cylinders containing stiff little cream-colored children's belts, with
eyelet-holes down the middle, coiled neatly inside them. Some of them
had one coil; others two coils, one on top of the other; others three
coils superimposed. These were the propelling charges for the shells,
and were of three strengths according as one, two or three of the
coils of cream-colored explosive were put in the copper shells. They
were topped off with a heavy felt pad which fitted neatly into the
cylinder.
Meantime the rain came down in torrents and began to leak through the
thin plank roofing in little streams which were very hard to dodge.
The Lieutenant showed us a bomb-proof which he had just begun to build
into the earth wall of the cellar, behind the stack of shells. He was
going to cover it with a concrete roof, pile a few feet of earth on top
of that, then some sand-bags, and top the whole off with boulders, so
as to make any shell hitting it explode at once on the surface, instead
of boring half-way down before exploding. He was doing all this work
with his eight men at night when they were not handling the gun. During
the day they slept except when, as now, they wanted to disturb the
sleep of the enemy. This bomb-proof was only meant for refuge when the
Germans began bombarding him. The men's regular sleeping-quarters were
a little to the rear.
And still the rain came down, the air became raw and cold, and the
little waterfalls became harder and harder to dodge. But the man at the
telephone squatted patiently by the wall, and his seven mates chatted
placidly together in incomprehensible Flemish, switching instantly to
French when answering any question the Lieutenant put to them.
The Lieutenant explained how the gun was aimed, the sighting device
showing a stake in line with a church steeple; only as there was
nothing to be seen in front of Julia except an earth bank and ten
feet of false hedge, it stands to reason that stake and steeple
were behind her and appeared, not through a telescope as I had just
stupidly thought, but as a reflection in a mirror--which is the way all
well-conducted howitzers are aimed.
Finally, after an hour's wait the Lieutenant rang up his Major on the
telephone and asked whether anything was amiss with the Captain. No;
the Captain was only linking up a new telephone connection nearly four
kilometres in front of us.
The Lieutenant pointed out a false hedge some hundred yards behind us.
"That is exceedingly dangerous for us here," he explained. "It is much
too close to us. It should be at least 150 yards further removed. If
it draws the German fire, as it is intended to do, that fire is just
as apt to hit us as the false hedge. It was put up as a protection
to another gun which was off there to the right, but it's a very
uncomfortable thing to have near us, especially before we have a
bomb-proof to crawl into."
"Ting--aling--aling!" went the telephone bell. The soldier listened.
"The Captain says, 'Are you all ready?'"
"Tell him 'yes'," replied the Lieutenant.
"Aim for 3,750 metres," repeated the soldier at the telephone.
The Lieutenant and a couple of his men busied themselves around the
sight and elevating cranks of the gun. Another man removed a leather
cap which had been fitted over Julia's nose to keep the rain out.
I was busy sticking cotton wool in my ears.
"The Captain says to say when you are ready and he will give the order
to fire."
"All ready," said the Lieutenant, backing away from Julia and holding a
thick white cord in his hand which ran from her to him.
"All ready," replied the soldier into the telephone.
"Tirez!" ("Fire!") said he a fraction of a second later.
The Lieutenant's arm gave a jerk, the whole front of the shelter was a
mass of blood-red flame, there was a bellow of sound, the barrel of the
great gun ran smoothly three feet or so back into the cellar and then
smoothly forward again. There was a rush of air around my legs.
Almost simultaneously with the report I heard with one ear the
telephonist say, "Coup parti" ("The shot has left"), while with the
other I listened to the long-drawn wheeze with which the projectile
mounted into the sky on its mountain-high trajectory. In the second
which had meanwhile elapsed one of the artillerymen had swung open the
breech of the gun, another had taken out the now empty copper cylinder
and placed it on the floor to the right of Julia, a third had lifted a
new shell and with the aid of the second had run it into the breech,
and a fourth had slipped in a fresh copper cylinder containing a full
charge of three of the little cream-colored tape-coils. Whereupon the
first artilleryman had swung to and locked the breech again.
