A FEW DAYS' REST IN BILLETS
After the strafing we had given Fritz on the raid, he behaved
himself reasonably well for quite a while. It was the first raid
that had been made on that sector for a long time, and we had no
doubt caught the Germans off their guard.
Anyhow for quite a spell afterwards they were very "windy" and
would send up the "Very" lights on the slightest provocation and
start the "typewriters" a-rattling. Fritz was right on the job with
his eye peeled all the time.
In fact he was so keen that another raid that was attempted ten
days later failed completely because of a rapidly concentrated and
heavy machine-gun fire, and in another, a day or two later, our men
never got beyond our own wire and had thirty-eight casualties out
of fifty men engaged.
But so far as anything but defensive work was concerned, Fritz was
very meek. He sent over very few "minnies" or rifle grenades, and
there was hardly any shelling of the sector.
Directly after the raid, we who were in the party had a couple of
days "on our own" at the little village of Bully-Grenay, less than
three miles behind the lines. This is directly opposite Lens, the
better known town which figures so often in the dispatches.
Bully-Grenay had been a place of perhaps one thousand people. It
had been fought over and through and around early in the war, and
was pretty well battered up. There were a few houses left unhit and
the town hall and several shops. The rest of the place was ruins,
but about two hundred of the inhabitants still stuck to their old
homes. For some reason the Germans did not shell Bully-Grenay, that
is, not often. Once in a while they would lob one in just to let
the people know they were not forgotten.
There was a suspicion that there were spies in the town and that
that accounted for the Germans laying off, but whatever was the
cause the place was safer than most villages so near the lines.
Those two days in repose at Bully-Grenay were a good deal of a
farce. We were entirely "on our own", it is true, no parade, no
duty of any kind--but the quarters--oof! We were billeted in the
cellars of the battered-down houses. They weren't shell-proof. That
didn't matter much, as there wasn't any shelling, but there might
have been. The cellars were dangerous enough without, what with
tottering walls and overhanging chunks of masonry.
Moreover they were a long way from waterproof. Imagine trying to
find a place to sleep in an old ruin half full of rainwater. The
dry places were piled up with brick and mortar, but we managed to
clean up some half-sheltered spots for "kip" and we lived through
it.
The worst feature of these billets was the rats. They were the
biggest I ever saw, great, filthy, evil-smelling, grayish-red
fellows, as big as a good-sized cat. They would hop out of the
walls and scuttle across your face with their wet, cold feet, and
it was enough to drive you insane. One chap in our party had a
natural horror of rats, and he nearly went crazy. We had to "kip"
with our greatcoats pulled up over our heads, and then the beggars
would go down and nibble at our boots.
The first day somebody found a fox terrier, evidently lost and
probably the pet of some officer. We weren't allowed to carry
mascots, although we had a kitten that we smuggled along for a long
time. This terrier was a well-bred little fellow, and we grabbed
him. We spent a good part of both mornings digging out rats for him
and staged some of the grandest fights ever.
Most of the day we spent at a little _estaminet_ across the way
from our so-called billets. There was a pretty mademoiselle there
who served the rotten French beer and _vin blanc_, and the Tommies
tried their French on her. They might as well have talked Choctaw.
I speak the language a little and tried to monopolize the lady, and
did, which didn't increase my popularity any.
"I say, Yank," some one would call, "don't be a blinkin' 'og. Give
somebody else a chawnce."
Whereupon I would pursue my conquest all the more ardently. I was
making a large hit, as I thought, when in came an officer. After
that I was ignored, to the huge delight of the Tommies, who joshed
me unmercifully. They discovered that my middle name was Derby, and
they christened me "Darby the Yank." Darby I remained as long as I
was with them.
Some of the questions the men asked about the States were certainly
funny. One chap asked what language we spoke over here. I thought
he was spoofing, but he actually meant it. He thought we spoke
something like Italian, he said. I couldn't resist the temptation,
and filled him up with a line of ghost stories about wild Indians
just outside Boston. I told him I left because of a raid in which
the redskins scalped people on Boston Common. After that he used to
pester the life out of me for Wild West yarns with the scenes laid
in New England.
One chap was amazed and, I think, a little incredulous because I
didn't know a man named Fisk in Des Moines.
We went back to the trenches again and were there five days. I was
out one night on barbed wire work, which is dangerous at any time,
and was especially so with Fritz in his condition of jumpy nerves.
You have to do most of the work lying on your back in the mud, and
if you jingle the wire, Fritz traverses No Man's Land with his
rapid-firers with a fair chance of bagging something.
I also had one night on patrol, which later became my favorite
game. I will tell more about it in another chapter.
At the end of the five days the whole battalion was pulled out for
rest. We marched a few miles to the rear and came to the village of
Petite-Saens. This town had been fought through, but for some
reason had suffered little. Few of the houses had been damaged, and
we had real billets.
My section, ten men besides myself, drew a big attic in a clean
house. There was loads of room and the roof was tight and there
were no rats. It was oriental luxury after Bully-Grenay and the
trenches, and for a wonder nobody had a word of "grousing" over
"kipping" on the bare floor.
