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+Project Gutenberg's A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire, by Harold Harvey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire
+
+Author: Harold Harvey
+
+Release Date: June 14, 2005 [EBook #16056]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SOLDIER'S SKETCHES UNDER FIRE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries
+(http://www.archive.org/details/toronto), Suzanne Lybarger
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A SOLDIER'S SKETCHES UNDER FIRE
+
+
+
+[Illustration: PRIVATE HAROLD HARVEY. _Frontispiece_]
+
+
+
+
+A SOLDIER'S SKETCHES UNDER FIRE
+
+By HAROLD HARVEY
+
+[Illustration: SLM & Co. MDCCXCIV]
+
+LONDON
+
+SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & CO., LTD.
+
+
+
+
+FORENOTE
+
+
+A title such as "A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire" indicates at once the
+nature, scope and limitations of this unpretentious volume of annotated
+drawings to which it has been given.
+
+Faked pictures of the war are plentiful. Sketches taken on the spot they
+depict, sometimes by a hand that had momentarily laid down a rifle to
+take them, and always by a draughtsman who drew in overt or covert peril
+of his life, gain in verisimilitude what they must lose in elaboration
+or embellishment; are the richer in their realism by reason of the
+absence of the imaginary and the meretricious.
+
+All that Mr. Harold Harvey drew he saw; but he saw much that he could
+not draw. All sorts of exploits of which pictures that brilliantly
+misrepresent them are easily concoctable were for him impossible
+subjects for illustration. As he puts it himself, very modestly:
+
+     "There were many happenings--repulsions of sudden attacks,
+     temporary retirements, charges, and things of that sort that would
+     have made capital subjects, but of which my notebook holds no
+     'pictured presentment,' because I was taking part in them."
+
+He also remarks:
+
+     "Sketched in circumstances that certainly had their own
+     disadvantages as well as their special advantages, I present these
+     drawings only for what they are."
+
+Just because they are what they are they are of enduring interest and
+permanent value. They have the vividness of the actual, the convincing
+touch of the true.
+
+Mr. Harvey was among the very first to obey the call of "King and
+Country," tarrying only, I believe, to finish his afterwards popular
+poster of "A Pair of Silk Stockings" for the Criterion production. To
+join the Colours as a private soldier, he left his colours as an artist,
+throwing up an established and hardly-won position in the world of his
+profession, into which--sent home shot and poisoned--he must now fight
+his way back. His ante-war experiences of sojourn and travel in India,
+South and East Africa, South America, Egypt and the Mediterranean should
+again stand him in good stead, for the more an artist has learned the
+more comprehensive his treasury of impressions and recollections; the
+more he has seen the more he can show. To Mr. Harvey's studies of
+Egyptian life, character and customs was undoubtedly attributable the
+success of his "Market Scene in Cairo," exhibited in the Royal Academy
+of 1909. Purchased by a French connoisseur, this picture brought its
+painter several special commissions.
+
+I venture to express the opinion that the simple, direct and soldierly
+style in which Mr. Harold Harvey has written the notes that accompany
+his illustrations will be appreciated. His reticence as regards his own
+doings, the casual nature of his references--where they could not be
+avoided--to his personal share in great achievements, manifest a spirit
+of self-effacement that is characteristic of the men of the army in
+which he fought; men whose like the world has never known.
+
+ROBERT OVERTON.
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+=LADY ANGELA FORBES=
+
+WHOSE WORK FOR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE AND AT HOME HAS BEEN AS UNTIRING
+AS IT HAS BEEN UNOSTENTATIOUS.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+FORENOTE
+
+
+=ON THE WAY TO THE FRONT.=
+
+Chapter
+
+I.--FROM SOUTHAMPTON TO MALTA
+
+II.--FROM MALTA TO MARSEILLES
+
+III.--FROM MARSEILLES TO ARMENTIÈRES
+
+
+=AT THE FRONT.=
+
+Chapter
+
+IV.--SOME SAMPLE EXCITEMENTS OF LIFE IN THE TRENCHES
+
+V.--THE LIGHTER SIDE OF TRENCH LIFE
+
+VI.--THE "MAKE" OF A BRITISH TRENCH
+
+VII.--THE RUSE OF A GERMAN SNIPER
+
+VIII.--THREE DEATH TRAPS
+
+IX.--GERMAN BEASTS IN A FRENCH CONVENT
+
+X.--ANOTHER SCENE OF BOCHE BRUTALITY
+
+XI.--THE TRICK THAT DIDN'T TRICK US
+
+XII.--THE BARRED ROAD TO CALAIS
+
+
+
+
+SKETCHES
+
+
+PRIVATE HAROLD HARVEY _Frontispiece_
+
+ABOARD THE TRANSPORT
+
+BIVOUAC AT MALTA
+
+CASEMENT GARDENS, MALTA
+
+SERGEANTS' MESS
+
+ORDNANCE DEPARTMENT, MALTA
+
+ON THE QUAYHEAD AT MARSEILLES
+
+QUAYSIDE, MARSEILLES
+
+FORTY PASSENGERS IN EACH CATTLE TRUCK
+
+A WASH AND A WAIT
+
+"DOOMSDAY BOOK": A FRENCH LESSON IN A CATTLE TRUCK
+
+LADY ANGELA FORBES'S SOLDIERS' HOME AT ETAPLES
+
+ROAD TO THE TRENCHES
+
+MY SKETCH-BOOK
+
+MAP: LA BASSÉE-ST. JULIEN
+
+OUTSKIRTS OF A VILLAGE
+
+MY FIRST SNIPING-PLACE
+
+CAPTURED GERMAN TRENCH
+
+THE WOODCUTTER'S HUT
+
+TYPICAL FIGURES AND FIGURE-HEADS
+
+"HAMMERSMITH BRIDGE"
+
+"DIRTY DICK'S"
+
+"ENTRENCHING" THE PIANO
+
+"SEVENTY-FIVE HOTEL"
+
+CHICKEN FARM
+
+A FRENCH COMRADE-COMEDIAN
+
+A TRENCH SNIPER, RESTING
+
+A TRAVERSE
+
+THE BIRTH-PLACE OF A SONG
+
+TRENCH PERISCOPE IN USE
+
+"THE WHITE FARM"
+
+A GERMAN SNIPER'S NEST
+
+"SUICIDE BRIDGE"
+
+"SUICIDE SIGNAL BOX"
+
+A GHASTLY PROMENADE
+
+THE HOLE IN THE WALL
+
+A VIOLATED CONVENT
+
+WHERE GERMANS RAPED AND MURDERED
+
+"THE BLACK HOLE"
+
+THE BLACK TOWER
+
+WHERE THE TRAP WAS SET
+
+"GOLGOTHA"
+
+
+
+
+PART I.
+
+ON THE WAY TO THE FRONT.
+
+
+
+
+A SOLDIER'S SKETCHES UNDER FIRE.
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+
+ON THE WAY TO THE FRONT.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+FROM SOUTHAMPTON TO MALTA.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+On the outbreak of the war I joined the Royal Fusiliers, uninfluenced by
+the appeal of wall-posters or the blandishments of a recruiting
+sergeant. My former experience as a trooper in the Hertfordshire
+Yeomanry being accounted unto me for military righteousness, I sailed
+with my regiment from Southampton on September 3rd, 1914. We thought we
+were bound for France direct, and only discovered on the passage that we
+were to be landed, first, at Malta.
+
+I think I know the reason why the short trip across Channel was avoided,
+but, as it behoves me to be very careful about what I say on certain
+points, I don't state it.
+
+I show the fore part of the boat, the bows being visible in the
+distance. The doorways on the right are those of the horse boxes,
+specially erected on the deck. In fact, the whole liner, with the most
+creditable completeness and celerity, had been specially fitted up for
+the use of the troops, still retaining its crew of Lascars, who did the
+swabbing down and rough work required.
+
+My sketch shows a crane bringing up bales of fodder for the horses from
+the hold, with two officers standing by to give orders.
+
+[Illustration: ABOARD THE TRANSPORT.]
+
+We experienced some exciting incidents on the way out; for instance, in
+the Bay we ran into a fog, and the order was given for all to stand by.
+For the next two or three hours all were in doubt as to what might
+happen--of course there was fear of torpedoes.
+
+We heard in the distance several shots fired, presumably by the
+battle-cruiser which was our escort. When the fog lifted, we could just
+see the smoke lifting on the horizon of some enemy craft, which had been
+chased off by our own warship. We again steamed ahead towards our
+destination and were soon sailing into smooth and calm waters, the
+temperature becoming quite genial and warm as we approached the Straits
+of Gibraltar. As we passed through the Straits the message was signalled
+that those two notorious vessels, the "Goeben" and the "Breslau," were
+roaming loose in the Mediterranean.
+
+
+AT MALTA.
+
+On arrival at Malta, I and others were put through our firing course,
+and the regiment took over the charge of prisoners and interned Germans,
+of whom, together, there were on the island--so soon after the beginning
+of hostilities--no fewer than 8,000. One of the first sketches I made
+was of our Bivouac.
+
+[Illustration: BIVOUAC AT MALTA.]
+
+
+MALTA AND THE PIRATES.
+
+Malta, which has been called "the master key of the Mediterranean and
+the Levant," "the stepping-stone to Egypt and the Dardanelles," and "the
+connecting link between England and India," is one of our Empire's most
+valuable possessions, and its physical formation has made it for
+generations past of great maritime value. The island is, in itself, a
+rock, and all its earth and mould has been imported. In the days when
+there were no submarines or warships, it was the headquarters of pirates
+roaming at large in the Mediterranean. These pirate crews, after
+capturing their prey, used to bring their captures into one of the
+entrances of the island, now called the Grand Harbour. At the base of
+the harbour is the town of Valetta, which was catacombed in those early
+times, and tunnels were made through the island rock. When pirates had
+brought a ship under cover of the natural harbour to these tunnels, they
+took all the merchandise ashore and then broke up the vessel, so as to
+leave no trace of the incident. The crew were usually massacred to a
+man, and when chase was given, no trace whatever could be found of
+either the pirates or their captures, and later on their ill-gotten
+gains would be shipped off from the other end of the tunnel in another
+part of the island.
+
+Looking through between the trees in my sketch of the Casement Gardens,
+under the Barracks of Floriana, which stand on an eminence overlooking
+the spot, a portion of the harbour is seen which commands the back
+moorings, and the water where the P. & O. liners lay up. Beyond the
+vessel drawn I indicate the island of Fort Manoel, which is an ancient
+fortress which possesses a very handsome gateway, which may have been
+built by the Romans. In fact, all over this island are remarkable
+relics, some of them probably as old as those of Stonehenge, but how or
+by whom the original materials were brought there or the original
+buildings constructed is now left by historians to conjecture.
+
+[Illustration: CASEMENT GARDENS, MALTA.]
+
+Other public gardens are those of Biracca and Floriana. Public
+establishments include the biggest Fever Hospital in the world, the
+Castille Prison, and the Governor's Palace.
+
+
+SERGEANTS' MESS.
+
+[Illustration: SERGEANTS' MESS AT FLORIANA, MALTA.]
+
+The view of the site of the Sergeants' Mess at Floriana gives a good
+idea of the massive style of architecture and the palatial design of
+many of the buildings. The big construction of the walls will be noted,
+and the height of the chimney. All the houses have flat roofs, and on
+them people sleep at night because of the intense heat. From the roof of
+this house is obtained the best view of the island. Although Malta is
+composed entirely of rock, flowers grow profusely, and a variety of
+creeper, very similar to our own azalea, climbs up the front of the
+forts, requiring little or no root. A garden of this flower was attached
+to the Sergeants' Mess house.
+
+
+FORTIFICATIONS.
+
+[Illustration: ORDNANCE DEPARTMENT, MALTA.]
+
+The ancient fortifications proved impregnable for ages, and are now
+modernised for the use of up-to-date artillery equipment. I show the
+exterior of the Army Ordnance Department, Fort Tigne, and on the extreme
+left, on the other side of the harbour, a portion of Fort Manoel.
+
+
+THE MALTESE.
+
+The habits and manners of the Maltese have long been notorious for their
+rude characteristics, probably attributable to the people's Moorish
+origin, although the race has now blended with the smooth Italian.
+Throughout the Levant they have the bad name first deserved by their
+robberies and murders. British rule has effected great reforms, but it
+cannot change the leopard's spots.
+
+The experience of our boys in some of the outlying parts of the island,
+and even in many streets and cafés, was that these primitive people had
+not altogether lost their primitive instincts in the course of becoming
+civilised. One of their customary tricks is to offer one of their
+bangles, or some other souvenir, to get you to spend money in the cafés
+and dancing saloons, and he would be a clever man who ever succeeded in
+obtaining one of the souvenirs promised him from day to day. The women
+of Malta certainly have strong claims to beauty, at any rate up to the
+age of sixteen, for they mature early. They have large and lustrous
+black eyes, and are of a swarthy and somewhat Spanish type. They still
+wear the traditional hood, a black scarf, called a "Faldetta," thrown
+over the head and shoulders, and disposed in such a style as to exhibit
+the countenance of the wearer in the most alluring form. Although
+picturesque in the distance, they are very slovenly in their hair and
+dress on closer acquaintance, and generally exhibit the traces of
+their Oriental origin. They are great experts in the making of Maltese
+lace, for which they have won a world-wide reputation, and their native
+filigree work is also very famous and very beautiful. Churches (where
+weddings are celebrated in the evening) are very numerous, and priests
+and friars are always to be seen in the streets. The boys of our
+regiment said that Malta was chiefly notable for "yells, smells, and
+bells."
+
+We passed a very merry time here for nearly three weeks--such a time as
+many were destined never to know again--and then were shipped to
+Marseilles, _en route_ for the trenches on the Western Front.
+
+In the "Main Guard" of the Governor's Palace at Valetta we left behind
+us a fresco memorial of our short sojourn on the island. For many
+generations it has been the custom of regiments stationed in Malta to
+paint or draw regimental crests, portraits (and caricatures), etc., on
+the interior walls of this "Main Guard," and on its doors also. Walls
+and doors, both are very full of these more or less artistic mementoes,
+but space was found which I was asked to cover with a black and white
+series of cartoons of prominent members of our (the 2nd) Battalion R.F.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+FROM MALTA TO MARSEILLES.
+
+
+From the bows of our boat as she lay in harbour at Marseilles, I
+"spotted" three typical figures. The one holding the rope is a French
+sailor, the one at the bottom of the picture is a French gendarme, and
+the third is a Ghurka, one of our fine sturdy hillmen from India, who
+had come out to France to stand by the Empire.
+
+Marseilles was a most wonderful sight at the time I was there, and
+although I had made many previous visits in normal times, when I had
+greatly admired its grand proportions, none of them had given me any
+idea of what its appearance would be when it became the clearing station
+in the time of such a great war, and one of the chief bases of all food
+supplies. Troops of all descriptions were working like ants by day and
+by night, unloading boats to the huge stores of all descriptions of
+provender, and loading the trains with all kinds of artillery,
+ammunition, Red Cross wagons, motors, horses, and all the paraphernalia
+of modern warfare.
+
+The town is the third largest in France, and the chief Mediterranean
+seaport. Its history teems with exciting incidents of plague, fire,
+sacking, siege, and hand-to-hand fighting, so it is quite in keeping
+that it should take so important a part in the present conflict. It was
+here Monte Cristo was hurled from the Chateau d'If in the sack from
+which he cut his escape. Francis the First besieged it in vain, and it
+prospered under King Rene. In the French Revolution it figured so
+conspicuously as to give the title to the national hymn of the French.
+
+
+THE STORY OF "THE MARSEILLAISE."
+
+Is it too late to tell again the story of the origin of "The
+Marseillaise"?
+
+[Illustration: ON THE QUAYHEAD AT MARSEILLES.]
+
+Its author and composer (or it might be more correct to say composer and
+author, for in this case music preceded words), Rouget de Lisle--a young
+aristocrat and an artillery officer--had as a friend a citizen of
+Strasbourg, to whose house, in the early days of the Revolution, he came
+on a visit one evening. The tired guest was cordially welcomed by the
+citizen and his wife and daughter. To celebrate the occasion his friend
+sent the daughter into the cellar to bring up wine. Exhausted as he was,
+de Lisle drank freely, and, sitting up late with his host, did not
+trouble to go to bed. He had been amusing the family by playing some of
+his original compositions on the spinnet. When the host retired for the
+night he left de Lisle asleep with his head resting on the instrument.
+In the early hours of the morning the young officer awoke, and running
+through his head was a melody which, in his semi-drunken state the
+evening before, he had been attempting to extemporise. It seemed to
+haunt him, and, piecing it together as it came back to his memory, he
+played it over. Then, feeling inspired, he immediately set words to it.
+When the family came down he played and sang it to them, and his host
+was so moved by it that he became quite excited and called in the
+neighbours. The instrument was wheeled out into the garden, and in the
+open air young de Lisle sang the song that was to become the national
+air of his country to this local audience. The effect upon them was
+"terrific," and from that moment the song became the rage. It seemed to
+embody the whole spirit of the Revolutionists, and spread like wildfire
+throughout France. It was to this song that the unbridled spirits of
+Marseilles marched to Paris, hence its name, "The Marseillaise." Shortly
+after this, de Lisle received a letter from his mother, the Baroness,
+dated from her chateau, saying, "What is this dreadful song we hear?"
+Fearing that his own life might be in danger, he being an aristocrat and
+a suspect, he had before long to take flight across the mountains. As he
+went from valley to crag, and crag to valley, he time after time heard
+the populace singing his song, frequently having to hide behind rocks
+lest they discovered him. It sounded to him like a requiem, for he knew
+that many of his friends were being marched to the scaffold to his own
+impassioned strains.
+
+[Illustration: QUAYSIDE, MARSEILLES.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+FROM MARSEILLES TO ARMENTIÈRES.
+
+
+The incidents of the railway journey from Marseilles to Etaples, _en
+route_ to Armentières, told in detail, would fill a book. It was made in
+ordinary cattle trucks, in which, packed forty to a truck, we spent four
+days and a half at one stretch. Yet was it a bright and merry trip, for
+our spirits were raised to the highest by the thought that we were going
+into action, and we were at all sorts of expedients to make ourselves
+comfortable. For instance, before we started the Stationmaster's Office
+was ransacked, and every available nail pulled out to make coat and hat
+pegs of in the cattle trucks. We had to sleep on the floor. Our
+corporal, who was an old soldier of many campaigns, of iron physique
+and a perfect Goliath, and the life and soul of our party, was so tired
+when he got aboard the train, after strenuous efforts, that he fell dead
+asleep on the floor, and there was so little available space, and his
+massive form took up so much of what there was, that no fewer than nine
+men, as they became tired and dropped down from the walls of the truck,
+fell on him and went to sleep on the top of him. However, that corporal
+slept the sleep of the just for four or five hours, and even then did
+not awaken until, the train halting and somebody mentioning wine, there
+was a scuffle, and another man stepped on his head, whereupon he flung
+him off and made a good first out of the train.
+
+[Illustration: FORTY PASSENGERS IN EACH CATTLE TRUCK.]
+
+We were regaled at each station by the populace, who brought us cakes
+and wine, small flags, toys, tin trumpets, oranges, and other fruits,
+and we parted with nearly all our buttons as souvenirs.
+
+
+TUB, TEA AND A HALT.
+
+At one stopping place a large leathern hose was depending from a water
+main for giving the engine water, and somebody turning this on, we all
+took shower baths under it, or plunged into the huge tub alongside, some
+being so keen on not missing their chance that they took their baths in
+their clothes, tunics and all. Try to imagine our feelings after being
+cooped up in the train for just on three days and nights and then
+getting a wash or prehistoric bath!
+
+We had a two hours' wait here, and the "dixies" (about a dozen in all)
+were filled with water, and a huge fire was lighted, and soon a "long
+felt want" was satisfied in the form of tea. Though it was like Indian
+ink, it went down with a rare relish (I think my little lot was the best
+drink of tea I ever enjoyed); but unfortunately there was no second
+edition.
+
+[Illustration: A WASH AND A WAIT.]
+
+After our "tub" we made a line for the station, the train being so long
+that only a portion of it was in it. We received a pleasant surprise
+in the form of a stall, where there were cakes, buns, bottles of red
+wine, fruit and many other luxuries.
+
+After we had cleared out the whole lot, the French people living in the
+town came to the railings at the side of the station and bombarded us
+with all kinds of food and dainties. Just as we were all thoroughly
+stretching our legs and enjoying ourselves, the order was given to board
+train, so, with much cheering, singing and shouting, we resumed our
+seats--or rather our "standing room only."
+
+
+"DOOMSDAY BOOK."
+
+[Illustration: "DOOMSDAY BOOK": A FRENCH LESSON IN A CATTLE TRUCK.]
+
+Our corporal (behold him with an open book of Family Bible dimensions)
+often busied himself with expounding his views on the French language,
+in which he was labouring to become proficient. His linguistic ambitions
+did not end at self-proficiency, for he was solicitous to instruct his
+fellows, and we had quite a number of French lessons from him, although
+it must be admitted that they suffered many interruptions in good old
+plain English from the Tommies, provoked by the jolting of the train.
+They nicknamed this huge French dictionary the "Doomsday Book," because
+it was their doom to have its contents thrown at them every day.
+
+
+THE LAST STAGE.
+
+The weather set in very cold and snowy, and as the cracks in the bottom
+of the truck measured three inches in width, it can be guessed what a
+draught there was. But in spite of everything and the general discomfort
+of things, jam and biscuits were "lowered" in plenty. I amused the boys
+by making sketches on biscuits and throwing them out of the window at
+the various stations we passed through to the crowds of French
+civilians, soldiers, and Red Cross nurses. Perhaps some of my comrades
+will find some of these biscuit souvenirs at their homes--if they ever
+get there--for not a few were kept to the end of the journey and posted
+to friends in England.
+
+We passed over several bridges which the Germans had destroyed, but
+which had been made temporarily good again by the French engineers. Over
+these our train had to travel gingerly. As we neared the fighting zone
+the booming of the guns could be heard, and a little further on things
+became more warlike. We noticed the devastated stations, villages, and
+large shell holes in the embankment of the line.
+
+All this seemed to bring to the surface our fighting spirits, and we
+only wanted to be out and at the Huns.
+
+On arrival at Etaples, after a rest of two hours or so in the station
+yard and street adjoining same, we marched in full pack and kit,
+including blankets and our waterproof sheets, to a fishing village,
+where we struck a camp and turned in for the night. We were under canvas
+for four days--the only four days under canvas during the whole time I
+was in France. The Colonel gave orders that all the men's heads were to
+be shaved, as we were proceeding to the trenches.
+
+
+LADY ANGELA FORBES'S SOLDIERS' HOME AT ETAPLES.
+
+[Illustration: LADY ANGELA FORBES'S SOLDIERS' HOME AT ETAPLES.]
+
+A never fading recollection of Etaples will be that of the kindness and
+hospitality we received at the hands of Lady Angela Forbes and the "very
+gallant gentlewomen" who assisted her in the management of her Soldiers'
+Home there. The warmest of welcomes and the best of cheer awaited every
+soldier who crossed its threshold. Nothing that thoughtfulness could
+suggest and liberality could provide was lacking. Tact and an
+understanding sympathy characterised the administration of every
+department. We left behind us blessings and thanks we could not express
+in words.
+
+
+ON THE ROAD TO THE TRENCHES.
+
+We had a three days' march (most of the way on cobble stones) from camp
+to Armentières, via Aire, Hazebruck and Bailleul, things getting hotter
+and hotter. In the course of the first day the enemy's aircraft dropped
+bombs on our route. We scattered in the hedges and ditches, lying flat
+and getting what cover we could. We had several men wounded by the
+splinters of the bombs, but fortunately nothing serious occurred, and
+all went well that day.
+
+[Illustration: ROAD TO THE TRENCHES.]
+
+The third day we reached a village and were billeted in some barns. We
+had just "got down to it comfortable" when a shell took the roofs off,
+and a loud cheer went up as it was realised that the enemy had missed
+the mark. They put about twelve of these huge shells in the place, but
+they all went high. After three hours the order was given to creep out
+and get into some cottages further down the road. These cottages were
+inhabited, and the terrified people made us welcome indeed--had not we
+come to protect them from the Germans? We had a short rest here and then
+had to push on and make the most of the darkness.
+
+As the firing grew heavier we made a circular route over fields, etc.,
+to the trenches, for the rest of the way. The enemy made an attack on
+our second night in them--and their loss was pretty heavy.
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+AT THE FRONT.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+SOME SAMPLE EXCITEMENTS OF LIFE IN THE TRENCHES.
+
+
+[Illustration: MY SKETCH BOOK.]
+
+I don't think I'm a bit sentimental in the matter of souvenirs, and
+anyway I can't need anything to remind me of the unforgettable, but all
+the same there's one souvenir of my experiences in the trenches and the
+firing line that I shall never part with--and that's the little notebook
+(measuring 5-1/2 ins. by 3-1/2 ins., bought in Armentières) which I
+carried with me through everything, and in which are the originals of
+the sketches here collected, taken "under fire," either literally or in
+the sense that they were taken within the zone of fire. In the nature of
+things I might have been finished myself by shot or shell before I
+could have finished any one of them. Sketched in circumstances that
+certainly had their own disadvantages as well as their special
+advantages, I present these drawings only for what they are. There were
+many happenings--repulsions of sudden attacks, temporary retirements,
+charges, and things of that sort--that would have made capital subjects,
+but of which my notebook holds no "pictured presentment," because I was
+taking part in them.
+
+
+AT ARMENTIÈRES.
+
+[Illustration: Map: La Bassée-St. Julien]
+
+We reached Armentières (relieving the Leinster Regiment and the 9th
+Lancers in the first line trenches, distant from the first line German
+trenches 30 yards) at a critical time.
+
+The effort in progress was to straighten out our line so as to get it
+level with Ypres, and the whole position all around was a very perilous
+one. We were short of men--very short--and had practically no reserves.
+Almost every available man had to do the work and duty of three. For a
+month or so almost all the heavy work fell upon the line regiments, we
+doing the wiring, digging, and the usual work of the Royal Engineers,
+the number of these being relatively scanty indeed.
+
+There was also some shortage of shells and ammunition for guns and
+rifles, while of trench mortars a division had but few. We had to make
+our own bombs out of jam tins. These were charged and stuck down, a
+detonator being inserted, and we crawled out with them at night and
+heaved them into the German trenches. We had to time each heave with the
+most extreme accuracy, for the fraction of a moment too late meant the
+bursting of the bomb in our hands. The game we played with the Huns
+(keeping up a continuous fire all night, for instance) was one of pure
+bluff. They were massed in, we estimated, four army corps, and could
+have walked through us--if they had only known.
+
+As my illustrations do not follow all the movements of my detachment, I
+will say here that from Armentières we were shifted to Houplines, about
+4-1/2 to 5 miles north-east, where we made an advance of a hundred yards
+or so to straighten up. From Houplines we were moved south to La Bassée,
+and from La Bassée to Neuve Chapelle (where our 3rd Battalion was almost
+wiped out in the indecisive victory that proved much and won little),
+and then back to Armentières, whence we were sent north to St. Eloi,
+after making a short advance in the vicinity of Messines. From St. Eloi
+we were ordered to Hill 60, taking part in the now historic battle
+there. After Hill 60, Ypres, where shrapnel and poison gas put an end to
+my soldiering days--I am afraid for ever.
+
+To come back to our first arrival at Armentières, our position was in
+touch with a small village not marked on the map, in the direction of
+Houplines. This village, which became almost wholly destroyed, had
+been knocked about by the enemy fire, but the tall chimney of a
+distillery had been spared, no doubt because the Germans wanted it
+themselves, intact. However much they wished, and often and hard as they
+tried, to take it--especially as from it could be conned not only our
+lines but the lay of the surrounding country--they never did take it,
+and it never fell, though it was hit in two places and cracked.
+
+At 10.30 one morning I crawled over the parapet--that is, the
+sandbags--of our trench to sketch the picture of which this distillery
+shaft is the central feature. The trench also near the middle we had dug
+overnight for communication purposes. The enemy were to the left of the
+buildings shown, and our own men were occupying the position to the
+right of the chimney at a range of 250 yards.
+
+[Illustration: OUTSKIRTS OF A VILLAGE.]
+
+Our boys in the trenches could never understand a bright light which in
+daytime issued from the garden adjoining the farm-buildings on the
+British side. But one day a spy, who did work disguised as a farmhand,
+was discovered. He used a tin bowl as a reflector to send the enemy
+signals. The rascal was duly attended to.
+
+
+FETCHING WATER.
+
+[Illustration: MY FIRST SNIPING PLACE.]
+
+Here is a little view of the outskirts of the same village, made a few
+days later, when I was told off with two others to go to the house on
+the right of the sketch to get water from the pump, exposed to the
+enemy's fire. While pencilling the sketch I saw the wide gap made in the
+tree's branches, as shown by a shell passing through it, which burst on
+the road some fifteen yards away from us. This was an indication the
+enemy had spotted figures moving in the direction of the house. However,
+having got the water, we all reached "home" safely, though we ran a
+further risk in rummaging in the orchard, where we found some beds
+of lettuces, of which welcome vegetables we brought back with us enough
+to supply the whole section.
