work.
It is during these hours, too, that regiments relieve one another
in the trenches. The outgoing regiment cannot leave its post until
the incoming regiment has "taken over." Consequently you have, for
a brief space, two thousand troops packed into a trench calculated
to hold one thousand. Then it is that strong men swear themselves
faint, and the Rugby football player has reason to be thankful for his
previous training in the art of "getting through the scrum." However
perfect your organization may be, congestion is bound to occur here
and there; and it is no little consolation to us to feel, as we surge
and sway in the darkness, that over there in the German lines a Saxon
and a Prussian private, irretrievably jammed together in a narrow
communication trench, are consigning one another to perdition in just
the same husky whisper as that employed by Private Mucklewame and his
"opposite number" in the regiment which has come to relieve him.
These "reliefs" take place every four or five nights. There was a time,
not so long ago, when a regiment was relieved, not when it was weary,
but when another regiment could be found to replace it. Our own first
battalion once remained in the trenches, unrelieved and only securing
its supplies with difficulty, for five weeks and three days. During all
that time they were subject to most pressing attentions on the part of
the Boches, but they never lost a yard of trench. They received word
from Headquarters that to detach another regiment for their relief
would seriously weaken other and most important dispositions. The
Commander-in-Chief would therefore be greatly obliged if they could
hold on. So they held on.
At last they came out, and staggered back to billets. Their old
quarters, naturally, had long been appropriated by other troops, and
the officers had some difficulty in recovering their kits.
"I don't mind being kept in trenches for several weeks," remarked their
commander to the staff officer who received him when he reported, "and
I can put up with losing my sleeping-bag; but I do object to having my
last box of cigars looted by the blackguards who took over our billets!"
The staff officer expressed sympathy, and the subject dropped. But not
many days later, when the battalion were still resting, their commander
was roused in the middle of the night from the profound slumber which
only the experience of many nights of anxious vigil can induce, by the
ominous message:--
"An orderly to see you, from General Headquarters, sir!"
The colonel rolled stoically out of bed, and commanded that the orderly
should be brought before him.
The man entered, carrying, not a despatch, but a package, which he
proffered with a salute.
"With the Commander-in-Chief's compliments, sir!" he announced.
The package was a box of cigars!