"In eighteen seconds you should hear the shell explode," said the
Lieutenant, taking his stand by the telephonist with an open notebook
and pencil in his hands--"15, 16, 17, 18"--I finished counting. Boom!
came the distant explosion.
A few seconds of silence.
"Plus 3," announced the telephonist, repeating an order from the
distant Captain.
The Lieutenant made an entry in his notebook and simultaneously rattled
off some figures like a football quarterback. The men worked over the
sights and cranks, while my Commandant said to me: "That shot was too
far to the right; plus 3 means five three-thousandths further to the
left."
"All ready," said the Lieutenant.
"All ready," repeated the telephonist, and then:
"Tirez!" and again the twitch of the white cord, the blood-red flame,
the roar, the slow, easy recoil, the diminishing wheeze, the "Coup
parti," the eighteen seconds' silence, and the distant boom.
"Plus 4," sang out the telephonist, and there was a mechanical
repetition of operations. "The observer corrected the first shot about
ten metres to the left, and, finding that was not enough, corrected the
second shot another fifteen metres to the left. They'll edge along like
that till they reach the blockhouse, destroying the trench to right of
it on the way. Then, when they've destroyed the blockhouse completely,
if that does not take up all the day's allowance of shells, they'll
expend the remainder on knocking out the trench to the left of the
blockhouse. To-day's allowance for Julia is twenty shells, and probably
she will use up most of them on the blockhouse to make a thorough job
of it."
"Tirez!" came the telephonist's voice, and as the roar was succeeded
by silence, my Commandant exclaimed to me: "Filons!" French slang for
which the American equivalent is, "Let us beat it!"
As I reluctantly crawled up into the rain after having shaken hands
with the Lieutenant, my Commandant explained that the Germans would
undoubtedly begin to search the immediate vicinity with their artillery
to try to silence the gun which was throwing the "marmites" into them.
As we had the provocative false hedge right behind us and no bomb-proof
to crawl into, I had to agree that he was prudent.
And so we "beat it" through the downpour, sliding around in the oily
Flemish mud, while the German guns began to drop whole kitchen-loads of
"marmites" into a poor wrecked village five hundred yards to our left,
from which they evidently suspected that our shots had come.
As we slithered along, drenched to the skin, toward the "Villa
Beausejour" and our waiting motor, we could hear the Captain of
75's letting off salvo after salvo at the farm-house of which the
prisoners had informed him, while behind us Julia continued to explode
at half-minute intervals. There was all the difference in the world
between the dry short report of the big howitzer and the hollower,
sharper, more penetrating explosion of the 75's.
To-day I learned from the Captain of the 75's that his first few
volleys had set the farm-house on fire. A lot of soldiers had come
running to put the fire out. His guns kept on dropping and scattering
these until, with a series of loud explosions, the whole farm-house had
blown up. It turned out that it was not an officers' headquarters, but
an ammunition store-house.
As to our blockhouse, I understand that it was completely demolished,
though whether or not it took the whole of Julia's twenty shells to
complete the work I was unable to learn.
VII
IN THE FLEMISH TRENCHES
HEADQUARTERS OF THE BELGIAN ARMY,
LA PANNE, _Aug. 30_.
To-day I was given the opportunity of comparing the trenches of Belgium
with those I had visited in France. It was a very interesting contrast.
Commandant L----, who still had me in charge, picked me up at my hotel
at 10 o'clock in the morning. Proceedings were delayed while I insisted
on taking a snap-shot of him in the nickel-steel skull-cap which he
wore inside his khaki cap.
More and more of the French officers are wearing these helmets, and he
had just ordered his from Paris. It is an admirable protection, very
tough, not at all heavy, tucked inside the sweatband of the cap and
entirely invisible. If a bullet hits it straight point-blank it will,
of course, penetrate and carry a piece of the steel helmet into the
wearer's head with it. But a bullet hitting thus would be fatal anyway.
While if the bullet is spent, or if it hits at an angle, the helmet
will deflect it.
[Illustration: Page 120
COMMANDANT L---- IN THE NICKEL-STEEL SKULL-CAP WHICH HE WORE INSIDE
HIS KHAKI CAP]
On the way to the trenches we stopped off at the Belgian aerodrome,
where an Aviation Captain showed and explained to me the details of the
Voisin and Nieuport machines, which were chiefly used, including the
ingenious bomb-dropping mechanism and the wireless apparatus.