+
+The house on the left of the shelled tree was the position from which I
+and two others were ordered to snipe. We climbed the ricketty building
+and fired from the eaves and from the cover of the chimney. The building
+was in a state of almost total ruin, but we took our places on the
+shaken beams and considered we made a quite successful bag, for we could
+guarantee that at least five or six occupants of the enemy's trenches
+would give us no more trouble. This in the course of one morning.
+Finally the enemy saw us and we had to vacate our position, as both the
+building and the barricade across the road were being rapidly hit.
+
+
+CAPTURE OF A GERMAN TRENCH.
+
+[Illustration: CAPTURED GERMAN TRENCH.]
+
+Without their coveted observation post the German gunners got the range
+of the town beyond the village so completely that one day they poured a
+continuous stream of shells over our heads from 4.30 in the morning
+till mid-day. It was, I remember, at day-break next morning that under
+cover of our own artillery, we made an advance and took the trench here
+depicted just as it was left by the turned-out. So hurried was their
+exit when faced by British bayonets that they left behind them in the
+trench quite a number of articles most useful to us--such as saws,
+sniper's rifles mounted on tripod stands, haversacks, and a quantity of
+other equipment, also a very fine selection of cigars, which came as
+quite a godsend to us. Personally, I clicked on a pair of German jack
+boots, which, as the weather was wet and the ground soft and muddy, as
+usual, came in very handy. I also came across a forage cap and a pocket
+knife, and picked up a photograph--that of a typical Fraulein, probably
+the sweetheart of Heinrich, Fritz or Karl.
+
+
+A NIGHT RELIEF.
+
+Duty in the trenches and rest and sleep in our billets in their rear
+alternated with something like regularity, but it was a regularity
+always liable to interruptions, such as were necessitated by not
+infrequent exigencies.
+
+For instance, we had just got back to the latter one night, at exactly
+10.30, after seven consecutive days in the trenches of our most advanced
+position, and were thinking that now we should get a few hours' quiet
+repose--subject, of course, to the disturbance of shelling--when a
+sudden order was given to fall in. We turned out, were numbered, "right
+turned," and marched off, singing and whistling merrily. After
+proceeding in this fashion for half a mile, word was passed down to form
+Indian file, seven paces apart. We moved thus for about a quarter of a
+mile, and then word was again passed down--"no smoking, whistling, or
+talking." The night was pitch dark, foggy, and a drizzle was beating in
+our faces.
+
+We were now within range of the enemy's rifle fire and heard spent
+bullets as they pinged and spluttered into the mud. We crossed a railway
+line, and marched or crawled the best way we could along the ditch
+parallel with it--truth to tell, cursing and swearing. We passed an old
+signal station, now just a pile of bricks, with one side wall still
+erect and one glass window intact. We had come to know well that wall
+and that window and the strewn bricks around, for we had passed the spot
+so often in our little excursions from trench to billet and billet to
+trench. A little further along the whistle of the bullets grew louder
+and more continuous--their sound something like the sound of soft
+notes whistled by a boy. Machine guns--"motor bikes" in our
+nomenclature--rattled our left and right, our position being that of
+the far apex of a triangle, exposed to inflated fire all the way up.
+
+Arriving within a few yards of the opening of the trench we were to
+occupy in relief of the North Staffords, the first section of whom were
+moving along the ditch, a star shell burst above as the searchlight was
+turned on, and every man stood stock still till all was dark again.
+
+Between men of the incoming and outgoing battalions such casual
+greetings were exchanged as: "Wot's it like up here, matie?"; "'Ow are
+yer goin', son?"; "Yer want to keep your 'ead well down in this
+part--it's a bit 'ot"; "So long, sonnie." Sprawling, ducking and diving,
+we got in, and "safe" behind the sandbags. Just as my chum and I had
+entered the dug-out, and were preparing to make ourselves comfortable,
+as our turn for sentry-go would not be for two hours, the sergeant
+shoved his head in and shouted that we were wanted for a ration party.
+
+
+RATION PARTIES.
+
+A ration party consists of fourteen men--fewer sometimes, but fourteen
+if possible, as the proper full complement. The small carts in use are
+generally of rude and primitive construction. As everybody knows by now,
+rations comprise bully beef Spratt's biscuits--very large and rather
+hard--loaves of bread packed in sacks, bacon, jam, marmalade,
+Maconochies in tins, and, when possible, kegs of water. Let not the rum
+be forgotten. No soldier is more grateful for anything than for his
+tablespoonful of rum at half-past six in the evening and half-past four
+in the morning. His "tot" has saved many a man from a chill, and kept
+him going during long and dreary hours of wet and press. As to bread, by
+the bye, it is highly probable that one small loaf, about half the size
+of an ordinary loaf, will be divided between seven men. With the good
+things already enumerated, a plentiful supply of charcoal and coke is
+usually to be expected. The horse transports with these provisions never
+get nearer than, at the closest, say half-a-mile of the front trench
+itself, when the men in charge dump their loads down and get away back
+to their stores and billets as quickly as possible. There is a lot to
+risk, for as a rule the enemy have the road well set, and the shelling
+is often very severe.
+
+It is the duty of a ration party to bring up the loads from where they
+have been left. On regaining the opening to the trench, they take the
+rations to the quartermaster-sergeant's hut or dug-out. The sergeants of
+each platoon come to this hut or dug-out, and to them the things are
+delivered in quantities proportionate with the number of men in the
+section each represents. The sergeants then send along two men to carry
+the whacks to the respective traverses in the trench. This goes on night
+after night. So on the occasion I am recalling we were very late--and
+the distance we had to go was as much as a mile and three-quarters.
+
+This ration carrying, the final stage of ration transport, is an even
+more dangerous and risky job than the preceding stage, and, as usual,
+snipers got busy on us, hitting three men, though none was killed. The
+rattle of bullets from machine guns on the ricketty sides of the old
+cart added to the programme of the night's entertainment, and there were
+frequent intervals, not for refreshments, but for getting flat and
+waiting.
+
+
+GATHERING IN OUR FIREWOOD.
+
+Chopping up firewood was regarded not so much as work as it was regarded
+as one of our recreations in the trenches--of which I shall have a
+little to say presently. But it often happened that there was no
+recreation, but only the excitement of danger in the night-time job of
+bringing in the firewood for day-time chopping. It would happen that a
+man had spotted in some shelled house or fallen farm-building a beam,
+plank, door, or something else wooden and burnable, that he couldn't
+carry without assistance, or that he couldn't stop to bring away at the
+time. It must be fetched, for fire we must have. It might be only a few
+score yards away measured by distance, but an hour measured by
+time--"thou art so near and yet so far" sort of thing. Fetchers might
+get hit at any moment, and had to creep and wriggle very cautiously over
+open ground all the way. By some strange twist of mental association,
+whenever I was a fetcher in these circumstances I found myself mentally
+quoting Longfellow's line in "Hiawatha"--"He is gathering in his
+firewood"!
+
+[Illustration: THE WOODCUTTER'S HUT.]
+
+Our champion at the game was a Private Hyatt--quite a youngster, but
+of fine physique and fearless daring. His dug-out was called "The
+Woodcutter's Hut." He made a regular hobby of wood-getting. He was an
+expert, a specialist. On certain occasions he even went out after wood
+in the daylight, slithering along on all fours towards his objective,
+and would be fired at until recalled by one of his own officers. On one
+occasion when he had crawled out and into a building to collect wood, as
+he crawled back through the doorway we saw little clouds of dust rising
+from the brick-work surrounding him, which showed that the enemy's
+snipers had spotted him, and we shouted to him from the trench to "keep
+down." He took refuge behind the wall of the doorway, and lay there
+three-quarters of an hour, and then returned, bringing with him the much
+prized plank of which he had gone in search, and which, when chopped up,
+supplied our section with sufficient firewood for a whole day and night.
+In the sketch it will be observed he is reading a letter. This he had
+received just after the above incident, and sat down on his valise quite
+unaware that I was sketching him. Later on I gave him a copy of the
+sketch, and he enclosed it in his affectionate reply to his folk at
+home.
+
+
+"STAND TO."
+
+The most anxious time a soldier can know is the time, be it long or
+short, that follows the command to stand to. Many a time we had to stand
+to the whole night--the entire battalion, from evening twilight till the
+full dawn of day--as an attack was expected. Everyone was at his firing
+position, with bayonet fixed and his rifle loaded--and in tip-top
+working condition, the daily rifle inspection having taken place at
+dusk. Sometimes our artillery would presently open fire for the enemy's
+first line, perhaps for five or six minutes--it might be more, it might
+be less. Then a wait of six or seven minutes, when the enemy returned
+the fire, and we all got well down. It was as well to keep as hard up
+against the parapet as possible, and to keep out of all dug-outs, for
+into them the forward impetus of bursting shrapnel was likely to throw a
+lot of splinters. Again silence, comrades and pals passing a few remarks
+in anticipation of what everybody knew was coming. The officers with us
+were one with us, and at their words, "Well, come on, lads," there was
+never a laggard in getting "over the tops" (in our own phraseology). As
+soon as we put our hands on the sandbags to clamber over the top of the
+parapet a hailstorm of bullets pelted us. It is impossible--at all
+events for me--to describe a charge. Speaking for myself, always my
+brain seemed to snap. It was simply a rush in a mad line--or as much of
+a line as could be kept--towards the enemy's barbed wire entanglements,
+which our guns had blown to smithereens in preparation for the assault.
+We scrambled on to their parapet, each getting at the first man he
+could touch. When we had taken their position (we didn't always) we
+might have to wait some time till our artillery had shelled the second
+line, but there was a lot of work to be done at once. The parapet had to
+be reversed.
+
+After an attack there was generally a roll call--from which there were
+many absentees.
+
+More trying--more wearing and tearing to the nerves--than anything
+that in my experience ever followed it was the stand to itself. The
+moments, minutes, even hours, that followed that old familiar order,
+"stand to," were the worst I ever went through. As every eventide comes
+on I still feel just a little--just a very little--of what I felt then.
+Even now: and I fear me I always shall till death bids me stand to.
+
+I see I have written so much with only one illustration, that perhaps it
+won't be amiss if I place here a few typical heads and a couple of
+typical full figures, the original sketches of which I pencilled in
+spare places in my notebook at odd times. If they be really typical they
+need no labelling.
+
+[Illustration: TYPICAL FIGURES AND FIGURE-HEADS.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE LIGHTER SIDE OF TRENCH LIFE.
+
+
+That there was (and is) a lighter side, a social side, of trench life,
+as of the life generally of a soldier on active service, even in this
+war, merely incidental remarks of mine such as could not be omitted from
+any true and fair description of that life must furnish abundant
+evidence; but this lighter side was, in my experience, so very real and
+so pronounced that to illustrate a few set observations thereon I take a
+few sketches from my notebook out of the order in which I find them in
+it.
+
+
+SING-SONGS.
+
+Our concert parties were "immense," and there was no forced gaiety in
+our enjoyment of them. Some of the best sing-songs were in "Leicester
+Lounge," named after the luxurious resort (which it didn't resemble)
+hard by the Empire Theatre. The reflection occurs to me for the first
+time that only men with whom high spirits were rampant would or could
+have been so fond of inventing such nicknames as--in mood jovially
+ironic--we coined for all sorts of places, persons and things.
+"Leicester Lounge" was a dug-out adjacent to "Hammersmith Bridge," and
+the surroundings of "Hammersmith Bridge," there being nothing in
+connection with them to suggest--save by absence--either a garden or a
+city, were "the Garden City."
+
+[Illustration: "HAMMERSMITH BRIDGE."]
+
+It was the biggest, roomiest, and most palatial dug-out we had. The top
+was just a small roof-garden, carefully planted and laid out. It had
+statuary, too, in groups. The statues were fashioned in clay by amateur
+hands, and the artistic effects were original and novel, to say the
+least. It was also the safest place, this "Lounge," because it was sunk
+four feet below the level of the trench itself. It accommodated twelve
+easily. Impromptu concerts were frequent here; our far-famed mouth-organ
+band performed at such intervals as our own military duties and the
+enemy's cascades of shells permitted. It was here the names of
+neighbouring streams and nullahs were chosen from which we drew our
+daily beverage of "Adam's Ale" (untaxed, and rather thick), such as the
+portentous "Cæsar's Well." In another spacious dug-out we had our "Times
+Book Club." This "eligible tenement" had the special distinction of a
+stove and chimney (purloined from a ruined farm)--that is, it had a
+chimney till the enemy spotted and so riddled it that it collapsed. It
+had a glass window (fixed in clay), statuary (modelled in clay),
+decorations (log-cabin order), one chair (also purloined, back broken
+off), one table (very treacherous); and I mustn't forget the president's
+bell (tobacco tin shell, and a cartridge for a clapper). It was lit by
+many candles, and as the fee for membership was a book or magazine from
+home, it served a good purpose.
+
+
+
+"DIRTY DICK'S".
+
+[Illustration: "DIRTY DICK'S".]
+
+After a time the sing-songs in a trench some little distance away from
+"Leicester Lounge" knocked spots off all the others anywhere, thanks to
+the acquisition of a piano for them--probably the only instrument of its
+kind which has ever been in the British trenches at the front. It came
+from "Dirty Dick's." The picture of "Dirty Dick's" gives a rough idea of
+the devastation of war. The portion of a building to the right was all
+that remained of what, but a few weeks before, had been a handsome and
+prosperous hotel, and the wall with window and door spaces left, shown
+to the left, had been the residence of a prominent citizen. All that was
+left of the hotel was a shaky wall, though the sign-board remained,
+having escaped the enemy's fire.
+
+We were placed in the trench shown in the foreground, and the Germans
+were also entrenched in the space seen in the distance between the
+ruins. When we first took up our position the hotel was intact except
+that the roof had been destroyed. The wall towards our trench was
+standing, and when it fell the bricks came tumbling over us, and the
+dust of the red masonry turned us into copper-coloured men. But prior to
+this three "Jocks" and three of our own regiment crawled out of the
+trench and into the house, and we spotted a piano on the ground floor.
+The temptation was too great; we decided to remove it. The operation
+took us two and a half hours' hard struggle. Eventually we got the
+instrument into our trench, somewhat battered about and minus one leg,
+but still answering to the keyboard. Unfortunately two of the party were
+wounded in doing this, but they didn't mind. Night after night we had
+sing-songs accompanied on the piano in proper style, and used to give
+forth with the full strength of our lungs--
+
+    "The Germans are coming--
+      Hurrah! Hurrah!"
+
+The "harmony" of this stunt used to be wafted on the silent night air to
+the German trenches, and we soon saw how it upset Fritz and Karl. They
+got so annoyed that they trained their artillery in the direction of
+the sounds, and used to shell us all along the line in the hope of
+silencing our concerts. However, they could never quite locate the exact
+spot in which the instrument was temporarily placed.
+
+[Illustration: "ENTRENCHING" THE PIANO.]
+
+One night, while one of our concerts was at its height, the officers
+even joining in, the order came to advance. So we had to bid a hasty
+farewell to our much-prized "Johanna," which had given us so much
+pleasure.
+
+
+"SEVENTY-FIVE HOTEL."
+
+[Illustration: SEVENTY-FIVE HOTEL.]
+
+Now I think of it, there was another ex-"pub" where we touched lucky in
+the matter of finding things--though they didn't include a piano. This
+was "Seventy-five Hotel." We called it that because the enemy fired
+seventy-five shells into it in seventy-five minutes on one memorable
+occasion, and then only killed one man. The building, which had been the
+scene of fierce fighting even before our battalion arrived on the scene
+of action, still bore the sign "Estaminet," and so we could safely
+conclude that it had been the village "pub," or wine lodge. There were a
+few bottles of wine still in the cellar, which the Germans must have
+overlooked when they were in possession, or had not time to take away.
+We found many articles, some useful, some otherwise; amongst them a
+large warming-pan, which caused amusement. The article we put to the
+best use was the dinner bell. This was turned to great account. In front
+of the estaminet was our "listening post," where we kept watch and guard
+at night. Well, by aid of the dinner bell we installed our own brand of
+telephone system. This was to connect the bell by string to the wrists
+of those out on the watch. Whenever they saw anyone approaching or any
+other indication of possible danger they gently pulled the string, the
+bell tinkled, it was heard by our companions in the trench, word was
+passed along, and everyone prepared for emergencies.
+
+
+"CHICKEN FARM."
+
+[Illustration: "CHICKEN FARM."]
+
+Here something really like a little bit of sport came in our way. When
+we arrived there the farm was deserted, its lawful owners having found
+the situation too hot for them. Cows roamed about at random, and so did
+pigs. But after we had dug ourselves in and made our position secure,
+the chickens were what interested us most. There were two hundred and
+fifty of these at the least, and they used to parade on the strip of
+ground shown in the picture and the bolder spirits peep over the edge of
+our trench. Catching them was good sport, but eating them was something
+finer. What a nice change from bully beef and biscuit! Cooking not quite
+a la Carlton or Ritz, but more on prehistoric principles. So many fowls
+were caught, killed and plucked for cooking and eating that the wet mud
+was completely covered with feathers, and resembled a feather bank. As
+for ourselves, the feathers, sticking to the wet mud on our uniforms and
+equipments, turned us into Zulus, wild men of the woods, or Chippeway
+Indians. The enemy presumably did fairly well also with a poultry farm
+in the distance. They appeared to have a portable kitchen. We often
+watched the funnel moving about their trench. One day a line was
+stretched from this funnel to a pole and German officers' uniforms were
+hung out on the line to dry over the stove. It made us a lovely target.
+Shooting at officers' uniforms was a pleasant diversion, and they had
+been well pierced with bullets before they were taken in.
+
+
+A FRENCH COMEDIAN.
+
+Later on, and farther on--after our capture of a position I shall
+shortly have occasion to describe--we made the acquaintance of a French
+"born comedian," who was a tower of strength at our entertainments, and
+who in various other ways was a cause of constant amusement. He had been
+left behind by his regiment, and we found him hanging around the place.
+It had been his home, and it seemed that the magnet of life-long
+associations held him to it. He was very useful in taking us round to
+cottages which, to our surprise, we found to be still inhabited, and in
+giving us the tip where to find cheap, if very thin, beer and other
+refreshments. He was particularly proud of his German jack-boots--made
+for legs very much bigger than his own. When we had concerts he used
+to give us clever imitations of the late Harry Fragson in his
+"Margarita" and other varieties, to the accompaniment of the mouth-organ
+band. He used to say: "Ze Engleesh soldier--très bon--ze French
+soldier--bon--mais ze Allemand--no bon!" On one occasion he told us:
+"Après la guerre, ze Engleesh soldier beaucoup admirers--ladees! Ze
+French soldier admirers, too. Ze Allemand--non!"
+
+[Illustration: A FRENCH COMRADE-COMEDIAN.]
+
+He got hold of peasants to wash our clothes for us and introduced us to
+a little mill-race, which we reached through a thicket which concealed
+us, and the spectacle of our men stripping and diving into the stream in
+cold weather amused him hugely. He jumped about in his big boots,
+exclaiming: "Vat your vife say if she see you in ze water? Vat she say
+if she see you ici?" The English replied, in the best French at their
+command, "beaucoup lavé--très bon," at which our comical comrade-at-arms
+laughed more heartily than ever. When his regiment found out where he
+was a guard was sent up, and he was obliged to remain in charge of it,
+to his great regret, when we moved on. He wished us "bonne chance,"
+assuring us that it was his one desire after the war to get to
+Angleterre, where he had never been; but now that he knew the English he
+must visit us to make our further acquaintance. So much for our comical
+French friend, ever so amusing and ever so polite.
+
+We found fun in all sorts of things, made fun of all sorts of things.
+That we could do so and did do so may appear strange--it seems strange
+sometimes to me now. But 'twas a merciful thing that we were able to.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE "MAKE" OF A BRITISH TRENCH.
+
+
+The four following sketches will, I hope, give a fairly clear and
+accurate idea of the construction of a British trench. The first depicts
+one of my comrades (who was also a brother-artist by profession, and a
+brother-sniper) sitting reading, during a surcease of the firing, on the
+firing platform in a trench corner. It will be noticed that he wears his
+sleeping cap. Very close and handy are his tall jack-boots--so
+serviceable in wet weather and heavy mud. My artist-friend, I should
+like to remark, was considered among snipers a great shot, and there is
+no doubt that he often did deadly work with his rifle.
+
+[Illustration: A TRENCH SNIPER RESTING.]
+
+After the trench has been dug out the sandbags are placed along the top
+so as to form what is called a "parapet." Then the trench is dug deeper
+still and the firing platform is put in. Next the vertical struts of
+wood are put in position with wiring in between to hold back the mud,
+and in places where it is possible blocks fill in gaps to strengthen the
+structure. Finally the bed of the trench is boarded over with long heavy
+planks, some of which require two men to carry them; these are very
+often placed on bricks or blocks of wood to give air spaces underneath
+to keep them dry as far as possible. The trench is now completed as far
+as its construction is concerned, but it is left to be "furnished" with
+any supplies that happen to be handy. One of the first essentials is
+naturally the fireplace. This, as in the present instance, is very often
+an old tin pail with a few holes knocked in it, somewhat similar to the
+one used by Mr. Wilkie Bard in his famous sketch, "The Night Watchman."
+The fuel consists of charcoal, wood and coke, to get which fully lit it
+is usual to swing the receptacle round and round so as to create a
+draught and start the contents thoroughly on the go. There is a great
+danger attending this, for if the Germans catch a glimpse of the
+brazier being whirled in the air they immediately locate the whirler and
+begin firing in his direction.
+
+The black patch in the centre of the picture represents the sniping
+place, which is a thick piece of iron let into the parapet with a hole
+bored through it large enough to take the muzzle of the rifle. It also
+allows enough space for the sniper to see through, and, with the aid of
+the periscope, held usually by a comrade at his side, he is able to get
+the sight for his firing.
+
+
+A TRAVERSE.
+
+[Illustration: A TRAVERSE.]
+
+Here is a "traverse" in a trench. The sergeant is reading the orders of
+the day to one of his men. This was a very damp corner--on the top of
+the dug-out to the left tunics were hanging to dry in the early morning
+air. The soldier still has on his sleeping cap (like the figure in the
+last picture); his mess-tin is by his side, and his rifle, encased in a
+waterproof cover. He is sitting on the firing platform, and the depth of
+the trench is noticeable, showing how low the men are in the ground. The
+sandbags shown it took us four hours one night to place in position. As
+fast as we put them up they were shot down again by the enemy's maxim
+fire. We were all so tired and sleepy that, working on automatically, we
+hardly knew whether we were putting the mud in the sandbags or outside
+them.
+
+It was not only the dampness and the incessant maxim fire we had to
+contend with here, but an army of insects, which jumped about us in
+battalions, and saw to it we were never lonely. A Cockney member of our
+company, after catching a particularly active jumper, called out: "Now
+then, you blighter, where is your respirator?"
+
+The enemy were only thirty yards away, and we could often hear them
+shouting at us and would answer back. Many of our men were hit by
+snipers, while the shelling was often terrific, but we stuck on, as
+we were holding a part of an important military position. I remember how
+on an occasion when the shelling was very heavy one man engaged himself
+in making soup as coolly as if nothing was happening until the earth
+knocked up by the shells began to drop into the mess-tin, when he gave
+us his opinion of the Boches in his own forcible vernacular. We often
+laid for hours at the bottom of the trench--flat on the ground in the
+water and mud to escape the shells.
+
+
+THE BIRTH-PLACE OF A SONG.
+
+[Illustration: THE BIRTH-PLACE OF A SONG.]
+
+The third bit of trench of this chapter has a claim to fame as the
+birth-place of a song. The song was one which only British soldiers
+could have concocted, and none but British soldiers would have sung. It
+had no known author and no known composer. It sort of "growed," like
+Topsy. If it had had a title given to it I suppose it would have been
+called "I want to go home," for that was its dirge-like refrain, always
+sung very cheerfully indeed, or with mock earnestness. Time and again I
+heard its chorus taken up with terrific gusto from end to end of this
+trench, and the whole extraordinary composition spread to other trenches
+like a contagion. Its popularity was instant and enduring--and as
+unaccountable as the popularity of many other popular songs. I think I
+quote the inspired words of the chorus correctly:--
+
+    "I want to go home,
+    I want to go home--
+    Tho' the Jack Johnsons and shrapnel
+    May whistle and roar,
+    I don't want to go in the trenches no more;
+    I want to be
+    Where the Alleymonds can't catch me:
+    Oh my!
+    I don't want to die--
+    I want--to go home."
+
+Three rifles are deposited on the steps of the fireplace--the usual
+position for rifles when not in hand, dropped inside canvas bags,
+bayonets protruding--kept well greased, to prevent them from getting
+rusty.
+
+
+TRENCH PERISCOPE.
+
+[Illustration: TRENCH PERISCOPE IN USE.]
+
+The uses of a trench periscope are so well known that they need not be
+described. The feature of my last sketch of a trench from the inside is
+that it shows one in actual employment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE RUSE OF A GERMAN SNIPER.
+
+
+Snipers on both sides exhibited the most extraordinary artfulness,
+cunning and ingenuity in the discovery, adaptation and invention of
+"cover." The great desideratum, of course, was to hide where we could
+see without being seen, to shoot from where there was least danger of
+being shot.
+
+I helped to track and put an end at Houplines to one German sniper who
+had resorted to a ruse that I really think deserves the dignity of a
+short chapter all to itself. The story is tellable in a few words, and
+may be introduced by this drawing of "The White Farm," so
+christened because of the whiteness of the walls of its house; although,
+as will be noticed, there was little of this or anything else left
+upstanding when I drew my sketch.
+
+[Illustration: "THE WHITE FARM."]
+
+The position shown is the entrance to the trench at this point, and the
+shovels, barrels, pails and water trough are all such implements as had
+been used in making and draining the cutting.
+
+The cart shown is the "ration cart" used at night for bringing
+provisions from the Transport Corps wagon. It was usual for the ration
+parties (as elsewhere) to go out every night after dusk. These were even
+more than ordinarily dangerous excursions, as the enemy trenches
+commanded the road, we having captured the position from them shortly
+before. Hence sniping was continuous, and the cart was often hit and our
+men killed or wounded. We therefore took observations.
+
+
+THE SNIPER WHO LIVED IN A TREE.
+
+[Illustration: A GERMAN SNIPER'S NEST]
+
+In course of time we came to notice that the most dangerous part of the
+road lay between a willow tree-stump and the White Farm. Our men were
+shot here nightly in getting back to the trenches. A party was formed to
+make a tour of the field in which the tree-trunk stood. The first thing
+we noticed was that after we entered this enclosure the shots were less
+numerous. We split up in open order and approached the willow, taking
+care to drop to the ground on our hands and knees. As we neared the
+tree, lo and behold! a shot rang out from it and only just missed the
+corporal. He jumped up at once and we all followed suit. All dashed on
+for the tree. What did we find? It was nothing but a purposely hollowed
+trunk used as a shielded nest for a German sniper, the inside being
+fitted with a shelf to rest his arm on as he coolly picked off our men
+through a hole. He endeavoured to make his escape in the darkness, but
+we brought him down. He had evidently been using this sniping place for
+weeks, though this was the first time we had located him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THREE DEATH TRAPS.
+
+
+I suppose it may be said, without exaggeration, that we were in a death
+trap all the time, but I have sketches to show of three particular and
+"extra special" sort of death traps. The first is of:--
+
+
+SUICIDE BRIDGE.
+
+[Illustration: "SUICIDE BRIDGE."]
+
+This bridge, made by the British, was called "Suicide Bridge," because
+it was, and was at, such a specially dangerous spot. The British
+trenches were in the foreground and beyond the bridge. We held these
+trenches for fourteen days against the enemy's attacks. The gap was nine
+feet deep at this corner, and the black hole on the left faintly showing
+a fireplace was our kitchen, scarred by bullet marks made by snipers.
+
+The place was infested with rats. Great water-rats were continually
+getting at our food and cheese in the dug-outs. In one "rat hunt" we
+killed eighteen of these rodents in one morning. The stream itself
+supplied us with drinking water, but one day our men began to fall ill.
+The doctor analysed the water and discovered that the dastardly Huns had
+poisoned the stream higher up, where it ran through their lines. We
+warned the rest of the battalion by the field telephone wires and saved
+them all from being poisoned.
+
+An exasperating though _not_ murderous "kultur" trick was to send us
+insulting messages down the stream enclosed in bottles, calling us
+"dirty dogs," "English swine," etc., etc.
+
+The final furious attempt of the Germans to dislodge us began in the
+daylight. Their snipers advanced first in an open field beyond the trees
+and took cover in a wagon, which we located by the ridge of flame.