The house was occupied by a very old peasant woman and a very
little girl, three years old, and as pretty as a picture. The old
woman looked ill and sad and very lonesome. One night as we sat in
her kitchen drinking black coffee and cognac, I persuaded her to
tell her story. It was, on the whole, rather a cruel thing to ask,
I am afraid. It is only one of many such that I heard over there.
France has, indeed, suffered. I set down here, as nearly as I can
translate, what the old woman said:
"Monsieur, I am very, very old now, almost eighty, but I am a
patriot and I love my France. I do not complain that I have lost
everything in this war. I do not care now, for I am old and it is
for my country; but there is much sadness for me to remember, and
it is with great bitterness that I think of the pig Allemand--beast
that he is.
"Two years ago I lived in this house, happy with my daughter and
her husband and the little baby, and my husband, who worked in the
mines. He was too old to fight, but when the great war came he
tried to enlist, but they would not listen to him, and he returned
to work, that the country should not be without coal.
"The beau-fils (son-in-law), he enlisted and said good-by and went
to the service.
"By and by the Boche come and in a great battle not far from this
very house the beau-fils is wounded very badly and is brought to
the house by comrades to die.
"The Boche come into the village, but the beau-fils is too weak
to go. The Boche come into the house, seize my daughter, and
there--they--oh, monsieur--the things one may not say--and we so
helpless.
"Her father tries to protect her, but he is knocked down. I try,
but they hold my feet over the fire until the very flesh cooks. See
for yourselves the burns on my feet still.
"My husband dies from the blow he gets, for he is very old, over
ninety. Just then mon beau-fils sees a revolver that hangs by the
side of the German officer, and putting all his strength together
he leaps forward and grabs the revolver. And there he shoots the
officer--and my poor little daughter--and then he says good-by and
through the head sends a bullet.
"The Germans did not touch me but once after that, and then they
knocked me to the floor when they came after the pig officer. By
and by come you English, and all is well for dear France once more;
but I am very desolate now. I am alone but for the petite-fille
(granddaughter), but I love the English, for they save my home and
my dear country."
I heard a good many stories of this kind off and on, but this
particular one, I think, brought home, to me at least, the general
beastliness of the Hun closer than ever before. We all loved our
little kiddie very much, and when we saw the evidence of the
terrible cruelties the poor old woman had suffered we saw red. Most
of us cried a little. I think that that one story made each of us
that heard it a mean, vicious fighter for the rest of our service.
I know it did me.
One of the first things a British soldier learns is to keep
himself clean. He can't do it, and he's as filthy as a pig all the
time he is in the trenches, but he tries. He is always shaving,
even under fire, and show him running water and he goes to it like
a duck.
More than once I have shaved in a periscope mirror pegged into the
side of a trench, with the bullets snapping overhead, and rubbed my
face with wet tea leaves afterward to freshen up.
Back in billets the very first thing that comes off is the big
clean-up. Uniforms are brushed up, and equipment put in order. Then
comes the bath, the most thorough possible under the conditions.
After that comes the "cootie carnival", better known as the "shirt
hunt." The cootie is the soldier's worst enemy. He's worse than the
Hun. You can't get rid of him wherever you are, in the trenches or
in billets, and he sticks closer than a brother. The cootie is a
good deal of an acrobat. His policy of attack is to hang on to the
shirt and to nibble at the occupant. Pull off the shirt and he
comes with it. Hence the shirt hunt. Tommy gets out in the open
somewhere so as not to shed his little companions indoors--there's
always enough there anyhow--and he peels. Then he systematically
runs down each seam--the cootie's favorite hiding place--catches
the game, and ends his career by cracking him between the thumb
nails.
For some obscure psychological reason, Tommy seems to like company
on one of these hunts. Perhaps it is because misery loves company,
or it may be that he likes to compare notes on the catch. Anyhow,
it is a common thing to see from a dozen to twenty soldiers with
their shirts off, hunting cooties.
"Hi sye, 'Arry," you'll hear some one sing out. "Look 'ere. Strike
me bloomin' well pink but this one 'ere's got a black stripe along
'is back."
Or, "If this don't look like the one I showed ye 'fore we went into
the blinkin' line. 'Ow'd 'e git loose?"
And then, as likely as not, a little farther away, behind the
officers' quarters, you'll hear one say:
"I say, old chap, it's deucedly peculiar I should have so many of
the beastly things after putting on the Harrisons mothaw sent in
the lawst parcel."
The cootie isn't at all fastidious. He will bite the British
aristocrat as soon as anybody else. He finds his way into all
branches of the service, and I have even seen a dignified colonel
wiggle his shoulders anxiously.
Some of the cootie stories have become classical, like this one
which was told from the North Sea to the Swiss border. It might
have happened at that.
A soldier was going over the top when one of his cootie friends bit
him on the calf. The soldier reached down and captured the biter.
Just as he stooped, a shell whizzed over where his head would have
been if he had not gone after the cootie. Holding the captive
between thumb and finger, he said:
"Old feller, I cawn't give yer the Victoria Cross--but I can put
yer back."
And he did.
The worst thing about the cootie is that there is no remedy for
him. The shirt hunt is the only effective way for the soldier to
get rid of his bosom friends. The various dopes and patent
preparations guaranteed as "good for cooties" are just that. They
give 'em an appetite.