The Belgians certainly deserve the utmost credit for the way in which
they have developed their air service from nothing at the beginning of
the war to a highly efficient aviation corps. But for that matter their
whole army has been reorganized on an admirable basis.
One must realize the shattered condition in which they were swept from
Antwerp back to the very fringe of their country behind the Yser. One
must realize that they are practically an army without a country. One
must understand that when they get furloughs they cannot spend them
with their families in their homes, getting comfort and encouragement.
They either stay within sound of the firing or spend a bleak six days
among the strangers of England or of Northern France. When all this is
considered their material reorganization and the preservation of their
_morale_ in its present splendid shape is a remarkable achievement.
And let no one forget that if the British proudly saved the French by
their retreat from Mons (which no one seems likely to be allowed to
forget) it is equally certain that the shattered Belgian army humbly
saved the British on the Yser.
Rolling along the straight highroad to Y---- we passed the usual
congestion of troop-filled trolley-cars, lorries, ambulances,
farm-wagons, officers' autos and motor-cyclists. Our military motor was
an excellent one, with the one fault that it seemed extremely difficult
for the chauffeur to shift his gear from neutral into low speed, and
he would frequently get hung up for several seconds with the car at a
standstill till finally he got his gears in mesh.
At one point we stopped to see an interesting manifestation of the
newly developing art of war. A giant 12-inch British naval gun was
mounted on a specially designed railroad truck. It stood on a railway
siding, with its ammunition-car coupled on behind. A kind of crane
stood ready to swing the huge shells from the ammunition-car to the
breech of the gun. When some object was found worth firing 12-inch
shells at, the engine backed up to the gun-truck with steam up. The
track was cleared.
Then the great gun did its firing at the object, and forthwith was
whisked away one, five or ten miles down the track out of danger of
the German replies. This is what, officers seem agreed, will take the
place of the antiquated fixed fortresses--miles of railway loops and
sidings running behind artificial concealments or in semi-open cuts,
with batteries of heavy fortress guns shuttling to and fro, firing and
changing position constantly.
We motored on till we neared the point where the Belgian army ends and
the French begins. Here we paid our respects to the General in command
of the division we were visiting. He promptly asked us to lunch, and
a very good lunch it was: Vegetable soup, some entrée which I could
not identify, shoulder of mutton with potatoes and beans, cantaloupe,
cheese and black coffee, with a choice between beer, claret and white
wine to drink at lunch, a glass of champagne at dessert, and liqueurs
with the coffee.
The conversation of the officers turned largely on what was happening
to their friends and acquaintances in Belgium, about whom they heard
by mail through Switzerland or Holland. One young countess aroused
considerable discussion. She had been sitting in a street-car in
Brussels with a Belgian friend when a German officer boarded the car.
Her friend bowed to the officer.
"What! You bow to a pig like that!" cried the countess. Whereupon the
officer had stopped the car and placed her under arrest. She had been
given her choice between two months in prison or ten thousand francs'
fine, and had paid the fine.
Certain of the officers held that she had been unpatriotic in not
accepting imprisonment rather than help the German exchequer. Others
felt she had done enough in insulting the officer and rebuking her
friend. The talk dwelt, too, on certain other Belgian ladies who had
compromised with their patriotism to the extent of taking up social
relations with the invaders. From what I heard I feel sorry for these
over-hospitable ladies when the Belgians are once more masters of their
own country.
After lunch I began to feel more and more impatient to get started
for the trenches, but I had already learned too much of etiquette at
the front to show it. For the officers of all the armies feel that
it is infinitely more important to prove to you that they can give
you a good cup of coffee and a good cigar than it is to show you the
most beautiful battle that was ever fought. They are, too, all alike
obsessed with the very human fallacy that the little ingenuities and
contrivances which they have devised for their personal comfort, safety
or delectation must be of infinitely more absorbing interest to the
visitor than the guns and the trenches, which to them are such an old
and boring story.