+
+At night they advanced in great masses for hand-to-hand fights, which
+took place in the stream. The carnage was terrible. The poisoning
+tricks had worked our fellows up to a high pitch, and they fought with
+reckless bravery. We managed to explode a mine and caught their
+reserves. Then their artillery opened on the stream and we rushed out to
+meet them. They didn't get "Suicide Bridge" from us, but the losses were
+heavy on both sides and the stream itself was red with blood.
+
+
+SUICIDE SIGNAL BOX.
+
+[Illustration: "SUICIDE SIGNAL BOX."]
+
+The sketch of "Suicide Signal Box" takes us to a spot on the railway
+line close to the scene of one of the biggest battles of the war. Its
+chief feature is the dug-out actually under the line itself. Of course
+the line was not being used across the top of the dug-out. As a matter
+of fact, at this time a railway truck was run up to the edge nightly
+propelled by forty of our men, bringing filled sandbags for making a
+barricade across the line, thus affording the relieving party cover when
+getting out of trench. The position was known to us as "Suicide Signal
+Box," because it was so dangerous as to be almost suicidal to cross
+the line, as was necessary to reach the road only five yards beyond. The
+ruined building is the signal box itself, protected by the line of
+sandbags in front of telegraph poles and shelled trees.
+
+A most curious fact about this place was that, though it was being
+continually shelled by the enemy and their maxim guns were trained day
+and night on this very important position to catch troops coming up as
+relieving parties, it was a wonderful place in which to hear the birds
+sing. The larks trilled at every dawn to herald the coming day, and
+never seemed in the least disturbed by the roar of artillery. In the
+left-hand corner of the sketch will be noticed the firing platform, over
+which is the "funk hole," so called from its being the refuge to run to
+when the shells arrive. The soldier buries his head like the
+ostrich--only he beats the ostrich by getting his shoulders in as
+well--and then feels fairly secure.
+
+
+A MILE-AND-A-HALF OF HELL.
+
+[Illustration: A GHASTLY PROMENADE.]
+
+I show a little bit of a ghastly promenade near Messines, some six miles
+from Armentières. The road of which the bit in the foreground leads to
+what remains of a very handsome gateway to a park is a mile-and-a-half
+in length, and had to be traversed by our men in order to get to the
+British position, which was placed beyond the left corner of the picture
+(where the broken tree slants). Relieving parties had to cover the whole
+of this distance exposed to the enemy's enfilading fire from two sides
+of the triangle right up to the apex. The apex was a British trench in
+the most advanced position we could possibly hold. Our determination to
+throw back the enemy made it absolutely necessary to hold it. The road
+was covered by the Germans' maxim guns from three points, both down each
+side and from the centre between the pillars of the gateway. Our method
+of advance was in Indian file at several paces apart, and instructions
+were given that whenever the maxims fired upon us we were to drop
+flat on the ground immediately, and when the searchlight was turned upon
+us (which it frequently was with blinding force) we were to stand stock
+still in whatever position we were, the reason being that even with such
+powerful searchlights as are used by the enemy, which have a perfect
+range of five miles, it is easier for them to distinguish a moving
+object than a stationary one. It was almost unendurable to have our
+rifles in our hands--the barrels frequently hit by the enemy's
+bullets--and to have to stand still unable to use them--by order; but of
+course it would have been fatal to have opened fire. We should all have
+been annihilated.
+
+
+THE HOLE IN THE WALL.
+
+[Illustration: THE HOLE IN THE WALL.]
+
+As a pictorial sequel to "Suicide Bridge" and my little account of the
+great fight there, hand to hand in the darkness, the next illustration
+will not be out of place. The barricade across the road, at the entrance
+to a village, marks the spot to which we advanced from the stream after
+that struggle in it. The clean hole in a remaining wall of the almost
+demolished house on the left had been cut by a shell. The house in ruins
+on the right had been a mansion, and pictures and furniture were strewn
+about--some of which we used in the trenches. A case of wine had been
+left behind unbroached. A cat left behind, that refused to quit, bore a
+charmed life--never was hit--and often ran about on the parapet. The
+parapet barricade of sandbags was called "The High Jump," because we had
+to mount it and get over it each night and jump for our lives, to take
+up our positions by our advanced listening and observation post. It was
+absolutely fatal for anyone to show himself on the road in the daytime.
+Many a time we should have liked to have stretched our legs, but dared
+not. But after the fourth day we did actually get on the road, as the
+enemy shifted their position, and the relief was wonderful. It had been
+a speculation whether we or the Germans would get on the road, and after
+dislodging them we managed it. Our men ran about, some skipping with
+a piece of wire, others rolling on the ground, in their enjoyment of
+newly-found freedom, occasional spent bullets reaching us from a great
+distance. The position was always referred to as "Hole in the Wall."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+GERMAN BEASTS IN A FRENCH CONVENT.
+
+
+It is fitting that my sketch of a French Convent, as the abode of holy
+women whose innocent lives were dedicated and devoted to the service of
+the Prince of Peace, should stand by itself, apart from any drawings
+suggesting less faintly the devilry of war. The nunnery had been in the
+possession of the Germans for some short time before we arrived on the
+scene, and bore traces of their customary depredations and violations.
+The stories related by the nuns themselves were not of a description to
+bear retailing in the public Press. I would to God that they could be
+told to every coward of a shirker at home, to every skunk of a
+"conscientious objector," to every rat of a "stop-the-war"
+"pacificist." They would stir to boiling indignation the dregs of their
+manhood--if they have any dregs. They would make them sick--even them;
+and I should like them all to be sick--sick unto death. There are not
+many of them, all told, but they are noisy as well as noisome. The good
+sisters hailed the British as deliverers, and gave us a welcome I can
+neither describe nor forget.
+
+[Illustration: A VIOLATED CONVENT.]
+
+The enemy had abstained from destroying the building, probably from a
+subtle motive. They had retired to a wood in the rear. We made a sharp
+attack upon them to the right of this wood the next day; caught them at
+night completely unawares, and, after a very stiff fight, routed them,
+and they left 150 dead on the ground.
+
+There was a pond in the Convent grounds, and while getting water for our
+transport teams we came across some tin cases hidden away by the
+enemy--a great find, for on getting them out we found they contained
+many thousands of rounds of the enemy's ammunition. It was perfectly
+dry, as the cases were watertight; so we made a big haul of most useful
+supplies.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+ANOTHER SCENE OF BOCHE BRUTALITY.
+
+
+The accompanying sketch is of the Market Square of Armentières, the
+building shown in the centre being the Town Hall. The cobble stones of
+the roadway and the lattice-shuttered windows are of the style which has
+lasted for generations. This quaint and picturesque town was devastated
+and almost totally destroyed; in fact, the bit of it I show was the only
+portion the enemy left uninjured. We captured the place, taking four
+machine guns, several horses, a quantity of equipment and ammunition.
+Two of the machine guns were mounted in the clock tower, a position
+commanding the range of the street. It is revolting to recall the
+stories we were told here, and carefully verified, of the shameless
+atrocities of the Huns. The populace were still in occupation of the
+buildings when we were driving the Germans back from the barricades. Of
+course they were greatly terrified, and we did our best to pacify them
+and soothe their nerves as we came in contact with them. How different
+was the treatment they received from the enemy. Take the house on the
+left of the picture. Here Germans walked their horses through the door
+shown, along the passage into the yard in the rear, as a mere piece of
+bravado--an incident scarcely worth mentioning in view of the crimes
+they proceeded to commit. The householder, with his wife and two
+daughters, was sitting eating his dinner when the party arrived.
+The cowardly brutes shot this man on sight--in full view of his
+family--carried his body out and later on buried it in the chicken run.
+Meanwhile, they came back and ate the dinner. The various members of the
+family were tied up to beds and subjected to the grossest of infamies
+and greatest of cruelties.
+
+[Illustration: WHERE GERMANS RAPED AND MURDERED.]
+
+I repeat that we verified the stories of these horrors, as we had
+verified elsewhere other such stories before, and as we verified
+elsewhere other such stories afterwards.
+
+Naturally, our men fought their hardest, and by four o'clock in the
+afternoon of the day we advanced we drove the Boches at the point of the
+bayonet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE TRICK THAT DIDN'T TRICK US.
+
+
+[Illustration: "THE BLACK HOLE."]
+
+Returning to the "group system," the three following sketches in
+juxtaposition relate to one and the same happening--our taking of a
+distillery (on the outskirts of Armentières) of which the Germans had
+been in possession for about three weeks, and within the boundaries of
+which they set a big trap that didn't catch us. The air was poisoned
+with the stench of dead animals as we arrived within smell of the block
+of buildings I show first--and, with thoughts in the minds of some of us
+of what we had read of the ill-savour of the Black Hole of Calcutta,
+"the Black Hole" was an ejaculation before it was a designation. The
+enemy occupied the portion of yard shown in the foreground and used
+the front of the buildings and the gateway for cover. The British
+advanced to a position within twenty yards of the gateway in front of
+it, and, after several nights' work, erected a barricade of twigs,
+grass, and earth, rapidly collected and thrown into place. By one of
+their clever tricks the Germans had made the buildings look as though
+entirely deserted. They had been careful not to shell them when they
+took them from the French, and it was their intention to draw us on
+into the yard unsuspectingly and so get us at their mercy. For the
+surrounding buildings contained machine guns, though we did not then
+know the fact, and so quiet was everything that I was able to make my
+sketches undisturbed. The yard could have accommodated quite 3,000 of
+our men, who, if the enemy had had their way, would have been riddled
+with shot. However, we naturally proceeded with military caution. Scouts
+advanced first, and were somewhat deceived because the Germans had
+artfully left a caretaker and his wife in the building seen adjoining
+the central arch. These people, doubtless under orders, passed out milk
+through the window to the scouts at night to give the idea that the
+buildings were still peacefully occupied, though, as a matter of fact,
+they contained, not only the enemy soldiers, but their machine guns as
+well. Really we might have been drawn into the trap but for one lucky
+incident. The enemy were foolish enough to do some secret signalling
+with a light at night from the tower above the gateway. This was
+immediately observed by the scouts, and the game was up.
+
+
+"JAM-TIN ARTILLERY PARTY."
+
+When the scouts gave the warning that the enemy were in the buildings,
+volunteers were called for to make up a bombing party to blow up the
+tower where the signalling had been observed. We had no idea how many
+Germans the tower contained, but later found traces of only one. There
+were evidences that he had been there for some time, and he had stores
+of milk and food for a longer stay; they were not wasted, but he had
+no part in their consumption. The volunteers were known as the "Jam-tin
+Artillery Party," from the fact that their bombs were made of jam-tins
+filled with gun-cotton, cordite, etc. The party had to do all the
+"sticky work," and this was a very sticky job. The plan was to lay a
+trail with a fuse to bombs, which we placed under the floor at the top
+of the stairs leading to the upper storey of this old and disused
+gateway. We crept up these stairs silently for three nights running
+before we were successful. One hitch and the whole show would have been
+given away. However, we managed to place the bombs, light the fuse, blow
+up the floor, and blow off the top of the tower as well, the German
+signaller being blown up with it. Then we waited. Still the enemy showed
+no sign of moving, and word was sent back to our artillery to shell the
+building, which it did to great effect. We were then ordered to advance
+with fixed bayonets, in platoons, to take various buildings. The place
+when we captured it was found to be fitted up like a fortress inside,
+with machine guns trained on the yard to mow our men down as they came
+through the gate, if the enemy's plan had succeeded; but it entirely
+failed. We found but little resistance. Inside were a number of dead
+Germans killed by our artillery fire, a very scientific signalling
+apparatus, and a complete telephone system to the army corps which was
+intended to have wiped us out. It was solely due to our scouts and the
+"Jam-tin Artillery Party" that we were not all killed.
+
+[Illustration: THE BLACK TOWER.]
+
+The sketch entitled "The Black Tower" exhibits the other side of the
+gateway, and shows the road with the caretaker's house, and our
+barricades to the right.
+
+
+DILAPIDATED QUARTERS.
+
+[Illustration: WHERE THE TRAP WAS SET.]
+
+The part of the distillery buildings standing in its yard interior,
+where we blew up the tower and the spy, and into which the enemy had
+hoped to entice us to our destruction, was very old, very dirty, and
+very dilapidated--in fact, had apparently not been used for years. We
+had to sleep in it for several nights, and made the acquaintance of
+thousands of rats and other pests. There was only one staircase, by
+which some hundreds of troops had to find access and egress. A curious
+fact was that the fumes of the spirit had eaten so into the woodwork,
+which was generally worm-eaten and rotten, that to strike a light near
+it was to incur the danger of igniting it and burning the building down.
+But our boys found a walled-in yard in the background covered by a
+tarred roof which had no windows, and this they converted into a
+smoke-room. Roominess and a covering offered a welcome change from the
+mud, dirt, and rain of the trenches, and Tommy's spirits kept up, in
+spite of all shortcomings. Our musical evenings continued as before, and
+we thoroughly enjoyed being able to stretch our legs. In fact, we had
+become quite reconciled as well as quite used to our surroundings by the
+time we were called away. Afterwards we looked back with pleasure to
+our stay in the distillery, for we were much worse off in the next place
+at which we were stationed. We were moved from here into one of the most
+dangerous positions in the line at Ypres.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE BARRED ROAD TO CALAIS.
+
+
+Almost on the last page of my Sketch Book I come on the last sketch I
+took "under fire."
+
+
+"GOLGOTHA."
+
+It shows the most advanced positions taken by the British in the course
+of one of the biggest battles of the war--at St. Julien. The trench,
+which was a very rough one, was originally dug by the Germans and
+captured by our forces in our advance. The fighting was so intense at
+this spot that the casualties went far into five figures on both sides,
+the losses of the enemy being admittedly much higher than our own.
+Appropriately enough was it called "Golgotha."
+
+[Illustration: "GOLGOTHA."]
+
+To the left of the picture will be seen the remains of a building which
+was all that was left of what once was a magnificent chateau. The
+avenue of trees outlined the road to this chateau. Several trees, it
+will be noticed, had been either cut in two or broken off by the enemy's
+shelling; by-and-by there was not one left standing. On the right of the
+picture the ruined building was what was left of a large farm which had
+a moat around it. The ruined walls of the farm were found very useful
+cover for our men to take whilst sniping the enemy, and by the road, at
+a much lower level, ran the stream which fed the lake in the grounds of
+the chateau. The elevation of the road giving us fair protection from
+the enemy's shots, we were able, by stringing a number of boards
+together and making rafts, to indulge in bathing; until the water became
+so dirty from the earth dislodged from its banks by the shells that it
+was repugnant for us to indulge in ablutions in it any longer--none of
+us having been ordered mud bath treatment by the medical officer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the third day of the second grand attempt of the Germans to break
+through to the road to Calais I was bowled over by shrapnel and poison
+gas. Gas in cylinders and gas in all manner of shells was used against
+us--and our regiment had no respirators then.
+
+Before I dropped I had the satisfaction of knowing that the Royal
+Fusiliers, supported by the Hampshires and the Durhams, had taken five
+lines of the enemy's trenches in counter-attack; and afterwards I had
+the satisfaction of learning in hospital that the German casualties for
+the day amounted to 60,000 against British casualties of 20,000. Mine
+was one of about 500 gas cases--perhaps more.
+
+
+IN HOSPITAL.
+
+My hospital itinerary was from the field to the dressing station at
+Bailleul, thence to Boulogne; from Boulogne to Rouen, and from Rouen to
+Southampton and Brighton.
+
+I like to remember that the day on which I finished my little bit for
+the Empire--or rather the day on which it was finished for me--was an
+"Empire Day": Monday, May 24th, 1915--a day on which Britons of every
+clime salute the symbol of their unity and the pledge of their emergence
+from every peril; that dear flag under which I did what I could.
+
+    "Good banner! scarred by hurtling war,
+      But never in dishonour furled;
+    And destined still to shine, a star
+      Above an awed and wondering world."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Having read "A Soldier's Sketches under Fire," the reader should follow
+with a very entertaining volume, entitled_--
+
+     With Cavalry in 1915.
+
+     The British Trooper in the Trench Line.
+     Through the Second Battle of Ypres.
+
+     By FREDERIC COLEMAN.
+
+     Author of "From Mons to Ypres with French,"
+     of which it is a continuation.
+
+     Crown 8vo. Fully Illustrated.
+
+     6/- net.
+
+     PIKE'S FINE ART PRESS, LIMITED, _Printers_, 47 & 48,
+     GLOSTER ROAD, BRIGHTON.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire, by Harold Harvey
+
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire, by Harold Harvey.
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire, by Harold Harvey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire
+
+Author: Harold Harvey
+
+Release Date: June 14, 2005 [EBook #16056]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SOLDIER'S SKETCHES UNDER FIRE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries
+(http://www.archive.org/details/toronto), Suzanne Lybarger
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/cover1.jpg"
+alt="A Soldier&rsquo;s Sketches Under Fire" title="A Soldier&rsquo;s Sketches Under Fire" /></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><a name="004"></a></p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus004.jpg" alt="Private Harold Harvey." title="Private Harold Harvey." /></p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">Private Harold Harvey.</span> <i>Frontispiece</i></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h1>A SOLDIER'S SKETCHES UNDER FIRE</h1>
+
+<h2>By HAROLD HARVEY</h2>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus005.jpg" alt="SLM &amp; Co. MDCCXCIV" title="SLM &amp; Co. MDCCXCIV" /></p>
+
+<h5>LONDON</h5>
+
+<h5>SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON &amp; CO., LTD.</h5>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><a name="FORENOTE" id="FORENOTE"></a></p>
+<h2>FORENOTE</h2>
+
+
+<p>A title such as "A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire" indicates at once the
+nature, scope and limitations of this unpretentious volume of annotated
+drawings to which it has been given.</p>
+
+<p>Faked pictures of the war are plentiful. Sketches taken on the spot they
+depict, sometimes by a hand that had momentarily laid down a rifle to
+take them, and always by a draughtsman who drew in overt or covert peril
+of his life, gain in verisimilitude what they must lose in elaboration
+or embellishment; are the richer in their realism by reason of the
+absence of the imaginary and the meretricious.</p>
+
+<p>All that Mr. Harold Harvey drew he saw; but he saw much that he could
+not draw. All sorts of exploits of which pictures that brilliantly
+misrepresent them are easily concoctable were for him impossible
+subjects for illustration. As he puts it himself, very modestly:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"There were many happenings&mdash;repulsions of sudden attacks,
+temporary retirements, charges, and things of that sort that would
+have made capital subjects, but of which my notebook holds no
+'pictured presentment,' because I was taking part in them."</p></div>
+
+<p>He also remarks:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Sketched in circumstances that certainly had their own
+disadvantages as well as their special advantages, I present these
+drawings only for what they are."</p></div>
+
+<p>Just because they are what they are they are of enduring interest and
+permanent value. They have the vividness of the actual, the convincing
+touch of the true.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Harvey was among the very first to obey the call of "King and
+Country," tarrying only, I believe, to finish his afterwards popular
+poster of "A Pair of Silk Stockings" for the Criterion production. To
+join the Colours as a private soldier, he left his colours as an artist,
+throwing up an established and hardly-won position in the world of his
+profession, into which&mdash;sent home shot and poisoned&mdash;he must now fight
+his way back. His ante-war experiences of sojourn and travel in India,
+South and East Africa, South America, Egypt and the Mediterranean should
+again stand him in good stead, for the more an artist has learned the
+more comprehensive his treasury of impressions and recollections; the
+more he has seen the more he can show. To Mr. Harvey's studies of
+Egyptian life, character and customs was undoubtedly attributable the
+success of his "Market Scene in Cairo," exhibited in the Royal Academy
+of 1909. Purchased by a French connoisseur, this picture brought its
+painter several special commissions.</p>
+
+<p>I venture to express the opinion that the simple, direct and soldierly
+style in which Mr. Harold Harvey has written the notes that accompany
+his illustrations will be appreciated. His reticence as regards his own
+doings, the casual nature of his references&mdash;where they could not be
+avoided&mdash;to his personal share in great achievements, manifest a spirit
+of self-effacement that is characteristic of the men of the army in
+which he fought; men whose like the world has never known.</p>
+
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Robert Overton</span>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">To</span></p>
+
+<p style="text-align: center"><b>LADY ANGELA FORBES</b></p>
+
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">Whose Work for Soldiers in France and at Home has been as untiring
+as it has been unostentatious</span>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#FORENOTE">
+<span class="smcap">Forenote</span></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><b><a href="#PART_I">ON THE WAY TO THE FRONT.</a></b></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>Chapter</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>I.&mdash;</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><span class="smcap">From Southampton to Malta</span></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>II.&mdash;</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><span class="smcap">From Malta to Marseilles</span></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>III.&mdash;</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><span class="smcap">From Marseilles to Armenti&egrave;res</span></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><b><a href="#PART_II">AT THE FRONT.</a></b></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>Chapter</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>IV.&mdash;</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><span class="smcap">Some Sample Excitements of Life in the Trenches</span></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>V.&mdash;</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><span class="smcap">The Lighter Side of Trench Life</span></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>VI.&mdash;</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><span class="smcap">The "Make" of a British Trench</span></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>VII.&mdash;</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><span class="smcap">The Ruse of a German Sniper</span></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>VIII.&mdash;</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><span class="smcap">Three Death Traps</span></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>IX.&mdash;</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><span class="smcap">German Beasts in a French Convent</span></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>X.&mdash;</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_X"><span class="smcap">Another Scene of Boche Brutality</span></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>XI.&mdash;</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><span class="smcap">The Trick that Didn't Trick us</span></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>XII.&mdash;</td><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><span class="smcap">The Barred Road to Calais</span></a></td></tr>
+
+</table></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>SKETCHES</h2>
+
+<div class="toc">
+<p><a href="#004"><span class="smcap">Private Harold Harvey</span></a> <i>Frontispiece</i></p>
+
+<p><a href="#021"><span class="smcap">Aboard the Transport</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#025"><span class="smcap">Bivouac at Malta</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#029"><span class="smcap">Casement Gardens, Malta</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#031"><span class="smcap">Sergeants' Mess</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#035"><span class="smcap">Ordnance Department, Malta</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#041"><span class="smcap">On the Quayhead at Marseilles</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#045"><span class="smcap">Quayside, Marseilles</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#049"><span class="smcap">Forty Passengers in each Cattle Truck</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#053"><span class="smcap">A Wash and a Wait</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#057"><span class="smcap">"Doomsday Book": a French Lesson in a Cattle Truck</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#061a"><span class="smcap">Lady Angela Forbes's Soldiers' Home at Etaples</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#063"><span class="smcap">Road to the Trenches</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#071"><span class="smcap">My Sketch-Book</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#075"><span class="smcap">Map: La Bass&eacute;e-St. Julien</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#079"><span class="smcap">Outskirts of a Village</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#081"><span class="smcap">My First Sniping-Place</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#085"><span class="smcap">Captured German Trench</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#093"><span class="smcap">The Woodcutter's Hut</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#099"><span class="smcap">Typical Figures and Figure-Heads</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#103"><span class="smcap">"Hammersmith Bridge"</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#107"><span class="smcap">"Dirty Dick's"</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#111"><span class="smcap">"Entrenching" the Piano</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#115"><span class="smcap">"Seventy-Five Hotel"</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#119"><span class="smcap">Chicken Farm</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#123"><span class="smcap">A French Comrade-Comedian</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#127"><span class="smcap">A Trench Sniper, Resting</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#131"><span class="smcap">A Traverse</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#135"><span class="smcap">The Birth-Place of a Song</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#137"><span class="smcap">Trench Periscope in Use</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#141">"<span class="smcap">The White Farm</span>"</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#143"><span class="smcap">A German Sniper's Nest</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#149">"<span class="smcap">Suicide Bridge</span>"</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#153">"<span class="smcap">Suicide Signal Box</span>"</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#157"><span class="smcap">A Ghastly Promenade</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#161"><span class="smcap">The Hole in the Wall</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#165"><span class="smcap">A Violated Convent</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#171"><span class="smcap">Where Germans Raped and Murdered</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#175">"<span class="smcap">The Black Hole</span>"</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#179"><span class="smcap">The Black Tower</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#183"><span class="smcap">Where the Trap was Set</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#189">"<span class="smcap">Golgotha</span>"</a></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><a name="PART_I" id="PART_I"></a></p>
+<h3>PART I.</h3>
+
+<h2>ON THE WAY TO THE FRONT.</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h1>A SOLDIER'S SKETCHES UNDER FIRE.</h1>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<h3>INTRODUCTORY.</h3>
+
+<h2>ON THE WAY TO THE FRONT.</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p><a name="CHAPTER_I"></a></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">From Southampton to Malta</span>.</h3>
+
+<p><span class="figright"><img src="./images/illus019.jpg"
+alt="Illustration." title="Illustration." /></span>On the outbreak of the war I joined the Royal Fusiliers, uninfluenced by
+the appeal of wall-posters or the blandishments of a recruiting
+sergeant. My former experience as a trooper in the Hertfordshire
+Yeomanry being accounted unto me for military righteousness, I sailed
+with my regiment from Southampton on September 3rd, 1914. We thought we
+were bound for France direct, and only discovered on the passage that we
+were to be landed, first, at Malta.</p>
+
+<p>I think I know the reason why the short trip across Channel was avoided,
+but, as it behoves me to be very careful about what I say on certain
+points, I don't state it.</p>
+
+<p>I show the fore part of the boat, the bows being visible in the
+distance. The doorways on the right are those of the horse boxes,
+specially erected on the deck. In fact, the whole liner, with the most
+creditable completeness and celerity, had been specially fitted up for
+the use of the troops, still retaining its crew of Lascars, who did the
+swabbing down and rough work required.</p>
+
+<p>My sketch shows a crane bringing up bales of fodder for the horses from
+the hold, with two officers standing by to give orders.</p>
+
+<p><a name="021"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus021.jpg"
+alt="Aboard the Transport." title="Aboard the Transport." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">Aboard the Transport.</span></p>
+
+<p>We experienced some exciting incidents on the way out; for instance, in
+the Bay we ran into a fog, and the order was given for all to stand by.
+For the next two or three hours all were in doubt as to what might
+happen&mdash;of course there was fear of torpedoes.</p>
+
+<p>We heard in the distance several shots fired, presumably by the
+battle-cruiser which was our escort. When the fog lifted, we could just
+see the smoke lifting on the horizon of some enemy craft, which had been
+chased off by our own warship. We again steamed ahead towards our
+destination and were soon sailing into smooth and calm waters, the
+temperature becoming quite genial and warm as we approached the Straits
+of Gibraltar. As we passed through the Straits the message was signalled
+that those two notorious vessels, the "Goeben" and the "Breslau," were
+roaming loose in the Mediterranean.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">At Malta</span>.</h3>
+
+<p>On arrival at Malta, I and others were put through our firing course,
+and the regiment took over the charge of prisoners and interned Germans,
+of whom, together, there were on the island&mdash;so soon after the beginning
+of hostilities&mdash;no fewer than 8,000. One of the first sketches I made
+was of our Bivouac.</p>
+
+<p><a name="025"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus025.jpg"
+alt="Bivouac at Malta." title="Bivouac at Malta." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">Bivouac at Malta.</span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">Malta and the Pirates</span>.</h3>
+
+<p>Malta, which has been called "the master key of the Mediterranean and
+the Levant," "the stepping-stone to Egypt and the Dardanelles," and "the
+connecting link between England and India," is one of our Empire's most
+valuable possessions, and its physical formation has made it for
+generations past of great maritime value. The island is, in itself, a
+rock, and all its earth and mould has been imported. In the days when
+there were no submarines or warships, it was the headquarters of pirates
+roaming at large in the Mediterranean. These pirate crews, after
+capturing their prey, used to bring their captures into one of the
+entrances of the island, now called the Grand Harbour. At the base of
+the harbour is the town of Valetta, which was catacombed in those early
+times, and tunnels were made through the island rock. When pirates had
+brought a ship under cover of the natural harbour to these tunnels, they
+took all the merchandise ashore and then broke up the vessel, so as to
+leave no trace of the incident. The crew were usually massacred to a
+man, and when chase was given, no trace whatever could be found of
+either the pirates or their captures, and later on their ill-gotten
+gains would be shipped off from the other end of the tunnel in another
+part of the island.</p>
+
+<p>Looking through between the trees in my sketch of the Casement Gardens,
+under the Barracks of Floriana, which stand on an eminence overlooking
+the spot, a portion of the harbour is seen which commands the back
+moorings, and the water where the P. &amp; O. liners lay up. Beyond the
+vessel drawn I indicate the island of Fort Manoel, which is an ancient
+fortress which possesses a very handsome gateway, which may have been
+built by the Romans. In fact, all over this island are remarkable
+relics, some of them probably as old as those of Stonehenge, but how or
+by whom the original materials were brought there or the original
+buildings constructed is now left by historians to conjecture.</p>
+
+<p><a name="029"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus029.jpg"
+alt="Casement Gardens, Malta." title="Casement Gardens, Malta." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">Casement Gardens, Malta.</span></p>
+
+<p>Other public gardens are those of Biracca and Floriana. Public
+establishments include the biggest Fever Hospital in the world, the
+Castille Prison, and the Governor's Palace.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">Sergeants' Mess</span>.</h3>
+
+<p><a name="031"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus031.jpg"
+alt="Sergeants&rsquo; Mess at Floriana, Malta." title="Sergeants&rsquo; Mess at Floriana, Malta." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">Sergeants&rsquo; Mess at Floriana, Malta.</span></p>
+
+<p>The view of the site of the Sergeants' Mess at Floriana gives a good
+idea of the massive style of architecture and the palatial design of
+many of the buildings. The big construction of the walls will be noted,
+and the height of the chimney. All the houses have flat roofs, and on
+them people sleep at night because of the intense heat. From the roof of
+this house is obtained the best view of the island. Although Malta is
+composed entirely of rock, flowers grow profusely, and a variety of
+creeper, very similar to our own azalea, climbs up the front of the
+forts, requiring little or no root. A garden of this flower was attached
+to the Sergeants' Mess house.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">Fortifications</span>.</h3>
+
+<p><a name="035"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus035.jpg"
+alt="Ordnance Department, Malta." title="Ordnance Department, Malta." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">Ordnance Department, Malta.</span></p>
+
+<p>The ancient fortifications proved impregnable for ages, and are now
+modernised for the use of up-to-date artillery equipment. I show the
+exterior of the Army Ordnance Department, Fort Tigne, and on the extreme
+left, on the other side of the harbour, a portion of Fort Manoel.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Maltese</span>.</h3>
+
+<p>The habits and manners of the Maltese have long been notorious for their
+rude characteristics, probably attributable to the people's Moorish
+origin, although the race has now blended with the smooth Italian.
+Throughout the Levant they have the bad name first deserved by their
+robberies and murders. British rule has effected great reforms, but it
+cannot change the leopard's spots.</p>
+
+<p>The experience of our boys in some of the outlying parts of the island,
+and even in many streets and caf&eacute;s, was that these primitive people had
+not altogether lost their primitive instincts in the course of becoming
+civilised. One of their customary tricks is to offer one of their
+bangles, or some other souvenir, to get you to spend money in the caf&eacute;s
+and dancing saloons, and he would be a clever man who ever succeeded in
+obtaining one of the souvenirs promised him from day to day. The women
+of Malta certainly have strong claims to beauty, at any rate up to the
+age of sixteen, for they mature early. They have large and lustrous
+black eyes, and are of a swarthy and somewhat Spanish type. They still
+wear the traditional hood, a black scarf, called a "Faldetta," thrown
+over the head and shoulders, and disposed in such a style as to exhibit
+the countenance of the wearer in the most alluring form. Although
+picturesque in the distance, they are very slovenly in their hair and
+dress on closer acquaintance, and generally exhibit the traces of
+their Oriental origin. They are great experts in the making of Maltese
+lace, for which they have won a world-wide reputation, and their native
+filigree work is also very famous and very beautiful. Churches (where
+weddings are celebrated in the evening) are very numerous, and priests
+and friars are always to be seen in the streets. The boys of our
+regiment said that Malta was chiefly notable for "yells, smells, and
+bells."</p>
+
+<p>We passed a very merry time here for nearly three weeks&mdash;such a time as
+many were destined never to know again&mdash;and then were shipped to
+Marseilles, <i>en route</i> for the trenches on the Western Front.</p>
+
+<p>In the "Main Guard" of the Governor's Palace at Valetta we left behind
+us a fresco memorial of our short sojourn on the island. For many
+generations it has been the custom of regiments stationed in Malta to
+paint or draw regimental crests, portraits (and caricatures), etc., on
+the interior walls of this "Main Guard," and on its doors also. Walls
+and doors, both are very full of these more or less artistic mementoes,
+but space was found which I was asked to cover with a black and white
+series of cartoons of prominent members of our (the 2nd) Battalion R.F.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<h3>FROM MALTA TO MARSEILLES.</h3>
+
+
+<p>From the bows of our boat as she lay in harbour at Marseilles, I
+"spotted" three typical figures. The one holding the rope is a French
+sailor, the one at the bottom of the picture is a French gendarme, and
+the third is a Ghurka, one of our fine sturdy hillmen from India, who
+had come out to France to stand by the Empire.</p>
+
+<p>Marseilles was a most wonderful sight at the time I was there, and
+although I had made many previous visits in normal times, when I had
+greatly admired its grand proportions, none of them had given me any
+idea of what its appearance would be when it became the clearing station
+in the time of such a great war, and one of the chief bases of all food
+supplies. Troops of all descriptions were working like ants by day and
+by night, unloading boats to the huge stores of all descriptions of
+provender, and loading the trains with all kinds of artillery,
+ammunition, Red Cross wagons, motors, horses, and all the paraphernalia
+of modern warfare.</p>
+
+<p>The town is the third largest in France, and the chief Mediterranean
+seaport. Its history teems with exciting incidents of plague, fire,
+sacking, siege, and hand-to-hand fighting, so it is quite in keeping
+that it should take so important a part in the present conflict. It was
+here Monte Cristo was hurled from the Chateau d'If in the sack from
+which he cut his escape. Francis the First besieged it in vain, and it
+prospered under King Rene. In the French Revolution it figured so
+conspicuously as to give the title to the national hymn of the French.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Story of "The Marseillaise."</span></h3>
+
+<p>Is it too late to tell again the story of the origin of "The
+Marseillaise"?</p>
+
+<p><a name="041"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus041.jpg"
+alt="On the Quayhead at Marseilles." title="On the Quayhead at Marseilles." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">On the Quayhead at Marseilles.</span></p>
+
+<p>Its author and composer (or it might be more correct to say composer and
+author, for in this case music preceded words), Rouget de Lisle&mdash;a young
+aristocrat and an artillery officer&mdash;had as a friend a citizen of
+Strasbourg, to whose house, in the early days of the Revolution, he came
+on a visit one evening. The tired guest was cordially welcomed by the
+citizen and his wife and daughter. To celebrate the occasion his friend
+sent the daughter into the cellar to bring up wine. Exhausted as he was,
+de Lisle drank freely, and, sitting up late with his host, did not
+trouble to go to bed. He had been amusing the family by playing some of
+his original compositions on the spinnet. When the host retired for the
+night he left de Lisle asleep with his head resting on the instrument.
+In the early hours of the morning the young officer awoke, and running
+through his head was a melody which, in his semi-drunken state the
+evening before, he had been attempting to extemporise. It seemed to
+haunt him, and, piecing it together as it came back to his memory, he
+played it over. Then, feeling inspired, he immediately set words to it.
+When the family came down he played and sang it to them, and his host
+was so moved by it that he became quite excited and called in the
+neighbours. The instrument was wheeled out into the garden, and in the
+open air young de Lisle sang the song that was to become the national
+air of his country to this local audience. The effect upon them was
+"terrific," and from that moment the song became the rage. It seemed to
+embody the whole spirit of the Revolutionists, and spread like wildfire
+throughout France. It was to this song that the unbridled spirits of
+Marseilles marched to Paris, hence its name, "The Marseillaise." Shortly
+after this, de Lisle received a letter from his mother, the Baroness,
+dated from her chateau, saying, "What is this dreadful song we hear?"
+Fearing that his own life might be in danger, he being an aristocrat and
+a suspect, he had before long to take flight across the mountains. As he
+went from valley to crag, and crag to valley, he time after time heard
+the populace singing his song, frequently having to hide behind rocks
+lest they discovered him. It sounded to him like a requiem, for he knew
+that many of his friends were being marched to the scaffold to his own
+impassioned strains.</p>
+
+<p><a name="045"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus045.jpg"
+alt="Quayside, Marseilles." title="Quayside, Marseilles." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">Quayside, Marseilles.</span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<h3>FROM MARSEILLES TO ARMENTI&Egrave;RES.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The incidents of the railway journey from Marseilles to Etaples, <i>en
+route</i> to Armenti&egrave;res, told in detail, would fill a book. It was made in
+ordinary cattle trucks, in which, packed forty to a truck, we spent four
+days and a half at one stretch. Yet was it a bright and merry trip, for
+our spirits were raised to the highest by the thought that we were going
+into action, and we were at all sorts of expedients to make ourselves
+comfortable. For instance, before we started the Stationmaster's Office
+was ransacked, and every available nail pulled out to make coat and hat
+pegs of in the cattle trucks. We had to sleep on the floor. Our
+corporal, who was an old soldier of many campaigns, of iron physique
+and a perfect Goliath, and the life and soul of our party, was so tired
+when he got aboard the train, after strenuous efforts, that he fell dead
+asleep on the floor, and there was so little available space, and his
+massive form took up so much of what there was, that no fewer than nine
+men, as they became tired and dropped down from the walls of the truck,
+fell on him and went to sleep on the top of him. However, that corporal
+slept the sleep of the just for four or five hours, and even then did
+not awaken until, the train halting and somebody mentioning wine, there
+was a scuffle, and another man stepped on his head, whereupon he flung
+him off and made a good first out of the train.</p>
+
+<p><a name="049"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus049.jpg"
+alt="Forty Passengers in each Cattle Truck." title="Forty Passengers in each Cattle Truck." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">Forty Passengers in each Cattle Truck.</span></p>
+
+<p>We were regaled at each station by the populace, who brought us cakes
+and wine, small flags, toys, tin trumpets, oranges, and other fruits,
+and we parted with nearly all our buttons as souvenirs.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">Tub, Tea and a Halt</span>.</h3>
+
+<p>At one stopping place a large leathern hose was depending from a water
+main for giving the engine water, and somebody turning this on, we all
+took shower baths under it, or plunged into the huge tub alongside, some
+being so keen on not missing their chance that they took their baths in
+their clothes, tunics and all. Try to imagine our feelings after being
+cooped up in the train for just on three days and nights and then
+getting a wash or prehistoric bath!</p>
+
+<p>We had a two hours' wait here, and the "dixies" (about a dozen in all)
+were filled with water, and a huge fire was lighted, and soon a "long
+felt want" was satisfied in the form of tea. Though it was like Indian
+ink, it went down with a rare relish (I think my little lot was the best
+drink of tea I ever enjoyed); but unfortunately there was no second
+edition.</p>
+
+<p><a name="053"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus053.jpg"
+alt="A Wash and a Wait." title="A Wash and a Wait." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">A Wash and a Wait.</span></p>
+
+<p>After our "tub" we made a line for the station, the train being so long
+that only a portion of it was in it. We received a pleasant surprise
+in the form of a stall, where there were cakes, buns, bottles of red
+wine, fruit and many other luxuries.</p>
+
+<p>After we had cleared out the whole lot, the French people living in the
+town came to the railings at the side of the station and bombarded us
+with all kinds of food and dainties. Just as we were all thoroughly
+stretching our legs and enjoying ourselves, the order was given to board
+train, so, with much cheering, singing and shouting, we resumed our
+seats&mdash;or rather our "standing room only."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">"Doomsday Book."</span></h3>
+
+<p><a name="057"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus057.jpg"
+alt="&quot;Doomsday Book&quot;: A French Lesson in a Cattle Truck."
+title="&quot;Doomsday Book&quot;: A French Lesson in a Cattle Truck." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">&quot;Doomsday Book&quot;: A French Lesson in a Cattle Truck."</span></p>
+
+<p>Our corporal (behold him with an open book of Family Bible dimensions)
+often busied himself with expounding his views on the French language,
+in which he was labouring to become proficient. His linguistic ambitions
+did not end at self-proficiency, for he was solicitous to instruct his
+fellows, and we had quite a number of French lessons from him, although
+it must be admitted that they suffered many interruptions in good old
+plain English from the Tommies, provoked by the jolting of the train.
+They nicknamed this huge French dictionary the "Doomsday Book," because
+it was their doom to have its contents thrown at them every day.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Last Stage</span>.</h3>
+
+<p>The weather set in very cold and snowy, and as the cracks in the bottom
+of the truck measured three inches in width, it can be guessed what a
+draught there was. But in spite of everything and the general discomfort
+of things, jam and biscuits were "lowered" in plenty. I amused the boys
+by making sketches on biscuits and throwing them out of the window at
+the various stations we passed through to the crowds of French
+civilians, soldiers, and Red Cross nurses. Perhaps some of my comrades
+will find some of these biscuit souvenirs at their homes&mdash;if they ever
+get there&mdash;for not a few were kept to the end of the journey and posted
+to friends in England.</p>
+
+<p>We passed over several bridges which the Germans had destroyed, but
+which had been made temporarily good again by the French engineers. Over
+these our train had to travel gingerly. As we neared the fighting zone
+the booming of the guns could be heard, and a little further on things
+became more warlike. We noticed the devastated stations, villages, and
+large shell holes in the embankment of the line.</p>
+
+<p>All this seemed to bring to the surface our fighting spirits, and we
+only wanted to be out and at the Huns.</p>
+
+<p>On arrival at Etaples, after a rest of two hours or so in the station
+yard and street adjoining same, we marched in full pack and kit,
+including blankets and our waterproof sheets, to a fishing village,
+where we struck a camp and turned in for the night. We were under canvas
+for four days&mdash;the only four days under canvas during the whole time I
+was in France. The Colonel gave orders that all the men's heads were to
+be shaved, as we were proceeding to the trenches.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">Lady Angela Forbes's Soldiers' Home at Etaples</span>.</h3>
+
+<p><a name="061a"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus061a.jpg"
+alt="Lady Angela Forbes&rsquo;s Soldiers&rsquo; Home at Etaples." title="Lady Angela Forbes&rsquo;s Soldiers&rsquo; Home at Etaples." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus061b.jpg"
+alt="Lady Angela Forbes&rsquo;s Soldiers&rsquo; Home at Etaples." title="Lady Angela Forbes&rsquo;s Soldiers&rsquo; Home at Etaples." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">Lady Angela Forbes&rsquo;s Soldiers&rsquo; Home at Etaples.</span></p>
+
+<p>A never fading recollection of Etaples will be that of the kindness and
+hospitality we received at the hands of Lady Angela Forbes and the "very
+gallant gentlewomen" who assisted her in the management of her Soldiers'
+Home there. The warmest of welcomes and the best of cheer awaited every
+soldier who crossed its threshold. Nothing that thoughtfulness could
+suggest and liberality could provide was lacking. Tact and an
+understanding sympathy characterised the administration of every
+department. We left behind us blessings and thanks we could not express
+in words.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">On the Road to the Trenches</span>.</h3>
+
+<p>We had a three days' march (most of the way on cobble stones) from camp
+to Armenti&egrave;res, via Aire, Hazebruck and Bailleul, things getting hotter
+and hotter. In the course of the first day the enemy's aircraft dropped
+bombs on our route. We scattered in the hedges and ditches, lying flat
+and getting what cover we could. We had several men wounded by the
+splinters of the bombs, but fortunately nothing serious occurred, and
+all went well that day.</p>
+
+<p><a name="063"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus063.jpg"
+alt="Road to the Trenches." title="Road to the Trenches." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">Road to the Trenches.</span></p>
+
+<p>The third day we reached a village and were billeted in some barns. We
+had just "got down to it comfortable" when a shell took the roofs off,
+and a loud cheer went up as it was realised that the enemy had missed
+the mark. They put about twelve of these huge shells in the place, but
+they all went high. After three hours the order was given to creep out
+and get into some cottages further down the road. These cottages were
+inhabited, and the terrified people made us welcome indeed&mdash;had not we
+come to protect them from the Germans? We had a short rest here and then
+had to push on and make the most of the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>As the firing grew heavier we made a circular route over fields, etc.,
+to the trenches, for the rest of the way. The enemy made an attack on
+our second night in them&mdash;and their loss was pretty heavy.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><a name="PART_II" id="PART_II"></a></p>
+<h3>PART II.</h3>
+
+<h2>AT THE FRONT.</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<h3>SOME SAMPLE EXCITEMENTS OF LIFE IN THE TRENCHES.</h3>
+
+
+<p><a name="071"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus071.jpg"
+alt="My Sketch Book." title="My Sketch Book." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">My Sketch Book.</span></p>
+
+<p>I don't think I'm a bit sentimental in the matter of souvenirs, and
+anyway I can't need anything to remind me of the unforgettable, but all
+the same there's one souvenir of my experiences in the trenches and the
+firing line that I shall never part with&mdash;and that's the little notebook
+(measuring 5-1/2 ins. by 3-1/2 ins., bought in Armenti&egrave;res) which I
+carried with me through everything, and in which are the originals of
+the sketches here collected, taken "under fire," either literally or in
+the sense that they were taken within the zone of fire. In the nature of
+things I might have been finished myself by shot or shell before I
+could have finished any one of them. Sketched in circumstances that
+certainly had their own disadvantages as well as their special
+advantages, I present these drawings only for what they are. There were
+many happenings&mdash;repulsions of sudden attacks, temporary retirements,
+charges, and things of that sort&mdash;that would have made capital subjects,
+but of which my notebook holds no "pictured presentment," because I was
+taking part in them.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">At Armenti&egrave;res</span>.</h3>
+
+<p><a name="075"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus075.jpg"
+alt="Map: La Bass&eacute;e-St. Julien." title="Map: La Bass&eacute;e-St. Julien." /></p>
+
+<p>We reached Armenti&egrave;res (relieving the Leinster Regiment and the 9th
+Lancers in the first line trenches, distant from the first line German
+trenches 30 yards) at a critical time.</p>
+
+<p>The effort in progress was to straighten out our line so as to get it
+level with Ypres, and the whole position all around was a very perilous
+one. We were short of men&mdash;very short&mdash;and had practically no reserves.
+Almost every available man had to do the work and duty of three. For a
+month or so almost all the heavy work fell upon the line regiments, we
+doing the wiring, digging, and the usual work of the Royal Engineers,
+the number of these being relatively scanty indeed.</p>
+
+<p>There was also some shortage of shells and ammunition for guns and
+rifles, while of trench mortars a division had but few. We had to make
+our own bombs out of jam tins. These were charged and stuck down, a
+detonator being inserted, and we crawled out with them at night and
+heaved them into the German trenches. We had to time each heave with the
+most extreme accuracy, for the fraction of a moment too late meant the
+bursting of the bomb in our hands. The game we played with the Huns
+(keeping up a continuous fire all night, for instance) was one of pure
+bluff. They were massed in, we estimated, four army corps, and could
+have walked through us&mdash;if they had only known.</p>
+
+<p>As my illustrations do not follow all the movements of my detachment, I
+will say here that from Armenti&egrave;res we were shifted to Houplines, about
+4-1/2 to 5 miles north-east, where we made an advance of a hundred yards
+or so to straighten up. From Houplines we were moved south to La Bass&eacute;e,
+and from La Bass&eacute;e to Neuve Chapelle (where our 3rd Battalion was almost
+wiped out in the indecisive victory that proved much and won little),
+and then back to Armenti&egrave;res, whence we were sent north to St. Eloi,
+after making a short advance in the vicinity of Messines. From St. Eloi
+we were ordered to Hill 60, taking part in the now historic battle
+there. After Hill 60, Ypres, where shrapnel and poison gas put an end to
+my soldiering days&mdash;I am afraid for ever.</p>
+
+<p>To come back to our first arrival at Armenti&egrave;res, our position was in
+touch with a small village not marked on the map, in the direction of
+Houplines. This village, which became almost wholly destroyed, had
+been knocked about by the enemy fire, but the tall chimney of a
+distillery had been spared, no doubt because the Germans wanted it
+themselves, intact. However much they wished, and often and hard as they
+tried, to take it&mdash;especially as from it could be conned not only our
+lines but the lay of the surrounding country&mdash;they never did take it,
+and it never fell, though it was hit in two places and cracked.</p>
+
+<p>At 10.30 one morning I crawled over the parapet&mdash;that is, the
+sandbags&mdash;of our trench to sketch the picture of which this distillery
+shaft is the central feature. The trench also near the middle we had dug
+overnight for communication purposes. The enemy were to the left of the
+buildings shown, and our own men were occupying the position to the
+right of the chimney at a range of 250 yards.</p>
+
+<p><a name="079"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus079.jpg"
+alt="Outskirts of a Village." title="Outskirts of a Village." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">Outskirts of a Village.</span></p>
+
+<p>Our boys in the trenches could never understand a bright light which in
+daytime issued from the garden adjoining the farm-buildings on the
+British side. But one day a spy, who did work disguised as a farmhand,
+was discovered. He used a tin bowl as a reflector to send the enemy
+signals. The rascal was duly attended to.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">Fetching Water</span>.</h3>
+
+<p><a name="081"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus081.jpg"
+alt="My First Sniping Place." title="My First Sniping Place." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">My First Sniping Place.</span></p>
+
+<p>Here is a little view of the outskirts of the same village, made a few
+days later, when I was told off with two others to go to the house on
+the right of the sketch to get water from the pump, exposed to the
+enemy's fire. While pencilling the sketch I saw the wide gap made in the
+tree's branches, as shown by a shell passing through it, which burst on
+the road some fifteen yards away from us. This was an indication the
+enemy had spotted figures moving in the direction of the house. However,
+having got the water, we all reached "home" safely, though we ran a
+further risk in rummaging in the orchard, where we found some beds
+of lettuces, of which welcome vegetables we brought back with us enough
+to supply the whole section.</p>
+
+<p>The house on the left of the shelled tree was the position from which I
+and two others were ordered to snipe. We climbed the ricketty building
+and fired from the eaves and from the cover of the chimney. The building
+was in a state of almost total ruin, but we took our places on the
+shaken beams and considered we made a quite successful bag, for we could
+guarantee that at least five or six occupants of the enemy's trenches
+would give us no more trouble. This in the course of one morning.
+Finally the enemy saw us and we had to vacate our position, as both the
+building and the barricade across the road were being rapidly hit.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">Capture of a German Trench</span>.</h3>
+
+<p><a name="085"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus085.jpg"
+alt="Captured German Trench." title="Captured German Trench." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">Captured German Trench.</span></p>
+
+<p>Without their coveted observation post the German gunners got the range
+of the town beyond the village so completely that one day they poured a
+continuous stream of shells over our heads from 4.30 in the morning
+till mid-day. It was, I remember, at day-break next morning that under
+cover of our own artillery, we made an advance and took the trench here
+depicted just as it was left by the turned-out. So hurried was their
+exit when faced by British bayonets that they left behind them in the
+trench quite a number of articles most useful to us&mdash;such as saws,
+sniper's rifles mounted on tripod stands, haversacks, and a quantity of
+other equipment, also a very fine selection of cigars, which came as
+quite a godsend to us. Personally, I clicked on a pair of German jack
+boots, which, as the weather was wet and the ground soft and muddy, as
+usual, came in very handy. I also came across a forage cap and a pocket
+knife, and picked up a photograph&mdash;that of a typical Fraulein, probably
+the sweetheart of Heinrich, Fritz or Karl.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">A Night Relief</span>.</h3>
+
+<p>Duty in the trenches and rest and sleep in our billets in their rear
+alternated with something like regularity, but it was a regularity
+always liable to interruptions, such as were necessitated by not
+infrequent exigencies.</p>
+
+<p>For instance, we had just got back to the latter one night, at exactly
+10.30, after seven consecutive days in the trenches of our most advanced
+position, and were thinking that now we should get a few hours' quiet
+repose&mdash;subject, of course, to the disturbance of shelling&mdash;when a
+sudden order was given to fall in. We turned out, were numbered, "right
+turned," and marched off, singing and whistling merrily. After
+proceeding in this fashion for half a mile, word was passed down to form
+Indian file, seven paces apart. We moved thus for about a quarter of a
+mile, and then word was again passed down&mdash;"no smoking, whistling, or
+talking." The night was pitch dark, foggy, and a drizzle was beating in
+our faces.</p>
+
+<p>We were now within range of the enemy's rifle fire and heard spent
+bullets as they pinged and spluttered into the mud. We crossed a railway
+line, and marched or crawled the best way we could along the ditch
+parallel with it&mdash;truth to tell, cursing and swearing. We passed an old
+signal station, now just a pile of bricks, with one side wall still
+erect and one glass window intact. We had come to know well that wall
+and that window and the strewn bricks around, for we had passed the spot
+so often in our little excursions from trench to billet and billet to
+trench. A little further along the whistle of the bullets grew louder
+and more continuous&mdash;their sound something like the sound of soft
+notes whistled by a boy. Machine guns&mdash;"motor bikes" in our
+nomenclature&mdash;rattled our left and right, our position being that of
+the far apex of a triangle, exposed to inflated fire all the way up.</p>
+
+<p>Arriving within a few yards of the opening of the trench we were to
+occupy in relief of the North Staffords, the first section of whom were
+moving along the ditch, a star shell burst above as the searchlight was
+turned on, and every man stood stock still till all was dark again.</p>
+
+<p>Between men of the incoming and outgoing battalions such casual
+greetings were exchanged as: "Wot's it like up here, matie?"; "'Ow are
+yer goin', son?"; "Yer want to keep your 'ead well down in this
+part&mdash;it's a bit 'ot"; "So long, sonnie." Sprawling, ducking and diving,
+we got in, and "safe" behind the sandbags. Just as my chum and I had
+entered the dug-out, and were preparing to make ourselves comfortable,
+as our turn for sentry-go would not be for two hours, the sergeant
+shoved his head in and shouted that we were wanted for a ration party.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">Ration Parties</span>.</h3>
+
+<p>A ration party consists of fourteen men&mdash;fewer sometimes, but fourteen
+if possible, as the proper full complement. The small carts in use are
+generally of rude and primitive construction. As everybody knows by now,
+rations comprise bully beef Spratt's biscuits&mdash;very large and rather
+hard&mdash;loaves of bread packed in sacks, bacon, jam, marmalade,
+Maconochies in tins, and, when possible, kegs of water. Let not the rum
+be forgotten. No soldier is more grateful for anything than for his
+tablespoonful of rum at half-past six in the evening and half-past four
+in the morning. His "tot" has saved many a man from a chill, and kept
+him going during long and dreary hours of wet and press. As to bread, by
+the bye, it is highly probable that one small loaf, about half the size
+of an ordinary loaf, will be divided between seven men. With the good
+things already enumerated, a plentiful supply of charcoal and coke is
+usually to be expected. The horse transports with these provisions never
+get nearer than, at the closest, say half-a-mile of the front trench
+itself, when the men in charge dump their loads down and get away back
+to their stores and billets as quickly as possible. There is a lot to
+risk, for as a rule the enemy have the road well set, and the shelling
+is often very severe.</p>
+
+<p>It is the duty of a ration party to bring up the loads from where they
+have been left. On regaining the opening to the trench, they take the
+rations to the quartermaster-sergeant's hut or dug-out. The sergeants of
+each platoon come to this hut or dug-out, and to them the things are
+delivered in quantities proportionate with the number of men in the
+section each represents. The sergeants then send along two men to carry
+the whacks to the respective traverses in the trench. This goes on night
+after night. So on the occasion I am recalling we were very late&mdash;and
+the distance we had to go was as much as a mile and three-quarters.</p>
+
+<p>This ration carrying, the final stage of ration transport, is an even
+more dangerous and risky job than the preceding stage, and, as usual,
+snipers got busy on us, hitting three men, though none was killed. The
+rattle of bullets from machine guns on the ricketty sides of the old
+cart added to the programme of the night's entertainment, and there were
+frequent intervals, not for refreshments, but for getting flat and
+waiting.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">Gathering In our Firewood</span>.</h3>
+
+<p>Chopping up firewood was regarded not so much as work as it was regarded
+as one of our recreations in the trenches&mdash;of which I shall have a
+little to say presently. But it often happened that there was no
+recreation, but only the excitement of danger in the night-time job of
+bringing in the firewood for day-time chopping. It would happen that a
+man had spotted in some shelled house or fallen farm-building a beam,
+plank, door, or something else wooden and burnable, that he couldn't
+carry without assistance, or that he couldn't stop to bring away at the
+time. It must be fetched, for fire we must have. It might be only a few
+score yards away measured by distance, but an hour measured by
+time&mdash;"thou art so near and yet so far" sort of thing. Fetchers might
+get hit at any moment, and had to creep and wriggle very cautiously over
+open ground all the way. By some strange twist of mental association,
+whenever I was a fetcher in these circumstances I found myself mentally
+quoting Longfellow's line in "Hiawatha"&mdash;"He is gathering in his
+firewood"!</p>
+
+<p><a name="093"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus093.jpg"
+alt="The Woodcutter&rsquo;s Hut." title="The Woodcutter&rsquo;s Hut." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">The Woodcutter&rsquo;s Hut.</span></p>
+
+<p>Our champion at the game was a Private Hyatt&mdash;quite a youngster, but
+of fine physique and fearless daring. His dug-out was called "The
+Woodcutter's Hut." He made a regular hobby of wood-getting. He was an
+expert, a specialist. On certain occasions he even went out after wood
+in the daylight, slithering along on all fours towards his objective,
+and would be fired at until recalled by one of his own officers. On one
+occasion when he had crawled out and into a building to collect wood, as
+he crawled back through the doorway we saw little clouds of dust rising
+from the brick-work surrounding him, which showed that the enemy's
+snipers had spotted him, and we shouted to him from the trench to "keep
+down." He took refuge behind the wall of the doorway, and lay there
+three-quarters of an hour, and then returned, bringing with him the much
+prized plank of which he had gone in search, and which, when chopped up,
+supplied our section with sufficient firewood for a whole day and night.