So now we had to admire the way one officer had had his sleeping-shack
wall-papered, how another had invented some home-made shower-baths, how
a third had had a genuine heavy wooden bedstead installed instead of a
camp cot.
However, finally we made our adieus and motored away with full
directions from the General as to how to meet him at 4 o'clock at
an observation-post from which he was to witness an interesting
bombardment. As it was then a quarter to 3, my hopes of getting into
the trenches began to look slim.
We were now motoring straight toward the front over a stretch of
country which the Germans had been profusely bombarding. The road was
full of holes where the Belgian blocks had been torn out by shells. We
bumped over the shallower ones and dodged the deeper ones, but every
now and then the chauffeur would miscalculate the depth of a hole
and the car would come down on its axle with a prodigious thump. By
shutting one's eyes one could easily imagine one's self taxicabbing
along a New York side-street.
The guns had, of course, by now resumed work after their lunch-time
siesta and were grumbling away at each other in great shape. Presently
we came to a deserted village, which could be seen from some of the
German artillery positions and which they shelled on the slightest
provocation. The General had particularly told us to run through the
village in a hurry, especially across the open place around the church.
When we got safely out of the other end of the place, he had said, we
might leave our motor and sneak back on foot to take photographs. This
having been carefully explained to the chauffeur, he bumped us swiftly
down the ruined main street, reached the open place by the church,
where he had to turn to the right, came suddenly on top of a big, deep
shell-hole, just dodged it by slapping on his emergency, and stood
stock-still trying to get into first speed.
[Illustration: Page 127
"THE CHAUFFEUR REACHED THE OPEN PLACE BY THE CHURCH"]
[Illustration: Page 127
ON THE SHATTERED CHURCH HUNG THIS CRUCIFIX INTACT THOUGH SURROUNDED BY
SHRAPNEL HOLES]
The Commandant cursed and I swore, the Commandant's orderly sitting
next the chauffeur shook his fist at the chauffeur, and the chauffeur
shook one fist at his gears while with the other he wrenched and hauled
at his lever.
There is no use denying that we were all equally nervous. Every instant
we expected to see the first of a stream of shells explode near us.
Finally, after the suspense had in reality lasted not more than six or
eight seconds, the accursed low gear meekly meshed and we bumped off
down the side-street, heaving deep sighs of relief.
Outside the utterly ruined village we left our car behind a clump
of trees and walked back to take some photographs of what had been
the church. Then into the motor and on again till we stopped at the
cross-road which led directly to the front.
Here we left our motor. The rain suddenly beginning to come down in
sheets, we ducked into a ruined house whose roof some freak of the
shells had allowed to remain quite intact. We were quickly joined by
about fifty infantrymen who had been working at a reserve line of
intrenchments in the fields outside. Here we all waited for ten minutes
till the rain-squall stopped.
It may not be a particularly pretty subject, but I think it well worth
stating that that mass of soldiers, packed into the small inclosed
space, left the air as pure and untainted at the end of those ten
minutes as it had been before they jammed their way in. I had noticed
the same thing the day before during the two hours that I had spent by
the howitzer with the nine men of the crew. There is no doubt about it
that even the English--who of course originally invented and patented
personal cleanliness in this world--will have to scrub exceedingly hard
to keep up with the Belgians.
The rain having stopped, we slipped and slithered on foot along the
byroad till we came to a prairie-dog village of bomb-proofs with
soldiers' heads popping out of the little openings and then popping in
again. Here we met a young First Lieutenant, who very kindly offered
to show us the quickest way to the communicating trench, and off we
marched.
At this point we were just about half-way between the two opposing
bodies of artillery. High in air, right above our heads, the shells of
the two armies, hurtling along in opposite directions, met and passed
each other on their way. These big projectiles in passing over us
sounded exactly as if they were running along aerial rails. You could
hear them rattling along these rails, bumping over the rail joints,
banging over switches. It was a perfect illusion. By closing your eyes
you could have sworn that you were standing under Brooklyn Bridge
hearing the procession of street-cars, with silenced gongs, roll by at
express speed overhead. First there would be a distant report, then
silence as the shell rose, and then suddenly it would get on the rails,
rattle up to the top of its grade, coast down the grade the other side
and leave the tracks a second or two before the final explosion.