+In the sketch it will be observed he is reading a letter. This he had
+received just after the above incident, and sat down on his valise quite
+unaware that I was sketching him. Later on I gave him a copy of the
+sketch, and he enclosed it in his affectionate reply to his folk at
+home.</p>
+
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">"Stand To."</span></h3>
+
+<p>The most anxious time a soldier can know is the time, be it long or
+short, that follows the command to stand to. Many a time we had to stand
+to the whole night&mdash;the entire battalion, from evening twilight till the
+full dawn of day&mdash;as an attack was expected. Everyone was at his firing
+position, with bayonet fixed and his rifle loaded&mdash;and in tip-top
+working condition, the daily rifle inspection having taken place at
+dusk. Sometimes our artillery would presently open fire for the enemy's
+first line, perhaps for five or six minutes&mdash;it might be more, it might
+be less. Then a wait of six or seven minutes, when the enemy returned
+the fire, and we all got well down. It was as well to keep as hard up
+against the parapet as possible, and to keep out of all dug-outs, for
+into them the forward impetus of bursting shrapnel was likely to throw a
+lot of splinters. Again silence, comrades and pals passing a few remarks
+in anticipation of what everybody knew was coming. The officers with us
+were one with us, and at their words, "Well, come on, lads," there was
+never a laggard in getting "over the tops" (in our own phraseology). As
+soon as we put our hands on the sandbags to clamber over the top of the
+parapet a hailstorm of bullets pelted us. It is impossible&mdash;at all
+events for me&mdash;to describe a charge. Speaking for myself, always my
+brain seemed to snap. It was simply a rush in a mad line&mdash;or as much of
+a line as could be kept&mdash;towards the enemy's barbed wire entanglements,
+which our guns had blown to smithereens in preparation for the assault.
+We scrambled on to their parapet, each getting at the first man he
+could touch. When we had taken their position (we didn't always) we
+might have to wait some time till our artillery had shelled the second
+line, but there was a lot of work to be done at once. The parapet had to
+be reversed.</p>
+
+<p>After an attack there was generally a roll call&mdash;from which there were
+many absentees.</p>
+
+<p>More trying&mdash;more wearing and tearing to the nerves&mdash;than anything
+that in my experience ever followed it was the stand to itself. The
+moments, minutes, even hours, that followed that old familiar order,
+"stand to," were the worst I ever went through. As every eventide comes
+on I still feel just a little&mdash;just a very little&mdash;of what I felt then.
+Even now: and I fear me I always shall till death bids me stand to.</p>
+
+<p>I see I have written so much with only one illustration, that perhaps it
+won't be amiss if I place here a few typical heads and a couple of
+typical full figures, the original sketches of which I pencilled in
+spare places in my notebook at odd times. If they be really typical they
+need no labelling.</p>
+
+<p><a name="099"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus099.jpg"
+alt="Typical Figures and Figure-Heads." title="Typical Figures and Figure-Heads." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">Typical Figures and Figure-Heads.</span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LIGHTER SIDE OF TRENCH LIFE.</h3>
+
+
+<p>That there was (and is) a lighter side, a social side, of trench life,
+as of the life generally of a soldier on active service, even in this
+war, merely incidental remarks of mine such as could not be omitted from
+any true and fair description of that life must furnish abundant
+evidence; but this lighter side was, in my experience, so very real and
+so pronounced that to illustrate a few set observations thereon I take a
+few sketches from my notebook out of the order in which I find them in
+it.</p>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Sing-Songs.</span></h3>
+
+<p>Our concert parties were "immense," and there was no forced gaiety in
+our enjoyment of them. Some of the best sing-songs were in "Leicester
+Lounge," named after the luxurious resort (which it didn't resemble)
+hard by the Empire Theatre. The reflection occurs to me for the first
+time that only men with whom high spirits were rampant would or could
+have been so fond of inventing such nicknames as&mdash;in mood jovially
+ironic&mdash;we coined for all sorts of places, persons and things.
+"Leicester Lounge" was a dug-out adjacent to "Hammersmith Bridge," and
+the surroundings of "Hammersmith Bridge," there being nothing in
+connection with them to suggest&mdash;save by absence&mdash;either a garden or a
+city, were "the Garden City."</p>
+
+<p><a name="103"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus103.jpg"
+alt="&quot;Hammersmith Bridge.&quot;" title="&quot;Hammersmith Bridge.&quot;" /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">"Hammersmith Bridge."</span></p>
+
+<p>It was the biggest, roomiest, and most palatial dug-out we had. The top
+was just a small roof-garden, carefully planted and laid out. It had
+statuary, too, in groups. The statues were fashioned in clay by amateur
+hands, and the artistic effects were original and novel, to say the
+least. It was also the safest place, this "Lounge," because it was sunk
+four feet below the level of the trench itself. It accommodated twelve
+easily. Impromptu concerts were frequent here; our far-famed mouth-organ
+band performed at such intervals as our own military duties and the
+enemy's cascades of shells permitted. It was here the names of
+neighbouring streams and nullahs were chosen from which we drew our
+daily beverage of "Adam's Ale" (untaxed, and rather thick), such as the
+portentous "C&aelig;sar's Well." In another spacious dug-out we had our "Times
+Book Club." This "eligible tenement" had the special distinction of a
+stove and chimney (purloined from a ruined farm)&mdash;that is, it had a
+chimney till the enemy spotted and so riddled it that it collapsed. It
+had a glass window (fixed in clay), statuary (modelled in clay),
+decorations (log-cabin order), one chair (also purloined, back broken
+off), one table (very treacherous); and I mustn't forget the president's
+bell (tobacco tin shell, and a cartridge for a clapper). It was lit by
+many candles, and as the fee for membership was a book or magazine from
+home, it served a good purpose.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">"Dirty Dick's"</span>.</h3>
+
+<p><a name="107"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus107.jpg"
+alt="&quot;Dirty Dick&rsquo;s.&quot;" title="&quot;Dirty Dick&rsquo;s.&quot;" /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">&quot;Dirty Dick&rsquo;s.&quot;</span></p>
+
+<p>After a time the sing-songs in a trench some little distance away from
+"Leicester Lounge" knocked spots off all the others anywhere, thanks to
+the acquisition of a piano for them&mdash;probably the only instrument of its
+kind which has ever been in the British trenches at the front. It came
+from "Dirty Dick's." The picture of "Dirty Dick's" gives a rough idea of
+the devastation of war. The portion of a building to the right was all
+that remained of what, but a few weeks before, had been a handsome and
+prosperous hotel, and the wall with window and door spaces left, shown
+to the left, had been the residence of a prominent citizen. All that was
+left of the hotel was a shaky wall, though the sign-board remained,
+having escaped the enemy's fire.</p>
+
+<p>We were placed in the trench shown in the foreground, and the Germans
+were also entrenched in the space seen in the distance between the
+ruins. When we first took up our position the hotel was intact except
+that the roof had been destroyed. The wall towards our trench was
+standing, and when it fell the bricks came tumbling over us, and the
+dust of the red masonry turned us into copper-coloured men. But prior to
+this three "Jocks" and three of our own regiment crawled out of the
+trench and into the house, and we spotted a piano on the ground floor.
+The temptation was too great; we decided to remove it. The operation
+took us two and a half hours' hard struggle. Eventually we got the
+instrument into our trench, somewhat battered about and minus one leg,
+but still answering to the keyboard. Unfortunately two of the party were
+wounded in doing this, but they didn't mind. Night after night we had
+sing-songs accompanied on the piano in proper style, and used to give
+forth with the full strength of our lungs&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The Germans are coming&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Hurrah! Hurrah!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The "harmony" of this stunt used to be wafted on the silent night air to
+the German trenches, and we soon saw how it upset Fritz and Karl. They
+got so annoyed that they trained their artillery in the direction of
+the sounds, and used to shell us all along the line in the hope of
+silencing our concerts. However, they could never quite locate the exact
+spot in which the instrument was temporarily placed.</p>
+
+<p><a name="111"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus111.jpg"
+alt="&quot;Entrenching&quot; the Piano." title="&quot;Entrenching&quot; the Piano." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">&quot;Entrenching&quot; the Piano.</span></p>
+
+<p>One night, while one of our concerts was at its height, the officers
+even joining in, the order came to advance. So we had to bid a hasty
+farewell to our much-prized "Johanna," which had given us so much
+pleasure.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">"Seventy-Five Hotel."</span></h3>
+
+<p><a name="115"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus115.jpg"
+alt="&quot;Seventy-Five Hotel.&quot;" title="&quot;Seventy-Five Hotel.&quot;" /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">"Seventy-Five Hotel."</span></p>
+
+<p>Now I think of it, there was another ex-"pub" where we touched lucky in
+the matter of finding things&mdash;though they didn't include a piano. This
+was "Seventy-five Hotel." We called it that because the enemy fired
+seventy-five shells into it in seventy-five minutes on one memorable
+occasion, and then only killed one man. The building, which had been the
+scene of fierce fighting even before our battalion arrived on the scene
+of action, still bore the sign "Estaminet," and so we could safely
+conclude that it had been the village "pub," or wine lodge. There were a
+few bottles of wine still in the cellar, which the Germans must have
+overlooked when they were in possession, or had not time to take away.
+We found many articles, some useful, some otherwise; amongst them a
+large warming-pan, which caused amusement. The article we put to the
+best use was the dinner bell. This was turned to great account. In front
+of the estaminet was our "listening post," where we kept watch and guard
+at night. Well, by aid of the dinner bell we installed our own brand of
+telephone system. This was to connect the bell by string to the wrists
+of those out on the watch. Whenever they saw anyone approaching or any
+other indication of possible danger they gently pulled the string, the
+bell tinkled, it was heard by our companions in the trench, word was
+passed along, and everyone prepared for emergencies.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">"Chicken Farm."</span></h3>
+
+<p><a name="119"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus119.jpg"
+alt="&quot;Chicken Farm.&quot;" title="&quot;Chicken Farm.&quot;" /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">&quot;Chicken Farm.&quot;</span></p>
+
+<p>Here something really like a little bit of sport came in our way. When
+we arrived there the farm was deserted, its lawful owners having found
+the situation too hot for them. Cows roamed about at random, and so did
+pigs. But after we had dug ourselves in and made our position secure,
+the chickens were what interested us most. There were two hundred and
+fifty of these at the least, and they used to parade on the strip of
+ground shown in the picture and the bolder spirits peep over the edge of
+our trench. Catching them was good sport, but eating them was something
+finer. What a nice change from bully beef and biscuit! Cooking not quite
+a la Carlton or Ritz, but more on prehistoric principles. So many fowls
+were caught, killed and plucked for cooking and eating that the wet mud
+was completely covered with feathers, and resembled a feather bank. As
+for ourselves, the feathers, sticking to the wet mud on our uniforms and
+equipments, turned us into Zulus, wild men, or Chippeway
+Indians. The enemy presumably did fairly well also with a poultry farm
+in the distance. They appeared to have a portable kitchen. We often
+watched the funnel moving about their trench. One day a line was
+stretched from this funnel to a pole and German officers' uniforms were
+hung out on the line to dry over the stove. It made us a lovely target.
+Shooting at officers' uniforms was a pleasant diversion, and they had
+been well pierced with bullets before they were taken in.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">A French Comedian</span>.</h3>
+
+<p>Later on, and farther on&mdash;after our capture of a position I shall
+shortly have occasion to describe&mdash;we made the acquaintance of a French
+"born comedian," who was a tower of strength at our entertainments, and
+who in various other ways was a cause of constant amusement. He had been
+left behind by his regiment, and we found him hanging around the place.
+It had been his home, and it seemed that the magnet of life-long
+associations held him to it. He was very useful in taking us round to
+cottages which, to our surprise, we found to be still inhabited, and in
+giving us the tip where to find cheap, if very thin, beer and other
+refreshments. He was particularly proud of his German jack-boots&mdash;made
+for legs very much bigger than his own. When we had concerts he used to
+give us clever imitations of the late Harry Fragson in his "Margarita"
+and other varieties, to the accompaniment of the mouth-organ band. He
+used to say: "Ze Engleesh soldier&mdash;tr&egrave;s bon&mdash;ze French
+soldier&mdash;bon&mdash;mais ze Allemand&mdash;no bon!" On one occasion he told us:
+"Apr&egrave;s la guerre, ze Engleesh soldier beaucoup admirers&mdash;ladees! Ze
+French soldier admirers, too. Ze Allemand&mdash;non!"</p>
+
+<p><a name="123"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus123.jpg"
+alt="A French Comrade-Comedian." title="A French Comrade-Comedian." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">A French Comrade-Comedian.</span></p>
+
+<p>He got hold of peasants to wash our clothes for us and introduced us to
+a little mill-race, which we reached through a thicket which concealed
+us, and the spectacle of our men stripping and diving into the stream in
+cold weather amused him hugely. He jumped about in his big boots,
+exclaiming: "Vat your vife say if she see you in ze water? Vat she say
+if she see you ici? The English replied, in the best French at their
+command, "beaucoup lav&eacute;&mdash;tr&egrave;s bon," at which our comical comrade-at-arms
+laughed more heartily than ever. When his regiment found out where he
+was a guard was sent up, and he was obliged to remain in charge of it,
+to his great regret, when we moved on. He wished us "bonne chance,"
+assuring us that it was his one desire after the war to get to
+Angleterre, where he had never been; but now that he knew the English he
+must visit us to make our further acquaintance. So much for our comical
+French friend, ever so amusing and ever so polite.</p>
+
+<p>We found fun in all sorts of things, made fun of all sorts of things.
+That we could do so and did do so may appear strange&mdash;it seems strange
+sometimes to me now. But 'twas a merciful thing that we were able to.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE "MAKE" OF A BRITISH TRENCH.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The four following sketches will, I hope, give a fairly clear and
+accurate idea of the construction of a British trench. The first depicts
+one of my comrades (who was also a brother-artist by profession, and a
+brother-sniper) sitting reading, during a surcease of the firing, on the
+firing platform in a trench corner. It will be noticed that he wears his
+sleeping cap. Very close and handy are his tall jack-boots&mdash;so
+serviceable in wet weather and heavy mud. My artist-friend, I should
+like to remark, was considered among snipers a great shot, and there is
+no doubt that he often did deadly work with his rifle.</p>
+
+<p><a name="127"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus127.jpg"
+alt="A Trench Sniper Resting." title="A Trench Sniper Resting." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">A Trench Sniper Resting.</span></p>
+
+<p>After the trench has been dug out the sandbags are placed along the top
+so as to form what is called a "parapet." Then the trench is dug deeper
+still and the firing platform is put in. Next the vertical struts of
+wood are put in position with wiring in between to hold back the mud,
+and in places where it is possible blocks fill in gaps to strengthen the
+structure. Finally the bed of the trench is boarded over with long heavy
+planks, some of which require two men to carry them; these are very
+often placed on bricks or blocks of wood to give air spaces underneath
+to keep them dry as far as possible. The trench is now completed as far
+as its construction is concerned, but it is left to be "furnished" with
+any supplies that happen to be handy. One of the first essentials is
+naturally the fireplace. This, as in the present instance, is very often
+an old tin pail with a few holes knocked in it, somewhat similar to the
+one used by Mr. Wilkie Bard in his famous sketch, "The Night Watchman."
+The fuel consists of charcoal, wood and coke, to get which fully lit it
+is usual to swing the receptacle round and round so as to create a
+draught and start the contents thoroughly on the go. There is a great
+danger attending this, for if the Germans catch a glimpse of the
+brazier being whirled in the air they immediately locate the whirler and
+begin firing in his direction.</p>
+
+<p>The black patch in the centre of the picture represents the sniping
+place, which is a thick piece of iron let into the parapet with a hole
+bored through it large enough to take the muzzle of the rifle. It also
+allows enough space for the sniper to see through, and, with the aid of
+the periscope, held usually by a comrade at his side, he is able to get
+the sight for his firing.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">A Traverse</span>.</h3>
+
+<p><a name="131"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus131.jpg"
+alt="A Traverse." title="A Traverse." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">A Traverse.</span></p>
+
+<p>Here is a "traverse" in a trench. The sergeant is reading the orders of
+the day to one of his men. This was a very damp corner&mdash;on the top of
+the dug-out to the left tunics were hanging to dry in the early morning
+air. The soldier still has on his sleeping cap (like the figure in the
+last picture); his mess-tin is by his side, and his rifle, encased in a
+waterproof cover. He is sitting on the firing platform, and the depth of
+the trench is noticeable, showing how low the men are in the ground. The
+sandbags shown it took us four hours one night to place in position. As
+fast as we put them up they were shot down again by the enemy's maxim
+fire. We were all so tired and sleepy that, working on automatically, we
+hardly knew whether we were putting the mud in the sandbags or outside
+them.</p>
+
+<p>It was not only the dampness and the incessant maxim fire we had to
+contend with here, but an army of insects, which jumped about us in
+battalions, and saw to it we were never lonely. A Cockney member of our
+company, after catching a particularly active jumper, called out: "Now
+then, you blighter, where is your respirator?"</p>
+
+<p>The enemy were only thirty yards away, and we could often hear them
+shouting at us and would answer back. Many of our men were hit by
+snipers, while the shelling was often terrific, but we stuck on, as
+we were holding a part of an important military position. I remember how
+on an occasion when the shelling was very heavy one man engaged himself
+in making soup as coolly as if nothing was happening until the earth
+knocked up by the shells began to drop into the mess-tin, when he gave
+us his opinion of the Boches in his own forcible vernacular. We often
+laid for hours at the bottom of the trench&mdash;flat on the ground in the
+water and mud to escape the shells.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Birth-Place of a Song</span>.</h3>
+
+<p><a name="135"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus135.jpg"
+alt="The Birth-Place of a Song." title="The Birth-Place of a Song." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">The Birth-Place of a Song.</span></p>
+
+<p>The third bit of trench of this chapter has a claim to fame as the
+birth-place of a song. The song was one which only British soldiers
+could have concocted, and none but British soldiers would have sung. It
+had no known author and no known composer. It sort of "growed," like
+Topsy. If it had had a title given to it I suppose it would have been
+called "I want to go home," for that was its dirge-like refrain, always
+sung very cheerfully indeed, or with mock earnestness. Time and again I
+heard its chorus taken up with terrific gusto from end to end of this
+trench, and the whole extraordinary composition spread to other trenches
+like a contagion. Its popularity was instant and enduring&mdash;and as
+unaccountable as the popularity of many other popular songs. I think I
+quote the inspired words of the chorus correctly:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I want to go home,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I want to go home&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tho' the Jack Johnsons and shrapnel<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">May whistle and roar,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I don't want to go in the trenches no more;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I want to be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the Alleymonds can't catch me:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oh my!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I don't want to die&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I want&mdash;to go home."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Three rifles are deposited on the steps of the fireplace&mdash;the usual
+position for rifles when not in hand, dropped inside canvas bags,
+bayonets protruding&mdash;kept well greased, to prevent them from getting
+rusty.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">Trench Periscope</span>.</h3>
+
+<p><a name="137"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus137.jpg"
+alt="Trench Periscope in Use." title="Trench Periscope in Use." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">Trench Periscope in Use.</span></p>
+
+<p>The uses of a trench periscope are so well known that they need not be
+described. The feature of my last sketch of a trench from the inside is
+that it shows one in actual employment.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE RUSE OF A GERMAN SNIPER.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Snipers on both sides exhibited the most extraordinary artfulness,
+cunning and ingenuity in the discovery, adaptation and invention of
+"cover." The great desideratum, of course, was to hide where we could
+see without being seen, to shoot from where there was least danger of
+being shot.</p>
+
+<p>I helped to track and put an end at Houplines to one German sniper who
+had resorted to a ruse that I really think deserves the dignity of a
+short chapter all to itself. The story is tellable in a few words, and
+may be introduced by this drawing of "The White Farm," so
+christened because of the whiteness of the walls of its house; although,
+as will be noticed, there was little of this or anything else left
+upstanding when I drew my sketch.</p>
+
+<p><a name="141"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus141.jpg"
+alt="&quot;The White Farm.&quot;" title="&quot;The White Farm.&quot;" /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">"The White Farm."</span></p>
+
+<p>The position shown is the entrance to the trench at this point, and the
+shovels, barrels, pails and water trough are all such implements as had
+been used in making and draining the cutting.</p>
+
+<p>The cart shown is the "ration cart" used at night for bringing
+provisions from the Transport Corps wagon. It was usual for the ration
+parties (as elsewhere) to go out every night after dusk. These were even
+more than ordinarily dangerous excursions, as the enemy trenches
+commanded the road, we having captured the position from them shortly
+before. Hence sniping was continuous, and the cart was often hit and our
+men killed or wounded. We therefore took observations.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Sniper who Lived in a Tree</span>.</h3>
+
+<p><a name="143"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus143.jpg"
+alt="A German Sniper's Nest." title="A German Sniper's Nest." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">A German Sniper's Nest.</span></p>
+
+<p>In course of time we came to notice that the most dangerous part of the
+road lay between a willow tree-stump and the White Farm. Our men were
+shot here nightly in getting back to the trenches. A party was formed to
+make a tour of the field in which the tree-trunk stood. The first thing
+we noticed was that after we entered this enclosure the shots were less
+numerous. We split up in open order and approached the willow, taking
+care to drop to the ground on our hands and knees. As we neared the
+tree, lo and behold! a shot rang out from it and only just missed the
+corporal. He jumped up at once and we all followed suit. All dashed on
+for the tree. What did we find? It was nothing but a purposely hollowed
+trunk used as a shielded nest for a German sniper, the inside being
+fitted with a shelf to rest his arm on as he coolly picked off our men
+through a hole. He endeavoured to make his escape in the darkness, but
+we brought him down. He had evidently been using this sniping place for
+weeks, though this was the first time we had located him.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THREE DEATH TRAPS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>I suppose it may be said, without exaggeration, that we were in a death
+trap all the time, but I have sketches to show of three particular and
+"extra special" sort of death traps. The first is of:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Suicide Bridge</span>.</h3>
+
+<p><a name="149"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus149.jpg"
+alt="&quot;Suicide Bridge.&quot;" title="&quot;Suicide Bridge.&quot;" /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">"Suicide Bridge."</span></p>
+
+<p>This bridge, made by the British, was called "Suicide Bridge," because
+it was, and was at, such a specially dangerous spot. The British
+trenches were in the foreground and beyond the bridge. We held these
+trenches for fourteen days against the enemy's attacks. The gap was nine
+feet deep at this corner, and the black hole on the left faintly showing
+a fireplace was our kitchen, scarred by bullet marks made by snipers.</p>
+
+<p>The place was infested with rats. Great water-rats were continually
+getting at our food and cheese in the dug-outs. In one "rat hunt" we
+killed eighteen of these rodents in one morning. The stream itself
+supplied us with drinking water, but one day our men began to fall ill.
+The doctor analysed the water and discovered that the dastardly Huns had
+poisoned the stream higher up, where it ran through their lines. We
+warned the rest of the battalion by the field telephone wires and saved
+them all from being poisoned.</p>
+
+<p>An exasperating though <i>not</i> murderous "kultur" trick was to send us
+insulting messages down the stream enclosed in bottles, calling us
+"dirty dogs," "English swine," etc., etc.</p>
+
+<p>The final furious attempt of the Germans to dislodge us began in the
+daylight. Their snipers advanced first in an open field beyond the trees
+and took cover in a wagon, which we located by the ridge of flame.</p>
+
+<p>At night they advanced in great masses for hand-to-hand fights, which
+took place in the stream. The carnage was terrible. The poisoning
+tricks had worked our fellows up to a high pitch, and they fought with
+reckless bravery. We managed to explode a mine and caught their
+reserves. Then their artillery opened on the stream and we rushed out to
+meet them. They didn't get "Suicide Bridge" from us, but the losses were
+heavy on both sides and the stream itself was red with blood.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">Suicide Signal Box</span>.</h3>
+
+<p><a name="153"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus153.jpg"
+alt="&quot;Suicide Signal Box.&quot;" title="&quot;Suicide Signal Box.&quot;" /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">"Suicide Signal Box."</span></p>
+
+<p>The sketch of "Suicide Signal Box" takes us to a spot on the railway
+line close to the scene of one of the biggest battles of the war. Its
+chief feature is the dug-out actually under the line itself. Of course
+the line was not being used across the top of the dug-out. As a matter
+of fact, at this time a railway truck was run up to the edge nightly
+propelled by forty of our men, bringing filled sandbags for making a
+barricade across the line, thus affording the relieving party cover when
+getting out of trench. The position was known to us as "Suicide Signal
+Box," because it was so dangerous as to be almost suicidal to cross
+the line, as was necessary to reach the road only five yards beyond. The
+ruined building is the signal box itself, protected by the line of
+sandbags in front of telegraph poles and shelled trees.</p>
+
+<p>A most curious fact about this place was that, though it was being
+continually shelled by the enemy and their maxim guns were trained day
+and night on this very important position to catch troops coming up as
+relieving parties, it was a wonderful place in which to hear the birds
+sing. The larks trilled at every dawn to herald the coming day, and
+never seemed in the least disturbed by the roar of artillery. In the
+left-hand corner of the sketch will be noticed the firing platform, over
+which is the "funk hole," so called from its being the refuge to run to
+when the shells arrive. The soldier buries his head like the
+ostrich&mdash;only he beats the ostrich by getting his shoulders in as
+well&mdash;and then feels fairly secure.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">A Mile-and-a-Half of Hell</span>.</h3>
+
+<p><a name="157"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus157.jpg"
+alt="A Ghastly Promenade." title="A Ghastly Promenade." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">A Ghastly Promenade.</span></p>
+
+<p>I show a little bit of a ghastly promenade near Messines, some six miles
+from Armenti&egrave;res. The road of which the bit in the foreground leads to
+what remains of a very handsome gateway to a park is a mile-and-a-half
+in length, and had to be traversed by our men in order to get to the
+British position, which was placed beyond the left corner of the picture
+(where the broken tree slants). Relieving parties had to cover the whole
+of this distance exposed to the enemy's enfilading fire from two sides
+of the triangle right up to the apex. The apex was a British trench in
+the most advanced position we could possibly hold. Our determination to
+throw back the enemy made it absolutely necessary to hold it. The road
+was covered by the Germans' maxim guns from three points, both down each
+side and from the centre between the pillars of the gateway. Our method
+of advance was in Indian file at several paces apart, and instructions
+were given that whenever the maxims fired upon us we were to drop
+flat on the ground immediately, and when the searchlight was turned upon
+us (which it frequently was with blinding force) we were to stand stock
+still in whatever position we were, the reason being that even with such
+powerful searchlights as are used by the enemy, which have a perfect
+range of five miles, it is easier for them to distinguish a moving
+object than a stationary one. It was almost unendurable to have our
+rifles in our hands&mdash;the barrels frequently hit by the enemy's
+bullets&mdash;and to have to stand still unable to use them&mdash;by order; but of
+course it would have been fatal to have opened fire. We should all have
+been annihilated.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Hole in the Wall</span>.</h3>
+
+<p><a name="161"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus161.jpg"
+alt="The Hole in the Wall." title="The Hole in the Wall." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">The Hole in the Wall.</span></p>
+
+<p>As a pictorial sequel to "Suicide Bridge" and my little account of the
+great fight there, hand to hand in the darkness, the next illustration
+will not be out of place. The barricade across the road, at the entrance
+to a village, marks the spot to which we advanced from the stream after
+that struggle in it. The clean hole in a remaining wall of the almost
+demolished house on the left had been cut by a shell. The house in ruins
+on the right had been a mansion, and pictures and furniture were strewn
+about&mdash;some of which we used in the trenches. A case of wine had been
+left behind unbroached. A cat left behind, that refused to quit, bore a
+charmed life&mdash;never was hit&mdash;and often ran about on the parapet. The
+parapet barricade of sandbags was called "The High Jump," because we had
+to mount it and get over it each night and jump for our lives, to take
+up our positions by our advanced listening and observation post. It was
+absolutely fatal for anyone to show himself on the road in the daytime.
+Many a time we should have liked to have stretched our legs, but dared
+not. But after the fourth day we did actually get on the road, as the
+enemy shifted their position, and the relief was wonderful. It had been
+a speculation whether we or the Germans would get on the road, and after
+dislodging them we managed it. Our men ran about, some skipping with
+a piece of wire, others rolling on the ground, in their enjoyment of
+newly-found freedom, occasional spent bullets reaching us from a great
+distance. The position was always referred to as "Hole in the Wall."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<h3>GERMAN BEASTS IN A FRENCH CONVENT.</h3>
+
+
+<p>It is fitting that my sketch of a French Convent, as the abode of holy
+women whose innocent lives were dedicated and devoted to the service of
+the Prince of Peace, should stand by itself, apart from any drawings
+suggesting less faintly the devilry of war. The nunnery had been in the
+possession of the Germans for some short time before we arrived on the
+scene, and bore traces of their customary depredations and violations.
+The stories related by the nuns themselves were not of a description to
+bear retailing in the public Press. I would to God that they could be
+told to every coward of a shirker at home, to every skunk of a
+"conscientious objector," to every rat of a "stop-the-war"
+"pacificist." They would stir to boiling indignation the dregs of their
+manhood&mdash;if they have any dregs. They would make them sick&mdash;even them;
+and I should like them all to be sick&mdash;sick unto death. There are not
+many of them, all told, but they are noisy as well as noisome. The good
+sisters hailed the British as deliverers, and gave us a welcome I can
+neither describe nor forget.</p>
+
+<p><a name="165"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus165.jpg"
+alt="A Violated Convent." title="A Violated Convent." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">A Violated Convent.</span></p>
+
+<p>The enemy had abstained from destroying the building, probably from a
+subtle motive. They had retired to a wood in the rear. We made a sharp
+attack upon them to the right of this wood the next day; caught them at
+night completely unawares, and, after a very stiff fight, routed them,
+and they left 150 dead on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>There was a pond in the Convent grounds, and while getting water for our
+transport teams we came across some tin cases hidden away by the
+enemy&mdash;a great find, for on getting them out we found they contained
+many thousands of rounds of the enemy's ammunition. It was perfectly
+dry, as the cases were watertight; so we made a big haul of most useful
+supplies.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+<h3>ANOTHER SCENE OF BOCHE BRUTALITY.</h3>
+
+
+<p>The accompanying sketch is of the Market Square of Armenti&egrave;res, the
+building shown in the centre being the Town Hall. The cobble stones of
+the roadway and the lattice-shuttered windows are of the style which has
+lasted for generations. This quaint and picturesque town was devastated
+and almost totally destroyed; in fact, the bit of it I show was the only
+portion the enemy left uninjured. We captured the place, taking four
+machine guns, several horses, a quantity of equipment and ammunition.
+Two of the machine guns were mounted in the clock tower, a position
+commanding the range of the street. It is revolting to recall the
+stories we were told here, and carefully verified, of the shameless
+atrocities of the Huns. The populace were still in occupation of the
+buildings when we were driving the Germans back from the barricades. Of
+course they were greatly terrified, and we did our best to pacify them
+and soothe their nerves as we came in contact with them. How different
+was the treatment they received from the enemy. Take the house on the
+left of the picture. Here Germans walked their horses through the door
+shown, along the passage into the yard in the rear, as a mere piece of
+bravado&mdash;an incident scarcely worth mentioning in view of the crimes
+they proceeded to commit. The householder, with his wife and two
+daughters, was sitting eating his dinner when the party arrived.
+The cowardly brutes shot this man on sight&mdash;in full view of his
+family&mdash;carried his body out and later on buried it in the chicken run.
+Meanwhile, they came back and ate the dinner. The various members of the
+family were tied up to beds and subjected to the grossest of infamies
+and greatest of cruelties.</p>
+
+<p><a name="171"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus171.jpg"
+alt="Where Germans Raped and Murdered." title="Where Germans Raped and Murdered." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">Where Germans Raped and Murdered.</span></p>
+
+<p>I repeat that we verified the stories of these horrors, as we had
+verified elsewhere other such stories before, and as we verified
+elsewhere other such stories afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>Naturally, our men fought their hardest, and by four o'clock in the
+afternoon of the day we advanced we drove the Boches at the point of the
+bayonet.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE TRICK THAT DIDN'T TRICK US.</h3>
+
+<p><a name="175"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus175.jpg"
+alt="&quot;The Black Hole.&quot;" title="&quot;The Black Hole.&quot;" /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">"The Black Hole."</span></p>
+
+<p>Returning to the "group system," the three following sketches in
+juxtaposition relate to one and the same happening&mdash;our taking of a
+distillery (on the outskirts of Armenti&egrave;res) of which the Germans had
+been in possession for about three weeks, and within the boundaries of
+which they set a big trap that didn't catch us. The air was poisoned
+with the stench of dead animals as we arrived within smell of the block
+of buildings I show first&mdash;and, with thoughts in the minds of some of us
+of what we had read of the ill-savour of the Black Hole of Calcutta,
+"the Black Hole" was an ejaculation before it was a designation. The
+enemy occupied the portion of yard shown in the foreground and used
+the front of the buildings and the gateway for cover. The British
+advanced to a position within twenty yards of the gateway in front of
+it, and, after several nights' work, erected a barricade of twigs,
+grass, and earth, rapidly collected and thrown into place. By one of
+their clever tricks the Germans had made the buildings look as though
+entirely deserted. They had been careful not to shell them when they
+took them from the French, and it was their intention to draw us on
+into the yard unsuspectingly and so get us at their mercy. For the
+surrounding buildings contained machine guns, though we did not then
+know the fact, and so quiet was everything that I was able to make my
+sketches undisturbed. The yard could have accommodated quite 3,000 of
+our men, who, if the enemy had had their way, would have been riddled
+with shot. However, we naturally proceeded with military caution. Scouts
+advanced first, and were somewhat deceived because the Germans had
+artfully left a caretaker and his wife in the building seen adjoining
+the central arch. These people, doubtless under orders, passed out milk
+through the window to the scouts at night to give the idea that the
+buildings were still peacefully occupied, though, as a matter of fact,
+they contained, not only the enemy soldiers, but their machine guns as
+well. Really we might have been drawn into the trap but for one lucky
+incident. The enemy were foolish enough to do some secret signalling
+with a light at night from the tower above the gateway. This was
+immediately observed by the scouts, and the game was up.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">"Jam-tin Artillery Party."</span></h3>
+
+<p>When the scouts gave the warning that the enemy were in the buildings,
+volunteers were called for to make up a bombing party to blow up the
+tower where the signalling had been observed. We had no idea how many
+Germans the tower contained, but later found traces of only one. There
+were evidences that he had been there for some time, and he had stores
+of milk and food for a longer stay; they were not wasted, but he had
+no part in their consumption. The volunteers were known as the "Jam-tin
+Artillery Party," from the fact that their bombs were made of jam-tins
+filled with gun-cotton, cordite, etc. The party had to do all the
+"sticky work," and this was a very sticky job. The plan was to lay a
+trail with a fuse to bombs, which we placed under the floor at the top
+of the stairs leading to the upper storey of this old and disused
+gateway. We crept up these stairs silently for three nights running
+before we were successful. One hitch and the whole show would have been
+given away. However, we managed to place the bombs, light the fuse, blow
+up the floor, and blow off the top of the tower as well, the German
+signaller being blown up with it. Then we waited. Still the enemy showed
+no sign of moving, and word was sent back to our artillery to shell the
+building, which it did to great effect. We were then ordered to advance
+with fixed bayonets, in platoons, to take various buildings. The place
+when we captured it was found to be fitted up like a fortress inside,
+with machine guns trained on the yard to mow our men down as they came
+through the gate, if the enemy's plan had succeeded; but it entirely
+failed. We found but little resistance. Inside were a number of dead
+Germans killed by our artillery fire, a very scientific signalling
+apparatus, and a complete telephone system to the army corps which was
+intended to have wiped us out. It was solely due to our scouts and the
+"Jam-tin Artillery Party" that we were not all killed.</p>
+
+<p><a name="179"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus179.jpg"
+alt="The Black Tower." title="The Black Tower." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">The Black Tower.</span></p>
+
+<p>The sketch entitled "The Black Tower" exhibits the other side of the
+gateway, and shows the road with the caretaker's house, and our
+barricades to the right.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">Dilapidated Quarters</span>.</h3>
+
+<p><a name="183"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus183.jpg"
+alt="Where the Trap was Set." title="Where the Trap was Set." /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">Where the Trap was Set.</span></p>
+
+<p>The part of the distillery buildings standing in its yard interior,
+where we blew up the tower and the spy, and into which the enemy had
+hoped to entice us to our destruction, was very old, very dirty, and
+very dilapidated&mdash;in fact, had apparently not been used for years. We
+had to sleep in it for several nights, and made the acquaintance of
+thousands of rats and other pests. There was only one staircase, by
+which some hundreds of troops had to find access and egress. A curious
+fact was that the fumes of the spirit had eaten so into the woodwork,
+which was generally worm-eaten and rotten, that to strike a light near
+it was to incur the danger of igniting it and burning the building down.
+But our boys found a walled-in yard in the background covered by a
+tarred roof which had no windows, and this they converted into a
+smoke-room. Roominess and a covering offered a welcome change from the
+mud, dirt, and rain of the trenches, and Tommy's spirits kept up, in
+spite of all shortcomings. Our musical evenings continued as before, and
+we thoroughly enjoyed being able to stretch our legs. In fact, we had
+become quite reconciled as well as quite used to our surroundings by the
+time we were called away. Afterwards we looked back with pleasure to
+our stay in the distillery, for we were much worse off in the next place
+at which we were stationed. We were moved from here into one of the most
+dangerous positions in the line at Ypres.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BARRED ROAD TO CALAIS.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Almost on the last page of my Sketch Book I come on the last sketch I
+took "under fire."</p>
+
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">"Golgotha."</span>.</h3>
+
+<p>It shows the most advanced positions taken by the British in the course
+of one of the biggest battles of the war&mdash;at St. Julien. The trench,
+which was a very rough one, was originally dug by the Germans and
+captured by our forces in our advance. The fighting was so intense at
+this spot that the casualties went far into five figures on both sides,
+the losses of the enemy being admittedly much higher than our own.
+Appropriately enough was it called "Golgotha."</p>
+
+<p><a name="189"></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><img src="./images/illus189.jpg"
+alt="&quot;Golgotha.&quot;" title="&quot;Golgotha.&quot;" /></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><span class="smcap">"Golgotha."</span></p>
+
+<p>To the left of the picture will be seen the remains of a building which
+was all that was left of what once was a magnificent chateau. The
+avenue of trees outlined the road to this chateau. Several trees, it
+will be noticed, had been either cut in two or broken off by the enemy's
+shelling; by-and-by there was not one left standing. On the right of the
+picture the ruined building was what was left of a large farm which had
+a moat around it. The ruined walls of the farm were found very useful
+cover for our men to take whilst sniping the enemy, and by the road, at
+a much lower level, ran the stream which fed the lake in the grounds of
+the chateau. The elevation of the road giving us fair protection from
+the enemy's shots, we were able, by stringing a number of boards
+together and making rafts, to indulge in bathing; until the water became
+so dirty from the earth dislodged from its banks by the shells that it
+was repugnant for us to indulge in ablutions in it any longer&mdash;none of
+us having been ordered mud bath treatment by the medical officer.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>On the third day of the second grand attempt of the Germans to break
+through to the road to Calais I was bowled over by shrapnel and poison
+gas. Gas in cylinders and gas in all manner of shells was used against
+us&mdash;and our regiment had no respirators then.</p>
+
+<p>Before I dropped I had the satisfaction of knowing that the Royal
+Fusiliers, supported by the Hampshires and the Durhams, had taken five
+lines of the enemy's trenches in counter-attack; and afterwards I had
+the satisfaction of learning in hospital that the German casualties for
+the day amounted to 60,000 against British casualties of 20,000. Mine
+was one of about 500 gas cases&mdash;perhaps more.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+<h3><span class="smcap">In Hospital</span>.</h3>
+
+<p>My hospital itinerary was from the field to the dressing station at
+Bailleul, thence to Boulogne; from Boulogne to Rouen, and from Rouen to
+Southampton and Brighton.</p>
+
+<p>I like to remember that the day on which I finished my little bit for
+the Empire&mdash;or rather the day on which it was finished for me&mdash;was an
+"Empire Day": Monday, May 24th, 1915&mdash;a day on which Britons of every
+clime salute the symbol of their unity and the pledge of their emergence
+from every peril; that dear flag under which I did what I could.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Good banner! scarred by hurtling war,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But never in dishonour furled;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And destined still to shine, a star<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Above an awed and wondering world."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Having read "A Soldier's Sketches under Fire," the reader should
+follow with a very entertaining volume, entitled</i>&mdash;</p></div>
+
+<div class="bbox">
+<h2>With Cavalry in 1915.</h2>
+<h3>The British Trooper in the Trench Line.<br />
+Through the Second Battle of Ypres.<br /></h3>
+<p style="text-align: center">
+By FREDERIC COLEMAN.<br />
+<br />
+Author of "From Mons to Ypres with French,"
+of which it is a continuation.<br />
+<br />
+Crown 8vo. Fully Illustrated.<br />
+<br />
+<b>6/-</b> net.<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">Pike's Fine Art Press, Limited</span>, <i>Printers</i>, 47 &amp; 48,
+<span class="smcap">Gloster Road, Brighton</span>.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire, by Harold Harvey
+
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+</body>
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+Project Gutenberg's A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire, by Harold Harvey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire
+
+Author: Harold Harvey
+
+Release Date: June 14, 2005 [EBook #16056]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SOLDIER'S SKETCHES UNDER FIRE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries
+(http://www.archive.org/details/toronto), Suzanne Lybarger
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A SOLDIER'S SKETCHES UNDER FIRE
+
+
+
+[Illustration: PRIVATE HAROLD HARVEY. _Frontispiece_]
+
+
+
+
+A SOLDIER'S SKETCHES UNDER FIRE
+
+By HAROLD HARVEY
+
+[Illustration: SLM & Co. MDCCXCIV]
+
+LONDON
+
+SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & CO., LTD.
+
+
+
+
+FORENOTE
+
+
+A title such as "A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire" indicates at once the
+nature, scope and limitations of this unpretentious volume of annotated
+drawings to which it has been given.
+
+Faked pictures of the war are plentiful. Sketches taken on the spot they
+depict, sometimes by a hand that had momentarily laid down a rifle to
+take them, and always by a draughtsman who drew in overt or covert peril
+of his life, gain in verisimilitude what they must lose in elaboration
+or embellishment; are the richer in their realism by reason of the
+absence of the imaginary and the meretricious.
+
+All that Mr. Harold Harvey drew he saw; but he saw much that he could
+not draw. All sorts of exploits of which pictures that brilliantly
+misrepresent them are easily concoctable were for him impossible
+subjects for illustration. As he puts it himself, very modestly:
+
+     "There were many happenings--repulsions of sudden attacks,
+     temporary retirements, charges, and things of that sort that would
+     have made capital subjects, but of which my notebook holds no
+     'pictured presentment,' because I was taking part in them."
+
+He also remarks:
+
+     "Sketched in circumstances that certainly had their own
+     disadvantages as well as their special advantages, I present these
+     drawings only for what they are."
+
+Just because they are what they are they are of enduring interest and
+permanent value. They have the vividness of the actual, the convincing
+touch of the true.
+
+Mr. Harvey was among the very first to obey the call of "King and
+Country," tarrying only, I believe, to finish his afterwards popular
+poster of "A Pair of Silk Stockings" for the Criterion production. To
+join the Colours as a private soldier, he left his colours as an artist,
+throwing up an established and hardly-won position in the world of his
+profession, into which--sent home shot and poisoned--he must now fight
+his way back. His ante-war experiences of sojourn and travel in India,
+South and East Africa, South America, Egypt and the Mediterranean should
+again stand him in good stead, for the more an artist has learned the
+more comprehensive his treasury of impressions and recollections; the
+more he has seen the more he can show. To Mr. Harvey's studies of
+Egyptian life, character and customs was undoubtedly attributable the
+success of his "Market Scene in Cairo," exhibited in the Royal Academy
+of 1909. Purchased by a French connoisseur, this picture brought its
+painter several special commissions.
+
+I venture to express the opinion that the simple, direct and soldierly
+style in which Mr. Harold Harvey has written the notes that accompany
+his illustrations will be appreciated. His reticence as regards his own
+doings, the casual nature of his references--where they could not be
+avoided--to his personal share in great achievements, manifest a spirit
+of self-effacement that is characteristic of the men of the army in
+which he fought; men whose like the world has never known.
+
+ROBERT OVERTON.
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+=LADY ANGELA FORBES=
+
+WHOSE WORK FOR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE AND AT HOME HAS BEEN AS UNTIRING
+AS IT HAS BEEN UNOSTENTATIOUS.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+FORENOTE
+
+
+=ON THE WAY TO THE FRONT.=
+
+Chapter
+
+I.--FROM SOUTHAMPTON TO MALTA
+
+II.--FROM MALTA TO MARSEILLES
+
+III.--FROM MARSEILLES TO ARMENTIERES
+
+
+=AT THE FRONT.=
+
+Chapter
+
+IV.--SOME SAMPLE EXCITEMENTS OF LIFE IN THE TRENCHES
+
+V.--THE LIGHTER SIDE OF TRENCH LIFE
+
+VI.--THE "MAKE" OF A BRITISH TRENCH
+
+VII.--THE RUSE OF A GERMAN SNIPER
+
+VIII.--THREE DEATH TRAPS
+
+IX.--GERMAN BEASTS IN A FRENCH CONVENT
+
+X.--ANOTHER SCENE OF BOCHE BRUTALITY
+
+XI.--THE TRICK THAT DIDN'T TRICK US
+
+XII.--THE BARRED ROAD TO CALAIS
+
+
+
+
+SKETCHES
+
+
+PRIVATE HAROLD HARVEY _Frontispiece_
+
+ABOARD THE TRANSPORT
+
+BIVOUAC AT MALTA
+
+CASEMENT GARDENS, MALTA
+
+SERGEANTS' MESS
+
+ORDNANCE DEPARTMENT, MALTA
+
+ON THE QUAYHEAD AT MARSEILLES
+
+QUAYSIDE, MARSEILLES
+
+FORTY PASSENGERS IN EACH CATTLE TRUCK
+
+A WASH AND A WAIT
+
+"DOOMSDAY BOOK": A FRENCH LESSON IN A CATTLE TRUCK
+
+LADY ANGELA FORBES'S SOLDIERS' HOME AT ETAPLES
+
+ROAD TO THE TRENCHES
+
+MY SKETCH-BOOK
+
+MAP: LA BASSEE-ST. JULIEN
+
+OUTSKIRTS OF A VILLAGE
+
+MY FIRST SNIPING-PLACE
+
+CAPTURED GERMAN TRENCH
+
+THE WOODCUTTER'S HUT
+
+TYPICAL FIGURES AND FIGURE-HEADS
+
+"HAMMERSMITH BRIDGE"
+
+"DIRTY DICK'S"
+
+"ENTRENCHING" THE PIANO
+
+"SEVENTY-FIVE HOTEL"
+
+CHICKEN FARM
+
+A FRENCH COMRADE-COMEDIAN
+
+A TRENCH SNIPER, RESTING
+
+A TRAVERSE
+
+THE BIRTH-PLACE OF A SONG
+
+TRENCH PERISCOPE IN USE
+
+"THE WHITE FARM"
+
+A GERMAN SNIPER'S NEST
+
+"SUICIDE BRIDGE"
+
+"SUICIDE SIGNAL BOX"
+
+A GHASTLY PROMENADE
+
+THE HOLE IN THE WALL
+
+A VIOLATED CONVENT
+
+WHERE GERMANS RAPED AND MURDERED
+
+"THE BLACK HOLE"
+
+THE BLACK TOWER
+
+WHERE THE TRAP WAS SET
+
+"GOLGOTHA"
+
+
+
+
+PART I.
+
+ON THE WAY TO THE FRONT.
+
+
+
+
+A SOLDIER'S SKETCHES UNDER FIRE.
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+
+ON THE WAY TO THE FRONT.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+FROM SOUTHAMPTON TO MALTA.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+On the outbreak of the war I joined the Royal Fusiliers, uninfluenced by
+the appeal of wall-posters or the blandishments of a recruiting
+sergeant. My former experience as a trooper in the Hertfordshire
+Yeomanry being accounted unto me for military righteousness, I sailed
+with my regiment from Southampton on September 3rd, 1914. We thought we
+were bound for France direct, and only discovered on the passage that we
+were to be landed, first, at Malta.
+
+I think I know the reason why the short trip across Channel was avoided,
+but, as it behoves me to be very careful about what I say on certain
+points, I don't state it.
+
+I show the fore part of the boat, the bows being visible in the
+distance. The doorways on the right are those of the horse boxes,
+specially erected on the deck. In fact, the whole liner, with the most
+creditable completeness and celerity, had been specially fitted up for
+the use of the troops, still retaining its crew of Lascars, who did the
+swabbing down and rough work required.
+
+My sketch shows a crane bringing up bales of fodder for the horses from
+the hold, with two officers standing by to give orders.
+
+[Illustration: ABOARD THE TRANSPORT.]
+
+We experienced some exciting incidents on the way out; for instance, in
+the Bay we ran into a fog, and the order was given for all to stand by.
+For the next two or three hours all were in doubt as to what might
+happen--of course there was fear of torpedoes.
+
+We heard in the distance several shots fired, presumably by the
+battle-cruiser which was our escort. When the fog lifted, we could just
+see the smoke lifting on the horizon of some enemy craft, which had been
+chased off by our own warship. We again steamed ahead towards our
+destination and were soon sailing into smooth and calm waters, the
+temperature becoming quite genial and warm as we approached the Straits
+of Gibraltar. As we passed through the Straits the message was signalled
+that those two notorious vessels, the "Goeben" and the "Breslau," were
+roaming loose in the Mediterranean.
+
+
+AT MALTA.
+
+On arrival at Malta, I and others were put through our firing course,
+and the regiment took over the charge of prisoners and interned Germans,
+of whom, together, there were on the island--so soon after the beginning
+of hostilities--no fewer than 8,000. One of the first sketches I made
+was of our Bivouac.
+
+[Illustration: BIVOUAC AT MALTA.]
+
+
+MALTA AND THE PIRATES.
+
+Malta, which has been called "the master key of the Mediterranean and
+the Levant," "the stepping-stone to Egypt and the Dardanelles," and "the
+connecting link between England and India," is one of our Empire's most
+valuable possessions, and its physical formation has made it for
+generations past of great maritime value. The island is, in itself, a
+rock, and all its earth and mould has been imported. In the days when
+there were no submarines or warships, it was the headquarters of pirates
+roaming at large in the Mediterranean. These pirate crews, after
+capturing their prey, used to bring their captures into one of the
+entrances of the island, now called the Grand Harbour. At the base of
+the harbour is the town of Valetta, which was catacombed in those early
+times, and tunnels were made through the island rock. When pirates had
+brought a ship under cover of the natural harbour to these tunnels, they
+took all the merchandise ashore and then broke up the vessel, so as to
+leave no trace of the incident. The crew were usually massacred to a
+man, and when chase was given, no trace whatever could be found of
+either the pirates or their captures, and later on their ill-gotten
+gains would be shipped off from the other end of the tunnel in another
+part of the island.
+
+Looking through between the trees in my sketch of the Casement Gardens,
+under the Barracks of Floriana, which stand on an eminence overlooking
+the spot, a portion of the harbour is seen which commands the back
+moorings, and the water where the P. & O. liners lay up. Beyond the
+vessel drawn I indicate the island of Fort Manoel, which is an ancient
+fortress which possesses a very handsome gateway, which may have been
+built by the Romans. In fact, all over this island are remarkable
+relics, some of them probably as old as those of Stonehenge, but how or
+by whom the original materials were brought there or the original
+buildings constructed is now left by historians to conjecture.
+
+[Illustration: CASEMENT GARDENS, MALTA.]
+
+Other public gardens are those of Biracca and Floriana. Public
+establishments include the biggest Fever Hospital in the world, the
+Castille Prison, and the Governor's Palace.
+
+
+SERGEANTS' MESS.
+
+[Illustration: SERGEANTS' MESS AT FLORIANA, MALTA.]
+
+The view of the site of the Sergeants' Mess at Floriana gives a good
+idea of the massive style of architecture and the palatial design of
+many of the buildings. The big construction of the walls will be noted,
+and the height of the chimney. All the houses have flat roofs, and on
+them people sleep at night because of the intense heat. From the roof of
+this house is obtained the best view of the island. Although Malta is
+composed entirely of rock, flowers grow profusely, and a variety of
+creeper, very similar to our own azalea, climbs up the front of the
+forts, requiring little or no root. A garden of this flower was attached
+to the Sergeants' Mess house.
+
+
+FORTIFICATIONS.
+
+[Illustration: ORDNANCE DEPARTMENT, MALTA.]
+
+The ancient fortifications proved impregnable for ages, and are now
+modernised for the use of up-to-date artillery equipment. I show the
+exterior of the Army Ordnance Department, Fort Tigne, and on the extreme
+left, on the other side of the harbour, a portion of Fort Manoel.
+
+
+THE MALTESE.
+
+The habits and manners of the Maltese have long been notorious for their
+rude characteristics, probably attributable to the people's Moorish
+origin, although the race has now blended with the smooth Italian.
+Throughout the Levant they have the bad name first deserved by their
+robberies and murders. British rule has effected great reforms, but it
+cannot change the leopard's spots.
+
+The experience of our boys in some of the outlying parts of the island,
+and even in many streets and cafes, was that these primitive people had
+not altogether lost their primitive instincts in the course of becoming
+civilised. One of their customary tricks is to offer one of their
+bangles, or some other souvenir, to get you to spend money in the cafes
+and dancing saloons, and he would be a clever man who ever succeeded in
+obtaining one of the souvenirs promised him from day to day. The women
+of Malta certainly have strong claims to beauty, at any rate up to the
+age of sixteen, for they mature early. They have large and lustrous
+black eyes, and are of a swarthy and somewhat Spanish type. They still
+wear the traditional hood, a black scarf, called a "Faldetta," thrown
+over the head and shoulders, and disposed in such a style as to exhibit
+the countenance of the wearer in the most alluring form. Although
+picturesque in the distance, they are very slovenly in their hair and
+dress on closer acquaintance, and generally exhibit the traces of
+their Oriental origin. They are great experts in the making of Maltese
+lace, for which they have won a world-wide reputation, and their native
+filigree work is also very famous and very beautiful. Churches (where
+weddings are celebrated in the evening) are very numerous, and priests
+and friars are always to be seen in the streets. The boys of our
+regiment said that Malta was chiefly notable for "yells, smells, and
+bells."
+
+We passed a very merry time here for nearly three weeks--such a time as
+many were destined never to know again--and then were shipped to
+Marseilles, _en route_ for the trenches on the Western Front.
+
+In the "Main Guard" of the Governor's Palace at Valetta we left behind
+us a fresco memorial of our short sojourn on the island. For many
+generations it has been the custom of regiments stationed in Malta to
+paint or draw regimental crests, portraits (and caricatures), etc., on
+the interior walls of this "Main Guard," and on its doors also. Walls
+and doors, both are very full of these more or less artistic mementoes,
+but space was found which I was asked to cover with a black and white
+series of cartoons of prominent members of our (the 2nd) Battalion R.F.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+FROM MALTA TO MARSEILLES.
+
+
+From the bows of our boat as she lay in harbour at Marseilles, I
+"spotted" three typical figures. The one holding the rope is a French
+sailor, the one at the bottom of the picture is a French gendarme, and
+the third is a Ghurka, one of our fine sturdy hillmen from India, who
+had come out to France to stand by the Empire.
+
+Marseilles was a most wonderful sight at the time I was there, and
+although I had made many previous visits in normal times, when I had
+greatly admired its grand proportions, none of them had given me any
+idea of what its appearance would be when it became the clearing station
+in the time of such a great war, and one of the chief bases of all food
+supplies. Troops of all descriptions were working like ants by day and
+by night, unloading boats to the huge stores of all descriptions of
+provender, and loading the trains with all kinds of artillery,
+ammunition, Red Cross wagons, motors, horses, and all the paraphernalia
+of modern warfare.
+
+The town is the third largest in France, and the chief Mediterranean
+seaport. Its history teems with exciting incidents of plague, fire,
+sacking, siege, and hand-to-hand fighting, so it is quite in keeping
+that it should take so important a part in the present conflict. It was
+here Monte Cristo was hurled from the Chateau d'If in the sack from
+which he cut his escape. Francis the First besieged it in vain, and it
+prospered under King Rene. In the French Revolution it figured so
+conspicuously as to give the title to the national hymn of the French.
+
+
+THE STORY OF "THE MARSEILLAISE."
+
+Is it too late to tell again the story of the origin of "The
+Marseillaise"?
+
+[Illustration: ON THE QUAYHEAD AT MARSEILLES.]
+
+Its author and composer (or it might be more correct to say composer and
+author, for in this case music preceded words), Rouget de Lisle--a young
+aristocrat and an artillery officer--had as a friend a citizen of
+Strasbourg, to whose house, in the early days of the Revolution, he came
+on a visit one evening. The tired guest was cordially welcomed by the
+citizen and his wife and daughter. To celebrate the occasion his friend
+sent the daughter into the cellar to bring up wine. Exhausted as he was,
+de Lisle drank freely, and, sitting up late with his host, did not
+trouble to go to bed. He had been amusing the family by playing some of
+his original compositions on the spinnet. When the host retired for the
+night he left de Lisle asleep with his head resting on the instrument.