Some ten minutes later we were walking along a broad road, with the
noise of exploding shells getting louder and louder ahead. Then
suddenly a perfect swarm of bullets came chirping past us.
"Just this little bit of the road is visible from the German lines,"
remarked the Lieutenant. "They are about 500 metres away from us here."
It must have been comical to see the way in which the Commandant, his
orderly and I did an Indian war-dance down that road, all three bent
double. The Lieutenant must have caught the contagion from us, for,
as more bullets came by, zeup! zeup! zeup! he doubled up himself. In
a few seconds, however, he said we were out of sight again, and so we
straightened up and walked forward proudly erect, although every little
while when some bullets went by just over our heads we showed distinct
tendencies to collapse anew.
Now we came to the communication trench and climbed down into it one
after the other. It was very different from the French "boyaux," or
communicating trenches. Those were dug a good seven feet deep almost
everywhere, and never less than six feet. So that one could walk about
in them at one's ease without paying any attention to the bullets that
cracked up above. Only a shell plunging directly into one of these
three feet wide, seven feet deep ditches could be dangerous.
But the Belgians could not dig down more than about two and one-half
feet at the most without striking water. That, with an earth and sod
rampart about two feet high, gave a protection never more than five
feet at its highest and often under four feet in height. Now, it
probably sounds very easy to keep sheltered while walking along behind
four feet of ditch and parapet, but if any one tries it for more than
five minutes at a time he will know what a real backache feels like.
This trench, which ran forward in very short abrupt zigzags, was
floored with pieces of wicker-work to prevent sinking into the mud. The
half-hour's rain had filled long stretches of it ankle-deep with water.
Crouched double, we waded along in single file, the Lieutenant, myself,
the Commandant and his orderly. The bullets were striking some ruined
farm buildings close on our left with sharp cracks. They hit the
breastworks with muffled thuds and passed close over the breastwork
with a kind of buzzing whistle. We paddled along till suddenly we came
to a place where, for some unaccountable reason, the trench stopped,
renewing itself again perhaps three or four yards further on. Across
the unsheltered surface of the ground which intervened ran a slack
telephone wire some two feet above the ground.
"You'd better hurry up across here," remarked the Lieutenant as he
scrambled out of the trench, took a couple of strides, swung first
one leg and then the other over the telephone wire, took a couple of
strides more and dropped into the trench beyond.
There is not the slightest question as to the hurry in which I
negotiated this obstacle. Then, to see what I must have looked like,
I turned to watch the two who were following me. The Commandant, I
must confess, managed to accomplish the feat in a fashion not wholly
destitute of dignity. But the way his orderly bounded out of the
trench, hurdled the telephone wire and with one lithe leap descended
upon us in the other trench was a sight for sore eyes. It certainly
must have drawn a chuckle from the German sharpshooters witnessing it
through their telescopic sights.
A hundred yards or so further on we came to a halt at an angle in the
communication trench from which could be had a good view of the front.
Lifting my head cautiously till my eyes were just above the edge of the
rampart, I could see some 250 yards ahead the chocolate-colored back of
the Belgian front trench. For where the chalky soil of Champagne makes
the trenches there very white in color, the boggy soil of Belgium is a
rich brown.
Beyond the Belgian front trench ran a line of tall trees; beyond the
line of trees again ran another brown line.
"That's the German front line, I suppose?" I said to the Lieutenant.
"No, that's their second line you're looking at. Raise your head a
little more, and right over the top of our front-line trenches you'll
see their front line."
I craned my neck, and, sure enough, another brown line hove into view
apparently only a few yards ahead of the Belgian front line, with the
usual barbed-wire tangle in front of it.
"That trench is about 100 metres from our front trench," said the
Lieutenant. "The Germans have got all that barbed wire before their
front trench, but we don't need wire because we have the Y---- Canal
right before our front trench. Only it flows so close under the
breastworks that you can't see it from here."
A great cloud of jet-black smoke suddenly welled up from the Belgian
front trench.