+In the early hours of the morning the young officer awoke, and running
+through his head was a melody which, in his semi-drunken state the
+evening before, he had been attempting to extemporise. It seemed to
+haunt him, and, piecing it together as it came back to his memory, he
+played it over. Then, feeling inspired, he immediately set words to it.
+When the family came down he played and sang it to them, and his host
+was so moved by it that he became quite excited and called in the
+neighbours. The instrument was wheeled out into the garden, and in the
+open air young de Lisle sang the song that was to become the national
+air of his country to this local audience. The effect upon them was
+"terrific," and from that moment the song became the rage. It seemed to
+embody the whole spirit of the Revolutionists, and spread like wildfire
+throughout France. It was to this song that the unbridled spirits of
+Marseilles marched to Paris, hence its name, "The Marseillaise." Shortly
+after this, de Lisle received a letter from his mother, the Baroness,
+dated from her chateau, saying, "What is this dreadful song we hear?"
+Fearing that his own life might be in danger, he being an aristocrat and
+a suspect, he had before long to take flight across the mountains. As he
+went from valley to crag, and crag to valley, he time after time heard
+the populace singing his song, frequently having to hide behind rocks
+lest they discovered him. It sounded to him like a requiem, for he knew
+that many of his friends were being marched to the scaffold to his own
+impassioned strains.
+
+[Illustration: QUAYSIDE, MARSEILLES.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+FROM MARSEILLES TO ARMENTIERES.
+
+
+The incidents of the railway journey from Marseilles to Etaples, _en
+route_ to Armentieres, told in detail, would fill a book. It was made in
+ordinary cattle trucks, in which, packed forty to a truck, we spent four
+days and a half at one stretch. Yet was it a bright and merry trip, for
+our spirits were raised to the highest by the thought that we were going
+into action, and we were at all sorts of expedients to make ourselves
+comfortable. For instance, before we started the Stationmaster's Office
+was ransacked, and every available nail pulled out to make coat and hat
+pegs of in the cattle trucks. We had to sleep on the floor. Our
+corporal, who was an old soldier of many campaigns, of iron physique
+and a perfect Goliath, and the life and soul of our party, was so tired
+when he got aboard the train, after strenuous efforts, that he fell dead
+asleep on the floor, and there was so little available space, and his
+massive form took up so much of what there was, that no fewer than nine
+men, as they became tired and dropped down from the walls of the truck,
+fell on him and went to sleep on the top of him. However, that corporal
+slept the sleep of the just for four or five hours, and even then did
+not awaken until, the train halting and somebody mentioning wine, there
+was a scuffle, and another man stepped on his head, whereupon he flung
+him off and made a good first out of the train.
+
+[Illustration: FORTY PASSENGERS IN EACH CATTLE TRUCK.]
+
+We were regaled at each station by the populace, who brought us cakes
+and wine, small flags, toys, tin trumpets, oranges, and other fruits,
+and we parted with nearly all our buttons as souvenirs.
+
+
+TUB, TEA AND A HALT.
+
+At one stopping place a large leathern hose was depending from a water
+main for giving the engine water, and somebody turning this on, we all
+took shower baths under it, or plunged into the huge tub alongside, some
+being so keen on not missing their chance that they took their baths in
+their clothes, tunics and all. Try to imagine our feelings after being
+cooped up in the train for just on three days and nights and then
+getting a wash or prehistoric bath!
+
+We had a two hours' wait here, and the "dixies" (about a dozen in all)
+were filled with water, and a huge fire was lighted, and soon a "long
+felt want" was satisfied in the form of tea. Though it was like Indian
+ink, it went down with a rare relish (I think my little lot was the best
+drink of tea I ever enjoyed); but unfortunately there was no second
+edition.
+
+[Illustration: A WASH AND A WAIT.]
+
+After our "tub" we made a line for the station, the train being so long
+that only a portion of it was in it. We received a pleasant surprise
+in the form of a stall, where there were cakes, buns, bottles of red
+wine, fruit and many other luxuries.
+
+After we had cleared out the whole lot, the French people living in the
+town came to the railings at the side of the station and bombarded us
+with all kinds of food and dainties. Just as we were all thoroughly
+stretching our legs and enjoying ourselves, the order was given to board
+train, so, with much cheering, singing and shouting, we resumed our
+seats--or rather our "standing room only."
+
+
+"DOOMSDAY BOOK."
+
+[Illustration: "DOOMSDAY BOOK": A FRENCH LESSON IN A CATTLE TRUCK.]
+
+Our corporal (behold him with an open book of Family Bible dimensions)
+often busied himself with expounding his views on the French language,
+in which he was labouring to become proficient. His linguistic ambitions
+did not end at self-proficiency, for he was solicitous to instruct his
+fellows, and we had quite a number of French lessons from him, although
+it must be admitted that they suffered many interruptions in good old
+plain English from the Tommies, provoked by the jolting of the train.
+They nicknamed this huge French dictionary the "Doomsday Book," because
+it was their doom to have its contents thrown at them every day.
+
+
+THE LAST STAGE.
+
+The weather set in very cold and snowy, and as the cracks in the bottom
+of the truck measured three inches in width, it can be guessed what a
+draught there was. But in spite of everything and the general discomfort
+of things, jam and biscuits were "lowered" in plenty. I amused the boys
+by making sketches on biscuits and throwing them out of the window at
+the various stations we passed through to the crowds of French
+civilians, soldiers, and Red Cross nurses. Perhaps some of my comrades
+will find some of these biscuit souvenirs at their homes--if they ever
+get there--for not a few were kept to the end of the journey and posted
+to friends in England.
+
+We passed over several bridges which the Germans had destroyed, but
+which had been made temporarily good again by the French engineers. Over
+these our train had to travel gingerly. As we neared the fighting zone
+the booming of the guns could be heard, and a little further on things
+became more warlike. We noticed the devastated stations, villages, and
+large shell holes in the embankment of the line.
+
+All this seemed to bring to the surface our fighting spirits, and we
+only wanted to be out and at the Huns.
+
+On arrival at Etaples, after a rest of two hours or so in the station
+yard and street adjoining same, we marched in full pack and kit,
+including blankets and our waterproof sheets, to a fishing village,
+where we struck a camp and turned in for the night. We were under canvas
+for four days--the only four days under canvas during the whole time I
+was in France. The Colonel gave orders that all the men's heads were to
+be shaved, as we were proceeding to the trenches.
+
+
+LADY ANGELA FORBES'S SOLDIERS' HOME AT ETAPLES.
+
+[Illustration: LADY ANGELA FORBES'S SOLDIERS' HOME AT ETAPLES.]
+
+A never fading recollection of Etaples will be that of the kindness and
+hospitality we received at the hands of Lady Angela Forbes and the "very
+gallant gentlewomen" who assisted her in the management of her Soldiers'
+Home there. The warmest of welcomes and the best of cheer awaited every
+soldier who crossed its threshold. Nothing that thoughtfulness could
+suggest and liberality could provide was lacking. Tact and an
+understanding sympathy characterised the administration of every
+department. We left behind us blessings and thanks we could not express
+in words.
+
+
+ON THE ROAD TO THE TRENCHES.
+
+We had a three days' march (most of the way on cobble stones) from camp
+to Armentieres, via Aire, Hazebruck and Bailleul, things getting hotter
+and hotter. In the course of the first day the enemy's aircraft dropped
+bombs on our route. We scattered in the hedges and ditches, lying flat
+and getting what cover we could. We had several men wounded by the
+splinters of the bombs, but fortunately nothing serious occurred, and
+all went well that day.
+
+[Illustration: ROAD TO THE TRENCHES.]
+
+The third day we reached a village and were billeted in some barns. We
+had just "got down to it comfortable" when a shell took the roofs off,
+and a loud cheer went up as it was realised that the enemy had missed
+the mark. They put about twelve of these huge shells in the place, but
+they all went high. After three hours the order was given to creep out
+and get into some cottages further down the road. These cottages were
+inhabited, and the terrified people made us welcome indeed--had not we
+come to protect them from the Germans? We had a short rest here and then
+had to push on and make the most of the darkness.
+
+As the firing grew heavier we made a circular route over fields, etc.,
+to the trenches, for the rest of the way. The enemy made an attack on
+our second night in them--and their loss was pretty heavy.
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+AT THE FRONT.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+SOME SAMPLE EXCITEMENTS OF LIFE IN THE TRENCHES.
+
+
+[Illustration: MY SKETCH BOOK.]
+
+I don't think I'm a bit sentimental in the matter of souvenirs, and
+anyway I can't need anything to remind me of the unforgettable, but all
+the same there's one souvenir of my experiences in the trenches and the
+firing line that I shall never part with--and that's the little notebook
+(measuring 5-1/2 ins. by 3-1/2 ins., bought in Armentieres) which I
+carried with me through everything, and in which are the originals of
+the sketches here collected, taken "under fire," either literally or in
+the sense that they were taken within the zone of fire. In the nature of
+things I might have been finished myself by shot or shell before I
+could have finished any one of them. Sketched in circumstances that
+certainly had their own disadvantages as well as their special
+advantages, I present these drawings only for what they are. There were
+many happenings--repulsions of sudden attacks, temporary retirements,
+charges, and things of that sort--that would have made capital subjects,
+but of which my notebook holds no "pictured presentment," because I was
+taking part in them.
+
+
+AT ARMENTIERES.
+
+[Illustration: Map: La Bassee-St. Julien]
+
+We reached Armentieres (relieving the Leinster Regiment and the 9th
+Lancers in the first line trenches, distant from the first line German
+trenches 30 yards) at a critical time.
+
+The effort in progress was to straighten out our line so as to get it
+level with Ypres, and the whole position all around was a very perilous
+one. We were short of men--very short--and had practically no reserves.
+Almost every available man had to do the work and duty of three. For a
+month or so almost all the heavy work fell upon the line regiments, we
+doing the wiring, digging, and the usual work of the Royal Engineers,
+the number of these being relatively scanty indeed.
+
+There was also some shortage of shells and ammunition for guns and
+rifles, while of trench mortars a division had but few. We had to make
+our own bombs out of jam tins. These were charged and stuck down, a
+detonator being inserted, and we crawled out with them at night and
+heaved them into the German trenches. We had to time each heave with the
+most extreme accuracy, for the fraction of a moment too late meant the
+bursting of the bomb in our hands. The game we played with the Huns
+(keeping up a continuous fire all night, for instance) was one of pure
+bluff. They were massed in, we estimated, four army corps, and could
+have walked through us--if they had only known.
+
+As my illustrations do not follow all the movements of my detachment, I
+will say here that from Armentieres we were shifted to Houplines, about
+4-1/2 to 5 miles north-east, where we made an advance of a hundred yards
+or so to straighten up. From Houplines we were moved south to La Bassee,
+and from La Bassee to Neuve Chapelle (where our 3rd Battalion was almost
+wiped out in the indecisive victory that proved much and won little),
+and then back to Armentieres, whence we were sent north to St. Eloi,
+after making a short advance in the vicinity of Messines. From St. Eloi
+we were ordered to Hill 60, taking part in the now historic battle
+there. After Hill 60, Ypres, where shrapnel and poison gas put an end to
+my soldiering days--I am afraid for ever.
+
+To come back to our first arrival at Armentieres, our position was in
+touch with a small village not marked on the map, in the direction of
+Houplines. This village, which became almost wholly destroyed, had
+been knocked about by the enemy fire, but the tall chimney of a
+distillery had been spared, no doubt because the Germans wanted it
+themselves, intact. However much they wished, and often and hard as they
+tried, to take it--especially as from it could be conned not only our
+lines but the lay of the surrounding country--they never did take it,
+and it never fell, though it was hit in two places and cracked.
+
+At 10.30 one morning I crawled over the parapet--that is, the
+sandbags--of our trench to sketch the picture of which this distillery
+shaft is the central feature. The trench also near the middle we had dug
+overnight for communication purposes. The enemy were to the left of the
+buildings shown, and our own men were occupying the position to the
+right of the chimney at a range of 250 yards.
+
+[Illustration: OUTSKIRTS OF A VILLAGE.]
+
+Our boys in the trenches could never understand a bright light which in
+daytime issued from the garden adjoining the farm-buildings on the
+British side. But one day a spy, who did work disguised as a farmhand,
+was discovered. He used a tin bowl as a reflector to send the enemy
+signals. The rascal was duly attended to.
+
+
+FETCHING WATER.
+
+[Illustration: MY FIRST SNIPING PLACE.]
+
+Here is a little view of the outskirts of the same village, made a few
+days later, when I was told off with two others to go to the house on
+the right of the sketch to get water from the pump, exposed to the
+enemy's fire. While pencilling the sketch I saw the wide gap made in the
+tree's branches, as shown by a shell passing through it, which burst on
+the road some fifteen yards away from us. This was an indication the
+enemy had spotted figures moving in the direction of the house. However,
+having got the water, we all reached "home" safely, though we ran a
+further risk in rummaging in the orchard, where we found some beds
+of lettuces, of which welcome vegetables we brought back with us enough
+to supply the whole section.
+
+The house on the left of the shelled tree was the position from which I
+and two others were ordered to snipe. We climbed the ricketty building
+and fired from the eaves and from the cover of the chimney. The building
+was in a state of almost total ruin, but we took our places on the
+shaken beams and considered we made a quite successful bag, for we could
+guarantee that at least five or six occupants of the enemy's trenches
+would give us no more trouble. This in the course of one morning.
+Finally the enemy saw us and we had to vacate our position, as both the
+building and the barricade across the road were being rapidly hit.
+
+
+CAPTURE OF A GERMAN TRENCH.
+
+[Illustration: CAPTURED GERMAN TRENCH.]
+
+Without their coveted observation post the German gunners got the range
+of the town beyond the village so completely that one day they poured a
+continuous stream of shells over our heads from 4.30 in the morning
+till mid-day. It was, I remember, at day-break next morning that under
+cover of our own artillery, we made an advance and took the trench here
+depicted just as it was left by the turned-out. So hurried was their
+exit when faced by British bayonets that they left behind them in the
+trench quite a number of articles most useful to us--such as saws,
+sniper's rifles mounted on tripod stands, haversacks, and a quantity of
+other equipment, also a very fine selection of cigars, which came as
+quite a godsend to us. Personally, I clicked on a pair of German jack
+boots, which, as the weather was wet and the ground soft and muddy, as
+usual, came in very handy. I also came across a forage cap and a pocket
+knife, and picked up a photograph--that of a typical Fraulein, probably
+the sweetheart of Heinrich, Fritz or Karl.
+
+
+A NIGHT RELIEF.
+
+Duty in the trenches and rest and sleep in our billets in their rear
+alternated with something like regularity, but it was a regularity
+always liable to interruptions, such as were necessitated by not
+infrequent exigencies.
+
+For instance, we had just got back to the latter one night, at exactly
+10.30, after seven consecutive days in the trenches of our most advanced
+position, and were thinking that now we should get a few hours' quiet
+repose--subject, of course, to the disturbance of shelling--when a
+sudden order was given to fall in. We turned out, were numbered, "right
+turned," and marched off, singing and whistling merrily. After
+proceeding in this fashion for half a mile, word was passed down to form
+Indian file, seven paces apart. We moved thus for about a quarter of a
+mile, and then word was again passed down--"no smoking, whistling, or
+talking." The night was pitch dark, foggy, and a drizzle was beating in
+our faces.
+
+We were now within range of the enemy's rifle fire and heard spent
+bullets as they pinged and spluttered into the mud. We crossed a railway
+line, and marched or crawled the best way we could along the ditch
+parallel with it--truth to tell, cursing and swearing. We passed an old
+signal station, now just a pile of bricks, with one side wall still
+erect and one glass window intact. We had come to know well that wall
+and that window and the strewn bricks around, for we had passed the spot
+so often in our little excursions from trench to billet and billet to
+trench. A little further along the whistle of the bullets grew louder
+and more continuous--their sound something like the sound of soft
+notes whistled by a boy. Machine guns--"motor bikes" in our
+nomenclature--rattled our left and right, our position being that of
+the far apex of a triangle, exposed to inflated fire all the way up.
+
+Arriving within a few yards of the opening of the trench we were to
+occupy in relief of the North Staffords, the first section of whom were
+moving along the ditch, a star shell burst above as the searchlight was
+turned on, and every man stood stock still till all was dark again.
+
+Between men of the incoming and outgoing battalions such casual
+greetings were exchanged as: "Wot's it like up here, matie?"; "'Ow are
+yer goin', son?"; "Yer want to keep your 'ead well down in this
+part--it's a bit 'ot"; "So long, sonnie." Sprawling, ducking and diving,
+we got in, and "safe" behind the sandbags. Just as my chum and I had
+entered the dug-out, and were preparing to make ourselves comfortable,
+as our turn for sentry-go would not be for two hours, the sergeant
+shoved his head in and shouted that we were wanted for a ration party.
+
+
+RATION PARTIES.
+
+A ration party consists of fourteen men--fewer sometimes, but fourteen
+if possible, as the proper full complement. The small carts in use are
+generally of rude and primitive construction. As everybody knows by now,
+rations comprise bully beef Spratt's biscuits--very large and rather
+hard--loaves of bread packed in sacks, bacon, jam, marmalade,
+Maconochies in tins, and, when possible, kegs of water. Let not the rum
+be forgotten. No soldier is more grateful for anything than for his
+tablespoonful of rum at half-past six in the evening and half-past four
+in the morning. His "tot" has saved many a man from a chill, and kept
+him going during long and dreary hours of wet and press. As to bread, by
+the bye, it is highly probable that one small loaf, about half the size
+of an ordinary loaf, will be divided between seven men. With the good
+things already enumerated, a plentiful supply of charcoal and coke is
+usually to be expected. The horse transports with these provisions never
+get nearer than, at the closest, say half-a-mile of the front trench
+itself, when the men in charge dump their loads down and get away back
+to their stores and billets as quickly as possible. There is a lot to
+risk, for as a rule the enemy have the road well set, and the shelling
+is often very severe.
+
+It is the duty of a ration party to bring up the loads from where they
+have been left. On regaining the opening to the trench, they take the
+rations to the quartermaster-sergeant's hut or dug-out. The sergeants of
+each platoon come to this hut or dug-out, and to them the things are
+delivered in quantities proportionate with the number of men in the
+section each represents. The sergeants then send along two men to carry
+the whacks to the respective traverses in the trench. This goes on night
+after night. So on the occasion I am recalling we were very late--and
+the distance we had to go was as much as a mile and three-quarters.
+
+This ration carrying, the final stage of ration transport, is an even
+more dangerous and risky job than the preceding stage, and, as usual,
+snipers got busy on us, hitting three men, though none was killed. The
+rattle of bullets from machine guns on the ricketty sides of the old
+cart added to the programme of the night's entertainment, and there were
+frequent intervals, not for refreshments, but for getting flat and
+waiting.
+
+
+GATHERING IN OUR FIREWOOD.
+
+Chopping up firewood was regarded not so much as work as it was regarded
+as one of our recreations in the trenches--of which I shall have a
+little to say presently. But it often happened that there was no
+recreation, but only the excitement of danger in the night-time job of
+bringing in the firewood for day-time chopping. It would happen that a
+man had spotted in some shelled house or fallen farm-building a beam,
+plank, door, or something else wooden and burnable, that he couldn't
+carry without assistance, or that he couldn't stop to bring away at the
+time. It must be fetched, for fire we must have. It might be only a few
+score yards away measured by distance, but an hour measured by
+time--"thou art so near and yet so far" sort of thing. Fetchers might
+get hit at any moment, and had to creep and wriggle very cautiously over
+open ground all the way. By some strange twist of mental association,
+whenever I was a fetcher in these circumstances I found myself mentally
+quoting Longfellow's line in "Hiawatha"--"He is gathering in his
+firewood"!
+
+[Illustration: THE WOODCUTTER'S HUT.]
+
+Our champion at the game was a Private Hyatt--quite a youngster, but
+of fine physique and fearless daring. His dug-out was called "The
+Woodcutter's Hut." He made a regular hobby of wood-getting. He was an
+expert, a specialist. On certain occasions he even went out after wood
+in the daylight, slithering along on all fours towards his objective,
+and would be fired at until recalled by one of his own officers. On one
+occasion when he had crawled out and into a building to collect wood, as
+he crawled back through the doorway we saw little clouds of dust rising
+from the brick-work surrounding him, which showed that the enemy's
+snipers had spotted him, and we shouted to him from the trench to "keep
+down." He took refuge behind the wall of the doorway, and lay there
+three-quarters of an hour, and then returned, bringing with him the much
+prized plank of which he had gone in search, and which, when chopped up,
+supplied our section with sufficient firewood for a whole day and night.
+In the sketch it will be observed he is reading a letter. This he had
+received just after the above incident, and sat down on his valise quite
+unaware that I was sketching him. Later on I gave him a copy of the
+sketch, and he enclosed it in his affectionate reply to his folk at
+home.
+
+
+"STAND TO."
+
+The most anxious time a soldier can know is the time, be it long or
+short, that follows the command to stand to. Many a time we had to stand
+to the whole night--the entire battalion, from evening twilight till the
+full dawn of day--as an attack was expected. Everyone was at his firing
+position, with bayonet fixed and his rifle loaded--and in tip-top
+working condition, the daily rifle inspection having taken place at
+dusk. Sometimes our artillery would presently open fire for the enemy's
+first line, perhaps for five or six minutes--it might be more, it might
+be less. Then a wait of six or seven minutes, when the enemy returned
+the fire, and we all got well down. It was as well to keep as hard up
+against the parapet as possible, and to keep out of all dug-outs, for
+into them the forward impetus of bursting shrapnel was likely to throw a
+lot of splinters. Again silence, comrades and pals passing a few remarks
+in anticipation of what everybody knew was coming. The officers with us
+were one with us, and at their words, "Well, come on, lads," there was
+never a laggard in getting "over the tops" (in our own phraseology). As
+soon as we put our hands on the sandbags to clamber over the top of the
+parapet a hailstorm of bullets pelted us. It is impossible--at all
+events for me--to describe a charge. Speaking for myself, always my
+brain seemed to snap. It was simply a rush in a mad line--or as much of
+a line as could be kept--towards the enemy's barbed wire entanglements,
+which our guns had blown to smithereens in preparation for the assault.
+We scrambled on to their parapet, each getting at the first man he
+could touch. When we had taken their position (we didn't always) we
+might have to wait some time till our artillery had shelled the second
+line, but there was a lot of work to be done at once. The parapet had to
+be reversed.
+
+After an attack there was generally a roll call--from which there were
+many absentees.
+
+More trying--more wearing and tearing to the nerves--than anything
+that in my experience ever followed it was the stand to itself. The
+moments, minutes, even hours, that followed that old familiar order,
+"stand to," were the worst I ever went through. As every eventide comes
+on I still feel just a little--just a very little--of what I felt then.
+Even now: and I fear me I always shall till death bids me stand to.
+
+I see I have written so much with only one illustration, that perhaps it
+won't be amiss if I place here a few typical heads and a couple of
+typical full figures, the original sketches of which I pencilled in
+spare places in my notebook at odd times. If they be really typical they
+need no labelling.
+
+[Illustration: TYPICAL FIGURES AND FIGURE-HEADS.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE LIGHTER SIDE OF TRENCH LIFE.
+
+
+That there was (and is) a lighter side, a social side, of trench life,
+as of the life generally of a soldier on active service, even in this
+war, merely incidental remarks of mine such as could not be omitted from
+any true and fair description of that life must furnish abundant
+evidence; but this lighter side was, in my experience, so very real and
+so pronounced that to illustrate a few set observations thereon I take a
+few sketches from my notebook out of the order in which I find them in
+it.
+
+
+SING-SONGS.
+
+Our concert parties were "immense," and there was no forced gaiety in
+our enjoyment of them. Some of the best sing-songs were in "Leicester
+Lounge," named after the luxurious resort (which it didn't resemble)
+hard by the Empire Theatre. The reflection occurs to me for the first
+time that only men with whom high spirits were rampant would or could
+have been so fond of inventing such nicknames as--in mood jovially
+ironic--we coined for all sorts of places, persons and things.
+"Leicester Lounge" was a dug-out adjacent to "Hammersmith Bridge," and
+the surroundings of "Hammersmith Bridge," there being nothing in
+connection with them to suggest--save by absence--either a garden or a
+city, were "the Garden City."
+
+[Illustration: "HAMMERSMITH BRIDGE."]
+
+It was the biggest, roomiest, and most palatial dug-out we had. The top
+was just a small roof-garden, carefully planted and laid out. It had
+statuary, too, in groups. The statues were fashioned in clay by amateur
+hands, and the artistic effects were original and novel, to say the
+least. It was also the safest place, this "Lounge," because it was sunk
+four feet below the level of the trench itself. It accommodated twelve
+easily. Impromptu concerts were frequent here; our far-famed mouth-organ
+band performed at such intervals as our own military duties and the
+enemy's cascades of shells permitted. It was here the names of
+neighbouring streams and nullahs were chosen from which we drew our
+daily beverage of "Adam's Ale" (untaxed, and rather thick), such as the
+portentous "Caesar's Well." In another spacious dug-out we had our "Times
+Book Club." This "eligible tenement" had the special distinction of a
+stove and chimney (purloined from a ruined farm)--that is, it had a
+chimney till the enemy spotted and so riddled it that it collapsed. It
+had a glass window (fixed in clay), statuary (modelled in clay),
+decorations (log-cabin order), one chair (also purloined, back broken
+off), one table (very treacherous); and I mustn't forget the president's
+bell (tobacco tin shell, and a cartridge for a clapper). It was lit by
+many candles, and as the fee for membership was a book or magazine from
+home, it served a good purpose.
+
+
+
+"DIRTY DICK'S".
+
+[Illustration: "DIRTY DICK'S".]
+
+After a time the sing-songs in a trench some little distance away from
+"Leicester Lounge" knocked spots off all the others anywhere, thanks to
+the acquisition of a piano for them--probably the only instrument of its
+kind which has ever been in the British trenches at the front. It came
+from "Dirty Dick's." The picture of "Dirty Dick's" gives a rough idea of
+the devastation of war. The portion of a building to the right was all
+that remained of what, but a few weeks before, had been a handsome and
+prosperous hotel, and the wall with window and door spaces left, shown
+to the left, had been the residence of a prominent citizen. All that was
+left of the hotel was a shaky wall, though the sign-board remained,
+having escaped the enemy's fire.
+
+We were placed in the trench shown in the foreground, and the Germans
+were also entrenched in the space seen in the distance between the
+ruins. When we first took up our position the hotel was intact except
+that the roof had been destroyed. The wall towards our trench was
+standing, and when it fell the bricks came tumbling over us, and the
+dust of the red masonry turned us into copper-coloured men. But prior to
+this three "Jocks" and three of our own regiment crawled out of the
+trench and into the house, and we spotted a piano on the ground floor.
+The temptation was too great; we decided to remove it. The operation
+took us two and a half hours' hard struggle. Eventually we got the
+instrument into our trench, somewhat battered about and minus one leg,
+but still answering to the keyboard. Unfortunately two of the party were
+wounded in doing this, but they didn't mind. Night after night we had
+sing-songs accompanied on the piano in proper style, and used to give
+forth with the full strength of our lungs--
+
+    "The Germans are coming--
+      Hurrah! Hurrah!"
+
+The "harmony" of this stunt used to be wafted on the silent night air to
+the German trenches, and we soon saw how it upset Fritz and Karl. They
+got so annoyed that they trained their artillery in the direction of
+the sounds, and used to shell us all along the line in the hope of
+silencing our concerts. However, they could never quite locate the exact
+spot in which the instrument was temporarily placed.
+
+[Illustration: "ENTRENCHING" THE PIANO.]
+
+One night, while one of our concerts was at its height, the officers
+even joining in, the order came to advance. So we had to bid a hasty
+farewell to our much-prized "Johanna," which had given us so much
+pleasure.
+
+
+"SEVENTY-FIVE HOTEL."
+
+[Illustration: SEVENTY-FIVE HOTEL.]
+
+Now I think of it, there was another ex-"pub" where we touched lucky in
+the matter of finding things--though they didn't include a piano. This
+was "Seventy-five Hotel." We called it that because the enemy fired
+seventy-five shells into it in seventy-five minutes on one memorable
+occasion, and then only killed one man. The building, which had been the
+scene of fierce fighting even before our battalion arrived on the scene
+of action, still bore the sign "Estaminet," and so we could safely
+conclude that it had been the village "pub," or wine lodge. There were a
+few bottles of wine still in the cellar, which the Germans must have
+overlooked when they were in possession, or had not time to take away.
+We found many articles, some useful, some otherwise; amongst them a
+large warming-pan, which caused amusement. The article we put to the
+best use was the dinner bell. This was turned to great account. In front
+of the estaminet was our "listening post," where we kept watch and guard
+at night. Well, by aid of the dinner bell we installed our own brand of
+telephone system. This was to connect the bell by string to the wrists
+of those out on the watch. Whenever they saw anyone approaching or any
+other indication of possible danger they gently pulled the string, the
+bell tinkled, it was heard by our companions in the trench, word was
+passed along, and everyone prepared for emergencies.
+
+
+"CHICKEN FARM."
+
+[Illustration: "CHICKEN FARM."]
+
+Here something really like a little bit of sport came in our way. When
+we arrived there the farm was deserted, its lawful owners having found
+the situation too hot for them. Cows roamed about at random, and so did
+pigs. But after we had dug ourselves in and made our position secure,
+the chickens were what interested us most. There were two hundred and
+fifty of these at the least, and they used to parade on the strip of
+ground shown in the picture and the bolder spirits peep over the edge of
+our trench. Catching them was good sport, but eating them was something
+finer. What a nice change from bully beef and biscuit! Cooking not quite
+a la Carlton or Ritz, but more on prehistoric principles. So many fowls
+were caught, killed and plucked for cooking and eating that the wet mud
+was completely covered with feathers, and resembled a feather bank. As
+for ourselves, the feathers, sticking to the wet mud on our uniforms and
+equipments, turned us into Zulus, wild men of the woods, or Chippeway
+Indians. The enemy presumably did fairly well also with a poultry farm
+in the distance. They appeared to have a portable kitchen. We often
+watched the funnel moving about their trench. One day a line was
+stretched from this funnel to a pole and German officers' uniforms were
+hung out on the line to dry over the stove. It made us a lovely target.
+Shooting at officers' uniforms was a pleasant diversion, and they had
+been well pierced with bullets before they were taken in.
+
+
+A FRENCH COMEDIAN.
+
+Later on, and farther on--after our capture of a position I shall
+shortly have occasion to describe--we made the acquaintance of a French
+"born comedian," who was a tower of strength at our entertainments, and
+who in various other ways was a cause of constant amusement. He had been
+left behind by his regiment, and we found him hanging around the place.
+It had been his home, and it seemed that the magnet of life-long
+associations held him to it. He was very useful in taking us round to
+cottages which, to our surprise, we found to be still inhabited, and in
+giving us the tip where to find cheap, if very thin, beer and other
+refreshments. He was particularly proud of his German jack-boots--made
+for legs very much bigger than his own. When we had concerts he used
+to give us clever imitations of the late Harry Fragson in his
+"Margarita" and other varieties, to the accompaniment of the mouth-organ
+band. He used to say: "Ze Engleesh soldier--tres bon--ze French
+soldier--bon--mais ze Allemand--no bon!" On one occasion he told us:
+"Apres la guerre, ze Engleesh soldier beaucoup admirers--ladees! Ze
+French soldier admirers, too. Ze Allemand--non!"
+
+[Illustration: A FRENCH COMRADE-COMEDIAN.]
+
+He got hold of peasants to wash our clothes for us and introduced us to
+a little mill-race, which we reached through a thicket which concealed
+us, and the spectacle of our men stripping and diving into the stream in
+cold weather amused him hugely. He jumped about in his big boots,
+exclaiming: "Vat your vife say if she see you in ze water? Vat she say
+if she see you ici?" The English replied, in the best French at their
+command, "beaucoup lave--tres bon," at which our comical comrade-at-arms
+laughed more heartily than ever. When his regiment found out where he
+was a guard was sent up, and he was obliged to remain in charge of it,
+to his great regret, when we moved on. He wished us "bonne chance,"
+assuring us that it was his one desire after the war to get to
+Angleterre, where he had never been; but now that he knew the English he
+must visit us to make our further acquaintance. So much for our comical
+French friend, ever so amusing and ever so polite.
+
+We found fun in all sorts of things, made fun of all sorts of things.
+That we could do so and did do so may appear strange--it seems strange
+sometimes to me now. But 'twas a merciful thing that we were able to.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE "MAKE" OF A BRITISH TRENCH.
+
+
+The four following sketches will, I hope, give a fairly clear and
+accurate idea of the construction of a British trench. The first depicts
+one of my comrades (who was also a brother-artist by profession, and a
+brother-sniper) sitting reading, during a surcease of the firing, on the
+firing platform in a trench corner. It will be noticed that he wears his
+sleeping cap. Very close and handy are his tall jack-boots--so
+serviceable in wet weather and heavy mud. My artist-friend, I should
+like to remark, was considered among snipers a great shot, and there is
+no doubt that he often did deadly work with his rifle.
+
+[Illustration: A TRENCH SNIPER RESTING.]
+
+After the trench has been dug out the sandbags are placed along the top
+so as to form what is called a "parapet." Then the trench is dug deeper
+still and the firing platform is put in. Next the vertical struts of
+wood are put in position with wiring in between to hold back the mud,
+and in places where it is possible blocks fill in gaps to strengthen the
+structure. Finally the bed of the trench is boarded over with long heavy
+planks, some of which require two men to carry them; these are very
+often placed on bricks or blocks of wood to give air spaces underneath
+to keep them dry as far as possible. The trench is now completed as far
+as its construction is concerned, but it is left to be "furnished" with
+any supplies that happen to be handy. One of the first essentials is
+naturally the fireplace. This, as in the present instance, is very often
+an old tin pail with a few holes knocked in it, somewhat similar to the
+one used by Mr. Wilkie Bard in his famous sketch, "The Night Watchman."
+The fuel consists of charcoal, wood and coke, to get which fully lit it
+is usual to swing the receptacle round and round so as to create a
+draught and start the contents thoroughly on the go. There is a great
+danger attending this, for if the Germans catch a glimpse of the
+brazier being whirled in the air they immediately locate the whirler and
+begin firing in his direction.
+
+The black patch in the centre of the picture represents the sniping
+place, which is a thick piece of iron let into the parapet with a hole
+bored through it large enough to take the muzzle of the rifle. It also
+allows enough space for the sniper to see through, and, with the aid of
+the periscope, held usually by a comrade at his side, he is able to get
+the sight for his firing.
+
+
+A TRAVERSE.
+
+[Illustration: A TRAVERSE.]
+
+Here is a "traverse" in a trench. The sergeant is reading the orders of
+the day to one of his men. This was a very damp corner--on the top of
+the dug-out to the left tunics were hanging to dry in the early morning
+air. The soldier still has on his sleeping cap (like the figure in the
+last picture); his mess-tin is by his side, and his rifle, encased in a
+waterproof cover. He is sitting on the firing platform, and the depth of
+the trench is noticeable, showing how low the men are in the ground. The
+sandbags shown it took us four hours one night to place in position. As
+fast as we put them up they were shot down again by the enemy's maxim
+fire. We were all so tired and sleepy that, working on automatically, we
+hardly knew whether we were putting the mud in the sandbags or outside
+them.
+
+It was not only the dampness and the incessant maxim fire we had to
+contend with here, but an army of insects, which jumped about us in
+battalions, and saw to it we were never lonely. A Cockney member of our
+company, after catching a particularly active jumper, called out: "Now
+then, you blighter, where is your respirator?"
+
+The enemy were only thirty yards away, and we could often hear them
+shouting at us and would answer back. Many of our men were hit by
+snipers, while the shelling was often terrific, but we stuck on, as
+we were holding a part of an important military position. I remember how
+on an occasion when the shelling was very heavy one man engaged himself
+in making soup as coolly as if nothing was happening until the earth
+knocked up by the shells began to drop into the mess-tin, when he gave
+us his opinion of the Boches in his own forcible vernacular. We often
+laid for hours at the bottom of the trench--flat on the ground in the
+water and mud to escape the shells.
+
+
+THE BIRTH-PLACE OF A SONG.
+
+[Illustration: THE BIRTH-PLACE OF A SONG.]
+
+The third bit of trench of this chapter has a claim to fame as the
+birth-place of a song. The song was one which only British soldiers
+could have concocted, and none but British soldiers would have sung. It
+had no known author and no known composer. It sort of "growed," like
+Topsy. If it had had a title given to it I suppose it would have been
+called "I want to go home," for that was its dirge-like refrain, always
+sung very cheerfully indeed, or with mock earnestness. Time and again I
+heard its chorus taken up with terrific gusto from end to end of this
+trench, and the whole extraordinary composition spread to other trenches
+like a contagion. Its popularity was instant and enduring--and as
+unaccountable as the popularity of many other popular songs. I think I
+quote the inspired words of the chorus correctly:--
+
+    "I want to go home,
+    I want to go home--
+    Tho' the Jack Johnsons and shrapnel
+    May whistle and roar,
+    I don't want to go in the trenches no more;
+    I want to be
+    Where the Alleymonds can't catch me:
+    Oh my!
+    I don't want to die--
+    I want--to go home."
+
+Three rifles are deposited on the steps of the fireplace--the usual
+position for rifles when not in hand, dropped inside canvas bags,
+bayonets protruding--kept well greased, to prevent them from getting
+rusty.
+
+
+TRENCH PERISCOPE.
+
+[Illustration: TRENCH PERISCOPE IN USE.]
+
+The uses of a trench periscope are so well known that they need not be
+described. The feature of my last sketch of a trench from the inside is
+that it shows one in actual employment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE RUSE OF A GERMAN SNIPER.
+
+
+Snipers on both sides exhibited the most extraordinary artfulness,
+cunning and ingenuity in the discovery, adaptation and invention of
+"cover." The great desideratum, of course, was to hide where we could
+see without being seen, to shoot from where there was least danger of
+being shot.
+
+I helped to track and put an end at Houplines to one German sniper who
+had resorted to a ruse that I really think deserves the dignity of a
+short chapter all to itself. The story is tellable in a few words, and
+may be introduced by this drawing of "The White Farm," so
+christened because of the whiteness of the walls of its house; although,
+as will be noticed, there was little of this or anything else left
+upstanding when I drew my sketch.
+
+[Illustration: "THE WHITE FARM."]
+
+The position shown is the entrance to the trench at this point, and the
+shovels, barrels, pails and water trough are all such implements as had
+been used in making and draining the cutting.
+
+The cart shown is the "ration cart" used at night for bringing
+provisions from the Transport Corps wagon. It was usual for the ration
+parties (as elsewhere) to go out every night after dusk. These were even
+more than ordinarily dangerous excursions, as the enemy trenches
+commanded the road, we having captured the position from them shortly
+before. Hence sniping was continuous, and the cart was often hit and our
+men killed or wounded. We therefore took observations.
+
+
+THE SNIPER WHO LIVED IN A TREE.
+
+[Illustration: A GERMAN SNIPER'S NEST]
+
+In course of time we came to notice that the most dangerous part of the
+road lay between a willow tree-stump and the White Farm. Our men were
+shot here nightly in getting back to the trenches. A party was formed to
+make a tour of the field in which the tree-trunk stood. The first thing
+we noticed was that after we entered this enclosure the shots were less
+numerous. We split up in open order and approached the willow, taking
+care to drop to the ground on our hands and knees. As we neared the
+tree, lo and behold! a shot rang out from it and only just missed the
+corporal. He jumped up at once and we all followed suit. All dashed on
+for the tree. What did we find? It was nothing but a purposely hollowed
+trunk used as a shielded nest for a German sniper, the inside being
+fitted with a shelf to rest his arm on as he coolly picked off our men
+through a hole. He endeavoured to make his escape in the darkness, but
+we brought him down. He had evidently been using this sniping place for
+weeks, though this was the first time we had located him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THREE DEATH TRAPS.
+
+
+I suppose it may be said, without exaggeration, that we were in a death
+trap all the time, but I have sketches to show of three particular and
+"extra special" sort of death traps. The first is of:--
+
+
+SUICIDE BRIDGE.
+
+[Illustration: "SUICIDE BRIDGE."]
+
+This bridge, made by the British, was called "Suicide Bridge," because
+it was, and was at, such a specially dangerous spot. The British
+trenches were in the foreground and beyond the bridge. We held these
+trenches for fourteen days against the enemy's attacks. The gap was nine
+feet deep at this corner, and the black hole on the left faintly showing
+a fireplace was our kitchen, scarred by bullet marks made by snipers.
+
+The place was infested with rats. Great water-rats were continually
+getting at our food and cheese in the dug-outs. In one "rat hunt" we
+killed eighteen of these rodents in one morning. The stream itself
+supplied us with drinking water, but one day our men began to fall ill.
+The doctor analysed the water and discovered that the dastardly Huns had
+poisoned the stream higher up, where it ran through their lines. We
+warned the rest of the battalion by the field telephone wires and saved
+them all from being poisoned.
+
+An exasperating though _not_ murderous "kultur" trick was to send us
+insulting messages down the stream enclosed in bottles, calling us
+"dirty dogs," "English swine," etc., etc.
+
+The final furious attempt of the Germans to dislodge us began in the
+daylight. Their snipers advanced first in an open field beyond the trees
+and took cover in a wagon, which we located by the ridge of flame.
+
+At night they advanced in great masses for hand-to-hand fights, which
+took place in the stream. The carnage was terrible. The poisoning
+tricks had worked our fellows up to a high pitch, and they fought with
+reckless bravery. We managed to explode a mine and caught their
+reserves. Then their artillery opened on the stream and we rushed out to
+meet them. They didn't get "Suicide Bridge" from us, but the losses were
+heavy on both sides and the stream itself was red with blood.
+
+
+SUICIDE SIGNAL BOX.
+
+[Illustration: "SUICIDE SIGNAL BOX."]
+
+The sketch of "Suicide Signal Box" takes us to a spot on the railway
+line close to the scene of one of the biggest battles of the war. Its
+chief feature is the dug-out actually under the line itself. Of course
+the line was not being used across the top of the dug-out. As a matter
+of fact, at this time a railway truck was run up to the edge nightly
+propelled by forty of our men, bringing filled sandbags for making a
+barricade across the line, thus affording the relieving party cover when
+getting out of trench. The position was known to us as "Suicide Signal
+Box," because it was so dangerous as to be almost suicidal to cross
+the line, as was necessary to reach the road only five yards beyond. The
+ruined building is the signal box itself, protected by the line of
+sandbags in front of telegraph poles and shelled trees.
+
+A most curious fact about this place was that, though it was being
+continually shelled by the enemy and their maxim guns were trained day
+and night on this very important position to catch troops coming up as
+relieving parties, it was a wonderful place in which to hear the birds
+sing. The larks trilled at every dawn to herald the coming day, and
+never seemed in the least disturbed by the roar of artillery. In the
+left-hand corner of the sketch will be noticed the firing platform, over
+which is the "funk hole," so called from its being the refuge to run to
+when the shells arrive. The soldier buries his head like the
+ostrich--only he beats the ostrich by getting his shoulders in as
+well--and then feels fairly secure.
+
+
+A MILE-AND-A-HALF OF HELL.
+
+[Illustration: A GHASTLY PROMENADE.]
+
+I show a little bit of a ghastly promenade near Messines, some six miles
+from Armentieres. The road of which the bit in the foreground leads to
+what remains of a very handsome gateway to a park is a mile-and-a-half
+in length, and had to be traversed by our men in order to get to the
+British position, which was placed beyond the left corner of the picture
+(where the broken tree slants). Relieving parties had to cover the whole
+of this distance exposed to the enemy's enfilading fire from two sides
+of the triangle right up to the apex. The apex was a British trench in
+the most advanced position we could possibly hold. Our determination to
+throw back the enemy made it absolutely necessary to hold it. The road
+was covered by the Germans' maxim guns from three points, both down each
+side and from the centre between the pillars of the gateway. Our method
+of advance was in Indian file at several paces apart, and instructions
+were given that whenever the maxims fired upon us we were to drop
+flat on the ground immediately, and when the searchlight was turned upon
+us (which it frequently was with blinding force) we were to stand stock
+still in whatever position we were, the reason being that even with such
+powerful searchlights as are used by the enemy, which have a perfect
+range of five miles, it is easier for them to distinguish a moving
+object than a stationary one. It was almost unendurable to have our
+rifles in our hands--the barrels frequently hit by the enemy's
+bullets--and to have to stand still unable to use them--by order; but of
+course it would have been fatal to have opened fire. We should all have
+been annihilated.
+
+
+THE HOLE IN THE WALL.
+
+[Illustration: THE HOLE IN THE WALL.]
+
+As a pictorial sequel to "Suicide Bridge" and my little account of the
+great fight there, hand to hand in the darkness, the next illustration
+will not be out of place. The barricade across the road, at the entrance
+to a village, marks the spot to which we advanced from the stream after
+that struggle in it. The clean hole in a remaining wall of the almost
+demolished house on the left had been cut by a shell. The house in ruins
+on the right had been a mansion, and pictures and furniture were strewn
+about--some of which we used in the trenches. A case of wine had been
+left behind unbroached. A cat left behind, that refused to quit, bore a
+charmed life--never was hit--and often ran about on the parapet. The
+parapet barricade of sandbags was called "The High Jump," because we had
+to mount it and get over it each night and jump for our lives, to take
+up our positions by our advanced listening and observation post. It was
+absolutely fatal for anyone to show himself on the road in the daytime.
+Many a time we should have liked to have stretched our legs, but dared
+not. But after the fourth day we did actually get on the road, as the
+enemy shifted their position, and the relief was wonderful. It had been
+a speculation whether we or the Germans would get on the road, and after
+dislodging them we managed it. Our men ran about, some skipping with
+a piece of wire, others rolling on the ground, in their enjoyment of
+newly-found freedom, occasional spent bullets reaching us from a great
+distance. The position was always referred to as "Hole in the Wall."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+GERMAN BEASTS IN A FRENCH CONVENT.
+
+
+It is fitting that my sketch of a French Convent, as the abode of holy
+women whose innocent lives were dedicated and devoted to the service of
+the Prince of Peace, should stand by itself, apart from any drawings
+suggesting less faintly the devilry of war. The nunnery had been in the
+possession of the Germans for some short time before we arrived on the
+scene, and bore traces of their customary depredations and violations.
+The stories related by the nuns themselves were not of a description to
+bear retailing in the public Press. I would to God that they could be
+told to every coward of a shirker at home, to every skunk of a
+"conscientious objector," to every rat of a "stop-the-war"
+"pacificist." They would stir to boiling indignation the dregs of their
+manhood--if they have any dregs. They would make them sick--even them;
+and I should like them all to be sick--sick unto death. There are not
+many of them, all told, but they are noisy as well as noisome. The good
+sisters hailed the British as deliverers, and gave us a welcome I can
+neither describe nor forget.
+
+[Illustration: A VIOLATED CONVENT.]
+
+The enemy had abstained from destroying the building, probably from a
+subtle motive. They had retired to a wood in the rear. We made a sharp
+attack upon them to the right of this wood the next day; caught them at
+night completely unawares, and, after a very stiff fight, routed them,
+and they left 150 dead on the ground.
+
+There was a pond in the Convent grounds, and while getting water for our
+transport teams we came across some tin cases hidden away by the
+enemy--a great find, for on getting them out we found they contained
+many thousands of rounds of the enemy's ammunition. It was perfectly
+dry, as the cases were watertight; so we made a big haul of most useful
+supplies.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+ANOTHER SCENE OF BOCHE BRUTALITY.
+
+
+The accompanying sketch is of the Market Square of Armentieres, the
+building shown in the centre being the Town Hall. The cobble stones of
+the roadway and the lattice-shuttered windows are of the style which has
+lasted for generations. This quaint and picturesque town was devastated
+and almost totally destroyed; in fact, the bit of it I show was the only
+portion the enemy left uninjured. We captured the place, taking four
+machine guns, several horses, a quantity of equipment and ammunition.
+Two of the machine guns were mounted in the clock tower, a position
+commanding the range of the street. It is revolting to recall the
+stories we were told here, and carefully verified, of the shameless
+atrocities of the Huns. The populace were still in occupation of the
+buildings when we were driving the Germans back from the barricades. Of
+course they were greatly terrified, and we did our best to pacify them
+and soothe their nerves as we came in contact with them. How different
+was the treatment they received from the enemy. Take the house on the
+left of the picture. Here Germans walked their horses through the door
+shown, along the passage into the yard in the rear, as a mere piece of
+bravado--an incident scarcely worth mentioning in view of the crimes
+they proceeded to commit. The householder, with his wife and two
+daughters, was sitting eating his dinner when the party arrived.
+The cowardly brutes shot this man on sight--in full view of his
+family--carried his body out and later on buried it in the chicken run.
+Meanwhile, they came back and ate the dinner. The various members of the
+family were tied up to beds and subjected to the grossest of infamies
+and greatest of cruelties.
+
+[Illustration: WHERE GERMANS RAPED AND MURDERED.]
+
+I repeat that we verified the stories of these horrors, as we had
+verified elsewhere other such stories before, and as we verified
+elsewhere other such stories afterwards.
+
+Naturally, our men fought their hardest, and by four o'clock in the
+afternoon of the day we advanced we drove the Boches at the point of the
+bayonet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE TRICK THAT DIDN'T TRICK US.
+
+
+[Illustration: "THE BLACK HOLE."]
+
+Returning to the "group system," the three following sketches in
+juxtaposition relate to one and the same happening--our taking of a
+distillery (on the outskirts of Armentieres) of which the Germans had
+been in possession for about three weeks, and within the boundaries of
+which they set a big trap that didn't catch us. The air was poisoned
+with the stench of dead animals as we arrived within smell of the block
+of buildings I show first--and, with thoughts in the minds of some of us
+of what we had read of the ill-savour of the Black Hole of Calcutta,
+"the Black Hole" was an ejaculation before it was a designation. The
+enemy occupied the portion of yard shown in the foreground and used
+the front of the buildings and the gateway for cover. The British
+advanced to a position within twenty yards of the gateway in front of
+it, and, after several nights' work, erected a barricade of twigs,
+grass, and earth, rapidly collected and thrown into place. By one of
+their clever tricks the Germans had made the buildings look as though
+entirely deserted. They had been careful not to shell them when they
+took them from the French, and it was their intention to draw us on
+into the yard unsuspectingly and so get us at their mercy. For the
+surrounding buildings contained machine guns, though we did not then
+know the fact, and so quiet was everything that I was able to make my
+sketches undisturbed. The yard could have accommodated quite 3,000 of
+our men, who, if the enemy had had their way, would have been riddled
+with shot. However, we naturally proceeded with military caution. Scouts
+advanced first, and were somewhat deceived because the Germans had
+artfully left a caretaker and his wife in the building seen adjoining
+the central arch. These people, doubtless under orders, passed out milk
+through the window to the scouts at night to give the idea that the
+buildings were still peacefully occupied, though, as a matter of fact,
+they contained, not only the enemy soldiers, but their machine guns as
+well. Really we might have been drawn into the trap but for one lucky
+incident. The enemy were foolish enough to do some secret signalling
+with a light at night from the tower above the gateway. This was
+immediately observed by the scouts, and the game was up.
+
+
+"JAM-TIN ARTILLERY PARTY."
+
+When the scouts gave the warning that the enemy were in the buildings,
+volunteers were called for to make up a bombing party to blow up the
+tower where the signalling had been observed. We had no idea how many
+Germans the tower contained, but later found traces of only one. There
+were evidences that he had been there for some time, and he had stores
+of milk and food for a longer stay; they were not wasted, but he had
+no part in their consumption. The volunteers were known as the "Jam-tin
+Artillery Party," from the fact that their bombs were made of jam-tins
+filled with gun-cotton, cordite, etc. The party had to do all the
+"sticky work," and this was a very sticky job. The plan was to lay a
+trail with a fuse to bombs, which we placed under the floor at the top
+of the stairs leading to the upper storey of this old and disused
+gateway. We crept up these stairs silently for three nights running
+before we were successful. One hitch and the whole show would have been
+given away. However, we managed to place the bombs, light the fuse, blow
+up the floor, and blow off the top of the tower as well, the German
+signaller being blown up with it. Then we waited. Still the enemy showed
+no sign of moving, and word was sent back to our artillery to shell the
+building, which it did to great effect. We were then ordered to advance
+with fixed bayonets, in platoons, to take various buildings. The place
+when we captured it was found to be fitted up like a fortress inside,
+with machine guns trained on the yard to mow our men down as they came
+through the gate, if the enemy's plan had succeeded; but it entirely
+failed. We found but little resistance. Inside were a number of dead
+Germans killed by our artillery fire, a very scientific signalling
+apparatus, and a complete telephone system to the army corps which was
+intended to have wiped us out. It was solely due to our scouts and the
+"Jam-tin Artillery Party" that we were not all killed.
+
+[Illustration: THE BLACK TOWER.]
+
+The sketch entitled "The Black Tower" exhibits the other side of the
+gateway, and shows the road with the caretaker's house, and our
+barricades to the right.
+
+
+DILAPIDATED QUARTERS.
+
+[Illustration: WHERE THE TRAP WAS SET.]
+
+The part of the distillery buildings standing in its yard interior,
+where we blew up the tower and the spy, and into which the enemy had
+hoped to entice us to our destruction, was very old, very dirty, and
+very dilapidated--in fact, had apparently not been used for years. We
+had to sleep in it for several nights, and made the acquaintance of
+thousands of rats and other pests. There was only one staircase, by
+which some hundreds of troops had to find access and egress. A curious
+fact was that the fumes of the spirit had eaten so into the woodwork,
+which was generally worm-eaten and rotten, that to strike a light near
+it was to incur the danger of igniting it and burning the building down.
+But our boys found a walled-in yard in the background covered by a
+tarred roof which had no windows, and this they converted into a
+smoke-room. Roominess and a covering offered a welcome change from the
+mud, dirt, and rain of the trenches, and Tommy's spirits kept up, in
+spite of all shortcomings. Our musical evenings continued as before, and
+we thoroughly enjoyed being able to stretch our legs. In fact, we had
+become quite reconciled as well as quite used to our surroundings by the
+time we were called away. Afterwards we looked back with pleasure to
+our stay in the distillery, for we were much worse off in the next place
+at which we were stationed. We were moved from here into one of the most
+dangerous positions in the line at Ypres.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE BARRED ROAD TO CALAIS.
+
+
+Almost on the last page of my Sketch Book I come on the last sketch I
+took "under fire."
+
+
+"GOLGOTHA."
+
+It shows the most advanced positions taken by the British in the course
+of one of the biggest battles of the war--at St. Julien. The trench,
+which was a very rough one, was originally dug by the Germans and
+captured by our forces in our advance. The fighting was so intense at
+this spot that the casualties went far into five figures on both sides,
+the losses of the enemy being admittedly much higher than our own.
+Appropriately enough was it called "Golgotha."
+
+[Illustration: "GOLGOTHA."]
+
+To the left of the picture will be seen the remains of a building which
+was all that was left of what once was a magnificent chateau. The
+avenue of trees outlined the road to this chateau. Several trees, it
+will be noticed, had been either cut in two or broken off by the enemy's
+shelling; by-and-by there was not one left standing. On the right of the
+picture the ruined building was what was left of a large farm which had
+a moat around it. The ruined walls of the farm were found very useful
+cover for our men to take whilst sniping the enemy, and by the road, at
+a much lower level, ran the stream which fed the lake in the grounds of
+the chateau. The elevation of the road giving us fair protection from
+the enemy's shots, we were able, by stringing a number of boards
+together and making rafts, to indulge in bathing; until the water became
+so dirty from the earth dislodged from its banks by the shells that it
+was repugnant for us to indulge in ablutions in it any longer--none of
+us having been ordered mud bath treatment by the medical officer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the third day of the second grand attempt of the Germans to break
+through to the road to Calais I was bowled over by shrapnel and poison
+gas. Gas in cylinders and gas in all manner of shells was used against
+us--and our regiment had no respirators then.
+
+Before I dropped I had the satisfaction of knowing that the Royal
+Fusiliers, supported by the Hampshires and the Durhams, had taken five
+lines of the enemy's trenches in counter-attack; and afterwards I had
+the satisfaction of learning in hospital that the German casualties for
+the day amounted to 60,000 against British casualties of 20,000. Mine
+was one of about 500 gas cases--perhaps more.
+
+
+IN HOSPITAL.
+
+My hospital itinerary was from the field to the dressing station at
+Bailleul, thence to Boulogne; from Boulogne to Rouen, and from Rouen to
+Southampton and Brighton.
+
+I like to remember that the day on which I finished my little bit for
+the Empire--or rather the day on which it was finished for me--was an
+"Empire Day": Monday, May 24th, 1915--a day on which Britons of every
+clime salute the symbol of their unity and the pledge of their emergence
+from every peril; that dear flag under which I did what I could.
+
+    "Good banner! scarred by hurtling war,
+      But never in dishonour furled;
+    And destined still to shine, a star
+      Above an awed and wondering world."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Having read "A Soldier's Sketches under Fire," the reader should follow
+with a very entertaining volume, entitled_--
+
+     With Cavalry in 1915.
+
+     The British Trooper in the Trench Line.
+     Through the Second Battle of Ypres.
+
+     By FREDERIC COLEMAN.
+
+     Author of "From Mons to Ypres with French,"
+     of which it is a continuation.
+
+     Crown 8vo. Fully Illustrated.
+
+     6/- net.
+
+     PIKE'S FINE ART PRESS, LIMITED, _Printers_, 47 & 48,
+     GLOSTER ROAD, BRIGHTON.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire, by Harold Harvey
+
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